“Are you okay?” Jagger stepped forward. “You’re looking a little … strange.”
How did he answer? The truth seemed to be the best way, simply because Jagger would be sure to know a lie. “I’m looking strange because I feel it. I’ve never been fully integrated before, with my pack, and I just sensed you. You’re feeling uneasy and angry. It’s more intense than normal shifter abilities, and it caught me off guard.”
His friend tipped his chin, then moved right up to him, his hand landing on his shoulder, his eyes boring into his. “I’m sorry about your past. I knew you’d had it rough, but I didn’t know that. If I had, I would’ve warned you. You won’t be able to read minds or anything, but yeah, you’ll feel if we’re upset. Oh, and we can talk to each other in wolf form. In mind-speak, so don’t let it freak you out when you transform if any of us are nearby.”
“We can talk to other wolves?” Asher asked, shocked, the thought of anyone being inside his head not something he looked forward to. “You’d be in my mind?”
Jagger chuckled before shaking his head, then moving away to grab another couple of beers and throwing one his way. “Catch, and no, of course not. We’re not in each other’s head, we can just talk to each other. It’s a little difficult to explain, but the first chance we get, I’ll show you. Just the two of us, to get you used to it. How does that sound?”
“Weird.” Asher finished his beer and promptly popped the new one. “Is how it sounds, freaky and weird as f…”
“What are you two talking about?” Savannah appeared with her hands full of a tray topped with steaming casserole.
“Nothing much, just shooting the breeze.” Jagger stepped up. “Can I help you with that?”
“Nope, I got it.” Savannah placed it on the table, then transferred the dish into the middle before hurrying back inside. “Dinner will be served in a few, and Storm says to pour the wine.”
“I’ll get the wine. You can take a seat and relax.” Jagger disappeared inside, but Asher waited, everything he and Jagger spoke about running around inside his brain.
Nash still being in the area a possibility, still a threat to Savannah, and causing his belly to clench painfully. If a man like him got her in his grasp … fuck. No. He couldn’t bear to think about it. Instead, he focused on the view before him, the beauty of the river running not far from Jagger’s home, which he knew would be great for fishing, and the forest surrounding him. It was one of the most stunning areas he’d seen, and he was certain it was ripe for hunting, both in wolf and human form.
His own cabin was set in a lush, peaceful location. One he needed after his years in the military with some of his deployments in areas that were anything but peaceful. Now he needed to adjust to life outside the force and learn to live a normal life, one he hoped to be a happy one. One with a future and a pack around him … one he never thought to have. He knew when he returned there’d be trouble. Knew it as well as he knew his damn name, but the outcome wasn’t one so certain. A lone wolf traveling around was a distinct option … only he called Jagger asking if he knew of any jobs, and he not only helped him by getting him one, but a home and a place in the pack also.
“Damn.” Asher let out a long sigh, knowing things could’ve gone so differently if not for making the call.
“What’s wrong? You look deep in thought and sad,” Savannah asked quietly.
He looked down to find her standing right next to him, a glass of wine in her hand, and her dark green eyes staring at him with a strange look … as if she was trying to see deep inside him to figure out what he was thinking. She couldn’t do it, of course not, but it looked like she was giving it a good try.
“Just thinking about how beautiful this place is and how peaceful. It’s a stark contrast to my last deployment, but very welcome.”
“Where were you?” Savannah leaned into him, leaving hardly any space between them.
He wanted more, wanted her body to touch him, craved it. Damn, what the hell was going on? He liked her. No denying it, but craving her in such a way … it was alien to him to feel like this. Even though she was hot as Hades, and she smelled fucking divine, he sure as hell shouldn’t be reacting like this.
“I can’t tell you.” He smirked down at her. “If I did, I’d have to kill you. Top secret and all that.”
Her heart sped up, her breath hitched, then she hit his chest and laughed. “You’re joking. Aren’t you? You are … right?”
