Reign: A Royal Military Romance (71 page)

J
ake drove
through Evergreen at top speed, almost too furious to see straight. His skin itched and prickled, and he wanted nothing more than to shift and tear every goddamn person in this town into pieces until he found Ariana.

He couldn’t, of course. If he so much as shifted in town, every hunter in the area would be on him in a matter of minutes, and then he’d just be a dead bear. No, he needed to calm down just for a minute, think, figure out where they’d take Ariana.

He rolled his truck window down and slowed, forcing himself to calm down, just a little. Ariana wasn’t going to get saved by him crashing his truck into a tree.

Jake thought again about Kaitlyn, who’d never done anything worse than make out with a shifter in a movie theater, and his gut clenched.

Then, he smelled it: Brock. It was faint, but it was there. He’d scented the other shifter, he was positive, and he knew it was intentional. He sniffed harder, sticking his whole head out of the truck window, trying to find any trace of Ariana, but humans were a little harder to smell and he couldn’t find any trace of her.

He prayed it was because the trail was so faint, not because they’d already done away with her.

The scent led to a remote patch of woods, and Jake parked the truck just off the road and crashed through the woods. His ranger training reminded him that parking there was illegal, but he couldn’t have cared less.

He walked and walked, crashing through the underbrush and the trees in the dark, going in a a nearly straight line, Brock’s scent getting stronger the whole time. He could sell Violet too, now, but there was still no trace of Ariana. Jake began to worry again — why couldn’t he smell her? What if she wasn’t there, or if she was already dead?

He began to run through the trees, not caring that his arms got scratched and snagged.

Suddenly, he burst through to a little clearing around a small, old cabin. He recognized it as a former logging cabin, the kind of place lumberjacks had lived when this was still logging land.

But, more importantly, right next to it was Brock, leaning against the structure with his hands in his pockets.

“Where is she?” Jake bellowed with no preamble. “What did you do with her?”

“I didn’t do a thing,” Brock said, casually.

Jake heard a sound on the other side of the cabin, but it was just Violet, walking into sight.

“I’m going to ask you one more time—“

“Or what?” Brock asked. “Or you’ll kill both of us at once?”

Jake, still human, bared his teeth at them.

“She doesn’t love you enough to love a bear,” Violet said. “We sent her home, and she went.”

“Are you going to do anything about this?” asked Brock, taunting him. “Or are you going to slink off again?”

“I was a kid,” said Jake. “And I don’t need twenty other grown men standing around to take you down
now
.”

“Let’s go,” said Brock, and he began to shift without bothering to take his clothes off.

So did Jake.

There was a ripping noise as their shirts and pants tore off of them, ending up at tatters at the feet of two enormous grizzly bears. Just like before, they circled each other, sniffing and grunting, looking for any weakness.

Brock was the first to lunge, his enormous bulk moving faster than seemed possible, a blur of light brown fur across the small clearing. Jake saw it coming and dodged away, hoping to catch Brock off balance as he lunged but he dodged back too far and only got a little fur when he cuffed the other bear.

They circled again. Jake desperately wanted to attack, to send the other bear whimpering off back into the forest. Fifteen years ago he’d have done just that, but now he was older, wiser, and stronger. He knew that going in too fast gave the advantage to Brock, and even though all he could think about was finding Ariana, he forced himself to be patient.

Suddenly, Brock rushed at him again, but when Jake reached out to meet him, he stopped. A feint, but Jake was off balanced already moving forward too fast, and he stumbled. Brock hit him hard, sinking his teeth into Jake’s shoulder as he briefly lost his footing but Jake rolled over and shook him off, panting.

His shoulder hurt but he could ignore it, but as they circled again, he could tell that Brock noticed that he was favoring his left arm just a little.

I have to end this
, Jake thought.
I’m a little bigger and stronger, but he’s been defending his position as alpha for years. He’s got much more experience
.

He ran at Brock and snapped at his hindquarters, just catching a little bit of flesh with his claws. It was a bitch move, he knew, but he had to find some way to throw Brock off. After all, the fight wasn’t about whether he was the next alpha — it was about getting Ariana back, which was much more important.

It worked. Brock turned his head and snapped at him, putting himself off balance for just one moment but Jake used that moment. He rose up on his hind legs and so did Brock and for a few seconds Jake wondered if he’d miscalculated, both bears hanging in the balance. It felt like it could go either way and Jake pushed with all his might, trying to find purchase for his teeth in Brock’s neck.

