Heart Mates (19 page)

She seized his face. “I was scared too! You were bleeding and they were ganging up on you—”

“I’m not important. If anything happened to you—”

“The fuck you’re not important. I’ll show you how important you are.” She grabbed his head and kissed him.

A shocked instant. Then he wrapped her in powerful arms and kissed her back, his mouth desperate on hers. He kissed her so fiercely her very bones melted.

“Sophia,” he groaned. “Don’t ever leave me. I couldn’t stand it. You’re my
life
, sweetheart.”

He said it in the heat of the moment and he probably hadn’t meant it literally. But magic didn’t care about that. When Noah, his arms wrapped in a warm cocoon around her, said the word
life,
she felt a second distinct click.

Her pain from breaking the death seal just…disappeared.

Opening her third eye, she gingerly poked her insides. The other two funeral domes were intact. But the first, the one she’d shattered, was gone. Nothing remained, no cracked rim, no razor-sharp debris.

Somehow, he’d swept death away. All with one unintentional word.

She gazed up at him in wonder. “What are you?”

His cheeks flagged with color. “Sophia…I haven’t told you everything.”

That, of course, was when the whooping sirens arrived.

The emergency crew was an ambulance and a squad car. The patrol officer was young, human and inclined to arrest everyone on sight. Killer and Ivan were already gone, Nameless Guy melted away, Mason was still conked, and Sophia had obvious defensive wounds, so the officer slapped cuffs on the shifters remaining—including Noah, who made things worse when he refused to open his eyes fully for the booking camera.

Sophia tried to explain that the other guys started it and pressed the officer to release Noah, but the more she argued the more defensive he got. When it became obvious she was only making things worse she shut up.

Noah, except for refusing to open his eyes, went quietly, a testimony to his self-control. The other wolves weren’t anywhere near as disciplined. The town would be paying for a lot of bandages and disinfectant tonight.

She went back inside to get her shoes then followed along to the jail. She could have used magic to get Noah released but wasn’t completely sure of how much she had or after four years how skillfully she could wield it. Better to try to get him out the mundane way. She did manage to remember her swim instructor’s name and wielded it ruthlessly to get Noah a separate cell.

“I called the hospital.” Noah stalked around his cell, a cot and uncovered toilet in a concrete and steel-bar box, the only cell in the basement. “Mason’s fine, and coming to collect you. When he gets here, go home and get some sleep.”

“After everything that’s happened?” She’d gotten used to his glass-lake stillness. It took a lot to rumple his emotions. “If you can’t sleep, what makes you think I can?”

He thumbed the bridge of his nose and sighed. “I’m being a thoughtless dick.” He used two fingers to wave her closer. “Turn.”

“What?” She turned, keeping eye contact over her shoulder. “Why?”

“This.” He dug fingers into the knotted muscles of her shoulders.

It wrung a groan from her. “That’s so good. I didn’t know how much I was hurting until now.”

“Shh. Relax.” He continued kneading out the knots until she was limp against the bars. He massaged down the sides of her spine. She rested her head against the bars in bliss. He continued to work down to her waistband. A tug and zip and the skirt went slack against her hips.

“Wha…?”

“Shh,” he said again. “I’m just loosening anything that constricts blood flow.”

“Oh.” She closed her eyes and relaxed again against the bars, giving herself over to his soothing massage.

So it was a complete shock when a breeze played over her nipples.

Her eyes flew open. “What…?” She glanced down. She was naked but for her panties, thigh high stockings and pumps, her clothes heaped around her ankles. She must have been worse off than she’d thought, because she hadn’t noticed anything but his magic fingers. Hopefully her magical aura would confuse the security camera, because otherwise someone was getting quite a show.

He blew again on her nipples. She turned. He’d wedged his face between the bars. His tongue mimed licking her.

Her nipples furled just from the sight. Desire curled into her pelvis.

It had been a long, frustrating, frightening night. Daringly she grabbed two bars, high, and leaned one breast into his open mouth.

He latched onto her nipple and suckled. Lust sprang hot and heavy between her legs, her breasts swelling with it. He reached through the bars and cupped the breast as he suckled, hefting it gently, fingers biting the swollen flesh and pressing her need higher.

She moaned and arched into the bars. One leg came up and she rubbed her tender inner thigh against cool metal.

