Bound by Fate (Moon Bound Series Book 1)

by Mandy Lou Dowson

  He wrapped his arms around her waist and dragged her closer still, until she could feel that he was very happy to be there indeed. She smiled against his lips and whispered, “is that a gun in your pocket or…”

  “Don’t have any pockets,” he told her huskily and she laughed. The blanket was a poor substitute for self-control, however and soon they were so wrapped up in each other she could hardly tell where she ended and he began.

  This is crazy! she told herself. I don’t even like him. He’s too arrogant and self-assured and he’s an ass, and oh my God, I don’t want him to ever stop!

  Beth shivered as he trailed kisses down her neck, nipping again at her throat and growling under his breath at the scents he found along the way. She was seeing stars. I must be losing my damn mind. But it was too wonderful to stop. His mouth wasn’t the only thing to wander, she realized as she felt a calloused hand skim her waist and slide down her thigh.

  She both wanted him to stop and to never stop in equal measures. How was she to know what she wanted while he was kissing her like that? She was about to spontaneously combust and enjoy doing it. This was madness. His fingers crept up her inner thigh and she panted, urging him on, and at the same time trying to find breath to put a stop to it.

  “Gareth,” she groaned as his fingers found the little hollow at the top of her inner thigh. She was close to something, but she had no idea what. She just knew that if things didn’t stop – right now – then she’d have a lot of explaining to do in the morning when she returned as an un-sanctioned mated female.

  “Little Wolf,” he whispered raggedly and her control split apart. She bit his ear, nipped at his throat, raked his shoulder with her nails and kissed him furiously as his fingers once again climbed higher, the last leg of their journey completed as she cried out. “Oh! Oh God, Gareth…oh…God…”

  In the aftermath of her inner explosion she realized he had frozen and lifted her head from his chest. Blinking, trying to see him in the darkness, all she could make out was his profile. He was like a statue. “Gareth?”

  “So sorry Beth, I never meant things to go this far, I’m so sorry.”

  He sounded broken. She was just confused. Hadn’t he enjoyed… Oh. Oh God. She’d thought he felt the same way about her. She’d thought he’d really and truly wanted her. But no, she was just an experiment, evidently.

  “I’m sorry, Little Wolf,” he whispered roughly again.

  Pride taking over the pain she was feeling, she thrust back at him, “don’t worry about it Gareth, you’re not the first man to make me come apart in his arms, and I doubt you’ll be the last.” It was all lies, but she was hoping he wouldn’t smell the lie on her scent. Let him think he was one of many, that he didn’t matter. She didn’t want him to know just how hurt she was.

  With a ferocious snarl he leaped from the bed and shimmered so fast it looked painful. As he curled up in the furthest corner of the dingy room, she leaned up on one elbow and casually raised an eyebrow. “And there was me thinking you were too exhausted to shimmer.” She shook her head disgusted. “Can’t say I’m surprised by the lie. But at least we don’t have to talk any more tonight. Thanks to you, I’m feeling quite sleepy. Goodnight Gareth, thanks for the fun.”

  The first tear didn’t escape until her face was buried in the dusty mattress. She fell asleep with wet eyes and a sore heart. She felt like something in her was shattered. Ass, she thought, slipping into sleep. I guess werewolves do cry, after all.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Eventually the sun rose, bringing with it the end of their time together in the Den House. Good, thought Beth as she glared at Gareth curled up in the corner. Exactly as she had last seen him. He hadn’t appeared to move at all during the night, his head buried in this tail, his breathing deep and even.

  Her hip cracked as she shifted to a sitting position and his eyes flew open, meeting her soft gaze in the twilight room. Caught off guard, she hadn’t had time to settle a mask of indifference on her face, letting him see exactly how tired and worn she felt. Time for a little acting, she decided, clearing her throat. Gareth tensed as she stood up, letting the thin blanket drift to the floor.

