They exchange a glance, and then nod, determined.
"Great. If we can show the Cairn Elder that we can handle the most dangerous pack there is, then he'll have no reason to doubt our ability to be a Lodge."
"Yes," says Blake, speaking slowly. His golden eyes are still wide. "But... we can't handle the most dangerous pack. I could maybe handle one or two of them, but all seven? At once? Here?"
I reach out and grab his large hand. "I've figured it out. Mama B left me her staff of power. I just checked. It's confident we can handle anything they throw our way."
Everybody stares at me. I munch on a forkful of salad and asparagus. It's divine.
"Rach," says Blake. "I don't think you know what you're asking for here. The Blood Moons... they're not civilized. They're animals. They have no respect for anything. They live for war. They'll trash the place. Take advantage of you in every way possible."
I hesitate. "Yes. But. We have one huge advantage. Everybody knew of Mama B, right?"
They all nod.
"And nobody in their right mind would mess with her, right?"
Blake blushes, but they all nod again.
I smile. "So I let people know that I've inherited her power, and that if they step out of line they'll be turned into newts. The best thing is, as long as I give a little display at the beginning, and convince them of my power, they won't test me. Why would they? They'll all behave, and we'll be set."
Anita, Hui, and Blake exchange looks. I wait, confident in my plan.
"I'm in," says Anita, face pale. "I trust you."
"Me too." Hui's declaration is firm.
"Shit." Blake rubs his face vigorously. "The Blood Moons. Well, if you can handle them, you can handle anybody." He holds my gaze, and I feel myself drowning in his golden eyes. "Of course I'm in." He laughs. "It's not like I can leave."
"Thank you," I say. "All of you."
But I only look at Blake. At this handsome, powerful wolf who will remain by my side throughout this all. With him here, I feel like I can tackle anything. With him by my side, I feel invincible, beautiful, full of power.
They smile, nervously at first, and then Blake raises his glass of water. "To Rachel Wilder. As crazy and beautiful as she is brave and bold."
I laugh, and the others raise their glasses and clink them together. I can tell they're nervous as all-get-out, but for now, they're with me.
Chapter Nine
The day passes quickly. I spend much of the afternoon in conversation with the staff, which I've come to call Simon Two, while Blake actually gardens, snarling and hacking and beating the jungle back and into some semblance of order. Hui works miracles with the vastness of Honeycomb Hall, beating carpets, mopping, scrubbing, polishing, dusting, waxing, and doing endless amounts of laundry. Anita presents me with a menu by late afternoon, which I approve; it's a weird and glorious combination of raw steaks and tiramisu, blood sausage and soufflés. I'm sure the Blood Moon pack will be both delighted and confused, but goodness, I can't wait to see the breakfast table.
Finally dusk falls. Hui and Anita poke their heads in to say their goodbyes. They promise to come back early the next morning, and I smile as I listen to them leave, chattering and in high spirits. Picking up Simon Two, I ponder what else I might ask.
"Would you work for just anybody who picked you up?"
I would be willing, but they would have to have some facility for magic.
"So it would have to be inborn? Like, a talent they have?"
Some people have a predisposition for magic, a natural talent. Most never develop it, or even become aware of their potential. Without it, though, I would be inert. A mere stick.
I ponder this. "So you're saying I have that talent."
No answer but a mild sense of impatience from the staff.
"But I don't need to develop it, right? To use you?"
No. You may remain as uneducated and ignorant of your true self as you desire. May I ask, though, why you wish to hide from your true talent? I sense great power within you.
"Because..." I trail off. How to explain that dread of losing my sense of self? The risk of changing into something I can't foresee, a woman set apart from the world, feared and respected like Mama B was? I don't want to turn into a recluse, shunned and left alone in my gorgeous home. I want to be able to go shopping in the General Store in town, to sit and have ice cream on the Bridge of Flowers. To just be a regular person.
"What else do I need to know?"
I stand and walk to the window, looking down at the dark garden. Dusk is falling. Blake is raking up the last of the chopped grass, tireless, his muscled body illuminated gently by the pale yellow lights he fixed in the lamps that line the driveway.
