His teeth release my neck, and my body reshapes beneath him. Bones snap and shift, muscle and tendon pulling back into familiar feminine lines. My canines dull, straightening into human ones as rich brown fur recedes and pale skin takes its place.
The cold hits immediately, snow biting against the bare skin of my back and legs, and then his heat follows, settling over me as he shifts and braces his frame across my hips. He’s careful with his weight, mindful not to crush me, but it’s enough to keep me pinned in the snow. Thank the Goddess I’m more resilient to the cold these days. I would not be having a good time otherwise.
His skin blazes where it presses against mine. One hand moves up my chest, fingers trailing lazily, before closing at my throat, his grip settling there like a collar meant to be shown off. It’s a claim he makes without a word and my legs press together to help relieve the ache that’s now pulsing between my thighs.
When his eyes meet mine, they still hold a wolfish gleam, and his mouth curves into something familiar and dangerous.
“Is this what you wanted, sweet Noa?” His voice rumbles low. “Did you want your alpha to chase you just so he could catch you?”
My throat moves against his palm as I swallow, fighting the urge to squirm as the need in me keeps climbing.
“Yes.”
Rennick snarls, more animal than man, and bends to take my mouth in a kiss that’s all teeth and want. Heat floods my pussy instantly, my slick dripping into the snow beneath me. I don’t retreat. I meet him head-on, dragging my tongue along his lower lip before catching it between my teeth, a deliberate baiting that earns me a low, warning sound from his chest.
“Biting me is what got you into this mess,” he murmurs against my mouth.
I smile into the kiss, utterly unapologetic. “And I’d do it again.”
That’s all it takes.
Whatever restraint he’s been feigning at finally gives way. One moment he’s over me, the next he’s moving, but his hands never leave my body. I’m yanked up from the snow, weightless, and held against his chest so fast the world tilts. We’re moving and then my spine is colliding with the trunk of a nearby tree.
The bark scrapes my skin, rough and unforgiving, but it barely registers. Not with his body pressed so close. Not with his hands sliding down, lifting my legs and locking them around his waist, holding me exactly where he wants me so the thick head of his cock can drag through the wet mess of my pussy. We hiss together at the contact, everything burning hot and ice cold all at once.
His forehead drops briefly to mine, his breath heavy, as his hips roll forward in another slow, deliberate drag that coats his length. My hands climb to his shoulders, searching for purpose, when he angles himself just right. The friction of his pelvis against my clit pulls a cry from my throat.
Rennick pulls back so he can look me in the eye, the full moon above highlighting every handsome line of his face. The scars at his temple glow pale, his eyes flickering between human and that ghostly wolf shade. My wolf surges in answer, so close now I know she’s looking out through my eyes too. He adjusts, lines himself up, and presses forward, letting the thick head of his dick stretch me open. My breathing fractures into short, shallow pants, my inner muscles fluttering, silently begging to be fed more.
He never looks away from my face.
“You don’t run from me unless you want to be caught, sweet one,” he warns, voice dark with the strain of holding himself back.
My hands slide up the back of his neck, fingers threading into his hair as I pull myself closer, our breaths mingling like pale ghosts in the cold.
“Why do you think I ran?”
His lips twitch, his eyes flaring with something I can’t read, then he rumbles, “I want you to scream my name, omega.”
And then with one punch of his hips, he thrusts deep, and I have no choice but to follow his demand.
His name leaves my lips on a cry, my ruin and salvation all at once.
Epilogue
Noa
Ipush into Rennick’s office without knocking, already moving, the question I came to ask perched on the tip of my tongue.
It disappears the moment I see his face.
He’s seated behind his desk, shoulders forward, gaze fixed on the laptop. The glow from the screen sharpens his features, and for a moment I can’t name what I’m looking at. Not anger. Not relief. Something more restrained. Something carefully contained. So much so, I can’t even get a good read on it when I go searching through the bond.
That hardwired awareness I keep telling myself will loosen its hold on us any day now snaps fully awake in an instant. It’s been more than a month and a half since the attack, since our territory was torn open and forced back together by sheer will, hope and a little bit of duct tape but the vigilance never really leaves. Not for me. Not for him.
My mind is already racing ten steps ahead, cataloging worst-case scenarios with an efficiency I hate that I’ve perfected.
“What?” The word leaves my mouth as I move toward him. “What’s happening?”
