Oycher (8 page)

“I wouldn’t feel comfortable with that but thank you for offering.”

“Well, I’ll feel uncomfortable if I don’t. I sense something you need, and I must give it to you. Food, clothing, and shelter are the basics. Providing is what honorable Pack males do for their Mates. I work because I have the power to protect, but I don’t need the money.” He shrugged, collecting a tray and placing three plates on it.

She remembered he came from Norwegian royalty. “I always heard money can’t buy happiness.”

“Well, use any human adage you want. Your life’s been pretty shitty up until now. I’m going to change that.” He loaded eggs, bacon, and orange bread on two of the plates. The third, he piled with cinnamon French toast.

“I was doing fine, making my way through college, before those shapeshifters and vampires took it upon themselves to…”

“Change things, dictate your life?” He cupped her face in his big palm. “Don’t put me in their category, Isla. I want to improve your life — big difference there. Whether or not you truly accept me, you will be protected and provided for. And as far as the shapeshifters and vampires go, I can’t blame you for being scared. After battling those flying Gryphs last night, the thought of you in the arms of one of their comrade’s while flying helplessly to a Dynasty lair…Isla!”

Gripping her wrist, he removed a steak knife from her hand. “Do you always grab knives from the wrong end?” Gently, he pressed a crisp linen napkin to her palm, adding pressure.

“I didn’t know it was in my hand,” she admitted quietly. Another male walked over to see if they needed the doctor on call, but Terje shook his head no. “It’s not deep.” He took the napkin away to see that her blood had already gelled, the wound closing in inhuman speed. He dampened another napkin in water, wiping away any visible traces of blood. “Do you want to talk about it, about them?”

“There’s nothing to talk about.” She hated being reminded of vampires.

“From this moment forward, you will be my best friend, Isladora. I want to talk to you about important things or about nonsense. Whatever it is, I want to help.”

“It’s the vampire thing.” She chewed her lip. “I don’t like talking about them.” Dax had admired her strength, had asked her to stick around and help incoming Donors. The problem? Many of the Donors, he’d explained, were vampire mixed bloods. On top of that, she would be working side by side with pureblood Species vampires. One of which was often a doctor for Pack. So if Isla couldn’t shove her resentment aside, how could she help others do the same? “I don’t enjoy feeling vulnerable.”

“I don’t want you to feel vulnerable.” He held the tray in one hand and wrapped his other around her lower back, ushering her to a paver-tiled terrace overlooking a small marina. “I have an idea that might help you and me feel a lot better.”

Ignoring the eggs, she plowed into the French toast. “Oh, I’m sure you do.” She couldn’t believe how calm Terje was acting now. For months, Isla had heard the whispers of how males went nearly insane to fuck and bite their newfound mates immediately after they’d discovered them. Here she stood with an intimidating male that weighed nearly three-hundred pounds and she felt — dare she say, safe?

“Well, we can do that,” he said, downing his fourth piece of bacon. “That heat rising in you rings my werewolf’s alarm, and I’ll be more than honored to ease your body.”

Reaching for a pitcher of ice water, she grabbed her glass with a shaky hand. “I have no idea what to say to this heat thing. This has to be the most embarrassing day of my life.”

“No one here looks at it that way. They’re not laughing at you, Isladora. For the most part, except for some sore losers, they’re happy for me.” He took the glass and pitcher from her and poured.

“Last night, I agreed to…you know.”

His lips twitched. “I know.”

“I didn’t agree to lifetime, uh, mating…or whatever you call it.”

“Fair enough,” he said, handing her back the filled glass. “I won’t pressure you, if you let me take at least some of your worry. I need to take care of what’s mine as much as possible, or Pack will have to lock me up in a silver-lined cell. It’s the way of our kind. I’m not human in the least.”

She still didn’t know what to say. “What was your idea about helping me…with the vulnerable thing?”

He brought a piece of orange bread to her lips, brushing it back and forth until she took a bite. “Today’s when I train the Alpha bloods.” His eyes flared when she chewed his offering. “I could ask Flynn to find another sparring coach for today or maybe you’d like to -”

“Watch,” she said, rolling the icy glass across her forehead. 

“I was thinking more in the lines of training you in hand-to-hand combat.”

Her eyes flicked to his, disbelieving. “You’re serious?”

