7. Orion
CHAPTER 7
Orion
“T here’s something going on with her,” Lycan said as soon as we got inside for dinner, raising a suspicious eyebrow in my direction. “I can smell it.”
“You better keep your fucking muzzle to yourself,” I said. “Alpha’s orders.” Not to mention the thought of either of them touching her sent a possessive fury through my veins that had no right to be there. I’d only known her four days, and despite the fact she was the most gorgeous woman I’d ever seen, there could be nothing between us. Even if I wanted it. Which I didn’t.
I definitely didn’t.
I kept picturing the way she’d stood up to me in the barn that first day, jutting her chin out, fire raging in her eyes. No one dared talk to me like that, which made it incredibly difficult to resist her. I wanted to needle her again just to see that scalding fury return to her beautiful stare. My wolf whined, remembering the altercation and how badly he’d ached to tackle her to the ground and force her to submit. She’d be a hell of a ride, one I shouldn’t… wouldn’t …entertain.
“No, it’s something else.” Lycan scratched at the back of his hair.
“I sense it, too,” Poe said from the kitchen. “I know I’m the youngest and I’ve been a wolf the least amount of time, but she’s not— human .”
I cracked my neck and rolled my shoulders, sensing the tension forming in the atmosphere. “She’s had a rough couple of days. Let her be.”
“Ry,” Lycan cut in. “I think she might be latent.”
I rubbed my hands over my face and sighed, exhaustion mixing with exasperation. In this world, the shifter gene was dominant. Even if one of the parents didn’t turn furry on the full moon, any offspring from such a union would result in shifter children, regardless.
We went through normal puberty as a human and a second wave as a young adult, usually in our early to midtwenties. We called it the transition. It activated the preternatural gene to force the first change. It was the most horrific experience someone like us could have, and another shifter needed to be there to help them through it, usually someone of the opposite dominance that was already mature.
One of the older Bastards’ sisters had helped me when I was twenty, feeding me her blood and providing the necessary primal requirements to see me through it. I barely remember the few nights in question, but she’d said I’d done well.
However, like all genetics, occasionally the DNA mutated. Sometimes, we produced a child that should have had the magic but never transitioned. A latent shifter.
“The Vanderbilts aren’t like us,” I said. “We’d know if they were.”
“My wolf is picking up heavy pheromones,” Lycan said. “He’s never wrong.”
I took another long inhale and tasted her delicious scent in the air, feminine and fertile and…My beast howled with agitation. He wanted to track her down, bend her over, and sink deep inside her. He wanted to lick up everything that seeped out of her, pheromones and come and—and the fucking thought irritated me. Everything about her irritated me. She was a Vanderbilt: infuriating and spoiled and fucking beautiful and?—
“I’m gonna check in with Kodiak,” I said, cutting off that line of thought as I headed toward the stairs. “Call me when dinner’s ready.”
“You’re the boss,” Lycan said to my retreating form, perhaps sensing my agitation through our pack bond and deciding to let me be.
But I couldn’t get Lycan’s suggestion out of my head, not even when I called Kodiak to update him on our status. Yes, she’d been snooping, but no, she hadn’t found anything except for the picture of the pack before the Scorpion attack.
I thought about telling him Lycan suspected she might be latent, but decided to hold off until I knew more. My baser half yipped in excitement, howling its anticipation of getting closer to her, but I had to calm him down. I updated Kodiak on a few more details about the Fiver, and he assured me the run to meet the WA chapter had gone well before hanging up.
When I came back downstairs, I found only Lycan and Poe in the kitchen, still working on the chicken roast for the night.
“Where’s Isolde?” I asked, glancing between them.
Lycan shrugged. “I thought she went upstairs. Is she not up there?”
“No.” I glanced at the windows, noticing the sun had already gone down below the horizon. If she went back to the barn, she should have already made it into the house. Alarm blared through my torso, radiating from my heart down to my gut as my wolf growled in warning.
Something’s not right.
