Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
ELLIE
Ilove our home on Motuwai with its sweeping views of the Hauraki Gulf, the sloping fields of grapevines, and the subtropical climate, but the scenery down here in the South Island is equally as stunning in its own way.
The air is cold and crisp — it feels like autumn, something that doesn’t tend to hit until April in the north — and the maunga here seem to never end.
Wherever I look, my breath is taken away by ancient mountains and deep lakes, and by the way nature so clearly conveys that the seasons are changing.
The first hints of autumn colours are beginning to touch the trees, and there’s no finer example than in the gardens on our own property, a sprawling estate of formal gardens, paddocks, and forest, all surrounding the mansion at the centre of it.
“Happy?” Van asks, carrying both our suitcases effortlessly through the front door.
“Very. You?”
He nods, sitting the cases down. “It’s nice to get away and be just us.”
I know exactly what he means. It’s been a busy few days since new wolves joined the pack, particularly for Van. Now, with the pack left in the very capable hands of his sister Lacey, we’re free to relax, and Van is free to enjoy the full moon tomorrow.
“I’m making a rule,” I say, noting the slight frown that still lingers on his face and the tense set of his shoulders. “No more thinking about stressful stuff while we’re on holiday, okay? It’s just you and me here, and nothing else to worry about.”
“Alright.” He sounds less than convinced.
“Van.”
“I’ll actively block out the pack,” he promises. “I did tell them I would.”
“Good. Come on.” I take his hand, leading him through to the lounge with a huge wall of windows and view of the mountains in the distance, pulling him over to the nearest couch.
“Sit,” I order, dropping to my knees between his legs.
“You have to promise me you’ll relax. Don’t make me bark an order at you,” I threaten, and he huffs out a short laugh.
“Someone’s bossy.”
“One of us has to be.” It’s usually always him. I love it when he takes charge. He always has. I’ve known him my whole life and he’s always been a natural leader, but I can recognise that as the responsibilities pile on, there’s times when he needs to step back and let go.
I run my hands up his thighs, then back down again, purposefully teasing him by ignoring the very obvious bar of his cock currently trapped in his jeans.
“Relax,” I say again, this time going through with my threat, using the one technique I barely ever touch, stealing his alpha bark for my own purposes.
He sighs immediately, his entire body relaxing back into the couch.
“That’s an abuse of power,” he whispers as I run my hands back up until my fingers are hovering over his fly.
“Are you complaining?” I unzip his pants slowly, reaching inside to free him, hot and hard in my hand.
“No,” he replies, shaking his head lazily.
“Good,” I say, leaning forward until my lips brush his cock.
Van’s canines are always sharpest in the hours before the full moon.
He snarls with a feral kind of need, watching me, his gold eyes bright in the late afternoon sun as I ride his cock, my hands spayed over his broad chest, fingers digging into his flesh.
He grips my hips tight, controlling the rhythm, and it takes no more than a quick brush of my clit to make me come around him.
He follows a moment later, growling “Fuck,” under his breath as he knots me, thick and hard and swelling, a pressure on my g-spot that is intense and hot and extends my own orgasm.
With my head tipped back, I take in great lungfuls of air.
Van’s big hands run over me in a continuous loop, tweaking my nipples, smoothing down my sides, squeezing my ass.
“You’re just so beautiful, I can’t fucking take it,” he growls.
Given the fact that he’s currently knot-deep inside me, I think he can take it pretty well.
Grinning, I intentionally squeeze around his knot, letting out a breathy laugh at his grunt of surprise.
“Are you trying to make me come again?”
“Yes, always. That’s my number one goal in life,” I joke, running my hands across his washboard abs. Tentatively, I lean forward, feeling the pull of his knot within me as I kiss his chest and settle against him with a sigh.
The sun is warm on my back, and it’s easy to close my eyes and just be, the sound of Van’s heartbeat under my ear comforting and familiar.
“I might snooze,” I say, relaxing further into him.
Over the last few days we’ve spent a decent amount of time doing some of the touristy things around the region — visits to a local farm that specialises in organic produce, walks around the lakes, shopping at overpriced gift stores — but these quiet moments with my mate, when our bond is open and warm and calm in the afterglow, are always my favourite.
