Tate nuzzled her neck again, sending scalding hot shivers up and down her body. “She sounds very wise.”
“She is,” Claire said in a soft voice, flicking her eyes toward the photo. “She knew she couldn't force her own decision on me.”
He paused and pulled back a bit to look into her eyes. A question framed his soft brown ones. Claire took a deep breath, then another. Patiently, Tate waited for her. His hand still stroked her, but now it was in a more comforting rather than arousing fashion. Quietly, she told him the truth. “She's still a wolf. Forever. She never shifted back to human again. She tells me now she no longer can.”
Tate's low, quiet whistle gently sounded in the room, which was still except for the increasing beat of the wind outside and the sizzle of the flames in the fireplace. “Why?”
Claire shrugged. “She was happier living as a wolf. She still is. Melle is a true wild wolf, I think.” Claire pictured her mother padding on silent paws through the desert, utterly content in her skin and pelt. “She doesn't regret that decision. But she always made sure I understood it was her decision, and not one she could ever make for me. She's actually always encouraged me to keep both my sides in balance.”
Her wolf brushed against her mind in pure agreement.
Tate was silent for a time, though Claire could sense his mind turning over her info. It wasn't exactly a bombshell, but she'd certainly never mentioned it to anyone before. No one else knew about her mother. No one. Telling Tate felt—freeing. And trusting. Very trusting.
Letting that feeling of trust guide her moves, not to mention the banked heat inside her that grew hotter with every passing second in his presence, Claire turned to Tate and nuzzled his face, then kissed his cheek where his stubble roughened against her sensitive skin. That pulled him away from his thoughts. With a light groan, he turned his own head just enough so her lips would find his. Long, slow, languorous, their lips met and danced, sending bolt after soft bolt of pleasure through Claire's every nerve ending.
How was it possible she'd been so upset earlier she'd sent him away? This gorgeous, sexy, amazing man who was turning her brain back into mush just from the slide and press of his lips on hers? Oh, yes. Something about being in a pack. Hmm...it seemed like something she could worry about later.
“My room is that way,” she said against his mouth, gesturing vaguely in the direction of her bed. It was all the invitation Tate needed. In one seamless move, he stood and scooped her up at the same time. A surprised gasp flew from her lips, but he held her securely.
Locking his eyes on hers for an instant, he let the shadow of a grin tug up his lips and said, “As you wish, my gorgeous darlin'.”
Claire smiled into his shoulder as Tate strode to her room, just off the main living area. He gently placed her on the bed. The room was dark, but the firelight bounced in, and their wolf-enhanced vision allowed them each to see the other as clearly as if it were noon. Tate stood back from the bed for a long moment, doing nothing more than look at her. Claire felt almost volcanically heated from the inside out as his eyes traveled the length of her clothed body, down to her toes then back to her face. When he finally spoke, his words seared her with their simple command.
“Strip for me, beautiful.” His voice, serious and trembling, lanced her with its need. “I want to see your naked skin.”
Tate almost exploded from holding his breath as Claire slowly sat up on her bed and began to remove her clothes.
One.
By.
One.
Ah, god. She moved so slowly, a teasing smile lifting the corners of her mouth, Tate thought his own blood would thrum out of his body from its impatient boiling. When she got down to her bra and panties, he reached a hand forward to stop her so he could admire her for a second longer. But she shook her head, a cascade of silvery-blond hair washing down over her shoulders in the dim light.
“Oh, no,” she said, drawing a finger down between her breasts, which simultaneously drew his eyes as well. “You told me to strip. No stopping now.”
Tate considered whether or not it was possible to swallow one's own tongue as he watched Claire shrug off her bra straps, which fell with silky elegance down her arms. When she reached behind to unclasp the bra and those full, gorgeous globes were released, Tate felt his cock stiffen to such hardness it was literally painful. Then she leaned back on her arms and, not taking her eyes from his, somehow managed to shimmy her panties down her legs and off.
Naked, Claire was a sight to behold. An amazing sight to behold. A mouthwatering, stunning, brain-melting sight to behold. Tate's brain was officially melted. That was his
mate
on the bed. She'd just stripped for him, because he'd asked her to. Willing, eager, soft and vulnerable and open.
