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CHAPTER THIRTY

emma

“ A re you well?” he repeated.

My mouth opened slightly, and my brain scrambled to assemble something snappy, maybe even bitchy since he’d pissed me off. But I wasn’t mad anymore, and everything I wanted to say stayed lodged in my throat, stilling my tongue.

Finally, Jasper cleared his throat. “Well, I’m off to check in with Flynn about patrols and tell everybody you’re napping like a good little multimorph.” He studied me and then Logan and back to me. “Ye okay for me to go?”

I nodded.

He winked again, strolling toward his door and whistling a bawdy drinking song. Before he exited, he leered back over his shoulder. “You two better do all the things I would do. Don’t disappoint me.”

After the door closed, I breathed, “What are you doing here? ”

“Second-guessing my decision to come here.” He shoved his hands through his dark hair, making it stick out in all directions, a midnight halo, perfect for the moody soul he was.

Holy hell. I had it bad. If Riley ever heard me say that moody soul shit, she’d never let me live it down.

I cringed. I’d never forgive myself if anything had happened to Riley and Shannon, but for this moment, I had Logan.

My gaze drifted down him, imagining all the places my tongue could go. Sometimes the tip, sometimes the flat…

“What are you second-guessing?” I asked.

Dragging myself back to reality was proving nearly impossible, and my fantasies were determined. How had he connected to me before? Could I connect to his mind and share my thoughts with him?

I focused on my shifter energy and his… pushing them together in my mind.

He took a step backward and seemed to waver. “Oh, shit.”

I peered at him, taking in the sheen of sweat. “What?”

“What are you doing?” he rasped, his gaze focused on my mouth. “Is that what you were thinking just now?”

“What did you hear?”

“Fucking hell, Emma. What’s gotten into you?”

“You did. You were in my head and maybe that gave me a shot of courage.”

To be honest, I didn’t feel like my normal wallflower self around him. Instead, I felt more brazen and more demanding, and I was certain I knew how he’d react.

“Don’t you understand we’re connected now?” he asked.

“Connected? How are we connected?”

“When you were unconscious, I shifted and delved your mind.”

“You delved me?” I frowned, trying to figure out what it meant. “Not sure I like the sound of that. Is that like sex?”

His laughter sliced through the tension, and as the barking sound faded, his mood turned somber. “Sex might have been simpler.”

“Oh.” Bewilderment didn’t begin to describe my feelings.

“When you were unconscious, I shared my strength with you. That’s how I wound up in your head.

While I was there, our energies were entwined, and we now have an unbreakable bond between us, so it’s easier for me to overhear what you’re thinking.

Maybe not words exactly, but images…” He cleared his throat before continuing. “Ideas.”

I couldn’t stop the grin as it split my face, and I winked at him. “It worked.”

“It worked,” he rasped, rubbing the back of his neck. “You’re going to get yourself dragged to the nearest bed, Emma. Is that what you want?”

“Yes.”

Maybe Jasper was starting to rub off on me, but every shifter in my head agreed .

“Fuck,” he groaned. “I shouldn’t have come, but I had to be certain you were well and tell you…”

I took a step toward him, allowing the cover to fall from my shoulders completely. “Tell me?”

He took a breath and held it while his pulse thundered in the base of his neck. “Tell you why I wasn’t going to be around for a while.”

“Are you kidding me, Logan?” Just like that, I was furious again. “I basically just gave you permission to fuck me silly.”

His eyes widened. Without warning, he rushed at me, snatched me up, and carried me into the kitchen, placing me on the counter.

I scooted to the edge, and he pressed against me, his dick brushing against the most sensitive place between my legs.

When I wrapped my legs around him, he shuddered, pressing his lips to my collarbone.

He groaned, and I shimmied against him, arched into him, and dragged my fingernails down his back so hard his moan held a hint of pain.

He cupped my breasts, and his thumbs circled my nipples, teasing them until they hardened.

Burying my hands in his hair, I dragged his mouth to mine, devouring every bit of him, sucking on his tongue and pushing into him as hard as I could—touching, twisting, and writhing.

His arms surrounded me, crushing me to his chest.

I leaned back, my lips love-bruised from the aggressive kissing, and pressed my cheek to his chest. His heart matched mine beat for beat .

“Take me to bed, Logan. Down the hall, first door to the right.”

His long sigh stirred my hair. Then he disappeared from my arms.

I whimpered, groping at the air. “What are you doing?”

“Emma,” he panted. “There’s too much at stake. The minute we do this…” He gestured between us. “…there won’t be anything else in the world. It’ll burn. Everyone we love will burn.”

“What?”

“I think we’re fated.”

“Fated?” I echoed, reeling from his rejection. “I’m not familiar with that term.”

“We’re two parts of a whole, and we’re meant to be together.”

“Then get back over here,” I demanded. “Take me to bed.”

Carefully, he came close and lifted me into his arms, carrying me toward my room. He trembled as he laid me on top of the unmade bed, and my head sank in the pillow as he took a step away from the bed.

“What is it, Logan?” I had to admit his actions frightened me. It was like he had some big secret that would make it impossible for us to be together. “You’re scaring me.”

For long moments, he stared at me as though trying to commit the image to mind, his arousal clear, and then he dropped to his knees beside the bed.

“I need you to understand. If we do this, I won’t think about anything else but you.

