He sat down on the thin, wooden bench inside the cell. He allowed the rim of his Stetson to dip over his eyes as he leaned his weight into the concrete wall behind him. “Her name was Delilah. I met her in a bar.” Wasn’t that how all the best trouble started? With a man’s mistakes and foolishness in the face of a beautiful woman. It was easier to begin than he’d thought it would be. He released the memories—maybe if he spoke the words aloud, their reality would finally sink in.
“I had been packmaster for several years, but the weight of the role was finally beginning to sink into me. I’d had enough of the violence, of the fighting, of that way of life. I’d been born and raised in the Wild Eight, groomed to live, eat, and breathe everything that was that pack, but deep down, I wanted something different, a legacy to call my own that didn’t reek of blood and violence. I was searching for something good, something pure, the freedom I had realized the Wild Eight would never truly taste. I found that in her…”
He paused, his gaze flickering toward Naomi. Considering the passion that had passed between them, he half expected to see a hint of jealousy on her face, but she was too good for it, too beyond the pettiness of woman-versus-woman competitiveness. Instead, there was nothing but understanding. He tore his gaze away and refocused on the floor.
He couldn’t look at her. Not now. Not as he lay bare and naked and raw in front of her as he’d never shown himself to any other.
He continued. “She was mild-mannered, sweet, amiable. I was drawn to her because she was everything I wasn’t, everything I could never be. She was human, and I fell in love with her.”
“There’s nothing wrong with falling in love with a human…” Naomi whispered. Somehow, he knew she wasn’t talking about Delilah. But he couldn’t begin to think about that, not as he faced certain death at the hands of a man who was both his friend and his enemy.
“She betrayed me.” The phrase hung heavy in the space between them.
“Oh, Wes…” Naomi sighed.
He raised a hand. “No. Spare me your pity.” He dropped his hand back to his side with a small shake of his head. “She was a hunter, somehow affiliated with the Execution Underground. By the time I found out, she’d already gained access to some of the most intimate parts of my life and the pack’s innermost secrets. There’s nothing worse to a Wild Eight than betrayal, and they wanted her life for it.” He continued to shake his head.
“But I wouldn’t let them. No matter how much it hurt, she filled a void in me I thought could never be filled. I had killed hundreds of times before, mainly other wolves, the occasional vampire or other supernatural, but never a human, and no matter what she did to me, I couldn’t turn off caring for her. I couldn’t stop myself.” He drew up his knee and rested his hands on the worn knees of his jeans. “The Wild Eight viewed that as a sign of weakness…my father, the former packmaster, in particular. Even in his old age, he thought I was going soft, and there was nothing worse than that in the eyes of Nolan Calhoun.” He shrugged a single shoulder. “Maybe I was. In any case, they decided to take matters into their own hands.
“Nolan and Donnie gave me an address, intel they had gathered on the location of one of our long-time enemies.” He released a long sigh through his nose. “I led a small pack of our men there in the dead of night, Donnie included, with the goal of killing our enemy.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw Naomi lift her hands to her face, covering her mouth as if she dreaded the words that came next. “It was dark in the room when I entered. All I could see was a still body lying asleep in the bedroom inside the cabin. My only thought was of destroying our enemy.”
He paused, the memory nearly choking him into silence.
“I knew something was wrong before I even thought to shift. The room was too still, the wolves—my packmates—too anxious. I knew something was wrong. She… Her body… It was already cold. Donnie and Nolan had killed her. But they wanted me to see what they’d done and to know she was dead because of me.”
Naomi gasped. It was a sound as full of every bit of shock and horror as it should have been, enough to scare her away from him for a lifetime. Maybe then she wouldn’t mourn his death, wouldn’t wonder what could have been.
“I didn’t kill her, though I may as well have. Her blood is on my hands. I was their packmaster. When I realized what they’d done, how they had tricked me, I still didn’t stop the violence. I killed my father to take my vengeance. I should have killed Donnie too, but the other pack members whisked him away into hiding. I couldn’t have continued as packmaster after that betrayal, even if I’d wanted to.”
He removed his Stetson, lowering it into his lap. “I betrayed them in the same way they betrayed me, and you’re right, when I handed myself over to Maverick, I expected… Hell no, I welcomed death. His greatest act of kindness, and the worst punishment he ever could have given me, was allowing me to live.”
As he finished relaying the memory, Wes set his Stetson on the bench beside him. He leaned forward, perching the weight of his upper body on his knees as he hung his head in shame.
“I don’t deserve an ounce of pity. I killed the woman I loved in cold blood as surely as if I’d done it with my own two hands.”
The silence that hung between them was deafening. They lingered that way for a long time, Wes both hoping and dreading her response.
When it finally came, she whispered it so softly that the sound brushed against him as gently as a caress. “I forgive you.”
His breath caught, his chest constricting so tight that breathing seemed impossible. “What did you say?” He exhaled. He lifted his gaze toward her and regretted it instantly.
Naomi stood across the cell, inside the cage with him, a hand wrapped around one of the silver bars as she clutched it against her, as if she relied on the metal instead of her legs for support. Her dark locks fell over her shoulders in windblown waves, cascading down the length of her arms and contrasting against the light-golden suede of her jacket.
