Soren
Maeve smells incredible. Like her skin, a touch of perspiration, and that heady magnolia scent that curls through my body with each inhale, rewiring my brain. There’s more to it. Things I hadn’t picked up before–like her scent is suddenly intensified. Traces of amber and vanilla. A soft, evening breeze over the lake in Moonrise. A cool, late autumn rain.
She’s delicious. Her skin is soft as silk, and I can’t keep my mouth off her shoulder. I graze my teeth over her skin again, clutching her to me, curling the arm she’s lying on and bending her neck back to give me better access to the soft, tender spot where her pulse is going haywire.
My fingers glide over the waistband of her panties before slipping beneath the elastic. It takes all of my strength not to shutter when her soft skin whispers against my fingers and my palm.
This is the only place where she’s warm–like she has an internal source of heat and power suddenly radiating from her, mingling with mine.
Shifters call this being in heat, literally. It’s when the females are at their most fertile, but from what Patton forced me to learn to ensure I wasn’t accidentally fathering several bastards during my younger, more prolific years as a bachelor… this is much more common between mates.
I scrub that thought from my mind as my scarred arm tingles to the point of pain.
“Is this what you want,” I rasp against her shoulder while my fingers dip lower, parting her folds. My eyes close against the sensation of her shuddering in my arms, and her breathy moan is confirmation enough for me.
She wanted a distraction. I can give her that. I can give myself that, even if every fiber of my being is screaming to mark her, to claim her as mine, mate bond be damned.
“Please,” she begs, sucking in her breath as I draw lazy circles over her swollen clit. She shimmies, her ass grinding into my groin.
“Relax,” I whisper, pressing another kiss to her shoulder. “Keep breathing for me.”
I’m not sure if she’s even aware that I’m talking to her, whispering praise against her skin as I slide my fingers through her wet slit. She’s… enthusiastic, which makes my own desire, my own want, harder to ignore. I want her loud. I want her unhinged. I want her legs splayed wide and my cock buried inside of her, but not like this.
I cover her mouth with my free hand to muffle her cries of pleasure. She whimpers against my skin as I inhale sharply through my mouth and close my eyes, losing myself to the feeling of my fingers sliding inside of her.
She’s never done this before, and the thought of me being the first man to touch her? Fuck. It’s my undoing.
“I want you to fuck me,” she whimpers, her words muffled by my hand.
I chuckle against her shoulder, driving my fingers deeper, curling them as I pull them out. Her knees bend upward, and she turns into the touch, trembling.
“Not here. Not like this.”
“Why?” she whines, but her eyelids flutter as I return to the soft, rhythmic strokes over her clit, the exploratory swipes through her folds. Memorizing her. Taking into account the way she writhes, if her muscles tighten and flex when I touch her a certain way. I want this to be good for her. I desperately want that.
“Because,” I reply breathlessly, “when I fuck you, Maeve, I want you to be able to scream my name without an entire hotel full of people overhearing us.”
She moans, grinding and shaking. She likes this–this stimulation. She likes when I trail my fingers in a featherlight touch between her thighs, teasing her. She can handle a single finger inside of her so far, so I give her two, enjoying the way her back arches against the intrusion and what might be a shimmer of new, fresh pain.
Her inner walls are like silk–soft, hot, and gripping my fingers with an intensity that makes my balls tighten.
“I want to be inside of you,” I say against the outer rim of her ear, my hand still clamped to her mouth as she starts to unravel. I’m not done with her yet, so I slow my pace, drawing my fingers back to tease her clit again. “I want you tied up with your hands behind your back while you kneel. I’ll fuck your mouth first. That wicked, sharp tongue of yours deserves it.”
She moans, squeezing her thighs together to try to keep my fingers inside of her. That’s where she wants me. That's where she desperately needs me, and I notice.
“And then,” I groan, rocking my hips against her ass, greedily chasing any friction I can find for myself, “I’ll bend you over the mattress, and you’ll take all of me, Maeve. It won’t be easy. It’ll hurt you, but I think you want that.” I slowly, carefully, lower my hand from her mouth, my fingers trailing over her lips and down her neck. I grip her throat, not enough to hurt her, but enough to get her attention as I continue, my voice warm and rough against her ear, “I’ll make you feel things you’ve never felt before. I’ll fuck you until you can’t think straight. I’ll ravage you until you’re spent. That’s a fucking promise.”
She gasps as I roughly jerk three fingers into her pussy, my thumb pressed against her clit. She’s on her way. Her cheeks go a deep rose while her lower lip trembles, her eyes squeezed shut.
“You might be my queen,” I tell her, panting against her skin as her inner muscles tighten, “but when I’m between your legs, I’ll be the one you worship. The one you obey. You’ll be on your knees for me, Maeve.”
Her legs quiver, her toes curling as her pussy spasms with my fingers buried inside of her. Her skin warms like waves of heat are washing through her, her chest rising and sharply falling with each ragged inhale she takes between pitched moans of pleasure that settle in my core before licking up my spine.
I’m hard. Uncomfortably so. The urge to sink my teeth into her skin jolts me back to reality at the moment she begins to relax.
I press a rough kiss to her shoulder before releasing her, dragging the hem of her shift back down her thigh. Her panties are soaked and part of me regrets that it’s not my seed dripping out of her. That’ll come later.
I gather her back to my chest, curling around her while she pants in my arms, and I stare at the wall as stormy darkness cloaks the room in shadow. Minutes pass in silence. She whispers my name at one point, but it’s a sound drowning in fatigue, and I lose her to sleep before my heart rate returns to normal.
