Snickers, shocked gasps, and soft grumbles at the insult to their pack sister reverberated from the crowd.
Jules screeched, her hands morphing into paws which she aimed at Sabine’s carotid.
Sabine waited until the extended claws were a mere inch from her skin. With fluidity born from instinct and practice, Sabine twisted to avoid the lethal swipe. She hooked her forearm around her attacker’s neck and used Jules’s forward momentum to send her off kilter and push her onto her back.
Shock spread over her opponent’s face.
Sabine crouched over Jules, placing her in a subordinate position. Wasting no time, she pressed her palm over Jules’s throat, suppressing her air intake. Ignoring the clawing at her flesh, Sabine smiled icily into the woman’s purpling face and increased the pressure until she stopped fighting.
With nonchalance she didn’t feel, Sabine murmured softly to Jules. “Don’t you ever challenge me again. I am your alpha’s mate. He knows my worth and it’s not for you to question.”
Anger-driven, Sabine shed her human shell snarling, baring her incisors at Jules, and clamped them into her throat.
Shocked murmurs from the crowd jerked her head up.
Sabine bunched the muscles in the upper part of her body, ready to lunge forward to meet any attack. When she realized one wasn’t imminent, she backed up, looked around and down at herself to see what caught the Lunedares’ attention. Her fur had picked up the clear beams of the unnatural light from the lamps high above them. Her pelt shimmered with a silvery incandescence.
“She’s a worthy mate for our alpha. She is a Silverwolf. What cubs she’ll make for our pack.” Gustav’s gruff approval soothed her wounded ego somewhat.
Drew dropped down on his haunches and buried his hand into her ruff at the back of her neck. He bent and placed his mouth over the side of her neck and nipped her.
“I allowed Sabine to address Jules’s insults, this time. The next person who questions any decision I’ve made will answer to me. I won’t be as generous as my mate.” He slanted Jules a cold look. “You’ll shift and stay in wolf form, confined to the Lunedare central den until I say otherwise.”
The chastised she-wolf shifted and trotted away, tail hanging low with humiliation.
Rising to his feet, Drew faced his clan. “Call in the rest of the pack. Tomorrow night we’ll formally welcome Sabine.” He turned to her sisters. “Go on ahead with my uncle. We’ll be right behind you.”
Ishbel and Ala looked to Sabine for guidance. At her nod, they left with the Lunedares, leaving her alone with the wolf she’d publicly acknowledged as her mate. Her declaration before his family bound her to him more.
Drew held out his palms to her. Sabine shifted and placed her cold hands in his. In reaction to the heat in his eyes, she tried to pull them back. To her surprise, he tightened his hold and pulled her closer.
“The fact that you don’t carry my mark is going to be factor on a couple of levels. Won’t you reconsider?”
Sabine stared down at their joined hands to avoid looking up at him. Finally, unable to help herself, she dragged her eyes up to meet his.
“I can’t see why it should.”
Drew’s impatient hiss broke the silence hanging between them. He swiped his thumb over the pulse throbbing in her wrist, evoking a spray of pheromones from her. His nostrils flared in response. For a moment, the amber rings flashed around the warm brown irises and the rise in his musk filtered through the air.
His were surfaced. A husky mewl slipped through Sabine’s lips. Drew’s proprietary gaze cut off her ability to breathe. He wanted her and she wanted him.
Drew shook his head as a shudder racked his long muscular frame. “You said the words which will bind the man and woman, but the werekin in us will clamor for the placement of the mate’s mark. I won’t hold it against you if you say yes.” He smiled, trying for nonchalance, but it didn’t quite diffuse the hunger in his eyes. “When you subjugated Jules, and claimed me as your mate before my pack, you cemented your position.”
“What was I supposed to do? She did more than ignore the pecking order. She challenged my worthiness and authority as your mate! Is all your pack so ill-mannered?” Sabine tugged at her hands, and to her relief, he released her.
Drew let out a scornful laugh. “She is a mere tool for someone who doesn’t have the balls to challenge me. She was testing the veracity of our bond.”
“Well, we’ll have to make sure your scent is all over me before the next nightfall. No one will question it then, it should be enough.” It was one thing for her to set boundaries on their relationship, but she wasn’t having anyone else sticking their nose in where it didn’t belong.
