The Protector's Heart (Wilde Creek Three) (15 page)

Acksel got out and Malachi headed back to the
clinic. It was almost time for the girls to stop work for the day,
so he didn’t have much time to wait before Brynn and Nila were in
the SUV and they were heading to the daycare. Acksel had contacted
Brynn and told her what was going on, so Malachi only had to
explain things to Nila. He waited until he’d made dinner for her
and himself and they’d fed Jack together.

An hour after they’d been home, they headed
back out and took Jack to Brynn and Acksel’s house, where Mia was
also waiting to play with Jack. He noticed that Nila didn’t seem to
mind leaving her son with pack members, and it made him happy to
know she trusted them, and trusted him as well.

He’d made sure she was dressed warmly. As a
shifter, his body ran hotter than a human’s and he didn’t mind the
cold as much as she would, and he didn’t want her to be
uncomfortable.

The snow from several days earlier had
hardened, and it crunched under their boots as they stepped off the
back porch and down into the yard. Malachi stopped and Nila did,
too. He pointed up. “Wolves have been tied to the moon forever.
When the moon rises in the sky, it’s a compulsion that we can’t
ignore. We
have
to shift – hunt and run and commune in our
wolf forms. We’re pack by nature. Although there are lone wolves
out there, those that have been banished by deed or choice, wolves
feel a need to be with other wolves on the full moon.”

He clicked the button on the battery-operated
lantern he carried and took her gloved hand in his. The lantern
illuminated the area in front of them as he led her toward the
woods.

“Wolf packs are traditionally wolf-only. Our
laws have always stated that if a member chose to mate a human or
another type of shifter, he or she would be banished. Some wolves
take the banishment willingly for their mate, believing it’s better
to have their mate without the pack than the pack without their
mate, but some wolves don’t want to be that noble and stay with the
pack, ignoring their mating needs.”

“Why would your laws say that a wolf can’t
mate with whoever he or she wants?”

He sighed. “I don’t know. Call it
specist
or exclusionary or whatever, but my pack was the
same way until recently. Acksel’s sister, Eveny, knew that mating
with Luke, who is human, would mean she’d be banished from the
pack, but she didn’t care. Acksel
didn’t
mate with Brynn
until recently because of the laws, but now he’s changed the laws
so that our people can mate with whoever they want.”

They walked through the woods in silence, the
snow and ice crunching under their feet the only sound. The altar
came into view and he stopped in front of it and placed the lantern
on the smooth marble surface.

He looked down at her and she tilted her head
back until she was looking into his eyes. Sometimes he felt like
she could see right through him. He clasped both her hands and
said, “It wouldn’t matter to me if being with you meant I lost the
pack. I’d gladly go rogue for you and Jack. My pack laws are
different now, though, and that means that I don’t have to leave.
When we mate together, you’ll become an honorary member of the
pack. The protectors will protect you and Jack the same as they
would any other member. You won’t be shunned for your humanity;
you’ll be revered as my mate.”

His heart started to pound as he stared into
her eyes. She looked at him expectantly, and he pushed back the
desire to strip her and mount her on the altar, fairly certain it
wasn’t what the creators of the stone monument had in mind when
they’d carved it.

“Nila, since the moment my wolf urged me to
follow the sound of your tears and I found you in the storage room
at the clinic, I’ve known that you were mine. Everything that I’ve
done since that point was with you and Jack in mind. I took over
the house that Brynn had been renting from my folks and completely
redid the interior, and I willingly sat next to Brynn every day so
I could catch glimpses of you. I also shifted and watched your
house from the woods sometimes, and I occasionally drove by your
house.”

Her brow rose. “You were stalking me?”

He made a face. “It’s not stalking if you’re
my mate.”

She rolled her eyes. “Sounds like semantics
to me.”

“Semantics?”

“Sure. You say
mate
, I say
stalker
.”

He huffed her name. “Nila.”

She giggled. “I’m kidding. I knew you were
watching me, at least at work. I didn’t know about the other stuff,
but I’m not surprised. You’re a very determined guy, but you never
crowded me or pushed yourself on me. I’m here now by choice, and
that means the world to me.” She paused and said, “If I told you I
wanted to go get Jack and go to Diane’s for the night, would you
stop me?”

