Shifters on Fire: A BBW Shifter Romance Boxed Set (37 page)

“I’m going to get into a hot bath and then it should be time for dinner, right?” She checked her watch without acknowledging my presence other than I was the cook.

“Of course. Enjoy yourself.”

I went into the kitchen, tied on the apron, and then tried not to grumble through making a dinner that my stomach was already revolting against the dinner that hadn’t been made.

Kolani

There’s a war within me. I want to give Talia everything. I want her to have her dreams—hell, I’d love to be a part of her dreams instead of just the trust. But I also want her by my side—or I’ll stand at her side while she chases what she wants. She could be that female. She could be the one to help me change everything.

But asking Talia to do that is just handcuffing her to a role she doesn’t want. She doesn’t want to be here—with me—fighting for anything.

And then there’s the rebellion—my wolf. The beast inside that all but rules my thoughts and actions when I’m around her. He’d forced his thoughts onto me in that store—so close to her—her scent driving me wild and her eyes never leaving mine.

He knows she’s mine and his constant whining about what he knows about her inevitable break from our lives makes me wish he would shut the hell up.

It’s hard enough for me to deal with it on my own.

Now I have to deal with his whiny ass.

I shucked Mom’s bags onto her bed in the guest house. She had shopped herself to death in such a short time. I couldn’t imagine what she would do with a whole day.

“That female is banging pots and pans in the kitchen. It’s giving me a headache. What did you do?” My Mom groaned from the door.

“The honeymoon is over. Had to happen eventually.” I grumped, passing her and leaving.

“Ours went for weeks,” she called after me and I waved my hands in the air, not needing to hear that much information about my parents.

~~*~~

“What did those pots ever do to you?” I said, leaning against the threshold of the door watching her assault my cookware.

“They didn’t jump on the stove and cook for me. That’s what. Shit. I need to run.” Bracing both hands on the sides of the stovetop she closed her eyes. The storm inside her was undeniable. It rumbled in my chest from across the room. “I never run. She doesn’t make me. She just lays there, usually, and lets me be a human. But now she’s just downright unruly.” She hung her head while she spoke, her dark hair hiding her face from me.

It was no big deal. And my wolf could use the run. “We can run after dinner. Me and you. Down the beach, through the trees. A swim in the ocean might do you good.”

She straightened up and her eyes were still closed when she mumbled, “I’m wound up so damned tight. I haven’t been this way in a while. Not since…”

“Since what?” I stepped toward her, wanting to subdue her stress.

“Nothing.” A timer went off on the counter and she sprang to action, pulling the pan from the oven with perfectly cooked salmon steaks sprinkled with seasoning and topped with lemon slices. They were plated in minutes and she set the table like she’d been living in this house her whole life.

“Should I get your mom? I don’t want the food to get cold.”

What I really wanted to do was heft her over my shoulder and take her somewhere far away where she could shift and my wolf could be quenched with her scent and the presence of his mate in her truest form.

“I’m here. No need to make a fuss.” Mom strolled into the kitchen, sat down, and dug in. Money could buy a lot of things, but apparently it couldn’t buy manners.

I tried to save her. “Mom, don’t you want to wait? We haven’t eaten either.”

“Well,” she said after wiping her mouth with the napkin. “I’m actually in a hurry. I’m having dessert with Raya. I didn’t know she lived so close. I haven’t seen her in ages.”

Fury built in me like a fire being stoked with gasoline. I gripped the back of one of the dining room chairs and felt the wood bending to my will.

She continued. “We are just having a casual dinner. I’m sure you want to see your old friend. How nice that she can make time to see you.” My mate had a cupcake-laced wicked witch tone and to hear her using it on my mother was both satisfying and frightening at once.

“Well, she makes time for me. And she loves to shop. And she hires help when she doesn’t know how to do things.” She dropped the fork and threw her used napkin in the plate. I felt her nails on my forearm as she said, “Did you want to come with me, Kolani? I know Raya would love to see you as well. We don’t burn bridges, dear.” Then she turned her tone to my mate. “Especially when we might need those friendships later.”

I slid my arm out of her grasp. “No. How long are you staying again, Mom?”

She scoffed. “I’m leaving tomorrow by the attitude you’ve copped tonight. I know when I’m not welcome by either of you.”

