by V. Vaughn
She laughed. “Don’t be silly. They’d only skin you alive.”
“Gee. Much better death.”
She kissed him soundly. He still hadn’t gotten sex yet. He was growing desperate and horny. No, he was way past horny. He was like a randy teen with his first hard-on. If she so much as brushed her hand against him, he would erupt. And that blew because he didn’t want her thinking he didn’t know what he was doing.
Her smile was gentle. “I promise, when we can, I’ll take care of you. But for now, hotness, let’s focus on the task at hand.”
Blowing out a heavy and slightly pained breath, he rolled his eyes. “Gods, I’m a wreck.”
She held his hand, and suddenly the mood turned serious as the gravity of their situation impressed itself on him. He nodded, giving her a silent agreement that he promised to be a good bear for the moment.
Walking them both toward the exit to his den, he jutted his chin toward it. “Our best and fastest bet is to shift into our animal forms and—”
She shook her head resolutely. “Can’t. My wings have been clipped.” Her hand dropped to her belly.
Bears could and often did shift into their animal during pregnancy. They found the more brutal nature of the beast to be safer for the well-being of the mother as well as the cub.
“Birds are not built like bears, or most other Breed for that matter. Shifting now could damage our child.”
He covered her bump with his hand. This would make the situation a little trickier. He’d hoped to keep her hidden as her crow in a satchel strapped to his back. But every problem had a solution.
“Can you still run?”
Her grin widened. “I was half-blinded last night. But aye, I can still fly on my feet, caveman.”
His chest swelled with pride at the return of the fire in her voice. He knew she was tired. He could read it in every line on her face, but she was brave, a warrior through and through.
“Good. Then let’s fly, bird. I’ll shift into my bear—”
“Why?” She snorted and hip-checked him. “So that you can actually hope to keep up with me this time?”
“Keep up? You wish.” He grinned, refusing to let go of her hand yet.
“Oh yeah, I wish. Okay. I do seem to recall a certain man sucking in wind and—”
He poked her in the ribs, causing her to squeal, slap his hand away, then giggle with delight.
“Keep it up, and I’ll forget you’re my mate. I am rather partial to bird for breakfast,” he teased.
“Do it, and I’ll poke your eye out, you naughty bear.”
Caught up in the moment, Chance realized how domestic and… natural this all felt. He tugged her into him and kissed her softly on the lips, taking his sweet time to taste her. He wanted to memorize each little breathy sigh and whimper, the way her fingers gently raked down his biceps whenever he increased the pressure of his touch, and how her soft baby swell rubbed up against the hard planes of his abs.
Never again would he scoff at the ancient magick of his people. Never again would he question August or Phoenix on anything. He couldn’t wait to show his brothers his mate.
Chance finally forced himself to break the kiss. He could have actually lingered on her lips all day, feasting, sucking, and nibbling all over them. But there was still the matter of her safety to attend to.
Though they were already deep into grizzly territory, the Crow Queen could demand her daughter back by law. If Bronwyn had been a grizzly, then the mating ritual would have given him full rights as the acknowledged mate. But she was a crow.
In their eyes, he’d kidnapped her. Whether she’d gone willingly or not wouldn’t matter to them. His “crime” was punishable by death.
He gave her one final stare and transmitted whatever strength he could to her. Then he tossed aside the pines, twigs, and leaves that had camouflaged the entrance to his den and peeked out.
The woods were alive with the sounds of insects and the first songs of birds. The sky was tinted a pale shade of blue. The sun would rise in less than thirty minutes. Squeezing her hand one final time, he stepped out fully before shifting.
As a bear, he was far more attuned to the world around him. He could sense the steady vibrations of the beasts and creatures that roamed, sounds that were near silent to the human ears along the forest floor.
He sniffed the air and smelled flowers, nuts, rodents, and even a few jays. But no crows.
Turning back toward the den, he gave Bronwyn a low growl of approval, letting her know it was time to leave.
She moved like a hesitant little rabbit, framed in the doorway. Her already big eyes looked impossibly wide and frightened as she gazed around.
It would slow them down if he constantly shifted just so he could talk with her. He head-bumped her thigh instead, rubbing his cheek along her sweet-smelling flesh as if he were a contented cat.
She scratched the top of his head gently. With a determined nod, she gravely said, “Let’s go then, caveman.”
And with that, her feet flew. In seconds, she’d left him in her dust. Chance wanted to roar in satisfaction. There was very little in the world he loved more than the chase.
He didn’t think he could ever tire of chasing Bronwyn. In less than a minute, he’d caught back up to her. It shouldn’t have been possible that he could run faster as an almost five-hundred-pound bear than in his human form, but he could. He also had more endurance in his bear form.
His breathing was nice and even, and though Bronwyn remained a few feet in front of him, he never once lost sight of her.
The fact that she knew where he lived came in handy. If she had been forced to keep his speed, he would only have slowed her down. He wanted her locked inside his cabin as soon as possible.
They were splashing through a brook twenty minutes later, within the final ten miles of his home, when he spotted a black streak circle in the sky. Then with a great cry, it dove for them.
