2: Surprise

Ian    

Pressed against my strong side, Ivan groans and slumps towards the ground as we reach the top of the ridge.

There! See? I told you!

I hear Jack crow in my head through our link and duck my shoulder again to lift Ivan and keep him on his feet between us. The fletching of the silver tipped arrow protrudes from just below his ribs and even that brushing against me irritates my skin through my thick, black coat. I can’t imagine what it’s doing to him.

Below in the valley is a two-story human cottage with an actual thatched roof. A walled garden wraps around it and the detached potting shed beside it. The garden buzzes and flickers with the flash of myriad wings I can see across the distance as the various pollinators move from multicolored flower to flower. The stone cottage sits in roughly the middle of a greening meadow, encircled by a stand of mixed deciduous and evergreen trees along the flat at the base of the ridge's rocky incline.

Where the fuck did this place come from?

I nose the air, searching for signs of danger. There are a multitude of floral perfumes drifting along the breeze besides those from the flower garden—vegetables, herbs, several species of fruit-bearing trees and shrubs—but no more of the salty, metallic tang of blood and the stench of rot from the vampires that attacked and chased us here.

Yeah, yeah. I’m supposed to give you a pass because you can smell a female in heat a dozen miles away but not the vamp hit squad lying in ambush on the trail we run? Every. Single. Day.

Against me, Ivan coughs, amused, then shudders with the pain of it and bright-red blood spatters the pebbled ground near our feet, reminding me of our urgency. I’m reticent to cross the open space on the valley floor to reach this cottage, but we have to have a place to rest before we can assess Ivan’s condition and figure out how or where to get help.

Reluctantly, I ease us forward, down the rocky incline towards the ring of trees surrounding the meadow. Ivan staggers between Jack and me, his breathing labored and gurgling with the blood pooling in his lung.

You didn’t pick them up either. Jack points this out as if I wasn’t aware.

I know. That’s the worst part. They were cloaked, I explain, knowing I'm the one best versed in detecting magical dangers and protections.

Shit! What happened to our treaty with the witches?

Good question. One I intend to address after we get out of this.

We reach the bottom of the treacherous hill and cross into the encircling trees on the valley floor quickly. Lingering watchfully on the verge of the meadow, I scan hard with all my senses, still suspicious to find nothing but the scent of vegetation.

Though I don’t see any bushes and it’s a bit past their blooming season, I keep getting lilac strongest. It’s mingled with something delectable. Sugar cookie? No, simpler. It’s buttery shortbread, I realize—and it’s more irresistible than the other scent now strong here—a female in heat.

Against me, even Ivan, mated and with his third pup on the way, raises his head, taking shallow sniffs. On the other side, Jack is heaving it in, blatantly drooling.

Fu-huh-uck! She smells good, Jack drawls in a pant, then locks eyes with me over Ivan, surprised when I give a low growl, my lips pulling back to show my teeth. Holy shit! You’re kidding! After all this time? This is where you find her?

Nodding, I point my muzzle towards the awaiting cottage and start across the meadow to the garden wall, trying to keep my senses focused on detecting danger and not the female—the human female—I know now is my mate.

It’s tantalizing, her scent. Parts of my brain I thought would lie dormant forever are lighting up like Las Vegas and she’s all I can think of—with both the man and the wolf halves.

About forty feet from the garden wall, I feel the wavering in the environment around us when we pass through the magical warding surrounding the cottage. As I realize what this means, a string of expletives starts in my head and quickly dies when her glorious scent—unsuppressed by her magic, musky with heat, floral and faintly sweet, and more compelling than anything I’ve ever encountered— hits me full force.

I can’t help the quiver that vibrates through me as parts of me I didn’t know I had come alive. At the back of my neck, a ferocious tingling starts beneath my skin and spreads outward until I’m raw with it. It’s similar to the feeling you get when you sense danger, only instead of adrenaline firing up fight or flight instincts, elation is flooding into me and the sensation is a thousand times more powerful. The world around me is illuminated in sharp clarity, as if dawn's breaking, and the colors are blinding. Everything I thought I knew is being torn apart and redefined.

