by T. S. Joyce
“Do you have a guess who is hunting us?”
It was Grey who spoke up. “Bentley is a Dunn lion cub. We know the Dunns will come for him at some point. That time might be now.”
Lynn nearly choked on air. “Lions? Fuck. And I made it worse, pulling Barret into that fight with the Cold Mountain Pride.”
Grey shrugged one shoulder up. “Bentley is safe. The cubs are safe, Jenny is safe, her unborn cub is safe, and Amberlynn is safest with your parents until this is done. The cubs…they’re what matter. No more war-talk. You’re finally home, and tonight we celebrate.”
“With girly booze!” Anson called from the other room.
She shook off the nerves and giggled. “Okay, no more war-talk.” She made her way past Grey and Ben, but hesitated at the door. “Grey?”
“Yeah?”
“Stay near me when the time comes, okay?”
His blond brows drew down slightly, but he nodded. “Okay. I’ll protect you.”
She smiled. There was no point in telling him he was going to be the one who needed protecting. She understood dominant males well enough that it would mind-fuck him before the fight. So she nodded and said, “I know you will,” and made her way out to take a hideous pink shot Barret handed her. There was purple sugar and a pink Starburst candy on the rim of the pink plastic cup, but she took a picture because this made her happy, and she was determined to document her happiness for Jathan until they were together again.
Getting wild tonight, she messaged him, then attached the picture of her drink. Send.
Jathan responded almost instantly. Thata girl. You were always wild. It’s sexy as fuck. Take one for me tonight. I’m right here with you always.
Lynn’s cheeks heated with pleasure, and she read his text three times. She really loved him.
What are you doing? Send.
Barret interrupted her mushy musings, lifted his purple cup to Anson, and gave the worst toast ever. “To midnight landscape pee-pees. Oh, and the fish you found on your roof the other day was also me.”
Anson shoved him in the shoulder, but drank anyway. So did the others. Lynn tossed hers back just as her phone dinged.
It was a picture. A selfie. In it there was a big, tattooed, burly, sexy man with dark eyes and dark hair. Her man. And in his arm was cradled a little red-headed baby who was fast asleep with her lips all puckered and her face smushed up in a sleep frown. One side of his body was in shadow as though he was sitting in a dark room, and the other was lit by the artificial light of a lamp. It took her breath away as her heart melted. Jathan’s smile was just a slight curve, but there was adoration in it. This was beautiful to witness, her mate taking care of her child and bonding with her, even when Lynn wasn’t there to ask him to do these things.
Oh, and also this… Jathan messaged. Next was a picture of him with a dead-eyed, unamused look, still cradling Amberlynn, but the camera was angled over his shoulder where Willa was standing there with her hands clasped in front of her mouth, staring down at the baby.
Ma won’t leave me alone now. Get better fast so we can join you. They’re gonna start calling me Crazy Jathan around here if I have to listen to all Ma’s grandparent plans anymore.
Lynn responded with, Oh my God, these are my favorite pictures ever and I’m going to frame them.
Don’t encourage her. Another image came through, and it was of Amberlynn sitting outside on a blanket surrounded by a tea party set. Fake butterflies hung on strands of fishing line from the tree she sat under. She was dressed as a worm.
Lynn gasped. This is the cutestfuckingthing I’ve ever seen!
Lynn, I miss you. I know why you have to do this on your own right now, but I really fucking miss you.
His seriousness drew her up short. It had never been like this with another man. Never before had anyone been able to get her heartbeat galloping with one sweet sentence. He actually wanted to be around her, like she wasn’t a burden.
Jathan empowered her in ways she never thought a man could even do.
Miss you too. My chest hurts sometimes when I think about you. Send.
Not for long. That’s just the bond digging at us for being apart. You’ve got this. You’re doing so fucking good. I can tell. I’m really, really proud of you, Lynn. My mate is a monstah. I’m a lucky man.
He sent an image of her fighting the grizzly shifter, Bruiser, of the Ashe Crew.
Be the badass.
She huffed a laugh and shook her head. She really was a monstah, but Jathan seemed to like that about her, so okay. She was owning it.