His hand dropped to loop under her knee. He straightened from her breast, lifting her thigh higher, turning it out until her lace-covered mound rubbed against the bar.

“I’d like to rub against something else,” she said.

He growled. Dropped her leg. Got rid of his clothes with a quick zip, a few plucked buttons and a couple shrugs.

Threading his arm through the bars he grabbed her hip and pulled her into him. Her sensitized flesh pressed equally against cool bars and hot male. She scrubbed herself up and down, purring her pleasure. Her skin slid easily along the metal but burred with the friction of his hair-rumpled flesh.

He clamped her hips to the bars, pinning them with one hand while he ran the other up her body to twine fingers in her hair. He pressed her head gently forward.

Their mouths met in a kiss, all the hotter for the fact that they couldn’t mesh completely because of the bars. When he sucked her tongue to hold her in place, frissons of delight shuddered along her entire body. She thought about disappearing the bars then got a better idea.

She broke the kiss and wiggled out of his hold. His eyes flared a bright gold. He wrapped hands around bars and stared hungrily at her. She stood just out of his reach and smiled naughtily.

“Come here.” The wolf was in his voice.

“In a minute.”

His powerful body was framed and highlighted by the hard steel. She looked her fill. His cock, already jutting toward her, rose eagerly at that.

So she had to. She really did. She slid in a kneeling step, grabbed him by the hip muscles, yanked him flush with the bars and licked him from stern to stem. She was rough lapping his bobbing cock and he flinched, but it was accompanied by a guttural groan of pleasure.

She drew him into her mouth and sucked. A growl ripped from his throat. It encouraged her to bob along his length. His hand fisted in her hair. She hummed her approval against his flesh. His hand clenched and he made a pained sound. She began to swirl her tongue as she stroked over him, making sure to tickle the sensitive spot just below the eye.

“Enough.” He grabbed her face with both hands and urged her to her feet. “I want to fill you.”

“Really?” She danced a couple steps away. “How are you going to do that?” She turned her back to him, glanced coyly over her shoulder and waggled her butt at him.

He wasn’t having any of that. With a snarl he reached through the bars. He had a longer reach than she thought.

He seized her hips, pulled her naked buttocks against the bars, tilted her to expose her sex and plowed into her.

She felt every inch of cock sink in.

He started thrusting, a hard, steady rhythm. A clang of metal accompanied each thwack of flesh. The feel of his hot thrusts, the bang of cold bars against her bottom, was a symphony of sensation.

“More.” She closed her eyes and enjoyed. “Faster.”

He complied, driving himself into her over and over, reaching forward to rub her groove, burnishing her clit until it was hard and ready to burst.

She arched back, her shoulders and head touching metal. He slid one hand up her ribs to cup and knead her breast. She moaned. He began gently pinching the nipple in rhythm with his insistent thrusts. She pressed back against him so hard the iron dented her flesh.

His cock drove in and out, his hip bones banging metal as he increased speed and insistence. His breath billowed against her shoulder.

He nipped. His incisors were sharp on her skin and his growls dominated over groans. His human was in control, but not by much.

“
Yes.
” She howled it, her animal calling to his, wanting him wild, completely unleashed.

He snarled. Took one last long thrust. She was so wet he slid in to the hilt.

She screamed. He roared. They came together in a tumult of heat and wet and pleasured cries.

She shuddered an eternity. Then she went limp in his hands. His strength held her upright, his breath rasping in her ear. “That was…” He swallowed. “Sophia, I think I’m—”

“Noah?” Mason’s voice came from the stairwell door.

Noah swore. “Just a minute.” His shout held an alpha’s command.

Sophia tore herself from Noah’s grasp. She snatched up her clothes and tried to put them on. Her muscles didn’t work quite right and the spandex tank wouldn’t go past her shoulders.

He
tsked
and waved her closer. Cautiously, she came. Taking the tank from her he winched it open and slid it on her like a sleeve. He took special care to settle her breasts in the cups, gently adjusting them.

Her heart beat a little harder. “Be careful, okay?”

“Always.” His eyes were a burnished gold. “Stay safe with Mason.”

“Of course. I’ll be back in the morning to get you out.”

He looked around the cell. “I’ll be here. Or King will be.”

