A Bleacke Wind (Bleacke Shifters Book 3) (42 page)

Beck almost felt sorry for her.

Almost.

Beck felt less sorry for her though when, at the reception in the great hall, after Malyah and Joaquin were hitched, he spotted Marcy sidling up to Da’von and making moony eyes at him.

He excused himself from their table for a moment and sought out Duncan, pulling him aside.

“What is it, lad?”

He pointed out Da’von. “See that wolf talking to him?”

“Yes?”

“Warn her off him, please.”

“Prime?”

“Yes.”

“Later explanation, then?”

“Absolutely.”

“Done.” Duncan made his way over to Da’von and Marcy, putting his hands on their elbows.

Seconds later, Marcy had turned and headed over to stalk someone else, while Da’von and Duncan chatted for a few more minutes, Da’von eagerly nodding and smiling as they did.

When Duncan finally returned, he wore a smile. “Better?”

“Thanks.”

“Context?”

Ken sighed. “Social climbing tick.”

“Ah.” Duncan nodded. “We’ll talk later and you can fill me in.” Duncan hugged him and followed Asia, who’d walked up to introduce him to someone else.

Beck returned to their table.

Nami leaned in, frowning. “Who was that Da’von was talking to, and what did Duncan do?”

Beck brought her hand up to his lips and kissed it. “I only have the energy to keep you from killing one wolf for mating with one of your siblings. I don’t have the energy to try to keep you from killing a second one for wanting to use your brother as a temporary boy-toy.”

“Oh no she didn’t!”

She tried to rise and Beck pulled her back down. “No, she won’t, either. Duncan Primed her for me.”

Nami gave him a curt nod. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He kissed her. “It was sort of self-preservation on my part.”

“Oh, wait!
That’s
the woman you were telling me about?”

“Yep.”

She chuckled. “All right, then. Good job, sugar.”

“I thought so.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

It was an hour before dark when Dewi and Ken made it back to the cabin and Dewi could finally free herself of the dreaded froufrou dress. He would have laughed at her if he didn’t think it would have hurt her feelings.

“If it’s any consolation,” Ken told her as he pulled her close, “I thought you were gorgeous.”

“Thank you. You look rather spiffy yourself.” She patted him on the chest. “But get out of your monkey suit.”

“Gladly.”

“And put on hiking shoes.”

He paused in the process of shucking his tux jacket. “Huh?”

“I want to take you somewhere.” He realized she was pulling on a T-shirt and jeans.”

“Oh. Oh!”

She playfully smiled. “Exactly.”

Ten minutes later, they were heading out the cabin’s back door. He followed Dewi, knowing they were absolutely safe and enjoying the fact that it was about thirty degrees warmer than it had been Monday night, with a cloudless sky.

After ten minutes, they entered a clearing where a small spring trickled from the side of the mountain and pooled in a small spring before leaving as a stream and flowing down and out of sight.

She unshouldered the backpack she’d brought with them and pulled out a blanket, spreading it on the ground. “This is how I want to spend my honeymoon night,” she said, sitting on it.

He stretched out next to her, his arms around her. “I can’t imagine a more perfect way.”

When he kissed her, everything else disappeared. Completely, utterly, his world began and ended with her in his arms.

His universe.

He stared down at her. “Tell me what you want, baby.”

“I want you to mark me,” she whispered.

He pulled the hem of her T-shirt up and nuzzled her bra out of the way, nipping at her breasts, teasing her, the sounds of her whimpers of pleasure hardening him and testing his reserve.

He would do this slowly, in his own way.

It didn’t take him long to get them both naked on the blanket, the pleasantly cool night air a wonderful contrast to the furnace in his arms, Dewi’s blazing heat washing through him as she tried to coax him into going faster, giving her what she ached for, craved.

Rising up on his arms, he kissed his way down the valley between her breasts, past her navel, to the juncture of her thighs. He wasn’t gentle as he shoved her legs apart and buried his face there, his fingers digging into her thighs as she let out a sexy moan that nearly made him come.

But he didn’t want to come yet, and he didn’t want her coming yet, either. He wanted that to happen with his cock buried inside her.