His back foot slipped, just a little. Jake dug his claws in and gave one last, mighty push, using every last ounce of his strength, thinking only of Ariana.

It worked.

Brock went over, crashing onto his side, into the wet grass of the clearing. As he went down he tried to claw at Jake but missed, on his side.

For just one moment, he was vulnerable, and for that moment Jake wondered if he should have mercy on Brock — let him get up and go back to Alaska, without ever having to tell anyone what had happened in Washington.

Then he thought of Ariana, somewhere, cold and alone, terrified. He thought of Kaitlyn, left for dead in a parking lot fifteen years ago.

With one mighty swipe, he struck Brock in the head, and he heard a slight
crack
.

Before he had time to think there was another roar behind him, and he turned to look just in time to see one grizzly bear tackle another, pinning the first to the ground.

He turned back to Brock, making sure the other bear was limp, and then took in the other scene. The bear on the ground was a female — Violet.

The bear on top was... Boone?

He padded over to the other two, where Violet was uncomfortably on the ground, her neck between Boone’s teeth. They were both breathing hard, and Boone looked at Jake.

Jake, as a bear, shook his head.

Violet began to shift back. Her eyes full of tears, her gaze flicked between Jake and Brock.

Jake looked over his shoulder, only to realize that Brock had begun shifting back as well. At the very least, the other man was unconscious. Jake shifted as well.

“Where is she?” he demanded as soon as he could speak.

Violet snorted.

“What did you do with her?” he roared, his voice filling the otherwise quiet forest.

Boone, still in bear form, snorted.

“Let me up,” she said. She had a set of claw marks across her shoulders, and they looked painful. Jake nodded at Boone, who sat back.

“Tell me now,” Jake demanded.

“We sent her home,” Violet said, gently prodding at her wounds.

“She’s not there.”

“To Boston, you dolt,” Violet said. “We can’t just murder humans like the good old days.”

Jake roared and grabbed her by the shoulders. Violet gasped in pain, but looked brave.

Boone, next to Jake, snorted. He shook his bear head, then gestured toward the trees. His meaning was clear:
Let’s just go
.

Jake wanted to murder both of them and leave their bodies in the clearing, but they hadn’t actually done anything to Ariana, and if Boone didn’t want to kill them either, what right did he have?

He pointed one finger at Violet, starting to shift back. “Don’t come back here,” he snarled. “This is my territory and don’t you ever
fucking
come back here.”

Violet just watched him with those cold blue eyes of hers.

Then, he and Boone walked back into the forest.

* * *

H
e took
the back roads around town, driving to his cabin. While he didn’t care who saw him naked, the last thing he needed was to be pulled over in the nude with bite marks in his shoulder. At the very least, it would raise some interesting questions.

At home, he quickly gathered more clothes into a backpack, then made sure his wallet had his credit card and ID in it. He thanked his lucky stars that he’d thought to get it from his pants, and that his new job as a ranger had required him to have a government-issued ID. Getting his birth certificate from Alaska had been a pain, but now it meant he could fly to Boston instead of taking a bus or something.

On his bed was the shirt she’d worn the night before. For a moment, he held it in his hands, then put it to his face and smelled, deeply.

It still smelled like
her
.

Jake stuffed it into his pack, hoisted it on his shoulder, took one last look around his cabin, then left.

O
n the way
to the Seattle airport, he wondered if he should just call her, but thought better of it. Maybe she was still on an airplane. Worse, what if she’d decided she really did want to leave him? He knew she loved him — be believed it, deep down, even if she’d never said it back to him — but if she didn’t want to live a life where grizzly bears routinely mauled each other, he couldn’t blame her. After everything he’d put her through, it was understandable that she might want to date a normal,
human
, guy.

He had to see her again, though. He didn’t think he could stand hearing her say that over the phone. If she turned him away, he would deal with it, but he
had
to see her one last time.

W
hen he finally got to
the airport, it was after midnight and all the ticketing desks were closed. Jake silently cursed his lack of foresight — of
course
he couldn’t just show up at an airport and get a ticket to Boston at one in the morning. He should have called or something, or better, gone to bed and gotten up early. At least then he wouldn’t show up at her door looking like a disheveled mess.