There were lists of comebacks, things I could’ve said to really hurt her, but I refrained by a thread. “Have a safe trip.” I said, my eyes still focused on the table in front of me.

Her eyebrow spoke volumes. “I will.”

It took ten minutes before I heard the front door slam and knew she was gone. That was when I was able to let go of the chair and felt Talia’s hand on my cheek. She could’ve touched me anywhere and it would’ve brought me down from the mountain, but her palm on my face suffocated the fire in an instant.

“I’ve never seen her act like that. Not to that degree.” I said, finally able to speak.

“It’s okay. She is threatened by me. She’s lost her place in your life. You can’t blame her.” My eyebrows bunched above my nose. I’d expected her to ream my mother within an inch of her life. Instead, she found no fault in her—somehow. “Let’s just eat. Now you need to run just as much as I do.”

Nodding in response, I waited for her to sit down and then followed suit.

The food was fantastic. My mom’s comment was unfounded.

“This is really good.”

She smiled but it wasn’t my smile. “Thanks.”

We crossed glances over the food. Her blush told me all I needed to know.

She could speak words of leaving and never looking back but I knew better. And tonight, my wolf would know it all. Talia had to know that. She had to know that in our animal form, my wolf and hers would seek each other out through telepathic communication—there would be nothing she could hide from me or my beast.

I couldn’t have eaten faster, retaining some manners, if I tried.

“You must’ve been hungry. There’s more if you want.”

I cut her off in my haste. “No. Let’s go run. I’m where you were hanging over that stove. If I don’t get out of here, I’m going to burst.”

Talia

He drove us back the beach where we’d gone surfing the day before. It was empty, our only audience was the moon.

We got out and stood side by side at the ocean’s brink. All I wanted in the world was to let the fur fly and run until exhaustion took the place of my nerves.

“If you’re modest, close your eyes.” That was all the warning I got before he stripped off his jeans and t-shirt and I closed my eyes just in time to see his thumbs begin to pull at his boxers.

Boxers, huh.

While my hands were still over my eyes, he stepped closer and I gasped as his warm breath filled my ear. “You know you want to just as much as I do. Strip. Now.”

Thank God for maxi dresses. In one tug the thing was on the ground and I didn’t even bother with the underwear. Closing my eyes, my wolf took over, howling as she ripped through my mouth with her muzzle, her snout taking shape while my teeth pointed and elongated into meat-ripping fangs. Forced forward by her need to run and my will to let her, I landed on all four paws instead of feet and hands and the tear of claws broke from digits now wolf toes.

I’d barely gotten used to the form when a muzzle nudged me from behind, pushing and crying for me to heed his attentions.

Not yet.
My wolf sent to me and springing from my haunches took off at a pace faster than I’d ever ran before. Not forty steps into the run, I heard his matching pace behind me, catching up. It fueled me on.

Mate.
She forced on me time and time again as we ran. She wasn’t helping with the force my thoughts were flowing through my head. Usually, I ran to get rid of all the humanity and focus on the simplicity of life. That was the beauty of having a wolf inside me. She was unadulterated and simple. She wanted food, to run, to be free, and mostly to mate and have him at her side.

That’s when I decided to relent to her—submit to that pure will of hers.

Finally. Took you long enough.
I heard the voice in my head, but it didn’t belong to us, it belonged to Kolani.

How? I didn’t know about this.

I did. All that matters. I knew it. I knew.

What the hell did he think he knew? That he was telepathic? That he was completely freaking me out?

Care to explain?

He stopped and turned on me. We’d probably run half a dozen miles up the beach, there was a cliff up ahead that cut off the sand. He said nothing and I thought maybe the mind thing was over, or maybe it was a product of my imagination.

I flopped down onto my belly, loving the cool wetness of the sand against that sensitive part of my skin. Kolani took his place next to me, rolling back and forth, trying to get comfortable.

Looking over to him, our eyes connected and that’s when the flood hit me.

Kolani was sending me pictures, little blips in time of us—he and I tangled in webs of joy—in love and famished for each other—wrapped in mating and the honeymoon we should’ve had.

I allowed them to wash over me, absorbing them into my mind and imprinting them onto my memory.

