Chapter 5
Chapter Five
D eclan
It’s twilight by the time we reach the safehouse, which is a tiny cabin tucked into the side of a snowy mountain.
“My brothers live that way. And that way,” Bern points out. “And over there. Oh, and Darius is here this weekend, and his cabin is down there.”
“You have four brothers?” Fiona asks. She’s sitting on my leg, holding her shotgun and leaning forward to keep most of her weight off me. It’s all I can do to keep myself from burying my face in her hair and giving her a mating bite.
“Seven. Teddy and his mate are in California.” Bern parks, and Fiona’s off like a shot, opening the door and leaping out.
Good job, Declan. You scared the poor lass.
“Where is this place?” Allison asks. Laurie helps her out of the car, and they remain holding hands. At least he’s getting over his shyness, but who’d a-thought the owl would have more game than me?
“Welcome to Bad Bear Mountain.” Bern heads to the cabin. “You’ll be safe here.” The door opens with a creak, and he waves us all in.
I expect something out of a horror movie, but it’s clean and cozy, if a bit cramped. There’s a couch by the door and a narrow bed pushed against the far corner. A cabinet with a hotplate and minifridge in the opposite corner beside a window. Everything from the curtains to the blanket on the bed and throw on the couch is the same green and red Tartan plaid.
“It’s small,” Bern says. “Only one room and an outhouse out back. Sorry.”
“It’s fine. Like you said, we’ll be safe here. No one will scent us.” Parker says diplomatically. What he doesn’t say is a thick werebear musk coats everything.
“Very festive.” Fiona goes to a bookshelf filled with paperbacks and pokes at the set of carved wooden figurines on top. Tiny bears, foxes and wolves, all wearing little hats and scarves. She and Allison coo over them.
I swallow. This cabin is sweet and festive, especially when Bern gets a fire going in the stone fireplace. It’s like something out of a holiday movie, and for some reason, I can’t stand it one minute longer.
“I’ll keep watch.” I duck out into the fresh air.
“What’s with him?” I hear Fiona ask from behind the heavy wooden door. Damn shifter hearing. I can all but hear the pity in her voice. Parker answers something that, thankfully, I can’t hear.
My wolf hound whines. He wants to be back with Fiona. “I know,” I mutter. “I know.” I walk past Bern’s Jeep and our broken-down bus. Not even the cold night air and the scent of snow and wild pine is enough to break up the tension clogging my throat.
The cabin door swings open, and Bern jogs out. If he notices my dark mood, he doesn’t say anything. “My brother Axel is great with cars. I’ll drop yours off, and it should be good to go by morning.”
“‘Tanks, man.”
“No worries. I’ll send my brother Everest by with some food.” With that final shout, Bern expertly turns the Jeep, bus trailer and all, and hauls off.
I sigh and look up at the endless, star-studded sky. My heart squeezes like a mushy fruit. Too soft to be of any use to anyone, least of all me.
A stick crunches, and the delicious diner scent wafts over me. Fiona. She must have followed me outside. I don’t turn. “You gonna keep sculking in the shadows, lass, or are you gonna come talk to me?”
Fiona emerges from the side of the cabin, tossing her long dark hair. There’s a small strip of tanned skin between her black crop top and high waisted black jeans. I want to press my face there and inhale.
She’d probably sink her sharp little teeth into my ear.
“You’re the one skulking,” she shoots back.
I scoff.
“Sulking then. What do you call it when you leave the nice warm cabin to come stand in the cold and dark?”
“You’re out here too,” I say.
Fiona sniffs. “Yeah, well, they’re settling in with hot cocoa and mulled cider. It’s so fucking domestic, I could puke.”
“Fecking A,” I agree. The tightness in my chest has eased somewhat, but my hand tingles. It’s about now I’d reach for a bottle, but I forgot to take one out of the bus before Bern drove off.
“Allison likes Laurie,” Fiona announces. “I approve.”
“I’ll alert the media.”
“Hey, I don’t approve of many males. But your buddy smells all right. And if he hurts her, I’ll use him to stuff a mattress.”
“Fair enough.” I find a fallen log and brush the thin layer of snow off to settle on it. Fiona’s hovering close, and my animal is ultra aware of her, wondering when to pounce. He’d lick the chip scent right off her if I’d let him.
I tighten my grip on his leash and tip my head back to drink in the night air.
After a moment, Fiona drops down beside me. I feel the heat of her body through my clothes. It warms my right side and leaves my left side cold.
