Chapter 18
Selene opened her eyes. She lay on her back, sheets twisted around her bare limbs. The familiar scent of her laundry detergent drifted into her nose. Her own sheets. Her cheek rested against her own pillow. Her body nestled comfortably in her own bed.
The room was bathed in the dusky orange and rose hues that marked dawn.
Selene felt a little dazed but not hungover.
While whatever she’d drunk last night had done something to her, it hadn’t caused nasty, lingering side effects.
She could almost believe that she had dreamed up the entire episode.
But the fact remained that she was naked.
And then there was that other fact of the man in bed with her. Who was also naked.
She knew he was naked because she could feel his skin molded against her own, every inch of his bare body and his hard muscles, and the scratch of his chest hair. He had one leg draped over hers like a long, thick coil of rope that bound their bodies together. She swallowed and glanced at him.
Fenris still slept. His lips were slightly parted, and Selene could feel his warm breath feather over her bare shoulder.
Okay, Selene. Your first pagan holiday where you might have traveled to another plane of existence where you had mind-bendingly good sex with the werewolf pack leader who is now in bed with you. So much for keeping your distance. Next move?
Her gaze wandered to the bedside clock. Seven. She began to plot her escape, stealing another glance at her unexpected guest. She wasn’t going to abandon Fen. She just needed a few minutes alone to get her head on straight.
But her heart missed its next beat.
Fen’s eyes were open and locked on her. His gray irises were dark as gathering storm clouds.
Simultaneously and inexplicably, Selene wondered what she should say and what she looked like. On the latter count the best she could hope for was mussed, the worst depraved; on the former she wavered between “good morning” and “how the hell did we end up in my bed?”
Before she could speak, he moved swiftly, positioning his body to hover over hers. His eyes perused her naked form before returning to meet her gaze. The look he gave her was heated yet playful. His head dipped, and his mouth moved across her neck, his tongue exploring the hollow of her throat.
Fen’s hands were on an expedition of their own, skimming down her torso, tracing the swells at the sides of her breasts.
His lips stroked over her collarbone, and he kissed lightly over her heart before his hands moved to cover her breasts.
She gasped when his thumbs grazed her nipples, then his fingers teased them with gentle tugs.
The gasp became a moan when he took the tip of one breast into his mouth.
Her mind still struggled with what had taken place the night before, but her body remembered very well, and it was clear Fen’s body remembered too. Selene heard her own sigh and felt her pelvis arch into him, begging for his attention.
I need to stop this and talk to him. We need to talk.
“Fen, wait.”
He instantly became still. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” she assured him. “I’m just trying to get my bearings after last night.”
“I understand. Take whatever time you need, Selene.” He smiled at her, his gaze moving slowly over her features. “You are so beautiful.”
She was suddenly, inexplicably shy, considering the intimate night they’d shared. “So are you.”
She looked up into his gray eyes and marveled at the depth of emotion she found there.
His expression made her shiver, sparked heat low in her body, even though she was trying very hard to stay calm.
Need curled in her abdomen, made her thighs quiver.
She closed her eyes, remembering the moonlight, the grove.
She had never screamed like that. And the way she was responding so quickly to him told her she could reach that peak easily if he took her again. Then she remembered where she was.
Her eyes flew open, wide and alarmed. “Oh my god, Allie!”
She sat up and started to scramble across the mattress.
Fen laughed and caught her wrists, towing her back.
“She’s not here.”
“Where is she?”
“I asked Josh to take her out for the day,” he said.
He dropped her wrists and slid his arms around her waist. He pulled her against him, and she could feel how hard he was.
Wow. Crusades old or not, the man has stamina.
“I didn’t want us to be disturbed.”
She struggled to concentrate even as her body betrayed her. It helped if she didn’t meet his eyes.
“Did she know you were here?”
“No,” he said. “We didn’t arrive until the early morning hours. Allie was asleep. I asked Josh to wake her for breakfast and to explain that you’d likely sleep for some time due to the late night. She doesn’t know I stayed with you. I thought you’d want to speak with her yourself.”
“Thank you for that,” Selene replied, wondering how she could even begin to explain this to Allie.
