Page 20 of Wulver’s Flame (Knotty #2)

Vargr

Ireached for her as I always did, my hand closing on nothing but twisted furs and linen. The bed was cold. No scent. No warmth. No mate.

My eyes opened slowly, the way a predator opens its jaws. She was gone. At first, it didn’t register. Just a flicker in the bond. A tug. A chill.

Then Skoll rose, sniffing the air.

The breath fled my lungs like wind from a cracked hull. I sat up slowly. Listening.

Nothing.

The hearth fire had burned low. The house was quiet. Too quiet.

I stood, naked, heart pounding. The bond vibrated like a plucked string—frayed, faint, and distant. She wasn't here.

Skoll began to snarl. Low and endless. A sound that promised blood.

She ran from us.

He paced beneath my skin, rabid. My cock ached—not from desire, but from the savage thrill of the hunt. My knot throbbed, full and unsatisfied. She left while our seed—our pup—was still inside her.

I was a predator. And she dared to run.

Skoll burst through me, and this time, I didn’t protest.

Liùsaidh made a grave error if she thought weeks of silence were enough to break our bond. I caught her sniffing my pillows. I felt her gaze burn through me in every shared room. And by the Gods, I scented the need in her when she tried to deny us both.

I gave her space. I let her walk the longhouse, touch the bond, breathe without me. I didn’t even claim the bed when she was awake. I thought if I gave her time, she might feel it too. But she didn’t just reject the bond. She rejected our pup.

Skoll snarled.

Find her. I growled to Skoll, but he was already moving, shaking with rage that she took our pup from us. I could feel the burn of his fury, but beneath it throbbed something older—our instinct to track, catch, and punish the mate who dared to run.

?

?

?

The bond was screaming in my chest. Panic flooded through it, hot and sour. Her panic. My mate.

Skoll ran like a possessed creature, silver fangs bared, paws pounding the earth with brutal grace. The wind kissed our fur as he cut through the darkness.

Our thoughts tangled and focused on one thing.

Her.

Every scent she left behind was sharp and erratic. She was moving fast, but she was sloppy and afraid. Her fear and sweat soaked the path she ran, leaving the perfect trail for us to follow.

She’s limping, Skoll snarled. Ran too far. Too fast. Foolish mate.

We crested a rise, wind whipping through the fur on our face, and then we saw her.

Liùsaidh.

Running.

Her wild curls streamed behind her like fire in the moonlight. She darted through tall grass with one hand clutching her side. The bond pulsed—frantic, and fragile.

She turned.

Saw us.

Her eyes widened, and her body twisted in the opposite direction.

Wrong move, little mate.

Skoll howled, rage and longing fusing into a single sound that shattered the night.

She sprinted toward a lone tree at the edge of the clearing. A tall thing, gnarled and half-dead—but climbable. She reached it and scrambled up, hands slipping, feet fumbling on the bark. She wasn’t built for escape.

Let me shift, I growled. I can get her down.

Skoll didn’t answer, but he didn’t stop me.

Pain tore through me as fur gave way to skin, claws shrank, bones cracked and reformed. I stood, naked under the moon, panting, eyes blazing with fury and lust.

She was halfway up the tree, clinging to a low branch like a terrified kitten.

“Liùsaidh,” I said, voice low and sharp, “come down.”

She flinched and looked down at me, eyes wide, full of disbelief and guilt. She knew what she did.

My nostrils flared, and I tried not to roar at her.

“You ran,” I said. My voice wasn’t angry. It was quiet. Lethal. “You left my bed and tried to steal my pup away.”

She shook her head.

“The curse inside me—”

I stepped forward, planting my palm against the tree's rough bark.

“The bond is not a curse,” I spat out. “I warned you. The bond can never be broken. No matter where you go, I will follow. The bond is inescapable. I thought to be patient, Liùsaidh. It is time you understood what the bond is.”

I curled into the bond and twisted it, pouring my need into it—the need to mate. The ache I felt in bed, inhaling my mate's scent, but never acting on my desire. There wasn't a day that passed when I didn't think of her heat.

I reached for my hardening cock and pushed every last bit of my desperate need for her into her chest.

“You will be a good girl and bring your gaping bloom down here for me to use. Or stay on that branch all night-watching and suffer.”

Her lips parted, and her eyes flicked to my hand.

She shook her head before tilting her chin up.

“No.”

Skoll growled.

I smiled.