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“By who?”
“By Ned Flarity and his men. Two dozen of them all together. And they’ve got an alpha with them. He’s the one who’s been tracking you. They’ve been following several hours behind so’s to keep from getting seen.”
That information seemed to earn him the long-haired alpha’s trust. He set down his rifle against the wall of the cliff.
“Do you think they’ll be trying to mess with us tonight?”
“I don’t think so,” Rufus said. “They’re camped pretty far away. I was spying on them just before I came over here.”
“You sure got here quick,” the dark one said. There was still suspicion in his voice, but not as much as before. “What were you doing?”
“As I said, it’s my duty to protect the woman. I wanted to make sure she was still safe.” He nodded toward the blond one’s bandaged arm. “I also wanted to see how he was recovering.”
Rufus felt a little ashamed he had not been there to defend Shannon Duffy from the snakeman. He’d heard the gunshots, but by the time he’d arrived, the skirmish was already over. By studying the tracks in the sand, he’d been able to figure out most of what had happened. He knew that the alphas had protected the woman, and that one of them had gotten wounded in the process.
Maybe they really weren’t so different after all. They all three felt protective of Shannon Duffy.
“Well, friend,” the blond one said, “I’m recovering pretty well, thanks to the omega. As for Flarity and his men, we’ll have to study on that problem later. Right now, we’ve got a job to do. Before we get started, I reckon you ought to have our names. I’m Tanner McBain, and this here is Logan Summerhill.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Rufus said.
But the blond alpha didn’t seem to be listening. He wandered over to where a few tufts of reeds were growing along the margin of the spring. After a minute, he came back with three thin stalks in his hand.
“Just so there’s no hard feelings or squabbling, we’re going to draw straws. Go on.”
Rufus and Logan each drew a straw, leaving Tanner with the third. When they compared them, Rufus’ was the longest.
“Looks like you’re up,” Tanner said.
The three of them returned to the omega and kneeled around her. Together, they finished removing her clothing, freeing her arms from the sleeves of the torn shirt and sliding her stained jeans all the way down and off her legs. A blanket was brought and spread out upon the ground, and they laid the omega on top of it, naked and shivering. For a moment, Rufus just stared at her, transfixed by her incredible beauty.
“Well,” Tanner said. “What are you waiting for?”
That was a good question. In truth, Rufus was feeling a little nervous. He had never mated before. There were plenty of she-wolves who would gladly have him, but his duty to protect Shannon Duffy had always kept him from taking a mate. Besides, mating with a woman was different. He wasn’t sure he knew exactly what to do.
As Rufus moved toward the omega, however, her legs fell open for him submissively, and he was hit with the full force of her heat-scent wafting straight from the source. Even to his somewhat less sensitive human nose, that scent was almost overwhelming. The Moon only knew what it would have done to him if he’d been in his wolf form.
That scent promised to tell him everything he needed to know. Everything the omega needed from him. Everything he needed from her.
With a hungry growl, Rufus dropped his face between her open thighs and started to feast.
CHAPTER 24
Shannon tossed her head back and tried to howl, but the bandana that Tanner had put in her mouth caught the sound and softened it to a moan. When she drew a breath, the air that filtered through the bandana was seasoned with the alpha’s sweat. The flavor of him filled her lungs, fanning the flames of her need even higher.
Not that those flames needed fanning. On the contrary, they were already burning out of control. She was lying naked on the ground, a soft blanket spread out beneath her back and the glittering expanse of the night sky spread out above.
And between her legs, a man she didn’t even know.
He was an alpha. She knew that much about him based on his sign and his scent. She also knew that his name was Rufus, and that he could change into a wolf.
That last fact probably should have been troubling, but at the moment it was the last thing on Shannon’s mind. All she could seem to think about was what he was doing to her with his tongue, and how good it felt, and how she wanted him to keep doing it forever—or at least until she just up and died from sheer pleasure.
Her heat had become like a fever burning inside her. Her senses had become hyperacute. The small campfire had seemed as blinding as the sun at noon. The faintest breeze moving across her skin had felt like a hurricane. It had been like torture.
At least now, she had something she could focus her attention on, and that something was Rufus’ tongue. She could feel every detail of that skilled appendage as it stroked across her slick labia and swollen clitoris. If she tried, she could probably count the individual taste buds. For a blissful moment, the entire universe seemed to shrink down until the only things that existed were the alpha’s coarse tongue, Shannon’s throbbing sex, and the wonderful feeling of those two things rubbing together.
Then something in the campfire popped, dragging her back to reality.
