Chapter 6
CICELY
My huge, nude, muscled mate runs from me, diving into the river and swimming across it.
I watch, blinking and trying to process what just happened. What I saw. All the things I felt. What I’m feeling now.
The sounds around me are no longer muted. Wind, animals, and the world continue doing their thing as if everything wasn’t frozen, holding breath while all that happened.
The sun is rising.
First, I thought I was about to die. Then, I thought I was getting some primal sex with a stranger, and I did not understand why I didn’t want to fight him off.
But when that knot emerged, I realized it was more than some good, rough dick.
I was being taken by my fated mate, a big alpha male with a scary as fuck wolf and no scent to him. And now? Now?
Wind kicks up and whips my hair around as I continue to watch, feeling cold to my bones with confusion and rising anger, but being unable to do anything but wait for him to get to the other side of the river. He rises on the rocky riverbank and turns to face me.
He stands tall, every inch of his body carved to perfection as if from marble. He’s staring at me with a ravaged expression on his face. And I blink in astonishment at all I’m feeling. I’m overcome with the urge to go to him, to find a way to soothe the pain that pulses from him and in me.
He’s a perfect male specimen with a steel-cut jaw, chin cleft, with a perfect mouth, corded arms, and the sculpted, muscled frame of an alpha.
His hazel eyes alternate between anger and pain as he stares at me, his erect cock reminding me of what he just did to me.
Not that I could ever forget. My legs are still shaking. And my neck… it’s tingling.
I stand on shaky legs while we hold eye contact.
I don’t just read pain from him, I feel it with a clarity that’s new and unusual, and also more than a little angering.
Because raw agony ripples from his very being to the degree it swamps me.
And I’m sure he can both read and feel my confusion.
I’m betting he can sense that it’s turning to anger.
Because why is he standing there staring at me like this on the other side of the river he’s put between us?
The way it felt with his weight pinning me, his hands on my hips and my breasts, his mouth on my throat, tasting me, his thighs bracketing mine as his strong body pinned me.
The feeling of being knotted, having my world tilt and right itself when his hot fluid filled me.
I want more of it. I want to touch him, kiss him, bite him back.
But things went cold. In me and around me, and now I’m left with the sting of him being across that river, the crushing weight of the emotion coming from him, it’s all in the way.
I step toward him and his hand flies up in an urgent halt motion, as if I’m too close already, despite the river.
Is he really standing there wordlessly halting me from coming closer while his essence drips down my thighs, while the wound of the mate mark is still fresh on my throat?
My voice comes out strong and infuriated. “Either I come there or you come here. Choose!”
Agony slashes across his face and he looks away. And facts fly through my brain, conclusions that make me even angrier.
“I’m Cicely Oakes,” I tell him. “But you already knew this, didn’t you?”
More pain.
“And Linc is your friend so you’re the reason he suddenly keeps his distance and barely looks at me. Because you know. Because he knows. Right?”
His mouth tightens. So do the tendons in his neck. He doesn’t answer. He clenches his fists at his side.
“Are you gonna look at me? Are you gonna answer me? Introduce yourself?”
He swallows.
I wait.
Finally, he says, “Jared. Stone.”
And I recognize his deep voice. Not because I’ve heard it before. Because I recognize it at a cellular level as the voice of the male who just claimed me. He doesn’t feel like a stranger. But he is. He’s a stranger who looks, right now, like mating with me was the biggest mistake of his life.
“Are you coming here or am I swimming to you?” I ask and I don’t do it nicely.
“Go home, Cicely. Forget this happened.”
My body jolts.
“Get your ass over here, Jared Stone. Right fucking now!”
He shakes his head and lets out a bitter laugh while rubbing his forehead with his fingers.
I’m livid.
“You just… you…” I shake my head. “Did you actually just mate with me… for life … and now you’re rejecting me?”
His expression hardens. “A fucking miracle.”
I frown.
He glares at me, pointing, “A fucking miracle you’re still alive and breathing. You saw what I am.”
He paces, not taking his eyes off me, and it feels like they’re piercing my very soul.
Jared Stone. Cicely Stone. I’d love the sound of that if this wasn’t stinging so hard.
An image flashes in my mind. Me, him. Three little boys hanging from his limbs, laughing.
