Her tears dripped into his fur.
“If you were alive now, I’d go to dinner with you. You dumb old coot. Why couldn’t you stick around, Floyd? Oh, only the good die young…”
Through swollen eyes, Blake saw that Floyd’s flank was rising and falling.
Blake shoved him with one torn, bleeding paw, and Floyd gave out a pained yelp. He was injured for sure, but not dead.
Hattie let out a shriek of anger and smacked him on the head. “Why, you gold-bricking, faking, cheating…”
Floyd’s fur rippled and he shifted into human form.
He sat up, looking pained. “I was merely winded and tryin’ to catch my breath.”
Hattie looked at him narrow-eyed. “I will accept your offer of dinner,” she said. “But I’m going to give you a wallopin’ for making me think you were dead, you fleabag.”
Floyd grinned back. “Worth it,” he said, in a shaky voice.
“And I get to drive.” Floyd, who was already pale, blanched a sickly shade of ivory. But he managed a weak smile. “Still worth it.”
Blake turned and limped off, every step wrenching groans of pain from him as his flesh slowly knit back together.
His mate. Must find his mate. Where was his mate?
All of Dawnie’s bears were dead now. So were several foxes and wolves. Blake ran over to them, scenting madly, but Krista wasn’t one of them.
He should be able to sense Krista. Why couldn’t he? Did that mean she was dead or was it because he was so weak he was going to pass out any second?
Krista nudged him. He gasped in relief.
They both shifted back into human form. Blake sank to his knees. Why was everything spinning?
“I didn’t… bug you…” he gasped. Or at least he tried to make the words come out.
“What? Shift back to wolf so you can heal, you idiot!” Krista’s face went in and out of focus. He’d heal much faster in animal form.
Blake’s head lolled to the side. He saw a lion cub running over to a huge lion. The lion was nuzzling the cub and he thought he heard purring.
Ethan was all right. His father would probably never let him out of his sight again.
“I… bug… the bug…” he mumbled. He wasn’t shifting until he got a chance to make her see the truth.
“What? Yes, of course, you bug me, you big jerk! And it doesn’t matter, I still love you! Shift now or I swear to God I’ll… I’ll withhold sex.”
“No, you won’t. You don’t have the willpower,” he mumbled with a bloody smile, and he shifted back to his wolf form.
The last thing he remembered was Krista cradling his furry face in her lap.
Chapter Twenty
The next day…
“Can I get you another chocolate cookie?” Stef asked Krista. “I made them myself.”
“So you mentioned. Several times.” But Krista reached out and accepted another enormous, gooey cookie from the tin container Stef had brought with her when she pulled up in her van a few minutes earlier.
Blake and Krista were staying in a cabin owned by Floyd, which he insisted was the least that he could do. It was small and neat and right near the tiny downtown. The front porch had rocking chairs, which faced the porch swing Stef was sitting on.
Blake, who was inside making coffee, was mostly healed. He’d slept on the floor in wolf form all night long with Krista’s fox curled up next to him. He was limping a little bit in the morning, but other than that, he was back to his usual self. Stef had headed back to Crystal Bay to fill out massive piles of paperwork, and Mal and Dexter had spent the night in their animal forms on the front porch, healing in the moonlight, and checking in on their wounded compatriot from time to time.
Krista smiled to see that. They were his pack. They drew strength from each other.
She’d woken up with a lightness in her heart. The sun had risen on a different holler—a town that had hope for the first time in decades.
And she’d woken up next to the wolf she loved. The wolf who was a gift of fate. Mal had made them pancakes and sausages for breakfast, then he and Dexter had packed up to head back to Crystal Bay.
Krista had just been about to ask Blake exactly how the healing was going and whether he was up for any more plighting of troths when Stef pulled up to the cabin. Blake had gone inside, grumbling, to put on a pot of coffee.
“More?” Stef offered, as Krista finished chewing her cookie.
