by J. K Harper
Unconsciousness finally reached out to claim him, his mate's frantic voice calling out his name as he passed out at her feet.
11
Jordyn turned her face to the crisp morning sunshine and let a relaxed, genuine smile break over her face. Today was her Monday, even though it was really Thursday, but she didn't care that she was heading to work and a 24-hour shift, the first of three she had scheduled in a one week period. She'd taken nearly a week off while Tanner had recuperated from his brush with death in the burning building. Now it was time for her to catch up on her shifts, but she didn't care. Tanner was alive. The thought made her giddy and light as she strode down the sidewalk toward Station 89.
Tanner had been out of the hospital for several days now. Both human doctors and the pack healer had declared him fit again. The chief was going to be fine, too. So fine, in fact, that he'd told Tanner a stunning thing after his own recovery: He wanted Tanner to stay. To stay on at Station 89, as a valued member of the crew.
“He admitted that he pushes me because he sees how I'm really a good part of this group,” Tanner had told her, his voice crinkled from surprise. A day after he'd been released from the hospital, they'd gone for a walk through the streets of downtown Durango, slowly strolling and window shopping. The autumn air snapped around them, bright and cool, the light making everything seem sharply in focus. The leaves on the aspen trees planted alongside the streets rustled overhead, sunlight glinting through their changing yellow color. He'd talked as they walked. “He said he used to be just like me.”
“A little too tough and strong for his own good?” Jordyn had let a smile tug at her lips as she said that.
He'd snorted a light laugh. “Something like that. Said he used to be a lone scrapper himself, but when he finally realized being part of a team didn't make him weaker, it made him stronger, it changed his whole life. He also said I have his blessing to go to Seattle and try to find my place there. But then he told me,” and now Tanner's voice filled with even more surprise, “he thought maybe I already had my place here. I just couldn't see it quite yet.”
“Hmm,” had been all she'd said in response.
Then he'd looked at her, his expression one she couldn't quite figure out. “But I think I do see it. I think, babe,” his voice softened and he squeezed her hand, “I see a lot of things now.”
He stopped talking about Seattle after that, though he didn't say anything specifically about staying here. Her wolf twirled in hopeful ecstasy in her mind. Mate. Love mate. But Jordyn remained cautious. She was pretty sure he was just processing what it had been like to save the chief's life so directly. And to almost get killed himself in a fiery building, just as his pack had been so long ago.
Jordyn smiled at the guys in the firehouse as she strolled through the open bay doors. “Hey,” she called out, waving with one arm, the other loaded down with the jacket she'd just taken off.
They smiled brightly at her, all teeth and huge grins, waving back with a weird animation.
She and her wolf stared back, puzzled at their oddness, as she walked across the big room toward the little office she and Zach shared. Well, that was weird. She shrugged it off. Nothing could phase her much right now. Tanner was alive. That was all that mattered to her now.
But feeling eyes still staring at her, she stopped suddenly and quickly turned. Two of the guys covered up grins, but they were definitely staring. As was Sean, who wasn't in their office at all. He was lounging against one of the fire trucks, watching her with an openly huge smile.
“What?” she demanded, exasperated. Twisting her head around to try to look at her own rear, she added, “Do I have something stuck on my pants? Why are you guys all being so weird?”
“Because,” Tanner's rich rumble of a baritone sounded behind her, “they know what's about to happen.”
She whirled, mouth open to demand what was going on.
She stayed that way, jaw inelegantly dropped, as Tanner walked over to her with something held tightly in his hand. Then stopped about three feet away from her and dropped to one knee.
“Holy,” she started to say before her voice strangled in her own throat.
Tanner's strong jaw and dark eyes were as gorgeous as ever. But what really caught her, what really shocked her even as it made her chest heave with a barely restrained thump of joy, was the sheen in his eyes. More than the hint of his wolf in them, the sheen was—something suspiciously emotional.