  As if I’m about to look for a repeat performance? Just thinking of what she had allowed to happen during the long night made her face flame and her mind buzz with unwelcome thoughts of his strong arms and hot kisses. She shrugged them off, refolding the moldy blanket roughly. Let him make of it what he wished. She wasn’t even going to discuss it with him. He was just another juvenile, really. He needed to grow up.

  She, on the other hand, felt as though she’d aged a decade in the few hours since his rebuff. The soft whine brought her eyes back to his wolf face and she wondered if it was remorse she could see floating in his eyes. No, she decided. It was probably the fear of what she might let slip to her Den Father making him act like a chastised pup. Whatever, she refused to let him ruffle her fur.

  He rose swiftly and trotted to the door, no doubt wanting to be as far from the scene of the crime as possible, as quickly as possible. Well, she did too, damn it. Never before had she felt so stupid. How could she have let him make such a fool of her? Making a fool of people was her job. She sniffed, deciding there were no words she needed to speak to him, and shimmered effortlessly.

  Immediately his mind-voice assailed her. Time to go, Little Wolf.

  Don’t you call me that, Guardian. I am your charge and you will not address me in such a fashion. I have a name. Use it.

  He looked at her sharply, ears flattening. And you will not address me in such a fashion, Beth, he sent to her, not bothering to disguise his disgust. No matter what else, I am a Guardian, and I am entitled to respect. Ears still flat against his head, her Guardian trotted into the dense wood.

  Sighing, Beth followed, thinking the next couple of hours were going to be very uncomfortable.

  Ouch. Her nose stung all of a sudden. The sharp tang of a strange wolf rushing up her nostrils, sending fight or flight signals to her brain. Gareth froze a moment later, hackles raising, and growled into the distance. What is it? she asked him.

  Tall Grass pack wolf, was the swift reply. Do not stray, Beth.

  I won’t, she confirmed, already regretting her impulse that forced him to use her real name. It was too much of a grown up thing, and this morning of all mornings, she wanted to remain a juvenile for a little longer. Mating was just too complicated.

  A rustling ahead, too far to be any immediate danger, alerted her to the location of the other wolf. He raised his head from a thicket, blood glistening on his muzzle, licking his face. He growled, hind legs tensing. He was huge. A rolling mass of hard-packed muscle, stalking across the small clearing they stood in, his massive red shoulders rising and falling with each step. An old scar ran length-ways along his sleek side, and Beth would put good money on it being from another wolf.

  Ten yards from Beth and Gareth, he came to a halt, shimmering within seconds to stand before them, as massive in human-form as he was in wolf-form, with the same scar running from his hip to his breastbone. He snarled, as if not used to his human throat, and afforded them a view of his elongated canines. Doesn’t spend much time in human-form, Gareth sent to her. Be very careful. He could be a rogue.

  She wondered why Gareth didn’t shimmer to speak with this Were. The only reply she got from him when she pressed the matter was a warning growl. Oh for the love of…I’ll do it myself, she decided.

  Before her Guardian had an inkling of her hasty decision she shimmered, nodding slightly to the larger were. “Greetings, stranger,” she said softly, her words carrying easily in the silence of dawn. “We are of the Loam Floor pack. Your scent marks you as Tall Grass pack. May I ask why you have entered our territory?”

  “Didn’t know,” he replied, shock evident on his face. “Quarry ran here. I chased. Didn’t know you were here.” Beth noticed a quick flash of guilt in his eyes.

  What the hell did that mean? “Pardon?”

  “I me
an,” he paused, considering. “I didn’t know this was your territory. Apologies, I did not mean to stray so far from my Den.” His giant head swiveled to glare at Gareth. “You want to tell your Bonded to stand down?”

  Bonded? Huh? She glanced at Gareth, who was still growling softly, hackles vibrating. Oh, he meant Guardian. Strange, she’d never heard them be referred to as Bonded before. “Gareth,” she whispered coaxingly, noting his stance, a fight seeming imminent. Just what they needed right now. The Tall Grass wolf could probably tear Gareth’s head off his shoulders and use it as a chew toy.

