Alphas on the Prowl (29 page)

Sarah moaned in heated delight as her hips began to rotate to his rhythm, pressing herself onto his face.

“You taste so good, Sarah. So sweet.”

His telepathic thought sent her over the edge, and Sarah let go of a loud sexy moan as her orgasm rolled through her like a steam engine. She lay panting and trying to surface from wherever her bliss had taken her when she felt Zach crawl up from between her legs. He kissed her stomach and each breast on his way up, and when he reached her lips and she felt his wild manhood rubbing against her core, she gyrated her hips to increase the delicious friction as he kissed her.

He entered her with one swift thrust, pounding into her like a jackhammer over and over again. Her long legs closed tightly around him, fulfilling a fantasy he’d been clinging to since he had laid eyes on her back at the bar. She was so freaking sexy, and he was going to make her his tonight.

Sarah’s entire body trembled when her second orgasm of the night ripped through her, and she vaguely remembered calling out his name in ecstasy. He came a moment later, and when she felt his arms tighten around her as he still throbbed deep inside her, Sarah suddenly panicked. Her body tensed and her mind went into fight mode as she struggled to push him off of her. His grip got stronger as he refused to let her go, and Sarah felt herself shifting as she fought him.

“No!”

The scream was a telepathic one, and she bit his shoulder like she meant business, tasting the blood as her fangs tore at his flesh. He yelped and let go of her as his hand went immediately to his shoulder.

Sarah scampered up and pulled the sheets up over her breasts and glared at him.

“What the fuck, Sarah?”

He looked up at her and then back to the deep bite wound on his shoulder. And they both watched in silence as the wound began to heal itself and close up on its own.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong … the fighting was sexy as hell. I enjoyed it too. But we didn’t get to complete the bonding,” he said, looking in her eyes.

“No, we didn’t. And we’re not going to either!” Sarah sounded certain as she sat clutching the sheets and cutting her eyes at him.

“What are you talking about?”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about, Zach. Don’t you dare go getting any ideas about forever in your head because what happened just now … that was sex. That was
just
sex and nothing more,” she insisted.

“You don’t believe that any more than I do.” Zach stared at her in disbelief. “You felt our hearts beginning to keep time. You know that we’re supposed to be together!”

“I know that I was feeling homesick and lonely,” Sarah shot back. “Zach, you can’t honestly tell me that you want to bond with me. You want us to mate
for life?
”

“All I know is that I can’t get your scent out of my mind. And now that I’ve had a taste of you, I want more. I never believed in this imprinting shit before, Sarah, but I can’t explain this away! My heart is trying to keep time with yours. I’m starting to feel your emotions just as clearly as I feel my own. You are scared half to death right now, even though everything inside you is screaming to just fall into my arms and let me love you. That’s not a guess, Sarah, I can
feel
your fear and your longing!”

He stared at her with an intense blue gaze, and Sarah wiped the stray tears from her pretty cheeks as she listened to him. She couldn’t deny any of what he was saying, not a single word. Once a couple completed the bonding, they would always be innately attuned to one another’s bodies.

She didn’t say anything, and Zach shook his head as he ran a hand through his hair. None of this made any sense to him. He had been wandering around in exile for the better part of a year, trying his best to resign himself to the fact that he was now a reluctant lone wolf. Then out of the blue, Sarah Masters appears, bringing him hope of a life less solitary, only to snatch it out of his grasp. Was this part of his punishment?

“Sarah, what are you doing in Kentucky anyway?” he asked, looking her over. He reached out and gently moved a strand of her hair out of her eye. “Why did you leave Lunar Falls?”

“Seriously?” Sarah looked at him as though he were crazy. “You can ask me that after what my father did? After what you helped him do?”

Zach replied with a tired sigh and averted his eyes. Would he ever live this down?

“My father was killed for committing treason, Zach. And my brother, Jason, followed his lead.”

“Jason?” He sounded shocked.

“Yes.”

“When did that happen?” he asked.

“A month or two after you were exiled.” Her voice was soft as she directed her attention to the pattern on the bedspread. “He was angry over Dad’s death, and he wanted revenge against Gabe. He and a few others challenged the GrandAlpha in battle. Jason didn’t live.”

“And Seth?” Zach asked.

“Seth and I both stood with Gabe.”

“You both sided with Gabe against Jason?” he asked, sounding shocked.

