by T. S. Joyce
“You done good,” he said before he pulled the barn door open and disappeared into the snowy night.
I wrung my hands together. Everyone was gone and Luke would expect me to perform my wifely duties. I had other plans though. Plans that housed the potential to make him very angry.
And an angry werewolf was a deadly werewolf.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Kristina
Trembling hands gave away my fear. The dishes clattered against each other like the earth shook under my feet, and Luke slid in behind me and steadied my fingers with his own.
“Hey,” he said quietly. There was a worried little frown in his voice. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“I’m scared you’ll be mad.” Could werewolves hear a lie?
“Talk to me. What’s wrong?”
“I don’t think I’m well enough to bed you tonight.” Did my voice drip enough with self-deprecation?
Slowly, his hands spun me until my cheek was against his chest. “Your heart is racing. It sounds like the wings of some tiny bird. If you don’t think you’re healed enough, I don’t want to push it. We have our whole lives for that. Waiting another week won’t kill us.” His eyebrows lowered. “Is this about the wolf? I won’t be like that when we’re together. I won’t even talk about that part of me. We’ll keep it separate. We’ll pretend I have to go tend the cattle for the night when I have to leave.”
“Can we pretend tonight?” I asked.
“I…I guess I don’t understand.”
“If I can’t bed you, I don’t want to sleep next to you. It’ll be a torture for us both. Jeremiah said you haven’t changed since that first morning you were back so you’re overdue.”
“You want me to leave you on our wedding night?”
“You haven’t seen the rest of my burns,” I pleaded. I’d say anything to get my way. “I want to be alone tonight. That’s what I wish for my wedding gift.”
The abundant hurt that swam in his eyes made me sick to my stomach. I’d caused it, but the pain was necessary.
His look grew faraway as lantern light flickered in the reflection of his gaze. His mouth was set in a grim, unhappy line, one that clashed with his natural features. “If that’s what you really want, I’ll do it.”
“It is.” My voice broke on the words.
The corners of his eyes tightened and he angled his head, like he’d heard something bitter. Without another word, he grabbed his coat and headed for the front.
“Wait.”
He turned slowly.
“I know you like your routine. Please stay in here. I’ll wait outside and open the door for your escape when you’re finished.”
“Kristina, I can’t ask you to stand out in the cold like that. It’ll take me a long time tonight because I wasn’t mentally prepared for a change.”
“Please,” I pleaded. “I’m begging you. It’s the least I can do after my request.”
His sigh tapered into a growl, and his eyes shone from within like the wolf was already plotting his escape. I grabbed my thick cloak and opened the door.
“Kristina,” he said in a gruff voice. “Look up in the loft while I’m gone.” He turned without so much as a smile and headed for the back stall.
Outside, I pressed my back against the new wooden wall and stared into the cloudy night sky. Not a single star shone for a companion tonight. He was angry and probably thinking this the worst wedding night ever. Had I gone too far? What if my plan was about to get me killed? No. I didn’t believe that. Not for one second. He wouldn’t hurt me.
At his first grunt of pain, I slipped back in through the door. My fingers fumbled with the clasp before my cloak fell to the floor. The hearth crackled and threw shadows up ahead. That was where my husband would be.
I trembled less with the laces, and though my heart raced with nervous energy, my dress slid easily to the dusty floor. Only when I was completely unencumbered by clothes did I step into the light of the stone fireplace.
A low growl escaped Luke’s lips as he leaned heavily against a wooden rail of an empty stall. His eyes glowed eerily against the warm illumination of the fire, and the white of his teeth cut through the shadows as he snarled, “You need to leave.”
“I need to see this, Luke. You need me to see this. You need me to accept all of you and this is the only way I can. Here, let me.” I reached for the top button of his shirt and he grabbed my hand in a painful grip so quick, I didn’t catch his movement from one position to the next.
I turned slowly and showed him the burns that marred the right side of my figure. “I’m a monster, too.”
His crystalline blue eyes raked across every inch of my skin with a hungry look that made me reach for him. His grip on my arm loosened and button after button was undone until his shirt hung open. Only a sliver of his tensed chest and abdomen showed but it was enough to draw a shaky breath from me. I’d never seen a man better made. He grunted as a crunching sound came from his hands and with his eyes closed against the pain, I pressed his hand between my legs.
His voice was agonized. “I’ll hurt you. If I bite you, you’ll die. Don’t you understand that?”
On the tips of my toes, I reached up and brushed his healing neck with my lips. “I trust you,” I whispered.
I couldn’t tell if his groan was from pleasure or pain but he gripped the railing behind me until it splintered and trapped my body with his. I pushed his shirt back to expose more skin and nibbled gently on the tip of his collarbone. “Do you trust me?”
His face was downcast, and his silky raven hair brushed the tops of my breasts, but in a movement as fast as it was decisive, his mouth crashed down on mine. Pinned against the railing behind me, I opened for my new husband. I wanted more. I wanted everything he had and still, I’d never be close enough to him.
“Please,” I begged as a growl ripped through him and his head snapped back. “Don’t change until you’re finished with me,” I rasped as he backed me against the rail. “Turn, run, hunt, and then come back to me. Own this pain, Luke Dawson,” I said to the sound of his rasping breath. “The faster you change, the faster you can come back to the warmth of my bed.”