A question floats into my mind, and I freeze. I don't want to ask. I have to ask. And yet.
"Simon." My throat has gone dry. I'm finding it hard to breathe all of a sudden. "Can you lower the hex ward that surrounds the house?"
Yes.
With that one simple word I feel like all the air has gone out from my lungs. I sag against the window frame. Part of me rejoices. I can give Blake what he most desires. Freedom. And yet I can't bear the thought of letting him go. Of watching him walk - no, let's be honest - run out the front gate, heading out for his pack, disappearing into the mountains to resume his position as their alpha.
Oh god. My stomach is wringing itself like a washcloth. Right then Blake drops the rake and turns to look up at me. His eyes catch the lantern light, gleaming an iridescent gold, two wolf eyes in the most handsome face I've ever seen. He catches sight of me and gives me a feral grin, a smile that promises all kinds of trouble and danger. Reaching behind his head, he catches hold of his shirt and tugs it off, his muscles rippling as he does so, biceps flexing, his abs in sharp relief, shoulders broad, hair tousled as he throws the shirt on the grass. With that, he flashes me another irrepressible smile, and begins to stalk toward the house.
Wolf at the door. He's coming for me. I swallow, torn, excited, terrified. Setting Simon aside, I smooth down my dress, then feeling irrational I run to the bathroom and check my face, try to do something about my curls, but give up when I hear the front door close below. There's no time. And what the hell. Blake likes me just the way I am. No, not likes - loves.
I bite my lower lip and step out into the middle of the bedroom. And wait. My mind is a storm of conflicting thoughts. What am I going to do? I hear him coming up the steps. He's letting me know he's coming. He could approach in complete silence if he wished, but he's drawing this out. Letting my anticipation build. All day we've been exchanging glances. Brushing against each other, each touch sending sparks through me, making me lightheaded. Throughout the afternoon Simon chided me for wandering into sordid daydreams, thinking of Blake's hands and just what I want him to do to me with them.
Now he's climbing. Coming to me. And I'm about to lose him forever.
This world is cruel. Why didn't Mama B warn me? If she could see the future, why not tell me to help soften the blow? It's a petulant thought, but I can't help it. A flash of anger surges through me. Why did she leave me in this position, as his jailer? It isn't fair, to give me something infinitely precious only to force me to lose it forever.
Then he's here. In the doorway, a darker shadow against the dark. My breath catches. I can smell him, a faint hint of cut grass and his own masculine scent. I've never even noticed men's smells before unless they were wearing cologne or stinking. But Blake's is intoxicating.
"All day I've been thinking about your pussy." His voice is just shy of menacing, the hunger in it making it raw. "Thinking about how it felt last night to slide my cock into you. Slowly. Savoring each sweet, wet inch. Till I was buried all the way inside you. Inside your perfect, lush body."
Oh. My. God. My knees go weak and I reach out for the desk to help steady myself. "Blake." I have to tell him.
He begins to stalk across the room toward me. Not walk. Humans walk. He's all wolf. He's stalking
me. Hunting me, his movements lithe and fluid. His eyes burning in the dark.
"I've been thinking of your screams. Your cries for mercy. How I want to hear them again. To fill this house with your moans. Make you beg me to stop. Drive you to the edge where you don't think you can take anymore, and then push you right over that edge. Fuck your every hole till you don't even remember who you are any more."
"Blake." I can't breathe. I can barely think. My body is responding to him, my panties already soaked. I know he can smell my arousal. He's told me how my musk drives him wild. I'm sweating already, nervous, eager, my heart breaking.
He stops before me, the foot of space between us crackling with our sexual tension. I moan. It's like his killer body has its own gravitational pull, and I can't resist him. Can't hold back. I want to fall into his strong arms forever. He makes me feel like the passionate woman I've always wanted to see in the mirror. The beautiful, powerful woman I know myself to be. He makes me feel like a queen, ruling over his filthiest fantasies.
"I've fought my wolf all day long." His voice is pure churned gravel. "Whenever you passed me, I had to wrestle with the instinct to take hold of you. To pull you into a dark room. To bend you over a desk. To fuck you against the wall. On the floor. On the stairs." He shifts closer, and I shift back. "To make love to you in the long grass. Anywhere. Everywhere. To fuck your pretty mouth. To slide deep into your ass. Your cunt. Fill you with my sperm, over and over again, till I'm scraped raw and have nothing left to give."
