Hunting Season

by Kate Rudolph

  That did not make his wolf happy. But he didn't have time to soothe the beast. Later. He just had to find Stasia and then everything would be alright.

  She wasn't in the bedrooms upstairs. Gibson had insisted on building the sleeping quarters just in case they needed to house a client or crash in the city, and today it finally made sense.

  Finally he checked the warehouse. They didn't use it for much, though it did make a good training area with all that open space. He found her sitting on a stack of pallets, her legs swinging back and forth, and the pallets rocking precariously with each movement. But Stasia didn't seem too concerned about falling over. She gave him a wan smile when she saw him.

  Owen walked up to her, but he made himself leave some distance between them. He wanted to gather her up in his arms, wanted to hold her close, and kiss her, and claim her, and fuck her until they both forgot their names. His wolf knew it was the right thing to do. The man wasn't so sure.

  "Enjoying the scenery?" he asked. He wanted to ask her if she was okay, but he had a feeling she might scream if he did. They were all concerned about her well-being. And if she was sitting in an empty warehouse rather than in any of the furnished rooms, he had a feeling she was trying to escape that concern.

  "This is really the best New York has to offer, isn't it?" Her tone was wry, but she gave him a little smile.

  She was joking. That was good. She didn't joke that often, and certainly not when things were incredibly serious.

  "I don't know. There's a dumpster out back that the tourists can't get enough of." He couldn't resist taking one step closer, but he didn't touch her. If he touched her he didn't think he was going to stop.

  "I'm fine," she said, but it sounded like she was trying to convince herself. "I can see that you want to ask. The shoulder doesn't really hurt that much. I took a couple ibuprofen and that seems to have helped. I don't seem to be growing any weird fur. And I don't feel the need to chase squirrels." She shifted on the pallet, but the pallets shifted under her in return so she hopped off of them to keep from falling.

  "That's not why I came out here," Owen said. She was so close that he could nuzzle against her. Would she stop him? He was practically vibrating with the need to close the distance between them, but he tried his best to hold still.

  "Then why did you? Obviously you're all concerned that I'm about to turn into a werewolf." She shook her head in disbelief. "How is this my life?"

  "I should have told you." He didn't know how she wasn't steaming mad at him right now. It was the biggest secret he had to keep, and it had never occurred to him to even mention it to her. Only when he was driving her to come look at Vega had he wondered if he should say something. But they didn't talk about it to outsiders.

  But Stasia wasn't an outsider.

  "If you had told me, I wouldn't have believed you. I would have thought you were crazy. But I guess I understand why you couldn't take Vega to the hospital."

  "I'm still sorry."

  "Okay. So why did you come out here?"

  "I just wanted to be by you." He wasn't one to hide his emotions. He felt what he felt and wasn't ashamed of it. He never wanted to leave Stasia's side, and the hour or so that they had spent apart today was more than enough. Did that make him clingy? He hoped not. It was all too new between them for him to want to walk away yet.

  "Is something wrong?" she asked, face scrunched up as if she were trying to solve the problem.

  He wasn't hiding the driving need inside of him well enough. "I want to kiss you." They hadn't kissed in hours and he was starving for it.

  "That doesn't sound like a problem."

  "If I kiss you, I don't know if I could stop." The honesty was raw, ripped right out of his chest and leaving his soul there for her.

  "That doesn't sound like a problem," she repeated.

  Owen didn't need to be told twice. He closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around her, bringing their mouths together in a passionate kiss. Her body fit against him like it was made for him and he would never get enough of the silky soft feel of her skin.

  She opened her mouth under his and let his tongue plunder her. Her taste surrounded him and Owen groaned. This was perfect. This was pleasure.

  This wasn't enough. He hiked one of her legs up and then the other, urging her to wrap her legs around his waist and give him all of her weight. And then he backed her up until she was resting on that precarious pile of pallets and gave everything over to the kiss.

  His cock was iron hard and trapped between them, and he would trade everything he owned for the power to magically incinerate their clothes so he could fuck her right there.

  But he heard a car honk outside, and it was a grim reminder that anyone could walk in at any time.

  This was something private, something between him and Stasia. He wasn't going to let anyone else see them.

  A service elevator in the warehouse took them most of the way up to the residential floor, and then it was just one more staircase to get them to the room they were staying in that night.

  Gibson had asked him whether Stasia would need a room of her own, but Owen had said they would be sharing. He wasn't letting his mate get away from him.

  It was only a full size bed, rather than a queen, and the fit would be tight, but they would make it work. Owen closed the door with a kick and sat Stasia down on the bed. And in the time it took him to turn back around flick the light on and then return she had half of her clothes off and was starting to wriggle out of her pants.

  His eyes snagged on the bandage on her shoulder and he growled at the thought of anyone else sinking their fangs into her.

  He could kill Vega for that. For daring to harm his mate.

  "Holy shit, how the fuck did I miss it?" Stasia's question pulled him out of his anger.

  "What?" he demanded in a rumbly growl.

