This sanctuary might be known as Winter Creek, but spring blooms beautifully in the hidden town.
There are flowers everywhere. Wildflowers, mainly, but the sweet scents overlay the verdant greens, the dewy mornings, the renewed earth of the season. It calls to my wolf, and even as the full moon rises up over the woods surrounding the pack house, I want to prance and roll and just enjoy being outside in nature.
I thought I would miss New Brunswick, where the most greenery I got were a few scattered parks downtown, and trees waving at me from a distance. For a state whose nickname is literally the ‘Garden State’, the urban center where I went to college, then rented an apartment with Lorelei was a damper on my wolfish side that I never noticed until I rode the train in Winter Creek.
It wasn’t as bad as Manhattan. I have no idea how Fallon—even if she couldn’t tap into her wolf just yet—survived living in the city for as long as she did. Like the flowers that dot the floor of the forest and line the creek, my former assignment and old friend really seems to have blossomed in the supe sanctuary.
With Claude and Gabriel dead, and Armand a witness to the blood magic Claude used to decimate half of the pack, Fallon did what she was born to do: she used her wolf shifter side and her witch blood to bring the witches in line. There hasn’t been a single whisper of an uprising or revolt against the new coven leader since then.
And, yes, I repeatedly refer to Fallon as the ‘coven leader’ or simply ‘Madame’ because I know it irks the piss out of her…
If you ask her, her loyalty is to the pack. It is. Fallon is a wolf first, but the more magic she learns, the more formidable a threat she’s become. She’s grown into a protector of her own, and if I didn’t have a reason or two to stay in Winter Creek, I would’ve rode out on the train, confident that she no longer needed me to watch her back.
She doesn’t, but that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna stand there anyway, just in case there’s ever another threat to the peace promised in a supe sanctuary city.
I’m not alone, either. No matter what, Lucas will act as a shield for his beloved mate, the ultimate predator who will do anything to protect his pack. He has his Beta… my Beta… there to serve as his right-hand man. At the end of winter, Eleanor and Kirk returned to spend spring and summer at home before returning to the outside world, learning more about what happened in the seventy years the supes in Winter Creek were trapped in time. Bubbly Ellie—who reminds me a bit of Lorelei in how easy it was to let her in past my admittedly prickly exterior—might be the only full human member of the pack, but brooding Kirk will protect his mate to the death. The pack, too, but I have no illusions. Like any bonded shifter, his mate comes first.
I’ll begrudgingly respect the Alpha and support Fallon any way I can, but I’m more like Kirk than any of the other shifters here.
Because my mate comes first, too—even if he isn’t quite my mate yet.
That’s just semantics, though. Like how some full humans call their significant others their ‘husband’ or their ‘wife’ without a wedding or any kind of legal ceremony. There comes a point where you just can’t ignore what a relationship is, whether you have some government-given piece of paper or not.
Shifters don’t have marriages. No big party to celebrate our unions—unless, of course, it’s the Alpha couple—or any rings being exchanged. The mating ceremony is unique to each bonded pair, and once it’s performed, a bond snapping into place, the two shifters are together, ‘til death do they part.
Of course, there’s the whole ‘get the Luna’s blessing’ part, plus giving each other mate marks if you haven’t already, all while doing the physical act of mating on the night of the full moon, but when you’re as attracted to your intended mate as I am, that’s just a formality.
The Luna gave me Tristan Crowder. She told me months ago that my union was blessed so that’s not a problem.
Considering Tris’s brilliant idea of starting over began with a re-do of our regrettable first meeting by the creek, only with the two of us ending up fucking in our skin right out in the open before trotting back to the pack house together in our fur, completely covered in the other’s scent… we haven’t stopped mating in the last three months. Same thing with love bites that are definitely mate marks… my male is a biter and I’m covered in them, but I haven’t let him have one nibble when it’s the night of the full moon.
We haven’t fucked at all when the Luna is out—and that’s totally on me.
I love Tristan. Even when I tried to convince myself that I couldn’t stand him, I think I always knew that he was it for me. I trust the Luna. If she said the Beta was meant to be my mate, I was ready to make him mine forever at the jump.