Bronwyn shook violently, clutching her robes with white-knuckled intensity as she stared, horrified. Chance was beside her in an instant, shielding her body with his much larger one.
Before the black blur even landed, it was already shifting, standing on the thickest branch of the tree just ahead of them, technically not on their lands.
A woman with long dark hair, and far curvier hips and breasts than his Bronwyn, raked his form with a frosty glare. It wasn’t difficult to figure out that though there were differences between the two women, they definitely shared the same blood.
“Bronwyn, how could you?” the woman asked flatly, anger evident in the rough texture of her tone.
His woman, who had been terrified just moments ago, seemed to dig down deep for courage. She transformed in front of his eyes from an unsure, delicate female, to one made of steel and fire.
“You know why, Casia. So you found me. Have you told Mother yet?” Bron’s chin couldn’t have been notched any higher without doing permanent damage to her nerves and tendons.
Chance rubbed his body along hers, vibrating with coiled-up energy. At the slightest twitch or hint that Bronwyn wanted him to, he would pounce her sister bird, ripping her lovely head from her lovely neck.
Bronwyn, already in tune to his emotions, dropped her hand to his head and rubbed gently, easing much of his strained nerves with her tender touch.
Casia glanced down, her hawk-like gaze missing nothing between them. Her upper lip curled back with a hint of distaste. “So this is he?” she asked, never bothering to answer Bron’s first question.
Chance looked up at his woman. A muscle in her cheek twitched repeatedly as she clenched her teeth. Tense silence rang between them before she finally gave a hard nod of her head.
“Then you’ve chosen?” Casia clutched her hands together, fingers squeezing together tightly. “You will birth a cub?”
Again, Bronwyn gave a jerky nod. “Aye. So long as you keep my secret, yes, I will.”
Casia’s eyes, not quite as dark as Bronwyn’s, turn
ed sad. “You will break her heart.”
Chance held his breath, wondering if his gut instinct was right, and his bird’s sister planned to keep their secret for them after all.
The world seemed to go perfectly still. The only noises he could hear were the rush of all their breaths as they waited for one of them to break the silence.
Casia was the one to finally do it. “And Rolo? What of him?”
“Rolo loves another. And his secret is not mine to share.” Bron took a step forward, clutching her hands together in a prayerful pose. “So please don’t ask me to. Just know that his heart has been given long ago. And now I wish only to follow my own. Let us go, Cas. Let us go and keep my secret. Please.”
Taking several deep breaths and never breaking eye contact, Casia simply said, “As you wish. From this day forward, I no longer consider you part of my clan. You’ve chosen. May you never live to regret it. I shall keep your secret until the day of the cub’s birth.”
And though Bronwyn stood straight and proud, Chance could see the fire of pain that glittered through her eyes like broken shards of glass at her sister’s cruel words.
With a stiff bow to them, Casia turned her face up to the sky. In moments, she was engulfed in the fires of change, shifting instantly from woman back into bird. The crow circled their heads once before flying off with an angry cry.
Once she’d gone, Bronwyn collapsed into his side. Chance shifted immediately, his hands going around her waist before she fell. Blinded by her tears, she could only wrap her arms around his neck and bury her face in his chest.
Chance walked them the rest of the way toward the cabin, knowing he could never fix this pain she bore. Losing her clan, the only family she’d ever known, couldn’t be easy.
But that was the way of life for the Breed. Real life was far from the life of a fairy-tale princess. It was messy, and complicated, and full of horrible decisions.
“I will be your family now, little bird.”
She looked up at him with a tear-stained face and sniffed. Giving him a watery smile, she said, “And our child too.”
He nodded. “Yes. And our cub too.”
Chance hated to admit that he was overjoyed in the face of such misery. He felt ashamed, but he would be a liar if he said it wasn’t true. If Casia really did keep their secret for the next two weeks, then he would never need to worry again of losing his woman.
He was just about to reach for the door of his cabin when it was suddenly and violently kicked open. Splinters of wood exploded like tiny missiles in every direction.
Chance stumbled back, clutching desperately onto Bronwyn so she wouldn’t be hurt in the blast. Slivers of heated wood pierced through his flesh like a hot knife through butter.
He hissed even as he turned into the blast to take the full brunt of it into himself.
Bronwyn cried out, struggling to break free. “Chance, you’re hurt!”
“I’ll live,” he snapped.
But a thunder-like roar erupted behind him, shaking the very ground beneath his feet and silencing any further words from them.
He turned just in time to see a nightmarish thing come winging through the blasted-out door. A green-and-golden-scaled dragon moved with astonishing speed into the sky, but that wasn’t the oddest sight.
No, the strangest thing was the fact that his brother Phoenix, who was easily twice as large as Chance, was clutched in its taloned grip as it flew them both toward the clouds.
Chance’s eyes grew wide as he watched his struggling, roaring brother disappear from sight just seconds later.
He and Bronwyn stood in silence for some time before she finally chuckled. “And you thought you had it bad with a crow. Seems like your brother tagged himself a dragoness.”
