by Alexis Davie
“And I’m not interested in hearing what you have to say about Cora.”
“Cora,” began the stranger, making a small pause between each word he said. “Is. Taken.”
“Not as far as I’m concerned,” Grayson replied.
For a second, the other man looked like he was about to lunge at Grayson or throw a punch at him, but before Grayson could even try to defend himself from an oncoming attack, the bartender had come out from behind the counter and stepped between them, pushing them away from each other.
“All right, fellas,” he said, one of his hands on Grayson’s chest and the other one on the stranger’s chest. “If you’re gonna fight, you better take it outside, or I’m gonna have to kick you out.”
“No need,” Grayson said, taking a step back from both the bartender and the other man. “I was just leaving.” There was nothing he wanted more than to kick this jerk’s ass, but he knew it wasn’t worth it. He had come here to get information, and he had gotten even more than he had originally expected. He wasn’t going to throw it all away for some idiot who thought Cora belonged to him.
Against Grayson’s expectations, the bastard didn’t follow him as he began to walk away. Instead, he went back to his barstool, sat down again, and finished the drink he’d been holding when Grayson had first seen him.
Good riddance, he thought.
Grayson walked out of Rain and Drizzle and shook his head to clear his thoughts. What mattered was that he knew Cora would come back to the bar tomorrow. He knew where to find her.
Wait for me, Cora, he pleaded, hoping that it would somehow reach her, that she would somehow be able to hear him. Please, wait for me.
5
Grayson couldn’t stop looking at his phone’s clock, feeling like time kept slowing down every time he glanced at it. According to the bartender, Cora had told her friend she would go back to the bar tonight, but she apparently hadn’t specified the time she would be there. Grayson could only assume it would be around the same time as last week, which was in less than an hour, and he could barely keep himself from running out the door and just sprinting on all fours towards the bar.
If you’re so desperate, Sam had texted him after Grayson had told him what he was planning to do, I don’t get why you can’t just go and wait for her there.
I want it to be the same as last time, Grayson had replied. I want to arrive at the same time I did that night because she was already there.
Besides, perhaps Cora had thought the same thing, and she would be waiting inside the bar for him.
Wow, Gray. I didn’t know you were a romantic. -S
It wasn’t that he was a romantic. At least, he didn’t consider himself one. He simply didn’t want to take any risks that might ruin the last chance he had to make things right—the last chance he had to have a future with Cora, the last chance he had to find her and convince her to stay before she probably disappeared off into the vastness of the world. Someplace where Grayson would never see her again. He was already terrified that this wouldn’t work, that the bartender had heard someone else instead of Cora, but he was trying not to think about that.
This is it, Grayson kept reminding himself. This MUST be it.
He read the clock display on his phone once again and exhaled the breath he didn’t realize he had been holding.
It was time for him to go find his mate.
* * *
When Grayson arrived at Rain and Drizzle, there was someone waiting for him outside the bar, but it wasn’t the person he had expected to find.
“I thought I told you that Cora is taken,” said the asshole he had encountered yesterday, his arms crossed over his chest as he stood in front of the bar’s entrance, blocking the way.
Grayson groaned to himself. What the hell was this guy’s problem? He had no patience to deal with this right now, even less if Cora was already inside and this stranger was keeping him from reaching her.
“And I thought I made it clear that I wasn’t interested in anything you had to say about her,” Grayson replied, glaring at the man. “Now, if you’ll excuse—”
Before Grayson had even finished his sentence, the stranger was already lunging at him, his teeth bared in a snarl and his eyes glowing yellow. Grayson barely had time to roll out of the way as a creature almost three times his size landed on the pavement only a few steps away from him.
It wasn’t just any creature—it was a giant wolf, its entire body covered in matted black fur, its claws sharp and long enough to rip Grayson to shreds if he let them gets near him.
The wolf turned its massive head to him, drool spilling down its maw, as it snarled and slowly moved towards him.
