4. Gray
I barely sleptthanks to the raging boner I sported all damned night. Maybe it was also the fact that my fated mate was so near and I was denying my every demonic craving for her.
But it was better this way.
She would go back to her safe little werewolf life and forget all about the likes of me.
The problem was, when I woke up from what fitful sleep I managed to get, I found myself spooning her, our bodies magnetized together. Her back was tucked against my chest, my arm slung over her almost protectively. My body was instantly awake, and it was all too obvious with my morning wood pressing against her ass. It was just my luck that she awoke right then and looked around sleepily.
Devil take me, she was beautiful with her tired eyes and sleep-mussed black hair. So different from the expertly styled way she had it when I first saw her at Polaris headquarters last night. I liked this version of her. She was more wild and unkept this way.
She grinned mischievously and wiggled her hips back against me.
I groaned, unable to help myself. My hand went straight to her hips, and I pried her from my lap and away from me as fast as I possibly could.
She rolled to her back and looked up at me with multicolored innocent-doe eyes. Her green eye was flashing gold, and the blue one glowed, showing her Wolf.
It was my only warning that she was up to something.
Suddenly, she reached out and gripped my jaw. Before I could do anything, she was leaning up and capturing my lips. I gasped in surprise against her mouth, against those delicious lips I had fantasized about. She took the opportunity to stick her tongue in my mouth, and I was helpless against her advance. I growled and then forcefully took over the kiss, the need to dominate deep-seated within me. Our tongues dueled briefly, then I put her in her place. I slid my hands up behind her head to lock us together, and she completely melted into me.
When she came up for air with a gasp, a moment of clarity hit me.
What the fuck was I doing?
Reason came crashing back in.
I shoved away from her forcefully and growled low, showing my fangs. My shift was starting simply from kissing her. I had to put an unquestionable stop to this, right now, for both our sakes.
“That was a mistake that can never happen again,” I snarled in her face, then threw off the covers and got out of bed. I stormed to the adjoining bathroom, forgetting until I was nearly there that I only wore boxers. It wasn’t the lack of clothing that bothered me, but dread settled in my gut. Glancing back over my shoulder, I discovered the little she-wolf staring at my back with concern in her eyes and her mouth hanging open in shock.
This was the reason I’d kept my back from her last night. She was now seeing my greatest mistake laid bare in the form of hideous twin half-moon-shaped scars on my shoulder blades.
I couldn’t look at her. Instead, I stared at the black-and-white tile flooring in the bathroom in front of me.
“What are those?” she asked, pain in her tone.
I didn’t want her pity. I’d made my choices, and this was the consequence.
Gripping the side of the doorway until I heard the wood begin to splinter, I stood frozen, trapped in the emotional intensity of her gaze as I debated how much to reveal.
“It’s where my wings were ripped from my back after I fell.”
Mébh had beensmart enough to drop the subject of my wing scars. When I returned from the restroom, she was gone. I pulled on jeans, a V-neck, a zip-up black hoodie, and a black-and-green flannel. I shoved my feet into my boots and then found Mébh standing in the living room, dressed once again in that tiny sundress and ready to go.
After a hurried morning breakfast at a little café down the street—even I wasn’t so mean as to force Mébh to eat dry cereal for breakfast—I was tapping my foot under the table, ready for us to be on our way. I wanted her returned safely, but something about it wasn’t sitting right with me. I’d waited till morning on Mébh’s advice. She claimed it would be easier, less of a fight dropping her off in the daylight when the pack’s witch had less magical obstacles and no pack border patrols to get in my way.
I’d suspected she was lying, but hadn’t been able to spy into her mind to confirm. It wasn’t a gamble I wanted to take, though. I’d already spilled enough blood when Nicodemus attacked, and I didn’t need to add werewolf blood unnecessarily to my rap sheet.
I hoped for a smooth transfer: Mébh sees a friend and runs off with them, while I mist away. I realized that this fantasy had her running specifically to a girlfriend, not another male. That idea made me want to growl and keep her with me.
We sat on the heated porch of the café, and I was growing tired of nearly every mortal staring at us. I kept my hood up to hide my horns, but I was still over a head taller than most humans.
“Come on, let’s go,” I urged.
“What’s the hurry, big guy?” Mébh asked, folding her napkin politely and placing it on her now empty plate over her used utensils.
I scowled, not liking that nickname one bit. “The rush is returning you to where you belong.”
She cocked her head curiously. “How do you know where I belong?”
Not with this philosophical crap now.
I threw down enough cash to cover the bill and pushed back in my chair. “I know you belong with other weres who can keep you safe and out of trouble.”—much better than I can.
It was her turn to scowl. “I don’t want to go back. I want to stay with you,” she said sweetly while batting her eyelashes. This was a big turnaround from her shouting it at me last night. She was trying hard to get me to change my mind, but she couldn’t stay with me.
“You can’t,” I snapped as I stood, then wrapped my fingers around her upper arm and assisted her to her feet. I noted the tingle I felt where our skin touched and actively tried to ignore it.
I led her from the table and out onto the street. There was a nip in the air since winter was setting in, but at least it wasn’t raining—something Portland was famous for.
I was aware of Gabriel MacTirelock’s pack location since I found Cassius there when I offered him a ride to Shoal to rescue his lost Jenny. Returning Mébh would be simple. Mist in and let her go. But Mébh began protesting immediately, and I instinctively knew this wasn’t going to be as easy as I’d hoped.
