Epilogue - Annabella
Three Months Later
I woke to the smell of coffee and the weight of Sam’s arm across my waist.
For the longest while, I didn’t move. Just lay there in the gray morning light, listening to his breathing, feeling the mate bond humming low and steady beneath my ribs. His scent everywhere, along with the faint tang of last night’s whiskey, threaded through sheets that smelled like both of us.
His room—our room now—looked different from the way it had three months ago. My boots by the door, tangled with his. A stack of my books on the nightstand. The moon pendant my mom gave me hanging from the corner of the mirror, catching the light.
Evidence of a life being built. Still strange, some mornings.
Today we left for the Council. The new Council with equal representation of humans, Shifters, and witches.
Something that had never existed, cobbled together from the wreckage of what was left after Kane died, the Wolf Council was taken over, and Simon Webster had been locked up in a human prison in Kansas.
I still didn’t know how I felt about that or him.
But he wasn’t going anywhere now I’d burned his magic out of him. I had time to work it out.
Gideon and Bethany Rose had already gone ahead; Bethany Rose to round up whatever Council members she thought were salvageable, Gideon because he'd appointed himself her bodyguard and nobody, including Bethany Rose, had been able to talk him out of it.
They'd fought about it for three hours. He'd won by pointing out he was going to follow her anyway, so she could either accept the company or spend the whole trip pretending he didn't exist. Knowing Bethany Rose, she'd chosen the latter and was executing it with terrifying professionalism.
Esme, Jem and Maxwell Bishop were meeting us at noon. We’d drive together, the founding delegation of something impossible, heading for something harder.
Downstairs, Sofia was singing. Off-key, as always, butchering some pop song while pans clattered. The smell of bacon joined the coffee. Sunday breakfast at the Shaw House, a tradition that had started sometime in the chaos after the battle and refused to stop.
Sam’s arm tightened.
“You’re thinking too loud,” he mumbled into my shoulder. “It’s Sunday. Thinking’s illegal on Sundays.”
“You made that up.”
“Pack law. Very serious. Ask Ryan.”
I snorted.
Sam propped himself up on one elbow, hair falling across his forehead, eyes still soft with sleep.
Three months, and the sight of him like this still did something complicated to my chest. He reached over and tucked the silver streak behind my ear.
Let his fingers trail down my neck, my collarbone, tracing the edge of his T-shirt where it had slipped off my shoulder in the night.
“You stole my shirt again,” he said.
“It’s comfortable.”
“It looks better on you.” His thumb brushed the bare skin of my shoulder. Back and forth. Slow. “Although, for the record, it’d look best on the floor.”
“That’s the worst line you’ve ever used on me. And last month you tried to seduce me while covered in swamp mud.”
“That was a tactical situation. And it worked.”
“It did not work.”
“That’s not how I remember it.”
“I was checking you for injuries.”
“With your tongue?”
I shoved his shoulder. He caught my hand before I could pull it back, pressed his mouth to the inside of my wrist. Slow.
Deliberate. His lips right over the pulse point, and I felt my heart rate kick up against his mouth.
The mate bond flared—warm, liquid, pooling low in my belly—and from the look on his face, he felt it too.
“Your pulse just spiked,” he murmured against my skin.
“I’m annoyed. Annoyance raises your heart rate.”
“That’s not what annoyance smells like.” His eyes lifted to mine. “That smells like you want me to keep going.”
Damn wolf senses. Damn mate bond. Damn Sam Shaw and his stupid mouth on my wrist and the way my whole body was responding like he’d flipped a switch.
“Maybe I do,” I said. “What are you going to do about it?”
He tugged my wrist, and I went—rolled onto him in one smooth motion, knees bracketing his hips, my hands braced on his chest. The sheet tangled between us for a second before I kicked it off the bed entirely.
Sam’s hands settled on my thighs. Warm. His thumbs traced circles on the inside, just above my knees, and even that—even that nothing touch—sent a line of heat straight up my spine.
Three months of this and my body still reacted to him like the first time.
My wolf settled. My magic sparked. The mate bond hummed warm and steady, threading his want through mine until I couldn’t tell who wanted this more.
“Hi,” he said. Looking up at me with that expression, the one underneath the humour. The one he used to hide behind jokes and deflection and the Felix mask, before I’d stripped all of it away and found the man beneath.
“Hi,” I said.
