“What if I tied you to the bed?” she asked and he laughed.
“Kinky.”
“You couldn’t lose control if you were tied to the bed, with belts or something and I could touch you, kiss you,” she said a little embarrassed, was she saying it all wrong?
“I don’t have a belt strong enough to hold me if you were doing those things to me Imogen. The animal inside me would be in control and he would snap the bed in two to possess you.”
She furrowed her brow and he needed to clarify for her, “When we are in bed, I will always be dominant, it’s in our nature. I know that probably offends your feminine sensibilities but I promise you won’t mind, not here when it’s just the two of us. The pleasure we will take from each other is sweeter than anything you have ever known and it’s like a drug, the more I possess you, the more I will crave you. If you bite me and claim me as yours, you will feel the same way,”
“Do wolves ever claim someone and regret it?”
“I have never known it to happen because it’s not a conscious choice, biting to heal or to transition is, but biting to claim is instinctual. I don’t know if I could have stopped myself from claiming you, it was meant to be.”
He sat up and traced his finger down her jaw and she closed her eyes and savored the feeling. She craved his touch; she was already addicted to him and she wanted everything he could give her.
“Do you want children?”
He chuckled at the change of direction but he leaned back to look at her, “Yes, I want children, as many as you want to give me. Beautiful blue-eyed girls that can wrap me around their little fingers and strong, handsome sons that will melt their mother’s heart,”
“Are large families common? I always wanted a houseful of children but I thought I would be much older before that happened.”
“They can be common and I am happy to wait for a while, we only just met, but we do live in the modern world and condoms are a wolf’s best friend,” he teased her. The contraceptive pill doesn’t work on our physiology. As a man, my goal when we make love is to bring us both pleasures, my wolf’s goal is simply to impregnate you, as many times as he can and your wolf’s goal is to let him.”
The heat erupted in her core, there was something sensual and incredibly sexy about their frank discussion and she was desperate to transition fully so that she could experience all of this with him.
“Won’t everyone know that we are waiting until my first run, feel like we are in a fishbowl,” she frowned and he pulled her on top of him for a kiss.
“We are going away for a few days afterward. I have the perfect cabin, up in the mountains with no-one else around for miles. We will have time to relax and explore just us, like a honeymoon. Besides, everyone else here mated with wolves who had already transitioned, they probably already assume we are sleeping together,” he was smiling.
She loved the thought of a mountain cabin and just the two of them for a few precious days and the heat stirred again in her belly,
“Do shifters get married?” she asked him.
“Is that a proposal Imogen?” he was teasing her.
“No,” she grinned.
“It has been known, but mating is much more binding than marriage and most of us don’t feel the need for a ceremony or a certificate and rings are problematic because of the shifting thing.”
He sat up and pulled her up to sit on his lap, pulling the blanket around her and wrapping her in a cocoon.
“If it’s important to you, then we will get married. Don’t you know by now that I will do everything in my power to make sure you are happy?”
“Anything?” she smiled.
“I will do anything but have sex with you Imogen, not until you transition. I am beginning to think you only want me for my body,” he held his chest as if he was wounded.
What a body it was and soon she could explore it to her heart’s content.
“Don’t fight me on doing this with Kandis, Seann. You said you would do anything, give me this.”
He wished he hadn’t opened his mouth but he nodded and leaned in to kiss her again, she had him wrapped around her little finger.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Imogen
This morning was the first day of her training and she was super excited as well as incredibly nervous. India thought she was crazy and had ganged up with Seann against her but she was more stubborn than the two of them put together.
She was wearing leggings and a fitted t-shirt and tied and tucked in the laces of her running shoes. Seann wasn’t happy but he was trying to put on a good face.
“Are you sure about this Imogen?” India asked, “She is crazy, she will take this opportunity to hurt you, you know she will.”
“Then I will learn faster,” she said as she opened the door and went out onto the front lawn.
Kandis was already there doing pushups and Imogen knew it was for her benefit. She could run and she took some fitness classes but she was nowhere near her league, the crop top she was wearing showed off all of her tightly toned muscles and Imogen was glad she had worn a t-shirt.
“First thing you need to do before every training session is warm-up, follow my lead,” she turned her back and Imogen copied her stretches and moves for several minutes until she straightened up and faced her again.
“We will try some self-defense tactics until I can assess how bad you are,” she said as she gestured with her hand for Imogen to attack her.
Swallowing down her apprehension she wished her audience would go away. India and Garrett were watching from the porch, Garrett had been assigned as her protector, but she knew Seann was also watching from the window inside.
She ran straight for her and Kandis flipped her easily with one arm and she landed on her ass with a thud. Ouch! Thank god they were working out on the grass.
“Again!” she yelled.
Thump.
“Again!”
Whoosh, was a grass burn a thing?
Imogen stood up, already sore. She was never going to beat her in strength or speed, she needed to be smarter, use her instincts.
