Page 63 of Wolfsbane

Grinning victoriously, I dragged my hand off his spent cock to grip his hip. A few more thrusts, and I followed right after him, burying deep as waves of pleasure crested through me.

I laughed breathily and tumbled forward, squeezing him from behind as I pressed a kiss between his shoulder blades. “Yeah, I’d do that again,” I said, dragging kisses along his spine. “Any time you want.”

Viktor rumbled something that sounded like assent, and I couldn’t get the smile off my face if I tried.

I slipped free of his body to a soft hiss from him, and wrapped my arms around his waist.

Perfect, perfect, perfect, and the only reason I had him at all was that my mother had stolen his wolf.

When I gave it back, what then? I hoped for more of this, but that was an awful lot to ask for.

CHAPTER 35

Viktor

I woke with a jerk in the night, when the magic started clanging against the inside of my skull. Daire had also woken behind me, gasping for breath as though someone had thrown a bucket of ice water over his head.

We both rolled for the edge of the bed, and I pushed up and headed for the dresser, only to be yanked back by the tether in my middle that attached me to Daire. My back hit the bed, and then my shoulders touched his, as the same thing had happened to him.

We turned, awkwardly, but instead of being annoyed or pained by the yanking, he was laughing, both hands covering his face, shoulders shaking and breaths ragged.

The laughter was only half actual amusement, and I knew it. It was too close to hysterical for it to be anything else, but I understood the feeling. This was all too much, too fast, too strange.

He had a wolf he hadn’t been born with, didn’t have the magic that was his birthright, was tethered by magic to a near stranger, and his mother wanted to kill him to steal it all for herself. I thought every part of that was enough to be hysterical over, so the fact that he’d been mostly calm was impressive.

I turned and wrapped my arms around him, kissing the edge of his cheek, the only part of his face not covered by his hands, and just stayed there for a moment.

We didn’t have much time, though, so once his body stopped shaking, I sighed and let my arms drop. “Okay, we need to get dressed. Together. Then we need to get moving. Are the others awake?”

He nodded, steeled himself as he took a deep, fortifying breath, and stood.

We went to find clothes together, and I just grabbed and handed him the dirty things we’d worn the day before. It wasn’t like we needed nice fresh clothes to fight with the witches. Maybe I was presuming a fight, and they would come peacefully, but . . . no. They’d come in the middle of the night, breaking the wards.

Anyone who thought the witches’ intentions were peaceful was so naïve they couldn’t be helped.

So we dressed in silence, and then trooped down the stairs to find everyone else rushing alongside us. At least I wasn’t way behind everyone else because of my blunted senses.

Also, clearly, the wards had worked as intended, since the whole pack seemed to be awake.

When we got outside, though, that was when the true malicious intentions of the witches struck us.

We could barely make anything out through the trees, since the new homes we’d been building were nearly half a mile from the old ones, but even in the middle of the night, I could see smoke filling the sky.

The old square was on fire.

Daire grabbed my hand, and we started to run.

Yes, he was probably just holding onto me because of the recent experience with the damned tether and not wanting to be yanked onto his back again, but it was still . . . nice. That he was thinking of me in the middle of chaos and distraction.

Usually my mind seemed to turn off in a fight, and there was only survival instinct.

“You can sound an alarm,” he said, turning to glance at me as we ran through the woods. “Make sure everyone is awake.”

“They are,” I promised him. Not that I wanted to avoid magic, but I was certain of it. There wasn’t a wolf in the pack who hadn’t been woken by the noise. The ones who lived in the new clearing were running alongside us, and the ones who still lived in the old buildings were making enough noise that even I could hear it.

He squeezed my hand, frowning, then bit his lip.

“What?”