He stared into her eyes. She was a fast learner, becoming quite adept at controlling her transformations. She loved the wood, nature, she loved running with him and they did it every night and some days besides, three weeks of it at their cabin.
An idea struck him.
No, a memory.
No, a dream.
And this made his look turn wolfish as his lips whispered, “Absolutely, little one. We can absolutely run.”
* * * * *
He was lone wolf no more.
They were running, roaming, as wolves, he and Sonia.
She was fast and kept up with him, close to his right flank, where she always ran.
Callum took them deeper into the trees. They’d been running for hours. He could hear her pants. He knew he was pushing her. He knew what she wanted.
He kept pushing her, knowing the anticipation would be worth it.
Finally, he turned, headed for home and he sensed her instant excitement.
He felt it too.
* * * * *
Sonia was beneath him, on her belly, her long, thick, mahogany hair spread across her back, obscuring her face, tangled with pine needles. Her sweet, musky wolf scent assaulted him, coming from her hair, her skin, between her legs.
There was something familiar about it. Something beautiful. Something nostalgic. Something he fucking adored.
His human Sonia.
He was up on his hands, giving his hips leverage to thrust into her wetness with savage brutality.
Her moans weren’t filled with pain but each one a temptation to take her harder.
So he did.
“Spread your legs wider,” he ordered.
She did as she was told.
“Tilt your ass, take all of me,” he commanded.
Again, she did as she was told and he drove inside her then ground his hips between her spread-eagled legs and her moan was so deep, he could feel it vibrating against the tip of his cock.
That felt so fucking good, Callum ground into her deeper and he knew he couldn’t take much more.
“Let go,” he demanded but she defied him, clenching her sex around his shaft in an effort to hold off her climax. He shifted his weight to one arm and twisted her dark hair around his fist, yanking it back, arching her neck and driving her further down on his cock. “Let go, wolf.”
He got off on calling her “wolf” as Sonia did with him, especially when he was fucking her.
He fucking loved it.
She did too.
Her legs spread even wider. Her ass tilted further. He dropped his head and saw its perfection. Not an ass marred with pinpricks and he felt a feeling of triumph so complete, the sight set him thrusting into her again.
Which was what she wanted.
“Harder, Cal,” she breathed her demand, her voice barely a whisper, even he could hardly make out the words. “Fuck me harder.”
He was losing control, his orgasm was coming and he knew it would be staggering.
With her, it always was.
The best he’d ever had.
“Goddamn it, let go!” he roared the instant her sex convulsed around his cock.
She lifted up on her own arms, propelling herself onto his shaft so intensely he feared he’d split her in two.
But she threw back her dark head, her hair flying over his hand still fisted in it, over his forearm, down her back and she howled her release.
He pulled out and surged back in, burying himself to the root one last time and then howled his own.
* * * * *
Naked on their bed of pine needles, Callum on his back, Sonia on top of him, his mate moved. Shifting up, she pressed her temple to his and slid it through his hair, marking him.
He growled into her ear, rolled her to her back, him on top and did the same.
When done, he lifted his head and looked down at her in the moonlight.
“You know, you gave me another wedding band, another charm and a fabulous honeymoon for my wedding gifts and I’ve given you nothing but, well… me,” she said softly.
“All I need is you,” he replied just as softly and felt her already relaxed body melt under his as her arms grew tight around him.
“Okay then, how about, for your wedding present, I give you more of me and agree to wait fifty years before we start a family?” she suggested.
“Seventy-five,” he countered, her head jerked slightly before he saw her eyes light and her mouth twitch.
“Deal, wolf,” she whispered. “Seventy-five.”
He grinned and dropped his head to touch his mouth to hers again.
He lifted his head and she shifted a hand and framed the side, her thumb moving to smooth his brow, his cheekbone, his jaw, her eyes watching.
Finally, they came to his. “You know I love you?” she asked.
“You know I love you?” he asked back by way of answer.
“With everything you are,” she whispered.
He dipped his face to hers and murmured with feeling, “With everything I am, baby doll.”
