by Holley Trent
One, two strikes. Goddess, give me patience.
Darius returned, still naked as a jaybird with his fat dick half-erect, and handed her the cloth.
It took her two tries to grasp it, because her gaze had fallen to his crotch, and the fine specimen dangling from it. She patted herself clean, and with a wince, stood. She’d be feeling the ache between her legs for a couple of days, probably. It didn’t matter how wet and ready she had been, it had just been too long since her last fuck, and he was too big. Yet, she’d greedily taken him in and endured the bite of pain because the pleasure that came with it had been so, so good. She had no business even looking at him now. He needed to keep his dick away from her. Indefinitely. Probably until after she’d shifted and had some time to heal.
If she shifted.
He turned his back and pulled his pants back on, and she said a little prayer of thanks to the goddess. He had a tight, muscular ass that she wanted to sink her fangs into.
Fangs?
“Whoa.” A wave of dizziness had her falling to her knees, but Darius was there to catch her before she hit the floor.
She stared up at him, his concerned expression seeming to swim around in a mist, so that all she could pinpoint were his more contrasting features—his short hair, those dark, bedroom eyes. His grip was strong and sure and he didn’t seem to be straining, but he was a werewolf and had supernatural strength. She didn’t need to be a waif for him to find her easy enough to prop up.
“I think it’s happening,” he said.
“Huh?” Her legs went limp as noodles, but he propped her against him with one arm, and used his free hand to push her sweat-sodden hair out of her face.
“Your wolf.”
“Where?”
He laughed. It was one of those unrestrained, boyish laughs she’d expect from a teenager and not of a man of—how fucking old is he?
Her eyes crossed and she gave her head a hard shake to focus. “How old are you? You’re at least eighteen, right?” Gods, don’t tell me I’m robbing anybody’s cradle here. Eighteen was six years younger than her. There were far more male wolves in the world than eligible female wolves. Certainly, the odds hadn’t shit on her in such a way that she’d end up with a man-child as a mate.
Another wave of dizziness washed over her, making her keel forward, and he scooped her into his arms. “I’m over eighteen.” He started moving toward the back of the house.
“How much over? Over twenty? Over twenty-five?” The ceiling was spinning now. She jammed her eyelids closed and drew in a bolstering breath. “Gonna barf.”
Quick as a flash, he deposited her in front of the toilet and pulled her hair back from her face just before she hurled.
She felt like death, or that she’d be wishing for it soon. Her joints ached, stomach burned, and head throbbed, as if one million tiny jackhammers were pounding against her skull. And her skin—fuck, it burns.
She stared at her hand in front of her face through a bleary gaze, and was momentarily relieved that she wasn’t actually on fire.
She straightened up—as much as one could do while still hugging a commode—at the sound of water drumming against the tub floor. And she was reasonably sure that Darius was shucking his pants. Typical man. Leaving her there to die while he showered off the sex.
“All done?” he asked.
“Huh?” She pushed one eyelid up a little bit more and closed the other. The spinning wasn’t so bad that way. He was holding the shower curtain open and peering down at her.
“Still feel sick?”
“I think I’m done barfing. For now.”
“Play it by ear.” He helped her into her feet and into the shower. The cool spray made her gasp upon impact, but his bracing arm kept her from crumbling onto the floor. She hardly noticed the press of his cock against her back as he held her upright, because she was so busy marveling at the steam her own body seemed to be making with the water.
“I’m so hot,” she sniffled, and hadn’t even noticed that her nose had been running.
He gave her a one-shoulder massage, keeping his other arm tight around her waist. “It’ll pass.”
She pushed her face into the shower stream and rubbed her eyes. “When?”
“Soon. Better this way. Some people’s first shift comes while they’re sleeping. That’s not a hell of a lot of fun.”
“Why not? You know, you could stand to elaborate a little when you talk.” She eased out of his grip and turned to look at him. He looked positively serene in that beautiful caveman way of his.
He shrugged. “I would if I had anything worth saying.”
She reached for the grab bar and closed her eyes again. Whoa, spinny spinny. She swallowed hard to push down the nasty bile creeping up from her belly. “You let me decide what’s worth hearing. I have no qualms about telling you to shut up if you get too talkative.”
Male wolves weren’t especially chatty in general, but this guy may have been one of the most terse she’d ever met.
“Imagine you go to sleep human, and wake up an animal. Disoriented. Scared.” He tightened his grip on her waist and pulled her more firmly against his body. Hard chest, hard thighs, hard cock.
She whimpered as another hot surge coiled through her body, and this one had nothing to do with shapeshifting and everything to do with the sex she shouldn’t want, because he didn’t want her.
“It’ll be okay soon.”
She huffed.
But maybe he was right. Maybe it would be okay. They’d get along swimmingly if he kept his negative opinions of her to himself. In fact, she’d be coming out way ahead of some mated women she knew. She couldn’t help but to want more, though. The goddess had promised her more in all the dreams Stephanie had after being absorbed into her father’s pack. Wolf men weren’t as sweet as the ones in Stephanie’s dreams. They simply didn’t exist that way. Hell, they weren’t even that sweet in fairy tales. She turned slowly, holding onto his telephone pole-like arms to keep from slipping, and fixed her gaze on him. He was beyond good-looking. Tall, dark, and handsome had always done it for her. They’d make pretty kids. There was nothing wrong with the genetics here—the raw goods.