"Oh, Blake." His words assault my determination to tell him. Lay siege to my integrity. My morals. I want him. I want him in every single way. I want him in my mouth, in my pussy, in my ass. Wherever he wants. I want to be his. Dominated. Owned. Loved. Worshiped. "Where have you been all my life?"
"Waiting for you right here, beautiful." He reaches out and cups my cheek, his palm rough, his touch gentle. I press my face against his hand and close my eyes. He runs his thumb over my lips and I open them, taking it into my mouth, sucking on him, running my tongue around and over it. I draw a low growl from him, and he steps even closer, till there's barely an inch between us. He's radiating heat. My skin's prickling, aware of him like nothing else. I want out of these clothes. I want to be naked before him, under him, over him. I want him inside me. I need him. Now.
He leans forward and presses his lips to my ear, the tickle of his hot breath causing me to cream just a little more. "You're mine, Rachel Wilder. All mine. I can't fight my wolf anymore. He's won. I'm going to take you as my mate."
His words whip my mind into a storm of thoughts, and in a panic I break away from him, darting into the middle of the room, chest heaving. "No, Blake. Wait."
"Wait?" He turns slowly, surprised. "I've been waiting for you for years. I'm not going to wait any more. If I have to live here, then I will have you. You will be mine, in each and every way."
"You don't." The words are little more than a whisper.
He pauses. "Don't? Don't what?"
I want to die. "You don't have to stay here."
He lifts his head sharply. "What are you saying?"
"The staff. I can use it. To lower the hex ward." Tears fill my eyes as I see his eyes flare wide. The words hit him like blows. He rocks on his heels.
"You can set me free?"
I nod. I don't trust myself to speak.
Blake takes a deep breath. "Free. To hunt down Maric. To find my pack. To become alpha once more."
Again I nod. Tears brim in my eyes and spill down my cheeks. The longing in his voice is heartbreaking.
He's staring at me, his eyes burning right through me, scorching my soul. He's shivering, shaking. Fighting himself, I realize. He curls his large hands into fists and lowers his head so that his hair falls before his face.
"Don't do it." His voice is a rasp.
"What?" My voice is a gasp. "Don't set you free?"
He shakes his head. "If you do, I will have to go. My wolf will compel me. I will have to find my pack and destroy Maric. I won't have a choice. But my human side doesn't want to abandon you. Not now, with the Blood Moon coming. So keep me prisoner. Hold me here."
The pain in his voice tears me apart. "Oh, Blake." I move to him, place my hands on his chest. He's taking deep, heaving breaths, as if he's just run a marathon. He closes his hands over mine.
"Why now?" There's anger in his voice. "Why did you have to discover this now?"
"I don't know." I press my cheek to his broad chest. I can hear his great heart beating like some distant drum of war. "I don't know. But I couldn't lie to you. I couldn't hide it from you."
Blake rests his chin atop my head and wraps his arms around me. "My Rachel. My sweet, beautiful Rachel."
We hold each other in the dark. Can I do what he's asking? Keep him prisoner? Keep him trapped so that he can help with the Blood Moon? I want to. The selfish side of me wants him to stand by my side when that pack walks in through the gate. I need his strength. His confidence. But what would that do to him? To us? Would I be any better than Mama B if I did that? Keeping him a slave for some personal good? His human side wants to stay, but his wolf, his true self, is raging against its bars. I can feel it, like a fever burning off him. His need to escape and bring justice to his pack.
"I can't do it," I say. "I just can't keep you prisoner." I step back and look up into his face. He already feels distant, as if his heart has retreated behind a wall. "No matter what you say, you'll know I'm holding you prisoner. You'll know I'm the one behind the hex ward."
"Rach," he says, shaking his head.
"No. I'd rather lose you and keep our love pure than keep you and ruin what we've got."
Blake growls and in one savage move picks me up. Hoists me up by the waist as if I don't weigh a thing, and then turns and shoves me against the wall. "You free me, I'm gone."
