AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A wolf wasn’t meant to be alone.
And the other aspect of her nature... she didn’t understand it, but the little she’d been able to learn had told her that touch wasn’t just wanted, but necessary. Those who were full-blooded would wither and die without touch. If she didn’t have Therian blood within, she would have wasted away a long time ago. She had nobody around to teach her more about that other eerie part of herself; her mother had died when she was a baby and Zee hadn’t even learned about this aspect of her nature until she was already a young woman, growing into a person who needed physical contact like it was her sustenance.
That need raged within her now.
More than an hour after he’d first arrived, Duke moved in so close, she felt the warmth of his breath brush over her lips and she had to choke back the whimper that almost escaped, thrash the other part into submission—and it didn’t want to listen.
“I’ve got this crazy need to kiss you, Zee. Am I risking life and a limb if I try?” Duke’s eyes, so dark brown they appeared black, held hers.
“No.” She licked her lips and hoped he’d kiss her, hoped he’d touch her, even as she hoped he’d never notice how foreign all of this was to her.
He reached up and cradled her cheek in his hand and then his mouth was on hers. Soft at first, his tongue tracing the curve of her lower lip before seeking entrance to her mouth.
This... kissing... this, she remembered. A hungry noise escaped and she eased closer—or tried to. Duke stood next to the stool where she was perched, making her position awkward. But then he moved closer, and in what felt like a completely natural response, she parted her jean-clad thighs and he stepped between them, deepening the kiss.
She pulled away to gasp for breath—and maybe ask if he’d come upstairs to the apartment where she lived.
But he was already kissing her again, with more focus and determination this time.
She moaned and reached up, cupping the back of his head, the short, raspy feel of his hair abrading her palm.
“Son of a—fuck, Donner!”
A scent hit her—holly, cedar, birch... and fur and wildness and sweet mountain air.
Pack... except, no. It wasn’t pack. Not anymore—pain spliced through her heart, tearing and clawing. It all happened in microseconds while she clung to Duke and then she wasn’t even touching him.
The big, strong military man was stumbling back into a wooden table, but he moved fluidly with the movement, eyes going sharp as he instinctively recognized a threat. He drew a knife from his boot—as an officer with one of the military branches, he’d be authorized to carry any number of weapons, and he moved fast.
But not fast enough. Panic clawed at her and she swiped out, emptying the drink and smashing the glass. She wasn’t military trained, nor a part of a lethal pack, but she was no pushover either. No meek thing to be thrown around and abused—not again. Not anymore.
Then it didn’t matter, because Donner was there, slamming a fist into the Therian wolf who’d entered the bar and seen her being kissed by a man who wasn’t the Prime who had laid claim on her years before.
It didn’t matter that he’d never actually followed through.
Therians understood and respected their own customs and laws before anything else. And to them, Zennia Day belonged to Nikolai Whelan, the Prime of Appalachia, a man who lived hundreds of miles and several states away, the man who’d once promised he’d love and care for her always, and then told her to get the fuck out of Appalachia.
And stay out, Zennia. You’re not welcome here.
