Dark Wolf: 1 (Spirit Wild) (29 page)

He stopped, gazed steadily at Lily, and then drew her into a hug. “Damn, sweetheart. I hate sending you up there. I hate it.”

“Dad? We’ll be okay.” She hugged him just as tight.

“I know you will, baby. I’m worried about you and worried sick about Annie and Alex. They mated today. They’re bonded. If anything happens to either of them ... ”

“Oh, Goddess.” She pulled away and stared at her father. His amber eyes glittered—tears of rage and compassion for a young man who was as much a son to him as either of his own boys. “I am so glad they’ve mated, but you’re right. We have to go.”

Her father suddenly looked away with the deep concentration that meant someone had contacted him. Lily grabbed Sebastian’s hand and tried not to think of what Annie and Alex were going through right now. And Alex mated! She wanted to cheer, but at the same time, their new bond had to make this even harder for both Annie and Alex.

Sebastian wrapped an arm around her and held her close. Lily leaned against his side and hugged him back. “Let’s go get something to eat. Dad’s right. We need fuel. He’ll tell us if he’s learning something we need to know.”

“Okay. Lily, we haven’t had time to talk.”

She tugged his hand, pulling him toward the kitchen. “About the Mother?”

He nodded. “She’s the spirit of the tree. She’s been giving me the power to shift, helping my magic, though until I can do it on my own, she can’t be certain I’m Chanku.”

“Even the Mother doesn’t know?”

He shook his head. “No. And in my case, she said my magic is so strong that it affects her ability to read me. I need to keep taking the capsules. The nutrients will override my magic and allow me to shift naturally, if that’s my heritage.”

Anton caught up to them halfway to the kitchen. “Hurry. Eat something and get up on the ridge. That was Alex. He said there are twelve rogues up there now. He didn’t expect that many, and there could be even more, but he’s staying hidden. Tinker and Stefan are with him. There’s no word yet from Annie. We’re hoping she’s merely unconscious and can’t mindspeak. Hurry.”

 

Sebastian felt as if they were doing a major disservice to Keisha’s rib roast, but he and Lily cut huge slabs of the leftover beef and literally choked it down.

How could any woman look so beautiful, holding on to a bloody rib bone with both hands and gnawing at the rare meat still attached? He loved her. There was no doubt, not after this past day when he knew his life had forever changed. He’d not only made love with Lily, but traveled on the astral plane and communed with a goddess and a spirit even more powerful, and yet making love with Lily was still the most life-altering part of his day.

That and his connection with Alex. He’d filed that experience away for a time when he could truly analyze what had happened, but he hoped like hell it happened again. He’d never connected with another man like that—such a soul-deep sense of something so close to love it was almost scary. His emotions were all over the map, except when he thought of Lily.

Lily grounded him. She gave him hope and a sense of peace he’d never known before. So many changes in his life, all in just the last three days. Lily. Alex. Anton and Keisha. The goddess Eve. Meeting the spiritual Mother who presided over all of them, discovering she was the same spirit he’d known for these past months as the lady of the tree.

The spirit he’d felt so close to on the ridge above was so much more than a mere dryad. The Mother was a feminine spirit of absolute power.

Almost absolute power. She still couldn’t tell him what he was. He spotted a jar of Anton’s capsules on the kitchen counter and leaned his chair back far enough to reach for it. Lily raised her eyes to his when he popped two of the big green pills into his mouth and swallowed them down with a glass of water.

He shrugged. “Time’s different on the astral, remember?” Then he chuckled as he grabbed his empty plate and carried it to the sink. “I felt like I was on my knees for at least two days.”

Lily cleared her dishes as well, rinsed everything, and stuck the plates and utensils in the dishwasher while Sebastian wrapped up the roast and put it back in the refrigerator. When he turned around, she was watching him.

“What did you talk about?”

