Chapter 7 - Harvey

Damn it. Why did she have to run? And why did watching her do it make me feel so thrilled?

My wolf pounced to attention as she broke through the basement door. I wasn”t a fool. I saw her noticing the door. I thought about challenging her when she glanced at it a second time. It crossed my mind that it would be enticing to have some kind of chase for foreplay. I also wanted to witness her wolf form—to see how far she would go to get what she wanted. Only one woman was right for me, and that woman had to be grounded in this plane of existence and truly passionate about what she wanted to accomplish in her life.

With a woman like her as my bride, I wouldn”t fail in my attempt to save my pack. She would be a great addition to my life in more ways than I could count, and I hoped only that I could return the favor. I chuckled with vivid amusement as I cracked my knuckles. If only I could convince her to stay.

People clamored in the cabin above. I heard Clancy and then Kirk barking orders, and then I heard Demarcus and Shiloh as well. I heard it all: the shouts and snarling, the alarms ringing around the village. The howling came next. They were going to hunt her down.

My wolf snarled.

I didn”t like that. I didn”t like that they were going to try to pursue my mate. As calmly as possible, I stripped away my clothes and folded them on the desk. Nora casually stood next to me while staring at the broken door. She clicked her tongue a few times, shook her head, and adjusted her shawl over her shoulders. “Gosh, that one”s going to be a handful, isn”t she?”

My brows tightened as my gaze sharpened. “Please, Nora, don”t make fun of my mate.”

Nora wasn”t bothered by my command or my gaze, and she didn”t seem particularly bothered about Kiara running, either. She was immensely wise and had seen things in Kiara that I hadn”t, read things about Kiara that I would have never known. Even Kiara would have never known herself if the elder woman hadn”t been so skilled at reading people.

Now that I had a good read on Kiara, my demon could do the work of convincing her to marry me. I would only use him if I had to. It wouldn”t be ideal and it wouldn”t give me any kind of satisfaction knowing that I had used him to make this happen. Choosing the lesser of two evils didn’t make me feel proud.

Maybe that meant I had to do this on my own. Maybe I could have my wolf lead the way. I wasn”t sure. I didn”t know where the path would take me, and I couldn’t predict anything like Nora. This wasn’t my idea of foreplay, but then again, none of it was really my idea. We’d gotten this crap from a book, from the journal of a witch who had lost her damn mind.

Footsteps thundered down the stairs as people shuffled into the basement. Clancy and Kirk appeared, with Shiloh and Demarcus close behind them. All four of them circled me, the looks on their faces telling me they would run to the ends of the earth for me.

I held up my right hand. “Don”t go after her. I need to do this by myself.”

Shiloh began to argue until Clancy barked at him. Quite literally, he barked at Shiloh as loudly as any dog might. Their eyes turned black as they stared each other down. Nora stepped between them, casually holding up her shawl.

“I”ll let the bulls play if you let your alpha go.”

Shiloh cracked his knuckles. Demarcus and Kirk stepped back, allowing the two men to have a face-off with Nora as the referee. She gave me a nod that told me she had things under control. She might be old, but she knew how to deliver a mean jab to the throat. Any funny business with the guys would be met with a swift punch. I looked over at Kirk and DeMarcus, who were obediently waiting for my instructions. After telling them to shift, and doing the same myself, I darted out the door that Kiara had used to break free and sprinted after her scent. Salted azaleas carried on the breeze, taking me toward the beach.

I slowed my pace as I approached what appeared to be some broken twigs and a little bit of blood. I trotted past the area, pausing to sniff the paw prints on the ground, and searched the area with my wolf eyes. In the back of my mind, my demon sang a taunting tune, making fun of me for losing my mate so quickly.

She will never love you, you know, it said. She’s only ever going to see you as a monster. She”ll never accept your real form, the one that you use when you don”t like losing.

A snarl came from my left, catching me off guard. I looked into the bushes and saw two glowing eyes. The bushes rustled as she darted out from her hiding place, giving herself away. Well, that was one thing that she probably shouldn”t have done. She only managed get the jump on me because I was briefly distracted by my demon. I guessed she could tell—but how?

Her front paws landed on my shoulders, and she tossed me back, rolling with me along the ground. We tumbled for a while until I had her pinned by her shoulders, burying my snout into her throat with my teeth bared but not bearing down upon her flesh. She didn”t whimper and she didn”t wiggle. She froze.

With a defeated growl, she tried to kick at my stomach. She only did this a couple of times until she stopped, realizing it wasn’t working. As soon as I put some weight on my jaws, her flesh puckered beneath my mouth and made me hungry for her. All I wanted to do was bear down on her, but not like this in my wolf form—not in my demon wolf form, either. I didn”t want her to see that part of me to be exposed to my demon. If she never saw the demon in full, then she couldn’t reject that part of me—or any part of me.

