CHAPTER FIFTEEN
–Naya–
I KNEW THE minute I looked into Bain’s wolf eyes after climbing out of the root-ridden tunnel that things were about to change forever. It wasn’t just how easily I shifted, but how it felt battling beside him and running alongside his wolf for the first time through the stormy forest.
Everything about him felt utterly perfect.
Whether it was how our beasts flew effortlessly through the cold, driving rain or how we fought so well, complimenting each other’s every move in battle, it was real. Ours. The best of us and we didn't realize it until we were pushed to the limit protecting others together. Protecting our pack. It had been fast, furious, and mouth-wateringly intense, and I’d loved every minute of it.
I wish I could say there had been no fear, but there had been, from my wolf’s intense worry over another wolf hurting Bain trying to get to me, then those same wolves cutting him down in human form to have me. I knew my way around tense situations and had skirted death a few times, but nothing I’d experienced was like the fear and terror I felt over losing Bain.
It was brand new and, yet again, made me vulnerable.
Yet I didn’t care as I thrust my blade and killed ruthlessly. Did not care when we both avoided death in a battle that was as furious as it was brief. I didn't care when I had a blade to a man’s balls, making sure he scrambled back to Niall like a good little pup and told him all I wanted him to know. It would piss Niall off, too, putting Bain and the Wolves of Ossary at even more risk, yet I couldn’t stop myself from sending the asshole who had bitten me a very direct message.
Too late. Bain owned me now.
And I was okay with the ownership part because, with Bain, I knew it worked both ways. He belonged to me as much as I belonged to him. It wasn’t something I had ever given another man, yet as I found myself trembling in his arms in the darkened corners of Mave’s den, letting go of all I’d bottled up during the battle, namely my fear of losing him, I knew he had locked me down for good.
Not in all the kinky ways I wanted to be locked down, but enough so when I pulled his lips to mine, still shaking like a leaf, I knew we would get there soon enough. I would need all of him like I needed to breathe so I felt safe.
Although I thought I would be able to wait until I met Mave’s pack, I was wrong. Way wrong, because when our tongues tangled and I felt his cock straining against my backside, it felt like I had waited for this moment my entire life, and I couldn’t stop from making love to him if I tried.
Grateful for the cool, plush moss beneath my knees when I straddled him, I cupped his cheeks and kissed him hungrily. Wickedly desperate and aroused, I knew I should be more aware of our surroundings because we were so close to others and watchful eyes, but I couldn’t stop grinding against him if I tried. Could not stop from demanding he give me what I needed.
It turned out Bain was very good at obeying.
This time, that meant ripping back control just enough to please me, fully my alpha when he chanted against my lips and showed me what he was capable of, not to mention making clear we would be staying right where we were, bedamned who saw us.
And nothing had ever turned me on more.
Especially when I found myself back in my strappy little black cocktail dress and high heels, minus my bra and lacy panties. A look he must have liked because his cock was blazing hot against me now, but not nearly as hot as it would get when he yanked up my dress and settled it against my swollen center. If that wasn’t electrifying enough, finding him without a shirt and pants ramped everything way up.
“Good God,”
I groaned, running my hands over his warm, broad, muscular chest and shoulders, marveling at how beautifully he was made. Chiseled to perfection, from his well-defined abs to the strong thighs lifted just enough to lock me into place on an arousal I couldn’t see beneath my dress but knew was as gorgeous as the rest of him.
“Come here, Naya,”
he said softly yet commanding as his large, warm, weapon-roughened hands ran up my thighs, sending delicious shivers through me before they grabbed my ass firmly, ceasing my movements. His wolven eyes flared, held me, bent me to his will, just like he had when he’d been my midnight stranger in forgotten erotic dreams. “Lower the front of your dress, wrap your arms around me, press yourself against me, and put your ear close to my mouth.”
As if everything he said heightened my awareness of not just him but my surroundings, I heard the sound of people fade and a tribal drum beating somewhere in the distance as I slowly lowered one strap at a time, relishing the way his breathing increased with anticipation.
My chest wasn’t overly large, but men had always liked the round, firm shape of my breasts, and Bain was no different, his pupils flared with approval as I let the silky material slide over my pebbled nipples and pool around my waist.
When I hesitated, testing if he would let me disobey him and ground my center against him, he grabbed my ass more tightly and narrowed his eyes in warning. “You know what to do next.”
