The shack appeared just as small on the inside as it had from the outside. The chimney he’d spotted a minute ago led down to a large, open hearth that took up almost the entire back wall. To the right of the door a dry sink and a couple of built-in cabinets lined up beneath the window he’d noticed in his initial summary, and to the left, someone appeared to have built a platform bunk with storage underneath. It looked a bit larger than a single bed, but nowhere near as comfortable as the spacious king-sized one that he’d spotted previously in Honor’s bedroom. That didn’t stop his mate, though. She leaped up onto the mattress, surprising him when no dust cloud rose up around her. Come to think of it, he didn’t notice any other signs of neglect in the little cabin, either. No cobwebs hung in the corners, and the combination of moonlight streaming through the window and his own keen night vision told him the bin in the far corner held enough firewood for at least a full night’s heat. Without his fur, he might appreciate that a bit more.
Nothing else appeared to occupy the cabin. No shapes lurked in the corner, and his nose detected nothing but the sweet, musky smell of his mate. Before the scent could give him ideas, however, he turned back to find his mate completing a final circle and settling down amid a nest of blankets. She glanced at him and yawned, her pink tongue curling lazily, then tucked her muzzle up against her thigh and draped her tail daintily over the tip of her nose.
She looked adorable, like a little stuffed animal, and when she began to blink drowsily, Logan gave up the fight. Nosing the door closed, he waited for the latch to click, then padded the few short steps to the bedside. A quick gathering of muscles had him springing lightly up beside Honor and turning three circles of his own. Instinct, after all, was instinct.
With a mighty yawn and a low snort, Logan made a place for himself in the cloth nest, curling his larger body around Honor’s smaller form and tucking his muzzle affectionately against hers. One last sigh, deep and heartfelt, and he allowed himself to drift into sleep, his mate curled contentedly at his side.
* * *
Honor awoke some time later, lying still as memories of the night slowly began to seep back into her consciousness. Her body felt pleasantly tired, as if she’d recently finished a good workout, and for the first time in days, her mind appeared pleasantly blank. She was aware of some kind of dark cloud pushing on the edge of her consciousness, but she ignored it, pushing it aside. She didn’t want darkness right now, only this sweet, sleepy contentment that drifted along on the easy rhythm of her mate’s breathing.
She lay still for a while longer, but eventually, the sharp chill of the cabin began to nag at her. Sure, in her current form her fur and her mate’s shared body heat would keep her from freezing even if the temperature dropped another ten degrees, but the advantage of being a Lupine and not an ordinary wolf was opposable thumbs.
Well, opposable thumbs and matches.
Moving carefully so as not to disturb Logan, Honor slipped from the bed to stand on the cold wooden floor. On the callused pads of her paws the planks felt icy enough, but on the tender soles of her human feet, they made her curse softly. Wrapping her arms around herself to conserve every bit of body heat she could, she crossed quickly to the fireplace and struck a match to the pile of tinder and kindling she always left waiting for her next visit. When she left the shack, her last task would be to lay the beginnings of another fire for next time. It never hurt to be overprepared.
It took only seconds for the fire to catch, and within another ten minutes, she was adding real logs to the merrily crackling flames. Soon, the inside of the shack began to grow warmer, the benefit of her careful attention to the soundness of the structure and the building’s tiny footprint. A twelve-by-twelve room didn’t take much to heat.
The heat of the fire felt amazing on her bare skin, and Honor turned slowly to expose every inch of her body to the flames. When she stopped with her back to the hearth, her gaze fixed on the sight of Logan stretching his furry limbs and slipping seamlessly back into his skin, still sound asleep. The shift came in response to the change in temperature, Honor knew. The warmth was much more appealing to the man than the wolf, and frankly, she wasn’t about to complain, not when the resulting view turned out to be so appealing to her.
She stood there for a long moment, savoring the warmth of the fire and watching the rise and fall of Logan’s chest as he slept peacefully before her. He should have looked softer, she thought. More innocent and less dangerous, but that wasn’t the case. He still looked huge and strong and lethal, even in sleep. His muscles still bunched and rippled when he breathed, and occasionally his arms or legs would flex as he dreamed unknown dreams. She smiled and stepped silently forward, two long steps the only requirement to bring her to his side. She reached out to touch him, her fingers settling light as a feather on his shoulder.
She hesitated for a moment, watching his face intently in the moonlight, not yet wanting to wake him. She did want to wake him eventually—already the hunger built again inside her—just not yet.
His breathing remained smooth and even, though, and Honor grew bolder. Her hand settled on him more fully, her palm tingling with the heat of his skin. It stroked down across his collarbone and over his chest, marveling at the sculpted muscles she found. She leaned down, needing now to taste him, and pressed her mouth against the skin at the base of his throat. She laved her tongue against him and felt his heartbeat in her mouth, then drew at the flesh until it reddened from the suction.
Her hands slid slowly over his chest, savoring every texture, from smooth skin to rough hair. She felt him stir and lifted her head briefly, but his eyes remained closed and his breathing even so she lowered her mouth back to his skin and continued to explore.