But now, it wasn’t like he had an option. Other people were lying around the airport, trying to get some sleep, on benches and in corners. Jake followed their lead and stretched out against a wall, his backpack behind his head. He fell asleep smelling Ariana on his shirt inside it.

N
o airline had
an available seat on a flight to Boston until almost eleven the next day, so Jake ended up pacing the terminal for even longer than he wanted to, eating terrible food and nearly snarling at a TSA agent. When he finally got on the plane it was a middle seat and his knees pressed into the back of the seat in front of him — it was clearly not made for anyone over six feet tall, let alone six-foot-five.

He closed his eyes and thought again of Ariana, and he felt better.

The flight was unpleasant. Jake had never flown before, and every time they hit turbulence, he thought they were going to crash, but if either of his seatmates thought it was strange for a tall, burly guy to look terrified at the slightest bump, they managed not to show it.

When they landed in Boston it was evening. Right away he got into a cab — another first — and handed the driver Ariana’s address.

“Settle in, buddy,” the cab driver said. “It’s rush hour.”

The cab ride felt worse to Jake than the plane flight, knowing he was so much closer to her, and yet moving so slowly across this labyrinthine city. The ride cost him almost a hundred bucks, nearly everything he had in his wallet, but it led to her door.

He got out. The cab drove off. He looked again at her address: #2.

Jake walked up a staircase on the side of her building, trying to walk as quietly as possible. It was after dark, and he didn’t want her to think he was a robber.

He knocked on her door, three times, loud, heavy knocks.

T
he pint
of ice cream was empty, the chocolate was all gone. Normally, Ariana would have rolled her eyes at what a cliche she was, but she just didn’t care today. She’d had to leave the man she loved — desperately, whole-heartedly — behind, and she was going to eat all the goddamn ice cream she wanted.

The episode of
Friends
she was watching ended, and the next one began, automatically. Then the text popped up on the screen, courtesy of Netflix: Are You Still Watching Friends?

“Yes,” she muttered to herself, pushing the button on her remote. The theme song came on.

Then, someone knocked on her door. Ariana looked down at herself.

“Fuck,” she muttered. After the plane ride she’d put on pajama pants and an old sweatshirt. That had been about ten hours ago, and she hadn’t bothered to change since then.

Well, whatever. She didn’t care who saw her like this right now. It was probably just the UPS guy with a package or something, and she was sure he saw worse every day.

The knock sounded again, and she got up from the couch.

“Coming,” she called, and pulled her front door open.

Jake stood there, filling her doorframe. Ariana clapped both hands to her mouth.

Joy flooded through her, followed quickly by terror. What was he doing here? She’d come back to Boston to save him, not so he could follow her and get himself killed!

“You can’t be here,” she blurted out.

Jake took a deep breath. “I understand if you don’t want me any more, but I had to see you one last time.”

She blinked in confused. That wasn’t what this was about.

“They said they’d kill you,” she said. Tears formed in her eyes, and she started to get choked up. “She told me — she said if we were ever together again, they were going to kill you because there was one of you and three of them...”

“Shh,” said Jake. He smiled, and right away, Ariana felt a little bit better. He put his hand on the side of her face, and she leaned into his touch. It had only been a day, but she’d missed him so much...

“I took care of it,” Jake said. “They’re not going to bother us anymore.”

“Really?” Ariana whispered, her eyes bright with tears.

“Really,” said Jake, and he bent down to kiss her.

Ariana had thought she might never get to kiss him, but here he was, in her apartment, in Boston. She kissed him greedily, wanting to never let him go again. Her lips moved against his, and everything felt right with the world.

She wanted him. She
needed
him.

He broke away from her, breathing hard. Her heart was pounding, and she realized that he was still standing in the doorway, the door open to the chilly Boston night. With both hands, she grabbed his shirt and pulled him in, drawing him to her. For a moment she remembered what she was wearing, but then she decided that if he didn’t care, she didn’t.

Jake kicked the door closed with one foot, bending down to kiss Ariana again, her lips soft and yielding beneath his. She put one arm around his neck and the other around the back of his head, pressing his face to hers.

“I thought they’d taken you,” he said, his lips still grazing hers. “I thought you were dead.”

Ariana kissed him desperately, her tongue questing through his mouth.

