by JJ King
We met back at the lodge in front of the fire just before midnight to sip hot chocolate and devour a few of the pizzas I’d told them about on the lift up the hill. I was exhausted, mentally, physically, and emotionally, but happy. Or, at least, as happy as I could be with the constant reminder of my only failed relationship trailing me around constantly.
I was so tired, I began reconsidering my decision to keep Connor’s secret and be assigned someone else, anyone other than him, as my personal guard.
“I hear someone wiped out pretty bad.” Daniella swept into the room like a force of nature and sat down on the couch beside Bash and me. Her cheeks were bright pink from the cold night air and her eyes, so much like Bash’s, except for the attitude that made them spark, were alive with glee.
I ignored her delight at my wipe out and lowered my head onto Bash’s shoulder. As much as Daniella annoyed me, Bash soothed.
“It happens,” Bash said, picking up for me. He knew full well the kind of antagonistic relationship his twin sister and I had, especially since she’d slapped me at a party the first week of school and, in return, I’d broken her nose. Our budding relationship almost hadn’t survived the fight, probably wouldn’t have if we hadn’t been forced together during the attack.
“Well,” Daniella said with a pretty smile as she leaned forward to catch my gaze. “At least you didn’t break your face.”
I smiled back and winged my eyebrow up. “Yeah,” I said, fluttering my eyelashes at her. “Or my nose.”
Her smile tightened and the flash of joy I’d seen in her eyes shifted to challenge. I almost chuckled but managed to hold it back. Instead, I snuggled back into my boyfriend and lifted my mug of hot chocolate for a delicious sip.
Me, one. Daniella, fucking zero.
“So, Daniella,” Darius said as if trying to defuse the obvious tension that arose whenever the two of us were in proximity. “Are you enjoying Winter break?” I heard no snarkiness in his question and remembered that not everyone felt the way I did about the Queen bitch.
“Immensely,” Daniella said with a happy sigh that sounded almost genuine. “It’ll be even better tomorrow night. I’ve decided to host a little get together.” She stood gracefully and turned to us with a sweep of her manicured hands. “Of course, you’re invited.”
“All of us?” Rory’s eyebrow quirked up over her incredibly huge dark eyes, which were watching Daniella with as much belief in her escapades as mine were. I could always depend on Rory’s fervent hatred of our common foe.
Daniella shifted her pretty smile from her brother and his best friend to Rory, never faltering. “Certainly,” she said, even though there was no way in hell she’d ever invite someone like me or Rory to one of her swanky parties if we weren’t part of her brother’s world.
Rory nodded regally and slipped her hand into Darius’ without breaking her stare. “We’ll let you know. Bye.” She drew out the last syllable.
I nearly choked on my hot chocolate.
They remained, locked in an epic passive-aggressive battle, for a long moment until Bash pushed to his feet and stepped in between them, cutting off their line of sight. Out of eyeshot, I saw Rory grind her teeth and take a deep, steadying breath.
“Text the details,” Bash said to his sister, as he drew her away from the group. I watched their interaction, the easy way they touched and looked at one another, and knew he’d felt the tension. Guilt warred with smugness and won.
I glanced at Rory and offered her a silent, “Sorry,” then called out, “Thanks for the invite. Should we bring anything?”
Daniella and Bash turned to look at me as one, their green eyes both a little wide with shock. Daniella recovered first. She shook her head and let loose a tinkle of laughter. “No, no. Just come as you are. I’ve arranged everything. Ta.” With that, she walked away without looking back once.
I could practically hear Rory’s blood boiling. Apparently, so could Darius, because he jumped up and reached his hands down to pull her to her feet. “It’s a beautiful night,” he said, looking down at her from his lofty height. “Want to take a walk?” He turned and offered his arm like a true gentleman.
Rory hesitated and I could see the warring parts of her clearly on her face. Give into the anger and Daniella won. Force a romantic stroll and feel like a fraud. I set my mug down and joined the others standing.
