by Jamie Klaire
"He has said he wants me. As his mate, I mean." Emma blushed even hotter at her own words.
"How do you feel? About him?"
"The rational part of me is still rebelling against all of this. It still thinks it's going to wake up from this surreal dream, back at home, with my dad. It can't even imagine choosing a 'forever mate' in some hot guy I just met, regardless of how much his kisses make me melt, or the visions I see of our future when we touch."
"Wait! You see visions? You're already connected, then. I don't see visions, but I hear Galen. In my head. Not my brain thinking 'what would Galen say,' but I can really hear him. His thoughts and things he aims at me. I can send him my thoughts, as well. Your connection is visual?"
"I guess. Elam said my mother's was the same. That she could 'see' things. Future things. Like how different choices would play out."
"Do you see it that way as well? Different choices playing out?"
"Just once. When Elam kissed me."
"You kissed! How was it? What did you see?"
"Oh, Kate, it was amazing. And I 'saw' what would happen if I denied him in my upcoming heat, and denied him until I left with my dad next year, like we were supposed to. And what would happen if I let him claim me."
"Holy shit! There is so much to discuss in that. Hang on, what do you mean in your upcoming heat? Start there."
"I'm half-wolf. From mom, obviously. But Elam says that being here, around other wolves and their hormones and whatever, that my cycle is changing. That my constant irritation, and my horniness and whatever, is due to my first heat cycle."
"In heat, like cats? And dogs, I guess would be a better..."
"Yep, supposedly. He said he can smell the change in me. That all the wolves can. And that very shortly, in the next day or so, it's going to hit me really hard. He said he'd have me guarded, by female wolves, if I want. Or, he can guard me himself, as my mate. It's my call."
"And you already 'saw' how this would go?"
"I guess. If 'seeing' is even a real thing. How am I supposed to trust that? Visions out of nowhere? Hell, maybe it's just all this fresh air. Or something in the water. I'm supposed to just suddenly trust that I can see the future? What the hell?"
"What did you see?"
Emma sighed, not sure how she even got into this conversation.
"I saw myself denying Elam, leaving here with dad in a year, not happy. Or I saw myself giving in. Giving myself to Elam. Mating with Elam."
"Were you happy? With Elam?"
"Yes. But there was more. Pain. The pack dividing. Some kind of core change within myself."
"Emma, the pack is already dividing."
"Yeah, that was in both scenarios, come to think of it."
"Interesting. So what are you going to do?"
"I have no idea."
Chapter 6
Emma woke from a heated dream, her blankets wrapped in confining ropes around her thrashing body, to find her hand between her legs.
She was rubbing herself furiously, trying to ease the ache of her heat by herself. It wasn't helping.
Her dreams had been of Elam. Of taking Elam, of letting Elam claim her as his mate.
She had no idea why she'd resisted him as long as she had. She'd known, as did he, that they would become one. Maybe she didn't appreciate her body choosing for her brain, or maybe she was scared to give in to feelings she'd never had before, or maybe it was just a virgin's caution, but she wished with all of her might that she had let Elam know that when the time came, she didn't want his best females guarding her in the cave.
She wanted him. She needed him. And by god, she was going to go find him.
She slid out of bed rather clumsily, getting tripped up and caught by her own tangled sheets before planting both feet on the floor beside her bed and heading toward her front door.
She'd thought she still had time. Kate had only left a few hours ago, and she was to give Elam her answer in the morning as to who would accompany her to the cave- him, or a group of females, but she guessed from the animal, instinctive need raring through her that she was too late.
Her gait was unsteady crossing the living room she'd been meant to share with Kate. She paused behind the couch they had just been sitting on together a while before, and she gripped the back of it as a particularly strong wave of erotic need rolled through her.
She'd been horny before, of course, but she'd never felt quite like this. This was stronger than she was, this was biological, and animal, and well...heated.
She laughed at herself, having scorned the pack's 'fucking through their heat, like dogs' as she started tasting the feeling herself.
Elam had been right, if there were a pack of willing men just outside her door, she was almost convinced she would allow them plenty- again and again. And her heat was just beginning.
She eyed the arm of the couch that she was currently using to hold herself upright, and imagined herself straddling that arm- parting her thighs, hiking a leg up and over the arm of the couch, and riding the arm like it was Elam's cock, just long enough to come.
Just long enough to knock the edge off, a little, and allow her to go find Elam in his cabin and offer herself to him.
She somehow knew that it wouldn't help, and trying it would only mean that much more time passing before she could get to what she really needed- Elam. She used the back of the couch to push off, to propel herself to her front door instead.
She opened the door, flinging it wide, and instead of the expanse of open porch she expected to see, she saw him.
He was planted on her porch, his wide, naked back to her, his arms crossed over his chest, his feet spread wide, his naked ass staring back at her, guarding her cabin. The last remnants of rationality in her brain had her head swiveling, looking for the band of females he'd said he'd need to help him keep the throngs of wolves from her during her heat, but she only saw him.
"Elam..."
The heat in her words, combined with the wave of scent she'd sent his way when she flung open the door, reached him.