I rushed outside and stomped through the snow to the barn, grimacing when I found the doors locked from the outside. Footsteps lined a path into the woods, and then my terror wrenched up to eleven. We weren’t the only predators this far north, and the darker it got, the more likely she was to run into something she shouldn’t.
I closed my eyes and let my animal senses take over, inhaling deep to find her tantalizing scent. It rushed toward me, lodging deep inside my nose, urging me forward.
“Isolde!” I shouted as I took off, racing through the storm, letting my wolf take the lead on finding her. He lunged against my mental restraints, barking in a frenzy, his sense of smell pointing like a beacon into the night. She was up ahead, and fuck, she was bleeding. Even though fresh flakes had started to cover her trail, her indescribable pull couldn’t be mistaken, and my shifter side had become so attuned to her specifically, I could probably pick her out of a room full of a million people.
I ran faster, harder, shoving my legs through the snow despite the calls from my brothers behind me to slow down. I couldn’t, I wouldn’t. She needed my help. I didn’t know how I knew, only that her fear sliced through me like a hunting knife, like a jagged blade had been lodged in my chest. I had to get to her. I had to.
I jumped over a fallen log, regaining my balance before racing down a slope.
“Stay away, you mangy beasts!” came a panicked scream over the wind, and I turned my head to the right at the sound of deep, rumbling growls.
There, my wolf yelled. There. There. There!
I nearly stumbled at the sight of four wolves circling her, baring their teeth, snapping and lunging at her in the middle. She’d been cornered against a tree, a lone sheep screeching behind her, wiggling and bucking against her legs. Clearly terrified and unsure what to do, she clapped and shouted, trying to make herself bigger and angrier to hopefully scare them off.
Thank fuck she hadn’t run.
I jumped into the middle of the fray, letting my eyes go wolf and my claws grow from the ends of my fingertips, my canines extending in my mouth.
“Back off!” I roared, my voice deep and guttural, the beast in me commanding the animal in them. “Go home! Now!”
They obviously didn’t understand my words, but they knew dominance. For decades, my pack had lived in harmony with the local wildlife. We respected them, they respected us. They saw Kodiak as another alpha, and they wouldn’t dare disobey. But the hunger had taken over inside them; it echoed out of the leader’s eyes. He licked his lips and pulled his ears back, lowering his head as if to suggest he might actually fight me for her.
“Go ahead,” I said, puffing my chest out, making myself larger than him, even in human form. I couldn’t fully shift until the full moon, but I still had sharp claws and big, pointy canines, not to mention sharper reflexes and increased strength. I sensed when Lycan and Poe had finally caught up, circling around the others as they made their own intimidating growls.
The alpha lunged at me, snapping its teeth millimeters from my face, but I shoved it away. One of its buddies jumped at Lycan, the other attacking Poe, while the fourth joined the bigger one in coming after me. I swiped at it with my claws, sending it whimpering into the tree line. The alpha snarled and lunged at me again, scratching a deep gash down my chest that had me wincing from the twinge of agony that shot through my midsection.
“Fuck!” I reared back and punched the fucker as hard as I could, making it whimper before I picked it up and slammed it down on the snow. It bit my forearm, sinking its vicious teeth into my skin, but I lurched out of the way, grabbing its neck with one set of claws, curling my other around its stomach. “Enough!”
The three others had run off, and now the alpha finally admitted defeat, dropping eye contact and relaxing under my touch, perhaps seeking forgiveness or absolution. I freely gave it, running my hand over his chest, down his furry stomach, and back up again, latching my claws around its neck. This showed that I could tear out its throat if I wanted, but I wouldn’t. I just didn’t want it eating my girl for dinner…err… our girl, our guest, the Vanderbilt girl.
I let the alpha wolf go and stood as it got to its feet and scampered off into the woods in the same direction its buddies had gone. Then, I turned to Isolde.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I stormed toward her, not caring that my monster was still in my eyes and the rancid tang of panic in her scent had brought out the most protective parts of me.
She took a deep breath and straightened, her tiny form shivering as she held tight to the sheep behind her. “I was trying to c-c-catch him. He got a-a-away.”