“Jason was just as wrong as Dad was, Zach.” Her voice raised an octave, and Zach held up a hand in surrender.

“I’m not questioning your choices, Sarah, I’m just … surprised.”

Sarah rolled her eyes at him and continued her tale. “After it was all over, I just couldn’t take the looks of pity anymore. Or the blatant mistrust I saw in people’s eyes. My father and one of my brothers were both killed for being traitors, and that stigma was going to follow me around for the rest of my life. I couldn’t take that kind of scrutiny. I had to get out of there.”

“Did Seth leave too?”

Sarah shook her head. “No. Seth is determined to prove that just because our father was a traitor doesn’t mean that we are too. He’s still there, still serving as the GrandAlpha’s Lead Enforcer. He’s become Gabe’s right hand. They both begged me not to leave, but … at the time, I just didn’t feel I could stay.”

“Gabe begged you to stay?” Zach’s voice sounded disbelieving.

“Yeah, he did.” Sarah seemed to study him for a moment. “Look, Zach … I know how you feel about my cousin, okay? But you and I both know that he had every right to do what he did. You do know how wrong you and my father were, don’t you?”

Zach looked into her eyes and said, “He killed your father, Sarah.”

“My father committed treason against the five packs. He kidnapped Gabe’s mate!” Her voice was the picture of steely resolve. “He was wrong, and so were you. You should be thankful Gabe let you live.”

Zach was quiet for a long moment as her words swirled around in his head. He knew that she had no clue what she had just said, and he smirked at her.

“I am.”

Sarah frowned at him. “You are what?”

“I’m grateful that Gabe’s mate begged him to spare my life.” He felt slightly embarrassed admitting that to her, and he looked away. “Even though my life is now a pretty pitiful one — forced to hunt alone, to live without the companionship and protection of a pack. And yeah, I’ve had nothing but time to think since being run out of Lunar Falls, and I realize now what a huge mistake it was to follow Silas’ foolhardy plan. No offense,” he said, glancing at her at the mention of her father’s name.

“None taken,” Sarah said.

“You have no idea how badly I wish that I could go back in time and change that one stupid decision. I will probably never see my parents or my little brother ever again.”

His voice was full of longing and remorse. He suddenly sounded like a broken man, and Sarah couldn’t stop herself from reaching out and taking his hand.

He looked down at her hand in his and gave it a light squeeze. Then he looked up into her eyes.

“If Gabe still has faith in Seth, and he begged you not to leave, Sarah … why are you here? Why don’t you just go home?”

Sarah stared at him for a while, saying nothing and feeling a strong pull toward him. Before he showed up, she wouldn’t have had an answer to that question. But now that he was here and she couldn’t deny what her body was telling her, the answer was crystal clear. If she left now, she would be walking away from the one man who was ever going to imprint on her. The one man fated to be her mate.

“Well … I certainly couldn’t go home again if I completed the bonding with you, now could I?”

She met his eyes as her soft response registered in his brain, and Zach was a little taken aback by her statement. He could feel the confusing mix of emotions running through her — compassion and burgeoning love, sexual desire and fear. All mixed with a familiar longing for home.

“No. I don’t suppose you could,” he whispered, wondering which door she would choose.

They stared at one another in silence, searching each other’s eyes. Then Zach leaned in and planted a soft kiss on her upper arm. And another on her shoulder.

Sarah felt the heat sear her skin with each pass of his lips, and she knew that she should keep fighting against this union, but she simply didn’t want to anymore. She wanted to be with him. She wanted to make love to him and to hold him close. And maybe it was only about being homesick. Or maybe there was much more to it, and they really were supposed to be together like the imprinting was suggesting.

Their lovemaking was tender the second time around; almost as if they both understood the gravity of what they were about to do. And this time, when they both climaxed and Zach held her tight while he remained deep inside her, Sarah didn’t struggle against him. She breathed in the masculine musk of his skin and kissed his neck as they waited for their bonding to take hold.

“We’re not alone anymore, Sarah,”
he thought at her.
“We belong together. We’re a pack of two now. Neither one of us ever has to hunt alone again.”

The sound of his voice inside her head was soothing, and Sarah fell asleep in the arms of her new mate, listening to the sound of their hearts beating as one.

