by D. Fischer
My attention drifts to his wrist. The wrist normally adorned with a rubber band from a dead friend. The rubber band is gone. He took it off. Left it behind. The breath leaves my lungs. I look back at him, my vision swimming with unshed tears.
“And lastly, wrapped around all of it is fear. Fear because you don’t know if you can trust the other half of me.”
I swallow thickly, and before I can respond, he raises himself to his feet and unclamped each button on his shirt.
“What are you doing?”
Sliding the shirt off his arms, he pauses enough to say, “Proving to you that there’s nothing to fear. You can be loyal to the creature, and the man, without fearing for your safety.” He chucks his shirt to the side, and I trace the moon across his dewy dark skin. Stepping off the blanket and over the candles, he pushes down his pants. I gulp. “I have feelings for you, Jinx.” He steps out of his shoes. “I feel things for you I’ve never felt in my life. Things I didn’t think I was ever capable of.” He steps out of his pants and stands in nothing but his underwear, giving me the time to run – to observe – to take my time and let his words sink to somewhere deep inside me.
The candles’ tiny flames flash waves of reflected light across his bumpy stomach muscles.
“You make me want to be a better man. A better alpha. A better person. A better beast.”
I close my eyes at those words so similar to my own thoughts.
“I want to move forward with you.” He hooks his thumbs in his underwear. “And I can’t do that until you trust me. Until you trust all of me.”
He slides his underwear down, freeing his erection. I blink at it, surprised not by his size but because while he’s expecting me to trust him, he’s trusting me to not shatter him entirely by shedding the last remaining layers that conceal him.
His muscles begin to quake, and I snap my gaze back to his glowing eyes. My fingers curl tighter around the glass, fear pushing past the warmth of the alcohol.
“You can’t move forward with me until you accept all of me,” he adds in a whispering half-growl, half-man.
The shift begins. He groans as bones crack and reshape slowly. Slower than I’ve seen with the other wolves. I pitch forward, realizing he’s doing it on purpose, decelerating the shift so I can absorb the details and every minute change. It has to be agonizing. My heart hammers in my chest.
He falls to all fours. Black fur sprouts from his pores. His human nose and mouth push out into a snout. Hands stretch to paws. Teeth extend into sharp canines. When it’s finished, his wolf puffs a breath as he stares at me. I sit there, gaping, a tangled mix of horror and curiosity, at the beast who lives inside the man. I’ve seen Jacob’s wolf before, but this . . . this feels different. The man had asked me to trust him, and now the beast does too.
My muscles ache. They ache because every single one of them is bunched and stiff, waiting for me to spring or accept. The wolf, as black as the night itself, waits, allows me the time to adjust. I don’t know how long I sit here, frozen in fear and adrenaline, but he remains perfectly still until the idea of what he is settles inside me.
Finally, when my heart rate returns to a normal unnoticeable beat, the wolf lifts a paw, hovering it over the patchy blades of grass. When I don’t move to run away, he steps closer to me. Our breaths make clouds of evaporation around us as the air chills further. His ears are alert, perked, and when his snout is directly above the candle’s light, he stops. The smallest of whines comes from somewhere deep in his muscled chest.
The sound snaps me into awareness. Releasing a shuddered breath, I gather myself to my knees. I hadn’t realized the shifters were so large. I’ve seen them plenty of times, sure, but always in action. Always moving. Always from a distance. Never like this – calm, expectant, patient.
With a shaky hand, I reach for Jacob’s wolf. He cocks his head to the side, and my fingertips settle on his jaw. His eyelids quiver closed in contentment. I marvel at the feel of him, fur like touching shadows, swallowing my fingers inside its length. If it wasn’t for the candles and the shine of his eyes, I probably wouldn’t be able to make him out in the dark. It’s soft too, silky in some places while coarse in others.
I bury my fingers in the fur along his neck. He’s warm. The heat instantly seeps into me, an invitation to further explore. It settles somewhere deep inside, and I find myself tilting closer, inspecting every inch of him. The fear, in all its glory, gives way like ice caps in the summer heat.