Fen leaned in to kiss her.
“Wait.” She put a hand on his chest and tried to create space between them.
It wasn’t easy. She desperately wanted him to touch her, to have his hands and mouth on every inch of her skin.
Pulling away from him went against every nerve of her being.
Something inside her needed their bodies to be locked together again, hunting that shared ecstasy.
But they really did have to talk.
“What is it?” he asked, letting her inch away.
She forced herself to meet his eyes and found his expression slightly injured and full of concern. That wasn’t what she wanted.
“I need . . .” She took a deep breath. “Fen, what happened to me last night? How did we get here?”
Her memories from the ceremony and the grove were clear. After that, things got hazy.
“You were in the thrall of the goddess, her vessel,” he said. “And I walked in the shadow of the god as the hunter.”
“The thrall?” she frowned. “But how? Was I drugged?”
She remembered the sweet golden liquid she’d drunk just before the ceremony began. The girl who’d given it to her had said it was mead with herbs. But Selene didn’t know what those herbs were or how they might have altered her state of mind.
His eyes hardened. “Of course not. Is that what you think of us? Of me?”
“No,” she said quickly. “That’s not what I meant. There was never a time I didn’t know what was happening, or what I was doing. It’s just . . .”
She struggled for words. Fen looked deeply offended.
“I seemed to be in my body, but I don’t know how I did what I did, even though I chose it.
And I did choose. I remember that. But I don’t understand where the words I said came from.
” She pulled her lower lip between her teeth.
“I’ve never felt anything like that. And I was given a drink. Did that do something to me?”
The tension in Fen’s expression eased. “The mead you drank was infused with herbs that enhance the divine aspect of existence already within you. It simply made you more aware of that which is usually unseen—the secrets beyond the veil. When you accepted your role, the goddess spoke through you and acted through your body. Just as the god moved in me.”
She couldn’t stop her smile, despite her worry. “So you were a god last night?”
“Yes,” he replied. “Such is the rite of Beltane.”
Her smile faded. “Wait. That happened and—oh my god, did we have sex in front of all those people?”
She bolted upright, dragging a sheet over her naked body as if that could erase the fact that a throng of paranormals had witnessed her taking her dress off.
Fen shook his head. “They saw you invite me to the altar and invoke the goddess, but in the grove we were alone. Everything that transpired there belongs only to us.”
She felt the color draining from her cheeks. “Thank god. I am not an exhibitionist.”
“Neither am I.” He chuckled.
“I don’t know how to accept that I took part in it at all.” She shuddered at the idea that she’d gotten naked with Fen on a stone slab in the middle of the woods with most of the town looking on.
“You must see the divine that moves around you and through you, those forces that guide us all.” He reached for her, but she shrank from him.
“Selene.” His voice was soft but chiding.
“I should at least have been asked,” she insisted, then frowned.
But she had been asked.
Choose.
The word had been so clear. That, she did remember.
But why had she continued with the rite after placing the crown on Fen’s head?
She could have stopped it there. She’d understood that was an option, but she hadn’t.
Why had taking the next step felt so right?
So necessary? In the light of day, her reasoning seemed much less clear.
Stubbornly, she continued. “I could have been told what would happen before it all went forward.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” he said. “There are many ways the ritual can proceed. The choice belonged to you, and you chose the path of the sacred union.”
He suddenly smiled. “We were brought together in the rite. It was a great blessing.”
“You’re talking about things I don’t believe in.” Selene slowly shook her head. “None of that is part of my life.”
He moved too swiftly for her to dodge and caught her in his arms. She surrendered to the warmth of his body for a moment, resting against him.
He felt so good. Why couldn’t he have been a park ranger?
Or a teacher? Anything but a werewolf pack leader.
She knew she was too tangled up in him to walk away, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t go down fighting.
“You have the mark of the goddess.” He nuzzled the small tattoo on her shoulder. “You have already honored her and acknowledged her place in your life.”
The tattoo was old, faded. The woman in the indie ink parlor a few blocks from UC Berkeley had told eighteen-year-old Selene that it was the moon in three phases. And something else . . . maiden, mother, crone. Oh shit.