I should be afraid. I should be running away through the trees shrieking in terror. But with those familiar gleaming silver eyes fixed intently on me, I know I have nothing to fear. He's still my Emmett, still the man I love, still my mate. The wolf is just the other half of what makes him whole. I can't love one without loving the other. I gape at him for a long moment, briefly dumbfounded by my realization and the sheer beauty of his wolf form.
He suddenly looks unsure, one paw rising with uncertainty as he slowly wags his tail and whines softly. Luna rushes over to him immediately to lick at his muzzle and jump around him in excitement. I smile as I rise to my knees and reach out toward him with open arms.
"Emmett," I murmur with warm affection, and he immediately comes to me.
He steps into my embrace, and I wrap my arms around his furry neck as his massive head comes to rest on my shoulder. I run my hands through his ruff, the fur so unbelievably soft and thick between my fingers. I can feel his heart beating in a steady and even rhythm, each breath he takes a low rumble in his chest. I feel his relief at my easy acceptance, feel his love for me ache in my heart. The wolf's emotions are simple, strong, and bright. I'm his, and he's mine. He wants to keep me safe, to protect me and die for me if needed, and never leave my side as long as there's breath in his lungs. I close my eyes and sigh, feeling safe and tranquil and loved. I bask in the feeling for several long moments until I pull back to meet his intense silver eyes once more.
He sits back on his haunches in front of me, and I smile as his tail softly thumps the ground. I reach up to cradle his huge muzzle in my hands and whisper, "I love you." Then I lean in and press a tender kiss to his broad nose as our love flows between us and encompasses us in sweet lightness and warmth.
Then a sudden yip from Luna interrupts our reverie. I glance to my left to see Luna play bowing for Emmett with a big doggie grin. Her fluffy curled tail wags furiously over her back. She snorts and yips, leaping forward to nip at Emmett's leg, then jumping back to play bow again.
Emmett lets out a deep chuffing sound from his chest, then bursts into a blur of motion and pounces at Luna. She takes off like a shot. Emmett chases after her as she bounds away, her little body zigging and zagging around the small clearing. I laugh as I watch them play together in the soft moonlight. He keeps up with her with little effort. His speed and agility is astounding considering he probably weighs close to two hundred pounds and dwarfs my forty-five-pound dog.
Luna seems to realize that she can't outmaneuver him, and suddenly spins and throws herself at Emmett. She snarls playfully as she jumps up to bite and nip at his neck repeatedly. He growls right back as she whirls around him in a wild unbridled flurry of motion, until he's finally had enough of her hyper insanity. One of his massive paws swipes out and he takes Luna to the ground in one swift, yet gentle movement. Then he pins her down and growls at her in a clear command to calm the fuck down. Luna instantly settles and begins licking his muzzle as if in apology, her tail still wagging happily.
Emmett snorts in satisfaction then steps away from the little dog and paces back toward me. A much more subdued Luna follows in his wake. He comes right to me and licks my face once in greeting while Luna plops down on the blanket nearby, still panting from her exertion. Emmett, however, doesn't even seem fazed or fatigued in any way.
He drops down in front of me, and a shudder wracks his body a second later. The thick fur along his back ripples in a shivering wave and I realize that he's shifting again. Fur and teeth and claws retract, his skin roiling over the pop and snap beneath it. Once again, I'm struck with the knowledge that it has to hurt. The deep growl he lets out morphs along with his body into something more and more human until Emmett finally crouches in front of me naked. He bows his head, panting and trembling for several long moments in the wake of the violent shift.
"Emmett?" I finally ask softly in concern.
His head pops up and gleaming silver eyes lock on mine, burning into me and pinning me in place where I sit. I see want. I see need. I see a dark and ferocious hunger, and it has nothing to do with food and everything to do with me.
22
RAVEN
Emmett crawls toward me with slow sensuous movements, those feral silver eyes never straying from mine. His desire for me is so strong, so obvious, that I swear I can already feel it, even though he's not even touching me yet. He stops mere inches from where I sit and lets out a low rumbling growl. Then he closes his eyes and takes in a long deep inhale through his nose. I can feel him reveling in my scent as he moves in closer.
