Love Bites (Bitten Book 4) (24 page)

“What are you doing out here?” I asked him.

His haunted eyes flicked to me before drifting back toward the horizon. “Running away, same as you.”

I cringed at his blunt words, but couldn’t deny the truth in them.

“So what are you running from?” he asked.

I shrugged, my fingers plucking at the grass at my feet. “My own weaknesses,” I answered simply.

The silence fell between us, punctuated by gusts of wind. Dark clouds were building on the horizon, rolling toward where we sat.

Finally, Lachlan spoke. “Everyone has weaknesses, Ricki. I never thought self-pity would be one of yours.”

I winced. Jesus, no wonder he was the alpha of the MacIntire pack. Lach pulled no punches. “Neither did I.”

I risked a quick look toward him to find his hazel eyes on me, laser-like in their focus. His regard unsettled me.

“Why do you think you’re weak?”

I scoffed. “I can’t fight. I can’t control my own body. I shift randomly and I crush things because I don’t know my strength. Calder needs me. The pack needs me, and I’m useless.”

“Do you really believe that? That you’re useless.”

I rolled my eyes. “You sound like a psychiatrist.”

He laughed hoarsely. “Unfortunately, psychoanalysis is part of the job when you’re alpha. If you don’t understand your people, you can’t be a good leader.” His face grew serious. “If you think you’re useless, you will be, Ricki. If you want to be strong, do what it takes to become strong. Don’t beat yourself up when you make mistakes, that’ll only make it worse. Take your lumps and move on. That’s how you learn. Unfortunately, because you’re an adult rather than an adolescent, the change is harder on you both physically and mentally. Children are used to trying things over and over before they succeed. Adults forget what that feels like. A child’s body is more resilient than an adult’s. The stress of turning and taking command of your body will be difficult for you. Focus on your improvements and don’t give up.” He paused. “Now, was that pep talk enough to convince you to go back to Calder’s house?”

I huffed out a surprised laugh. He’d given me exactly that; a pep talk. I hadn’t realized how much I needed to be reminded that screwing up was okay.

“I’ll go if you go.”

He sighed and climbed to his feet. “Unfortunately, I’m a little too weak to shift right now.”

I shrugged. “Okay, so we’ll go as is.”

Lach smirked at me and I saw the shadow of the man I first met. “I don’t know you very well, Ricki, but something tells me you wouldn’t be comfortable walking through the woods in the nude.”

I hesitated. He was right. Plus, it was cold. “Fine. I’ll shift and walk back with you as a wolf.”

He stared down at me for a long moment. I wondered if I had said something wrong. “Okay.”

I moved to my hands and knees. Anxiety threatened to overwhelm me, but I took a deep breath and focused on letting the shift come. When I first met him, Calder talked about his wolf as though it were a separate entity within himself and how listening to the wolf’s urges made it easier to control it. I’d never given it another thought after I was turned, but maybe it was time to get in touch with my wolf side.

I reached out to the part of myself I’d been struggling to command with welcome rather than dominance. When the connection clicked into place, my entire body felt electrified.

Then, in my mind, I heard a low, animalistic voice.
Yes
.

I could almost feel her just beneath my skin, waiting to come out. Not to take over, but to be with me. We were partners, not a master and slave. I opened myself to her, letting her in as she wanted.

The tingles that usually preceded the change were absent. Instead, everything inside me shifted easily, from one form to the next. It was effortless and almost instantaneous. In a blink I was no longer human, but wolf.

I tossed my head, shaking my body from nose to tail. I looked up at Lachlan and found him smiling down at me. My own mouth fell open in the wolfish version of a grin.

“All right, Ricki, let’s get back to the house. I’m sure Calder is ready to tear it down by now.”

I tilted my head at him in question since I couldn’t exactly speak.

Lachlan chuckled. “I texted him when I saw you tear out of the trees. I figured he would be worried about you.”

I snorted at him, which only made his grin widen.

