by Carol Davis
“Not here,” she said. “I want to wait until we’re awake. I’d like to… I’d like for it to be special. Part of a promise. Is that all right?”
“Of course,” Jed murmured. “Whatever you want is all right with me.”
But when they woke, they weren’t alone. Rachel had gone home at some point during the night, but Sara was there—and now Caleb and Jameson were too. They were sitting at Sara’s table eating a bountiful breakfast, the smells of which made Jed’s stomach rumble.
“It’s about time,” Jameson commented around a mouthful. “We thought you were likely to sleep all day.”
Their presence seemed intrusive, but it wasn’t Jed’s place to rebuke the elders. If it had just been Jameson, he might have—no, he definitely would have—but he didn’t dare find fault with the alpha in front of what seemed like a crowd. He settled for grumbling a hello, then slipped out of the house to Sara’s toilet hut so he could relieve himself and gather his wits together.
When he returned, Deborah was sitting up in bed and Gregory had taken a seat at the table.
“It seems as if all our questions have been answered,” Caleb said.
Jed frowned at that. Our questions? It seemed to him that the questions had belonged solely to him and Deborah. Possibly to Gregory, but not to anyone else. But leave it to the alpha to adopt every situation as his own—even one as personal as a mating bond.
“Looks like it,” he muttered.
When the alpha turned back to his meal, Jameson took the opportunity to cock his head at Jed and offer a thought he didn’t need to speak aloud.
They were all family, weren’t they? The entire pack.
That was true enough. But still—yesterday had been difficult to handle. The last several days had, for that matter, and Jed would have liked very much to wake up slowly (preferably, in his own house), bathe and dress in clean clothes, have something to eat, then discuss quietly with Deborah what the gods had told each of them and what they ought to do next.
“The population must thrive and prosper,” Caleb said, then scooped up another big spoonful of his meal. “Everything we do should be for the good of us all. It’s the first thing we learn as young ones.”
Jed couldn’t resist making a comment. “The first thing I learned was where to find my mother’s teat.”
The alpha shot him a steely glare.
“We all contribute,” Caleb went on. “Not only through work. Through our shared joy.”
That was remarkable, given that Caleb was in a sour mood more often than not. But he’d lost his mate, and he suffered the aches and pains of aging. Jed supposed he could allow the older wolf some leeway for that, but he was careful not to agree too quickly. Careful, too, not to make it plain that he wanted the two elders to finish their breakfast so they could leave.
Rather than focus on the elders, he turned his attention to Gregory, who seemed at ease although he was certainly every bit as slovenly as Jed remembered being at that age. The boy would need some cautious direction, Jed decided. He wasn’t going to sit at their family table and eat like a hog digging through slop.
Because no one else seemed inclined to do it, he put together a place of food and brought it to Deborah. He propped up the pillows behind her and smoothed out the covers over her lap, then set the plate down carefully so it wouldn’t spill.
The smile she gave him made his heart swell with pleasure.
After she’d started to nibble on some fruit, he made a plate for himself and sat down at the foot of the bed to eat it.
Caleb started to watch him intently.
Jed held back a sigh. This was beginning to feel like one of the performances the young ones put on at the schoolhouse in celebration of the solstice. Something that would earn him a round of applause if he performed his bit well enough.
“Don’t let it slip away,” Caleb said.
The gruffness was gone from his voice. He sounded nostalgic, and it was clear what he was thinking of: his dear Lisabeth, who’d died in his arms after a long illness. The entire pack had grieved her loss; she’d been one of the sweetest females Jed could remember.
“Surely you can understand, Alpha,” Deborah murmured.
“I can. I understand all too well. But the gods intended for me to serve as the father of you all—a job that takes all of my attention. They intend something different for the two of you.”
Deborah looked down at her plate for a moment and chased a blueberry around with the tip of her finger. “I’ve been very angry,” she admitted. “At the humans. At the gods, for allowing the humans to come here and take Victor away from me and his son. At the rest of the pack, for not doing anything to stop what happened.”
“There was nothing they could have done, healer,” Jameson said. “Not without risking the lives of many.”
Sara got up from her seat and went to Deborah, then did some fussing with the blanket. “Of course she was angry,” she said, mostly to the elders but also to Jed—and to Gregory, who was making a show of ignoring the adults although he was very obviously soaking up every word. “We all get angry. I cursed the gods myself when I lost Paul, and when I lost my daughter. I cursed the ones I lost, and myself, and the sea, and the sky, and my heart—because it wouldn’t give up beating.”
With a loud huff of breath, she turned to Deborah. “It won’t give up beating. We all go on. We all live.”
Jed risked a glance at Jameson. They were very much the odd men out in this group; they’d never lost a mate, although they had each lost a parent.
“Live,” Sara said to Deborah.
Then she went to Gregory, put a hand underneath his messy chin, and turned him to face her.
“Live,” she told him.
