“Shift!” he commands.
I scream more from shock than I do anything else because my wolf listens. One moment she’s there, trying to lick him and the next she’s gone, giving her skin up to me. I fall against him with a yelp and try to pull back from him but it’s no use. His hold on me is too tight for me to even get an inch between us.
“Let me go!” I kick at him but I’ve never been much of a fighter. That’s my wolf and with her completely showing this stranger her belly, we’re not doing much damage. He spins me to face him, his broad chest presses against me, the ridges of his abs hit my palms and that’s when I fully realize that I’m skin-to-skin with a naked man.
Not a man, a shifter, my brain corrects, as if that’s any better.
He pulls me closer, leaning into my space and I almost moan when his scent wraps itself all around me. My wolf wasn’t wrong, it’s nice. I breathe in.Luna. It’s downright intoxicating.
“Who are you?” he rasps, the deep bass of his voice vibrating against my chest and right down into my bones. I’ve never noticed anyone but Keiran, not like this. Heat unfurls in me, moves through me like a flooded river until all I want to do is feel every inch of the stranger’s big body. I’m tall enough but he’s still a head taller than me. I swallow hard and stare ahead at the tattooed flesh of his chest. He’s beautiful in a brutal way. I usedto think that about Keiran but this is different. Keiran’s brutality was rooted in cruelty but this shifter? It’s strength. I can feel it.
I don’t answer him. I press a hand to his chest, palm flush to his pec where the dark lines of his tattoos swirl out from under my fingers, like my touch is the source of them. I like the idea of marking him. I scrape my nails against his chest before I dig my nails into him. My wolf loses it. She howls with delight. I know if he hadn’t ordered her to shift she would take my skin back in an instant to mark him herself. I don’t hate the idea, even if I know it’s insane. I don’t know this wolf and he’s attacked me. In what universe do I want to mark him?
“I-I’m sorry,” I stammer. I move to pull my hand away but he’s there, hand over mine and keeping me where I am. His hands are just like the rest of the naked shifter pushed up against me. Warm and strong. “I didn’t mean-” I start, ready to tell him that I’m temporarily losing my senses, that I’ve gone moontouched, as a viable excuse for my behavior but I never get the words out because I’m not the only one suffering from a bout of moontouched behavior.
The stranger kisses me.
But it isn’t just that he kisses me.It’s how.
The stranger kisses me like heknowsme. He kisses me like I belong to him. I’ve never been kissed like this. Not even by Keiran. The world opens up around us and narrows down all at once and I surrender right to it and him. I wrap my arms around his shoulders and bury a hand in his hair. I tug on the strands as we kiss. He wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me up to better meet his kiss. My feet leave the ground when he does, which just adds to the overwhelming feeling that I’m floating just because he’s holding me like this. Our bodies move together in the rainwater. The storm should be cold, would be cold for humans, but we’re not human. Shifters run hot and I’ve never been hotter than I am right now in this shifter’s arms. He teasesme, claiming my mouth when I moan in pleasure. His teeth are sharp on my bottom lip but I nip him first before he can bite me. He approves from the pleased rumble I feel in his chest. He moves, I don’t know where he’s moving but I’m dimly aware that he’s moving at a jog. He shifts me in his arms and I wrap my legs around his waist as the rise and fall of his steps force my body up against his. My aching core presses against him and the hard muscles of his abs are a surprise in the very best of ways. Every step gives me a taste of friction that my body so desperately wants.
I’ve never been touched by anyone but Keiran. I loved Keiran but it was never like this with him. I whimper and arch my back, forcing more of a punch when my body rocks against his. His steps slow and I want to scream in frustration but that’s until he grips my waist and lowers me. The warm, blunt, head of his cock hits my ass. I gasp when he pulls me lower still and he slides between my thighs. He thrusts up and I see stars.
I break our kiss to cry out. “Yes,” I gasp and curl forward into his arms. I don’t have to move this time to feel more of him. He brings me down with a grunt as the head of his cock thrusts up against my aching clit. Overhead, lightning flashes so bright the world goes white. Pleasure builds in my body almost as fast as the heat in my blood. I can barely breathe from the weight of how right it feels to be like this with a shifter I don’t know.
