Page 57 of The Howling (Monsters of the Yeavering #2)

T he smell is familiar, albeit tinged with the scent of burning fur. I force my eyes open to come face to face with the Lambton Wyrm.

“Fuck! Fenrother!” I scramble back from the dragon shifter.

“He’s awake,” Fenrother bellows without looking away from me.

My shoulder aches, but her scent is in the room. It’s enough to stop me from falling straight out of bed to look for her.

“Thank you, Fenrother.” Wynter elbows him aside, and I have her arms around me, her head in my neck and my name on her lips.

My insides warm. I’m as weak as a newborn pup, hardly able to lift my head, but the smile which plays across my face is one of being entirely whole.

Here, in my castle, with my mate.

Wynter releases me. I flop back onto the bed.

“How could you?” she snaps.

“How could I what?” I furrow my brow, my head muzzy like the aftermath of wolfsbane.

“How could you try to sacrifice yourself for me!” Wynter growls.

“Yeah,” Fenrother says.

“Thank you, Fenrother.” Wynter turns to him. “I can take it from here.”

“She means fuck off,” I add with a glare and a snarl.

Fenrother blinks at me. I snarl at him. Finally, almost begrudgingly, he steps back and walks to the door.

It’s then I also see Linton and the damned Hedley Kow who are stood behind him.

“How long have they all been here?” I croak.

“You’ve been out for three days,” Wynter says, her face wet with tears. “I didn’t know if I’d done the right thing or not. I was so worried.”

I press my lips to hers. It’s all I can think of doing. It’s probably all I’m capable of doing in this instant and it’s what I want to do.

She tastes like the whole world. The fields and moors, the forests and fells. Wynter is my everything.

When I release her, the Bluecap and the Hedley Kow have beaten a retreat, and we are entirely alone.

I always want to be alone with her.

I inhale deeply, dragging her scent deep into my lungs. It is the very elixir of life.

“Soulis!” I exclaim.

“He won’t bother us,” Wynter says, and she holds up the sparkling jewel before lifting the chain it hangs on over her head and handing it to me.

I’m not entirely sure, but in the palm of my hand, it appears to lose some of its sparkle.

“What happened?”

“The Reaper happened.” She says, stroking my face and it feels so good. “And the magic your mother gifted me. It made Soulis’s magic rebound on him, then it brought us home.”

“My home.”

“And mine,” Wynter says.

I gaze at her. “You mean it? You don’t want to go back beyond the veil?”

“I never did. There was nothing there for me. Now everything is here.”

“But my curse…” I rasp. “I drew you in. You do not have to stay for me.”

“Your curse is broken, Reavely. You’re the only reason I want to stay,” she says, her eyes dipping away from mine and her hand resting on her stomach. “You and one or two other little things.”

I follow where she’s looking, but for a second or two the fog in my head makes it difficult to work out what she means.

“You are…in pup?” I ask, my voice rising as I stare at her hand.

“I was able to get the apothecary to confirm it. Pregnancy tests in the Yeavering are weird.”

“The apothecary? Not the healer.”

Wynter shakes her head. “Not the healer. He was working for Lord Soulis. He’s gone now.”

I tentatively slide my hand over hers. While there’s nothing to feel, not yet, I let my imagination run riot as to what it will be like, soon.

“And as for the curse, we broke it when we defeated Lord Soulis,” Wynter says.

“Not by marriage?” My brow creases and it’s a little painful.

“I don’t know how curses work, but your pack is back, and that’s all that matters.”

“The Reaper,” I murmur, thinking about how the room was dark and now is light. “He was the last one I expected to help me.”

“Perhaps he was helping all along.” Wynter smiles at me, and I snatch a kiss from her lips once again, my heart filling with joy. The snatched conversations of the past few days return to me. The deep-seated knowledge my pack is back in the castle, where they belong, save for my mother.

I lost her once before and as much as I mourn her, I know she wanted me and Wynter to be together and the fact we are is the best way of honouring her memory.

“Tell him about the Faerie!” a voice, one which has to be Linton’s, shouts from outside the door.

“If you don’t all fuck off,” I respond with a deep growl, “no matter what my injuries, I will come out there and eat you.”

There is scuffling, and my keen hearing picks up the sound of footsteps on stone.

“What about the Faerie?”

“Because we defeated Lord Soulis, they are no longer the dominant force in the Yeavering, with Queen Mab defeated by Fenrother. You are king of the Barghest and king of the Yeavering.”

I stare at her.

From cursed wolf to king of the realm. It can hardly be true.

“No,” I say. “I don’t want to be either of those things.”

It’s as if another presence leaves the room too, my ears feel like they’re popping, and I work my jaw.

“Apparently”—Wynter uncurls my hand from the jewel, where it glitters brighter than ever—“that was the right answer.”

“And I don’t have to be king?”

Wynter scrunches up her face, lifts her hand, and, palm flat, moves it in a seesawing motion.

“You can have that argument with your sisters,” she says. “I’m not getting involved.”

I pull my mate further onto my lap. My prick has woken up too from its slumber the moment pups were mentioned, and it would rather like to be sheathed in her. Wynter traces her hand down the side of her face.

“I nearly lost you,” she says quietly.

“Never. As long as there is air to breathe, ground to run on, and rocks to build a castle, you belong to me, and I will never leave you, little deer,” I rasp. “You belong to me. I thought you’d have worked that one out by now.”

I slam my lips into hers because if I don’t get to plunder her delicious form now, I think I might just explode.

And any explosion is going to be in her hot, sweet cunt and nowhere else.