“Aren’t you pretty?” she muttered.
His dark eyes widened a bit.
Gods forbid he ever play poker. He can’t hide a damned thing in his expression. She put her hands on her hips and examined the rest of him. Defined chest, long torso, lean hips.
She canted her head sideways and set her gaze on the thing that had been impaling her only minutes ago. “It’s very nice.”
He dropped his hands from her shoulders and cupped himself.
“Now, now, it’s only fair,” she said through clenched teeth, yanking her gaze back up to his face. Wet warmth tracked down her chin and onto her chest, and Darius yanked the shower curtain aside. He grabbed a washcloth, pressed it to her mouth, and drew it back.
“You’re cutting it.”
“Huh?”
“Your lip. Your—” he peeled back his lips, extended his wolf’s fangs into his bite, and pointed to them.
“What?” She pressed her hand to her mouth and felt the truth for herself. Sharp, long, new. She let out a whimper and fixed a pleading gaze on him.
He nudged her back under the spray.
“Words!” she shouted as the cool water pelted her boiling skin. “I’m not psychic. Tell me what’s happening to me.”
“Shit. Uh—you’re a moon shifter? Your clan?”
“Do our wolves shift for the full moon? Yes.”
“You might have had a little time to adjust, otherwise. The wolves in our pack, including Mrs. Carbone, are different. We shift when it suits us.”
“I’m—I’m going to shift now? No.” She shook her head. “Not yet. I’m not ready.”
“I think you are.”
“Oh, gods.” She gripped that grab bar again and held on tight as a powerful cramp in her midsection doubled her over. “I don’t want to.”
“It’ll get better. I promise.”
“Liar. You’d—oh, gods—tell me anything.”
He let out a long breath and nudged the water handle to the off position. “Only the truth. That’s all that’s worth saying,” he said quietly. His voice seemed tender, almost, though she may have been misreading him. He could have simply been tired. She sure was after such a long two days. “I’m gonna take you out to the patio. Don’t want to be in such an enclosed space when the wolf comes out.”
“Naked?”
“No one will see. Besides, wolves are naked all the time. Not a big deal.”
“Right, right.” She knew that.
He’d helped her over the tub ledge when a suffocating internal implosion dropped her to her knees. She scratched at her chest and tried to find some air. So full, so much inside—stifling her, something was pressing against her skin, demanding to be let out.
“Come on.”
She was writhing atop his shoulder when her claws broke loose and a low growl rent the air.
“Shhh. It’s okay, Stephanie.” He carried her onto the back patio and the cool night air calmed her mind, but energized her inner wolf.
The wolf wanted out. She wanted out immediately, and she wasn’t going to wait. Oh, gods! “Put me down. Please, Darius.”
He did, but pressed his hands to her cheeks and forced her gaze up to him. “Look at me.”
“I am.”
“Keep looking. You’re going to forget.”
“Forget what? I’m not going to forget you.” How could I possibly forget that face? She gritted her teeth and dug her claws into his sinewy flesh as her hips and spine morphed painfully inside her, lengthening in some places, compressing in others.
Pain, pain, pain.
“Your wolf will forget, at first. Look at my face, and don’t stop looking. I’ll shift with you. Learn my wolf’s face before you run.”
Her brain was a fog of uncertainty and terror, but she gave her head a hard nod, anyway. There was no turning back. “I never forget.”
She felt something spring forth from her chest then, and her legs seemed to vanish.
And that was it.
CHAPTER FOUR
Stephanie was reasonably sure she was still alive, but the last time she made an assumption about something, she’d ended up driving the wrong way and onto a highway exit ramp.
The last things she remembered were a fuckload of searing pain, and that dark, dark gaze locked onto her. Her mate’s gaze.
Did I shift?
She was on her side now, curled into a ball on a soft surface. She gave her fingers experimental wiggles, and then her toes. They felt normal enough—human enough. She opened first one eye, then the other, and her gaze focused on the masculine lump on the bed beside her. He lay back against the headboard, a knee propped up as he stared at the muted television on the dresser.
“What time is it?” Her voice was hoarse, but recognizable. She sounded like Stephanie, and not a wolf. Words, not woofs.
He reached for the remote, but she grabbed his wrist.
“Leave it on for the light,” she said.
“Okay. It’s around four.”
“How long have we been in here?” In his bedroom. She rolled onto her back and scanned what she could of it from her supine position. There wasn’t much to see beyond the bed and dresser. He was probably still getting around to buying stuff, just like in the living room. The emptiness actually soothed her confused inner wolf. She could put her mark on the house—her new den. It was home now, a place of belonging, if she dared let it be. A silver lining.
“About an hour,” he said.
Closing her eyes, she swatted her hair back from her face. “Why is my hair still wet?”
“Washed it again. I put you in the shower when we got back.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“Memory’ll get better.”
