by Lisa Ladew
That changed everything. Willow didn’t know what Rogue’s reasons were for thinking that, but she knew Rogue was clever as hell and wouldn’t lie to someone to make them feel good. If Rogue thought that, it was probably true.
She let go of Bruin’s face. “You should listen to Rogue.”
Something in the situation made him purr, rumbling his chest. Her lips and clit swelled immediately because when the purring came, that meant the kissing was coming, and the kissing…
He kissed her hard, taking her mouth savagely, and she could taste his sudden hope, and just how far he would fall if it turned out not to be true. He wanted it so bad and this was the first time he’d allowed himself to hope.
She let him back her up against the blankets of his bed-den, and press her into them, taking her mouth with absolute abandon. Staking his claim in a feral way that left her breathless and panting with need.
He pulled at the ends of her hair that he’d so patiently tucked under and around a lifetime ago. “I want your hair down,” he purred into her mouth. “I want to touch it.”
She couldn’t say no to that. Couldn’t deny him anything. She pulled at it, releasing every hair, then shaking it out and looking at him. He cupped her head with both hands, pulling her to him, hard, then plunged both hands into her hair, running it between his fingers, making masculine sounds of pleasure that twisted her completely.
She moved against him hard, wanting so much more than this, but also wanting exactly this again. She opened her legs, hoping he would take the time to search under her skirts, but also wanting him to stay exactly where he was and also almost crying when he did. She pulled one of his hands from her hair and guided it where she wanted it. To her breast. To one of her tiny breasts that barely filled out a normal palm. Would he even be interested?
His hand trembled, then pressed against her. He ran one thumb over her hard nipple and it sharpened. She cried out with the pleasure of his touch. Eagerly, he explored while she reached a tentative hand to the front of his body, wanting to feel what she hadn’t yet…
But he got between them, he reached down, and-Yes! She felt fabric slip-sliding along her body. She almost cried out when his palm cupped her sex through her panties, one finger searching, probing, then sliding. The pleasure was intense and single-minded, and she could think of nothing else as he fed her another orgasm, this one stronger than the one she’d had hours before.
She cried out, dropping against the bed and bucking into his hand until it was over. He pressed against her one last time, then pulled away, smoothing her skirts and kissing her cheekbones, until she was able to open her eyes.
“Why is this bed so high?” she asked, sublime contentment winding into her voice.
He grasped her hands and pulled her to a standing position, one in which he would have to bend to kiss her. “I never knew until this moment,” he said, grasping her hips and lifting her easily, then setting her on the pile of blankets and pillows, which brought her face exactly in line with his.
He kissed her, once, twice, three times, but sweetly. She pulled him close and tried to recapture the fervor they’d had just a moment before, but he stayed chaste.
“Bruin, aren’t we going to…”
He nodded. “But not yet. When the time is right.”
“When will that be?”
He didn’t hesitate. “When you love me back.”
And in that moment, she did, maybe more than just a little.
But still, she couldn’t help but wonder if he still thought he was just a placeholder, someone to keep her warm and safe until the BOGI showed up.
Chapter 25
Bruin lay next to Willow on his bed, tracing circles over her arm as they talked softly about the worlds between them. It was late and he hadn’t slept, but he wasn’t tired. Neither was she, she said. There was so much to learn. He had to get her mother and Wade together soon, so they could talk about the angel, Azerbaizan. Or maybe not. Maybe that was the BOGI’s job.
He trembled with the force of the opposite thought that came to him. Rogue thinks it’s you. So does Willow. Could it be?
“Hey,” he whispered to Willow, “You’re a One True Mate, so you should have a pendant.”
She sat up. “A pendant?”
He held his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “Jewelry. About yay high. With an angel on one side and, well, I guess yours would have a bear on the other.”
She pushed yards of brown hair out of her face. “The shiftsegen. I think I do. I know where it is. But I haven’t seen it yet.” She pulled at him. “We should go get it. Right now.”
He nodded.
