Animal Nature: A Paranormal Romance (The Animal Sagas) (5 page)

“What are you running from Sonya? Why do you do this all the time? Is it me? Do you want me to ask Ben to assign you a new guard? Because I will do it if you want me too.”

“What?! No… ” Sonya gasped, horrified, and completely caught off guard by all Clay’s new questions. Now that she had her heart set on Clay as her mate, she was intent that she was going to get exactly what she wanted. “No, of course I don’t want a new guard. Really. I was just playing! I thought you liked it too! This is just our thing – this is just what we do.  And I’m not running from anything. Really – I promise! I just want… I want…,”  she stammered not knowing what to say, and hesitated, her voice fading beneath the howl of the snow storm..

Clay turned and looked straight into her eyes again in the dimly lit cave and sighed. The lantern gave off some light, but even in this small space it wasn’t powerful enough to illuminate the whole cave.

“What are you after Sonya? What do you really want? Can’t you just tell me? It’d make things so much easier – for me especially. I realize these last few months have been hard on you. I know you didn’t ask to become a pack member or anything but all of us are trying our best to help you fit in and feel a part of the clan. If there is something you need, just say so. I’m a wolf, not a mind reader, you know!” he sighed with frustration. He had been doing his very best to follow Ben’s instructions and be a good bodyguard to Sonya, but he had also tried to be her friend. He had hoped they might be able to get along, instead of constantly fighting.

Chapter 9

Right then Sonya just stared at Clay with a small tear forming in her left eye. She hadn’t realized that her thoughtless, naughty behavior had been so hard on him. Now what she thought was cute and teasing tricks, looked a bit more like harsh and cruel behavior. “I’m so sorry, Clay. Really, I am. I didn’t mean to cause you so much trouble. I was just having some fun but I had no idea you disliked it so much.”

She rubbed his cold cheek with a gentle hand.  She couldn’t help but wonder if she had tortured him to such a point that he would flat out refuse her advances. “I thought you enjoyed chasing me. I enjoy it so much. And I have a lot of fun with you!” She could feel his cheek heat as he flushed, hearing her words.

“Well, I can’t say these chases don’t have their moments…” Clay admitted and looked down, and from the flicker in his eyes she suspected that he was recalling those amazing times when his body collided with hers, and they got to know each other more intimately than they intended to.

Sonya slowly leaned in closer to him, her breath warming his skin as it traced along it. “Do you want me to ask Ben to assign me a new guard?” Sonya asked him quietly,  her heart pounding slowly as she worried he would say yes.

Clay shook his head as he looked up. “No, I don’t. Not if you don’t.” He said as their eyes met, but his normally confident voice wavered slightly as their eyes met.

“Good.” Sonya answered quietly, and quickly brushed her lips tenderly against his. Sonya was certain he was going to bark at her, to demand that she stop, or to generally be offended by the assumption that he was interested in her. For a moment, Clay froze under the soft kiss. He didn’t move a muscle. Aware of his rank in the pack and the charge which he was guarding, he had never really considered anything outside of their current arrangement. As second in command he did not want to do anything against his pack leader Ben, but even more importantly, he did not want to make Ben’s new wife, Lynda, angry. As a cougaress herself, he was immensely aware of her own power and temper and did not want to ever be on the wrong side of that fence.

But her little sister had many powers of her own. He was aware of the tales of the Yukonia line. He had heard them since he was a boy, but had never witnessed them himself until just a few months back when Lynda and Sonya first joined the pack. They had been eyeing each other for months without really thinking about it. But Sonya’s magic was beginning to work on Clay. He found in her a mystique and a playfulness too that no other woman possessed. It made him happy when he thought of her and aggravated him to no end at the same time. At first, he tried to resist her charms. But slowly, day by day and week by week, he began to move from curious at a distance, to intrigued, and finally to exploding with desire. It hit him like a tsunami here inside the cave.

Sonya really didn’t know exactly what to expect next. She had long heard tales of the Yukonia magic but had never really felt the magic personally. It was obvious Clay knew what to do but she began to worry whether or not the tales were true for her part. Sonya then turned to move and fell in the darkness. He instantly caught her. One minute, she was standing beside him. But as she turned to walk away, her foot caught his and she stumbled. To her dismay, he caught her. Not to worry. She soon found out the tales were all valid as the Yukonia magic stormed through her body letting her meet his growing passion with a wild abandon all her own.

