by Callie Rose
I snap my jaws at the edge of the man’s nose, less than an inch from his face, and he cringes backward like he could sink into the floor and get away from me.
I dare you. Run, motherfucker, run.
The scent of magic fills the air, and I know the man beneath me is about to shift. I’m ready for it, my lips curled back from my teeth and my body tensed to attack. But before either of us can do anything else, soft, familiar hands sink into my fur and fist my scruff.
“Dare, please. Don’t hurt him.” Sable’s voice drifts into my ears like a balm for my nerves. She tugs, and fingernails digging into the thick fur at my shoulders. “Please, Dare!”
She’s not strong enough to yank me off the fucker, and she knows it. Even if he shifts, I’m sure I could take this asshole. The wolf inside me, the part of me that was almost feral before I met my mate, wants to fight him. Wants to kill him.
But if I did that, I’d become a pariah—the angry, unpredictable alpha with no pack who can’t be trusted around other shifters. They’d banish me from pack lands. Banish me from her. Ridge, Archer, and Trystan would turn their backs on me, and this tentative peace and happiness we’ve found together would come crashing down.
I can’t do that to Sable.
Her grip on my fur pulls me back from that ledge, breaking the tight focus of my anger. I back away, putting my front paws back on the floor. The man glares at me as he sits up and rubs his chest.
Good, I hope I broke a rib, you fucking prick. Say something about my mate again and see what happens next time.
Fury is still burning white-hot through my veins, and I don’t trust myself not to launch myself at the man if he so much as breathes a word against Sable.
So before the shitbag can say another word, I turn and bound out of the meeting house. The feral wolf in me howls with disappointment, hungry for blood. But I already fucked things up between me and my mate by pushing her away after her witch came out.
If I kill a man in cold blood, even if it’s to defend her honor, I’ll lose her forever.
Because she’s a much better fucking person than I am.
Not even giving a fuck where I’m going, I run fast and far, until I can’t hear the raised voices inside the barn anymore. Until I can’t sense the crowd of shifters and the way they whisper suspicious words about Sable’s heritage. I run until the woods grow thick around me and the bright blue sky is hidden behind a canopy of leaves.
Finally, I slow, my breaths coming in hard and fast pants. I press my forehead to a tree, focusing on my breathing until I’ve slowed my heart rate and gotten ahold of my emotions. That’s when I sense Sable behind me.
Her wolf is still a new entity for me. I got used to her human form—to her scent, to the overall sensation of her being near me. The wolf adds a new layer, and when she’s in that form, I can taste how much she belongs to me.
My mate. My entire reason for being here.
My entire reason for being.
I don’t know where we are. Somewhere on the far outskirts of the North Pack’s village, well out of view of any of the houses. It’s just me and Sable out here, and I want nothing more than to feel her hands on me. To let her soothe the beast away, because I can’t seem to fucking manage it.
I shift back, the magic rippling over me like cold water until I’m standing against the tree, one hand braced on the bark. My anger is a deadly thing, so close to the surface I could drown in it. I’m so finely attuned to Sable’s presence that I can sense the exact moment she shifts, even though I’m not looking at her. Her wolf pheromones vanish, and all I can smell is the decadent scent of her skin.
I mark her steps as she comes up behind me. Her voice is tentative as she asks, “Dare? Are you okay?”
“No.” I snarl the word through gritted teeth.
“Do you want to… talk about it?” She takes two more steps closer. Even though she’s so small and delicate, her presence looms behind me, bigger than the sun and just as important to my life.
“I can’t stand to see people treat you like that,” I say, venom still filling my tone.
Another step. She’s almost within reach. “They’re just scared. They don’t understand.”
“Well, you don’t deserve that,” I snap, and then force myself to take a couple bracing breaths. The last thing I need to do is take my anger out on the one person who doesn’t provoke it. “You didn’t deserve it when I treated you that way, and you don’t deserve it now.”