  She finished shucking her pants and knelt on the bed, completely nude and confident in her nakedness. She reached out and tugged on his arm until he was close and she cupped his cheek. "Your eyes have been changing color. And I think your teeth are sharper. I thought it was just a trick of the light. But this is the werewolf thing, isn't it?"

  The first time Owen caught it happening it had freaked him out, but now he understood it was just his wolf trying to get closer to their mate. "Does it scare you?" he asked.

  "Should it?" she shot back.

  "I would never hurt you."

  They kissed again. Owen managed to get his own clothes off and laid Stasia down. She'd said the shoulder didn't hurt, but he was determined to be gentle and care for her like she deserved.

  He kissed his way down her stomach and spread her legs so she was open before him. He wanted to feast. And he did, tongue lapping at her sex and groaning in pleasure as she squirmed around him.

  One of her hands carded her fingers through his hair and guided him exactly where she wanted. His Stasia didn't give up control. It was one of the most God damn sexy things about her.

  Everything was sexy about her.

  But Owen was determined to show her that he knew exactly what she needed, and he wasn't going to stop until she was screaming in pleasure.

  His tongue swirled and dove into all of her private areas, and when she gasped out his name, he took it for the encouragement that it was.

  Her hips bucked against his face as she gave herself over with abandon to the pleasure, and it didn't take long for those screams and cries to start.

  He was as hard as iron just from her taste and her smell and the way she sounded, and when he guided himself to her entrance and pushed inside, he couldn't stop the groan of pleasure as her tight heat enveloped him.

  Taking it slow was torture, but the kind of torture a man reveled in. Their eyes locked, and he didn't know if it was a trick of the light or something more sinister, but he thought he saw something shift in Stasia's eyes.

  Her wolf?

  Something else?

  But it was gone in a blink,
and then they were moving together in a dance as old as time itself. And soon her body rippled around him and that was all it took for Owen to join her in ecstasy.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Stasia felt a little bit like a thief in the night, or, well, the morning, as she snuck out of the room she and Owen had shared. He'd clung to her all night and she'd cuddled against him like he was a giant teddy bear. It was nice. Nicer than nice. Cuddling had never been a requirement in a relationship before, but with Owen she never wanted to let go.

  But she didn't want to wake him when he was sleeping so peacefully. She pulled on her clothes and considered changing the bandage over the bite mark. She poked at it with two fingers to check.

  It felt a bit like an old bruise, a little achy, but not super painful. It should have felt worse.

  She decided to leave the bandage as it was. She didn't want to pull it away and find that she had magically healed, a sure sign that she was turning into a werewolf, if there was such a thing as a sure sign. She still wasn't sure if she had imagined the miraculously healing scalpel wound that happened at the same time as the bite.

  As long as she didn't think about things too hard, she wasn't going to freak out.

  She followed the hallway to a staircase, and then she followed her nose to the smell of pancakes and bacon.

  Andre, Leland Rowe, and Em were all in the kitchen with plates of food in front of them. It seemed like everyone had decided to stay over last night.

  Stasia's cheeks heated.

  Had they heard her and Owen going at it? Werewolf stories and TV shows said they had super senses, enhanced hearing and smell, and maybe even sight. And she and Owen had not been quiet.

  She clamped her mouth shut. She wasn't going to say a peep about that, and hopefully no one would say anything in return. That was the polite thing to do.

  Andre was glowering at Rowe and Em, who were talking quietly on one side of a large table. Stasia found two platters, one with pancakes and one with bacon, and served herself on the assumption the food had been prepared for everyone.

  As she got closer, she could tell that Rowe and Em were speaking about a band that Stasia didn't know anything about.

  Good for Em. Stasia loved her sister, but she wasn't nearly as into music as Em was. It was good that she could find someone to talk about her interests with. Most people got a bit starstruck around Em and couldn't have a normal conversation. Rowe didn't seem to have that problem. Maybe he didn't know who she was. Maybe he didn't care. Whatever it was, Stasia was glad her sister had made a friend.

  But why was Andre glaring? Was he one of the assholes who thought her sister's music wasn't complex enough? Did he think that she didn't deserve her fame? Was he sneering at the conversation? Or at Rowe?

  Em worked hard for everything she had. Stasia had seen a lot of it firsthand. In the middle of a tour her sister was bound to collapse from exhaustion, but she always demanded that she keep going. And if Andre couldn't respect that they were going to have words.

  Stasia took a seat at the table right next Andre, ready to ream him out if need be. He gave her a tight smile and then looked down at his food, but at least he was no longer glaring at Em and Rowe.

  A minute later, Bryan Vega walked inside. He had a bounce in his step and was all smiles, but the smile wiped off his face when he saw Stasia, replaced by a look of remorse. He didn't look like a man who had been shot the day before. And she didn't know a werewolf could look sheepish. "Hi," he offered.

  "Good morning," said Stasia. Maybe she should have been angry at him, but he looked scared of her.

  He was the werewolf in the situation. She should have been the one that was scared. Right now it didn't look like he could hurt a fly. And Stasia knew he hadn't been in his right mind. She'd worked on patients like that before, the kind who were in so much pain or in such an altered mental state that they had no idea what they were doing. They didn't mean to lash out at their doctors. And holding it against them would just make things worse.