“To do that, you’d have to come to my bed.” Drew raised his hand and trailed his fingertips down the side of her neck.
Sabine released a shuddery sigh. “I already said I would.”
Drew’s dark brows lowered into a scowl. “Because you want me or because of your wounded pride, Sabine?”
“My pride is all I have left. I’ve lost everything else, my home, and my place in my family,” she stated bitterly. Her pack meekly followed Drew’s edicts willingly now. She felt anchorless.
Drew slid his hands up to cradle her neck. His thumbs tilted her face up to his. He stared at her mouth for interminable seconds before he leaned in and took her lower lip between his teeth. He nibbled on it briefly before releasing it.
“Ahh…but, Sabine, you’ve gained so much more. You’ve acquired a mate who will treasure you, and a large pack that will keep you safe. And we’ll create a family of our own when our cubs arrive.”
Sabine pushed at his chest. “They won’t be Silverwolves, and besides, our arrangement is temporary. Remember?”
“No, they won’t. They’ll be Lunedares, but you’ll, no, we’ll make sure they don’t forget their proud Silverwolf heritage.” The timbre of his voice dropped to a low drawl. “You’ve done right by your pack, Sabine, but let me make something perfectly clear. When you come to my bed, it won’t be because of the bargain you made to save your family, or to soothe the primitive instinct to secure your place as my mate. It will be because you want me as much as I want you. Nothing less will suffice.” He pressed his lips to hers.
Her lips parted and his tongue entered her mouth, accepting his ravenous kiss. He tasted, teased, and aroused her, employing his agile tongue until she grew lightheaded and sagged against him.
Drew eased back, a satisfied gleam in his eyes at her reaction. “I’ll be bathing you in my spoor. Any thought of leaving will lessen each time I take you. As a man, I want you so much I ache. All I can think of is you. The were in me wants to mark you as a sign of my possession. Plant my seed in you, fill you with my cub.”
Sabine didn’t want to be affected by his words, but her vagina clenched at the promise of carrying a child. He wanted her. Those simple words coming from a werekin male were more evocative that the words of love humans used so casually. Sabine found herself offering her mouth to him again, her lips softly parted in invitation. Drew accepted.
It wasn’t just a kiss. He laid siege to her senses.
Drew’s tongue sparred and tangled with hers. He licked the length of it, nipped the tip, and suckled on it with a hunger that took her by surprise. She relished the flavor of him and greedily drank his essence. Addictive and heady, the taste of him sent a ravenous need streaming through her blood. She burned for him. There would be no going back after this.
Drew fitted her snugly against him. The hard planes of his body pressed into her sleek curves. An achy fullness settled in the pulsing cleft between her thighs.
Gathering her even closer, Drew wrapped his arms tighter around her, making Sabine even more aware of his erection jutting into her belly. Sabine writhed against him seeking an elusive thing to ease the ache Drew started inside her.
Tentatively, Sabine slid her hand over his shoulders. She stroked the hard, tense muscles, memorizing every hard ridge with he
r fingertips.
Drew’s hot hands cupped her bottom and lifted her to notch his erection into the nook of her crotch. Sabine wound her legs around his waist, his hardness pressed into her mons and she trembled with a sensual expectancy for what was to come. His hair-roughened skin abraded her sensitized body. He released her tongue, dipped his head, and covered her nipple with his mouth.
She’d never felt a man’s mouth on her breast before. It was heavenly sweet and opened a plethora of new sensations. Enclosed in his mouth’s moist heat, the bud tightened into a painful peak. Drew suckled on the nub and Sabine’s body grew taut as she quivered in his arms. The tugging suction sent spears of ecstasy through her body.
Drew tore his mouth away, panting. “Will you come up to my den now, or will you go see to your father?” he asked raggedly, his chest heaving against her breasts. “The choice is yours.”
She ached to drown herself into the erotic sensations he offered. On the verge of acquiescence, she opened her mouth to give him an answer.
“Drew!” The call shattered their absorption with each other. Sabine pulled back like a guilty child and he released her.
