“It’s something you have to have if you’re establishing a pack in a new territory, like we were. The alpha has to find his fated mate and bond with her, to create the magic that binds the pack together and to the territory, like Jace did with Emma. But in an established territory, alphas don’t always do that. And Jace’s dad didn’t. He was crazy in love with Jace’s mom, but she…well, she thought she’d found her true mate after she’d mated with Jace’s dad. He was in the rival pack.”
“Oh, no,” Terin murmured. “Was that why they attacked?”
“Kind of,” Rafe said. “Not to seize Jace’s mom. Her mate’s alpha used her to breach our defenses and invade our territory. We had no warning—didn’t know what hit us. And Jace’s dad waited too long to activate the boundary magic because his mate was on the other side.”
“What happened then?” Terin asked. He knew she already knew, but she was giving him the chance to tell her, to unburden himself. He’d never actually told the story before; everyone he was close enough to had been there, and nobody wanted to talk about it.
Rafe felt like he was traveling deep inside the hidden parts of himself. “They killed most of our pack,” he said. “I’ll never forget it. Fights going on everywhere, through the woods, blood and heat and howling. And bodies.” He heard his voice shaking. “Bodies everywhere, of people I loved.”
Terin slid her arm through his and leaned her head on his shoulder. Her presence shored him up, spread a balm over the raw and ragged edges of his heart.
“I tried to fight,” he said. “But I was young, and so scared I was shaking, and the first one almost took me apart. The last thing I remember was being thrown against a tree and hitting my head, hard. I think they left me for dead.”
He thought about the other night. “That seems to happen to me a lot,” he added. He was trying for smartass, but it came out kind of shaky.
Terin smiled and began stroking his arm gently. The shakiness started to subside.
“I didn’t help at all,” he said. “All my life, everybody said what a fighter I was. It was all I was really good at. I was training to be an Enforcer. But when the worst went down, I folded like a bad hand of poker.” It was his deepest shame, one he’d never confided to anyone.
Terin didn’t say anything, didn’t try to fix his feelings or talk him out of them. She just kept leaning against him and gently stroking his arm, and he felt comfort and caring pouring into him like clear water, filling him up.
Rafe gave a great sigh, feeling like some of the burden he’d been carrying had been lifted off him.
“When I woke up, I found out that Jace had protected me while I was unconscious. Me and Jesse. He’d fought off three of the invaders, and then shifted and carried me to safety.”
He took a shaky breath. “For a long time, we thought we were all that was left. Gradually, we heard about a few of the pack who had scattered, gone in different directions, and were hiding out. But they had no territory, no home. So we had to build them one.”
She said, “And you did it. Against all the odds, you got your territory. You rebuilt your pack.”
Rafe nodded. “Yeah. We were so happy, you know?” He hesitated, not sure how to say what he was feeling. “But Jesse was the one who put us over the top. He turned out to be some kind of computer genius, and he wrote some apps that made a shit ton of money. He’s totally the brains of the operation. And Jace is a natural alpha. Every wolf in the pack would do damn near anything for him. And now he has Emma…”
And he doesn’t need me. Nobody needs me.
But he couldn’t say that out loud. He’d just sound like a whiny drama queen, wanting to be the first and the best.
“But you were a big part of it,” Terin said. “You all did it together.”
“Yeah,” Rafe said. But he wasn’t convinced, and he could tell she knew it. But she had sense enough to leave it alone, and change the subject instead.
“This Emma,” Terin said. “She’s human? Not a shifter?”
Rafe shook his head. “Nope. We didn’t even think it was possible, that a human could be a shifter’s fated mate. But it happened. Emma and Jace bonded, and it was like…I can’t describe it. Every wolf in the pack was aware of every other wolf, all at the same time. We could feel each other, and feel Jace’s presence. And when he bonded with the territory—it was like all the energy from the trees and rocks and the mountain was pouring through him into us, so that we were a part of it, and it was a part of us.”
He grinned ruefully. “I suck at describing things.”
“No you don’t,” she said. “I understood what you meant. I even feel that sometimes, a little bit. With this land.”
“Really?” he asked, surprised. “I wonder if a lone wolf can bond with their territory. Without a mate.” He hoped it wasn’t true. If she was bonded here, she’d never leave. He couldn’t stand that thought.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. If I ever knew any of this, about how things work with shifters, I don’t remember it,” she said.
She added, “So your mission, what you all set out to do, is complete.” Rafe nodded. Then she surprised him. “So why is there still a hole inside you?”
To cover his confusion, he countered, “What makes you think there is?”
She simply said, “I can feel it.”
That made his whole inside go still. She could feel what he felt? Was she feeling the mating bond? He was afraid to ask.
“I don’t know,” he said, in answer to her question. “It’s been bugging me ever since Jace and Emma bonded. I mean, I’m supposed to be ecstatic, right? We have our pack. I’m the Second. We got everything we ever wanted. And yet…”
“You’re not happy,” she said. She kissed his shoulder, and then laid her cheek against it again.
“I feel like an ungrateful jerk,” Rafe admitted. “I don’t know what I want.”