Tugging at his trousers, I unsheathed him. His cock jutted between us, thick and long and hard as stone. I caressed the silken skin of it, and his hips bucked forward like he couldn’t help himself. A single bead of moisture sat the tip of his cock, and I wanted to taste him. The fiery look in his eyes said we didn’t have that kind of time.
He nudged my knees farther apart and pressed the head of his shaft against my wet slit. A low rumble came from his throat as he slid into me and inch. With a look both pain and pleasure, he thrust upward, filling me completely.
Hells bells, he felt so good inside of me.
Jerking his hips, he pulled out of me slowly, then thrust back in even deeper. I moaned and closed my eyes as his fingers dug into my waist. He pulled me so close, it was hard to concentrate on anything but the way his skin felt inside of me. I gasped as he plunged in again and brought a tingling wave of pleasure that just about bowed me over. Clawing at his back, my body filled with pressure I’d never experienced before. His powerful hips pumped against mine with every stroke, and just as I found myself on the verge of an explosion, his cock swelled even bigger within me. His pace was punishing, but still, I wanted more.
“Faster,” I cried out, and he obliged until I screamed his name and the first wave of my release crashed through me, clenching around him until his first shot of heat burst into me.
Two more deep strokes and he swelled again and gave me more of his release. Wet heat trickled down my thighs as he growled out my name and emptied himself completely.
He still looked mostly man in the moments after our blinding release, but in a series of cracks, like the rush of gunfire on some faraway battlefield, Luke changed in a moment without even the time to cry out at the pain he surely felt. I fell to my knees without the strength of his arms to hold me upright.
There was no point in trying to stand, because my legs had as much substance as jelly.
Luke stood in front of me, appearing about as shocked as I’ve ever seen an animal look. I supposed he’d probably remember this change for the rest of his life. Head down, tail motionless, he just stared at me like he couldn’t figure out what form he was in.
This was the first time he’d been still enough for me to really see him, and what I saw filled me with pride so deep, it was hard to breathe. Gray fur, black tips, a white underbelly and those lupine eyes, softening by the moment as he watched me. My wolf was a looker, and no one on earth could convince me it was wrong for me to be attracted to my husband in both forms.
Spent and exhausted, I curled up beside my wolf and ran my hands languidly through his coarse fur. He sat there, watching me for a long time with those inhuman eyes. Maybe I was supposed to be scared with his warning about a werewolf bite, but something deep down in my gut told me that, man or beast, Luke would never hurt me. Nestled in the warmth between the hearth fire that crackled away and Luke against my skin, my eyes soon became a burden to keep open.
A low rumble came from deep within him. I needed to open the barn door. Slowly, I made my way to the bearskin cloak piled onto the wooden floor and wrapped it tightly around my bare shoulders. The door rattled as I slid it open, and fat snowflakes floated lazily in, only to melt as soon as they touched the hay scattered floor. A winter wonderland called to my wolf but he turned once more before he disappeared into the night.
“I love you,” I whispered with a smile.
He bounded toward the tree line in a flurry of fur and snow and as I waited inside the barn, his voice rose in a haunting lullaby. It was for me.
Sleep my wife, it sang on the wind, for when you wake, I’ll be man once again and by your side.
I didn’t bother with my dress other than to lay it across a rail so the mice didn’t shred it for their nests. Instead, I nestled closer into the warmth of my cloak and climbed the stairs to the loft. When I lifted my gaze to the loft before me, I gasped.
The hay had been cleared of half of the space, and a makeshift fence held it back from the bedroom. A simple wooden bed beckoned me from the corner over the fireplace and under the window, and the mattress was covered with thick furs and blankets. A long curtain of thick, red fabric was attached to a rail that ran the length of the loft to give us privacy.
It was perfect.
I set the lantern on the small table beside the bed and closed my eyes. This kind of happiness shouldn’t exist for a girl like me.
We’d struggled along the way, and it had taken both of our near deaths to fully accept our destinies in each other’s lives, but I’d made the right decision when I chose Luke over Jeremiah.
He was my best friend, my husband, my wolf, my protector, my lover.
He was everything.
****
Luke
Kristina looked so damned pretty in the early morning light, I couldn’t look away from her. Dusty rose colored rays of it drifted through the paned window and brushed her cheeks. Her curly hair looked as if it had spun gold weaved through it, and it lay in a soft wave across the pillow. The furs covered her body but still, I could see the outline of her hips.
The vision of her body had stayed with me, even as a wolf. She was flawless, from her creamy skin and hourglass body, to the warrior’s scars she called monstrosities. I hadn’t seen the burns in their entirety until last night, and the wolf inside of me crowed that I’d be the only one who ever would. I’d never found one feature more attractive on a woman than the scars my mate got fighting to save me.
Did she even know what she’d done for me? That change had been an easier transition than I even thought existed in my world. Holding back the wolf to satisfy her needs had heightened my senses, and where the pain had been staggering, the pleasure had been a blinding pinpoint of light that cast the ache away. And then I was wolf. There hadn’t been a drawn out transition. It had been an instantaneous mutation from one form to the next, as if it were actually the magic of legend everyone thought it to be.