“Lots of stars tonight,” I say.
“Less light pollution out here. It’s nice.”
Goosebumps run up my side. I could scoot a little close and put my arm around her shoulders. Let her lean on me. Bury my nose in her shining black hair, inhale her scent from the source.
Instead, I look up for the moon. “Is that a treehouse up there?”
Fiona surges to her feet. “It is!”
We both crane our necks to gaze up. You’d miss it if you weren’t looking because it blends in so well. Nestled between three towering ponderosa pine trees is a tiny treehouse.
“How do you think you get to it?” Fiona walks to the base of one of the trees. There’s no ladder.
I shrug. “I dunno. Bears climb trees. Do ya think… just scale the trunk?”
“Over here!” She beckons me to one of the other supporting trunks. “Ladder rungs nailed right in.”
She’s right. Small pegs emerge on alternating sides straight up to the floor of the treehouse, where a hole gapes to crawl through.
We climb up and survey the tiny interior. An eight by six foot neatly-constructed wood plank floor is covered by an oval-shaped wool rug. While it’s open to the air on the side that looks down the mountain, a sturdy roof with a long overhang has kept snow from entering, and the rug is warm and dry.
Fiona settles onto it, leaning her back against the wall to take in the view. I sit beside her.
“You guys still living in Tucson?” she asks.
“Yeah.” For a while we were living in a series of run-down trailers, relying on running the odds at shifter fight club to pay the rent. Our current place is owned by the Vampire King. His way of keeping us close, like a retainer.
I don’t tell her any of this.
She takes a breath to say something else, but something stirs in the forest a few yards away from us.
“Do ya hear that?”
Fiona’s eyes flash white then bright red. “What?”
“Over there,” I whisper, pointing. We hold our breath, staring down into the dark forest. Something’s moving in there. Something big.
I know the second Fiona sees it because she grabs my arm. Her touch is like a jolt of electricity down my side. My dick perks up, and I grit my teeth. Now is not the time to jump her. Even though she’s leaning in front of me, that mouth-watering scent washing over me.
“What is it?” she hisses.
I can’t tell. It looks like a giant wraith between the trees. I inhale, but the werebear musk is so strong, I can’t smell anything else.
The ghostly shape moves closer. It’s massive but makes no sound.
My wolfhound raises his head. He's not frightened at all, just curious.
Fiona raises her shotgun, takes aim.
“Wait, lass.” I catch her arm. “Don’t shoot.”
“Why not?” she whispers harshly, but to her credit, she takes her finger off the trigger. The little act of trust is like a shot of whiskey, warming me all the way through.
“Just wait.”
The trees shake, and the giant emerges below us, rising to hind feet to look up at us.
“Jay-sus.”
It’s a massive white bear with a red Santa hat perched on its huge head.
“A polar bear,” Fiona whispers.
The bear nods and shuffles forward. It’s holding something in its front paws. It sets it down and shuffles away, melting into the forest like it never existed. Leaving us to crouch and sniff at the warm bundle it left at our stoop. A fragrant baked good is wrapped in a dishtowel, smelling of orange peel and dried fruit…
“Fruit cake?”
Laurie
Darkness has fallen, and the only light and sound is the glow and crackle of the dying fire. It’s toasty warm and smells like spiced cider.
Parker pulled the couch closer to the fire and is leaning back with his legs outstretched and his hat tilted over his face. He typically sleeps sitting up anyway. It can’t be comfortable, but he says it helps with the nightmares. In order to feel safe enough to fall asleep, his animal has to be ready to run.
I understand the urge. It’s hard for me to sleep most nights, too. My owl is naturally nocturnal, of course, but he gets tired in the “wee” hours, as Declan calls them, the hours between one and five am, and that’s when my nightmares tend to come.
Tonight, I have a different problem. I sit beside Parker on my section of the couch, trying hard to ignore the urge to stare at the beautiful woman in the bed. I met Allison over a year ago, and I’ve never stopped thinking of her. And now that we’re here, in the same room, she’s like a beacon of light. Too beautiful to look at directly, but drawing me in just the same, a moth to a flame.
I close my eyes but can’t escape her scent. She smells like fruit cake and apple cider, which is what we had for dinner. The cake was moist and golden and very filling. Apparently, Bern’s brother Everest dropped it off, which explains the thick werebear scent coating the dishcloth the cake was wrapped in.
But now the scent of werebear is faded beside the supernova of Allison’s gorgeous scent. My owl would stare at her for hours if I let him.
