Control (24 page)

“No,” Chris cried as Robert lifted again up onto two legs, and raised a paw to deliver the killing stroke to the last wolf, the innocent wolf, the only son of the alpha.

“Robert!” I yelled sharply.

I heard gasps from everywhere at once, voices on all sides of me as well as behind, everyone amazed when the enormous grizzly bear turned and stared at me. I was his entire, unblinking focus.

“It’s done.”

He froze there, looming over the two boys, poised to become death incarnate.

“You saved me,” I whispered, knowing even at the distance that he could hear me. “You saved us all.”

No movement, not even a twitch.

“You were so scared you would do bad things, but without you, we’d have been slaughtered. You protected us all.”

Still, he waited.

“Can you hear me? Can you hear the truth? Can you hear that you saved us? Saved me?”

Finally, he dropped to the ground, back on all fours, and turned in my direction, facing away from the boys, no longer looking at me over his shoulder.

“You’re a blessing,” I told him, because it was true in more ways than one. “Please,” I begged him, holding out my arms. “Please, my bear, come to me.”

His gaze didn’t waver. He didn’t even blink, just stood completely still.

“You’re mine, my bear. Come to me.”

I was so scared he’d turn away from me, run off, and leave me all alone. I deserved it, I knew, for leaping without thought into danger. But that would always be the case. I was the kuar, the leader, and I was the first line of defense. If I lost my love because of it, though, I would resent my decision forever.

“Please,” I begged, and I didn’t care who heard me.

He huffed loudly and then rushed forward, covering the ground faster than I would have thought possible, barreling toward me.

I fell to my knees as he reached me, his muzzle covered in blood, dipping his massive head low to press into my chest. Burying my face in his heavy fur, I inhaled his heavy musky scent coupled with the coppery smell of blood.

“Thank you,” I choked out, not sure who I was talking to, maybe even God, but having to say it, to give voice to the words, because he was alive in my arms. He hadn’t run from me, and as I stretched my hands wide, sinking into his pelt, holding on, I assured myself, with each caress, that he was truly there. “I love you. I love you so much,” I cried, tears filling my eyes and spilling over as I clutched at him and shivered with relief and exhaustion and more love than I’d ever thought possible.

Robert

B
LOOD
. T
HE
scent of blood had set me off.

Being attacked by a gang of wolves was painful but not deadly, and even in my human form, I could do enough damage to them to be left alone. That wasn’t a theoretical possibility; I actually knew it for a fact, because I’d lived through it. In my line of work, going into new towns always on the outskirts of forestland, I’d run into more than one group of shifters who didn’t want a stranger on their territory and reacted by using their fists or jaws or claws. The difference was, in the past all I’d needed to do was ward them off long enough to get in my truck and leave their town.

Wanting to prove I could win a fight wasn’t in me, probably because I knew I could. Avoiding a fight, though, I’d do that every day of the week and twice on Saturdays because my fighting had an excellent chance of ending in my killing someone or many someones. But there was no way I could have walked away from the wolves that day. Hell, I did the opposite. I walked right into the fight, knowing I wouldn’t be walking out, not as a man, anyway. Because I had smelled his blood.

We were in his warm, happy home, and every part of me felt calm and satisfied. But then his truck was peeling out of the driveway, and his friends were screaming, and I had to go after my brilliant and yet incredibly idiotic boyfriend. And when I found him, like I said: blood.

I’d tried. I’d tried to fight them in human form, tried to keep them away from Vy, but the effort alone was debilitating. He was so strong, so stubborn, and he refused to take to his bird and fly away so long as a single member of his ket remained in harm’s way. So my little bird fought hard, trying to protect himself, trying to protect his ket. He had even tried to protect me. And in return, they drew his blood.

So many things flooded my mind when it happened that I had a hard time processing them all. Blood meant pain and death; I’d seen it, lived through it, knew it to be true. That alone should have been enough to uncage my bear. Still, I thought maybe, just maybe, I could have kept my bear down, could have pacified that part of myself if I had been able to fight off the wolves in my human form.

Vy was strong; he was kuar of his ket. Together, we could save the kids and escape, bumped, scraped, bruised, but alive. We could do it, I’d told myself. But then one of the wolves went for his neck.

Blood.

Neck.

Mate.

Mine.

Four thoughts in rapid succession, nothing more than words, really, but enough to destroy decades of hard-fought control. No amount of chanting and breathing and meditating would keep me from destroying every man who dared to think they could do to my bird what was only mine to do. My human could have kept them from killing him. But my bear wouldn’t let them live for trying to claim him.

It was everything I had feared it would be: violent, powerful, ruthless, freeing. It was wonderful. But my mate had witnessed me killing dozens of wolves, and I worried about what he’d think of me after having seen who I really was inside. So there I lay, surrounded by dismembered wolves and squawking hawks in human form, at the feet of my mate. Well, his feet and the rest of him, because he was kneeling, and I was still tall enough to be face-to-face with him, if I’d had the courage to look at his face.

And then the most amazing thing happened. He told me he loved me. Me. The bear with blood on his paws and muzzle who had just waged destruction and reveled in it. Not only that, but he touched me, throwing his arms around my larger body, digging his fingers into my pelt, resting his face on my fur. Nobody had touched me in bear form since I was a young child. It felt incredible, his hands on me, his trust in me.

I lifted my head and roared, so pleased, so relieved, so overjoyed. The other hawks gasped and took a step back, but not my little bird. He threw back his head and laughed with me. Tears still streamed down his face, but his expression and stance told me they were from relief, not fear or pain. The motion exposed the long swath of his neck, and I could see that it was unharmed, that the wolf hadn’t made contact and marked him there.

