Page 37

C hanin wrapped his arms around her. The warmth of her silky, bare midriff seeped into the skin of his forearm and hand.

He tightened his hold on her and gripped her narrow waist with his hand.

Awed. He marveled at the soft delicateness of her skin.

Traces of his scent blended with her vanilla violet.

It wasn’t as strong as it would be once they were fully mated, but his wolf still basked in the elusive notes.

She stood with her back flush to his front.

Morlie’s breath rushed out loud and hard, combining with the sounds of the forest around him.

The scratching, chirping, and scurrying of woodland insects became the backdrop to the symphony of Morlie.

Holding her pressed against him, he felt the tremors rocketing through her body and the power of her fast heartbeat.

It had not slowed since the moment he’d caught her.

“Cha-Chanin...?”

Fuck. ‘Yes’ was on the tip of his tongue and should be so easy to say in regard to her question.

However, even the thought of someone else touching her, having her in their arms, made rage fill his blood.

Reaching up, he grabbed hold of the thick branch above his head.

Heat zipped from his gut to his cock. His dick lengthened along the curve of her round, pert ass.

As he’d been staring at the building, he’d seen Aodh’s mate enter with Morlie over two hours ago and fought the urge to race into the doorway and locate his mate and carry her out, letting the world be damned.

This woman was causing him to lose control. Fuck that. Being without her had him out of his mind.

The souls of both man and wolf were crying out her name. Morlie.

Then he’d smelled her scent—a musky vanilla peppered with the woodsy notes of violet as if he’d wished for her too hard and had concocted her intoxicating smell because he wanted her so much.

And in the middle of his torment, his wolf saw a flash.

She was running. At first, he tried to convince himself that she was perhaps doing what humans did, going for jogs to stay fit, but the power in her gait and the determination in her face made it clear to him she was running away. ..to him.

Even when Liekki, Aodh’s second in command, came out of the other side of the same building, walked to the edge of the territory line, and called her name, Morlie didn’t even break stride, as if she had never heard him.

She’d been so laser-focused on her flight that she’d practically run past him. Hell, his wolf had been so engrossed in watching her run and seeing the working of her thigh muscles and the rise and fall of her small breasts that it had almost allowed it to happen.

In a breath, Chanin shifted, and she was in his arms.

“Yes.” He ran his nose from her ear to the curve of her neck. The gums around his canines burned within his mouth so close to where he yearned to sink his teeth. “I got you, little bunny.”

“I-I—” Her short curls brushed the center of his chest as she shook her head. Her exhalation came out in a whimper and broken growl.

Her frustration was palpable.

“Tell me you came to me,” he declared, but he needed to hear her admit it.

“No...maybe... I don’t know what I’m doing.” Like a scared rabbit in the grip of a big bad wolf, her belly quivered under his hand.

Chanin flexed his hand around the limb as his fingers tingled, and the claws on his left hand extended and dug into the tree. Pieces of bark broke off and rained down over them.

“Little bunny, this is not the time for indecision or second guessing.” He drew his right hand up under her short top, then swiped his thumb along her flesh directly below the curve of her breast.

Morlie gasped and reached up, clutching his arm with both her hands. But she didn’t pull at him or ask him to release her.

“What do you want?” he commanded. He held his breath and waited.

Chanin’s wolf growled and paced inside of him.

His beast didn’t care what her answer was; this was his mate, and now that he had her, the wolf would not let her go.

Chanin had allowed her to be removed from them once before, and it would never happen again.

His beast was Alpha over the Omega Pack, and Morlie was his mate. Done.

“You.” Her soft response was barely audible.

But Chanin heard it.

He lowered his hand and took hold of her face.

His fingers imprinted into the supple skin of her cheeks as he held her and turned her to him.

Without pause, he claimed her mouth. No light kiss.

No playing and teasing her. He needed her to know his desire and claim on her would not be gentle but fierce and overwhelming.

His core was more animal than man, and his wolf would only be satisfied with its mark on her. All over her.

Her mouth was pillowy soft as he forced her lips to part, and he drove his tongue forward to taste her.