"Raven," he growls out in a gruff and animalistic tone that vibrates against my skin. His face angles to the side as he nuzzles into my neck and breathes me in again.
His desire is a raw and primal thing that rises up in a wild and turbulent swell and jolts into me through our bond the instant he touches me. I'm wet and aching between my thighs in a split second, whimpering with want and need for him as his tongue darts out to taste my tender flesh.
"Want you," he grunts out. I can feel him barely restraining himself, afraid of frightening me with the bestial intensity of his desire to take me, to claim me as his.
"Take me," I fearlessly whisper, leaning back to meet his gaze. I let him see and feel how very much I want him to possess me in this moment, body and soul.
Emmett snarls as he erupts into a sudden flurry of motion, stripping me of every stitch of clothing in mere seconds. Then he snatches me up in his arms and rises to his knees, taking me with him. He holds me against his almost scaldingly hot naked body, chasing the chill around us away. I place my hands on his muscular pecs and feel the coiled strength beneath as he holds me close, his huge steely erection throbbing insistently against my bare stomach.
He kisses me with a hard and fiercely possessive passion, our teeth clacking and tongues writhing together as he owns my mouth, owns me, completely and irrevocably. I grow slack in his arms, melting against him with soft needy mewls of lust as his lips move magically against mine. His rough masculine hands glide over my body, leaving trails of fire in their wake. Our mutual desire whirls and rolls back and forth between us. It rises higher and higher until I abruptly release with a startled gasp of surprise followed by a soft cry of pleasure.
Holy. Shit.
I didn't think such a thing was possible, but I'm somehow orgasming without Emmett even laying one damn finger on my pussy. He groans into my mouth as he shudders against me, feeling it too. When my orgasm finally ebbs, he lets out a low growl of approval and lowers me to my back on the soft blanket. His mouth and hands are all over my body, tasting, touching, and biting every damn inch of me as I writhe in ecstasy beneath his gorgeous hard body.
When his teeth clamp down on one of my nipples and his fingers pinch the other. The spark of sweet pain, along with his heady arousal flowing into me, has me flying yet again. I have to latch onto his soft dark hair for dear life as I cry out.
"Yes," he snarls, then suddenly flips my boneless body over so I'm on my stomach.
He grabs my hips in an almost bruising grip and jerks me up onto my knees until his cock is nudging at my entrance. I somehow manage enough strength to get my arms under myself and lift up onto my hands, so I'm on all fours. He reaches out and fists a hand in my hair, arching my neck and sending prickles of sweet pain across my scalp. Then he slowly pushes into me.
My God, he feels so good as he fills me up. I can't help moaning and whimpering at the feel of his thick length stretching me open and possessing me completely.
"Emmett," I breathe out as he hits the end of me and stills.
He leans down over me, his big warm body trembling with need against mine. He turns my head, and his soft lips find my ear and brushes across it.
"Raven," he rasps out fiercely, his warm breath feathering my skin. "You're mine." He pulls halfway out of me. "You're fucking mine," he adds vehemently, and I can feel his possessive fury pour into me. "Say it," he commands.
"I'm yours. I'm yours!" I b
abble out immediately and desperately. "Please!" I beg.
He snarls viciously, then plunges back into me with a hard and brutal thrust that pushes my body over into bliss. I scream as I come apart, my insides clenching down on Emmett as pleasure inundates me and floods his body through our bond. He lets out a deep groan in reaction, and I feel it rumble through his chest and into my body.
His grip tightens in my hair with a low beastly growl as I come back down. He reaches around with his free hand to slip it between my legs and unerringly finds my clit with his fingertips. He works it expertly as his dick withdraws and fucks into me again and again and again.
Our bond lets him feel instantly what I like and what I don't. It gives him mastery over my body like no man ever has before, and he sends me up to teeter right on the edge of another release and keeps me there. I feel his smug male satisfaction and his struggle to contain his body's need for release. He feels how much I love being owned and claimed by him, and my desperate and yearning need for my own orgasm. It's heaven. It's hell. It's a joyous and horrible torture that I never want to end.