“Jordyn.” His voice, though quiet, seemed loud in the dead silent firehouse. “I was going to say this before the fire. But this is even better, because I can say it now in front of all the guys. Say it with witnesses. Say it publicly with pride, babe.”
His eyes stayed on hers, strong yet soft, vulnerable and hoping, certain. She felt prickling behind her own eyes, felt almost dizzy from the excited whirling of her wolf in her mind.
“That fire proved to me that I am a member of this crew.” He waved his free hand generally around the room. “I have their backs, and they have mine.”
“Bout time you realized that, you thick-headed dumbass,” Zach's voice muttered out to be greeted by a round of agreeing chuckles. The guys all quickly got quiet again though.
“Yeah,” Tanner said softly, drinking in Jordyn with his eyes as if she was the most amazing being on the planet. “Took me a while to really accept a few things. Like the fact that my past had some terrible stuff in it, and I ran like hell from it all my life.”
Jordyn's throat felt thick. Tanner wavered before her watery gaze.
“What I never should have done, though,” he went on in a quiet yet sure voice, “was to run from you, too. To leave you. You're not responsible for me or my happiness, no.” A corner of his mouth tipped up. “But I sure as hell will be the happiest guy on earth if you accept my request that you spend the rest of your life with me as my wife, Jordyn.”
The room was so quiet now that Jordyn's ears banged from the loudness of the silence.
“My wife and soulmate,” he put an extra little emphasis on the word mate, smiling even more at her as now he did let his wolf flare just the smallest bit in his eyes, “because you definitely are that. My mate in everything, babe.”
He took a deep breath and held out his hand, revealing a shining ring that glittered at her, though her eyes were so teary now she couldn't even see it clearly.
“Will you marry me, Jordyn?” The simple words seemed to echo through the hushed room.
Nodding, not daring to speak just yet, she dropped her jacket on the ground and put out her shaking hand toward him. Still not taking his eyes from hers, he gently slipped the ring on her finger on her left hand.
As he began to stand up, his smile getting so big it transformed his entire face into a tableau of joy, Jordyn finally felt steady enough to talk.
“Yes,” she said, quietly at first. Then again, louder. “Yes, Tanner. Yes, yes, yes! I will marry you!” Launching herself at him, she jumped into his arms as the firehouse erupted into clapping and cheers.
“Yes,” she murmured again against his lips, seeing tears running down his cheeks as well. “Whatever comes at us, we can face it together. Mate,” she added in a whisper, her wolf adding a low rumble of pure approval to her voice.
“Mate,” he murmured back against her mouth before his lips were too busy on hers to do any more talking.
Then the firehouse bell abruptly went off, scattering everyone as they hustled off to do their jobs. Smiling like a joyful lunatic at Tanner, Jordyn kissed him again, hard and firm, before they also raced away to save people in need. Secure in their work, their home, and each other. Always and forever, mates.
* * *
Turn the page to read Hunter’s Moon, a Black Mesa Wolves/Silvertip Shifters crossover story!
Hunter’s Moon
1
Quentin Walker watched as the gorgeous woman in his bed stretched her arms overhead, shamelessly exposing to him the stunning bounty of her breasts. He leaned down aga
in to taste the taut, peaked nipple closest to him, but she playfully swatted his head away.
"Quentin." Abby Kenyon's sweet, sexy voice trembled with laughter as well as the aftereffects of her several mind-blowing orgasms just moments before. "I have to leave. If you start touching me again, I won't be able to."
His inner bear uttered a possessive rumble as Quentin ignored her. He bent his head back down to feast on her sweetness. Abby's soft groan as his tongue slipped around the tight nipple was enough to bring life roaring back into his cock, which had found its release in her sweet depths not just once but already twice this morning.
"Quentin…" Her voice took on the breathy quality he loved to hear. The tone that said she was letting go, that she was focusing only on him and his touch.
The tone of the woman he knew was his mate, no matter the fact that she still denied that truth with every ounce of saucy determination she possessed.
