Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
“Kyre, stop!”
My voice cracked with strain. I’d been screaming since the moment he dragged me out of the Lykaon’s Hall. I’d shouted at the top of my lungs the whole way through the village. I’d probably woken up half the pack at this point, but Kyre didn’t seem to care about any of that.
He still wasn’t listening to me.
Jaw set and eyes fixed straight ahead of him, he moved forward with a sense of unrelenting determination. And he didn’t stop until we reached his family cottage.
Only once inside did he let go of my hand, and even then, it was only to bark and order at me.
“Gather your things.” He gestured toward the bedroom.
“Kyre, what are you talking about? What things?” My brows scrunched together in confusion. “The only things I came here with were the clothes on my back, and you shredded half of those.”
The way his gaze flashed to the side, I got the sense that he was so upset that he’d forgotten about making rags out of my jeans.
“Then…then grab what’s left,” he snapped. “I’m taking you to the Wall, and I don’t want any reminders of you here when I get back.”
I flinched at his bitter words.
“You don’t mean that. You’re just upset and confused.” I knew it because I was, too. Who wouldn’t be after discovering that kind of earth-shattering news? “But if you’d just—”
He roared, a gut-wrenching cry of frustration, the sound somewhere between a bear and a lion, and infinitely more terrifying than either. Caught off guard, I stumbled back a step.
“Don’t think because you’ve slept by my side these past few days that you know me, kirre,” he shouted. “You don’t, and once I toss you back to the other side of the Wall, you never will.”
Three days ago, his show of temper would have had me curled up in a ball, begging for mercy. But not anymore.
Maybe that puffed-up Lore Keeper was right. Maybe I had changed.
Because now I had hardly any trouble lifting my head and meeting Kyre’s angry stare. Feet firmly planted on the ground, I shook my head.
“Bullshit,” I said.
Kyre blinked. “What?”
“You heard me,” I said. “Everything you just said is absolute and total bullshit.”
“Careful, Sophia.”
His rumbling growl carried across the stone entryway, bouncing off the walls. As warnings went, it was a formidable one…but to my ears, it had lost its bite.
“Or what?” I shot back. “You’ll make another big noise?”
His moss green eyes narrowed to slits. His shoulders pulled back as his chest pushed forward.
“Go get your things,” he commanded.
I crossed my arms and shook my head. “No.”
His face started to turn red. “I won’t ask again.”
“Good,” I said. “Because I’ve made it clear I’m not doing it. Now talk to me like a damn adult.”
He responded by slamming his balled fists into the stone wall behind him hard enough to send a shower of rock dust down to the floor. Even for an alpha like him, that had to hurt.
“We don’t have time for this,” he snarled. “You heard the Lore Keeper. Your nature is changing. And it will keep changing every minute you spend with me here in the Wilds.”
“He also said there’s no guarantee that it will go back to normal if I return to the city.”
“That’s why you have to go now,” Kyre insisted. “Before the change progresses any farther.”
“You mean, before you get sick of ripping into pillows and bite into me instead.”
“I won’t be able to hold back forever, Sophia.” His glower darkened. “Every time it gets harder and harder to control the urge.”
I’d had a feeling…because I’d started to want it too.
Just more proof that the Keeper was right. My nature was changing.
But that didn’t mean I was going anywhere.
“Fine,” I said. “So we’ll stop sleeping together if it will make you feel better.”
His glare made it clear he wasn’t a fan of that solution.
“It’s too late for that,” he said. “Now that I’ve tasted you, there’s no going back. The only way I’ll be able to resist your pull is if you’re hundreds of miles away. Even then, I’m not sure how I’m going to cope.”
Damn. Did he really find me that irresistible?
Maybe…because now that I thought about it, wasn’t that how I thought of him?
Looking away, I tried to imagine my first night back in Hollywood. How would it feel, climbing back into my cold, narrow bed? Lying awake and listening to the hum of the streetlights outside my window? Wondering what Kyre was doing. What he was thinking. What he was feeling.
All while my own heart and soul slowly dried up and died inside my chest.
“Well, we are just going to have to figure something out because I’m not leaving the village,” I said, then quickly amended. “At least, not until Felicity arrives.”
“Yes, you are,” he snapped back. “You’ll just have to trust me to take care of your friend and bring her back to you when she arrives.”
But it wasn’t a matter of trust.
“You don’t understand,” I said. “What if I have another dream after I’m back in the kirre world? What if Felicity warns me of some other danger to your pack? I won’t be here to pass on that information.”
Kyre just shook his head, still unmoved.
“But you will be safe,” he said, voice cracking. “And that is all that matters.”
Suddenly, understanding shot through me like a lightning bolt.
“You’re afraid,” I said, barely believing my own words. But deep down, I knew it was true. “You don’t want me to stay because you’re afraid I’m not safe. You’re worried you won’t be able to protect me from the dangers here in the Wilds.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, shaking his head. “Fear isn’t an emotion alphas feel.”
I rolled my eyes. “Now who’s being ridiculous? Of course, you do. Fear is a primal emotion, and everyone knows there’s nothing more primal than the ferus.”
“I refuse to talk about this, Sophia.” He was holding himself so tightly that his lips barely moved.
“That’s fine. Just listen instead,” I said, taking a step toward him. “I get it. I’m smaller and weaker than everyone else you know. Even Hannah. It’s perfectly reasonable to worry that I might be seen by some as easy prey.”
His chest began to rumble again. “This isn’t helping, Sophia.”
“But here’s the thing,” I continued. “I am from Los Angeles. I’ve lived my whole life surrounded by danger.
