Dark Wolf Returning (11 page)

She’d been into the kissing...
and
the touching. Had loved it when he’d put his hand between her legs for the first time, her shirt pushed up under her chin. They’d been in the forest, surrounded by the trees and wind and rain, and he’d had her little nipple in his mouth while he’d thrust two fingers deep inside her tender sex,
undone by the hot, wet feel of her. She’d been the tightest, sweetest thing he’d ever known, and when she’d pulsed around his fingers in orgasm, he’d wanted to throw his head back and howl. And once he’d finally pulled his fingers from between her silky thighs, he hadn’t been able to stop himself from shoving them in his mouth, sucking off every drop of her cream. But she’d been furious at the way
he’d pulled away from her when she’d reached for the button on
his
jeans, putting an end to the stolen, erotic moment, knowing damn well that if she’d put her hands on him, he’d have been inside her in an instant. Something he’d wanted more than anything, but had known he couldn’t have.

So, yeah, he’d already been working on a hair trigger where she was concerned. And then, two nights later,
she was there, in his house, and he hadn’t been able to fight it. He’d stripped her, taken her to his bed, and shoved her thighs apart to make way for him, his chest heaving with his frantic breaths. Heart pumping, he’d worked himself inside her hot, fist-tight sheath, completely lost in the exquisite, breathtaking feel of her, and had just pierced her throat with the tips of his fangs, when his
father had started banging on his front door. Terrified Stefan would realize she was there, he’d jerked away from her, leaving her in his bed with the promise to be back. He had no idea how long she’d waited, but when he’d returned from being told that the League was determining his punishment for the unsanctioned kill that he’d made, she’d been gone.

The banishment had been announced the
following day, and he’d known, in that moment, that he would probably never see her again. That he’d lost everything that had ever mattered to him.

Forcing his mind back on the present and away from those gut-wrenching memories, he told her, “I wanted to finish it that night, Carla. You have no idea how
badly
I wanted that. But I tried to do the right thing.”

“Which was what?” she snapped,
curling her hands into fists and pressing them against his chest. “Protecting the little half-human from your big bad self? You didn’t think I would have been able to handle you?”

He shook his head, hard. “I wasn’t trying to protect you from me.” Though he should have, considering how savage she’d made him feel. “I was trying to protect you from my father.”

“Riiight.”
Her tone made it
clear that she thought he’d just fed her the most pathetic excuse in the history of brush-offs.

Forcing his words through his clenched teeth, he said, “You
knew
him, Rey. Knew what he was capable of. I never let myself have anything that he could use as leverage against me. What do you think would have happened if he’d learned that we... That we were...”

“Jesus, Eli. Just spit it out.”

His words punched from his mouth like bullets. “An item. Thing. Whatever the hell you want to call it.”

A smirk curled her beautiful mouth, and she clucked her tongue. “Come on, Eli. Get real. There wasn’t any chance of him ever thinking that, because I wasn’t yours. Maybe nature screwed up and thought I should be, but we both know the truth. I was just the half-breed you kept pushing
away. The one you were too ashamed to be seen with.”

“Wrong,” he bit out, shoving his fingers into her hair and holding her head in a firm grip as he pressed his forehead against hers. “You were my everything, Carla. Besides my brother and sister, the only goddamn person that mattered. The person that mattered
most
.”

Before she could say anything else to piss him off, he took her mouth
and filled it with his tongue, rubbing it against hers, the taste of her so incredible it nearly broke him.

“Ask me to come with you,” he panted against her soft lips, his body so hard and aching with the need to be inside her he would have gotten down on his damn knees if he weren’t afraid she would run from him when he did. “Invite me to your room...to your bed.
Please,
Rey. I’m
beggin
g you.”

“Never!” she cried, the single word cracking with emotion as she wrenched her head to the side.

Beyond frustrated, he exhaled a harsh breath, then turned away from her and paced a few yards away. Before he even knew what he was doing, he found himself smashing his fist into a towering tree trunk with so much force it would have broken his hand if he’d been human. He hit it against
the rough bark, feeling his knuckles split and bleed, imagining it was his father’s face since it was that bastard’s fault he’d been too terrified to claim her like she’d deserved. And now, because of that, things were so screwed up, she wouldn’t even give him the chance to make them right.

