Blake
“Take it slow,” I urge, concern hanging from every syllable as Marianna removes a robe of glossy emerald green that makes her skin glow a soft bronzed gold in the moonlight. It’s nearly a full moon–tomorrow, I believe, which makes sense, seeing as tomorrow is the last full day and night of the mating festival taking place just beyond the palace walls.
I make an effort not to outwardly gawk at Marianna’s naked body, but it’s hard not to look. She’s glorious–all softness and curves–places I want to sink my teeth into the second I have a chance.
“Will someone take our clothes while we’re gone?” she asks, clutching the robe to her chest, her shoulders and arms bare.
I look around the quiet, wooden park that backs up to the castle, the delivery gate just within sight. I cleared the guards from the area twenty minutes ago, so we’re alone. “If they do, they’ll have to answer to me.”
She gives me a weak smile before letting the robe drop to the soft grass and kicking it toward a tree. I chew the inside of my cheek when the moonlight hits her skin, and she sighs, trembling like it’s the best feeling in the world, and as a full-blooded shifter who hasn’t been able to stretch those wolf powers in weeks, I’m sure it is.
My wolf, while incredibly powerful, isn’t nearly as needy as some of the other wolves in my family. I think the strain of my other powers keep it more docile, which I generally appreciate, but seeing Marianna like this, in just her skin? My wolf is now clawing to the surface, begging for release.
My nostrils flare as a soft breeze echoes through the branches, carrying her scent in my direction. I watch her shift, which seems to take some effort, and she’s immediately uneasy on her feet.
“I’m fine,” she says into my head when she notices the way I’m watching her trot around. “Just a little numb.”
I blink, meeting her round, glowing blue eyes. While we haven’t completely acknowledged the mate bond yet, it’s there, radiating through my chest like the threads of her soul are woven through my heart. I hadn’t expected to hear her through the mind-link yet, though.
“So, where are we going?” she asks with a deep stretch. She’s a beautiful wolf–dark and glossy. Similar in color to my wolf, I suppose, without the underlying red that runs in my bloodline, thanks to my grandma, Maddy.
I take off my shirt and gather her robe, hanging them over a branch before undressing completely. I shift with ease, and a soft burst of violet mist skitters through the woods and dissipates just as the moon peeks out from behind the clouds. Marianna eyes me for a moment before turning her snout toward the moon and closing her eyes.
“I’m worried that you won’t be able to hold yourself in your wolf form for very long,” I say into her mind. “So we won’t go far.”
A soft sigh echoes through our threads, but she replies, “That’s probably wise. I wouldn’t want to be naked in the forest during our trek home, even though I’m sure you’d love that.” She gives me a wolfish smile, and I feel…
“So we’re back to you trying everything in your power to get under my skin?”
“Is it working?”
I take off in a blur of dark fur, and her scoff explodes through my mind, but she follows, keeping up at a sprint I hope will truly test her strength after weeks spent under the haze of witches’ herbs and potions.
It’s a sultry night–suffocatingly so, actually. It rained hard earlier in the day, and when the clouds broke, the heat of summer finally replaced the cool, drizzly days of spring, but that sucking humidity Moonrise is known for is now in full effect.
After a few miles at a steady, fast pace, I slow down, and Marianna keeps up, padding her way around the same trees and rocks I can sail over with ease.
“You never had any training, did you?” I ask.
“Is it that obvious?” she laughs, tripping over her own feet. “I think you’d be surprised to learn how many average wolves never go through wolf training. That’s for the elite, Prince Blake.”
“I’m no longer Prince Blake,” I reply, then leap over a boulder as the forest around us begins to thin.
“Oh, right. What are you now, then?”
“To you, Blake. To everyone else… I suppose, High Lord.”
A cackling laugh rips through the bond. “High Lord? High Lord of what?”
“The mystics. Occasionally the priestesses of the temple call me that, too.”
Another laugh, this time more a snort. “I know you hate that.”
I stop as the trail we’ve been following fades into a mix of sparse grass, moss, and the beginnings of the boulder fields. I’m too hot in my fur. The heat sinks into my skin, impossible to shake. “I don’t like it; you’re correct. There’s not much I can do about it. They’ve been calling me High Lord since I was a teenager. It’s something they saw in me, I guess.”
Marianna eyes me for a moment before sighing, her eyes sliding from mine to the landscape ahead of us. I feel the tension tightening through our bond. I know she’s thinking about Skye and her future, what the mystics might call her one day. If she’ll take my place, trapped inside her own head, losing herself to the powers some people would die to covet without knowing they come with shackles.
“I won’t let Skye become like me,” I tell her, and her eyes meet mine again. “She’ll grow up with her powers in the open, highly trained. I won’t allow her to fall in on herself like I let myself do.”
“Is that something we can even prevent?”
