by Renee Rose
He thrusts into me leaning up on his hands to keep his weight off. “I love you, Denali.”
We both freeze. He has a deer in headlights look, as if he had no idea he was going to say that.
Hard determination slams down on his face. “It’s true,” he says fiercely. “I don’t care if we don’t have the longevity to prove we can make it. You’re mine.”
I lift my hips to urge him to move inside me again. “Is it love or is it a lion’s claim?” I ask softly. Because there’s a difference. The lion’s claim is his animal’s choice. Love is a human emotion. Does Nash even know love?
Torment flickers over Nash’s face. I see his doubts about himself, what he’s become, but he shakes his head. “I wouldn’t have said it if it weren’t true.”
Tears prick my eyes because I believe him. The words had just fallen out. He loves me.
I wrap my arms around his neck. “I love you, too, Nash. You’re mine.”
His eyes blaze with light and he slams into me. The birds in the trees twitter and chatter, like our energy feeds them. The sky starts swirling above us, or maybe I’ve grown dizzy with lust. All I know is that everything on the mountain seems to contribute to our mating—the trees, the leaves, the flowers, the other animals. There’s a magic in our joining. A beautiful consummation, as if this is our true mating. The one we were destined for. Not that crazed bite back in a cell.
I’m not surprised at all when Nash bellows and sinks his teeth into my shoulder, in the same place he chose last time.
I buck against him, my orgasm unravelling in waves of pleasure and release. There’s no pain. Only fulfillment. This was meant to be. A union of shifter souls. We belong together, to each other. There’s no denying or escaping it now.
It is done.
Nash
I don’t mean to bite Denali. Like the first time, I didn’t know I was going to do it until my teeth are already buried in her flesh and I taste her blood. I release her and lick away the blood. “I’m sorry, baby.”
“No.” She stops me. It’s a queen’s command. There’s no room to argue with her. “This is how we were meant to mate.”
Her words sweep through me like a warm breeze. My eyes and nose burn for a moment with the magnitude of it. She’s accepted me as her mate.
That scratchy voice in my head that tells me I can’t really have her—that I have nothing to offer but my pain and misery and violence—starts up, but I shove him back. I won’t let anything take away this moment. It may be the first time in my life I’ve experienced true happiness. True, full, unadulterated joy.
Denali is mine. The sun is shining, and the birds are chirping. I’m out in nature and no one’s trying to kill us. At least at the moment. And my body feels incredible.
It’s buzzing with an energy I’ve never known. Strength and vitality flow through my veins. It’s like I’ve just drunk some elixir that gives me superpowers. Is it from mating with Denali? Or letting my lion run? Or both?
Suddenly, I’m playful again. I roll of Denali and lift her to her feet. “Then you’d better run, or I’ll be showing you all the things my lion wants to do to assert his claim.” I slap her ass and shift.
She’s off in a flash, the fluffed tip of her tail swishing as she bounds over boulders, her sleek body leaping with boneless grace.
We run for hours, up and down the side of the mountain. A couple hikers come along, and we have to slip into an opening in a rock wall to watch them pass. Then we bound down to a stream where we drink. I haven’t been my lion this long before. It’s both freeing and terrifying.
What if he grows too strong? What if he doesn’t let me shift back? What if he demands to be let out on a regular basis? And my worst fear of all—what if he kills or maims someone?
But I don’t feel the dark violence simmering in me the way it usually fuels my gut. The sick lion who has to fight to live seems very far removed from the powerful beast strutting through the forest now. I truly feel like the king of the jungle.
I have no sense of time, but Denali must have better integration of her human senses with her lioness, because she leads me back to the car by early afternoon.
She shifts at the door, then reaches for the handle. It’s locked, and I see panic flare in her eyes, because she left the keys on the seat when we arrived.
I shift into human form. “I have them,” I tell her, my voice gruff after being in lion form. I grab them from the crook of a tree where I’d hidden them before following her this morning.
Her smile dazzles. “Always looking out for me, aren’t you?”
I nod, suddenly dead serious. “Believe it.”
She catches my tone and lifts her head, locking gazes with me over the top of the car. She’s unabashed about her nudity, which makes it even more spectacular as the afternoon sun makes her skin glow. “I do.” Her voice is soft.
Something’s changed between us. Something wonderful and serious. The defenses we had up are crumbling and we’re on the same side now. A team.
I toss the keys to her and she catches them easily and opens the door. We both pull on our clothes and climb into her little car.
“So, Nash?” Denali slips a sideways glance at me from under her long lashes. Lovely lioness.
“Yeah?”
“How are you feeling about fatherhood?”
Oh God. My heart starts beating faster. This is important. She’s asking me something important because of what changed between us today. I need to answer this right.
But I can’t lie, either.
“I’m scared shitless,” I admit.
She gives a surprised bark of laughter. “I know the feeling. Fates, when Nolan was born I had dreams that the back door of the car had opened up while I was driving, and his car seat was falling out.”
“Oh, Christ.”
