by Sabrina Rue
Walking into the bathroom, she stripped down and stepped beneath the cool spray of the shower to lower her rapidly rising body temperature.
After drying off, she put on panties so soft she could barely feel them and a loose sundress.
Sitting cross-legged on the comfortable bed, she picked up her new phone and called Ryker.
He answered on the first ring and the sound of his voice struck at the core of her. “I knew you made it. I wanted to give you a little while to acclimate. Are you well, Harmony?”
“I am. Your mother and sister made me feel welcome. They’re wonderful. The other females, too.” There was a low growl on the other end of the line. “No males were present when I arrived.” The sound of him carefully exhaling made her smile. “Where’s your team now?”
“I’m sorry you can’t be with us. I know you would have been an asset in the capture of your hunters. We have one male in custody. Jax is engaged in a long-distance foot race with the other. He feels horrible for how he behaved. So do I.”
Harmony chuckled. “Tell him it made me laugh. Not until I was driving away safely but it really did.”
“He’ll be relieved to hear it. Mate…”
“Stop beating yourselves up. Had you caught up to me ten days ago, none of this would have been an issue. You know that as well as I do.”
She cleared her throat. “Eiran believes my body is cycling too fast because I’ve had an influx of nutrition and…contact with Pack. There was no warning.”
“One moment it wasn’t there and the next, it was. I’ve never seen anything like it.” There was a pause. “I don’t like you being in the basement suites, Harmony. Not after everything you’ve been through. I need to find another solution.”
She laid back on the mattress and rubbed her hand in a circle over her aching belly. “I’ve never gone through Heat in protected isolation. We had such rooms in Montana Pack but I was too young.”
“Your first was in New Mexico?”
“We really missed having older women around us. Hope dragged a cot into an old building without electricity for me. I did the same for her a few weeks before Phoebe and Caleb were killed. My other Heats were endured on the run. It’s lovely here, comfortable, and safe. Thank you.”
“What a magnificent creature you are, Mate.”
“Will you return after you catch the second hunter?”
“I want to but I’m unsure if I should. I can’t trust myself around you. Knowing you’re beneath my feet, perhaps even beneath my own bed, might be more than I could endure and remain sane.”
Quietly, almost sneakily, the second phase of her Heat arrived. It was the phase where her Wolf was most dominant and sought what she needed without a single care about propriety.
During Heat on the run, Harmony had always handcuffed herself in a place that was loud and surrounded with strong scents. It was the only way to stop herself from finding any male of her kind and copulating mindlessly.
“Ryker…”
“Yes?”
“I’d really like you to come back. I need you to come back to the compound. You should do that for me. It’s the only thing I want.” She sighed with a low moan.
“Harmony…” Ryker’s voice was immediately filled with his Wolf and it made her growl through the phone.
“I’m here waiting. So patiently waiting for you, Mate. Just as I have through every Heat since I was nineteen. Don’t leave me alone. You should be holding me, touching me, fucking me so I can find peace. Come back, Ryker. I want you inside me more than I want to breathe.”
The way his Wolf howled on the other end of the line made a slow smile spread over her face. She slipped her hand beneath her dress and panties, gliding her fingers over slick folds.
“Yes, Ryker…yes. I’m slick for you, ready for you right now. I may be a virgin but it’s in our nature to understand the way of things. I’ve seen more couples fucking than I can count and I want to be one of them. Anything you want, anything…just come to me, Ryker.”
Beneath the band of her panties, she trailed her fingers over her folds. “I’m touching myself, imagining the way it will feel when you do it. It should be your hands on me. Don’t you want to touch me, Ryker? Don’t you want to be here with me?”
There was another howl, the sound of running, then a scuffle. Her eyes drifted closed and she stroked her fingers lazily through her folds as she waited for the man her Wolf wanted.
A breathless male came over the line. “Alpha Harmony?”
“Mm hmm…”
“Shit.” Another scuffle and more howling. “This is Ryker’s Mated uncle. I drove up to replace the women who went with you. I need to pull Ryker out of the Fever.”
“No! Bring him to me! He’s mine! My Mate! I’ve earned relief.” She heard Ryker snarling her name and her fingers moved more rapidly on her clit. “Ryker…please.”
Another howl and the line went dead. She doubled her focus on her clit and soon came with a gasp.
For days, Heat battered her sexually, physically, and psychologically. Women brought her food, women advised soaks in cold water, and women tried to console her through the cell walls when her Wolf’s base needs raged uncontrollably.
By the morning of the fourth day, she remembered she was half-human. On the seventh, her Wolf released her and she re-entered the real world with a scream of humiliation.
Redbird entered the suite and helped her off the floor. The woman hugged her while she cried.
“I hate it. I hate not being in control.”
“I know. I know, Harmony. The worst is past. From now on, your Heat will be spent with your Mate and the relief you’ll experience will make you one of the happiest of our kind.”
“The things I said…to Ryker.”
“My son, your Mate, is a grown male Were who will get over it, darling. They don’t have to endure what we do and they can damn well take some hits in the balls to break the Fever.”
