That definition is still lost on me, but to me, it means ‘home.’
A wet path trails from my neck, over my shoulder, and down my arm until nudging the blanket out of the way. My back arches both into and away from the tickling sensation, my body confused whether this is pleasure or pain. When the sensation ends, I decide it was pleasure. If only I could chase it back into my dreams.
“Kamahki.”
Mm, I’ve missed him calling me that.
Sleep is my favourite time of the day. I left Ryder, but he always returns in my dreams. His touch, his voice, the name without meaning that means everything to me.
Teeth scrape lightly over my shoulder and down my chest, fiddling with the collar of my dress.
“Carina.”
Blinking awake into the dull glow from somewhere, brown and grey fill my vision—an endless expanse I follow to the figure crouched beside me.
Last night rushes back in a chaotic blur. The ceremony I was about to initiate but never made it that far, and then every realization of being done with that life—of being tired of pretending I’m something I’m not, that I haven’t been crying myself to sleep every night, regretting leaving Ryder behind. Ryder, whom I’ve come to genuinely care for over our time together.
I ran from the coven and towards the pack, then the caves. Holly. Holly helped me, and then I was in Ryder’s section, and everything got hazy. Broken sleep over the week accompanied by running myself ragged playing High Priestess-in-training, accompanied by the comfort of his bed, exhaustion hit hard.
Silver eyes glow in the dark cave, a small homemade candle I’d watched the pack make the other week lit in the corner. Beside the bag of my clothing that got left behind in his cabin—I’d noticed it last night. Hands and knees come down over my body, pinning me in place.
Little does he realize, I’m not going anywhere.
“Ryder.” My hands skate up the side of his face until melding with his hair, and he releases a low noise of contentment. “Ryder, I…”Don’t know where to even begin.An apology first, and then an explanation, but my lips are cracked and drying, my throat parched.
What if he doesn’t forgive me? Would I forgive me?
He turns his head to nuzzle my palm. “I once told you only mates share a nest. If you’re here, that means you’ve made your bed,kamahki. Literally. Are you ready for this? Because if you’re not, you have about five seconds before the option is gone forever.”
I could give him a verbal answer, but I give him the sign that’ll mean more to him. A shifter’s response, by tilting my head and baring my neck and his bite. “Being here doesn’t make me yours. This does.”
“Fuck.” His head drops until lips nip at it. “I’ve missed you a lot.”
“Prove it.”
For a moment, he’s completely still. Ice beneath my palms, despite the high temperature his body regularly runs at. And then the ice cracks and the wolf returns.
In an abrupt move, he flips me over and places my hands up on the edge of the nest’s indent. “Keep those here.”
He then hooks an arm around my waist to lift me onto my knees, which arches my back and lifts my ass up. He releases a low rumble that feels like inner peace as he kicks my knees apart, fists my hair, and yanks my head back.
“You. Left. Me.” Every word is punched out by alongside a twist on my scalp. “That, little mate, was your one and only shot. Next time you consider abandoning me, it’ll be to the Otherworld, and I’ll be minutes behind you.”
He reaches between my legs and strokes two fingers over my clit until I grow slick. His words did most of the work, so it doesn’t take much until I’m arching into him, trying to lift my hips. The grip on my scalp burns worse, but I don’t care. Anything to get him inside me.
Instead, he flattens his hand and taps my core. “You’ll be lucky if you come at all tonight. Consider this night one of a long winter of punishment.”
“You wouldn’t.”
Dark and decadent, he growls, “Try me.”
“You won’t leave your mate needy for months. Ryder…Ineedyou.”
His next growl is one of frustration, but then he submits to my own wishes and slides two fingers inside me, pulling out once until his skin is coated, before fucking me deeply and curling them.
“Fuck you. Of course, I can’t leave you wanting. That’d defeat the goal, wouldn’t it?”
As he pushes in harder, deeper, a pressure builds. Painful, almost, but a tightening too that has my arms shaking to retain my position. “Goal?”
