Oycher (7 page)

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

Isla jumped from the bed, searching the unfamiliar room, and remembered where she was. The door, someone was knocking on it. She tugged her borrowed T-Shirt down to her knees, trudged across the sitting area, and flicked open the lock. “What is it?” She yawned until her jaws snapped, while blinking the sleep away. A corridor filled with at least a dozen males stared back at her with glowing eyes and protracted claws. Her muscles went on lockdown. “An attack?” To her left, a blurring movement and a waft of heated air stopped just short of knocking her over, only because she stepped back into the safety of the threshold.

A tattooed arm grabbed the blurring werewolf and gripped him back to chest in an uncompromising hold. She could see a shimmering aura move over the two, like heat from the asphalt on a summer’s day.

An Alpha Beast growled, splitting the crowd down the middle and moving toward her. “Everyone who isn’t making a claim, get the fuck back to your rooms or start work early!”

Isla held her hands out in front of her, taking another cautious step back. “M-making a claim?” Claim used by a werewolf in a sentence was a frightening thing.

Filling the doorway, Dax Jordan leaned against the doorjamb. And even while leaning, he was exceptionally tall. Obviously here from wherever his home actually was, he’d cleaned up for a new day. His long tanned finger shot out, curling beneath her chin. His voice threaded with furious accusation, when he asked, “Did we interrupt something?”

She narrowed her eyes on him as he lifted her face higher. Thankfully, he wore dark glasses, and she couldn’t see those eyes of his that put hers to shame. “No. Interrupt what?” Her dirty dream? Geez, could he detect everything? “Did you find Terje?”

Dax inclined his head, and although she couldn’t see his eyes, she easily followed his shift in vision. A Beta Beast had mid-transformed, holding a seething Terje back. Terje looked weaker than when she’d left him last night, but considering the ferocity and size of him, he could still handle himself easily.

“Oh.” She wanted to go to Terje, but now obviously wasn’t the time.

Dax gently moved her to the side and entered her room. Actually it was his brother’s room, so she tried not to be pissy. He opened the closet and then the bathroom in efficient movements, sniffing in all directions. The Territorial Alpha wasn’t transformed, even halfway, but there was no mistaking him for a human when acting in his current manner.

Isla turned back around and glanced between Terje and the Beta. “Are you okay, Terje?” She crossed her arms over her braless chest. “What happened with the Gryphs?”

Terje snapped his teeth, the tips of canines peeking beneath his upper lip. “He’s in a bit of a snit,” The Beta explained calmly.

“Why is that?” She focused, instead, on the Beta. His hair was glossy black and tied at his nape, his skin a bronzed caramel wherever coffee-colored leathers didn’t touch.

His eyes of indigo precision, stark and provoking, drank Isla in from the top of her head to the tip of her toes. “Did you think bringing yourself to orgasm in a complex full of werewolf males wouldn’t result in consequences?” Terje jumped in his arms, but the Beta yanked him hard.

‘Those who aren’t making a claim’ echoed in her head. Haley had explained that a werewolf male found his celestially appointed female by the scent of her orgasm. From there, he mated her under the following full moon in a werewolf wedding ceremony. During that ceremony, they exchanged blood, making the female immortal in the event she wasn’t fully werewolf. And if other males claimed the same female, they became co-mates together. “Consequences?” she squeaked.

“Damn straight there’s consequences.”

Isla tapped her foot. “Tell me what’s -”

“Isladora, we’ll get to that in a moment.” Dax was at her side then, pulling her back into the bedroom. Terje radiated anger his Alpha’s way, growling until Isla’s skin prickled, as he tried to break away from the Beta’s hold. However, startling enough, Dax ignored him. “I see your clothes were brought up. Get cleaned up for the day.” He gave Terje a sidelong glance. “Take your time. Some of us need to bring it down a notch or two.” He started pulling the door closed behind him. “I’ll wait for you out here.”

“What consequences?” she asked again, gripping the door’s edge. “Are you moving me again?”

“In Pack, when the Alpha speaks, everybody listens.” Dax looked over his dark glasses, his mouth a grim line. “Shall I shower and dress you?”