  "I'm so sorry," said Vega, all apology as the words poured out of him. "Are you okay? How are you feeling? Can I get you breakfast? Do you need coffee?" The questions ran out of his mouth so quickly she could barely make sense of them.

  Stasia tapped her fork against her plate and had to hold back a smile. Vega was young, probably in his mid-twenties, and had the kind of boyish charm that let some men get away with murder. "I'm good. Thanks for offering. And I'm okay. We're good."

  But Vega was frozen where he stood and the others stopped talking. Everyone was looking at her as if they expected her to freak out.

  Yesterday she might have. And she hated to think that sex had solved the whole thing, but she did feel a lot more relaxed today. Besides, there was nothing she could do. She had been bitten by a werewolf. Maybe she was turning into one. Maybe it would happen in three months. Maybe it would happen in three hours. Maybe it wouldn't happen at all. No one knew.

  Was it scary? Yes.

  Did she hate not knowing what was going to happen? Of course.

  But right now she needed to just accept it.

  "It's okay," she repeated. "It's not like you guys have a manual for this. We'll figure it out." She was used to being a steady voice in the hospital, but that didn't mean she was normally the voice of reason. She just wanted things to go back to normal, for some value of normal, as soon as possible.

  It took them all a few seconds to accept her words, but Vega went and got his own food and Em and Rowe eventually continued their conversation.

  "You're taking this in stride," Andre said to her. He was watching Rowe as if he expected the man to do something, but Stasia didn't know what.

  "What are my other options?" she asked him, and meant it.

  Andre didn't have a response to that.

  She sensed a change in the air and wasn't surprised when Owen walked through the door. His face broke out into a big smile when he saw her and he crossed directly to the table and gave her a thorough kiss.

  Stasia kissed him back without hesitation, but when he pulled back she was a bit thrown off. She had never been one for public displays of affection before, and wasn't Owen still technically her bodyguard? The suddenness of the kiss had been enough to overcome any initial hesitation, but she was dealing with a lot at the moment. But Owen kissed really well, and she didn't want him to stop.

  "Good morning," he said, his hand running through her hair, grinning at her like they were the only two people in the world.

  "Good morning." Why was her voice so high? What was he doing to her?

  When she finally remembered that other people were in the room, she looked around and saw Vega, Rowe, and Andre all giving Owen huge grins, and she was sure there was some sort of teasing just about to erupt. Em looked just as pleased.

  "So we're at the PDA portion of our relationship?" The question popped out without her meaning to ask.

  Relationship. Was that what this was?

  She didn't know what word to put on it, and she was kind of worried to take a step too far. What if this was all werewolf hormones? It didn't feel like something that was going to burn out in a few days or weeks or ever, but everything was still so new.

  Owen's grin got huge. "You said relationship." He kissed her again.

  Stasia groaned, and it wasn't in pleasure. "Go get your food." She gave him a playful shove and he backed away to grab pancakes and bacon of his own.

  Boyfriend. Bodyguard. Something more?

  There was a word at the edge of her consciousness, one summoned by all of the werewolf shit, and she wondered if that was the right one.

  Was it possible that Owen was her mate?

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Stasia excused herself to use the restroom, and Owen managed to stay in his seat for an entire minute before following her into the hallway. He knew she couldn't want him trailing after her every minute, and he considered it a great show of restraint when he merely waited in the hall for her to come ba
ck rather than following her and waiting outside the bathroom door.

  He wasn't that attached.

  Really.

  Stasia raised her eyebrows when she saw him leaning against the wall outside of the kitchen. "What's up?" she asked. She stepped close, letting her fingers brush against his side.

  It was a relief, a confirmation that he wasn't the only one who thought they were too far apart when they weren't touching.

  "Just wanted to see you." His wolf felt a bit more settled last night, even if it still felt a bit like there was a second creature living inside of him, rather than the unified person he'd been before meeting Stasia. But if he got to keep her, he was pretty sure he could learn to live with it.

  "You've seen me all morning," she pointed out as she leaned even closer so that her front pressed against his.

  Owen wrapped his arms around her and pulled her flush against him. No more teasing. "I wanted you all to myself," he confessed. He could have cursed himself for not waking with her. They could have made love again in the sunlight of the morning, spent all day in bed. Or at least stayed there for as long as the others allowed it before bothering them. A few hours, definitely.

  "Are you turning into mister possessive?" She smiled as she asked, but he had a feeling that she wouldn't be smiling if he kept it up for long.

  Owen had never been possessive of anyone in his past. He'd never seen the need for it, no matter how much he cared. He trusted his partners, he knew they were with him because they wanted him. But he'd also never felt so much so fast for a person. It wasn't that he didn't trust Stasia. He'd lay down his soul on her word alone. He just wanted to hold her close and cherish this time for as long as they could keep it.

  He cupped her cheek and kissed her, slanting his mouth over hers in a passionate declaration. His whole heart was in it, saying words with his actions that he couldn't yet voice.

  And Stasia met him where he was, her tongue tangling with his as if they'd been made for each other.