“Wonderful,” Grayson growled under his breath. “A freaking shifter. Just bloody perfect…”
On the one hand, he wasn’t thrilled in the slightest about having to delay his meeting with Cora. On the other hand, he had wanted to beat this asshole to a pulp from the very first time they had interacted, and he was finally going to be able to do so.
Grayson allowed his instincts to overtake him. He felt his teeth become fangs and his nails elongate into claws and his body being covered in dark grey fur. In an instant, he had transformed entirely, standing on all fours in front of the other wolf.
His opponent immediately pounced on him, but Grayson was ready; he lunged at his attacker, his fangs sinking into the side of the other wolf’s chest. The animal yelped in pain, and with a strength Grayson hadn’t expected him to have, he bit into the scruff of Grayson’s neck and slammed him down against the pavement.
Grayson didn’t even have time to retaliate. As soon as he landed on the ground, the stranger was on top of him, holding him in place with a massive paw on his throat. Grayson tried to push him away, and although he was able to scratch his face and his muzzle and even his chest, the other wolf didn’t let him go. Instead, he sank his fangs just underneath Grayson’s ear, making him howl in pain.
Although Grayson was one of the strongest werewolves in his pack, the stranger was bigger, and unfortunately, stronger than him. No matter what Grayson did to him—no matter how much his claws scratched him, no matter how much he fought against him—his attacker seemed unaffected, completely unmovable.
Grayson had more and more trouble breathing as the seconds slipped by. He couldn’t do anything to shove the other wolf off his neck, or to push his paw off his throat. If he didn’t do something, if he didn’t act quickly, there would be no way for him to get out of this fight alive.
Amidst the pain coursing through his body, Grayson managed to glance at the entrance of Rain and Drizzle, so close and yet so far away from them at the same time.
Cora, he thought, invoking as many memories of her as he could to the front of his mind. He thought of the moment he had first seen her, sitting on a barstool with a drink on her hand, an intimidating but tempting air surrounding her. He thought of the way she had looked at him, as though she had been beckoning him to come closer to her. He thought of the idle chatter they had exchanged and the way they had danced, and he thought of the glorious night they had spent together, the way their bodies had moved in sync as they simultaneously reached their peak.
His vision became blurry, the image of the giant wolf on top of him distorting with his lack of air. He could’ve sworn he heard a distant howl, but he wasn’t sure it wasn’t a figment of his imagination.
His breath came out in whines.
Cora, he called out to her, hoping she would somehow hear him in his last moments. I’m sorry.
His body went numb.
Just as Grayson felt like he would exhale his last breath, the wolf seemed to move aside, removing his paw from Grayson’s throat. Grayson panted for air, shaking his head to clear his vision and attempting to stand up on his trembling legs.
It was until he had regained his vision that he realized the wolf hadn’t moved—he had been forcefully pushed off Grayson.
By another, smaller wolf. A smaller brown wolf whose
fangs were currently attached to the scruff of the stranger’s neck, riding on his back as if it were a cub, using its size to its advantage. It was too small for the black wolf to reach it, despite his best efforts.
The scent of pinewood instantly wafted into Grayson’s nostrils, hitting him like a slap to the face.
Cora, he thought. It didn’t seem possible, it couldn’t be possible, and yet as soon as the word had formed in his mind, the brown wolf glanced in his direction for only a second.
That second was more than Grayson needed: he would’ve recognized those deep, dark eyes anywhere.
The black wolf tumbled down to the ground and then rolled on its back to get Cora off him, and once she had let go of him, his muzzle wrapped almost completely around her throat, and he threw Cora away like she was nothing but a ragdoll. The brown wolf slammed down onto the pavement with a whine that made Grayson’s blood thrum and burn in his veins.
This bastard was not going to get away with hurting his mate.
