Last Wolf Watching

by Rhyannon Byrd

“She left me!” Brody roared, losing complete control of his temper, nearly floored by the caving pain in his chest.

  “And did you give her any reason to stay?” Cian demanded.

  “Did you ever tell her how you feel about her?” Brody’s silence was all the answer the Runner needed. “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” the Irishman sighed, his voice thick with disgust. “Did it ever occur to you that she’d need to know, Brody? That she has her own fears? She can’t read your goddamn mind.”

  His partner was right. She couldn’t read him.

  Hesitantly, he said, “You think I should tell her?”

  “If you can find her,” Cian snorted with a heavy dose of sarcasm. “Honestly, you’re as bad as Mason was before he finally pulled his head out of his ass and married Torrance. From this point on it’s mandatory bonding for the lot of you. God knows you guys can’t keep track of your women.”

  “I know where she’s gone,” he stated in a quiet rasp, his anger swiftly shifting into nervous energy that ramped up his heart rate with stunning force. All that churning chaos was slowly coming together, solidifying into a brilliant, terrifying plan. “She would have gone back home, to her house in Covington.”

  “Then get off your ass and go get her,” Cian drawled, while the corner of his mouth kicked up in a grin, his gray eyes glittering and bright. “Or else I’m going to be stuck listening to you bitch and moan for the rest of my days.”

  Yeah, that’s it. Go get her. Tell her everything. All of it.

  Could it really be that simple? Like walking to the edge of a cliff and just flinging himself off in a daring, breathtaking dive, hoping he didn’t crash and burn.

  Rubbing at his chest, Brody looked inside himself. Was he brave enough to go after the prize? To put his heart on the line and finally tell her everything he’d bottled up inside?

  Damn straight he was.

  * * *

  Brody made the drive down to Covington in record time, and just as he’d expected, Jillian’s car sat parked in front of Michaela’s house. In fact, it was the pack’s Spirit Walker who answered the door when he knocked. Before she could say anything, he shoved his shaking hands in his pockets and blurted out, “I need to see Michaela. Alone.”

  Snuffling a soft giggle under her breath, she smiled and moved aside so that he could enter. Torrance grinned at him, and the two women shared a knowing look as they slipped on their jackets. “We’ll give you two some privacy and head back home now,” Jillian told him, surprising him with a quick hug.

  “Better start getting your excuses ready,” he warned them with a wry grin. “Mase and Jeremy are pissed as hell that you left the Alley without telling them.”

  Jillian laughed, and Torrance rolled her eyes. “They’ll get over it. And Mic ran upstairs to grab a quick shower, but she should be getting dressed by now. I think she’s gonna be happy to see you.” She winked at him then, and they walked out of the house, closing the door behind them. Taking his hands out of his pockets, Brody rubbed his damp palms on his jeans-covered thighs, released a choppy breath, then turned and headed up the stairs.

  He found Michaela in the spare bedroom they’d shared before, staring out a window that looked over the backyard. She was wearing stonewashed jeans and a long pink sweater that looked fuzzy and soft as it hugged the womanly perfection of her body. Dappled sunlight painted her skin a warm, golden hue, glinting off the midnight strands of her hair as it fell in long, feminine curls over one shoulder.

  She turned, as if sensing his presence, and the second their gazes caught, her dark blue eyes went wide with surprise. “You came,” she gasped.

  Nodding, he wanted to demand an explanation for why she’d left him. Instead, Brody heard himself say, “There’s something I should have told you, Michaela.”

  Her lush mouth trembled, glossy and soft, and she wrapped her arms around herself, her eyes luminous with tears, so beautiful they took his breath. Quietly, she said, “You don’t need to thank me for what happened, Brody.”

  “Well, there’s that, too,” he rasped with a tender smile, “but I was thinking more along the lines of—”

  “Mon dieu,” she suddenly cried, as if only just realizing what he’d said. “You called me Michaela! You never call me by my first name.”