Gregory scowled at her for a moment. Then he scowled at his plate, which was smeared with the remains of his breakfast. His attention flitted from there to each of the elders, then to his mother, the fireplace, the door, the floor, and a dozen other places.
Finally he heaved a sigh.
“Okay,” he told Sara. “We’ll try it.”
Yes, Jed thought. We will.
Eighteen
Jed stepped away from his work to find Deborah standing at the edge of the little clearing, her arms wrapped around a basket that he thought might contain some lunch. He’d thought about finishing a few more chores before he went in search of something to eat, but the sight of her standing there was too delectable. The choice between returning to work and joining her for a meal was no choice at all.
Smiling broadly, he crossed the clearing in front of Aaron and Abby’s cozy home and pressed a kiss to his mate’s cheek.
“I thought you might be hungry,” she said.
“I am. But I’m not sure if it’s that kind of hunger.”
He nodded down at the basket with a little smirk on his face, one that prompted her to swat him.
“Let me give this to your workers, then,” she said.
He waited there while she offered some of the basket’s contents to Gregory and Micah, both of whom were sweaty and dusty from their morning’s work. They accepted her gift like typical young wolves—grateful, and trying to be polite, but eager to devour what she’d brought them.
She was shaking her head when she returned to Jed’s side. To his relief, there was still some food left in the basket.
“Is it going well?” she asked quietly.
Many of their packmates had been skeptical about allowing Micah to work on Aaron’s home. After all, Micah had attacked and nearly killed Aaron’s brother, and had then met Aaron himself in challenge. At the end of their battle, Aaron had had the opportunity to end Micah’s life, and a number of wolves in the pack still thought he should have done so.
For them, choices were very black and white: Micah had committed a serious crime against the pack, and he had yet to pay any real price for it.
But those wolves had been overruled: by Aaron and Abby, by Granny Sara, and most importantly, by the elders. They thought h
e should have a chance to redeem himself. So here he was, working alongside Jed and Gregory to complete those two new rooms for Aaron and Abby.
“He’s a good worker,” Jed mused. “Better than I expected. He’s always prompt, and he sticks with whatever task I give him until it’s completed.” He snorted softly, and with a note of teasing in his voice, added, “Which is more than I can say for—”
She reacted just as he’d thought she would. “I’m going to give him a talking to,” she complained. “He can’t—”
“Sshh,” Jed said. “I’m just kidding. He’s working very hard.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
He took a minute to tell the two young males that they could take a break for lunch and some basking in the sun, an offer they were both quick to accept. The way they responded almost in unison reinforced what Jed had noticed from the beginning: that they were building a solid friendship despite the differences in their ages. Clearly, the things they had in common outweighed everything else.
That done, he went back to Deborah, took the basket from her, and steered her down the path away from the cabin.
He knew exactly where to go at this time of day, a beautiful spot that was one of Aaron and Abby’s favorites—but since he knew those two were working in the settlement gardens today, it was likely to be unoccupied.
His wolf stretched and sang a little inside him as he walked alongside his mate. The wolf had been content almost to the point of bliss lately, now that Deborah was theirs, a child was on the way, and Gregory had begun—in tiny ways, but it was a start—to think of Jed as a father figure. There hadn’t been much opportunity for the wolf to run free these past few weeks, but it seemed undisturbed by that. As long as their mate was within reach, it had no need to run.
There…
As Jed had hoped, there was no one around. With his hand wrapped around Deborah’s, he guided her to the wide spot in the stream that formed a deep pool, a perfect spot for bathing and splashing and enjoying the midday sunlight. The cold weather would return soon, but today was mild, with only a slight breeze, and he was sure the water would be warm.
He set down the basket, fished out the folded cloth that Deborah had laid at the bottom and spread it out on the ground. Then, with a small tilt of his head, he gave her the choice of sitting down to set out their lunch… or doing something else.
To his delight, she chose the something else.
With her eyes locked on his, she took hold of the hem of her shirt and lifted it up over her head, then dropped it onto the blanket. Her skirt took only a moment to remove, and then she was gloriously naked in the sunshine, those beautiful ample curves begging to be explored and claimed. Her breasts were a little fuller now, her hips the tiniest bit wider, and her belly had a slight curve to it that hadn’t been there before. To his eye, there was no more beautiful sight on the island.
Smiling, he stripped off his own clothes and dropped them on top of hers. For an instant he regretted doing that, because his clothes were dusty and ripe with sweat, but she didn’t seem to object.
No, she wasn’t objecting at all.
She walked into the water with Jed a couple of steps behind, and when they reached the deepest spot, she thrust herself forward like a fish and swam a few strokes.
He had to catch her; he was a wolf, after all.
He gripped her heel in one hand and pulled back, spun her around and captured her in his arms. She felt cool and slick, as slippery as a fish, but he had arms and legs to confine her with. The way she slid against his skin was like a caress, and it made him almost instantly hard. His cock pressed against her belly as he kissed her, and she let out a deep hum of pleasure as she gripped his shoulders in her hands, then returned his kiss as fervently as if they’d been separated for days, not just a few hours.
