Chase Me (38 page)

“You don’t need me anymore.” A ghost of a smile tipped his lips. “You never really did.”

“So, this is just about work for you now?”

“No. It’s not. And that’s why I have to leave.” He barked out a humorless laugh as he dropped his duffel bag onto the bed. “Come on, Lorin. Did you really see this working for the long haul?”

“Yes.” The word popped out, no thought required. She loved him. He loved her. Didn’t he?

“The mutt and the Valkyrie Princess? People would kill themselves laughing.”

Relief wobbled her knees. The problem was insecurity, not that he didn’t love her. “Freyja, don’t scare me like that,” she muttered, pushing him onto the bed and sitting down beside him. “Gabe, who are all these ‘people’ you keep talking about? The only person other than Krispin Woolf who’s expressed the slightest reservation about our relationship is you. This ‘mutt and princess’ thing is all in your head.” She met his eyes. “Isn’t it what
we
feel that’s important?”

“Lorin, I don’t know how you feel from one minute to the next.” He sighed, reaching for her hand before snatching it back. “You’re like… quicksand. I need some solid ground under my feet.”

He needed the words. He… deserved them. Andi was right—it was time to find her gonads.

I
can
do
this.

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

“Lorin, it’s okay—”

“No. It damn well isn’t,” she snapped. His resigned expression just… slayed her. He was so ready to sublimate his own needs, to make her comfortable despite his own discomfort. “Just… give me a second here.”

“Okay.”

The wisp of amusement in his voice calmed her slightly. Freyja, she was such an emotional basket case. It was amazing he wasn’t running for the hills. She breathed deeply, in and out, stilling her body like she did before fighting with Lukas, who’d wipe the floor with her ass on sheer principle if he thought she was fighting one whit below her full abilities.

I
can
do
this.

She cradled his face in her hands, taking care to avoid his ear—the ear that had been burned when he’d dived into the fray, blind, to protect her. She might not need physical protection very often, but it meant everything that he’d offered it.

She swallowed heavily. “I love you. I love you, Gabe.”
In
for
a
penny, in for a pound.
“Will you be my bondmate?”

He stilled. Didn’t answer.

Shit, wolves mated for life. Why had she assumed that he’d want to—

“Yes.” His lips latched on to hers in a clinging kiss, a kiss that made countless promises. “Yes. Sorry,” he murmured against her mouth. “I thought that tonight was our last night together. A proposal was the last thing I expected.”

“Why?” That damn inferiority complex again. She’d spend a lifetime pushing him to expect more—and kill herself making sure she provided it.

“Did you mean it? Are you serious?”

“Yes.” She whapped his shoulder with her fist. “Did
you
mean it?”

“What?”

“That night at my place. You asked me to be your mate. Did you mean it?”

He stilled, eyes widening. Ruddy color swept over his cheekbones. “I thought I’d dreamed that.”

“Nope. You said it, and then you fell asleep.” She raised a forefinger. “Correction—we both came like gangbusters, and then you fell asleep.”

He dropped his forehead onto his fingertips. “Classy.”

“Hot,” she corrected, pulling his hand away from his face. “It—
you
—were so freaking hot.”

Whatever he saw in her face, or heard in her voice, must have reassured him. “Yes, I meant it. Then and now.”

She lifted a hand to his red and oozing ear. “I’ve never been as scared as I was when that vamp shot at you.”

“How do you think I felt seeing you with a gun held to your head? And Jesus, you didn’t look scared at all,” he marveled. “You were… steel. Capable. Tough. Absolutely magnificent.” He drifted his lips along her jawline. “Can we not talk about that right now? I really need to make love with my bondmate.”

His bondmate. She swallowed, hard. With his “yes”—with a single word—they were bondmates. She’d asked, he’d answered. A done deal, an oral contract between the two of them.

I
have
a
bondmate.

She waited for the panic to crash down, for the hyperventilating to start. But it… didn’t. She felt certain. Strong. Ready to step into the cage and take on all comers.

Ready to take him, over and over again.

She pushed him onto the pillows, tugging on the hem of his T-shirt as Gabe dealt with the button at his waistband. As he sucked in his stomach to better deal with the zipper, his abs rippled.

She knew what the end result of thousands of crunches looked like. “You’ve been working out.” Lowering her head, she licked in admiration. “Why—”

A knock at the door.

Gabe dropped his hands to his sides with a sigh. “Already being interrupted by the kids.”

A snort of laughter escaped. “Don’t move.” Tugging his discarded T-shirt over her head while she walked, she opened the door to Mike, who quickly ducked inside to get out of the rain. He carried Paige’s tote bag.

Ah, damn.

“Hey. I found this in the gazebo—oh, sorry. Hi.” He waved at Gabe, now sitting on the bed. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Hi, Mike. No worries.”

“Paige left this up at the site,” Mike said. “I didn’t want it to get rained on.”

“Oh. Um, thanks.” An uncomfortable silence fell. What else could she say? She couldn’t explain Paige’s disappearance to herself, much less give Mike the reassurance he so clearly needed. “Why don’t you bring it to the bunkhouse, put it on her bed?” Where it would lay, unclaimed, until Paige returned.

If
she returned. What were they going to do when tomorrow morning came, and Paige’s big bed hadn’t been slept in?

Mike plucked Paige’s tiny block-out sunglasses out of a side compartment and held them up. “She takes this bag with her everywhere she goes. Why did she leave it behind today?” He eyed them. “You both have oozing wounds. Lorin’s been fighting; her knuckles are scuffed, and she’s going to have a hell of a bruise on her cheek. Someone—vamp—bled up there, I fucking smelled it.” He glanced at the cardboard boxes stacked against the wall. “I smell it now. Don’t insult my intelligence.”