He was right. I did.
So I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, keeping my eyes locked with his in this slow, sensual dance of ours until I rested my breasts against his chest and my ear by his mouth, eager and throbbing inside and out, awaiting his next order.
“’Tis more of a demand,”
he murmured huskily into my ear, his hot breath brushing my neck in a way that drove me crazy when combined with how good it felt being skin-to-skin with him, flesh-to-flesh. I had been naked against enough guys in my time, but something about being against Bain, my fated mate, my alpha, heightened every teensy, tiny centimeter of me. Every minuscule pore.
I felt exposed and raw and controlled in a way I would hate with anyone else, but something about how Bain dug his hand into my hair and growled for me to stop moving when I didn’t realize I was made me groan with unbelievable need.
“You move when I say move,”
he growled into my ear, nipping my earlobe just hard enough for me to whimper a little and fight not squirming with need.
“And you let go when I say to let go,”
he went on. “No sooner.”
He nibbled along my neck and caressed my ass. “Do you understand?”
“Ta,”
I answered, saying yes in his language because I seemed to understand it more and more the longer we were together.
“Ta, what?”
he said, his growl hoarser now as he rolled me back and forth over his thick length, readying me.
“Ta, alpha,”
I groaned, holding him tighter, trying not to grind against him.
“Good, girl,”
he murmured in my ear, flicking his tongue here and there, just enough to drive me wild. “And what else?”
He slid my center to his tip and teased my swollen flesh. “What would I like even better?”
Desperate for him to fill me, I fought the word at first because somewhere in the back of my vulnerable Renegade mind, I feared the repercussions of betraying Niall. A kickback I hadn’t expected, but it seemed Bain had because he was wonderfully merciless.
“What would I like even better?”
he growled, clamping his teeth down on the side of my neck, much like he had in wolf form when locking me down, before speaking within my mind. “Tell me, and I will give you what you want. Deny me, and I will shun you.”
Something about that, about the way his teeth bit into my neck, and the swollen head of his cock teased without giving, forced me to push past Niall’s hold so I could tell Bain what he wanted to hear, hoping it would ease this terrible ache. Not just the ache between my legs, either, but deep inside me, through the murky waters of my past straight to my heart.
So I said what he wanted to hear.
What I longed to say.
“Ta, mate,”
I whispered hoarsely, not just pushing against but past Niall’s hold over me in a way I barely understood as I gave myself to another wolf. “Fated mate.”
Just like that, I was catapulted straight back into a nightmare.
Back onto a dance floor in a Boston nightclub surrounded by strobe lights and dangerous eyes glimmering through the dark. Wolven eyes.
Waiting.
Watching.
Eyes that knew I was taking the bait as I trailed Niall into a darkened hallway.
Only this time, I didn’t see his wolf heading toward me but Bain’s. Large and black and coming for me. I didn’t feel Niall’s bite, but Bain’s human body pressed against me, locking me down. All around me. Hoisting me against the wall with my legs around his waist, not to the sound of booming techno but to a primal, heady beat that filled every part of me.
I wouldn’t escape now any more than I had that awful night, but I was captured in a whole new way. One I barely understood until I felt the sting of his incisors combined with a stretching feeling between my thighs. I tensed at first and struggled as if fighting Niall’s unwanted intrusion before Bain murmured into my mind I was safe now and ordered me to relax.
As if he had some magical hold on me, the moment Bain broke through and I let him be part of the horrific moment I was bitten, to own it, I relaxed, and the painful sensation swiftly gave way to such intense pleasure I gasped and tried to draw in breath.
“Shh,”
Bain whispered into my mind, his teeth still locked on my neck as he somehow overrode Niall’s bite and made me his, melding with my inner Renegade because I knew he did. Felt it in a bone-deep, soul-deep way as he finally, at last, grabbed hold of me and pulled me up from the dark waters of my mind and everything I’d drowned in over the years, straight to the surface, and cast it all aside.
Every last bit.
And nothing had ever felt more freeing or arousing.
While it was an odd combination of sensations, as Bain and I broke free from the water and rushed into each other, becoming one in ways that were foreign but welcome, I snapped back to the present and cried out in pleasure when he filled me with one, long, soul-shattering thrust.