I can’t let him. She probably already thinks I’m a freak.
“Lawrence,” Allison whispers, and I nearly jump out of my skin.
She’s awake and patting the blanket beside her.
I realize what she wants, and my skin heats like I’m too close to the fire.
“I can’t sleep like this. Will you hold me?”
Oh. Ohhhh.
It’s official. I’ve died and entered paradise.
I unfold from the couch and make my way to her. I have to stoop under the slanting ceiling. She’s changed into a pajama set of gold silk shorts and a cami, with a hair wrap to match, and the sight of her bare skin is too much to take. My dick swells painfully, pressing against my jeans. I pause a moment, willing my erection to go down.
“You okay?” Her sweet voice almost has me creaming myself.
I bob my head and finish carefully lowering myself beside her on the tiny twin bed. I pin my arms to my sides, making sure not to touch her.
It works until she sighs and rolls into me, pressing her perfect body against mine. I swallow hard and try to think about baseball.
“Thanks,” she says. “I’m tired but wired. I get this way after expanding my energy like that, to call in help.”
“It w-w-was c-c-cool. W-w-what you d-did.”
“Parker didn’t think it would work. I wasn’t sure there for a while, either, but then the werebears showed up.”
“You c-c-called them t-to us.”
“I guess. It worked out. My animal prefers not to fight.”
What’s your animal? The words stick to my tongue. She might be keeping it a secret for a reason. She might be like Parker, a hybrid mishmash of animals that not even he can parse out.
I’ll let her offer up the information in her own time.
She snuggles closer. “Thanks,” she says and then adds, in a whisper so soft I barely catch it even with my shifter hearing: “You make me feel safe.”
I tip my head down and brush my cheek over her dark, fragrant curls. I want to hug her, but this is as close as I should get.
She nuzzles into my chest, taking my hand and propping it on her hip. I bite back a moan. I want nothing more than to tip her back and claim her lips.
Instead, I mold my palm to her curves and keep my breathing easy and even until her body relaxes further.
Her dark lashes fan over her flawless skin. Her breathing slows, and I know she’s asleep. If I were braver, I’d press my lips to her hair. Instead, I imagine doing it over and over again, and let the happy fantasy carry me through the night.
Fiona
The moon climbs towards midnight. Declan and I both sit on the floor of the treehouse. The temperature’s plummeted, but the walls keep the wind out, and there’s a stack of thick wool blankets, and I have one draped over my legs to keep me toasty. I haven’t gotten up the nerve to invite Declan to share it with me, yet.
I thought about leaving him to his thoughts, but my animal won’t let me leave his side. She’s usually skittish and angry around males, but Declan is different. There’s a bitter tinge to his scent. It stings my nose, but I don’t mind it. My scent gets bitter like that too.
“So you got plans for the holiday?” I ask.
“What holiday?”
“I hear you. Ever since the slavers took us, we haven’t really celebrated holidays.”
“What is there to celebrate?”
It’s so bleak, it stops my heart. “Damn,” I mutter.
Declan sucks in a breath. “Feck, I’m sorry, lass. I’m in a bad mood.”
“No kidding.” But there’s something in his profile that makes me want to set my hand on his jaw and comfort him.
I wouldn’t mind getting skin to skin with him, either.
He pulls out his flask and takes a sip. He offers it to me, and I take it but don’t drink. His fingerprints left a whiskey-soaked scent on the metal, and I just need a sniff to give me courage.
When I hand the flask back, our fingers touch, and the tingles spread through me.
Now or never.
“You know what I need?” I say as casually as I can.
“What?”
“A good hard fuck.” I shift my hips under the blanket.
He chokes mid swallow.
“It’s been a while. Since…” I trail off. I don’t need to say “since the shifter slavers took me.” He gets it.
He coughs a few times to clear his throat. “Same for me.”
“Really?”
He shrugs.
“That’s a long time.” He was stolen by slavers and sold to a company called Data X quite some time ago. More than a few years.
“You’re tellin’ me.”
I look up at the moon. His scent still clings to my lips. I imagine his scent on my skin, and my body begins to ache. A pleasant, prickling need pulsing between my legs.
In a rush of energy, I push off the blanket and straddle him, my hands finding his sturdy shoulders.
Then I freeze. His eyes shine bright green.
“This is a bad idea, lass.” But his hands come to my waist. I’m wearing my usual black cropped leather jacket and wide leg black jeans. One of his thumbs brushes my bare skin, and I shiver with pleasure.
