Chapter 3
3
Mark
The four of us stand in line for the Dragon Wing, one of the rides at Elitch Gardens, Denver’s amusement park. The pups are on a high from waffle cones filled with ice cream and the five rides we’ve already been on.
Colleen’s face goes soft and beautiful every time she looks at them.
“You look younger, Momma,” Angie tells her, looking up. She’s as cute as they come, with a blonde ponytail high on her head and the same big blue-green eyes as her mom and brother. I’m already as fiercely protective of the pups as I am of my unclaimed mate.
I rest a hand lightly on her hip. She does look younger. Every hour seems to roll back the effects of time on her appearance. “How old are you, babygirl?”
“Twenty-eight.”
I glance at the boy. “How old are you, Jayden?”
“Nine and a half.”
The rattle of the ride keeps the humans around us from hearing the growl in my throat. The wolves hear it though, and all three of them stare at me.
“I was eighteen when my father arranged my mating,” Colleen says, correctly guessing at the cause of my rage. “Just legal.”
“Was that… normal in your pack?” I ask through clenched teeth. I want to kill both her father and the alpha who claimed her.
She shakes her head. “I don’t know. It was horrible for me. I had to forget about college and leave everyone I knew to live with a tyrant.”
The kids listen with big eyes, like they’ve never heard this before.
“You mean Dad?” Jayden asks softly.
She nods. “He had just become alpha of his pack after his father was killed. He was worried about his position being challenged because he was young to lead a pack. He went to grandpa, and they made some kind of deal.”
“We’re not going back there, right, Momma?” Angie asks.
“Never,” she promises, and one small part of me relaxes. At least we agree on that.
“You’re going to stay with me now,” I say firmly, even though Colleen hasn’t accepted it yet.
Jayden stays silent, but he watches me with that wary gaze.
“Are we, Momma?” Angie asks.
Colleen looks away, her lips pressing together. “We’ll see,” she murmurs.
“Can we keep the bikes?” Angie wants to know.
I bought both the kids bikes this morning at Target. I put everything any one of them looked at or picked up in the cart. Colleen took about half the things back out, but when I picked up the two bikes, she didn’t dare override me. Not when her kids looked so excited.
She just stood there with tear-bright eyes and nibbled on her lips.
“The bikes are yours,” I say. “No matter what. But I want you to stay.” It’s our turn at the front of the line. I escort the pups forward then hold Colleen back. “We’ll wait for you where it gets out,” I tell Jayden. “Take care of your sister.”
He nods, like the responsibility was his honor. He’s an amazing kid.
I put my arm around Colleen and usher her to the place where the ride lets out. “For every lie, you owe me a truth,” I tell her.
“I didn’t li?—”
I stop her with a finger on her lips. “Don’t do it again. Remember my tally.”
Her lips move up at the corners, but her smile is sad. I would bust this world apart to figure out how to make it shine.
She turns into me and puts her hands on my chest. “A truth,” she murmurs. “Okay. Here’s a truth. I never orgasmed with a male before last night. You were my first.”
Aw, fuck. I shouldn’t be so goddamn proud—it’s been over twenty years since I first learned how to get a female off—but I am.
I wrap my arms around her and hold her against my body. Her cinnamon scent nearly turns me feral. “That’s a good one, babygirl.” But because I’m a greedy fucker, I push for more. “Give me another one. Tell me something, angel. Are you not sure of me or not sure what you want?”
Pain flits across her face, and the need to avenge her for every wrong ever inflicted nearly makes my wolf canines pop out. “Not sure of what I want,” she croaks in a rusty voice, but it smells like a lie.
I narrow my eyes, thinking hard. She doesn’t seem scared of me, so it must be something else. I have to prove myself in some other way.
If only I could get her to open up, to tell me what’s going on in that gorgeous head of hers.
“One more,” I say.
Vulnerability flashes in her eyes, like I’m asking far too much of her. “What is it?”
“If your future hadn’t been sold at age eighteen, what would you have done with it?”
Her lips tremble, and she rolls them inward to hide it. “I don’t know. I planned to go to college, but I hadn’t figured out what I wanted to study. I wanted to get out of our small town, maybe live in the human world. Earn a decent living.”
“What did you like in school?”
She shrugs. “I was good at math and science. I liked to draw. I thought maybe I could go into architecture or engineering. But that ship has sailed.”
The gate opens, and people pour off the ride. She pulls away from me to open her arms for Angie, who barrels into them.
“Right. Ride over. Okay. What’s next, kids?” I ask, letting them lead.
I didn’t think I’d have pups or a mate. At age forty, I’d long since discarded any hope of a family, but here I’d found my mate, and she came with two precious pups. I’d thought my calling was law enforcement, but that all changed yesterday.
Now I’m sure of my life’s purpose. It’s these three shifters right here. I just have to get them to let me care for them.
At the next ride, I excuse myself to make a call.
“Jenson, it’s Mark Ruhl.” Jenson is on the shifter council. He’s an old bear shifter from Wyoming and is the councilmember who I report to.
