Wolf's Oath (After the Crash 3.25)

by Maddy Barone

  She was a tightly curled ball under the layers of bedding, only a few disheveled locks of pale hair showing on the pillow. He stood above her and inhaled her precious scent. It was laden with the saltiness of tears and faintly soured by fear. His hand trembled when he reached to touch her hair.

  “Connie,” he whispered, his voice the merest thread of sound, perhaps too low for human ears to hear, but she woke with a start.

  “Des?”

  He took her searching hand in the dark and lifted it to his cheek, and then his lips.

  “Yes, love.”

  “Oh, God, you’re back!” She struggled to uncurl from the bedclothes and sit up. “Are you okay? Is everyone else okay?”

  The grief, lifted momentarily by the sweet scent of her concern, sank back into his heart like a stone thrown into a pond. It stole his voice.

  “Des?” she said again. Her groping hand brushed over the bullet hole in his shoulder. He jerked in a ragged breath through his teeth. “Des! Are you hurt? Where’s that damned candle?”

  He glanced around the room, dark to her human eyes but visible to him, and found a stub of a candle on the ledge beside the door. He left her long enough to light it and carry it back to the small bedside table.

  Her face was calm while she examined him, but the worry in her scent spread balm over his pain. “You were shot?”

  “It’s not bad. The bullet didn’t touch bone, and it’s out.”

  She continued to look him over with careful eyes, taking the candle and lifting it high to help her see him better. “Where else are you hurt?”

  “Nowhere. That’s all my injuries.”

  His mate set the candle down to take his face in her hands. “Sit with me. Tell me what happened. Tell me everything.”

  He sat, savoring the warmth of her hands on his face, the press of her knee to his thigh. But even those comforts couldn’t keep his head up. He bent his head and stared at his bruised knee as he spoke.

  “When we got to the den, the fence was down.” He could still see it in his mind: the chain link fence twisted on the ground like a tattered silver ribbon, blotches of blood marking snow churned by horse’s hooves, men’s boots and wolf’s paws. He wanted to tell her how the sound of gunfire when they were still a mile from the den had made their blood run cold with terror and rage, but he had no words for it. “The fighting was mostly done by the time we got into the den.”

  “Is everyone okay?” she prompted.

  The tightness in her voice told him she knew the answer already. The memory of the scent of blood and the reek of fear and pain made his nose wrinkle in a silent snarl. “None of the women was injured, except the Lupa has a bruised elbow. But six of the Pack are badly wounded. Another twenty of us are hurt, but we’ll recover in a few days.” His voice deserted him. He had to clear his throat to get the words out. “Three died.”

  Sadness filled her face. “Oh, Des, I’m so sorry. Who? Not Taye? Not Red Wing or Hawk?”

  “No.” The Clan didn’t often speak the names of their dead. “I doubt you knew them.”

  “But you did.”

  The soft, gentle note in his mate’s voice made grief bloom fresh. He’d trained those wolves to fight and to hunt. They had told him their dreams of having a mate one day. He’d eaten with them, played with them, scolded them, and praised them. “Yes. I knew them.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said again, embracing him.

  He allowed her arms to draw his face to her shoulder. After caring for the injured and cleaning the den, the men had withdrawn to the lodge behind the stables to begin the mourning process. But his tears weren’t gone. Pressing his face into the warm skin of his mate’s neck, he wept.

  Connie held Des close, so glad he was safe that she never wanted to let him go. The weight of his head on her shoulder was precious. She hadn’t known if she’d ever hold him again. He could have died. The candle didn’t give enough light to see the bullet hole in his shoulder well, but she knew the bullet could have gone through his heart. A mere eight inches made the difference between life and death. He was a strong man, so of course he said he was okay, but it had to hurt.

  His tears were hot against her neck. It was hard to see a strong man cry, but she was humbled that he shared himself so openly with her. Would he let her see his tears if he didn’t love her and trust her? He had lost friends; he had the right to grieve. She held him while he shook, careful to avoid his injury and hoping her embrace gave him some small measure of comfort. When he lifted his head she curved her lips into a smile. It wavered, but it was real. He was safe, and he was here with her.

