5: Wolf

Darby

“You’re my mate! MINE!”

The roar is so loud it feels like my head will explode. My vision is tunneling rapidly towards darkness and I bang the heel of my palm ineffectually against his wrist at my neck. “I-Ian,” I gasp weakly.

“Say it!” he snarls into my ear, loosening his hold on my neck just enough I can draw a shallow breath. “SAY IT!”

“O-only you,” I breathe, shaking my head slightly. “N-no others.”

Releasing my throat, he lifts his weight, grabbing my wrists and pinning them over my head. With the pressure off my diaphragm, the vacuum in my burning lungs heaves air into me painfully.

Sucking it in despite the pain, I try to clear my vision, only to have the tunnel constrict again and burst with stars when he rams his cock into me so hard it feels like my still sore hips split apart.

He supports himself on his knees, braced to the outside of my thighs. Arching over me, Ian drives himself inside, destroying my pussy with his powerful core, every muscle from his arms, through his shoulders and chest to his abs bulging and rippling, all his strength leveraged against me and pounding painfully against my tender cervix.

“Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine!” He growls the word with each deep thrust tearing agonized screams from me. He attacks my mouth, savagely forcing his way in, gorging himself on the sounds of my pain.

His long, wolf tongue lolls, invading every soft recess. It’s the gentlest part of him right now, and grateful for even that tiny concession, I yield to him, trembling weakly. The prickling pleasure starts at the back of my neck. Almost as if in response, his rough body gentles.

His mouth withdraws, then returns, licking, kissing and biting at my jaw, then my neck. He draws my hands down along my sides with him, kissing my collar, my sternum, the top of each mounded breast.

When his lolling tongue draws constricting circles toward my stiff nipple, then sucks the hardened tip through his lips, the prickling explodes fireworks across what’s left of my vision and down through the whole of my body. I moan his name and he growls, the vibration adding another pleasurable aspect to what his mouth is doing.

His long, thick cock slides out of me slowly, and my abused chamber spasms and burns excruciatingly from his rage-fucking moments before. I groan, flinch tenderly, and a new ache begins in my core. Yearning— for his return.

Feathery kisses float across my abdomen and he props his hands under my hips, lifting me from the shoulders. I’m a table he’s about to dine from.

He pauses at my mound, inhales deeply the scent of my sex, still slick with our shared juices.

“Oh! Sweet goddess!” I hiss as he exhales heat through his opening mouth, his warm breath caressing my swollen nether lips.

He plants an open-mouth kiss on the inside of first one thigh, sucking at the wet honey glazing it, then repeats it on the other.

“You taste—so good.” The low, silky-sinister undertow of his wolf voice is hypnotically compelling, and I let myself succumb to the demands of his spell.

I bury my fingers in the black waves of hair at the top of his head. My hands ball into fists when his wolf tongue extends, licking—agonizingly slow— up my hot battered slit to swirl once around my aroused clit with exquisite control. Slick honey oozes out to meet him as he starts the process again and we both groan as he lingers at my quivering nether mouth—sucking, slurping, tasting each fold.

Writhing, I arch, moving my aching clit towards his mouth, but he ignores me, continues his ministrations as if he didn’t just do this an hour ago.

Perhaps he didn’t. I don’t really know how much consciousness each half shares.

“Oh! Fu-huh-huh-huh-uck!” I groan, my mind erasing before I can consider it.

Between my legs, Ian’s unwinding that miraculous tongue of his, pushing it into the depths of my ill-treated pussy in dizzying circles and fucking me with it. I lose track of time—of everything. Except him and the satisfying pleasure of his tongue tenderly soothing my sugar walls he destroyed before.

He’s building my orgasm, carefully placing each piece with his tongue and sucking lips. I pant, drawing closer and higher until it washes over me like water over a dam. I shiver uncontrollably, convulsing beneath him, cry out when his tongue recedes.

“Keep coming,” he commands, then pounces on my mistreated clit, the tip of his tongue fluttering over it. “Keep coming.”