But then it didn’t quite work out that way. After being trapped with him… he couldn’t avoid me in the cave. I couldn’t avoid him if I wanted to, either. We had to confront the simmering feelings brewing right beneath the service, and from the moment he went from licking my wound to licking my pussy… I knew he was at least attracted to me.
Over time, I’ve even come to believe he loves me, too. Me. Jeannie Lipton. The self-proclaimed bad twin and pain in the ass… he likes my attitude. He smiles behind his hand when I refuse to take any of Lucas’s shit, and uses that charming grin to disarm me and Fallon whenever my friend—whenever my sister—and I get into another one of our many usual arguments.
He built me a hope chest. Seriously. I’ve got not fucking clue what I’m supposed to use it for, but over the last month, he crafted it for me out of wood he chopped down from the forest. It’s sanded and stained, with a heart carved out of the front, and on the insides, he’s etched the name Jean Louise Crowder.
Shifters don’t have weddings, but when we make that forever bond, it’s traditional for the female in the mated pair to take her mate’s family name as her own. To see him already tack his on to my birth name—to be his Jean Louise instead of Jeannie Lipton—had me wondering: what the hell am I waiting for?
I know the answer. Our bond is open. It has been since the cave, and though I spent weeks and weeks testing it, checking to see if it was there, if Tristan had gotten cold paws and block me off from him… the bond remains open.
I sense his love for me. It’s a balm on my battered soul, but I’ve been hurt before. Tristan might not have meant to reject me the way he did. I get that. I’ve gotten over it. But as every full moon came and passed, the two of us doing just enough to ward off moon fever without going all the way and finalizing our bond, I didn’t want to trap him in a mating he could never get out of.
But that chest… he told me it was called a ‘hope chest’, and that’s all the emotion that came barreling down our bond as he hesitantly showed me the piece of furniture he’d been secretly working on these last few weeks.
Well, ‘secretly’. If there’s one thing I’ve learned since becoming a full-fledged member of the Winter Creek Pack—as reluctantly as I did—it’s that there are no secrets here. Everyone knew that Tristan was working on something in one of the spare rooms on the third floor. He had it to himself since I all but moved into his room on the second floor a a couple of nights after he made that meal for me, but in a house full of supes, the sounds of his hammer and saw echoed at all hours of the night.
Of course, for his sake, we pretended that we couldn’t. And if Fallon tried to wheedle Tristan to get him to tell her what he was doing, I shut that shit down before Lucas even had a chance.
They’re friends. I’m glad they are. But if Fallon needs a lesson in just how possessive a she-wolf can be over her intended, it’s probably better that she gets it from me instead of, like, Jade. The other female hasn’t returned back to Winter Creek with her mate just yet, but when she does, Fallon will know better than to turn her charms on him.
Or, as the sensual Fallon calls it, being ‘friendly’...
He told her about it. Of course he did; in my experience, very few people can resist Fallon when she sets her mind to something. But he told Lucas, too, and probably the rest of the pack because even stone-faced Kirk cracked a grin at dinner last night before Tristan took my hand, led me to his room—our room—and showed me the newest piece of hand-carved furniture inside of it.
My mate wanted me to like it. It took me a second—and seeing my name—to realize that the gift, like all the breakfasts, lunch, and dinners that Tristan cooked for only me, was a mating gift.
Because, like me, he thinks of us as mates. And for all my stubborn nature, protecting myself the same time as I tried to protect him, the Beta has no intention to ever push me away again.
For three months, I gave him the chance to change his mind. To realize that a broken, Luna-touched she-wolf with a dark side and a taste for blood and a secret need to be protected by her male isn’t the sort of mate my golden beta wants… but in every way he can, he’s more than made up for our disastrous first meeting and the misunderstanding after the cave.
The Luna only recently went back on-line, letting me know that, if one of the other reasons I was taking my time in making Tristan mine was because of my position as her guardian, I could take as long as I wanted before she’d call on me for another assignment.
For the first time in my life, it’s actually mine. I’m not sharing it with Lorelei. It’s not devoted to keeping Fallon Witt alive so she can do what she was born to do. It belongs to me… and I want to give it—and my heart—to my mate.