We began the walk back to the compound, moving slowly through foliage and over fallen limbs. Lach’s breathing grew labored and I started to worry that he wouldn’t make it back, but he pushed through. When we came to the open area behind Calder’s house, I was surprised at how close we had been. My headlong dash through the forest seemed much longer when I was running away.

In the distance, I saw Calder’s figure standing on his back porch, motionless. Even from hundreds of feet away, I could feel his frustration.

Mine
.

I hesitated at the quiet word of my wolf. She saw her mate, our mate, and she wanted him. She wanted to rush ahead, to jump on him and devour him in big, greedy bites, but I reigned her in. Our first duty was to the alpha of our pack.

My wolf grumbled but stopped trying to take control. I stayed beside Lachlan, taking slow measured steps in case he stumbled. It was frightening to see such a strong man brought so low. As we drew closer to the house, Chloe appeared around the side, striding toward us, a fierce scowl on her face.

“Dammit, Lach. You can barely make it from the bedroom downstairs to the living room and you walked a mile to the damn lake! I swear, if you don’t start using the sense God gave you, I’m going to kill you myself.”

Lachlan loosed another rusty chuckle. “No need to get your panties in a bunch there, Princess.”

The scowl on Chloe’s face morphed into a snarl. “Call me Princess again and we’re gonna see how long it takes me to wipe the floor with your ass. In your current condition, I’d say less than ten seconds.”

She marched over to Lachlan and wrapped an arm around his waist. I noticed that he immediately listed toward her, giving her a good deal of his weight. Moving with care, she led him back around the house and toward his own home, reading him the riot act the entire way.

I stopped listening to her griping as I paused at the base of the stairs leading up to the back porch. Calder stood at the top, arms crossed and leaning a shoulder against one of the support posts.

Without a single command from me, the wolf took her leave. My fur rippled and flowed before it seemed to melt into my human skin and my bones moved back to their human formation. I stood on the grass below Calder, who blinked at me in surprise.

“Wow, I’ve never seen a wolf shift that quickly before, except for maybe Chloe,” he murmured. “What happened in the woods?” he asked.

I climbed the steps slowly, still feeling the echoes of my wolf’s possessiveness. “I realized that it was time to stop running away and to stop fighting what I am. If I’m constantly at battle with myself, I’ll never be able to help you win the coming war.”

Calder’s muscles grew rigid as I stopped beside him, naked and utterly unashamed. I reached out, my hand cupping the side of his throat, sliding over the bulk of his shoulder and down his pectoral in a leisurely exploration.

His arm flashed out, his fingers digging into the back of my neck, yanking me closer. “What are you trying to do to me?” he growled.

I stared into his eyes, only inches from mine, and watched as his pupils dilated. The green of his iris all but disappeared. He was angry and he was horny. I wanted to push him, to see what it would take for his control to break.

Digging my nails into his chest, I whispered, “I’m trying to apologize to you, but if you’d prefer something else…”

The world around me spun as Calder tossed me over his shoulder. Anchoring me with one arm across my thighs, he smacked my bare ass with his other hand.

“Hey!”

“Shut up,” he rasped. “If you knew what you put me through the past few days, you would do more than apologize…which you still haven’t done.”

As he carried me into the living room, I pressed my face into his back, kissing his spine through his t-shirt. “I’m sorry, Calder.”

He tossed me onto the sofa, coming down on top of me. “Me too.”

“What?”

“I should have known you were still struggling but trying to hide it from me. I should have done something to help you.”

I pinched his chest lightly. “Don’t blame yourself. I didn’t want you to know. You have your hands full with the pack and all this Faction bullshit.”

He smirked at my words. “Faction bullshit?”

I shrugged. “Well, it is.”

“I can’t argue with that. Power hungry assholes.”

I looked up at him, touching his cheek with one finger. “I want to help you with this, Calder.”

His bright green eyes narrowed on me. “Ricki….”

Going on instinct, I wrapped one leg around his hip, planted my other foot on the floor next to the sofa, and shoved. We landed on the floor with a thud, my body sprawled on his. I straddled his hips and sat up. The hard line of his cock nestled between my thighs and he growled softly.

