by Eva Chase
“That’s ridiculous,” I said. “If anything, they should be jealous. You can fly.”
He chuckled. “Of course you’d appreciate that. But it is what it is. And even among my own people—I’ve told you how important it is to me to lead with my mind more than my animal side. That’s not a common attitude among shifters of any kin-group. Some of my kin have been wary of my interest in learning and history. There’ve been more than a few who thought it meant I was making up for a lack of the ‘real’ strength an alpha needs to lead.”
I gave him a look up and down, knowing my appreciation of his sculpted body must show in my expression. “So, those people must have been blind, I’m guessing.”
Aaron’s smile grew into a grin. “It’s easy for people to distrust what they don’t understand. But I’ve proven myself by now, more than once. When push came to shove, and I had the opportunity to let go—to let the alpha role pass to someone else—I knew I couldn’t. That I wanted this. That I was meant for it. And here I still am.”
I hesitated, remembering what he’d told me before about how another shifter could become the alpha. “You had to fight. People challenged you?”
“Yeah.” The good humor in his expression faded for a moment. He glanced away, toward the trees, recalling events I could tell he didn’t enjoy thinking about. “The worst was one of my advisors. He got used to having the extra authority. When I turned twenty-one and was meant to take over my full role as alpha, he attacked me. I hated having to fight him. He’d been like an uncle to me. But I was smarter and faster, and that can beat brutality if you know how to use it.”
“And here you still are,” I said, repeating his words back to him.
“Here I am.” He drew his gaze back to me. Right then it was so intense I almost forgot how to breathe. My heart thumped faster.
He wasn’t just strong and overwhelmingly sexy. He was good. Thoughtful and brave and compassionate. The kind of man I’d never been sure I’d be able to have in my life. The kind of man I could fall in love with.
Not just could. I was already falling. Right into those clear blue eyes.
“Well, as far as I’m concerned, anyone who thinks you’re anything less than those other guys is an idiot,” I said, for something to say. “As well as being blind.”
“Probably,” Aaron said agreeably. “I don’t worry about it anymore. And I find it equally hard to believe that anyone could be around you and think you’re anything less than a true shifter. It’s in your blood. That’s all that matters. The rest will fall into place.”
My fingers had curled into the front of his shirt without my even noticing. I tugged, and he came to me.
He kissed me hard this time, nudging me a step backward so I could lean against the trunk of a tree. So I didn’t even have to think about staying upright, only about the heat of his body against me and the slide of his mouth against mine. His hand traveled down my side to my thigh and back up to my shoulder, as if he wasn’t sure what part of me he wanted to touch most.
Everywhere. I wanted him everywhere.
His hips brushed mine, and an ache started to form between my legs. Where Nate had gotten me off so skillfully less than a day ago. I whimpered as Aaron stroked my breast through another kiss, but one last thread of uncertainty held me back.
I grasped the side of Aaron’s face. He eased back to meet my gaze. His was full of desire, so hot every nerve inside me caught fire.
My voice came out ragged. “You don’t mind, do you, that it’s not just you? That I’m supposed to be with the other guys too?” That I had been, in ways he’d witnessed or at least sensed.
Aaron bumped his nose against mine in an affectionate nuzzle. “Not at all,” he murmured. “You deserve nothing less. It takes more than one man to satisfy a dragon.” His fingers teased up under my shirt. I arched my back off the tree trunk to give him room to unclasp my bra. He circled my nipple with his thumb before flicking right over it with a speed that made me gasp.
“You deserve every bit of pleasure they can give you,” he went on, moving to caress my other breast. He kissed the corner of my jaw, the sensitive skin of my throat. His words spilled out with his heated breath. “Anything that fulfills you, whoever it’s with, fulfills me too. The flush in your cheeks after you’ve been kissed. The sound you make when you come.”
So he had heard Nate and me in the back of the car. My face outright flared. But, God, Aaron was turning me on so much with every graze of his lips, every stroke of his fingers.
“I’m looking forward to someday seeing how much pleasure we can bring you together,” he said. “But for now...”