Ivan snorts in my head. Now you understand.

Your explanation was sorely lacking, but yes, I understand. This is indescribable.

You’re remarkably controlled, given the circumstance. Most males would have torn this place apart by now trying to find her just because she’s in heat. That she’s also your mate is—whew.

I snort. He has no idea.

I’m an Alpha, one who’s been waiting patiently for a while. And right now, buddy, my priority is you. Then there’s a metric fuckton of more pressing things above her after that.

It’s a double-door moon gate through the garden wall, painted a pale blue and made of rough-hewn wood and hung on wooden hinges. Though it’s sturdy and well-fitted, there’s no way three full-grown fully shifted weres are getting through it three abreast.

Finding your mate doesn’t work that way, Ian. This bond is about to break you open and scramble your insides. Ivan’s shoulder slips and he stumbles. Just leave me here. See if you can find a first aid kit. You’ve got to get this arrow out of me.

Ivan’s feet slide out from under him as, on either side, Jack and I shift into our human forms. As gently as I can, I catch him, narrowly avoiding contact with the arrow. It’s still enough to push a weak cough from him, and I feel bad when blood splatters over the painted doors and hope my mate is forgiving.

No. I don’t want you visible from the ridge. We’ll get you inside first.

We start along the winding flagstone path, the tiny stones hot from the sun and the moss between contrastingly cool on our bare feet as we make our way to the cottage door. The garden is a glorious rainbow of blooms and an overwhelming feast of fragrances.

Tiny leafcutter and honey bees buzz efficiently from flower to flower, swooping smoothly past the slower bumble bees and fluttering butterflies who share their work. A curious hummingbird zips to a stop, bravely hovering before us over the flagstone path at eye level, its bright eyes darting quickly between the three of us before it rises, disappearing over the thatched roof.

This isn’t the way you want to meet a human mate, Ivan cautions again, always my wise advisor, even dragging half-dead as a wolf between me and Jack.

I don’t know, Jack cuts in. Two spectacularly gorgeous naked men showing up in the middle of nowhere knocking on her door. Even if there’s a huge, bloody wolf dangling between them, that’s pretty hot.

Shut up, Jack, both Ivan and I reply through our link.

Besides, I tease, there’s only one spectacularly gorgeous naked man knocking on her door. And then there’s you.

Jack laughs good-naturedly at the ribbing. Not his usual open and happy-go-lucky belly laugh, but something tight and stressed, a residual of the fierce predawn battle we only narrowly escaped alive.

Fuck off, Ian, he chuckles.

It’s a double front door on the cottage too, when we reach it. Like the moon gate, it’s wood hung with wooden hinges and with a clever wooden handle and latch, but this one has been left the natural color. The cottage is mortared stone, collected for the two-story building from the rocky slopes into this secret valley.

Though the fragrance of the garden is still strong, beyond the cottage door the smell of my mate is stronger. My wolf half, side by side with me in my head, is bouncing around like an excited pup, tongue lolling, and I’m grateful we’re sharing control right now.

There’d be no end to the shit I’d take from Jack if he saw this undignified behavior. Wolf, chill. Seriously. All that bouncing around is making me nauseous.

Completely ignoring me, he continues the degrading bouncing and adding an annoying little sing-song chant to boot, just to needle me. Mymate!Mymate!Mymate!Mymate!Mymate! Sometimes, he’s a real dick.

Who am I kidding? Most times he’s a real dick.

When Jack tries the handle, the cottage door swings open smoothly and his brows shoot up in surprise.

I know I’m the only one who recognized the magical waver in the environment when we passed through the barrier around this place, so it doesn’t surprise me the door isn't locked. If she’s powerful enough to use magic at that distance, she’s not worried about someone with the wrong intentions getting to the front door, let alone inside.