Her fingers tangled in his hair as she tried to urge him into bringing her over, but he could read her body too well. He knew when to back off, when to tease, and it wasn’t until several minutes later, when she was nearly in tears and begging him for release that he sat up, flipped her over onto her hands and knees, and fed his cock into her.

She threw her head back and moaned as he slowly started thrusting. “That’s it, baby,” he said, his voice thick with need. “I know what you want. And you know who you belong to, don’t you?”

Dewi whimpered something that sounded like an affirmation. He loved it that he could drive her so deeply into passion that all her defenses fell for him and him alone.

“Who do you belong to?” he asked as he held on to her hips, slowing his pace.

“You,” she whispered. “I belong to you.”

He folded his body over hers, one hand slipping around her to find her clit and begin playing with it as he nuzzled the back of her right shoulder.

“That’s right,” he said. “You do.” He bit down, hard, the way he knew she wanted, her back rounding against him as she let out a cry. Her body squeezed his cock as her orgasm washed through her, triggering his own release.

Moments later, he rolled onto his side, his arms around her and keeping her with him, as he continued to lick and suck at the bite on her shoulder.

She shivered in his arms, pressing her bottom against him, trying not to lose contact with him.

“Better, baby?”

She tipped her head back and kissed him, hard, deeply, her hand reaching back to tangle in his hair again as she flicked her tongue against his.

“Yes,” she whispered. “You always make it better. You made everything better. You’re my hero.”

He knew she meant well, but he didn’t agree with her. “I’m just a geek.”

“No, you’re not.” She palmed his cheek. “You gave me a life. A good life. You gave me love. You saved me. You saved Nami. And you found Da.” Her gaze searched his face. “Tell me,” she whispered, “how that’s not being a hero.”

“I don’t feel very heroic.”

“You are.” She rolled in his arms to face him, pressing her face against his chest, one leg draped over his. “Not many women get to say they married their hero. I’m the luckiest woman on the face of the planet.”

* * * *

I’m the luckiest woman on the face of the planet.

Other than the craziness of how she and Joaquin met, and her sister nearly dying at the hands of drug cartel guys, Malyah had no complaints about her new mate and husband. As midnight approached and they lay twined together in their bed, exhausted from their lovemaking, she nuzzled her face against his chest.

“I hope your parents liked me.”

“They did, sweetheart.” They’d flown in the night before, and Joaquin and Malyah—along with Trent and a well-armed Badger—went to pick them up at the Spokane airport. They’d had dinner together, all of them, filling them in on recent events.

Once Malyah and Joaquin had their own house and were settled, his parents would fly to Florida to visit for a week and spend time getting to know her.

“I have a lot to learn, don’t I?” she quietly asked.

“Not really. I mean, yes, if you want to learn about wolf stuff in particular, sure. But none of that matters to me. I love you, and you’re my life.”

Her old life felt centuries and light years away, not just a week ago.

He nuzzled his face into her hair. “In fact, there are things I would probably prefer you not know about.”

She looked up into his eyes. “Like what?”

“Like the details about what I do for a living.”

“I kinda already know those deets,” she muttered. They’d offered to try again, to have Peyton or Badger or even Duncan remove her memories, but she’d decided after everything that had happened not to let them do that.

She’d rather have them, so any time she felt the slightest bit melancholy about their biological father, she could tap into the hatred she had for the man.

It would also be a valuable tool for her when she started learning the self-defense stuff they said they’d teach her when they returned to Florida.

She also realized she loved Duncan. Much like Badger, he’d quickly become a kind of adopted dad for her, and for Da’von, too. Peyton and Trent, Gillian and Asia—Malyah got it now. She loved them as family, her initial fears about not being accepted by them now little more than wisps of smoke in the wind.

Although she still worried about Joaquin’s parents. But that was different. Hopefully, once they got to visit and she spent more time with them she would soon lose those fears as well.

“I don’t want you worried about what I do.”

“I’m always going to be worried. But look at Ken and Nami. They were going shopping, for crying out loud. I want to learn to defend myself. I want a concealed carry permit. I don’t want to feel helpless. I did enough of that as a kid, although I was damned lucky never to get myself into a situation I couldn’t get out of.”