Overjoyed, I nudged my head against his chest, knocked him onto his back, and started licking his neck.

“What’re you doing?” he asked, laughing. “This isn’t the time for wrestling!”

But he didn’t push me away when I gently pawed at his chest and lapped at his face, so I kept going, jostling him around, egging him on, feeling suddenly light and young and playful.

“Robert, you goofball, get off me.” He smacked my shoulder, and I huffed, not wanting the fun to end. “We can shift later,” he promised. “After we take care of the ket.”

I whined.

With a roll of his eyes but a grin on his face, he said, “How about this? You get off me now, and later, I’ll shift into my bird, and we can play chase.”

The idea had merit. I tilted my head to the side and looked at him as I considered it.

“Think you’re fast enough to catch me?” His eyes glinted.

I knew I was, so I dipped my head and snorted.

“I bet you’re not. I bet I can fly faster than you can run.”

I growled in warning, but he didn’t so much as flinch, choosing instead to smile wider. “Well, I guess we’ll have to find out, won’t we? But that means you need to get off me so I can take care of things here.” He stroked my face. “We can shift again later. Both of us.” He paused. “You controlled yourself, Robert, even in this form. Look at you. You’re in control now.”

Vy was right. Oh, sure, I’d killed the wolves and had fun doing it, but they had started the fight, they had refused to back away, and, most importantly, when Vy had called me off, I’d stopped. Human or bear, I’d listened to him.

It was an incredible thought: I could shift later. Reluctantly, I moved off him and sat down at his side, waiting until he finished with his duties so we could return to our den and play.

A
FTER
V
Y
finished talking to his ket and talking on the phone and talking to the teenage wolf plastered to Chris’s side and talking to the parents of all the hawks and making sure everyone who needed it was getting medical care, we finally headed home. Enjoying the freedom that came with being in my bear form, I didn’t want to shift back, so I climbed into the back of his truck, and he drove us home.

“I’ve never driven with a bear in the back,” he said when he climbed out of his truck. I was waiting outside his door, having jumped out as soon as he parked in his driveway. “I think people were giving me strange looks.”

He was smiling and happy, and that made me happy, so I bumped my head against his belly. It was only then that I remembered he’d been hurt. In the field with all the other blood and with so much adrenaline pumping, the scrapes under his clothes hadn’t registered. But now we were home, and his blood was all I could smell.

Whining loudly, I moved my nose against the side of his shirt, trying to shove it up so I could see the wounds, lick them, clean them.

Vy giggled and smacked me away. “That tickles!”

Though he thought I was still playing, my amusement was gone. My mate was injured and I needed to tend to him. That wasn’t going to happen in my bear form, I realized, so I shifted into my man.

“What happened?” Vy said, still grinning and chuckling. “I thought we were going to race. Are you chick—” He stopped midword when our gazes met.

Things that were simple for me as a bear, were, not surprisingly, much more intense when I crumpled that part of me down and shifted into my human. My bear innately recognized in Vy what Vy had always recognized in me—we were mates. To my animal, that was obvious and natural, and it raised protective, possessive instincts. In my bear form, I was satisfied being near him and ensuring that he was safe and that nobody else got too close.

As a human, the realization had a very different effect. My heart soared and raced. My breathing quickened. My skin felt burning hot and freezing cold. And I was instantly and painfully hard.

“Vy,” I rasped. I gulped and trembled. “Mate.”

“Oh,” he whispered, his eyes filling. “I thought you’d never… and that was okay, but”—he stepped closer, pressing the length of his body against mine—“yes. I’m your mate.”

Wrapping my arms around him, I tugged him forward and up, lifted him off his feet, and buried my face in his neck.

“Can you feel it?” he rasped, tangling his hands in my hair. “Can you feel the bond?”

What I felt was indescribable. As a man, I already loved Vy. I also liked him, admired him, and respected him. Those feelings made it hard for me to keep my hands and mouth off him. But after shifting, I also felt my bear’s satisfaction at being complete, at finding a home, at finding my mate. It was overwhelming—joy and love and deep, pulsating desire.

“Vy.” My voice broke on the short word. I needed him so much I shook. The scent of his skin, the vein in his neck, made my gums itch and my mouth water. Snapping my head up, I stared at him in shock. “I want to bite you,” I said, surprised by the urge.

Instead of being repulsed or terrified, Vy’s eyes dilated and he moaned, “Yes.” He tilted his head back and pulled my face forward, pressing my mouth to his neck. “Finally. Please. Yes.”

The journey from front yard to bedroom was a blur, but we made it. I had been naked from my shift, and Vy’s clothes lay in tatters somewhere between the front door and his bedroom.

“Why are we in the bathroom?” he whined. “I thought you were taking me to bed.”

“You’re hurt,” I explained as I kissed my way down his gorgeous but bruised and
scraped body. “I need to clean you and bandage you and—”

“Robert, so help me, if you do anything other than fuck me and bite me right this second, I will shift and peck your eyes out.” As if that wasn’t cute enough, he grabbed his dick and shook it at me. I was on my haunches, so it was at eye level. “Do you see how hard I am?” he asked, his expression perfectly serious. “I could die if you don’t take care of this.”

“We wouldn’t want that,” I said softly.

“Right?” he said. “I mean, what good is cleaning a scratch or two if I die of hard dick?” He thrust his hips forward. “Fix it.”

I laughed so hard it was impossible to be worried. Instead, I buried my face against his groin and held on tight. “You’re amazing.”

“I’m horny.” He pushed at my shoulders. “Are you listening, you big bear?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Well, then—” He took a deep breath. “Claim me.”