When he finally got himself under control and turned back around to face her, she was gone, which wasn’t
all that surprising. Still, a violent, guttural stream of curses burned at the back of his throat, and he braced his hands on his hips, struggling to catch his breath. What should he do now? Go after her? Follow her around like a pathetic puppy? Or the ol’ tried-and-true coping mechanism of losing himself in the bottom of a bottle? If he went that route, at least he’d be able to dull this goddamn
hollow feeling sucking at his insides for a short time.

Then again, given how badly he wanted her, there probably wasn’t enough alcohol in the world to ease this ache.

Forcing himself to move, he walked back out into the glade, and immediately spotted a worried-looking Eric headed his way.
Shit
. How much had his brother just seen?

From the look on his dark face, too much, and Eli
knew he wasn’t going to like what was coming. Eric didn’t even give him the chance to try and deflect him with a bullshit excuse. His brother just jerked his chin toward Elise’s cabin, where they knew she was working on a training schedule for the group, and growled,
“Now.”

Eric knocked on her front door after they’d climbed the porch steps, and the moment Elise opened up, she took one look
at their scowls and frowned. “In the kitchen,” she murmured, noticing the blood dripping from his battered knuckles. They followed her into the sunny kitchen, and Eli slumped down into one of the chairs at the table, offering a gruff, “Thanks,” when Elise handed him a damp dishtowel. He wrapped the soft cotton around his hand, then surged back to his feet, unable to sit still as he started pacing
from one side of the kitchen to the other. Elise had taken a seat at the table across from where he’d been sitting, while Eric leaned against the sink with his arms crossed over his chest. But neither of them was saying a damn thing, and he ground his jaw, keeping his narrowed gaze on the floor, knowing they were watching him, trying to figure out what his problem was.

Eric was the first
to break the uncomfortable silence. “So about you and Reyes?”

Eli flicked him a shuttered look. “Just leave it, Eric. I need to figure this out on my own.”

His brother’s dark brows were knitted with concern. “I get that, and I’m trying to be patient. To give you time to settle in after being away for so long. But I need you to answer a question for me.”

“I already know what you’re
going to ask,” he ground out, “and the answer is
yes
. She’s mine.”

There was nothing for a moment but the heavy sound of his boots on the kitchen floor as he paced, and then Eric gave a tired sigh. “Yeah, we kinda already figured that out. What we’re wondering is...well, everything else that goes along with that. Why didn’t you ever tell us? What the hell is going on between the two of you
now?
”

“Christ,” he muttered, lifting his good hand and pulling it down his face.

“Did you know?” Eric pressed, unwilling to let it go. “Did you know that she was yours before you left?”

Hell yes, he’d known. Though he hadn’t admitted it to her, or even to himself, he’d known for
years
before they ever even spoke to one another on that fateful night when she’d been called up to town
to collect Nicole. He’d started noticing Carla when she hit her teens. Had watched her, waiting for her to grow older. And then the day had come when he could no longer keep his distance, despite all the reasons why he should. Why it would have been better for them both.

He could have walked away that night, when he’d seen her struggling with Nicole on the street, but he hadn’t had the willpower.
She was an adult, she was beautiful, and she was
his
. Even if he couldn’t claim her, he’d wanted to be close to her. To know her. Spend time with her. It’d been torture, but he’d soaked up every single second that he spent in her company—and he’d ached for her every single moment that they were apart. Even on those nights when she’d been in her cabin down in the Alley, and he’d been up in town,
with another woman underneath him, trying to ease the pain of wanting her and not having her. Of course, the meaningless sexual encounters had never worked. How could a guy enjoy sex with another woman when he couldn’t get the image of the one he craved out of his head? When he kept thinking about how he’d feel if he knew she was doing the same thing with another male? What her face would look like
if she were there to see him?

“Eli?” Eric prompted in a low voice.

