Wild and Free(212)

She lifted up on her own arms, propelling herself onto his shaft so intensely he feared he’d split her in two.

But she threw back her dark head, her hair flying over his hand still fisted in it, over his forearm, down her back and she howled her release.

He pulled out and surged back in, burying himself to the root one last time and then howled his own.

* * * * *

Naked on their bed of pine needles, Callum on his back, Sonia on top of him, his mate moved. Shifting up, she pressed her temple to his and slid it through his hair, marking him.

He growled into her ear, rolled her to her back, him on top and did the same.

When done, he lifted his head and looked down at her in the moonlight.

“You know, you gave me another wedding band, another charm and a fabulous honeymoon for my wedding gifts and I’ve given you nothing but, well… me,” she said softly.

“All I need is you,” he replied just as softly and felt her already relaxed body melt under his as her arms grew tight around him.

“Okay then, how about, for your wedding present, I give you more of me and agree to wait fifty years before we start a family?” she suggested.

“Seventy-five,” he countered, her head jerked slightly before he saw her eyes light and her mouth twitch.

“Deal, wolf,” she whispered. “Seventy-five.”

He grinned and dropped his head to touch his mouth to hers again.

He lifted his head and she shifted a hand and framed the side, her thumb moving to smooth his brow, his cheekbone, his jaw, her eyes watching.

Finally, they came to his. “You know I love you?” she asked.

“You know I love you?” he asked back by way of answer.

“With everything you are,” she whispered.

He dipped his face to hers and murmured with feeling, “With everything I am, baby doll.”

“And I you, my handsome wolf. With everything I am, with everything I’m meant to be and with eternity to be it in, that’s a lot.”

Callum grinned at his wife.

Then he shifted his head and again marked her temple.

His.

And, as he did it, she did the same.

Hers.

As it was.

As it always would be.

For eternity.

* * * * *

At that exact moment… elsewhere…

Oh my God, they were hunting me.

Hunting me!

I ran, my breath ragged, a stitch cutting agony through my side, as I heard them getting closer. Closer.

Fast.

Too fast.

I was a girl and maybe not Jackie Joyner-Kersee but I wasn’t out of shape. They’d gain but not that fast.

No way.

That didn’t mean they weren’t gaining that fast.

They were.

And I was terrified.

I turned into an alley, hoping in the darkness to lose them, and ran with everything I had left.

Straight to a dead end.

“Shit,” I breathed, panting, turning, feeling them closing in on me.

Then there they were, on me as in on me. In the blink of an eye I was on my back, one of them pinning my body down with his on mine, one holding my arms down over my head, one my legs at my ankles while, I stared to the side in disbelief, two humongous, terrifying dogs circled, snarling and snapping their sharp, alarming teeth in my direction.

“Rip her throat out and have done with it,” a voice coming from over my head bit out and my attention went back to the enormous man who was lying full on top of me, pressing the breath out of me and staring down at me in a way I did… not… like.

I tried to struggle but the hands at my wrists and ankles held so strong, it was preternatural how strong they were. I wasn’t pinned. I was completely immobilized.

“In a minute,” he grunted, his eyes not leaving mine. “Christ, smell her. Divine. Fuck me, absolutely fucking divine.” His face changed to a look I liked even less and he finished, “First I’m going to feed.”

He was going to feed?

Oh man. What did that mean?

I didn’t know. What I knew was, it was not good.

“Are you insane?” a voice coming from my feet asked like he thought the dude holding me was, indeed, insane. In fact, very insane. At the same time, ugly, scary growls came from both of the dogs.

It seemed to me these were warnings but the guy on top of me was, apparently, insane because he ignored the warnings of the huge, vicious, snarling dogs. His head dipped toward me, slanted then his mouth was at my neck.

Oh shit. Oh shit!

This was definitely not good.

I belatedly opened my mouth to scream.

Not that first sound came out because, suddenly, I wasn’t immobilized. Nothing was on me, nothing holding me down.

I still didn’t move.

This was because something I couldn’t see, and not only because it was dark but because it was happening so… damned… fast, was whirling around me.