Page 38 of The Enemy to the Living (The Wild Hunt #2)

He growls and leans back at first, hips slapping against my arse as he loses himself to pleasure. I squeeze his pecs, then pinch his nipples when that only makes his mouth drop open on a whine. Maybe this isn’t rushing things. I’ve so much to learn about him in this way, too.

Quinn lowers his head and sets his teeth to my throat just a second before he comes. His hips jerk, cock rutting in and out as he fills my insides with his cum. I thread my fingers through the short hair on the back of his head, keeping his mouth at my throat. I want a bruise that will last.

Quinn’s hand worms between our bodies, and when he sucks hard, he strokes me, and the pleasure that has been flooding my veins finally explodes. I yell his name, and for a moment, I think I might pass out, body gone all heavy as blood thunders through my veins.

“Fuck,” I mutter. I don’t know how much time has passed. Quinn licks over the throbbing mark he’s left on my neck and then rests on top of me, uncaring of the mess smeared over our skin.

“You good?” he murmurs. He’s a warm, heavy weight, and I don’t want him to move, though we’ll have to at some point. I wrap my arms around his middle.

“Yeah. You?”

“Better than I’ve been in ages.” He rests his chin on my chest, looking up at me. “Can I stay here tonight? Today?”

“You don’t have to ask. Of course. You’re my mate.”

He smiles. “I don’t want to presume.”

I huff at that, and his smile only widens. I’ll train it out of him—out of both of us—in time, but there is a thought tickling the back of my mind that I need to ask about.

“You’re not afraid of going back to them, are you?”

Quinn frowns. He’s tracing over the rose on my hip with the tips of his fingers. “Who?”

“Your pack.”

“No.” The frown deepens. “I don’t think so, no.”

“I know you’ve all had issues, but they care about you. I don’t think they meant to miss all of this.”

“I know. I mean, I’m a little… It’s going to be different when I go back this time. They all thought I was going to die, before. Now we actually have to work on things.”

“Yeah.”

“But I don’t want to leave them. I don’t want to go back up north to our old pack, and I really don’t want to find a new one.”

“You’re not a lone wolf.”

“No, I’m not.” Quinn chews his lower lip, then looks determinedly into my face. “I’m worried about you.”

“Me? What about me?” I don’t want him to leave his pack, either. It comforts me to know that he has them—that, this brief blip aside, he’s always had good friends to help him.

“You can’t join the pack, can you?”

“I—” Maurice hasn’t joined the clan, I know that.

And clan bonds are nothing like pack bonds, anyway.

There’s some inherent magic in having a powerful creature take responsibility for you, but packs are just fundamentally very different.

They’re built into the foundations of what a wolf is—or not, as the case may be.

But the fact is, there’s no wavering when it comes to a wolf and their pack. They either need one or they don’t—and those who don’t, after leaving the one they’re born into, never join a pack again.

My situation is different, but then so am I.

I know deep in my bones that the Huntsman will never allow me to join a pack so long as I carry his blessing, and without his blessing, I’m dead.

He can’t fight a mating bond—and I doubt he ever would, considering how intrinsic bonds are within fae magic—but a pack bond? He can and he will.

“No.”

“Because you’ve been creating your own.”

“I—What?” I make a half-hearted attempt to sit up, but Quinn doesn’t move. His expression is placid, even as his eyes roam over my face.

“You have,” he says gently, insistently.

“I can’t have.”

“Grant?”

“He’s basically still a pup. He—”

“And Paxton, too.”

I snap my mouth shut. I’ve been thinking that too, haven’t I? “I think you’re right.”

Quinn smiles. “I am. Asher, I’m not going to leave my pack.”

“I’m not going to ask you to.”

“Where does that leave us, then?”

I push my fingers through his hair. “You’re still my mate.” I won’t have him doubt that. Not now. Not ever.

“A given,” he says, leaning into the touch. “What about when we do the rites?”

“We—I’ll need to talk to your alpha. I don’t know yet. I mean, we’ll do them. But I don’t know when.”

“I’m not in a rush,” Quinn says, then frowns. “Well, I am . I just… This stuff with the fae isn’t over, is it?”

“No, it’s not.”

“I don’t want to lose you before we’ve even begun.”

I do sit up when I see the tears in his eyes. He rises with me, jaw trembling.