“When you’re in there,” I say quietly. My voice cracks. The wolf’s ears twitch in acknowledgment, letting me know he understands my words. I begin again. “When your wolf is like this, and you’re . . . in the backseat, can you still understand me? Can you . . . command him? Make him stop doing what he’s doing?”
The wolf's eyes flick to mine.
“Can you control your wolf?”
The wolf snorts, and at first, I tense, startled, and then laugh. “Is that a yes?” He nips at my shirt, and I playfully shove his shoulder. I don’t know who is attempting the playfulness – the wolf or the man – but it doesn’t matter. My heart swells just the same because I find that even in this form, I love everything about Jacob.
Lowering his top half to the ground, he growls playfully, and grinning wider, wickeder, I get up and take off around the pond, squealing with a certain delight and a sense of pure unconditional freedom.
CHAPTER TEN
Jacob Trent
It’s the most fun my wolf has had with another living being since I was a child. Once I knew what my future’s responsibilities were, I played the part. I did what my father asked, and I strived to make him proud. I learned as much as I could from him. None of that left time for any fun. Not like this.
The moon’s beam shines across her loose black hair, and her laugh fills the quiet of the night until it feels like it’s just the two of us in the world. She darts around the pond, arms pumping and knees lifting. To confuse me, she spontaneously dips into the forest, weaves between the trees, and leaps over logs normal people would go around. She’s fast, faster than I thought she’d be. And this laugh, a continuous, deep lunged, hardy laugh, is the most beautiful sound in the world. More beautiful than morning birds in spring. More soothing than a waterfall on a smoldering summer day. It’s just . . . more.
She is my more.
Fully circling the pond, she nearly reaches the large blanket, but my wolf leaps. Letting out a squeal under the witness of the moon, she dives for the blanket, rolls, and settles on her back. My wolf’s front paws land on either side of her head as her eyes close in her fit of giggles.
That laugh. I could listen to it for the rest of my life.
Eventually, she releases a deep breath as she quiets. It slithers from her nostrils in a thick cloud of fog as though her insides are made of fire. The trees and the slight breeze seemingly exhale with her, hushing until all that’s left is our own normal breathing.
I shift back swiftly, hands replacing paws, bright irises fading to brown. The world darkens, but still, she looks up at me, searches the plains, and dips, and lines of my features. Her wide grin disintegrates into something more sweet, more kissable, more serious and curious.
My more.
My gaze roams her face and settles on her lips. The top lip is always flat – thick, but flat – and her bottom lip dips like the curve of a rose petal. Relishing the feeling of her body relaxing under mine, and without hesitation, I bend and brush my lips against hers. Her skin is warm, and she smells like a pine-filled fall wind.
Under the scent clinging to her skin is her normal scent – the one that makes Jinx, Jinx. It’s a wild aroma, wild and spicy and completely herd. Alluring as the first day I met her in the bar.
She tilts her head and parts her mouth, sighing into my own. Her legs relax, and by the way she snuggles her spine into the blanket, I wonder if maybe her heart beats differently. Does it thump evenly? Flutter like my own, skipping beats and dancing between the ribs?
/> Naked as I am, I settle my hips against hers, and my tongue dips into her mouth, tasting, teasing, twining. When her chilled hands roam the muscles and curves along my back, I melt against her like butter, shivering under her touch. The touch is light, skimming and exploring with a soft scrape of nails. It’s different from the teasing we’ve been doing to one another, the usually primal urgency. It’s almost too much to bear without words or knowing what she’s thinking.
I break the kiss and look down at her once more, searching her expression. It’s as soft and serene as her touch was. The candles reflect in the sides of her dark brown irises, and her lips are swollen from the kiss. Her cheeks are flushed, hot from my body heat. But everything else has this tender quality to it.