“Oh.” She hesitates. “Are you still…? Dare, I understand. Why you did what you did. I don’t hold it against you. I could never.”
A growl rumbles in my chest. She’s a better wolf than me. A better person than me. I’m lucky she accepted me back, when she could just as easily have told me to get the hell away from her before I hurt her again.
“I hate them.” I shake my head. “I fucking hate how it hurts you.”
“I get that,” she says slowly. Her fingers latch gently on to my shoulder. “And I appreciate the way you stood up for me. But you can’t just attack people like that.”
I don’t reply. I hear her and I smell her, but her fingers on my bare shoulder are what holds my full attention. That small connection might as well be all that exists in the whole fucking world. I imagine her hand sliding down my back. Her fingers kneading the hard knots in my muscles, chasing away the demons that I somehow continue to harbor inside me. I never want her to stop touching me. I never want to stop touching her.
As if she can hear my thoughts, her other hand moves over my shoulder blade, and then both her hands are caressing my back. Warmth flows from her skin, heating me, awakening my cock with more fury than seems possible. I harden my grip on the tree, my blunt nails biting into the rough bark.
When I don’t speak, her voice behind me softens. “You know, I sometimes worry that you feel the same way as that guy,” she murmurs, pain in her tone. “I worry that you’re disgusted by me. That you’ll always struggle to accept who I am. And I can’t even blame you. If I’d grown up a shifter, if I’d watched my people slaughtered…”
She trails off, her voice clogged with emotion.
God, she’s an incredible woman. Kind. Lovely. Compassionate in a way I’ve never been able to manage. The sweet vulnerability in her voice rips my heart into pieces. Sable is everything true and beautiful in this world, and I’ll be fucking damned if I don’t spend the rest of my life proving it to her.
In a flash, I whip around and take hold of her arms. I switch our positions, pressing her back up against the tree, boxing her in with my arms so that she can’t run away from me.
So that she’ll know I don’t want to run away from her.
My gaze runs down her naked body. My heart picks up a frantic pace, and I slide my hands lower, brushing over her arms, then her trim waist and her soft, round hips. I lick my lips, aching to bury my face between her legs until she cries my name.
But even more powerful than the need to claim her in this moment is the need to make sure she knows. To make sure she understands.
“I am done letting anyone make you feel bad about who you are,” I say vehemently. “And that starts with me. I love you, Sable.”
Her eyes widen, a small gasp falling from her lips as her breath catches.
Fuck, I want to steal that gasp, swallow it up as I devour her with ravenous kisses. I lean closer to her, my hands growing more urgent as they roam over her petite body.
“Some part of me has loved you since the first second I saw you standing in the moonlight by that stream,” I murmur. “And every other part of me has fallen in love with you day by day as I discovered what an amazing woman you are. And the fact that I ever made you feel like less than that? It fucking kills me. No matter what happens or what comes, witch or wolf or something else, I’m on your side, and I will be until the bitter fucking end.”
Her wide, blue eyes are wet with unshed tears as she stares up at me, and I hope it’s a good emotion. I hope I haven’t scare
d the shit out of her, since that seems to be my MO most days.
I realize I’ve said the right thing when her gaze moves to my lips, and her soft, torturous fingernails trail down my abdomen.
That’s all I need. Hell, it’s more than the hungry wolf inside me needs.
I stop holding back, releasing my tight grip on my control.
Lunging forward, I close the last bit of space between us, capturing her lips with mine and pressing our bodies together. The kiss is hard, deep, and hungry, and the feel of her soft curves rubbing against me make me lose all sense of myself. All sense of anything else.
It’s just me and my mate. Her soft skin and her full lips, and the way she fits so perfectly against me as she kisses me like she might die if she stops.
The man in the meeting house is a long-forgotten memory by now. My rage is gone. Nothing else exists but the burning need to claim my mate.