He stood tensely before her, exhaling in harsh pants, his face taut with need. The desire that had built so rapidly simmered between them as they stared at each other. “You’ve been granted a reprieve. The third time will be the charm because I won’t let you go the next time I get you in my arms.”
Sabine looked past Drew to see a red-haired woman waddle toward them as fast as her enormous belly would allow. “You’re home.” The silky voluminous material of her dress billowed around her like a sail.
Drew chuckled and loped over to meet the woman with an eagerness, which had Sabine bristling.
“Look at you, you look ready to pop.” He placed a loving hand on the woman’s belly as they shared an affectionate grin.
“You’ve been away too long. We’ve missed you.” The woman wrapped her arms around Drew and hugged him with a fervency Sabine found far too disturbing.
Without hesitation, Drew enfolded the redhead in his arms. Their embrace spoke of a close relationship, rife with an intimacy bred from shared experiences.
Sabine watched the two of them and the insidious seeds of envy and jealousy settled in the middle of her chest like she’d been cut with a rusty blade. Shocked by her feelings, Sabine took a few steps back, as if some distance would lessen her chaotic emotions.
She studied the woman in Drew’s arms. Sabine had never seen a were ripe with a life growing inside her or one who glowed with such fulfillment. Drew said he didn’t have a mate, but that was not to say he couldn’t have fathered a cub. The familiar way he touch the gravid she-wolf confused her. Damn him. He had women coming out of the woodwork. First, Jules and now this woman.
Feeling as superfluous as a sixth finger, she started to walk away.
“Sabine, where are you going?” Drew’s question forced her to stop and turn to face them. With his arm now draped in casual familiarity across his companion’s shoulders, he gently urged her over to Sabine.
Doing her very best to appear indifferent, she pasted a cool smile on her face. “I have to see my father…join my pack.”
Drew stopped before her. “Our pack. You can wait a little longer to check on your family.”
Sabine desperately wanted to get away. Another confrontation with one of Drew’s former lovers was something she wanted to avoid.
“Sabine, meet Saffa, my friend and the mate of our supreme alpha. Saffa, my mate, Sabine.” Sabine blushed hearing the pride and warmth in his voice when he referred to her as his mate.
Sabine let out a surprised gasp when Saffa dragged her against the bulge of her belly and kissed her cheek.
“I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear Drew had taken a wife. Maybe you can get him to stay put for a while.” Saffa eased back to beam up at her. “Welcome.”
Sabine stared down into Saffa’s clear grey eyes and gave the smaller woman a stiff nod in response. Drew’s scent was on the woman, and the lingering spoor wasn’t from their recent embrace. It had been intimate. Very intimate. She was confused. They seemed more like friends than lovers.
“Ah, thank you,” Sabine responded with stilted politeness.
Saffa grinned up at her. “Not sure what to make of us, are you? We’re not a bad bunch.”
Saffa’s warm acceptance was puzzling, and it made Sabine more uncomfortable, especially after her earlier, less than gracious thoughts.
“Well most of us aren’t bad,” Drew muttered as a man stepped from the shadows. Strands of silver shimmered in the inky black hair concealing the face of the approaching were. The quiet menace in his deliberate walk caused Sabine to shrug out of Saffa’s loose hug to position herself by Drew’s side. She stood one step behind him, to signal she’d come to her mate’s defense.
The stranger shook back his hair to reveal the amusement glimmering in his golden eyes. “Your mate is prepared to kick my ass if I tried to attack you, Andy. Does she think you can’t take care of yourself?”
“Kiss my ass, Ambervane, and don’t call me Andy,” Drew shot back. “Sabine, Justice Ambervane, our leader.” The last words came out in a mocking sneer. “Pay no attention to him. He’s all bark and no bite. Saffa has defanged him.”
“Are you calling me pussy-whipped? Even if I am, I can still beat you down.” A frown creased Justice’s brow. “Shit, you look like a stray.”
Drew cuffed him on the shoulder. “Even at my worst, I can hold my own against you.”
Justice danced nimbly out of the way when Drew swiped at his belly. “Like hell, my girls could take you in the condition you’re in.”
Sabine listened to the men exchange insults. There was no heat in their words or alarm on Saffa’s face so she relaxed her stance.