That night, she drank with her crew. Too much perhaps, but it was fun, easy, and when they were tipsy and tired, they all sat on floors and chairs and couches in her living room and talked all night. She told them everything—what it was like when she was broken, what it was like when she disappeared, and she swallowed her fears and admitted all her sins and the guilt she’d carried that had gotten her to where she was in this moment. She told her crew everything, and somehow, someway, she felt lighter afterward. Jathan was already carrying the weight with her, and now her crew was too. Now they understood her better.
And in her heart, she knew things were going to be easier tomorrow because she didn’t feel like an outsider anymore. She was Red Havoc through and through. She always had been, but things had gotten complicated the more she kept her pain to herself.
Not anymore.
With each regret she’d admitted out loud to her friends, another stitch had closed the wounds of her soul.
And when Grey twitched his head toward the front door and told her, “Time to Change on purpose,” she only hesitated a moment.
Giving Monster her body after such progress was terrifying, but she needed to keep pushing her in the right direction, test her inner animal to gauge where her recovery was. Plus, Red Havoc was Changing with her. They were grizzlies, panthers, lions, and falcons, and Lynn wouldn’t be alone with this Change. Not this time.
She followed her crew out the door, and when they had all Changed and were standing there under the full moonlight, waiting on her, she blinked on purpose. And time was lost, but only for a moment as her body changed to that of her panther. And then she was there, with Monster. She was actually present. She could see and feel and hear and control the animal’s body, and she screamed out in triumph because it had been so long since she’d felt the breeze through her fur or heard the forest sounds with her sensitive ears.
After a few seconds, the roars and victorious cries of her crew lifted into the night air to answer her call.
And she was exactly as she was supposed to be.
Chapter Seventeen
One week had been an eternity. She missed everything about Jathan, but she’d done it. She’d put in the work and bonded to her crew again. She was finding herself, both sides, Monster and Lynn, trying her best to make them more like one and less like two.
The crew had lifted her up when she needed it and given her space when she’d asked. Eden had bullied them into backing off any time she had said, “I need a minute.”
Lynn held in a squeal of excitement as she connected the call. She leaned her back against the brick wall of Jessie’s Brewskies where she’d excused herself from her shot-guzzling crew to call her mate. It was pouring down rain, and buckets of water were streaming from the awning she stood under, splashing to the ground and getting her flip-flops wet, but she didn’t care. She bit her lip as the phone rang and rang again.
“Hey,” Jathan greeted her in that deep, rumbling voice she’d spent hours every night talking too. “Tell me you have good news for me, woman. I’m dying here.”
“You can’t die. I need your dick.”
He laughed and said, “Ask me then.”
She made him wait a few seconds and tried to make her voice serious. “When I left Damon’s Mountains—”
“Oh, my God, what’s happening?” Jathan asked, panic in his voice. “Are you ending this?”
“Just kiddiiiiiin
g,” she sang.
On a breath, Jathan muttered, “Oooh mother-fucking fuck you scared me. Don’t do that. I already packed up my damn trailer and gave Creed my notice.”
Fighting back laughter, Lynn wrapped her free arm around her stomach and stomped on the ground in quick succession to get some of the excitement out. “Jathan Barns, will you move out here and make a life with me? Will you be part of my crew and have sex with me whenever I want and make me pizza rolls when I’m hungry and protect me from wasps because I super-hate wasps. And will you promise to stick with me even if I still disappear sometimes? And will you be good to me and Amberlynn when I get well enough to bring her home?” She sighed to expel some of the nerves. “Will you be a family with me?”
A few breaths went by before Jathan murmured in a soft, serious tone, “It’s just…”
“Stop,” she demanded through a nervous laugh.
“Lynn…I’m already here.”
“What?”
“I’ve been here for two damn days, staying in Saratoga because I couldn’t keep away from you. I was fighting so hard to give you space to do what you needed on your own, but I’ve been in a motel here since Wednesday. I couldn’t stand the thought of an upcoming war for your crew and me being so far away. I’m yours, little badass. I was just waiting on you to tell me you were ready. I was already your family. Amberlynn’s, too. I have been since the day I bit you. I meant that claiming mark, Lynn. You girls have me.”