“No, thanks, ten is my limit. Is this your attempt to apologize for putting a bug in my purse?” The door swung open and Blake walked out, holding a tray with three cups of coffee. He gave one to Stef and one to Krista.
“Thank you, sir, you are a prince among men.” She took a sip as he settled down into the chair next to hers, wincing slightly.
“I aim to please,” he replied with a wink that left no doubt as to what he meant.
Stef smiled at Krista. “This is my thank you for helping us. I can’t say that I’m sorry about the bug, though. I did what I thought was necessary for the mission.” Stef stuffed a cookie in her mouth.
Blake scowled at her. “You put my mate at risk, Stef. She wouldn’t have run off on her own if you hadn’t put that bug in her purse.”
“No, honestly, it was my mistake,” Krista said to him. She put her hand on his arm and felt the throb of anger in his chest fade a bit. It was amazing how in tune she was with him now. “I let hurt feelings sway my judgment. I mean, I also knew that Gummi would go absolutely mad if he saw anyone that he didn’t know coming to the mine, but I should have consulted with you before I left. We could have figured something out.”
“What she said.” Stef nodded and stuffed two cookies into her mouth. “What?” she added. “Horse metabolism! I burn off calories like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Now that, I find unforgivable. I don’t know if we can ever get past that. Give me another damn cookie,” Krista said, reaching out and grabbing one. “How are Michael and Ethan?”
“Fine, and eternally grateful. Michael says that after the way the people of Flowering Dogwood stepped up to the plate and helped save his son, he’s definitely re-opening the mines.”
Blake helped himself to a couple of cookies. “There were some losses. We’ll have funerals to attend.” He glanced at Krista for confirmation, and she nodded gratefully. He’d be right there by her side; she didn’t even question it.
She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. Her mother had called Hattie repeatedly this morning, begging for Krista’s phone number. Krista only knew this because Hattie had called to tell her—and she’d also let her know that she’d threatened to whip the hide off Maybelline if she even set paw in Flowering Dogwood. And then she’d hung up on Maybelline.
Gummi was still missing. Krista fervently hoped that he’d be found, and he’d be all right.
Every single surviving shifter who’d been in Dawnie’s inner circle had high-tailed it out of the county, as far as could be told. Krista suspected they wouldn’t be seen here again. So much emotionally to process.
But she didn’t have to do it alone.
She opened her eyes and smiled at her handsome mate.
Sensing her needs, as always, he wrapped his hand around Krista’s. “I’m feeling much better, by the way.” His lips curled in a hot, possessive smile and his eyes flashed amber. A wave of arousal flowed through her veins like molten fire, and she squirmed in her seat. “Much, much better.” His voice lowered to a growl.
“Oh, God. You guys are eye-fucking each other right here on the porch.” Stef groaned. She stood up, leaving the tin. “I can tell when I’m not wanted.”
“And yet, you’re still here,” Blake grumbled, flicking her the briefest of annoyed scowls, and then his attention snapped back to Krista.
“Blake. She drove all this way,” Krista protested faintly, even though she was eager to be alone with her mate. “And she brought cookies.” And hopefully, she’d leave soon. But Krista didn’t want to be a bad hostess
.
“I’m going, I’m going.” Stef rolled her eyes. “I just wanted to see with my own eyes that you were okay, Blake. And to bring my famous thank-you cookies. And to tell you… I support whatever decision you make.” She glanced at Krista and then headed down the steps to her van.
Yes, Krista and Blake both had some decisions to make. Krista could come home now, to the place that owned a piece of her—but would that mean dragging Blake away from Shifters, Inc.? They were his pack. She couldn’t do that to him.
Right now, she didn’t want to think. Her head was still whirling, her emotions were still in turmoil. There’d been death and sorrow yesterday, and she’d come close to losing her mate, and everything had changed so quickly. She just wanted to feel.
Blake stood up, wincing again, and they headed into the cabin.
Blake stripped his shirt off over his head as they walked in through the door.
“Ouch,” he said. He was still cris-crossed with fading red scars that would be gone in a few days.
