Comes Now the Wicked Woodsman (16 page)

"Please..." I bounced, my hips reckless with need.

He slid a hand down my back, clamped one ass cheek and held me in place. Pulling back and hooking my gaze, he began to slam into me. I slammed back, both of us moaning and wincing with the need twisting through our chests, igniting our flesh.

Tension poured like molten lead between my thighs, hardening, my muscles frozen around his cock, milking it with fluttering sucks and squeezing kisses.

My head rolled back. He grabbed me by the hair, held it upright, his gaze glowing in that chamber of shadows.

"Look at me, love," he demanded. "Come for me. Tell me you know the difference. Tell me what I'm doing to you."

"Loving me," I cried out, my climax barreling through me just as my heart threatened to burst into ashy fragments. I jerked, squeezed, spasmed all around him and against him.

His cock erupted with me, his come filling me with each spurting jerk. His chin lifted, a primal, victorious howl clawing past his throat, filling the room with an echo that still vibrated as our bodies began to settle against one another.

Embracing me, Braeden kissed lightly against my shoulder.

"You're mine, you always have been, but now we both know it."

"Yes," I agreed, my kiss falling haphazardly against his mouth as a euphoric sob shook my body.

I was his. He was mine.

Now we just had to tell his pack.

********************

Braeden

Late on the following morning, Paisley and I paid a visit to Taron, the big bear still in the city limits for his pregnant mate's safety instead of comfortably up on his mountain where visitors were discouraged.

Standing on the porch of his temporary residence, he grinned to see me pull into the drive, hustle around to the opposite front door of Clover's Jeep and help Paisley exit. The smile broadened as we approached hand in hand.

My pest of a little sister bounded out of the back seat with a satisfied smirk. She was not only getting her way with me openly capitulating to my feelings, but she had won the argument on whether she should be allowed to accompany us to speak with Taron, pointing out that the privacy we sought was already doomed because Onyx would be in the house.

Not that Taron's mate was indiscreet. But hiding anything said from a wolf's ears was next to impossible. And if Onyx got to hear the discussion, however innocently, by virtue of her position as Taron's mate, then Clover ought to hear it as best friend and sister to the concerned parties.

Stepping onto the porch, Clover patted Taron's mighty chest.

"Just agree to everything," she chirped. "I don't want to have to go all Rambo on you."

Seeing Onyx at the front door, Clover stepped inside and gave the she-wolf a friendly hug.

Paisley tightened her grip on my hand. We were there to seek Taron's official blessing, the sanction of the pack leader that would put Paisley off limits to the other single male shifters in the matchmaking game he had set in motion.

I wasn't about to let him deny me my mate. But his approval would erase the possibility of bloodshed within the pack.

Still grinning, he invited us inside, where Onyx had already put on a fresh kettle of water, telling us tea would be ready in about five minutes and she or Clover would give a knock on the study door when it was ready.

Seeing the pout on my little sister's face, I chuckled. Onyx had grown up an outcast, but she had still been raised as the oldest daughter of her pack's leader and she knew how to run interference for Taron. It didn't hurt that Clover was in awe of the she-wolf, rocking a girl crush that was almost as strong as her bond with Paisley.

"I'll need to feel out the more interested suitors," Taron said as soon as he closed the door on his study. "But I assume you are looking to end the thirty-day period and become a mated pair."

Next to me, Paisley started to cough.

Taron's booming laugh turned her cheeks a dark red, but she bobbed her head.

I didn't find anything funny, not after what he had just said.

"Feel out?" I asked.

"Whether any of them are going to raise a stink and accuse me of playing favorites."

"Paisley's playing favorites," I growled at my boss. "And those were the exact rules you laid out."

She rubbed at my arm, the sensation far more comforting than any attempt I had experienced by an alpha other than my father to comfort me with their energy.

Leaning forward, I stared at Taron, no quarter in my gaze. "There will be no more dates."

He lifted his hands, supplicating my forbearance. "I wasn't suggesting there would be. I'm only considering the possibility your announcement and obvious displays of affection be curtailed a little longer."

His gaze glanced off Paisley's arm on my hand.

Her grip tightened.

"How long?"

I knew by the tone of her voice, its barely detectible quality of vulnerability, that she feared what I feared -- time would find a way to separate us.

Taron considered the question, his hands folded across his stomach, fingers tapping in thought.

"The meeting tonight is still scheduled to address what we've found regarding the shooting."

I snorted. We had found too damn little. The rifle that shot Paisley and Clover had likely belonged to Holly Ulster, a thorough search of her house and barn coming up empty for the weapon or any ammunition. The datura and kerosene pointed to a non-human shooter.

"He needs to be interrogated," I said. "The shooter used tricks he's familiar with and he can't explain away the video. The poor shooting could have been because he hadn't practiced with the stolen rifle.

Paisley leaned forward in her chair, her body turning to face me. "He? You mean Mallory?'"

"Yes, Mallory Craw," Taron answered. "And he'll be there tonight. First we get past this."

He waved his hand at the two of us.

"Then we question him. Otherwise he'll try to make your claim and Paisley's presence within the pack the issue."

A growl rumbled low in my throat, the sound trying to twist into a challenge. But Taron was right. One misstep and everything could get bloody in a heartbeat.

"Bring Clover," Taron said as Onyx knocked on the door. "And Paisley, too. They both have a vested interest in the meeting's results. Onyx will be with me, as well. Otherwise no mates and no cubs this time."

Tension twitching through my body, I rose and led Paisley into the living room where the tea was waiting to be served. We suffered through some twenty minutes of polite conversation I didn't want to have, then Taron sent us on our way.

