by Elle Thorne
Glory, Dane, Range and his men came upon Perry’s body ten minutes after they’d started following his scent.
Glory knew before she saw him that something had happened. The air was rich with the scent of blood. So much blood could only mean one thing.
Death.
Dane barreled forward. Glory struggled to keep up with his long legs, and within seconds she’d been passed by Range and his men.
The men were gathered in a tight circle, studying the ground in front of them. She slipped between them.
Perry.
Very definitely dead.
Morton and Bill stood by a tree, looking like they were concerned they’d be attacked by Dane and Range.
“He wouldn’t back off,” Morton said.
“He kept insisting we didn’t do our job and…” Bill shrugged.
“You saved me some time.”
“He wasn’t easy.” Bill wiped the blood that was dripping down from a cut on his forehead.
“He’s an ivy.” Range nodded. “Dane, you go ahead. We’ll take care of this body and the badger’s body. Go on home. We’ll be on our way as soon as that’s done. Our work here is complete.”
“Tell my aunt thank you.”
“Will do.”
“It’s over,” Glory said.
“It’s very over.” Dane pulled her into his arms. This time when he tipped her head back, she saw the question in his eyes.
“You still have something to tell me,” he said.
“I can show you.” She owed him. She watched the wounds on his face begin a slow healing. “Do you need to hibernate so you can heal quickly?”
“I’m not in a hurry. I’ll hibernate later. You’ll be there, right?”
Forever.
She couldn’t say that. He wasn’t asking her to be with him. He was asking her to stand by and watch over him while he heal-hibernated.
“I’ll be there.”
He pulled her close, the storm in his eyes piercing hers. A soft growl rumbled in his chest.
He leaned down, his lips taking hers, bruising them, claiming, and owning her soul and her ivy. His fingers cupped her cheeks then moved to her jawline. Tongue parting her lips, he pressed her resistance away, making her lips his as surely as he’d made her heart his.
His mouth seared to hers the same way his snow leopard reached out to her ivy, sending the shifter within her the message that human ears would never be able to hear.
Her chest burned, hurting with a need for air. She gasped, realizing she’d been holding her breath. Her hands rose, tangling in his hair, nails scoring his scalp, dragging his face lower, yearning to be lost in this kiss, wishing that it would last forever, not just for the duration of one kiss. Years and years of pushing life away came out in her kiss. She had to take him into her, if only for this one final time, before he returned to his life in Hollywood.
Chapter Fifteen
Dane let her kiss him, let her guide their kiss into everything she was feeling. She released her grief and love in that kiss. She submitted to him and yet claimed him, her strength took his breath away. He knew she’d suffered, but he had a feeling that he didn’t know how much.
Eyes wide open, he studied the face he’d never forgotten, the very same face that haunted him nightly. He remembered their time together. His cock remembered it also, as it twitched within his pants. he remembered what it was like when he entered her body, pushing himself so deep in her, loving the way her eyes grew wide as he penetrated her folds and at the same time penetrated her soul, marking her as his though he hadn’t couple bonded with her.
A roar deep in his brain, his snow leopard reminded him that there was something better than memories.
But first he had something else he and his leopard needed. They needed the answer to the secret deep in the emerald depths of her eyes.
“So what do you need to tell me?”
“Come with me.” She took his hand and led them out of the forest toward the fields, and still forward, through more fields and forest, stopping finally outside the secret garden.
She unlocked the door with a key she’d hidden under a loose stone near the threshold.
Opening the door, he let her precede him into a place that had become sacred to booth of them.
She walked up to a rock, a large one, crisscrossed with veins of green and gray. Stopping in front of the rock, she lowered herself to her knees, tears streamed down her face.
* * *
“I was pregnant with your—our—baby.” Her voice broke, and she exploded into sobs, releasing years of heartbreak. Years and years, over more than just the baby, more than just Dane.
His arms wrapped around her, firm, hard, holding her, taking her pain into himself and his leopard.
His eyes reflected her pain. She wasn’t ready for his embrace, she wasn’t ready for the way the pain infused him and then traveled back to her.
“What’s happening?”
“My leopard can’t let your ivy suffer alone. God, Glory. You’ve shouldered losing our baby and your family. And where the hell was I?” He forked his fingers through his hair. “Where the fuck was I?”
“Seems you were driven away.”
“I should have fought for you. For us.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I thought you didn’t want me. That you wanted your betrothed.”
A shudder washed over Glory. She couldn’t help it. The idea of Perry was repulsive. “Never. That was arranged when I was a toddler, I never gave it much thought.”
“Glory, I’ve always thought you were my only mate.”
“There’s never been anyone else, Dane. Ever.” she pushed him back,
“There never will be,” he growled. “I won’t let you slip out of my life again.”
“What about Dane Snow?”
“He lives in a garden with a beautiful ivy and a rock to remind him of the baby he and his mate never had.” Dane put his hand on the rock.
Glory covered his hand with hers, marveling how much larger his hand was, how it eclipsed hers.
