by Bianca D’Arc
The master bedroom had an attached bathroom and Serena made a beeline for it, throwing off her dusty clothes as she went. Bob followed along after her, pausing only long enough to lock the door to the hallway. He did not want to be disturbed for anything less than World War Three or the apocalypse. He’d had just about all the excitement of that kind he could take for one night. Now it was time to pursue a different, more intimate, kind of excitement.
Serena was naked by the time he closed the bathroom door and already had the water started. He saw the steam rise shortly after she stepped past the curtain and he hastened to join her.
“What took you so long?” she asked in a weary, yet playful voice when he stepped into the mercifully large shower behind her.
He couldn’t answer past the need in every muscle as he took the soap from her hands and created a lather between his fingers. He then stroked those soapy fingers over every inch of her wet body, taking his time, savoring every touch, every inch of her soft, slippery skin.
He needed this. He needed the closeness. The cougar that shared his soul needed the reassurance that his mate was safe, and whole, and with him. Just touching her skin helped calm his inner beast and still the panic that had risen after the action was over and he began to realize just how much danger she had been in.
Even now, his shoulders shook when he realized what they’d escaped tonight on the mountain. What they’d averted. While he’d been in the situation, doing what needed to be done, he was cool and collected, but now? Now he was a desperate man, very aware of the chances they’d taken and the dire consequences that had been only narrowly avoided for both his mate and the world at large.
“It’s so strange,” she said quietly as they stood under the warm spray of the water together. He’d finished soaping her and now just held her back to his front, his arms around her waist, while the water sluiced over them, rinsing the soap from the front of her body. A moment of peace in a world that had gone completely crazy only hours before.
“What is, kitten?” Bob had been keyed up from the battle, but now that they were safe, the desire to protect his mate was replacing the basic need to fuck her brains out and prove to the cougar once again that she was theirs and would be forever. He could be gentle—especially with his mate, the life partner he was meant to protect with his last breath and cherish all his days.
“So much has happened in just a few hours,” she said, her tone contemplative. “Everything has changed for the Cascade Clan. They’ve lost all their power and the drug trade is seriously hindered by the death of Victor Ramos. I suppose the wolves will take over the Range now. They seem like good people with an honest leader. It’s for the best.”
Bob turned her in his arms and let the water rinse her back as he used one finger under her chin to coax her head upward so he could meet her gaze. How he loved her. Now, perhaps more than ever. And it nearly stopped his breath to think of the danger he’d allowed her to face that night.
“Never again,” he growled.
“What?” Her head tilted adorably to the side as she tried to follow his thinking, which had devolved to the caveman basics of protecting his mate.
He tried again. “I don’t ever want you in that kind of danger again, Serena. I can’t take it. The cougar is going nuts thinking about how close we came to disaster tonight.”
She lifted her hands to his shoulders, stroking his wet skin with gentle fingers. The cougar began to calm again inside his skin.
“It’s okay. We’re okay,” she whispered, raising up on her tiptoes to place kisses along his jaw. “I promise you, Bob, I’m not an adrenaline junkie by any stretch of the imagination. Tonight was about all the excitement I need for the next century or two. I won’t go seeking situations that make your cat crazy.” She smiled and reached upward to kiss his lips, taking the kiss deeper with each passing second, her words placating the cougar, her touch, igniting the fire that hadn’t been far from the surface in the man.
Both halves of his soul wanted her in every way. Right now, he was still caveman enough to want to take her body, claim it as his, knowing a woman like Serena would never give her body without her heart. The more reasoning part of his mind knew that and reveled in the fact that she loved him as much as he loved her.
They were true mates. Perfect partners. And they would be together for the rest of their very long lives if he had any say in the matter.
He took the kiss deeper, taking control and taking her fully into his arms. He lifted her up and spun her to the side of the stream of watery droplets coming from the showerhead.
The tiled wall was a little chilly against her back at first, but Bob’s kiss drove any small discomfort straight out of her mind. She shivered with delight at the hard, fast need she felt rise in her to match his. She loved that she could drive her mate so close to the edge of control. Her inner cat wanted to yowl in pleasure as he joined their bodies with few preliminaries.
But she didn’t need any preliminaries. Not this time. Bob and she were attuned to each other in almost every way. Her body felt the same raging need as his, her mind craved their complete union—body and soul. There was no need to wait. Not when two beings were so perfectly aligned.
Regardless, Bob slid home gently, tempering his strength with care for her comfort. How she loved her tender, powerful, warrior. He was everything she ever could have dreamed of in a mate and never dared hope for. He was her every wish come true—even the ones she didn’t know she’d made. Somewhere in the heavens, a fairy godmother had waved her magic wand and given Serena the perfect man. The perfect mate.
Fanciful thoughts fled though, when Bob pushed deep, pressing her back against the wet, tiled wall, possessing her completely.
Oh, yeah. She definitely wanted more of that.
She clutched his shoulders and hung on for dear life as he began to move, slowly at first and then with the passion that threatened to overwhelm them both. His hips pistoned up into the open V of her thighs, connecting them, joining them, making them one. She trembled as he pushed her against the wall, crushing her body in a way that made her hotter than she’d ever been before.