“Chloe will teach me to fight, you’ll keep me in the loop, and I’m going to help. If I’m still not ready when shit goes down, then I’ll stay out of the fighting, but I can handle other things.”

He stared up at me, his eyes wild. I shifted my hips slightly, moaning as the rough denim of his jeans rubbed against my inner thighs. “Fine. Okay. Okay, fine. Whatever,” he panted, jerking my head down toward his. “But you’ll do exactly what I say when the time comes?” he demanded.

“Yes. If I’m not prepared, then I’ll do exactly what you say.”

If he noticed my condition, he didn’t show it. Instead he yanked my face down and crushed his lips to mine. I sank my teeth into his bottom lip, desire surging in my veins.

He groaned as I soothed the sting with my tongue, my hands and nails literally shredding the material of his shirt. Once his torso was bare, I lowered my head to his collarbone, dragging my lips over the clean, elegant line.

As I moved my mouth to his nipples, flicking my tongue over them, I fought with the fastening of his jeans. Calder lifted his hips, almost dislodging me, as he helped me shove the pants down his legs. When his feet were clear of the denim, he rolled, pinning me to the floor beneath him.

“It’s my turn,” he whispered in my ear, nipping it with his sharp teeth.

“Your turn for what?” I asked.

He didn’t bother to answer, his mouth moving down my throat with small bites. When I lifted my hands to grab his shoulders, Calder wrapped his fingers around my wrists and pinned them to the carpet next to my head.

My back arched as he teased my nipples the same way I’d teased his, licking and sucking until I was straining beneath his weight.

I gasped when his knees nudged mine apart, his cock sliding over my pussy, grazing my clit with unerring aim. Transferring both of my wrists to one hand, he reached down to grasp his dick and angle it toward my opening. With one hard thrust, he filled me.

My legs came up, wrapping around his waist, as he pounded into me. The carpet beneath my back scraped my skin as the force of his thrusts moved my entire torso. This wasn’t making love or even sex. This was pure fucking, almost mindless in its ferocity, an instinctive act of possession. And I loved it.

My body clenched around him, the need to come almost painful in its intensity. Calder slammed into me once again, grinding his pubic bone against my clit which caused starbursts of light to explode behind my eyelids.

“Ahhh!” I couldn’t even form words, merely groaned loudly as he did it again. And again.

It hurt, but in the best possible way. The ache between my thighs grew until I couldn’t stand it any longer.

“Please, please,
please
,” I begged.

Calder growled, withdrawing from my body almost completely and lunging forward. He bared his teeth, which suddenly seemed longer and sharper, and closed them over the scar he left on my neck all those weeks ago.

My body convulsed as the pain and pleasure coalesced into in indescribable sensation, overwhelming my mind. I threw my head back and howled.

Calder

I
stood in
Lach’s living room, looking out the window toward the open space between our homes. Chloe and Ricki were in the yard, sparring. As I watched, Ricki attacked. Chloe easily blocked and threw Ricki over her shoulder. Instead of landing on her back, as I expected, my mate managed to get her feet beneath her, twisting in Chloe’s hold.

I smiled as the fight continued. In a little over a week, Ricki had surprised us all. Something inside her had changed, opened up. She grew stronger, faster, and tougher with each passing day. I’d never seen anything like it and I was so fucking proud of her.

Then I remembered why she was training and pushing herself, and I wanted to smash something. She was in danger. The knowledge hovered over us like a storm cloud, waiting to be unleashed.

I would do anything to protect her, but I had no way of knowing who the enemy truly was. My pack was breaking apart, separating over the alliance we’d formed with the vampire council. I knew that most of them were likely trustworthy, but I couldn’t be sure. Except for George Hayes. It was clear that he was a power hungry prick. He would use any excuse to drive a wedge between Lachlan and the pack, or me and the pack. He didn’t care about what was best for everyone else, only gaining control.