“Quinn, darling, I promise you, I’ll always—”

He puts one hand over my mouth. “You can’t promise that. I mean it.”

I press a fleeting kiss to the palm before I take his hand between my own. “You’re right. I promise I’ll do my best to always return to you. The Hunt—we’re good at this. We’ll deal with whatever is happening.”

“And the rites?”

“I have to talk to your pack first. And I have to talk to the Huntsman.”

“For permission?”

“I don’t know what a fully-fledged mating bond will do to my blessing. So far, so good, but the full bond is incredibly powerful magic, and my grip on my blessing is tenuous at best.”

Quinn frowns but nods. “Makes sense.” There’s a hint of disappointment in his tone, but the tears are gone. He lets out a sigh and rocks forward, knocking his forehead gently against mine. “We’ll do them one day. I’ll chase you down and make you mine.”

The words trail off into a growl, silver flooding his irises, and I kiss him desperately, then gasp at the feeling of claws pricking my skin. It’s not a full shift—he has far more control than that—just his wolf rising to the surface.

“I’ll chase you after,” I say when our mouths part. “See if you like being all wrapped up in my magic.”

He huffs a laugh. “You’ll have to catch me first.”

We sleep sporadically through the day, periods of rest interspersed with eating and talking and driving each other out of our minds with pleasure. I wake again some time after sundown to the insistent buzzing of my phone on the bedside table.

Quinn grumbles against my shoulder. There are still a few bruises and marks scattered across his skin, and my blessing seems not at all inclined to remove the one he keeps leaving on my throat.

Warmth builds in my chest. Yes, we still have the fae to face, and Quinn still has some way to go on his journey, but today has been more than I could ever hope for.

Still, I answer the phone with an irritated huff. “What is it?”

“Sorry to interrupt,” Maurice says down the line, and he sounds genuine.

Then again, the Huntsman himself gave Maurice two days with his mate, so perhaps he truly understands the feeling.

“We need to debrief the Huntsman. He’s thinking about calling the Guardians in, but he wants to hear from you first.”

I groan. “Now?”

“An hour ago would have been better, apparently.”

“You’re at the base?”

Maurice makes a sound of agreement. “The atmosphere here is… unpleasant.”

“Fuck. Okay. Give me an hour?”

“Asher—”

“I’m taking Quinn home first.”

He’s quiet for a moment. No doubt the Huntsman knows about all of this—and I don’t even believe that’s because one of the others told him. No. He keeps tabs on all of us; we all know that.

“Fine. One hour. Hurry up.”

Maurice hangs up and I roll my eyes before I toss my phone back where I found it. Quinn kisses my shoulder, pressing his lips to each rose tattooed there.

“These all mean something, don’t they?”

I nod. Not all the ink on my skin is imbued with meaning—I’ve far too many tattoos for that. But fae-touched humans are hard to find, so the ones done on a whim are few and far between.

“The roses? I’ve never seen black ones before.”

“Rebirth. They were the first ones I got.”

Quinn presses his lips to them again, then leans up to kiss me properly. I sigh and indulge, wanting more than anything to keep him in this bed with me forever.

Eventually, I pull back and kiss his cheek.

Quinn frowns. “Time to go?”

“Yeah,” I mutter. “The real world is still out there, apparently.”

He laughs. “Come on. Wouldn’t want you to be late.”

We dress quickly, and aside from a few more teasing kisses, don’t allow ourselves to be distracted.

I know Celyn is dead, and Sorrel too, but speaking with the Huntsman about the matter may well loosen the knot of concern in my chest. I am not as concerned about his opinion about me and Quinn.

If there is anything I am certain of, it is that a fae will respect a mating bond.

I book a taxi to take us to Quinn’s pack house, and then me further to the base. Quinn hesitates when we arrive, and so I climb out of the car with him, holding his hand as we stand at the kerb.

“I can do it,” he says, and I nod.

“I have no doubt about that.”

Quinn gives me a smile, small though it may be, and kisses my cheek before he lets go and walks toward the building.

I know he is not entirely out of the woods yet, though his pack will never abandon him.

He might not have been affected by Sorrel’s death last night, but that does not mean he never will be, and even if he is not, he still has enough to recover from after all that happened last year.

But I’ll be by his side for all of it. I think he knows that now.

I cast one final, lingering look over the building, then climb back into the taxi and head for the base.