Chapter 7

7

R hi

Spencer falls to his hands and knees right in front of me and his body begins to jerk and jolt like he’s being hit by a thousand volts of electricity.

He’s right. It isn’t pretty. In fact, it’s really difficult to watch as his body stretches and alters in front of me, his bones crunching and snapping. It looks like agony, like torture, and I swallow down a gasp, my hands flying to cover my mouth.

Soon his body is almost twice the size it was and his face has lengthened and changed, great teeth crowd along his jaw and thick dark fur sprouts all over his skin as his clothes rip and fall away.

It continues for several minutes, though feels like a lifetime, and then it’s a huge wolf-like creature that crouches in front of me, no longer Spencer. In fact, all traces of the boy I know are gone, until the great beast swings his head upwards and its eyes meet mine. A deep chestnut color, glowing in the light. They’re Spencer’s eyes and I wonder if he’s in there, somewhere, watching us.

The last time the beast and I met I was frozen with fear. This time I’m not afraid. I know what he is. I know who he is. And I wasn’t lying, he is beautiful in a strange and powerful could-crush-your-skull-in-his-jaws kind of way.

The beast’s eyes flicker over my form and then it staggers up onto its hind legs, stretching up tall and towering above me. It shakes its head, then its neck, shoulders and back, and the dark fur ruffles along its spine as if caught in the wind. It uncurls its paws, the claws on the ends of its fingers razor sharp, and then it flings back its head and howls up into the sky. The sound both beautiful and pitiful.

“Shhh,” I mutter. “Do you want the others to come rushing out here and causing a fuss?”

The beast lowers its chin slowly and catches me in its penetrating stare.

“Little mate,” he purrs, and it’s like before. I’m unsure if I hear his words with my ears or whether the words are spoken inside my head, like Stone has done in the past. He cocks his head, his ears twitching.

“Rhianna,” I tell him.

“Rhianna,” he says slowly, his tongue unfurling from his jaws and sliding along his teeth as if he’s caressing every syllable of my name. Then he falls back down onto his four legs, his head level with mine. He paces closer, sniffing the air around me.

“Your scent.” He takes a deep inhale, his brown eyes rolling backwards in their sockets. “In all the years, it has not changed. I have missed you.”

I take a step away from him. I don’t know what I was expecting when I came face to face again with Spencer’s beast. Maybe a repeat of last time. Not this. His words make no sense and yet they stir an unease in my bond. My hands stray to my belly automatically.

The beast’s gaze drops to my stomach too.

“You are yet to bond with the boy. Yet to lie with him. Why not? He is strong, virile. He would stuff you full and make you dissolve into pleasure.” The beast growls, and his eyes flash with heat. “Why have you not sealed the bond?”

I kind of want to tell him that it’s none of his damn business. But I guess it is.

“It’s … difficult,” I say instead.

“Difficult? You are fated mates. Destined to be together. There is nothing difficult about it.”

I scoff. That may have been true if Spencer had welcomed me with open arms. Instead, he stuffed me into a locker, refused to teach me self defense and then left all together.

“The boy is young and sometimes foolish,” the beast says, stepping so close, his whiskers brush against my face and his breath whistles over my skin. “He has made mistakes.”

He smells like Spencer and I realize for the first time how distinct his scent is, powerful and deep and bold.

“But he finds it hard to resist you.” The beast nuzzles his muzzle under my chin and my heart leaps into my throat, my magic sizzling at the ends of my fingertips. Is this safe?

I told Spencer I could take care of myself, but the beast is far bigger than I remember and up close I can see how powerful he is too. My magic is strong – stronger than it ever was – but would it be strong enough to stop a werebeast?

“You are so young, so soft, so beautiful,” he croons, the tip of the beast’s tongue lapping over the point where my pulse beats in my throat. “Just as you always were, little mate.”

And I don’t know what possesses me – if I’m just really stupid or the tenor of his voice, low and lulling, has me in a trance – but I lift my hands and stroke my fingers through the dark fur on his head. It’s thick and luscious and soft to the touch and the beast responds, closing his eyes and purring with pleasure.

“I am yours to command, little mate. Your faithful mutt.”

“Don’t say that word,” I mutter.

“Yes,” he says, “he doesn’t like it either. He is ashamed of what we are, afraid of it.”

“He shouldn’t be,” I tell him.

“No,” he says. “You must make him understand that.”

“I’m not sure I can make Spencer Moreau do anything,” I say with a huff, reaching to stroke the mane of fur on his neck, his body vibrating as he purrs with satisfaction, a vibration I feel in my chest and my bond.

“The boy would do anything for you.” The beast slides his long tongue up my throat. “He is as infatuated with you as I am.”

I move around him, continuing to comb my fingers through his fur and then, because I definitely have lost my mind, bury my face in his fur and rest my body weight against his huge frame. Is it strange that his presence is somehow comforting, reassuring? At the academy I saw this beast smash through five men at once. I saw him tear them to pieces. I saw him lick the blood from his jaw.

But is he any worse than Renzo? Any worse than Azlan? They are all killers. All monsters in their own way. Even Stone and Tristan have acted cruelly more times than not. I can’t pretend my fated mates are nice, gentle types. I’m not sure I can even pretend that they are good men.

