Page 7 of Rising Reign (The Wolves of Crescent Creek #3)

WREN

I woke to a burning heat as if I were lying on sand baked by the sun, the kind that scalded your feet if you stayed put too long. I let out a grumbling groan, and the surface I was lying on shifted. Was some kind of weird earthquake happening?

My eyelids fluttered, and bright light swept through in flashes. I took in everything I could before they closed again. Each sweep gave me more information. A rustic cabin, but one that was that way by choice. I knew because all the furniture looked fancy.

A cloud-like bed with a thick comforter. A bare, muscular chest. An angry scar.

The last image had me jerking upright.

“Easy,” Kingston said, the tone of his voice unreadable.

“Oh, gods.” I shoved my hair out of my face, struggling to process what I saw.

King was propped up against the pillows and had color back in his face.

It was no longer a sickly shade of pale.

He looked…good. The scruff on his face was thicker, and he somehow lo oked more muscular, but his eyes…

Shadows swirled in the pale blue, gray swirls streaking across his irises.

“Are you…you’re okay?” I croaked.

“I’m fine.” A muscle pulsed in Kingston’s jaw. “How do you feel? Are you in pain?”

I did a mental sweep. I felt rough, sore muscles and an ache that lived in my bones. Given what I’d been through in the past few days, it made sense. And then I remembered the bite. The bond.

My gaze moved to King’s shoulder and the mark there. A heart wrapped in something that signified both our fighting natures, in practice and in our souls. My fingers itched to reach out and touch it, to stroke every line.

“Why?” Kingston rasped. “Why did you do it?”

My eyes flew to his face, and I saw it then—the anger pulsing behind the mask. “What do you mean?”

“You bonded us,” he growled. “You could’ve been killed.”

I felt my eyes flash to my wolf. My inner beast wanted to rake her claws across King. “You were dying .”

“I would’ve survived,” Kingston ground out.

I threw off the covers and pushed out of bed. “Is being mated to me truly that horrible?”

King shoved up and raked a hand through his hair. “I never wanted you to mate me because you were forced to.”

Anger burned brighter, stoked by frustration and grief. “Did you even consider that maybe I did it because I love you?”

I stomped by him and into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me. Tears burned my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. Kingston already had my soul for all eternity. He didn’t deserve my tears, too.

Crossing to the sink, I took in my reflection. The bathroom’s dark tones were mirrored in my face: deep purple swaths of color beneath my eyes, an almost gray hue to my skin. What I’d done for King had cost me.

I shoved away from the sink and moved to the shower, turning it on. The water hit the elaborate black marble. It fit the gold fixtures and the hunter-green walls perfectly, but I couldn’t find it in me to enjoy it.

Instead, I peeled off the T-shirt someone had put me in and tossed my underwear on top of it. Stepping into the shower, I groaned as the spray hit me. The warmth was a balm.

I leaned my head against the wall and let the water rain down on me. Then, the tears fell. Silent at first, and then in big, racking sobs. I couldn’t hold them in. It was too much.

The threats Marcelle had leveled at me. My father’s cruelty. Almost losing King. His rejection now.

I was breaking and could do nothing to stop it.

The shower door opened, and I whirled around. King stood there, stripped down to nothing, pure agony in the lines of his face. “Wren,” he rasped.

“Don’t,” I lashed out. “You don’t get to sweep in and comfort me now. Not when you don’t want this.”

He moved in, ignoring my words, and pulled me into his arms. “I want this more than my next breath. There’s nothing in this world I want more than a life with you. But it killed something in me to think you initiated the bond out of some sense of duty.”

I started crying harder, but Kingston held me through every sob. He didn’t let go as my body shook against his. He held on until my tears slowed and my breathing settled.

His fingers slid through the wet tangle of my hair, and he tipped my head back. “I love you, Wren. I love you with everything I have and everything I am. I love you. I’m yours. In every way that matters.”

I looked up into those pale-blue eyes. There were still shadows there, but there was also hope. “Make me yours,” I whispered, my voice raw.

“Wren, you’ve been through so much.”

“Please. It’s what I need. You. ”

Kingston leaned in, his mouth taking mine in a slow kiss. “First, I take care of my little warrior.”

My breath hitched as he moved me back into the spray. King gently tipped my head back to wet my hair again. He reached for the shampoo on the shower shelf and squeezed some into his hands. The scent of jasmine filled the shower, and I moaned as Kingston began massaging my scalp.

He took his time, soaping every strand and rinsing every speck away. He followed the pattern again with the conditioner, his fingers pressing against my skull with the most delicious pressure as more of that jasmine scent swirled around us.

King’s nose slid down the column of my throat. “Being away from you was like losing a piece of my soul. I tried to pull up every memory, playing them over and over again so I wouldn’t lose the feel of you, the scent, the taste.”

His tongue flicked out as if to punctuate his point, and heat built low in my belly.

Kingston reached for the bodywash, soaping his hands and running them down my arms. As he rinsed it away, he ran his lips over an especially bad scar.

“I’d do anything to erase this. Not the mark.

That proves your strength. But the pain. I’d do anything to erase the pain.”

“King,” I croaked.

He sank to his knees, soaping one leg and then the other. “I love you, Wren. Everything about you is a miracle.”

Kingston guided the water over one leg and then the other, but he didn’t rise. He stayed on his knees, gazing up at me with such reverence. His hand slid up one thigh, higher and higher, until he parted me.

A gasp slipped free, and his fingers teased and toyed. I gripped King’s shoulders, trying to hold on. Because having his touch now…it was so much more.

The half-completed bond sang through my nerve endings, crying out to be fulfilled. My flesh ached for King’s teeth, for his canines to pierce my skin in a bite that meant forever. I craved it like nothing I’d ever experienced.

Kingston slid two fingers inside me on a slow glide. “So fucking perfect. Just feeling you on my fingers is heaven.”

My walls tightened around him at the words, and King groaned. Then, he leaned in closer and inhaled deeply. “Killing me, Little Warrior. But what a way to go.”

His tongue flicked out, circling my clit. A wave of pleasure shot through me, but fast on its heels came a craving for more. For everything.

Kingston’s fingers swirled inside before sliding out and thrusting in again. He worked me with his fingers and tongue, a shudder racing through me. I had to brace one hand on the wall to stay upright.

“Please,” I begged.

King knew what I was asking for, the ultimate piece of him. Of us. His lips left that bundle of nerves and moved to my thigh as his fingers kept moving inside me. His mouth hovered over my flesh, and then he sank his teeth into me.

My orgasm was instantaneous and so intense my knees buckled. But Kingston kept me upright. He sucked on my bond mark as his fingers thrust in and out of me. Wave after wave crashed over me until I had nothing left to give.

As I collapsed, King caught me and cradled me in his arms. “I’ve got you. And I always will.”