His wolf clawed at him from the inside,
howling in dismay. Although he wanted to snarl and tell her no, he
knew he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. “I’d drive you there myself.”

Her face softened and her eyes glittered
suddenly with unshed tears. “That’s why I want to be your mate,
Malachi, because you gave me the choice. You accept me for all my
flaws and my humanity, and you care about Jack as if he were your
own flesh and blood. I don’t want to be anywhere but where you are
for the rest of my life.”

Now his wolf wanted to howl for joy, and
Malachi would have danced a jig if he wouldn’t have looked like an
idiot. He settled for wrapping his arms around her and pulling her
close, dropping his mouth to hers. He loved kissing her. She tasted
as sweet and wild as she smelled, and her body fit against his
perfectly. He loved how he could hear her heart beat faster and
scent her arousal even in the frigid night air. His attraction to
her had started with his wolf’s recognition of her as his mate, but
his attraction to her now wasn’t based on some wolfy knowledge or
physical things. It went far deeper. He loved how much she cared
about Jack, and how great a mom she was. He loved how she wrinkled
her nose when she thought something was particularly funny, and the
way she cared about her patients.

He’d fallen in love with her. He’d been aware
of his slowly deepening feelings for her as they’d grown closer,
but he hadn’t really admitted the words to himself.

Breaking the kiss, he stroked his thumb over
the curve of her cheek and said, “Nila, I love you. I want you to
be my mate, and when things are settled with your past, I want you
to be my wife and I want to adopt Jack. Will you mate me and marry
me?”

Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open. For
a heartbeat, she said nothing, and then she grinned and tears
slipped down her cheeks. “I love you, too, Mal. I will absolutely
mate you and marry you, and I know that you’ll make a great father
for Jack.”

A great weight lifted off his shoulders as he
pulled her even closer and they kissed. In his mind, his wolf was
doing cartwheels, and he grinned inwardly. It hadn’t really been
that long since he’d found her – just a few weeks – but the journey
to get to this place had seemingly taken forever.

He pulled from the drugging kiss and nipped
her lower lip. “I need to explain some more things to you,
sweetheart.”

“I’m all ears,” she said, hugging herself
closer and laying her cheek on his chest.

His wolf growled in approval and Malachi
smiled. She’d said yes. Everything else was just details.

Chapter 11

After spending two cold hours in the snowy
woods, she and Malachi walked back to Brynn and Acksel’s house and
took Jack home. She was quiet on the drive to Malachi’s house,
looking at Jack as he tried to fight to stay awake. The girls had
worn him out, and she smiled as she realized that not only was she
getting a family when she married Malachi, but Jack was, too. A big
family that wasn’t just Malachi’s parents and sister, but also the
pack. Acksel had made it clear before they left that when she mated
Malachi and he adopted Jack, her son would become a pack member,
able to join the ranks when he shifted sometime during his
sixteenth year.

She’d always been worried about Jack growing
up in Damien’s pack. He would have been encouraged to see her as
unworthy because she was completely human, and she’d always assumed
that Jack would be treated differently because he was only half
wolf. But Acksel’s pack didn’t care about that anymore. Brynn was
carrying Acksel’s child, and Acksel had ensured that the pack laws
were changed so that Brynn and their kids were considered full pack
members. Nila wouldn’t be a true pack member like Brynn, because
she was the alpha female and that was special, but Nila would be an
honorary member, and Jack would have full membership rights. So
would any children she and Malachi had.

The time spent in the woods had been
eye-opening. He’d told her not only about his people and their
ways, but also the truth of his feelings for her. Love. He said he
loved her. She loved him, too. She wasn’t exactly sure when it had
happened, and maybe it was fast, but it felt right. She felt
connected to him on a superior level, as if they really had been
made for each other. Their relationship might have gotten off to a
rocky start, what with her trying to push him away and him secretly
stalking her, but they were solid now. It wasn’t just a
connected
feeling, she just flat-out loved him. Loved how
sweet he was to Jack, how he treated her like a queen, and how he
let her know that he supported her no matter what her choices
were.