“And I you, my handsome wolf. With everything I am, with everything I’m meant to be and with eternity to be it in, that’s a lot.”
Callum grinned at his wife.
Then he shifted his head and again marked her temple.
His.
And, as he did it, she did the same.
Hers.
As it was.
As it always would be.
For eternity.
* * * * *
At that exact moment… elsewhere…
Oh my God, they were hunting me.
Hunting me!
I ran, my breath ragged, a stitch cutting agony through my side, as I heard them getting closer. Closer.
Fast.
Too fast.
I was a girl and maybe not Jackie Joyner-Kersee but I wasn’t out of shape. They’d gain but not that fast.
No way.
That didn’t mean they weren’t gaining that fast.
They were.
And I was terrified.
I turned into an alley, hoping in the darkness to lose them, and ran with everything I had left.
Straight to a dead end.
“Shit,” I breathed, panting, turning, feeling them closing in on me.
Then there they were, on me as in on me. In the blink of an eye I was on my back, one of them pinning my body down with his on mine, one holding my arms down over my head, one my legs at my ankles while, I stared to the side in disbelief, two humongous, terrifying dogs circled, snarling and snapping their sharp, alarming teeth in my direction.
“Rip her throat out and have done with it,” a voice coming from over my head bit out and my attention went back to the enormous man who was lying full on top of me, pressing the breath out of me and staring down at me in a way I did… not… like.
I tried to struggle but the hands at my wrists and ankles held so strong, it was preternatural how strong they were. I wasn’t pinned. I was completely immobilized.
“In a minute,” he grunted, his eyes not leaving mine. “Christ, smell her. Divine. Fuck me, absolutely fucking divine.” His face changed to a look I liked even less and he finished, “First I’m going to feed.”
He was going to feed?
Oh man. What did that mean?
I didn’t know. What I knew was, it was not good.
“Are you insane?” a voice coming from my feet asked like he thought the dude holding me was, indeed, insane. In fact, very insane. At the same time, ugly, scary growls came from both of the dogs.
It seemed to me these were warnings but the guy on top of me was, apparently, insane because he ignored the warnings of the huge, vicious, snarling dogs. His head dipped toward me, slanted then his mouth was at my neck.
Oh shit. Oh shit!
This was definitely not good.
I belatedly opened my mouth to scream.
Not that first sound came out because, suddenly, I wasn’t immobilized. Nothing was on me, nothing holding me down.
I still didn’t move.
This was because something I couldn’t see, and not only because it was dark but because it was happening so… damned… fast, was whirling around me.
I would know what that was when sickening, warm gushes of blood spurted across my chest and neck about a half a second before I saw a canine head (with no body, mind) roll across the asphalt in front of me. More blood splashed the pavement beside me in a hideous surge and I heard the heinous noises of body after lifeless body thudding to the ground.
Then I was up, my own body swinging like it was flying through the air but I felt hands on me. A breeze was blowing through my hair, I was moving so fast, and then my back slammed against the brick wall of the building at the side of the alley.
I blinked, feeling the wall at my back but the intense, hard-muscled warmth of a body pressed to my front and before my eyes, a man.
A shock of black hair.
An intriguingly tilted set of eyes, the hue I couldn’t make out in the dark but, shockingly, I could see one was a color that was light the other a color that was definitely dark.
Strong jutting jaw, sharp cheekbones, heavy brow.
The slash of an angry scar that went across his forehead, through his left eyebrow, disconnected then rejoined on his cheekbone to slide all the way down his face, curling around his jaw and disappearing.
I panted in his blood-stained face.
He stared, intense and frightening, into mine, his gaze, honest to God, like a touch.
I stopped panting because I stopped breathing.
His face came closer and my stomach clenched, my muscles tensed near to snapping, my chest burned but his head veered and he touched his temple to mine, slid it back, rubbing it through my hair.
I sucked in breath only to hold it again when his hands left my armpits. One to travel down my side and then curve to become an arm around my back holding me so strong, I was plastered to his front. One going up, over my shoulder and in to curl tight and freakishly warm around the side of my neck.