“I don’t give a shit about that,” I said, close enough now to stare down my nose at her, my terror now replaced with fury that she’d be so reckless. “Why didn’t you come get us before running off into the woods alone?”
Her jaw trembled as she glared up at me, her eyes filling with tears. “Stop yelling at me!” She squared her chin and balled her hands at her sides. “I just wanted to get the sheep and take him back to the barn. I don’t know how he got out. I’m sorry…I swear I didn’t…”
Lycan walked up behind her and grabbed the sheep, lifting it up over his shoulders as he nodded back toward the house. Poe quickly followed behind him, but I needed to deal with her. Isolde sucked in air like she couldn’t get enough of it, her breaths coming in short, shallow pants. Her face turned pale and her knees gave out. She sagged onto the forest floor, plopping down onto the snow with wild, unfocused eyes.
“I was dead,” she whispered, running her fingers back through her hair. “I was going to die. I was dying.”
Fuck, she’s having a panic attack.
Calm her down, my wolf told me. Calm her down.
“Hey,” I said, my tone much gentler as I squatted in front of her, “it’s okay. You’re okay.”
“I didn’t mean to…” She gasped, struggling to get oxygen, her cold dainty fingers reaching out to twist in my jacket as if pleading for me to make it feel better. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean?—”
“It’s okay. Shh.” I unzipped my jacket and scooted next to her so I could wrap her in my coat and pull her close. I tucked her under my chin and circled my arms around her, holding her as tight as I could. “Take a deep breath with me. Inhale…” I pulled air in through my nose, softening when she did it with me. “Exhale…” We let it go together.
There we sat, huddled together under a bare oak tree while she shook in my embrace. I cooed whatever I could think of to calm her down, things like, “You’re okay,” and “I’m sorry I yelled.” Maybe I had let my own fear of something happening to her overcome what little reasoning I had, and in the aftermath of my rage and the fight with the wolf, I’d directed that energy toward her.
The scratches on my chest ached and the bite mark on my forearm twinged with each movement, but that was secondary to consoling her and making her feel safe.
“Come on,” I said, pushing to my feet before bending down to scoop her into my arms, my elbow under her knees, my injured arm around her shoulders. Then, I trudged through the snow to carry her back to the Fiver.
* * *
“Fucking hell, you’re covered in blood,” Lycan said when I stomped into the cabin, ignoring the way Poe winced at the claw marks on his right forearm. This close to the full moon, we’d probably be healed by morning, but there was no way he’d be able to patch himself up like that, much less deal with the deep gashes on my chest that pulled with every step I took.
“I’m fine,” I growled, hoisting Isolde higher before stalking through the house to the bathroom in the back.
“You don’t look fine,” Lycan barked, forgoing his work on Poe in favor of trailing behind me. “Let me at least?—”
“I said I’m fine!” After the mile hike back and the way Isolde trembled, I didn’t have the patience for him to ignore me like I wasn’t the fucking second in this pack, the veep of the Royal Bastards. “Deal with Poe. Leave me to clean her up.”
With that, I kicked the bathroom door shut behind me and sat her down on the toilet, kneeling on the floor in front of her. She shivered and curled in on herself, tears streaming down her cheeks as she wrapped her arms around her body. In the wake of her panic attack and adrenaline rush, her hormones had dropped and she’d gotten the shakes.
“Hey,” I said, cupping her cheeks with my bloody hands. “You’re okay. We’re home now.”
“I’m sorry, Orion,” she muttered, clenching her eyes shut. “I didn’t mean to get in danger. I didn’t mean for you to get hurt. It was so st-st-stupid.”
“I’m okay,” I said, brushing her hair away from her face. The scrape on her head from her car wreck had burst open again, the right side of her face now covered in crimson, snow, and mud. “We need to get you in the shower. Do you think you can do that?”
