He didn’t say another word for a moment, or maybe he couldn’t. He pumped himself into my mouth while I stroked him with my tongue, never too far as he guided my speed with his fist twined in my hair. We found a rhythm that made him growl low. When my jaw grew tired, he must’ve felt it because he guided himself out of my mouth with a reluctant rumble.
“I missed you,” he said, lifting me to my feet.
“I missed you too.”
“No, I missed you. I felt loss.” He touched my cheek. “That wasn’t what you felt because I know Grady and Archer, and you were far from lonely.”
Smiling, I held his hand to my face to keep it there. “I did miss you though.”
“I feel.”
I nodded. “You do.”
“Because of you.”
I couldn’t tell him he was wrong because I had no way of knowing for sure. Wolves gave me sight. Was it so strange I could give their heartbroken alpha feelings once again?
“And because of you,” I told him. “Now it’s time to heal.”
“No.” He backed me into the pool with his clothes still on. “Now it’s time to use the ruby caves for what they were intended for.”
A bolt of heat swept through my veins at the hunger in his voice. The water teased my flesh in lapping waves that mimicked the throb between my thighs.
With a wild growl, he spun me about until my back was pressed up against a smooth ruby wall. He consumed my mouth with his, his tongue seeking and licking as I wrapped my legs around him. His hard length pressed against me, still free from his pants, but the rest of him wore too many layers. I helped him take them off, and then with his nose touched to mine, he sank deep inside me with one thrust, our bodies slick from the water. I threw my head back against the wall with a gasp. He stretched me to the point of pain, but it was the delicious, addictive kind.
I moaned at the coming storm within me, igniting along all my nerves. His hips slowed slightly, enough to hit everything just right. Then I shattered around him with a loud cry, my limbs trembling. He prolonged it with his fingers, with his kisses, until he came, too, with an alpha-worthy growl.
After we caught our breaths, he dropped kisses down my hairline and murmured, “Wolves gave you sight.”
“Mmmm,” I said, melting into him even more.
“And you gave us life,” he said with a smile pressed against my cheek. “I love you, Aika Song.”
Chapter Fourteen
Spring.
Like winter, it came gradually, melting away the frost with a slow, gentle sweep of its fingers across the land. Birds called from trees sprouting green leaves, and the air, gilded with sunshine and kissed with a breeze, tasted richer. I drew it in deep and smiled, though the corners of my mouth pinched.
I'd been waiting for this day for months, had been counting down to it while the world had repeatedly crushed me down. Yet somehow I was still upright, walking through the Crimson Forest with my chin held high, three wolf shifters at my back, and two in my arms.
The pups' gazes flittered toward the wilds skittering from tree to tree and wriggled to give chase, but they weren't going anywhere. Even Ronin, who’d gradually learned to trust me. My swollen belly rode high, and the two sisters perched atop it so I could squeeze them closer to my heart.
They'd grown so much that it was sometimes too difficult for me to carry them. I often handed Sasha off to Thomas and Ronin to Archer, but today, right now, I craved their comfort in case this turned out horribly.
"I can go on ahead," Grady offered from behind me.
I shook my head, unable to say anything due to the worry knotting my throat. All I'd said that morning when I'd awakened in Archer's arms was, "I need to see her. I need to know."
No arguments. No questions. We'd simply left the safety of our cabin and told our new neighbors where we were going. Jade and Lee on one side, Baba next to them, and Shay, Gibby, and Ribbons on our other side.
Shay and Gibby were doing as well as could be expected. All we’d told them was that we’d found Lager, that he was dead, but that I’d kept my promise to her. If she blamed me for his death anyway, she never said anything during the hours and hours we spent talking. I loved her like my own sister now, and not at all because she helped me make more four-step poison, just in case. Just as a threat to any wolf packs who decided they wanted the Crimson Forest as their own. I wasn’t too worried though. The only thing the alpha of the Slipjoint pack, Jenk, seemed interested in was Shay, but that’s their story, not this one.
Jade and Lee were healing, and both Jade and Archer had started teaching me braille so I could read every book I wanted. They were both unbelievably patient when I grew frustrated, but I was getting there.
Baba…was Baba. He was coming around to this new way of life, though slowly. One thing that helped was the money I’d made in Margin from selling the single ruby I’d found between Ronin’s toes. It earned enough to build three new cabins around ours, an orphanage for the slaves in Margin, money to buy off the sheriff there to end slavery, and more. A lot more.
Now, the four of us kept walking farther north, when we saw it. A cabin similar to ours, but smaller. And to the right of it, an open stable with a pasture. Empty from the looks of it.
My girl. Had whatever illness struck Hellbreath taken her from me for good?
Grady said something I couldn’t hear over my breaking heart, and then he raced past me toward the cabin.