Since it was so late at night, the traffic was non-existent and they made it to Willow’s place in fifteen minutes, Bruin first telling Mac where they were going in ruhi, so he could notify Bruin’s guard, or Willow’s guard rather. He’d requested one when they’d left Shay’s delivery. He would take no more chances with Willow’s safety. He’d been surprised to find out the guard was Mac and Rogue and two patrol officers. Everyone else had been busy, he’d said. They didn’t need sleep, he’d said. Too much going on.
They pulled into the driveway of Willow’s house and Bruin cut the engine. Willow glanced nervously up the hill. “The lights are off,” she said. “Mom’s sleeping. So we should be quiet.”
He could do that. He and Willow made it up the porch steps and into the house quickly, and she went right to the kitchen. She grabbed a step-stool from the pantry and climbed up to the top step, digging into a cabinet over the fridge. She handed Bruin cooking tool after cooking tool until she found what she wanted. A pitcher of some sort.
Willow returned to the floor, holding the container up, whispering. “It’s in here. I saw it in my mother’s memories.”
Bruin held his breath. She took off the top, reached in, and touched what was inside, drawing it out, her face expectant, then puzzled. She put the pitcher on the counter and held up the pendant, looking at it, her expression saying she had expected something to happen and it didn’t.
Bruin, on the other hand, felt as if he’d been pile-drived into the floor. The pendant twirled around and around, and when it brushed against Willow’s arm, the red glow falling from the bear’s eyes played over her skin and hair, but that wasn’t what caught Bruin’s attention.
The pendant. The bear. It was his very own bear face he saw in the jewelry. It was him.
“What?” Willow asked urgently. “What’s going on?”
“The bear,” he muttered. “It is the BOGI.”
Willow looked confused, but she responded to his words and not his thoughts. She pulled at his shirt with her free hand, staring at him with open adoration and a bit of pique. “It must be you, Bruin, you’re the BOGI.”
Which went against everything Bruin had ever been told, but he knew she was right. Bruin gathered his mate into his arms, trapping the pendant between them. His voice came out deeper and rougher, catching her attention immediately. “When you look at me like that, you, the most beautiful, exquisite, sweetest, softest, smartest, kindest woman I’ve ever met, I can believe it. I do believe it.”
She melted. “Oh, Bruin.”
Her scent deepened from sweet honey, to rich, flavorful honey dripping over fresh, wild berries and his insides heated from it. His mate. His female. She wanted him like he wanted her. There would be no BOGI swooping in to take her, to demand her, to draw her away in a fair fight for her affections. It was him. It was all him and she’d wanted him before either one of them knew it.
Such a gift he’d been given, and he would work the rest of his life to be worthy of it. But first…
He pinned his mate against the refrigerator, arms by her sides. The pendant dropped to the floor, and the noise that came out of him might have been purring, or it might have been straight-up growling. She gasped and bared her neck to him. “Yes, yes, don’t stop.”
Oh he wasn’t going to stop. He fell on her, growling against her skin. “Willow, my Willow.
You’re the most beautiful woman on the planet and I plan to fall to my knees before your exquisiteness every day from now until the end of time.” His cock pulsed thickly and grew to its full length, bursting at the front of his pants. He pressed it against her and she gasped again, then bucked her hips into it.
Yes. Yes. Just like that, Willow. You’re mine. He snarled, then the sound softened to his purr, and he kissed her, took her lips as was his right. He pulled away when her body trembled. “Don’t be scared of my aggression, Willow. Say the word, one word from you and I stop without question. You control me utterly. But without that word, your body is mine, to take, to use as long as I repay my debt. I can take what I want from it, and I will. My pound of sweet, Willow flesh, that I plan on feasting on tonight.” He ran his tongue along the seam of her lips, punctuating his statement. He would feast on his mate, wring so much pleasure from her body she would pass out from it.
Willow cried out and bucked her hips, her scent flaring sharply. “Not scared,” she breathed.
