The One We Answer To: A Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 3) (38 page)

Aaron grins. “Forget it, Lil. She’s been dead for a thousand years.”

“You saying she was lousy in the sack?”

“No. Better than I—”

I smack him. Straight across the cheek. Hard.

It’s like hitting a concrete wall.

“Ouch!” we both say in unison.

I cradle my stinging hand and say, “Oh, bullshit. That didn’t hurt you at all.” I give him a pretend pout. “Feels like you broke my hand.”

“Like
you
broke your hand.” Aaron’s eyes sparkle in the strange glowing light inside the tent.

Fuck, did I ever miss him.

“Nothing happened, Lil,” he says with a serious look on his face. “She was a Skinwalker. A cursed Pureblood. I…I guess I was kind to her. Freed her from her curse. She returned the favor by giving me these.”

Aaron nods behind me.

I turn and am staring face to face with three grinning black wolves.
 

“Holy shitballs!” I scream as I basically leap into Aaron’s arms.

Aaron breaks into loud, rumbling laughter. The wolves yawn and lick their chops and settle onto their bellies only an arm’s length away.

“You fucking
asshole
,” I yell, smacking at him again.

“Oh man,” Aaron says, “Okay, that was mean. But…” he takes along breath, then resumes laughing. “It was totally worth it.”

I can’t take my eyes off the wolves. They look like real animals, only midnight black, and when I stare directly at them I realize I can see through them. “That’s quite the gift,” I say.

“It was quite the curse.”

The wolves stand, stretch, yawn, then stroll through the tent wall and vanish.
 

Aaron holds perfectly still while I set the amulet against his chest and run my fingers over the fresh burn scar. I feel him staring at me. Waiting. Watchful. Like he’s afraid of doing or saying something to fuck this up—

A warm flush traces through my midsection. His goddamned gorgeous build. Tight and powerful. Making me want him—

All right, I decide. So I’m not going to send him out. Fine. We’ll have this time together. Maybe only this single night. I won’t have to tell him what I did. I’ll handle it on my own, like I planned before I heard him howling from the road and ran for him like a lovesick schoolgirl.
 

Only tonight.
 

We’ll leave it at that.
 

It doesn’t have to mean so much.
 

We can just let it be…whatever it is.
 

The wind gusts so hard the tent fabric flattens down around us, and then the sky opens up and it’s pouring, rain slamming against the tent with a loud pattering noise, and then there’s a brilliant flash of crimson lightning that makes the tent glow red like a photography darkroom, followed a second or two later by a cracking boom of thunder so loud it reverberates through my chest.

The air hums electric.
 

“One hell of a storm,” I say.

“I’ve always loved them. The scent in the air after a storm clears—”

“I’m afraid,” I say in my best mocking frightened schoolgirl voice.

Aaron laughs. The sound lifts my heart, and seeing his grin and his eyes light up and how good we can make one another feel—

Fuck it. Just this night. I
swear
.

“Then come on over here, little lady” Aaron says, pretending to be the big protector to my distressed damsel. “Nothing to be afraid of—”

“Except the wolf.”

“Nah. He’s all bark.”

“I like a little bite and scratch.”

“You feel good, Lil,” Aaron says. “You feel damned good.”
 

I settle into my bloodmate’s warmth. He wraps his arms around me, holding me tight. His scent fills my nose. That wild, warm pine-needle scent that makes my heart race. And there’s something else. Way down deep. At first I think it’s just me being super horny and wanting him—and that’s a part of it, for sure. But there’s also…an
energy
. A power. Like a pulsing heat flowing from him to me. And for the first time since my packmates abandoned me I feel…strong. The cold’s being pushed away by the heat flowing between us—

My breath catches in my throat.

My animal’s stalking me.
 

Drawing near.

“Lil?” Aaron asks. “What is it?”

I burrow deeper into his arms. Maybe I imagined it. I’m still beat-up and exhausted. I can’t think straight. My mind’s a fractured mess—

Then I feel her again. Rippling beneath my skin.
 

Howling. Demanding freedom.
 

