by Ladew, Lisa
Ahead of her, the leaf-covered land gave way, sliding down into a dip, then lifting up into a hill on the other side. Between the massive oak trees, she saw a clearing on the top of the hill. She tiptoed closer, wanting to get a better look at what she thought she was seeing. A cabin that looked partially finished. Only holes instead of windows, and a huge stack of logs next to it.
Did Trevor know someone was building a house in his forest?
The thought of her mate’s name seemed to conjure more growling, from directly to her left this time.
Ella screamed and spun in that direction, staring down the massive black wolf with the beautiful silver fringes around its head and chest. It was only fifteen feet from her, its head down, its eyes locked on hers. She could clearly see the boomerang-shaped white mark on its left shoulder. It advanced on her, the growling a low rumble in the back of its throat.
Ella took a step backwards, then another, then one more, backing directly against a massive tree she had stepped lightly around moments before.
The wolf growled again and shook its head, then sank back onto its haunches. As she watched, it changed, hair pulling into skin, face shortening, thickening, body stretching out, until her mate crouched naked before her. He stood, massive thighs flexing invitingly, then wiped the mentholated cream away from his nostrils, flaring them as he took a step towards her.
“You baking cookies, Ella?” he asked, his voice a low, sexy rumble.
She flushed hotly and looked down. She wanted to own the part of her that was completely turned on by the fact that he was a shiften, able to transform into a massive killing machine with huge claws and teeth at just a thought, but she still blushed whenever he noticed.
He always noticed. Sometimes he didn’t call attention to it, but she could always see flat approval and appreciation on his face when her scent shifted for him.
She pressed herself against the tree as he stalked towards her, a thick erection growing at his middle. “Could you smell me?” she asked.
“Not until I wiped the cream away. I can smell you now.” He kept walking as he spoke, his massive form coming closer and closer.
She felt herself bloom for him. Would he take her right there, on the bed of fallen fall leaves? God, she hoped so.
He reached her, and she watched the muscles in his shoulders and chest flex as he took her right wrist and deliberately placed it over her head, grabbing her other hand and raising it, then tucking it in with the first, holding both with his left hand.
Her arms raised over her head, completely and totally helpless, one hundred percent his, she looked up into his eyes. She could smell him now. Firewood and forest leaves and wildness. Pure male possessiveness. He dipped his head and his eyes roamed down her neck, as if he was deciding where to bite her first.
She moaned thickly, impatience driving her. She couldn’t wait, but she wanted to wait a hundred years. The feeling was so divine, the plump, anticipatory tingling in her heavy breasts and swollen lips. If only some part of him would touch her other than on her wrists.
He did, then, his lips pressing to her neck and his right hand first lightly skimming her breasts under her jacket but over her dress, then dipping down to lift the skirt and slip through her folds. Just that one touch was enough and she cried out into his chest as her orgasm rocked her, jerking her hips forward, completely lost to her own sensation.
When it was over, and the sweet waves of pleasure receded enough that she could open her eyes, she found him smiling at her. A knowing, clever smile, that said she was his so completely, she might as well tattoo his name on her neck. Property of Trevor. Keep back if you like your head attached to your body.
“I thought you might like this game,” he murmured, pressing his body against her. “I just didn’t know how much.”
Ella pressed her eyes tightly shut, hoping he wouldn’t mention that she wasn’t wearing any panties. She might die of embarrassment if he did. She’d tucked them into her shoes when she first entered the woods, hoping to entice him to do exactly what he was doing when he caught her.
She pulled weakly with her arms, wanting her hands free, wanting so badly to touch him, to try to get him under her or over her.
“Mmmm,” he murmured, clamping his massive hand down harder on her wrists, holding her easily, finding her mouth, teasing her lips and tongue. Her body responded immediately, like it hadn’t known his touch for a lifetime, like it wasn’t still shaking from his earlier attention and skill.
