Heart Mates

by Mary Hughes

  For Noah. She snarled, “Share all.”

  It wasn’t complete—two thirds of her power was still sealed so she couldn’t do a true Evacuate, and time would replenish it. But the released third burst from her, and from the battle Jayden fought, he’d need every drop.

  He’d been gentle before. Now he sucked power out of her, not waiting until it rose to her wrist but yanking it directly from her cells. It hurt like hell.

  She clenched her jaw and let him pull. Tears stung her eyes and her breathing collapsed into panting. Still he pulled, a thousand barbs tearing through her, shredding her flesh from the inside.

  The poison’s buzzing ebbed. Was her hearing failing…? Her physical eyes sprang open, tears trickling down her cheeks, but she ignored them to stare at the containment column.

  The violet mist was thinning. Noah, his color returning to normal, slowly straightened.

  The poison shrank to a dot…and disappeared from sight.

  Sophia felt like the Hungry Ghost’s straw, drawn and wrung out. When Jayden released her arm, she staggered.

  Noah sprang toward her.

  Jayden flung a hoarse, “Stop!”

  Noah ignored him, knocking straight through the wall of magic. The purple smoke collapsed.

  Jayden sagged with a grunt. “Damn it, I hadn’t closed the connection yet.”

  Noah grabbed Sophia in his strong arms and held her tightly, like he’d never let go. “Love, are you all right?”

  She felt like a burst, empty piñata, like a desiccated husk. But his arms, his warmth, eased the pain. She gave a weak nod.

  “Thank God.” His hand, caressing her hair, seemed still worried. “Jayden. The hex?”

  “I don’t know.” Jayden drew a bushel of air in through flared nostrils, then let it out slowly. He looked wiped. “I did see enough to identify a layered weave before the poison tried to take over, and that only because Sophia aided.” He paused. “That’s some mate you have there.” His tone was honestly admiring.

  Her cheeks heated.

  “I know,” Noah said. “Did you neutralize it?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.” He sounded disgruntled.

  Mason said, “But the poison disappeared. That means the hex is gone.”

  “Normally I’d agree. But I’m not sure. The hex, the poison, not to mention Noah’s innate magic…this whole setup is strange.” Jayden materialized a handkerchief and passed it over his brow.

  Sophia peeked up from Noah’s arms. “How?”

  An annoyed grimace flashed across his face. “I don’t know. That’s what’s strange about it.”

  Mason said, “If you’re not sure the poison’s gone, shouldn’t you try again to remove it?”

  Jayden was already shaking his head. “It nearly kicked our asses. I’ll try again, but only after I know the hex is neutralized or Sophia has regenerated power. Better yet, both.”

  Mason’s upper lip peeled up, like a wolf. “Noah may have to fight as a dog?”

  Jayden didn’t answer, his eyes bleak.

  “If I do, so be it,” Noah said. “What do we do now?”

  Jayden’s lids slid shut. “We wait for the sun.”

  Noah took Sophia’s hand and led her behind one of the sets of shelves. Quietly he said, “This may be the last night of my life. I know you think our joining is because of the hex, that we’re not truly mated. But for tonight—Sophia, I need you.” His eyes, hot on her, underlined his request.

  What could she say? He was brave and wise and kind and tomorrow he might die, fighting for his pack and her.

  But the clincher was—she loved him. It might have been the hex, but her heart didn’t seem to think so. And frankly, neither did her head.

  She kissed him. “Yes, of course.”

  He took her to a small side office, closed the window blinds, came to her and gently removed her coat. As he unbuttoned her blouse, he kissed her forehead, temple, cheek and nose. “I love your nose.” He kissed it again. “If I lose tomorrow, I die a happy man.”

  “While I’m glad you like my snout of a nose, don’t say that. If the hex isn’t gone in the morning, I’ll break my hands’ seal and take care of it myself. Speaking of which…” Jayden had told her it was essential to get Noah’s big secret out of him. “Now that you know my worst, maybe you can tell me yours—”

  “Later.” Noah put a long forefinger to her lips, silencing her.

