Winter of the Wolf (34 page)

* * *

Not long after dawn, Shay finished showering off the dirt, sweat, and dried blood. After taking care of Ben and Owen, Donal had healed Shay’s shoulder, despite his protests that it wasn’t worth attention. The healer had laughed, saying Shay and Zeb had colected enough battle marks to impress the and Zeb had colected enough battle marks to impress the females. No need for more.

Shay glanced down at his body. He didn’t have as many scars as Zeb, and they didn’t stand out as wel on his lighter skin, but yeah, he had quite a few.

Breanne didn’t seem to mind.

She wasn’t in his bed, as he’d hoped. Stil not that sure of herself, was she? He stepped into her bedroom. Although she’d returned to the lodge at sunrise, she was already sound asleep. She’d had a hard night, the brave little female.

As the memory of her attacking a demonkin returned, his anger and fear reawakened like flames from smoldering coals. The helhound could have torn her to pieces.

“Breanne,” he growled.

She woke with a start. The second she recognized him, he scooped her up, netting a tiny yip that hardened him past bearing. Soft female, warm and flushed with sleep, fragrant with feminine musk and soap.

Mine
.

He tumbled her into his big, littermate-sized bed and folowed, pinning her on her back. No fear in her expression, just growing arousal. Her scent drew him down her body.

Puling her legs apart, he exposed her wetness.

“Shay, I—”

“Do not speak to me until I have you at least once,” he said. Her eyes widened. “Unless I hurt you.” Then, to be said. Her eyes widened. “Unless I hurt you.” Then, to be certain she wouldn’t be damaged, he licked over her female parts, savoring the heady musk, the tremor that roled through her. His tongue teased inside her entrance, then over the nub, and, despite her squirming, he mercilessly held her open as he drove her over the edge.

Her long moan made him grin. She came so easily now.

Thank the God, because he couldn’t wait any longer. Each time he relaxed, he saw her facing a demonkin. Her courage awed him, terrified him. Infuriated him. Throwing pots at a helhound. Spaghetti sauce.

With ruthless hands, he turned her over.

Bree felt anxiety clog her throat when Shay yanked her up onto her hands and knees. He’d never tried to take her this way, not after she’d panicked the first night.

His huge body bent over her, making her feel too smal and powerless. Yet, his hand was incredibly gentle as he caressed her breast and teased her nipple. Her insides felt as if he was turning up the fire under a pot on the stove. He nipped her shoulder and nuzzled the back of her neck.

Her fear was smothered by her increasing need, the warmth of his body, his careful touch. It was Shay. How could she be afraid?

“There we go,” he murmured into her ear. “Breanne, I’m going to take you hard. Sing out if I hurt you, but I need to going to take you hard. Sing out if I hurt you, but I need to feel you around me, to hear your heart and breath.” He needed her. Heavens, the words simply washed any resistance away. “Take me. However you want.” His growl shuddered through her as he slicked his cock in her wetness. He teased at her entrance for a moment, then sheathed himself in her with one hard thrust.

The shock sent her vagina spasming around him, and she gasped.

“By the God, you feel good, Breanne.” His voice was low and harsh as he puled out and slammed home again.

Her eyes tried to rol back in her head as sensations blasted through her. He felt different in this position. Deeper than normal, hitting new spots.

“Hang on, little wolf.” As if folowing his own orders, his hands closed on her hips in an inescapable grip, and he yanked her back onto his cock with a hum of pleasure. Hard.

Fast. Determined. He took her as he’d said, holding her as he wanted. Thrust after thrust.

“More,” she whined.

He nudged her legs farther apart, going even deeper, and the relentless rhythm started a pulsing inside her. Pressure built as her center coiled like an overwound spring. She tightened around him, needing more.

He chuckled and slid one hand down over her clit, teasing her with insistent fingers into mindless need. Each plunge of his cock shoved her against his hand.

She moaned and shut her eyes, feeling only his slick heavy erection moving in and out while his firm finger stroked her clit.

As his shaft pushed deeper, as his finger stroked harder, faster, his teeth closed on the back of her neck, and the bite of pain ripped right down to her core. For one second everything inside her balanced on a pinpoint, and then the spring inside her blew. Inescapable pleasure slammed outward in blazing wave after wave, until she wasn’t sure where her body began or ended.

