“I must be the luckiest woman on the planet,” she said deliriously.
Nick laughed. “No, I’m the luckiest wolf shifter on the planet.”
“It can work both ways,” she insisted.
Nick moved back and Gwen’s grip on his back slipped. He caught her right hand and said, “This is where it all started.” He brushed the back of her hand with his fingers and kissed the area that previously held the Mark of the Moon. “And this is where I will claim you.”
Gwen watched intently as his teeth grew longer and sharper. She expected to feel the same pain she felt when he first bit her, but she didn’t. Maybe it was because her body was humming with so much pleasure like Nick promised. The pain simply didn’t register. When he released her hand, she saw traces of blood, but he didn’t give her an opportunity to inspect it. He caught her under her arms and moved her off the counter. Then he flipped her around so her back was facing him.
She brought her hands to the edge of the counter and her gaze to the mirror in front of her. She could see Nick easily behind her since he was a sexy giant wolf shifter. His eyes were such a bright yellow in the mirror. Gwen hadn’t ever seen them that bright before. Was it a result of him claiming her? She was about to look down at her hand to see what the bite looked like, but Nick moved behind her, cupping her breasts into his hands as he pressed his body into her. His cock was at her ass, but she didn’t know where to keep her focus. His hands were sliding down her breasts, to her ribs and stomach, stopping at her sex.
Shuddering, she rubbed her butt against him. He left one hand cupping her sex and grabbed her left thigh with the other, angling her so he could penetrate her. She let out helpless sounds of desire as he forced his cock inside of her with a single hard thrust. He hit her so hard, he was buried deep inside of her with that one movement. She gasped and her hands trembled as they held up part of her weight against the counter as Nick tortured her by fingering her clit as he started slowly moving against her at the same time. For being inexperienced, her lover had no lack of ideas on how to get what he wanted. Sexy, naughty man.
“Nick,” She rasped.
He grunted. “What?” he managed to respond though it was obviously a struggle.
He was breathing heavily, lost inside of her, of what they were doing. He didn’t stop moving against her and stimulating her sensitive flesh. He whispered her name as he moaned. She could feel him hard inside of her, begging her to come so he could come with her. That was the way he liked it.
“I love you,” she murmured.
Nick slowed his pace, leaving them both connected with shallow movements, suspending and locking the tension they had built to this point.
“I love you too,” he whispered. “Always.”
One more hard thrust was all it took to send them both over the edge. The moment Gwen’s body pulsed, she felt Nick jerk inside of her, filling her core with warmth over and over again. Nick angled her left thigh even more to continue thrusting into her, making this the longest orgasm Gwen had ever had. Nick was still spilling into her when he finally slowed his frantic movements.
Gwen was gasping on the counter as she continued to hold herself as Nick stayed joined behind her. She liked feeling him inside of her. She liked that he didn’t pull out immediately.
She was sweating from the exertion. She glanced at her right hand. It was bloodied, but it wasn’t bleeding anymore, and it didn’t hurt. She reached for the sink and turned the water on cold. She dipped her left hand under and slapped it against her neck to feel the refreshing cold. She dipped her bitten hand inside of the sink as she caught water with her left hand and threw it over her shoulder at Nick.
“Thanks for that,” he said with a laugh. He held on to her hips gently, still inside of her. It seemed he wanted to stay inside of her as badly as she wanted him to. He even started moving against her again.
“Not another round. You might have crazy wolf shifter stamina, but I don’t,” Gwen said quickly. “I don’t know if I can take another round.” Nick was careful with her, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t made her sore from today’s activities. She would probably be walking funny for a couple days, but damn did she like how he gave it to her.
“Too much?” Nick asked.
“Too much in one day for my frail human body,” she quipped.
“Got it. Note to self, be careful with my frail human lady.”
“God, you make me sound like I’m an old woman.”
Nick laughed as he pulled out gently. He hovered over her and looked at her hand sitting in the stainless steel sink with the faucet running cold water over it. “How’s the hand?”
