Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Prairie Rose

She'd always thought she had an open heart. She'd never kept it carefully guarded and she'd allowed herself to be hurt in the past. Anyone could have done it, which was what happened when you were too kind and too trusting. She thought she knew what it meant to love and to be proud, but she had no real idea until she stood with her family and the rest of the pack, watching their pack wiseman make his way down the line of men, women, and children who used to belong to the Phaethon Pack. One by one, they gave their oath, repeating his solemn words. A palm was held out and a quick, shallow cut made across the palm. Bright red droplets landed on the pristine white snow.

Prairie Rose shifted because her feet were freezing. She'd helped get ready for the pack run and the feast held at the big cabin to follow. It was snowing and windy, but also warm enough that the snow was sticky and soaked through her boots in no time at all.

As the wiseman neared Agnar, she held her breath. Her chest swelled as he held out his hand.

"I, Agnar, swear loyalty to the Nightfall Pack. A Nightfall I am now and a Nightfall I will remain. With my oath, I promise my help, my hands, and my wisdom to my alpha." Agnar held out his palm and with a quick flash of a fresh blade, red welled up on Agnar's palm. He closed it, making a fist, and the droplets beaded and slicked off into the snow.

He was the last to give his oath and a cheer erupted from those assembled around her.

Kieran's twins walked with the wiseman, carrying a dish with blades to be cleaned and fresh blades. Since there were so many people giving oaths, Kieran decided it would be impractical to stop to sanitize after every single person.

She felt the wild energy rush through Levi and Blake, who had stood in the line right before Agnar. No one flinched or made a sound at the cut on their palm. She knew how much those hurt, shallow or not. They'd be healed within a matter of hours, since they were shifters.

Both boys turned and said something to Agnar, and it brought a prickling to her eyes and a rush of warmth through her when she watched how effortlessly he hugged his sons. Even a week ago, it was still hard for him. She knew he loved them, but maybe it wasn't that he had such a hard time saying the words. Maybe they just all knew how insignificant and tiny those words were in comparison to how overwhelming and huge their emotions were.

They'd brought the box to Kieran ten days ago. He'd thought it was best to keep Rome out of it. Only the three of them knew what he had done. Kieran wanted to spare their parents and the rest of their family, those closest to Rome, more pain. He also wanted to keep Rome safe from anyone who had ties to Alexander who might want to start another cycle of killing and revenge.

Agnar and Kieran went together to personally inform every member of the Phaethon Pack that Alexander was dead, but their lands were gone. Kieran had extended a formal offer to every single person to join the pack officially with a blood oath ceremony. He didn't force anyone, but anyone who didn't want to join the pack would have to leave. They would be given IDs if they didn't have them and some money to get them started wherever they chose to go. No one was rejected or turned away.

Not a single person took that offer. Everyone wanted to stay.

When Agnar went from home to home, his people were glad to see him. Now, he slapped men on the back, and shook hands with the women. Stopped to talk to the children. He was warm and they could tell that there was so much about him that had changed. Some still seemed astonished, and others were guarded and wary, even after taking their oath. Either way, they were welcomed as part of the Nightfalls and would now be given a permanent home.

Snow might have been falling in huge, fluffy flakes that would have been gentle if not for the stiff wind driving them, but the air itself felt warm and heavy. It was more than just the promise of spring coming soon. The whole woods where they'd gathered felt like brand new life had come before those longer days and the awakening brought on by a stronger, warmer sun.

After the congratulations, people started to pair off into groups for the pack run. It would be the newcomers first. Prairie Rose watched as Zora and her mom took charge, helping the women gather to head to a different part of the woods. They would shift in groups, men and women, and then join each other in the middle.

Kieran intercepted Agnar and said something, then he put a hand on Blake's and Levi's shoulders and started leading them along with her brothers, her father, and the other men. Agnar glanced back at her, frowning, until he saw she clearly had arranged something different for them.

He stalked towards her, a small smile on his lips that made him look like altogether a different man. He'd been doing that more, cautiously and carefully, over the past week. It might take him years or even a lifetime to be able to laugh and love openly, but she was willing to wait. He was trying and she knew how hard it was for him to do that, so even the effort mattered all the more.

She took his hand. He'd always see it as imperfect, but he'd been talking about going and getting a set of braces for his human hands as well so that he could hold an axe to chop wood or more easily close his hands around something as simple as a broom, cooking utensils, or simple gardening tools.

"I didn't give your braces to my dad."

His expression didn't change, and his small smile didn't fade. "That's alright. If you forgot them, I'll just run back to the house and—"

"I didn't forget. I have somewhere I want to take you. It's been a special spot for me ever since I discovered it when I was six years old. I wanted to show you."

His brows slanted down. "Now?"

"It's out of the main path of the run and Kieran knows about it. We'll have plenty of time to join them. We can shift from there. I'll help you with the braces. The boys are going with my dad and Kieran. They also know about that. They'll be fine, I promise."

He looked over his shoulder once, at the retreating forms of the other men, but then he turned back to her and smoothed his hand over her hair. He didn't stop there. He traced her forehead, her cheek, all the angles of her face until he tipped her jaw up and kissed her lips with a quick, hard stamp.

She was still floored, because public anything wasn't this man's style, and they were very much still right there in the open.

"Is that a yes?" she asked breathlessly.

"Yes."

They had a way to walk, so still holding his hands, they set off. Earlier that morning, she'd taken Agnar's braces and a change of clothes for each of them just in case, placed carefully in a large backpack, and she'd stashed them in the woods.