She drew a moan from him when her thumbs found his tight, flat nipples and circled them with teasing pressure. She smiled against the center of his chest where her tongue drew intricate patterns on his warm skin. She let her thumbs and fingers and mouth play over his chest for long minutes before she decided to begin easing him from his dreams.
Climbing up onto the pallet beside him, she settled on her stomach with her head even with his chest and her breasts pressed up against his belly. She let her hands glide down over his chest and rib cage to his stomach, nails ever so slightly scraping his skin. He inhaled deeply, and Honor waited for his chest to expand fully before she laid her mouth over his nipple and drew deeply on the little disc.
Logan groaned, loud and deep, and his body flexed beneath her. Honor moved her mouth in a slick trail across the center of his chest until it could close around the other nipple, her tongue teasing the taut skin. Raising her eyes until she could see his face, limned silver and gold in the combination of moon- and firelight, she watched very carefully as her teeth closed around the point of his nipple and bit down gently. She knew the moment the sweet-sharp sensation registered in his sleep-charged brain, because his eyes flew open and his hands shot up to grab her and pull her closer.
But Honor had been watching him and she was not so easily caught.
She shimmied out of his sleep-slowed grip and pushed herself farther down the bed, licking a trail across his belly and hip until she could blow streams of hot, moist breath across his urgent arousal.
His cock stood eager and fully erect, straining against his belly in anticipation of her touch. But she didn’t touch it. Instead, she braced her hands on either side of his hips and set her tongue against the base for a long, slow lick to the top. Logan’s entire body tensed and then shuddered and he growled his pleasure, his hips lifting clear up off the mattress in search of the wet heat of her mouth. She eluded him, not yet ready to end her teasing. She loved the response she drew from him, loved this chance she had to explore him, now when he was too sleepy and aroused to take control as he had the other times they had made love.
She continued to lick him like a Popsicle, not taking him inside her mouth, just tasting his cock with the flat of her tongue from base to tip, over and over, while he
panted for breath. Finally, when he got enough air to groan her name in a nearly unintelligible rumble, she took pity on him and closed her mouth around the head of his cock, taking him deep inside.
He roared as if he’d just won a battle, and she felt his hands fisting in her hair, looking for something to hold onto in the midst of the mind-blowing pleasure. Honor shared that pleasure. She loved the taste and feel of him, stretching her jaws, pressing against her tongue, filling her senses with the salty-sweet taste of him.
She hummed her enjoyment and he groaned again. If she could have smiled with her mouth full she would have, but instead, she pulled back, drawing on his cock with firm suction. When she held just the head between her lips, her tongue stroked the sensitive bundle of nerves just under the crown, and she listened to him fight for air. The sounds and flavors of his arousal incited her own, until she could feel her own moisture slicking the insides of her thighs with sweet cream.
She drew him back inside, lips sliding down the length of his shaft until she could feel the head of him butting against the back of her throat. Then she pulled back again, drawing deeply and establishing a rhythm that made him throw back his head, dig his heels into the rough mattress, and chant her name like a mantra.
“Honey. Honey. Oh, shit … that’s so good … God. A little more, honey. Just a little more … I know you can do it … shit … oh, yeah … that’s a good girl…”
She glowed under his praise, working harder to please him, to tear those incredibly erotic words from his lips, the ones that made her pussy slicker and more needy with every passing second. The ache no longer mattered to her, though. All she wanted was to hear those words, to feel his fists clenching in her hair, or his shaking hands release her to pull her long, damp hair to the side until he could watch her mouth moving over his cock.
She whimpered her own arousal and worked him faster, but he’d already reached his breaking point. Grabbing her under the arms, he pulled her up his body until they pressed hip to hip, then he reached down to pry her legs apart.
“Now,” he ordered, his voice all dark gravel and need. “Ride me, honey. Want in you. My love. My mate.”
She moaned and obeyed. Her legs parted around his hips, and she pressed herself into a sitting position, straddling his lap. He wouldn’t let her tease him, though. Before she could even think, he had his hand between their bodies, guiding his cock to her dripping entrance, while his other hand gripped the flare of her hip and pushed her down to meet his upward thrust.
He sliced through her, pushing deep on that first stroke, but he satisfied neither of them. Suddenly both hands were on her hips and he forced her inexorably down, his cock surging high and hard inside her, filling every last corner and leaving her stretched and aching.
Breathless and nearly sobbing above him, Honor watched his face smooth from a fierce scowl to a look of complete ecstasy as he found his home again inside her body. He paused for barely a minute before the urgency was on him again and he began thrusting hard and rhythmically within her. Honor met him, thrust for thrust, taking all he had to give and returning eagerly for more. They moved together as if they were two parts of the same machine, fitting perfectly together and working in tandem at their appointed task.
They struggled together for their pleasure, but it felt like more than that. They moved and slid and strained against each other, but it seemed like a cooperative thing. She shifted her hips to let him slide a fraction deeper. He changed the angle of his thrust until he could reach the sweet bundle of nerves inside her and make her shiver with joy.