Despite how horrible she felt, Harmony couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s stone cold, Redbird.”
“Damn right.” She smoothed Harmony’s hair away from her face and led her over to sit on the edge of the bed. “From now on, you’ll still have no control but there will be less pain, less boiling flashes under your skin, and far less frustration.”
“That doesn’t even seem possible.”
“You’ll see. You’re now the strongest female Were in North America, Harmony. Possibly beyond. I’ve only known one other who endured her Heat outside Pack. You’ve done it seven times. Your chance of all live births is incredibly high.” Stroking her cheeks, she added, “I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that.”
Sniffling, Harmony knew she sounded pathetic but couldn’t help it. The day Heat broke was the most vulnerable for females of their kind. “I didn’t mean to go through them alone. I didn’t want to. I’d have rather been safe with Ryker.”
The statement made her Mate’s mother laugh loudly. “I imagine so. Yet you did endure them. I can’t wait to see what you’re capable of when you’re back to optimal health.”
“First, I have to get my shit together and face the awkward ass embarrassment when Ryker gets back.” She rubbed her hands over her face. “The humiliation is pretty acute.”
“Nonsense. If he gives you the slightest attitude, kick him in the nuts and explain that’s what we endure every heat…for days while our skin burns.”
Harmony nodded. “Good point.”
“Males are fragile. It’s our job to make them as strong as we are. You’ll excel in this.” Redbird stood and pulled Harmony to her feet. “Shower and dress so you can see your new home. You need to eat a meal outside this cell.”
Kissing her cheek, the woman left her with a grin. The door no longer needed to be sealed.
With a sigh, Harmony showered and brushed out her hair.
She took particular care with her appearance and knew she was trying to overcompensate.
Taking in her reflection wearing n
othing but a soft bra and panties, she noted the healthy changes to her weight, skin, hair, and eyes. Her wounds were gone and she felt strong again.
“You better work every skill you have since you sent your Mate snarling into Heat Fever. Figure out girl shit stat. You’re gonna need it to face the man.”
Pulling on leggings, a t-shirt, and sneakers, she took a band with her in case she needed to put up her hair.
Before she headed upstairs, she thought about sending Ryker a text but decided against it.
“You’ll look him in the face like a grown woman and deal with the complete humiliation of it all.”
Jogging to the second floor with her phone, she bitched, “Heat is bullshit. Can’t wait to get pregnant for a three-year pass. I’ll have a dozen kids to avoid this hell and humiliation.”
Naturally, she ran full speed into Ryker at the top of the stairs.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
As Harmony barreled into him, he braced her shoulders. Unfortunately, her Wolf was still a little too close to the surface and she snapped her teeth at him in fury.
“I-I…dear gods. What else?” she asked no one in particular. “I’d apologize but that’s gonna get old quick.” Rubbing her temples, she tried to smile but couldn’t look Ryker in the eye.
“Mate.” His voice was gentle. When she didn’t look up, he touched the underside of her chin with the side of his hand. “It’s alright.” She shook her head. “Harmony.”
He gathered her in his arms and held her firmly. He knew she was mortified when she started crying and tried to break away.
“No, stay. Stay with me, Harmony. I understand. Let me hold you. Let me calm your Wolf.”
He picked her up and she wrapped her body around his. Walking through the home he’d been raised in, he settled on a heavily padded sofa in his den with her in his lap.
His Mate sobbed brokenly against his chest and he stroked her back, murmuring soothing words until she calmed.
Loosening his hold, she tightened hers. In a voice hoarse with her tears, she said, “Don’t let go.”
“I’ll never let you go, Harmony.” He turned her so he could stretch out with her beside him. “Let’s be still together.”
“Ryker…”
“No apologies. Not to me. I understand. Let me breathe you in.” She pressed as close to him as she could get. “You don’t have to run anymore. I have you in the safety of our home. Your Heat is behind you. A dozen men search for your sister. We can be still. For the first time in too many years, Harmony. We can be still and I can soak up the joy of holding you.”
She released a gasping sob and buried her face at his neck.
“There’s nowhere else to be.” He raked his fingers through her hair and rubbed her back. “You’re warm, safe, loved, and exactly where you belong.”
Ryker let her cry out every instant of fear, every drop of blood shed, every aching moment of bone-deep grief she’d set aside to stay ahead of hunters, every hour of lost sleep…he gave her the opportunity to feel her pain and leave it behind her.
Years of it whooshed from her system and he kept her focused on the way his arms felt around her, how safe she was now.
In this moment, her Mate was the only thing she needed and he was happy, honored, to provide his presence.
* * *
Ryker wasn’t surprised that Harmony’s long-suppressed grief and exhaustion wiped her out.
Leaning back, he stared into her sleeping face and felt as if his heart would swell from a chest too small to hold it.
He held his Mate.
There were so few females of their kind. Pure-blood Were females were usually infertile with all but their Mate. When they gave birth, only one child in a hundred was female.
