A Taste of Honey

by Ranae Rose

  She breathed a sigh that was born as much from bliss as relief. Each thrust was still just as deep, just as filling, but now that the worst of the pain was past, the best aspects of those sensations were intensified. Still, she clung to him with her nails denting his skin. It hadn’t really been the pain that had made her want to do so in the first place, but the passion he stirred inside her as he drove her down into the mattress, and that was still there.

  When he’d made love to her with his mouth in the shower, a delicious sort of tension had mounted inside of her, intensifying and expanding until she’d climaxed. Now, with pain almost gone, it began again. She dug her nails a little deeper into his skin and he groaned, rocking his hips a little more quickly, sending pussy-tightening bolts of sensation through her with each stroke. As the mattress shook beneath them, she took an extra-deep breath of his scent and pressed her lips against his neck, letting the heat of his skin sizzle across hers.

  Coming with him inside her was different than the first climax he’d pushed her to. When her channel tightened it clenched around the hard length of his shaft and the feeling of being wrapped so tightly around him took her breath away. Each of his thrusts sent her a little higher until a gasp – or maybe it was more of a shout – escaped her, followed by several more.

  As pleasure swept through her in waves, driven by his motions, she was vaguely aware that she’d raked her nails from his shoulders to the middle of his back. She arched against him and drew a deep breath. As his scent rushed into her lungs, the intensity began to ebb.

  She never sank all the way back down against the mattress; Ronnie had gathered her in his arms and held her tight as a last frisson of ecstasy shot through her, making her tremble against him. He covered her mouth with his and kissed her deeply as he thrust harder – his hardest yet. Her climax had left her spent, and yet, she was more sensitive than ever in its wake. She gasped and their lips came apart as he drove his cock into her, his brow furrowing as he made a sound that was somewhere between a sigh and a growl.

  The muscles in his back shifted and flexed smoothly beneath her palms and his skin radiated heat. She clung to him, little thrills going through her every time he thrust or moaned or even drew a breath. It all felt so good – every motion and sound sent pleasure rippling through her. The sensations weren’t as strong as when she’d climaxed, but they were breathtaking nonetheless.

  He came with a ragged moan that reminded her of his wilder side. It was her first time being with anybody, but it was impossible to imagine that anyone other than a bear shifter could’ve made such a deep, feral sound. And she didn’t need to be a bear to appreciate it – hearing him lose himself made her pussy tighten around his cock.

  She gasped, startled, as he held her tight and poured himself into her. Several powerful strokes later he stopped, sighing as he bowed his head, still inside her, his cock throbbing in the tight embrace of her aching pussy.

  “Ronnie…” It wasn’t really a question, or the beginning of anything – she just wanted to say his name as she finally removed a hand from his back and swept her fingers across his forehead, where a light sheen of sweat had appeared. His hair was way too short to fall into his eyes, but she brushed the short black fringe of it aside anyway, surprised at its softness.

  He withdrew slowly from her body, pulling his hips back and then settling on the mattress beside her. For a moment they lay shoulder-to-shoulder and hip-to-hip, then he wrapped his arms around her again and rolled onto his back, lying with her sprawled on top of his chest.

  His skin was hot and his cock still hard, damp against her thigh. His heart beat against her breast as he kissed her, mumbling something under his breath about honey as their lips met. “My mate,” he said when their lips parted.

  His words stirred something within her. As she breathed his scent seemed even sweeter, even richer. “Yeah,” she said, lowering her head and letting it rest on his chest so that his collarbone pressed against her temple. “That’s me.” After what they’d just done, she felt as if she were glowing, both inside and out. Did he feel the same sense of wonder she did every time she heard or thought of the word ‘mate’ now?

  Autumn sunlight filtered through the bedroom windows, casting the room in a golden tint that intensified the air of coziness the log walls and simple earth-toned decorations had already given it. The room was like Ronnie – solid, definitely on the rugged side and irresistibly inviting. “What next?” she asked eventually, her thoughts wandering back to the day’s previous events. She could have lain there on his chest until nightfall, content to let her pulse and breathing slow to match his, but she had a pack and he had a tribe.