I wonder then how many other wards we’ve passed through that I’m not trained to recognize or sensitive enough to detect. Or why I was even able to detect that one. I realize now it must have been her magic battling the vamps last night.

I wonder whether she meant to help us, then heave a deep sigh.

Introducing a witch to my pack as my mate, particularly for Jack, is going to be a real bitch. What lesson could the moon goddess want me to take away from this? I’ve already searched ten years to find her. Why does it have to be complicated too?

I don’t give Ivan or Jack any clue of my meandering thoughts, just disengage the vertical peg locks on the second door. I let it swing open so we can get Ivan inside with the three of us side by side.

In the gracious foyer, a petite border collie female limps into view, her hackles and lips raised, baring her teeth to protect her home. Her eyes are cloudy, and there’s white in the black markings on her face and mouth—more signs of her age—but she’s determined to stand against us, absurd as it is.

At least her familiar’s not a cat, I think to myself, bringing us to a halt.

Greetings and apologies, little sister. At my formal address, her lips relax and her hackles lay down. I’m Ian, alpha of the Candlewood Pack. With me are my Second, Jack, and my injured triumvir, Ivan. We…

Welcome, Alpha, she interrupts. You were beset by vampires and triumvir Ivan needs aid. Bring him inside. She hobbles painfully in a circle, turning into the house. This way. Milady’s surgery is over here.

Jack catches my eye as Ivan slumps between us. He’s almost as amused as I am by this tiny, elderly female’s bossiness, but hasn’t yet processed that she just said there’s a surgery here.

So my mate is human, a witch, and medically trained. It’s about time I caught a break.

The border collie leads us through the kitchen, directing us towards an arched doorway on the far side.

That’s the surgery, Alpha. There’s an exam table inside. Milady is in the orchard. If you’ll open the garden door, I’ll retrieve her for you.

I open the surgery door and it swings inward on silent hinges, automatic overhead lights coming on at the motion. Easing myself out from under Ivan, I lean him entirely against Jack who drags his full weight inside and towards the exam table.

What’s your name, little sister?

Apologies, Alpha. I’m Tessa. Please, open the door and I’ll get Milady.

Stooping, I stroke the top of her head and along her spine in thanks. Nice to meet you, Tessa.

She’s frail with age and I can feel the vertebrae through her glossy coat. Though she’s not my pack, knowing her time is coming to an end soon saddens me. I’ll open the door, but it’ll be easier and faster if I find your lady. Stay here. Let me know if there’s trouble.

Yes, Alpha.

I start through the garden door, looking for something to cover myself with. And Tessa, call me Ian.

If you insist, Alpha.

I smile at the tone and her refusal. Tessa is elderly and disappointed in the informality of my suggestion. Petite as she is, it’s funny as hell. Outside the door, there’s a curved, wisteria-draped pergola that looks over the back lawn to the garden wall, and beyond it, to an extensive orchard peppered with fruit-bearing shrubs. I snatch the largest pillow I find here off the furniture  and hold it in front of my male parts as I leap the wall into the trees.

The flower fragrance is weaker upwind than it was in the front garden. Here, it’s only the more subtle blend of the fruit trees and berry bushes. But the smell of lilac and shortbread is more powerful than ever and my quivering returns.

Most of the trees are leafed out completely or in the final stages of blooming, obscuring my view. So unless my mate is tall—which is unlikely for a human female—I’m going to have to duck to find her.

I pause for a second, giving myself time to orient towards her magnificent scent, and debate shifting into a wolf again as I move rapidly into the orchard. A witch will know what I am the instant she sees me, and it might be more polite than showing up naked to meet her. Then again, one as powerful as her could potentially disable me before she lets me explain myself. That’s something Ivan can’t afford.

My internal debate is waste of time. As I push between the next two trees, I see her.