6
Sable
The heat that rises inside me from Dare’s kiss is all-consuming. I’m burning from the inside out, and my rugged mate is the spark that lit the fire. The deep, searing truth in his words washes away the pain of that pack meeting until I can hardly even recall the face of the man he threatened.
He shoves me up against the tree, his kiss deepening, his hands wrapping around my back, pulling me against him until I raise my leg and hook it around his waist, opening my body to his hands.
This is stronger and more potent than the night my wolf finally came out and claimed him, claimed all of them as my true mates. We had sex that night, even though I was worried he wouldn’t accept the bond. The relief that he did has clung to me ever since.
But this?
This is one hundred times that night. This is Dare tearing down every barrier between us, giving me everything that he is and promising me with his lips, his hands, his body, that he trusts me.
And I’m scared. I’m scared that he trusts me so much, because I don’t even trust myself.
I’m not keeping the truth from my mates, no matter how much it hurt to let them know about the strange numbness this morning. No lying. No hiding.
But still, I’m terrified of the darkness inside me.
Dare’s fierce kiss shoves all of that away though. It feels like we’re both purging our demons as our tongues clash and our sharp breaths mingle. Out here, in the woods outside the North Pack village, there’s nothing but the two of us, the rough bark against my back, and the wind against our skin. There’s nothing but the feel of Dare’s warm body pressed against mine.
It took me a little while to catch up with him, so we’re far enough away from the village that no one can hear us, but I’m not sure I’d care even if I knew they could. I’m not sure anything on earth could make me stop kissing this man right now.
This man who loves me no matter what I am.
Who loves me despite the witch magic burning through my veins.
My mate.
Dare’s palms skate across my skin, gliding down over the curve of my waist and hips. When he reaches my thighs, he grips them in his large hands and lifts me up, wrapping my legs around his lean waist. My upper back rests against the thick tree trunk as he drags his lips away from mine and trails hot kisses over my cheek, my jaw, my neck, and my shoulder. His teeth scrape my collarbone, and I whimper, hooking my ankles just over his ass and arching my back as sparks of sensation spread over my skin like crackling fire.
His mouth moves to my neck again, where he latches onto the delicate flesh and sucks hard, pulling another desperate sound from me. I arch my back even more, grinding my pelvis against his as I turn my head to the side, offering him full access to my neck. I can feel his cock trapped between us, hard and hot as he sucks on my skin.
I bite my bottom lip, the feeling of pressure on my neck walking the line between pleasure and pain.
He’s bruising me lightly. Marking me. I know when we go back to the meeting house, there’ll be a clear indication of what Dare and I were doing in the woods.
But instead of embarrassment, that feeling fills me with a feral sort of pride.
I let out a soft moan as he finally releases the skin of my throat from the pressure of his lips and teeth, licking it gently as if to ease away the sting. When he draws back to look at me, his pupils are dilated, the gold-flecked brown of his irises almost erased by the darkness.
“Fuck. I can never get enough of you.” As if to prove his words, he drops his head and kisses me once more. He keeps kissing me even as he continues speaking, his words punctuated and interrupted by the movement of his lips on mine. “When I saw you in the clearing that first night, you claimed a piece of my soul. You were so fucking beautiful. You’re my sunlight. My moonlight. My fucking everything.”
His words make something hot and sweet bloom in my stomach, and I reach up to slide my fingers through his hair, clutching at his head as I kiss him back almost desperately.
Dare’s grip on my legs is still tight, and he uses it to hold me steady as he rocks his hips against mine, angling my body slightly to get me right where he wants me. His cock slides between my wet folds, pinned tightly between our bodies, and we both groan.
I shift my hips as he rocks forward again, trying to adjust our positions to take him inside me. The tease of feeling him so close to where I need him is making my whole body tense up with anticipation.
But instead of giving me what I want, Dare just chuckles, pulling me closer as he slides his cock through my slit. The smooth hardness of him presses against my clit every time he rubs our bodies together, and I whimper in frustration and need as heat shoots through me.