He shook his head. “
We
didn’t talk. In fact, I didn’t do any talking at all. She said there were things I would need to know and she would give them to me. I stayed on my knees in absolute silence, absorbing whatever it was she gave me. And no, I have no idea what I know now that I didn’t before. It was really weird.”

Stepping close, Lily pressed her fingers against his chest. “Trust her, Sebastian. She really does watch over us, usually through Eve, though. The Mother has never openly intervened before, at least not in any way we’ve known.”

“I think she did some intervening today, though I have no idea how or what she did.” He wiped his hands off on a paper towel and tossed it in the trash. “C’mon. We need to go. I want to get up to the ridge before anything happens to Annie. I can’t imagine what Alex is going through. If he loves her as much as I love you . . .”

“Sebastian?” Lily paused and then turned. “Do you truly love me? Because I keep thinking about what Dad said, that mating could strengthen us even more.”

He stepped close and wrapped his arms around her waist, and realized she still wore the yoga pants and crop top from this morning. So damned much had happened since they’d left her little cottage. “The mating bond? The permanent link you told me about?”

Lily nodded.

Sebastian wanted to shout to the heavens. Could she possibly love him enough to commit herself to him forever? But what if he wasn’t Chanku? He said as much.

Lily shook her head. “If you’re not Chanku, the bond won’t work. But if you are, it’s forever. Do you think you can love me that much, Sebastian? Enough to tie yourself to me for the rest of your life? And believe me, if you are Chanku, it’s a long life.”

“That’s all I’ve thought about Lily. I said as much to the Mother. That’s when she asked me to stay behind.”

“Then she must approve. It’s almost ten thirty. We need to go.”

She paused and got that faraway look that told him she was communicating with someone. “I told Dad we’re leaving. He said pack members are already showing up. Some of the bigger guys will meet us up on the ridge, but they’re going through the caves and that takes a little longer. Unless your father has lookouts posted within the cave system, it will allow more of us to get to the site without detection.”

“Good. But, Lily?”

She stopped in the doorway and looked over her shoulder, and all he could think of was taking her as his mate. Not the reason why, that it would strengthen their magic, but because he loved her and he didn’t want to ever risk losing her.

“What?”

“He’s not my father. Not anymore. He’s Aldo Xenakis, a crazy-sick bastard who needs to be taken down.”

She flashed him a huge grin. “Gotcha. So . . . let’s go take him down, okay?”

He followed her out onto the deck and stripped off his clothing as quickly as she removed hers. This time, he called directly on the Mother for the power to shift. He felt her energy pour through him, over him, and become a part of him. Within seconds they were both leaping off the deck and cutting across the big meadow. Wolves were arriving from all directions, and though he didn’t know them, he sensed their common goal. Their power would be his tonight. More power than he’d ever wielded in his life.

He thought of his first attempts at magic, how he’d envied his father’s magic and wanted that kind of power. How he’d considered the ethics of blood magic, found them wanting, and yet had skirted a fine edge before choosing good over evil. He’d come close, but he hadn’t succumbed to the darkness, and it was Lily who had made him see the light.

Quite literally.

He couldn’t help but think of what Lily had told him, how the power from a blood sacrifice was finite, that it was strong at first, but when it was gone, it was gone forever.

The power he and Lily would be working tonight was fueled by love. He saw it firsthand, here in this huge meadow bathed in the soft light shimmering from gaslight lamps along the deck stretching across the back of Anton Cheval’s lovely home. Saw it in the dozens of wolves converging here as he and Lily raced beyond them and into the dark forest.

The sky glowed in the east where the moon would soon crest the highest peaks, but for now, the two of them ran in darkness. Ran knowing Annie’s life depended on their speed and their ability to work together.

He’d never felt stronger. Never known such a sense of purpose as they climbed the mountain, heading toward the huge oak where he’d first communed with the Mother, thinking her nothing more than a simple dryad, a tree nymph. She was so much more. Would she be there tonight? Would she be forced to bear witness to the murder of one of her beloved Chanku?

Not if he and Lily had anything to do about it.

