Chapter Ten
Boone
I wake drowning in heat.
Not the fire. Not the quilt. Wren. Straddling me, her thighs caging my hips, her hands splayed over my chest, her hair spilling down to trap us in our own world.
The claiming mark on her neck is stark against her skin, and seeing it—my mark, my bite, my mate—hits me so hard my fingers bruise her hips before I’m even fully awake.
“Morning,” she says.
Her voice is sleep-rough, wicked, and she rolls her hips once, slow, deliberate, and dragging pleasure through both of us.
I’m already hard inside her, soaked and hot, her slickness coating my cock as she rocks down, taking me deep.
Her pussy clenches around me, fluttering, greedy for more.
The sight of her, hair wild, lips parted, and cheeks flushed, makes every thought burn away except for the urge to fuck her until she can’t remember her own name.
Jesus fucking Christ.
“You started without me,” I manage.
“You were sleeping.” Another roll of her hips and her eyelids flutter. “I got impatient.”
My wolf claws up, wild and starving, and I let him. There’s no reason to hold back. She’s mine. The bond is sealed. The claiming mark on her throat proves it, and the matching scar on my shoulder throbs with every move she makes.
I grip her hips tighter and thrust up.
Her head tips back and the sound she makes, half gasp, half moan, shatters what’s left of my control. I sit up, one arm banding around her waist, the other braced behind me. Her legs lock around my back, the angle shifting, driving me deeper. Her nails dig into my shoulders, sharp and desperate.
“Look at me,” I say.
Her head drops forward. Her eyes are dark, pupils blown, and lips parted. She looks wrecked. Beautiful. Mine.
“Good?” I ask.
“Don’t stop.”
I don’t. I set a slow rhythm, deep and grinding. Every thrust pulls a sound from her that I feel in my bones, echoing through the bond. Pleasure and heat and the razor edge of want curl between us like smoke.
“You feel incredible.” My mouth finds her jaw, her neck, the claiming mark. I run my tongue over it, and she shudders, clenching around me. “So tight. So wet. All mine.”
“All yours,” she breathes.
“Say it again.”
“Yours. I’m yours.”
My wolf purrs. Actually fucking purrs, smug and satisfied.
I flip her, and her back hits the mattress, and she laughs, bright and breathless, before I swallow it with my mouth. I drive into her, and the laugh becomes a moan. Her legs wrap around my waist, ankles locking at the small of my back, pulling me deeper.
“Harder,” she says.
I brace my forearms on either side of her head and give her everything she asks for. The bed frame groans, but I don’t care. The world shrinks to Wren—her scent, her heat, the sounds she makes when I hit the right spot, the way her fingers knot in the sheets.
I murmur against her ear. “You’re fucking loving this.”
“You know I am.”
“Tell me.”
She makes a frustrated sound. “I like it. I like, fuck, right there...”
I angle my hips and drive deep. She shatters, back arched, mouth open, my name ripped from her throat.
The bond explodes with her release, dragging me under with her.
I bury myself to the hilt and come so hard everything goes white, barely catching myself before I crush her.
My face presses into her neck. The claiming mark is warm against my lips.
We’re both gasping, sweat-damp, tangled together.
“Okay,” Wren says after a long silence. “That was a good morning.”
I huff a laugh against her skin. “Just good?”
“Exceptional. Outstanding. Multiple gold stars.”
I lift my head. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes shining, her mouth curved in a smile so satisfied it borders on obscene.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hey.” I kiss her lips softly.
“Your wolf is being smug right now.”
“He earned it.”
She laughs and shoves my shoulder. I roll onto my back, dragging her with me. She sprawls across my chest, chin on her hands, studying me like she’s trying to memorize every line.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing. Just looking.”
“Looking at what?”
“At you. Being relaxed.” She pokes my jaw. “It’s weird. You have expressions now.”
“I’ve always had expressions.”
“No, you had one expression. Stance Twelve—Murderously Annoyed. This is new.”
I catch her hand and press a kiss to her palm. “You broke something in me.”
“Your stamina?”
“My dignity.”
She grins, and I want to kiss it off her face, but my stomach chooses that moment to growl loud enough to echo off the walls.
“Hungry?” she asks.
“Apparently.”
She rolls off me and grabs my flannel, the one she stole two days ago. Now it smells like her. Like us. The bond hums, satisfied with the scent of both of us tangled together.
I pull on boxers and a t-shirt and head for the kitchen. Wren perches on the counter, bare legs swinging, while I crack eggs and lay bacon in the skillet. She steals a piece of bacon before it’s perfectly crispy and I let her.
“You’re spoiling me,” she says.
“You need to eat. The bond burns energy.”
“How do you know that?”