Twenty minutes later, Isla left the bedroom freshly showered and wearing jean shorts with a coral-colored summer sweater. The hole in the weave beneath her left armpit had grown larger, since her shaking hands had tugged it over her head too roughly. But who wouldn’t be anxious, when a pissed off Alpha waited impatiently at the door? She tied her hair back in a half-assed ponytail that drooped with every step she took.

“This isn’t what I think it is, is it?”

Dax had removed his glasses and his eyes blazed as they traversed the halls, one long corridor joining the next. “Pack never brought up Rights to Mate with you, for a damn good reason.” He started down a carpeted staircase and she followed. “After everything you’d suffered, we never considered you taking on immortal males anytime soon, if ever, and we sure as hell weren’t pressing the subject.”

This must have been why Dax hadn’t continued last night’s brief but interesting hands-on flirtation with her, though he’d been rock hard. “I agree wholeheartedly.”

“You could have agreed wholeheartedly and maintained your position on the subject.” He stopped on the bottom step, lifting her hand to his face. “But you should have kept those roaming little fingers otherwise occupied, because no less than twenty-five males scented your arousal and completion, enough for me to call it Rights To Mate, if I were to deem this whole fiasco official.”

“I don’t remember anything but a dream.”

He tilted his head, thinking. “I thought I detected your heat rising last night.”

“Heat?” Her mouth dropped. “Werewolf heat?

He nodded. “The one and only.”

She pointed her finger at Dax’s nose, and his eyes flared. “You put me in the middle of…You did this on purpose!” She stomped her foot and nearly fell down the stairs. He steadied her, but she pulled away. “T-to keep me here!”

He descended the final steps. “Lower your voice or you won’t like what happens next.”

She rubbed her eyes. “Oh, shit.”

“Bearing in mind your recent history, I suppose only one male claiming you as his is better for your situation.” Sliding pocket doors separated behind him.

“Well, Alpha, I can’t believe you did this.”

This time, he pointed his finger at her. “Your hands. Your body. Your orgasm. You assume too much of me. I said I thought I detected. How many females of our kind do you think I’ve scented? I could count them on one hand and none of them were in heat.” The sting left his voice, when he said, “I would have waited patiently, until you were ready. But we’ll never share even a night. Not now.”

She blinked. “You would have waited?”

He dropped his hand and got right up in her face. “You think I didn’t want you last night? Do you think I slept at all?” He laughed without mirth. “Think about the flip side while you’re feeling sorry about being claimed, Isladora. Males have waited centuries to find and love their mates, and you’re sorry you’ve been given a chance most will never know.” He walked in the room ahead of her, as werewolves do in a way of protecting the females at their backs.

She swallowed a sandpapery lump in her throat as she followed along. A long table centered what looked like an ancient conference room. It was odd for Florida. Endless damask curtains flowed over sunburst windows and planks of dark wood covered a generous floor. Her feet dragged, so Dax moved his hands in a hurry up gesture.

“Whatever you decide regarding your mate,” he said, pointing across the table, “explain your decision to him.”

She saw two males at the end, the sun at their backs casting their faces in shadow. The Beta who’d held back Terje stepped forward, causing her heart to give a stutter. Of all the stupid things she could have gotten herself into, this newest situation was most alarming. She said to him, “You’re Flynn…Ruyter, right?” He inclined his head. “You were there the night I was rescued.” The Territorial Beta had held her tightly in those tattooed arms all night, never letting go, whispering words in a soothing albeit foreign language until she nodded off in a state of peace and security.

His voice a steely note in the quietness of the room, “Alpha and I have a meeting on the premises.” All business, the tenderness he’d shared with Isla that night a ghost in her mind. His gaze went directly to his far left, where Terje stood. “He’s going to play nice.” Flynn started walking away. “Are you?”

Of course, she would play nicely. She just needed a moment to slow the roll. Isla leveled out her breaths, folding her arms over her chest and hiding her fists against her ribs. The doors behind her opened and then slid closed. Ominous silence thickened the air.

“What happened to you last night?” she asked.

“I had my say with two Gryphs, and then a creature I can’t identify jumped me from behind.” He rubbed the front of his throat, though she didn’t see a mark.