“I hope so.” She rolled onto her side and, suddenly cold, realized her nakedness. She took a moment to get under the covers. Decent sheets, surprisingly. Soft.
“You cold?”
“No,” she said. “I’m actually quite hot.”
He furrowed his brow. “Covers won’t help that.”
Don’t get distracted. Before she’d started shifting, she’d intended to talk to him. Or talk at him, rather, given his unwillingness to speak. “I think we need to set some ground rules.”
“About what?”
“For one thing, about how we’re going to run day-to-day stuff in the household.”
His brow wrinkled even more. “Okay. Like what?”
“For one thing, I’m not your cook, or your maid.”
“I’ve been doing fine without either.”
“I had to say it. I grew up outside of a pack, mostly. My sense of fairness is probably calibrated differently from most wolves.” She waited for the rebuttal, but none came. His gaze fell to his hands. Strong and busy. They always seemed to be moving. Is he nervous? She’d never known a nervous wolf.
What does that mean? She compartmentalized the question to ponder later.
“Um, second, keep work discussions outside.” Wherever male wolves gathered, bad behavior tended to follow, and that included taunting, leering, and criticizing.
He turned slowly back to the television screen, and she finally took a look at what he was watching. It was some documentary about a museum tracing the provenance of a piece of art. She’d seen it before. It wasn’t entertaining, per se, but interesting. At least, in her opinion.
“I keep missing the tail end of it,” he said. “Sorry if I seem distracted.”
“You’ve seen it before?”
“Most of it. Something always happens to pull me away at the end. No work in the house. Got it. Guys don’t come here much, anyway.”
“Why?”
“I like quiet. Hard to get, sometimes.”
“Is my being here bothering you for more reasons besides your revulsion of my appearance?”
“No. Your energy is more or less psychically neutral. Doesn’t take up a lot of space. I don’t feel crowded with you here.” He dropped the remote and swiveled to face her. “And what?”
“You don’t have to say anything to placate me. I get it. You were expecting a certain kind of woman, and you didn’t get that. Unfortunately, I am what I am, and I try to be confident in spite of it. That’s hard sometimes.”
“Is this about you being half-wolf? I’ve never heard of that being a problem.”
“It’s more a problem than you would think in some packs, but this isn’t about that. It’s about me looking like I’d bring up the rear in a pack race.”
“You seem to be in good enough shape, and your wolf is…well, she’s…incredible. She’s so pretty. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a wolf with such red fur.”
Incredible? The wolves in her father’s pack would have probably threatened to burn her at the stake for being a furry, red aberration. “Don’t bullshit me.”
“I’m not. The…the goddess is said to have had red fur in her wolf form.”
She did?
Stephanie gnawed on her lips, considering it. She had never heard that, but most of what she’d learned about the goddess had been through the veil of dreams. Everything else was in scraps here and there from her mother, and Mom was certainly no expert.
She looked at him and found him staring at his hands again.
“You’re missing your show.”
“It’s not important. Tell me why you’re angry at me. I don’t understand what I did wrong.”
“That’s part of the problem. You don’t even know you’re doing it.”
“What am I doing?”
“You looked at me like I was garbage.”
“When?”
“In the living room, when I took off my shirt. Your gaze went right to my doughy bits.”
“What ‘doughy bits?’”
“Don’t play dumb.”
“Really. Show me what I
was looking at.”
She pointed to the television. “Commercial’s over. It’s getting to the good part.”
His jaw flapped silently for a few beats, and his gaze flitted between the television and her face.
“You actually want to see that?”
“It’ll repeat.”
“Eventually.”
He growled and turned off the television. “Tell me what I did wrong.”
“When I was on my back on the sofa, you closed your eyes when you saw me. You looked away.”
“You were naked.”
“Yep.”
“And I was hard.”
“And…”
“I think one thing is related to the other.”
“In my experience, most men can get it up in spite of what they’re looking at if they try hard enough. Once they get inside, it all feels the same.”
“You’re nuts.”
“Why?” Her voice cracked in that way it always did when she argued with her father. It didn’t matter that she was right, usually. He had a knack for making her feel like everything she said was wrong—like everything was her fault. “Because I called you out on it?”
“You asked me to—”
“I know what I asked you to do. I was desperate. I shouldn’t have expected tenderness.”
Gaping, he scraped a hand through his hair and fixed that intense, dark stare on her. So familiar, and yet she couldn’t put a finger on why. “We’re supposed to get married in a few hours, and you already hate me.”
“Other way around.”
“Whatever you think I did, tell me what it was now, so I can call you a liar.”
“You were repulsed.”
“No!” He shook his head and gave his hair a quick yank. His energy flared, electrifying the room before he closed his eyes and snapped it back in.
She rubbed the prickling hairs on her arms and pulled in a deep inhalation. Oh my god. He may not have been an alpha in title, but he certainly had the energy of one. It was unmistakable. He wasn’t some run-of-the-mill wolf.
Does anyone else know? Does the pack know what he is?
“Why did you think that?” His plaintive voice that made her feel like the biggest bitch on the face of the Earth.
