Bound by Fate (Moon Bound Series Book 1) (15 page)

She never even seen him move, he was that fast.  One minute he’d been kneeling brokenly before her, the next his hands clamped down on either side of her face, and he slanted his lips over hers, gently, so gently.

She reacted.  Of course she reacted.  He was the mate of her heart, ass or not, and he was kissing her.  She kissed him back with all the ferocity she wished she could kiss Donovan with, her hands fisting in his hair, her breaths sucked desperately through her nose.  Backing her up hastily, he pressed her against a tree and drew her leg up around his waist.  In her blind lust, she never even thought to object.  He tore his mouth from hers and blazed a path of fire down her neck, inhaling the scent of her arousal.

It was when he reached for the snap on her jeans that she came back to herself and realized what she was doing, and with whom.  Twisting out of his grasp, she speared him with a cold stare.  “Don’t you ever try that again, Gareth Loam Floor, or I’ll send you home a eunuch, do you understand me?”

The use of his full name seemed to waken him from whatever fog of longing he was in and his face closed tight.  “Yes, Elisabeth Tall Grass, I understand.” 

He smirked, and she knew whatever it was he was going to say next was not going to be polite.  “But the better man didn’t win.  Not by a long shot.  Not when you’re so wet I can smell it from here.  Not when I know you haven’t been with him.”  She started to object but he interrupted her viciously.  “There is no scent marker, Beth.  The scent marker you have is mine.  Mine.  And I hope it’s driving him nuts.”

“God damn it,” she rasped.  “And God damn you!”

He laughed, but there was no mirth in it.  “I’ll damn sure miss seeing those shining eyes of yours.”

Stumbling back to the gathering, Beth heaved herself down beside Donovan and whispered to him that she was getting pretty tired, and her chat with Gareth had put her in a bad mood, and could they just go to sleep, so that the next time they opened their eyes, they’d be leaving?

“
Of course, my love.  Anything for my mate.”  He grinned his boyish grin and offered her his hand up.  “This way for escapism.”

Sometimes the best thing to do, when you don’t know what to do, is do nothing.  So Beth did nothing about the confrontation with Gareth.  She didn’t tell Donovan what had happened, although she could tell he was bursting with the need to know what his mate had gotten up to.  “You’re eyes are so bright,” he whispered sadly, on the way back to her cottage. 

“That’s because you brighten my night,” she told him sweetly.

He laughed, and they continued on their way, but she resolved to check the damn mirror as soon as they got in.  She was sick of all this talk about her eyes.  Claiming an unnatural need to use the bathroom, Beth skipped ahead and flat out ran through the cottage’s little living area.  The bathroom beyond her sparse bedroom had little more than a shaving mirror, but it was sufficient enough to see what she needed to see.  Her eyes, like two giant diamonds, were actually glistening.  They reminded her of the cat’s eyes she sometimes saw on the roads the humans used for driving on.  They were shinning alright.  And they only ever seemed to shine for Gareth.

Could it be a residual effect from all that lunar power?  It was then that she realized she’d never actually finished her mating ceremony.  She’d never sparred with the Alpha female.  Although now that she was truly mated, in both senses of the word – although still two different wolves – she supposed it didn’t matter.  Just one more thing that went awry lately, she shrugged.

“
Beth?”

“
Uh huh?”

“
Come to bed.”

She froze.  It was too soon after…it was just too soon.  “Um, Donovan, would you believe that I’m just dirt tired and really, really wanted to sleep?”

“No, my mate, I wouldn’t.”  He appeared in the doorway, naked from the waist up, his body a veritable master piece for the eyes to devour.  “But I can be patient.”  He kissed the tip of her nose, and she wrapped her arms around him, secure in the knowledge that he wouldn’t push her on this.  Not tonight, in any case.  She relaxed.  “Let’s go to bed,” he whispered.

“
Okay,” she replied, already feeling sleepy and safe and hardly thinking of Gareth at all.  Only when her head hit the pillow, and the darkness surrounded her did she think of him.