Her stomach erupted in butterflies, and completely stunned, she stared at the cracks in the parking lot in front of her. “I don’t have to wait to see you?”
“Nope. Give me five minutes to pack up at the hotel. I’m at a coffee shop right now, walkin’ out to the truck.”
“You didn’t bring the Harley?”
“Of course I brought the Harley. I hauled that thing in a trailer with the rest of my belongings. I’m moving in, woman. Make me some room in your closet.”
She belted out a laugh. “I’ll give you three inches.”
“I give you six inches,” he said in a sultry voice. She could imagine him arching his eyebrow at her as he told that joke.
“Perv.”
“You like it.”
Genevieve opened the door to Jessie’s and signed, Are you okay?
Lynn nodded and mouthed, I’ll be right in.
“Uh, hold up on coming out here,” she said to Jathan as she watched Gen duck back inside the bar. “We’re in town.”
“For what?”
“Beer?”
Jathan chuckled. “Is the crew partying tonight?”
“Um, you know how you said you wanted six dates?”
“Mmm hmmm,” he drawled out.
“Well, would a night at Jesse’s Brewskies with me and a crew of delinquent shifters count as a date?”
She could hear the smile in his voice when he said, “Hell yeah. I’ll be there in a minute. I’ll bring the truck so we can fuck.”
Lynn cracked up, was smiling so big her face hurt. “So romantic and poetic.”
“I’m only sweet and well-mannered for you. God, I can’t wait to get both my hands on your ass. I wanna grab it so bad.”
As much as his joking amused her, he was also turning her on right now. He’d revved her up for seven damn days with his nighttime dirty talks. “Touch you in a few minutes,” she murmured cheekily.
“Fuck. Yes. I’m ready.” The line went dead, and now the nervous flutters were warring with the butterflies.
She hadn’t seen him in a few days, and she’d gone through a lot of changes since she’d been in Damon’s Mountains. What if he didn’t like the person she was becoming? What if who she was didn’t work for him anymore?
Stop it. He likes strong women, he’s been telling you to be the badass, he’ll like you just fine. Probably.
She paced the sidewalk, stepping over dandelions that had stubbornly grown in the cracks, avoiding the spots where the rain was pouring over the side of the roof. She couldn’t believe she got to see him so soon. She’d expected to have to wait a few days while he got things in order and traveled here, but there was zero wait time. But also zero time to prepare for his arrival. She probably would’ve worn something sexier than cut-off jean shorts and an old, threadbare Moosey’s Bait and BBQ T-shirt she got when she was in high school. Her two-dollar flip-flops clacked with each step. He probably wouldn’t care that she hadn’t dressed up…right? Crap, why was she so nervous all the sudden? Be the badass. Oh God, there was his truck. Jacked up, black-on-black F-150 with a Grizzly & Proud sticker in the back window.
Her nerves disappeared the second he parked, kicked open his door, and locked eyes on her. His whole face transformed into a grin as he dragged his hungry gaze down her body, pausing on her curves. He wore a black baseball cap and a black T-shirt that was tight on his torso and muscular arms, highlighting all those sexy tattoos. The rain made darker spots all over his shoulders as he stood there. He was as tall as his lifted truck and as wide as the broadside of a barn, with a thick muscular neck she wanted to bite for some reason she wasn’t going to think about too much.
Lynn bolted for him and didn’t slow at all as he jogged toward her. He leaned down slightly with his arms out and caught her full force against his chest. He grunted but didn’t even stumble under her weight. Losing her mind, she wrapped her legs around his waist and laid kisses down his cheek to his neck where she clamped down her teeth as the rain poured on them.
“Gonna get yourself fucked right here if you don’t quit it, you bitey little thing,” Jathan snarled.
He pulled the back of her hair, easing her off his throat, and then his lips crashed onto hers. Rough man gripped her hair even tighter and plunged his tongue into her mouth over and over, possessing her completely, owning her, dominating the kiss until nothing existed outside of where their bodies touched.
