Page 9

–Callum–

I HATED HOW much guilt Storm carried, not only because I didn’t understand where much of it came from but because she was my fated mate and deserved to be free of it. She deserved everything if I could only give it to her because she was one of the purest souls I had ever encountered.

Truth be told, I shouldn’t have touched her soft cheek when we’d sat by the fire together because I knew better. Knew it would only pull us closer when I should be trying to push her away because she insisted on going into exile with me. Worse yet, she would go into exile whether I liked it or not, even before I touched her, but still.

Physical contact only made things that much worse.

Or should I say that much better? Touching her was like touching the softest silk. The most supple skin. I wanted to drown in her. Own her as she owned me. I wanted to become one in a way I never had with another. And we would no matter what I ultimately wanted for her. There would be no keeping her free from me and the terrible sensation of being exiled.

Yet once we completed our Fated Mate Cycle, we would have each other and, hopefully, added strength to face Tadc. While I couldn’t speak to how powerful we might become together, I knew our Cycle was bound to happen quickly once it began. In some ways, I felt like we had been in Cycle our entire lives, just waiting to finally cross paths so we could at last become Fated Mates.

For at least the hundredth time since I’d sat beside her earlier, I tried not to act on the delicious scent she put off for me. Nothing had ever smelled so intoxicating, and it only grew stronger when she cuddled beneath my fur. Everything in me wanted to close the distance and pull her into my arms. I craved kissing her the way she was meant to be kissed, then spreading her thighs and claiming her before anyone else could.

Rationally, I knew I would have to prepare her for me and go slow, but the extreme lust I felt around her made it hard to think clearly. Hard to keep from imagining the look on her face when I finally took her and made her come alive in a way she never had before. Something I suspected she would do to me as well.

As I hoped it would, the scent of my furs helped her rest peacefully, or so it seemed at first, as she drifted off and smiled at something in her dreams. Soon, however, her finely arched eyebrows inched together, and the corners of her delectable mouth tugged down.

“No,”

she whimpered. “Go no further, little one. Turn around and go home.”

Seconds later, terrified, she belted out a scream.

Rushing over, I sat on the cot and gathered her in my arms, assuring the others telepathically that she’d been having a nightmare and was well because I felt Broderick’s alarm. Chanting my weapons aside, I pulled her more firmly against me, grounding her because I sensed she needed it.

“Shh,”

I murmured in her ear when she startled awake and clung to me. “’Twas just a nightmare, anamchara.”

I rubbed her back in a way I inherently knew soothed her. “All is well.”

“Is it, though?”

she asked hoarsely, pressing her cheek against my chest. “Because it doesn’t feel like it.”

She inhaled raggedly as if trying to gather herself and looked at me with a teary gaze. “Tadc may have done something to the grey pup, Callum. I was standing there in a forest where I’ve stood many times before in my dreams, and the grey pup was loose. He looked like he was tracking something. Before I could do anything, Tadc was on him.”

She swallowed hard. “I have no idea if he killed him or took him, but it doesn’t matter. Both are equally bad.”

“Was it one of your visions?”

I wondered, alarmed, because I knew her psychic abilities were strong, and much came to her in her dreams. I wiped away an escaped tear from her cheek. “Or mayhap ‘twas just worry about the pups’ safety in general?”

It meant a great deal that she cared about them so much. She was related to them via a bite, but it was more than that. Her ability to love and her driving need to protect not just kin but innocents, whether related or not, including the pups of my former mate, was admirable.

“I’m unsure if it was a vision or not. I can’t always tell.”

She searched my eyes for the answer. “What if it was, though? What if the grey pup is trying to track you? Why else would he have been out there alone and vulnerable?”

What she wasn’t saying, but I felt, was how fond she had been of him. She was charmed by all three, but she’d taken to the grey pup most because they were so similar. Both were shy and preferred the quiet peace of nature to people. Thus far, having not taken to his pack yet, he preferred time with his siblings or alone beneath the trees in the courtyard.

“Ceara would never allow the pups out of her sight, nor would any of the Wolves of Ossary, including your cousins,”

I assured, certain of it. “Of that, there can be no doubt. They are far too important.”

Even as I held her and we spoke of such troubling things, our wolves circled each other, and I felt it more acutely now than ever. Despite my best effort not to, I couldn’t help but inhale the sweet scent of her soft hair along with the even sweeter scent of arousal I knew she hated feeling right now, given the topic and her fears.

“I should go to them,”

she murmured, making me tense. I hated the thought of her anywhere but with me, but at the same time, it was a good idea because it would keep her free of exile.

“Yet I won’t go to them,”

she went on softly, resting her cheek against my chest again, deflating any hope of avoiding exile. “Not without you.”

I had never been so conflicted or worried on several fronts. About her and the pups. The fate of my pack. I would like to say I had felt more certain when I was still at my castle protecting my kingdom, Ceara, and the pups, but I hadn’t. Not so long as Storm was out there without me because, one way or another, she had always factored into what meant most. If I were honest with myself, she rose above everything despite how hard I’d tried not to let her.

“We will do as Gráinne suggested tomorrow.”

Continuing to rub her back, hoping to soothe her to sleep, I tried to ignore how she felt against me. “Then, after the full moon, if you still feel the grey pup is in harm’s way, we will return to my castle.”

“Can you do that?”

she murmured, already lulled beneath my touch, her inner beast just as soothed as her human half. “Can we do that if we’re exiled?”

Though tempted to lie to her and say no if it meant keeping her from being exiled, too, I knew we were beyond lying to each other. Our wolves had circled even closer, and something was shifting, changing, even without us having been intimate yet.

“We can return to my castle,”

I said, “but ‘twould be dangerous if we’re no longer part of the pack. We would be unwelcome.”