  His smile slipped into a nervous grin. “That’s because I’ve been terrified of getting too close to you, of how I felt about you, but I—”

  “You’re not stuck with me any longer,” she said shakily, cutting him off again. He could see the tenuous hold she had on her emotions slipping, her cheekbones flushed with vibrant color, breath coming in short, shallow pants. “You no longer have to protect me. It’s…over, Brody.”

  “Not quite,” he murmured, stepping into the room, the need to touch her like a physical ache within his body.

  She blinked, looking uncertain. “What do you mean?”

  “We still have unfinished business, sweetheart.”

  “We do?” she asked in a breathless rush, followed by a whispered, “Did you just call me sweetheart?”

  “Sure did,” he drawled, wearing a ghost of a smile.

  * * *

  Terrified she was going to wake up and find she’d been dreaming, Michaela watched as Brody stepped closer, then closer still. When he stood before her, he took her face in his hands, carefully avoiding the healing scratches made by Dustin’s claws. The touch of his callused skin was hot and slightly rough, his warm, masculine scent filling her head like the rush of a pleasure-giving drug, smooth and rich and sweet. Shaking with nerves and excitement, she stammered, “Wh-what unfinished b-business?”

  “The fact that you’re my life mate,” he rasped, staring deeply into her eyes, the fierce green of his gaze burning with tender intensity. “As well as the fact that I’m madly in love with you.”

  “You’re…what?” Michaela croaked, blinking up at him in amazement, unable to believe she’d heard him correctly.

  “I love you.” The corner of his mouth lifted in a boyish smile, and as he threaded his fingers through her hair, she could have sworn his eyes glittered with a sheen of tears.

  “You love me?” she gasped.

  “Completely. Utterly. Irrevocably. Always. And forever,” he rumbled, his deep voice so wonderfully sexy, it made her shiver. “And if you ever leave me again, I won’t be able to make it without you.”

  “Oh my God, Brody,” she sniffed, her eyes overflowing with the hot, salty wash of tears that burst out of her. “I love you, too.”

  He caught a teardrop with his thumb, asking, “Then why did you leave me?”

  “I wanted to stay so badly. But I…I needed to put this decision in your hands. I was too afraid to hope that anything like this could ever happen, but I knew if we had any kind of chance, then I had to trust my heart and have faith that you would come after me, or else I’d spend the rest of my life always wondering, never knowing if you were with me out of some sense of gratitude or guilt. I didn’t want you to feel pressured. I was so scared, but I knew I had to have faith that you’d come for me, if that’s what you really wanted.”

  “I’d like to see you try to keep me away,” he murmured in a husky tone roughened by emotion, while he rubbed his thumb against the corner of her mouth. “And the only guilt I’ve felt is sticking you with someone like me. I know you deserve so much better than me, but I swear I’ll love you, that I’ll be true to you, till the day I die.”

  “Brody, I love you so much,” she sighed, unable to stop the cathartic flow of tears, “but sometimes you can be so blind. There is no one better than you.”

  A sexy rumble of laughter fell from his lips, his breath warm and soft and sweet against her mouth. “God, you’re the blind one, sweetheart. But I’m sure as hell not going to be the one to buy you glasses.”

  “I don’t need them,” she sniffed, pressing her palms against his chest, over the thunderous pounding of his heart. “I see you just fine, inside and out.”

  Arching one russe
t-colored brow, he said, “I thought you couldn’t read me?”

  “I don’t need powers to know the kind of man you are,” she told him with firm conviction.

  “Oh yeah? And what kind is that?”

  “Brave. Beautiful. Honorable and strong. Rough and tender and everything I could ever want. And mine,” she stated with a rich, delicious sense of satisfaction. “All mine.”

  His hands smoothed their way down her neck, to the curve of her shoulders, before trailing down the length of her back, setting a blaze of need beneath her skin, melting her with desire. “All yours,” he rasped. “For as long as you’ll want me.”

  “Then you had best settle in for forever, because once I claim you, I’m never letting you go.”

  “Claim me?” he drawled, flashing her a slow, wicked smile that made her toes curl. “Sounds kinky.”

  Michaela laughed, pressing her damp face into the warm hollow of his throat. “I’ll do my best to see that it is.”