“You two go have fun,” I said in as light a tone as I could manage. My frustration with Daniella seemed to fade away in comparison to my friend’s. “I’m kind of wiped.” I turned to Bash and extended my hand. “Feel like walking a girl home?”
His grin was instant and so fucking sexy it nearly brought me to my knees. Instantly, all thoughts of Daniella and Connor disappeared in a haze of sexual desire. It must have wafted from me like a five-alarm fire, because a moment later, Bash’s eyes went dark. He grabbed my hand and started walking away as fast as decorum would allow.
Laughter bubbled up from deep inside my chest. I raced along with him, our fingers intertwined, with pheromones and heat racing up and down the physical connection between us. Bash whirled to a stop just outside the side door of the lodge and pulled me into him for a kiss that seared.
His lips crushed mine, moving with long-held need and passion as his hands moved to pull my hair free from the ponytail I’d had it in for skiing. It fell, free, around my face, cocooning us in a privacy all our own.
A man walking by cleared his throat loudly.
Bash smiled into the kiss and whispered, “Maybe we should find a room after all.”
“‘Mine or yours?” was my only question, then we were off at a run for his suite.
His building was across the main courtyard from mine and on the first floor. It took us less than three minutes to get there, but I was buzzing with barely controlled need by the time he shut the door behind us, locking my aggravated guards and all our problems out. He pressed me up against the door and captured my mouth again with a ragged moan that made my head swim.
“Elena.” His lips skimmed over my jaw and down to the pulse in my neck. I arched into him, mindless and aching. My fingers pulled at him, pressing him into me.
Clothes started to come off, too quick for care. Buttons flew, fabric ripped, but I didn’t care. I needed to touch him, to feel his hands on my bare flesh. When his palm covered my breast, I gasped for oxygen and held on for dear life.
We slid from the door to the floor like water, going limp in one another’s arms. Mouths followed fingers, heating, cooling, then chasing nerves to unimaginable heights before dancing away and leaving us both on the edge of madness.
I grazed my teeth down his chest, capturing a nipple and grinning when he hissed under my not-so-gentle nip.
“Fuck!” He roared, then twisted to throw me roughly on the floor so he was hovering, looking down at me like the big bad wolf. I snapped my teeth at him then slowly licked my lips. “You’re evil,” he said on a growl with eyes so dark they were almost black.
I bucked my hips, breaking his hold, and wrapped my legs around his waist. In a move so fast, he only had time to shout, I corkscrewed and rolled until I was on top once more, then bowed back and ran my hands through my hair, feeling more powerful than I ever had in my entire life. Before he could recover, I rose up on my knees, sank down onto him, and moaned.
Sensations rolled through me like a tidal wave, overtaking all my senses. I set the pace, torturously slow, and let my body undulate above his in a rhythm as old as time. His hands clenched on my hips, rocking me, as his hips met mine in perfect sync.
I opened my heavy eyelids to look down at him, to see those eyes that had first captured me and still held me. They were watching me, hungrily, darkly, and caught my gaze. Bash’s lips parted and, for a moment, I thought he’d say the words I’d been longing to say.
“Mine.” The single word ripped from his throat and seemed to brand me. Something powerful ripped through me, searing me from within, seeming to move through the connection
of his hands on my skin and up through my veins to my heart. It filled me, chasing away the dark corners and the hurts of the past. I squeezed my eyes shut as brilliantly colored lights exploded behind my eyelids then floated down through my mind like a wash of magic that felt endless. His fingers tightened on my hips as if he were trying to latch on and never let go.
Overwhelmed, I folded into him, bringing my mouth to his, and captured his lips in a scorching kiss, then echoed his sentiment, “Mine.”
My body quickened, moving faster and faster, driving us both higher so quickly it felt like I couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but feel. Bash met me with every thrust, every touch, until I was poised on the precipice, looking out at the unknown. Bash’s fingers moved from my hips and laced through mine. They squeezed tight and, together, we leaped.