“And I had one where I was still in high school and I’d accidentally left his carrier outside the classroom. Some other kids had picked him up and I was in a panic trying to find him.”
I give a rueful laugh. “It’s a daunting task. One nobody wants to fuck up.”
“Exactly.” She looks over again, her gaze sharp. “Are you up for it?”
The back of my neck prickles. Again, I have the sense my response could change the course of my life. Of our lives.
“Yeah.” I sound wheezy.
“You sure? Because there’s no half-assing this. You’re either in or you’re out. And you don’t get me without being all in with Nolan.”
The prickles are everywhere now—coursing down my shoulders and spine, along my legs. “I know,” my voice sounds strangled. “I’m in. I’m all in, Denali. You’re my family.”
If it’s true, why am I sweating? Why is my heart thundering faster than it did when I ran fifty miles on that mountain?
Do I just want it to be true, but I really know I can’t?
Or will I be able to prove myself to Denali and Nolan? Become something I never knew I could?
I don’t fucking know, but I’d better figure my shit out quick.
10
Nash
I finish screwing the new security screen door into the door frame at Denali’s. I haven’t had a fight scheduled for a few days so I’ve been spending my time fixing things at the cottage. Making sure her place is adequately protected was my first order of business, but I’ve also repainted her kitchen cabinets and installed a drip watering system for the flowerbeds. I even made friends with Mrs. Davenfield, Denali’s nosy landlady, by installing drip in her flowerbeds, too.
Tinkering around like this makes me think maybe I could find a new career—something tamer than fighting or war. Handyman stuff suits me. It’s solitary work, but useful. It requires physical strength, which I have, and an ability to problem-solve. Turns out, when my lion isn’t clawing to get free, my clear-headedness returns to me.
All this time I was terrified to let my lion out, to shift into lion form. I thought he’d go on a rampage and kill because that’s what
happened the other times he came out.
Maybe he’s just been going crazy because I was suppressing him. That and staying away from my marked mate.
My phone rings and I pull it out and glance at the caller. It’s Denali.
“Hey baby. What’s going on?”
“Nash, the preschool just called. Nolan’s throwing up. I’m totally tied up with my client—I’m in the middle of giving her a bath and I can’t leave. Can you go get him?”
I try to muffle my choke of surprise. “Uh, yeah. Will they let me get him?”
“I just sent over my signed permission. You’ll have to show ID, but yeah. I told them his father was getting him.”
I swallow hard.
His father.
Right.
That’s me.
Well, shit.
I’ve been sent on high-stake missions for my country. I’ve survived torture at the hands of my government. I can totally handle a puking preschooler.
Right?
I get in my car and fumble with the keys. I can do this. I can totally do this. I repeat the mantra the entire ride to the preschool. Then I have to give myself a pep talk to get out of the car.
The doors to the preschool are locked so I have to use a buzzer to be let in. The director comes out to meet me. She definitely gives me the stink eye and a thorough up and down sweep of her eyes. I guess absentee dads don’t rate so high here.
I should’ve been prepared for that.
She leads me to the butterfly room where I find Nolan, lying on a mat in the corner while the other children play. He definitely looks green around the gills.
“Hey, buddy,” I say softly.
He climbs to his feet. “Where’s momma?”
“She’s working. I’m going to take you home.”
Nolan starts crying. “I want my momma.”
Damn. I have no idea what to do now. Do I pick him up and get the hell out? Try to talk him into coming nicely?
“I know you don’t feel good, buddy. I’m going to take care of you. Come here, little man.” I’m relieved when he lets me pick him up without a fuss.
His teacher gives me the same suspicious regard as the director, but she helps me out by gathering Nolan’s things and showing me how and where to sign him out.
I’m worse than Schwarzenegger in Kindergarten Cop the way I bumble around trying to hold Nolan’s lunch and soiled clothing bag and Nolan while I open doors and find my way out.
When we get to my car, I make the stupidest mistake of opening the front side passenger door for him. Instead of climbing in, he stares into the backseat and then wails, “Where’s my car seat?”
Shit! Car seat… I should know these things. Why didn’t Denali say something? And then I remember she’d said something about coming to her work, but I thought she meant I should do that if I couldn’t handle it on my own. She was probably telling me to go there first to get the car seat.
Nolan’s totally melting down now, hanging from the door handle and bawling.
I don’t blame the kid. He’s sick and he wants his mom. I’m definitely a far cry from momma. But I’m not about to take him back into the school because I don’t have a car seat. I have gotten people through far more dangerous situations than driving a couple miles without a car seat. We’ll make it home.
“I’m really sorry, buddy. I don’t have the car seat, but I’m going to buckle you up tight in the back seat and I’ll have you home in no time, okay?”
No response because he’s crying too hard.
This totally sucks.
I open the back door and lift him in, carefully arranging the seat belt around his waist and behind his back so it doesn’t choke him. “I’ll get you right home, little man.”
He throws up all over the back seat just as we arrive at Denali’s. I don’t really care about anything but the fact that the poor little guy is suffering, though. I pull him out and carry him in, taking him straight to the bathroom to get cleaned up.