And as the Luna rises high in the night sky, my goddess murmuring her well-wishes to me because she’s long given Tristan and me her blessing, I tear through the trees in my fur, knowing that he’s going to catch me before long.
I’m planning on it.
All those wildflowers I enjoy in the daylight are tattered and torn, scattered everywhere, their stems bent beneath my thunderous paws. My wolf’s ears are arrowed back, the force of my speed causing my muzzle to ripple a little, revealing my fangs. Even my tail is more of a straight line behind me instead of dangling there uselessly.
I’m flying, but if I’m being honest, I could probably run a little bit faster. But since I want to give my mate a chase but not actually outrun him, I keep this pace, knowing that he’s out there somewhere. The protector’s protector, if anything triggers my danger sense, he’ll be there to back me up in a heartbeat.
I haven’t had a single tingle or a twitch in months. And maybe that’s because I’ve let down my guard enough to let Tristan have my back, but it doesn’t matter. With Eleanor and Kirk having the pack house to themselves this full moon, and Fallon and Lucas heading out to enjoy each other in the Alpha’s cabin on the other side of the woods from where I’m waiting for my mate to catch me, it’s just me, Tristan, the birds in the trees, the Luna and the stars in the sky, and sense of anticipation and need on the spring breeze.
Wild wolves love to ambush their prey. I know that, just like I know that wolf shifters carry that instinct inside of them. Right now, I’m Tristan’s prey. Already looking forward to what’s going to happen tonight, I forgot that for a moment.
And then, with the sudden scent of sea spray and mist, earth and sage washing over me, I realize that he did just what I should’ve expected him to do: looping around one grove of trees, he managed to not only catch up to me, but move far enough ahead that he could leap out at me from the side.
I catch the flash of golden fur and the way the Luna winks off of him a split second before gold fur becomes tanned skin, blond hair, and patch of gold pubes. He shifted, and so do I.
His arms are a cage around my naked body as we collide. My mate is careful to cushion the impact by wrapping me in his embrace as we roll a few feet over the earth, the rocks, the fallen sticks, and destroyed flowers.
Or maybe, because my mate is a practiced Beta wolf who spent decades running witches off pack land, he knew exactly what he was doing with his hit because, suddenly, I’m flat on my belly, his weight is on my back, keeping me against the ground. Then, to make sure I don’t go anywhere, he stretches his arms over his head, lacing his fingers in mine.
Our hands connected, the heat of his sculpted chest searing my naked back, I dig my chin into the mud and arch my ass into his groin just so he knows that, yeah, he won—but it’s my turn to get everything I ever wanted.
And that starts with making Tristan Crowder my forever mate.
He’s already hard; I’d expected that, and it only makes me more eager to have him inside of me as soon as possible. His constant state of arousal around me is one of the first things I learned about my mate after we started over. Everything about me turns him on—because, one thing for sure, an instant physical attraction has never been an issue for us—but he’s still a shifter. Despite knowing that I’m a fierce fucking predator, that I need to be to serve as the Luna’s guardian, he loves it when I’m his own personal prey.
My pretty boy mate loves to run. He loves to chase. Male shifters know that, if they catch their female, they’ve earned to right to rut. To mate. To fuck.
I could throw him off. With the right twist to my naked body, I could throw him off of me before he could get his cock inside of me, pinning me down on the ground at his mercy. But because this is my mate and we both knew that tonight would end with another bite on my neck and maybe a slash mark across his chest so that I can show the whole Luna-damned world that I own his heart, I don’t do anything but bare my throat and whimper, “Please.”
His chuckle is husky and hot against the shell of my ear. “You’ve gotta be a little more specific than that,” he says in that teasing tone that drive me fucking wild. “Please let you up? Please let you go? Or—” Tristan nudges my entrance with the head of his cock, teasing me in a whole different way than just his tone. “Or please fuck you? Tell me. What is it you want from your male?”
I have half a mind to throw him off of me after all. Tristan… when it comes to satisfying his female, his first time might have been awkward and messy, but he’s a quick learner. He knows now that the best way to take the bite out of Jeannie Lipton is to bang it out of her. Teasing me when I so desperately crave him? It might end with me shoving him to his back and riding him to get out my aggression—or, on one memorable occasion, I might kick his ass out of our bed, then keep him at foot-length while forcing him to watch me pleasure myself without letting him help at all.