I promised her I wouldn’t leave again, but there’s something I have to do tonight before I lose my nerve.
* * *
Maeve
I wake to early morning sunlight drifting through the curtains. It’s still raining, but daylight, and ribbons of sun dance through swiftly moving clouds. For a moment I forget where I am. I guess I could be anywhere at this point. Moonrise. Veiled Valley. Crescent Falls.
Patton’s house. A train. Another shitty inn. The fucking forest floor.
It takes me a moment to remember the details of the room–the light blue walls, the soft finishes and light wood furniture. I’m not entirely sure what woke me up, but when I inhale, arching my back into a deep, luxurious, cat-like stretch… the smell of blood fills my nostrils, and I jerk upright as Soren’s heavy footsteps stalk across the room.
He closes himself into the bathroom before I can get a good look at him. I reach for his side of the bed, noticing the chill on the sheets. It can’t be later than seven in the morning, but he’s been up. He’s been up, and apparently bleeding.
The window is open just a touch, but the breeze cuts into the room, lifting a piece of paper off the table beneath the window and sending it spiraling to the ground.
I hear the shower running when I slip my feet out of bed and pad across the room, bending to pick up the paper. My thumb brushes over what I believe is a printed list of coordinates and a set of initials I don’t recognize, but the imprints of a pen make me pause. The handwriting is… impeccable. Straight and clear, like it was typed and printed out.
I set the paper down on the table, thinking it’s probably just directions here, to the hotel, given to Soren by the old witch at the clinic, but I notice Soren’s bloody jacket hanging lazily on a chair near the door, and his filthy, mud-soaked boots beside them.
My stomach begins to turn as I scan the room for more evidence that he’s hurt, but the blood doesn’t smell like his. That flicker of wolfish power in my blood gives me heightened scent, of course, but that’s it, and this blood doesn’t belong to him. I know that for a fact because I think I’ve made him bleed more than anyone.
The shower turns off. I watch his shadow beneath the door as he dries off then appears in the doorway wearing a towel around his waist, his eyes lifting to mine like he’s surprised to see me out of bed.
I wait for his questions, his attitude, but he just stares at me, his pupils blown wide, his eyes nearly black in the hazy morning light.
A tingle shoots up my spine as his eyes graze my throat, then dip lower to my breasts. My nipples harden, peeking beneath the thin fabric of the shift.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, my voice quaking. “Are you hurt?”
He just… stares at me, reaching up to grip the top of the doorframe. He lowers his head, stretching the muscles in his back and shoulders.
“Soren?”
“I’m not hurt–”
“The blood–”
“It wasn’t mine.”
“Whose?”
He lifts his head just a touch, and all he says is, “I patrolled for a while last night. I couldn’t sleep. I ran into a bit of trouble, but it’s nothing. I’m fine.”
His tone is… different, however. It’s darker, edged with something unfamiliar, and I’ve seen and heard this man rage at me before. This feels off, and the tension filling the space between us confirms it.
I move toward him, carefully picking my way across the squeaky floorboards. He doesn’t fully look at me until I close the distance between us and reach for him, trying to lay my hand over his chest.
But he catches my wrist. I whisper his name, confused and uneasy.
Now, we’re chest to chest, his arm snaking around my back and tugging me closer–closer than last night, if that’s even possible.
His lips drag over mine before he sweeps me off my feet with a kiss that knocks the air from my lungs.
My first real kiss.
“Open your mouth,” he commands against my lips, and I answer him with a gasp as his hand slides down my back and grips my ass–hard. His tongue slides over mine, and he groans, his body trembling like a shiver’s running up his spine. The kiss becomes erratic, desperate. Our teeth clash. He bites down on my lower lip, grunting as I splay my hands over his chest, smoothing them down the hard, broad muscles of his abdomen, and lower, to where he’s hidden by the towel.
Memories of last night stir through my head, igniting that heat once again, but this time I want more. I want everything.
“I want you to be my first,” I whisper, my tone pleading, edging on begging.
It sends him over the edge, and before I can even blink, he lifts me and carries me to the bed. We fall onto the mattress, my legs wrapped around his waist, and his hands… they’re everywhere, clawing at the shift, ripping it from my body.
His mouth presses against mine in a rough kiss before he buries his face in my neck and inhales sharply, and I feel… I feel his teeth–his canines lengthening, pressing into my neck.
“Soren! Wait!” I screech, sinking my nails into his back to try to get his attention. Something’s wrong. Something’s off about him, and this is–this isn’t him. “SOREN!”
He goes perfectly still, then pulls away and stumbles backward until his back hits the door to our room. His towel is hanging precariously around his waist as he places a hand over his chest, squeezing his eyes shut and bending forward a bit, like he’s struggling to breathe.
I sit up, gathering my mangled shift to my chest and slide off the bed. “Are you okay? What’s going on? You almost marked me!” I shout, my words slipping from concern to sudden fury. “What is wrong with you?”
I start in his direction, but he holds out a hand. “Get out of here. Go take a shower and wash that–that scent off.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Get out of here, Maeve,” he snarls, his eyes finally meeting mine. His pupils slowly shrink to normal.
“You did get hurt, didn’t you? Where–”
“Take a fucking shower!” he shouts, his tone laced with ice.
“Don’t you dare use that tone with me. I’m trying to help you!”
“We’re leaving in half an hour,” he growls, pointing at the bathroom door. “Go. Now.”