The heady orgasm wave crashing towards trough surges up again without bottoming out, an unbearable tension climbing beyond my limits as his tongue continues flicking, dragging me towards an unendurable climax. My head thrashes from side to side and my legs tremble so hard Ian lifts my hips higher, leaving my feet dangling in front of his shoulders, my hot juices and his pooling beneath me on the bed.

Behind my eyes, white stars are coalescing towards a supernova that simultaneously I fear and crave.

From down below, Ian warns me, “Get ready, my love.”

He closes his mouth over my swollen bud, sucking hard and I explode in shockwaves with a scream, wave after wave of pleasure coursing through me.

“Keep coming,” he demands again.

His thumb replaces his mouth on my overstimulated clit, just the right pressure to make me do exactly that, and he’s on his knees between my thighs again. Pulling my thrashing hips up to his, he eases his thickness into me again, filling me, and we both groan. “Keep coming.”

My vaginal muscles tighten and loosen in undulating waves down the length of his hot hard cock as my orgasm keeps rolling. We’re both blind, mindlessly pulling at each other, coursing to a spectacular finish.

“Keep…coming,” Ian half-growls half-pants, struggling for control of his own orgasm that in that instant fails him.

Above me, he throws back his head and howls his pleasure, burying himself to the hilt inside me. His hips shudder with the force of his release and his come spurts into me so hot and hard, I orgasm again, milking the last of his seed from him.

Staying inside me, he eases himself down, supporting his weight on his elbows. “Forgive me.”

I kiss his mouth, my fingers threaded into the hair at the base of his neck. Beneath them, a reciprocal tingling sparks and zaps me. The eyes above me in his handsome face are still black with yellow and green flecks. I lick across his lips, plant a tiny kiss on the tip of his narrow nose. “Ian,” I whisper, calling the man.

**

Ian      

I’m not going to lie: the wolf half of me is almost entirely a critical, patronizing dick, nagging at me constantly from the minute we split at puberty. He’s a fucking perfectionist and a slave driver, demanding no less than the best from me until his envy and pride are sated.

I can’t hate him for it though. It’s made me one of the most respected alphas in the country and my name is known in packs around the world. A few weres have even left their packs to join mine during violent alpha transitions. And dealing with him has taught me how not to deal with others.

So it’s especially refreshing to lord over him when he makes a mistake. Particularly one of this magnitude.

You terrified our mate and you hurt her.

His head hangs in shame. I know, he sighs resignedly. We’ve searched so long and so hard for her, now that we’ve found her, the thought of anyone besides us pleasing her is more than I can bear.

That doesn’t justify your behavior. We found her alone, wolf. In a valley that shouldn’t be here. A place that doesn’t exist. She’s a fae. I don’t even know if we’re still in the human realm!

I know.

Where’s she going to find a lover?

Not here.

You can’t do that again.

I know.

You can’t tear her apart and trust you’ll be able to reassemble her.

I know. This comes through clenched teeth. I asked her forgiveness.

So fucking what? What you did was wrong, wolf, forgiven or otherwise. Don’t do it again. Don’t push me back. We’re side by side with her or you’re in the backseat from here out until we can trust you completely. Got it?

Yes. Side by side.

When the wolf half is in control, it’s like being paralyzed and in the dark. Or like dreaming without the pictures. Your senses still work, but your awareness is helpless, keeping the wolf instincts and reflexes sharp. Side by side, the wolf instincts feed in a loop through the human mind, filtering through and tempered with human discernment. And when the human half is in control, the wolf half waits in dreamland. This is an oversimplification of course; the entire sharing thing is a sliding scale.

“Ian.” We can both hear Darby’s whisper.

And we both know she’s not calling my wolf half. It’s through the pitch-dark deep, the slow filtering of my senses, that call reaches. A whisper that thunders.

Like breaking the surface after being submerged, I blink and she’s beneath me. Her hair looks like a bird’s nest, her perfect mouth is swollen and red, and there are bite marks and bruises on her throat. Her delicate fingers wrap the back of my neck. The tingling I’ve felt since I realized how close she was in the meadow is wholly erratic, leaping between our bodies like sparks of static electricity.

My cock still throbs with the retreating pleasure of orgasm—a big one—and I’m pissed that my selfish dick of a wolf half didn’t have the decency to share.