His hands slid down my body. I whimpered, my hips canting toward his. Seeking every inch of contact I could get.
“I need to see you,” he muttered. He yanked my shirt up. I raised my arms so he could pull it off in one smooth movement. My bra slid from my shoulders to fall to the ground by our feet. Aaron took me in, my smallish breasts with the nipples pebbled from his attentions, the flush creeping down between them. Then he ducked his head to suck one of those peaks into his mouth.
I moaned, pleasure racing over my skin. His steady tongue slicked over my breast with the slightest graze of his teeth, until I was trembling against him, my fingers tangled in his hair. He gave the nipple one last lick before attending to my other breast with equal enthusiasm.
It wasn’t nearly enough for the hunger inside me. I grasped the hem of his shirt. “Off,” I gasped. “Now.”
He wrenched it over his head faster than I’d have thought possible, with the snap of at least one button. Somehow that turned me on even more. I seemed to have no limit when it came to these guys.
He claimed my mouth again with an urgent fervor. The press of his bare chest against mine drew another moan out of me. My fingernails sketched lines up the muscles of his back. He hefted me as if I weighed nothing at all, bracing me higher against the tree with one hand supporting my ass and my legs splayed. I gripped my thighs around his. The hard length of him pressed against my core, and I whimpered.
Aaron rocked against me as he leaned in for another, even deeper kiss. I could feel the strength coiled all through him, holding me up, but also braced to withdraw the second I told him to stop. Pleasure rushed through me, but suddenly the sweep of it didn’t feel unnerving at all.
I was exactly where I wanted to be. I belonged here, with this man, in every way he wanted to be with me.
Giving in to my desires wasn’t letting go of control. It was taking it. Grasping hold of the destiny I’d never imagined and claiming it as mine.
The second I made the decision, a hum of power rose up inside me, stronger than I’d ever felt before. I linked my arms behind Aaron’s neck and dipped my head between one kiss and the next.
“I want this,” I said, breathless, “I want you.”
He hesitated, searching my eyes, a wildness in his. “Do you mean—”
“Aaron,” I said, as clearly as I could manage. “Be my mate?”
A strangled laugh burst out of him, as if he couldn’t quite believe what I’d said. He crushed his mouth against mine, kissing me until I was dizzy. I fumbled with the button of his slacks. My hand brushed over his erection, and he groaned.
“I think we’d better take this to the ground,” he said, guiding me away from the tree. He grabbed his shirt and stretched it over the dirt before he laid me down in it. “For our first time, anyway.”
“Lots of time to experiment later,” I said, and his eyes flashed even hotter. He kicked off his pants. I couldn’t wait to touch his cock. The huge, hard length of him pulsed against my palm through his boxers.
Aaron bowed his head, exhaling with a stutter. Holding himself over me with one arm, he dipped the other hand down between my legs. A mewing sound escaped me as he stroked me there. My breath broke into panting as he slipped his fingers under the band of my sweatpants. My sex was already slick with my arousal. He trailed his hand over that wetness and muffled anoth
er groan in my hair.
“Please,” I said. He didn’t need me to beg more than that. He jerked off my pants and panties together and wrenched off his boxers. My hips arched up as he settled between my legs. The head of his cock rubbed over my opening. I pulled his mouth back to mine.
He kissed me and eased inside at the same time. His hardness filled me with a burning sensation, but it was oh so good. I was filled, completely, and it was everything I needed.
“You feel amazing, Serenity,” he murmured between kisses. He lifted my hips higher and thrust into me with a steadily building rhythm. I clung on to him as the swell of pleasure carried me higher. Up and up, until it shuddered through my whole body. Until I barely felt the ground beneath me.
We were flying. Soaring up and away on a haze of bliss. No leap or fall had come close to comparing to this exhilaration.
His cock nudged against the sweetest spot inside me, and the bliss shattered apart. It radiated through my entire body, tossing me even higher. I gasped, digging my fingernails into his shoulders. Sparks flared behind my fluttering eyelids. The pull between us solidified into a solid glow that bound us together. It lit me up like a flare from the inside.
