“Can I hunt with you on the new moon?” she asked, taking a bite of potato salad.
“I’d love that,” he said.
She frowned slightly and said, “I probably won’t be very good, though. I’m still mostly human when I shift.”
“I can teach you. Before I shifted, my dad taught me how to hunt in my human form. No weapons, just my wits.”
Her eyes glittered. “Tell me what Chance was like as a youngster traipsing through the woods hunting in his human form.”
Chance couldn’t help but smile as he told her about his earliest hunting exploits. His father had taken him and Gamble out, but Gam had never been interested in hunting in his human form. He’d wanted to wait until he had fangs and claws before he dedicated any serious time to it. As a result, Chance was a better hunter in his shifted form than Gam was, but he wasn’t really sure that his brother cared about that or about anything else. Gam would care about something, someday.
His dad had started him off by teaching him how to catch fish in his hands in a stream near where they lived in Washington. It had taken ages before he’d been able to stand still long enough for a fish to come close to where he stood knee deep in the water and then move fast enough to catch the slippery fish. When he had mastered hand fishing, they moved on to quick, small game in the forest, like rabbits and squirrels. Just before he was old enough to shift, he had been able to wrestle a buck to the ground and snap its neck with his bare hands, a feat that had filled him with such pride in himself and his abilities. His dad had been beaming with pride, too.
Leaving the dishes to a smiling Ley, he and Danika climbed the stairs and saw that the door to Jes’ office was closed, his voice carrying as he spoke on speakerphone. He was been busy making arrangements for their mating ceremony and the visit from his parents scheduled for the night of the three-quarters moon next week.
Chance held open the door to the master suite, and Danika walked in ahead of him. He shut the door, his eyes flicking immediately to the bed. With Jes tied up, it meant that he and Danika had some more time to themselves. His lion rumbled happily.
Danika turned from where she toed off her shoes, her smile slipping from sweet to sultry in a heartbeat. Her voice was low and soft, like it was covered with honey. “Wanna join me in the shower?”
He growled in approval and picked her up off the floor, carrying her into the bathroom, shutting the door with his foot, and setting her on her feet. He opened the glass door and turned on the shower and then grasped the hem of her top at the same time that she reached for his shirt. The shirts hit the floor with a soft sound, and she slid her palms up the front of his body, her fingers splaying across his skin.
“All this beautiful, tanned skin,” she said as she leaned forward and licked one nipple and then the other. “Just mine?”
“Only yours,” he said, his voice deep and gravelly.
He kissed her. Her lips were perfect. Soft but firm. The taste of her, as he slid his tongue into her mouth and drew her close, reminded him of ripe peaches. Each pass of her tongue against his was like a lightning strike down his spine. He rubbed his tongue along the bottom edge of her teeth and felt her fangs. He groaned at the erotic scrape, easing away from her delectable mouth to undo her jeans while she undid his.
When they were naked, he took a moment to appreciate the lush beauty of his mate. She blushed under his scrutiny, and he kissed her as he opened the shower door and tested the water with one hand. Finding it just right, he pulled her inside and shut the door. A washcloth hung on a small rack along with a bar of soap, and he wet the cloth and lathered it. He pressed the cloth to her neck, at the place where his fangs had marked her as his forever, and she closed her eyes with a soft sigh. Moving the cloth, he washed her arms, chest, and stomach before dropping to his knees and rubbing the soapy material from her toes up to the tops of her thighs.
She was ticklish on her hips, and he stroked the cloth lightly there to tease her, and she laughed and moved away from him. He hooked his arm behind her back and brought her close again, lifting his head to watch as he squeezed the cloth to wring the suds from it onto his fingers and then dropped it to the tile floor. His fingers brushed through the soft curls of her sex, and she looked down at him, one hand tangling in his wet hair and the other pressing against the wall. She moved her legs apart as he stroked his fingers along the lips of her pussy, his middle finger grazing the length of her slit. He stroked his hand all the way from her clit to her anus, playing his finger around her tightest place. He loved to watch her tremble as pleasure started to unfold inside her. Her eyes darkened from bright blue to deep sapphire.
He leaned to the right and let the spray from the shower clean off the soap, using his hand to gather water and rinse the suds away. Then he nuzzled her stomach and licked at the drops of water while his fingers returned to her pussy and brought her to screaming climax.
With a gruff growl, he stood and turned her to face the wall, fisting both her hands in one of his and grabbing her hip and pulling her back against him. She bent slightly, dropping her head to her outstretched arms, and he fisted his cock and found the hot, wet depths of her pussy with one fast stroke. She moaned when he filled her, and he grasped her hip with his free hand and held her tight. Stroking into her hard and fast, he bent over and licked at the drops of water on her back, smiling when her pussy clenched his cock as he licked across the slits where her wings appeared.
He released his grip on her hip and slipped his hand to the front of her body while he pounded into her and pressed his finger against her swollen clit. She groaned his name and tested his hold on her wrists, but he wasn’t about to let her go. He rubbed her clit and licked her wing-slits, tracing the red, raised lines with his tongue and teeth as she trembled and moaned. Her pussy clutched at him, rippling around him in mini-orgasms.