“We could forget all that. Just for tonight.” I lean in and do what I’ve been wanting to do since the moment I met him. I nuzzle his temple, inhaling his rich scent, then touch my tongue to the tip of his ear.
His breath shudders out of him. His cock hardens, giving me a target to rock over. “Just for tonight?” His voice is thick. “Better make it count.” He grips my hips harder, pulling me fully over the bulge in his jeans. Right on the ridge of his hard cock.
I grind down and rub myself against him. This movement alone would be enough to get me off. I work my hips forward and back, scrubbing harder and harder until he stops me.
“Easy, lass. We’ve got all night.”
Right. I nod, panting.
I grin and unzip my jacket and tug up my crop top. I’m wearing a basic black bra, but Declan’s eyes light up like I’m a lingerie model. I arch my back a little to show off my breasts. They’re small but well curved.
Then I remember my scars. The moonlight slanting through the open side of the treehouse shows them clearly–the slash marks made by a careless hand.
Fingers around my neck, squeezing, harsh cigarette smoke blown in my face, fiery pain erupting in my belly. “You’ll behave now won't you?”
I blink, coming back to myself. The night is clear and cold, and the moonlight’s unkind to my scarred skin.
Declan’s expression has darkened, but his hands tighten on my waist, as if to reassure me. The heat of them grounds me to the here and now.
There’s a bitter edge to my scent now, too.
“I got in trouble.” It takes a lot to hurt a shifter, and very rarely do we scar. But when your captors use vampire blood… “But I’m okay.”
“You are, aren’t ya?” He holds my gaze, seeming to understand what I endured, who I became as a result of that fucked up experience. There’s no pity in his expression, only radical acceptance. Something I haven’t experienced at this level before.
My spine lengthens, chin lifts. That sense of panic that tends to crowd me evaporates under Declan’s honoring. “Yes.” My heartbeat has slowed. I press my hand over his, moving it a little, so his fingers span my stomach.
He strokes the longest scar. His touch feels so good, it aches.
No one else has ever touched me here, not since I was cut on. For a long time, I was too raw, too wounded to let anyone touch me. I thought it would feel like being flayed open again, and it is, but it feels good. Like lancing a wound to let the healing begin.
Declan’s still stroking me, his fingers reverent. And although my marks are ugly, the sight of them framed by his rough fingers is unbearably beautiful.
“It was punishment. They wanted to mark me,” I tell him. “Ruin me.”
“They failed. You’re fecking beautiful, lass.”
I lean in and press my lips to his, so he’ll shut up. He tastes like whiskey and cold nights and secrets, and I moan a little, wriggling closer to his heat, so I can taste more.
We kiss for a while, tongues tangling. I want to lick him inside and out.
“It’s okay.” He pulls up his shirt. It takes me a moment to realize what he’s showing me. His chest is compact with muscle, well formed but pockmarked in spots, with long raised seams where a knife or a scalpel cut him.
He’s got scars, too.
“May I?” I wait until he nods to touch his skin, he shivers and goosebumps break out, but he lets me stroke his scarred flesh.
On impulse, I lean forward and plant a kiss on the ragged skin.
He shudders. “Fiona...” He cups my cheeks and guides me back up to face him. It’s his turn to kiss me, distracting me from touching him in a place that is too vulnerable.
His whiskers rasp against my face. I pull his head down to my breasts, needing the scrape on my sensitive skin, the pain in counterpoint to the overwhelming pleasure.
I reach for his jeans. “You’re wearing too many clothes.”
He pushes me to my back, laying me out, so his mouth can more easily reach more of my bare skin. My hands are busy searching for the button of his jeans. He pauses in kissing my breasts to help me. Once his zipper is down, I shove him off me and straddle him again. We’re rolling in the leaves, and I don’t even care.
He pulls down my bra, rising up to suck on my nipples. The sensation shoots through me, so delicious, I grab his head and hold it in place. I grind down on his bared cock.
“I need you inside me.”
He growls, and the vibration almost makes me come. I reach for him, palming his length and jacking it. He’s already hard and ready, and I’m soaked enough to take him.
He tugs at my jeans, and I rise up enough for him to ease them down. It’s awkward as hell, so I let him roll us again, so he can work my jeans down my legs. I kick them off, shuck off my underwear, and tackle him to his back. I need to be on top for this, and he lets me, running his hands up the back of my thighs as if to soothe me.