With renewed strength, Grayson lunged at the black wolf, taking him by surprise. He was weakened by the wound Cora had caused him, not to mention his earlier struggle against Grayson, and Grayson took advantage of his opponent’s state. He slammed his body against the black wolf’s, and the force of the impact threw the animal off-balance, causing him to collapse onto the pavement. Before he could even try to get up, Grayson slashed at his wounds and tore his fangs into the black wolf’s throat, ripping off shreds of fur and flesh until the creature lay completely still underneath him.
Grayson shifted back into his human form at the same time as the black wolf shifted into the man he had almost gotten into a fight with yesterday, his throat torn open, his clothes tattered and ripped, and his body covered in bloody scratches.
Grayson turned to where the bastard had thrown Cora, and his joy at seeing her standing on her own legs was immediately replaced by both anger and worry at the sight of the blood on her neck. He rushed to her and cupped her face in his hands, tilting her head up so that he could take a closer look at her wounds.
“Hold on,” he said, though it came out as a mumble. He ripped an already torn piece of fabric from his shirt and tied it around Cora’s neck like a scarf. A sigh of relief escaped his mouth when the fabric remained its original color, rather than getting stained with blood.
“It wasn’t a deep wound,” Cora said, her voice raspy from the attack. “I think it’s more his blood than mine. I’ll heal just fine.” She took his hands into hers and glanced down at them, rubbing her thumb over his knuckles. “Sorry I took so long to get here.”
Grayson pulled her into his arms before he could even think about it. He felt Cora let out a giggle, her warm breath ghosting over the crook of his neck as he pressed her closer against him, inhaling the scent of pinewood he had been trying so hard not to forget.
“I’m glad you did,” he whispered against the top of her head.
“But if I’d gotten here earlier, you wouldn’t have gotten so hurt. I could’ve helped you more. I could’ve—”
“Cora,” Grayson interrupted her. He had been so worried about her that he didn’t feel any of the pain the black wolf had caused him, though he supposed his entire body would remind him of it tomorrow. For now, he simply tightened his arms around her. “You saved my life.”
Cora sighed contently, resting her chin on his shoulder. “Well, that’s what mates do,” she said. “They take care of each other.”
“Yeah,” he chuckled. “That’s what mates do.”
6
“So,” Grayson began as Cora softly cleaned the wound on his neck, the two of them sitting on the edge of his bed while she did so. It had mostly healed on their way back to his apartment, but she insisted on making sure that it wouldn’t cause him any trouble further down the line. He had already cleaned the wound on Cora’s throat, not wanting it to get infected because of the dirty piece of fabric he had used to cover it. “Who was he?”
Grayson had called Sam before they had left, explaining what had happened and that he and Cora had killed the black wolf in self-defense. Sam hadn’t been too thrilled about having to deal with such a mess, but thankfully, Grayson’s pack wasn’t lacking in numbers.
“I’ll get some of the boys to come down here,” Sam had mentioned. “We’ll move the body out of plain sight from the bar’s entrance and clean this up. You two go get some rest. And for God’s sake, Gray, take care of those wounds, you hear me?”
Grayson had never been more grateful to have Sam as his pack’s alpha than he was in that moment.
Cora took a deep breath and slowly exhaled it through her nose. Her dark red dress—the same one she had worn a week ago, when she and Grayson had first met—was torn at the edges, and although her eyes were half-closed with exhaustion and her curly brown hair was disheveled and full of knots, Grayson thought she was even more beautiful than he remembered.
“A guy I met a long time ago,” Cora said, wiping the small scratches on Grayson’s collarbone with a cotton ball soaked in alcohol. “I always told him I wasn’t looking for a relationship, that I didn’t want one, but he never listened. After I rejected him multiple times, he started stalking me, following me every time I moved to another city.” She threw away the dirty cotton ball gently pressed her fingers to Grayson’s collarbone, checking to see if there were any other wounds to clean.
Grayson relished her touch, her soft fingertips barely brushing his skin. It reminded him of how much he had wanted to touch her that first night.