“Caine told me. When he and Peyton mated, he ate everything in the pack hall for a week.”
She grins. “So I have that to look forward to?”
“You have me feeding you constantly for the foreseeable future.”
“I can live with that.”
I plate the eggs, bacon, and toast, and we eat at the kitchen table. Her bare knee nudges mine under the table. The contact sends warmth through the bond—steady, easy, the fire banked but still burning.
She’s licking bacon grease off her thumb when the knock comes. Not Calum’s shorthand. Not Raine’s assault. Three measured knocks. Alpha rhythm. I’m on my feet before the third one lands.
Caine stands on the porch, Peyton beside him, both dressed for formal business, their expressions carved from stone. My wolf rises, and the bond tightens.
“Boone.” Caine’s voice carries no warmth. “We need to talk.”
I step back and they enter. Peyton’s gaze finds Wren, and something softens in her face, a flicker of warmth before the iron returns.
Caine doesn’t sit. He stands in the center of my cabin, legs braced, hands clasped behind his back.
Alpha stance. The stance he uses when delivering news that will change things.
“Ashstone crossed the border thirty minutes ago,” he says and the cabin turns cold.
Wren’s hand finds mine, and I squeeze tight, and the bond flares with her fear and my rage, tangled and raw.
“How many?” I ask.
“Alpha Mercer, Dax, six enforcers, and two elders.” He pauses. “And a neutral adjudicator. Elder Gavin from the Stone Creek pack.”
My stomach drops. A neutral adjudicator means a formal challenge. Not a negotiation. Not a border dispute. A full legal challenge to the mate claim.
“They’re requesting scent verification,” Caine continues. “Formal. Witnessed. Binding.”
Wren’s fingers turn to ice in mine.
“They’re claiming the bond is fabricated,” Peyton says quietly. “That the claiming mark was forced.”
The words hit the bond like a hammer. Forced. They’re calling me Dax.
“They’re calling me a coercer,” I say flatly.
“They’re throwing everything at us right now,” Caine says. “Every angle. They want Gavin to scent Wren independently. If he finds the bond weak or contested, he can recommend the claim be dissolved pending council review.”
“And if he finds the bond real?” Wren asks.
“Then they have no legal standing, the claim holds, sanctuary holds, and Ashstone leaves with their tails between their legs.”
The bond pulses between us. Strong. Sealed. Undeniable. But the blocker, still crawling through her system after days, could muddy everything. Could make Gavin hesitate. Could give Dax an opening.
“When?” I ask.
“Noon. The clearing behind the pack hall.”
Four hours. I look at Wren. Her jaw is set and her eyes burn fiercely. But I feel her pulse through the bond, fast and frantic, like a bird slamming itself against a cage.
“We’ll be ready,” I say.
Caine holds my gaze. “Boone. If Gavin finds any hint of coercion...”
“There isn’t any.”
“I know that. But Gavin doesn’t. And Dax will do everything he can to make it look like there is.”
The message is clear. Control. Composure. No snarling, no growling, no threatening to rip Dax’s throat out, no matter what he says. I nod once.
Peyton touches Wren’s arm. “You won’t be alone.” Wren nods, but her hand is still freezing in mine.
They leave, the door closes, and the silence crashes back. Wren pulls her hand free and stalks to the window. Her shoulders are rigid. The claiming mark on her neck stands out above the flannel collar, dark and fresh and impossible to miss.
“He’s going to try to use the blocker against us,” she says.
“Maybe.”
“Not maybe. Definitely. If Gavin scents me and the herbs are still muddling things...”
“The claiming mark is real. The bond is sealed. No herb can hide that.”
“You don’t know that.”
I cross the room and stand behind her. She doesn’t turn, but she doesn’t flinch when I set my hands on her shoulders.
“Look at me,” I say.
She turns and her eyes are bright. Not with tears, but with fury. Good. I’d rather fight beside her anger than her fear.
“Whatever happens at noon,” I say, “Dax Mercer does not get to take you. That is not an outcome I will allow.”
“Boone...”
“I’m not talking about brawling with him. We’ll defeat him with evidence, with truth, with the strength of our bond. And if that’s not enough, then I’ll challenge him openly for you.”
She lifts her chin. “Then let’s make sure there’s nothing left to doubt.”
I feel the change in her before she speaks. The fear burns off, replaced by something sharper. The bond tightens between us, and when she lifts her chin, my wolf answers.
Four hours. I should be strategizing. I should be planning. I should be doing anything except looking at her in my flannel shirt with her hair messed up and my mark on her throat, and that look in her eyes, the one that says she’s done running.
She crosses the cabin. Grabs the green dress Raine brought, the one that falls off her shoulders and makes my brain short-circuit, and holds it up.
“I should get dressed.”