I know! He growls in my head. Side by side. I got it!

Fuck that! I snap back. You want to be treated fairly? You treat me fairly! The next one’s all mine.

We’ll see about that.

Darby’s hand caresses my cheek as she looks into my eyes. “There you are.” She stretches up to kiss me. Her mouth tastes sweet, with a lingering residual of the salty-sweetness of her honeypot.

You’re such a dick, wolf.

I know! I said I was sorry.

No, you didn’t! You asked for Darby’s forgiveness. You didn’t apologize. Not to anyone. The next one’s all mine.

My wolf half goes silent in my head and I’m pleased he has the decency to withdraw voluntarily. I’m sure he’s pouting, but the hell with him. Maybe I’ll make love to her for the rest of the night and not invite him.

In the back of my mind, I hear him whimper.

Whatever, wolf.

“I’m sorry he hurt you.” I kiss the bruises on her neck tenderly and she sighs. Sweet goddess! I love that sound of contentment. The tingling at the back of my neck is taking a tour down south and I can feel myself starting to harden again inside her.

“He asked for forgiveness. And it wasn’t all bad.”

That gets my attention.

I look up, reluctantly releasing one rosy pink nipple from my mouth, and meet her lovely golden-green eyes again. “Oh, yeah? Do tell.”

One of her brows arches and she smirks. “He was generous with the TLC.”

Tongue licking.

Of course.

Can’t blame the guy for playing to his strengths.

“Ahhh.” I smile back. “Wolf tongue. Always popular with the ladies.” I let my tongue loll out, wiggling the tip dangling beneath my chin suggestively.

This time the arching brow looks cross. “Ladies? Seems a bit hypocritical.”

“Never, baby.” As I kiss her mouth, I see the faery gleam is starting beneath her skin. “There’s been only you. But Jack—he’s unmated. And an absolute slut puppy. I’ve had to listen to his shit for the last seven years.”

That makes her giggle—another sound I adore. Seeing her smile again sets my entire world right.

When I go back to work on her nipple, I notice a lot of the bruises along her neck are gone. Beneath her luminous flesh, the silvery-white sparks swirl. I pause to watch as they move to the next bruise and it starts to fade.

“Ian? What’s the matter?”

“Your bruises are healing. In seconds.”

Darby tips my chin so she can look in my eyes. “I’m faery.”

I consider what that might mean since I don’t actually have a clue, then have an epiphany and my brows shoot up. “Does that mean…?” I glance down towards her abdomen where my wolf half has pummeled her poor insides and waggle my brows suggestively.

Shaking her head, she replies, “That was pretty brutal, so not as fast as you’d like.”

“Oh good. Take your time because I’m going to eat you until you can’t think straight,” I growl. I ease myself out of her gently and feel terrible when a pained cry escapes her. I start working my mouth towards her belly. “TLC, coming right down, baby.”

**

Darby    

Oh, the things Ian can do with his mouth!

And his hands.

And his body.

For hours without stop.

I’m quite certain none of that was ever mentioned in the texts I’ve read about weres. Not that I’m complaining, though I am utterly exhausted and starving too. Basking in my latest afterglow, I settle myself in his arms, my fingertips lazily tracing around one of his nipples and beneath my hand I feel the low rumble of enjoyment in his wide chest.

“I thought you wanted to rest.”

“That’s not a want, Ian. It’s a need. I’m not used to your level of …. athleticism, regardless of how often you’re supplying that little energy boost of yours.”

He chuckles, laying his huge hand over mine, pressing it flat and still, commanding my submission. “I’m not actually supplying that on purpose, baby, but it’s interesting that you feel it too. Must come from the mate bond.”

Mate bond? I roll myself up onto his chest so I can see his face and I’m struck again, my thoughts completely derailed. “I swear, Ian, you’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever laid eyes on.” I’m getting lost in his beautiful blues and starting to fall under his seductive spell. Beneath my hands, his chiseled chest rises and falls with a deep breath and one large hand caresses slowly up my spine to the back of my neck.