Chapter Five

Over the course of the next seven months, Zach and Sarah became each other’s world. He moved into her room at the boarding house, and they shared the rent. They spent their days together making love, sharing their lives, and talking about their mutual longing for home. They worked together at the bar each evening. And on nights when the moon was full, they would venture into the Kentucky Ridge State Forest where they would shift into their wolf forms and hunt together. With their combined skills, they had become a formidable hunting team against the larger prey, and Sarah didn’t feel so alone and outcast during the hunt anymore. They were a happy bonded Moon Hunter pair, every bit as committed in their new relationship as any young married human couple just starting out.

For Zach, finding Sarah in the midst of his lonely exile had been like grabbing onto a life preserver when he was in danger of drowning. She had saved his life, and Zach had fallen completely in love with his new mate. Sarah made him feel like his world was all right again, and he had actually started to believe that he could survive this exile as long as he had her by his side. He believed that they could make a go of it, and Zach knew that he would cherish her forever. She was everything to him, and he was determined to do all he could to take care of them right. His first order of business was to get them out of the boarding house and into an apartment or a small rental house of their own.

“Hey, I circled a few places in the paper today. Thought we might go take a look at a couple of them tomorrow before work.” He smiled at her as he took a bite of the roast beef sandwiches they were having for dinner. “I also have a couple more job interviews lined up for next week. Once I get something with daytime hours and better pay, you can walk away from the bar for good.”

“I’m sorry, babe, what did you say?”

Zach took note of her distracted reply, and he felt a small sliver of anxiety run through him. He knew that the emotion was Sarah’s, not his own, and he frowned.

“Is everything all right, sugar?” he asked, feeling a surge of protectiveness. “You feel okay?”

“I feel fine,” Sarah said. Then she took a deep breath and set her sandwich down. She wasn’t sure why she felt so nervous all of a sudden, but she knew that she wanted to tell him what was on her mind. It was funny how he had become so important to her. He was the first person she wanted to share good news with, and the only person she wanted to be with when life got challenging.

“I got a phone call.” She looked into his eyes with an uncertain gaze as she tried to explain.

“A phone call?”

Sarah nodded her head. “A message on my phone this afternoon. From home.”

“What did it say?” Zach asked after a slight pause. An uneasy itch crept up his spine.

Sarah stood up and walked over to the bedside table to retrieve her cellphone. Then she put it on speaker so that he could hear the saved message.

“Sarah?”
It was the voice of her mother, June.
“Hi, honey, it’s Mom. Um … I don’t know if you’ll get this or not. I’m not even really sure if this is still your cell number, it’s been so long since you’ve called. But … if it is … I just wanted to tell you that I miss you, sweetheart. And that I love you. I would love to see you. That’s all.”

The voice sounded pained and full of so much sorrow, and Zach swallowed hard as the message ended. He looked up at Sarah feeling a sense of dread.

“Did you call her back?”

“No. I mean, I wanted to, but … well, there are a couple of things I just don’t want to say over the phone, you know?” Sarah met her mate’s gaze with timid eyes. She didn’t ever want him to think that she was ashamed of him, or embarrassed about being with him, because that wasn’t the case. She had come to terms with his exiled status a long time ago.

“So, what is it you’re trying to tell me?” Zach could feel her anxiety growing by the minute, and it wasn’t helping his uneasiness one bit. “How else are you going to tell her if not over the phone?”

“Well, I thought maybe I could tell her in person,” Sarah said, her voice sounding small and uncertain. And when Zach didn’t respond right away, she continued with a stream of nervous chatter. “I don’t know, I was just sort of thinking that maybe it’s a sign, you know? Like a sign that maybe it’s time for me to go back now.”

Zach felt gutted. Was she serious?

“I don’t believe this,” he mumbled when he finally found his voice. He stared at her, searching her eyes. “Now? After all this time, after all we’ve come to mean to each other. And the pup. You’re running away from me now?”

“No!” Sarah looked at him with wide eyes and a horrified expression. She reached out to grasp his hand in both of hers. “Zach, no. That is not what I meant! I am
not
leaving you. I love you! I am yours, and we belong together.”

He took an unsteady breath as he felt her conviction wash over him. She was saying all the right words, and he could feel that she meant them, but she was still talking about leaving.