I thought he learned his lesson after that. Then again, this is it. This is our mating night, and maybe he wants to make this one even more memorable.
Me? I just want to make this male mine.
So I do the one thing I swore I would never do once I started fucking males on the regular: I actually beg him to do it.
“You,” I grunt out, wiggling my ass a little, trying to fill myself up with more of his erection.
He rewards me with another inch before he stills his body. Squeezing my fingers, dropping a kiss to my temple, he murmurs, “And why do you want that, Jean Louise?”
Luna fucking damn it! How can he make my full name sound so erotic with little more than the purr to his voice? If I hadn’t spent countless afternoons, fucking frolicking in the waterfalls as my wolf, splashing Tristan’s golden beast, I’d think my mate was part cat shifter instead.
This is our mating night. I wanted this to be perfect. More than anything, I wanted Tristan to look down on me lovingly and be satisfied that he was promising himself to me for the rest of our lives.
Little human girls plan their weddings. Tiny she-wolf pups snicker and talk about what kind of male their future mate will be—alpha, beta, delta, or, in rare cases, even the elder gamma wolves—and how they’d have this picture perfect mating night with rainbows and candy and shit like that.
Hormonal teens who were young enough to believe in fairytales but mature enough to know what mating actually entailed—whether they decided to wait for their fated mates like Tristan did, or didn’t like me—fantasized over the magical night that two become one.
Desperate she-wolves who would say anything to get their male to stick it in and start moving? She-wolves like Jeannie Lipton who has always, always opened her mouth and stuck her paw right in it because she never fucking thinks better of what she’s going to stay first?
Welp, they might just pound their hands—and their intended’s—against the ground before they snap out, “Because you’re my mate, you ass, and if you don’t want to be, then get up and let me find someone else who’s willing to fuck a naked she-wolf who’s dying for her male to stop talking and just do it.”
Did I know what I was getting into with my sassy reply? That Tristan’s gentle kiss would be replaced with a possessive snarl the moment before he shifts the angle of his head so that his mouth is near the side of my throat the same time as his hips jerk, filling me completely with the entire length of his erection on one solid thrust.
A roar rips out of my human throat. Is it from the delicious stretch as he possessed every inch of me from the inside out? Or the way his fangs slice through my skin, his bite clamping down, keeping me in place as he starts to fuck me a little bit like how I imagine a feral or an Alpha dominates his female?
Or maybe it’s the snap deep inside of my chest as our bond—once so frail and whisper-thin, and now unbreakable—finalizes, making me Tristan Crowder’s forever mate?
Around a mouthful of my flesh, with my blood perfuming the air as potently as the lust pouring off of both of us, and the scent of sex even a human couldn’t miss, Tristan grates out, “Mine.”
And I tilt my head up just enough to look at the Luna, smiling to the goddess as much as to myself as I have to admit it might just be that last one… then slam my ass up into him so that my Beta has both his claws and his fangs as deep inside of me as they can go.
I jab my claws in his ass, keeping him there, scratching just enough to add another mark to the many others I left in my mate’s flawless body.
We’re shifters. Tristan was perfect before with his movie-star good looks. The blond hair. The lean muscular body. The striking blue eyes and sculpted features. But once I got my claws in him, leaving my mark, watching him marvel over every scar he left in place…
He’s fucking gorgeous—and he’s also…
“Mine.”
For now.
Forever.
For always.
And this time? I’m not lying.
And that’sthe end of the Wolves of Winter Creek! Jeannie and Tristan had to go through it a little to get their HEA, but the charming Tristan showing than he’s more than a pretty smile and a flirty nature was the perfect hero for Jeannie. Just like the Luna-touched twin finally needed to believe that someone might actually want to be with her for reasons other than a good time. They both needed forever—and now they have it!
It was so much fun returning to Winter Creek even for a little while, and I’m super excited about what’s coming up next! As a full-blooded supe raised in the world (and working under the Luna), Jeannie knows the secret of sanctuary cities like this one. But remember how she mentioned one up in Alaska during her train ride?