They were almost to the ridge when Lily took a quick jog off the trail and raced through a thick tangle of bracken fern. He followed, trusting her. She knew these trails better than he ever could. She’d grown up here, hunted here, and made love here.

And then she was pausing in the quiet darkness, a shadow among shadows, yet still a perfect visual in amazing contrast through wolven eyes. Her ears perked forward.
Are you sure?

Heart pounding, he stepped closer.
Here? Now?

She blinked. A slow lowering of lashes over amber eyes.
Yes.

Desire surged. Not the carnal lusts of a man knowing he was about to score, but an arousal of heart, mind, soul, and body, so deep, so pure, he trembled.
More certain than I’ve been of anything in my life. I love you, Lily, and we will bond. If not now, at another date, but you are mine. If the bond will help us save Annie, knowing we’re going to do it anyway, I say we do it now. Ceremony isn’t needed. Not for my promise to you. It will be as strong tonight as tomorrow. As strong tomorrow as an eternity from now.

There was no time for the romance he felt in his heart, for the words he wanted to say. These short vows they’d just made would have to suffice, but he had no doubt in his mind or his heart. No concern that this might not be the right choice.

It was the only choice, and he wanted it with all his heart.

 

Over the years, Lily had tried to imagine this moment with Alex, but she’d never been able to picture the two of them together, Alex mounting her as a wolf, bonding with her forever.

The whole idea just made both of them laugh.

She saw it so clearly with Sebastian. Knew in her heart that the ancient ones would agree this was a man who would meet her, challenge for challenge for the rest of their days.

But they had so little time, and as much as she loved him, she had to recognize that this was also a means to an end. Romance would come later, once Annie was safe. But when she glanced over her shoulder and caught the intent look in those unusual teal blue eyes of his, she knew he saw this moment, beyond their mating, as more than part of a plan to rescue Annie.

She had the strangest feeling Sebastian believed he was also rescuing himself. His paw brushed her shoulder, and she turned her back to him, raised her tail, and cocked it to one side. His powerful front legs grasped her back, and her legs shook beneath his weight. He was a huge wolf. Not as large as the rogues, but still big, and all she could think was the fact he was a fitting mate for the daughter of Anton Cheval.

She’d been raised like a princess. She knew she was far from royalty, but she’d been blessed by the goddess and by the Mother with exceptional abilities, with beauty and a powerful mind, and magic that had surpassed even her father’s years ago.

And always, there had been love. Her parents, Alex, the rest of the pack. A life steeped in love, yet it paled beside what she felt for this man, from this man, a man who’d grown up without family, without the support of the pack.

He was an amazing individual. A strong and honorable man. She could only wonder how much more amazing he would be when he had the power of the pack behind him.

He tightened his grasp on her body, and she felt the first thrust of his wolven cock. She opened to him, ripe for invasion, for this feminine subjugation to the stronger male. She, a woman who had bowed her head to no man, felt him slide deep, felt the stretch of muscles never before tried. Without hesitation, she bowed her head, planted her paws, and braced herself to take him.

His rapid thrusts shot deep and hard, entirely unlike a human mating, yet all were sensations that felt perfect in this form. Understood and expected, yet entirely new—the thick slide of his sharp penis, then the fullness of his mating knot slipping past her vaginal lips, swelling deep inside.

Tying her to him. For now and with the grace of the goddess, forever.

She opened to him, anxious to see what he thought of this amazing experience, and their link clicked into place. Not a simple melding of minds, but something so powerful, so complete, it left her reeling.

She anchored herself in his brilliant mind, saw herself through Sebastian’s eyes, and was astounded by the strength of his love, the depth of his feelings.

And she knew he saw the same in her. Knew so much more than she’d ever imagined. He was an open book to her—his fears, his hopes, and his desire to be what she needed. She saw his frustration over the father he’d hoped to find, and his disgust with the one he’d found. She realized his life had been one disappointment after another. Until now.