He lifts himself, his core muscles flexing beneath me in a way that makes me delirious. Kissing my mouth sensually, he nibbles at my bottom lip to get me to open it. “I can smell that delicate feminine desire, Darby,” he breathes huskily into my mouth.

With a groan, I wrench my lips away, smacking him lightly on the chest. “Oh, for fuck’s sake! Stop that!” Ian lays back with a wide grin on his handsome face, tucks one hand behind his head so he can see me better and lets the other one cup my posterior.

It takes several long seconds for me to collect my thoughts again. Seeing what this position does to his sculpted body doesn’t help either. My eyes rove wantonly from his shoulder, across his chest to where he narrows at the waist. And that V. Oh, that V! I just want to lick it…

“I really can smell your desire, Darby,” he warns gently.

It’s enough to snap me out of it. “Mate bond!”

The words pop out like they were squeezed out of someplace tight and small.

“Whoa, baby. Are you alright?” Ian chuckles.

I look down at his face. “Mate bond. You keep talking about mate bonds and being mates. We’re different species. How can that even work?”

His expression is so tender and loving I want to kiss him. A lot. All over that fabulous body of his. A roguish smile pulls one corner of his mouth and his large warm hand starts up my spine again, sending a scrumptious shiver over me.

Damn weres.

“Weres can have mates besides other weres, baby. It’s actually fairly common. Shifters of other species. Even humans. Ivan’s mate was full human. He had to give her a wolf before they could have offspring, but—.”

“Wait! What’s that mean? Give her a wolf? He infected her?”

Ian nods. “After she agreed to it, of course.”

“Then what happened to her?”

“I don’t know all the biology behind it—you’d have to ask one of the pack doctors about that—but the short version is that he bit her, gave her his wolf catalyst and it turned her into a were.”

Wolf catalyst? WTF? I need some better books in my library. “Pack doctors? You have your own medicine?”

“We have our own community.” Ian grins proudly. “Hospital. Places some members of my pack live and work. Businesses they own. Others work in the nearby human communities. Candlewood’s in the mountains, kind of like here. It’s beautiful. I can’t wait to take you there.”

Leave my valley? The thought makes my chest constrict painfully. “What’s wrong with my valley?”

“Nothing, baby.” Ian shifts me entirely on top of him, wraps both arms around me and gives me a little squeeze. “It’s amazing. But I’m the Candlewood Alpha. My pack needs me. My pack needs you—my alpha mate, their Luna. We can come back and visit your valley anytime you want.”

Visit? I can feel the scowl forming on my face. “So, your mate bond tells you that I’m supposed to give up my entire way of life and submit to yours?”

“No!” he denies quickly. “Submission is voluntary, baby.” One brow flicks up playfully.

“Oh!” I huff, exasperated. Wiggling furiously, I extract myself from his embrace and roll off the bed. “I’m serious!”

**

Ian    

Darby is the kind of woman— with the kind of body— that makes a man appreciate the view.

All the view.

From any and every angle he can get it.

And right now, she’s standing over me at the side of the bed in all of her perfect-hourglass-perfect-skin-perfect-scent-now-covered-in-my-scent faery glory and if don’t start worshipping that body of hers with mine in the next sixty seconds, I may as well not exist as a man.

It won’t be living.

But when she throws her hands up and snaps, “What kind of primeval patriarchal bullshit is this?”, I realize I’ve got some digging to do getting out of the hole I didn’t know I was in.

Shoulda seen that coming, dumbass.

Shut it, wolf.

I leap out of the bed and try to take her in my arms again. “Wai-wai-wai-wai-wait a minute,” I soothe, resignedly accepting when she fends off my hands. “Darby. Baby. We’re mates. Partners. And I may have a pack I need your help caring for but I’m down for helping you care for what you have here.”

“Partners? Is that what you call that?” she says indignantly. “What kind of partnership equates caring for my simple life with caring for all the complexities of yours that you,” she pokes me in the chest, “so generously took on without my consent before you even met me? “

Oh shit. She’s right.

As I was saying: dumbass.

Yep. Good call.

Her peridot eyes read my expression before I can hide it and formulate a way to address this. Her face melts into a saccharine smile. “Mmmmm. Now you’re catching on. I’m sorry, Ian. As much as I enjoy your company, and,” her eyes skim my body shamelessly in the cutest way, lingering at my cock while she sucks her bottom lip, “you need to find yourself another mate. I can’t do it.”