His mouth watered to taste her but there was no hurry. They had the rest of their lives. He brought his hand to her chin, caressing, gazing. This was right. Everything about this was right, except maybe the place. Time to take her home.
She stretched out her neck, curling into his hand. He placed his fingers on one side of her soft throat and his thumb on the other, only grazing the skin there. She was so delicate, every part of her, dainty, sexy, mouth-watering. He leaned forward and placed kisses across her collarbone.
“I’m taking you home,” he purred against her neck.
“Yes,” was all she could say.
But then Mac broke into his thoughts. Bru, we got a situation.
If he’d been a cursing man, he would have cursed his friend; instead he answered decisively. Go.
Baby time again, my bear friend. We gotta head back. Ella’s about to blow, and they all sound worried as fuck. There’s something they aren’t telling us.
Bruin marked his place on Willow’s neck with his tongue, then gazed into her eyes. “We’re going to have to put this on hold. Your sister is in labor.”
Willow quickly wiped her disappointment from her face and didn’t miss a beat. She grabbed the pendant from the floor and shoved it in her pocket. “Which sister?”
Chapter 26
Willow and Bruin ran to the truck. It was well after midnight, maybe closer to two in the morning, and a summer storm had cropped up, bringing thirty and forty mile-an-hour winds.
A fat raindrop landed on Willow’s cheek while heat lightning split the sky to their south. She loved storms, but something about this one unsettled her.
Or maybe it was Bruin’s new, darker mood. She’d felt the shift when he’d realized the truth about who he was. His destiny had clicked into place, negating something. He still had his overall zen attitude, but now it had an edge, like he knew he was in charge and he was ready to act like it.
Willow watched the treetops along the sides of the country roads whip and occasionally break off and fly alongside them. Only a few drops of rain fell, and electricity bashed its way through the heat of the sky regularly.
Willow had never been someone who prayed, although she suspected her mother of praying to the ‘angel’ every night, but still, at that moment, she found herself offering a prayer up to someone. Who? She didn’t know. Her father? No, that didn’t quite seem right. Rhen? The “goddess” who was a strangely-feminine-looking bear in Bruin’s bear mind, but looked more like an angel of light in Bruin’s human mind? Maybe. She would try it.
Rhen, please watch over my sister and her—
Huh. “Bruin, will her babies be human?”
Bruin shook his head. “Nobody knows. Young between two wolven would normally come out as humans, although they occasionally are born as pups and shift soon after. But this? No one knows what will happen, what the young will look like, how strong they will be, or even if they will shift at all. They should though. Ella’s will be one quarter human, one quarter angel, and one half wolven. Trevor’s a strong male. He’s got two prophecies about him. Those pups will be something special, all right.”
Willow’s mouth went dry with sudden shyness. “What about us, Bru? What will we have?”
Bruin looked at her quickly, a pleased look on his face, before turning back to the road, swerving around a small branch that had fallen into the road. “You’re thinking about that?”
She nodded. “That’s the plan for us, right? Why this is all happening?”
He frowned, then grasped her hand, his manner more solemn than she’d ever seen. She realized he had lines around his eyes and his mouth that hadn’t been there the day before. “You have a choice, Willow.”
She knew she did, and she appreciated his gentleness with her, even on this subject. She plucked a thought out of his head and whispered the word to herself. She’d already used it and not even noticed. “Cubs.”
Willow dropped her hands to her legs to rub them on her skirt. How long had she known this man-ah, male? Two days? But nothing could have sounded more right to her in that moment. Cubs. Fat, roly-poly cubs with big eyes and sweet dispositions. She couldn’t wait to hold them in her arms.
The mobile medical center came up quickly on their left and Willow gasped. The number of people in the parking lot had trebled. There looked to be almost a thousand strong, now, and they all faced the building, their faces solemn, none caring about the occasional rain drop or the heat, or the possibility of being fried by lightning.