I’ve been manhandled by drunks on the bus, had a gun shoved in my face during a convenience store robbery, been mugged twice, and I can’t even remember how many times I’ve been run off the road by angry drivers.
And that’s just in the last five years.”
“Are you trying to convince me that you’re tougher than I realize?” Kyre grumbled.
“No.” I shook my head. “The point is you think you’d be keeping me safe by sending me back to the kirre world, but there is no such thing as a safe place. I’d be going right back into a world filled with danger. The only difference is I’d be there without you.”
I watched as his mask of protective anger started to slip. His stony stare began to crack. Slowly at first, but once those beginning hairline fractures started to spread, they radiated out over his whole body.
“What are you saying?” he said, his voice every bit as trembly as mine had been just moments before.
“That I’d rather face unknown dangers by your side than return to the old ones alone.” The words flowed out without hesitation. Without a second thought. “I don’t want to go back to my kirre life. I don’t want to leave you.”
But Kyre just shook his head. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
Taking another step, I stopped right in front of him. So close that my chest brushed against his with every breath. Slowly, I raised my hand and brushed the back of my fingers down his bearded cheek.
“Yes, I do,” I said. “Just like I know who you are—my alpha and the man of my dreams.”
For a long moment, Kyre stared down at me. Not moving. Not blinking. Hell, I wasn’t even sure he was breathing.
Neither was I.
How could I worry about something as trivial as air when I’d just broken every rule of god and man? When I’d just done the unthinkable and admitted out loud that I didn’t just want an alpha, but that I needed him.
More than physical safety.
More than the only world I’d ever known.
More than anything.
And now all I could do was wait in anxious torment to hear if Kyre felt the same.
But I should have known he’d never answer…not with words at least. Talking wasn’t his way.
He preferred to show me.
In a flash, he reached out and pulled me into his arms. After our frigid argument, his body felt as warm as the morning sun. His heat enveloped me, his arms wrapping tight around my back.
“My love,” he said…exactly like in my dreams. But this time it wasn’t just his rumbly voice that moved through me. It was all the emotion in his voice—deep and strong and fierce.
The hardness in his eyes melted away, and for the first time in the waking world, I could see the truth crystal clear in his eyes. To him, I was precious. To him, I was the dream.
My heart hammered at the realization. My skin tingled with a vibrancy I’d never felt before. Just looking up into Kyre’s eyes, I felt more alive than I’d ever dreamed of before.
And that was even before he kissed me.
Sliding his hands up my neck, raking his fingers through my hair, he guided my lips toward his…and then he claimed them. In an instant, all of my relief shifted to hunger.
He lifted me up in his arms, and I clung to him tight, wrapping my arms around his neck and locking my legs over his hips.
I’d done this before, I realized—the endearment, the kiss, the embrace. Countless times, over and over, in my dreams.
The only difference was that we weren’t out in the open.
But why would we be? The thought fluttered through my mind as Kyre carried me through the cottage, back toward his bed.
Those parts of the dream had already come true.
He’d already crashed through the forest to find me. He’d already led the way to his lonely cabin door. And now he was taking me home to claim me—his real home.
Moving through the bedroom door, he went straight to the foot of the mattress…then let me go. The butterflies in my stomach all look flight at once as air rushed around me. As always, I landed in the center of the pile of soft linens and furs.
Closing my eyes, I laughed with joy. When I opened them again, it was to see him climbing up onto the bed, moving over me on hands and knees. In seconds, he was looming over my body on hands and knees.
Tiny bolts of electricity jolted through me in anticipation of the ecstasy that lay ahead.
Raising my hands, I slipped them beneath the velvety fur lining of his coat and pulled it off his shoulders.
Oh hell, yeah. I’d been waiting to do that for a while now.
Slowly, between passionate kisses, we undressed each other, our clothes landing on the stone floor with a familiar sound. Then, once we were fully naked, his lips moved down my body. From my mouth…to my neck…to my breast…to my belly…
All the way down to between my legs.
I closed my eyes and let my head fall back as his mouth found my clit. The tip of his tongue flicked, and his lips teased…and I sank back into pillows, my whole body over taken by sublime pleasure.
Heaven came to life inside me, as he explored every part of me, causing every one of my senses to come to life more vibrantly than ever before.
And once he’d drunk in the taste of my climax, he slid his body up alongside mine, spooning me from behind.
His cock teased my shivering pussy for just a moment before one thrust of his hips sent him delving inside.
I gasped at the shock of fullness as we started to move together. Rocking and grinding, the delicious friction of our bodies drawing up deeper into rapturous pleasure.
Over and over again, I shook and trembled around his shaft, my inner walls gripping him tight as I came again and again.
One peak blended into the other until I could no longer tell where one orgasm ended and the next began.
Until all conscious thought was pushed from my head, and I was left floating on a sea of pure sensation.
Only then did I feel Kyre’s hands cup my shoulder, bracing me and holding me tight as his lips found the back of my neck.
His body shuddered, surging forward into me, as a sting of pain pierced the back of my neck.
His bite.
A line crossed that there was no going back from. My life changed forever.
But the thought didn’t scare me. Instead, a warm sense of fulfillment settled deep into my chest as if something sacred and profound had just taken place. Something that pale words could never adequately express.
I let go and allowed this new sensation to overtake me, binding my heart to Kyre’s, as surely as his knot was currently tying our bodies together.
Contentment.
That’s what this new feeling was, I realized.
That rare, perfect feeling that everything on the inside was right, even if the outside world was falling apart.
That’s what Kyre gave me.
That was home.