“I don’t want you living in fear.”

“I won’t. Not if I can protect myself.”

He sighed. “I wish I could have made this into a fairy tale for you.”

She grinned. “You did. The big, bad wolf turned into my Prince Charming. How is that not a fairy tale?”

“I meant it about kids. That’s totally your decision, if or when you want them.”

She kissed him. “I do want kids. Not right now. Gillian and Asia told me I’ve got at least forty or fifty years now to worry about that, if I want. So I want to get my degree and enjoy our time together first.”

He stroked her cheek. “Your wish is my command, my dear princess.”

She pulled his head down for a kiss. “And they lived happily ever after.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Despite missing Florida, Ken didn’t realize how emotional he’d feel trying to peel himself away from Idaho.

He had a family now. Bittersweet that it wasn’t his birth family, his own mother and father, and the siblings he never had simply because his father died so young, but he’d be grateful for them nonetheless.

Peyton and Trent and their families, as well as the rest of the pack, had welcomed him as one of their own and treated him with far more respect and love than his step-father and step-brother had ever even conceived of showing for anyone else.

The nieces and nephews, cousins—Dewi’s aunts.

And, especially, Duncan.

Duncan looked like a new man with a shave, fresh haircut, and new clothes that actually fit him properly. Jeans and a casual shirt, he looked like a fit man close to retirement age, not a wolf over four hundred years old. More a father figure than a grandfather.

Duncan stared across Peyton’s yard toward the woods as they finished loading the SUVs for the return trip to Spokane.

Ken walked over to him. “Second thoughts about leaving Idaho?”

He rested a hand on Ken’s shoulder. “Always, son. Always.”

If Ken hadn’t heard the man’s first words since his self-imposed exile, he never would have believed this man’s smooth, strong voice had belonged to the same person.

Duncan smiled down at Ken. “But I’m not going to abandon them again. I promise. I want to see at least some of my great-grandpups born since I’ve missed so much. Be there for their firsts. Be there to help them, to guide them. I’ve missed too damn much of their lives already.”

Duncan’s smile faded. “Badger told me how much of a change you’ve brought about in Dewi. I feel ashamed of myself, that I wasn’t here for her during her life. Maybe if I had been, Chelsea and Charles…”

He stared back toward the trees without moving his hand from Ken’s shoulder.

“Stop looking at the past,” Ken said. “You can’t get it back. What matters is you’re here,
now
, for her. For all of us. And we want you here with us.”

“I won’t be cramping your style?” The wry smile returned, but he didn’t look at Ken. “Newlyweds. Newly mated. Won’t be long until pups, I’m sure.”

“All the more reason
I
need you in Florida,” Ken said, lowering his voice. “If or when she gets pregnant, I don’t want her out there fighting bad guys, and that’s exactly where she’ll want to be. I need more than Badger and Beck and Martin and Joaquin there to help me reel her in. I won’t refuse another Prime’s help.”

Duncan gently squeezed Ken’s shoulder before releasing him. “She’s a wild spirit, son. But she loves you fiercely. She might not like it, but if you ask her to go easy, she’ll bend to your will. If you sweet-talk her.”

“There’s still one more guy out there from the cartel,” Ken said. “The head guy. We don’t know if he’ll try again. Trent said their contacts lost track of him and can’t locate him. That they tracked Joaquin to Idaho so quickly shows how well-connected the guy is, and that worries me. Gillian is changing paperwork now and creating new shell companies to move stuff around, but who’s to say he won’t find Dewi’s Florida house and show up there?”

“I know. That’s another reason I know I have to go to Florida.” Duncan’s expression turned hard and cold. “I’ll be damned if I’ll let someone get another crack at ours without paying them back in blood for it.”

* * * *

They made it through airport security at Spokane without any trouble. Gillian’s work obtaining Joaquin and Duncan new identities had apparently not been in vain. Officials didn’t give the wolves as much as a second glance.

Ken could tell Dewi wanted to ask him something but apparently wasn’t sure how to broach it.

As he sat there staring out the terminal windows while waiting for their plane to arrive, Ken said, “Whatever it is, honey, just say it.”