Aaron’s thrusts turned erratic. He pumped into me a few more times and moaned as he followed me over the edge. His body settled over mine, resting against me but not pinning me down. Every inch of his naked skin aligned with mine.
I traced my fingers back up his neck and into his sweat-damp hair to draw him down for one last kiss. My muscles trembled with release—and happiness.
I had him. My eagle shifter. My alpha.
My mate.
Chapter 20
Ren
I woke up cuddled against Aaron on the middle seat of the SUV. Daylight was streaming through the windows. My head still felt fuzzy from not quite enough sleep, and various parts of my body ached, but in an enjoyable way. I had no desire at all to get up.
I buried my head into the crook of Aaron’s neck. The wonderful salty fresh smell of his skin filled my nose. We’d gotten dressed before we’d finally made it the rest of the way back to the car, but I hadn’t been quite ready to let go of him yet. It was a tight fit, our legs intertwined and him half on top of me, and yet I felt totally at home tangled there with him.
My mate. The knowledge thrummed through my veins. Only the first, if I fulfilled my role completely, but right now one was plenty.
Knuckles rapped against the window over my head. I blinked and peered up at it. Aaron brushed a kiss to my temple before raising his head.
Marco looked in at us, his eyebrows arched. He opened the door a few inches to talk. “Wolf boy found us some eggs. You’d better get up if you want to grab them before our resident bear eats them all.”
“I’m leaving plenty for the rest of you,” Nate said from somewhere behind him. Marco dipped his head and shut the door again.
Did his expression look a little tighter than usual? Something about his stance had felt off. He wasn’t upset seeing me with Aaron, was he? He knew how this was supposed to work just as well as the others did.
Probably it was my insecurities messing with my head. Out of the four guys, Marco seemed the least likely to get possessive. The way he carried himself, the way he talked, I was pretty sure he hadn’t let a little discomfort stop him from enjoying all the pleasures of the body with other women while he’d waited those sixteen years for me.
Aaron straightened up, tugging me with him. He slid his fingers into my hair and kissed me again, on the lips this time. His mouth lingered against mine just long enough for me to start wishing we could launch into a sequel to last night’s activities right now. Then he pulled back with a sheepish smile. His blond hair was delightfully rumpled. I couldn’t resist ruffling it a little more for good measure.
He laughed. “I guess we really should get some breakfast. We don’t know what’s waiting for us in Sunridge.”
Right. My giddiness faded as nervous anticipation coiled around my gut. I clambered out of the van. Nate looked up from where he was scraping at fried eggs on a metal sheet over the fire, the corners of his lips curling up when he caught my eye. Oh, he knew what I’d gotten up to with Aaron last night, all right. And from the slant of West’s eyebrows as he very definitely didn’t meet my eyes, it was obvious the wolf shifter did too.
Well, we hadn’t exactly tried to hide our new intimacy. What else did I expect? It was only going to get weirder as I accepted each of the others as mates too... whenever I felt ready to do that.
I had plenty of other bigger concerns to tackle first. “How far off are we from Sunridge?” I asked the camp at large.
Aaron got out his phone to check the map, but West spoke up first. “About two hours, depending on the roads. Are you in a hurry, Sparks?”
I gave him a pointed look. “I’ve been wanting to know what happened to my mother for seven years, Wolfie. So yeah, I might be a little impatient.”
Marco snickered at the nickname, and Nate covered a guffaw. West glowered at me. “I guess you’d better get eating then.”
Nate handed me a plate, and I gulped down the flame-cooked eggs with one of the rolls the villagers had sent us off with. We piled into the SUV, West and Aaron taking their original places up front. “Come join me, Princess of Flames,” Marco said, patting the middle seat beside him, so I did. As Nate climbed into the back and West started the ignition, the jaguar shifter squeezed my knee briefly—just long enough to send a spark of heat up my leg.