Gwen inspected her right hand. The blood was gone. She expected to see bite marks. She didn’t expect to see the familiar pearly sheen in the shape of the Moon.
“Nick!” she exclaimed. Then she turned around and reached out for his left hand. The mark was back, or maybe back wasn’t the right word. This wasn’t the same contract they had before. This was a promise of love, to stay together, like the old stories Julie told Nick. “It came back,” Gwen said, her voice trembling.
Nick grinned at her. “Obviously we both meant what we said.”
“You shifters are lucky. I think there wouldn’t be so many problems in marriages if things worked like this for humans.”
“Maybe,” he acknowledged.
He took her right hand and traced the circle on her skin. Gwen swore she could feel his chest swell. It was also possible it was because of her own emotions consuming her. She slumped into him, hugging him and feeling his bare skin touching hers. She didn’t know anything about magic before, but the Moon brought her and him together and it approved of their decision to stay together. Having a celestial body’s approval was a bit overwhelming.
“I love you,” Gwen whispered into his ear.
“I love you too,” he replied, repeating the words they spoke earlier. “Always.”
There was a new energy pulsing inside of Gwen’s veins. It was something she had never felt before. She was trying to figure out what it was as she snuggled closer to the love of her life. Her heart rate even seemed to pick up. She became painfully aware of it in her chest. Nick’s strong hands went to her shoulders and he pushed her back gently. There was a strange look in his wolfish eyes. It looked like he was on the verge of shifting. Then a scalding heat jumped into Gwen’s joints. She gasped at the pain and doubled over onto Nick.
He gathered her in his arms, lifting her easily as he took them both into the grand foyer. The next thing Gwen knew, he was setting her down on the burgundy wood.
“Don’t let me go!” she yelped when her feet touched the ground. She desperately grabbed for him. Her body hurt so bad she wouldn’t have been surprised if she found herself crumpled on the floor in a few minutes.
“Give into it, baby,” he said. “Trust me.”
She didn’t have much of a choice. She lost her grip on him and dropped to the floor. She could hear her joints popping. The sound of brittle wood snapping. It must have been her bones. She was terrified. She closed her eyes to try and block it all out. It wasn’t until the burning and loud noises ceased that she dared to open them again.
Her face was pointing down to her hands, but hands weren’t what she saw. She saw two dark brown paws that looked very much like a wolf’s. She yelped in surprise. The sound that came out of her lips was foreign like a dog yipping.
She looked up at Nick for help. He seemed much taller now. He was literally towering over her. He had either grown or she had shrunk. She tried to ask him what the hell was happening, but the words came out as barks. Nick was beaming at her. He knelt down and placed his hand on her head.
“How did you hide this for so long? You’ve been a wolf all along?” he asked.
Gwen tried to tell him that was fucking insane. She would have known if she was a wolf. From what he told her, he would have known too.
“Your parents adopted you, right?” Nick asked. The way he was looking
at her and the way he scratched her head was so affectionate she felt like putty in his hands. This sex bomb man knew exactly how to touch her. She nodded her head to answer his question since trying to speak didn’t seem to be doing her any good.
“What if the Wolf hasn’t been disappearing at all? What if it’s lying dormant in a lot of people?” he speculated. “You told me you’ve always loved wolves, and you’ve fallen into my life so damn naturally. Maybe the Wolf is hidden so deep inside of the younger generations we haven’t been able to sense them.” He shook his head. “Hell, I don’t know. I guess it’s possible this happened when I bit you, but I’ve never heard of a shifter bite turning a human into a shifter.”
Gwen barked. She could feel Nick’s excitement. There was no denying she could feel him now. This new body she was in was extremely sensitive. If she had a wolf inside of her all of this time, it explained a lot. She didn’t think Nick’s bite turned her into a wolf either. This wolf obsession of hers dated back too far. She figured she would have shifted the first time he bit her if his bite truly was the cause.