Saffa let out a tsk of impatience. “Oh, for Heaven’s sake, don’t you two ever stop? Come on Sabine, the doctor will want to examine you.” Saffa looped her arm through Sabine’s, and they walked in a slow side-to-side gait set by Saffa. “I know all you are about to experience will take some adjustment. Of course, the men will just assume the women in your family will take it all in their stride and leave you all to flounder. If you or any of your pack sisters have any problems, feel free to contact me. Drew has my number.”
“Sabine,” Drew called out to her and she reluctantly turned to face him. “Later?”
She knew what he meant, but she wasn’t sure they could recapture the moment of lustful madness that had taken hold of them earlier. Sabine bit her lip and looked at her mate, her uncertainties flooding back.
Drew’s jaw clenched, and she knew he wasn’t going to let it go.
Sabine turned to Saffa. “I need to join my sisters. Where were they taken?” She looked over her shoulder to see the two men talking as they followed. Their expressions were serious, to the point of grimness.
“Saffa Ambervane, what are you doing on your feet?”
The reprimand came out of the dark before a woman stepped from the shadows. Her hair was shorn to within an inch of her scalp. Women in Sabine’s world never cut their tresses so short. In were society, a woman’s hair length was considered a badge of pride. She was clad in a long
-sleeved shirt, rough trousers, and a pair of the tough-hide shoes. Sabine had never worn shoes, but given the choice, those were the last pair she’d have chosen. She’d seen pictures of footwear beautiful as works of art, brightly hued leather, which curved to fit the arch of the foot. Why would she choose to dress like a man?
“Crap. Meet our version of Nurse Ratchet,” Saffa said out of the side of her mouth.
“Who?” Sabine stared at the disgruntled were, fascinated.
“You know, the nurse from the movie One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest?” Saffa tried to clarify. “I guess you have no idea what I’m talking about, but as soon as you get settled in, we must have an all-girls movie night. I can’t wait to introduce you to the joys of Vin Diesel’s buff body, butter-dren
ched popcorn, Skittles, nachos with melted cheese, ice cream with hot fudge. Heck, I’m making myself hungry.” Saffa gave her a slight grimace of apology. “I think about food fifty minutes out of sixty these days. If I don’t whelp soon, I’m going to weigh a ton. Sabine, meet Meave, my jailer and midwife.”
“Saffa, you should be lying down with your feet up.” Meave placed her hands over Saffa’s belly and crooned a soothing melody. To Sabine’s surprise, the undulating mound under Meave’s palms settled.
“And that is why I haven’t strangled her yet. She stops me from going into premature labor.” Saffa grinned at Sabine and sighed.
Meave stepped back and planted her fists on her hips. “Wait until Justice hears about this.”
“I just bet you can’t wait to tell him. Sorry to burst your bubble, but Justice carried me down here, literally.” Saffa tilted her head in Sabine’s direction. “Meet Drew’s mate, Sabine.”
Shock flared in Meave’s eyes. “No shit? But Drew swore he’d never…How come there’s been no scuttlebutt about this? The fur is going to fly when word gets out.”
“What are you babbling about, Meave?” Saffa leaned forward as if she’d caught the scent of something delicious. “Don’t hold out on the pregnant lady.”
Meave’s eyes flitted to Sabine. The slight hunching of her shoulders showed her discomfort. “If you’d pay attention to gossip, you’d know one of the women from the Devareaux pack has been bragging that she has Drew in the bag. They uh-uhmm…spent some time together before he left. But you don’t carry Drew’s scent on you, or his mate’s mark?” Meave’s word trailed off at Sabine’s haughtily raised brow. “Okay, time to take my foot out of my mouth and shut the hell up.”
Didn’t these people respect anybody’s privacy?
Saffa laughed. “No big whoop. Our Drew has a rep of being democratic with his hmmm…loving, but now that he has a mate, all that will stop. Why she doesn’t carry his mark is nobody’s business. If anyone questions it, tell him or her to go ask Drew.” She turned and faced Sabine. “Don’t let the gossip worry you, Sabine. Werekin thrive on it.”
Her Wanted Wolf Page 14