Lifting the furs just enough to climb into bed beside her, I took a long draw of the air around her. She smelled of woman, and lavender wash, and both sides of me—the man and the animal. I’d claimed her as my mate and wife, and in turn, she’d accepted me right down to the darkest and grittiest places within my soul.
“Luke?” she said in a sleepy voice as her legs stretched against mine.
I kissed the back of her hair and pulled her tightly against me. “Go back to sleep, wife. I’m home.”
Epilogue
Jeremiah
Dearest Mr. Dawson,
I write to inform you of my interest in an advertisement you placed in a paper some months ago. For reasons I can’t quite sort through right now, I have a mind to consider your offer. You have written of your want for a proper wife, and I assure you my high bred pedigree stretches for generations. As I’ve fallen on misfortune, I don’t have any dowry to offer or material possessions to give if that is what you are looking for, but I’ll be easily companionable and diligent in my wifely duties. I have to admit, as I would feel terrible for pursuing you under false pretense, that I have been a victim of a serious scandal here in Boston recently and won’t bring any prestige to your lineage. However, if you are willing to overlook all of that and still would consider me a candidate for your arrangement, please contact me in Boston.
Yours,
Lorelei McGregor
I had the letter memorized, but I still liked to read over the elegant handwriting. The fire flickered behind the piece of cream linen paper and illuminated the emblem of her initials at the top of the fine stationary. Whatever scandal she was involved in piqued my interest for sure, but I hadn’t received any other responses, so my options were limited. It was Lorelei McGregor or no wife at all. And from the way I’d been tearin’ at those barn walls at night to get to Kristina, I was damned near desperate to try anything to give my wolf his mind back.
I knew Boston because Da and Ma lived within the city limits. They lived by modest means, but even upon visiting them, I’d heard the name McGregor. She’d been telling the truth about her pedigree, but what could make her fall so far that she wanted to seek refuge in the wilderness?
Kristina giggled as she and Luke emerged from the woods behind me. I’d built the fire near the charred remains of our house and the only surviving piece of our cabin was the rocking chair from the front porch. One of the Hell Hunters likely flung it to the side while they were busy trying to murder us. I rocked lazily in it and rubbed my thumb across the smooth paper.
“You’d better write her back before she changes her mind,” Kristina sang over the pop, pop of the burning logs of the fire. “She won’t wait forever you know.”
She was right of course, but I didn’t feel good about bringing a lady out to this kind of danger. We’d just been hunted, almost hanged and burned alive, and I was living in a rough camp in the woods. The timing couldn’t be worse.
Kristina had it only slightly better because she and Luke lived in the barn, but still—she lived in a barn. And she was a different sort of woman. One easily adapted to the changes of the wilderness we called home. A proper city lady wasn’t going to be so patient with our lack of housing.
“I need to change tonight, Jeremiah,” Luke said as they passed by the firelight. “Might want to stay out of the barn for a bit.”
He didn’t sound too torn up about the prospect of a painful turning. Usually he moped about all day if he knew the change was coming, but since he’d married Kristina, he couldn’t seem to change enough.
Luke draped his arm around her shoulders and whispered something in her ear. I couldn’t hear what from this far a distance, but from the way she giggled and pushed him away, I wasn’t going too far out on a limb to guess it was something inappropriate, as per usual. He grabbed her hand and pulled her in close before kissing her soundly. Never once in all
of their touching and whispering did they stop their ascent to the barn.
Yep, whatever the change in Luke, it was Kristina who’d caused it. Good for her. My brother had never accepted his wolf like he needed to. It kept him unhappy, and now he’d found somethin’ worthwhile and reassuring in the woman he’d married.
I shook my head at the mysteries of their relationship and dropped my eyes to the letter again. Was Lorelei the one who’d fix my wolf like Kristina had done for Luke?
I had no right to drag her out here to live in a tent, to marry a monster, and to bear sons who’d grow up to be wolves. But the most selfish parts of me didn’t care about all of that. I needed a woman to hold at night and to soothe the snarling beast inside.
Lorelei McGregor was about to get much, much more than she’d bargained for.
Other Books by T. S. Joyce
Wolf Brides Series
Red Snow Bride (Book 2)
Available Now
Amazon
Dawson Bride (Book 3)
Available Now
Amazon
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Sneak Peek
RED SNOW BRIDE
(Wolf Brides, Book 2)
Read on for a sneak peek of the thrilling sequel to Wolf Bride.
Chapter One
Lorelei
“Are you all right, my love?” I asked Daniel. He’d been quiet all evening which was very uncharacteristic of my usually boisterous spouse.
His blond hair threw threads of golden color under the extravagant crystal chandelier, and his blue eyes were like ice frozen into his pale skin. A fine sheen of sweat dusted his brow, and I frowned as his gaze settled on me without really seeing me. Maybe he was ill or perhaps he was having a vision of his time in the war again. Those came frequently in recent months. Or maybe it was just more of the same, ignoring me because he found me useless in some way or another.