Her new body shocked her at first, but it was already starting to feel natural. She wasn’t sore anymore either. She experimented with walking around on four legs and found it was easy for her. She didn’t feel changed exactly. If anything, she felt whole. This wolf had been with her all along, somewhere deep inside of her. That had to be the answer for all of this. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe a shifter could fall in love with a human, it was her own reactions and feelings to everything that went on that made her think this, like she had that natural shifter inclination all along that Nick was hers. With the power the Moon held over wolf shifters, the possibility of wolf shifters falling in love as fast as she and Nick did made sense.
Whatever. She was trying to make sense of it all, but she didn’t care about the reasons. She was happy.
Gwen wanted her mate to play with her. Mate. The word came naturally to her. All the pieces were in place. Nick was hers and she was his. Mates, forever and always. She lowered her forelegs to the ground and stuck her butt up in the air, wagging her tail excitedly. She yipped a few times, trying to tell her forever mate that she wanted to explore this new body outside, not in some crazy mansion where she could break something if she wagged her tail wrong.
“You got it, beautiful,” Nick said with a laugh.
Gwen cocked her head when he went to the front doors. It was funny, a while ago she would have found it strange for him to be so casual about opening a door to the outside when he was butt naked, but now it seemed natural. What did humans have against nudity anyway?
In the next instant, Nick was shifting. Gwen’s tongue lolled out of her mouth as she watched her giant man shift into a giant blue-gray wolf in a chorus of crackling and popping noises. She waited patiently for him to shift all the way before she leaped at him, nipping him affectionately and knocking her smaller body against his big one. Nick replied with a playful growl as he nipped her back. He combated her boundless energy by jumping on top of her. She struggled underneath him as he held her pinned to the ground. He growled again, and she submitted to him, instinct telling her to. He lowered his head to hers and she licked his face. He licked her back, and then he let her up. He took a few steps back and pointed his nose to the open door. Gwen understood her mate was ready to follow her lead, and she took off into the night illuminated by the Full Moon.
She had no idea how fast she was running, but the wind was whipping in her face as her tongue hung outside of her mouth in response to the heat. The town seemed to disappear behind her in an instant, Blue Forest growing closer and closer with each passing second. She ran and ran through the trees, easily dodging the dense blue spruces. It was exhilarating. She had to wait to feel this, to be everything she was, but it was all worth it. Her life changed in the span of just over a week and she welcomed it. The best part of all was the mate she knew she’d have by her side from this moment on.
She didn’t know how long she had been running when she finally decided to look behind her. All that greeted her was the dark forest. She could see perfectly well, but her mate was nowhere in sight. She knew she couldn’t have lost him. She was confident in her speed, but she didn’t think she was faster than her alpha mate.
She barked, calling for him. A low and beautiful howl sang out through Blue Forest. It started low and gradually grew higher. The sound made her hairs stand on edge. She had never heard her mate’s voice like this, but she knew it was him. He was calling her. He was calling all of his wolves.
Her ears twitched behind her as she heard the rustle of brush. She whipped around in time to see Nick charging at her. She scurried away, but not fast enough, he bit at her flank playfully. She went after him next, biting at his flank. They roughhoused like two puppies that had way too much energy to expend. Gwen managed to pin Nick down at one point, but he was back on top of her again in the next minute.
Gwen huffed as she lay on her stomach. She was done trying to best her mate, not that she necessarily felt the need to. She just wanted to know if she could. Nick walked around her and lay in front of her. He licked her nose apologetically. Gwen licked him back, letting him know she wasn’t mad.
She followed her mate when he stood up and looked at her expectantly. He led the way through the forest, and Gwen heard a couple of howls break out in the distance. Nick didn’t alter his pace. He leaped through some bushes, Gwen at his tail, and stopped in a clearing. Over a hundred other wolves were there, their full attention on Nick and Gwen. They were all the wolf shifters she saw earlier that evening. She recognized their smell somehow, even though she wasn’t able to detect or differentiate their smells earlier in the day before this awakening.
