Chapter 22
CHAPTER 22
S era
“Oh, Mother Moon, don’t stop,” I beg Montgomery as he pounds into me from behind.
This is our third round today.
After he brought me home from the woods, he made good on his words by showering me off and washing me from head to toe. I had to insist on him letting me wash him as well, before he brought me back to bed, and we took a long nap.
Afterwards, he woke me up to a huge meal just because my stomach started growling while I slept.
Lunch led to … well, now.
“Fuck, you feel so good around my cock,” he says, his hand sliding down my spine to cup the back of my neck. He knows not to touch my hair since I scolded him once about messing up my weave.
I do a Kegel around his cock as a reward for his following direction and keeping his hands out of my hair. He hisses, in delight.
Mine!
My eyes, which I didn’t even realize I’d closed, spring open. At first, I think it’s Montgomery who made that declaration. It wouldn’t be the first time since he’s repeated it over and over in the woods.
But the comment didn’t come from Montgomery.
It came from me.
But not in my voice.
Something deep inside of me declared it.
I want to figure out what that strange tug in the pit of my stomach is coming from—the same place that declared Montgomery as mine—but he chooses right then to change the angle of his cock, which makes him rub up against my G-spot.
My back arches and a moan that I’ve never let out before springs from my lips.
He feels impossibly big inside of me. And yet, he feels like the perfect fit.
Mate.
I glance around, looking for who just made that statement.
“Baby.” Montgomery’s word cloud my ability to think.
Every time he calls me ‘baby’ my toes curl.
When he says it again, I break apart, dissolving into what feels like my sixth orgasm of the day.
Montgomery comes at the same time, and I feel his release inside of me. He’s claiming me from the inside out.
My heart brightens at the knowledge that I’m bringing him some semblance of satisfaction. As if I’m proud.
Slowly, Montgomery pulls out of me, and I do my best to ignore the vacancy that his absence leaves behind. It helps that he pulls me into his arms, pressing his chest against my back.
It’s like he doesn’t want to be more than an inch apart.
That thought makes my eyes close, fighting against the knowledge that I, too, don’t want to be separated from him.
Now, with the remnants of my orgasm clearing away, I want to groan at my sudden lameness. What happened to the Serafina who couldn’t stand being in the same room as any of these men?
That was never true.
“Right.” I sigh.
Montgomery adjusts his body so that he’s peeking around my shoulder at me. “Right, what?” he questions.
I shake my head. “That orgasm was right,” I reply with a warm smile.
He responds with a kiss to my already swollen lips.
“You should eat again,” he says, but I stop him when he goes to move from the bed.
“I’m not hungry.” It’s a partial lie. I shouldn’t be though. The sandwiches and fruit salad he threw together—his words, not mine—were plenty satisfying, but there seems to be an opening in my stomach or something because I can already feel the vestiges of hunger start to ravage me.
“You’re lying,” he replies. “I can feel it.”
Pulling back, I move to face him on my knees. I lift the blanket to cover my naked breasts when his eyes drop to them. His eyes glint in mischievousness but it’s not his wolf. For the first time since I can remember, there isn’t a hint of his wolf in his gaze.
But the passion in his eyes is all for me.
“What do you mean you can feel it?”
He shrugs. “I know when you’re hungry. We all do.”
“That’s impossible,” I reply. “Wait … can you?”
He brings one of my hands to his lips, kissing the outside of my palm before he nods.
“How? I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a mate being able to feel their mate’s hunger. Have you?”
He pauses, looking contemplative as he thinks on the answer. “A long time ago.”
“A long time ago what?”
He shakes his head. “Not important. You’re hungry.”
“Dammit,” I mumble because he moves too damn quickly for me to interrogate him anymore. It only takes what feels like a few minutes for him to return with bowls of soup and more of those mouthwatering buttermilk biscuits.
I want to ask him more about that ‘long time ago’ comment but the food is so good. “Where did you learn to cook like this?” I ask around another spoonful of soup.
“When I was young. Before …” He pauses. “I used to spend time in the kitchen with our mother. Do you like it?”
“Like it? I love it. I could probably eat this every day.”
“Then you’ll have it every day.”
I stop with the spoon halfway to my mouth because his tone is so serious. “Do you mean that?”
He looks at me as if I’m the one who’s crazy to even ask. “You said you want it every day.”
I shake my head. “It was a joke.”
Was it?
I brush the thought off. “Where were you?” I finally ask, while watching him eat.
He stills before his eyes slowly move over to me. “What?”
It’s too late to take my question back now. “Where were you all of those years you were separated from your brothers, from your pack?”
With deliberate movements, he places his spoon back into his bowl of half-eaten soup. “Alone.”
“Alone, where?” I prod.
“Outside.” He shrugs. “On my own.”
My heart tightens. I don’t like thinking of him all alone.