He pushed the skirt of her dress up and pulled back so he could see her body, spanning her belly and hip with one hand. The touch of his work-roughened skin on her midsection made her catch her breath. She had no idea what he was going to do next and it was maddening. Her hips bucked forward of their own accord, making him smile.
“You smell sweeter every day I know you, Ella.” He licked his lips and looked her in the eye. “Being with young agrees with you.” He caressed her still-flat lower belly as he said it. Well, flat was a relative term that she could only use when she thought about what was coming, but he never seemed to mind how soft she was there, or the way her thighs and hips flared. He relished it, actually, and she could see from the way his eyes traveled down her form that he was looking forward to the day her middle swelled, heavy with his little ones. She knew he would find her no less desirable when it did.
Part of Ella’s mind tried to clamber about all of that. That she was almost three weeks pregnant and hadn’t seen a doctor yet. That she couldn’t even go to her obstetrician because the babies could come out as wolves. That she would have the babies at home with only men in attendance. And maybe Lorna. Hopefully, Lorna. That she was taking standard prenatals and had no idea if they were a good idea or not. That she didn’t even know if she would have one baby, or maybe two, or four, or six. Six!
Trevor stretched and bent to plant a soft kiss on her belly, pulling her mind away from the worries she had months for.
She watched her mate’s face as he pulled back and ate her up with his eyes, then reached a hot hand around her to caress her hips, thighs, and ass. Tingles raced up her spine, making her moan lightly. He drove her absolutely out of her mind when he did that.
“Sweet Ella, what would you have me do now? What should the big, bad wolf do to you?” he murmured, peeking alternately from her face to her mostly still-covered body.
She moaned, but didn’t answer. “Take you? Eat you? Carry you back to my bed, like some hard-won prize?”
“Take me,” Ella panted.
He growled his approval and, before she knew what was happening, he’d released her hands and caught her under the knees and shoulders, picking her up, then depositing her on the ground in a bed of leaves. His skin was hot in the cool air, his naked body warming her where it touched her as he dropped on top of her, propping himself up on his elbows and nudging between her legs.
She wriggled her arms out of her oversized jacket and turned over on it, using it as a throw between her and the ground below. She lifted her hair off her shoulders, pressing her face into the soft lining of her coat, feeling her mate’s body graze hers as he gazed down at her.
The growling started at once. She’d learned that, no matter how turned on he was by the sight of her breasts or ass, nothing compared to his furor when she bared that spot where her neck met her shoulder, that spot where his mark permanently scarred her skin. Would a bite there ever stop intensifying their love-making to the point where she had to scream or die? She hoped not. Nothing in her entire life compared to being taken in that manner. No meal or achievement or fun event gave her the complete satisfaction and bliss and feeling of all-being-right in her world that having her mate claim her again and again did.
Now that she wasn’t facing him, she could let the filth fall from her mouth without the disquiet she felt when he could see her face. “Do it,” she urged him, her lower half moving sensually of its own accord. “Take me, bite me, fuck me.”
Trevor half-moaned, half
growled, and then she was filled. She cried out at the sweet invasion, a mix of pleasure and slight pain filling her until she got used to him. She pressed herself backwards onto him, pulling her hair further to one side, knowing what was coming next. He bent over her and his teeth penetrated her skin, achingly slow. Even as the pain shot through her shoulder muscles, the pleasure spread through her middle. It built higher and higher as he pumped into her and held on tightly. A rivulet of her blood rolled over her shoulder and fell forward onto the jacket beneath her. She ignored it, knowing the break in her skin was only temporary, but their connection was forever.
Ella threw her head back, crying out, as pleasure so great it couldn’t be imagined or even fully remembered when it was over pushed through her. Trevor moaned louder at her neck and his thrusts into her intensified, pushing her higher and higher until her own sweet wave broke and finally began to recede. A moment later, Trevor’s pleasure rolled through him, causing him to stiffen. She collapsed and felt more of his weight drop onto her, then he gently released his grip on her shoulder.