“Maybe you need another mission,” Terin said.
Rafe put his arm around her and pulled her close. Maybe he did.
Chapter 12
They sat there for a while, watching the sunset, sipping beer from the icebox. Gradually, Terin felt the restlessness in Rafe settle, and he began to relax. He had slipped his arm around her and was holding her against him, his cheek resting on her hair. She loved feeling the warmth of him, the solidness, the strength.
All too soon, though, she felt like she couldn’t hold her eyes open any longer.
“I need some sleep,” she said. “I didn’t get much last night.”
He ruffled her hair. “Missing me?” he said.
“Yes,” she said, before she could stop herself.
He pulled slightly away and turned to look in her eyes. “Were you?” he asked. His voice sounded casual, but she could see hope in his eyes. Like he’d really wanted her to say yes.
After the raw honesty of his confessions earlier, that light of hope broke something in her heart. Instead of answering, she pulled his mouth to hers. As soon as their lips touched, the now-familiar desire rose up inside her. This feeling that if only she could get close enough to him, unlock her soul, then the hole within him would be filled.
He rose to his feet and pulled her against him, the full length of their bodies pressed together. She wound her arms around his neck, trying to pull him even closer. She suddenly didn’t want to let him go. She wanted to wrap herself around him, to ease that hurt, fill the emptiness in him that even creating a new pack hadn’t assuaged.
He growled low in his throat, the sound sending a rush of heat pooling between her legs. His lips moved across her cheek and down the side of her neck, nipping, biting, soothing, kissing.
She could feel his cock against her, straining against his jeans, only that and the thin layer of her skirt between them. She wanted to pull off all her clothes and be naked with him under the stars, but the thought of the men in the woods made her think again.
She broke away and took his hands, pulling him inside.
“Bar th
e door,” she said, her voice husky. He did what she asked, and then she led him into the bedroom. Once there, she pulled him toward her once again.
He said, “You don’t have to do this. You know. Just because I’m protecting you.”
“You forgot,” she whispered in his ear. “I’m protecting you. So I need to keep you close.”
He gave a ragged laugh. She could hear him struggling to control his breathing, and was amazed that she could do that to him.
He said, “That’s good. Because all day, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you being naked under that skirt.”
She nipped his ear and said, “I’m always naked under my clothes. Aren’t you?”
He groaned. “I don’t suppose you want to see?”
She nodded, feeling suddenly bold. “Uh huh.”
He froze, as if he was hoping he’d heard right. She slid her hands under the hem of his t-shirt. She lifted, and he ducked his head and slid his arms out.
The magnificence of his muscled chest still took her breath away. She ran her fingertips lightly over the place where the sharp branch had impaled him. The wound was healed, although the scar was still red and angry. She kissed the place where he had been hurt, and then ran her tongue around it. She felt him shiver.
His reaction made her bolder. She kissed her way across his chest to his flat nipples, and licked them until they stood up. He growled, his chest rumbling. She ran her hands across his chest and around to his back, and then began kissing up his neck. He bent his head so she could reach, and she bit him lightly under the ear. He growled again, a deep sound of pleasure.
“I want to run my hands under that skirt and stroke you,” he murmured. “Your thighs, your ass, your pussy—all of you.”
She could feel her animal nature rising. She loved that feeling—loved the feeling of Rafe’s wolf rising to meet her. Ben had never stirred this part of her, never ignited the animal fire inside her. For the first time, she loved her wolf.
Rafe made her feel whole.
“Take me,” she whispered. “Touch me. Light me on fire.”
Rafe growled again, and then slid her skirt up and wrapped his arms around her butt, lifting her so her legs straddled his hips. She slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him, deep, tasting him and stroking him with her tongue. She wanted to taste all of him, to lose herself in the feel of his skin, his scent, the feeling of him thrusting inside her.
He pulled her against him, and she could feel his bulge pressed against the delicate, sensitive skin of her pussy. She moaned and tangled her fingers in his hair, rolling her hips against him.
Rafe carried her the few steps over to the bed and laid her down. He reached for the zipper of his jeans, but she pushed his hands away and unzipped them herself. She’d seen his cock before, but not like it was now, full and hard. She pushed down his jeans—he wasn’t wearing underwear either.
“Look who’s talking about being naked under your clothes,” she said wickedly.
He grinned. “If I’d told you before, would you have been thinking all day about me being naked?” he asked.
“I already was,” she confessed.
His grin got wider, and then faded with a gasp as she wrapped her hand around his cock and stroked it.
She leaned forward impulsively and tasted it, something she’d never done with Ben. She loved the way Rafe tasted, the way he gasped and tangled his fingers in her hair when he felt her mouth on him.
She licked slowly, running her tongue over the head of his cock, and he groaned.
“Oh, babe. That’s—” He couldn’t even finish his sentence.
She licked and sucked until Rafe pulled away with a groan and slid her tank top up over her head. She saw the look in his eyes when he saw her breasts, the tenderness with which he touched them. He pushed her back on the bed and took them in his mouth, sucking erotically first on one nipple, and then the other—licking, sucking, tugging gently. Wet heat rushed into her pussy, and she almost came right then. Then he slid his hand up her thigh, pushing up her skirt, and stroked her slick, silky folds.
