Ivy #2
My hindbrain shrieks all over again. I hate it. Hate that some stupid primitive part of me sees danger.
"It's just Wraith," I scold myself in a harsh whisper, trying to stack the kindling so it shields the baby flames from the rain. "Your alpha. Your mate. He would die before he hurt you. Chill the fuck out."
The rain starts in earnest just as I get the fire properly going. Within minutes, it's a downpour.
Bye, fire.
"Wraith!" I call out, having to raise my voice over the sound of rain on leaves. "We have to get out of the storm!"
He doesn't move.
I try a different approach, letting vulnerability creep into my voice. "I'm cold. And I'm scared. Please?"
I take a step toward the tent, but my foot slips in the slick mud.
The ground rushes toward me and—
Strong arms catch me.
He's there. Suddenly, impossibly there, moving faster than anyone should be able to move. One moment he's twenty feet away, the next he's holding me. The rain coming down runs over his sharp teeth and the exposed muscle of his jaw in rivulets.
"There you are," I whisper, reaching up to caress his scarred face.
Wraith flinches, those lost blue eyes blinking. His eyes clear for exactly three seconds—just long enough for panic to bleed in again, long enough for him to start trying to turn his face away from mine—and then they go dark again like fog rolling back in.
This is fucking awful.
It feels like I'm watching him surface from deep water only to sink back down. He's fighting his feral nature to stay with me, but other than the fact that he's still holding me, I can't tell if he's winning that fight.
I need him to win.
Gods, I need him to win.
Shifting my weight in his arms, he slips into the tent, ducking through the entrance. He sinks to his knees, setting me on the blanket, and slumps against the tent wall. Whatever void he's retreated into has already buried him again.
The space is barely big enough for both of us, but at least it's moderately warm with his body heat radiating off his skin. I crack a few glowsticks from the bag and eerie green light fills the tent. My inner omega flings itself around again like a stupid bird in a cage that's too small.
Outside, the rain pounds against the canvas with increasing viciousness, and I realize with growing dread that this storm is going to wash away our scent trail completely.
Thane will never find us in this.
We're alone out here.
Just me and my feral alpha and the dark.
I scoot closer to Wraith, seeking more of his warmth, but he pulls away again. For a moment, I'm afraid he's going to try to leave, and I catch his arm.
"Wraith, wait, please…"
Oh. He's just shrugging out of his hooded sweatshirt.
He drapes it over me and the movement causes my drenched silk scarf to slide completely off his face, pooling loosely around his scarred throat and chest.
He doesn't even notice, even when I stare for a second, which made him full-body recoil last time. He just sits there exposed, rain drumming above us, blue eyes so vacant they might as well be painted on. But when I slide under his arm and into his lap, he doesn't pull away.
I start purring.
I don't even mean to. It just happens. This soft, rumbling sound that omegas make to soothe distressed alphas, though I've never had reason to do it before.
Never had an alpha I loved.
My purr fills the tent, even over the pattering rain, as I stroke gentle circles on his solid chest and abdomen, following the ridges of scar tissue over solid dense muscle.
Gradually, so gradually I almost miss it, Wraith's expression shifts. His eyes focus slightly, like he's fighting his way back through layers of static, and his hand moves—sluggish, uncoordinated—to pull the scarf back up over his lower face with a low, miserable growl that shatters my heart.
He moves suddenly toward the tent entrance like he's going to leave, to walk back out into the storm and disappear forever.
"No!" I grab him. "Please don't go. Please."
He slowly looks back at me, and I see the question in his eyes even through the dissociative haze.
Why?
"Because it's still you," I whisper. "It doesn’t matter what you look like. You’re still the alpha who makes me feel safe. Still my mate. And I..."
The words stick in my throat, words I never thought I would ever say to an alpha. Words that feel too big, too soon, too everything.
But it’s the truth, and he needs it.
"I love you."
Every muscle locks up, and his eyes widen slightly.
I lean in and kiss him.
Sharp points press against my soft mouth. A canine catches my lower lip as I lean in deeper and blood wells immediately, copper flooding my mouth.
A low, desperate growl tears from Wraith's chest. His massive hand comes up to cup the back of my head and he pulls back slightly, eyes dazed, first flicking to mine, then laser-focusing on the blood I feel on my lip.
"Wraith?" I whisper.
He moves so fast I don't have time to react.
His head dips and his jaws part. His tongue curls out from between those sharp teeth, long and wet and hot as it sweeps away the droplet of blood in one long, unbroken line.