I fill the bathtub and strip off his pukey clothes. He calms down in the warm water, although his listlessness worries me even more than the crying. I use a washcloth to clean off his face and offer him his toothbrush to clean the bad taste from his mouth.
I dial Denali while he sits in the tub and stares at the wall. Dark circles loop under his eyes.
“How’s he doing?” Denali answers.
“He’s pretty sick. Should I give him anything?”
“You mean like medicine? Does he have a fever?”
I touch his head with the back of my hand. “I don’t think so.”
“Then just whatever he can keep down. Push fluids. Maybe toast. Or applesauce. You know the drill.”
I totally don’t know the drill, and I feel like an asshole because of it. How many times in Nolan’s short life has Denali already had to deal with this sort of thing?
Nolan stands up in the tub.
“Okay, looks like he needs me, I gotta go,” I say to Denali.
“Nash?” she says as I’m about to hang up.
“Yeah?”
“You got this, Dad.”
Dad. I feel pretty fucking far from a dad. The word makes the space between my ribs tighten and I have to force my breath out.
“I’ll do my best,” I say.
I pull the plug in the tub and wrap a towel around Nolan after I lift him out. He shivers, standing docile and subdued. I dry him quickly and carry him to his room. “Where are your pajamas, bud?”
He points to a drawer and I pull out a pair of Spiderman jammies and make a spectacle out of myself trying to figure out how to dress him.
“I’m going to get you settled on the couch. We’ll find a good show for you on television, okay? Do you want anything to eat or drink?”
He shakes his head, so I get him settled and find Curious George on the television.
“Is it okay if I go clean out the car, bud? I’ll be right outside if you need me.”
Nolan nods so I head outside with a bucket of water and a scrub brush. The whole time I’m out there, I’m worrying about getting inside, getting back to the poor kid, in case he gets sick again or needs me.
Fuck.
If this is what it’s like to be a parent, I don’t know if I have the emotional stamina for it.
And that’s seriously crazy coming from a guy who a month ago was completely emotionally dead.
Denali
I come home to find Nolan curled up and sleeping on top of Nash’s large body on the couch. Nash has an arm curved around Nolan’s soft form, cradling him close.
Heart. Melted.
Nash is watching cartoons, which is hilarious and sweet. I’m guessing he didn’t want to move to turn off the TV or change the station.
It nearly killed me not to go racing to the preschool myself when they called, but I couldn’t get away from my client—especially after I’d rescheduled with her earlier in the week. Plus, I wanted Nash to have a chance to be a dad. I can tell he’s majorly uncomfortable with the role. Hell, I was terrified to be a parent, too. But you don’t get special training. It’s a sink or swim kinda thing and the only way to figure it out is to jump right in. So yeah, taking care of a sick kid is sort of the Parenting 101 crash course.
“How is he?” I murmur, walking over to feel Nolan’s forehead. It’s clammy, but not hot.
Nash rubs Nolan’s cheek with his thumb. “Okay,” he whispers. “He’s been sleeping for about an hour.”
“Thanks for picking him up.”
Nash gives an impatient jerk of his head. “Don’t thank me. It’s what I should’ve been doing for the past three years.”
I hate how much blame he puts on himself. I touch his shoulder. “And you would have, if I’d let you know about him.” I wait until he meets my eye and then a moment longer until he relaxes and nods his agreement.
“Want me to put him in his bed?” I ask.
Nash shakes his head. “No. I’ve got him.”
I smile, and Nash gives
a sheepish grin. “I’m pretty proud of myself for getting this far with him.”
I run my fingers through his close-cropped hair, massaging his scalp. “As you should be, Daddy.”
He only stiffens for a moment at the word daddy, which I take as an excellent sign. Nash is finally getting used to his new role.
For the first time in years I’m filled with genuine hope. Maybe Data-X didn’t completely fuck up my life forever. Maybe good things are still possible. A loving father for my son. A partner and mate. Maybe even a white picket fence.
This calls for a celebration. I walk to the kitchen and start to hum, taking out the ingredients to make peanut butter cookies.
Agent Dune
He drives by a little cottage sitting on a property with a larger house in Temecula. Nash, the one who set his whole investigation into motion, has been staying here. There’s nowhere to stop and set up surveillance because the area is too sparsely populated, so he drives on, not turning around for another mile.
He’s been watching the San Diego fighters every minute he can get away. He doesn’t know what he thinks he’ll see—one of them suddenly sprout hair and drop to all fours? Or go on a jog with a pet wolf?
All he knows is the queasy feeling he’s had ever since Gray mentioned wolves is only getting stronger.
The Data-X labs were out in the country. He’d assumed it was to keep away from prying eyes, but what if it was because they needed wilderness around for animals?
But was he seriously believing there might be such thing as werewolves?
He remembers the way Nash’s eyes glowed yellow. How Charlie picked him up naked, covered in blood after the massacre in Afghanistan. All their men had been shot except Nash. All the insurgents were dead—torn open, body parts scattered as if mauled by a wild animal.