He huffed to himself even as he tasted her sweet curves, one of his hands traveling over the silken slide of skin across her hip and thigh. Abby Kenyon was his mate. He knew it, his bear knew it, every shifter in town knew it. The only one who didn't seem to know it, the only one who could look it right in the face and call it impossible, was the sweet, soft woman dissolving beneath his touch right now. The gorgeous wolf shifter who had been brought up to believe she could only ever mate another wolf, a pack wolf like herself.
Never a big brute of a guy like a bear shifter.
His possessiveness rising stronger at the thought of Abby giving herself to anyone but him, Quentin lightly bit her nipple even as his fingers quested toward that sweet, creamy vee between her legs again. Abby gasped, the sound filled with desire. Yet when she spoke, despite the somewhat ragged tone, he heard the firmness in her voice even as her hands reached down and once again pulled his head away.
"I don't want you to stop. Ever," she added with a low, emphatic growling to her voice that he knew was her wolf. Her wolf, at least, seem to understand that Quentin was her mate. "But I have to get back. I have a lot to do today for—uh, I just have things to take care of," she stumbled a bit.
Shuddering with pure frustration, Quentin eased himself up Abby's sweet body until he covered her with his immense bulk, resting his forearms alongside her shoulders so he could look directly into the dark blue-green of her eyes. Heaving out a sigh as he saw the determination on her face, even though he also was pleased by the increased pulse he could see beating in her neck, Quentin just half smiled, nodding as he bent his head slightly forward to claim her lips with his. One long, almost timeless moment later filled with the sweet taste of her lips and the familiar, always arousing touch of her fingers as she gently moved them along his back, he pulled away with enormous reluctance.
He wouldn't be that guy. The kind who demanded his woman do his bidding, stay locked up in some gilded cage just for him. Ever.
Not even if it meant losing her.
"I know. I'd never stand in your way,” he rumbled, equal parts conviction and turmoil boiling under his voice. “You just taste so damn good, woman." He mock growled as he suddenly buried his face into her neck, nipping and licking, making her giggle as she playfully strained away from the tickle of his mouth. "You're my ambrosia, Abby. I can't get enough of you. These moments just aren't enough for me."
The breeze picked up outside the open windows of Quentin's bedroom in his snug little mountain cabin, carrying to both their sensitive noses the scents of the mountain in autumn. Quentin inhaled long and hard, mingling the delicate spice of aspen bark, the promising tang of crisper days yet to come, and the endless fascination of Abby's own wild scent.
Mixing all the scents together, just as they should be. Abby, here in his home, tucked into the mountain high above the town that belonged to him and his clan. All he had to figure out was how to link the scent of his mate with the scent of his home. Together.
With a regretful sigh, Abby eased herself out from beneath him to sit up, giving him that sexy little half smile she always did, the one that she didn't mean to be sexy but managed to slay him every single time anyway. She swung her legs around to slide off his enormous four-poster bed, her bare feet thumping to the floor. His bear willfully grumping at him as he let his mate leave the soft coziness of their den, Quentin propped himself up on the bed on one arm. Feeling slightly deflated and still frustrated, he watched as she searched for her clothes scattered across the room.
"I'm really sorry I have to run," Abby said. Her tone was a tiny notch firmer than it had been earlier. "You know I love coming here.” She sighed a bit as she moved around his room. “This side of the mountain is so quiet and peaceful."
Quentin was positive he caught the sound of a struggle beneath her words as well. Yeah. He damn well knew her wolf side felt one way, yet Abby's stubborn human brain side thought it felt differently. She didn't know a single cross-species mated pair. In her pack, all matings were between wolves. But even though she was a wolf, and acted like one, she also seemed more attuned to the bear shifter way of life than she'd seemed to think she would be. At least, she was a hell of a lot more attuned to it than any other wolf shifter from a pure pack like the Black Mesa wolves on the other side of the mountain.