Sweet, fucking, ambrosia, the flavor of her had every cell in his body tearing apart and fusing back together.

In just one taste, Morlie had gone from being what he wanted to what he needed to live.

Nothing in this fucked-up world made sense to him anymore outside of her. All in a kiss, she was destroying the fiber of his make-up. He pressed in further, licking and stroking every inch of her mouth as he wanted to do to every part of her body.

She didn’t fight him. She didn’t try and pull from his hold but instead greeted his oral assault with mind-throttling acceptance. Morlie went from swirling her tongue around his to sucking his dexterous member.

Shit, her mouth was made for kissing and fucking.

Damn it, he wanted her. Feeling her eager response made him want to lay her before him on the ground and bury his cock inside of her, bite her, and put his claim on her.

But Chanin knew he could not do that now.

Not because they were still too close to the dragon-shifters, to hell with them.

No. He must present her before his Pack.

His Pack had to see him declare with pride and assurance that she was his, leaving no doubt.

Only then would her mark not be judged or disdained.

As he continued to kiss her, he lowered his hand from her face to the side of her thigh.

Chanin dragged the tips of his fingers along the hem of her short skirt.

The damn short material had shifted along her skin as she had walked around with her sister and driven him fucking crazy.

She may have been his mate, but Chanin didn’t miss the appreciative and lascivious glances from too many Drahks.

He’d wanted to tear into the territory and rip out just as many throats.

Hell, he was a part of a group that didn’t bat an eye when someone shifted from wolf to human and paraded through their area naked.

His ex did it often and frequently got wolf calls that hadn’t caused him to unleash even a single claw. But the jealousy he experienced with Morlie was different—an intrinsic case of possession.

He nipped the pouty bottom lip he had fantasized about so many times that he lost track.

“Chanin?” Her beautiful almond-shaped, hazel eyes filled with question as she stared at him.

He’d never been so grateful for his wolf senses.

Even though the dark-purple sky had turned the woods around them into shadows and avant-garde shapes, he could see her clearly.

Her lips were damp and swollen from his kisses, and her eyes once had been green with big, brown flecks, but now those speckles had an amber reflection on them.

The sight let him know that the minuscule amount of serum he’d allowed when he nipped her was affecting her.

She wasn’t a wolf. Yet. But she wasn’t entirely human anymore, either.

That made him smile.

Lifting a hand, she traced the tilt of one corner of his mouth.

He didn’t answer the curiosity in her gaze. Instead, he said, “You’ve consumed my mind and body.”

“You’re not the only one afflicted.” Her hand slid over his chin.

“Oh, little bunny. You’ve no idea just how I want to afflict you.” He threw her word back at her.

Heat flared in her gaze, and her fingers trembled. When she glanced away to continue her exploration, Chanin allowed it. She tripped her delicate fingers down his neck and caressed his collarbone. Then, her touch stopped.

“Are you naked?” She shifted away and faced him only to step close to him again before her gaze could get further than his bare chest as she closed the gap and gasped.

The material of her skirt brushed his cock, and he thickened more. He closed his eyes briefly and inhaled to keep a hold of his control.

“Have you been—” she swallowed, “naked?”

Peeling his lids open and looking down at his mate, he let a wolfish grin curl his lips. He pressed his hands to her lower back and held her small frame tight against him. He stared down at her, saying, “You’ll get used to it. I was in wolf form.”

“But the dragon-shifters are still clothed when they shift back.”

He arched a brow. Chanin knew that she had been living with them for some time, but he didn’t particularly care for her comparing his kind to them, and finding his people lacking. “We’re all different. And there’s no shame to either of the forms the Great Spirit has given us,” he grit out.

“I didn’t mean to offend—”

“Then don’t.” He snapped his teeth.

Morlie’s eyes clouded but not with the fear he expected to see, but something darker, carnal. She rolled in her bottom lip and sank her teeth into it.

He growled at both her responses. He couldn’t help thinking about seeing her with canines.

“What now?”

“You’re coming back with me.”

Morlie gave a short nod.

“Is there anything there,” he tipped his head toward the dragon territory two miles away, “you need to get?”