My release tore through me, freeing all the pent-up anger, fear, and frustration that I’d been keeping bottled up inside. I threw my head back and screamed. Inside me, Bash shuddered and came.
After, when I lay sprawled across his damp chest, letting my fingers gently stroke the line of his throat, I couldn't imagine a more perfect moment.
“I’m starving,” Bash mumbled in a voice still rough from passion.
My stomach rumbled immediately, eliciting a laugh that shook us both. I rolled to the side and stretched, elongating all my muscles until they felt useful again. Reluctantly, I climbed to my knees and reached for Bash’s hand. “Come on,” I said, drinking in the sight of his beautiful body as he sat up and turned to me. “Let’s find sustenance so we can do this again a few more times.” I arched an eyebrow at him and smiled slowly.
He watched me like a predator watches its prey, all hunger and desire, then my stomach growled again, and the moment was broken. “First food,” he said, climbing to his feet and pulling me with him. “Then dessert.”
He tugged me up against his long body and just held me for a moment, while his eyes, which had returned to their normal color, gazed down at me with so much emotion it made my heart stutter. Slowly, he leaned down and rubbed his lips across mine, like silk on silk. I lifted my hand to stroke his hair and hummed into the gentle kiss.
“I’ve got a surprise for you,” he murmured against my lips. He tugged me playfully towards a glass door that led out onto a deck.
I skidded to a halt as I remembered we were on the first floor. I wasn’t prudish about my body or sex, but I also wasn’t about to throw all my propriety out the window and have public monkey sex with my boyfriend where the Alpha might see or hear about it.
Bash read my mind and laughed. “It’s got a privacy fence.” He tugged me in for a hug. “I wouldn’t do that to you, dummy.”
The deck opened up into an oasis of stained wood, potted evergreens, and a firepit ringed with chairs tipped with snow. Off in the corner, protected by beautifully designed privacy walls, was the surprise, a bubbling hot tub.
“How?” I looked at him wide-eyed and wondered when he’d had the chance to turn on the hot tub or do anything else but sex me up.
“There’s a switch just inside the front door. I had the forethought to hit it when we came in.” Bash nuzzled my neck and placed a kiss just below my ear that had me shivering. “It’s a miracle I could think at all.”
“Miracles do happen,” I murmured and took his offered hand as I stepped down into the steaming water.
He joined me a moment later, sliding behind me on the long underwater bench until our bodies were almost one. I rested my head back on his chest and looked up at the starry night sky while his fingers casually stroked up and down my arm.
“Do you ever wonder,” he whispered, his hot breath playing on my ear, “what our lives will be like once we finish school?”
A thrill of excitement ran through me, chased immediately by raw nerves. He was bringing up the future, our future. I forced myself to stay relaxed in his arms.
“Sometimes,” I said softly, still looking up at the stars. They were so clear and sharp out here, away from the thrum of humanity. They were the same stars I’d looked up at all my life, just slightly shifted. I wondered what the stars looked like this time of year in Russia.
I stiffened at the errant thought and felt Bash’s body tighten. Frustration chased away all the good feelings I’d been enjoying, leaving me with a heavy ball of anxiety, my near-constant friend these last few months. With a sigh, I turned to face him.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized, shaking my head to dispel the worry on his face. “I just…” I searched for the right way to explain how I felt. “When I think of the future now, I see you and me, I see us.” My heart swelled when I saw the relief in his eyes. “But that’s it, Bash. I used to have a clear vision of the future, of what I wanted, and now…” I spread my hands wide. “There’s just nothing there. I don’t know what’s coming or if it’ll be safe for you to be by my side.”
The relief in his eyes turned stormy and his jaw ground down in a look of steely determination. “I don’t care if it’s safe, Elena.” His hands framed my face and pulled me in until our foreheads touched. “I just want to be by your side.”
“I love you.” The words that had been so close to the surface of my soul for months spilled from my lips and I stilled with hope and the sharp bite of fear.