The spot truly was a special one for her. It was a place where she'd always gone when she needed to be alone, or when she wanted to think and dream. Sometimes she just went to read. There were even a few times in the warmth of summer, when she'd fallen asleep there for hours.

The small cave was almost impossible to find in the winter, when the snow loped over the rocky outcrops that burst in jagged peaks in the heart of their woods. She'd cleared it out that morning and set a blanket inside.

It took them a while to reach the spot, but when they did, Agnar knew what it was from a distance. His hand tightened in hers.

"We had our first mating celebration in a cave," she explained. "I thought it would be fitting that we celebrate you joining my pack officially in one as well. There's only one that I know of on our land. It's barely big enough for us to be in it together, but that's okay. We'll warm it up faster that way."

She stopped, almost waiting for him to tell her that she was being ridiculous, and he wasn't going to jam himself into that tiny, dark space with her, but when she stopped on the nearly completely snowed over path she'd tread earlier and faced him, his face was pinched, but not with distaste. It was so much sharper. Desire. His eyes burned with something more than that. A new tenderness that he allowed to be there because he gave himself permission to feel it.

He took the lead and led her the remainder of the way. Outside the cave's entrance, he stripped down, unzipping his jacket, peeling off his t-shirt, and stepping out of his fatigues and boots.

He was the most marvelous creation that had ever been hewn from nature. He was still a man, but he looked every bit as untamed and wild as his wolf with his eyes glowing. They never left her face.

When she shimmied out of her clothes, peeling off her own jacket and the flowing dress, the leggings she'd worn underneath, and shivering in the stiff wind, he held out his hand and waited until she placed her palm in his and he led her inside. She had to crouch down, but Agnar basically had to fold himself in half.

She eased him down, her body humming with anticipation as he flattened out on the blanket for her. She took his hard, thick cock in her hand, stroking him from his head all the way to the base of his shaft. She'd taken him into her mouth countless times already, but there was something she hadn't done.

She closed her mouth around his head, humming in appreciation as the salty musk of him coated her tongue. He grunted, fisting her hair.

"I thought I was finished with living," he groaned huskily, his voice reverberating through the low cave. The heat coming off his body warmed her, and they were sheltered away from the wind. The blanket kept the snow and the cold and wet away from them. "Now here I am, joining a new pack, becoming something greater than myself."

She let his cock pop out of her mouth, satisfied at the wet noise. She used her hand, smearing her saliva and his wetness down his shaft. She kissed her way down, from the tip all the way to his balls. She didn't take them in her hand like he probably expected she would. Instead, she took his balls into her mouth.

He gave a startled growl, but didn't move an inch. She kept working his cock with a tight fist, loving the way he got wetter with each pass.

"Fuck, Prairie Rose," he grunted. "Fuck."

She worked him for a long time, sucking and licking his balls, teasing him with kisses to his shaft before she replaced her lips with her hand again. She finally took him back into her mouth, trying to get him as near the back of her throat as he would go. He filled her mouth because he was massive, but she worked him, worked herself over him until her jaw ached. He half sat up and took her hair, working her face up and down his hard length.

She tried to breathe. Tried to swallow when he hit the back of her throat. She grasped his muscled thighs, digging her fingers in like she could hold on that way. It shouldn't be possible that he was so powerful when he was the one on the ground, the one beneath her, but of course he was.

He stopped fucking her face a few minutes later. Stopped to let her catch her breath. She set the pace, a much slower, softer one where she used her tongue. She traced his shaft, all the veins and the silk skin over that hardness. She breathed the musk of him in, swallowed when she needed to. It was a vulnerable position to be in, but he allowed it.

He allowed her to have control, or at least the illusion of it, and it set her on fire. She needed to be closer to him, needed to take more of him, taste more, take him deeper. Her thighs grew slick, and she'd never felt more empty. It didn't matter that she needed to be filled. She kept working him until she could feel how tightly he was wound. The tension in his body finally cracked wide open.

He didn't try to push her away. He sensed how hard she was working to make him come and how badly she needed that release exactly the way they were. She was half afraid she was going to choke when he started driving deeper into her mouth, his hips flexing convulsively as he got closer and closer, but he always pulled back before he surged forward.

When he finally came, he cut off the roar even though she was certain no one else was near. Her own heart was going wild, every beat echoed between her legs. She was probably leaking all over the blanket, all over his thighs below her. He burst in her mouth, coating her tongue. There was so much that she had to start swallowing. He was good. So good. Like salt and surrender and peace.

When he was done, he stilled beneath her, and she realized that his hands were tangled in her hair. She moved away a fraction so she could breathe, resting her forehead against his thigh, dragging air into her lungs. It was crisp and cold and felt so good. She hadn't realized how little she'd taken in for a long while.

He was still hard. Thank fuck, because she was still so empty. Her core clenched around nothing. She waited, hardly breathing now that her lungs were replenished, waiting for his command. When he gave it at last, she let out a sigh of relief. He was going to fill her. He was going to make it hurt and ache and burn. He was going to push her to the limit of what she could take and then some. He'd make the emptiness go away.

"On your hands and knees, Prairie Rose. Face the side of the cave so I have room behind you."

She moved quickly, knowing that he watched every single motion.

"Face down. Ass in the air. Legs apart. I want to see how wet you are for me. Want a full view of that beautiful pussy."

She followed every instruction, knowing how much seeing her offer herself to him turned him on, made her even wetter. It barely even made her flame with embarrassment any longer. She pushed her cheek into the soft blanket, turning her face so she could still breathe as she felt his hands caressing her ass then his fingers graze over her slit.