“Is he the reason why you were never in one place for too long?” he asked her. He knew from the moment he had met the bastard that he wasn’t good news and that he seemed to think Cora was a possession of his, but if he had known she had been hopping from town to town because of him… It was probably better that he hadn’t known.
Cora shrugged her shoulders. “I already liked traveling around,” she answered. “But he forced me to move quicker, you know? If I was used to staying in a city for a few days, now I could only stay one or two before I moved on to the next one. I couldn’t risk him finding me. I knew I was no match for him on my own.”
“And he tracked you here,” Grayson said. Just like I did, by following your scent.
Cora’s nod was confirmation enough.
He took her hands into his and kissed them, intertwining their fingers together. “I’m so sorry he made you live in fear for so long,” he said, wishing he could go back in time to when Cora had first met the guy so that he could’ve helped her deal with him back then, instead of forcing her to continuously look over her shoulder, to keep traveling from one place to the next without really enjoying the journey. That was no way to live, and Grayson wished he could somehow give those years back to Cora. He wanted to give her back the time she had spent being afraid of being found by a bastard who didn’t understand rejection.
Cora shook her head and offered him a smile that sent shivers down his spine and made every single one of his nerves stand on edge.
“It’s not worth dwelling over anymore,” she murmured, leaning forward to press their foreheads together. “Not when it helped me find my mate.”
The sheer joy in her expression and the love in her words had Grayson grinning when he leaned in to kiss her. It wasn’t like the hot, desperate kisses they had exchanged a week ago, when all they had cared about was having a night of heat and passion with each other. This time, it was a soft, sweet kiss that held the promise of protecting each other, of always being there and looking out for the other. It was the promise of a lifetime of caring for and loving one another, of discovering themselves and each other without any fear of what might happen.
Cora wrapped her arms around Grayson’s neck and leaned back against his bed, pulling him down with her. Grayson rested the palms of his hands flat on the mattress, on either side of her head, and he began to mark a trail of kisses from Cora’s mouth down to her jaw, mouthing her name against the skin of her throat, wanting to clear all t
race of the black wolf’s presence from her body.
Cora threw her head back against the bed with a sigh of pleasure when Grayson pulled down the straps of her torn dress to nuzzle her collarbone with his nose before he moved to kiss both of her breasts, giving her erect nipples a teasing lick of his tongue.
“Grayson,” Cora moaned as Grayson’s mouth traveled lower still, pulling the dress down as he went. Once it had reached her knees, Cora kicked it the rest of the way off, and Grayson wasted no time in removing her underwear.
He wanted to please her just as he had done the first time, and so he immediately dove his tongue into her warm and flushed core, which opened underneath him as he lapped at her center, addicted to the taste of her juices. Cora bucked her hips up into his mouth when he wrapped his lips around her nub of nerves and gently sucked on it, his hands roaming up her body and caressing her sides while she threaded her fingers through his hair.
Grayson wanted to give Cora as much pleasure as he possibly could. He replaced his mouth with one of his fingers, using it to continue caressing her sweet spot so that he could lap at her core again, his tongue delving deeper inside her as she let out high-pitched whines and tiny gasps of Grayson’s name, her hips still bucking up into his tongue.
Cora suddenly sat up on the bed, her hands desperately reaching out to pull Grayson up as well. She dragged him closer to her so that she could undo his pants and free his member, wrapping her palm around it and stroking it.
“Please,” she begged. “Grayson, please…”
Instead of laying Cora down again, Grayson sat cross-legged on his bed and pulled Cora into his lap. His arms tight and secure around her, he guided his member to her entrance and slid easy and fluidly into her. Cora gasped in pleasure and leaned on her knees to rise slightly above Grayson’s lap before she lowered herself onto him again, and each of her movements drove Grayson’s hardness deeper inside of her, making him hit the spot that sent shivers throughout her entire body.