He exhaled a snarl, letting his head fall back as he pounded into her, driving them both towards completion. She felt so good. So perfect. Hot and wet and tight around his cock as though they were made for each other. She panted and then gasped for breath just a second before she screamed his name in pure ecstasy. He roared as he came, releasing her hands and pressing her tight to the wall as he filled her with his come.
She pressed her forehead to the wall and sighed, shivering as he slipped from her body. “Let’s finish up and get to bed, katja.”
“I’m already finished,” she said as she turned around and grinned at him. He had fallen head over heels for his feisty mate. Everything about her called to him on a cellular level, and he was thoroughly addicted to her.
He washed up quickly, and while he was drying off, she washed her hair and stepped out of the shower and into the large towel he held open for her. “You said that I’m your katja, and that means I’m the mate of your soul.”
He patted her skin dry. “Yep.”
“What does that mean, exactly?”
How could he explain this to her? It meant she was everything to him. That he’d been missing something he wasn’t even aware of until the moment he saw her. It meant he couldn’t live without her and wouldn’t want to.
“My katja is the one woman who is meant for me. When I touched you for the first time, Danika, it was as if I’d been walking around wearing a blindfold and had missed so much.” He tossed the towel onto the counter and cupped her cheeks. “You’re everything to me, Danika.”
She smiled at him. “I feel the same way about you.”
They climbed into bed together and she settled next to him, curling against his side and resting her head on his chest.
“Sweet dreams, katja.”
“Sweet dreams, Chance.”
Chapter 11
The mating ceremony was a blur to Danika, but a wonderful, gauzy, lovely blur that – at the end of the night – meant she was formally mated to two amazing males. Jes’ parents had arrived the day before the three-quarters moon, and she liked both of them immediately. His dad, Braniff, was kind and serious with an
easy smile. His mom, Lalani, was bossy but sweet, and she took Danika under her wing and treated her like her naturally born daughter right away.
As was falcon tradition, Danika wore Lalani’s wedding gown, a simple affair of cream-colored silk that hugged her body in all the right places but still managed to look classy. The ceremony was officiated by a human minister who married her and Jes by human standards, and then the mating ceremony was officiated by Jes’ father. She vowed herself to Jes and Chance, promising to love and honor them for the remainder of their very long lives, and they swore the same to her.
After the ceremony, when they danced and ate and shared their happy day with his family, the nest, and the pride, she realized that she had completely fallen in love with both men. Her feelings had grown stronger for them every day. She’d never felt so cared for. They were similar in some ways – protective and kind and sweet – but vastly different in others. Jes was all business, a leader who put the people in his care over his own welfare. Chance was not interested in leadership, but instead happy to stay in the background and support his dad and Jes as they forged ahead and began the new alliance. She had told them on their mating night that she had never loved anyone as much as she loved them, and they had told her that they loved her, too.
She was now Queen of the falcon nest. Jes was King. The falcons called Danika My Lady or Queen Danika. Chance’s official title was Ornithla, which loosely translated into the mate of the Queen, but the falcons called him Sire, the same that they did for Jes. And when they were introduced to outsiders, Jes and Chance were both called King, and she was their shared Queen.
During the last two weeks, Jes’ people had slowly accepted her. No one left the nest because he mated a non-falcon and shared her with another male from a different species of weres. No one challenged him for leadership of the nest. She was thrilled for that. It had been difficult enough watching Jes fight Mato. She didn’t want him to have to fight his own people on her behalf.
Jes asked her to handle any issues that the female falcons had, and she found herself having lunch once a week with all thirty females who ranged in age from seventeen to four hundred. Many of the females were unmated, some widowed, and just one was younger than eighteen.
The females had questions about the alliance, curiosity about Danika’s shifting abilities, and general needs that she was able to address. Working every day with several of the females to hone her flying abilities, she could now control her wings well, and had taken to flying the entire five-mile span of the falcon’s territory every day. Jes had surprised her by converting the room next to his office into an office for her, and Chance had picked out the elegant, light wood furniture that included a large floral rug, desk, and a lavender colored couch with matching overstuffed chairs.
Jes knocked on the open door, leaning against the door jam. “How are things going, little bird?”
She looked up from the book she had been reading, which was the first of fifty volumes of falcon history, and smiled. Putting a thin ribbon in the book to mark her place, she closed it and said, “Great. I’m learning a ton. Did you know that the falcon kings used to keep real falcons in aviaries in their homes? They thought it was good luck to surround themselves with natural birds.”
He chuckled and settled down in the seat across from the desk. “I didn’t know that.”
She touched the scrolled leather cover of the book and said, “Didn’t you have to read through these when you were a kid?”
He arched a brow. “I skimmed one or two.”
She chuckled and stood, coming around the desk and sitting on his lap. Kissing him, she stroked her thumb over his cheek and looked into his eyes. “Business or pleasure?”
His hands tightened on her waist reflexively and his eyes darkened. “I would love to say pleasure, little bird, but I’m afraid that it’s business. I’ve made arrangements for us to visit the Wiccan coven, and we need to leave in an hour.”
