Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
“I’ll go after him,” I say, getting to my feet.
Dean looks at me, apologetic. “Sorry. I tried and tried, and if there was another way…”
I smile. “It’s okay. I knew from the start we were facing an uphill battle, and I was okay fighting it alone.”
“He would never let you do that,” Dayne says, holding my gaze. “And he’s right. I would never give Talis an option like this. It goes against who we are to put the women we live for at risk.”
“But I think Talis would do it if it meant keeping you and her family safe, wouldn’t she?” I ask him. “Even if you didn’t like it, she’d push to do it to protect the people she loves.”
Dayne nods, respect shimmering in his gaze. “She would.”
“And that’s why I have to do it. I brought this trouble here, and my future is with Vaden. I… I love him. If this keeps him safe, then I’ll do it.”
“You wouldn’t be doing it alone,” Jeremy assures me. “There is no part of this plan where you would be alone.”
“I know. If you can work out the kinks, I’ll go speak to Vaden. Maybe we can meet again tomorrow?”
“Agreed,” Luka says.
I turn to walk up the stairs to find Vaden and talk, though I have no clue how I’m going to convince him to let me go ahead with this plan. I just know I have to. Any other plan would put someone else at risk, and I can’t agree to that when this mess is mine.
“Go easy on him,” Dayne calls after me, re-capturing my attention.
I peer over my shoulder.
Dayne smiles at me. “He’s a good guy who was ready to start a fight with me that he couldn’t hope to win to protect his sister. That takes courage and heart. When we stop arguing, I can see us being friends.”
“Me too.” I head upstairs, leaving them to talk about how to put this plan in motion while keeping me as safe as they can.
Vaden wouldn’t want to stay in the house. I can picture him sitting by the lake, the way he was after he shifted in front of me for the first time.
I push open the front door, step out, and find Averie sitting on the porch stairs.
She turns to look at me. “I was watching a movie in the den when I heard you arguing downstairs. He’s gone to the lake.”
“I thought so.” Stepping out, I close the door behind me.
“He hasn’t told you yet, has he?” Averie asks as I’m walking past her.
I slow to look at her. “Who hasn’t told me what?”
“Vaden hasn’t told you about our dad.”
I hesitate, wanting to go after Vaden immediately, knowing he’s angry and probably emotional, but I’m curious about what Averie wants to talk about. She definitely wants to talk to me about this because she wouldn’t have left the movie to sit on the porch and stop me before I could go after Vaden.
“He said your dad died,” I say.
“There’s a little more to it than that. Can we talk for a bit?”
I glance toward the lake.
Averie smiles. “I won’t be long. Five minutes. Knowing Vaden, he could probably do with a couple of minutes to calm down if he’s as pissed as I think he is.”
She might have a point.
I take a seat on the top step of the porch. “Okay. What was the deal with your dad?”
“Our dad died because of me, and Vaden hasn’t stopped blaming himself.
It wasn’t his fault, but nothing I say convinces him otherwise.
That’s why he was so against you going through with Dean’s plan.
It’s not just a need to keep you safe because you’re his mate.
It’s fear of losing you the way we lost our dad. ”
“What happened?”
Averie lets out a sigh and looks toward the forest. “I was due to be mated to the alpha from a neighboring pack. There was no way out of it. And that alpha was… cruel. He would have killed me.”
I frown. “Couldn’t your dad refuse?”
She shakes her head. “The other pack was larger, and Pack Rowe would have died for it. I didn’t want my family to suffer for me, so I agreed.”
“But something went wrong.” It must have because she’s sitting beside me, and her dad was the one who died.
“My brother was never going to let me go through with it. I should have known it at the time, but I didn’t.
The same went for my dad and my pack. They’re family, and they would have rather died than let me walk into a union with a man who would kill me before the year was over.
My pack fought to give me a chance to run. ”
“And your dad died?”
She nods. “Vaden came looking for me to make sure I was okay. But he always blamed himself for what happened with our dad. There was nothing he could have done.”
“But you blame yourself for it too,” I say, hearing the guilt in her voice.
“I do, though not nearly as much as Vaden. Go talk to him.”
The door swings open behind us, and Fisher steps out, smiling at me. “Hey, Shelby!”
“Hey, Fisher. Sorry again about your house.” I apologized before, when he came into the kitchen after Savannah had given me a bunch of her clothes. He told me it was no big deal, and I could tell he meant it. But I still feel guilty, and I don’t think that feeling is going away anytime soon.
He waves a hand at me dismissively. “Not your fault. Let it go, okay?”
“I’ll try,” I say and get to my feet.
As I walk downstairs toward the lake, I glance over my shoulder, smiling when I see Fisher and Averie sitting together on the porch step, his arm around her shoulder.
Even though Vaden told me Fisher is a shifter, and there’s no way to tell just by looking at him, I keep searching for signs of his wolf. I never find any.
I was expecting a man by the lake; instead, there’s a big reddish-brown wolf.
My steps slow as I approach Vaden.
Clothes are scattered across the grass, making me wonder how many Vaden has that he can just leave out. I doubt he returned to the forest behind Fisher’s house to retrieve the clothes he hid in a tree when I first saw him.
The wolf—Vaden—looks over his shoulder at me.
I hesitate. “I know you’re not going to maul me, but my fight-or-flight instincts are really kicking in.”
He turns back to face the lake, lies down, and it’s the most relaxed, non-threatening position I think a wolf could do.
Taking it as a good sign, I walk over to him and sit down beside him, but not too close.