She turns towards an ornate armoire and starts to walk away.

Desperate, I snatch at her arm. “That’s not how it works,” I growl, towering over her. “In all of my life—in all of your life—there’s only one mate. Of all the creatures on this planet, in this realm or any other, I’m made exactly for you and you’re made perfectly for me. I know you can feel it because I can. And right now, the thought of spending the rest of my days without you is crushing my soul.”

The compassion in her eyes is such a relief tears start down my cheeks. Darby reaches up and lays her hand tenderly along my jaw.

“I do have a complex life by comparison with yours. I admit that. But we’re not meant for each other because we’re the same, Darby. You’re not my mate because I am what you are. You’re my mate because I need what you are.”

The tingling starts at the base of my skull, maybe even stronger than any other time. Well, except when I make love to her. It’s gigantic raging alpha wolf powerful then. I pull her into an embrace and the more of her skin that touches mine, the stronger the tingling gets.

“It’s more than just that little boost we’re getting from each other.” I brush her hair aside and lay one hand over the back of her neck, seeking what I know is there. Her nape under my hand is zapping sparks directly into my nervous system, and the tingling in me becomes so pins-and-needly pleasurable I start to feel hot. “Can’t you feel it?”

Darby slides her hand up the back of my neck and stars shoot across my vision.

“You know I can,” she whispers.

And the sound of it rocks my world.

“It’s been a long time since I left here, Ian. Longer still since I dealt with others. I guess I’m a little afraid.”

Bending, I murmur against her lips. “With courage and honor, I will aid and sustain you. With knowledge and truth, I will respect and uphold you. With strength and wrath, I will guard and preserve you. With temperance and grace, I will cherish and love you, all the rest of my days. This I promise, my mate.”

I don’t expect she knows the words of the Mate Vow. And honestly, it’s a little weird to be in the middle of who knows where this valley of hers is after fighting with her and saying it—usually, it’s spoken when you, well, mate, and it’s sealed with shared blood from a bite.

But I want her to hear it and the words have power. The back of my neck pulses and prickles like the way it feels when you tickle the roof of your mouth with the tip of your tongue.

Darby doesn’t wait for me to kiss her. She throws her arms tight around my neck and kisses me. Deeply. Passionately. Even a little savagely.

I crash with her into the armoire, kissing her the way she’s kissing me. I’m so completely lost in the taste and feel of her mouth, I don’t notice until she closes her delicate fingers over the head of my erect cock and begins stroking.

“Ohhh!” I gasp to the sky, my head tipped back and my eyes squeezed shut. With her free hand, she rakes her fingernails down my side, then stands on her tiptoes and bites the thin flesh between my collarbones. “That. So good.”

Sliding down and pushing me back, she bends, taking the tip of my cock in her mouth and it gets so much better. Her plump lips stretch around me, her warm wet tongue and gently scraping teeth working my sensitive head while her hands stroke along my shaft.

I brace myself with one hand over her on the armoire, my core muscles tensing to keep me upright. Her mouth and hands keep moving, the pleasure building until I’m so hard, I think I’m going to burst and it makes me harder just thinking about watching her swallow every thick spurt over her plump rosy lips and down that delicate throat. I pull my mind back from the brink—not yet. Come in her womb until she’s out of heat. I put my hand under her chin and lift her face to mine.

Her eyes are wild and dilated and she gives a frustrated whine when I won’t let her put her mouth back on me. “You keep that up, there won’t be anything left for you.”

She locks her eyes on mine and her tongue makes a purely seductive pass over her upper lip shining wetly, then she greedily sucks her bottom one in.

“Oooh, you sexy-ass little vixen,” I chuckle darkly. “My turn.”

I jerk her to her feet and turn her, roughly push her front into the armoire. Her silky tresses hide her body from my view and I brush them over one shoulder, stroke the back of my fingers along her spine, loving the quiver it sends through her. “Keep your hands right here,” I growl, pressing them flat against the wooden doors above her head, my stiff cock straining against that gorgeous bubble butt of hers.

