by Thorne, Elle
How can Glory still affect me, all these years later?
He wasn’t asking anyone, it was a rhetorical question, but by damn, his leopard took that opportunity to remind him that she was his fated mate. That there was no other, never would be another… no matter what he did.
He knew what the leopard meant when he said “what he did,” because every time Dane was involved in a one-night stand, his leopard would leave him, going far away, to some place Dane didn’t understand. It would leave a void in him and it wouldn’t be until the leopard returned that Dane realized how much it would wound him if the leopard were ever to leave for good.
“I can’t make it to the will-reading, Aunt Mae.” I can’t see Bitter Falls again. “I’ll send my attorney.”
“Dane Mark Forester.” She was taking the big guns out, using his full name.
He had no chance now.
She continued, “Frank was murdered. Don’t you dare say you won’t go. He did everything he could for you after your dad and Brad died.”
His anger with Uncle Frank, with Glory’s deception, with the world, had nothing to do with Mae. She’d been good to him after his father had died. She’d even offered to take him in when he’d gone to visit. She had a falcon shifter named Fiona there who’d become close to Dane. But Dane couldn’t stay. Fiona’s hair color was too close to Glory’s. Seeing Fiona every day reminded him he couldn’t see Glory. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Go seek the answers yourself. Find out what happened to Frank. He was a good man. He deserved better than he got.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Dane—” Her voice choked.
He heard shuffling then a male voice said, “Dane. This is Doc.”
“Doc Evans?” Why was the town’s shifter doctor with her? “Is she okay, Doc? Why are you there?”
“She’s fine. She’s my mate, son. And she can’t talk anymore. She’s tore up by this. She’d appreciate your help. She and I are making the trip as soon as we take care of a few things that need handling.”
Dane blew out a big breath. “Okay, Doc. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks, Dane. It’d be good to see you again, sometime.”
Dane vaguely remembered Doc. The last time Dane saw him, he’d been mated and had a little girl—or was that his stepdaughter? Astra, it seemed her name was. Dane didn’t ask how his wife was. If Doc was with Mae now, his wife was either dead or gone.
“It would be good to see you too.”
Chapter Four
Glory’s cousins had gone to town and she was blissfully by herself at home. She was not new to solitude. After her parents were gone, she’d remained in Bitter Falls alone. She would shift into her ivy and live in the walled-in garden, the same one where she’d met Dane. She hadn’t come out of her isolation for years.
She thought of that first day, when she’d met him. A smile crept to her face at the memory. He’d been so aggravated that he, a snow leopard shifter had been compared to a common house cat. He’d scratched her. She looked at her hand. The scratch mark was still there, just like the indelible mark he’d left on her heart.
More like a crater-sized hole.
After Dane entered her life, the next few years had passed quickly, it seemed. Her sister Honor, Glory, and Dane had spent every day together. She’d learned Dane was Frank Forester’s nephew.
Dane had seen her house in the woods, a modest cabin where her parents made a home for themselves, Honor, and Glory. A modest cabin in the middle of a gazillion acres. More acreage than Glory and Honor needed to play in as children. The two sisters had been content in their little garden.
Then one day, out of the blue, Dane was gone.
No word. No contact. Nothing.
Months later her parents and Honor had been taken from Glory’s life.
Glory heaved a sigh.
Rovers. Rogue shifters who traveled in packs and inflicted harm on other shifter types.
Glory was saved because she’d been in the walled-in garden, in her ivy form, where she spent every day, grieving Dane’s loss.
She’d never told Honor about Dane—not the full extent of it. Honor thought Dane was simply Glory’s teenage crush, nothing more.
Dane had been her first… her first everything.
He’d also been her last.
She thought of that day…
Her first. Her last. Her only.
That day, years ago…
She’d been in the hidden garden, alone, enjoying the sun on her leaves. Her family had gone on a day trip. By now, she’d known Dane for several years, so having him enter the garden was nothing new.
Except today, for some reason, there was something different about Dane.
Gray eyes were somber as he approached in his snow leopard form. He stood still for a moment, shifted, and remained before her, shirtless.
Her friend Dane no longer looked like the boy next door. Almost as if it happened overnight, he looked like a man.
He is a man.
Her leaves rustled, the tendrils reaching toward his body, tan, muscular, a wide chest that dropped to a vee. A sprinkling of hair that made a trail downward.
Her ivy branches shivered as if caught in a breeze.
She shifted into her human form to keep him from seeing the change he’d created in her. Confused, she pushed her wild hair back, away from her heated face.
“Where’s your shirt?” She stared at his body. She’d seen it before, they’d been swimming in the lake several times every summer.
“It was hot, so I went for a swim first.”
His face told her something was wrong. She couldn’t put a finger on what it was. “What is it?”
“It’s the anniversary of my dad’s death.” His face had paled. “What the fuck. Anniversaries should be celebrated. Why do they call it an anniversary of a death?” He was choking on the words, his voice full of emotion. A battle seemed to rage within him, one she didn’t understand.