“What’s going on with you two?” Storm appeared with plates, Jagger right behind her, and they finished setting up the table for dinner.
Savannah turned, her face flushed and her voice flippant. “Nothing much. He’s just threatened to kill me, that’s all.”
Storm stopped with her hands mid-air, her face lost color, then her eyes flew to him. “What? Did I hear right? Do you care to explain yourself, Asher?”
Storm’s eyes then flew to Jagger, who looked at his mate, then Savannah, then to him, his friend shrugged but did appear confused by what was happening. So, Asher decided he should put them out of their misery before things grew out of hand. He didn’t want to ruin the mood, or the dinner. Storm’s dinner smelled delicious and he was hungry, with his belly rumbling to tell everyone just how much.
“Savannah is being dramatic. She asked me where I’d been on my last deployment and I said I couldn’t tell her, or if I did, I’d have to kill her, as it was top secret. It was a joke, sort of. I couldn’t tell her, and it was secret, but no, I wouldn’t kill her.”
Storm visibly relaxed, throwing an exasperated look over at Savannah while Jagger smirked, and Savannah shrugged. “I didn’t know he was joking. How could I possibly know?”
The look on her face was pure as the driven snow, but she wasn’t fooling anyone. Storm sighed, then shook her head at her, as if she was chastising a misbehaving child while Jagger did his best not to laugh.
He looked down at Savannah, taking in her pale face with her cheeks flushed, but his eyes saw the vein in her neck pulsing, and he clearly heard her heart picking up while he scrutinized her. His nostrils flared, inhaling her scent, marveling at the intoxicating aroma, and how it set his senses on fire. Her beautiful emerald eyes appeared darker now as she kept them locked with his, sending waves of … something to fire up inside him. Desire? Definitely, but he felt more inside him, igniting and firing up, heating his skin as if he were standing in front of a blazing fire. His voice low and rough when he talked just to her … like they were alone. As if Storm and Jagger weren’t there. What the hell was happening between them?
“You did know, Savannah.” His voice dropped lower, hungry, like he wanted her right there. “You’re being a little minx, now, why don’t we sit and eat before I decide to eat you. I’m a hungry wolf and you’re about the right size to fill me up.”
Everything else fell away … they were alone, just him and Savannah, with her wide eyes as they popped open to stare up at him with surprise and shock written all over her face, but she recovered fast. A twinkle in those green orbs appearing before her head tilted to the side … fuck! Did she know what it did to him? Giving him a perfect view of her neck, one he wanted to sink his teeth into and mark.
Wait … what? Where the hell did that thought come from? What the hell was he thinking and what did it even mean? He didn’t know and didn’t have time to process it either, not when her tongue popped out to run over her plump lips, so fucking slowly he nearly pounced on her right then.
“I don’t think so, Mister Wolf. I might be small, but I pack a mean punch, and I’m hungry, too.” She took a breath in. One causing the material over her chest to strain tightly. Shit on a damn brick. Did she do it deliberately?
His own chest tightened; his breath caught in his throat when visions of his fingers tracing over the top of the material where it met her soft skin sprang into his head. Then she gave him another smile before she carried on. “Storm’s worked hard to make us a lovely meal … we should eat that. For now anyway.”
Storm? Shit, they weren’t alone. His vision clearing to take in their surroundings … with Jagger grinning from ear to ear and his mate, Storm, with her cheeks crimson red and looking as if she’d rather be anywhere but witnessing their little exchange.
“Of course,” he blurted out, reaching for a chair to pull it out for Savannah.
She sat down, looking back up at him with a cheeky smirk. “Thank you.”
“I’m starving.” Jagger dragged a chair across the wood before sitting down too. The noise grating on Asher’s delicate ears. “Let’s eat.”
“Indeed, let’s eat … just not me.” Savannah glanced at him, lowering her voice to a whisper to add, “Not yet anyway.”
