Page 96 of Ravaged Wolf
For a long moment, we stare at each other.
“I couldn’t back then,” he finally says, holding my gaze. He doesn’t say sorry. He’s devastated. But he’s not broken.
Tears begin to pour down my cheeks. “You came for me today.”
“I’ll never let you go again,” he says, stepping closer although his shoulders are still stiff as hangers.
“We don’t say sorry.” I sniffle, shuffling forward.
He opens his arms. “Not anymore.”
I take one more step, and he gathers me to his chest, squeezing me tight. I dissolve into heaving sobs, and he strokes my back, his wolf rumbling to comfort me. My wolf sits on her butt, utterly confused. Her mate pummeled thebad male who calls himself our sire into the dirt. She doesn’t understand why I’m not content.
“Sorry,” I mumble into his shoulder. “I was coming back, you know. I’d turned around. I love you so much.”
“I love you, too,” he murmurs into my ear. “Forever. So much. I’m sorry, too. My beautiful mate.”
We cling to each other, rocking, calming, until my lips find the salty skin above his collar. I kiss him. He holds me tighter. My fangs descend. I nuzzle his neck, scraping gently, testing.
“What are you doing, Izzy?” he asks, but he knows. His peppery scent bursts into the air.
It feels right. It feels fated.
I cradle his head and guide his mouth to the crook of my neck, the side that isn’t lashed with old scars.
“Are you sure?” he whispers against my skin. He’s trembling in my hands.
I answer him by sinking my fangs into his salty skin. He replies by sinking his into mine. My wolf howls in delight. His growls his satisfaction.
Above us, a bird lands on a bough with a flutter of wings and leaves. Even higher still, the very last rays of soft yellow sun peek through the highest branches, but we can’t see it—we’re lost in each other—but its warmth kisses our cheeks just the same.
EPILOGUE
IZZY
Bevan is sellingsnow cones from the back of Uncle Howell’s white van, which has been painted with psychedelic rainbow swirls. Well, not selling. Bevan is trading, and if you’re a pup or a pretty female, he’ll take an IOU. I can’t imagine where he got an ice shaver, and I don’t want to think about the daisy chain of extension cords he must’ve rigged up to get electricity out here to the commons.
The pack is gathered here on a sunny Tuesday to celebrate a mating.
Aled and Gracie Bedoe.
In the excitement of my rescue, no one noticed that Aled was missing. His wolf had caught Gracie’s scent, and figuring that the whole pack plus Rosie’s mega-wolf had things covered, he hared off on a side mission. Gracie’s wolf apparently led him on a chase, but she let him catch her when she got hungry for dinner.
Since the Floyds now had two sons with ties to Old Den, they decided to stay here when Cadoc sent the Moon Lakers packing—keeping the van and the pipefitter, with his permission, as restitution for Dad and Uncle Howell’s act of aggression.
Cadoc was happy to accept more refugees from Moon Lake with experience in the trades. There’s a lot of work to do now that we have the know-how to install water and sewage infrastructure among the cabins. Cadoc was also happy for the chance to flip his dad the finger. I think he really believed his father had good intentions with the exchange program, but there’s no way to overlook that Uncle Howell, Madog’s second, was part of the plan to not only kidnap me, but also scout the den and get information out of me by whatever means necessary.
That’s all a worry for another day, though. Today, the weather’s fine. A makeshift band of one guitar, three banjos, and a half-dozen various drummers are rocking out while those with the inclination dance.
I’m sitting on a blanket under a tree with Arlais, watching Trevor spin Gracie around while Aled sulks nearby. The brothers are messing with Aled by passing Gracie between them, and Gracie is happily going along with it.
“She’ll keep our Aled on his toes,” Arlais observes as she clacks her needles. She’s knitting a blanket for Gracie.
If my heart twinges a little thinking about the mating basket I never got, “our Aled” immediately makes it feel better. Something triggered in Arlais during the rescue, and she’s become the protective mother I never dreamed I’d have. She’s hugged me more times in four weeks than my mother did in my entire life. That makes my heart ache a little, too, but not for too long.
Arlais is also the one who tells me things no one else will. She told me about the hours she spent with Trevor going over paint swatches and appliance reviews to pick the perfect things for apartment 1248, and how his brothers made terrible fun of him for it, but Trevor didn’t care in the least.
She told me that when Trevor couldn’t sleep or eat anymore, Macsen went to Dad over and over again, and then to Uncle Howell, and finally to Madog himself to beg them not to stand in the way of our mating. It took Macsen a long time to get access to the alpha. Uncle Howell and Madog’s mate, Gwen, were very good at making sure Madog only heard what they wanted him to hear. Madog hadn’t known what was happening, and he said he’d put a stop to it, but that was the same night that I snuck out and met Trevor in the woods.