“They said they’d kill you,” she said, between gasps for air. “She said they’d kill you if I didn’t leave, and that—“ Ariana broke off.

Jake bent down and began planting kisses down her neck, brushing against he crewneck of her sweatshirt. “And what?” he said.

“She said I’d never be enough for you because I’m not a shifter,” Ariana blurted, fast, all in one breath.

Jake held her face in his hands, looking down at her, very seriously. Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears.

“That’s utterly wrong,” he said. “You’re everything I could ever want.”

A tear rolled down Ariana’s face. Jake bent down, tenderly, and kissed it away.

“I love you,” she whispered.

“I love you too,” he whispered back. Their lips met one more time, a little harder than before, and all at once Ariana felt a deep need spreading throughout her.

She needed him,
now
. Still kissing him, she ran her hands down Jake’s hard, muscled chest, feeling every individual ridge there. It only made the flames of her desire run hotter. She fumbled with the top button, not willing to take her lips off of his.

“Mmph,” said Jake, drawing his head back. “It’s a snap.”

Breathless, Ariana tore his shirt open. Jake just grinned, and looking at him made Ariana laugh, kissing him again. As their tongues tangled together she moved her hands lower and lower, brushing through his still-thick chest hair, reaching for his belt buckle.

In a flash, that was off too, and then she was unbuttoning his pants, reaching inside his boxers without bothering to take his pants off pants his knees.

She found him hard already and squeezed him in her hand, hard, and was rewarded with a low, guttural groan from somewhere deep in his chest. He’d shrugged off the shirt and held Ariana tight to him as she slowly ran her hand up and down his hard member, savoring every second as she did. He was already leaking precum, a clear indicator that his desire was running as hot as hers.

Ariana kissed the scars on his chest again, moving down slowly, intending to get on her knees but instead she felt strong hands holding her up. Jake chuckled at her.

“I’ve got a better idea,” he said.

She had no idea what could possibly be a better idea.

Quickly, he had his pants and boxers off and stood in front of her, totally naked, a sculpted testosterone god, standing in her living room. The episode of Friends was still playing, not that Ariana could pay any attention to it.

Then he bent down and scooped her up, and faster than she could blink, she was held aloft, in his arms. She wrapped both her arms around his neck and nearly squealed with delight.

Ariana expected him to carry her to the bedroom, but it seemed he had a better idea — the kitchen table. All it had a was a small pile of mail and a spoon, and he put her down, gently, peeling off her pajama pants as he did, and then, as she sat up, taking off her sweatshirt. Suddenly was was naked, too, and Jake was right there, his throbbing bulk between her legs.

“I want you right now,” she said, her hands roaming all over him. Had there ever been a more perfect specimen of manhood, she wondered? Probably not.

He chuckled again and pushed her back onto the table. He wasn’t rough, but he wasn’t gentle either, and he held her down at the same time that he moved his lips slowly down her neck, her collarbone, to each delicate nipple, then quickly past her bellybutton. He paused to position her knees over his shoulders, and then, his hot breath was on her mound, and he began licking her.

Just like always, he was slow at first, his tongue dancing delicately up and down, from her entrance up to her clit and then back down, teasing her, making her ache with anticipation. She secured her hands in his hair, no longer afraid of hurting him — he was so much stronger than her, if he wanted her to stop, he could just move her hands, but he never did.

Instead his tongue was insistent, even a little rough — Ariana could feel his need as well, his joy at being with her again. She arched her back a little, her hands still in his hair, and moaned softly, her toes curling.

“Jake,” she gasped. That was the only thing she could think of: his name. She grabbed the side of her kitchen table with one hand as she felt herself get closer and closer to orgasm, and she moaned again, unable to keep the sound from escaping her lips.

If anything, he licked harder and then Ariana was there, on the precipice and she hurtled over the edge, coming hard, digging her nails into the wood of her kitchen table and arching her back up off of it.

“Jake!” she shouted. She couldn’t stop herself — it just felt so
good
, and so pure, that she was compelled to shout for him, out of pure joy that he was back. “Oh, God, Jake,” she whimpered.

He lifted his head and nuzzled his face against one round thigh, and Ariana knew that she wasn’t done. She didn’t
want
to be done. She wanted him in her, all the way inside, to take her and for the two of them to become one, just for a few minutes.