The wolf threw back its head and howled with joy.
Rather than take her so soon, he dipped her back into the pool, then pulled her back upright and watched the bright drops of water trickle along her skin. One of them caught on a nipple and hung there stubbornly until he swooped down and caught it with the tip of his tongue.
“More,” she breathed.
Nodding, he crouched down and trapped the nipple—the tiniest of rosebuds—between his teeth. He pinched it gently, then more firmly, nipping over and over until she squeaked. His hands roved from her backside up the curve of her back, stroking and gripping in turn as he went on laving her breast.
The other one needed attention too, he reminded himself, and quickly switched to that one.
Then he pulled in a deep breath, ducked his head underwater, and sought out the tiny button of her sex with his tongue. He was able to hold his breath long enough to have her squirming and wiggling, trying to make her way to the sweet peak of a climax, but before she could get there, he had to surrender and come back to the surface for some air.
“Here,” he said. “Let’s—over there.”
On one side of the pool, the rocks protruded into the water to form a shelf that was wide enough to allow one person to sit. He sprawled down onto it, then held on to Deborah as she straddled him and took his aching cock up inside her. At first she was able to take only half of his length, then she wiggled around a little, let out a long breath that was almost a groan, and settled her weight.
With the water almost up to their shoulders, they explored each other with fingers and tongues as she rose up and down, gripping him, teasing him, taking him all the way inside her.
The coolness of the water delayed things a little, but that made it all the sweeter when they finally reached that peak, almost at the same time. He spilled his seed inside her wondering what would happen in the next few years—if this tiny morsel of a child in her womb would be their last, or if others would follow.
“More,” he whispered close to her ear.
“A minute,” she gasped.
“No.” He shook his head and smiled at her, both at the simple happiness inside him and at the way a wet lock of her hair was drooping over her eye. “I’d like more children. A big family. I’ve gone so long without one that I—I feel like I want to make that up to myself. And to you. And the gods. And the pack.”
She frowned at him crookedly. “You’d be doing the easy part.”
“I’ll never leave your side. Whatever you need, I’ll give it. I can’t bear the child, but I can carry it after that.”
“Diapers?”
“I can do that.”
She scoffed, “You, who took up carpentry so you wouldn’t have to spend much time tending to the animals?”
He skated his hands up the slick skin of her back, then down again. Apparently that felt good to her; she arched her back and bared her throat to him, closed her eyes and moaned softly.
Then, without warning, she slipped away from him and swam across the pool and back again.
When she stopped, she looked very serious.
“Thank you,” she said with all the gravity of an elder making a pronouncement over the fire.
“For—?”
“For helping my son. For helping me.”
“It’s not a hardship, healer.”
He moved off the rock and walked across the silty bottom of the pool to join her, then gathered her wet hair up in his hands. He would like to brush it for her, he thought: would like to sit by the fire in the evening and gently brush the tangles out of her hair. It was so thick and long that he thought the task might take a while, which was fine. More than fine, in fact.
“We’ll have Aaron’s house done tomorrow,” he said. “Then I’ll need to find a new chore.”
“Are you asking me to suggest something?”
Two days after he and Micah had found Gregory, he had moved into Deborah’s home and had offered his old home to a young wolf who would be sealed to his mate before the winter arrived. Eventually, the new couple would need another room or two. The pack kept growing, Jed realized—for a while, when he was around Gregory’s
age, their numbers had shrunk. But now they were growing. They’d need to expand the settlement before long.
That would offer a lot of work for a carpenter.
“No,” he mused. “I think I can find enough to keep busy. But if there’s something you’d like done in our home…”
He waited for her to react to that.
Her hands drifted to her belly and curved over it protectively. She looked down for a moment, her gaze very focused and intent, as if she could see through her flesh into her womb if she tried hard enough.
“Love us,” she told him. “All of us.”
The sunlight caught the water on her shoulders and made her seem to glow, and Jed thought again that she was the most beautiful thing on the island. Very likely, in the entire world.
“I can do that,” he replied. “I will do that.”
* * * *
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Shifter Island
Coming in September 2016…
Book Six: Dolphin Cove
Choose your mate from among the pack, Ethan has been told all his life. But he can’t help thinking that he’s missing something—that there might be someone like the beautiful Abby in the place she came from, the island called Dolphin Cove. So, against the wishes of his family, he slips away one night and makes his way to that other island. It’s a dangerous place to be for a young wolf who’s not familiar with the ways of humans—and it’s also the home of a girl named Tricia, who lures him into a situation he may not be able to escape from.
And coming in 2017…
Shifter Mountain
Six months ago, Luca left his pack on the island to find his true mate, Allison—and ended up in Colorado, a place he was always told was worse than death. To his surprise, life there is wonderful and fulfilling… until mysterious threats begin to arise, and a member of his new pack is murdered.