I gripped her a little tighter, and then I pictured the location I needed to go before misting us. I wasn’t worried about human bystanders seeing me mist—they would blink, and we would be gone. The human street disappeared from view, and in its place, a large green field surrounded by trees appeared. Glancing behind me, I noted the main pack house stood behind us.
Mébh looked around frantically, her face flushing with anger. I fought my very possessive instincts and reluctantly released my grip on her arm, but she wasn’t having any of that. She swung around in front of me and grabbed my wrists like a vise. “You can’t just leave me here! I belong with you, Gray!” she pleaded, her voice raised.
That spot in my chest constricted uncomfortably. The dark demon I was very much wanted to say “fuck it” to this whole plan and keep her with me, but I had to protect her from my enemies, and more importantly, myself. I wasn’t worthy of her, and she was better off finding another werewolf to share her life with. A snarl nearly ripped from my throat at the thought, and my fangs ached to drop.
I looked into her beautiful multicolored eyes, trying to memorize them since I would likely never see her again. “You belong with someone who can remember their full name, Mébh.”
She spluttered angrily, throwing more words at me, but we were starting to draw attention from pack members scattered about. More and more stopped what they were doing to stare in our direction.
It made me uneasy.
Even more so when a thickly muscled male approached and cleared his throat.
Mébh beat me to speaking. She yelled boldly at the werewolf, “Can it, Faelen!” Her seemingly cruel words surprised me.
The big male stopped in his tracks and put his hands up to show he meant no harm. “I didn’t say anything, Mébh,” he replied coolly. His mind was awash with worry for Mébh, who he considered a younger sibling more than anything.
“This doesn’t concern you, cousin,” she growled, her green eye flashing golden while her blue one glowed. She was struggling, her rage starting to get the better of her.
This male, Faelen, was her cousin, a member of her extended family, but it didn’t mean my demon nature wasn’t angry at the threat he possessed with his proximity to my unclaimed fated female—a mate who was starting to freak out.
This was something I had not anticipated, and my gut instinct was to scoop her up and isolate her to help her calm down. It’s what I would have needed.
Faelen sighed. “But it does concern me. You see, your”—he paused to glance at me—“friend here is a demon. He was not invited into our pack’s land, and thus, he is trespassing. Gabriel has been alerted.”
Mébh snarled, baring her lengthening fangs, her uncontrolled Wolf showing itself even more, and rounded on him.
She released one of her hands, but kept her other firmly on me. The little claws of that hand sank into my skin, as if to keep me from misting away without her, which I completely intended to do just as soon as I could shake her.
“He is my fated mate,” she admitted.
I stiffened, not knowing how the werewolf would take this news. Mates that were other species were not always universally accepted.
His eyes rounded in surprise. He struggled for words for a moment as he looked between the both of us. “Well—that’s—it’s great! Congrats, Mébhy!” His forced words felt hollow.
“Can you reassure Molly that I am safe, please?” she asked him sweetly.
“What happened? You were staying with Polaris for a week. Why doesn’t she know where you are?” he asked, his strained smile faltering.
“There was an attack at Polaris headquarters last night. Gray rescued me,” she explained.
I felt the guilt that if it hadn’t been for me trying to get info from Cassius, Polaris wouldn’t have been attacked, and she never would have been unsafe in the first place. She is better off without me, I reminded myself for the hundredth time as I fought the possessive instincts that grew as more werewolf males slowly approached. My eyes tingled as they shifted, my teeth and claws began sharpening.
Faelen’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head at that news. “Shit! I had no idea. Neither her nor Jenny have checked in since yesterday, as far as I know.”
I tried ever so slightly pulling my hand free of Mébh’s while she was distracted talking with her cousin about the attack, but instead she turned on me, a storm brewing in her eyes. She knew exactly what I had been trying to do and refused to let it happen.
Gabriel, the Alpha, exited the pack house, his eyes gleaming red. I didn’t relish meeting the infamous direwolf’s beast. He was cutting a path straight for us, shedding his suit jacket aggressively as he went. I didn’t need to spy into his mind to know he planned to kill me for trespassing. A petite redhead jogged in his wake with nothing but worry for Gabriel’s safety clouding her mind—she was undoubtedly his mate.
Finally, a blonde followed her—this one had to be the witch. Her mind was completely different. There were multiple parts to it—one saw real life, while the other saw what was likely the future. I saw myself in her mind’s eye as having triggered a trespassing spell. Mébh either had not told the whole truth or she had lied to me. The witch still had magical protections in place and not just at night. I assumed the same for the pack border patrols, as werewolves in animal form began creeping out of the trees around the field, ready to back their Alpha. If I didn’t act fast, the fight I had been trying to avoid last night would be unavoidable.
It was now or never.
I needed to make my getaway.
I gripped Mébh’s hand, ready to rip it off me, but suddenly the inner monster, the possessive fuck, wouldn’t let her go. Then I made the fateful mistake of looking down into her desperate, pleading multicolored eyes and knew this couldn’t be it. I struggled to remember why I was even trying to take her back in the first place.
She was mine.
I snarled at all the gathering werewolves in warning. My resolve crumpled, and I made perhaps the second most rash and terrible decision of my life. I wrapped myself around her and misted away.