Ella placed her head on her stacked hands and relaxed, her body wrung out, used up, completely satiated. Trevor pulled out of her, then rolled onto the ground to her right, completely ignoring the dirt, bugs, and leaves there.
“I hope I die just like that,” he said and she heard the rasp of his hand against the scruff around his mouth.
Ella didn’t even have the strength to argue with him, that if he did, she would be left with a two-hundred-and-forty-pound corpse on top of her. The cool air kissed her buttocks where her skirt was still pushed up around her hips. Her eyes drifted closed as she listened to her mate’s recovering breaths next to her. Her shoulder didn’t hurt at all, and she knew from experience that the wound there had already closed up.
“What’s on that hill?” she asked softly before she forgot, before she drifted off into sleep on the hard ground, knowing she was safe with her wolf next to her.
He looked up. “It could be a house, if I finished building it. Not sure why I ever started.” His voice sounded uncharacteristically soft and far away, as if he were close to sleep himself. She wondered where his clothes were, and if he would sleep naked. She tried to worry about bugs, but couldn’t do it. She was too relaxed.
A howl sounded to their left and Ella jerked her head up, looking that way, her reverie broken.
“Trent,” Trevor whispered. “He needs something.”
Trent’s deep rumble filled their heads. The honeymoon’s over, kids. Wade wants to talk to you both. He’ll be here in twenty.
Ella dropped her head to the forest floor, then rolled onto her back and stared at the trees spreading their protective canopy above them. Trevor kissed her one last time and stood, pulling her up with him.
“I’m going to take you on a real honeymoon someday, you know.”
Ella didn’t answer. She knew the implied ending to that sentence. Someday, when this was all over.
If it ever was.
Chapter 3
Heather Herrin walked down the steps of her doctor’s office to the parking lot, holding one hand to her stomach, as if she were going to puke. She wasn’t, but she couldn’t seem to let go.
She sleep-walked to her car, her doctor’s last words playing inside her mind over and over.
Schedule the surgery with the receptionist. I think it’s important we take it out soon.
She had done no such thing, though. She’d walked past the receptionist, her face pointed in the opposite direction, every cell in her body screaming NO.
When she reached her tiny, secondhand Kia Rio, she dropped her head and stared at the door handle for a good five minutes, her mind on vacation, possibly sipping mai tais on a beach somewhere, leaving her unable to function.
A horn blaring on the street beyond the office made her jump. Oh, yeah. Car. Drive. Home. Somewhere. Function. Sure.
She punched her key into the lock and twisted it weakly. Somehow, she made it home without running into a ditch, or perhaps just up on the sidewalk, although she couldn’t have said what streets she chose or what anything looked like on any of them, or even if she’d happened to run over any pedestrians on the way.
Heather parked in the driveway of her tiny double-wide with the decent yard and hurried inside, feeling a bit of the horrible news fall away as soon as she closed the door behind her and entered her own space.
The warmth and humidity hit her in the face, making her suck in a breath. She crossed the small living room quickly, only wanting to forget, to not think, to focus on anything else. Instead, she let her eyes wander over her make-do lizard atrium, covered with plants, perches, decorative hand-blown glass lizards, and basking lights along the far wall.
Thor, her latest rescue, sat sunning under the heat lamp on the far side of the room, next to a green-glass gecko mounted on the wall. His eyes rolled as he watched her. She moved slowly, not wanting to alarm him. He was a short-horned lizard, who was understandably wary of humans after being thoroughly neglected by someone who had no idea how to take care of him. She’d seen him for sale on a website, looking woefully underweight, and she’d driven out that night to Indiana to get him. His species of lizard should never be in captivity, anyway. When he was healthy enough, she would have him transported to a reptile conservancy in Arizona and released back into the wild. She knew people captured them out of the wild faster than she could ever put them back in, but that didn’t matter. Not to Thor, anyway.