Two look like him. One looks like me. And Jared is smiling.
He’s happy. He’s looking at me with love shining in his eyes.
My heart is in my throat now. Have I just had a premonition?
He’s even more angrily shouting, “You saw it! I have no control over it, black out when it shows up. It’s a killing machine that’s a complete stranger to me. Be smart and get as far away from me as you can. Now!”
I saw it. I was sure his wolf would kill me. I thought I was a goner. Curiosity killed the daft female wolf shifter.
But no. Then he shifted and despite the fact that I couldn’t smell him, my body readied itself.
As soon as I felt the switch from cold to hot.
Even more when his tongue touched my neck, because every inch of me knew it was right.
This was him. My fated mate. Whether it was raw instinct, my wolf and me piecing together the facts, or something in his touch, I felt something right. Real.
I wasn’t made for my mother and father, not for my siblings, and not for this pack. I was created for Jared Stone. And when he was created, something in him was designed to know this, to act on it.
Riding out the single most soul-shattering sexual experience of my existence was not on my bingo card for today, especially not on the heels of the terror I felt at seeing his wolf, at being almost certain his wolf would kill me.
A strange male breaching me between the legs without me fighting for my life and dignity?
Beyond bizarre. But oddly, my body knew, and now I know. This is right.
“It didn’t kill me,” I remind him.
“By some miracle.” He throws his hands up in frustration. “Tell me, was it wagging a tail? Happy to meet you? Licking your face?”
I sigh.
“You don’t get it,” he adds, even though I haven’t said anything.
He frustratedly drives his hand through his dark blond slightly-longer-on-top fade buzzcut, a pained grimace marring his face.
I growl in frustration. “Nope, I don’t understand any of this. I only know I finally know someone was meant for me. I was meant for them. You’ve always known your female was out there somewhere.”
He says nothing.
“You purposely stayed away, probably told one of my best friends not to tell me, therefore making him be someone he’s not. I’m guessing you knew where I was, who I am to you, and chose to have nothing to do with me, but–”
“Then you do understand. Perfectly. You need to go. I’m hanging on by a thread here.”
Is this really happening to me? I stare, gobsmacked.
My nose twitches. I smell multiple council alphas. I don’t look over my shoulder but hear at least one of them running and close.
Jared’s nostrils flare and he demands, “Get dressed, Cicely, and go home! Now!”
I jerk back in angry shock. “What?”
His lip curls, then his expression goes pained.
“Run!” he demands, jerking painfully before dropping to his knees and planting his palms on the ground, blowing out a hard exhale before his face contorts painfully, like he’s hurt. It’s like he’s fighting pain. Fighting… something.
I think he’s trying to fight a shift.
Tyson arrives first, as wolf, skidding to a stop beside me.
I watch Jared’s body shift to the massive gray wolf with the amber eyes, those slit-shaped pupils, all jagged teeth and menace. His fur stands on end as his snout points in our direction. He’s growling. No, snarling. His is the most vicious-looking wolf I’ve ever set eyes on.
Tyson barks out a deep, loud bark, his stance suddenly seeming bigger, even more alpha.
Jared’s wolf bares his massive teeth, growling louder.
Oh shit.
Terror spreads through me.
Joel’s wolf is here, stopping, and he’s shifting to human form. Here’s Mase, as well, his white wolf peeling away until he’s rising to stand beside Joel, and both of them stare at my mate, testosterone radiating from their bodies.
Uh oh. No. This isn’t really happening.
I hear a car door slam and Linc runs up as man, dressed, carrying a bag, his eyes scanning my form quickly, assessing my wellbeing instead of my nudity like he typically would in this situation. And, no doubt, he’s clocked the new mark on my neck.
I know more than once during post-coital cuddling, Linc seemed fixated on my neck, stroking it with his thumb. And I always believed he hoped he’d put his mark there one day.
It wasn’t meant to be. And he’s known for longer than I have precisely why.
I’m fuming. Angry doesn’t begin to describe it.
A little devastated, too. Because a she-shifter spends her life wondering if she’ll fall for a beta or an alpha.
Or if she’ll be claimed by an alpha stranger who takes her away from her home.
If the male she makes a family with will be a fated mate and if he is, will it feel like the most amazing gift she’s been given?
But then it’s… this.
Rejection.