Jake stood, her knees still on his shoulders. He leaned over her on the table and kissed her hard. Ariana could taste herself on him, but she didn’t mind. Somehow it was sexy, and she reached down between her legs, grabbing his hard length, and positioning it right at her opening.

In one fluid motion, Jake pushed all the way inside her. Ariana gasped and then moaned with the sudden feeling of perfect fullness that threatened to completely overwhelm her. Above her, Jake groaned, his eyes squeezed shut in pleasure as he stayed inside her, all the way, for just another moment.

It felt perfect.

Then, slowly, he pulled out and began thrusting, slowly, and Ariana moved one leg to wrap around his waist, her way of keeping him as close as she could.

Jake moaned softly, and then the sound deepened and his thrusts got harder and harder, almost as if he were possessed by some animal instinct. He threaded one arm under her, grabbing her by the shoulder, pulling her down into him, and Ariana gasped in pleasure, arching her back again, trying to let him as deep inside her as possible. She was gripping his shoulders in her hands, so hard she was afraid she’d leave marks, but everything felt so incredible that it was all she could do.

Ariana knew she was about to cum again, improbably, but there it was. Jake ran one hand up her body, pausing at her breast, and pinched her nipple, just slightly.

She was so turned on that that was all it took and she was tumbling over the edge again, lost to the pleasure of having Jake inside her, of having him back after she’d thought he was lost. This time she screamed his name, the only word that she could think of, over and over again until she’d finished, the waves of pleasure no longer moving through her.

Jake grunted, once, and then said, “Ariana,” in a half-moan, half-whisper and she felt him cum inside her, pumping his seed deep as he held her tight to his chest.

For a few minutes they just laid there, naked on Ariana’s kitchen table, their breathing and heartbeats in rhythm. Finally, Jake stood, slowly, and Ariana sat up.

He took her hand and kissed her on the forehead, gently.

“I think you’ve got your cable bill stuck to you,” he said, and carefully peeled it off of her back.

* * *

J
ake woke
up the next morning to a knock on the door and sat up. It took him a minute to remember where he was, and then it came rushing back to him: Ariana’s apartment, in Boston.

She wasn’t in bed, though. Through the bedroom door he heard her thank someone and then shut her front door. Quickly, he pulled on jeans and his shirt and opened the bedroom door, still buttoning his shirt.

Ariana was in the kitchen, unpacking groceries. “Well, good morning, handsome,” she said.

“Hello, beautiful,” he said.

They kissed, again. Jake didn’t think he’d ever get enough of this.

“Did you go grocery shopping?” he asked.

“I got them delivered.” He must have look confused, because now it was Ariana’s turn to laugh at him. “A benefit of city living. We can’t all shift and go eat grubs.”

“Okay, smartass,” he said, swatting at her butt. “What’s for breakfast?”

“Blueberry pancakes. Coffee’s over there,” she said, pointing to the pot. “
Real
coffee.”

Jake took half a cup and then filled the rest with cream and sugar. Ariana rolled her eyes at him and drank the rest of it, black.

T
hirty minutes later
, the pancakes were gone, and they were still talking, drawing patterns in the blueberry gunk on their plates with their forks.

“Do you like Boston?” Jake said. “I could move here. I don’t think I’d mind.”

Ariana leaned on one hand and thought about it. “I’m not sure I do,” she said, slowly. “It’s expensive, and it’s a pain in the winter. Most of my friends moved away after college.”

“But your job is here,” said Jake.

She shook her head, slowly. “I don’t think it needs to be,” she said. “There’s no reason I can’t telecommute, and my parents are in California, anyway.”

Jake looked down. He felt like he couldn’t quite ask the question, whether she’d move to Evergreen permanently. Or, for now, at least. It didn’t seem fair to trap Ariana in a little town almost in the middle of nowhere, not when she was so young and had so much she had yet to do.

Instead he took her hand and held it.

“I wouldn’t mind moving to Evergreen,” she said, answering the question he hadn’t asked.

“Really?” Jake said.

Ariana laughed. “Really,” she said. “I don’t want to promise I’d live there forever, but yeah, I’d try. If I don’t like it, maybe we could move to Seattle in a few years, or....”

She paused, and Jake realized what she’d just said:
in a few years
.

“Yeah,” he said, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. “Maybe in a few years, we could.”