She reached out. He crumbled into her outstretched arms. Her best friend Dane, her champion and occasional tormentor when he teased her mercilessly, was different now. There was a depth and a hollowness, at the same time.
“I want to kill them.” He pushed the words out of his mouth as if his lungs were expelling them with an ejection seat.
“Who?” She stroked his head and tried to not think of the way his body felt against hers. Her pulse quickened, even though her mind pushed all thoughts aside.
“The bastards that killed my father and Uncle Greg. But Uncle Frank won’t tell me anything about them. That it’s not for me to fight this battle.”
He seemed to flinch in her arms and she wondered if it was a sob. She pulled back and studied his face. Her shifter senses picked up the anger making his pulse trip. They weren’t kids anymore. None of their reactions to one another was logical.
His body molded to hers, fitting against her as if they were puzzle pieces. In the mid-summer’s heat, sweat beaded on her forehead, making her hair stick to her skin while she held him, absorbing his anger, allowing him to take her calm and keep it within himself.
While they stood, silently, holding each other, a storm raged within. Passions built furnaces that fueled desires.
Her ivy pushed against her, propelling her toward a turbulence of emotions that Glory was powerless to fight.
He pulled her face to his, his hands on both cheeks, holding her, his gray eyes staring into hers, digging deeper into her soul. His leopard flashed in the depths of Dane’s eyes and her ivy recognized the flash, yielding to it.
Frightened by the surge of emotions she didn’t understand, she leaned closer to him, her hands moving up his back, snaking toward his neck.
Did she tug his face downward or did he pull her closer? She couldn’t even remember how it happened.
One moment they were staring, the next her fingers were entwined in his too-long hair and his hands gripped her tresses with a force that reminded her she was aliv
e. He pulled her head back and his lips settled on hers with a determination and a claiming that snatched her breath away.
She’d yielded to her ivy as she shifted, there in his arms.
Her ivy had taken control, caressing his body with tender leaves, traveling over a broad chest, rippling abs, strong legs, she’d surrounded him, covered him, embracing and hiding him from the merciless summer sun.
He’d lain down, covered by her ivy, sedate and calmed by her essence. Once Dane had fallen asleep, she’d shifted into her human form and lain next to him, both of them sleeping.
Just as the sun was setting she woke, the sound of his pulse in her ear sounding like the waves breaking on a beach. His hand was resting on her stomach, her top had shifted, exposing a slice of her midriff. He made tiny circles on her heated skin, giving rise to sensations deep within.
Circle after circle, and her pulse soon matched his, both of them loud in her ears, carrying her away.
His breath was hot on her neck, where her pulse faltered. His lips brushed against that spot where her pulse beat its tempo.
“Glory.” Dane’s voice was so soft only her shifter hearing would have heard it. “Thank you.” His words were husky, and plucking at her nerve endings with a pleasing cadence.
She turned her head to look in his eyes, a slate gray now, darker with desire.
His hand drifted upward, touching the hem of her bra. She held her breath, the trapped air burned her lungs. She didn’t release it while she waited, and hoped. Hoped that he’d explore more, hoped that he’d fulfill the pulsations permeating her body.
“Dane.” Words clogged her throat; all the things she wanted to say to him, stuck.
He rose to an elbow and adjusted his weight, his body half covering hers while his hand drifted upward, cupping her breast, his thumb resting on her nipple while it hardened beneath the promise of his touch.
A thread between her nipple and her core was tugged, sending vibrations throughout her body. She arched her back, pressing more of herself into his hand, wanting him to caress, flick, touch, pinch, and tease. Wanting him to do things she didn’t even know about.
His knee was between her legs, nudging them apart.
“I want you.” His husky declaration cut through the crickets’ revelry and bullfrogs’ songs.
She wanted him too. More than anything, as did her ivy. Her ivy insisting the snow leopard was her mate. Glory wasn’t going to argue with the ivy, but how could another species be her mate?
Her body thirsted for him with an unquenchable desire. Almost unquenchable. She lowered her hand, no clue what to do, letting primal desire and instinct drive her.
Her hand slipped into his shorts, finding a hardness that pulsed for her. She wrapped her fingers around the girth, marveling at the thickness and length.
He groaned when she squeezed. Knowing that could only be a good thing she repeated the gesture, then holding it with a semi-firm grip, she ran her hand up and down.
He unbuttoned her jeans, then tugged the zipper, the metal making a ripping sound. He pulled on them when she picked her ass up and let him slide them off. The panties followed suit. His body over hers, the head of his cock pressed against her entrance. She could feel the moisture on her nether lips cooling in the evening air.
She watched his face as he closed his eyes, an expression she’d never seen before.
He slid in a tiny bit.
She gasped at the girth as he stretched muscles that weren’t even used to a finger.
“Want me to stop?” His breath was warm on her cheek.
She shook her head and fought the tears of discomfort. “I want you,” she told him, knowing she wanted him more than anything, trusting him to take care of her.
He gritted his teeth and pressed into her slowly until she was filled with him. The pain of being stretched eased as he pulled back slowly. Her skin tingled where they’d joined as one. He slid in again, his teeth still gritting, his jaw clenched, and his gray eyes studying her face as he filled her again.