  “Time for me to get to the bottom of this trouble with the trigger-happy tourist,” he said, his voice edged with concern. “Then, if everything’s safe, the tribe has a gathering planned for this evening.”

  “Oh.” Disappointment tinged her newfound bliss. She didn’t want to leave his side – not ever, really, and certainly not today. “Is it something you plan to attend?”

  “Yeah. As the war chief, it’s my responsibility to attend these sorts of things.”

  “War chief?” Violet lifted her head, surprise and even a little alarm zinging through her veins, zapping her out of her post-coital state of lazy contentment.

  His dark brows rose a fraction of an inch. “You didn’t know?”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t even know your community – your tribe – had a war chief.”

  “It’s not as dramatic as it sounds. Basically, it means I’m in charge of security and all matters related to safety. Generations ago, the Cherokee people who originally inhabited these mountains utilized a governmental system that included war chiefs. My role stems from that tradition.”

  “So you’re in charge of the entire tribe?” Which would make him the equivalent of an alpha wolf. How could she not have known?

  “No. At least, not unless something dangerous or potentially dangerous is going on. The Roaring Water Tribe has two chiefs – a peace chief and a war chief. The peace chief – my grandfather, Charles – handles the day-to-day affairs of our community. I only step up when there’s a threat to the tribe. And believe it or not, dangerous things don’t happen all that often in these mountains, despite the impression your first few weeks here must have given you.”

  “Oh.” Well, that made her feel a little less ridiculous. Still, she wanted to know everything about him – the big things and the little things … everything. “Does your tribe uphold a lot of Cherokee traditions?” If that was the case, he’d have a lot to fill her in on. Of course she’d been aware of his Native American heritage, but she knew little about how the original inhabitants of the Great Smoky Mountains had lived.

  “As bear shifters, our way of life has always been somewhat different, even before Europeans arrived here and things began to change drastically. We’ve maintained our presence in these mountains through it all, though our numbers have varied throughout history, and have developed our own culture that’s unique in many aspects. It’s probably not as unfamiliar to you as you might imagine – after all, you’re a shifter, and that’s at the core of our lifestyle.”

  Despite her lack of knowledge when it came to the Cherokee people’s history, Violet did know that most had been driven from their homes and had had to travel the infamous Trail of Tears. But despite all that, Ronnie was here, generations later, and the Great Smoky Mountains were truly in his blood. It must have seemed personal to him that a bear had been shot and killed, even if it hadn’t been a shifter. “Still, you’ll have to fill me in on the tribe’s traditions as we go along. I want to know all about … well, everything.”

  “I’ll have to take you to Roaring Fork soon then.”

  “What’s Roaring Fork?”

  “It’s a stream. Didn’t you wonder what the Roaring Water Tribe was named after?” A small, teasing smile tugged at one corner of Ronnie’s mouth.

  “I think I was too busy wondering abou
t you to give the tribe’s name a great deal of thought. Where’s this Roaring Fork, then?”

  “On national park land, not far from here. We’ll have to go on a rainy day.”

  “Why?”

  “When it rains, the water rises and the sound of it rushing echoes off the surrounding mountain ridges and makes a sound like a bear roaring. Hence why it’s our tribe’s namesake. You’ll like it – there’s a waterfall.”

  “Okay, it’s a date. We’ll go next time it rains.” Violet smiled at the notion of hiking to the tribe’s namesake stream and a waterfall with Ronnie. “As for today, you have to take care of the tribe, right?”

  “Until I can confirm that the tribe isn’t in danger.”

  “Am I keeping you?”

  He smoothed a hand over the small of her back and let it settle on one half of her bottom, cupping one ass cheek and squeezing lightly. “No. I have a few things to do before I can give the tribe permission to continue with plans for the gathering, but I have time for my mate too. I’m going to keep you by my side as I figure this out, and if it’s safe, we can go to the gathering.”