She growled again, drawing my attention back to her. My demon saying that she didn”t want me in any form was strange. Why it said that was a mystery to me. More than that, I didn”t understand why she wasn”t fighting me more. She was the one who had jumped out from the bushes and pounced on me. Had that been her plan all along?

It occurred to me then that perhaps she just didn”t have any idea of where to go from here. These woods were thick, and without any good tracking skills or knowledge of the area, it was hard to get around. We even had trouble identifying certain things in this place. The woods seemed to have a mind of its own. It was a lot like a labyrinth that changed at will, in ways that we couldn”t record or map. We could do our best with what was around us, we could try to track things, but if they didn”t want to be tracked, then they wouldn”t be.

Kiara shifted into her human form.

That might have been a mistake with anyone else, but it was a show of vulnerability to me. Perhaps she was mimicking my ability to manipulate. I might have done the same thing in her position. Her supple flesh felt raw beneath my jaws, under my teeth, inviting me to do the worst. I could just tear right into her throat and turn her to mincemeat here and now. I knew this was the demon trying to invade my thoughts, trying to make it seem like it was my idea. I was able to tell the difference much better and with a bit more clarity than I could before. Slowly, with an ache in my shoulders and jaw from controlling myself so hard, I released her neck and stepped back.

On the way down, I brushed against her breast and then her stomach. Her beautiful hips seemed to invite my snout. Her fingers drove into my fur, pulling my big wolf head to her side. Goddess, this was utter bliss, a connecting moment that stretched into infinity and prompted a soft whine from me. This touch—this place—was doing something to us. We were alone. For the moment, we were safe. And she was giving me the most affectionate scratch behind the ears.

I sniffed along her side only for a second, knowing better than to linger there any longer than I was invited. She didn”t fight me, yell, or shove me away. I didn”t feel much fight left in her, only that she wished to come back with me. Was that true, or was that just another trick of my demon?

That was when I noticed I couldn’t sense the demon anymore. With her fingers still behind my ear, I couldn’t sense it, as if it had suddenly disappeared.

What’s happening to me?

I snarled when her fingers retreated, feeling disappointment sweep over me. Kiara sat up and reached for my ears again, both hands scratching just behind them. Oh, that was just wickedly rude. She didn”t have to be that way—she didn”t have to do that at all. I knew she was strong. I could tell by how her legs were toned and her torso was fit.

Her tummy was soft and pillowy, although flat. She was beautiful physically, a wonder to behold, and yet there was another part of her I knew was even more gorgeous than the surface—her strength. The scratching continued, turning my thoughts into a jumbled mess. I kept blinking and blinking, lazier and lazier, until my eyes inevitably closed. I felt like a puddle again. How she could make me melt so quickly was almost frightening. I couldn’t control it or turn back into a regular person, and I wasn”t sure what to do about it.

I was panting from chasing her, hot breath skirting across her forearm. I knew it because I could feel it bounce right back to me. Her proximity created this cavern between us. A comfortable, almost hollow space that I wanted to keep between us. Little by little, I shifted back into my human form, one of my slowest returns to date. My skin felt clammy, cold, and exposed to the earth in ways that I didn”t appreciate. Sunlight struck through the trees like swords made of orange and gold, scaring my face into her bosom, where I tried to hide myself. She cradled me there for a little while, stroking her fingers through my hair, scratching the same area behind my ears that my wolf liked so much.

I could almost feel my leg jiggling just from the satisfaction of her giving me affection. I didn”t understand why she wasn”t trying to fight me off, why she was trying to comfort me instead. This must have been part of her elaborate plan to escape. Although I had to wonder, if she had run to the beach and hidden in the bushes, then trapped me here with her affection, why wasn”t she attempting to make a run for it now? She had me at her beck and call, at the tips of her fingers, caught in her lap with my arms wound around her waist.

“Why?” I hadn’t meant to speak, to break the moment, but I had to know.

She drew in a long breath and exhaled slowly. “It’s pointless. I don’t know where to go.”

I felt like she was lying, but I could relate, nonetheless. “Sometimes I feel the same way.”

“How can you feel that way when you’re alpha?”

I nuzzled deeper into her loving embrace. “Alphas can have a hard time, too, you know.”

“You sound less like a demon and more like a person.”

Her words struck my heart with the kind of affection I’d always desired. Her hourglass figure seemed to fit perfectly in my arms. Now, I could truly feel the proper dimensions of her figure, the voluptuousness of her breasts. Not too large and not too small—just perfect enough to be pillows that cradled me. Her hips were generous and full, and I felt the softness of her stomach. As I kneaded my fingers around her sides to the front of her torso, she tilted my head back. Light invaded my eyes, so I kept them closed. I saw the swirls of color, the orbs dancing behind my eyelids, dotting my vision with different shapes that appeared and disappeared in their own time.