“What’s up?”
“There’s a she-wolf and two pups under my protection. They ran away from an abusive male—the alpha of a pack outside of Lexington, Kentucky.”
“The council doesn’t get involved in domestic quarrels.”
“I’m not asking the council to get involved. I’m putting the council on notice. I will not hesitate to put that alpha down if he comes near her again.”
Jenson is silent for a long moment, then he blows out his breath. “Noted.”
“That’s it,” I say and end the call.
Due process doesn’t exist in the shifter world. Generally problems are solved by physical aggression. But seventy years ago, when the human population began to grow and spread and bleed into shifter territories, the council was formed. It’s less about governing our own than it is about keeping shifters out of trouble with humans. I’m the guy who puts down shifters who go feral. Or who murder or take advantage of humans. I might not have owed the council an explanation for defending my mate, but putting them on notice in advance may help with any fallout.
Still, I hope it doesn’t come to that. I don’t want Jayden and Angie to have to live with the male who killed their father. That doesn’t sit well with me.
But neither does having that man looming over Colleen and the pups as a constant fear. The sooner this gets solved, the better.
Colleen
The pups are exhausted by the time I get them to bed. The amusement park and a steak dinner at Outback wore them out.
Mark caught me before I followed them up the stairs to the guest room. He wrapped a fist in my hair and tugged my head backward. “I’m going to need you in my bed tonight, babygirl—don’t even think of refusing me,” he growled, turning my insides to molten lava. Then he trailed his tongue over my pulse. “After the pups are asleep. In my room. Understand?” He slid his fingers between my legs and pushed the seam of my jeans against my clit.
“Y-yes,” I answered.
Now, as I push the door to his bedroom open without knocking, my heart pounds against my chest.
Mark’s demand sounded lustful, not angry. His brand of dominance never scares me. Never offends me. It just makes my nipples hard and my panties damp.
So even though I know walking into his bedroom at night is a bad idea considering every time I get near him I risk being marked—I do it anyway.
“Clothes off.” Mark speaks from the doorway to the bathroom. He’s taken another shower. Either he has obsessive compulsive tendencies toward cleanliness, or he really is using cold showers to tamp down his lust. I prefer to believe it’s the latter although I don’t mind the clean part. The scent of soap that mingles with his deliciously male aroma.
I unbutton the new skinny jeans he bought me and shimmy out of them. I’m wearing a pair of red satin panties and a matching bra—also his purchase—and when he sees me in them, his eyes turn silver.
“What color is your wolf?” I ask.
“Black. Yours?”
“Tan.”
He stalks closer. “I haven’t seen your wolf eyes yet.”
No. I still don’t know if I can shift. I haven’t shifted in years. Another byproduct of being mated to Dirk. It’s the reason my healing fled. But maybe now… maybe my true fated mate has already healed me.
I stand in my new bra and panties, my knees trembling for him.
He shakes his head and spins me to face the bed, pushing my torso down. “I didn’t say you could leave the panties on tonight.” His hand crashes down on my ass, sharp and punitive.
A little sound of protest leaves my lips, but Mark has forgotten to be careful with me. His wolf is going feral, and it's running the show. His dominance doesn’t produce even an ounce of fear in me, though. It feels natural. His wolf comes to the surface because he wants me so badly, not because he needs to hurt me. I somehow know if I protested, he’d pull back immediately.
He slaps me again on the other cheek, even harder. “Did I, babygirl?”
“No, Daddy.” The moniker just rolls off my tongue, but it feels right. I like calling Mark Daddy . I like the idea of Mark being my daddy. Protective. Caring. Dirty and demanding when it comes to sex. Fates, it’s only been twenty-four hours, but this male has already wormed his way into my very guarded heart. And it’s not just the pheromones talking.
Mark growls his approval, yanking my panties down my legs. “Aw, damn, babygirl. You’re going to get yourself fucked so hard you won’t be able to walk straight.” He peppers my ass with hard spanks, and each one lights another match of lust within me, the flames threatening to engulf me. My vision sharpens and domes, and I know my eyes have changed color, too.
My she-wolf is back.
She wants to be claimed.
“Panties off ,” Mark chokes, frustration and lust thickening his voice.
I scramble to get my panties from my thighs to my ankles, and the moment I do, he kicks my feet wider.
I smother a shriek when he spanks my pussy, the wetness making a sticky sound.
“When I tell you clothes off, I need you bare, baby. How else am I going to lick this pussy until you scream?” He hooks his thumbs inside my cheeks and spreads me wide, making me arch and expose my sex.
And then his mouth is on me, his neatly trimmed beard scratching my sensitive skin as his tongue sweeps between my legs. He kneads and roughly squeezes my ass, all the while flicking his tongue over my clit, sucking my labia, nipping me. Every now and then, he delivers another stinging slap to my ass or thigh, mingling pain with pleasure. Danger with excitement.
Only the danger isn’t that he’ll harm me. It’s that he’ll claim me.
