The Wolf's Mate Book 1: Jason & Cadence (20 page)

“She’s one lucky girl, and she doesn’t even
know it yet.”

That night, she and Jason made love twice.
He’d been worried about exhausting her even though she promised she
felt fine. When she suggested that she wasn’t sure which way she
liked best – hard and pounding or slow and tender – he’d been more
than happy to give her hard and pounding since the first round that
night had been sweet and tender. One thing for sure, he knew just
how to touch her, and he wrung so many orgasms from her that she
felt like her insides had disintegrated from the heat.

Great sex lead to aching bodies in the
morning, but it was worth it. All of it was. However long it took
them to get to this place, she didn't regret anything now. It was
all fuzzy, all the bullshit and drama, and all she could see
clearly was his love for her and that’s all that mattered.

The full moon happened on Friday night, with
a special second bonfire on Sunday for the 31st, the annual
Halloween cookout. The full moon bonfire was held at Peter’s and
the Halloween one at Jake’s.

On Thursday, Jason sat down with her at the
kitchen table in the trailer and told her about the marking
ceremony.

“The full moon ceremonies, sweet, are one of
the most important traditions that we have. Things that pass
between wolves on the full moon are sacred, unable to be broken by
simple means. It’s why we say that mate-markings are permanent,
because they are bound fully on the full moon. We aren’t completely
mated, but tomorrow night we will be. Married in the eyes of the
pack, untouchable by others. The only thing that separates a mated
pair is death.

“We’ll meet together in the sacred circle
deep within the woods. I will tell the packs that I’m taking you as
my mate for life, and then offer a small window for
objections.”

“Objections?”

“Sure, like in a wedding when the priest asks
if anyone can say why the couple can’t be married. It’s just a
formality. I can’t ever remember someone protesting a mating, but
when my father was young, a set of brothers fought over the same
woman and when the one lost, he still protested the mating.”

“What happens if someone objects?”

“First off, I’m the alpha, so no one in their
right mind would object. But in a traditional situation involving
others, the alpha decides what to do. Most normally, if the alpha
believed the pair were meant to be mates, if he knew them well and
knew they loved each other, then he would allow the mating to go
forward. But in the old days, if it were a political mating,
something arranged that wasn’t necessarily about love, then he
could ignore the objection or offer the choice to the one in
question, or he could offer a fight. In that one case, it was the
alpha’s twin sons that were fighting over the female, and since
they’d already fought and the one lost, the father punished the
other son for trying to stand in the way of a just mating.”

“Seems harsh.” She twirled her fingertip over
the top of his hand while they talked. Now that she could touch him
whenever she wanted, she didn’t want to stop.

“Well, it is and it isn’t. We are what we
are, Cades. There’s no shame in abiding by our ancient laws and
traditions. They are in place for a reason and stand the test of
time. But that situation was from another time, back when the
elders of the packs would trade children for political matings with
other packs to create an alliance. A smaller pack might give the
alpha’s daughter to another, larger pack so that they would have
backup if someone came against them.”

Ick.
“Sounds like what they used to do
in Europe, trading the princes and princesses for armies.”

“Something like that. But with fur.” He
grinned and his eyes danced.

She wanted to go to the garage, but he wanted
her to wait. He said they were still in the process of cleaning it
and she could tell that he worried she might go off the rails if
she saw the place where she could have died. Maybe he was right,
she didn't know, but she decided that his worry was enough for her
not to pick a fight about it. She was becoming damn genial. Must be
all the hot sex.

Friday afternoon, she joined Jason and his
top four at his father’s home and they gathered the supplies for
the full moon celebration and took them deep into the woods on the
property between Peter’s home and hers that belonged to both packs.
It was Jason’s pack’s turn to set everything up. The two packs
rotated monthly. On four wheelers, two pulling trailers, they drove
to the site, a circular clearing about the length of a football
field. The trees that bordered the clearing were trimmed back so
the moon would shine directly over the bonfire.