“Why not?” He started on his eggs. “I think you would feel better knowing your way around weapons, particularly after that steak knife incident,” he said under his breath. “Like I said before, it’s understandable that you’re uncomfortable around vamps and shifters. Why not take advantage of my knowledge and experience to help you adjust to incoming Donors?” With a teasing glint, he flexed his biceps. “Use me.”

“Use you, huh?” Her gaze moved over the way he strained beneath his T-Shirt, the edges of the sleeves digging into his skin. She cleared her throat and took another sip of water. “Wait a minute, did you say shifters?”

“Some of the incoming Donors will have shifter blood, I’m sure.”

She pushed her plate away, leaning back in her chair. “Dax didn’t say anything about shifters.”

“He doesn’t know what’s incoming until they are, well, incoming. Some can have even Lovci or Gryph blood in their veins along with werewolf. You never know.” He tilted his head, his arctic eyes glittering in the morning sun. “Whoever we help, they won’t be the ones who hurt you, Isladora.”

Her scars started burning and it had nothing to do with werewolf heat. She could run forever and a day and vulnerability would always hang around, unless she did something about it. “I’m thinking…I’ll need some training clothes.”

“I suppose so,” he agreed, his smile blooming. “As long as they cover you up, or I’ll get too distracted. Or kill the other males, if they look at you.”

How could he make her feel so beautiful? Looking away from the intensity of his stare, she snatched a piece of his bacon. “And some work clothes.” The clothes she’d worn to college were well past second hand and all threadbare. “But nothing frilly and no heels, it’s impossible to run in heels.”

“Good idea.” He picked her straight up out of the chair, held her to his chest, and whirled her in blurring blue speed into a nearby pool cabana. “We’ll save the heels for the pole I’ll have installed in our bedroom.”

“Our bedroom?” She wrapped her arms around his neck, drawn in by the allure of her winter prince lowering her on a cushy chaise surrounded by a white-draped tent. A sea breeze kicked up outside, the soft fabric of the perimeter billowing out and then resettling. “You’re pushing it.”

“I’m confident.”

Isla never thought of herself as a mindless slut, but her legs, on their own volition, wrapped themselves around his waist. And she brought her mouth to his and kissed him as hard as she could, only stopping when his teeth clanked against hers.

He stared down at her with his mouth parted, breathing between his canines. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead. She’d never before seen a werewolf perspire. “I vote we skip today’s regularly scheduled activities and wing it.” He canted his head, and she spotted a slight tremor in his jaw, though virtually imperceptible, but it was there.

She pursed her lips. “Like sunning on the beach or something?” Isla raked her fingernails over his nipple piercings, circling the loops. A growl left him and his mouth went to her neck. She hauled off and punched him in the chest, out of fight-or-flight reflexes.

He exhaled sharply, pulling back, his brows pinching in the middle. “Looks like I don't have to train you to punch.” He flipped them.

“Just don’t try to bite me again,” she threatened, riding him.

“You need to get used to my canines, Isla.” His hands covered her breasts, massaging gently. “I’m not a vampire, but one night, I’m going to mark you in every way.”

She wiggled on him, sensing something bumpy around his erection. “You’re going to ruin this by talking, aren’t you?”

“Maybe you should have brought along some duct tape, if you wanted me to be quiet.” His careful hands left her breasts, whispering along her stomach.

“I have a feeling duct tape would have been used against me.” She shuddered. “This heat is causing quite an itch, even though I scratched it on my own.”

His eyes narrowed, and he flipped them again. “It’s not the same. As a werewolf, you need a mate’s touch, my touch.” He leaned back, placing a palm on each of her knees, spreading her slowly apart. “This also works two ways. If I sate you, my werewolf won’t slam the inside of my head from sensing your duress.” His palms skated the tops of her legs, his thumbs pressing her inner thighs as he traveled higher. “You feel that?”

His touch went deeper than her legs. It soothed her internally, somehow. “Yeah.”

“Stop or go?” His fingers spread wide as he pressed his thumbs higher and higher, until he hit the leg openings of her shorts.

An ancient calling pulsed through her blood. “I’ll, mmm, tell you in a minute.”

His thumbs found the elastic circling each of her legs and he dipped inside, as his mouth kissed the back of her right knee. “You smell as beautiful as you look.”

