Page 20 of The Fated Hunter Wolf
My ears swiveled, and the sound grew louder, vibrating through the surrounding air. Astrid stopped beside me. She let out a questioning whine, but if she couldn’t hear it, then I couldn’t explain it.
The thudding was outside, circling us, closing in, and yet emanating from within me.
I growled out a message to Astrid, and she stepped back. The thudding grew faster, heavier, shaking the ground beneath us. My wolf snapped to attention, her instincts roaring to life.
In the space of a single breath, the world exploded.
A shadow hurtled out of the darkness, slamming into me with the force of a falling tree. Teeth grazed my neck as I hit the ground, my back scraping against the rough forest floor. Pain sparked up my side, but I had no time to react.
Astrid cowered. I twisted my head toward her, snarling through the bond.
Run!
The command tore through her, and she hesitated only a split second before turning tail and vanishing into the shadows.
I writhed, my wolf snarling and snapping. My attacker was unremitting, their weight pinning me like a boulder. My senses scrambled for answers, for a scent, for anything, but all I could feel was the thundering in my ears and the taste of dirt in my mouth.
Rhys.
I felt his shift before my own happened, as if my body had no choice but to follow his. The change flowed, his and mine, as if in rhythm with each other.Sharp branches clawed at my skin, scoring lines from my neck to my legs, but the pain was irrelevant. The only thing that mattered was I’d found him.
I was now a woman pinned by a man and entirely consumed by the sensation of his naked body against my own.
He was above me, his elbows braced on either side of my head, caging me in. His breath fanned over my face, hot and uneven, carrying the wild musk of his wolf. His body was pressed so tightly against mine that every inch of me felt him. The muscles of his chest rippled down to abs that pushed into my stomach. Heat radiated from his skin, a furnace against my skin, and my wolf was in heaven. She could forget that his heart was black and offer herself to him in that second, wanting nothing more than to feel him move between my legs and press his cock inside of me.
The fire in my core tried to rip through my resolve, and it was almost impossible to breathe.
The golden glow of his wolf still lingered in his eyes, a fierce and unrelenting light that burned away any ideas of escape. The sensation of him was everywhere—his chest against mine, the curve of his thigh against my hip, the faint scrape of stubble against my jaw as brought his face even closer. My breasts pressed into his chest as both of us huffed, and his dick stiffened against my thigh. My wolf howled inside me, wild and uncontrollable and elated.
I tried to focus, to catch a thought and hold on to it. Everything dissolved under the onslaught of sensation. The world narrowed to him.
I couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t do anything but feel.
His gaze dropped to my lips, and my chest tightened, my wolf clawing at the edges of my control. I was sure I was going to explode, shatter into a thousand pieces. And yet, I couldn’t bring myself to care.
Because in that moment, beneath him, with the heavens above and the earth below, something in me made sense.
9
RHYS
Iwas losing my damn mind.
Her breaths came fast beneath me, the sound filling the small space between us. Her chest rose and fell against mine, her breasts pushing against me as every exhale brushed warm against my throat.
Her hair spread around her in wild, sandy tangles with brown streaks through it, catching the glow of dawn. It framed her face like a crown, and the sight of her so unguarded made my stomach lurch.
My fingers twitched, aching to touch her face, her hair, to bury themselves in the silk of it. I didn’t move. Couldn’t. Because if I did, I wasn’t going to stop.
We stayed like that for longer than was sane. My arms trembled, elbows locked on either side of her head, but every part of me was pressing into her just as every part of her was pressed into me.
I closed my eyes for half a second, trying to return to the real world, but all I got washer. Her scent was everywhere, sliding over my skin, drowning me.
I’d been in the middle of a meeting, for Goddess’s sake. A meeting before sunrise with the inner circle, in a stuffyroom with Logan and the others, going over plans to handle everything going on with Eve and the curse, trying to piece together the mess and the plan and the next steps. This curse was hitting our very ability to procreate, to continue our lineage, and we had to find an answer.Fast.My contribution was going to be that I would find Sable and bring her in for questioning. I didn’t even get the chance to say it.
I’d been listening to Kenza grill Raina about tracking ancient bloodlines, then Logan recounting our family’s history, and then suddenly,her. The scent of summer rain and honey hit me and annihilated any other thought. Everything faded—Logan’s voice, Kenza’s questions, the curse, the pack.