Chocolate eyes in the darkness and a cool breeze on her skin.

“Good night, Gareth,” she whispered in her sleepy state.

She never realized Donovan heard her, and frowned unhappily.  “Good night, Little Wolf,” he replied in his best Gareth imitation, and watched her features relax in a peaceful expression of sleep.  She snuggled into him, running her fingers across his midriff, and he closed his eyes as he held her, though sleep was a long time coming.

“
How long until we reach your Den House?” Beth asked for what seemed like the millionth time.  Excitement had been building all morning and by the time the sun had reached its zenith, she was fit to burst.

“
Not long now, Beth.”  Donovan replied with a smile brightening his face for the first time that day.  He’d seemed to be in a world of his own since morning.  It was probably nerves.  After all, arriving home mated to the wolf his father had wanted for himself was going to take some explaining.  “It would go a lot quicker if we could shimmer.”  He smiled again to take the edge off those words. 

They weren’t yet able to reach each others’ mind voice.  “Sorry.”

“Not your fault, my mate.”  His heavy boots crunched through dead leaves and fallen pine needles, as he searched for a comfortable spot to have a rest.  “The tie will come in time.”

Will it, though?
she wondered.  None of the pack had left in her lifetime.  Not to mate into another pack, nor to travel, or anything else.  She didn’t know what would happen, but she imagined that usually after a mating ceremony, when a mate is chosen, the tie automatically snapped into place, allowing them to hear each other’s mind voice, regardless of pack ties.

“
It’s just going to take a bit of time, that’s all.”  He slumped down onto a fallen log, his amber eyes twinkling up at her.  “Sit down, my mate,” he whispered.  “Take a rest.  We have another few hours of trekking before we reach the neighborhood, so to speak.”  His hand was soft in hers as he pulled her down beside him.

It was so good to take the weight off her feet.  Not for the first time she wished the tie had already developed so they could have shimmered.  They could have, regardless, but it was best they stayed in a form they could communicate in.  Three days they’d been hiking through the forest.  She’d had no idea the Loam Floor lands were so extensive.  “Loam Floor is a big territory, isn’t it?” she had said to him on the first night they curled up under the stars, cuddled close for warmth.

“It’s one of the biggest in this region,” he’d confirmed with a yawn.  “There’s only one territory that’s bigger within three hundred miles.”

“
And that would be…?”  But she’d already known the answer, had read it in the smug lines of his crinkly smile. 

“
Tall Grass, of course!” he’d told her, delightedly.  “You’ve never seen such beautiful territory; I guarantee you’ll love it there.”  His hands had roamed down her back to cup her bottom.  He’d pressed himself against her, hard and ready.  She’d known his patience would run out sooner rather than later.

He was a virile male wolf, with all the attributes of a future Alpha – naturally his sex drive would be a large part of that package.  And it was her job to satisfy him, as his mate, his wife.  But she couldn’t.  Not yet.  It was too soon.  Her war wounds were too raw.  Gareth had left her with an ache that he, and only he could soothe. 
Damn him.

“
Sometimes,” he told her now, rubbing her knuckles in circles with his smooth, long fingers.  “I would come out here when I was a cub.  At dawn, this area is filled with rabbits and moles and all sorts of juicy treats for a young cub looking to fill his belly.”  He laughed, the sound rich and joyful on the cool wind.  “But, naturally, I would make a mess, and return home to my Den Mother covered in all sorts of unsavory remains.  She would pitch a fit worth seeing, Beth.  She wasn’t pure bred, and she never really took to the wild life.”  Sadness now crept in to his eyes and she longed to wipe it clear.

Beth leaned forward to close the distance between them, and placed her lips upon his.  For a moment, they were stiff and unyielding beneath hers, and then he seemed to relax.  His tongue swept into her mouth and she was again treated to one of his blistering kisses.  Damn, but the wolf could kiss.  Her hands fisted in his hair and he moaned into her mouth.  Gaining courage and momentum, she slanted her lips and took the kiss deeper, deeper again. 