Chapter Eighteen

Sophia left the jail with Mason, stumbling asleep on her feet. She went to her aunt’s, checked that the wards were up, snatched a few hours of rest, got up at four thirty and showered. She wanted to get back to the jail and secure Noah’s release before he went doggie.

While she showered, thoughts of what they’d done at the jail kept intruding. The water, running like warm silk over her flesh, reminded her of his hands. She had to turn the shower to cold to get any washing done.

She’d just managed to dry her overheated skin when her cell phone rang, the Techie Titan theme. Gabriel? She answered, “Who are you and what have you done with my nerd king brother? It’s four-oh-crap in the morning.”

“I’m still up from last night. I went dungeon crawling with some guildies. Look, I felt a surge of
death
magic…or I thought I did, but then it disappeared. So I called cousin Daniel and got an update from him about the prophecy. You’re the one, an evil wizard is involved, and it’s all happening now?
What
is going on?”

“Well…” She glanced at the clock. She’d have to run. She gave Gabriel a quick run-down, avoiding the stuff he’d yell at, as she considered what to wear. Sexy skirt and tank? Too obvious. She talked on autopilot, explaining her suspicions that Rodolphe might be the Hungry Ghost, that there was a group undermining the new alpha, and about the leadership challenge. Maybe skirt, heels and blouse, but open the blouse an extra button? She categorically denied the death magic but was so distracted trying to decide what to wear she said, “Fortunately the alpha found his mate in time for the challenge—” She barely stopping herself from babbling who Noah’s new mate was.

Unfortunately, her brother was no dummy. “You’ve mated a
shifter
? Sophia Blue, that’s so forbidden you’ll never again have to open your necklaces to get them on. How did you—?”

“Oops, you’re breaking up. Gotta go.”

Dawn lightened the windows. She was late. She threw on her default clothes, the Full Banker of navy pants suit, ivory blouse, inch-heeled pumps and pearls, and rushed downstairs.

A note from Mason was taped to the front door. He’d had to go on ahead.

“Crap. Today’s starting out like zombies on a trampoline.” She ran the two and a half blocks to the jail and got there just as the sun’s disk cleared the horizon.

“Noah’s already gone.” Mason sat on a bench outside the combination jail/courthouse, rising as she approached. “We didn’t get to talk last night. I heard I missed all the excitement.”

She bent hands to knees and panted. “Not all of it. Just the most embarrassing parts. How’d he get out?”

“Yeah, about that. There’s good news and bad news. Jayden pulled some strings and Noah was released. But Attila, Bonnie and Clyde were released too.”

“Who?” She straightened.

“The three idiot ex-lieutenants.”

“No. Who’s Jayden?”

Mason raised an eyebrow. “Black hair, black eyes, all attitude? Owns a really sweet bike I’d give my left nut to buy?”

“Oh, Jayden.” Nameless Guy now had a name. “Is he a friend?” She reconsidered. “Or at least on our side?”

“Dunno. As much as he’s ever on anybody’s side, I guess.”

“Is he pack?”

“No, though he runs with us sometimes. To me, he doesn’t even smell like a wolf, but Noah has apparently had a few business dealings with him and says he’s trustworthy enough, and frankly the pack needs his money. Anyway, the bad news is, Ivan and Killer met everyone coming out, and they all demanded Noah’s head in the form of reissuing the Alpha Challenge for tonight.”

It hit her like a punch in the gut. She collapsed onto the bench next to Mason. “I was hoping they’d give up.”

“Me too. In fact, they had.” He sat next to her. “While Noah was still locked up, Jayden talked with them. All five had crouched to Noah’s dominance—it’s a pack thing,” he added to answer her puzzled look. “Basically they acknowledged Noah as alpha, kind of like swearing fealty. But by this morning, their attitude had changed one-eighty.”

“Like someone talked to them?”

“Or threatened.”

“Wait. All five?” She frowned as the implications hit her. “Whoever’s undermining Noah isn’t part of the pack. Crap. I’d been rooting for Killer. Now we’re in the exact same position we were in yesterday. Hunt, fight.”

“And uh—” he blushed, “—the other thing.

Big strong Mason, blushing. She wondered what the last F stood for. “Does Noah have to accept the challenge?”

“This bogus? Not usually. Usually his lieutenants would rise up against the assholes demanding it. But in this case, the pack members who
would
support Noah are off earning a living, or have vulnerable pups, or are too old or young to stand up to Ivan et al.”