The gleam has started under her creamy soft skin and as if it somehow knows, it’s concentrated at the back of her neck, precisely where that tingling sensation is on mine.

That’s where, my wolf half growls with conviction. You gave her your Vow. Now bite her. There!

I kick her feet apart and bend my knees to get my hips under her, the tip of my cock slipping against her slick nether lips and the smell of her sex is a sensual assault that only fuels the burning inside me to take her and take her until she’s boneless beneath me. “Oh, Darby,” I groan. “You are so wet.”

She turns her head, says with a quiver in her voice, “Ian, I need you. Right now.”

I lace my fingers through hers on the armoire doors and move into her powerfully. As I lift her off her feet, skewering her body, my throbbing cock capped at her womb, her sighing groan rises with mine. I wrap one arm all the way around her slender waist, holding her body and fucking myself with her. The tingling at the back of my neck shoots through me and intensifies as I pump into her and when I open my eyes, that spot on the back of her neck gleams brighter.

Bending slightly, I place a kiss there. It sparks pleasure into my lips that I feel all through me and against me Darby gives a little shiver, her pussy tightening around my cock, sweet honey seeping out from around me.

Oh-ho-ho-ho-ohhh. This just keeps getting better and better.

My curiosity peaked, the next kiss is open-mouthed and I suck a little, stroking the delicate flesh with my tongue. This time both of us tremble hard as the tingling zaps a deeper place of primal need. New wetness, hot and thick, runs in slow rivulets down the inside of Darby’s thighs and over my balls and I know she’s close. I thrust into her harder and faster, but it’s not what she needs and I know that too.

Releasing her hand, I push her head down. Her whole neck from her hairline to her shoulders is a mass of frenetically swirling motes of light. I dip my mouth to it, lips curled back and my jaw clenches, fighting the urge to sink my teeth deep as I try to decide.

When I open my mouth, my canines elongate. My wolf half howls in excitement.

“Ian! Please!” Darby begs.

Gently, wolf.

**

Darby    

Ian pants open-mouthed through clenched teeth as he pounds into me. His hot breath stimulates and arouses all the nerves in the back of my neck and across my shoulders, cool and hot in alternating waves. The prickling has become so intense, I feel like an open nerve, raw and quivering with anticipation of something I don’t know but desperately need.

“Ian! Please!”

With my hands against the armoire, the tips of my nipples rub against the rough door, stimulating them with each hard thrust. Ian’s destroying my pussy—again—his long, thick cock buried deep, his balls slapping against my aching clit. It’s absolute bliss and I never want it to end. Nothing could feel better. Nothing coul—

There’s a blaze of light, bright white and glorious, when I feel Ian’s wolf teeth nip and hold the sensitized flesh on my nape. My orgasm rips a scream from my lips and a low deep growl from Ian a second before I feel him bathe my insides with his thick juices.

I’m falling into him, electrified and grounded at the same time. Splintering, a veil lifts and opens to emotions I never thought existed, was too weak to bear alone. I feel them all, drifting inside him. We expand into each other, more now than we could ever be apart. There’s no direction or space or time—just a yawning, depthless, infinite, perfect love that’s Ian.

My mate.

**

Ian    

Darby arches against me as my wolf teeth nip and gently hold the tender flesh at the back of her neck. In a flash, her wings explode out, crashing against and wrapping around my chest. My sight vanishes and as if I’ve only just opened my eyes, I find myself tumbling, underwater, amid crashing waves. My entire body is burning with the most intense tingling I’ve felt with her and I realize this raging ocean around me is her orgasm. As I understand I’m no longer limited to my body’s confines, I expand into her, my waves crashing and rolling with hers and now it’s our orgasm.

I don’t know how long it lasts. When I become aware of our physical bodies again, she’s clutched against my heaving chest and I’m sliding down the armoire to the floor with her protected by my arms.

Holy goddess! That was incredible.

Told you so.

Don’t be a dick, wolf.

Darby’s eyelashes flutter closed, tickling the flesh at my sternum. The last thing in my exhausted awareness is her snoring softly, pillowed on my chest.

**