by Kari Cole
Luke wrapped her even tighter in his arms, as if he could pull her right into his body. His forearms protected her back as he leaned into the wall behind her, using it to hold them up, because he wasn’t sure his legs were up to the task right now. Especially since only one was bearing his weight. The other he’d slid between his mate’s, right against her core. He felt her heat through his jeans, and shuddered.
“Luke,” Isabelle said, drawing out his name in a moan.
Inside. He had to get her inside and—
She kissed the spot on his jaw she’d bit before, then dragged her teeth over it again, nipping lightly.
Freezing winter air that didn’t have a hope of cooling his desire rushed past them as he hiked Isabelle up, wrapped her legs around his waist, and ploughed through the porch door. The impact of it slamming shut was still rattling the windows as he carried her through his cabin.
Isabelle pressed a sucking kiss against the curve of his neck where it met his shoulder, and he growled. His gums throbbed as his fangs lengthened, preparing for their mating. They didn’t really need a bed. The couch or a chair would do. Maybe here on the floor—
Isabelle hissed, and the pained sound froze him. “Sugar?” A quick scan and he realized his left hand was digging into her injured hip. “Shit. I’m sorry, baby.” Her feet barely touched the ground before he swung her up again to carry her over to the couch. Sitting with her in his lap, he covered her with a thick blanket. “Are you all right? I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Dazed golden-brown eyes blinked up at him as he gently ran his hands over her. “What? I—I’m fine.” She shivered, but not with cold.
Fingertips ghosted up Luke’s ribs, hesitant and soft. They stroked over his chest, grazed his nipples. In his head, his wolf sang.
Luke caught Isabelle’s wandering hands and kissed them. No matter how much he and his wolf wanted to claim their mate, he had to be sure it was what Isabelle wanted, too. And he had a terrible suspicion that she didn’t fully understand what was happening between them. “Isabelle...”
“It’s so strange,” she said, tugging a hand free to trace over his face, following the lines of his brow, cheek, and jaw.
“Hmm?” That was about all he could manage as he tried not to stare at her breasts. They looked like they’d be a perfect handful and he really wanted to test his hypothesis.
One finger drew a line down the bridge of his nose, outlined his lips. He wanted to suck it into his mouth, show her what he could do with his tongue. Everywhere. Dear goddess, the plans he had for claiming his mate. Would it be so awful if he just let nature take its course?
Isabelle leaned into him, brushing her nose along his throat. “Mmm. I don’t even like men.”
Say what? He was pretty sure the tires-screeching-to-a-halt sound was only in his head.
He clasped her arms. “What?”
“I mean, I don’t really like sex.”
“What?” Maybe he was having a stroke, because he didn’t seem to be processing language very well. Of course, the problem could be his mate playing with the hair on his chest that trailed down into his jeans. He flattened her palm onto his stomach, pinning it in place, and had to cup her cheek to get her to meet his eyes. “Isabelle, what are you talking about?”
* * *
It smelled like Christmas in Luke’s living room, like pine trees and sugar cookies. And Izzy couldn’t get enough. Taking another deep breath, she nuzzled his neck. She wanted to drown in the clean smell of the forest coming from his skin. Or roll around in it, coat her own skin with it to keep his amazing scent with her.
That last thought might not have been hers.
“I think my wolf likes you,” she said.
“What?”
Izzy shook her head. The wolf buzzed along, but it sounded and felt different than all the times before when she’d thought her head would explode. The noise was softer and more substantial at the same time, like it had meaning. Closing her eyes, she let the purr wash through her and waited for the panic or fear to set in. Instead, she felt only peace. A contentment that shocked her.
Her eyes popped open to find Luke watching her, his head tilted as if trying to read her with more than just human eyes.
“I said, I think my wolf likes you.” She went to gesture at her head to explain, but her hand was plastered to his naked abs. “Um...”
A slow grin spread across his face and he released her hand. “That’s good,” he said, tucking some hair behind her ear. “Because my wolf likes you, too.”
“Oh.”
He cupped her cheek, making sure she was looking into his eyes. “I like you.”
“Uh...we’re naked,” she said stupidly.
“I’m only half-naked,” Luke said. “I can take off my jeans if you want to be on equal footing.”
A flash of heat blasted through her. Yes, please. She said, “That’s not necessary.”
Luke made a show of inhaling. The gleam in his eyes told her everything she needed to know about the information her scent provided him.
“I don’t normally behave like this,” she said. “I don’t normally feel like this.”
“Like what, sugar?”
How much more embarrassed could she get? “Turned on.”
Luke’s eyes bled to gold. “What did you mean before? That you don’t like men or sex.”
Nope, she hadn’t been anywhere close to her embarrassment limit. Hell, she hadn’t even been in the same time zone as her limit.
“Um,” she said, squirming. “I’ve never—the sex thing—it’s just that...” She blew out a breath. “I’ve always sort of found the whole thing, well, lacking.”
“Lacking.”
“Boring.”
His dark brows rose as he deliberately gazed down at her breasts that betrayed her whole lack of boredom with the moment. “Boring.”