Then again, I’m not sure good men are what I need. Or what I want. I have a taste for monsters now. And if my mom is correct, and others are going to come for me, like they came for her, maybe monsters are exactly what I need to protect me.

We stand there, the beast and I, for some time, my head buried in his soft fur, my mind lost to my thoughts, until finally he says, “I need to move now, little mate, to run.” He stands back up on his hind legs looking more humanoid than wolf. “Do you wish to come with me?”

“With you?” I say, laughing. “I don’t think I could keep up.”

“I will allow you to mount me. To ride me.”

“Erm …” I say.

“Are you afraid?”

“No,” I say, squaring my shoulders. “It’s just it seems … are you sure?”

“Little mate,” the beast says, his eyes flashing again. “You can ride me any time you like.” His lips curl into a smirk. “Any way you wish.”

I swallow, trying damn hard not to look at the huge object that hangs between his legs. That is just … that is just …

I shake my head. “Another time.” I take a step backward.

“Little mate, I will not hurt you.”

He lifts his arm, offering me his great paw, the claws long and sharp.

And Spencer was right, one of these days my curiosity is going to get me killed. Maybe that day will be today, but damn it. Riding a dragon was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever done. Am I really going to turn down the chance to ride a werebeast?

Yeah, silly question. Of course, I’m not .

I slide my hand into his paw and he curls his fingers – or are they toes – around it and tugs me closer. Then he bends one leg, kneeling down.

“Climb onto my back then, little one, wrap your legs tightly around my waist and your arms tightly around my neck.”

I follow his instruction, feeling solid, packed muscle beneath his fur as I cling onto him.

He stands, lifting me high above the ground, and rests his paws on my thighs gripping them tightly.

Then he throws back his head, like he did before, howling up towards the winter sky, drops down onto his four paws and takes off across the prairie land.

He runs so quickly, the landscape around me blurs into one long flash of color and the wind whips through my hair and plasters it flat against my head.

I lower my head so my chin rests against his neck, and screw up my eyes. Beneath me his muscles ripple and lurch, working hard as he thunders across the land. It’s not as smooth, not as magical, as riding the dragon, but it’s damn exhilarating, like riding a fast motorbike, only the engine humming beneath my thighs is alive. He takes us right over the brow of the hill in the distance, through long grass that brushes against my legs, until, when I turn my head, I can no longer see the mansion behind us.

When we hit a stream, gurgling with water, he takes a hard left, his back paws scrabbling on the earth, and then he’s speeding along the bank. I watch as a flock of small birds shoot up into the sky, disturbed by our presence, and a small fish leaps from the water, its scales glistening like jewels.

The beast’s skin is hot beneath me and his fur begins to dampen with sweat. But he doesn’t stop. On and on he runs. Only finally coming to an abrupt halt at the outcrop of dense trees.

“There,” he whispers, motioning with his head and I peer through the gloom of the trees. A stag, grazing on the short grass beneath the branches, a magnificent pair of white antlers balancing on the crown of his head. The beast lowers his body until he’s lying flat in the tall grass and I slide off his back.

“You’re going to hunt him?” I ask and the beast growls quietly in response. “You can’t,” I insist. “He’s too beautiful.”

The beast’s chestnut eyes flick to mine and he looks at me with curiosity.

“You think only beautiful things deserve to live?”

My brow crinkles and I shake my head. “No, I think every creature deserves to live, beautiful or not.”

“And cruel creatures? Malicious creatures? Do they deserve to live?”

“Nature is cruel.” I saw it often enough, raising the chickens, tending our vegetable plot.

“Doesn’t the hunter deserve to eat?” the beast asks, his eyes focusing back on the oblivious stag.

“You’re not hunting him for food.”

“But it’s in my nature. Would you deny me my nature?”

I turn my head away. Life was easy before. All I had to worry about was whether the chickens had laid any eggs that day, whether I could spare a tin from the larder, whether I had enough to eat. I didn’t have to worry about wrong or right. My head didn’t ring continually with these complicated decisions.

This is his nature. To kill. Who am I to demand he changes? Should I not accept him as he is?

“I don’t know,” I admit in the end. The beast stalks forward. I close my eyes. I’ve seen so many people die now. You’d think I’d be used to it.

But then I hear the thundering of hooves and when I open my eyes, I see the stag cantering away.

“He caught a hint of our scents,” the beast says, watching him go.

I let out the breath I was holding and lie out in the grass beside the beast. The cold air nips at my nose but the beast radiates heat and I snuggle closer to him to keep warm. He rolls onto his side, bending his elbow and resting his head on his paw. He peers down at me and then lifts his other paw and drags a claw softly – barely hard enough for me to feel it – down my cheek.

“I hope we will have other moments like this, little mate.”

I open my mouth to reply, but he rolls away from me and his body jerks and jolts like Spencer’s did earlier. Only this time, the fur retracts, his frame shrinks and his muzzle contracts, until it’s Spencer lying on the cold earth beside me.

A very fucking naked Spencer.