  With obvious reluctance, Gareth’s hackles smoothed out and his ears perked up. To look at him you wouldn’t guess he’d been ready to fight to the death seconds before. “I will take my leave,” the giant Were rumbled in a deep bass like distant thunder. Beth watched his powerful arms heave the carcass of the fox to settle it dangling over one shoulder as he stalked away, picking up speed as if wishing to be far from here.

  “Well,” she whispered, glaring at Gareth. “That went well.”

  He stinks of lies, her Guardian’s voice whispered through her mind as soon as she shimmered.

  Why would he lie? she replied. You think he was here on purpose? A scouting mission, perhaps?

  I don’t think so, he told her. He was telling the truth when he said he hadn’t mean to wander here. The lie only came into play after he said he didn’t know you were here.

  His confusion was evident in his body language, as he tramped through the undergrowth, uncaring of any who might hear his approach. Good thing we’re not hunting, she thought, miffed.

  The strange wolf bothered her the whole way home. What could he have been hiding? And why? And if the blood-feud with the Tall Grass pack had run so deep and so long, why hadn’t there been blood shed? The whole situation stank to high heaven, and it was doing her no good to wonder. It’s not even as if I can ask David about it, either, she thought in disgust. I’m not mated. I’m not privy to pack business.

  Annoyance eating at her, she stomped along with Gareth, taking no notice of her surroundings until they popped out of the wood by the banks of the creek. Her creek. She glared at him. What did the wolf want? A replay of yesterday?

  She wished it were possible. There were a few things she would like to rewind and erase in the past twenty four hours. Chief among them, the disaster of last night. She groaned subconsciously, diving into the freezing water to clear her mind.

  Shimmering on her upward turn, she broke the surface in her human-form, scrubbing the earth and blood and most of all the scent of him from her body. If only it were so easy to scrub him from her mind.

  David was furious with her for pulling yet another disappearing act. She’d never seen him so angry. She’d been under house arrest since loping into the Den House the morning before, Gareth hot on her heels, a whine in his throat.

  David had looked from her to him and back again, reminiscent of the night before by the boar’s carcass, and a low growl trickled from his still-human lips. He’d looked fit to kill. Gareth had crawled low on his belly toward the enraged Den Father, and unexpectedly, David backed away, storming out of the kitchen into the clearing beyond.

  “I think perhaps it’s best you leave, Gareth,” said Bea from the hallway. “We won’t be requiring your services today. Beth is under house arrest. And I’m sure your own Den Mother and father will be waiting to see you.” She’d nodded toward the window, where the angry strides of David had come to a halt in front of the now un-smiling face of Gareth’s Den Mother.

  Beth had wondered what was going on – she knew she’d just missed something, but was at a loss as to what. If only they’d include her in pack business, she might have a notion of what had made such a proud wolf like Gareth crawl on his belly toward her Den Father. She didn’t waste her breath on a goodbye for the treacherous wolf, instead opening the fridge and pulling out the makings of a sandwich. Man, she was half-starved!

  “Beth, you should clean yourself up!” snapped Bea the very second she closed the door on her Guardian’s retreating form. “You look a fright, and that’s being polite.”

  “Gee, thanks,” she’d replied sarcastically. What had she ever done to this woman to make her hate her so?

  “This is no time for your childish rejoinders.” Bea pulled her apron from her waist and checked her reflection in the mirror, before wrapping a shawl around her thin shoulders, fluffing her salt and pepper hair and following her husband into the clearing. “You have no idea what you’ve done.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, but her only audience was her sandwich. Bea had already left, picking her way across the packed dirt to stand at her husband’s side. There had been much animated talk going on, David’s arms swinging wildly this way and that, his head shaking from side to side in denial and anger.

  Why couldn’t she just accept the pack laws? Why did she have to cause so much upset for her dear Den Father? She would, she resolved, be the paragon of virtue and trust and obedience from now on. She couldn’t keep destroying David’s trust in her. Or fueling Bea’s hatred. It wasn’t healthy in werewolf society.