He continues rutting into me in a fierce and primal rhythm as his release grows imminent, coiling tighter and tighter as it nears. His mouth moves to my shoulder to suck at my skin for a moment. Then his teeth abruptly sink into my soft flesh at the exact same instant he presses hard and precisely on my clit and thrusts deeply one final time into my body. I detonate in a massive conflagration that sweeps him away right along with me, sending us both soaring to the sky. My vision goes white, and my consciousness wavers as brilliant glorious pleasure like I've never felt before crashes into me.
"Yes, yes, yes!" I scream as Emmett snarls against my skin, both of us quaking and shuddering through our shared orgasms.
When I finally fall limp, Emmett wraps one strong arm around my waist to hold us both up as his cock still throbs deep inside me. As the pleasure fades, he pulls out and eases me down onto the blanket. Then he rolls to his side and tucks me in against his chest with my face buried in his neck and our legs tangled together. He holds me while we catch our breaths, my hand resting over his pounding heart as it slows and steadies beneath my palm.
When I can finally breathe normally again, I lean away to meet his gaze. I watch the last of the silver wane from his eyes, leaving ice-blue behind. He smiles adoringly and reaches up to brush my hair off my face with gentle fingers.
"I love you," he whispers as the accompanying emotion flows into me, bright and brilliant and so very real.
"I love you," I whisper, sending the sentiment right back to him through our bond.
He sighs and presses his forehead to mine, his hand sliding around to cradle the back of my head gently.
"You're mine," I say in a quiet yet fierce tone. "Say it."
"I'm yours," he rasps out immediately. "Every damn piece of me is yours. The wolf...the man...yours."
His lips find mine and slide slowly and sensuously against them. He clasps my hip and thrusts his already hardening cock against my pelvis. I throw my leg over him and press closer, needing him inside me again. I reach down to take his thick erection in my hand and press the head to my entrance. He pushes inside me with a low moan of pleasure and pulls me even closer.
We rock against each other, our bodies moving in perfect rhythm as we share long deep kisses and murmured words of love. Our emotions twist and twine together until I can no longer distinguish mine from his. And when we finally shatter apart, we ascend into the heavens and come back down reunited as one.
23
EMMETT
Even asleep, my brain knows that something is very wrong. I wake an instant before I hear Luna's frantic crying, and jerk upright to a sitting position. I look over to find the dog draped across Raven's body. She's sleeping next to me as the first stirrings of daylight begin to brighten the little clearing around us. Raven appears to be fine, but as I breathe in her sweet scent, I realize she doesn't smell right. There's this strange almost sour smelling tang coming from her body. I don't know what it means, but I don't like it. I reach out to touch her face just as her body abruptly goes rigid. I freeze before I make contact.
"Raven?" I ask softly.
Suddenly, her arms and legs stiffen straight out, and she starts to convulse. Her entire body jerks and tightens violently and repeatedly as the weird sour smell grows stronger. Her face contorts into a tight grimace over and over again as harsh grunting noises spill from her lips. Her eyes roll back in her head. I'm terrified and don't know what to do. Her head lifts and drops back down hard to hit the ground once. Luna instant leaps off Raven's torso and wriggles her body under her master's head to protect her from injuring herself.
"Raven...baby," I say waveringly as I touch her face. All I can feel through our bond is this formless maelstrom of chaotic white noise. It almost feels like she's gone from her own head.
The seizure seems to go on interminably, her poor little body jerking and clenching again and again. I don't even dare to hold her for fear I'll somehow hurt her or make it worse. It looks so painful, and seeing her like this only underscores just how vulnerable she is compared to me. How fragile she is, how human. I'm half afraid she's going to stop breathing and die right in front of me.
"Please," I beg in a whisper. I don't even know who I'm talking to as I keep caressing her face. My eyes burn with tears as I helplessly watch my mate suffer. "Please, make it stop...please."