Marco grinned at me, looking more relaxed now. I smiled back, but the view beyond the windshield pulled my gaze away. Down the road, where the forest thinned, tall mountains rose. A faint dusting of snow gleamed on the highest of the dark gray peaks. Sunridge lay just beyond that first range.
“Have you remembered anything that might explain why your mom sent us on this little road trip?” Macro asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t think she ever mentioned Wyoming. Are there any important shifter communities nearby?”
“Not that I’m aware of. But I’m sure the dragon shifters kept a few secrets to themselves.”
He took my hand as we drove on, idly trailing his fingers back and forth over my palm, but he didn’t push for any more contact than that. As much as I enjoyed the warmth of his touch, I was too distracted to want more.
Two hours, and I might finally get some answers. I might even see Mom again. The jitters of anticipation returned, fluttering around my stomach.
West eased on the gas as the road narrowed. It veered up, winding along a pass between two of the mountains. Stray rocks rattled against the SUV’s undercarriage. The sunlight dimmed, hidden behind the southern peak.
“There’s someone on the road,” Aaron said. West slowed the car even more. He hit the button to lower his window and inhaled to scent the air. I leaned forward, peering between the front seats. A figure was standing in our lane a few hundred feet ahead of us—a young guy who didn’t look much past his teens.
“He’s one of us,” West said. “Feline from the smell of him.” He glanced back at Marco. “Do you know him?”
“Right,” Marco drawled. “Because all us feline-kin must know each other.” He narrowed his eyes. “No, he doesn’t look familiar, but that doesn’t mean much.”
“Can you tell if he’s one of the rogues?” I asked. “How do you know who’s kin and who isn’t?”
“Kin take a mark of loyalty, like our alpha mark, on their palms,” Aaron said. “If someone once kin goes rogue, the mark fades. We’ll need to get closer to know.”
“I don’t like this,” Nate said from behind me. “It’s too much of a coincidence.”
“I don’t like it either,” West said. “But some of my kin back in the village knew where we were headed. They might have passed on word if there was bad news from another group. I can’t just run the guy over without knowing.”
“Well, you could,” Marco said. “If he’s anyone’s kin, he’s mine. You have my full perm
ission to plow right into him. If he’s got half a survival instinct, he’ll jump out of the way in time.”
“Right,” West said with an obvious edge of sarcasm. “That’ll really improve kin-group relations.”
Marco dragged in a breath. “Whatever you want, wolf boy. He’s just a bobcat. I’m sure between the four of us we can take him if we need to.”
But could we take whatever allies the stranger might have lurking nearby? My body tensed as we came up on the guy, the SUV rolling to a stop. I scanned the mountainside along the road. Nothing moved, but there were way too many crags and boulders that could be concealing an enemy.
The guy started ambling toward the car. West glanced back at Marco. “As you pointed out, jaguar boy, he’d be your kin. You go talk to him. If something goes wrong, I’m sure you can jump right back in the car as we speed out of here.”
His voice was dry, but a thread of tension ran through it. He’d left one hand on the steering wheel, gripping it tightly. Aaron eyed the guy through the windshield. In the back seat, Nate undid his seatbelt. Preparing in case he needed to shift, I guessed. We were all on high alert.
Marco muttered something about “ungrateful canines,” but he got up and slid open the door. “Stay right there, princess,” he told me. He hopped out and sauntered up the road to meet the stranger. “Kin mark?” he asked.
The guy started to raise his hand—and two sharp cracks split the air. The same sharp, echoing sound I’d heard in my memory of my mother’s desperate flight with me from our old home.
The SUV hitched, with a sputtering sound from one of the tires. Marco’s shoulder jerked. He stumbled sideways, clutching his chest just below his collarbone. Blood bloomed beneath his fingers.
My heart stopped. Gunshots. That’s what that sound was.
The rogues didn’t care about shifter law, obviously. They’d brought guns to this fight—and to that one long ago.
“Marco!” West hollered. He pressed on the gas pedal, but the deflated tire thumped weakly against the pavement. “Shit. I’ll get him. Stay low.”
