“Which was my problem, not yours.” My hand slides from her hip and up her back, tangling in the wet strands inky dark hair. “My instincts were not your issue, and I hope that’s not why you came back.”
“I came because I wanted to. Because I missed you. Because?—”
“That’s good enough for me. I would have waited forever for you, so thank you for coming so much sooner.”
Her lips crack a near smirk but the reflection of reality quickly replaces anything good. “Darkness has been kinder to me—more controllable, I mean. It hasn’t really spoken since that day, which Freya claims is thanks to my wolf side. You were right; I was making excuses to get away. Until yesterday, I ran out of excuses, out of lies, and got tired of pretending I wanted to be a High Priestess when all I really want is to be an Alpha’s mate.”
My wolf howls. It’s all he—we—wanted as well.
“I’m still worried about the future, but I swear, Ryder, I’ll protect this pack with everything I have.”
And I’ll protect you with everything I have.
“It’ll be a while from now.” Hopefully. “Let’s not stress about it. Especially not this instance, since it’s not why I brought you here.”
Her gaze flicks around the cavern before she releases me and bobs backwards. “I don’t want you to forgive me so easily. Me leaving must have hurt. You’ve been hanging around the town because you had to.” She pauses her backwards descent and instead kicks in place. “You’d spend your entire life there if I never returned.”
Unable to give her the answer verbally, I jerk my chin.
“That wasn’t fair.”
“It was the choice I made, and I wouldn’t have done anything differently.”
“Not one thing?”
“Nothing. Not if it got us here.”
The past month lingers within the mauve of her eyes, but she releases it all with a deep sigh before tipping onto her back.Gentle waves created from her arms push her away. Every so often, she pushes her arms down in a V to keep her trajectory going.
With her distracted and clearly still lost to the past, I slip beneath the water’s surface and pop up between her spread legs. My tongue swipes up her pussy to her clit where I tug it between my teeth.
She lurches, losing her balance in the water, but I grip her thighs to keep her in place. “Last night was nowhere near enough. You passed out much too soon. You left me ravenous a week ago, and it’s your job to stay on your back and be the perfect little mate and let me sate myself on your cunt until full. I should warn you—shifters have a massive appetite.”
The sharp inhale of her breath from anticipation is simply the start, and it turns into a full-on gasp as my tongue slides in as deep as possible. With a bit of focus, my tongue shifts into that of a wolf and reaches deeper inside.
Her cry echoes around the cavern, her hands scrambling for purchase against the water that doesn’t give her any. Her focus remains on her balance, which leaves her completely in my mercy, dragging her up and down my tongue, feeling her clench around me every so often.
After a moment, her limbs get stiff. Flavour assaults me seconds before the orgasm hits her. My hands massage her inner thighs as I keep her in place, my tongue slowly dragging from her before placing a chaste kiss over her clit.
“One of many. Catch your breath.”
“You can’t kill me. The earth ending already has its hooks into me.”
While she’s joking, it creates a deadly kind of fire through me, until my claws shed and dig into her skin. Even as she flinches, she murmurs the three words that’ll forever quell my wolf.
“I love you, Ryder.”
“I love you too, Carina.”
Seventy-Four
CARINA
He sniffs the air.“No one’s here.”
“She’s probably at work.” Which is perfect, as I grasp his hand and haul him away from the backyard and over the property line. “Given the barrier, you’ve never been inside town. Not to do anything but be threatened by my kind anyway.”
He shudders but doesn’t pull away. “The town sign was plenty. If that’s a fraction of the number of tourists you see each day, no thanks.”