She slid off the back of the four-wheeler
that Jason had driven and walked around the circle. When they were
little, they had explored the clearing. It had seemed so mysterious
back then and scary, too. And they’d gotten busted by his father
for being back there without being part of the pack. She looked
over at Jason and found him watching her intently.

Straightening from where she had knelt in
front of the empty fire pit, she smiled, “Your dad was a real
downer, you know that?”

He barked out a laugh that told her he’d been
thinking about the same thing. “You know he told me that I was a
bad influence on you, because you were sweet and innocent. I didn’t
have the heart to tell him it was your idea.”

She crossed the distance to where he was
unloading firewood and he gathered her in his arms with a soft kiss
on her forehead before tucking his head into the crook of her neck.
“We’ll be chasing our kids out of here, someday, right?” She
asked.

“Probably. If they take after their mother,
at any rate.” She felt him smile against her skin and she tweaked
his side.

“You better hope they don’t.”

“Nah.” He straightened and squeezed both her
hands in his. “They’d be damn lucky to have your spirit and
intelligence. Not your memory, of course, but still.”

She laughed hard, and he kissed her once more
and went back to unloading the firewood. She took one of the rakes
and began to clean debris from the clearing while the guys talked
quietly about the ceremony while they worked and how tonight was
going to change everything for the pack.

Several hours later she had a blister the
size of Oregon on her hand and her shoulders ached from all the
manual labor, but it had been sweet to work with her mate on
something that was very close to an actual wedding ceremony. For
all intents and purposes after tonight, in the eyes of the pack,
she and Jason were as good as married. After leaving the four
wheelers in the barn behind his parent's home, they walked to her
house and he swung her up into his arms and carried her inside.
They made love in the shower, which was less about getting clean
and more about him trying to pound her through the tile wall, and
then she climbed up onto his back in bed and gave him a thorough
massage.

“I thought we could head down to Tennessee,
to one of those touristy places and get married. Maybe in December,
before Christmas?” His voice was muffled slightly into his muscular
arms.

“That’s not very romantic.”

He turned his head slightly and opened his
eyes. “What’s not? They have those nice chapels; we can stay in a
cabin alone for a week, no pack, just us. Sounds pretty romantic to
me.”
Of course it did.

“No, I mean that proposal of yours isn’t very
romantic. Where’s my ring? Why aren’t you on one knee? You could
have at least taken me out to dinner and I’ll point out that we’re
naked.” She groused.

He turned underneath her and pulled her down
for a kiss. “You are a needy thing, aren’t you?” There were those
dancing blue eyes again. All he had to do was smile and she was a
big pile of goo right then.

“I told you what I wanted. You of all people
know how high maintenance I am.”

He massaged his fingers behind her ears and
her brain went dead. “Stop with the pressure points, it’s not
fair.” Her voice sounded dull and slurred in her ears.

He laughed, hell she loved his laugh, and
stopped. “Fine, I will most definitely get you a ring and give you
the proposal you want. But tonight, after the ceremony and the
hunt, I’m going to take you home and spend the night the way I want
to spend every night for the rest of our lives: hearing you scream
my name to the sky.”

“Nice.” She kissed the inside of his wrist
and slid off him, cuddling into his side. “Why can’t we stay here
tonight?”

“We can, love, if you want.”

She murmured that she did, already nearly
asleep.

Several hours later, somehow her house had
become food central, and when she came downstairs, half of the
Tressel pack was milling around in her kitchen. Lindy came over to
her with a plate, a hopeful smile on her face. “I saved you a
plate, Cadence.” She clearly wanted to know that they were okay,
that she had forgiven her for her slights over the years.

“Thanks, Lindy.” She took it from her and a
relieved look passed over her face. She and Jason went to sit down
at the table and younger wolves scrambled up to give them their
seats. It was going to be fun to be alpha.