My excited quiver morphs into a full-on quake and I fight the immediate urge to pounce on her and saturate myself with the smell of her skin. She’s kneeling with her back to me in a patch of fallen leaves before the damaged trunk of an injured and struggling apricot tree. Her gloved hands carefully unwind a protective paper wrap at its base, completely unaware of my presence.

A broad-brimmed sunhat covers her head, but a long, walnut-colored braid shot through with strands of silvery white snakes down her back. She’s fine boned, and delicate—narrow is the word that pops into my head—with delightful soft curves I can hardly wait to have beneath me.

And the smell of her… fuck! My erect cock is pushing eagerly against this abrasive damn pillow and I absolutely can’t imagine a more humiliating way for an Alpha—or any wolf for that matter— to be introduced to his mate.

Naked and needy is just not the way I imagined doing this.

It’s worse than one of those naked and standing before the entire school dreams I used to have as a kid, and weres don’t really have much of an issue with nudity.

I should shift, I think again, watching her set the wrap aside and pull her slender fingers from the garden gloves. She dips one hand into her pocket, and withdrawing it, sprinkles small dark colored grains over the wrap.

Black salt.

She’s neutralizing something—and that’s when I hear it—the whisper of her voice, speaking a language few know let alone speak so fluently. I can feel her tapping the coiling power around her—earth magic—and see her slim hands begin to glow a faint green before she lays them over the wound in the tree’s trunk.

Um.

Holyshit!holyshit!holyshit!holyshit!holyshit!

“Stop that,” she snaps. Clearly addressing me, she interrupts her whispering only long enough to spit out the words.

Before me, the wounded tree is vibrating as her green magic saturates it, writhing in swirling tendrils up the damaged trunk, along the blackened branches and out to the tips of its few straggly leaves. As I watch, tiny bumps erupt along the branches, swell dark purple, turn yellow as they grow larger, then burst into bright green new growth and I swear I hear the tree sigh.

She gets to her feet then, my mate, bent at the waist and brushing the dirt from her knees. Beyond her, the wound in the tree’s trunk has become a healed scar.

“I can hear you, you know,” she mutters.

Her voice is low, silky-sweet and tinged with a faint British accent that caresses my ears and makes my straining cock leap against the pillow. And in case I needed anything more to convince me I can’t live without her, her posterior is a round and perfect bubble beneath a waist I’m pretty certain I can close one hand entirely around. It’s all I can do not to cup a hand around each sweet cheek and grind myself against her.

Or push her up against the tree she just healed and bury my nose in her hair.

Or take her by the jaw and bite and kiss her delicate neck.

Oh, fuck! To taste her!

Not just her creamy skin. Her mouth and those plump perfect lips.

And deep inside her nether mouth. Yum.

To feel her writhe in pleasure against my face.

Hear her moan my name in that velvety accent as I hitch those long, slim legs over my hips and sink my rock-hard cock into her sugar walls.

My thoughts are tumbling rapidly, each one battling the ones before for the best way to satisfy my mind-erasing need for her when one thought penetrates my lustful haze.

“You could hear me thinking?”

Standing upright and inhaling deeply, my mate presses her hands into the small of her back at her narrow waist and arches, stretching all the way up with a faint cracking, her face raised the sky. The dark braid dangles lower, slithers along her spine in the light breeze, its tip dancing about her thighs. She exhales a sigh of pleasure at the stretch.

A low desirous growl escapes me. I’m going to get more of those sounds out of her.

Thousands more.   

“Of course I can hear your thoughts—you crossed my wardings. And that’s quite enough of them, really. We don’t even know each other’s names, let alone whether your assumption is right.”

She turns then, facing me, her delicate fists on her gorgeous hips. That bottom isn’t the only part of her that’s bubbly either, I think, admiring her exquisite breasts. She’s easily a C-cup, and I’m more than comfortable betting she’s a D-cup, staring at the soft mounds straining for their freedom against her pink tank top.

