Chapter 24

Creed

Something was wrong.

I knew what a heat was: my fathers had given me the talk about the wolves and the wasps when I was hovering on the edge between pup and male. And that's what this felt like. My hands, then my claws, raked at the clasps at my neck, yanking at my leather armour, toggles straining, then breaking as I forced it open.

I was hot, far too hot.

And so were my brothers.

Sweat prickled across Roan's brow as he stared at the princess, his eyes tracing her form in that damn dress that displayed shoulders as pale and perfect as the first snow of winter. Her gown revealed as much as it covered, and I needed it to do one or the other, my claws flexing as I considered which one to choose. Then those slender little arms went up in the air as she stretched, then yawned so hard her jaw cracked, reminding me of the last time she'd struggled to open it far enough.

Around Roan.

"Well, I need to get to bed," she announced.

"No."

I didn't move my lips, didn't muster the sound in my chest, but he did, and suddenly my wolf's claws were digging into the tabletop.

"I'm very tired, Master Creed," she said, in a pleading tone that had me flushing even redder, so that sweat went running down the side of my face and into my beard, making it itch furiously. "And the thought of sleeping in an actual bed—"

The images hit me. A bed. Her. Naked, bare, under me. Squirming as I repeated the performance of the other night, bringing her to one sobbing climax after another. Then, when she was wet, soft, and wanting, I'd push her down on the bed, just as I'd hungered to do in that room by the docks in Stormare, and free my cock—

"…is a very pleasant one. I assume I won't have an opportunity to do so often. Isn't that right, Arik?"

"What?"

The commander was watching her lips so closely that he should've heard every word she said, but a red haze hung over his eyes, and he blinked hard to see her.

"A bed. I won't get a chance to sleep in one often," she repeated.

"You…" Arik didn't sound quite human as he tried to respond. He sounded more like a catamount, which had my ears pricking up and my body stiffening.

More. Stiffening more.

My cock was so hard and aching that I was leaking seed in my breeches. The way the damp leather slipped against the throbbing head was too fucking much like the way I imagined she'd feel when, finally, I—

"Ugh… the lot of you are as drunk as lords." Jessalyn pulled away from the table in an attempt to sweep toward the stairs, but Silas intercepted her.

As his arms went around her waist, it was as though I could feel her warmth against me, and when he bent and whispered in her ear, I felt the stray brush of her hair on my lips. She said nothing to him in response, but she flushed bright red before twisting herself out of his grip.

"I'll see you gentlemen in the morning."

No. That wasn't right. A low growl rumbled in my chest, because as she turned and walked away from us, instead of coming closer, other men looked at what was ours.

At least they did before I corrected their behaviour.

When my fangs flashed, sensible men shrank back. They knew what wolf shifters were and how ferocious we could be. There were plenty of other girls in the inn for them to chase. However, one was stupid enough to rise to follow her, but he didn't make that mistake for long. I planted my hand on his chest, letting the claws prick through his shirt as I shoved him right back into his chair.

"Sit down, friend."

I bit off the word, not waiting for a response as I trailed her.

Jessalyn looked back in alarm when she noticed she had someone following her. Those pretty little feet started to move faster, as if that would help. That's what mates do when a heat hits them. A female wolf shifter runs before her mates, sending them on a merry chase, forcing them to prove they were worthy of her, and surely that's what this was? I watched her move faster and faster up the stairs and my eyes burned in my skull, hotter than my body. Because they traced the slender shape of her form, the way the skirts swirled around her, giving tantalising glimpses of her ankles, her legs as she climbed the stairs.

So I joined her.

I'd always follow her, that was something she needed to learn. From here to the end of the earth, I'd track her down, make sure she was safe, fed, cared for. Right now, my instincts weren't pushing for something so sweet or gentle. I raised my nose and inhaled: the floral perfume that always seemed to follow her had bloomed.

But what was that sour note?

It stung my nose and made me falter in my steps, shaking my head as if to dislodge it. The little minx used that one moment of distraction to duck into her room and pull the door behind her.

My hand slid over the heavy wooden door, caressing the smooth surface with the same touch I would give her.

"Jessalyn…" I got no response, and my hand slid down, down to clasp the doorknob. "Jessalyn…"

"I'm going to bed, Master Creed, but thank you for escorting me to my room. I always feel safe in your presence."

I pressed my forehead to the barrier between me and her, and the stout wood was hard against my skull. It was nothing. Humans built themselves walls, fences, and gates, always finding ways of cutting up the world into smaller and smaller chunks, of being forced to mark their territory with stuff they built. But I'd have the door off its fucking hinges in seconds if that's what it took to get to her.

"Jessalyn…" I loved the feel of her name in my mouth. My eyes closed tight as I let out one panting breath, then another. "Jessalyn, sweetheart—"

"I truly am very tired, Master Creed," she said, her voice coming closer. When she turned the doorknob, she only opened the door a small way. I hissed a breath in at the glimpse I had of her, with her cheeks flushed and her lids heavy. "I'm just going to go to bed and…"

She went to close it, to keep the wolf from her door, but we couldn't allow that. I wrapped one hand around the frame and one around the edge of the door. Her eyes widened at the sight.

"And what?"

Her chest started to heave as her breath came in harder and faster. She acted like prey and smelled like prey, and I wanted her to run just so I could hunt her down. But she wasn't a wolf. She was human and that's not what they did before mating. I pushed myself away from the door jamb and strode into her room.