  Momentarily. “But—”

  “Shh.” He replaced finger with mouth, and kissed her.

  He didn’t say it, but both love and sorrow drove that kiss. His lips tenderly plied hers, the mate coaxing a response rather than the alpha demanding it. She loved sweet and gentle but if this was the last time they’d be together, she wanted more.

  She slid her hand along his fly and squeezed. He surged and groaned in response. Continuing to stroke denim, she curled a hand around his nape and backed with him to the couch. She sat, urging him down next to her.

  When he hesitated, she tore off her blouse.

  He sat. Their thighs seamed together. His hands found her breasts, cupped them; his kisses deepened, staccato thrusts of tongue interspersed with long swirls of hot lips.

  His shifter’s stubble rasped against her skin. It charged her with increased frenzy. She palmed his honed cheeks and levered her tongue toward his tonsils.

  He chuckled and thumbed her nipples through her bra. “Not so fast,” he murmured between kisses.

  “Not so slow.” She growled it. Somehow she’d acquired a wolf along the way, a wolf who drove her to grab hot heaven with her mate.

  When he continued to simply kiss her and gently test the heft of her breasts, she took things out of his hands. She reached behind her, unhooked her bra, tore it off and threw it away.

  Or rather she put things into his hands, because her taut breasts poured into his palms, filling them perfectly, her nipples tight and begging for his thumbs.

  He made a sound that was half groan, half howl. His head dropped to the crook of her neck. His forehead was damp. “Sophia, you’re so lovely. My wolf wants all of you, now. But my human wants to cherish you forever. I’m trying to give you time to adjust, to get ready—”

  “My wolf says fuck that.” She leaned into his hands, shimmying her nipples against the whorled skin of his palms—and landed a cupped hand on his groin.

  He was erect under his jeans, practically bursting behind the zipper.

  “You’re ready. I’m ready. Let’s get dirty.” She stood and stripped off pants and panties and toed off her shoes. His eyes roved over her with gratifying hunger. The bulge in his jeans jacked up another size.

  She climbed onto his lap, facing him, in her trouser socks and pearls. “Kiss me.” She grabbed his face and locked lips.

  He wrapped arms around her naked back and returned her kiss with glorious abandon.

  Her wolf howled her pleasure. Her human rolled her hips, rasping her dewing vulva against his heavy denim ridge. The friction sang up her nerves, urging her faster. She rippled against him, her heart thudding to keep up with her racing breath.

  He broke off the kiss. “Wait,” he panted. “I wanted to say—”

  “No more talk.” She silenced him the most effective way she could—she plastered her lips to his and thrust her tongue into his dark mouth. Then, to compound his interest and keep him taking care of business, she yanked, pushed and unzipped until she’d fumbled open his jeans.

  His erection sprang full and tall from the opening. She rose on her knees over him, took him in her hand and guided herself to perfection—

  He grabbed her and flipped her onto her back on the couch. Spread her thighs and opened a hot, wet kiss on her pussy.

  She shrieked. His fingers pressed into her flesh and his tongue slapped her clit. She howled.

  “You wan
t hard and hot, you’re going to get so hard and hot you’re going to spontaneously combust.” He shifted, sucking lightly on her clit while grinding his stubbled jaw into her swollen labia. She thrashed under his mouth.

  He thrust a finger inside her. His gold eyes flew up to hers. “Damn me, Sophia. You’re already burning hot.”

  “Me? What about you?” She ground herself against his finger. “More.”

  He drove a second finger into her. He fell on her clit again with his slapping tongue and sucking mouth and masculine hunger.

  She gloried in it, grabbing him by the ears and pulling and grinding harder. Her pearls rose and fell with her rapidly undulating chest, for the first time not staid and conservative, but provocative and sexy. Her nipples were hard as nuts beyond them.

  His fingers rode in and out of her pussy and he changed to straight sucking until her clit was hard and aching and she thought he’d draw her entire body out through it. “Noah…stop sucking and fuck me now. Please.” She wailed it and somehow halfway through it changed to an eerie howl.