“You weren’t the one to kill her, Wes, and I know I’m not her,” she said. “I know I’ll never be her. Lord knows you’ve tried to push me away from the start for that exact reason. But I’m grateful that I’m not her. You know why? Because I would never betray you or hurt your trust the way she did. She didn’t deserve what the Wild Eight did, but you weren’t the monster she thought you to be as she tricked and hunted you, not until they made you that way.”
He wanted to tell her that wasn’t the truth, that he had always been that monster, that he had been born into that destiny no matter how he had tried to escape it, but he was too consumed by her whispered promises to stop her.
“I’m not her,” she whispered again. “But I’m just as human…” Her grip on the bar tightened. “And I forgive you, Wes Calhoun.”
Her words broke him into a million pieces as if he hadn’t been born and forged from steel, hadn’t lived a life that had hardened him so completely that he had only his enemies to call friends, nothing but hurt and betrayal and blood and death to his name.
Nothing but hurt.
And her…
She shattered him completely, and with that shattering, he lost any sense of resolve he possessed. There, in the cage he deserved to be in, he found freedom in the forgiveness in her dark eyes.
And he lost himself in it.
He was on her before he’d even made the decision to move. He gripped her by the base of her neck, pulling her into his arms. His lips crashed into hers, wanting, needing to draw the sweet words she’d whispered to him inside him, where he could capture the way they made him feel and never let her go. He ran his tongue along the seam of her lips, and she opened her mouth to him. His tongue dipped inside, swirling against hers.
She undid him completely, even as she pulled him back together again. He wouldn’t have blamed her if she pushed him away. With all he had revealed, with all the darkness
and destruction that lay in his wake, her disgust would have been more than warranted. But she didn’t. Instead, she melted into his arms, into his kiss, trusting him not to hurt her. As if he deserved her forgiveness, her trust, her love.
As if he deserved her.
His whole life he’d searched, fought, and wrought violence in want of true freedom, the feeling that he was fully alive, but never once had he come near tasting it. He’d been too consumed by the past ever to come close. But if just for the moment, he allowed himself to believe he deserved her, to lose himself in a kiss that seemed to consume them both, as if a force greater than themselves had pushed them together. Their kiss was electric fire, pure spark and heat and raw trust. In that dark, damp cellar, in a silver-barred cage under lock and key, he found freedom in the feel of her soft curves beneath him. And for once in his life, Wes felt alive.
Chapter 16
Wes had kissed her before, but not like this. Every kiss before had been pure heat. This time, as his lips claimed hers, there was something deeper. A desperation she’d never felt before flooded their kiss, as if he not only wanted her, he needed her. Naomi poured herself into him, her body bending and molding to his as if somehow, her touch could make him whole, as if she had a choice in the matter. Somehow, she knew they’d been careening toward this from the moment their lips had touched that first night in the forest. His kiss stole her breath away. She couldn’t have stopped the fire between them even if she wanted to. Not even at the start.
With a gentle trail of fingers, his hand brushed through her hair all the way down to her lower back, leaving a delicious shiver down her spine. He palmed her ass, hard and forceful in a way that made her weak in the knees. Lifting her into his arms, he laid her out on the cellar floor beneath him.
“Wes,” she murmured against his lips.
He took that moment to nibble on her lower lip, tugging the soft flesh between the sharp ridges of his canines until she gasped in pleasure.
His hands tugged at her blouse, slipping the material down over her shoulders and stomach. The front clasp of her bra didn’t stand a chance against his powerful hands. Within seconds, the cold, damp cellar air hit her nipples, tightening the dark-brown flesh.
He captured one of her breasts with his mouth, his hand claiming the other. A throaty moan tore from her lips. His tongue swirled over the taut peak, suckling one breast as his fingers gently tugged and kneaded the other.
“Wes,” she whispered. “Wes?”
He released her breast only long enough to mutter, “Yes?” Then his mouth was on her again, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin.
“The guards could come back,” she panted.
His gaze swept over her, burning a trail of heat. His wolf eyes flashed. “Let them.”
The words sent a shot of excitement through her.
He dipped his head to her breast again. His teeth tugged on her nipple while he slipped open the fly of her jeans. She arched into his bite, another gasp tearing from her lips. It was an intoxicating mixture of pleasure and a hint of pain.
As he released her, he stripped her of her pants and the remnants of her blouse. She lay bare before him.
Hands on her thighs, he spread her wide before him. She braced herself for the heat of his mouth.
His lips drew lower, peppering kisses over her stomach and blazing a trail of heat downward. Slowly, he ran a finger up and down her cleft, the rough callus of his thumb nearing but never touching the sweet bead between her legs in a torturous, intimate dance.
“Fuck, you’re so wet,” he whispered. “I can already taste you on my tongue.” He nudged her legs further open with his face. The stubble of his beard bristled across her sensitive skin. And then his mouth was on her, his tongue circling her clit in a sweet, steady rhythm. She opened to him, easing back onto the silver bars behind her for support. Already she could feel the thrum of pleasure building. She buried her hands in his hair as her pleasure heightened with each stroke.