He frowned to himself. Convincing his sexy, sweet she-wolf that he really and truly was her mate was the hardest challenge of his life. It was fast becoming the most infuriating, as well.
“That's how we like it. Peaceful.” Quentin watched as she found her shirt, her cute little pants he'd practically torn off her a few hours ago. Her tousled blond hair rippled over her neck and shoulders, teased at him from between her legs as she took a few long strides across the room to where her pink underwear dangled from the arm of a chair. “Peaceful and private. Just like it should be.”
She turned back to him, her eyes softening she pulled the hem of her shirt down over her hips. “It's probably the most beautiful place I've ever seen. You have the most amazing views of anyone in the state, I'd bet.” Her throaty laugh quivered in her voice as Quentin swung himself off the bed as well, facing her with his own smile as he stood.
He took a step, casually leaning his shoulders against one of the sturdy oak posters of his bed, crossing his arms in front of him as his feet stayed planted solidly on the floor. When Abby's glance took a leisurely trip over his naked body, down to his still half-hard dick, then back up what he knew was a really well-defined chest and arms from the hard work that was a deliberate part of his life, he let his mouth curve up into a slow, gratified smile.
"Hmmm," Quentin said. He opened his arms as she eagerly moved toward him, enveloping her in a giant, well, bear hug. She snuggled right up to him, melting against his body like it was meant to be.
Which it was. Quentin's bear hummed in approval as his mate molded herself to him.
Tucking her in close, he kept his head down so he could inhale the citrusy scent of her hair. "I know. After all, it's why I decided to build this cabin right here. Total chick magnet with these views."
Abby snorted with laughter against his chest, her hands reaching down behind him to slap his ass. Hell, yeah. It was this saucy little side of her that both revved him up and twanged his heart strings. Every time. "Agreed," she said, turning her head so she could look out the window on the front side of the small cabin. "Your views aren't too bad."
This time, Quentin was the one to snort as he followed her gaze. The main town of Deep Hollow nestled at the bottom of the valley that meandered below them through these mountains, just at the northwestern edge of the range before the wildest depths of the San Juan Mountains opened up. All the businesses and most of the locals lived down there, in town. Quentin, most of his brothers, and several other bear shifters all lived up here, though. Far above town, outside the actual town limits, in a sweet little spot known as Silvertip Ridge. Where they had a view, and privacy from a sometimes intrusive world.
Best of all, it was a shifter-only playground. Silvertip Lodge advertised only to shi
fters, with any emails or phone calls coming from the occasional human being gently yet firmly directed elsewhere. A smorgasbord of different shifter types were to be found on the private grounds at any time of year, wandering the well-guarded premises in their animal forms at will. Quentin still hoped Abby might take inspiration from some of the cross-species mated pairs who often roamed around, but so far she hadn't seemed to have taken the hint.
Quentin's family, his tight band of parents, brothers, cousins, and friends, all called Silvertip Ridge their home. Decades ago, his parents had decided to take over an abandoned old mining camp nestled on the side of the mountain, well above town, and make it into a small resort. The years they'd spent building cabins, figuring out how to get water and electricity up here, and how to survive during the epic summer storms as well as the deep winter snows had been an exciting time, according to their oft-told stories. Now, Silvertip Lodge boasted the best views of Deep Hollow, the envy of anyone who ever visited or even stayed for a summer, as some guests did.
Especially Quentin's cabin, which he'd built years ago when it became apparent that managing the lodge was the ideal job for him. His wide front deck extended out from the front of his cabin, from which the edge of the world seemed to drop off as the spectacular views of the San Juans and beyond spread out in every direction. It had taken him a good amount of time to get the trees blocking the view taken down, but it been well worth it since he used the wood for his cabin and storage shed, not to mention that their removal opened up the views that anyone could feast on every day for the rest of their lives and never get tired of. It seemed like an endless procession of mountaintops, ridges, and hillside folds staggered off in three directions. It was pretty much a postcard of wild and scenic Colorado. And it was Quentin's.