“She’s here,” I say, real quiet. “She’s weak. But she’s with me.”

I reach up and unwind the bandage from my head.
 

The wound Tornarsuk gave me has healed.

Aaron hugs me close and says nothing.

But I know what he’s thinking: he’s thinking it’s time to move. Thinking there’s a war to fight. A twisted, fallen alpha to murder.
 

My brother. Vuk.

Not yet, I tell myself. Not quite yet.

“Your animal called to her,” I whisper. “He…I think he fucking
commanded
her.”

Aaron shakes his head. “Not a Risen. Not the All Encompassing. I’ve seen her, remember? No way.”

But I know I’m right. It’s in how she feels. Usually she’s screaming and raging against me, struggling to break free. But this time she feels…hesitant. Reluctant. Almost
subdued
.
 

“It’s true,” I say, lifting Aaron’s fingers to my lips and kissing him. “She’s listening to you. Something’s changed.”

Aaron’s breathing quickens. I’m holding his arms, and I feel his skin bulge and ripple and his arms thicken.
 

His wolf is running close too.
 

“Aaron?” I ask as another flash of red lightning illuminates the tent and thunder comes crashing down. “Are you…in control without the collar? Of him?”

“Mostly,” Aaron says, his voice a rough growl.

I can’t help but laugh. “
Mostly
? That’s not super comforting—”

Aaron tenses. His arms, still wrapped around me, lengthen and his hands grow wide and flat and long, needle-sharp claws spring from his fingers and his breath is hot on my cheek and then his fangs press against my shoulder, up my neck, under my ear, all the soft, sensitive places and I know one nip and the wolf could open me up, bleed me out—

“You’re more than you were,” I say, my voice a husky whisper.
 

“I’m a lot more,” Aaron growls.

I guess I should ask why but I’m throbbing for him and I grab his shifting hands and press them hard into the heat between my legs and feel his claws rake sharp into my tenderness and I bite my lip against the pain. Aaron tickles his claws over my cunt, just hard enough to let me know he’s in control, both of me and the animal prowling in him, and then he draws his claws out to my inner thighs and presses harder and scratches into my soft skin. I press my head against his shoulder and expose my soft neck and dare him to bite me, fucking
bite
me I whisper, I want you to
break skin
—

My wolf bloodmate kisses down on my neck, making me squirm with pleasure, then he bites me at the same moment he presses his clawed hands into my cunt and a white burst of exquisite pain explodes in my eyes and there’s a world of sadness between us, a world of loss and heartbreak, but none of it matters now because Aaron’s fangs sink into my neck and he looses a low, guttural growl when he tastes my blood I feel his cock spring hard in his jeans and then my animal’s breaking free, smashing through and I hear her calling to him, her apex predator bloodmate, her wildborn alpha.

My bones snap and shift and Aaron’s fighting with his jeans and I’m snarling and spitting, tearing off my clothes and he throws me on the floor of the tent and leaps on me, his wolf half out, his jaws distended and his fangs red with blood and I tell him to fuck me, bite me, make me bleed and hurt and my voice changes from human to winged she-wolf and I hear myself spit and growl and I know she’s taunting him as well, teasing the brute, the predator, because—

Aaron wraps his huge, powerful hands around my neck.
 

Squeezes.
 

My eyes fling open. I scratch at him, drop my fucking claws, rake gouges in his shoulders and watch them heal up almost instantly and he’s
strong
, this power, my windpipe’s crushed closed and I can’t breath, there’s a fire building in my lungs that matches the fire between my legs—

Aaron’s kneeling over me, every muscle in his torso rippling and bulging, making it look like the tattoos of myth and legend on his skin have come alive, and he leans down beside my ear and growls, “You know what I am. You fucking
scent
me.”

I shake my head from side to side, trying to struggle against him but he has me pinned, and there’s a part of me that loves feeling weak and helpless beneath him, loves feeling my bloodmate lord his strength over me, loves feeling my lungs flame and burn as he clamps still harder on my throat and the darkness is gathering behind my eyes, a joyful pain-free darkness where the only thing that matters is this maddening desire—

“Tell me,” Aaron says, his wolf leaping even further to the surface. “Say my wildborn name!”