She nodded and ripped her jacket down her arms, gingerly coaxing her shirt over her head. I leaned away to give her privacy, but she didn’t seem to mind my presence. When she stood in her bra and jeans, her beautiful skin on brilliant display, she swept her gaze over me for the first time since she’d calmed down and gasped.
“Oh my God,” she said, dropping to her knees, her torso nearly flush to mine. “You’re hurt really bad.”
“I’m okay, Princess,” I said. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing.” She grabbed my jacket to push it off me, tugging my shirt out of my pants so she could lift it up my chest, revealing the deep claw marks across my pecs. “Orion, these need stitches.”
“I heal fast,” I told her. “They’ll scab over by the morning.”
Refusing to listen to me, she stood and rushed to the shower, turning the faucet on before checking the heat. “We need to get you cleaned up so Poe can?—”
“Your head is gushing,” I said, rising to my feet so I could get her attention. Sure, my wounds were bad, but I was the shifter here. She was a human. She’d probably scar either way, but if she kept letting it leak like that, she’d pass out from blood loss before she could do anything to help me. “Will you let me take care of you?”
She stared up at me with big emerald eyes, her pouty lips falling open as if she couldn’t believe I’d offered such a thing. Which was fair. Less than four days ago, I’d accused her of killing my parents and chewed her out for having the fucking audacity to be born into a family she didn’t choose. But I knew her better now. She was kind and smart and funny, and sure, she’d been spoiled most of her life, but maybe I wanted to be the one to spoil her from here on out.
Fuck! Stop that, Orion.
“Okay” came her breathy response.
“Okay,” I said, “now sit down and let me get the blood off your face so I can bandage your wound. Are you hurt anywhere else?”
She shook her head. “No, just muscle pains.”
“Okay.” I grimaced as I reached up to open the cabinet, grabbing some gauze and more butterfly sutures. Then, I found a clean towel and ran it under the water so I could wipe away the excess blood.
“My body hasn’t really stopped hurting since my accident,” she said as I turned back to her, holding her chin with one hand so I could run the towel over her cheek with the other. She stared up at me while I worked. “I think I’m going to need a vacation when I get back.”
I smirked at the idea. “Where would you want to go?”
“The Caribbean, maybe,” she said with a silly grin. “Somewhere warm and sunny.”
“Yeah, I bet you’ll be tired of snow after this.” Once her face was clean, I placed the bandages with tweezers, doing my best not to pull her skin harder than I needed to. But the wound needed to be closed or it wouldn’t heal right for weeks. After I was done, I nodded to the shower. “Okay, get yourself clean.”
“No,” she said, pushing to her feet so she could gesture to the toilet. “Your turn.”
I raised my eyebrows at the no-nonsense tone in her voice. No one talked to me like that, not even Kodiak. I didn’t take kindly to orders, especially not from spoiled little brats like her, but the serious glint in her eyes told me she wasn’t kidding. If I put up a fight, she’d likely stand here with her arms crossed, tapping her toe until I complied. Something inside me wilted, and I yanked my shirt off my body with a groan, tossing it on top of hers.
“There’s a good boy,” she said in a playful tone, but the praise plucked a chord inside me that had never been strummed before. Sure, women had muttered all kinds of shit to me during sex, and it definitely wasn’t the first time one had called me good. But to hear it fall from her pretty mouth while she stepped between my knees so she could wipe blood off my chest, well…it sent a spark of fire right through my blood. My balls ached and my cock gave a half-hearted jerk, but I licked my lips and ignored all that.
Not the time. Not the place. Definitely not the girl.
“So,” she said, raising an eyebrow while she ran a clean washcloth over the wounds on my chest. I hissed against the burn but kept my hands in my lap to let her do it. They did need to be cleaned. “ Where do you want to go once this is all over? Once you’re free of the Fiver?”
I sighed. “I like it here.”
She furrowed her brows and met my eyes again. “Really?”
“I’m not a big fan of—” A moan tumbled out of my mouth when she hit a particularly sensitive area that made me stiffen. “—people.”
“No, you don’t say?” Her playful smile had me curling my mouth into one, too. “Here I thought you won all the ladies over with that surly attitude and grumpy disposition.”
