Guardian Bears: Karl (10 page)

K
arl hadn’t been
sure what reaction to expect from his transformation. Would she run? Would she cower? Or would she take some comfort from it? All he’d known was that he had to show her that she wasn’t alone in the world.

He
hadn’t
expected her to throw herself at him as soon as he changed back, but he wasn’t going to complain. The woman of his dreams, his one fated mate, was in his arms, holding him tight and kissing him as he lifted her to him. The thin top she wore was all that kept their bodies apart, and he felt his body respond to her closeness.

Allison’s body trembled in his arms, and he knew that she felt the same way. Their animal souls were responding to their closeness, and he wanted her in a way that he had never wanted anyone before. It was all he could do to resist tearing her clothes off, but he forced himself to wait, taking things slowly. Savoring her kiss.

She melted against him, breathing quickly, her fingers digging into the bare skin of his back.

“Not here,” she whispered in his ear. “What if Kirby comes back?”

He growled impatiently, but he had to agree. That wouldn’t end well. But he wasn’t ready to put her down. Shifting her weight to one arm, he reached down and grabbed his bag with the other and walked for the door. Allison gasped and he grinned, enjoying the way she squirmed in his grip as he took her to the car and put her in the passenger seat before hurrying around to get in beside her.

“Where are you going to take me?” She leaned over and kissed him again as she asked. He stroked her hair, pulling her into the kiss and feeling, rather than hearing, the gasp that got from her. When their lips parted, he grinned at her.

“Away from here, first of all,” he told her, starting the engine and pulling out of the parking lot.

His heart felt lighter in her presence, and he knew one thing with an absolute clarity. He wasn’t going to let any harm come to this woman, not while there was a breath left in his body. He didn’t know what he
would
do, but there had to be some other solution to her werewolf problem. And he’d find it for her.

Starting to think about how he could deal with that, who he could turn to, he was distracted by the feel of Allison’s hand wandering over his bare torso, stroking down across his abs. Looking aside at her, he saw a mischievous grin on her face as she blushed.

“Sorry,” she said, not sounding at all apologetic. “It’s hard to keep my hands off you when you’re… well, naked.”

He laughed, joy filling his heart. “I’m not complaining.”

Allison giggled, tracing a finger lower, and he felt himself stir and harden. Licking her lips, Allison brushed her hand over his cock, making him gasp at the electric feel of her touch. It was an effort to focus on the road when he wanted to turn all his attention on her, but he kept his hands steady on the wheel.

Her fingers closed around him, a light grip that felt unbearably sexy as she stroked him slowly, teasing. Karl growled at her, an animal hunger in his voice, and she laughed back, joyful and husky and just as hungry.

“I’ve never done anything like this before,” she said, voice low. Still stroking him gently, she raised her other hand to her lips, licking her fingers before tracing them around the head of his cock. “I think I like it!”

Karl laughed again, his heart speeding up as she teased him. His breathing was only barely under control, and he could feel himself hardening in her grip. Their bodies called out to each other, needed each other, and it was difficult to think of anything else.

Focus, man,
he told himself sternly as he felt Allison’s hand tighten around him.
Get back to her place, grab whatever she needs, and then we can get out of here.
He couldn’t fool himself, though. They weren’t going to be able to resist each other that long.

It didn’t seem like Allison was going to resist him even until they got there. Her face was flushed, her breathing fast, and he could swear he heard her heart racing. Bending over him, she breathed across his body, making him moan.

When she kissed his cock, it was all he could do not to swerve off the road.

“This isn’t safe,” he told her, hands locked like iron vices on the steering wheel to keep from grabbing at her. She laughed again, but sat back up, shaking her head.

“I thought you’d like it,” she told him, still stroking in that slow, excruciatingly teasing rhythm.

“I like it too much, that’s the problem,” he growled. “And I think you know that.”