“Stop repeating everything I say.” She popped him on the shoulder. “And stop smirking at me, you smug jerk.”
“As long as I can keep looking at your breasts.”
“Oh!”
Luke’s laughter filled the room and despite herself, Izzy smiled. In her head, the wolf buzzed merrily along.
“Sorry,” Luke said, wiping his eyes. He tucked the blanket more securely around her, covering her chest, and gave her an understanding smile. “I’m not surprised you didn’t enjoy sex before. Frankly, I’m more surprised you let anyone get close enough to touch you, let alone...” He raised a brow at her. “Sex is all about letting go and you’re so afraid to lose control. Your previous lacking experiences were probably because of your stranglehold on your wolf.”
“Hmm, you’re probably right.”
“Ah, I do love that.”
“Shut up,” she said, but she laughed as she said it.
Again, the wolf filled her head. It felt good, but weirdly incomplete, like hearing a song, and not being able to make out the lyrics. Something occurred to her that made her gasp. “Luke, the wolf...it’s not trying to talk to me, is it?”
“Probably.”
“I’m not crazy?”
“No. Our beasts, they’re a part of us, but at the same time, they’re their own beings. Just like we are when they manifest in the physical world. Our personalities, sense of self, don’t disappear when the wolves come out to play. Do you remember being a wolf?”
She nodded because, ironically, speech was beyond her at the moment. She was too busy listening to Luke and her wolf hum and buzz at the same time.
“Everyone’s a little different,” Luke continued. “But a lycanthrope usually hears—or maybe feels is a better word—their beast. Emotions are the easiest things to discern. But we get images, too. Sometimes words. Sometimes whole sentences.”
“Right now, all I get is a whole lot of static. It’s like a hornets’ nest is in here,” sh
e said, knocking on her head. For once, though, the noise didn’t sound angry to her. It sounded like the drone of a lively party. All the voices and words mixed together until you couldn’t understand anything, unless you paid attention. Focused.
Izzy grabbed his hand. “We can talk to them?”
“Yes.”
Holy shit. All her life, Izzy had been trying to ignore what she was, and the thing inside her. Never in a million years had she thought of the wolf as another being, someone she could communicate with.
I’m so sorry, she told the wolf.
A pulse of warmth and sound answered.
“My God, I think we’re having a conversation,” Izzy told Luke.
His smile could light up Wrigley Field. “That’s good.”
Another idea sent her pulse skipping. “When we were wolves, running around out there, were you trying to talk to me?”
“Yes. You seemed upset.”
“How could you tell?”
Luke shrugged. “Your wolf was anxious and mine sensed that. He tried to comfort her and I tried to do the same for you. Could you understand me?”
Reeling, she shook her head slowly. “I was scared. I don’t like not being in control, as you’ve noticed. I’m not sure I could’ve understood you even if we’d both been human at that moment.”
He rubbed circles against her back. “I’m sorry, Isabelle. I never wanted to frighten you.”
“It’s all right. I’m just so—wow. We’re telepathic?”
“Sort of. With our wolves and among the pack in animal form. Yes.”
“But I’m not part of the pack.”
Rays of liquid gold shone in Luke’s green eyes. “Aren’t you?”
Her breath whooshed out, like she’d taken a roundhouse to the gut.
Caressing her cheek, he said, “We’re connected, you and I, and the pack.”
A bright, warm, shivery sensation spread from her chest, down to her toes and the tips of her fingers, all the way to the ends of her hair. She felt...electrified. “Because of Freddie?” she whispered.
“No.”
A simple answer, yet she knew Luke was trying to convey something much more. The reason for so much, why she could hear him as a wolf, why she felt so safe around him, why she felt so alive around him.
The reason for everything.
She didn’t ask because she already knew the answer. Had known it since the moment she stepped out of Freddie’s helicopter.
“We’re mates,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Oh, shit.” The flash of hurt on his face had her fumbling for an explanation. “Don’t. It’s not—dammit. It’s just I never expected to deal with anything like this. Ever.”
The muscles in his jaw bunched. It seemed to take a lot of effort to unclench them and open his mouth. When he did, he voice was low and rasping and stiff. “If it isn’t something you can handle—”
“I didn’t say I couldn’t handle it. I—”
“Give us a chance, Isabelle—”
“A chance! We don’t even—” She held up a hand. The wolf buzzed in her head, sounding nearly as panicked as Izzy. “Wait. Just—just give me a minute. Okay?”
It took a few seconds, but finally, he nodded. She stood, dragging the blanket with her. There was no way she could think sitting on his lap like that. Naked, for chrissakes. She paced in front of him. Why were they even arguing about this? This was absolutely crazy. They couldn’t be mates. They—no, dammit. Think. Don’t just freak out because you think you should.
She took a long breath, let it out slow. Another. Again. When her heart stopped flapping around in her chest and her wolf stopped trying to wear a hole in her brain, Izzy looked to Luke. “Are you sure?” she asked, her voice so small even she barely heard it.
He held out his hand, palm up. There wasn’t any thought to her reaction at all. She just reached out and took it, sliding her cold, shaking hand into his strong, warm, steady grasp. Again, without thinking about it or exerting any effort at all, she sank down onto the couch next to him, her thigh pressed up against his.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m sure.”