Damn Elliott’s decree. If she said a single thing, gave Mike even a single explanation to help ease his mind, he’d work the edges, prying the lid off their shoddy story with the crowbar of his intelligence.

“So that’s it? Really?” Mike snapped. “One more thing you can’t talk about?”

“Mike…” Lorin raised a tentative hand—to comfort? To apologize? She had no earthly idea.

Mike jerked away. “You two enjoy your evening.” The cabin door closed behind him with an accusing snap, and his footsteps hammered against the wooden deck as he strode into the pounding rain.

“I hate this!” she yelled to the ceiling.

“I know.” Wrapping his arms around her from behind, Gabe rested his chin on her shoulder. “I know.”

She wanted to pace off her frustration, to punch something—hard and repeatedly—but leaned back against him instead. “Where did that vamp come from? He knew too much about what was going on here—more than even Paige knew.” She turned in his arms. “A beacon? What’s he talking about? Why does he seem to know more about what’s going on here than we do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think Paige is okay?” She stared at the window up to the sky, obscured by the driving rain. “They disappeared like something out of freaking
Star
Trek,
Gabe. What the hell is going on?”

“I don’t know.”

“There’s too damn much we don’t know,” she grumbled. “I think—”

“I think”—Gabe’s arms tightened around her—“we need to set it aside for the night. One thing I
do
know is that I need you.” With a sneaky shift of his weight, he tipped them both onto the bed. “Right now.”

Their clothes seemed to dissolve, until the only item remaining was Gabe’s bent glasses. As she reached for them, he blocked her hand. “No. I want to see you.”

Her insides melted, just oozed all over the place. Was that her heart going pitty-pat? Yup.

How freaking girly.

Gabe tugged her on top of him and eyed her knowingly from behind the thick lenses. “Show me what you’ve got, mate.”

A
challenge.
Her lips twitched. He knew her too damn well. “Are you sure you’re up for this?”

He lifted his hips and gave her a single teasing nudge, right where she needed it most. “Positive. You?”

“Bring it.”

Lowering her lips to his, she stepped into the cage and slammed the door behind her.

And started wreaking havoc.

“Ready?” Lorin said as they went outside.

“I can see your breath,” Gabe grumbled, closing the cabin door behind them. “Can’t we wait until the frost burns off?”

“You’re the one who left this until our last day,” she said matter-of-factly.

Too matter-of-factly. She was trying too hard to disguise her concern.

He and Lorin had decided to come back to the dig after his surgery so he could heal in peace and quiet. Now, a month later, he was, for all intents and purposes, recovered. The soreness at the incision and injection sites was a thing of the past, and the milky film was gone, but there was one final test to undertake. His retinologist had given him the all clear, but—

“What time does the Council meeting start?” Lorin asked.

She knew very well what time the meeting started; she’d reminded him of the time before they went to bed last night. The first in a series of special Underworld Council meetings had been called to discuss the ramifications of some of their early test results, including the fact that the kernels of wild rice they’d found in Pritchard’s command box were almost four thousand years old instead of one thousand. What did they really know about what had come before? Their peoples’ entire oral history had been called into question.

He sighed. Three months had passed since they’d shut down the dig, spending the summer in the lab, working on the Pritchard finds, and every damn test result raised more questions than answers. Despite an astronomical reward offered by her family, the school year had started without Paige Scott, and Lorin was worried sick. Mike Gill had dropped out of school to initiate his own search.

“Two o’clock, and it’s a five-hour drive back,” he said, rubbing her shoulder.

She leaned down into a quad stretch, hissing as her bare fingertips touched the frost-coated wood. Though the leaves had barely started to change into their fall colors, last night northern Minnesota had had its first hard freeze of the season. “Come on, city boy. Let’s get this done.”

“Let’s? I don’t see
your
clothes coming off.” Crossing his arms in front of him, Gabe pulled his black fleece jacket and waffle-weave thermal shirt up and over his head. He gasped as the air chilled his skin.

“Would that help?” Without waiting for an answer, she quickly and efficiently stripped, leaving her standing gloriously nude in the unforgiving morning sun. Her nipples hardened, sharpening to delicious points. Gooseflesh sheeted her skin.

But her eyes burned like a bonfire.

His pulse kicked into high gear. He quickly unbuckled his belt and shucked his jeans. They hit the deck with a metallic clank.

“Ready?”

Sighing, Gabe glanced across the clearing over to their favorite running path, the one that led to the glittery copse of trees where they’d made love for the first time. “I’m still as nearsighted as ever. You’ll probably have to come looking for me.”

“You’ll find me,” she said, unconcerned. “Just explore, sniff around, have some fun.”

He eyed his naked mate. He knew Lorin wanted him to find pleasure in his wolf again, but frankly he preferred a man’s. Yes, he very much planned on having some fun—with her, later, under the warm down comforter, thank you very much.

But first things first.

“Ready?” she asked again.

“As I’ll ever be.” He slipped off his new glasses, very carefully setting them on the picnic table. When he turned back to where he knew Lorin stood, all he saw was a fuzzy beige column. He could barely differentiate her from the tree trunks, but he could hear every nervous breath whooshing in and out of her lungs. He could smell rosemary-mint and sea salt, and his own scent on her body.

His teeth and nails stung as the shift came on. Skin and bone shifted and popped, rearranging in a timeless rush. Tooth became fang, nail became claw, flesh became fur.