  He lifted her face with his fingers beneath her chin and kissed her then, and it was unlike any other kiss she’d ever had. Full of breathless passion and urgent need, and yet, achingly tender, conveying just how desperately he cared about her. She could taste the emotion on his lips, feel it in the tremor of his body against hers.

  “I want to be the last wolf watching over you,” he growled, taking her to the nearest bed and pulling their clothes from their bodies. When he laid her out over the cool, crisp sheets, he pressed reverent kisses over the healing pink scars that crossed her abdomen, then higher, covering the aching tips of her breasts with his mouth, one by one. “I want that right,” he rasped moments later, breathless, his hunger conveyed through the urgency of his touch as he positioned her beneath him, “along with all the others, to be mine and mine alone.”

  “Always,” she whispered as passion consumed them, spinning them in its shimmering, dazzling web. They couldn’t touch enough, get close enough.

  “Hurry,” she urged him, running her palms down the slick heat of his spine, craving his possession with a need that would have frightened her, if he hadn’t been there to keep her safe.

  He threaded their fingers together, imprisoning her hands on either side of her head, covering her with his heat, with the mouthwatering strength of his hard, beautiful body, so warm and solid and perfectly male. “No,” he told her in a husky rasp that made her shiver from the inside out. “This time I take my time.”

  “No way,” she argued, arching beneath him, rubbing her body against his, doing everything she could to seduce him to her will. “We have the rest of our lives to take our time. I need you now, Brody!”

  “Michaela,” he groaned, and she loved the sexy way that he said her name, the sound of it on his lips the most provocative thing she’d ever heard. “Don’t tempt me right now, sweetheart. I need to hold it together, and you’re going to push me past my control.”

  “And maybe that’s what I like. Pushing you to the edge. You don’t scare me, Brody. I love every part of you.”

  “Damn it,” he hissed, and she could see the sharp points of his fangs as his lips pulled back over his teeth.

  She took a deep, trembling breath, then softly said, “If I were to say that you want to bite me right now, I’d be right, wouldn’t I?”

  He closed his eyes, his features tight with strain, accentuating the pale lines of his scars, then slowly lifted his lashes. “Yes,” he grated, his voice hoarse. “You’d be right.”

  “Well then, what are you waiting for?” she drawled, loving the heated look of surprise that flared in his eyes. “Go ahead and stake your claim, Brody. In case it escaped your notice, I’m not telling you no.”

  He stared down at her, his breath rushing through his slightly parted lips—and then he smiled, slow and sweet and beautiful. “Trust me, baby. I noticed.”

  “I want it, too,” she confessed, meaning every word. “I want you to do it, Brody.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched as he rumbled, “Christ, woman, you could tempt a saint.”

  “Oh yeah?” she laughed. “And what about a devil?”

  “Him, too,” he grunted. “But I’m not going to put you through that right now. I love you too much, Michaela. No matter how badly I want it, we’re waiting till you’re strong enough.”

  “I’m strong enough now,” she argued, rubbing herself against the hot, thick heat of his rigid cock as it pressed heavily against her stomach, huge and hard and hungry. She wanted him so badly she could have screamed, desire coiling through her like a smoldering spark that only he could ignite.

  His hair fell around his face like a crimson veil, thick and beautiful as he shook his head, growling, “No.”

  “Oh yeah,” she murmured in a seductive tone. “Just see if I’m not. And I have to warn you that I won’t let you hide from me anymore, Brody. I’m going to want everything from you. Everything.”

  “You can have anything from me,” he promised in a deep, graveled voice roughened by need, his eyes darkened by hunger. And then, there at the edges of his irises, she could see the warm glow begin to break through, his wolf awakening within his big, beautiful body. “Whatever you want, Michaela. I’ll give you everything that I am, that I’ll ever be.” He shifted lower and pushed inside of her then in a thick, delicious thrust, giving her every inch of him, his muscles flexing…rippling as he rode her, driving deeper…harder, her body so wet, she was more than ready for him. “I can’t get deep enough in you,” he growled. “I want in your heart, in your mind, in your very soul. I want to own them. Claim them.”