As requested, she was wearing a shirt that
she could take off and something underneath that wasn’t too
revealing. They were going to anoint each other over their hearts
with sacred oil during the ceremony and he didn’t want her in
nothing but a bra. And it wasn’t about the cold. She’d noticed ever
since the first time they had sex that he’d grown progressively
more possessive of her. Although she’d been giving him a hard time
about it, teasing him just to see him turn red, she secretly loved
it.

Eventually it grew darker, and the time for
the full moon ceremony drew close. Jason held her hand tightly as
they walked through the woods to the sacred clearing. “Are you
nervous, love?”

“No.” She squeezed his hand reassuringly. “I
get you forever. That’s all I’ve ever really wanted.”

“Good. Me, too.”

“So if I hadn’t been under the edict and
everything, would we have done this earlier?”

“Definitely. I would have started bringing
you into things when you were 16, and then when you were 18 I would
have asked you to be my mate publicly and we’d have started things
right.” He tugged on her hand so they stopped a handful of feet
from the clearing where both packs were milling around.

He pulled something from the pocket of his
jeans and held it up in front of her. Dangling from his fingers was
a delicate chain with a gold heart shaped locket. He urged her to
open it, and on each side of the locket were pictures of them when
they were kids, and she recognized them from the summer he’d marked
her. After he put it on her neck, she hugged him. “Oh, Jas, I love
you so much.”

His hands pressed into her lower back and he
lifted her off the ground into a hug. “I love you, too, Cadence.”
He put her down and smiled. “When my dad got hurt and I had to take
over, I needed you in the worst way. I wanted you by my side; I
wanted your affection and your love. That you’re mine now,” he
stopped and swallowed hard, like his emotions were getting the best
of him. She loved that he was struggling to maintain his control
because he was feeling so much.

Michael, ever the mood-breaker, called for
them and broke the tension that had settled over him. “Guys, we’ve
got like ten minutes.”

Jason pulled her to him roughly and kissed
her until her toes went numb. “When I get back tonight after the
hunt, I’m going to take my time getting to know my mate by slow
inches.”

Not so much the sexy threat but the heat in
eyes told her that her afternoon nap had to be enough, because she
wasn’t going to get any sleep once he showed up. With a gentle tug,
he pulled her through the throng of wolves that parted for them,
and they stepped inside the circle of stones that marked the place
of power, the center of which glowed brightly from the roaring
bonfire. Standing in the circle were the elders of the Tressel
pack, each holding a small jar in their hands. Peter came forward
and stepped across the stones. Usually the alpha performed the
ceremony, but since Jason was the alpha, he chose his father as one
of the elders, to join them together.

She untucked Jason’s shirt and helped him
lift it over his head. He slid her jacket off her shoulders,
tossing it away from them so that Callie caught it. Then he
unbuttoned her long sleeved shirt slowly, his eyes darkening with
each button that fell free, until he pushed it roughly from her
shoulders and revealed the black strapless corset she’d put on
underneath it.

“Nice.” He breathed and the raw heat in his
voice made her whole body shiver.

They faced each other and Peter stood in
front of them, facing the packs, theirs in the front. She and Jason
grasped left hand to left hand and Peter wrapped a length of
one-inch thick leather from Jason’s wrist, around their hands, and
ending wrapped around her wrist.

“We come tonight to join our alpha to his
true mate. Are there any among you who would protest this joining?
Speak now or remain silent forever.” Peter cast his gaze across the
pack slowly and she had the urge to look around, but didn’t. There
was a part of her that had expected Chris to show up and make some
idiotic run for her hand, but he was gone and she was glad. She
didn’t want their mating to be marred by anything unpleasant.

Satisfied, Peter put his hands on both of
theirs and began to speak in what they call the Old Tongue, ancient
Greek that sounded pure and powerful in his mouth. The elders
stepped forward, one by one. The first one came to Peter’s side and
held out a jar. Peter put his index finger inside the jar and it
came out dark. He brushed a line up the inside of Jason’s wrist,
following the vein, and then did the same to her.