“I got separated from my family and pack while on a trip to Washington State.”
“What happened? Noah and Ronan never told me the exact story.”
I want to hear Montgomery’s side. I want to know more about him, about the sad loneliness that lingers in his eyes. And about those scars.
“The three of us were outside playing in our wolves. We had only had our first shift weeks before, so we were still getting used to the ability to shift at will. While out in the forest, Ronan, Noah, and I got separated from our parents, but we were playing around too much to even notice.
“Then, some humans came out of nowhere. Ronan and Noah managed to get away from them, but they trapped me.”
He runs a hand through his hair, and I reach out, taking his hand into mine. The roughness of his calloused hands feel strikingly comforting against my skin.
“They mistook me for a normal wolf, of course, and placed a tracking belt around my neck.”
I gasp and cover my mouth with my free hand. “Oh, Mother Moon.”
He squeezes my hand as if I’m the one who needs comforting.
“I don’t know where they took me to place the tracker, but, a few days later, they set me free, back into the woods where they first captured me. I suppose they assumed I would reunite with the local pack. By then, my pack and family were gone. And I couldn’t shift back to my human.”
He looks me in the eye.
“Our parents taught us from the beginning to never, ever reveal what we are to humans. We all grew up with stories of how terrible humans become when they find out the truth.”
My mouth hangs open as I listen to him.
“I roamed the wilderness in my wolf for years.”
I inhale deeply. “Isn’t that dangerous?”
Montgomery nods. “My wolf became borderline feral. We’re not meant to be in one form for too long. Both sides of us need balance. But I couldn’t shift back. After a while, I forgot how. Then there was the tracker, still around my neck. As I grew it got tighter and tighter. I tried many times to get it off of me, but the humans would always use it to find me, tranq me, and adjust it, so that it fit just tight enough that I couldn’t loosen it.”
He shakes his head.
“The worst part was going from having a family and pack to being a lone wolf. Most lone wolves don’t make it on their own. Many end up forming their own packs. We’re not meant to be alone.”
He shakes his head as if reliving those horrible, lonely days.
I bring his hand to my lips, kissing his knuckles. His eyes grow wide as he looks at the connection of our hands.
“You’re so warm.” There’s a wondrous tone to his comment.
I snort. “I’ve always run a little hot,” I tell him.
He looks at me, cocking his head to the side. I’m so taken aback by his beauty that I don’t question the curious looks he’s giving me. I run my hand through his curly, golden locks, relishing the softness of them.
Then I trace my hand down his cheek to the roughened sides of his overgrown five o’clock shadow.
“I should shave,” he jokes. “Be more clean-cut like Ronan.”
I shake my head. “I like you like this.”
He takes my hand, kissing the inside of my palm. “Then I’ll leave it.”
I laugh because of course he would say that.
“What does your tattoo mean?” I ask.
His gaze drops to the massive tattoo that covers his chest and abdomen. In the last few hours, I’ve touched it enough to know that it covers an array of scars, just like the ones on his back.
“The battles for my life. I came across a lot of packs who didn’t like a lone wolf in their midst. Or there were times when I was finally able to hunt down food and wolves from a pack would attack me, trying to steal what I’d worked for.”
His eyes glow when he says the next words.
“I had to fight for every inch of survival but I fought them off. Something propelled me to keep fighting. Though, I didn’t know if it was memories from my childhood or just the wolf instinct to survive.”
“Maybe it was both,” I propose. “Your human and your wolf fighting to keep you alive.”
He looks at me contemplatively before nodding.
Then, Montgomery shakes his head. “I don't know how many years passed before I could shift back into my human.”
“How were you able to escape the tracker?”
“One day, after weeks of not eating sufficiently, I grew so weak that I came to the side of a small pond but couldn’t even force myself to drink. I laid down and prepared to die. I was done.”
My stomach twists into knots. The thought of him no longer being alive hurts.
He looks at me.
“Then a large black wolf appeared. It was as if he came out of thin air. And he smelled …” Montgomery shakes his head.
“Smelled what?”
“Like smoke. Fiery. I still think it was a figment of my imagination. The memory is still hazy. I remember it nudging my neck, the tracker, and its eyes. They looked human. Like he was a shifter, too, but he never shifted.
“He did bring food and then encouraged me to follow him. I did and he led me to a small cabin where an old man lived.
“The old man noticed the tracker and managed to get it off with some tools. I learned much later that he was a former researcher who worked with wildlife. He’d been on a team that tracked wild animals for years before he quit his job and built a cabin in the woods, away from everything and everyone.”
“Wow,” I say. “He saved your life.”
Montgomery nods.
“He never knew what I really was, but he removed the tracker and fed me and gave me water until I was back to almost my full strength. It took longer to heal since I still couldn’t shift back to my human form.