  “You’re so aroused. So very beautiful.” His eyes were bright gold between her thighs. “Come for me first, my beautiful mate.”

  “No, I want—argh!”

  He’d latched onto her pussy and was sucking for all he was worth.

  It was too much. She exploded in a sweet nova of bright stars. Too bright. She squeezed her eyes shut and thrashed against him as he tongue-whipped her clit and extended the orgasm.

  Her wolf gloried in it. Her human was temporarily blitzed. She lay pliant as he shucked his pants. His erection had engorged to monstrous. He knelt between her yielding thighs and fitted himself to her. The head pressed and spread her.

  She was suddenly aware of the size of him versus the size of her, a second after it was too late.

  He drove himself into her slick sex. To the hilt.

  She gasped down to her toenails. “You’re…big, face to face. Wait.”

  He let out an intense groan. “Do you want me to stop?”

  He was stretching her to her limits and beyond. She wriggled against him, caught like a butterfly. “Hell no.”

  He smiled and backed off slightly. She gasped at the raw hollow ache in her pelvis. He surged forward again, filling her. And again. And yet again.

  A wild need seized her. Her wolf driving her, she grabbed his hips and ground herself against him as if she could rattle his very bones.

  His sexy grin exposed sharp, gleaming teeth. He began banging into her.

  She yowled and met him thrust for thrust. His wolf was driving him too, joining them in a savage rhythm. Together they built higher and higher until she was lifted to a precipice in the blue heavens themselves. She grasped his shoulders, fingers digging into muscles so taut they were iron. “Mine.”

  His gaze blazed into hers. “Mine,” he agreed, and thrust to the very core of her being.

  Power flooded her. She came, soaring like a bird. He came with her. They clasped each other and flew together through intense shuddering, shock and aftershock.

  As their panting began to slow, he raised himself to hold her face in one hand. His gaze was tender. “I wanted to go slower. To show you reverence and honor.”

  “Showing how much I turn you on is good too.” She yawned. Sobered. “That can’t have been our last time. It’s too soon. I just found you.”

  “Sweetheart. It won’t be.” He put his palm between her breasts. Took her hand and placed it over his heart.

  It was an acknowledgment, and a pact. True mates.

  If they survived the Witches’ Council.

  If he survived the fight.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  They dressed and retreated to the main office. Sophia sat on a couch. Noah sat holding hands with her—he refused to let her go.

  She said, “So Jayden mentioned there was something about you that I should know—”

  “Shh.” He nodded at the door. “Company’s coming. I’ll tell you later.”

  Mason and Jayden joined them, leaning against the walls, both of them staring out the office door with its clear view of the store’s east window. Neither spoke but a muscle worked in Jayden’s black-stubbled jaw.

  The sex, Noah’s warm body and the temporary lull made Sophia relax. Then the tension and exertion crashed down on her, and she could barely keep her eyes open. She broke the silence to wake herself. “Where does the Challenge Fight take place?”

  Mason said, “The field in back.”

  “In broad daylight? Aren’t you afraid you’ll be seen?”

  “The field’s shielded.”

  “What if the shield fails?”

  “It can’t. It’s anchored to four talismans buried in the soil. They continuously refresh the spell.”

  “Oh.”

  They were silent again. She slumped against Noah. She was painfully exhausted and he was so warm…

  She stiffened. “What about Noah’s poison? If it’s not gone, will it interfere with the fight?”

  Jayden answered. “Some. It’ll slow him and make his movements stiff. But if the hex is gone I’ll be able to leach the poison.”

  “And if not?”

  Noah said, “I’ll have bigger troubles than a little stiffness. Don’t worry, Sophia.” He rubbed her shoulder. “I’ve faced bigger opponents before.”

  “Over a hundred pounds bigger?”

  He didn’t answer.

  They were silent again. She finally dropped off, dozing in Noah’s arms. Her dreams were troubled. She was being chased by a horde of tiny wolves with mustaches. They’d just gotten their needle-sharp claws into her when she startled awake.