“I don’t know. But we can try. It’s all we can do.”
She scratches the ground for a moment, likely in deep thought. “If we have another child, would they be… like her?”
The question works its way through my body, but not in the way I expect. Before Skye, I never planned on having children. I considered my powers a curse, something I wanted to nip in the bud.
Marianna turns and continues up the boulders without giving me a chance to answer the question, and I follow, matching her slower pace. At the end of the field, she pauses, glancing over her shoulder at me as the alpine pool comes into view.
Neither of us says anything, but the consensus is unanimous. I leap off a boulder into the water, shifting back into my human form as the chilled water bites my skin, but it’s refreshing. Just what I needed to jog my mind back into focus. Marianna shifts back before easing into the water, shivering, but once she’s neck deep, she sighs, closing her eyes as the cool water erases the heat of the night in a single breath.
I reach for her, closing my fingers around her wrist and tugging her toward the shallow end. Just touching her sends a jolt of heat through my body, igniting that ache–that deep, relentless longing I’ve been fighting for years. The second her toes drag along the bottom of the pool, she wraps her arms around my neck, pressing her naked body against mine and…
I blow out a breath before dipping my head to nuzzle her neck, drinking in her scent, the softness of her skin.
“This is so much better,” she whispers around a sigh. “I knew it was going to be hot in Moonrise, but not like this, especially so early in the season.”
“Don’t worry,” I laugh, smiling against her skin. “It gets worse.”
She groans a laugh, but I back her against the rocky face of the cliff overlooking the pool. There isn’t even a breeze up here to cut through the heat, but the water feels wonderful, and I feel… overcome. The voices in my head are silent, holding space for her, like she is the one thing that can balance me out, giving me room to breathe.
Her fingers tighten on my shoulders, and she presses her lips to my temple.
“I never answered your question,” I whisper, lifting my face to look her in the eyes. They’re that startling blue—wide and bright, lined with those dark, thick eyelashes that are definitely a blessing from the Goddess.
“About kids? It was–it was forward of me–”
“I’d have another if it were what you wanted.”
“Is it what you want?”
“I didn’t want it until I met you. I didn’t have any intention of having any more after Skye was born.”
“Then why say–”
“Because if it wasn’t with you, if you weren’t their mother, it was out of the question.”
She searches my eyes. “What have you been doing all these years, Blake?”
“Rotting,” I admit, and she presses her mouth to mine in a soft kiss that… quickly turns to anything but soft.
I can’t help it. Years of restraint, years of immense control snap in an instant. Even that night in my penthouse pales in comparison to the way I feel now, like I’ll die if I’m not inside of her. She hooks her legs around my waist as I lean up against the smooth, damp rock. I’m already hard. Hell, I’ve been absolutely rigid since the moment she slid her robe from her shoulders, but now it’s almost painful. Her tongue slides over mine, and she moans when I grind my hips against her, my cock sliding against her lower belly.
She reaches between us, dipping her arm under water, and slowly brushes the softest touch to my shaft before curling her fingers around me in a tight embrace. I press her harder against the rock, gritting my teeth in a growl. “Don’t tease me.”
“I’m making up for lost time,” she purrs with a cat-like grin. Another pump and I’m already coming undone at the seams.
“Marianna–” I hiss out a breath that she steals with another kiss, and I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I will forever be at this woman’s mercy.
I’m exactly where I want to be.
I shove her against the rock and thrust hard, parting through her folds in a violent, swift stroke.
“Blake!” she cries out, but I’m beyond comprehension when her inner walls grip me tight, forcing a rough groan from my lips.
My wolf takes over, dead set on claiming her, on bringing her to her knees. But I fight it, at least for now, my mouth on hers and our bodies writhing in the cool sanctuary of the water.
When I push in as far as she can handle, she lets out a sharp gasp, clutching my shoulders so tight her nails leave imprints on my skin. She growls my name, biting down hard on my lower lip.
“No biting,” I grind out, but her sly grin when she releases me sets fire to my blood, and I… “Bite me again.”
“Where?”
“Wherever you want. Wherever you want to leave your mark.”
Her eyes flash with understanding. There’s no conversation left to be had, no further apologies, and no groveling. We’re done with that. We’re not the teenage lovebirds we used to be. This is real now. This moment is forever, and I’ll be damned if I don’t leave this place with her scar on my body.
“Will it hurt you?” she whispers.
I thrust into her hard, and that whisper turns to a deep, shaking moan as her body locks around mine. She’s close. I’m beyond close. I’ve been trying to hold back since the moment she so much as touched me. She trembles, leaning her face against my neck. I continue pumping into her, losing myself in the feel of her body gliding against mine. She’s hot to the touch for me, her body tight and giving and I…
“Mark me,” I whisper into her hair, closing my eyes as my release nears, the tension in me coiling tight.