  “We? I didn’t know you wanted me to come. I mean, since I’m not a part of the tribe.” Not only was she not a member of the tribe, but she wasn’t a bear either.

  A strange look flickered in Ronnie’s eyes. “Yes you are. We’re mated now, so you’re as much a part of the tribe as I am. We’ll make it official tonight.”

  * * * * *

  A false alarm. Ronnie breathed a deep sigh of relief, though leftover unease still made his spine prickle. It was too easy to get worked into a state where suspicion fueled his every thought and a steady trickle of adrenaline kept him on edge, ready to power any necessary action. When there was even the suggestion of a threat, the past made the future seem darker. Despite the events of the previous several months, danger rarely struck his corner of the Great Smoky Mountains, but past experience had taught him that when disaster bit, it bit hard and tore away chunks, leaving wounds that crippled and endured.

  But not this time. Sometimes a bear really was just a bear and a stupid tourist really was just a stupid tourist. As it had turned out, the man who’d shot the bear on park land had been intoxicated.

  It was a shame that the animal had been killed, but at least it hadn’t been a shifter, or another human. And, sad as it was, the fact that the shooter had been drunk when he’d shot the bear that had wandered close to a hiking trail confirmed what Ronnie needed to know most – that the man wasn’t a shifter hunter. A shifter hunter never would’ve gone traipsing through a national park with a stomach full of bourbon, firing a gun where he was sure to be caught. And the bullets the gunman had used hadn’t been silver, either, as the ones shifter hunters favored were.

  Shifter hunters were stealthier than that – usually skilled woodsmen and marksmen who knew how to get away with murder. Literally. Ronnie gripped the edge of the kitchen table until his knuckles ached, suppressing a familiar wave of anger. Mandy, Jack’s mate, had nearly been killed by shifters hunters – it was a miracle she was even still alive. He himself and Jack had been shot as well.

  “Are you okay?” Violet’s sweet voice drifted through the haze of his recollections, mercifully shattering his brief reverie.

  “Yeah. I guess relief hasn’t really set in yet.” His phone was still warm in his hand, heated from the fairly lengthy conversation he’d had with Hargrove, during which he’d asked every question he could think of just to make sure that the gunman really was what he seemed, that there wasn’t so much as a hint of him being anything more sinister than a dangerous drunk who’d carried and discharged a weapon illegally.

  “I know what you mean,” she said. “Even though I know the shooting had nothing to do with the shifters here, a little shiver still goes down my spine every time I think about it. I mean, it hasn’t been long since Mandy was kidnapped.”

  It was true. The past year had been crazy, rife with hunters and bloodshed. But everyone had made it through – the only lives that had been taken were those of the hunters who’d plagued the mountains, and that was no loss. As far as violence went, Ronnie had only experienced one worse year in the course of his entire life. “I was thinking the same thing.”

  “We almost never had trouble with shifter hunters in Alaska. It’s different there – there are so many shifters that when a hunter ventures onto any pack’s territory, it’s like walking into a lion’s den. And packs form alliances and stuff to stay safe. Out here there’s a denser human population, but less shifters.”

  “The recent problems we’ve had with hunters are the worst acts of violence we’ve experienced in almost twenty years. Normally it’s not this bad.”

  “What happened twenty years ago?”

  “My mother was killed.”

  Violet’s blue eyes grew wide. “By shifter hunters?”

  “I don’t think so. The bullet that killed her wasn’t silver – we think someone was hunting illegally on private property and shot her while she was in her bear form, thinking she was an animal. Of course, she returned to her human form when she died. The person who murdered her must have fled – we found her body on the side of the mountain.”

  “That’s horrific. I’m so sorry.” She crossed the space between them with a couple steps and laid a hand on his forearm.

  “I was a preteen then. That was what inspired me to become a ranger. I wanted to protect the tribe and the other shifters in these mountains and I thought becoming a ranger would enable me to do it to the best of my ability.”