Hands leaving my back, she slides out of her coat, reaches for the hem of her shirt snug between us, and begins to tug it up, up, up until it's past her head. Always some part of my skin is touching hers. She flings it over the candles to some dark shadow beyond our bubble of tiny flames. I let her continue to undress, giving her all the time she needs to say no, change her mind, and walk away. But her eyes never leave mine. The sureness in them never wavers. Whatever I’ve done in the past thirty minutes – whatever I’ve said, had reached her in some place deep inside. A place she had buried and kept hidden from everyone, possibly from herself as well.
She flings her underwear, the last of her clothes, and pulls me back down to fully settle on top of her. She fits so perfectly with me. Tiny, but perfect.
Wrapping her hands around my neck, she tugs my head down, lips back on hers. The kiss deepens once more, and her fingers tremble as she runs them down my neck, over my shoulder, and along my spine. When her fingers reach the small of my back, she grips my hips with a firm, needy grasp.
I know what she wants when she uses her grip to press me closer to her center. I settle the tip of my erection. Her breathing deepens, harsher and full of anticipation, brushing hot against my cheek in heavy puffs. And when I push inside, her fingernails dig into my skin, drawing blood. She lifts her head, matching each tongue stroke, quickening with urgency and raw passion.
Pebbled from the chill, her breasts press against my chest. I snake a hand around to her back, angling her hips higher to meet mine. Finally, I settle, buried deep inside her. I groan into her mouth when the walls of her sex pulsate around my length. Only when the quivering stops do I pull out and thrust back in.
She breaks the kiss, her head tipping back, her swollen lips parted. Her eyes meet the stars. The expression on her face nearly has me coming undone. I dip my head, continuing to move, to thrust and pump in a slow agonizing way. I want to stay in this moment and prolong it for as long as I can.
I run my lips across her throat, nip her collar bone, then kiss away the sting of my bite. The sounds she makes are even more heart wrenching than her joyous laugh. I can’t get enough of it, so I repeat the action over and over again. I want to hear that kind of pleasurable moan for the rest of my life.
As I watch her come undone underneath me, quiver and shake as she reaches her climax, her breathing quickens. I wonder, only for a moment, if she feels the same. If she, too, can’t imagine not being joined in such a way for the rest of her life.
She’s changed me. She’s made me a better man. She’s wiggled her way into the deepest part of my soul.
Jinx shudders and moans loudly. The sound vibrates against my sternum, and the walls of her sex clamp around me. I groan and bury my face in the crook of her neck, inhaling the unique scent.
My canines elongate instinctively, pressing into her skin. My wolf wants to claim her, to show everyone she’s mine with a mark she’ll bear for the rest of her life. With this mark, she will always be mine. Mine, my wolf growls, the urge as strong and fierce as a tidal wave. I quake at the restraint. Even as my eyes shift back to the wolf, I quake and push against him.
Allowing the bite without any sort of discussion on the matter would make her a prisoner to me. It could make her feel like a hostage to someone who has the privilege of being so free. Once she’s mated to me, that’s it. There will be no one else. She will be mine, and I will be hers until the day we die.
I grit my teeth. I can’t. If I bite her, if I give in to my urges to start the mating, I’ll never be able to let her go. If she wants to go. If she doesn’t want to stay with me once she’s safe to leave. Once the Bane Pack’s threat is gone, there’s a very good chance she’ll want to resume her own life.
I can’t. I won’t. I refuse to take her choices from her.
“Look at me,” she orders in a husky voice. I stiffen for a moment and then continue pumping once I lift my eyes back to hers. The green shimmers against the gloss of her own, and I watch as she surveys my face, spending extra time observing my canines. She touches my cheek, my upper lip, exploring. “I want you.”
I bend to her ear, brushing the words, “You have me,” inside it. She trembles at the seductive tone.
I won’t bite her. Not tonight. Not until she understands, I murmur to my wolf.
Gathering Jinx in my arms, I lean back and haul her with me. I sit on my knees as she straddles me, her body fitting perfectly with mine. Long black hair falls like a curtain around our faces. There are pieces of leaves inside the strands, and she begins to move, rocking against me, pumping against me, writhing slowly against me. I groan.
“I want you,” she whispers again, said like a prayer. “I want you.”