Terin thought she was going to die. She put her head back and moaned, losing herself in the sensations. She could feel Rafe getting hotter and hotter, as if she could sense what he was feeling somehow. She wanted to make him feel the way she felt.
“Rafe,” she murmured. “I want you now.”
He closed his eyes for a second, and then said, “Not yet.”
He kissed his way down to her stomach, and then pulled her skirt off her hips and moved between her legs. He began trailing his lips down her thigh, alternately kissing and nipping the tender skin.
Just as he got near her pussy, he switched to the other leg, starting down by the knee and kissing his way up again. She was already bunching the covers in her hands, wanting him to taste her, but not knowing how to ask. Ben had never done this.
When Rafe’s tongue finally slicked between the folds of her pussy, she thought she would explode. She moaned and writhed, wanting him to kiss and lick every part of her. He flicked his tongue over her clit, then swirled and sucked it. He moved down to thrust his tongue inside her, and then licked her slowly, in broad, fat strokes, until Terin saw stars.
Her orgasm crashed over her, making her tremble and cry out under the waves and waves of sensation. Just as it was beginning to ebb, Rafe moved up and slid his cock into her in one smooth, hard thrust.
She almost came again, right then.
He pulled back and then thrust slowly into her again, letting her adjust to accommodate him, drawing him inside her and settling him between her hips.
He kissed her, and the taste of herself on his lips was incredibly erotic, salty and sweet. He cupped her head in his hands and looked into her eyes.
“Okay?” he asked.
She just nodded, unable to speak. He smiled and began to move, first slowly, and then harder and faster as she moved her hips to meet his. She felt her orgasm spiraling up again, and she grabbed the firm muscles of his ass, raising her hips to pull him all the way inside her. Rafe thrust into her, losing himself, digging his fingers into her hair and saying her name.
“God, Terin, you’re so beautiful. So amazing. Tell me you’re mine. I need you…”
“I’m yours,” she whispered. “I want all of you. Take me.”
And the words felt right. For once she didn’t think of the future, only this feeling right now, the feeling that they belonged together, were part of each other. “You’re mine,” she said.
With a final thrust, he came inside her, and she felt a sudden rush she couldn’t explain. Like his soul had exploded into hers and she could feel everything that he felt, feel everything outside the cabin and inside it, as if it were all alive and she could see it all. The feeling spiraled out, out, and then back in, until nothing existed but the two of them, as if they were sharing the same skin.
Chapter 13
A long time later, Rafe woke up in the dark, aware that he felt cold and alone. The bed next to him was empty; Terin was gone. And she’d been gone awhile, to judge by what little warmth was left where she’d been lying.
Worry stabbed through him. Where was she?
Rafe got up and padded through the house, even checking her painting studio. She wasn’t anywhere. There were no lights burning, but his wolf eyes could see in the dark, and there was moonlight. He could find his way.
He pulled on his jeans and walked out onto the porch, sniffing the air. He couldn’t scent Terin nearby. Where the hell had she gone? And why had she gone alone? What was the point of having him here to protect her if she went wandering off on her own whenever the mood took her?
He walked around the yard, trying to pick up the freshest scent, but there were too many competing trails. Finally, he went into the kitchen and pulled a beer out of the icebox. He sat down with it on the porch swing and swung back and forth, back and forth, watching the stars, and waiting for his mate to return.
After a long time,
he sensed her. He’d attuned himself to the night, to the land. To her. He could feel her when she came near.
He tried to keep his emotions within himself, trying not to be impatient, not to spook her in case she could feel him the way he felt her. His lovely, mysterious mate had given herself to him, but she still had too many secrets, too little trust.
She ghosted out of the forest like the spirit wolf she resembled, standing right at the edge, looking at him without moving. He just sat and looked back at her.
This was a woman who could not be forced, could not be convinced. She was wild, wilder even than he was, and she would only come to him when she felt safe.
So he sat and waited. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done.
After a long time, she walked over behind the shed. When she came out she’d shifted back to human form, and had a loose dress on. He still didn’t say anything, just sat there, trying not to seem tense or upset, just keeping himself open to her so that she would want to come and sit by him.
After a moment’s hesitation, she sat down next to him on the porch swing. He slid his hand tentatively over and wrapped his fingers around hers.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
She nodded. He waited, his natural impatience making him crazy, but trying to keep his breathing even and his touch easy.
After a long silence, she added, “I couldn’t stay inside.”
He nodded. “You could have woken me up. I wouldn’t have minded.”
She shrugged. “I needed to be alone.”
He let out a long breath. There was no point in asking her why—it was just the way she was. It was what she was used to.
But it killed him to think she needed to get away from him, when all he wanted was to be near her.
“Do you wish you were still alone?” he asked finally. “Right now?”
She didn’t answer.
He tried not to show his emotion, but he couldn’t help letting his shoulders slump in disappointment.
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