They rolled over in my head while he lay next to me, silent yet so excruciatingly loud at once.

He was mine. I was his. There was no denying it.

Except it didn’t matter.

My humanity would overrule the mating call—my human side would stand her ground come hell or high water.

Kolani whined next to me and covered his face with his hands. If he was in human form, it would be the equivalent to sorrow.

And it was his sorrow that whirled through my veins as we allowed it to just be.

Change.
The word bordered on a command. My wolf listened to her mate—she had no shame.

“What?” I said, pulling my knees up to retain some semblance of modesty.

“You can’t tell me you didn’t feel that. I know you felt it. She called to me—they can’t be separated now. You must know that.”

Standing, my feet ran faster than my wolf ever thought about. That was it. I’d been tricked. He’d betrayed me at just the point where I’d begun to trust him. All that bullshit about changing the clan and being a different kind of alpha, that’s all it was—a crock of shit.

“Stop!” I heard him yell. It was too late. He was too late.

“No!” I yelled back, scrambling to get my dress back on. “It’s finished. You promised!” I turned, finally dressed. “You promised me. We made a deal. You said you were a man of your word.” I mimicked his voice the best I could, pathetically.

“That was before—Talia. You have to know that. I had no idea you were my true mate.”

I laughed cynically. “True mate? Are you fucking kidding me? That’s some stupid lore and you know it. They don’t exist. Ask my mother and my five step-fathers. True mates don’t beat on each other and push meth on each other. They all claimed to be her true mate. And where did it get her?”

For the life of me, I couldn’t stop myself from crying around Kolani. It was as though years of restricted tears had found their outing—a freakin’ rebellion of saline.

I almost double over with the strength of my pain, pain I’d forced into hiding a long time ago.

“What the hell have you done to me?” That was my final cry before Kolani wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me to him, burying my tear-filled face in his chest. “No. I don’t want this. I don’t want you. I just want to be free!” I screamed the words with my mouth while my arms flailed trying to push him away.

“Don’t fight this. Don’t fight us. I’ll let you have whatever you want, I swear it.”

I pounded on his back with closed fists. “You’re a damned liar!”

He thrust me back, strong hands now on my shoulders. “Close your eyes, sweetheart.” For some damned reason I did. “Feel her—converse with your wolf. Allow her to tell you the truth. She knows me—she knows us. Her trust is infallible.”

I didn’t have to. I knew the truth, through my wolf and through him, I knew the truth.

He was my mate—not with words or with pictures. This male was made for me—our souls born of the same mold.

And the knowledge, or admitting that I knew—broke me.

Kolani

I carried her limp form to the Jeep and strapped her seatbelt around her. I was fueled on only by the primal instinct to protect her and not let her come to harm.

She didn’t stir until we got back home and I shut off the Jeep.

“You won,” she mumbled.

There was no reason to answer. She still was acting defeated in this situation. I had to make her see that she and I together could rule our little world and change it for the better.

Talia leaned against me all the way up the stairs. Her wolf was exhausted from trying to convince her of the truth.

I knew that now, because our wolves were connected. Our lives were permanently threaded together in our wolf forms—nothing, including distance or death could undo it.

~~*~~

When I opened my eyes the next morning, she was already looking at me.

“Good morning, mate.” The words tumbled out of my mouth. There was no more hesitation. No more restraining.

She propped up on her elbow and didn’t care that I’d removed her sand-laden dress and replaced it with nothing. “I still want to go to school. I still want to be a teacher. Don’t expect me to get knocked up and start scrubbing the floors or some shit.”

I covered my mouth, trying to stifle a laugh. “Okay. Go to school. Be a teacher. Get on the pill. And I have a housekeeper. Done.”

Her mouth pouted. “You’re not going to order me around.”

I scooted closer. “I couldn’t if I tried.”

Her finger blazed a trail down my abs. “This is not what I wanted. You cheated.”

One of her legs hooked around my hips as I said, “I didn’t cheat, sweetheart. We both knew the rules.”

As her warm lips met mine for the second time since we’d repeated vows in front of our clansmen, the rest of the world faded to black. I steeled myself for more debate—more protests from her sassy and sexy mouth. Instead, she kissed me one more time and said, “And I won again.”

And as our bodies melded I knew we had both won.