Coming to a stop in the middle of the kitchen floor, he gave a hard swallow, then forced out a quiet, “Yeah, I knew.”

His brother’s deep voice was rough with surprise. “And you left her anyway?”

Lifting his head, he locked his gaze with Eric’s. “I knew she was mine, but I didn’t know that the bond had formed.
Or at least some of it.”

“
Some
of it?” Eric asked, shaking his head. “How is that even possible?”

Elise gave a soft laugh, speaking up for the first time since she’d sat down. “It’s not too crazy if you think about it. I mean, Eli
is
as alpha as a Lycan can get, not to mention as pure-blooded, which means he probably has supercharged sex hormones or whatever it is that causes the bonding.”

Eric waved his arms wildly, looking ridiculous. “Shit, stop!” he said to El. “Don’t talk about Eli’s freaking super sperm when I’m in the same room with you. That is
not
something I want to hear about.”

“I didn’t say super sperm,” Elise argued, rolling her eyes. “I said supercharged sex hormones.”

Eli used his good hand to cover his eyes, his ears hot, and wondered how he could get
them to just shut up.

“And then there’s Carla,” Elise went on to say, obviously not ready to let the subject drop. “She’s as badass as a female can get. It’s not surprising the bond managed to at least partially take when you think about how potent they both are.”

Eric groaned. “New topic,
now,
you little imp.”

“You’re such a baby,” she said with another laugh, and Eli lowered his
hand just in time to catch her tossing a balled-up napkin at their brother.

Eric grimaced as he batted the napkin away. “I’m not a baby. I just don’t like thinking about my brother’s...potency.”

“Back atcha,” Eli grunted. He’d just started to head back over to the table to take a seat, when a deep male voice let out a guttural string of curses right outside the kitchen window, followed
by an equally pissed off sounding voice that definitely belonged to a woman. “Who the hell is that?” he asked, looking from Eric to Elise.

She stood up and peered through the slanted blinds. “Holy shit,” she gasped. “It’s Cian and Sayre!”

Eric frowned. “Are they arguing again?”

“Let’s just say that if looks could kill, I’m pretty sure the Irishman would be pushing up daisies right
about now.” Shaking her head, she turned away from the window and sat back down at the table. “She just stomped off into the woods, and he stormed around the back of the cabin, probably heading back over to his place.”

“What’s the deal with those two, anyway?” Eli asked the question as he sat down, glad to have the focus off him and Carla for the moment.

“Who the hell knows?” Eric muttered,
pushing his hands in his front pockets as he shrugged his shoulders. “He won’t touch her, but he won’t let any other guy get close to her, either. If he wants her, and I’m thinking he does, then he probably thinks she’s too young for him.”

“Isn’t she?”

“Probably,” Eric said again. “But then, from what I understand from the other Runners, no one’s really sure of the guy’s
exact
age.”

Eli lifted his brows. “Didn’t he grow up with all of them?”

Eric shook his head. “He spent time here visiting when they were in their teens, but lived in Ireland most of the time. He didn’t move to these mountains permanently until later.”

“He can be such a smartass,” Elise murmured, “but he’s a gorgeous one. And that accent of his is downright sinful, which I’m sure hasn’t escaped
the girl’s notice. But there are a lot of issues working against him, like her age, his reputation as a man-whore, and his whole ‘my past is a secret’ thing. And then there’s the fact that her mother hates his guts. Woman turns red every time she sees him.”

Eli snorted. “I wouldn’t think Hennessey would let a mother get in his way.”

“You know what Constance is like,” Eric said with a
low laugh. “That’s one extremely wicked witch when she sets her mind to it.”

“True,” he agreed, recalling the times when she’d scared the crap out of him and his friends when he was younger and she’d caught them doing something they shouldn’t be. “But Hennessey has never struck me as the kind of guy who would let something like that get to him.”

“Yeah. Constance Murphy is a pain in his
ass, but despite all of it, the fact is that
he’s
the one making his life hard at the moment.”

Nodding, Eli said, “The guy’s stubborn.”

Eric’s voice was dry. “Sounds like someone else I know.”