He gave a low groan. His grip was bruise-inducing tight, and he held himself immobile as his cock shuddered inside her.

Humming his satisfaction in her ear, he laved the pain of his bite, then he roled them over onto their sides. He curled around her, her back against his chest.

Her arms and legs melted into the mattress as she rested her head on his hard bicep.

He held her against him, his shaft stil deep inside her.

“Thank you, mo leannan,” he whispered.

She grinned.
No—thank
you. Not only for the orgasm, but also for the discovery that she could enjoy hard and fast sex. “You’re welcome.” She lifted his hand from her breast and bit his finger. His response was to harden inside her.

“Thanks for saving my life.”

“Thanks for saving my life.”

“It shouldn’t have been necessary.” He puled his hand away and set it back on her breast, and she felt her nipple gather into a peak. Funny how stroking herself did nothing, but under his calused palm, her every nerve came alive.

When he roled her nipple between his fingers, her core clenched around his cock, making him growl in satisfaction.

He kissed her hair, puling her closer. “But you saved others tonight. How did you get so brave? Were your parents warriors?” He winced. “I’m sorry. You probably don’t know, do you?”

“No.”

“What do humans do with their orphans?” He slid out and turned her to face him.

She nuzzled his chest, breathing in the scent of soap and their loving. “Don’t you ever watch television?”

“No. The males treat their females so badly that I want to teach them manners.” His hand fisted, making his knuckles crack. “And everyone is rude.”

She tried to imagine Mr. Over-protective Polite Warrior tolerating a sitcom or even something like Die Hard. A giggle escaped her.

“Orphans?” He reminded her.

“Oh. People are hired to care for a batch of children. I didn’t talk for a long time, so they thought I was retarded, and I didn’t get adopted. I was fostered by a nice couple, but and I didn’t get adopted. I was fostered by a nice couple, but he lost his job and had to move out-of-state. Another one got pregnant, and they didn’t want two kids. I moved around a lot. In my last foster home, the guy tried to…” Shay’s eyes narrowed.

Whoa. Not a good story for right now. “Wel, I ran away before anything”—much— “happened, and lived with a street gang.”

“Gangs are children?”

“Not always, but this one was just a bunch of kids holing up in a condemned warehouse. Scavenging and stealing.” She smiled. “I was cute, so I made a good pickpocket and shoplifter. And I was great at hotwiring cars.”

“You didn’t stay a thief.”

Her nose wrinkled. “I tried to lift a walet from a—wel, you’d cal him a warrior. Sensei taught martial arts, and instead of turning me into juvvie, he put me to work in his dojo.”

He touched her nose. “The courage you already had, but he taught you to fight.”

“Yeah.” She grimaced. “Although it doesn’t do much good against a helhound.”

By the God, did she have to remind him again? The memory of her in the street returned, so selflessly brave, trying to save a cahir’s life. Herne’s hooves, she could steal trying to save a cahir’s life. Herne’s hooves, she could steal the heart right out of his chest.

He studied her pale sweet face with the spattering of freckles. She didn’t fight with the courage of a warrior but with the fierceness of a mother wolf guarding her young. Shay ran his finger over her cheek. He’d seen her cuddling Bonnie’s pups, seen the crayon drawing from another that she’d taped on their refrigerator. She cared. That was her secret: she simply cared. This female had a heart bigger than her tiny body.

And she’d stolen his. He closed his eyes. The inevitability of loving her was like the settling of a mountain. He could tel himself she was merely a lover, and, of course, he would worry over her welfare. But it would be a lie. She meant far, far more.

He sighed, and an odd tightness in his chest relaxed with the admission of what he felt.

Yet…caring for Breanne would create a mess.

Not with Zeb, of course. He smiled and rubbed his face against her fragrant hair. Flowers and citrus; she must have a new shampoo. Zeb was already heart-tied to her, even if he tried to pretend otherwise.

The problem was with Shay.
I’m oathbound
. None of the reasons he’d given Zeb had changed. Moving with him and Zeb would be too hard on her. But what if she cared for them? He thought she did—although he’d be the first to say them? He thought she did—although he’d be the first to say he didn’t understand females at al. What was the correct trail to satisfy both honor and needs?