Rather than continue, I let her soak up what that meant through my mind and heart because it would be brutal. It was brutal, at least for me, and I could only pray it never got that far for her.

We said little after that, but I felt her mind and heart following mine. Her wolf circled so close now, feeling mine out and finding comfort in it, that I wasn’t surprised when her breathing evened, and she drifted off into a peaceful slumber, still wrapped up in my arms.

As much as I worried over her nightmare and what it would be like for her to be exiled when she was the last person to deserve such pain, my tension seeped away when hers did. Even though I meant to stay awake and protect her, I must have dozed off because the next thing I knew, I circled her again. This time, I was my wolf circling another wolf, and she was stunning.

Storm was stunning.

With a vibrant auburn pelt similar to her hair color, her wolven eyes weren’t just vibrantly green but a shining emerald that put the lush woodland leaves around us to shame. A magical green born of her inner witch and dragon wolf because that’s what she was, seen clearly in her fiery aura. She was a whole new type of beast and impossible to look away from as we continued circling each other. She might be half my size, but she was incredibly powerful in ways I had yet to understand.

She had yet to understand.

I might be powerful in my own right as an alpha king, but I was humbled by her draw to me. Her desire to mate with me and become mine not just in this life but all to follow. Her wolf drew closer still, tentative but curious, looking at me with such hope I stepped closer, too, not wanting to scare her off with my size but also desperate for her to know she need not hope.

I was already hers if she would have me.

“I will,”

she whispered into my mind, or had she said it aloud?

Her wolf faded away, and I opened my eyes to find her human gaze on my face. We must have slept for some time because the fire was down to ashes, yet she was right where she had been on my lap. She traced her fingers along my bearded jaw and looked at me with the same curiosity and hope her beast just had.

“Your wolf is incredible, Callum,”

she murmured in awe and desire, having clearly been part of the same dream. “As are you.”

Though awake, I gazed into her luminous eyes and still felt caught in a dream. Rather than pull her closer, I remained perfectly still, understanding she needed to come to me—all the way to me—so I knew she accepted me.

My wolf needed to know she was ready to find her way to me in a way that meant forever.

“I am,”

she whispered hoarsely, her eyes with mine as she slowly moved closer until her eyes drifted shut and her lips touched mine softly. So gently and tentatively, everything inside me ignited in a way I’d never felt before. While certainly aroused by the feather-light contact, I also felt transcended somehow.

As if I kissed something more precious than life itself.

But then, at the very least, Storm was that, wasn’t she? She was the bringer of fate, destiny, and new beginnings. Mine to be sure, but I felt in our gentle contact she belonged to more. Not the way she did to me, destined to love life after life, but to others all the same.

When she pulled back and searched my eyes, I thought she meant to pull away entirely, but instead, she placed her small hand on my chest and kissed me again. This time, with less tentativeness and more curiosity. Less gently and more insistent in a way both sides of me liked because I couldn’t stop from cupping her cheek and tilting my mouth over hers more firmly. I could not stop my gentle, chaste, passive kiss from turning hungrier when I caught her taste on my tongue.

Again, I thought perhaps she would pull away, but she didn’t. Rather, it felt like her wolf finally closed the distance between us in one fell swoop when she opened her lips to mine and released a throaty little moan of approval when our tongues finally touched.

Just like that, a simple kiss exploded into incredible need.

As if I’d been starved my whole life up until this moment, I couldn’t stop from gathering her so close she could never get away, wrapping my tongue with hers, and kissing her so deeply, I once again drowned in her. As unfortunate as the comparison was given that fateful day so long ago, there was no other way to describe it because I sank into her and lost myself to the remarkable way she made me feel.

So remarkable I didn’t hear Gráinne until she went from clearing her throat to get our attention to saying flat out, “The sun rises. We need to keep moving.”

Even then, it was next to impossible to pull away from Storm’s kisses, but deep down in a place made of my wolf’s need to protect her, I knew the best way to keep her safe was to listen to Gráinne. So, despite how much I loathed it, I slowly ended the kiss and met Storm’s eyes, my voice predictably rough with arousal when I spoke.

“We must press on.”

“I know,”

she managed, her voice as hoarse as mine.

Keeping her locked firmly on my lap for a moment longer, knowing she felt my near-painful arousal beneath her backside, I traced the contour of her jawline and said what needed to be said because my inner beast would have it no other way.

“Very soon, anamchara,”

I murmured, keeping her gaze with mine. “You understand, ta?”

“I understand,”

she said, her voice still husky with the same arousal when she acknowledged that both sides of me were desperate to claim her in the most primal way possible and would not be put off much longer.

Our wolves had stopped circling, and our Fated Mate Cycle had begun.

Though it took more strength than I thought possible, I managed to remove her from my lap and help her put her boots on, all while struggling to keep my hands off her long enough to join the others.

“My friend,”

Broderick said softly, looking at Storm with unmistakable love laced with a flicker of sadness when his dragon eyes flared, and he lowered his head to her, proving how quickly the three of us had bonded. “I wish you much happiness as you begin your Fated Mate Cycle.”

He lowered his head to me as well before looking at Storm again. “Might you and your Fated Mate find strength and love together, not just in this life but all to follow.”

“Thank you,”

Storm said just as softly, holding back from embracing him as I knew she wanted to lest it upset our inner beasts.

“Come,”

Gráinne said. “My fellow Rogues, as those of us who prefer our own space tend to call ourselves, have been hunting and await us a few caves over so we might break our fast together.”

Did they really? That surprised me because I hadn’t seen several of them in years. Yet it seemed they were ready to be seen.

And that wasn’t all, as we soon found out.