“So Noah’s stuck.”

“Probably. He went with Bonnie and Clyde to try one last time to reason with them, but I’m not holding out a lot of hope. That’s where he is, by the way, or was until the sun rose. He said he’d meet us at your aunt’s store.”

“Got it.” She started to stand, then paused at a thought and sank back onto the bench. “So if he has to go through with this challenge, how does he win?”

“Again, normally the hunt part would be simple. By the time alphas are old enough to lead they’re usually mated, so the challenged alpha and his mate lead the pack on a hunt where the alpha pair makes a kill and shares it with the pack.”

A kill? She stifled a squeamish shudder. “And in this case?”

“On the plus side Ivan and his buddies don’t know Noah’s mated.”

“Can’t they see his eyes have changed?”

“Gold isn’t a common mated color. And some shifters change eye color like mood rings. They probably think Noah’s just furious over the challenge. They’ll see that as a good thing. That he’s distracted, and worried how he’ll miraculously find his mate by tonight, maybe jumping the first female who accepts him—”

The low, rough noise startled both of them—until she realized who it was. Her. She was growling. She cut it off with hot cheeks.

Mason politely pretended not to notice, talking on as if nothing had happened. “—when he’s not distracted at all, since we know Noah has a true mate, don’t we?”

Now didn’t seem to be the time to bring up the fact that she probably wasn’t his true mate either. “You said that’s good news. What’s the bad?”

His eyebrows rose. “You don’t shift. Noah told me everything, Princess Sophia.”

Braid her broomstick. “The hunt has to be led by two wolves? Can’t I, I don’t know, dress up in tweeds and carry a rifle and laugh about hunting wabbits?”

He shook his head. “The whole point of the challenge is to prove the alpha pair can lead the pack into a fertile future. Feeding and protecting the pack is important but ‘fertile’ applies to the viability of their offspring. They should be able to produce pups who can shift easily, which means a proper mate. Which is the last F in HUFF, by the way. Hunt, Fight, and, um, Fornicate.”

The way he said it made it clear the wolves generally used the four-letter word. Her cheeks went from hot to on fire. That certainly explained why Noah had kneed Mason in the balls when he’d tried to tell her about that final F. “Okay, so the mate has to shift and hunt with her alpha. I might be able to learn to shift. Noah can try teaching me, starting at sunset—”

“Sorry, no.” Mason was already shaking his head. “You have to understand, wolves love custom. The more convoluted, the better. Traditionally the Challenge Hunt starts when the moon rises, but the full custom is ‘moonrise or sunset, whichever comes last’. Last night, moonrise was after midnight, which was why there was time for Noah to talk to the five. But due to the vagaries of the heavenly calendar, the moon won’t set until one thirty this afternoon, and
it doesn’t rise at all
.”

“The hunt starts at sunset,” she whispered.

“Exactly.” Mason’s grimace tightened to a full-fledged scowl. “Since the hex locks Noah in his Canidae form until then, he doesn’t have a mouth to teach you.”

“Then we’ll have to find someone else.” She snapped her fingers. “
I can shift
.”

Mason startled. “You can?”

“Not yet, but I just remembered what someone said. C’mon.” She rose and started off. “What I don’t understand is, why would someone outside the pack challenge Noah? Undermine him like this?”

“Greed?” Mason walked with her. “In return for protecting the pack, the alpha gets a cut of all pack earnings. Power and prestige play into it too.”

“Yes, but…if it’s another wolf, aren’t there easier ways to become alpha? Why the whole Challenge Hunt shtick? Doesn’t that seem unnecessarily…provocative to you?”

“As in provoking? Maybe. But what’s he trying to provoke? Noah’s protective instincts are already fired up. I don’t know what else there’d be.”

She didn’t know either, but she had a vague, and terrifying, suspicion.

As they passed First Street, he said, “Where are we going?”

“Jayden’s. When I said to him ‘I know you’re a shifter,’ he replied ‘I can shift’.”

Mason’s eyes widened. “Implying he wasn’t born a shifter.”

“Exactly. If Noah trusts him, I’ll trust him too—for now. The hard part will be getting Jayden to teach me. He’s not the kind of guy who seems naturally helpful. It’d be easier if I had leverage. Say, a big shotgun. Or a cannon. Or a battleship.”