“It was weeks and when he saw that I was capable enough to go out on my own, he took me to where he thought I would be okay. As soon as he opened the cage door, I bolted out of there. I raced off into the woods, but then found a spot to hide and watch the old man.”
“You didn’t shift?”
He shakes his head.
“I forgot how at that point. I attacked any and everything I came across at that point. I was completely feral. I knew something was different about me, but I couldn’t remember or figure out what. All of the years trapped inside of my wolf made me give into my base instincts and see everything around me as a threat.”
“But not the old man who saved you,” I say.
He looks at me with sadness in his eyes.
“I would go back to his cabin every now and again, recalling the way by scent. One night, I just watched him, in my wolf form. Something about the way he moved slowly, barely able to get up and down the stairs, I sensed his time was coming to an end. He was too weak to survive on his own.
“I watched the day he slowly trudged up the stairs toward his front door before suddenly clutching his chest. He keeled over and never got up.”
“He died?”
Montgomery nods.
“Heart attack, I guess. I waited for hours, watching his lifeless body. When it got dark, I went over to him, nudging my body with his nose. As soon as my wolf realized he was dead, his instinct was to eat him.”
I gasp and cover my mouth with my hand when Montgomery looks at me with shame in his eyes.
“I’m not proud of it,” he hurriedly explains.
I squeeze his hand because I hate that he feels shame or embarrassment. “You couldn’t control your wolf. He was … he was … feral.”
Montgomery makes a disbelieving sound at the back of his throat.
“I didn’t eat him,” he says, his eyes meeting mine. “I don’t think I could’ve come back from that. My human side couldn’t live with that. For the first time in years, my human fought back against my wolf. It was a struggle. I think it took hours, but I was able to shift back into a human.”
He snorts.
“It hurt like hell.”
He glances down at the scars. “Because I couldn’t shift back to heal whenever I got into a fight or got injured, the scars remain, even in my human form.”
I move my fingers up from his hand to his arm, to his chest, feeling the jagged skin that tells the story of his difficult journey. I cover the tattoo with my hand.
“That’s what this is about, huh?” I ask of the half skull, half wolf image.
“To remind myself that I’m both. I got it after I returned home. My wolf is still vicious and can be brutal. I take him out on runs for hours and sleep outdoors often to get him to work out his extra aggression and energy. But at times … he feels stronger than me.”
He covers my hand with his over his heart.
“The tattoo reminds me that he’s not more powerful than my human if I don’t let him win.”
“How come you didn’t come back to Colorado?” I ask. “To your pack. Your brothers.”
He shakes his head, tightening his lips. “I couldn’t remember. By the time I shifted back into my human form, all I had was fuzzy memories of what my brothers and parents looked like years ago. I moved from one place to another as a lone wolf, doing construction jobs here and there.
“That’s how I came in contact with the Nightwolf pack.”
My heart constricts and I hold on tighter to his hand. A memory of the photo on Ronan’s desk flashes into my mind.
“They never stopped searching for you.”
Montgomery peers at me with wide eyes.
“Ronan … it’s why he took on the job he has now, working for the transportation department. He never stopped searching for you.”
Montgomery lowers his gaze, but his lips spread into a ghost smile. “Really?”
“He told me a long time ago that he would find you. I think he knew that you were still alive, still out there somewhere.”
Montgomery looks at me again but then shakes his head. “It’s probably best that it took so long for me to reunite with them. I wouldn’t have been any good to them or the pack. Not with my wolf so damn feral.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
I look into Montgomery’s eyes. They’re clear. No hint of a feral wolf in his gaze.
“He must be asleep in there or something,” I joke. “You don’t look so feral right now.”
Montgomery’s gaze sharpens on mine. “It’s you.”
I jut my head backwards in surprise.
“You calm him. I kept my distance from you because I thought my wolf would destroy you. He became even more aggressive in your presence, and I thought he would destroy you if I got too close.”
His lips break into a smirk.
“Now I think it was because he was telling me you’re what he needed to reign him in. The moment I touched you, kissed you, was inside of you, he sat down. You make my wolf calm, bearable.
“A hell of a lot more than any long runs, hours of cooking, working construction, or punching trees can do.”
His eyes sparkle and then glow as he says this. But it’s not a ferocious type of glow. More of a wondrous, ‘you’re all that I see’ type of glow.
It’s overwhelming, and a lump forms in my throat, preventing me from saying anything. Apparently, though, words aren’t needed.
Montgomery leans over and cups the back of my neck, pulling me to him. He brushes his lips against mine. The minor touch makes my belly quiver.
In an instant, I go from lightly simmering to boiling hot with need.
A growl that’s the exact opposite of the soft kiss he just gave me springs from his lips. “You smell so fucking good when you’re turned on.”
He moves the food and trays out of the way before devouring my lips.
Thus begins our fourth round of the day.