Her laugh was like music to his ears, and she didn’t protest the rest of the way to her house. The cruiser was gone now, and there was no one else in sight as he parked, getting out and coming around to meet Allison before she could step down from the SUV.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked sternly, and she frowned, confused.

“I thought we were – OH!” Her answer cut off as he lifted her up and put her over his shoulder, carrying her inside.

“I’ve had enough trouble keeping up with you,” he told her. “So I’m not letting you run off again.”

She laughed, and he gave her raised ass a playful, lighthearted spank as he carried her to the bedroom. Her suitcases were still there, half packed, but they both ignored them. There was something more important on their minds, something that they couldn’t put off a moment longer.

* * *

A
llison yelped
as Karl threw her to the bed and leaped after her, pinning her and kissing her hard. Her body burned for his touch, desperate for it, and she gasped with joy as he tore off her t-shirt. Karl bent over her, covering her with kisses starting at her neck and working down, each one a small explosion of joy and need and desire.

His teeth nipped at her breasts, making her shudder and moan. He knew just where to touch her, just how hard, and it woke feelings in her that she couldn’t name. It was as though he wasn’t just touching her body, but reaching past it to her soul.

She reached up to pull him closer, but he wasn’t moving. His mouth explored her breasts, lips and tongue playing over her sensitive skin and sending sparks shooting through her. One of his hands gently but firmly pressed her down to the bed, the other brushed down over her tummy and to the waistband of the pants she wore.

Moaning, she raised her hips, letting him slide them down. Her own hands played across the wonderfully firm muscles of his body, back down to the gorgeous, glorious cock that was hard as a bar of iron between his legs.

Karl gasped at that touch, a shiver running through him as she stroked. But still he wouldn’t let himself be hurried. His fingers found her sex, stroking across her wet lips, teasing her as she teased him. Together they groaned in pleasure, Allison finding the tension between them unbearable. She arched her back, pressing herself to his fingers.

The low, throaty chuckle he gave at that drove her wild, and she heard herself growl at him, a hungry, desperate sound that came from deep inside her. The wolf in her needed him even more that the human did.

Mercifully, he didn’t tease her for too long. His fingers slid inside her, filling her as he kissed her mouth, their tongues meeting with an electric spark. She felt his thumb rub across her clit and her body tensed, arched, trembled under him. The feeling was almost unbearably good, and she felt the pressure building inside her. It filled her as he moved slowly and expertly, inexorably guiding her towards her orgasm.

Allison felt his pleasure, his anticipation, both in her soul and in her hand as she stroked him. The silky skin of his cock was stretched around what felt like an iron rod, stiff and thick and trembling under her fingers. The thought of him inside her scared her a little, he was so big – he felt even bigger now than he had the night before.

The memory of how good he’d felt inside her then was enough to push her over the edge. Karl’s fingers moved inside her, urging her on into an explosion of pleasure that rocked her to her core. She heard her cries of joy as though from far away as the room seemed to dissolve into light around her, and all she could see were Karl’s eyes meeting hers.

After who knew how long, she managed to breathe again, gasping for air and relaxing. Her body shook from the waves of pleasure, but it wasn’t enough. She needed more, she craved his touch and her body felt drawn to him like a magnet to iron.

“God, you’re amazing,” she whispered, her throat raw from her cries of pleasure. “I need you, I need to feel you inside me.”

Karl’s smile made her weak as he moved between her legs. From somewhere, he produced a condom and slipped it on himself. “There’s nothing I want more,” he told her, and she felt him position himself against her.

Her breath caught as he slowly rubbed his cock against her. She growled again, a demanding sound that made him laugh, pushing her down onto the bed as she tried to pull him forward. She might as well have been pulling on a statue for all the difference it made: he wasn’t going to move until he wanted to.

That should have been frustrating, she thought, but it wasn’t. Being in his hands, under his control, felt right and perfect in a way that she couldn’t have explained but didn’t need to.
I don’t care why this feels right, I just don’t want it to stop!