“Go ahead,” Van says in a slightly delayed reply to my comment. He’s tired too; I can sense it. “You know we’ll be up all night,” he adds, tracing a lazy pattern down my spine.
That wakes me up a little. “So what is going to happen?” I ask, lifting my head to look him in the eye. He grins, looking ridiculously handsome, his eyes full of mischief.
“Nothing, other than me fucking you.”
“Van.”
“It’s true. Nothing out of the ordinary happens during a lunar eclipse. It won’t impact my transformation.”
“But that makes no sense.”
“The moon is there, you just can’t see it for a short period of time.”
“But the moon is there every day!” I laugh incredulously. “It’s still a giant sphere floating in space every day, the phases are just the shadow of Earth over it.”
“I know. So why am I not a giant monster every night, rather than every 28 days? How can I transform into a werewolf on the night of a full moon when it’s behind a thick layer of cloud?
When I can’t see it because I’m indoors, or I’m not standing in sight of the horizon?
” He brushes a strand of hair back from my forehead, murmuring, “You’re cute when you get all fired up. ”
I pretend to hiss at him, and he laughs.
“You already know the answer, baby.”
“It’s magic,” I whine.
“It’s magic,” he agrees. “And we’ve already established that magic makes no logical sense.
You know this, miss five-foot-four-but-somehow-takes-a-fourteen-inch-werewolf-dick-with-no-issues.
” I snort as he continues, his voice filled with amusement.
“Please, tell me in scientific terms how you manage to rearrange your guts every month to fit me. You can’t, can you? ”
“It’s just the vibe,” I say, referring to the strangest of my fae abilities.
“Portal magic pussy.”
I laugh, my face pressed to his chest. “So there really is no change expected tonight?” There hasn’t been a full lunar eclipse since we got back together, not in this part of the world, and while I did look this up online, I couldn’t find any conclusive answers to the question What happens to a werewolf during a full lunar eclipse?
“Nothing changes. The way I see it, the transformation is connected to the monthly cycle of the moon, not the physical appearance of it in the sky.”
“So what you’re saying is that werewolf magic is something akin to a menstrual cycle.”
Van kisses the top of my head. “Well, werewolves are matriarchal, after all.”
Van doesn’t need to see the full moon for him to transform, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t like looking at it.
When we met again after nine years apart and I discovered that he was a wolf, and that unlike me, he’d known exactly who and what he was in all those years pre-Unravelling, I began a slow process of getting to know the sides of him that he’d masked around humans.
Suddenly, his propensity to always sleep with the curtains open and the way I’d always find him staring up at the moon whenever it was in the sky made sense.
I liked the moon too — Koro and I always used the phases to garden by — so I hadn’t viewed it as something too far out of the ordinary.
When he told me he wanted to purchase this property, I hadn’t realised that he’d taken into account the fact that the eastern horizon where the moon rises is the one area here where maunga aren’t blocking the view.
It was another reminder of the way in which my husband’s mindset is rooted deeply in who he is — both a werewolf and a shifter, and an alpha — in the same way my mindset is so heavily influenced, and always has been, by my Māoritanga.
“How long now?” I ask, staring at the flames as they lick their way up the pile of kindling and wood here in the backyard’s fire pit. Soon it’ll be a raging bonfire, but for now I still feel the chill in the air and pull my cardigan around myself.
In nothing but his grey sweatpants and a pair of jandals, Van tosses the last few sticks on the fire, giving the horizon only the most cursory of glances. “Ten minutes.” Like all wolves, he has an innate ability to know exactly when the moon will rise, an internal clock that no human possesses.
“I’m glad we’re doing this,” I say, waving away the smoke with a cough as the breeze changes direction. “Even if I reek of smoke right now. Koro and I used to lie out on the beach under the stars with a bonfire every time there was some sort of astronomy-related event.”
“I remember. There was that time we all watched the meteor shower. I think you were five of six at the time.”
“Five, I think. If I’m being honest, all I remember of that time is that Lacey and I wandered off too far in the dark and your dad told us off and carried us both back, one under each arm,” I admit, miming the way Weston had scooped me up around the stomach, carrying me like a rugby ball back to the picnic blanket Koro had laid out in the sand.
“You don’t remember what happened next?”
“I was between you and Lacey… did I fall asleep?”