Humans were compatible with Weres and easily impregnated but had difficulty carrying the babies to term.
That Harmony’s human mother had carried four children for her Were Mate was a miracle. The additional blessing of Journey giving Slade three girls was so rare as to be considered a myth by most of their people.
Half-breeds had long been the best chance for their people to survive. Fertile like humans, strong like Weres, and they produced more female offspring.
Children born of both species had a higher likelihood of being a Mate themselves when they reached adulthood.
In the past three decades, Were populations had been wiped out by Greater Kingdom Purists who considered their entire race an abomination.
Wars over territory and petty slights had claimed even more of their kind. Fewer babies were born every generation.
The first Shaman capable of locating Mates was discovered among the Werecats. They’d been able to pull their people from the brink of extinction.
When they presented their findings in front of Parliament, every race of Were made a pledge to find the Shamans among their own people to ensure their continuation as a species.
Slade Kassis had been Montana Pack Alpha since Ryker was a boy. His own father had held profound respect for the man.
His wife, gravely ill, begged a Shaman to find her oldest daughter’s Mate, despite Harmony being several years too young at the time. It took the man mere hours to find the powerful energy signature connecting the girl to Ryker.
The contracts were signed within days but no Mate was claimed before the age of twenty. Harmony was only sixteen and hadn’t even gone through her first Heat.
Every Were female, whether pure or half-breed, had to endure at least one Heat in solitude to strengthen their bodies. Their doctors had determined this physical trial increased chances of fertility and the safety of the babes conceived. Miscarriages were higher for females who ignored the advice.
For years, Ryker focused on strengthening Texas Pack. Ten years older than his Mate, he was the youngest Alpha in North America.
Journey Kassis benefited from her Mate’s lifespan until a disease they couldn’t diagnose or stop claimed her life. In her youth, before she knew of Weres, she was one of six sisters.
Her last surviving sibling was the elderly woman who helped Journey’s offspring when they fled Montana.
Before he met Harmony, their Mate status was simply part of his plans for his Pack. After all, if Harmony’s genetics performed like her mother’s, she could potentially present Ryker with more daughters than any Alpha in the world.
Genetically compatible females were the lifeblood of their people. Building his Pack, expanding their holdings, and the chance to form alliances through his future daughters were what he focused on while he waited to claim his Mate.
Every thought of Harmony in the beginning was analytical. He considered her nothing more than a tool to achieve his ends.
Until he realized she was in the wind, separated from Pack, and likely experiencing Heat without the security every Were compound put in place to protect their precious females.
Ryker had been six months from formal introduction to Harmony when he was told of Alpha Kassis’ death. He’d already waited more than three years to see her face to face.
Giving her a full year to grieve was difficult but he felt it was the right thing to do.
Then the lies and being told his Mate had forsaken him.
Rage surged through his body that he would have sworn was impossible. Half-breeds could bear children for humans and Weres who were not their Mates.
That she would dare to give another what belonged to him…
He lost his mind for months before he began to question what he’d been told. Going through past correspondence with Alpha Kassis, he came across an idle mention of Journey’s last human relative in New Mexico.
Ryker and Jax traveled to investigate the home where his Mate and her siblings had hidden within days of their father’s death. The scent of blood, death, and grief hung heavy on the land.
Several people had died but he knew none were his Mate.
Walking into a bedroom on the first floor, the delicate scent of oranges filled him up. It was the first time Ryker
had a physical representation of what she was to him. It shot an ache through his balls that begged to be sated.
From that moment, she was no longer a tool to be used. She was more than a mere alliance or the mother of the daughters she would bear him.
She was the other half of him and his Wolf demanded access. Ryker thought about her constantly, needed her as he’d never needed anything or anyone, and worried day and night about her safety.
Suddenly, the thought of touching another sickened him.
He sent men in all directions to find the twins but they’d disappeared without a trace.
Weeks went by, then months, then more than a year without news. His continued abstinence in honor of his pending Mating became a liability to his Pack.
Jax brought him several unattached females more than willing to help prevent Ryker from returning to a feral state. They didn’t leave their Alpha’s quarters for days but when they did, he felt in control of himself again.
Over the past year, he’d been forced to take a woman every few weeks to keep the rage of his Wolf from taking over.
Every time, the weakness that felt deeply ingrained in his genes shamed him, infuriated him. He needed Pack connection and often that came in sexual form.
With his Mate by his side, he’d never have to sate urges that raged out of control without her.
So much pain, so many misunderstandings, so much time lost.
And yet, here she was, stretched out beside him. Close enough to touch, close enough for her scent to wrap around him.
Remembering all she’d been through, all she’d lost, pushed his thirst for vengeance higher. Retaliation for the crimes done to his Mate and her blood would have to wait.
Resting his head on the cushion, he pulled her closer and watched her sleep.
* * *
Harmony woke slowly and he could tell she was uncertain where she was at first. Confusion would have been highly dangerous in her old life and she stiffened in his arms.
Inhaling deeply, he watched her memories return. Opening her eyes, she stared at him.
“Ryker.”