His wolf danced in his head, urging Tate to claim her again, brand her as his, rub his scent all over her so no other male would ever even think she was available. She might be a wild wolf, she might be a stubbornly independent woman, but she was
his
mate. No one else's. Ever.
“Come and get me.” Claire's voiced breathed out into the room, soft and beckoning, touched with the same eager longing Tate felt. He wasted no more time and quickly shucked his own clothes, kicking off his boots and letting them fly where they would, eliciting a giggle from Claire.
Her giggles dissolved into a gasp when Tate pounced onto the bed and spread her legs with gentle yet firm hands.
“Mine,” he said to her as much as to himself. “Let me in, Claire.”
“Yes,” she gasped, as his tongue reached out to find her slick folds, plump and waiting to be tasted by him. Soft and plush, smelling like honeyed cinnamon dashed with that ceaselessly alluring citrus he now associated with her, Claire's wet heat tumbled into his mouth as her cries filled his ears. God, she tasted so good it about made his heart pump its way right out of his chest. His cock throbbed with the need to plunge into her. Forcing himself to focus, he slipped his tongue inside her, drawing out tangled moans from her throat. When he easily slid a finger inside her as well, she about tossed them both off the bed from her thrashing.
“Don't stop!” Her fingers curled into his hair, pushing his head farther down into her intoxicating, soft, super-heated center.
Smiling into her, puffing out a breath onto her swollen lips and enjoying the small buck of her hips as he did so, Tate shook his head. He pulled back just enough to say, “I'm not stopping, darlin'. Hell, no. I'm just getting started with you.” He dragged his tongue over her sweet creases again, enjoying her nonsensical gasps as he did so. “We've got all night.”
***
Claire stretched. Her body felt limp, loose, utterly sated. Visions of herself thrashing around on the bed with Tate, tangled up with him, under him, over him, every sense she had filled by him, flooded her mind as gray, stormy mid-morning light tried to creep into the room. Smiling, she reached out for him, even though she knew he was gone. He'd left before the sun was up, reluctantly pulled away by horses that needed feeding and a Guardian patrol for the day. She knew what Guardian patrols were, of course, but he'd told her a little more as he'd gotten dressed. Right before he'd left, he sat back down on the bed, curving his hands over and over her body beneath the sheet.
“Claire.” His eyes still held the same sense of wonder and awe she knew hers did, but a serious note shadowed them as well. “I know why they haven't bothered you yet.”
Frowning at him, she'd shaken her head. “Because they don't need me. That's why.”
But he was shaking his head almost before the words left her mouth. “No. No, that's not the reason at all. Rogues always need something, and they especially need females.”
She argued, still not convinced. “You said Bashar was still involved with his native pack in some sort of plot to create havoc with the North American wolf packs. Don't they have enough females of their own?”
Tate's expression was more than troubled. “I don't think so,” he finally said in a low voice. “I think that may be part of the problem. That's what my alpha thinks, at least. And Luke said it's very possible, too.”
“Then I don't understand why he wouldn't have just dragged me back to Canada,” she said, frowning. “It's not like he didn't have a thousand chances.”
The stone-cold glare that abruptly descended on Tate's face—her mate! She still loved thinking that, despite everything that still meant, that she still wasn't quite ready to closely look at—both thrilled and unnerved her. She'd seen him as sweet, kind, gentle, perpetually sunny. He was all those things, certainly. But this darker side was coming out every time he sensed a potential threat to her. The hint of her past with a rogue, a rogue who knew where she lived, brought Tate's highly protective wolf crashing to the forefront. His eyes even began to show that telltale light.
She had to admit it was unbelievably sexy. Even if there was no way she'd admit to him that she, the self-reliant wild wolf, found it very arousing that he was so protective of her.
Her wolf sniffed and gave the wolfish equivalent of an eye roll at Claire's silliness, then turned her back.
Tate unclenched his jaw enough to say, “You might still be a prize to them. But more importantly, I think you're a lure.” Rain began to lightly patter on her window as he spoke.