“Long enough for some pleasure,” she whispered, kissing him once more and teasing the seam of his lips with her tongue. He groaned deeply but pulled away from the kiss.
“Sorry, sweet love, but I have to return a call before we leave.”
She pretended to pout, and he laughed. She didn’t mind that he was working. Her nights were filled with passion thanks to her insatiable mates, and although she sometimes found time during the day to spend quiet time with one or both men, she didn’t mind leaving the daylight to business.
“Anything serious?” she asked as she stood from his lap and hugged him.
“Not for us, at least not now. A religious group has made an application to convert a warehouse in downtown Cleveland into a church. Midas, the King tiger, was going to put in a bid on the construction work for his company and had offered to include my supplies business in the deal, but then he discovered what the church was really about.”
The church was part of a growing group of radicals that protested vampires. They were normally non-violent protests, but violence from the group occasionally made the news so she’d heard of the group. The First Church of Humanity made the news recently when they protested a wedding between a human and a vampire and a fight had broken out when the protestors called the bride a demon-loving-whore and the groom hadn’t cared for that.
“I’m surprised that with the supernatural presence in this area that the church wasn’t stopped from buying the warehouse,” she mused.
“It wasn’t for lack of trying. By the time that anyone realized they were buying the property, they’d already done it, bribing officials to keep the dealings quiet. They were taking bids for the renovation work under a different business name, which is why Midas didn’t know who they were until he had his people do a little digging. I told Midas that I would have Frost and Glacier check into the leaders, and I have some intel for him.”
“Does it make me a bad person that I’m glad that they only protest vampires?” she asked.
He tweaked her chin with a smile. “I’m glad for the same reason, sweetheart. Mishka is the head of the vampire coven, and he’ll have his hands full dealing with them. I feel badly for him, but I’m glad it’s not us they hate.”
She walked him to the door. “Why does that church hate vampires?”
“Mythology most likely. Of all the supernatural beings, the ones most closely associated with demonic creatures are vampires. I’ve seen the church’s literature – they accuse vampires of killing babies for their blood, seducing children, raping women. They take people’s worst fears and twist them into ways to fit their desire to see vampires go the way of the dinosaur.”
She shivered. “Do any churches hate falcons?”
He smiled, and it made her heart flutter. “No. But this group is only a church in tax-exempt status and doesn’t actually worship any deity, except the leaders, and they don’t hold to any real religious values. Most actual religions scorn this church’s beliefs and discourage their own people from joining their intolerant views.”
She said goodbye and promised to be ready to leave within the hour. She returned to her desk and decided to stop reading falcon history for a bit and finish up a supplies order for the small market in the community. Many of the females complained about a lack of feminine products and supplies in the store, lamenting the times they’d had to leave the safe walls of the nest to drive into Bishop and find what they needed at all hours. Bishop was as safe as any other town around, but that didn’t mean that they wouldn’t rather have the convenience of using the market.
Mia, a sweet falcon who was nineteen plus one had tossed her black hair over her shoulder with a huff. “A male can get a case of condoms at the drop of a hat, but last week I needed tampons and had to drive into Tisner because the Bishop grocery was closed.”
The males who ran the market in the community had not dared to turn Danika down when she approached them two days earlier about stocking more female-friendly things. Maybe because Chance and his friend Pyre were with her, and they
looked menacing when they were just standing around doing nothing.
Within the hour, she had emailed the list to Dennar, one of the falcons who ran the market, and changed into a dressy cream-colored sweater and paired it with a pair of dark green slacks and matching leather pumps. She was looking forward to meeting the coven ladies and finding out if they could help her understand what she was.
Revere and Tonik drove them to the coven offices in downtown Cleveland, which were located in the back of The Cleveland Mother Earth Store. Jes told her that he had been involved with the granddaughter of the head of the coven, and that Elizabeth had been one of the ones who came to her aid in the bear den. She didn’t mind that he had been with her at one time, because that was in the past and all she cared about was the present and the future.
Lorene, North Corner and head of the coven, was standing in the store when they walked inside, carefully counting dried yellow petals and placing them in a paper envelope. Jes kissed her cheek and introduced Danika and Chance.
Lorene took Danika’s hand between both of hers and pressed firmly. A chill swept over Danika’s skin and then her palm began to warm as a tingle raced up her arm. “Oh my,” Lorene said, giving Danika’s hand a gentle squeeze before releasing it. “Bitty is going to love to meet you.”
Bitty was a Corner, which in Wiccan terms meant she was powerful and helped to lead the coven. She was mostly human, what they called an unnatural witch. Somewhere in her family history a powerful Wiccan had turned away from her powers and encouraged the future generations to do so as well. Eventually the power, as it lay untapped, began to disappear until it was all but non-existent. An unnatural witch could have almost no real power or could, like Bitty, with practice and devotion, build up his or her power. The witch remained entirely mortal, not sharing in a Wiccan’s natural long-life because the power that gave Wiccans long-life had been forever denied.
A Promise on White Wings (Wiccan-Were-Bear) Page 8