But it’s too late for me to stop things or even slow them down. I’m half-crazed for him now, too, moaning and needy, ready to beg for what he wanted to deny me of this morning.
“ Colleen. ” Mark sounds desperate. His wolf may start to go mad if I keep denying him what it craves. I think he’s going to ask for my consent, to mark me with his teeth, but instead he says, “I need to come inside you this time. Will you let me do that?”
At first my sex-scrambled brain doesn’t even understand the question, but then it dawns on me—he wore a condom last night.
“Yes,” I say, consequences be damned. I need to feel all of him, no barrier between us.
I hear the soft rustle of fabric, and then he shoves inside me. I buck against him, loving the sensation of being filled. Nothing has ever felt so right in my life, but then he pulls out again.
“I need to see your face, babygirl.” He flips me around, propping my ass on the edge of the bed before he shoves in again. I rest back on my elbows, watching the place our bodies connect. His thickness. The way my petals part and stretch to accept him. The scent of my arousal.
Mark’s silver gaze sweeps up my body, and then he frowns. “ Why are you wearing that bra? ”
I can’t help it. I giggle. Because Mark’s pseudo-anger of the state of my undress makes me feel coveted and gorgeous. “I thought you liked this bra.” I pull the cups of my bra down to show him my peaked nipples. “Your eyes turned silver when I picked it out.”
“Take it off, or I tear it off,” he threatens. “I like it too goddamn much.”
I unsnap it and slide my arms out, tossing it to the side. “Yes, Daddy.”
His grip on my upper thighs turns brutal, but I’m not afraid. I sense the passion behind it, not anger or violence. He slams in hard and fast. “Play with them,” he growls. It takes me a second to understand, and then I moan as I obey, weighing my breasts, squeezing them, pinching my own nipples.
“I’m going to come inside you. I need to mark you in some way, and you’re damn well going to take it.”
I’m thrilled by his demand because his respect for my wishes is still so clearly there. He won’t mark me, even though it’s killing him. I also suspect he’s warning me in case I choose to object.
And I should. But no part of me wants to. Fate sent me this mate, and I’m willing to roll the dice to see if Fate wants to give me a pup with him. Being a mother is the only thing I’ve loved about the last ten years.
I reach down and make a V with my fingers around the place where his cock enters me, wanting to feel him with all of me.
He roars, his movements growing jerky. “Fuck, little wolf. You’re driving me crazy.” He rubs his thumb over my clit and orgasm, my muscles squeezing around his dick. He comes at the same time, and I swear to Fate I feel every hot drop of cum that shoots inside me. It sears me. Sizzles and pops and changes me. So much heat floods through me that my vision turns black with fireworks exploding around the edges. And then pleasure. Oceans of it, washing over me, cleaning me, clearing me, leaving only the purity of my essence and his. Fated mates.
Something makes me touch my shoulder, the place where the skin was knotted with scar tissue from repeated dry bites. Only a true fated mate will cause a male wolf to produce the serum that leaves his scent in his female’s flesh. Dirk wasn’t my fated mate, but that didn’t stop him from savaging my shoulder every time he forced himself on me. After a few years, I just stopped healing. But now my shoulder is as smooth as a baby’s skin. Soft, supple. Reborn.
Mark’s panting, eyes still silver, his canines long. “When I mark you, babygirl, it won’t be there.”
I blink up at him. “No?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “I’ll mark this cute little ass.” He slides his hands under my butt and squeezes both cheeks in his large hands.
“Oh.” I start to laugh, then. Almost hysterically. It’s relief and joy and nerves bundled into one. “You’re an ass man,” I say.
The brown of Mark’s eyes return, and he grins at me. “You could say that.” He eases out. “I want you in my bed tonight,” he says, somehow correctly guessing that I plan to make a run for it back to the guest room. “I won’t mark you. You can trust me. But I need you here.”
I think about my pups. But they’re deep asleep, exhausted by the fun of the day. They don’t need me.
And the thought of sleeping beside Mark makes my she-wolf…
I spontaneously shift just thinking about her.
It’s the first time in years, and my wolf is so happy, she turns in circles on the bed before flopping to her side and offering her belly up.
“Hey beautiful,” Mark croons, stroking my face and belly, rubbing my ears. “You’re so gorgeous. I can’t wait to run and hunt with you.”
I will myself to shift back, and it happens with ease. As if I’d never lost my wolf, never lost the ability to shift at will. To heal. To be who I truly am.
“Oh Fates.” I sit up and cover my face with my hands, happy tears running down my cheeks.
Mark’s smile fades, and he crawls on the bed with me, prying my hands from my face. “Fuck, baby. Had you lost your wolf? Is that why you couldn’t heal?”
I nod through the tears. “It’s been four years.”
He kisses them away and pulls me into his arms. “Never again, angel. You’ll never lose her again. She was always with you.”
“You brought her back out,” I say.
“ We did,” he says. “I can’t believe I found you. I feel so blessed.”
I want to feel blessed too, but there’s still a shadow looming over me. Over us. And that’s the part I hate. I care far too much about Mark to let him risk his life for us.