"You stay, I lose you anyway." I wrap my legs around him. I can feel his cock hard against my cunt. Oh god.
He wraps one hand around my neck, and I can feel the prick of his talons against my skin. "Blood Moon is coming. They'll tear this place apart."
I draw my nails down his chest, scratching his pecs, the cobblestones of his abs. "Let them try. I'll tear them apart."
He growls, leans back to take my full weight on his hips and then tears open my shirt, shredding it into tatters. "You'll be alone. Vulnerable. Scared."
"Fuck that." I unclasp my bra and shrug out of it, dropping it to the ground. Blake grabs both my full breasts in his hands, then sucks one of my aching nipples into his mouth. I gasp and look up at the ceiling. "I'm a Wilder. They'd better respect me."
Oh god. His tongue. Tormenting me, working my nipple, his hands rough on my body. His cock straining against the fabric of his jeans. There's an urgency in his movements that was missing last night. A need born of the fact that we may never see each other again. His tongue is a lash of fire, moving from one breast to the other, his teeth nipping, pulling, his hands kneading, caressing. I bury my hands in his hair.
"Fuck me," I say. "Fuck me so hard I'll never forget you."
He growls again and backs off from the wall, bringing me with him. I lace my hands around his neck, thinking he's taking me to the bed, but he's got other ideas. He unhooks my legs so that I lower to the ground, then turns me around and presses me against the wall. Before I can react he yanks my pants and panties down to the ground, then shoves my legs apart, like a cop about to pat me down over the hood of his patrol car.
I look over my shoulder, hands splayed on the cool wallpaper. "Take me, Blake. Go on. Show me what you can do."
He growls again, and I feel his hand curl in my hair, grabbing a handful. Then I feel the head of his cock slide between my full ass cheeks, and I turn up my ass, arching my back so that he finds the hot entrance to my pussy. My lips are swollen, and I can feel beads of my moisture running down the insides of my thighs. I've never been this wet. This desperate to be fucked. I feel like an addict, and Blake's my only source of relief. When
he slides his massive cock into me I cry out, and push back against him hard.
"You'll never forget me." His voice is rough as he pulls my head back so that he can speak right into my ear. "You're mine." He pulls out slowly, with terrible self control, them slams back into me, my whole body shaking from the force. I cry out in shock and pleasure. "You're mine. Your pussy. Your lips. All of you. Mine."
He draws back out again, even slower, the ridge of his cock head making me whimper. So slow, which only makes me anticipate his hard pistoning back in all the more. Just when his cock feels like it's about to pull out altogether, he slides back in all the way, deep, hard.
"Oh fuck!" I can't take it. The floor feels like it's sliding out from under me and turning into the wall. I see stars. Again he withdraws, and slams into me. Again, and again, harder and faster each time, till within moments he's fucking me raw, my head pulled back, breasts pressed against the wall, his grunts and groans of need making me wild. I shove back against him, loving how he stretches me, fills me. "Harder," I moan, though I don't know if I can take it. "That all you got?"
Blake roars and whips me around. Picks me up over his shoulder like a fireman, and in two strides dumps me down on the bed. He grabs my left leg and extends it vertically up his body, my ankle by his cheek, and pushes my right knee out and down so that I'm wide open for him. Leaning forward he glides into me, sinking his cock to the hilt. Our eyes are locked. The intensity is off the charts. I can't do anything but whimper and gasp as he fucks me. His skin is so hot it's burning, his ripped body mesmerizing to watch, the muscles playing over each other, a vision of perfect manhood. I could come just watching him move.
"Mine," he rasps. "My mate."
"Yes," I say. "Yours. I'm yours, Blake. Oh. Your mate. Oh god!"
My whole body spasms as I come. Every muscle goes taut, and I can only shudder in silence, completely overcome by the force of my ecstasy. Blake roars as he plunges deeply into me and comes, his seed splashing into my canal. I almost sit up with the intensity of my orgasm, and then, when it finally releases its hold on me, flop back, gasping for breath.
Den and Breakfast: BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance (Honeycomb Falls Book 1) Page 7