“Look, I just thought … I don’t know … that maybe Gabe might be receptive to allowing you back into Lunar Falls now. It’s been over a year and a half. It just feels like this is some kind of sign, Zach, like maybe the goddess Moon is trying to tell us something. I mean, before we go taking steps to put down permanent roots here in Kentucky I just think we owe it to ourselves to find out. Don’t you? I know that you want to go home as much as I do. We talk about it all the time!”

“Yes, we talk about it all the time. But that’s mostly because you keep bringing it up, Sarah!” His voice sounded harsher than he meant for it to, and he could see that he had hurt her feelings. He let out a heavy sigh and scooted his chair closer to hers. Then he reached out and caressed her face. “I’m sorry, sugar, I didn’t mean to yell at you. But you have to know how this makes me feel. I know how badly you want to go back home, Sarah. You can’t help but talk about how much you miss it. And I wish to God that things were different, but they’re not. Not for me. And I know that I am the only thing keeping you here. But I want you to stay with me. Build a life with me here.”

“I want to be wherever you are, Zach.” Sarah’s voice was full of unshed tears, but she meant every word of what she was saying. “If it has to be here, then this is where I’ll be. Please don’t doubt that. I just want to go back to Lunar Falls to visit mom and Seth. To tell them that they don’t need to worry about me because I’m not alone anymore, and that we’ve started our own little pack. But I just thought, while I’m there … it couldn’t hurt to feel Gabe out, that’s all.”

Zach was quiet for a long while as he stared into her eyes and wiped the spilled tears from her pretty cheeks. He would do anything in this world to make her happy, even if it meant facing the man who had run him out of town and threatened to kill him on sight. He knew that Sarah loved him. Their connection made it possible for him to experience the depth of her feelings for him. But it also made it possible for him to know the deep sadness inside her — the longing to see her family again, to run with the pack beneath the goddess Moon during the hunt. She wanted to be home. And he wanted to make things right for her.

“All right. We’ll go together,” he said.

Sarah was slightly stunned at his response and more than a little scared. “What? No! Zach, you can’t go with me. Gabe will try to kill you if you enter Ohio without prior permission, and there’s no way he won’t find out. Just let me go and talk to him first.”

“I’m not letting you go back to Lunar Falls alone, Sarah.”

“But, Zach, I wasn’t banished from Lunar Falls,” she said, trying to get him to see reason. “I left on my own. Gabe will welcome me back home; I’ll be all right!”

“There is no way in hell that I am letting my pregnant mate travel back into Moon Hunter territory alone, and that is final!”

He stood up and began to pace the room like a caged animal. In his heart, he knew that Gabe was a reasonable man and that he would never hurt Sarah. But the overprotective male werewolf inside him wouldn’t give in. He would not send his pregnant mate out into the world alone — especially not to plead his case to the GrandAlpha. Sure, she said she just wanted to visit her mom and her brother, and Zach believed that was true. He knew how much she missed them. But he also knew that this mission to talk to Gabe was her real agenda, and it made him feel like shit — the thought that his mate would be throwing herself at her cousin’s feet and begging for leniency for him.

He couldn’t let her do that. Besides, there was no way it would work. He knew there was no way Gabe would ever forgive him, and he believed that Gabe wouldn’t hesitate to make good on the promise to kill him if he ever saw him again. But as he paced around the tiny room they shared in the boarding house, Zach suddenly understood that going home was exactly what they needed to do. Sarah needed to be back home with her family. She should never have left Lunar Falls in the first place. Being exiled was his punishment, his fate. And he loved her too much to allow it to become her fate as well.

Yes. Taking Sarah home was what made sense. It was the best way he could think of to ensure that she and their pup would always be safe — in the bosom of her family and their pack. It was what she needed.

“We’ll be less conspicuous if we travel by car,” he said, thinking about the pack Enforcers and how they operated. He used to be one of them, after all. He still knew their protocols for patrolling the territories, and he knew they would spot him and Sarah the instant they entered Ohio in their wolf forms. Traveling by car would give them at least a few hours under the radar. Enough time to make sure his mate was safely reunited with her family before he faced his death.

“Zach, please, just let me go alone. It will be safer for you that way.” Sarah stood up and crossed the room to him, practically placing herself in his arms.

“We should be okay as long as I avoid any pack lands,” he said, refusing to let her go it alone. His mind was made up. This was the best thing for his mate. “We’ll get a hotel room on the outskirts of Clemmons, and I’ll wait for you there while you go into Lunar Falls and do what you’ve got to do.”