I wriggle until he’s at my entrance, but when I try to ease him inside, the fit is too tight.
“Oh fuck,” I gasp.
“Easy,” he murmurs. “I’m in nae hurry.”
I dig my nails in his shoulders. “I want it,” I whine. As soon as I stretch a little further, I push down.
“Oooh,” we both groan together. He nuzzles my face, nipping at my lips. His hands cup my ass, not pushing, just holding me. I shift my hips and sink down a little further.
We’re chest to chest. I tuck my face into the crook of his neck and shoulder, letting myself adjust around him.
“So good.” My teeth chatter, but I’m not cold.
He strokes my hair. “Aye, beautiful lass. Yer a wonder.”
I angle my face to kiss his jaw. He finds my lips, and we kiss like that, soft and easy, while his dick swells further inside me. Eventually I can let more of him in, and when he moves, he rubs against my inner walls with the perfect pressure. “Oh yes.”
He gives a little thrust, and I rock on him. It takes a few tries, but we find a rhythm, back and forth, back and forth, until his dick hits a spot deep inside me, and pleasure washes over me.
“Yes,” I hiss. “Again.”
We’re both on our sides now, facing each other. I wrap a leg around his hip, and he takes hold of my knee, hitching it up higher. The side position shouldn’t work, but we rock together in perfect sync, and it’s just right.
He hits another spot, and I claw at his back.
His eyes flash bright feral green.
My teeth ache, my fangs growing sharper. My animal is close to the surface, urging me to bare Declan’s shoulder and bite down. I bury my face into his shirt and suck in more of his scent instead.
He thrusts deep, and the pressure combined with the thick bittersweetness of his scent sends me flying. His shirt muffles my cry. Above me, he gasps with a sudden, surprised laugh, and follows me over the edge. His cock surges even deeper as he comes, setting off a wave of aftershocks that leave me shuddering in his arms. He bows me back, kissing me wildly–my cheeks, my chest, my jaw. He lingers a little longer with his lips at my neck, or so it seems to me, but eventually he finds my lips, and we kiss slowly, sweetly, while his hard-on grows softer inside me.
He reaches for another blanket, so he can pull it over us. It’s heavy and scratchy and perfect, trapping our feverish heat, so we’re warm all through. Declan wraps me in his arms, and I snuggle closer. I’d never guess he would be a cuddler.
Hell, I’d never guess I’d be a cuddler, either.
“That was nice.”
He huffs, and I amend my statement. “More than nice.” His warm weight beside me feels so right.
I smile at the stars. There’s a bite to the night air, but it’s cozy under the blanket. “It’s gorgeous up here. I thought it would be weird with all the werebears around, but it’s not so bad.”
“I thought you’d be living near the Tucson pack. Safer.”
I shrug. “We prefer a less urban area. At least I do, and Allison doesn’t mind.”
He says nothing, but I feel like telling him more. “My animal doesn’t like being around most shifters. Doesn’t trust them. My old pack sold me to the slavers.”
“Feckin’ A.”
“Yeah.” I blow out a long stream of smoky air. I’ve never talked to anyone about this, but it’s easy to talk to Declan. “Guess I didn’t fit in with them as well as I thought.”
He’s silent, but I sense he understands what it’s like not to fit in. “What about you?” I ask. “Are you guys part of any pack?”
“Naw. We keep tae ourselves.”
“Safety in numbers,” I mock-scold him.
He raises a bushy black brow. “I could say the same ting to ya, lass.”
I grunt. He’s right. Allison and I would be safer in a pack. But even if we could find shifters we could trust, what sort of pack would have us? The wolves in Tucson are nice, but we don’t really fit in. Our animals can tell the difference between tolerant pity and true acceptance.
I wish we could be like werebears. They tend to be loners, but their animals are so violent and massive that safety isn’t a problem. Not even vampires fuck with werebears.
My animal is pouting, so I switch my train of thought.
“So what do you want for Christmas?”
“Why? Ya gonna be my sexy Santa? Make all my dreams come true?”
I make my voice low and breathy. “Maybe…”
He inhales sharply, and the cold air turns thick with a musky sweetness. “Wish it would snow.”
“It’s cold enough. Any colder, and I wouldn’t be out here with you. And aren’t you glad I came out here?”
“Aye, lass. And I tink ya know that.” He shifts a little and his cock prods my leg.
I raise my brows. “Again?”
He laughs again, and the delicious sound makes my inside squeeze. “Why not?”