His body was already tense with need. Knowing she was inside, suffering, when he could help her drove a spike through his very soul. He'd wanted to go to her, the minute his wolf became aware that her heat had begun in earnest, but she hadn't made up her mind yet, and he damn well wanted her to be sure, to choose him as he has chosen her, before he would ever take her, wolf or no.
He braced himself, waiting until she moaned his name again, before turning to face her. He was shocked breathless by what he saw.
"Emma, jeeze. You are naked."
"So are you!"
"I was in wolf form when I scented you, I didn't have time..."
"Where is everyone else?"
"Everyone else? What are you talking about?" The sight of her before him was enough to drive all rational response from his mind. It was all he could do not to go to her.
She was beautiful, her fiery hair a disheveled cloud around her head, her full, ripe breasts rising and falling with her every breath. He followed the line of her body south, wanting to grip her where her waist nipped in, and run his palms over the flare of her hips before dropping to his knees in front of her to worship her body, to rub his face between her...
Her words pulled him back, but barely.
"You said there would be hordes of wolves when I was in full heat."
His throat tightened in pain, but he choked out a response.
"Do you want hordes? I can summon them. Whatever you wish, Emma."
"No! I'm just confused. I was headed to you. I want you Elam, only you. But you said you'd have to fight..."
"That was before. Things changed."
"Things? What things? Elam, I can't think right."
"That was before I was Alpha. Before I took you with me, hand in hand, to see Thomas's body. I'm sure your scent is driving many a wolf to find a mate tonight, but none will bother us here. I am Alpha, and you are mine. I know it, the pack knows it."
"I kn
ow it as well. I need you, Elam. Please."
"That is the heat talking, Em. I will guard you, don't worry about that. No one will bother you. But I don't want you to choose me in heat, and regret it later. Your regret would tear me apart. I will wait, Em. I will wait, however long it takes, no matter how badly I ache to come to you, to soothe you, to claim you. I will wait. Until it is what you want as well."
"You were just willing to summon hordes of wolves at my whim, if that was what I wanted, but you won't give me you?"
She snorted the words with equal parts sarcasm and wonder, but she was honored that he wouldn't take advantage of her just because he could. And right now, he most definitely could.
She let her eyes roam over the hard body she'd been seeing quite a bit of lately, had even gotten to touch in the cave before Galen interrupted them. She'd wanted him then, almost admitting it to him and giving herself to him then, and she was damn determined his honorable chivalry was not going to stand between her and what she wanted tonight.
She took the few steps needed to reach him, stopping inches from his hard, sculpted body. The body she knew would give her so much pleasure, if she could only tempt him past chivalry, tease him past honor, drive him past protection and over the edge toward possession.
The wind picked up right then, caressing her skin with its warm breeze. It felt like a benediction, a blessing. It soothed her and encouraged her at the same time, feeding the flames already burning hot, but also arousing her confidence and urging her into unknown territory- seduction.
Emma had never seduced anyone, ever. But tonight she felt like her very life depended on getting Elam into her bed.
Her subconscious noted with some humor that the full moon shone huge and bright over his shoulder as they faced off, teasing her with the irony of every werewolf story she'd ever read. She took stock of every heightened sense she had in the heartbeat before she made her move.
It was the scent of him, stirred up and driven into her nostrils by the wind that sealed her fate.
He smelled like heaven. Peace, eternity, passion, need, forever, those were the words her brain used to try to categorize the various conflicting but complementary scents. But also twisted and tangled in his scent was coffee. Soothing coffee, dark chocolate, and weirdly- freshly cut summer grass. And under that, surpressed but growing was something darker.
Cinnamon, like he said he scented on her- but also musk and some scent her brain could only classify as sex. She'd never smelled sex, but somehow, maybe because he'd already named it, that was the word that jumped into her brain.
Sex.
Her brain focused on the word. It expanded in her conscience, flashing other words at her in quick succession- heat, need, now, mine. It started repeating on a desperate, escalating loop- mine, Mine, Mine, MINE!
His face looked almost pained as she focused on it. His breathing shallow, as if he was fighting the instinct to inhale her deeply. She felt a pang of insecurity, her human doubt coming to the surface. But then her eyes dropped, taking in the large, almost throbbing, very erect cock that was pointing straight at her. He definitely wanted her. But then he'd made that very obvious since she'd come here, in word and in deed.
"There's no going back, Em. Be sure. Be very, very sure. If you come any closer, if you make the slightest move in my direction, there will be no going back."
Chapter 7
His pained words brought her eyes up, from his twitching cock to his heated gaze.
She wanted very much to be a part of what she saw in those depths. Pain, pack division, soul changes be damned, she knew somehow that her life was entwined with his already. And she wanted her body to be entwined with his, as well.
She took the last step toward him, her naked body grazing and then pressing firmly against his as he stood guard over her on her porch, and she stated her choice.
"Kiss me, Elam. Make love to me, with me. Take me. Fuck me. Claim me. I am yours already, and I always will be. Claim me and mark me as such forever, and you will be mine as well."
"I have been yours since the very moment I saw you, Emma. I've only been waiting for you to take me as well."