She wiggled, trying to press her thighs together for a teensy bit of friction. “You smell like winter and man.”

“I’m nothing close to a man.” He slid up her body, rubbing his steel-honed chest against her tingling breasts. She turned liquid, her body opening for anything he could give her. “Never forget that, Isla.” His mouth nipped at the corner of hers as her arms wrapped around the back of his neck. He kissed the bow of her top lip and moved down to the dip beneath her lower lip, licking.

“Oh.” Her inner walls tightened convulsively, squeezing. His lips pressed flatly against hers, brushing back and forth, his mouth opening and inhaling her scent. Then he kissed her in an openmouthed ravishment that flooded her panties. Lightning blasted her spine. “Can’t breathe.”

“Me, neither.” Terje scraped his canines over her chin, deftly avoiding her throat. He moved down, down, and down, until he trailed his nose across her inner thigh and then pressed his face over the sexual heart of her, inhaling deeply between her legs. “So very delicious, I’m hungry for you, My Mate,” he said against the piece of denim separating his mouth from her nether lips. His thumbs still dipping and stroking under the elastic of her panties, he placed a kiss directly where Isla needed to be filled. “I want to swallow you down my throat.”

Isla clutched the back of Terje’s head, his silky white-blonde hair sliding between her fingers, pressing his nose in the vicinity of her throbbing clitoris, and tried to strike it home. “Right. Here.”

“Here?” His head dipped, and his tongue flicked beneath the edge of her shorts.

“No!” His canines tugged at the hem of her panties, and she huffed in frustration.

“Where, Isla?” He looked up her parted thighs, his eyes a white blaze between them. His tongue, a weird combination of velvet and sandpaper, flicked out and licked his lips.

She gasped. “Y-you can make your tongue longer?”

“Only for you.” His hands gripped her hips, his response a familiar sequence of breathing: Three breaths in, one slow exhale out. A waft of cool air hit her bottom before she realized her shorts were gone. Terje was shaking over her, his aura blasting blue, white, and then back to normal, flickering like a club strobe.

He growled. “Mine!” He gripped his forehead, and she spied claws had emerged. She inched away and he pulled her back down. “Taste.” Pressing his face on her bare pussy, he breathed in her scent, inhaling slowly, wallowing his face back and forth over her silken lips.

Three breaths in, one slow exhale.

Three breaths in, one slow exhale.

Three breaths in, one slow exhale.

He continued to perspire, a sheen of moisture glossing the high planes of his cheekbones. Glistening dots pebbled above his upper lip as his tongue caressed her pink flesh, drifting up and down in a leisurely lick until his thumbs spread her wide. Embarrassment warmed her, when he stared at her for a few heartbeats, gazing, admiring.

A one-word epithet left him, “Gorgeous.” He used his werewolf-lengthened tongue and speared her right through her drenched folds. Her back arched, her head thrashing this way and that while he curled his tongue, higher, higher, and higher to search for her internal switch.

A burst of sunlight penetrated their private tent. And her winter prince turned his head, baring his teeth. Isla froze.

Dax shook his head. “He’s hitting mid-trans. Are you okay with that, Isladora?”

Isla screamed, “Get out!”

“Calm down.” Dax waved a hand. The tent flap lowered after Flynn Ruyter walked in.

“Out!”

Flynn said, “You’ll both feel better once you climax.” He stood behind Terje. “Give in to your needs, Isla.” He cupped himself, his erection straining his zipper as he stared down at her.

Dax growled. “Make her come. Now.” His head cocked to the side, listening to movement within the facility. “I had to leave my meeting over this.”

“You had to leave…so you’re saying you can’t trust him alone with me!” She snagged a white towel from the shelf behind her, stood up on shaking legs, and wrapped it around her hips. “You want to know what a newbie lacks in Pack, Alpha? Privacy, that’s what!” Isla shook a trembling finger their way. “Don’t even think about following me!”

Terje gripped the back of the nearest chair as she left, counting, breathing, counting, and breathing. When her soft steps accelerated into a run, he fell to his hands and knees.

“I got you.” Flynn wrapped his arms around Terje, taking his weight. Dax stood next to him. Both had released their essences to muzzle Terje’s werewolf, keeping him from transforming and frightening Isladora. All in all, that part had worked. At least, she wasn’t frightened. She was pissed off.