I felt the warmth of her breath crawling across my cheek. She caressed my chin with her hand. Maybe it was her right hand. I couldn”t tell at this angle, and I couldn”t tell from the way that I gave myself over to it. It was like she was scooping me up into her palms and taking a sip of the melted puddle I had become. Indeed, her lips did touch me. They met my flesh, my mouth, exposing me to something so incredible that I had to show her by kissing her back.

Fierce desire swept through me as I shimmied between her legs, squeezed the back of her neck, and pinned her into the kiss. This was how it was supposed to feel—no fighting, no arguments, and no snappy back and forth. No physical altercations and no curses, just the warmth and comfort of this kind of love all the time. Had it really been that long since someone had taken the time to touch me in this way?

I wanted to break the kiss to ask her, but I couldn”t bear the thought of releasing her mouth to the unworthy sound of words, not that her words wouldn”t mean anything. Deep down, though, I knew words were useless when touch could say so much more. One touch was enough to tell me a thousand things.

It was the same for her, maybe. At least, I hoped it was. Heat coiled in my center as her hand drifted down my neck to my shoulder. The tips of her nails traced my bicep, the outline of my muscles, and my upper arms, and then the cords of my muscles leading to my forearms. My veins bulged and stood out like lines of braille. It was from adrenaline and also from having to exert so much effort. I felt like I was pulsating, throbbing, and then I felt that feeling transfer south to where I knew she would soon discover that I was far more aroused from this kiss than anything. By the wetness that slicked her center, I knew she was too.

We were both vulnerable now, exposed. Nothing could be hidden between us.

But it didn”t seem to matter. She pulled me on top of her and positioned me between her legs. She locked her legs around me, kissing me until it got so sloppy that we were practically gnawing each other. My hands coated her arms with feverish rubs that trailed to her wrists. I pinned them to her hips and delighted in the lustful wiggle that erupted from her hips as she mewled into another long kiss.

She wanted me and I desperately wanted her, too. I wanted nothing more than to plow her into the earth for running away from me. I wanted to mark her so she would never stray. I wanted to chase her all over again, to tackle her to the ground and claim her wherever we landed.

Another round of howls rang through the trees. She gasped out of the kiss. “Fuck.”

My insides flipped as my cock throbbed. “Fuck is right.”

Damn it, I had been gone for too long. I”d gotten lost in her and hadn’t alerted my pack that I’d found her. They must have thought I was in trouble. Although I was ready to admit that maybe I was because Kiara was trouble herself. She was alluring. She was so tempting, I just wanted to say fuck it and have her all to myself.

“Fuck,” I grunted while controlling myself. “That’s for another time.”

She glared up at me. “Who said I was going to let you fuck me?”

“You kissed me first.”

“You kissed me first.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. I could prove her wrong by teasing her and convincing her to give me another kiss. But…

If I took her now, I’d ruin the ritual, destroying any chance of us having a good future. Perhaps she was acting on behalf of my demon, tempting me, trying to get me to fail at my task. My fingers drifted over her breasts, thumbs circling her nipples as more howls reached my ears. Her lower lip twitched as her eyes rolled back.

She whimpered, “We could go somewhere.”

“We could.”

Her eyes cleared up enough to focus on me. “Do you want me or not?”

I chuckled as I reluctantly pulled away from her. “It’s not that.”

My cock throbbed and begged me to just bury myself in her sweet heat. I stood up and did my best to calm my erection back to at least a partial mast. I reached down for her, hoisting her from the ground and planting her on her feet in a swift motion. She was about five inches shorter than me, short enough that I had to look down at her to look into her eyes.

“Don”t you want me?”

I sighed. “Not right now.”

I reached for her cheek, but she pushed my hand away, anger creasing her brow and causing her nostrils to flare. “That’s not how it seemed a second ago.”

“You didn’t want me either.”

“I did want you, I just—”

I raised my eyebrows. “You just?”

She groaned with frustration. “Never mind.”

Her black hair was a mess, tossed around her shoulders and filled with leaves, inviting me to reach for them and take them out. But she wouldn”t allow it.

She scrubbed her fingers through her hair and turned around to march right back to where we had run from. I couldn”t stop admiring her gorgeous body as she walked away, the roundness of her hips and ass, the way that they fit perfectly with the rest of her hourglass figure. I felt like I needed to postpone the ritual while also rushing toward it at the same time. But maybe we needed to get to know each other first.

I had so many questions. I needed to know why she didn”t fight me when she could have.