He’d have to think further. And even if he and Zeb wanted to court her, the Law said a female must attend at least one Gather first. Females needed to learn to separate physical reactions from her emotional ones.

But al that was in the future, and she was here in his bed now.

She was chewing on her lip, thinking intently. “How come when Zeb used a pistol, the bulets got through the helhound’s armor?”

“What?” His brows drew together as he tried to veer from romance to death.

“The bulets,” she said patiently. “How did a pistol kil a helhound?”

He stared at her. She’d been out there in the street when Zeb shot the helhound. Her soft little body had been far too close. A memory flashed of his brothers’ savaged bodies. A growl rumbled in his chest.

“What? Shay?”

She is alive
. He had to keep teling himself that. Proving it.

He roled off the bed, flipped her on her back, and dragged her downward until her sweet ass was half off the edge. “You shouldn’t remind a male of how close you came to dying, little wolf.”

Her eyes widened as he set her knees in the crooks of his elbows, opening her to his use.
She is alive
. He surged home with one swift thrust.

Chapter Twenty-four

Bree stepped out of the kitchen and stretched. Al day, she’d been discovering sore spots. Throwing cast-iron pots apparently required different muscles than lifting weights. And sex with an angry cahir…

She put her hand on her stomach. Dear sweet heavens.

The sex had been amazing. That he cared enough to be so upset made her al quivery inside.

Don’t get attached, Bree
. He wasn’t after a relationship.

As soon as he and Zeb finished teaching the cahirs, they’d be off to a new area. She needed to confine herself to gratitude for having met him. Would she have ever recovered enough to have sex if he hadn’t been so understanding and so stubborn?

Yeah, she cared for him, but he didn’t need to know.

Instead, she’d…somehow…send him off to the wars with a kiss, and not burden him with the knowledge of how unhappy she’d be.

She sighed. As she shook her head to dislodge the unhappy thoughts, she heard soft classical music. Must be Zeb. She folowed the sound to the front of the lodge.

In the library area, Zeb was sprawled in a chair, reading.

The cover of the book held a dead body and a bloody knife.

Crazy cahir.

“Little female?” He patted the arm of his overstuffed chair.

She veered around her jigsaw puzzle table and set a hip on the chair arm. Would he answer her questions? Not if he figured out why she was asking.

Even her few moments of thinking made him frown.

“Problems?”

“Did you know you’re getting gray hair?” He hadn’t worn a leather band. With a finger, she traced one silvery strand through his long, night dark hair.

“Probably from seeing you try to kil a helhound with spaghetti sauce.” His voice sounded like a gravel truck when he finished, and his expression had turned ferocious.

Her heart skipped a beat. Yet, he no longer scared her.

And he’d oh-so-conveniently introduced the subject she wanted to discuss.
Go girl
! “Your gun did seem a bit more effective than spaghetti. How come the bulets bounced off before? Did you have a bigger pistol this time?”

“No.” He tugged her hand away from his hair and nibbled on her fingers. The teasing bites sent tingles up her arm. “The trick is to hit it in the eye.”

trick is to hit it in the eye.”

Was he insane? “With a bulet?”

“A stiletto works, but they dodge so fast that you’l miss unless it actualy has you in its jaws.”

She stared at him. In its jaws? She tried to imagine doing anything except screaming. “A pistol’s a better choice then,” she said hoarsely. “But that’s an awful smal target.”

“Fucking smal.” He kissed the inside of her wrist, then up her arm. The heat from his lips trickled into her and pooled low in her bely. “Recessed eyes mean you have to shoot straight-on.”

“What?” Her skin wakened and her breasts grew heavy.

“Oh. Right. Straight-on.” She tried to pul her hand away.

How was she supposed to keep her mind on—?

He yanked her arm and toppled her into his lap. Ignoring her half-hearted struggles, he arranged her with ruthless hands until her shoulder pressed against his hard chest. His left arm supported her back as he settled her legs over the armrest. With her right arm pinned between them, she couldn’t get out of the chair. Her heart rate increased, but she wasn’t scared.
Much
.

“Better,” he rumbled, rubbing his chin on the top of her head. “I got a kink in my neck with you up there.” Uh-huh. He probably just didn’t like anyone above him.