“You look pale.” She leaned her butt on the table ledge. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Did I scare you upstairs?”

She shook her head, amazed. This male had been attacked, and he was worried about her feelings. But she wouldn’t lie to him. “A little bit.” But she desired him. Not necessarily as a mate, but she wanted him as a lover.

“I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable. This must be weird to someone not reared in Pack.” He stepped slowly out of the shadows, as if she were crazy or a cornered animal. She probably looked a little of both.

He wore a simple white, cotton shirt stretched across his chest, and she could clearly see his nipples were pierced. His ink spilled down both arms, twisting into designs any woman would love to run her tongue across. Washed-out denim clung to his lower half, clinging more in prime areas and straining across his thighs. His jeans were tucked into buff-colored combat boots that were half laced, the ends of the laces hidden neatly inside.

She hiked a shoulder and let it drop. “So…you live in the Alpha hall.” Her cheeks burned at the thought of all those males knowing what she had been up to.

“I found out you were here, so I stayed in the Alpha hall throughout the night, but I actually live in an apartment down the road.” He took another tentative step. Colors shimmered and swirled beneath his winter skin, stopping at his stern jawline. “I was rousing the Younglings for training…when.”

“When, yeah,” she stopped, dropping her sweating hands and flexing her fingers. “I was…dreaming.”

“It happens, the heat.” A step closer, he held out his hand, palm up. Pupils of white centering eyes of the North Sea swallowed her. “I am yours.”

He said that so easily…The closer he got, the more she tipped her chin. Sure, she was merely wearing sneakers but she didn’t even reach his shoulders. He moved his hand a little, reminding her he was waiting for her to make the next move.

“What happens if I take your hand? You’re not going to try and bite me again, are you?”

He smiled a flash of white. “We’ll sit down together and have breakfast, and I’ll only bite what’s on my plate.”

She looked at the barren table, and her stomach picked that moment to howl. She hadn’t truly eaten since lunch yesterday. “Am I missing something here? Where’s the food?”

He waggled his fingers again, waiting for her to take his hand. “Am I missing something here?” Quickly, she shook his hand in a human way, sensing an immediate static current that she hadn’t last night and pulled back her fingers in blurring speed. He easily caught them, bringing her hand to his mouth and brushing his lips across her fingertips. “You have a good amount of Were speed working for you. Have you ever ran with a Pack male?”

“No.” However, the night often tugged at her legs. “I never thought of it.”

“I’d like to take you running.”

“Is this small talk?”

“Small? That’s not in my vocabulary,” he quipped on a devious male chuckle. Kissing her middle fingertip, his eyes grew hooded, serious. “Even though you showered, I can still taste you here.”

Isla was sure her face suddenly matched her sweater. “Taste me?”

He nodded. “Underneath all that soap, you can’t mask the flavor of your orgasm from me.” She yanked half-heartedly, but he kept her hand where it was, weaving his fingers through hers. “Settle down. I’m just letting you know I’d rather have you than breakfast. But I’ll wait a couple of hours, if that’s what it takes.”

“A couple of hours, huh?” She cracked a smile as he led her through a hall to the left of the windows, wondering if she could wait the couple of hours. She’d wanted him badly last night. That is, until he brought out the canines.

“Maybe we should place a bet on who can make it through breakfast.”

A mouthwatering waft of bacon and cinnamon crossed her path. She groaned, “That smells pretty good.”

“But you smell better.” He pulled her into another long but narrow room linking the formal dining slash conference room they’d just left to the commissary Isla had briefly waited in last night. Luckily, only a few males were eating so no one really stared at her.

She reached with her free hand and adjusted her sagging ponytail.  Her worn elastic snapped in her hand. Terje let go of her hand and combed his fingers through her hair, grazing her scalp like the kiss of butterfly wings. How could he be so large and yet so gentle? Last nights words hit her, ‘I can be gentle, if that’s what it takes’. Then the teeth came out. What was she in for?

“Stop thinking so hard, Isla.” He noticed the hole in her sweater, when he dropped his hands from her head.

“Easier said than done,” she replied, eyeing him with new suspicion. “What are you thinking?”

He kissed her temple. “That I’m going to take you clothes shopping.”