She surrendered to the sensations he gave her, the ache inside her that cried out for him to fill it, the lightning-crackle of sensation on her skin where he caressed her, the sheer joy his presence brought her. His mouth on her neck made her gasp out loud, her arms tightening around him, fingers digging into his back. His whole body shook as he laughed, his chest pressed against hers, and finally –
finally
– he thrust.

In one smooth, strong motion, he filled her perfectly. He drove himself home, the force of it driving the air out of her and rocking the bed into the wall with a crash. Allison could hardly breathe for the sensations that flooded through her, her world collapsing down to the one perfect feeling of her man, her mate, inside her. Nothing else mattered but the two of them and that moment, endless but fleeting, where they were together.

Karl moved slowly, withdrawing and thrusting again, each time making Allison shout with joy. The room shook around her as he drove her on, filled her, stretched her, each thrust a little faster, a little deeper into her. They panted together, his face twisting above her as he fought for control of himself.

“Please, oh God please,” Allison begged between gasps. Her voice seemed to be the trigger, to let loose the leash he held on himself, and he gasped something wordless as he let go of his control. The force of his body pounding into hers drove Allison back to the brink and past it, a lightning bolt of pure pleasure shot through her as he buried himself deep in her. She tightened around him and felt him let go inside her as they came together with a shared cry of joy.

Her nails raked across his back, and his arms squeezed her tight. Together they rode out the sensations as they lost all thought, all words, to the storm of sensation that washed through the pair of them from the point their bodies joined.

Allison didn’t know how long they spent like that – it felt like hours, and like no time at all. As the feelings receded, she could feel Karl’s joy filling him, and looking into his eyes saw the reflection of her own feelings there. He groaned as he withdrew and let himself collapse beside her on the bed, and she snuggled into his broad, firm chest. She wasn’t ready to start thinking again yet, but she felt the worries starting to creep back in.

This was wonderful, marvelous, better than she’d any right to expect. But would that hold when the afterglow faded? What would they do then?

She refused to think about that, instead wrapping her arms around the gorgeous man beside her and savoring him while she had the chance. Her problems would catch up soon enough.

T
he sky was dimming
when Allison opened her eyes again. The whole day had slipped away while she rested in Karl’s arms.

I guess that makes sense,
she thought.
I didn’t exactly get much sleep last night
.

In fact, she hadn’t had any. Karl hadn’t either, from the look of him – he didn’t stir as she sat up and looked down at him.

Yum!
She couldn’t help the thought. He was lying on top of the sheets, naked and beautiful, and relaxed in sleep he was just as attractive as when he was awake. Possibly even more so, since she wasn’t as intimidated by him. Though she had to admit that his scariness did add a certain something to his appeal.

But in sleep, he was calm and she could appreciate him more clearly. His broad, muscular chest rose and fell in a steady pattern, and his strong body lay brazenly exposed to her gaze. She looked him up and down, a lingering look that she would have been too embarrassed to give him while he was awake, and shivered with delight.

She would never have thought she’d end up sharing her bed with a man so damned attractive. There was nothing about him that she could find fault with, nothing that she’d have changed given the chance. He was strong and tall, muscular, and for a man so skilled at violence, she was surprised to see that he had no scars.

That made her frown after a moment, and she gently lifted his right arm. Karl murmured something in his sleep but didn’t wake as she ran her fingers over the spot where his gunshot wound had been. The faintest of marks was still there, but it was almost invisible now, healed.

That’s impossible,
part of her insisted. She’d
seen
the wound, and it should have taken longer than this to heal even if it didn’t scar. Glancing down at herself, she found that she could no longer see the mark on her own body, where Kirby’s bullet had struck.

She shivered, gently lowering Karl’s arm again.
Maybe shifters heal faster than most people?
There was so much she didn’t know.

But she wasn’t about to disturb Karl’s sleep, not just to answer her questions. Quietly, she slipped off the bed and into the bathroom to shower.