She could feel his hands bunching the material of her tee shirt at her waist, afraid to break whatever spell this was, perhaps.  Tight and tighter he squeezed, until she ran her hands down his arms to twine her fingers in his.  He breathed in her scent – not quite arousal, but damn close – and changed the pressure of his kiss.  It was gentle now where she wanted rough, slow where she wanted fast, and soft where she wanted hard.  She whined in frustration, and he smiled against her mouth. 

“
You want more?”

An image of Gareth, poised above her, eyes like midnight oil in the darkness, asking her the very same question washed over her like a basin of frigid water.  “Let’s push on,” she suggested.  “I’d kill for a bath.”

“A cold shower,” he agreed.  “Wouldn’t go amiss.”

Donovan pulled her to her feet as if she weighed nothing, and they took off at a brisk pace, chased by their own private demons, she guessed.  The territory was pretty beautiful, she had to admit, a half hour later.  They’d passed bubbling streams, and meadows she could imagine being full to over flowing with wild flowers in spring.  The day before they’d passed a glistening, frothing waterfall pounding into a clear, crystal-like bowl of water.  “We call that the River Fang,” he’d explained, seeing her fascination with the body of water.  “It cuts right through the north-most area of our territory.  If you could see it on the map, it looks like a giant incisor.  It trails off and disappears underground after twenty miles or so.”

“Beautiful,” she’d whispered, thinking she might come here sometimes to be alone.  If she could remember the way, that was.

“
Cold,” he corrected.  “Even in the height of summer, that water is always so cold.  Cold enough to make your pretty little teeth chatter.”  With that, he’d chucked her under the chin and led them onward.

Certain similarities between the two territories struck her as they passed through Tall Grass pack lands.  There were no species of tree here that she couldn’t have found at home.

Home,
she sighed.  This was her home now.  Loam Floor and all that went with it was a memory, and she’d better not forget it.  Something had happened between the two packs.  Something bad enough that it had instigated a blood-feud that had been alive and well for as long as she could remember.

Although some things here were the same, like the trees and the foliage and the clean sharp scent of fresh water, there were a lot of differences also.  Instead of a soft, mossy forest floor, there was a dusting of pine needles layered over the bare, dusty earth.  In places the earth had been churned to mud, which would freeze over at night, to be churned again the next day.

There must have been a lot of wild life here.  “How do you support such a large pack, and still have such an abundance of wild life?” she wondered out loud.

“
My Father is a great believer in the Three R’s,” he told her with a wry grin.  She could sense the capital letters in those words.  “Reduce, Re-use, Recycle,” he explained, taking her hand to help her over yet another fallen log.  There were so many fallen logs in this forest that she wondered how there were any trees left standing at all.

“
Reduce, no hunting just for fun, which I didn’t appreciate while chasing down rabbits in my youth,” he laughed.  “Re-use, we don’t chop down any trees here.  There are enough of old ones which fall during storm season to sustain our needs.  And recycle,” he went on in the same narrative tone.  “We replenish the animal stock every spring.  In the spring, when the animal auctions are on in the human villages, our females purchase enough stock to breed and replace what has been used the previous year.”

“
That’s a good system,” she admitted.  They hadn’t done any of that in Loam Floor lands.  Two years previous, Marcus had had to initiate a ban on forestry.  The saplings just weren’t growing fast enough to replenish the forest.  At that time trees were used for a lot, if not everything, from the homes to the furniture, and when the woods were noticeably thinner around their Dens, the Alpha had called a halt to any wood cutting. 

“
It’s worked for us for a long time,” Donovan told her now.  “I saw how sparse your woods had gotten, and I knew that our Alpha had the right of it here.” 

The grin he gave her wasn’t exactly superior, but it was close enough to be related.  She wasn’t sure she appreciated that, but she did have to admit they had a good system going here.  If she could just explain this to Marcus.  But no, she would probably never see him again.  She wouldn’t see Marcus or Melinda, or Gareth or her dear David again.  She found she was even missing the condescending attitude of Bea.  What in the name of the Great Mother was wrong with her?