“Dane.” His name slid off her lips as if she’d never stopped saying it, it was as much hers as it was his.
He lowered his head and touched his lips to hers, groaning into their melded mouths.
His sharp teeth nipped at her chin then traveled to her jawline, then down, lower and lower, trailing heat down her neck to the neckline of her top. His fingers played with the top button.
Her breathing became ragged as his fingers played over the buttons. Each slight touch on that button teased and tormented her with a need to have him open her top and touch her body.
Frustration kicked in. Glory reached for the button, pushing his fingers aside, she freed the tiny round button from the fabric. Her body craved him. Her ivy needed him, and more than anything, Glory yearned for him. His lips alit on hers, coming in for an hard landing, kissing her with an edge, as if driving reality of this home. She kissed him back, her tongue pressing between the seam of his lips, wanting him to know this was not only real, but also everything to her.
His fingers joined hers on the next button, moving quickly, releasing and parting the dirt and sweat stained fabric.
Dane leaned back, studying her creamy mounds, the way her ivory skin pushed upward and out of the bra, overflowing. He traced the outline of the bra’s edge, fingertips drifting off the fabric to course a heated path on her flesh.
“Stunning,” he murmured, his voice husky with desire.
The result of his subtle and light touch, fleetingly flirting with her skin as it traveled on and off the bra’s fabric was delicious torture that created a high in her. His fingers walked across the center of her bra, brushing the delicate pink bow in the middle, then over her abdomen. She looked away, unwilling to see what his face would think of the toll the years had taken on her body.
Dane put his thumb on her cheek, pushing her face toward his, making her look in his eyes.
“Don’t,” he
said. “You’re beautiful. I want you.”
He flicked the button on her pants, releasing it. The zipper made a ripping sound as the teeth gave way to his manipulations. Her heavy breathing, coupled with his own deep breaths almost drowned out the sound of the zipper.
“I need you.” Did those words just come out of her mouth? They did. And she meant every one of them. She needed to be with him, needed to have every bit of him with her. His eyes made a promise that she wanted him to fulfill. An eternal promise that she needed fiercely.
She couldn’t have stopped her hands from drifting to his wide chest if she’d wanted to. The muscles flexed beneath her fingertips, then her hands snaked across his shoulder, over his back and around his neck.
Dane lowered his head. His tongue followed the path his fingers had begun, leaving a heated trail from her bra to her panties.
His slick hot tongue ran along the panty’s edge, tracing the border from one hip to the other. He pushed her back, her body leaning against the wall, pulled her pants off when she raised her hips.
His breath was a hot warmth on her stomach, making her body pulse with desire.
Glory moaned, unable to control her passion. That moan set a domino effect in motion, he traveled his tongue lower, licking his way until her panties were below her knees. Her clit throbbed with yearning when he’d finally rid her of the panties and was beginning to make his way north, licking her inner knee, nipping at her the tenderest of her inner thighs.
Head leaned back, Glory closed her eyes. She jumped when he shoved his face between her legs with a fierceness that showed her the depth of his own desires. Alternately breathing hard and then holding her breath, lungs burning with exertion, she sought purchase in the tall grass, grabbing handfuls of it, uprooting without realizing she was doing that.
He sucked in her folds, taking them in deep, then releasing them with a pop, over and over again. The sound was like kerosene to the fuel of her lust, driving her further and further into an abyss of desire.
When his tongue plunged in deep, she bit down on her lip to keep the cry that threatened to escape.
“Dane. Please.” She raised her hips off the ground, forcing his tongue in deeper as a climax gripped her in its throes, her body convulsing with the orgasm.
Dane pushed a finger deep within, holding it there while he sucked on her clit, his tongue flicking the sensitive nub, setting it on fire.
Her moan started low but had risen to a squeal as she climaxed with an unexpected brutality.
Mid-climax, she sensed his movement, heard rustling, and then felt her hips being lifted and she was lowered onto his full girth.
Hot tears coursed down her cheeks, while he pushed her lower onto a shaft that filled her completely.
“Why the tears?” Dane thumbed the moisture from her cheeks.
Glory shook her head. “Joy. Tears of joy. Welcome home.”
He drove into her, over and over, while she climaxed without break, one searing orgasm after another.
A rollercoaster feeling surged through her when she felt his hot seed begin to pummel her depths.
“Bond me. Now.” She gasped the demand out.
“You’re sure?” His own words were a harsh groan.
“Now.” She nodded and screamed at the same time.
He sunk his teeth into the spot where her neck met her shoulder, and sucked. The essence he released immediately deadened the pain then turned it into a curtain of pleasure that blocked the pain.
“You’re mine.” His growl was exacting.
“Forever.”
She’d never loved anyone like this. She knew she never would. And as sure as she knew this about herself, she knew it was the same for Dane—in every fiber of his beautiful snow leopard being.
In this moment as her mate stood next to her, she knew that after everything they’d gone through, they deserved to be happy.
Now they would be.
Forever. Right here in Bitter Falls.