Suddenly feeling shy, Gwen tucked her tail in between her legs and stayed close to her mate. Nick nudged her away from him and gave her a reassuring look. The other wolves moved forward, joining Nick and Gwen in one big group of wolves. Many of them greeted Gwen in a submissive manner, allowing her to memorize their scents first as Nick stayed close by, tall and protective. The others were curious about Gwen. Excited. Hopeful. She could sense all of it. She didn’t sense any of the hostility she had experienced when she first came to Moonwatch.
Eventually, Gwen found Willow, a wolf she recognized. Julie was with her, but she held back as Willow came charging at Gwen. Willow barked and jumped around like a spazz. She played as rough as her brother, but Gwen didn’t mind it. She had a feeling she and Willow would become good friends. Nick allowed Willow and Gwen to rough each other up for a moment, and then he stepped in, dominating over his mate and letting his sister know playtime was over for now. Willow trotted away to Julie and the other wolves, and Nick kept Gwen close by his side. She liked him keeping her close like this, showing the rest of the pack that she was his. The other wolves listened to their Alpha respectfully. They all stood under the light of the Full Moon. Gwen felt like there was no other place she should be but here.
Nick threw back his head in a building howl. The sound of his voice sent shivers through her body. There was a power in this howl, and it made her want to howl with him. The feeling consumed her and her voice broke out in a song with his, a duet of two lovers soon joined by a chorus of onlookers. The stray howls converged, a chorus of voices that were all united, one family, one pack. Gwen felt warmth in her chest, the physical form of this pledge manifesting into her very bones.
When the howls stopped, a new energy seemed to wash over the wolves. They yipped and played, even though almost every wolf there was over fifty years old. They aged well and still had plenty of life left in them. They couldn’t communicate with words, but Gwen knew she was the source of this newfound vigor. Because of her, their faith in the Moon and the Wolf was renewed. She knew it in her soul just as she knew this was her home and that these wolves were her packmates.
Nick stood next to her. She lay down in the grass as he watched over her. She was as ecstatic as the rest of them, but she was also at pe
ace. She was happy to observe and feel her pack’s happiness. She was happy to watch their proud Alpha watching over all of them.
She was home.
EPILOGUE
A COUPLE MONTHS OF what could only be called pure bliss went by for Nick. He saw his soulmate every day, even when she was at work. He was glad she worked close because there would have been no way to drag her away from protecting Blue Forest, not that he would have wanted to. He loved her dedication and assertiveness. She would always be in the position to protect someone because that was the kind of wolf she was. Gwen was full of surprises though. When he met her, he had no idea she was a wolf. He was ready to accept her as a human because she was the only one he wanted. He wouldn’t have changed his mind regardless of what happened, but the fact that she was a wolf had him and his entire pack anxious.
Blue Pack grew overnight with the new addition of former Storm Wolves, and the energy in Moonwatch was on the positive side these days. Some wolves who had given up their children were trying to track them down and reunite to some degree. Julie and Howard seemed to be talking again, not much, but it was better than the silence and complete cutoff they had since Casey disappeared. Howard was working on constructing new buildings in Moonwatch for the wolves who wanted to be closer to their Alpha. Others were content to live in Eastbrook for now, which Nick allowed.
Nick had two Betas now, Willow and Howard. Howard also attained the title of Alpha over Eastbrook when Nick wasn’t around and had his own Beta when he was constructing buildings in Moonwatch. Howard picked Steven as his Beta. Nick approved the decision. It seemed like a good idea since Steven had been Beta in Storm Pack. Nick liked the wolf. He had a level head on his shoulders. It was an unusual way to run a pack, but it worked for Nick and his packmates.
No one had ever heard of a human turning wolf before, but Nick figured the Wolf was hidden deep inside of Gwen all along. Though a couple months had passed without any news of any other new wolves, Nick and his pack held out hope. The Moon’s power seemed stronger, or Nick and the others had become more in tune with it. Even their pack bonds had been strengthened. Nick seemed to know each of his packmates as if their minds were linked; he could almost read their thoughts. It helped with solving any problems within the pack. Hiding things from each other was more or less impossible, but Nick figured it was just as well. From his experience, secrets never did any good.
Her Brave Wolf (Marked By The Moon Book 1) Page 17