I know it’s Vaden, and he won’t hurt me, but the thought of sitting next to a wolf is still terrifying.
I stare out across the water, braced to run at the first hint of a growl.
The wolf settles its head on my lap, and I jump, my heart pounding.
It’s just Vaden. He would never hurt you, so just relax.
Taking a deep breath, I exhale to release the tension in my body, gazing at the stars reflected in the water from the night sky. “I know you want to protect me, but I have to do this,” I say.
Gently, I begin to run my fingers through Vaden’s soft, thick, and warm fur.
I never would have touched a wolf like this if Vaden hadn’t made me feel so safe.
When I’m with him, it’s as if no one can hurt me.
The safest I’ve ever felt. I lean into that feeling, and slowly, my instinctive fear of being mauled to death fades.
He emits a soft sound of pleasure, somewhere between a purr and a groan.
“I’m used to just enough. Just enough care and attention in foster care to survive.
Just enough food and money to get by. But I always wanted more.
More color, life, and love. And then I came here, and I was showered with so much.
And no one expected anything in return from me.
Not you, not Mart, who gave me a job after barely glancing at my references, not Dayne and his pack.
I need to do this for me because I know I can.
But I want to do it for the man I’m falling in love with, and this pack, who feel like more of a family than any I ever had. ”
Vaden lifts his head from my lap and backs up.
This shift comes more slowly than the last one, and I’m so glad it does, because he said the fast ones can hurt, and I never want him to hurt because of me.
When he’s human again, he sits beside me and tucks me close to him. He was warm as a wolf, covered in fur. As a human, his skin radiates heat.
“I can’t lose you, Shelby,” he says quietly.
“Averie told me about your dad,” I say in the same low voice. “I know why you wouldn’t want me to do this, but I need to. I don’t think I can do it without you, and I wouldn’t want to even if I could.”
He looks down at me, serious. “He died because of me.”
I cup his jaw. “He died protecting you and Averie, the way any mother or father would. It was his choice. Don’t take that away from him.”
He lowers his forehead to mine, his breathing slightly too fast. His expression is tortured. I know he’s thinking about losing me. About all the things that could go wrong. If it were me and he were about to do this, I would be thinking the same thing.
He lifts his head and looks at me. “At the first sign of trouble—”
“I will trample you and probably step on your tail running away,” I cut in, crossing my finger over my heart. “Promise.”
His lips twitch. “My tail?”
“Yep. But I won’t mean to.” I lift my hand to touch his mouth. “I really like that thing you do when you’re trying not to smile, but you really want to.”
“You do?” His voice is husky as he slowly lays me back on the grass. “In that case, I’ll have to remember to keep doing it.”
“Vaden…” My voice is breathy as he kisses my throat.
Overhead, the stars twinkle. It’s so beautiful and so damn peaceful here that I think I fell in love with this place as I was falling for this man.
“Yes, baby?”
“What are we doing out here?”
His hand slips under my shirt, pebbling my nipple and drawing a moan. “Well, I’m making love to my beautiful mate under the stars.”
“What if someone sees us?” I whisper.
His lips brush mine. “No one will see us.”
“But if someone—”
His searing kiss literally short-circuits my brain. When he pulls away, I just stare up at him, dazed.
“No one will come this way tonight. I want you on your knees, baby.”
My core clenches. “On my knees?”
“And screaming,” he whispers against my lips as he slides my sweatpants down my legs, taking my panties with them. “I want you screaming my name when you climax around my cock.”
Shit.
My breath hitches and my pussy spasms, as if he were thrusting into me.
Vaden puts his nose to my throat, drags in a deep breath, and groans. “I can smell you, Jane. I know exactly how wet you are.”
“Y-you can?” I stutter.
My body goes wherever Vaden wants to put me, and that’s on my hands and knees, his chest blanketing mine. His skin is so hot that I don’t need the pants he shoves off me or the shirt he pulls over my head.
His fingers delve between my thighs, a thick digit dragging along my wet pussy.
I whimper, widening my stance as his cock nudges me from behind.
“You smell like heat and so fucking ripe I want to put my mouth between your thighs and lick you again,” he growls into my ear.
My stomach muscles tighten. “Will you?” I whisper eagerly.
His palms slide over my hips. “Not this time. Not yet.”
He lifts my hips a little, pushing my front down as his cock nudges my core.
I’m so wet, so ready for him, there’s no resistance at all. My moan merges with his hungry groan as he pushes inward. Each thick inch stretches me in the most delicious way possible.
As the sound of my heartbeat fills my head, nothing else matters except Vaden sliding his cock into me, withdrawing, and sliding deep again.
His body covers me completely, caging me in, cradling my hips as he thrusts. He kisses my pulse, groans, and I whimper as his teeth graze the sensitive skin at my throat.
“I want to put my mark on you, Shelby,” he grunts, his hips moving faster as my climax edges closer. “Fuck. I need to mark you.”
His teeth are worrying my throat, catching the skin and working it over. My pussy contracts each time he does it, and he groans, thrusting faster and harder. Each action drives the other. I tilt my head, giving him more space as he pounds into me.
My body is shaking; my entire world is ending.
“Do it,” I moan, needing whatever feeling this is to never end.
He slams into me, over and over, his teeth clamp on my throat, and my body tightens around his cock.
“Vaden!” I scream, uncaring who hears.
I feel my body rippling around his, his desperate groan at my throat, and it shoves me into another hard climax that steals the breath from my lungs.
He drags my hips back against him, holding me close. And as his cock pulses inside me, filling me with heat, my knees lose all strength and I slump to the grass, Vaden following me down.