Epilogue
Dane stopped by the window. A slight shadow caught his attention. He sidestepped so the curtain on the window above the sink would hide him and watched his mate as she shifted from her ivy back into the full-figured beauty he could finally call his own. Her back was to him, but he knew what he’d see the moment she turned around. A smile curved his lips when she turned to face him, though she had no idea that he was watching her.
Her hands were on her belly, one under and one on it, emphasizing the baby she was carrying within. She was weeks away from delivery.
The smile of excitement was stolen from his face as he thought of his uncle and his father. The saga was over. The badger, the vendetta of his family—all of it—finally over.
He knew there’d be more they’d have to face in their lives. The ivy shifters had left Glory alone, but was that permanent? Then again there as the matter of telling Glory about Honor—could he do that? Would it be better to leave the matter alone?
Dane was so lost in his thoughts, he didn’t notice the door open.
* * *
Glory watched Dane. He’d been too distracted to notice she’d opened the door and caught him at the kitchen window. She felt his gaze on her, when she’d been in the back yard, basking in the sun in her ivy form. He didn’t have any idea of the ivy shifter powers. Perhaps one day she’d tell him, but right now, there were more important things in her life, in her mind, and in her body.
“I think I found the perfect name,” she said.
Dane’s head snapped in her direction. Those gray eyes, sometimes lit up with joy, now were cloudy with sadness. She didn’t have to ask him why. She knew he was thinking of his father and his uncle.
“Do tell.” Dane lay his hand on her distended belly, feeling for the baby’s kick.
He kissed her temple, his breath ruffling the tiny hairs.
“Gregory Francis.”
The sharp intake of his breath and the pulse her ivy felt his snow leopard giving off were the only signs that gave away his emotions. He remained silent.
“You’re upset? You’d rather not name him after your father and your uncle?”
He shook his head slowly, the gray of his eyes had turned to a silver color. “Not upset at all. Just…” He wrapped his arms around her, held her against his body, her back leaning on his chest. “Never want to be away from you.” He leaned back, his gaze inquisitive. “Wait. How do you know it’s a boy?”
She let a smile make its way to her face. “I’m an ivy shifter.”
“Just like that?”
“It’s hard to explain.”
And it was. The ivy shifter ways, their quiet nature, their history, this was not made public to other shifters or humans. There were some who’d known their mysteries, but these were rarely shared. And as much as she loved this snow leopard who had bonded to her heart, soul, and body, the way of her kind had always been to keep customs and history secret. That was a hard tradition to stray from. She couldn’t divulge the ways of the ivy shifters.
“I like it.”
She glanced at him, perplexed.
“The name.” He lowered his head, placed it on her stomach. “I’ll never let anything happen to you, little man.” Dane’s words were a low murmur.
He didn’t see the frosty glow that flowed through Glory’s eyes.
I’ll make sure of that, Glory echoed Dane’s objective in her own mind.
“Aunt Mae called.” Dane rose to his full height, towering over her. “Wanted to know when she’d get to see us, when she’d get to meet you and the little one.”
“Anytime they want to visit.” Glory wrapped her arms around Dane. She’d heard so much about his Aunt Mae, she couldn’t wait to meet her.
“I’ll tell her. How was your time in the garden?” he asked her.
“I went to go clear the grass from around the baby’s rock, but you beat me to it, so I spent some time soaking up the sun’s rays.”
* * *
Dane hadn’t let the baby
’s marker go untended. He visited it every day, clearing the area and talking to the child they’d never get to meet. He knew Glory had tended to the marker all these years, he realized she loved being there, but in her advanced state of pregnancy, there was no way he was letting his mate do that.
It wasn’t a task or a burden for him, it was a chance to visit and mourn the baby they’d never know.
He also knew that her time in the sun was essential to her as an ivy shifter, that being without sunlight would weaken her.
Did shifting to her human form take a lot out of her? “Do you need to rest a bit?”
“No.” A wicked smile made its way to her lips, her eyes gleamed with an emotion he knew all too well.
Glory’s hand drifted from his waist over his abs, closer to a part of him that was already waking up, ready for her attention.
Her tongue traced her bottom lip suggestively, right before she trapped it between her teeth.
A low groan escaped Dane.
Her hand traveled lower.
“Glory.” That was his last word.
His head swooped, catching her lips, taking her mouth captive. His tongue claimed hers with ferocity. They had a few years to make up for.
Many years.
Against his body, the baby kicked with a tenacity that Dane took to be agreement.
Dane’s growl of anticipation and desire transformed into one of pleasure.
Glory moaned, the sound trapped between them.
Life couldn’t have been better for him. Right here, the one he loved, in Bitter Falls.
Forever.
Cross
Cross del Cruz is a former Compliance Enforcer with the Shifter Council. He did his duty. He enforced the Council’s will around the country and even out of the country. Stress the word former, because all he wants now is to be left alone. He’s been living in his cabin on Bear Canyon Mountain Range, overlooking Bear Canyon Valley and enjoying the solitude of the forest. The quiet. The simplicity. The drama free environment that doesn’t involve other shifters. Not even family.