Her face is a perfect oval, with large tip-tilted eyes of palest golden-green darkening at the edges to deep pine and fringed with thick, curling lashes. She has a narrow, slightly upturned nose, high cheekbones and a luscious rosy pout set now in a firm serious line. My heart’s pounding and my breath is coming faster. I can feel my wolf half savagely pulling towards her and the distracting tumble of fiercely erotic thoughts starts in my head again.

“Is that my pillow?” she demands, pointing to the one I’m holding in front of my nakedness.

**

Darby    

“Is that my pillow?” I ask, pointing to the one the were is holding over his male bits and sincerely hoping it’s not.

I couldn’t care less what a marvelous specimen he is or how much his thoughts tell me he desires me. When I’m sitting under my pergola watching the sunset, I don’t want it to be on a pillow covered in were come.

He runs the fingers of his free hand through his wavy black hair and licks full lips nervously as his brows flick up over gorgeous blue eyes. He’s the Alpha I felt when the wolves crossed into my valley. That much is clear by the size of him. He’s a foot taller than my 5’6 frame, easily two and a half times my breadth and made entirely of mouth-wateringly chiseled muscle.

And he’s definitely a marvelous specimen.

He’s got eyes such a deep blue they’re almost purple, framed with dark lashes the same shade as his hair, and a strong, square jaw. I’m itching to run the back of my fingers against the grain of the faint scruff that runs along it already and wonder what happened to my manners.

But that’s just where I’d like to start.

Lean and muscular doesn’t quite cut it for his kind. They’re all beautifully sculpted, rippling and bulging muscles clearly visible beneath their warm, tanned skin as they move.

But this one, I can’t take my eyes off him and the prickling at the back of my neck I mistook for the warning of my magic wards is vibrating tensely like the string of a recently fired bow. While everything about weres is powerful, from their muscular builds to their extraordinary senses to their voracious urges to their intense emotions and loyalties, this one appears particularly so in all of those characteristics.

Compellingly so, if I consider the fiercely erotic thoughts he was entertaining when he first saw me.

Which is why him seeming nervous is strange.

Since he hasn’t answered the first question, I’m about to ask another one when his eyes grow distant. One of his others is communicating through their wolf link with him.

When he returns his focus to me, he says quietly, “I’m sorry. I didn’t figure it was appropriate to ask for your help in the nude.”

I’m quite confident that, pillow or otherwise, he’s still in the nude, but decline to mention as much, only half out of courtesy.

The simplest truth is his ear candy voice rumbles and crackles in all the right ways and the cumulative package is just too tasty to resist. My skin feels like its igniting and a heavy aching I haven’t felt in eternity starts between my thighs.

From beyond him, I hear Tessa’s bark, impatient and worried, and tear my eyes away from his, lean and glance around him. “What help?”

“My Second is wounded. Tessa told us to put him in your surgery. I figured it was easier on her if I came to find you.”

My eyes lock with his again, desperate to make him understand. “That bark is more than worry.”

It’s all the warning I can spare before I vault past him, weaving through the grove at an all-out run that’s the fastest, if not the most graceful, of the ways I have to travel. I can hear him pounding behind me, but even though he has longer legs than I do, his human form will be no match for my sylphy speed.

Or so I thought.

I’m about half-way to the cottage through my grove when he draws abreast of me, powerful muscles pumping with each stride. To say it’s sexy is an understatement.

We clear the garden wall together, but my faery form is more agile than his were one, and I zip into the kitchen, easily dodging the furniture even at high speed and stop on a dime at my surgery door.

“What the hell have you done!?” I shout, furious, taking in the disaster it's become.

My surgery is a shambles, drawers hanging open and supplies dumped all over the blood-spattered floor. There’s a hairy, monstrous wolf with a vampire’s fletched yew arrow poking out beneath its ribs draped over my tiny exam table. The were, the one I presume has trashed my surgery, is also naked and standing over the wolf pressing blood-soaked gauze pads around the wound and trying to avoid contact with the arrow.

“Who gives a shit?” he shouts back. “He’s stopped breathing!”