“I missed you, I missed you, I love you, I love you,” she murmured mindlessly against his lips as she clung to his neck tightly.
His hands were rough in her hair and on her ass. She hoped he left a bruise back there. Her shifter healing was getting faster the stronger she got, but at least it might stay for an hour. She wanted to be marked by him. Wanted it rough right now.
With a low, rumbling snarl in his chest, Jathan spun them around and strode for his truck. “I can’t wait. I was gonna try to, but I can’t. I need to be inside you now. Right fuckin’ now.”
Yes, yes, yes to all of that. He yanked open the driver’s side door of his truck, and she scrambled across the console to her seat. As soon as he was settled behind the wheel, she slid one hand up his shirt and the other into the waist of his jeans.
As her fingers brushed the swollen head of his cock, she gave a purr of relief. Mine. All mine.
The engine roared to life. Jathan wore a wicked grin on his face as he slid his hand behind her head and pulled her face gently toward his lap. Sexy Bad Bear.
As he hit the gas and drove the truck out of the parking lot, she unfastened his jeans and unsheathed him, then slid her lips over his hard cock. She’d almost forgotten how big he was. Jathan groaned and rocked his hips up as she took him. His hand was still in her hair, but he wasn’t forcing her lower. When she took him in her mouth again, he rolled his hips to the pace she set. He muttered a cuss word, and the steering wheel creaked with the grip of his hand as he drove. Ooooh, she loved this kind of control.
She sped up her rhythm when he groaned again. His leg muscles twitched under her hand, and she gripped him at the base and sucked hard on him.
The truck rocked to a stop. He pulled her up and shoved his jeans down his thighs. “Ride me,” he growled out, yanking the button on her shorts.
Oh, hell yes. It was dark where he’d parked, on the edge of some woods. On the right of the truck, there was a chain-link fence surrounding a small power plant in the middle of the woods. On the left, she could see Jessie’s Brewskies through the trees. They were on some sort of gravel road. It was complet
ely dark, and the moonlight peeking through the clouds in the distance cast everything in a blue hue.
Desperately, Lynn shoved out of her shorts and panties, kicked them off her ankles, and crawled over the console. Jathan gripped her hips and threw his head back against the seat when she slid over his cock. She was tight but wet enough to take him.
“Fuck, you feel so good,” he groaned. He slid deeper into her and then with a hard grip on her hips, eased her up, then slammed her down again.
Lynn snarled and clenched the back of his dark hair, lifted her chin, and shook her head slowly. She wanted control tonight. A slow, feral smile took Jathan’s lips, and his eyes blazed an inhuman green. Sexy, sexy, sexy man.
Lynn let him drive deep into her, but then stayed there, rocking gently, rocking slowly, torturing him as he gripped her ass. He was trying to let her keep control, she could tell, but every few strokes, he would let off an impatient growl and grit his teeth. Oh, he felt so good, bumping her clit with each rock of their hips, and now the pressure was building in her center. Wrapping her arms around his neck and smashing her chest to his, she sped up. She moaned at how good he felt that deep inside of her. Faster, faster they slammed against each other, and he was snarling constantly now. His lips would go to her neck, then her mouth, to her neck, to her mouth.
When his hand went up her shirt and slipped under her bra, she tossed her head back, his name riding her lips. Rough man, rough hands, calloused and strong from the work he did. So close.
“Louder,” he gritted out. “Fucking scream it.”
“Jathan!”
Orgasm exploded through her body, rocking her to the core as Jathan lurched against her. His thick shaft throbbed inside of her, over and over, matching her release and filling her with warmth. His arms shook as he held her tightly against him, bucking into her body, emptying himself completely. He slowed, smoothing out his rhythm, pulsing softly into her, pulling every last aftershock of her release from her. Good man, coveting her, even after he’d had his fill. His hands gentled on her ass, and eventually, they slid up her back. And when they stilled, melted against each other, completely spent, he just hugged her. He held her and pressed his lips gently to her cheek, nose, neck , ears and then her lips, as if he hadn’t tasted her in years instead of just a week.