  “Yours,” she told him with a husky cry, writhing beneath him as he pressed his mouth against the side of her throat, his hair soft against her face and shoulders, like silk. His fangs pricked against her skin in a deliciously erotic caress, and Michaela knew it wouldn’t be long before he could no longer fight the blistering need to bite her.

  And to her endless delight, by the time the moon had climbed its way into the evening sky, he’d finally done just that.

  Epilogue

  Three months later…

  Curled up on the swing in front of the house in Covington, Michaela enjoyed the beauty of the sunset while Brody put dinner on in the kitchen. He’d sent her outside with a chilled glass of Pinot, telling her to simply relax and enjoy her wine. They’d spent a beautiful weekend in the city, but tomorrow they would head back up to the Alley, to their cabin and their friends.

  It still amazed her, the changes that the last three months had brought to their lives and to the pack, since the deaths of Stefan Drake and Dylan Riggs. In a shocking move to improve relations between the Bloodrunners and the Silvercrest, Eric Drake had organized an interim government based on free election—one in which the Runners would play a significant role, handling all elements of security for the pack and the town. In fact, her brother and Elliot now shared an apartment in Shadow Peak, and were both set to begin their Bloodrunning training by summertime.

  And while it had taken another week of searching, the Runners had finally found the mountain hideout for Drake’s teenage rogues, many of whom had been forced to turn. Most of them had refused to give in and ended up dying in battle. There were some rogues, though, who had come home in tears, emotionally scarred, but with the help of Jillian and her mother, Constance, who had offered her assistance, they were slowly finding peace. Their guilt, however, for the things they had done would live with them forever.

  There had also been talk, thanks to Eric, of rewriting the Bloodrunners Law so that full-privileged membership was a right available to all Runners automatically, though the men had grumbled about it, claiming it wasn’t necessary. Despite the fact that relations between the Runners and pack were slowly improving, Michaela knew it was going to be a long while before past animosities and resentments were forgotten. The pack lay on the verge of a new era—the arcane, rigid ways of the past giving way to the freer, open-minded path of the future. As Eric would often say, the Lycans had evolved, and
it was time their societal rules and structures evolved with them, though they knew it wouldn’t be an easy road. Still, it was a fascinating time, like watching the birth of a civilization.

  But the most miraculous change of all was in the man who held her heart. Michaela had never dreamed that Brody could lower his shields to let her in the way he had, and yet, he’d opened himself to her completely. She knew, because from the moment their blood bond had been made, she’d been able to “read” him—and what she saw in her mate made her feel like the luckiest, most cherished, most beloved woman in the entire world. And best of all was the happiness she could feel burning inside him. At her urging, he’d even made contact with his grandmother, putting the pain of his past behind him and learning to forgive.

  Abigail had even come to their wedding the month before, and enjoyed herself immensely, sharing a special dance with her grandson that had brought tears to Michaela’s eyes. But then, she’d been teary eyed that entire day, so full of love and happiness, it had been impossible to hold it all inside. Max had given her away, and a great roaring cheer had gone up from the guests when Brody had devilishly bent her back over his arm as he’d kissed her, the touch of his mouth against hers the sweetest, most poignant moment of her life. He’d whispered a husky “I love you” against her lips, and she’d melted from the possessive, joy-filled look on his handsome face.

  As if summoned by her thoughts, the screen door opened and Brody stepped out onto the front porch. Their next-door neighbors, the Hendersons, were in their front yard gardening, and they waved when they caught sight of the tall Runner. Unlike before, when he would have shied away from all humans, he held his head high, his thick auburn hair pulled back from his ruggedly beautiful face in a sinfully sexy ponytail, and gave the elderly neighbors a friendly wave in return. Feeling overcome with emotion, Michaela smiled at him, beckoning him closer with her finger. A powerful look of love and hunger darkened his deep green eyes, and his mouth curled in a devil’s grin as he moved toward her, saying, “You just made one of my favorite daydreams come true.”