It’s the only spur I need for action. I surge into the room, summoning magic, my palms flat towards the floor. When I feel it gather, I flip my hands palms up, lifting all of the mess with it before pushing it outwards to right everything in the room. Supplies fly into their assigned places, drawers lift back to their positions in the cabinets and slam closed, broken glass refuses into neatly ordered cork-stoppered vials and jars.

“A witch!” The were at the wolf releases his hands and vaults over the table towards me, his body beginning to shift into another monstrous wolf faster than any shifter I’ve ever seen.

Only this wolf isn’t inert on my exam table—he’s raging wild and about to land on me. Behind me, Tessa is barking a frantic warning, but it’s far too little too late. I didn’t summon magic to defend myself. I summoned magic to heal and repair.

Which means I’m going to die.

As the wolf clears the table, I squeeze my eyes closed, bracing against the crushing impact and brief moment of pain that will doubtless precede my death.

But it never comes.

Instead, I’m pushed roughly aside as the Alpha charges into the room, an aggressive growl issuing from him. His powerful limbs twist and flex as he catches and wrestles the out-of-control wolf to the floor at his feet and pins it.

“MINE!” He roars.

In the small room, it’s so loud it hurts my ears and I clutch my hands over them, cringing against the wall.

“Jack! Shift! NOW!”

Though I’ve never seen it in person before, I know an alpha command cannot be disobeyed. Hearing it like that, I have no doubt why.

Tessa places herself between me and the battling weres, her teeth bared and her hackles raised to defend me. Comparatively, she looks positively diminutive and I slip to the floor, clutching her to me defensively, more afraid they’ll hurt her than I am that they’d hurt me.

The were, Jack, shifts but still flails beneath the alpha, his sky blue eyes dark and stormy with hatred and boring into me, until he’s commanded to stop that as well.

“But she’s a witch! She’s probably the one who cloaked them!”

“It takes dark magic to cloak, Jack.”

In yet another show of incredible strength, the alpha physically lifts Jack to his feet, shoving him roughly out the surgery door, placing himself bodily between us. “Hers is green magic. Get the fuck out of here. Go sit down somewhere and if you so much as move without my permission, I’m going to clock your ass so hard you’ll wake up next week. Do you understand?”

From outside the surgery, I hear the meek reply.

“Yes, Alpha.”

The alpha’s eyes turn towards me where I grip Tessa tightly to my chest. He extends an enormous hand and I take it, releasing my dog and letting him gently draw me to my feet.

He looks down at Tessa then. “I apologize for my Second’s ill behavior in your home, little sister. It will not happen again, I assure you,” he rumbles politely. “If you would, please, watch him. If he disobeys, alert me.”

Tessa wags her tail and limps importantly out of the surgery, clearly pleased with her assigned duty.

“Did you just alpha my dog?”

Deep blue eyes meet mine filled with amusement, then his face splits in a wide smile.

“Holy goddesses, have mercy!” I gasp before I can stop myself. “You’re goddamned devastating.”

The amusement darkens, softens—oh, for fuck’s sake! I don’t really know or care what it mutates into. But my body does.

That ache between my thighs that began outside in my grove thunders to life, more powerful than before. And this time with a host of new responses swelling inside me too. My skin feels tight, like I can’t contain it all, and I want to kiss him more than I’ve ever wanted anything else in my life.

As if he can tell, he pulls me towards him, trapping me in his mesmerizing eyes. His large hands slide around me, warm palms promising my body delights like I’ve never experienced and I melt into him.

Then his fingers brush against the underside of my gossamer wings I hadn't even realized I'd released where they lay, folded along my back. Confused fireworks explode behind my eyes and in my head, wiping out everything else as they claw about my brain. I shove him away, shuddering.

“Please, don’t do that.” I wince, retracting my wings inside me and move towards the dying were on my exam table. “Your friend,” I remind, wrenching my body’s control from hypnotic control of the alpha.