“Dare…”
It’s supposed to be a demand, but his cock hits my clit again as I speak, and the word ends up sounding more like a breathless plea.
He chuckles, breaking our kiss and resting his cheek against mine as he deliberately fucks me without really fucking me. The rough stubble at his jaw scrapes against my skin, and a whole new burst of sensation shoots through me.
“I want you to come like this. I want to feel you fall apart from my cock on your clit,” he murmurs roughly.
My jaw drops open slightly, air suspended in my lungs as I forget how to breathe for a moment.
I’m new to all of this. To sex. To this kind of intimacy.
And especially to dirty talk.
I don’t know why hearing him say those words is almost as good as the feel of his hard length rubbing against my clit. I don’t know why his rough voice saying things like that makes arousal pulse through my veins even more urgently.
But it does. I like it. I like it so, so much.
“I’m… I’m close,” I gasp. As dirty talk goes, it’s nowhere near as good as his. But I want him to keep talking, want him to keep murmuring filthy things into my ear in that gravelly voice.
“I know you are. I can feel it. You’re so fucking wet.” He groans softly as he grinds against me, sliding his cock through my slippery folds. He’s right. I’m so wet that I’m coating his shaft every time he moves against me. “Come for me, Sable. Let me feel you come, and then I’ll fill you up.”
I clutch at his hair, working my hips in tandem with his. I may be new to sex, but I know what feels good. And with these men who feel like they’re a part of me? My mates, who I can trust with everything I am? I never feel shy or awkward or embarrassed. I just feel treasured. Wanted. Safe.
So I don’t hold back. I don’t worry about whether I’m doing this “right.”
I just give Dare exactly what he asked for.
Closing my eyes, I lock my legs around his waist and roll my hips against his, chasing the incredible feelings surging through my veins. He lets out a choked grunt as he feels me grinding against his cock, and when the pleasure peaks inside me and I cry out, he bites down on my earlobe.
The fresh shock of sensation heightens every feeling rushing through me, and a ragged cry falls from my lips as I come hard, clinging to his hair so hard it’s a miracle I don’t yank half
of it out.
If I’m hurting him, he doesn’t seem to care at all though. He thrusts against me in short, choppy strokes, riding out the waves of my orgasm until I’m panting and gasping. When the blinding pleasure finally recedes a little, I feel his cock pulse against me, and I realize how close he just came to finishing too.
The thought of that—of him losing control, not even managing to get inside me first, or his cum spattering my stomach—makes me whimper softly. Turning my head toward his, I find his lips and capture them in a deep kiss, sliding my tongue into his mouth in a possessive, hungry gesture.
His fingers are digging into my thighs so deeply that I’m sure I’ll have bruises there as well as on my neck, but I don’t care.
I don’t care about anything right now except one thought.
I need more.
My core is throbbing with the aftershocks of my release, my heart beating harder as my body tries to recover. But every pulse of Dare’s thick cock against my skin is a promise of something. Of pleasure yet to come.
And I want it.
So fucking bad.
Breaking our kiss, Dare rests his forehead against mine, breathing hard. “Are you ready for me? You want me to fill you up?”
“Yes.” It’s barely a whisper.
He growls in response, a ravenous noise that rumbles up from deep in his throat. “You want me to fuck you against this tree? Right here? Right now?”
“Yes.”
“Then put me inside you.”
My breath hitches a little again. Unwinding my fingers from his hair, I wrap one arm around his neck and reach down with the other. My hand slides between us, and I find the slick hardness of his cock. I wrap my fingers around it, sliding them up and down as I gaze into his eyes, which are so close to mine that they’re barely in focus.
“Fuck,” he mutters roughly, and I can’t help the satisfied grin that tugs at my lips. My earlier fantasy plays through my mind again, and I consider trying to make him come like this—he’s still close, I can feel it.