“Oh.”
The expression on his face kicked her right in the chest. Fear, hope, vulnerability, and...love? It was all right there for her to see. Totally open. Exposed. All that emotion, just for her.
“Oh,” she said again.
Carefully, she laid her head on his chest, right over his heart. It pounded like a jackhammer beneath her ear, but slowed as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and hugged her to his side.
All the nervous energy and anxiety seeped from her body. It wasn’t acceptance or even surrender to the inevitable. For a few minutes, she just wanted to sit and...be. With Luke.
Right then, she couldn’t find anything wrong with that.
Chapter Thirty-Six
As the late afternoon sun dipped below the rooflines of the overpriced condos in Missoula, Kent Markes and Gordon LeBlanc slipped from one shadow to the next. They didn’t need to wait for the cover of full dark. Most of the humans who lived here were still at work, toiling away like good little sheep. Besides, in Markes’s experience, the sheep never really looked beyond their own pens. The better to delude themselves about their safety.
He sniffed the air and ducked beneath the arms of a hemlock. The woods at the rear of the property gave the pampered humans who lived there the illusion of privacy and seclusion. It also gave the two predators perfect access to their yards.
They would have come in their animal forms, but neither a cougar nor grizzly bear’s paws were useful for picking locks.
“They’re still upstairs,” LeBlanc said in a whisper, nodding to the window above the back door. “I can hear the tub draining. We gonna kill the kid?”
Markes pocketed his lock pick and eyed his partner. “What do you care? She’s too young to be any fun.”
LeBlanc shrugged.
“Remember,” Markes said. “We’ve got to be quick. This Erlington bitch is a screamer. Dealing with the cops isn’t an option.”
“I know.”
Markes listened for another few seconds before opening the door. Silently, they eased into the kitchen. It smelled like a hot stove and cheese. Two dinner dishes lay on the counter. An empty box of organic mac and cheese sat on the island near a bag of those pinky-sized carrots and a picked-over branch of green grapes.
He looked at LeBlanc and rolled his eyes. Freakin’ humans. If he opened the pantry, he probably wouldn’t find anything that tasted remotely good. Ms. Jenny won’t be taking advantage of all that clean livin’ anymore.
Past the kitchen was a pale and fussy living room that looked like a lilac bush had puked all over it. Between the two rooms, a set of stairs went up two steps to a small landing bordered by a white wood railing, before taking a right up to the second floor.
A feminine voice drifted down. “Get your jammies on, Brooklynn. Then we’ll read some more Amelia Bedelia before bed.”
“Okay, Mommy!”
Markes nodded to LeBlanc, and the bear shifter hid on the other side of the landing when footsteps sounded on the stairs.
Markes moved down the hall, out of the woman’s line of sight. He almost laughed at her expression as LeBlanc grabbed her from behind, clamping a huge hand over her mouth and nose. LeBlanc pulled her over the landing rail with ease, the woman’s eyes darting back and forth like a fly in a window, her escape just as hopeless.
Too easy. It was almost disappointing.
“Hello, Ms. Erlington. My name is Kent Markes. Maybe you remember me.”
The cougar flowed into his eyes, throwing a golden glow over the pale-as-snow human. Markes grabbed her throat to silence her captured screams. “Now, now. None of that. Can’t have little Brooklynn join the party before we’re ready.”
Overhead, the sound of little feet dancing was accompanied by a high-pitched voice singing a disgustingly sweet pop song.
The woman’s eyes bugged as she heard her daughter for the last time.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“Can you drive a little faster?” Luke asked Dean through clenched teeth.
During dinner at Rissa’s, Dean had called to say one of the trackers had picked up the grizzly’s scent. Leaving Isabelle had been almost impossible. Luke’s wolf had pitched a temper tantrum worthy of a sleep-deprived three-year-old hyped up on Halloween candy. His head still hurt from all the howling.
“Stupid false alarm,” Luke muttered. The tracker was young and inexperienced. Still, you’d think he’d recognize the scent of a male who’d lived in the territory his entire life, recluse or not.
“Your wolf giving you fits?” Dean asked, signaling a turn onto another empty road.
“That obvious?”
“Naw, you always snarl at dumb kids who’re trying to impress you.”
“Shit.” Great job, Alpha.
Dean snorted. “It’s all right. I’ve been driving Sarah crazy calling every hour, checking on her and the boys.”
Annoying Sarah was bound to be a dangerous pastime. The female had access to scalpels, after all. “Bet she loves that.”
Dean actually smirked. “She said, and I quote, ‘Worry about yourself, you big dummy, because if you get hurt, I’m going to tranq your wolf, shave his butt, and post the pictures on the bulletin board in Haven.’” Awe lit his face. “She’d do it, too. God, I love that female.”
Luke laughed, because Sarah would totally do that. With a song in her evil little heart.
His cell rang, and Liz Crandall reported that none of the other search teams had any luck finding a fresh trail from the rogues. He sent her home, then jammed his phone in his pocket.