His chin dipped and I felt his lips at my ear.
“Mine,” he growled in a deep, guttural, forceful way that even I, who had no clue what was happening, I just knew I didn’t like it one… single… bit, agreed.
When he said “mine”, he meant me.
Uh-oh.
* * * * *
Lucien stood in the alleyway with Gregor who had summoned him.
They both stared at the smoldering remains of three vampires and the blood and gore of the beheaded corpses of two violently mutilated wolves still in wolf form.
He felt Gregor’s eyes on him and he cut his to the vampire.
“Five against one,” Gregor noted.
Two immortals could do that.
Lucien and Callum, King of the Werewolves.
Now, the third.
“I’m thinking the third set of lifemates have been found,” Gregor went on to mutter drolly.
Lucien cursed and pulled out his phone. He hit one button and put it to his ear.
Four rings later, he heard a wolf growl, “This better be good to interrupt my honeymoon.”
“The third lifemates have met.”
“Fuck,” Callum grunted.
“My thought exactly,” Lucien concurred.
There was silence from Callum then he remarked, “My wife and I have had a good night. I’d like her to enjoy the rest of it as I intend to enjoy the rest of it with her. We’ll be on a plane tomorrow.”
“I’m sorry, Callum,” Lucien murmured.
“It’s begun, therefore it’s closer to done,” Callum replied.
“Indeed,” Lucien muttered.
“We’ll taste victory,” Callum told him.
“We fucking will,” Lucien agreed.
“Tomorrow,” Callum stated.
“Tomorrow, Callum.”
He heard Callum disconnect and he slid his phone back in the inside pocket of his leather jacket.
His dark eyes again surveyed the carnage.
Then, without another look at Gregor or any of the other members of The Vampire Council on the scene, he turned away and strode to his Porsche so he could leave the slaughter behind, for now, and get home to his bride.
It had begun.
They had very little time
So he and Leah were going to fucking enjoy what little they had.
The Three Series will continue…
With the story of the final two.
####
About the Author
Kristen Ashley grew up in Brownsburg, Indiana but has lived in Denver, Colorado and the West Country of England. Thus she has been blessed to have friends and family around the globe. Her posse is loopy (to say the least) but loopy is good when you want to write.
Kristen was raised in a house with a large and multi-generational family. They lived on a very small farm in a small town in the heartland and existed amongst the strains of Glenn Miller, The Everly Brothers, REO Speedwagon and Whitesnake (and the wardrobes that matched).
Needless to say, growing up in a house full of music, clothes and love was a good way to grow up.
And as she keeps growing up, it keeps getting better.
Discover other titles by Kristen Ashley:
Rock Chick Series:
Rock Chick
Rock Chick Rescue
Rock Chick Redemption
Rock Chick Renegade
Rock Chick Revenge
Rock Chick Reckoning
Rock Chick Regret
The ‘Burg Series:
For You
At Peace
Golden Trail
Games of the Heart
The Colorado Mountain Series:
The Gamble
Sweet Dreams
Lady Luck
Breathe
Dream Man Series:
Mystery Man
Wild Man
Law Man
Motorcycle Man
The Fantasyland Series:
Wildest Dreams
The Golden Dynasty
Fantastical
The Three Series:
Until the Sun Falls from the Sky
The Unfinished Hero Series:
Knight
Creed
Other Titles by Kristen Ashley:
Fairytale Come Alive
Heaven and Hell
Lacybourne Manor
Lucky Stars
Mathilda, SuperWitch
Penmort Castle
Play It Safe
Sommersgate House
Connect with Kristen Online:
Official Website: www.kristenashley.net
Kristen’s Blog: www.kristenashley.net/menu/blog.html
Kristen’s Facebook Page
Follow Kristen on Twitter: KristenAshley68
Need support for your Kit Crack Addiction?
Join the Kristen Ashley Addict’s Support Group on Goodreads
Book cover artwork and design by Donald Guth III, “DG3”
Contact [email protected]
Cover photo by DM Ashley
With Everything I Am Page 57
