“Well…guess it’s time for bed,” she remarked to Buck.
She went over and slipped under the coverlet…only to feel a bounce as the mattress dipped under the weight of the huge wolf.
“Now, wait a minute.” Kiera sat up and frowned at him. “No,” she said, frowning and pointing at the floor. “I’m sorry–I love animals, but I don’t allow them in my bed.” Not even her cat, Rufus, slept with her–mainly because he always wanted to sleep directly on her head. So he wasn’t allowed in the bed with her, and she told herself she had to make the same rule with her new pet.
Buck jumped off the bed at once and laid down on the floor, directly beside the bed. He put his chin on his paws and looked up at her with the saddest eyes Kiera had ever seen.
Please, oh please, oh please, those eyes seemed to be saying. Don’t make me stay down here–I want to be with you!
Kiera frowned.
“Look, you’ll be much more comfortable down there,” she told him. “Honestly, with the heated floor…”
But she trailed off because Buck’s eyes were so sad.
He whined miserably and looked up at her again with that look of pleading and sorrow.
“Oh my God, don’t look like that!” Kiera sighed. “All right, but just for one night–and just because you’re new.” She patted the mattress. “Come on. Come up here.”
At once the big wolf jumped on the bed and began licking her face. His tail was wagging with excitement, and it was clear he was elated to be in the bed with her.
“All right, all right!” Kiera said, laughing and fending him off. “That’s enough now. We need to get some sleep. We have a lot of work to do tomorrow.”
She settled down under her thick comforter and Buck settled down beside her, lying on top of it. The bed was big enough that he didn’t crowd her, but she could feel the heat radiating from his huge, furry body.
Actually, it was kind of nice to have someone else in bed with her, she thought. She’d slept alone ever since Jerome had run off on her. Of course, Buck wasn’t really a person but somehow, he felt like one. It was nice to have him beside her.
“Lights out,” she called and the overhead glows extinguished, leaving her in cozy darkness.
Beside her, Buck whined uneasily so she rolled over and stroked his head and ruff.
“It’s all right, boy–it’s nighttime. Time to sleep,” she told him.
He whuffed and settled down beside her.
Kiera sighed and closed her eyes. It had been a long, eventful day. She was glad it was over so she could get some rest.
She had no idea that the next day would be even stranger…and more dangerous.
11
BUCK
Buck settled beside his mate, happy she’d allowed him to sleep with her. For a while, he’d been concerned that she was mad at him–why else would she banish him to the floor?
He’d been afraid she was angry that his shafts had come out–but really, how could he help it? Watching her let the flowers pleasure her until she came and seeing her gorgeous, naked curves had affected him, as it would affect any male.
But as he lay beside her in the soft darkness of his new home, with her sweet scent all around him and the warmth of her body only inches away, a more troubling thought began to creep into his mind.
His first mate.
The memory of her had been so dim for so long—faded and worn thin by grief and by the slow, terrible drift into mindlessness. But now that Kiera’s touch was bringing him back, other things were returning too. Not just words and thoughts and reason, but emotion. Sentient emotion. Complicated feelings that hurt far more than the simple sorrow and loss he had felt in his more animal state.
Guilt was chief among them.
The Goddess usually only granted one mate to a Lykan. One true female to tether his soul and call him back from the void. One to share his life and his body and his Bond with. That was the way it had always been among his people.
And he had already had that blessing once.
