Page 53 of Great Falls Protector
All this time I was furious with Shade for being a bastard to me, I hadn’t realized it was actually himself he was punishing. “It wasn’t your fault,” I say, enunciating each word. “It was a magical accident. And all four of you were affected the same way.”
“It was different for me.” He rubs his hands over his face, gripping his hair on the way down. “My wolf knew the truth. And I should have too. But I didn’t. I didn’t even smell the cubs. And that day in my infirmary, when you were in so much pain and fighting through it, I was too worried about what my own cock wanted to see the truth that was right before my eyes.” The ache filling every syllable of his voice spills into the air between us, sharpening the male’s earthy scent. With the evening light sculpting his hard muscle, he looks more like a wolf than ever, his yellow eyes intent with a predatory protectiveness that is ready to tear any culprit to shreds.
Ready to tear his own soul to shreds.
“My wolf is furious with me,” Shade tells me softly. The delicate flaring of his nostrils draws my gaze, making me aware of just how each one of his tiny movements affects my own body. “He only stepped aside to let me return because we felt…felt that you were calling for me. And he couldn’t bring us to deny your call. But the wolf is right—I don’t deserve you. Not when I couldn’t—ow!”
Still standing on my toes, I pull my mouth away from where I just bit Shade’s bottom lip hard enough draw tiny red droplets. “You are my mate,” I say, low and gravelly, suddenly drunk on the coppery taste of his blood. On the roused mating bond that now twists in my chest. Inside my own veins, heat spreads through my body, quickening its circuit with every heartbeat. It’s been so long since I tasted him, and I’d almost forgotten his spicy, earthy flavor, as addictive as a fine wine. “If you think I’m going to let you hide behind a wet nose and a furry tail to save yourself from feeling all the emotions the rest of us grapple with, then you’ve truly forgotten who in the bloody stars you got yourself entangled with.”
Shade laps the cut on his lip, the tip of his tongue flicking over his canines with a predatory gleam. Balancing on the edge of his wolf shift as Shade is, I can almost see the awesome primal instinct taking hold of him, the force of it strong enough to make my own deep-lying predator break its leash.
With the next heartbeat, it’s all I can do to keep from pouncing on the nearest bookshelf just to hunt down a mouse I can hear skittering beneath the stacks. Inside my chest, the mating bond drinks it all in, pulsating with blind need to secure its hold.
Shade’s fingers dig into the wall behind him, his coiled muscles twitching with strain. His broad chest fills with quick breaths, his golden eyes flashing and dilating. A wolf ready to pounce, drawing on every fiber of his being just to keep himself in check. “Walk away, cub,” Shade pants. “Slowly. Walk away from me slowly.”
“No.” I swallow, a streak of heat racing down my spine. Energy simmers inside my muscles, making heat pool low in my abdomen, rousing every scent to full wakefulness.
Shade growls, the sound more animal than fae. “Another few heartbeats, there won’t be any walking at all.”
My heart quickens, the echo of Shade’s words rushing through my blood.Run. Fight. Mate.The options flash through my body without deference to higher thought, the whole world beyond us sinking into a distant fog.Run. Fight. Mate.A small growl rumbles through my own chest, as each heartbeat strips away another swath of civility.
My sex pulses in echo of my heart, making my hips clench with need. When I feel a trickle of moisture slither down my thigh, Shade shoves himself away from the wall.
“Go!” he hollers at me.
And so I do. Right into him.
7
Lera
We crash right back into the wall Shade just left, my nails raking the male’s bare chest, leaving four parallel gashes in his perfect tan skin. Some sane part of me is appalled at the deep, bleeding marks, but another much more primal essence savagely savors the satisfaction of having marked the male. Having told his body that it’s mine. I stare at my handiwork, my thighs slick beneath my dress, my sex clenching with the same savageness that spurred my hand.
Shade pounces with a snarl, his callused hands grabbing my wrists, his mouth claiming mine. The male’s scent of earth fresh from rain fills my lungs as his tongue pillages my mouth, taking me in deep, possessive strokes that make it impossible to breathe.
I struggle against his unyielding grip, which only makes him shift his hold from my hands to my backside, fingers digging viciously into flesh. The small dots of pressure pierce deeply into my muscles, a predator holding prey captive. The feeling spills into my blood, rousing me to the dangers of playing with a wolf.
My hips undulate, my underthings dampening more with each moment. The bulge in Shade’s trousers presses into me, his cock so hard that I can feel it throbbing. Gathering all my strength, I shove my hips against that hard cock, a jolt of pleasure streaking along my apex as I manage to connect with it.
Shade’s body bucks against me in return, and he grunts as he deepens his kiss.
I reach down to tear open the flies holding him captive. The large rock-hard cock springs free with enough force to sting my thigh. The mere thought of all that power entering me is enough to make me moan impatiently, a low sound swallowed up by the pounding rain outside. I push my hips forward, and Shade grips the backs of my legs, lifting me without ever surrendering my mouth.
He takes one step forward, hoisting my slick thigh onto his taut waist before ripping away my damp underthings with the same ruthless consideration I gave his flies moments ago. The sound of the ripping fabric makes my sex clench hungrily.
Shade tears his mouth away from mine, pressing his damp forehead against mine. “Mine. You’re mine.”
I moan and buck, impatience almost making tears press out of my eyes.
With the next breath, Shade sheathes his cock to the hilt inside me.
I gasp, twisting along Shade’s length, the great size of him impaling me somehow too much and not nearly enough at the same time. His powerful hips pump forward, sliding me along his cock as if I weigh nothing at all, the thick head of his cock striking the most sensitive spot deep inside me.
I grip his shoulders with all my strength, my teeth sinking into the side of his neck as the pressure inside me takes over my body. Shade growls and thrusts harder, faster, wildness taking any remaining finesse out of his movements.
Thump. Thump. Thump.The wet strikes of my body against Shade’s rake through my core. My apex throbs, the need inside building more and more, fueled with every deep inhalation of Shade’s damp-earth scent. I can’t think, can barely breathe for the want of him. A deep longing so far inside my body that it drives me mad.
“Last. Chance,” Shade rasps into my ear, though I’ve no notion how he manages the words, my own long gone. “We’ve things to settle. And I intend to. Thoroughly.”