Her head lolled and then dropped forward, to rest in the crook of his neck. Her mouth opened and she licked his salty skin, wet from the shower and his exertions. She drank the flavor of him down, ratcheting her desire higher. And then, as his thrusting took on a desperate tone, she bit his shoulder and heard him roar.
The copper of his blood touched her mouth. She’d broken skin, but had just enough presence of mind not to cause too much damage. Her inner bobcat had come out to play and caused a slight shift of her teeth and hands. She knew her claws were pressing against the skin of his back as he came hard within her body.
She wasn’t far behind. All it took to push her over was his continued thrusts and the feel of his mouth against her neck. His sharp teeth scraped over her pulse and then lowered to the place where her neck joined her shoulder and he returned the mating bite. The very instant his teeth closed over the muscle there, her body spasmed in ecstasy, her cat yowled inside her, the sound drawn from her human throat somewhere between a scream and a roar.
Dear Goddess, her mate knew just how to please her.
Bob held her as she shook with intense waves of pleasure that started where they were joined and rippled through her entire body. He eased the hold of his bite and eventually raised his head to gaze into her eyes.
“You own me, Serena. Heart and soul,” he whispered.
Drugged from the pleasure and the sexy, ragged tone of his voice, his words arrowed into her heart and echoed. She felt exactly the same and she wasn’t afraid of it. No, her inner cat reveled in his claim of possession and her human half loved him with the same, deep intensity. How could that be scary? It was miraculous. A one-in-a-lifetime kind of occurrence. They had been blessed to find each other and she would never forget how lucky she was to have a man like Bob in her life.
“I love you too,” she replied softly, re
aching the few inches to kiss him with all the tenderness she was feeling. When she pulled back a moment later, she felt the need to reciprocate. “I’m yours, for life, and into the next realm, for all eternity.”
Bob’s smile was filled with joy and a little mischief. “It can’t get much better than this,” he joked. But then, after they’d dried off and headed to the big bed in the other room…it did.
Epilogue
By the next day, the mountain had settled into repose, but Jezza was still ensconced in the caldera chamber, overseeing things. Some of the wolf soldiers had brought him supplies, artfully dodging the human geologists who were swarming all over the mountain trying to figure out what had happened seismically.
Joe had spent some time talking to the jaguar about what had happened. Joe gave Bob the basics of the story to report back to his Clan when they returned to Nevada and the bobcat leadership had been returned to their homes, still under guard. John and Jezza would sort them out once things had calmed down completely. It looked like Jezza was going to be a permanent resident of the area from now on—at least as long as he had a direct connection to the immense power of the volcano.
John had spoken to Lewis—the man he had sent with the rest of the Pack to eastern Oregon—by phone, and the Pack was reported in good shape in the half-built housing development. Some of the werewolves had even hired on to work with the Redstone Construction crews while they were there, pitching in—with pay—to complete the homes they were living in temporarily.
John left it up to each werewolf family to decide what they wanted to do. Their previous homes in the mountains were mostly destroyed or in need of major repair. Things were safer now that the Venifucus plot in the region had been foiled, but everything was still a bit unsettled. The wolves could choose to go home and rebuild, stay where they were, or come to the bobcat section of the mountain range and help with the clean up. John was very clear on one point—the bobcats would no longer be in sole possession of the northern part of the Cascade mountain range. Wolves would roam anywhere they wanted now that the core of evil had been rooted out of the bobcat Clan.
The two older bobcats, Jeremiah and his mate, Betty, returned the next day, and Bob and Serena made a point to tell them what had happened and how they had used their home in the emergency. Bob insisted on paying for the food the soldiers had foraged from the old couple’s pantry and then some. Jeremiah tried to refuse at first, but it was clear the older couple didn’t have a lot of money and could use the funds. Bob added a little extra without saying a word.
Jeremiah got an excited twinkle in his eye when Joe told him how useful his map and the keys had come in. The old bobcat spent an hour talking about how he’d always planned to use the mine as an escape route, if necessary, which was why he had bought this particular house in the first place. Jeremiah was glad someone had finally gotten to use the secret access to the mine as he’d always intended.
Joe and his platoon did a bit of work around the old couple’s homestead, making repairs that Jeremiah couldn’t manage on his own. Jeremiah gratefully accepted the help which Joe and his men insisted was their way of paying the couple back for allowing them to use their house during the op. Jeremiah beamed with all the young people around and Betty cooked for all of them, enjoying being a sort of honorary Pack mother for the werewolf men who were making the old house and barn shine again.
Serena spent time with Betty and talked over a lot of the incidents that had taken place over the years. She was coming to terms with her past and was finally able to put most of it behind her. This adventure had helped her do that and while she doubted she would ever want to return to the Cascades, she was able to leave with a peaceful heart.
Bob drove them into Nevada a couple of days later. After leaving the wolves, they kept on the move, staying away from possible trouble. They kept checking in with Bob’s brothers every six hours, as before.
