Chapter Seven

Dakota

When I imagined meeting my true-mate no two scenarios were the same. A lot of people have their favorite idea of how it would happen. I never really did. Perhaps, I spent too much time studying magic to try to get too attached to any one path. Magic always took the path of least resistance. Apparently, this time that was Scott growing four pups inside his belly at once.

On the porch, Cardian dropped my hand and inspected the knob and the lock.

"Do you have a key?" he asked me.

"Yep," I patted my pocket and fought off the urge to snatch his hand back.

"Good," he locked the door and took my hand again.

We circled the house twice for him to check and double check all the windows and the back door. Inside his inner sanctum, my wolf wagged his tail. This wasn't really our idea of a good walk, but it was impossible not to be happy while touching our new mate.

Cardian glanced skywards before giving my hand a squeeze and heading off toward the woods. The sun sank low in the sky and a few minutes onto the paved path the woods were under the cover of darkness. My eyes shifted to that of my wolf to take in the view. I stepped closer to Cardian, not out of fear, but out of some primal need to be as close to him as humanly possible while still walking.

"Are you just doing another sort of sweep?" I teased him.

"Not exactly. I need to understand the normal sounds and scents of the woods, though. Any guardian worth his red blood platelets would be staying on top of the normal comings and goings."

I squeezed his hand and tried to imagine what we might've been like in the Other World before everything on Earthside started up. I'd chosen him and he'd chosen me. We decided to spend our lives together – all of them.

"You came from somewhere else," Cardian said.

"Yeah. I grew up closer to Mage Street. That's where ---"

"Hemlock Academy is," he finished my sentence. "Many assume because we don't venture out where others can see us that our coven knows little of the world. That simply isn't true. Part of staying safe meant knowing more about others than they knew about us."

"That's sorta sad. Don't you think?" I asked and regretted the question.

"Maybe in the gloomy poetry way," Cardian shrugged. "Survival usually isn't a pretty thing, but it's the only thing living creatures have sometimes."

"Even now that things are calmer in the geopolitical realm?" I asked him.

"Even now," he nodded. "Look at the Moonscales. They were forced into a war not too long ago."

"Do you think there'll be another war?" I asked, trying to hide my frown.

"Do you really want to know what I think about that or are you filling in the empty air?" he asked me.

"I do," I nodded.

"There will always be another war. It doesn't matter how good most groups are doing. It only takes a handful of people not happy with the status quo to change that. Sometimes they do it for the right reasons. Sometimes they do it for the wrong reasons. Thing is, they always do it. That's the one thing history can teach us."

I nodded. He was right, but I wasn't sure I could ever look at the world like that. I couldn't go on living every day if I spent time wondering when the next war would pop up.

"We should talk of happier things," Cardian announced. "In the grand scheme of things, survival is what every creature aims for because it is the only thing that can lead to the better parts of life. War probably won't touch Heartville for a long time."

I let out a long, slow breath.

"I think I failed at speaking of happier things," Cardian frowned.

"I think it's because Scott's pregnant."

"I think it's because of you," he said.

"Me? I make you think of unhappy things?" I dropped his hand and stopped on the path.

He turned to face me and cupped my chin in his hand.

"No, mate. You make me think of dangerous things. You make me think of every force in the universe I might have to fight to keep you by my side. Perhaps that's the vampyric predator I am, perhaps my guardship training, perhaps it's the magic of the true-mate response, but that's what I think of. Guarding my brother's offspring is simple. No one wishes to hurt children in the village. Mostly, I'm protecting my brother from himself."

"But I'm complicated?" I said, swallowing down a chuckle.

"Unlike my brother's offspring, you are not currently tucked away in a safe, watery prison," Cardian said.

"Ummm… I was once upon a time if that makes you feel better."

Cardian smiled and something inside me melted. I rose up on my tiptoes and brushed my lips against his. With one hand still cupping my chin, his other found the curve of my hip. His lips pressed harder against mine, parting them so his tongue could slip inside. I leaned against him as much as I could with his hold on my chin, as his warm, nimble tongue swept around my mouth.

All Alphas went a bit cave-Alpha when they met their true-mate. They got territorial and grew overprotective. Most of the time that died down after the pair exchanged the claiming vows. Blood rushed to my cheeks, flushing my face as I imagined him stripping me down and claiming me in the woods. Breaking free of his hold on my chin, I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him harder. I could've kissed Cardian forever. His hands slid to my ass, holding me close as his fingers kneaded into the round globes of my ass.

"Come with me," he whispered against my lips when the kiss broke.

"Where?" I asked.

"I know a place in the Other World. We'll be back by morning," he whispered.

"What about the pups?" I asked him.

"You all are night sleepers. I bet Scott will be out cold soon. I don't think he'll need your help very much. They've survived without me this long, what's one more night?" he asked.

I wanted to give into his words, to follow him anywhere he wanted to take me.

"Not tonight," I shook my head and his scent turned to disappointment. "Not to the Other World. Time moves strange over there, and I don't think either of us are in our right minds to run off over there and keep track of Earthside time."

"You're right," he stepped back from me.

"That doesn't mean we have to stop kissing," I laughed and stepped forward for another kiss.

He kissed me once, twice, three times, and then pulled away. It was my turn to feel the sting of rejection.

"What is it?" I asked him.

"It's hard to think straight," he said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "It's hard to think straight when we touch. It's hard to think straight when we don't. I need to call Mother to send out another guard. I about abandoned my duties to take you to an elvish bed and breakfast in the Other World."

"Hey," I took his hand and entwined our fingers. "Thinking straight isn't easy when magic's involved. It doesn't matter how much you meditate or prepare yourself some magic is just a mind fuck. I think you're the right guard for them, because I'm going to stick around and help with the pups. They're safe right now. We didn't run off, did we?"