And then she remembered she had access to the one thing that made Jayden geek. The man who fixed his motorcycles.

She smiled.

“Whoa,” Mason said. “Do I want to know what you’re thinking? No, I do not. That smile bodes ill for someone. Not me, I hope.”

“Not you. Here we are.” She stepped onto the concrete pad in front of the pet store. Though the time was ungodly-thirty in the morning, the door was open, as if they were expected.

“Don’t you ever sleep?” she asked the swirling darkness inside.

It resolved into the black-haired, black-eyed, very masculine form of the pet groomer she now knew as Jayden. He put his apron on, and she waited for the sexiness-amnesia to hit.

Sure enough, the instant the bib settled, she forgot to think of him as anything but a pet groomer. But she remembered the memory of it. “An enchanted apron?”

Jayden cocked a half smile. “Not the apron.”

Which of course answered exactly nothing. “So what are you? A vampire? A godling? The rear half of a centaur?”

He threw back his head and laughed, a full belly laugh. “You’re a proper match for Noah, aren’t you? We’d better get started. We don’t have much time and you have a long way to go.” He started toward the glassed-in area of the grooming salon.

“Wait. What are we doing?”

He shot her a grin over his shoulder, absolutely appealing in spite of the apron. “What you came to learn, of course. Shifting.”

She nearly clapped her hands. “You’ll teach me? Without cajoling or threatening? Who are you and what have you done with Jayden?”

He laughed. “I assure you, I don’t do everything for gain.”

“Not buying it. Why? Because you owe Noah’s pack a favor? Because Mason is the only one who can fix your bike? Some hidden gotcha?”

“None of those, Your Royal Highness. I’ll teach you because it amuses me.” With that he disappeared into the salon.

Mason whistled. “That can’t be good.”

She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. There’s no one else in a five-hundred-mile radius who can teach a witch to shift.”

“Good point. Look, it sounds like this’ll take a while. I’m going to find Noah to give him an update, okay? Don’t leave until I get back. He’ll have my nuts for Waldorf salad if I leave you unprotected.”

“You left me this morning.”

“I’m now walking with a limp.”

She suppressed a smile.

After Mason left, Sophia followed Jayden to the grooming area. “So what’s first?” She came into the small room and shut the glass door behind her.

“Pin this to your underclothes. Make sure some part of it touches your skin.” He handed her a small white-enameled brooch shaped like a wolf. “You’ll be shifting in no time.”

“And then?”

“Nothing. It’s a fully contained spell. All you have to do is activate it, so you won’t even be breaking any more of your death seals.”

She gaped at him. “How do you know about the seals?”

“Please. A witch who doesn’t do magic? Unless you did a complete Evacuate or the evil Phere Burgot himself sucked it out, there’s no way to keep it from expressing
other
than death seals.”

“But…but you said we had a long way to go. I thought this would take all day.”

“I said that to get rid of Mason. You and I need to talk without wolfie ears, princess.”

“What? Why?” This was why she didn’t trust the lying, secretive, conniving buzzard.

“I know that,” he said.

“I beg your pardon?” She stared at him. “Did you just read my—”

“Oh please. Your expression shouted that you don’t trust me. Besides, you’re a smart woman, or you are now. Of course you don’t trust me. You shouldn’t trust me, or anybody.”

“I trust Noah.”

“Who originally didn’t tell you about the hex that turns him into a puffball doggie.” He scanned the store behind her.

“I understand why,” she said. “It makes him vulnerable. But you—”

“Princess, I’d love to bicker all day,” he said in a voice she’d use for backed-up drains. “But there’s something else Noah isn’t telling you. Something big. If you don’t get it out of him before you try to lift the hex, wear a shit-proof mask for when it blows up in your face.”

“There’s a pleasant image. If this secret is so important, why don’t you tell me?”

He jerked one shoulder, grimacing. “Not mine to tell. But do yourself and him a big favor. Bribe him, wheedle, coerce him—whatever you have to do, get it out of him.” He raised one brow. “Me? I’d use sex.”

“Why…you…I’d…”

“Yes dear, I know. Away you go, now. You have twenty-four hours to figure out how to break the hex—and more importantly, how to break Noah.” He used two hands to shoo her, crowding her out of the grooming booth through the store. “Oh, and somewhere in there you may want to experiment with shifting. Walking as a wolf isn’t as easy as I make it look.”