The Venifucus attacks around the world had died down for the most part since they had defeated Lizzy and her crew in the caldera chamber, but now the shifter community worldwide was more aware of the ongoing threat. Everybody finally had a much clearer idea of the scope of the danger, and it was bigger than anyone had guessed.
When the mages at Mount Baker had been defeated, the Venifucus besieging the Lords’ mountain fell back. Apparently the siege had been solely to keep the Lords from sending anyone up to the volcano, which wasn’t really that far from their territory. The consensus opinion was that the Venifucus would try something again, now that their many-tentacled plan had been exposed, but nobody knew exactly where they would strike next. The only good thing to come out of this was that almost everyone was now fully aware of the Venifucus threat. The world had changed drastically in just a few short days.
Serena had changed on a fundamental level as well. Finding her mate had made her stronger. While Bob completed her, he also gave her wings. He was the perfect man for her, willing to let her lean on him if necessary, but he also propped her up, helping her be more than she had ever been before.
She felt like he had changed as well from when they’d first met. He was happier, a lot calmer, more balanced and surer than he had been. The cougar she had first met by the little stream behind the cabin had been forever changed by finding his mate. She could see it, feel it, knew it in her heart of hearts.
They were both stronger for having discovered each other. And now he was taking her home to meet his family. She was nervous as hell, but she was also secure in the relationship that had been forged in fire and hardened by danger. She and Bob were a team now. They would grow old together, if the Mother of All willed it. The thought made her smile. She’d love to grow old alongside her handsome cougar.
The only doubts she still had were about how his family—a family filled with powerful cougar Alphas and very magical women—would accept a bobcat among them. The fact that two of the brothers weren’t mated to shifters at all gave her hope, but bobcats and cougars weren’t quite the same. They were both cats at heart, so they did have some things in common, but they weren’t exactly the same. She was a little afraid that she’d have to fight for acceptance among the cougar Clan.
Bob said not to worry, but she couldn’t help herself. Her last Clan had been a nightmare. The only experience she had with an accepting group of shifters had been at the Lords’ mountain, but she knew that was an exceptional place with exceptional people.
They drove into a gorgeous housing development on the very outskirts of Las Vegas, bordered by desert and lots of wild land. Serena recognized it from the descriptions Bob had given her of his family’s home. He’d told her that Redstone Construction had built this housing development a few years ago when they moved the headquarters of the company and the Clan to Las Vegas. It was specifically designed for shifters, though humans wouldn’t realize it. Only members of the Redstone Clan lived within its confines.
Each of his brothers had built his own place, but the family home was at the center of the community and remained the home of the Alpha pair—the eldest brother, Grif, and his mate, Lindsey. That was their first stop. Bob said he wanted to introduce Serena to the Alpha first, which was only polite, and good protocol when bringing someone new into the Clan’s territory. He wanted his brothers to meet her right away, he’d said. His exact words had been that he wanted to show her off to them, which was a kind way of putting it. He kept promising her that they were all going to love her as much as he did, but she had her doubts.
She tried to keep her worries to herself, but Bob must’ve picked up on her mood because he reached across to take her hand, squeezing lightly as they pulled up in front of a lovely, large house. She felt his excitement in the strength of his grip, but she was still anxious.
“We’re here.” He parked the SUV and shut off the engine. “Come on. You’ll see. They’re going to love you, I promise.”
She sucked in a breath for courage. “If you say so.”
He leaned over and kissed her quickly
, then let go and climbed out of the SUV. He came around to her side, reaching for her hand again as they walked up to the big house.
The door flew open before they hit the doorstep and a young girl came out, running straight for Bob. He caught her as she launched herself into his arms and swung her around, kissing her cheek.
“Damn, Belinda, you’ve grown at least two inches since I left.” He set her down and Serena realized the youngster was only a half foot shorter than she was and growing fast. “Sweetheart, I want you to meet Serena. She’s my mate.” Bob turned the younger woman to face Serena.
The girl reached out hesitantly and Serena moved forward to hug her. She understood Belinda’s hesitation and her inner bobcat wanted to soothe the younger cat that seemed so unsure of itself. The bobcat wanted to mother the kitten it sensed still inside the girl. Serena had never felt such motherly instincts before, but she trusted her cat’s instincts and it seemed to be the right thing to do when Belinda squeezed her tight, accepting her hug of reassurance and welcome.
“Bob’s told me all about you, Belinda,” Serena said as she let go of the girl. “I think we’re going to be like sisters. You and I have a lot in common.” Their common points were sad ones, but Serena wouldn’t mention it now. In time, she would get to know the girl better and maybe they would be able to talk through some of the traumas in their pasts. This one member of the family, at least, Serena felt immediately comfortable with.
And then she looked up to realize the rest of the family had come out to greet them. Bob was being hugged by three men that had to be his older brothers. One by one, they thumped him on the back, tousled his hair and punched his shoulder, speaking words of welcome and praise for his work up north.
Two women came out from behind the guys and headed straight for Serena and Belinda. A pretty blonde stepped forward, her hand outstretched in welcome and a smile on her face.