Chapter Nine
Asher fought to control his reaction to Savannah’s whispered words. His body heating up, his heart thudding furiously, and his mind turning to one thing and it wasn’t food. He did the only thing he could … reached for another drink to cool himself off while everyone else tucked into food and started talking as if nothing had just happened.
Hell’s fire, he couldn’t stop himself glancing every few seconds at the woman next to him. Her scent invading him to overpower his senses and sending his beast into a frenzy. His head pounded like he had a set of drums inside, and he shook it several times to ease the tension building like a crescendo … if it didn’t ease, he was sure it would burst wide open to leave a bloody mess over the perfectly laid table. Shoot, he was certain Storm wouldn’t be amused if that happened.
Savannah regularly swiped at her hair to move it over her shoulder, giving him a perfect view of her silky soft skin on her shoulder, and her neck where the pulse beneath beat rhythmically in time with her heart. The pull of it drew him like a sailor to a siren in myths of old, and he’d go willingly if he could taste her, run his tongue over her … kiss her until she moaned beneath him. Fuck, what the hell was she? A witch?
Yeah, she’d put some kind of spell on him…
Don’t be an ass. She’s no witch. Jagger would know and he would’ve told you. What then? Something sure as hell was going on and he felt it growing inside him with each passing minute.
“Aren’t you hungry?” Jagger pushed a plate piled with food toward him. “Don’t offend the missus, Ash, she’s been cooking up a storm all day…”
Savannah giggled, butting in. “That’s funny, Storm cooking up a storm.”
“Be quiet, you,” Storm threw back before prodding Jagger. “And don’t make him eat if he doesn’t want to. Maybe he’s not feeling well, or he’s tired. He does look a little flushed, don’t you think?”
Damn it. Did he look flushed? He certainly felt it, but if he looked it as well, then he needed to do a better job of hiding whatever was going on inside him. “I’m fine. It’s just been a long day.”
Asher pulled his plate toward him, then started to pick at the food, and when he did, his stomach reacted, reminding him he hadn’t caught the dang bear he’d been hunting, and he was indeed hungry. Tucking in, he quickly finished it, wolfing down the food, then refilling it, and finishing it off, too, along with another beer Jagger handed to him at the same time as topping up Savannah’s wine. Small talk went on around him, mostly between Savannah and Storm to do with work. He kept his ears open to take it all in though, wanting to know all he could about both of them, especially Savannah, but was disappointed they didn’t broach much else other than work.
“So, Savannah,” he asked when he’d finished his food, “where are you from originally and what did you do before working for Storm?”
Silence settled around him, with Storm looking uneasy and Jagger cracking his neck before sitting back in his seat and looking as if he wanted to be anywhere but where he was. Why? What just happened? Asher glanced at them, then turned to Savannah, whose face was white with tight lines around her eyes and her lips were a hard line. If he were interviewing a suspect, he’d know immediately they were hiding something … only she wasn’t a suspect. But she was hiding something.
She didn’t say a word. Not one. Silence carried on for long awkward seconds until she glanced at him with a shrug. “The past is the past, Asher, let’s leave it at that. We don’t always have things tied up in nice bows, and some of us prefer not to think, far less talk, about things we don’t want to.”
Every single word was cold as ice and felt as if they hit him right in the face. He saw her chest heaving, like they’d been drawn out of her with great effort. He saw her flinch before reaching for her wine, her movements measured and slow as she drew the glass to her lips before she drank down the remaining wine in her glass, as if she were gulping water after a drought.
He felt emotions rolling off … too many at once and too many for him to latch onto one. Anger, sadness, distress, and turmoil raging inside her, which hit him over and over like waves against rocks in a storm. His heart sped up as he tried to fend them off, his hand reached for her, but she batted it away without saying a word, but her action alone roared in the silence surrounding them. He’d fucked up. Again. He’d tried once to get her to talk and he’d failed, so why did he attempt to force her again, especially in front of her boss. He was a fucking moron.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Jagger rose, grabbing their plates quickly and looking like he wanted to be anywhere but with them. Asher didn’t blame him. If he could escape, he would. But he wasn’t one for running from anything, and he’d made this mess so he should fix it. If he could. The way Savannah turned to glare at him didn’t bode well, though.