She moaned and he pulled back again, then slid in, with each successive thrust he pushed in harder until he was ramming her and she was arching her back and returning each stroke with a matching pace.
The punishment being inflicted on her was a dichotomy of pleasure and pain, pushing her into a realm she’d have never thought existed as she exploded into a million tiny pieces, then came back together again, just to detonate all over again. Each thrust, each cry, each groan, each plunging drive jetted Glory to a new high until a snarl came from deep within Dane and he called her name out with a grunt. Hot warmth shot into her body, while his body tensed and straightened.
He collapsed on her body, panting, sweating, his scent and her scent merging the same way their bodies had.
They’d both just turned eighteen.
Chapter Five
“Glory!” Sara’s voice.
Glory shifted out of her ivy form and left the private garden and her memories of Dane. She glanced at a white rock, marbled with green and gray streaks, then pushed the sadness away.
“How was the shopping spree?” she asked, though she didn’t really need to ask; her cousins were laden with shopping bags.
She adjusted her rumpled clothing. Shifting certainly did make it look like she’d been in a wrestling match. “Took you quite a while in town.”
Not that I’m complaining.
She’d enjoyed her time alone.
“Shopping was great! Sorry we took so long there’s a new Dane Snow movie out. We had to see it. Just had to.”
“The people at the theater were talking about him. How he’s a hometown boy or something.” Mary blushed.
Someone has a crush. Glory fought the pang of pain. She remembered when her own reaction to Dane was the same.
She didn’t have the heart to tell them he was all that and more… more as in he’d break a girl’s heart.
Like he did mine, without as much as a goodbye.
Bitter much?
Yeah, maybe. So what?
She hated how her inner monologue always went. She wanted to be mad at her ivy for leading her into that love, but knew she couldn’t be. She’d jumped in without reservation; it wasn’t her ivy’s fault. Glory had fallen for Dane the same way her ivy had for his snow leopard.
Sara clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide. She dropped her hand. “His uncle is dead.”
Glory did a double take. “Frank Forester? Dead?”
“That’s what they were saying. And that there’s to be a reading of the will,” Sara continued as if Glory hadn’t interrupted.
“And they think that Dane will come into town for it,” Mary added.
“I bet he’ll just send his agent or his lawyer.” Glory took the bags from her cousins’ hands and helped them carry the merchandise inside.
“Where are you and Perry going to live?” Sara asked. “Has he decided? Has he said?”
“Live?” Glory set the bags down. “Maybe, we’ll live right here.”
Mary giggled. “Glory, be serious.”
Sara joined her in the merriment. “He’s practically ivy royalty. He’s not going to want to live in a cabin in the back woods of Indiana.”
More laughter.
Sara’s and Mary’s voices faded into the background. The only thing Glory could concentrate on was the idea that Dane may return. It was as if she was in a vortex where sound and light vanished and she was spinning, deeper, and further into the tunnel’s void and the only thing penetrating the dimness was one repeated theme: Dane was coming to Bitter Falls.
Mary’s hand around her bicep jarred her, shaking her. “Did you?” More shaking. “Did you ever meet him?
She shook her head, knowing damned well that wouldn’t clear it. “Who?” Had they moved on or stayed with the Perry Moore topic?
Oh, God. What if Perry is here and Dane is here…
Why would Dane be here? He’d walked off without so much as backward glance, never checked o
n her, never. Not once.
Who gave a damn if he was in town? She was promised to Perry.
And would it be so bad if she bonded with Perry?
Why am I so dead set against Perry?
“Well? Did you? Did you ever meet Dane?”
She shook her head, it would be easier that they think she hadn’t. Then she was instantly struck by remorse. She hated lying. “Briefly. Once.” She spurted the words out, sounding much like an engine that didn’t want to start.
“How—”
A knock sounded at the door.
Glory sang silent praises the interrogation of her having met Dane Snow was being interrupted.
She looked at her cousins. They looked at her.
“Did you order anything to be delivered from town?”
“No.” Both girls said simultaneously.
Glory opened the door.
A man in a suit stood there, a hat in one hand, a manila envelope in the other. He glanced at the envelope and read from it. “Glory Aleman?”
She nodded. “Who wants to know?”
“I’m Randall Shelby. Your presence is requested at the reading of the will of one Francis Evan Forester.”
There must be a mistake, why would I be expected at Dane’s uncle’s will reading? “What? Why?”
“Miss Aleman. I’m merely delivering the request.” He pushed the envelope toward her. “Here it is in writing. As the late Mr. Forester’s attorney, I’m paid to make sure you know you’re to be there.”
“Why? Have you read the will? Why?” God. Her voice sounded so small and tinny, like one of those old-time radios.
“Miss Aleman, please be one of the parties present. It’s in your best interest.”
Chapter Six
Dane and Randall Shelby were seated in the breakfast nook of Dane’s late uncle’s home.
Dane took stock of the room. It really hadn’t changed in the decade and a half since he’d stayed with his uncle. It was as if frozen in time.