“Poor baby. Do you want me to kiss it and make it better?”
“Oh, God yes.” He breathed the words out fervently. “And I’m hoping that by ‘it’, you mean my entire body.”
He moved quickly into the bedroom, despite the hitch in his step.
Krista helped him finish stripping when they got to the bedroom, unsnapping his jeans and yanking them down to his ankles along with his boxer shorts. He stepped out of them as he watched her strip.
“That’s all mine.” His eyes gleamed with a possessive hunger as she peeled off her dress and bra and underwear and kicked off her shoes. Her body warmed under his loving, hungry gaze. The way he looked at her washed away all the years of feeling invisible and self-conscious and wanting to hide her body. When she was with him, she felt like the queen of her own little kingdom, a kingdom of Blake and Krista.
She moved forward, and he pulled her to him, and for a long moment, she just stood there pressed against him, revelling in the feeling of his strong, hard body.
She started kissing his neck, then worked her way down his body, her lips caressing his flat, muscular stomach. His fingers tangled in her hair, and his breathing deepened. When she took the head of his cock in her mouth and ran her tongue around the rim, he groaned aloud, and his body went rigid.
She tipped her head back to take him all the way in, engulfing him in her mouth and sucking hard. His groans of pleasure stroked her ears and pulsed inside her as she brought him to a climax, swallowing his warm, sweet seed.
His breathing slowed again, and he bent down and scooped her up in his arms as easily as if she were a feather pillow.
“My turn,” he growled. He lay her down on the bed, moving until he was between her legs. He placed his hands on her inner thighs and roughly spread them wide.
“I love it when you act like a caveman,” she gasped.
“Me Blake. You my woman.” He grinned up at her, and then bent down and slowly spread open her dewy petals and ran his tongue along her pussy from front to back.
She melted into the bed as he lapped at her. “Delicious,” he murmured into her heated sex. “Like honey,” and he thrust his tongue up inside her to drink up more of it. The pleasure that swelled and burned inside her was so intense it was almost painful, and he kept at it, slow, sweet, firm. Her thighs quivered, and he placed his palms on them again, forcing them even wider, holding them in place.
Her climax rose up like a tidal wave, hanging over her head, trembling, then crashing inside her and wrenching shrieks of pleasure from her. “Oh, God.” There were tears on her cheeks, and white sparks flying behind her clenched-shut eyelids.
And he never stopped lapping her up. Aftershocks rocked her body, and finally, he moved up on the bed to hold her in his arms and kiss her sweaty forehead. She lay there trembling for a long time before she finally murmured, “I’m ready for round two.”
Later, after they’d screwed themselves into exhaustion and then dozed for a few hours, he declared that today was “naked day” and got up to cook her brunch. Every time she made a move to get dressed, he growled at her and nipped her shoulder, so she finally gave up.
After lunch, they went out on the front porch, still naked. She leaned into him and just stood there, staring off at her mountains in the distance. They were hers. She’d been born here, just like generations before her. These mountains were part of the landscape of her soul. She fit pretty well in the city, but the truth she’d always been afraid to acknowledge was that she’d left a piece of her behind when she fled, and she couldn’t be completely whole living anywhere else.
Epilogue
Ten months later…
“Here you go!” Linda Fae chirped, holding out a plastic bowl which contained a wallet and keys. She’d just lifted them from Houston when she was taking his vital signs.
“Linda Fae!” Krista said with exasperation.
“What? I gave them back!” Linda Fae said indignantly. She was training to be a medical assistant in the new clinic that Michael Coffman had funded. Krista worked at the clinic three days a week and spent the other four working in Crystal Bay.
Linda Fae just couldn’t help herself, though. But at the end of every exam, she returned everything that she pilfered, so there was that.
“Yeah, yeah.” Krista hurried out to the parking lot, where Houston was headed for his car.
“Houston! You, uh, dropped your stuff!” Krista called out.