“Again!”
Imogen narrowed her eyes and shut out all of the sounds around her and imagined her next move. She would charge with her hands raised and at the last minute, dive and sweep her legs from under her. She went through the steps in her head and saw Kandis reach to the right to grab her, her right was her dominant side, so Imogen would go left.
She raised her arm and yelled as she charged and when she slid down, Kandis reached right as she had predicted and Imogen went left and swept her leg out taking the other woman down before she could get a hand on her. She landed with a thud but bounced straight back up again and threw her to the ground, Imogen grimaced as she rubbed her sore ass.
Kandis grinned.
“Not bad princess but you won’t get away with that a second time,” she clapped her hands and shook them out as she bent down and faced off with her again. “This time, I will come for you.”
Imogen dug in her heels and took a few deep breaths before Kandis charged.
She was too slow by far and was flipped over and dumped on her ass again with a bump, the breath whooshed out of her body again, she was killing her. Kandis was smirking and she ignored her and got up again, brushing the dirt off herself.
She crouched for a moment and closed her eyes willing herself to focus. Kandis would come straight for her, using a lot of noise and her height to intimidate but her emotions gave her away and Imogen pictured her running toward her and knew what she would do, she was going to try and sweep her legs, same as she had done to her. Ignoring her aches, she faced her opponent again,
“Ready to give up yet princess,” she taunted but Imogen stood her ground and crooked her finger.
“Bring it on Goldilocks.”
She ran full pelt at her and Imogen waited until the last second and sprung high as Kandis swept her leg to take her down but she had already leaped into the air and her le
g met no resistance. Imogen put the force of her weight behind her and landed on her opponents back, forcing her face down on the grass,
She brushed her off like a gnat but Imogen was elated that she had managed to get the best of her opponent even once.
“Are you psychic or something?” she asked as they picked up their water bottles and took a quick break. “You seem to be able to judge which way I am going to go.”
“Since I was a little girl, I would always have these strange ‘feelings,’ usually that something bad was going to happen and mostly I would be right. Since I have started transitioning it has morphed into something else entirely. Like I am very sensitive to others feelings, moods, etc and if I concentrate, I can predict people’s behavior, in this case, which way you are going to go.”
“Let’s try it again and see if I can fool you into what I am going to do next.”
They faced off and tried three more times and each time Kandis got the better of her.
“I guess it’s important that I keep that ability to myself if I want to use it against someone in a fight,” she said dryly as she got up and rubbed her ass again.
“Time’s up!” Garrett called and Imogen was grateful for the reprieve.
“Not only will you never be expected to fight but Seann will never allow it. You are the alpha’s mate. This is purely for protection in case all else fails.”
“I make my own decisions Kandis, I am my own person and can look after myself.”
Kandis chuckled but didn’t push it any further, “Same time tomorrow.”
She turned and sprinted through the trees until she was out of sight.
She took the coffee cup from her sister and sank into the soft chair to ease her sore muscles. She had a long way to go to be able to protect herself but she had loved every minute of it. The hot shower had washed away the dirt but every muscle in her body ached. Seann had been in his office but she knew he had been watching them from the window, he was still uncomfortable with letting Kandis teach her.
“I need to start running again each day to get my fitness and endurance levels back up, want to join me?” she asked her sister who made a face but agreed to do it. She should also be taking some self-defense lessons; Imogen would feel much better if they could both defend themselves against attack. There was still a mutt out there somewhere and although they couldn’t do much in their human form, the stronger the girl, the stronger her wolf.
“Bree and I like to run too, we could all do it together,” Hope clapped her hands together and Imogen couldn’t stop the smile tugging on her lips. She loved Seann’s sisters, they were so bubbly and upbeat it was hard not to like them. They agreed to give it a try tomorrow afternoon.
She and India worked the rest of the morning on their plans for the business. They ordered a load of fabric samples online that arrived this morning at the gatehouse and she was keen to see what they looked like when they were made into garments. India thought that having some of the teenagers on board with their opinions would be useful as their line would be mainly aimed at them and they chose two boys and two girls with vastly different personalities to help them out. In return, they would get a bunch of free clothing to wear and try out for durability.
Seann had given them the use of one of the downstairs bedrooms to set up as a temporary workspace and storage until the workshop was ready and he offered Imogen the extra desk in his office to work from. They hired Stella, one of the teenager’s moms to sew for them and she was working from home making the outfits from the patterns India supplied. Imogen was working on a website for their clothes but it would be restricted to the packs, humans had no need for this type of clothing.
She took a sandwich back to her desk, not wanting to break the momentum and was surprised when India popped her head in the door to say that dinner was ready. She must have been here for hours. Roisin had told her that Seann had left with Garrett a couple of hours ago and she was a little peeved that he hadn’t told her he was going out.
Roisin had made salmon in a sweet chili sauce and baby potatoes and broccoli. The food was delicious and she cleaned her plate and helped herself to a large slice of lemon cake with her coffee.