He licked her, sucked her, tormented her, the pressure inside her growing until she’d nearly reached her breaking point. Just when she thought she could bear no more, he pulled back. His tongue broke its rhythm, parting her folds as he released her. The wetness of her pussy drenched the coarse hair of his beard.
He ran his tongue through it, tasting what remained of her on his chin. “You’ll come for me, Naomi.” That delicious smirk curled over his lips, still wet from the slickness of her. “But not yet.”
As he lifted his head from between her legs, his eyes bore into her, never leaving hers. He gripped his shirt hem and stripped the shirt from his back, then turned to unbuckling his pants. The jeans hung loose on his narrow hips, and they were off within seconds. He wore no underwear, and his erection sprang forth, rock hard and virile. In the flickering yellow light of the cellar lanterns, she admired the curve of his chest, his abs, the muscles of his hips that led to his long, hard cock. A glistening bead of moisture clung to the tip of the head.
Her breath stopped short. He was beautiful. Rough, terrifying, scarred, wild, and gorgeous, like a coiled viper right before it struck to kill. The length of him rubbed between her legs as he positioned himself outside her center. Then he sheathed himself inside her.
“Wes!” she cried out.
His lips found hers, silencing her cries of pleasure.
The length of him filled her, stretching and surprising her with a sweet, burning ache. She took every inch he gave. Slowly, he allowed her to adjust to his width, and then he was moving, first a gentle rocking that warmed her from the inside out, building steadily until he thrust into her.
His strength was unparalleled. She gripped the silver bars behind her, bracing herself against the intensity until she lost herself in him.
* * *
Naomi couldn’t sit idly and allow him to die. Not now. Not ever.
She lay awake in Wes’s arms, her thoughts churning. The sounds of his sleep-laden breathing tickled her ear as her head rested in the crook of his shoulder. Rolling onto her side, she snuggled against his muscular chest, tracing her fingers idly over the bare skin. He let out a wolfish grumble before he settled into sleep again beneath her touch. Her forefinger traced the outline of one puckered, silvery scar. She’d never found scars attractive before, but somehow, he made them that way. No boyish face could compare to Wes’s brand of rugged masculinity. Somehow, his scars, his battle wounds, only made him more complex, his beauty dark and hard to come by.
It was like the difference between a bottle of cabernet from the local grocery store and drinking a glass on the hills of Florence while overlooking the vineyard, where the smell and taste of the earth the grapes were grown in danced across the palate. The latter experience was something rare and truly exquisite. Wes was just as rare.
Naomi’s thoughts returned to the issue at hand. Several months earlier, she’d lost her father, one of the greatest loves of her life. She wasn’t about to go through such grief again, when she’d finally found someone who helped make her feel whole. But locked in a cell, there was little she could do about it.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement in the shadows of the hall that led to the end of the cellblock. Careful not to disturb Wes, she pushed herself into a sitting position and focused on the darkness. Again, she sensed movement.
“Hey. Hey, you,” she whispered, hoping she wasn’t talking to a figment of her imagination. Wasn’t running around with werewolves and slaying vampires enough crazy for one human?
Hope sparked as a young guard shifted into the light.
“Hey. Hi,” she said. “Come over here.” She beckoned him out of the darkness.
He emerged from the shadows and stepped closer.
“How long have you been there?” she asked, though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.
The guard shrugged. “Long enough.”
Heat flamed across her cheeks.
“I didn’t see anything. I took my lunch break outside the cellar doors. I promise.”
The thought seemed to embarrass him as much as it did her.
She nodded. “That was kind of you.” She glanced over her shoulder toward Wes. “You realize I care about him then?”
The guard nodded in return. “I gathered that much.”
“Then you have to help me.”
He was shaking his head as soon as the words had escaped her lips. “I can’t do that. I—”
“I’m not asking you to let him out,” she interrupted. “I’m asking you to let me out.”
From the look on his face, he didn’t seem to understand the distinction.
“Maverick threw me in here to blow off some steam…nothing more. He didn’t want to hear what I had to say, but it’s important. The safety of the Grey Wolves depends upon it.”
The guard eyed her with skepticism. The quirk of his brow said he didn’t believe her for a second.
“I’ve sworn fealty to the Grey Wolf Pack,” she continued. “I have no qualms with Maverick.” Other than his decision surrounding Wes, though she wasn’t about to say as much. “But this is time-sensitive. If Maverick doesn’t hear this soon, it could be too late.”
Still, the guard hesitated.
“Please,” she pleaded. “You can cuff me and everything. Just let me see Maverick.”
Eyeing her suspiciously, the guard looked her up and down, as if sizing up her strength. He must have decided she wasn’t worth the fight, because he drew his keys from his pocket. “Fine,” he said. “But if I find out you’re lying, I throw you in a separate cell without him,” he warned.
“Done.”
The keys jingled in a merry chorus as he unlocked the padlock. The door to the cell swung open and she stepped out, glancing behind her as she did so. Wes didn’t so much as stir. The door to the cell clicked shut behind her, and she extended her wrists toward the guard.
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