“Omega” he growls in my ear. “My Omega.”
My Omega.
Those are two words I’ve dreamed of hearing but never thought I would. Not after Kieran. But here they are whispered in my ear as I cling to the Alpha that said them.
“Alpha,” I keen. I have no sense right now. Water sluices down our bodies. The cold of the storm is made warm from where we touch. Water drips down the stranger’s chest and onto my thighs and legs. Soon it won’t just be water but my slick thatmarks the pair of us. I dig my nails into his shoulder, already knowing that I’ll beg him next to have me.
“Alpha, please,” I moan. The rumble of thunder makes the ground shake beneath us. He leans back to look at me and for a moment I think he’s going to tell me his name but he never gets the chance to because two unthinkable and improbable things happen at once—lightning strikes us and we’re shot through the heart by hunters.
Chapter
Sixteen
THORNE
Icannot believe the fucking shit I put up with to keep my pack safe. First there’s the half-starved hiker lost and losing their shit in the middle of the town square that somehow ends up being my problem to handle and I lose an hour of my day driving them into Oak Fast. Then I end up having to lead a twenty mile run and a workout for the new recruits on my day off. There’s been more reports about ferals and the hiker wouldn’t stop saying she was chased by monsters through the woods. No doubt about it, the ferals were the ones that drove them towards Red River. Had to be.
We’re a quiet community, accessible to humans but not overly so. Everyone knows we’re like Oak Fast, a shifter town, but where they have a pretty even split of humans they’ve also opened themselves up to fey and witches.
Red River doesn’t operate that way. Magic and shifters do not go together. We never have and we never will. Though, with the way this last part of my day has gone I wouldn’t be opposed to a healing spell.
I groan and open my eyes. Overhead, the storm still thunders away. It was just a drizzle when I left on my solo patrol after dropping the hiker off at the Oak Fast bus depot. I’d made myrounds quick, looking for the ferals but their tracks were too faint to follow. I did pick up on the stench of humans. A decent sized group of six out in the woods drinking and shooting. I didn’t think much of it. Any hunter with half a coherent thought knows better than to cross the meadow into Red River. I forgot all about the hunters the second I caught sight of the wolf.
A beautiful, brown shaggy-haired thing with dainty paws painted the color midnight. At first sight the female was a threat. She was big, strong, and headed right for Red River. I didn’t think when I went after her. I went on instinct to protect mine. My pack. Never again are we going to be taken by surprise. I’ll see that my home and my pack are safe for all of their days. Running a perimeter check alone worked to settle my nerves. For the past few days something has had my wolf pacing, no matter how many runs I let him take there’s no getting rid of his energy. Today’s solo patrol might have done the trick but then I sawher.
The she-wolf had my wolf sitting up at attention. He wanted her. I pushed the urge down to go after her but it all fell apart the second I touched her. Tall and lithe and strong. The kind of woman that I could touch without being afraid of breaking her. Her skin was like silk, breasts full and hips curving into a full ass that felt like heaven in my hands. Every thought of Red River and patrols disappeared the second my mouth hit hers.
In short, I was well and properly fucked. I didn’t want to dwell on the thought that she had me hard and fucking between her thighs like I was an untried pup in my first rut. Hells. No, definitely not breathing a word about that embarrassment but I’ll definitely be thinking about it for a long while. I would have given this unknown female anything for just one more touch, and I was right in the middle of it too when the fucking hunters and nature conspired to fuck me over.
The storm I could not fault but the hunters should have never been here. They usually wander to the river that curves below our settlement before they reroute and keep it pushing.
Apparently that didn’t happen today, seeing as the fuckers shot me. Fiery pain that can only be a gunshot wound explodes in my chest. It’s not my heart but it’s close. I sniff the air and sigh. I wasn’t just shot, I was struck by lightning. Yes, a fucking lightning bolt just lit my ass up. There’s a hoot across the meadow. It sounds like they’re in the trees, not out in the open just yet but they will be soon. Gods fucking damn it.