I settle my face between her breasts and press kisses up her sternum. My canines scrape against the swell of her breasts. My breathing is ragged, harsh, and her skin covers in goosebumps. She tips her head back, allowing me more access. The breeze licks up my spine, furthering my arousal, and I do as her silent command wishes. My tongue curls around a nipple, teasing, stroking. I grab her hips, slam her against me, and start to rock her back and forth.
“Jacob,” she whispers in nothing but a breath.
I look up at her, the glow of my eyes shining across damp skin. She waits, lips parted. For what, I don’t know. To sort her thoughts? To form words past the pleasure?
“I love you.”
They’re the words I wasn’t expecting, and they slam into my chest, struck by a hammer. They’re the words I didn’t know I was longing to hear, but it settles somewhere inside my soul – the place waiting to be occupied by all things Jinx. It clogs my throat and forces a beat to skip in my heart. It makes it hard to form words, to settle with one emotion when whatever this emotion is, is so overwhelming and powerful. A spell all on its own.
I blink, understanding. Is that what this is? An emotion with the power to stitch together all the broken pieces of myself?
“I love you, too,” I say back. Because I mean it. Because I feel it. In every bone. In every muscle. In every organ. I love her. And nothing else matters.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jinx Whitethorn
The next morning, I wake before the sun and tiredly focus on the company in my bed – Jacob’s bed. Flashes of our sex occupy each sleepy blink, and I snuggle into the mattress and sheets to chase away the echoing sensations of our coupling.
Jacob’s face is so peaceful when he’s sleeping. It’s like the weight of the world floats away when he breathes so deeply, giving him the reprieve he deserves. I’m used to charging into the guest room to wake him from a thrashing nightmare, his features scrunched in rage. Surprisingly, this is the first night he hasn’t had to endure one. Does he always look peaceful – young – when he sleeps normally? Or is he sleeping so deeply because of what we declared to each other last night?
I pick at a wrinkle in the sheets, anxiety seeping into my skin. I’ve never said those words before. Not to anyone but my mother and Sara, and never with this kind of intention behind them. I love you has so many meanings. So many ways to be said and felt. And yet, the three little words still lack. They can never truly convey what is felt.
The image of his wolf’s canines flashes into my mind. I knew what their appe
arance meant. I’ve been told about them and what they mean when a shifter finds their mate. He fought the mating bite the entire time. He was giving me a choice, and the choice solidified all the feelings I’ve been ignoring. But even when we both declared our love for one another, he still didn’t bite me.
I’ve heard the rumors even as a misfit in a coven of witches. Once he bites, the claiming is there forever. He will be forever mine. Somehow, it doesn’t scare me. It doesn’t frighten me as it should. I want him to be mine forever.
But maybe he doesn’t.
It hurts, just a bit, that he didn’t begin the claiming. I wouldn’t have said those three little words if I didn’t mean them. And afterward, I hadn’t asked him about it. I didn’t bring it up as we lay there naked, watching the stars twinkle and not uttering a word, because what if, just maybe, he didn’t mean them? What if, just maybe, he doesn’t want me forever?
Pinching the wrinkle, I bite the inside of my cheek. I hope he didn’t refrain from doing so because I’m not a shifter. Sure, the laws of creatures had changed after the war, but maybe he doesn’t want to mate with a skinwalker. He’s the traditional type. A mating bond between a shifter and a skinwalker wouldn’t be normal. Nothing about that relationship would be normal. People would frown on it. Creatures would call it an abomination.
Could a skinwalker and a shifter ever have a baby? Could a mating bond ever be complete?
Maybe that’s why he didn’t bite me. He wants me, but maybe he can’t truly ever have me. Maybe I’m not enough.
I swallow thickly at this revelation, feel it chase away the warmth of the room. Dread tingles from finger to finger and toe to toe. Wanting to run from this unfamiliar and unpleasant sensation, I carefully sneak from the bed and tiptoe my way to the bathroom. I dress quickly but quietly, keeping an eye on Jacob’s sleeping back. The sheet is draped around his hips, and his side of the comforter is down at his ankles.