Bold Mercy by Laken Cane

Chapter Twenty-Two

Wolf alphas generally weren’t attracted to each other—they were in competition with each other. They fought, or at best, had an uneasy alliance. There were far fewer female alphas than male alphas, and we’d evolved that way because a sad but true fact was that male alphas tended to be more physically powerful than females, and they killed us, forced us into submission, or disabled us so that we couldn’t fight. This was the history of wolves.

Times had changed, however, and most male alphas no longer matter-of-factly destroyed their weaker competition. They were no longer more animal than human, driven by instinct and a feral need to survive, protect their pack, and snuff out the enemy. They thought more like humans.

Still, deep down, there was that innate and primal instinct in alphas to fight other alphas. To dominate them. That instinct was strong in Jared, and it was strong in me. I had my wolf to temper my instincts, though, as she was fundamentally submissive to the alpha’s domination. Still, I was not in wolf form, and I was alpha.

So sex with Jared was not gentle, kind, or sweet. Maybe over time we would settle and that sweetness would come, but our first encounter was fierce, hot, and dangerous as we both fought our instincts and embraced them.

It was absolutely everything I’d hoped it would be. More, really, because some things a person simply couldn’t imagine. It was the sort of sex that really should have been done deep in the woods where no one could hear, where we did not need to be quieter or worry about breaking furniture or be confined by walls.

He ripped the t-shirt from my body like a barbarian and I loved it, even as I slammed him back against the wall—dislodging a clock and beautiful painting of the Shadowfield woods in the process—and sank my teeth into his shoulder.

I marked him, because he was mine. God, he tasted good.

Then I yelped when he buried one hand in my hair and yanked my head back, baring my throat, then lifted me and turned so that my back was against the wall. I thought he would mark the side of my neck, then, but he ran his lips over my chest and to my breast, and he bit me there. Hard.

He marked me as I’d marked him, claiming me as I’d claimed him, and the fire from that mark rivaled the pain from Avis’s dark magic—but only for a second. It turned fast to pleasure as it raced through my body and straight to my wolf, and she screamed with a savage joy as her alpha gave her what she needed. She belonged to him now. She had everything she’d ever wanted. Her freedom, and her alpha.

For a second her joy overwhelmed me and when I pulled myself out of the drunken pool of ecstasy in which she floated, I was on my back on the bed, and Jared was on top of me.

We didn’t talk, but there were sounds. Grunts, yips, sighs, moans, and groans, yes. Sometimes he murmured my name in a way that made me clench my thighs, and once, he gave a husky laugh when I squealed and pulled his hair when he held me down and plied his tongue with such enthusiasm that I thought I might die.

In the end, he won the “who’s more alpha” argument, because truthfully, he was physically stronger than me. But by then, I didn’t really care. He made me feel too good to care. I had a feeling he didn’t really care either. Not then.

“Tell me,” he murmured, thrusting inside me, slowly, deeply, smoothly. His arms trapped mine and his hands held my wrists, his big body heavy and hot atop me.

I wanted him fast and hard, but he held me down and wouldn’t let me move, and I had to take what he gave me. “Fuck you,” I said, panting. I arched my back and tried to slam my pelvis against his, but I was as ineffectual against him as a pup against her alpha.

He dipped his tongue into my mouth, then nipped my lips before lifting his face. “Kait,” he whispered. “Kait.”

His voice was dark and held things that made my heart full. I stared up into his eyes, at his need, his alpha need, and I wanted to give in to him. I wanted to submit to him. I wanted to be everything he wanted me to be.

But I clenched around him as tightly as I could and when he groaned and lowered his forehead against mine, breathing into my mouth, almost kissing me, I whispered, “Tell me, Alpha.”

I could feel him smiling against my lips. “I belong to you,” he said. “I am yours, Wolf.”

My breath whooshed out of me, and for a second, I couldn’t do anything but freeze beneath him. I couldn’t say a word.

“Someday,” he told me, “you will understand that giving yourself to me doesn’t mean losing who you are. You don’t need to be afraid, Kait. Not of me.”

Then he released my wrists, pushed his hands beneath me, and took me with him as he flipped to his back. He didn’t slide out of me, though, and when I sat on top of him, he stared up at me, his eyes glittering in the semidarkness. “Fuck me how you want to fuck me,” he said.

I did.

He filled up every part of me, and though I still held some of myself back, I didn’t take my stare away from his the entire time he was inside me. Not once. I couldn’t say what he wanted to hear, though. Not yet.

Not yet.

But maybe I showed him.

And afterward, I curled up in his arms, facing him, and pressed my tired, spent, aching body against his. I wrapped my arms around him, as he did me, and I slept. A woman couldn’t do that if she didn’t trust a man.

A few hours later I woke up to find that neither one of us had changed position. He was awake, as well. His arm was surely asleep because I’d been lying on it for so long, but he made no move to pull it out from under me.

“Hey,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“We’ll be all right.” It was the best I could do.

“Yeah.” And there was a smile in his voice.

I got off his arm and lay across his chest, resting my chin on my folded arms as I gazed at his face. Somehow, he seemed different to me. Just a little, but different.

“Why are you frowning?” he asked.

“You seem different to me.” I hesitated. “Something’s different.”

He pushed a strand of my hair behind me year. “Maybe it’s you.”

Suddenly and for no good reason fear blasted me so hard that I gasped, jerking away from him and sitting up, a hand to my chest. “God,” I whispered.

He sat up, his stare sharp. “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” I told him, and my voice was full of tears. “Something’s wrong, Jared.”

He was already out of bed, yanking on his pants, then stepping into his boots, not even bothering with a shirt as he ran for the door. “Get dressed,” he said, but at the door, he stopped, strode back to where I stood trembling at the foot of the bed, and grabbed my shoulders. He kissed me hard, his fingers bruising my flesh, and then he turned and was gone.

For a few seconds, I was too tired, too hurt, too everything to actually move.

“Something bad is coming, Kait. I guess you know that.”

“Let it come. Worse things will be waiting when it gets here.”

I ran to my room, cleaned up as fast as I could, and dressed. I put on my badass along with my clothes. I couldn’t let fear rule me. I wouldn’t.

Something bad had arrived. I would be waiting.

And I would be something worse.