Eventually, I get my wish and Raven's convulsions finally ease up and her body stills. Yet she remains somewhat rigid. Her breaths turn hard and heavy, gurgling through the saliva that's bubbling and drooling from her parted lips. Her eyes are narrow little slits as she stares straight ahead at nothing with her neck arched backwards. Luna calmly moves to lie next to Raven's side and begins gently licking her face in a comforting gesture. I touch Raven's shoulder, and feel a jumbled mess of disjointed emotions that terrify me.
"Raven," I whisper, hoping she can hear me. "I'm here, baby. I'm here." I grab the edge of the blanket and wipe the thick spittle from her mouth, worried she'll choke on it. "I'm going to get you some help. Okay?"
I don't know if this is a normal seizure for Raven or not, but I'm not taking any chances. I'm calling her an ambulance. I turn away from her and quickly crawl over to my discarded clothing to get my phone, but can't find it in the pocket of my jeans. Fuck me, I left the damn thing in the Jeep along with Raven's purse and her phone. Goddamn it. I snatch my jeans up with a snarl and jerk them on as fast as I can, then gather up her clothes.
I return to my mate and push Luna out of the way. It's a bit of a struggle to dress Raven, but I get it done as quickly as I can. Then I tuck the blanket around her as she continues taking those horrible gasping breaths. I scoop her now limp body up into my arms and take off at a run with Luna right on my heels. It doesn't take me long to get back to my cabin. I'm beyond grateful that I didn't take her very deep into the woods last night. Thankfully, she doesn't have another seizure along the way home.
I take her straight inside the cabin and hesitate before laying her on my couch. What if she seizes again and falls onto the floor? Instead, I lay her on the soft living-room rug and snag a sofa pillow to tuck under her head. Luna immediately snuggles up next to her. Then I force myself to leave Raven's side and exit the cabin, so I can get my phone.
Instead of taking the steps down to my driveway, I just vault over the deck railing and drop effortlessly onto the gravel one story below. I yank the Jeep's door open and swiftly find my phone and Raven's bag. Then I bound up the steps three or four at a time back up to my front door. I walk into the living room to find Luna lying over Raven's body and crying again. I rush over and catch a whiff of that sour scent that I now hate.
Fucking hell...not again.
A moment later, she starts violently seizing in the middle of my living room floor. I drop Raven's purse and take my eyes off her, so I can wake up my phone, then dial 9-1-1 on the screen. I glance back up at her contorting face, and
still with my finger hovering over the call button as something incomprehensible happens.
I see the bones under her skin start to move and shift, her mouth elongating slightly and her cheekbones narrowing before returning to its original shape. I see a hint of dark fur skitter across her bare skin, then disappear just as quickly. Meanwhile, her eyes spark brilliant cobalt fire from between her barely parted lids for a fraction of a second before fading back to their normal electric blue. It all happens so swiftly that I'm not even sure if what I just witnessed was real.
I drop to my knees next to Raven as her second bout of convulsions comes to an end, and catch a familiar scent that briefly underscores the sour one that accompanied her seizure. It's wild, it's untamed, and I recognize it as the unmistakable scent of a trueborn werewolf, just like me. My phone slips from my now lax fingers to thump softly on the rug.
What. The. Fuck.
I lean closer to lay a hand on her cheek and feel her muddled up post-seizure emotions again. I breathe in deeply, and though fading, it's there again. I smell wolf on her. I don't know how it's even possible, but there's no denying it, or the fact that I don't dare to call an ambulance now, not only for her safety, but for the pack's as well. All hell would break loose for all of us if some paramedic saw Raven start sprouting fur and fangs. Let alone if it happened in a hospital in front of multiple witnesses.
"Fuck," I whisper harshly as I sit back on my heels. What do I do now? The only thing I can do. I snatch up my phone and call my father.
The call is brief and to the point since this isn't something I want to explain over the phone. What if I'm losing my mind and imagined this insanity? I simply tell him that I need his help in a tense and unsteady tone that tells him exactly how serious this is. He immediately says he's on his way.
Wild Blood: The Trueborn Saga Book 1 Page 16