"I would've if you had said ‘yes'," he frowned.

"And I wanted to," I nodded, "but there will be time for that later. Scott's not going to be pregnant forever and his pups won't be little forever."

"We should head back," he said, looking back toward the village.

"Okay," I nodded and squeezed his hand.

After a few minutes of walking back in silence I had to fill the empty air.

"Do you want to know why I think the true-mate response magic affects everyone so much?" I asked him.

"Yes," he said. "Any theory would be helpful."

"It's magic our past selves cast on our future selves. It's us who casted the magic upon ourselves. So, there's no protection against it. There's no way to shield or avoid it."

"It's that your witchy way of saying we're our own worst enemies?" Cardian chuckled.

"Only sort of. In this case, we're actually watching out for ourselves. Imagine us, standing in some ancient forest in the Other World and deciding that no matter what happens in the future we're the ones who will spend the rest of our lifetimes together. Then, however it's done – we cast the magic that if we found each other we wouldn't be able to ignore it. Then with each lifetime it grows stronger – because love is fueling it and that love grows in each lifetime and ---" I stopped for a second. "Sorry. I guess I'm a bit of a helpless romantic."

Cardian stopped and held both my hands in his.

"Your view of the world is certainly kinder than mine."

"No, it's not. I don't study so much protection magic because I think the world is safe. I know the world is a grab bag of bliss and bullshit."

"Bliss and bullshit," Cardian laughed. "That's one way to put it. I like how you think of the true-mate magic. It makes sense."

"You just like it because it means there's no outside force dragging you around, just your past selves."

"Maybe," he said right before his lips crashed into mine again.

I walked backward searching for a tree to lean against as his nimble tongue swept over my mouth again. The tree line was thinner near the village square, but after a few backwards stumbling steps, Cardian caught on and guided me to a tree. He leaned in close to me, pinning me between his muscular body and the tree. His heartbeat thrummed through his ribs, echoing over my skin. We kissed hard, our tongues swirling together. I grabbed a fist full of his shirt, keeping him as close to me as possible.

"You smell so fucking good," he whispered against my lips in between kisses. "So fucking good. Good enough that I want to toss my honor into the bushes and forget my family name. I want to take you out here in the woods like we're primal creatures with nothing to lose."

Using his shirt as leverage, I pulled him back in for another kiss. His words echoed through my mind as his dick grew hard against my belly. My body reacted to him all at once, making me hard and slick. I ground against him until he slid his knee between my legs to give me something to rub against. I ground against him, savoring the building friction.

When Cardian pulled away I tried to pull him back against me thinking his honor had crept back into his head. There was a time for everything, but I was going to scream if he kept pulling away from me. I needed him. The magic tugged at my atoms and my heart wanting to know again what it had known many times before.

Only this time, Cardian didn't go far. He dropped to his knees in the forest weeds and pushed my shirt up to reveal the flat plain of my lean abs. He kissed my belly and used his tongue to trace the lines of the muscles left in my skin. I groaned, swallowing down a howl of victory. We were so close to what and who we needed. My wolf rolled around his inner sanctum savoring as I did our mate's mouth moving over our flesh.

Cardian's fingers stopped at my fly and looked up at me. Without answering, I pushed my jeans down over my hips and dick, just low enough to give him access to all the most sensitive bits of me. He grinned up at me and I expected to see his fangs flash in the moonlight, but they were nowhere in sight.

He kissed my belly again and the v that led down to my dick before he took me in his hand. His long, nimble fingers wrapped around me, and I swallowed down a moan. His flesh was warm against mine as his fist traveled up and down my shaft. A second later, he lowered his head and pressed his warm lips against the head of my cock.

I leaned back against the tree allowing it to take my weight as my thoughts unraveled. Cardian's warm breath played against my flesh in the seconds before his mouth closed around my dick and slid down. I held onto his shoulders as my knees shook. He wasn't the first guy to go down on me, but I had never wanted someone so badly in my life.

I lost myself to his mouth moving over me and one of his strong hands circling around to hold my ass. He used that leverage to keep me in place even as my breathing grew into pants and I writhed under his tongue pressing hard against the underside of my shaft with each up and down pass he made.

"I'm close," I whispered.

It'd only taken him a few minutes to make me come so undone. Cardian didn't pull away. Instead, his tongue pressed harder against my shaft as he worked me over. His hand slid down to cup my balls, heavy from all the pleasure he sent pulsing through my veins. My nails dug into his shoulders as everything inside me exploded. Cardian continued to suck on me, drinking down the pleasure he coaxed from deep inside me. We were both panting by the time I was flaccid against his tongue.

Panting or not, Cardian was a gentleman. He pulled up my underwear and jeans and righted them both as if his mouth hadn't made my nails carve crescent moons into his skin moments before.

"Let's head back to the house," he grinned at me.

"That's not fair!" I panted. "Maybe I want to---"

He kissed me and I lost my train of thought. Sure, I knew what I wanted to do to him and with him, but kissing him made my words flee from my mouth. There wasn't enough room for them with his tongue teasing me and sweeping around mine.

"At the house," he said as if reading my mind. "I'm not against romping in the outdoors, but better we be inside and close to them if something happens. Maybe that's the middle ground."

"Come on," I said, tugging his hand.

My wolf scratched at my ribs wanting to make the run back to the house in his form, but since Cardian didn't shift, neither did I. We stepped back onto the paved forest path and ran along it, hand-in-hand, until we came to the village square. A few folks lingered here and there talking or stargazing. None of them paid us any mind as we slipped through on our way back to the house.