  Noah was napping with his head canted back at an angle that wouldn’t have been comfortable for a contortionist. She eased him down onto the couch, lay next to him and pillowed her head on his chest. They both slept better then.

  Mason woke them as the windows brightened with predawn. Sophia sat up and yawned. Jayden was leaning against the wall, seeming negligent, but his black eyes were sharp on Noah. Next to Jayden, Mason watched Noah outright, not trying to hide his anxiety.

  “Don’t worry.” Noah sprang to his feet as the first rays sparkled on the glass. “I feel fine. Better than fine. I feel exactly like my old self—” His form blurred and the tiny rat dog King popped into being standing on the couch cushions next to her. “Yip.” He snapped it off as if it were a four-letter word.

  “Yap, yap!”

  That wasn’t Noah.

  Sophia swiveled to where Mason and Jayden stood by the window, bright sun streaming enthusiastically through the glass…only Mason stood there.

  “Yap!”

  Her eyes adjusted—down. Next to Mason quivered a very angry, black-haired miniature poodle.

  She stifled a totally inappropriate laugh.

  “Shit,” Mason said. “What happened?”

  He took the words right out of her mouth. “Jayden’s spell not only failed—I think it rebounded on him.”

  “Hell.” Mason drove fingers through his hair, paced, then spun and flung a hand at the furiously yapping poodle. “Now how will he reverse the hex?”

  “He won’t.” She pumped iron into her spine. “I will.”

  Noah leaped in front of her, his little shaggy brows lowered like thunderclouds, his angry yip slicing through Jayden’s barking. She could almost hear him saying, Not for me you won’t. You’re not putting yourself in danger for me.

  “Noah.” She took his cute doggie face between her hands. “Either I do this or you fight Ivan as an undersized dog. Your pack is at stake. So unless there are other alternatives—”

  “Yip!” He jerked out of her hands to turn to Mason and growl.

  Mason winced. “Uh, sorry, Noah. No.”

  “You can understand him?” she asked. “What
is he saying?”

  “I don’t understand the words, but I know what he’s saying.” Mason’s face reddened. “He wants me to challenge Ivan.”

  “And you won’t? Just because you don’t want to be alpha? Or are you too scared? I can’t believe it. You’d let Noah stake his life against—”

  “Sophia, no, that’s not it. I can’t fight Ivan. I’m, uh, his bond-brother.”

  Noah sat abruptly on his little hindquarters. He stared at his big lieutenant with surprise and consternation.

  “It happened when I first came, okay? I went through a joining ceremony that involved little sleep and a whole lot of alcohol. Next thing I knew Ivan and I were slapping cut palms together and I was pack—and his blood brother.”

  The black poodle started huffing, either the doggie version of a belly laugh, or he was hurking a hairball.

  Noah yipped at the poodle. Sophia looked to Mason for translation.

  “He said, ‘You’re no help.’ Um, with a few more colorful terms added.”

  “Noah, please.” Aunt Linda was missing, Gabriel was hundreds of miles away. Jayden had no magic and Mason was handcuffed by the ties of kinship. It was devastatingly clear.

  It was up to her. “I’ll remove the hex.”

  All three males started yapping at her.

  “Because yelling works so well.” With a glance heavenward—praying for patience inevitably granted the need for it—she decided the issue by simply striding to the garage.

  Mason followed automatically. Being queen had some perks. The poodle and rat dog followed more reluctantly, yipping and yapping at each other the whole way.

  “Where’s your chalk?” she said. When Mason wordlessly handed her a chunk, she started refreshing Jayden’s circles.

  Mason stood next to her, watching closely. “How do you know it won’t do the same thing it did to Jayden?”

  “I’m warding against it.” She scribed a six-point star around the outer circle. Her movements were smooth, easy. Like riding a bike or swimming, it came right back.

  “Won’t the poison try to leap the gap?”

  “Yes. I’ll need your help to stop it.” She finished the star, stepped out of her banker pumps and took off her socks, then traced her bare feet with chalk. Even the dogs stopped arguing to watch what she was doing.