Then, as if a mighty storm had been brewing inside him, and had finally broken, he struck. Before she knew what had happened, she found herself lying with her back on the floor and Clay on top of her, his lips pressed tightly against hers. His tongue slithered between her lips and attacked hers like a Marine squad taking a hill. To her knowledge she had never been kissed before. Not quite like that. Definitely not like that. Boys had been interested in Sonya since grade school. She had gone on chaperone dates and had pecked a few over the years. At some time, she probably had even French kissed one or two, but Clay’s kiss made her forget all about them.

While the storm was raging outside, the couple’s wild passions raged inside the darkness of the cave. She felt a sudden bolt of energy surge inside her, from her lips to her feet. Her entire body rose in temperature. Outside, the storm raged. The wind roared. And trees swaying in the storm sent shocks of moonlight across the forest floor. Inside, Clay and Sonya created their own storm. Something took over Sonya’s body – her lips, her hands, her tongue. Even her brain seemed not to work in the same way as before. She pressed back, wrapping her legs around his waist and sucking on his lower lip, flitting her tongue inside his mouth like a tease.

His hands and legs fumbled as they got all tangled up in the pile of blankets they were laying on. Before he could get his legs completely untangled, she had pulled the blanket free and tossed it aside. A few pillows soon joined it by the cave door. It took her quite by surprise when his lips wrapped themselves around her breast. She was not expecting it. The kiss was a welcome moment of license, an indulgence. Going further was unfamiliar to her and, until then, seemed out of reach. But with her nipple now in his mouth she could no longer deny what was going to happen. She hardly had time to prepare herself for it, mentally or physically. It all happened so fast.

The blankets shifted and again tried to capture their legs in the heat of this new struggle. Clay’s blankets were tied in what seemed like an endless array of knots around his legs, knees, and feet. Even so he was inside her faster than she ever imagined it could happen. Their lovemaking was fed by Sonya’s magic and a mutual longing by each which had been building for the last five months unbeknownst to either of them. Sonya hardly felt any pain at all when Clay claimed her virginity, the tiny wave of pain lost to the greater pleasure that washed over the two of them as they lost themselves in each other.

Their lovemaking lasted for hours but it seemed to Sonya like only minutes. When they had finished, they both collapsed from exhaustion. Clay rolled onto his back on the cave floor and reached for a pillow just a few feet out of reach, pulled it over and propped up his head. Sonya curled up next to him and nestled her chin up to his neck. She knew he loved her when he wrapped his arm around her body and caressed her arms in a tender and careful swirling motion.

At long last, hours into the encounter, more from sheer exhaustion than a lack of desire to continue, the pair fell fast asleep, curled up together in their tiny cave refuge. Wrapped warmly in the blankets and comforters that Sonya had filled the caves with months back, those very blankets that fought so hard to keep them apart hours ago, they hugged each other tightly as the winds howled out in the night, and both fell asleep. The pair remained that way until well into the next morning.

Chapter 10

The next morning, the sound of male voices raised in heated argument wakened Sonya from her sound slumber. She could hear Clay yelling at someone, and another male voice yelling right back at him. Clay sounded angry and, a little bit, frightened too. In an instant Sonya had shifted into a cougar and bounded out of the safety and darkness of their cave, intent on stopping whoever was threatening her new mate. He was in trouble and needed her help and that was all she thought about. As far as she was concerned, that intruder was in for a rude awakening at the business end of a she-cougars claws! Screaming in outrage, Sonya busted out of the cave and slammed, head long, into the intruder, before she had even realized who she was attacking.

“Sonya, stop it, that’s Ben! Look, it’s Ben! Not Jonathan… ” Lynda’s voice rang out and instantly, Sonya, still in full cougar form, froze. Looking down she could see that she had indeed just sacked the Strongheart’s Alpha, Ben. Ben was snarling at her, as he carefully restrained his desire to demonstrate his dominance in reaction to a member of his own pack attacking him. Were it anyone but Sonya, they would have paid a lofty price. Quickly Sonya backed away, eventually cowering behind the sanctuary of Clay’s legs.