  “I was so worried about you, Des.” She smoothed one hand over his cheek and clenched the other over one of his braids. “I didn’t know if I’d ever see you alive again.”

  He curled one hand over hers on his braid. “I’m here.”

  “Thank God.” And she really meant that. She’d prayed for his safety, and God had answered. “Des, I love you. When I thought you might be gone forever, I knew what I felt was more than just liking you or being grateful to you. I love you.”

  The candle sputtered, flicking waves of light and dark over his face and obscuring his expression. He was silent for so long she began to squirm. “Des,” she began, but his arms tightened on her so forcefully the air squeaked out of her lungs. “Be careful! Your shoulder!”

  “Doesn’t hurt.” He kissed her, forcefulness dissolving into tenderness. “Say it again,” he commanded, then added, “Please.”

  Her chuckle cracked with tears and she had to swallow to speak. “I love you, Des.”

  “You’re shivering! Lie down under the blanket.”

  It wasn’t just the cold that made her tremble. Relief and love shuddered though her. “You lie down too. You must be exhausted.” Then she glanced at the bed hardly wider than a twin. “Unless your shoulder hurts too much to sleep here. Is the bed too narrow?”

  “No. We’ll build a new one soon, but I like being close to you.”

  He pinched out the candle and lifted the quilts to slide into bed with her. The darkness made it somehow even more intimate. She tried to shift away so she wouldn’t brush against his injury, but he pulled her close.

  “It’s the other shoulder,” he murmured.

  “Are you really okay? Really? Did Doc Whitten look at you?”

  “No. I’m a wolf. We heal quick.”

  “No one heals from a gunshot in an hour,” she protested.

  He turned his head on the pillow and she felt his lips in her hair. “It will be a few days before I’m back to normal, but it’s good. Being here with you is good.”

  They were quiet for a few minutes. Connie wondered if he was silently counting his blessings, like she was. She wasn’t sure if she should ask, but she wanted to know.

  “Did you win? What happened to the men who attacked? Was it Dick Dickinson?”

  She felt the tension in him. “Yeah, we won, and yeah, it was Dickinson. He’s dead, and every man who was with him is dead too.”

  But at what cost? she wondered. A third of the people at the den were hurt or killed. “I’m glad you won. I’m glad you’re safe.”

  He kissed her. It was a gentle kiss, not a sexual one. “Sleep. We both need our rest.”

  With Des warm and safe beside her, she fell asleep in a slow comfortable tumble. It seemed only a moment later that she woke with the warm weight of his hand cupping her breast under her shirt. She blinked, seeing that it must be morning by the light in the room.

  “Good morning,” he murmured.

  She flexed her shoulders against the bed. “Just hanging on to that to be sure it doesn’t get lost? Or is it your new blankie?”

  “Blankie?” He stared, face showing confusion.

  “You know, your security blanket? Maybe I need a blankie too.” She slipped her hand down his body to find his cock hard and long. “Well, I guess you’re feeling pretty secure this morning.”

  He smiled and arched his back to thrust
himself through the circle of her fingers. “Will you make love with me?”

  She looked for the wound in his shoulder. It was already closed, although the skin around it was red. “Won’t it hurt you?”

  His chuckle was almost soundless. ”No. Even if it did, I want to be with you too much to care.”

  In answer, she wiggled out of her clothes. His weight settled solidly over her, as arousing as his tongue stroking over hers. She pulled her mouth away long enough to say, “Yes, I’ll make love with you.”

  His fingers and mouth heated her arousal to red-hot need. When his cock finally slid inside her she let out a sigh that was more like a sob. “Oh, Des,” was the most intelligent thing her mind could put together to say.

  He paused, cock deep inside her, braced on his arms above her to look into her eyes with a solemn face. “A few hours ago everything was dark,” he whispered. “There was blood in the den, bullets buried in the floor and the walls. My kin were bloodied and dead. My heart was empty, except for you. Knowing you were here, waiting for me, gave me the strength to go on.”