She braced her hands on his chest to keep herself steady, and he cradled her hips between his hands to be sure she didn’t fall away. They had become one. His pleasure was hers, her pleasure was his. The burst of ecstasy they shared at the end of the journey left them both breathless and aching and sure that the only way to stay sane in the future was to never be farther apart than the touch of the other’s loving hand.
Fourteen
Logan woke again, though this time not nearly as pleasantly as last time, when he felt Honor slip from the bed. For a minute he lay still, imagining she had just gone to add more wood to the fire, but he never heard the clunk of wood on wood or the crackle of renewed flames. Instead, he heard a rustle of cloth and the unmistakable click of the cabin door opening. When he heard it shutting, he frowned and threw off the blanket that covered him.
The night air bit at his bare ass as he stood and glanced around the cabin. He knew he had heard her putting on clothes—which was weird, considering they had both entered the building in wolf form and neither had been carrying a duffel bag—but no sweater or conveniently sized pair of jeans appeared for him. Instead, he yanked the door open and stalked outside buck naked. It wasn’t the first time he’d found himself bare assed, and the Goddess knew it wouldn’t be the last. Right now, the important thing was finding out where his mate had run off to.
And why.
It almost surprised him when he spotted her immediately, standing at the edge of the lake, her head tilted back, dark eyes fixed on the heavy, silver orb of the moon. It hung low in the sky, indicating the hours were transitioning from late to early. It was tomorrow now, the day he knew both of them had been dreading.
Stepping up behind Honor, he wrapped his arms around her and lowered his chin to the top of her head. “Looks like it will be morning soon.”
“Sunrise in another hour or two,” she agreed, not turning to look at him. Her eyes remained fixed on the moon.
Logan felt his mouth quirk. “This is the part of the movie where we wax all rhapsodic and romantic in the moonlight, isn’t it?”
Honor snorted. “Right, because there’s so much romance in this situation. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re not in a movie. No one is going to yell ‘Cut!’ and tell us to break for lunch. And definitely not during the final climactic battle sequence.”
He tried not to stiffen. “You’re picturing a final climactic battle sequence?”
“Aren’t you?”
“I’ve been hoping it wouldn’t come to that.”
“And I’ve been hoping for a pony and a big brass band. Luckily, I’m used to disappointment.”
Logan leaned back and grasped her shoulders, easing her around to face him. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you, Honor.”
“You’re not going to have a choice.”
He wanted to shake her, but he retained enough restraint to control himself. They hadn’t been talking for long. “You’re my mate. No matter what happens at tonight’s Howl, I will do whatever it takes to protect you. There’s not even a question about that, so just let it go.”
She sighed deeply. “See, that’s the problem. Well, two of them, really.”
He waited for an explanation.
“I was hoping to persuade you to leave at dawn. I know it sounds kind of melodramatic, but it really would be for the best.”
“Okay, let’s pretend that was ever a remote possibility. Why would you want me to go?”
Honor stepped to the side, and Logan reluctantly released her. He kept his eye on her, though, turning as she moved away from the water and stuffed her hands into the front pockets of her jeans. The motion drew her shoulders up around her ears, and he watched as she forced them back down.
“You know the situation I’m in,” she finally said, stopping in a clear ray of moonlight. “I won’t give up this pack. I won’t give up on this pack, but no one seems real inclined to just step aside and let me claim it as alpha. It’s funny, when I think about it, that if I’d just been born with a dick, none of this would be happening. You”—she glanced at him—“would never have even come here.”
“I also wouldn’t be your mate,” he pointed out dryly.
“True.” She shrugged. “For all it really matters.”
Logan felt a stab of anger, laced with something else, something uneasy. “Are you saying it doesn’t matter to you that we’re mated?”
; “I’m saying it doesn’t matter to the pack,” she corrected. “At least, it won’t tonight, and that’s when it counts.”
Logan frowned, letting that phrasing tumble around for a moment. It tugged at something, something tucked away in the back of his mind. Something that took that trace of unease and stretched it into real worry. He watched her while he thought, saw her expression reflect a mix of emotions: worry, anger, resignation, determination. Fear. Disgust.
And it hit him.
Felt like it literally hit him, like a kick to the solar plexus, nearly knocking the wind out of him.
“You think they’re going to call for an Alpha Mating Rite.”
Her mouth twisted. “I’m sure of it.”
Logan struggled for breath. Fury and fear threatened to rip it away again. Other males would try to hurt her, to touch her. To take her from him. And he would be powerless to stop it.
“You think they won’t recognize us as being mated. Why?” His mind raced. “Because you haven’t marked me? Well, fang up, sweetheart, and let’s get this done.”
“It wouldn’t make any difference. Sure, they’ll point to that, but even if I did mark you, it wouldn’t matter. You’re not a member of the pack, and I’m claiming to be alpha. Only a pack member can mate a female alpha; you know that. It keeps rogues from being able to come in and seize control of a pack too easily. You know, because we females are clearly too weak to hold them off.”
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