When he stopped the SUV, he got out and
opened the back door and removed a nearly-asleep Jack from the car
seat, lifting the diaper bag over his shoulder. She stared at him
in surprise as he walked around the front of the SUV and then
opened her door.

“What’s with the look?” He asked as he held
the door for her.

“You just constantly surprise me,” she
answered, stepping down onto the snow and standing next to him as
he shut the door.

“Oh? I like being surprising.”

He held her hand as they walked into the
house together. She’d lifted her hands to take Jack from him and
put him to bed when he said, “Why don’t you go run a nice hot bath
for us? I’ll put him to bed.”

“There you go again, surprising me.”

He pressed in the code to secure the house
and she listened as the electronic deadbolts on the front door
engaged. She kissed Jack’s cheek and whispered goodnight to him. He
kept trying to stay awake, his eyelids staying closed for longer
and longer periods of time.

She sat down on a small bench at the door and
took off her boots, putting hers and Malachi’s on the rug at the
door and hanging up their coats while he took Jack to bed. Her
stomach clenched with anticipation as she thought about taking a
bath with Malachi. She nearly ran back to the master bathroom, but
instead forced herself to walk slowly. Peeking into Jack’s bedroom,
she saw Malachi standing at the crib, rocking Jack in his arms,
whispering to him. She couldn’t hear what he said, but Jack was
smiling as his eyes fluttered shut. She blew him a kiss and walked
to the bedroom, tugging off her sweater and dropping it into the
laundry basket.

The tub was a shower/tub combo with frosted
glass doors. She pushed the door open and turned on the faucet,
testing the temperature with her fingers and then closing the drain
when it was just right. She’d never really been a bath person, but
the idea of sharing a bath with Malachi made her want to reconsider
that stance. Maybe baths were sexy when her mate was involved.

She stripped and leaned out of the bathroom
to put her clothes in the basket when she saw Malachi come into the
bedroom. His face lit up when he saw her, and she smiled at him,
stepping back into the bathroom. He carried a tray in and set it
down on the marble counter; on it were two mugs, a carafe, mini
marshmallows, candles and a matchbook.

He tipped the carafe and poured what turned
out to be hot cocoa into both mugs, dropping mini marshmallows on
the top. Then he set the candles on the counter and began to light
them. She glanced at the tub, decided the water was high enough,
and turned off the faucet.

Malachi flipped off the light, and the small
room was filled with the golden flickering candlelight. She watched
him strip. His thick sweater came off first, and then the t-shirt
underneath, revealing his chiseled upper body. His arms were thick
and roped with muscle, and his abdomen was a study in masculinity.
Her gaze drifted down to his waist as he undid the button and
zipper of his jeans. As he shoved his jeans down his legs, her
mouth watered at the sight of his thick cock.

He moved in front of her and touched her chin
with his fingertips. She looked up at him. “The way you’re looking
at me is driving me crazy.”

She placed her hands on his waist. “How am I
looking at you?”

He smirked. “Like you could eat me up.”

“I thought the big bad wolf was the one who
did the eating?”

He chuckled, picking up the mugs and stepping
into the tub. “I know I froze you outside while we were talking so
I wanted to warm you up the right way.”

He handed her the mugs and sat down,
stretching his legs straight out and leaning against the tub. She
knew it had to be freezing against the back of the tub, but he
didn’t show it. He patted his thighs and she straddled him, handing
him one mug.

“Let’s toast getting warm,” she said.

“And our mating,” he added.

“You warm me from the inside out, even
without the hot cocoa and bath.”

“Me, too, sweetheart.”

Their mugs clinked softly and they both
sipped on the cocoa. It was sweet and chocolately, and just warm
enough to make her groan in pleasure.

They drained the mugs and she set them on top
of the toilet and looked at him. “I want you to know that even
though it was suggested to me that we do this tonight, I’m not
mating you because my alpha thinks it’s a good idea. I’m doing it
because the thought of you going one more day without my mark in
your neck would make me insane.” His hands rested on her knees, his
fingers kneading the flesh. “If you don’t want me to mark you
tonight, I won’t. It’s your choice.”