Claire stared at him in puzzlement, absently reaching out to touch his dark hair and drift her fingers along his deliciously stubbled chin. “A lure for what?”
There was a short silence, then: “Your mother. You told me she carries the gene for your coloring, right? The Upper North Woods Pack is very close to the arctic north themselves. They probably have some white wolves in their pack as well. I'll have to ask Luke.” He offered a grim smile at her suddenly horrified look as she pushed herself into a sitting position. “I think they want you to lure your mother here, Claire. That way, they can have two female wolves for the price of one, so to speak.”
“But they don't know about her! I've never mentioned her to anyone, except you.”
His face suddenly softened as he searched her eyes. Without saying anything, she could tell she'd just touched him deeply with her trust. But he didn't push it. Still treating her like a skittish thing, she thought, although it made her smile a bit.
Then he glanced out at the living room. “What did you tell him about that photo of you and your mother?”
“That she was long gone. That she'd gone wild and disappeared years ago. It's the cover story she and I chose to use years ago. And it's true, in a fashion. She's gone from the human world, at least.”
“And he never scented her?” Tate looked doubtful.
Claire could positively shake her head at that. “No. She doesn't come to my house, ever. I meet her in the canyons.”
Still unconvinced, Tate had nevertheless drawn her to him for a lingering kiss. “Even so,” he said, somewhat breathlessly, when they finally broke apart, “be careful. I'll call you later.”
“What, no dramatic scene today to make me come with you?” She smiled as she teased.
He chuckled, but then said simply, “You accept that we are mates. I accept that you're a wild wolf. I have no idea either how that will work, but I do understand I need to honor you for what you are. You have managed to survive just fine on your own for a little while now, I guess,” he teased her right back, which earned him a playful tussle on the bed and made him late going out the door.
Replaying that conversation in her head now, Claire felt the stirrings of desire again just thinking about the man. She had no idea how to do this either, but damned if she wouldn't try. Somehow, this had to work. There must have been a similar pairing in shifter history, right? Not, of course, that she'd ever heard of one. Melle had never told her of a wild wolf-pack wolf mating before, either. But that didn't mean there was no precedent. There had to be a precedent. No way could she live without her sweet, sexy, delicious, gentle, assertive, amazing mate.
Swinging her feet onto the cool wooden floor, smiling as she pictured Tate's face when he'd finally claimed her body again last night, Claire padded naked into her kitchen to fix some coffee.
A violent banging on her door made her jump a few feet into the air, sending her wolf straight into her eyes and chills straight down her spine.
“Open up, Claire,” came the deep voice that suddenly froze her blood. “Time for you to come home with me now.”
The knock again violently pounded at her door. Her heart threatened to leap right out of her chest.
When she didn't answer and the door suddenly crashed in, smashed open and torn from its sturdy hinges, she thought she might be having an actual cardiac arrest as four large rogue wolves filled her doorway, one of them smiling at her with abruptly loathsome and downright terrifying familiarity.
***
Tate shook water off his coat, sending a slightly baleful look at the sky. Their entire patrol had been drenched with freezing rain, which meant any rogue scents left out there were effectively washed away. It also meant wet wolves, which was fine except when it rained the entire damn time. Autumn was rapidly swinging into that odd state caught halfway between falling leaves and falling snow.
He'd much prefer either colorful leaves or soft white snow. At least with the snow he could think of Claire.
She was still on his mind as he showered and changed in his little cabin on the den property. Maybe Claire would one day learn to like it here, he mused as he glanced around the place. Toweling off his hair, he tugged on his boots, then pulled a vest over his long-sleeved shirt. He planned to spend some time with the horses he had in training, then head back out to Claire's. She might not come here, but she'd made it clear it was fine for him to spend his time with her at her place.
He'd take any bone she threw him right now.
He'd pulled on his second boot when claws skittering on his small porch outside made him quickly stand up. Opening the door, he stared at Lily, whose fur nearly stood on end. His wolf leapt into his eyes, immediately catching his sister's anxiety. Without bothering to shift and make herself more clear, she simply jerked her head at the den, then turned and pelted off back the way she'd come.