  Connie reached to touch his face. “You’re a strong man, Des. You do what’s right. I admire that about you.”

  He pulled his cock back and slid back in, gently. “You are my strength.” He pulled back and thrust back in, harder. “You.” Thrust. “My love.” Thrust. “My joy.” Thrust. “My mate.”

  She met him thrust for thrust, strangely moved by his words. She opened her mouth to say something, but she was lost in a deluge of pleasure, teetering on the brink of orgasm. The pleasure wasn’t just sexual, she realized hazily. It was also emotional. Des was telling her how important she was to him, and it filled her with awe and delight to be so precious to him. As she plunged into orgasm she shrieked the words that millions of women said during sex. “I love you!”

  Minutes later, when they had recovered their breath and lay looking into each other’s eyes, she said it again. “I love you, Des.”

  His smile was small. It was quiet and humble. “I love you, Connie.” His eyes gleamed with tears. “A few days ago I’d only dreamed of having you for my mate. I never expected to be able to lie here next to you like this.”

  She mentally reviewed the last few days. “It’s been a busy few days, hasn’t it?”

  “It has,” he agreed. “And it will continue to be busy. I have to go back to the den today, love. There’s still clean up to do, and Taye is putting up another chain link fence right away. He plans for a stone fence in the spring.” He played with a lock of her hair, twisting it around his pinky finger. “But tomorrow or maybe the next day we need to go talk to Mayor Madison and arrange to buy this house from him. We’ll make it plain that he has no control of you or any of the women living in our house.”

  She bit her lip. “We don’t have any money, Des.”

  “The Pack does. And Madison won’t want to cause trouble for the Clan. We make good allies, but bad enemies.”

  Dick Dickinson had found that out the hard way, she reflected. “It’s all working out.” Relief came out of her in a laugh. “It’s like a miracle. Just when I needed you, you came to visit. When I needed someone to rescue us, you were there for me.”

  “I’ll always be here for you.”

  She kissed him, then laughed again. “It all started with those two idiots who climbed the fence and propositioned Katie and Sammie. Maybe we should hunt them up and thank them.”

  His face wasn’t laughing. “If they ever come near this house, I’ll kill them.”

  “Ooooh-kay, let’s dial back the aggression. I think Stag put the fear of God into them. I doubt we’ll see them again.” She looked at the boarded up window, judging the amount of light seeping into the room. “I think we might have missed breakfast.”

  Des threw back the covers and got out of bed. “We better hurry then.”

  He started toward the door, a magnificent sight in his nakedness, and paused to look back at her when she coughed pointedly. He raised an eyebrow.

  “You better get dressed first,” she suggested.

  He looked around the mostly bare room. “I don’t have any clothes here.”

  “Yes, you do.” She rose, shivering, and went to the small chest of drawers. “See? I put your things in here with mine.”

  Des stilled, looked at their clothes laying side by side in the drawer. “I like that. Seeing my clothes with yours makes this more real.”

  “It’s real, Des.” She handed him his pants and began to dress hurriedly in the cold.

  He slipped his pants on and went to the door, waiting for her with his hand on the knob. “You’re my mate, and this is our den. This is the happiest day of my life.”

  She put her hand flat on the door to stop him from opening it. “Do you know what day this is?” she asked.

  He looked confused.

  “It’s New Year’s Day. It’s the first day of 2065.”

  He bent to kiss her. “It’s the first day of our life together. Happy New Year, love.”

  “Happy New Year, Des.”

  She walked with confidence down the hall beside the man who would be her partner, her lover and her friend, into a new year and a new life.

  The End

  Maddy Barone is an author, a seamstress, a spinner, a knitter, a reader, and a cat lover. Her idea of a perfect day is one where she can sit quietly in her chair with a cat in her lap, a knitting project on the needles, and a cup of tea at her elbow. Knitting is the perfect activity to keep her hands busy while her mind plots dialogue and scenes. You can learn more about Maddy and what she’s writing at www.MaddyBarone.com.