  “You were right. You were among the first to know about the incident with the bear today because of your status as a ranger.”

  “Yeah. Being able to protect the tribe makes me feel as if I’m giving her life and death some purpose. I think she’d be pleased that I’ve become a ranger and war chief.” Confidence that his mother would be proud took the edge off the old sorrow, but a familiar sense of regret made his insides feel hollow for a few bleak moments.

  “Of course she would. You’ve saved lives, and not just those of your tribe members. The Half Moon Pack wouldn’t exist anymore if it wasn’t for you. Mandy told me about how you took a bullet rescuing her and Jack last spring. And then, we probably all would’ve been killed by those hunters if you and your father hadn’t helped us rescue Mandy.”

  Unable to resist anymore, he reached out and wrapped his arms around Violet, pulling her close so that her body conformed to his, soft and warm against him. “It was worth it – I never would’ve met you if you hadn’t come here from Alaska to join.” Now that he knew the taste and feel of her, the thought was unbearable. His heart sped and his cock stiffened, ready to claim her again. As much as resisting the urge made him ache, he’d have to wait until later. He needed to let his tribe know that the threat had passed, and evening was quickly approaching. As much as he wanted to make love to her again, he also wanted the whole tribe – hell, the whole world – to know that they belonged to each other. By midnight, it would be official.

  * * * * *

  The large campfire crackling against the fading evening light made for a cozy scene, but Violet couldn’t help but feel awkward as she and Ronnie approached the blaze. The gathering was being held in a clearing between Ronnie’s cabin and his grandparents’ – the area was within walking distance of many other bear shifters’ homes on the mountain and others had driven to reach it. Around fifty bear shifters had already gathered and all of their gazes gravitated to Violet and Ronnie as they approached. If it hadn’t felt so right to walk at his side, she would’ve blushed under the scrutiny. Instead, she stood tall and reached for his hand.

  “Looks like about half of the tribe is already here,” Ronnie said, closing his hand around hers and holding it tight.

  His touch inspired warmth that traveled up Violet’s arm and heated her entire body. It was easy to remember how he’d used his hands on her only hours before, caressing and stroking as they’d made love on top of the color
ful quilt that covered his bed. Her body was still glowing with the aftereffects – the surrender of her virginity had left her a little sore, but mostly, incredibly satisfied. The knowledge of their new bond was like a tiny sun lighting her up from the inside and its heat boosted her confidence as she faced a significant contingent of the Roaring Water Tribe for the first time.

  “Nice to see you again, Violet.”

  Violet whirled, buoyed by the sound of a familiar voice in the crowd of strangers. “Emmaline.” She smiled at Ronnie’s grandmother, who she’d met at Mandy’s baby shower and seen again at the recent wedding. “How are you?”

  “Just fine. How are you, dear?” Her eyes, every bit as dark as her grandson’s, gleamed and crinkled pleasantly at the corners as she met Violet’s gaze.

  A little heat rushed into Violet’s cheeks – maybe she wasn’t past blushing after all. Emmaline knew that she and Ronnie were mates; Ronnie had told his grandfather over the phone when he’d called to relate the news on the shooting. “I’ve never been better,” she said with sincerity.

  Ronnie’s grandfather, Charles, appeared at his mate’s shoulder. “Ronnie. Violet.” He was kind like Emmaline and flashed a smile in Violet and Ronnie’s direction. “We’ll hold the ceremony just after nightfall.”

  Violet’s stomach flip-flopped as Ronnie nodded. Ronnie had explained the ceremony that would signify their bond to the rest of the tribe and make it official in the eyes of the council and other members. It was simple enough, but it was also intimate. The thought of going through the rites in front of the entire tribe made her pulse quicken.

  “Ronnie.”

  Violet recognized Will’s voice before she saw him approaching; it was deep, remarkably like his son’s.

  “Dad.” Father and son exchanged broad smiles – a rarity for Ronnie, if not his father.