Garrett came bursting into the kitchen, startling them and judging by his missing clothing and bloodied face something bad had happened.
“Where is Seann?” she jumped to her feet and followed him to one of the guest bedrooms on the bottom floor.
“He is okay, a little bloodied and bruised but he is fine. He is right behind me, there has been another attack by the mutt, this time right on the edge of town, he is getting cockier.”
He pulled back the quilt and readied the bed for a new occupant as Roisin came in with a first aid box and a bowl of hot water.
Seann came through the door with a man in his arms and put him down on the bed and Imogen gasped. The man was beaten and unconscious but Seann too looked awful. His face was covered in blood, it was matted through his hair and he had deep gashes across his chest and stomach. He was also completely was naked.
“Hope and Bree can clean him up, he will sleep for a while. Imogen, can you help me?”
His face was a mask of pain and she knew he hated asking for help. She put her arm around him and helped him upstairs to their bedroom. She turned on the shower and stripped off to get in beside him to wash him. He winced every time she touched a cut of bruise and she had to wash his hair several times to get the blood completely out.
She wrapped a towel around his waist and dried the rest of him and helped him to the bed to lie down. She pulled on a pair of pajamas knowing that the others would come in to see him and she still wasn’t used to the ‘everybody being naked’ thing.
She combed his damp hair and dried him before covering him with a sheet.
“Seann, I need to go downstairs and get the first aid kit,” she said softly but he grabbed her hand and held it tight.
“Stay,” he moaned and his face already beaded with sweat. He was in a lot of pain and her heart ached to see him this way.
The door opened and Bree came in with another kit, “Roisin brought the one from her cabin, we are still patching up the other guy downstairs.”
“Can I give him something for the pain?”
Bree opened the kit and handed her a bottle. She shook out three pills and helped him drink some water to wash them down, waving away Bree’s help. Seann’s DNA would heal him quickly, the other guy was way worse off. His sister left again, closing the door behind her.
“Lie back, Seann, I need to treat those cuts.”
The shower had gotten rid of the dirt but she cleaned around the open wounds again and applied antibiotic cream before putting a dressing on the larger gashes to keep them clean, the smaller ones would be gone by morning. She winced at the deep gash on his stomach. There was no doubt it was caused by a wolf but it was done before Seann had shifted and would have hurt him tremendously.
She emptied the bowl in the bathroom sink and washed her hands. Seann was already in a restless sleep. India came quietly into the room and sat on the bottom of the bed.
“He will be okay Imogen,” she squeezed her sister’s hand.
“I know, I just can’t bear to see him hurt. How is the man downstairs?”
“Garrett reckons he will recover but he had to bite him or he would have died. Who is this mutt? Garrett said he attacked Seann before he had a chance to shift. If that had been me or you, we wouldn’t have survived an attack like that.” India was scared and Imogen didn’t blame her.
“That’s why I am taking self-defense lessons from Kandis, I never want to be that vulnerable ever again India, it might not make a difference but I am going to try.”
Her sister left with a promise to tell her if anything changed and she climbed into bed with her mate and snuggled closer to him. He scared her to death tonight, it hadn’t taken long for him to worm his way deep into her heart.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Seann
Hi
s body ached but already most of his injuries had healed, only the one on his stomach would take time. The mutt knew what he was doing, a sneak attack before he had a chance to shift, there were very few who could beat Seann in his wolf form and he suspected his attacker knew this already.
The mutt had attacked the human to draw them out and they had fallen straight into the trap. Their rule of never going into a situation alone and Garrett’s quick thinking had saved his life. He had managed to get him off to give Seann enough time to shift and protect himself, unfortunately, he had gotten away and he was in no condition to give chase.
The human was also going to die if they didn’t take care of him immediately. Three people had transitioned in such a short space of time, this couldn’t go on if they wanted to stay under the radar of the human population. Imogen and India had no family to miss them but they knew nothing about the man downstairs as yet.
It was still dark outside and the sweet rhythmic sounds of his mate’s breathing was like a balm on his jagged nerves. Each time this mutt struck they multiplied their chance of exposure, the time for waiting on him to make the next move was gone, they needed to hunt him, the time had come to finish this.
Imogen would pitch a fit when she found out his plans but they were going to get this mutt before her final transition and then they were going to the mountains for some much-needed private time. Lying here beside her, unable to make love to her was killing him but he had to find the willpower to wait, in less than two weeks she would be a fully-fledged shifter.
He forced his mind to concentrate on a plan to lure the lone wolf out into the open and he ran through several scenarios in his head, dismissing the obvious ones, the mutt was nobody’s fool. A seedling of an idea was forming but he needed to talk to Garrett and Liam before he made any decisions and one other person. This wasn’t something he could order them to do, he needed a volunteer and he was almost certain she would be up for it.
The Children of the Moon Page 9