You’ll be the only thing in my mind until we’re fully bonded, fully linked and for months after. ”

“How does that happen?” I risked the question, not knowing whether I wanted to know the answer or if I was ready to contemplate what having a fated mate meant for me.

“We mate, and we mate again with a need for knotting.” He pressed his lips to my shoulder.

“Knotting? We can do that?” It sounded painful for humans, yet I couldn’t think of anything more than his mouth on my skin. I needed him to kiss my tattoo, to move from my hip to my…

“That’s what we call the moment that two fated shifters bond. Knotting only happens for a fated pair bond.” He drew a ragged breath, his desire for it apparent in the tightness around his eyes and the dilation of his pupils.

“Tell me what happens.” My bottom lip caught between my teeth.

“Physically?” He drew his hand over my forearm and then yanked it away as though he was afraid of what might happen.

“Yeah. Physically.” Dammit. Take me already, Logan!

His mouth twisted into a roguish grin. “After we both orgasm, my dick expands, and it links our bodies as our souls also link until the fating between us completes.”

“So, just like newlyweds?” I asked, trying to reframe it in a way I understood, but it all still felt like a slow-motion rejection. “Will we have loads of sex the first few days?”

“It’s more than that. The drive is so strong and our need will be so consuming that nothing else will matter.”

“Well, I’ve heard newlywed sex is pretty good.”

He chuckled and pressed his forehead to mine before straightening. “Sure, but this will be like newlyweds multiplied by a million with a thousand years of history, breeding, and instinct mixed in.” He grimaced. “And…”

“And?” I busied myself straightening his tousled hair. “And what?”

“And you’re a multimorph.”

“Yeah, so?”

“While we have recorded instances of the multimorph, there’s no recorded instance of a multimorph having a fated mate.”

“Yay, another first for my inaugural week as a shifter. Just what I needed.” My sarcastic tone was all I could manage in the middle of being turned down for the best fucking I had been about to have. “You know what?”

“What?”

“If I’m the first we can do whatever I want because there’s nothing to say I can’t.”

He took a deep breath and released it slowly. “That’s not how it works, Emma. We don’t know what would happen, and there’s too much on the line.”

“I’m the multimorph, and I think it should work that way.”

He smiled, a slow, smoldering one. “It means our link will be stronger because I possess the strength of an alpha and your abilities as a multimorph are that much stronger. Since I delve and you heal, two sides of a similar talent, it’s probably going to be that much more… consuming and overwhelming.”

“Oh?”

“And I’ll be the best fuck you have ever had, Emma.”

“I believe you.” I shuddered, imagining all of the things I wanted to do to him and that I wanted him to do to me.

I scooted up on the pillow and leaned against the headboard.

“So, what you’re telling me is that when we have sex, it’s going to be the most mind-blowing thing we’ve ever experienced, so fantastic that we won’t care about anything except having more sex. Constantly.”

“It means that if somebody lit the bed on fire while we were having sex, we probably wouldn’t care enough to stop.”

“That’s a pretty big promise, Logan,” I said.

He bared his teeth, took a deep breath, and appeared in my mind. It’s a promise I intend to keep a thousand times over. A hundred of his fantasies flooded my mind.

“Oh, fuck me,” I gasped, drowning in sensations as my eyes slid closed and my head dropped back against the headboard. I dragged every fantasy I’d had into my mind and tried to shove them at him.

When I opened my eyes, he stared through me, his pulse pounding away at the base of his neck. My file drop must have been successful, and I laughed. “So, what you’re saying is that nothing can happen today.”

He blinked and then looked down at me. “It can’t. Not today. It’s too dangerous.”

“Mama always told me sex was dangerous,” I quipped .

He laughed as he stood. “I don’t trust myself to be able to have anything else in my mind, and Acheron is too big of a threat to risk it.”

“When the clans are safe?” I asked.

“When the clans are safe,” he agreed.

I reached for his dick and wrapped my hands around him. “Not even a little sex?”

His hips thrusted toward me, and his knees nearly buckled as he caught the bedpost to keep from falling over on top of me, but he didn’t tell me to let go.

Through clenched teeth, he asked, “Do you think we could stop with a little?”

“I think we could try ,” I answered with a small shrug. Looking him over. He was hard and perfect all over… and worth wrapping my legs around for at least a week. Fuckity, fuck, fuck. “But no, I don’t think we could stop with a little.”

We shared a long look, twinged with sadness and regret, but the desire between us didn’t wane.

Finally, I snuggled down into the bed and tossed the cover over me. “If you don’t get out of here, Logan, I’m not going to take no for an answer, and the shifter clans will just have to save themselves from the river wizard asshole.”

“Hell.” He groaned, but he didn’t move from his spot until Jasper’s jaunty whistle sounded like the fox shifter was heading back toward his den. “Soon, Emma, and it’ll be a night you won’t forget. I found your phone, and Olivia fixed it. I’ll leave it with Jasper.”

Then he spun around and marched out of the spare room.

“Don’t worry,” I called after him. “I’m sure Jasper can explain about shifter sex and fated mates, too. He might even have examples.”

The door slammed, and Logan’s tortured yelp outside the den filled me with a special kind of glee, thankful for the happy break in the middle of my dread over the possibility of failing the clans who all now depended on me.

I had to admit the idea of stepping up as the unifier of the shifters was tough to focus on when all I wanted to do was fuck a dark and broody wolf shifter until he howled my name.