  Sandwich forgotten, she’d flopped into the kitchen chair, putting her head in her hands and felt her eyes tear up. She had to stop embarrassing David like this. He was all that stood between her and the rest of the pack. He was her protector, when all was said and done. And he was her claim to pack-life. If her Den Father turned her out, she doubted anyone would take pity on her enough to take her in. Not knowing the trouble she’d brought to David.

  “None of your sniveling, girl,” came the bitter demand from behind her. Beth twisted in her seat to face Bea. She hadn’t even heard her re-enter the house, so lost in thought and self-pity had she been. “You are under house arrest until and unless we decide otherwise.” Satisfaction gleamed in her ice-blue eyes, her thin lips framing the words with relish. “You will not leave the confines of this Den House. You will not speak with anyone from outside. And you will not allow anyone entry. Is that understood?” she snapped.

  “Yes, Den Mother,” Beth had replied, accepting her punishment, knowing she deserved it and far worse. If only they knew what really happened, she thought dejectedly. There wouldn’t be a Den House in the pack open to me, then.

  “And put some clothes on while you’re about it!”

  “Yes, Den Mother.”

  She fluffed her pillow for the fourth time, trying unsuccessfully to get into the book she’d borrowed from David’s collection. It was useless; she just kept replaying the events of that morning over and over in her head. There was definitely something she’d missed. What is it?

  Three days now, she’d been trying to figure it out, and it was driving her to distraction.

  A soft rap on her bedroom door interrupted her reverie and she sighed, closing the un-read book. “May I come in?”

  “Yes, Den Father, of course.”

  David had been to check on her three or four times each day, no doubt expecting her to have flown out the window to freedom. No chance of that, however, she had promised to play by the rules, no matter how hard. Even though her mind buzzed with the incessant call of the pack, allowing her to overhear normally private musings. This was the part she needed to get away from.

  How the other purebred women coped, she didn’t know. Could they choose to ignore the meaningless ramblings of someone else’s mind? Or were they too, prone to flights of freedom from time to time?

  “How are you getting on?” David settled himself on the edge of her bed, looking anywhere but at her. His hair hung over one eye and he shoved it roughly behind his ear.

  “Fine,” she replied. It was a lie, and he would smell it, but she doubted he wanted to hear the truth of the matter.

  “Have you,” he cleared his throat awkwardly. “Have you anything you need to tell me?” He did look at her then, his face so open and sympathetic that she found herself pouring her worries out of lips that would no longer stay closed. She was driven
to distraction by the call of the pack. She felt cooped up, caged, and out of sorts like she was missing part of herself, and she was bored to tears! She told him all this, and more. Drawing each woe out so as to offer him the maximum insight into her mind.

  “Missing something?” he questioned carefully. “Missing what?”

  “I don’t know!” she countered, exasperated. How could she explain a feeling? “I just know that being under house arrest doesn’t agree with me, but I daren’t leave for fear of bringing you any further trouble or disgrace!”

  “So you do know,” he whispered, mouth pulled into a frown. “This complicates things.”

  “What? What things does it complicate?” How could he think she didn’t know the shame she brought on not only her own Den Family, but the Den Families of all who had been assigned as her Guardian in recent times. She had ditched them all, leaving them in her wake, eating her dust, laughing and mocking them, never realizing until recently the embarrassment involved in reporting to her Den Father that they had failed him. Guardians were not supposed to fail in their job, which was why they were Guardians.

  “Everything, it seems,” he answered her eventually, sighing deeply and crossing his arms on his beefy chest. “Gareth cannot be your Guardian any longer.” Well she knew that much, and even agreed with it. “And you will have to meet with the Alpha and put yourself forward for mating. It’s time. You know that now.”

  She would not argue, no matter how much she wanted to. David always knew what was best for her, even when she did not. He’d always done right by her. Never steered her wrong. So be it, she thought, her heart shattering. I will reconcile myself to being the bargaining chip I’ve always known myself to be. “Yes, Den Father.”