She checked the food bowl and the water bowl. Meal worms squiggled through the sand for her other rescues, but Thor only ate ants. She peeked into his large glass habitat with the low sides he could easily get in and out of and saw the harvester ants working heartily on the slices of carrot she had placed in there before she left. When Thor was hungry, he would have all the bugs he could eat.
A hiss, then clicking, caught her attention and she turned to the left, stepping over a baby gate and pushing her way past two potted yucca plants to find Falcon, her green iguana, hurrying towards her as fast as he could, which wasn’t very fast.
She picked him up, feeling his increased weight on her hands with satisfaction. He’d been a rescue, also, but the old abscesses on his feet that had taken several toes and claws made it impossible to return him to the wild. Now he was pure pet, as heavy as a housecat, and almost as sweet. He opened his mouth and hissed again, looking at her.
“Hi, baby,” she said, running her hand along his back. He stretched his neck out like he liked it and partially closed his eyes. “How was Thor today? Did you take care of him?” The iguana didn’t answer. She petted him for a moment more, then put him down on his favorite rock, and went to check his living area to see what needed to be done.
Heather worked tirelessly, cleaning dishes that didn’t need to be cleaned, replacing sand that had been replaced a few days before, then cutting up or measuring out a week’s worth of food and supplements for all the eleven lizards in her care.
When there was nothing more to be done, she sank down onto the carpet, between the rows of plants and lights, and stared at her charges until the sun began to shine down the short hallway to her left, indicating the day was about to end. With the realization came memories that she didn’t want to deal with. I think it’s important we take it out soon. Her doctor had said that so casually, the it he had been talking about might have been a seed out of a berry, or a wallet out of a pocket. Wasn’t her uterus more important than that?
Near the door, where she’d dropped everything when she entered the house, she heard her phone ring. No. She couldn’t deal with anything or anyone.
She stood and walked straight out the back door of her house into the yard, away from the ringing phone and towards the shed she’d modified to be an art studio. It had been the first thing she’d done when she’d bought the place, even before she’d brought in her babies. The need to create, the need to be around it, so strong it was all she had been able to think of. It had been even stronger th
an the need to get away from her mother.
She never understood the need, but when she fought it, she suffered, so she never fought it anymore.
The building was big for a shed, small for a studio, but just the right size to keep her torch the minimum distance away from the walls required by law.
She pushed through the door, closed it behind her, and headed straight to the torch, turning it on and lighting it with a click and a pop. It hissed comfortingly, the flame burning a bright white. Heather stared at it, hearing her mother’s scolding about eye protection in her head for just a moment, before she slammed the lid on it.
She turned her attention to the containers of glass tubing, staring at them, although she knew exactly what she was going to pick. Two reds, two whites, and a clear, just like she had for almost a year now, without fail.
The glass tubing felt good in her hand, cool and smooth, and she just knew that today was the day. Everything else had gone so crappily that this just had to go better. Today would be the day the dragon would come out perfectly.
She sat in front of the torch that faced away from her, staring liquidly at its perfectly controlled flame. Her thoughts fell away and her vision sharpened. Her breathing came quicker and her hands raised, dropping three of the tubes to her fireproof work surface but keeping ahold of the two red tubes, one in each hand.
She brought the red tubing to the flame and watched the colors shift before the tube penetrated the flame, and again after. Her breath caught at its beauty. She could see the dragon as it should be, now if only her skill were up to the task of teasing it out of the glass.
Time sped up, then slowed down, then ceased to exist as she heated up the tubes, connected them, twirled them and used them to manipulate the glowing, molten glass in front of her.
Red back legs formed, then met at powerful haunches and elongated into a thick and spiny tail. Each muscle and scale and spine had to be perfect. The studio fell away. Even her own breathing seemed not to exist to keep her body alive, but rather, to assist her muscles in holding and relaxing in perfect timing to create the dominant form she saw so clearly in her mind.