“Sure, sure. Right into Linda Fae’s paws, huh?” Houston grumbled as took his possessions back, but his heart wasn’t really in it. He was walking tall now, and he looked twenty years younger. He hadn’t touched a drop of moonshine since last year, and he’d gotten a job at the mines, which were now back open.
Krista had been able to help alleviate the symptoms of a lot of the victims of Dawnie’s moonshine. Roy wasn’t blind anymore, although he was so near-sighted that he had to wear glasses the thickness of coke bottles. Those whose brains were addled, she’d been able to help restore to some semblance of their former selves.
She’d tried treating Gummi when he’d eventually emerged from the woods last summer, but his problem wasn’t moonshine, it was permanent brain damage from one of his mother’s beatings. He was always going to be his big, simple self. He lived in his family’s main cabin by himself, surviving off the land as he always did, but much happier now that he no longer lived in fear of his mother and brother.
Houston waved goodbye to Krista as he headed to his pickup truck. He was her last customer of the day, so she went inside to tell Louise, the office manager, that she could close up, then she headed out to wait for Blake.
A car screeched into the lot and pulled up right in front of the clinic, smashing into a garbage can when it parked.
Hattie leaned out the window of Floyd’s Pontiac and waved at her niece. Floyd was in the passenger’s seat with a frozen, terrified smile pasted on his face. Krista didn’t feel too bad for him. After all, he’d been the one that called Dawnie and told her that Krista was at the party asking around about Ethan – he’d confessed as much.
Oh, he’d come around in the end and been willing to risk his life to take down the Reeds, but he had plenty to atone for. And what better punishment than being a passenger when her great-aunt was driving?
“Hey, Krista! Need a ride? Me and Floyd are headed for the diner, you can join us.” Krista’s car was in the shop for the next few days. She’d broken an axle going over a pothole. Good old Flowering Dogwood roads. Really, really old roads.
Krista’s gaze wandered over the Pontiac, which he let Hattie drive everywhere. Both headlights cracked, front bumper dented, scrapes down the passenger and the driver’s side…
And did Hattie have a black eye?
“What the heck happened to you?” she demanded.
“Aw, that ain’ nothing. I caught Marigold cheating at bridge last night, and we had a little to-do out in the parking lot.”
Krista spluttered in
protest. “She’s one of your best friends! She risked her life for you last summer!”
Hattie’s face set in stubborn lines. “Still no call for cheatin’. Hop in the car already! I’m hungry.”
Fortunately, before she could answer with a firm “hell to the no”, Blake pulled in to the parking lot in his big SUV.
He pulled right up next to Hattie’s car, giving it a look of alarm. He’d been gone for four days with Mal and Dexter on a protection detail for Michael Coffman. Michael only trusted Shifters, Inc. with his son’s protection, and yes, the lion shifter was a little smother-y when it came to his son’s safety. The protection detail had been for their trip to Disneyland. Ethan didn’t go anywhere without a small swarm of bodyguards these days, but who could fault his father after what he’d been through?
Ethan had recovered from his ordeal quite well, though. He was in great spirits, and back in school – with bodyguards – and getting excellent grades, and he and his father came to the holler on a regular basis, treating Krista to lunch at Floyd’s diner. She tried to pay, but Michael refused.
Krista had been running to work in fox form every day—it was only two miles, and these woods were like home to her. She’d managed to beg off Hattie’s offers of a ride with various excuses.
And now she had an even better one. “Sorry, Hattie. Appreciate the offer, but I need to spend some time catching up with my mate.”
“Is that what you young folks call it?” She glanced at Floyd and winked at him. “Maybe we should skip the diner and go spend some time catchin’ up.” Floyd’s wrinkled face split into a huge smile.
“Oh, give me strength.” Why did Hattie have to put that image in Krista’s head? “I am throwing up my entire soul right now.” Krista backed away in dismay as Hattie grinned at her, rolled up her window and backed out of the parking lot, clipping a hedge on the way.
Krista quickly slid into the driver’s side seat of Blake’s SUV.
Blackmailed By The Wolf (Shifters, Inc. Book 6) Page 15