Without the normal confines of a mouth, I can see exactly how it moves, see the muscle flex and curl as it follows the trail of blood to my lip.
I gasp and my thighs clench involuntarily.
He freezes at my reaction, starting to pull back, but I catch his face in my hands, nearly cutting my palms on his teeth.
"No," I breathe. "It's okay. Please."
He growls, but his tongue returns to my skin. Without lips to guide or limit the movement, he has to be more deliberate, more careful. I can see every motion as his tongue traces along my jaw to find the source of blood on my lip, watch it navigate around his own sharp teeth.
My omega is practically rolling over in my mind, presenting herself with shameless need. The same instincts that are melting down about how scary he looks aren't just shutting the fuck up, they're purring as he lavishes attention on my throat.
His tongue doesn't stop there.
Still operating on pure feral instinct, he trails lower, following the line of my collarbone. His massive hands move to my waist, lifting me like I weigh nothing, repositioning me on the blanket as he lowers himself toward my pussy.
My inner omega is screaming.
DANGER. PREDATOR. TEETH.
I don't give a fuck.
I arch into him.
His hands shake as they drag my skirt down, clumsy and desperate, running on something older than thought.
When his tongue finds me I bite my own hand to keep from screaming.
There's no barrier of a normal mouth, nothing between me and the heat of him but the points of his teeth. The first drag of his tongue is almost curious.
The second one isn't.
My fingers fist in the blanket and my thighs fall open wider. He makes a low, hungry sound against me that I feel in my fucking spine.
"Fuck… Wraith…"
I crane my neck to see what he's doing.
His eyes are open.
But they aren't looking at anything. They're a flat grayish blue, completely empty, even as his tongue keeps lapping at me.
"Wait—"
I push up. My thighs start to close.
That's all it takes.
My skin gives against sharp teeth, high on the inside of my thigh, and I gasp at the bright hot line of pain and the blood already trickling down my leg from several small cuts.
The static drains out of his eyes between one breath and the next. They sharpen and focus, then drop to my thigh, to the red welling up out of my skin.
He's back.
Just in time to see what he thinks he's done.
His hands fly up to cover his face, a strangled sound ripping from his damaged throat. He scrambles backward so fast he nearly tears through the tent wall, desperately trying to hide himself from me, frantically fingerspelling the same words over and over one-handedly.
H-U-R-T… YOU.
H-U-R-T… YOU.
H-U-R-T… YOU.
"No!" I lunge forward and grab his arms. "Wraith, stop! It's okay!"
He's already trying to turn away, to flee into the storm, but I throw myself into his lap, wrapping my arms around his neck.
"Please," I beg him, pressing my forehead to his. "Please don't leave. You didn't hurt me. I promise. You're mine, Wraith. All of you. Your feral nature, your… your scars, everything, all mine. I love you."
But I can already feel him slipping away again. The panic is too much. His blue eyes start to cloud over, that terrible vacant look creeping back in.
"Wraith," I whisper, my voice breaking.
Thunder crashes overhead, and I curl against his chest, purring desperately like maybe I can call him back with sound alone. His heartbeat is steady under my ear, but everything else about him feels hollow. Empty.
I curl against his massive frame, nuzzling into his neck, breathing in his dark mountain forest scent that's gone heavy with anguish. I rub my face against his scars, all of them, scent-marking him with renewed urgency.
This broken, beautiful alpha is mine, and I need the whole world to know it. I need it embedded in his skin so deep that everyone can smell me on him.
My alpha.
My mate.
Mine.
I don't know how long we sit there. Me clinging to his vacant form, rain hammering the tent, both of us soaked and shivering.
Time becomes meaningless when you're waiting for someone to come back from wherever trauma has taken them.
"Room for one more?"
I nearly jump out of my fucking skin.
Thane's in the tent entrance, soaked to the bone, dark brown hair dripping and plastered to his face. He looks simultaneously gravely worried and surprised, like he wasn't sure he'd find me alive.
"Holy shit," I choke out, yanking my messed-up skirt back into place automatically, running on instinct. "Get in here before you freeze to death. How did you even find us?"
Thane hesitates like he isn't sure how to answer that, then crawls into the tent with a huge duffel bag slung over one shoulder, immediately making the space feel even smaller.
Three bodies in this tiny tent is... cozy. And two of the bodies are huge, one substantially larger than even other alphas.