“You’re the one to talk.” I stared up at her, savoring the gorgeous hue of her sparkling forest-colored eyes—like sea moss or clover in full bloom.
“I’m a pleasure,” she said, grabbing my forearm so she could wash the dirt away from the bite mark, too. “Ask anyone.”
“Hmm,” I groaned, swallowing down the first thousand replies I had to that. Gritting my teeth against the filthy images in my mind, I finally decided on, “Yeah, I bet.”
The innuendo hung between us and she froze her ministrations on my arm as she took a deep breath, the tops of her breasts rising over her bra, her pouty lips falling open again. I wanted to slot my fingers right in between them and force her to suck her own blood off them. I wanted to?—
“Thank you,” she said, “for saving me.”
“You’re welcome, Princess,” I murmured.
“Not just tonight, but after the car accident, too.” She swallowed, her face so close to mine that I smelled the snow lingering on her cheeks, the shampoo in her hair, the crisp freshness of her sweat and scent and— Fuck, she was damn near irresistible. All it would take would be one tilt of my head, one surge upright, and I could connect our lips together. I could take her to the ground and rip those jeans off and bury myself inside her. I’d bet she’d be so soft and warm and?—
Fuck yeah, my wolf howled. Take. Take. Take.
“I know you think you should have left me to freeze to death?—”
“I didn’t say that.” The harshness of those words smacked me back to reality, one where she was a fucking Vanderbilt and I was a Bastard and we absolutely could not do any of those deliciously disgusting things haunting my subconscious. “I’m sorry I insinuated it. That was wrong. Of course I should have saved you. I’m happy I did.”
Her beautiful smile lit up my entire chest, bubbling like champagne in my veins. Reaching up, I brushed her hair back behind her ear, checking that her head wound had stopped bleeding.
“I’m happy you did, too.” She whispered it against my forehead, ghosting her tender mouth over my temple, barely making contact but enough to send sparks of the almost connection down my spine and through the backs of my legs.
Fuck it.
I sat up straighter and leaned closer, my heart pounding when she took a step in and bent down to meet me. Our lips collided with an explosion in my torso, an erupting warmth that burned my nerves and set my lungs ablaze. Her mouth was soft and decadent, and I lifted my good arm to grab the back of her neck and hold her tighter, twisting my fingers in her hair.
She moaned appreciatively and wrapped her arms around my neck, the heat of her bare skin melting against me. I darted my tongue out to lick across her lips, begging for entrance, and she opened to let me have it. And fuck, she tasted like woman and snow and blood, and I wanted more.
More, my wolf agreed. More, more, more.
My cock pulsed to life as a thick, heady lust bolted from the knot at the base through my stomach and up to my throat in a low, simmering growl. Just as I thought about yanking her to the ground and clawing her pants off, three quick pounds on the bathroom door had her jumping and taking a step away from me.
I set my predator’s gaze on the entry like I could burn whoever was on the other side with my mind.
“What?” I growled, standing so I could turn the handle and tug the damn thing open.
“Are you two almost done in here?” Lycan asked, glancing between me and Isolde. “We all need a shower and Poe is about to pass out, yeah?”
I cleared my throat and nodded, suddenly thankful for the interruption. “Yeah. Isolde’s up first. Once she’s out, you two can have it. I’ll go last.”
The weight of what we’d done settled around me. She was a Vanderbilt. I was a Bastard. Kodiak had warned me not to touch her, and there I was, pawing all over her like a fucking Neanderthal without a thought in his head.
I turned back to Isolde, who stood in front of the mirror examining the gash on her face. “Don’t use up all the hot water. The tank is small.”
“Yeah, you got it, boss.”
I pretended like the nickname coming from her didn’t do anything to reheat the fire in my gut and closed the door behind me as I left her alone. If I’d had another two minutes, I would have enacted those terrible impulses, and then I’d have to explain to Kodiak why I couldn’t follow one simple order.
Don’t touch her again, Orion . Paws fucking off.