Eight hours later, I entered the clubhouse behind Clover and Paisley, my balls instantly shriveling as Landa Judd burped out one of her fake laughs.

Taron had said no mates, but Landa wasn't anyone's mate. She chased after those who didn't want her and turned down those who did. Before she'd tried to sink her claws in me, she'd been set on Taron -- had tried to go to war with Onyx and had her ass handed to her by the she-wolf.

So, even if she wasn't anyone's mate and was the waitress and sweet butt for the club on an almost twenty-four/seven basis, I was surprised he hadn't banned her from the meeting while Onyx was with him.

Gritting my teeth, I reminded myself I didn't want to be the club president, so I couldn't second guess him on this matter. I also sent up a small "thank you" for the fact that Landa had, for the first time since she became a sweet butt, dressed down considerably, exchanging her too short skirts for jeans and the blouses with their plummeting necklines for a long-sleeved t-shirt.

"I'll grab some drinks," Clover growled as she noticed Landa.

"Let me guess," Paisley whispered as I sat down next to her. "That's a she-cat."

I nodded and tried not to squirm in my seat. "You could tell from my sweet little sister suddenly turning rabid?"

"That," she agreed. "But there's something in the face, too. Is she related to Joshua?"

"No." I could only wish that Landa was related to Reeves. Then she wouldn't be hanging around the club as a sweet butt. "But they are both cougars. The old world cat shifters -- the lions and tigers -- seem to stick to the east and west coasts."

"I'm sorry." Reaching beneath the table, she brushed softly at my wrist for a second before retreating. "I didn't mean to dredge that up."

My parents had died on the west coast. My sister and I had been hunted across the western part of the country.

"For me, it's the past," I reassured Paisley. "Hopefully it will be for Clover one day."

Returning with three flavored mineral waters, Clover spread them around the table. "I figured we'd save the champagne for the house party."

Paisley blushed, the soft pink coloring her cheeks making me wonder if she had the same definition of "house party" in mind as I did -- a definition that excluded my little sister.

My boot brushed against Paisley's in silent communication just as Taron landed a hand on my shoulder. He leaned down and spoke directly into my ear.

"I had hoped you wouldn't be rubbing any noses in it."

I didn't offer an excuse -- or an apology.

Depositing Onyx at our table, Taron moved to the center of the room and signaled for everyone's attention.

"Just about a week ago, there was shooting out at Holly Ulster's place. You all know that, just like you all know it created not one, but two, problems."

Pausing, he looked at Paisley. She met his gaze, unshrinking, and he nodded favorably at her.

"I know, from speaking with individuals today, that some of you are disappointed to hear that particular problem is resolved, but you've all expressed a willingness to put aside your personal feelings and wish Braeden and Paisley the best as they become a mated pair."

Glass hit the ground halfway across the room, shattering as it came into contact with the floor. All eyes jumped in the direction of the sound.

"Get a broom," Mallory growled as Landa stood frozen and glaring in the direction of the table where I sat with the three women she probably hated most in all of Night Falls. At her feet were the shards of the broken glass.

"Get a fucking broom," Mallory repeated with a light shove.

Her head snapped in his direction, eyes widening to a crazy stare. She looked half a second from launching herself at his face and then she jerked straight and went into the kitchen.

"On to the other problem, the only real problem -- there's a shooter in the valley who knows what we are, is probably the same as we are." He started to tick off the reasons as he stared at Mallory. "He used kerosene to cover his tracks, he dipped the bullets in a concentrated datura extract, and he stole Holly Ulster's rifle to do the job."

Mallory prowled toward Taron, stopping right before he crossed within arm's reach of the big bear.

"Something you want to say to me...or about me?"

Rooster pushed off from the column he was leaning against, his arms crossing his chest as he spoke. "Except for the rifle, it's the kind of shit you always bring up when you're drunk and rambling on about the pack wars down south."

"Shut it, cub," Mallory snarled.

Clark moved to stand next to his brother. Mallory smirked at the gesture.

"You, pretty boy, should be sitting with the ladies. Or maybe you want to help Landa sweep up the glass. The club could always use another sweet butt."

Rooster launched himself forward. Taron shot an arm out, hauling him back and shoving him in a chair.

Halfway across the room, glass scraped across the linoleum as everyone fell silent.

"Each of you has a target on your back," Landa said, her gaze on her work, her expression forced wide and frozen. "And it's all because of those bitches you brought to the club."

The hair on the back of my neck stood up and I heard the low growl of Taron's mate.

"Shut the fuck up," Mallory snarled without a glance at Landa. He jerked a thumb at Rooster. "Like the boy said, every Woodsmen that ever rode with the club in the last fifteen years has heard me talk about the pack wars at least once."

Taron shrugged. "Yet none of them had a video of the shooting on their phone."

"For fuck's sake," Mallory howled. "We don't even know it was from someone within the pack!"

Standing, I cast my gaze around the room. I'd put up with enough of Mallory's shit to know when he was sweating because he was up to no good or because he was ready to piss himself. His voice took on the strain of the wrongly accused that knew he could be ripped apart any second.

"Someone from outside the pack wouldn't have used Holly's rifle," I said, my attention bouncing from shifter to shifter, skipping Rooster and his brother and a handful of others. "It was stolen because we all know what one another shoot."

"You," I continued, fixing on Mallory, "shoot a bolt-action rifle, just like Holly's, but it's a 30.06 and not a .308. That is, when you're not shooting the Taurus you've got tucked into your belt."