Bruin wound his way along the dirt road that lead to the back. They parked next to a huge RV that glowed with lights. For a moment Willow wondered if Ella was in there because she sensed two beings in there, one a sister of hers who was uncomfortable and laboring toward something big, and the other that sister’s mate, a male who was doing his best to take care of her.
But Bruin ushered her past it and back to the same building they’d gone in the first time. The two black wolves and a tall, stern-looking male with silver hair were on guard in front of the door.
Bruin quickly made introductions. “Willow, this is Trent and Troy, two of the finest wolven you will ever meet. And this is Harlan, the backbone of the KSRT. Wolves, this is Willow, my mate.”
The way he said it, completely matter of fact, almost made tears spring to Willow’s eyes.
Harlan grasped Bruin’s hand and pulled him in close. Willow heard him whisper, “I’m so happy for you, bear, you deserve it.” Then he bowed his head to her. “Pleased to meet you, Willow.” He was sad, gutted almost, but the thought-form the emotion was contained in was old, hugging his entire body like a second skin.
The two wolves spoke in her mind and she wasn’t sure which was which but she couldn’t have made much of a distinction anyway. Words existed in their messages, but all she could hear was forest growing and river running and fat squirrel scared from its hole and hunted for food and blood spraying and fighting for survival.
She swallowed hard and nodded to them all but Bruin was ushering her inside. Things were different, so different, this time.
The same people were there, but where they’d been clustered in groups before, now all were separate, their faces harsh, their bodies tense. Most grasped the arms of the chairs they were sitting in hard enough to turn their knuckles white, some paced about the room, heads down, senses on high alert.
Mac and Rogue greeted them at once, looking like they had just gotten there themselves. “This is good,” Mac said, looking around the room. “Khain doesn’t dare show his face. If we each took a mouthful, there’d be nothing left of him in a minute.”
A pained moan came from the other room, and they all stiffened. Mac motioned to them. “They want us in there.”
In the door they went, quickly, closing it again and falling to one side, staying against the wall and out of everyone’s way. The adjoining sterile room was brightly lit, and Willow could see vague shapes moving around behind the blinds. The medical bed was still in the
same spot, but this time Ella was in it. The knot of people around her was three deep, but Willow could still hear the doctor ask Ella something and her response.
“Which toe am I touching?”
“Big toe. I can feel it very clearly. This one isn’t working either.
The people around Ella shifted and sighed, their disappointment almost frantic.
Willow held on to Bruin’s arm, tightly, pressing against him. Which is why it seemed so wrong when he came up on her other side. She jumped.
The male who was there held out his hands. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Bruin turned to the newcomer, and his entire being suffused with welcome. “Conri. Brother. I can’t tell you how good it is to see you.”
Conri could only stare for a moment, giving Willow a chance to study him. His body was just like Bruin’s, just as hefty and wide, but his hair was shaved to the scalp and he wore no beard. Still, as she marked his lopsided dimples, she realized he and Bruin were identical twins. So that’s what Bruin would look like without a beard. Unbearably handsome, still.
Thought-forms twisted around Conri as he stared at Bruin. Willow didn’t bother trying to block them, remembering her earlier realization that she’d been given this ability-this power-for a reason, and refusing to use it would not be in anyone’s best interest.
So she plucked at one, pulled it toward her, let it suffuse her, trying to keep her own thoughts about Bruin out of it. Conri was conflicted, deeply so. He loved Bruin but someone else he loved said Bruin was a traitor. Willow frowned, trying to see who this someone else was, but there were so many identifiers wrapped around the guy, she couldn’t be sure. Someone Conri looked up to, but also mistrusted in some fundamental way. His boss?
Conri smiled. “Bru. I’ve missed you.”
Those seemed to be the words Bruin was waiting for and he fell upon his brother, bear-hugging him around the torso, Conri’s arms trapped, as Bruin picked him up like he was light as a feather.
After several moments, Bruin let his brother back down to the floor and made quick introductions. When Bruin introduced Mac to Conri, Mac leaned forward, examining Conri’s face. “Bru-he looks just like less hairy version of you!”