"And what?" I asked, glancing at the neatly made bed then her. "What're you going to do in your little bed, all alone?"

Her hands rose in front of her, and my clawed hands wrapped around them, needing the feel of her skin against mine, to fucking hold her in all the ways I'd longed to. I could do it now because the heat had burned away my hesitation. That reticence had made me stay sitting tall on the coach box, keeping my hands on the reins, not on her, and trying hard not to be the next one that pushed his way into her carriage. I drew one of her wrists closer, hearing her hiss. Whether it was from fear or anticipation, I couldn't tell, even as I pressed my lips to her skin to sear it with a kiss.

"Will you strip yourself bare?" Lifting my other hand, I ran the back of a claw along the creamy skin of her breasts that were threatening to spill from her neckline, and she took in a shaky breath that put pressure on the fabric until the seams strained. "Run your little hands all over your body, just as I did the other night."

Her gasp dragged my eyes away to lock with hers but what I saw there confused me. Humans always seemed to experience contradictory emotions, all at the same time. There was anger, I could feel that in the tension in her wrist, as if she longed to twist free, but her scent showed me more than that. There was fear that stank like burning hair, but also… Something sweet and heavy and floral, like the white flowers that covered the night garden walls in the capital. I flipped my grip on her wrist so the back of her hand was presented to me, like she was a lady and I was a lord.

My thoughts were far from gentlemanly.

"Will you slide them up the insides of your bare thighs?" I dropped my hands from her, but my gaze held hers so I caught the moment when her pupils blew wide. "The skin there is as soft and fine as angora. No, softer. I could've spent the entire night just touching it, stroking it back and forth and marvelling that another being could be that soft, but of course, I didn't. Because as I slid my hand closer to your core, it only got softer." I grinned then, something I rarely did because it made my fangs pop into view. "Wetter too. So fucking wet—"

"I'm aware." Her voice had the same effect on me of having a bucket of ice water splashed in my face by a belligerent sergeant and brought to the fore a part of myself that had been pushed down. I blinked, then blinked again, as I became aware of the red haze. "I know I behaved disgracefully." Her voice was jagged.

"Not disgracefully." I shook my head, unable to let that lie go unchallenged. "Beautifully." I moved closer but didn't touch her, making clear she could skitter away if that's what she wanted, and all the while my heart was aching as I hoped she wouldn't. "Your body undulates like the waves of the Iridescent Seas. Have you ever seen it?"

"I've never left Stormare," she said in a small voice.

"You need to. The waves, they glitter so brightly they make your eyes ache." I inched closer. "Just like you do, lass. The water looks like a rainbow, a million colours and none at all playing over the surface as they rise and fall. You did that, on my lap, with my cock wedged tight against your arse as you rode my fingers, crashing into the sands just like a wave, over and over. Your sighs were just like the hush of the ocean in my ears, and I never wanted to listen to another sound."

Just a tiny little sound—that's what gave me the go ahead to surge forward—a moan half stifled by the throat I pressed a kiss to. My lips burned, like she was made from phosphorus, not human flesh, and was searing me to the bone. Branding me. And that made sense, because when she accepted me, her little blunt teeth would sink into my flesh, the minute I sank into her—

"Master Creed—"

"Just Creed." My tone verged on begging. I was struggling to navigate human mating rituals as it was, but that formality was too much. "Please, just Creed."

"Well, Creed…"

When her hands smoothed over my chest, the wolf inside me bayed in victory; but when her hand slid across bare flesh, my claws slapped down, needing that. Skin to skin, just as we should be right now, I felt that deep inside me. Jessalyn undid the rest of the toggles of my jacket, then smoothed it back and off my arms, leaving me standing there, bare chested for her.

I loved the way she stared at our pack members, like she'd eat us up with her eyes. There was something so greedy about her, as if she wanted to taste all the world's pleasures in a moment. We'd make sure she had them, over and over. I was beginning to think of Jessalyn as a tiny bird, trapped in the shell her family had made for her, but she kept tap, tap, tapping to get out.

Like she did now.

Her hands went around my neck, playing with the hairs at the nape of my neck.

"Perhaps it's my turn to please you."

Part of me wanted just that as I watched her sink slowly to her knees, her eyes burning into mine as she slid her hands down to undo the laces of my breeches. But the first rub of her hand against my aching cock had me jerking her to her feet and carrying her across the room to deposit her on the armchair there. I arranged her to my satisfaction, her legs hooked over the arms, before flipping her skirts up.

"You first," I growled. "Always you first, lass, because you're…"

I couldn't say the words, not yet. What we were building was still shaky and uncertain. In everything except this. I lunged forward, brushing my lips against those satin-smooth thighs, kissing up higher, higher, until I was barely grazing my mouth against her skin and reached her sopping core.

I'd thought about how she'd drenched her knickers for us over and over as we drove away from Stormare, half thinking I'd dreamed it. Sure enough, the satin was slick under my fingers as I pulled it to one side. Pink, glistening, and perfect, the sight of her made my mouth water.

"Need to taste you, lass," I growled, giving her one last chance to deny me. "Need you on my tongue. Need—"

"Yes…!"

Her hands slapped down on my skull, and she used them to drag me right where I needed to be.