Aaron releases my throat.
 

My animal’s with me. I feel her strength. Her desire aching like the hunger that builds in the long weeks after a feed, and I glare up at this man, this wolf, and I drop my claws and slash out at him, not wanting to make it easy, wanting to show he’s going to have to work—

Aaron catches my wrist before I can make contact.
 

Grins like a smug bastard.
 

He’s faster than me. Stronger.
 

Even with my animal roaming this close.

I lick my lips. Hiss and snarl and howl.
 

Try one more time to hurl him off. He doesn’t budge.
 

The rain’s beating down on the tent, gathering in the low spots and stretching the soaked fabric. The storm outside’s gotten worse; the lightning comes regularly now, one flicker of crimson after another, the thunder a nearly non-stop booming wave—
 

Aaron lifts my wrist over my head. Snatches the other one and lifts it above as well. I’m trapped beneath him. He nuzzles his fangs against my shoulder. Scents the wound on my neck. Kisses down my chest, across my breasts, runs his sharp teeth across my aching, swollen nipples.
 

The tent is smothering and too hot and full of our scents; of sweat and desire and mountain rivers and the thrill of leaping on a kill and Aaron slips his torso between my legs and drags his gorgeous cock across my wet, aching cunt and I hear myself pleading for him to fuck me and then I understand what he asked of me, what he needs to hear, the words arrive from some hidden recess of my mind, and then I’m naming him, his ancient wildborn name, screaming, “You are The One We Answer To,” and I feel my creature pause, feel her shock and fury at being made to kneel and Aaron slides his cock into me and bites on my breast and looses a long, magnificent roar and my creature begins burning so hot I’m afraid I’m going to burn my bloodmate alive, my skin smoldering and smoke rising from the bedding beneath me—

There’s a whooshing sound and the tent bursts into flames.
 

Rain showers onto us, hissing and steaming.

Aaron releases my wrists, lays flat against me and rolls to the side and then we’re lying in the moss beside the burning tent, soaked, the night sky lit red by end days lightning, cedar and hemlock trees towering over us like dark sentinels and I reach down and squeeze Aaron’s perfect ass and pull him deep into me, needing every bit of him and when I feel his cock surge and contract my come slams into my midsection, a violent surge of pleasure and pain, and then we’re both pawing at one another, kissing and fucking in the soaked dirt and moss, wild and free, unchained and uncollared and completely un-fucking-caring, because my white-hot skin isn’t burning him, my bloodmate, my ascendant alpha.
 

The One We Answer To.

After, we lie wrapped around one another, staring at the lightning, daring it to strike the trees around us. Every bit of my body aches and stings in the best possible ways.

“How long?” Aaron says after he catches his breath.

“How long what?”

“Can this keep getting better and better?”

“It’s gotta level off sometime,” I say.

“Peak and then plateau,” he says, smiling.

“Nothing rises forever.”

“The trick is knowing when to bail.”

I laugh and hug him close and then I’m crying, the grief and guilt loosed by desire and sex and closeness, and when Aaron asks me what’s wrong Lil what’s wrong all I can do is say I’m sorry.

“I deserved it,” Aaron says, kissing my brow, my eyes, my cheeks, my lips.
 

“Not that,” I say. “I’m sorry…for what I did to our unborn son.”

“Our
son
?”

So I tell him.

I
RUN
UNTIL
even my spirit animal tires.
 

I run through old growth forest blackened by fire and across rivers running dry and over shaking mountains. I run down the center of empty interstates and through abandoned roadside towns. I run through ragged bands of starving Skin attackers foolish enough to ambush Tornarsuk the Three-Eyed Bear. I run through roaming Stricken packs who assault me with the war machines they’ve stolen from the Skins. I run and I run, knowing I’ll never outrun the knowledge that Pimniq is hurt and alone and afraid, and it’s my fault.

I brought my little sister from the north. To this pale, dead land. To this land where nothing is clear or simple or pure. A land of deceit and death.

Me. The one person responsible for protecting her. Her older brother.