My eyes filled with tears. Of course I knew that she wouldn't be with me forever, but it still stung terribly. She was a friend, a guardian, even a mother to me at one point when mine had raged herself into one of her many fits.
Soon after Hellbreath and I had found each other, I ran away to the barn to escape Ama’s words, sharp as barbs, and laid myself at Hellbreath's feet. She'd nuzzled me while I cried myself to sleep. The scarred, abused beauty had shown me what steadfast loyalty meant, and that I never had to be alone with my fears and terrors again.
It was the same way I felt toward Thomas, which was why he felt so familiar, and we felt so connected. The scars were the same in all of us, just patterned a little differently between horse, wolf shifter, and human.
"Thomas," I whispered.
Within two strides, his warmth seeped into my side. "What is it."
I hadn't told him that I suspected the baby was his—just a feeling really—strengthened with what he’d said to me in the ruby cave pool. And you gave us life. Whether it was his or not didn't matter. The four of us would raise it as all of ours, no matter what. Most likely it would be human, judging from what my harem knew of past, though very rare, shifter/human bondings. Perry if it was a girl, named after Thomas’s sister, and Brennan if it was a boy, named after Sasha and Ronin’s brother, and spoiled and cherished by those who were madly in love with it either way.
"I wanted you to meet her. My girl," I said to Thomas, my voice breaking.
He gave me a sad smile and took Sasha from me, gazing at her with as much love as he did me and my big belly. The sun cast down on him between the fluttering leaves and mottled him with buttery sunlight and life. "I'm sorry, Aika."
"She was truly something special. Never said no to an apple and always seemed to be waiting for me." I hung my head, the absence of her becoming devastatingly permanent. She was my girl, my stubborn, fiery girl, and she was gone.
Clutching my chest, I turned, ready to break down at our cabin, but Archer grabbed my arm and pivoted me back around.
"Look," he said, angling Ronin so I could see.
Grady stood on the porch, grinning from ear to ear, and pointed east, past the empty stable.
An older man wearing a straw hat weaved through the trees and into the clearing, both his hands gripping reins, and behind him strode a beautiful black horse. She locked gazes with me immediately and whinnied a greeting that reached through past and present. I recognized that whinny.
I gasped and stumbled forward. "Hellbreath?"
Thomas and Archer f
ollowed, giving me the pups' vision to see my girl. She looked stunning, her black hair almost glowing silver and her eyes bright and alert.
"Ah, it's you," the man called as Grady rushed toward him from the cabin steps. "Wondered when you might come by."
I strode toward her, hardly able to believe it was really her. When Grady had last described her leaning against the wall in the barn and unable to hold her head up, I'd thought for sure that… Well, I owed this man all of my gratitude, but I couldn't squeeze anything out of my throat.
"This clever horse of yours does whatever the hell she wants—"
She jerked toward me hard enough to loosen the man's grip on the reins.
"Hey. Whoa. See what I mean?"
I grinned, though it was wobbly.
"Reminds me of someone I know." Grady pinned me with his gunmetal eyes and smirked. "See what happens when you let the horse go."
The man did, and Hellbreath and I walked toward each other, the hole in my heart that I'd thought was permanent now sealing shut with relief and a profound sense of love.
"My girl," I said, stopping in front of her. “I’ve missed you.”
She bowed her head to my big stomach and sniffed, which bubbled up a teary laugh from me as I scratched her favorite spot right between the ears.
"Some things have changed since the last time you saw each other," Archer said behind me with a smile in his voice.
"Then that makes two of you,” the man said with a chuckle. “Pretty sure this mare got herself a boyfriend somewhere. She’s about six months along, I reckon."
"No surprise," I whispered into her fur and smiled at the thought of a mini-Hellbreath playing with a mini-me. "You're perfect."
Thomas palmed my lower back. "One big happy family."
He was right. Horses, humans, wolves—it didn't matter what my family looked like. It didn't even matter if I could truly see it on my own. And we were happy. All of us. Even Grady. Even Thomas, who hadn’t bellowed awake from nightmares in a long, long time.
I inhaled a long, healing breath and released it, ridding my body of the worries and doubts that had plagued me since before winter. Everything I'd lost, I'd found, and then some. I'd never been happier or loved than I was right then, never been more accepted and protected and cherished.
Just like the baby Hellbreath was still sniffing at.
There was really only one difference between my past and now. Love. More family to love. More love between family. Love.
That was all. That was enough.
About the Author
Lindsey R. Loucks is a former school librarian living in rural Kansas. When she's not discussing books with anyone who will listen, she's dreaming up her own stories. Eventually her brain gives out, and she'll play hide and seek with her cat, put herself in a chocolate-induced coma, or watch scary movies alone in the dark to re-energize.
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Winter's Rage (The Crimson Winter Reverse Harem Series Book 3) Page 14