He sat up. The movement brought us flush, his chest against mine, his mouth level with my collarbone, and I felt him hard against me through the thin cotton of my underwear. His hands slid from my thighs to my waist, then up, pushing the hem of his T-shirt up my ribs.
I lifted my arms and let him pull it over my head.
The morning air hit my bare skin, and I watched his face change. Three months and he still looked at me like he was seeing something that shouldn’t exist. Like I was something impossible he’d been given and didn’t deserve.
His mouth found the curve of my shoulder. His tongue traced the lines of my body. I could feel myself starting to glow, responding to him, to the bond, to the slow roll of want building.
“You’re glowing again,” he murmured against my collarbone, full of self-satisfaction.
“Shut up.”
“Make me.”
So I kissed him. Hard. Bit his lower lip and felt the sound he made vibrate through his chest into mine. His hands tightened on my waist, pulling me down against him, and when I rocked my hips the friction was—fuck—delicious and not enough at the same time.
Sam groaned into my mouth. I did it again. Rolled my hips in a slow, deliberate grind, feeling every inch of him through the fabric between us.
“Take these off,” I said against his mouth, tugging at the waistband of his boxers. “Now.”
“Demanding.”
“Always. Problem?”
“Never.” He lifted his hips and I helped drag the boxers down, before he kicked them toward the floor.
My underwear followed, his hands hooking the elastic and sliding them down my thighs.
Then I settled back onto his lap and the feeling of him—hot, hard, pressing against me with nothing between us—made me suck air through my teeth.
Sam’s head dropped back against the headboard. “You’re killing me.”
“You’ll survive.” I reached between us and wrapped my hand around his cock. Felt him jerk in my grip. “Shifter stamina, remember?”
“That’s—fuck—that’s not —”
I stroked him. I loved stroking him, feeling his heat, his smooth skin behind my palm.
I reveled in it, the feel of his cock, base to tip, my thumb sweeping over the head, and his whole body went taut beneath me.
His hands found my hips and gripped, trying to pull me onto him, and I resisted.
Let him feel the drag of my fist instead, watched his jaw clench, the tendons in his neck standing out.
I leaned forward and bit the muscle where his shoulder met his neck. His hips bucked.
“Annabella. Get on me, or I swear to —”
“Ask nicely.”
His eyes snapped to mine. Wolf-fast, he hooked one arm around my waist, the other bracing against the mattress, and the world flipped. My back hit the sheets and Sam was over me, between my legs, pinning me with his weight.
“You want to play games?” His mouth was at my throat, dragging down to my pulse point while his hands pushed my thighs apart. “Let’s play.”
He kissed down my body. Not slow—purposeful.
Mouth on my breast, tongue circling one nipple, teeth grazing until I hissed and my back curved off the mattress.
He didn’t linger. Kept moving. Down my ribs, across my stomach, his stubble scraping sensitive skin, and I could feel where he was heading and my whole body was already tightening in anticipation.
His mouth hit my hip bone. He bit down—not gently—and I swore.
“Sam —”
“Shh.” His breath against the inside of my thigh. “Just checking you for injuries.”
That bastard.
He settled between my legs like he had all morning.
Hooked one of my thighs over his shoulder, pressed the other open with his palm.
Then his mouth was on me and I stopped thinking.
His tongue found my clit and worked it with a focus that bordered on ruthless.
Slow, flat strokes that wound the pressure tight, then quick flicks that made my hips jerk off the bed.
He pinned me down with one arm across my hips and used the other to slide two fingers inside me, curling them against the spot that turned my spine to liquid.
I grabbed his hair. Pulled hard enough that he groaned against me, and the vibration of that sound shot through my entire body.
“Fuck—Fuck —!” My heels dug into his back. The mate bond was wide open and I could feel his satisfaction, could feel how much he was enjoying taking me apart. My magic was rising, silver-green light flickering across my skin, and I couldn’t control it because I couldn’t control anything right now.
He sucked my clit between his lips, his fingers still moving, still curling, and I felt the orgasm building—close, so close, a tight coil of heat winding tighter with every stroke —
He pulled back.
I made a sound that was not dignified. My hips chased his mouth and found nothing.
“What the—? Sam, if you don’t —”
He grinned. That infuriating, devastating grin, his chin slick and his eyes burning.
“Want me to fuck you?”
Did I? Hell yes.
“Yes!” I said, exasperated, desperate for him to touch me again.
“Ask nicely,” he said.
I stared at him. My chest heaving, my body vibrating, the orgasm he’d just stolen still pulsing at the edges of my nervous system.