He shook his head. “Not just any dragoness.” He’d recognized those scales immediately. Madison worked at August’s bar and had a temper like… well, a dragon. A dragon he’d dumped not once, but twice. A dragon who, at this point, pretty much hated his guts. “Phoenix is in for hell.”
They laughed.
7
Bronwyn
It had taken Chance all of that day to fix the extensive damage done to their cabin door. He’d piled mounds of furs on Bronwyn to help keep her temperature at a balmy ninety degrees.
They’d barely moved from the bed in the week and a half since she’d come back to him.
She was three times as large as she’d been when she’d first made the journey to find her bear. In less than a week’s time, they would be welcoming their tiny new cub into the world.
“Do you wish food?” he asked, running his fingers along her naked belly.
She laughed when their child kicked at his palm. His eyes widened, and a grin of delight spread across his gorgeous features.
No matter how many times he felt their child, Chance always marveled at the touch of it as though it were the first. “He’s strong.”
She snorted, brushing his palm off. “He could be a she. And then what will you do, Chance?”
His nostrils flared. “Then I’ll kill any male stupid enough to try and take her from us.”
“You mean the way you took me from my peoples?” Her words sparkled with laughter.
She was happy. Blissful, really. Every night, they made love by the gentle glow of a campfire. And in the days since she had arrived, they’d taken the time to learn each other, not just physically but spiritually, in a way that mattered. They focused on learning all the intricate little nuances of what it meant to be with each other.
Already, she felt like she’d known him his whole life.
Chance was a rapscallion with a devilish streak a mile long. But he adored her. If she wanted for anything, he was always there, anticipating her every move. If she needed to go to the privy, if she mentioned wanting food, if she said anything, he was there.
He poked her in the ribs. “Totally different, and you know it.”
She slapped his hand, hard, and gave him a grr for emphasis.
“Little bird’s got teeth. Hot,” he said with a cocky half-grin and a wink before swooping in and stealing another heart-stopping kiss.
His kisses turned her into a puddle of mush. She might be as round as a giant boulder at the moment, but she had never felt sexier.
“You. You,” she stuttered in between kisses.
“Yes?” he asked with a brow lift.
Gods, he was gorgeous. And sometimes that was so annoying, like now when his hands were sliding all over her highly sensitive skin, making her pant and moan like a B-rated porn star.
“You were saying something?” He taunted her yet again as he moved that hand south, slipping it between her thighs to her slick, wet folds.
She gasped when he pressed his thumb in hard, circular motions against her engorged clitoris. Shots of pleasure rocked through her core, spiraling in tight waves throughout her body.
“I can’t hear you, little bird,” he mumbled as he moved down her body, kissing a hot trail across her clavicle, then down her stomach. He took a moment to savor the sweetness of her navel before dipping down to his final destination.
She cried out when his hands latched onto her knees and spread her thighs wide, exposing her engorged, swollen nub to his greedy gaze.
Chance stared at her as though entranced. While she found it stimulating to be the object of such scrutiny, she was also desperate for him to get on with things.
Lifting her hips, she moaned. “Do me now, bear, or I swear to the gods, I’ll—”
But then her words died on her tongue the moment his mouth, hot, wet, and greedy, landed on her. He sucked and nibbled, moaning and groaning in the back of his throat as he feasted on her.
Dizzy with rapture, she clawed at his skull, jamming him tighter between her thighs if he so much as hinted at coming up for air.
“Breathe later,” she hissed when he once again tried to rise up.
His booming peal of laughter vibrated her clit deliciously, making a bolt of
liquid fire zip down her spine.
“Suffocation by cunnilingus. Is that to be the way I go then, crow?” His words sparkled with laughter.
She was mindless with delirium and could only grunt, shoving him right back down where he belonged. His tongue was like velvet and steel, hard and soft, and… “Perfect. Dear gods, grizzly, you’re perfect.”
With a growl of approval, he speed up what he was doing, adding his thumb into the mix. That was her undoing. Screaming, she spasmed mightily as he wrung every drop of pleasure out of her.
It felt like hours before she was able to manage a breath that didn’t stutter through her lungs. When she opened her eyes, it was to look into her male’s very satisfied ones. The heat in his gaze hadn’t dimmed in the slightest.
And though she’d just had one of the most powerful orgasms of her life, the look he gave her was enough to the stirrings of heat slither and slink through her lower body once more.
Nuzzling the corner of her neck, Chance wrapped his legs around hers, basically pinning her to the bed. But she didn’t mind. His touch, while dominant, was also gentle and tender. He kept his weight off her middle, even lightly feathering his fingers along her tummy now and then as though in greeting to their child.
“Bronwyn,” he murmured as something hot, hard, and long poked into her upper thigh.
“Lover,” she murmured, laving her tongue along the length of his left collarbone, breaking him out in a wash of goose bumps.
Groaning, he rubbed his engorged cock on her thigh, and she sighed at the dichotomous play of hard steel and softest velvet. Wrapping her legs around his middle, she shifted so that she was fully open to him.
Chance kept all his weight on his hands as he slid his cock deep into her wet sheath.
They both sighed in unison at the moment of penetration. He filled her so completely. While it was wonderful, it was also a little uncomfortable with her stomach being so swollen between them.