“Didn’t you?” She arched a perfect brow before carrying on with a cold as ice voice. “You tried earlier, Ash, didn’t you? I made it clear I wasn’t going to talk about it, and here you are, doing it again. I’m not one of your suspects you can browbeat into telling you what you want to know so just … stop.”
Her voice hitched at the end and it did something truly terrible to his insides, causing his belly to turnover. He wasn’t sure he was going to keep his dinner inside. It heaved and tossed, then his heart fluttered madly, wildly, and his throat, fuck, his throat tightened up, like it had a damn boulder stuffed right down inside it. He didn’t know what the hell was happening to him, but he couldn’t stop it and he couldn’t help himself … he reached out for her.
His hand slowly moving to the side of her face, so slowly, as if approaching a mad dog he expected to attack … and truth was, he wasn’t sure what Savannah would do. Hell, she might bite him going by the look in her eyes. They were blazing fucking mad, but he couldn’t stop. He had to touch her, had to stop the look of hurt in her, and … and … she didn’t bite him.
She didn’t pull away, well, not fully anyway. Savannah jerked when his fingers reached her cheek, slowly caressing, his eyes imploring her while he cupped her face. “I’m sorry, Savannah. I don’t want to hurt you.”
Savannah sighed, a long, pent-up breath escaping her before she leaned into his touch. “Don’t press me on this, Ash. You won’t like the outcome.”
“Okay.” He breathed his reply, although every instinct inside him flared to life wondering … why. What was she hiding and why?
A cough behind them sprang them apart, Savannah’s cheeks flushing scarlet. Storm looked relieved as she asked from the head of the table, “Dessert anyone?”
Savannah shrugged. “Depends, does it have chocolate?”
“There’s a selection.” Storm stood. “I went to the Bun Boutique and Judy had some amazing creations when I was there, so I bought a few. There’s a chocolate cake layered with different chocolate. I’ve some meringue mini things that look divine, and I’ve a fancy sponge cake shaped like a poodle, and yes, I know it’s weird, but it looked so cute I couldn’t resist. So, what do you fancy?”
“Chocolate cake for me,” Savannah said quickly. “You shouldn’t even have to ask, if there’s chocolate on offer, then it’s always chocolate.”
“What about you, Asher?”
“I’
m not eating a dog, not even if it’s a cake, but I’m partial to meringue so I’ll try those, thanks.”
“Do you want cream or fresh berries with them?” Storm asked him as she left the table. “I’ve some strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries from my aunt, Celia, she grows them herself, they’re lovely.”
“Yes, I love fruit, so that would be great,” Asher replied quickly.
When Storm disappeared, Savannah tapped his arm. “You look a little too happy about having berries, why?”
“Because I didn’t get the chance to have them too often when I was … working lately. I might even set up a plot of my own and grow some.”
She noticed his pause but didn’t press him, instead, she tilted her head and gave him a long look. “I didn’t see you as the kind of guy to be into that sort of thing.”
“What? Why not? I might be military, or ex-military, a cop now, and a shifter, but doesn’t mean I don’t like nature or growing things. I love the forest and everything in it, and it goes for plants, flowers, and everything else.”
Savannah remained quiet for long seconds, her eyes still on him, which caused him to feel uncomfortable. What was she thinking? Why was she scrutinizing him like that? What was she doing?
“I love nature too. It’s part of who I am. I know you probably don’t see it, but it is.” Savannah sighed, then shook her head. “You’re a puzzle, Asher, one minute, you make me angry, and the next, you say something to make me see you as completely different to what I was thinking.”
Dark Moon Falls: Volume 2 Page 15