His words were almost grunted, the last grip of his meager control released as he uttered them before sliding his hands into her hair and cupping her face. He aimed her lips to his, his slow, exploring kiss changing and growing into something wild and needy.
Her mouth opened under his, his tongue sliding against hers as he deepened the kiss and slid an arm around her waist, pulling her near.
He walked her backwards, back inside her cabin, slamming the door with the heel of his foot once they cleared the threshold.
He stooped low then, scooping her up. One arm against her back and one under her bent knees, he lifted her, carrying her through the cabin and into her bedroom. He laid her down in the center of her bed, and an odd thought popped out of her mouth.
"I 'saw' this happening in the cave."
"Oh I'm sure I will have you there as well, sweet Emma. I plan on taking you everywhere you let me. Again and again."
He said that last bit with a grin, seconds before he parted her legs and kissed the sensitive skin on her inner thighs.
The feel of his mouth a few inches above her knee, teasing her flesh with his hot breath and soft, moist kisses was at once a totally new experience for her and at the same time, oddly a coming home. She knew she was exactly where she was supposed to be, that somehow this union, this very night, was where she had been headed her entire life.
Now that she was finally here, she wanted Elam, all of Elam, inside of her. Her heat was urging her on, she knew she'd only be complete once she and Elam were one, so she tried to tug on his hair, moaning her wishes as he continued to slowly tease her instead of taking her.
"Now, Elam. Please. I need you. Come up here and take me Elam, please. I need to feel you inside me."
"Funny, you don't sound like you've never done this before." He laughingly muttered the words against her skin, kissing his way up her silky thigh, aiming his mouth for the scent that had been driving him crazy for so long.
He wanted to kiss her there, to taste her, to drive her so wild for him that the little bit of pain she might feel when he slid inside her would be drowned out with need. He knew her heat was controlling her right now, but he still wanted their first time, her first time, to be something special for her, not just a heated, animalistic rutting.
"Relax Emma, let me taste you. We have all night. Hell, we have the rest of our lives. You only have one first time, I plan on making yours memorable."
He punctuated those words by finally reaching his goal and sliding his tongue between her virgin lips. The moan she let escape above him was so innocently surprised, and at the same time so utterly erotic, he suddenly wasn't sure that he'd be able to take it as slow with her as he wanted to.
She let her thighs open wider for him, welcoming his mouth as it moved over her, kissing her where no one had ever kissed her before. Her hands, which had a moment before been tugging at him, urging him away from here, were now fisted in his hair for an entirely different reason.
He added his fingers to his tongue, spreading her lips gently and sliding back and forth over her wet slit, enjoying the heated moans he was causing to tumble from her mouth.
She started rocking her hips rhythmically, her body instinctively pressing for more, falling into a rhythm as old as time as she sought relief from the heat building inside of her. He responded by sliding one finger slowly inside her.
The sound she made as his finger entered her hardened his cock even more, becoming almost painful as it ached to be where his finger was.
She rocked her hips faster, harder as his finger filled her, sliding deeper, and his tongue danced circles around her clit. He licked her with the flat of his tongue one minute, and circling and teasing her clit with the tip of his tongue the next, driving her higher and higher in her need.
"Elam! Oh, Elam! I'm going to come. I'm going t
o...Oh!"
He didn't stop what he was doing to answer her, he kept up the rhythm he'd found until her back arched, pressing her even more firmly against his mouth, and he felt her squeezing contractions around his finger as her orgasm took her.
As her waves slowed and stopped, he pulled his fingers from her, and started kissing his way up her body. He licked and nipped the flushed skin on her stomach, dipping his tongue into her belly button before exploring farther.
He grazed his teeth over the edges of her ribcage, her breathing still ragged, as his hand went on ahead, finding and cupping one full breast and teasing the nipple with his thumb as his mouth slowly followed behind.
He kissed the underside of her breast as he explored his way up her body, and then teased her nipple with his tongue before closing his lips around the tight bud and sucking on it.
She arched against him again, pressing her breast against his mouth, seeking more.
He pulled his mouth from her nipple just long enough to say, "Your body is so responsive. I loved making you come, feeling your orgasm squeeze my fingers. I can't wait until you are squeezing my cock inside you when you come again, Emma."
"Damn Elam. That felt so good. No one's ever made me come before. I mean, I've made myself, but no man has ever..."
"So you liked my mouth on you? Inside you?"
She groaned her response, with a sly grin. "You know I did. And you were right, in the cave, when you said that would take the edge off, but not for long. Elam, I already want you again. I need you, again. But I want to taste you, too."
"Oh no. Emma, I'm trying to take it slow, for you. If you wrapped those lips around me, touched me with that tongue of yours... No, Em. Not yet. Tonight is all about you."
"That hardly seems fair," she almost whined the words, trying to sit up under him.
"Explore me later, Em. I promise I'm all yours, forever. You can do whatever you want to me, with me. But right now, I want to be inside you. It's the only thing that will quench your heat for longer than a minute, and honestly, the only thing that will quench mine. I need to be deep inside you. I need you, Em. All of you."