Bash lifted my face until our eyes were level and I could see the depth of raw emotion spilling out of his emerald irises. A sheen of tears covered them now, and he blinked them clear, letting one spill down his cheek without an ounce of self-consciousness. I leaned forward and kissed the tear.
“I didn’t want to rush you,” he said so softly I might not have heard it if I weren’t a wolf and straining to hear everything he said. My lips brushed lower over his face, moving to his lips.
“Elena,” Bash pulled back just enough to see me, to look into my eyes, which were wet with my own tears. “I love you so much it makes me feel like I can’t breathe sometimes. I…” he shook his head, “I didn’t know it could be like this.”
I nodded, unable to find words sufficient to express what I felt. I wasn’t even sure how I felt, or what had happened between us earlier if that explosion of color and connection I’d felt, still felt, meant what I thought it did. I looked into Bash’s eyes and prayed he’d understand without words.
“Mine,” he whispered, and the word ricocheted through my heart and straight into my soul. With a weak smile, I laid my forehead on his again and let my tears spill free.
“... bitches all of them.”
The violent bite of words pulled me roughly from the biggest moment of my life. I frowned in the direction of the privacy fence and realized the people passing by had no idea they were so rudely interrupting us. I shrugged it off and leaned back into Bash.
“They’re going to burn,” a voice said, clearer now, practically right in front of us, and familiar. “Especially that slut, Aurora.”
I pulled back sharply and stared at the fence.
“She’s nothing, Ben. Don’t even fucking worry about her.” Another voice said.
My eyebrows shot up and I twisted to look wide-eyed at Bash who was listening intently, too. Ben was Benson Wellington, I realized.
“Oh, I’m not worried about her,” Benson said in a scoffing tone that scraped like nails on a chalkboard over my skin. “My grandfather told me it's just a matter of time. The bitch Sisterhood is going down.”
Chapter 8
I tasted blood and told myself to stop chewing on the inside of my cheeks. I always did that when I was nervous about something and, apparently, telling Sylvie of the threat Bash and I had overheard the night before was making me nervous.
Our hot tub rendezvous had been completely ruined by the assholes who, never knowing we were there, had stopped just outside the fence to trash The Sisterhood, Rory, her family, and the Alpha family.
Thinking of Bash chased the nerves away and replaced them with a warmth that had been simmering in me since we’d claimed each other in the most elemental way wolves
could. Neither of us had said the words “soul mate,” but I felt them on a bone-deep level. Deeper, really. It was like he was part of my cellular makeup now, as much a part of me as my heart.
It was strange to suddenly have that awareness between us, even when he wasn’t by my side. It felt kind of like an elastic band had been wrapped around us and when we were apart, it stretched but never broke. I wondered absently how far it could stretch.
I heard the click of heels and turned to see Sylvie stride into the room, all long legs and perfect hair. All thoughts of Bash disappeared, leaving my nerves raw again.
Sylvie’s smile was wide and genuine, as was the quick flicker of worry when she saw my face. “What’s wrong?” She stopped in front of me and reached out as she would to her own child.
I bit down on my lip. “I overheard something last night.”
“Oh?” She moved her hand to the small of my back and steered me towards the couch. “Something about your uncle?”
I shook my head and thanked the Old Ones that the truth of the attack on campus had stayed buried. Only strategic people knew, but even that felt like too many to me. The constant looming threat of that secret getting out was one of the reasons I barely slept anymore and, when I did, I had brutal nightmares.
“No, something about The Sisterhood.” I bit my lip again. “And my friend Rory.”
Sylvie tilted her head to the side and waited.
I took a deep breath. “I was with Bash last night on the deck outside his suite and a few guys walked past. They didn’t know we were there.” I felt a flush start up my cheeks at the memory of what we’d been doing out there, or, rather, about to do. “They were talking about The Sisterhood and the bitches,” I raised my fingers in air quotations, “that run it.”
