Chapter 36
Lemon
It can’t end like this. I need Furyon. I need him. That’s all I think as I shove Father away, flaring my wings and leaping for my mate.
Time slows as he shouts, “NO!” even as he lunges toward me.
His pickup truck death-roll spins through the air, flying over us.
Mabel’s lights blind me from the right, the scent of all that hot metal bearing down on us.
Her horn screams, ripping through the night as a blast of heat hits me, scorching my skin.
I collide with Furyon and wrap my arms around him, spinning us through the air. We hit the ground hard. Mabel rushes past, heat from her wheels blasting us as I wrap us in my wings, clutching Furyon to me. The train is so loud, I can’t hear anything else.
Is it moments later that Mabel’s brakes scream, and shouts rise up? I can’t tell. Everything hurts. Everything’s hot.
And Furyon stares up at me, mouth open and nostrils flared as he scans me. He shoots upright, both hands coming to my face as he looks me over.
“You hurt? Lemon, baby. Answer me.” He presses his forehead to mine. “Talk to me, baby. You could have been killed, Lemon. You could—”
“I love you,” I manage, brushing his lips with mine. “I love you, Furyon Zayle. There is no me without you in my corner.” I rip open his shirt and scooch down. “You’re mine,” I snarl. “Let me show you how much.”
Pale eyes scan my face for a moment, then he gives me a clear nod. “Do it, Lemon. Claim me, baby.”
Surging forward, I sink my fangs into his pec right over his heart. When I push venom and claiming intention into the twin pinpricks, Furyon locks up and jolts, throwing his head back as both hands come to my hair and twist into the strands.
He bellows as orgasm overtakes him. I follow with a crash, my body jerking against his as I suck rich blood into my mouth.
Sliding my legs on either side of his body, I grind against his lap as I feed.
Ruby, rich blood drips from my mouth, down my chin and my neck as awareness of him fills my chest with warmth.
That awareness twists and curls through the pleasure, pushing it back until he takes over, and he’s there.
Everything inside me is attuned to him, to my mate, to the pleasure still racking his muscular frame. To the way he feels me too. A rush of love fills the bond as it grows and solidifies, fingers unfurling all the way to the tips of my fingers and toes.
Slipping my fangs from the wounds on his pec, I resist the urge to clean the holes.
I curl my upper lip back as I admire my handwork.
Beneath me, Furyon gasps for air, soft groans rumbling as his throat bobs.
He’s still got one hand wrapped in my hair, using it for leverage to pull me down on top of him.
I’m barely aware of my father and brother running across the tracks behind Mabel. They stop, and Father says something to Hunter. They disappear into the darkness, and I don’t give them another thought.
Furyon smiles lazily up at me, eyes softening at the corners. “You took me, city girl, claimed me, and I feel you here.” He grabs my hand and presses my palm to his chest over the claiming bite.
“I don’t want to heal it,” I admit. “Every time I look at you, I want to see the scar from what I just did to you.”
He sits upright, pulling me closer until we’re chest to chest. I sling both arms around his neck, forehead to his so I can nuzzle him and just be.
“I’m in love with you, Lemon Knox Denton,” he whispers. “Yours till we leave this world. Thank you for the gift of your bond. I…I didn’t think I’d ever have that.”
Hot, heady love explodes through our new connection. It’s so ecstatic, so overwhelming, all I can do is throw my head back, begging him to bite his way up my neck.
When he reaches my ear, he growls softly. “Need you in bed. Need you reclaiming me when I’m in my bigger form. I need that, Lemon. But before we do that, I need to know how you got tied to the godsdamned railroad tracks.”
Reality crashes back around me as other voices begin to rise up. Behind us, Mabel’s at a stop, and Furyon’s truck lies in smoldering pieces on either side of the tracks.
“We need Bishop,” Furyon says.
Nodding, I bury my face in his neck as he calls the sheriff and Echo.
It’s half an hour before they descend upon us and the entire story comes out.
Bishop takes off to find Letitia and Varek.
Father and Hunter rejoin us. Father’s ruby eyes drift to my claiming mark on Furyon’s chest, and he purses his lips but says nothing about it.
And you know what? I don’t care. I’m not going back to Rainbow. He’ll have to pry Furyon out of my cold, dead hands. Even thinking about him trying to separate us has my fangs descending, claws punching through my fingertips, ready to fight.
I think back to that day Furyon told me he didn’t expect me but that he needed me.
I feel the same way about him. Nobody could have foreseen that I’d flounce into Pine Gulch in sparkly pink boots and find the love of my life.
The girls are never gonna believe this. Except maybe Shadow, since this happened to her, too.
I don’t know what’s in the water in Pine Gulch that we both found love here.
But whatever it is, it’s fucking magical.