Clay stood nervously in front of her, looking warily from Ben to Lynda, who had been trying to calm her mate down while the two men argued. Things had spun quickly out of control. When they had discovered that Clay and Sonya were not in their cabin, both had thought the worst. Could they be stranded in the snow storm? Lynda was one of the few people that Sonya had confided the location of her cave in. She told Ben that if she and Clay were lost in the snow, Sonya would have headed there for shelter. Along the way they ran into a sentry who told a tale that left Ben on edge. Had Clay lost control with Sonya? Had he chased her down into the cave? Things went from bad to worse, when Ben pulled back the blanket from the mouth of the cave, and saw Clay wrapped around Sonya’s nude body.

“What the -” Ben had started to say.

“Warmth,” Lynda said quickly and pushed the blanket back down. “Surely, they were just snuggling close to keep warm,” she insisted. Of course there was no other good explanation. Clay had stirred when he sensed the presence of other weres. When he poked his head outside of the blanket, Ben had grabbed him by the back of his neck and yanked him all the way out of the cave.

“What happened here?” he growled out as Clay struggled to his feet. After they argued for some time, Sonya had come barreling out to join the party. Lynda stamped an angry, booted foot into the deep snow.

Lynda stamped an angry, booted foot into the deep snow. “Now you’ve done it! What did I tell you boys before we left? Look at what your arguing has accomplished. I hope you’re happy Ben!” Walking over to her sister, Lynda draped a blanket over the cowering cougar. “Sonya, will you please shift back and inform my idiot, beloved mate, that Clay did not take advantage of you last night?” Bemused, Sonya did exactly as she was asked, then told Ben all the details of what had happened the previous evening.

It was completely consensual,” Sonya added and smirked in Clay’s direction. Clay of course could barely make eye contact with Ben, Lynda or Sonya. When he had begun chasing down Sonya, he had certainly never expected the evening to end like this.

By the time she had finished recounting their night together Ben looked thoroughly embarrassed. He wished he had not heard a few of the details about his second and his sister-in-law but he appreciated that she had been so willing to share. “I’m sorry Clay, Lynda was right; I ought to have known better. When a sentry reported he had seen Clay chase you into a cave, Sonya, I just assumed the worst. Then we found you two together, and, well… Clearly I jumped to the wrong conclusion.” The alpha had blushed to a bright pink. “My deepest apologies to both of you. Now that I know the mating is consensual,” The alpha blew out a relieved breath, “I must say I’m delighted – and it’s about time!” He reached out, smiling from ear to ear and shook Clay’s hand firmly and lightly hugged Sonya.

Clay nodded, offering his understanding. The way he had been tearing after Sonya he could see why the sentry would have made such a report. But Clay and Sonya were both relieved to hear it this straight from the Alpha’s own mouth since they had not exactly asked for consent before mating.

After he stepped away Lynda grabbed her sister, pulling the blanket even tighter about her naked frame and pulled her into a tight hug. “I knew this was coming. I just knew it. And Ben’s absolutely correct – it IS about time! What took you guys so long?! Everybody has been waiting for this to happen for months. But I didn’t want to say anything to you and ruin all the fun you two were having pretending to dislike each other so much.”

Sonya rolled her eyes, but she could not argue with her sister, she had been right. It amazed her that it had taken her this long to realize how much she really did enjoy Clay’s company and after the night they shared together in the cave, she had no regrets about her decision to mate with him. She could tell from the way he was steadily gazing at her, that he did not either.

Lynda kissed Clay on the cheek, winked at her sister and then turned back to her mate grabbing his arms as she pulled him away with a hungry look in her eyes. It was a different kind of hunger than what Ben would have liked, but he had come to know the look very well. “Can we go home now Ben, please? I’m cold and hungry. But mostly just hungry. It’s way past breakfast – practically lunch time if you ask me. And how about some pickles when we get there… and goat cheese? Ooh, do we still have some cantaloupes and maybe some of that honey bread too? Watermelon will do too if the cantaloupes are all gone  – would you like that?” The alpha couple walked away, with Lynda continuing a suggestion of increasingly stomach churning food combinations to her patiently listening mate, smiling at every word.