When he did, not just pleasure but alarm tore through me because I knew Niall had been ripped away from me once and for all, and he knew it. Everyone knew it, from the Wolves of Ossary to Tadc and all his creations, because we were all connected through a thousand years of cursed bloodlines.
“’Tis all right, mo chara is gaire,”
Bain whispered, sounding far away and close at the same time as if I were on some psychedelic drug. He tilted my chin until I stared into his reddish-gold eyes and ordered me to move. “Come back to me, mate. Take what you need from me.”
I couldn’t tell you where I was at that moment, only it felt like a wicked and needy place caught between my past and future, so having been given permission, I rolled my hips and groaned at the feel of him inside me. Not just groaned but made all sorts of throaty, chest-deep sounds as I kept my eyes locked with his, braced my hands on his strong, supportive shoulders that would hold me up no matter what happened in life, and at last rode him as a man like him should be ridden.
He knew it, too, when I moved.
Knew I would please him greatly and make him feel all sorts of things he had never felt. Seen clearly when his eyes registered shock, then pleasure when I swiveled my hips and clamped down on his cock, then rolled my hips quickly in the other direction.
When he growled and locked his hands on my hips, thinking he would steer me to his release because my maneuver had brought him just to the edge, I stopped and shook my head slowly, reminding him he’d given me control and I meant to utilize it.
“I could take it back,”
he said hoarsely, breathing heavily now as his hooded gaze raked over me with desire. “Should take it back.”
“You could and maybe even should.”
I rolled my hips enough to make him groan in pent-up need. “But you won’t if you want more of that.”
He tried to speak but appeared incapable, so he nodded once. When he did, I gave him what he needed because I needed it, too. Needed it so badly I didn’t close my eyes to the extraordinary pleasure I felt riding him slowly at first, then faster and faster, but kept my eyes on his. Felt him pulling me closer and closer even as I pulled him closer.
At some point, our battle of wills ended, and our eyes disconnected, but it didn't matter because we were already gone. Lost. Wrapped up in each other’s arms, holding one another close, thrusting and rolling and needing. Sweating, moaning, and panting as he covered me with his scent, and we raced toward pleasure as swiftly as our wolves had raced through a stormy, dangerous forest.
Only this time, there wasn’t a battle waiting for us.
This time, there was only an intense war cry made of him and me and a vicious, pleasure-soaked surrender neither of us had ever felt when he finally murmured in my ear, “Let go.”
Just like that, I soared over the edge and cried out with the sheer ecstasy as it slammed into me. Whiplashed through me. Bain thrust one last time, locked up, and let go so hard and so deep, roaring in just as much pleasure, that I could feel the throbbing force of his release inside me.
I had never let a guy have me without a condom, so I’d never felt this, and it was incredible, adding another layer of pleasure to what I already experienced. Especially with Bain because he was as good at this as I was. So good my body kept letting go, and I experienced the longest, most intense orgasm of my life.
I had no idea how long we stayed that way, lost in each other and how we’d made each other feel, only that when I became halfway coherent again, he was stroking my back affectionately. No, wrong word. Lovingly. Slowly, as if soothing me from the intense high he had given me. Maybe even a little possessively.
“Because you belong to me now, and I to you,”
he said gruffly, nuzzling my neck and inhaling as if he couldn’t get enough of my scent. “’Twill be different now.”
“It will, won’t it?”
I murmured, flicking my tongue over his taxed skin, needing to taste him before I inhaled deeply and pulled in his scent as well. Hell, I needed more than that, even though I still drifted down from what we had just done.
“Ta,”
he replied, his voice gruffer still when I ground against him, desperate for more. Drenched in this endless need to keep feeling him fill me.
“’Tis because you are in heat, and I’m your mate,”
Bain managed, his cock leaping inside me, clearly just as interested. He steered my chin until our eyes connected. “And I will see you well serviced, but not until you have eaten and met more of our pack. ‘Tis necessary to nourish your inner beast after a run.”
“And then what?”
I asked, giving him a sultry look and rolling my hips enough to make him swell inside me all over again.
“Then we will rest for the eve and make our way to Callum’s castle in the morn when our enemy will be sluggish.”
He traced my jawline tenderly, wearing a wistful look I didn’t understand. “I imagine ‘twill not be long before we go to war.”
While I had known that was coming, little did I imagine what I learned later that night. Something that would change my entire world all over again.