When she returned, she found him sitting up in bed checking his phone. Seeing her, his face lit up in a smile which sent a shiver of delight through her.

“Good evening,” she said, feeling her face flush as he looked at her. “I guess I should offer you breakfast?”

He laughed at that, dropping his phone on the nightstand. “That would be lovely, I’m starving.”

Standing, paying no attention to the fact that he was entirely naked, Karl walked past her into the bathroom to shower. Allison glanced after him, feeling her blush deepen.
If he doesn’t mind walking around like that, I’m certainly not going to complain,
she decided as she checked her fridge for supplies.

Hunger always made it hard for her to decide what to eat, but she quickly settled on eggs as something she could make a lot of in a hurry. After all, neither of them had eaten at all since the night before, so she presumed Karl was as hungry as she was. Scrambled eggs and bacon and toast came together quickly, and when he emerged from the bathroom she had a plate piled high for him. She didn’t fill her own plate quite as much, but she did forget any notion of dieting.

“You’ve given me quite an appetite,” she told Karl as she sat opposite him. He grinned at that, no trace of false modesty to be seen.

“Me too,” he said, eating quickly. “Thank you, I needed this.”

She couldn’t help laughing at that. “It’s the least I could do after you got shot protecting me.”

Karl laughed too, glancing down at his arm. Allison followed his eyes, then looked back at his face.

“I was wondering about that,” she said after a moment’s pause.

Karl laid down his fork and nodded. “I expect you’ll have a lot of questions, and you deserve answers to them. First off, yes, we shifters heal fast. Very fast. But don’t think that you’re immortal or anything, we won’t heal from a fatal wound. Get shot in the head, or the heart, and it’s all over.”

“I thought maybe it took silver…?” Allison’s sentence trailed off, and she blushed, feeling silly for asking. Karl reached out to take her hand, squeezing reassuringly.

“Silver wouldn’t heal like this, it’s true,” he told her. “That’s where the legend comes from. But anything that can kill a normal human can kill us too, it’s just harder – and if we live through it, we’re going to heal up fine.”

Allison squeezed his hand back, glad he wasn’t making fun of her for asking stupid questions. She watched his eyes as she forced herself to ask the question that filled her mind. “What am I? What are we?”

He sighed, looking uncomfortable with that, but he did answer. “We’re shifters, Allison. Shapeshifters. It’s an inherited ability, all of my family are bear shifters, and you are descended from a family of wolves. I don’t know why they didn’t teach you about your heritage, though.”

“My parents died when I was little,” she said, looking down at the table. “I was taken in by a distant relative of my mom’s, and she didn’t like my dad’s family.”

“Oh.” Karl grimaced. “I’m sorry about that, Allison. The wolf shifters must be on your father’s side of the family, then, and you never got the lessons you needed.”

He looked both sad and angry, his hand tightening almost painfully on hers. “They should have tracked you down, though. Then we wouldn’t be in this mess. If they’d taught you when you were younger…”

Trailing off, he looked into the distance. At what, Allison had no idea.

“You’re saying I can turn into a wolf?” she asked after a few seconds’ silence.

“It’s a little more than that, but yes.” Karl’s eyes were sad as he focused on her again. “You have a wolf’s soul in you, and you can take its form. The trouble is, you should have learned to be partners with your animal soul years ago. I was raised with mine, my family taught me to shift almost as soon as I could walk, and I’m at peace with both sides of my nature.

“You don’t have that, and so your wolf-soul comes out when it wants to. That’s dangerous because it doesn’t understand people, and it’s only going to get stronger. That’s the difference between a wolf shifter and a werewolf, Allison – control.”

She shivered, remembering all the strange incidents, the animal attacks that had plagued Mayfair and the people in it that she didn’t like. The weird dreams she’d had, the places she’d found herself with no explanation.
I’m lucky I didn’t kill anyone, I guess.

“But you can teach me now, right? I’ll learn to control myself and then everything will get back to normal?”

As soon as she asked the question, she knew it wouldn’t be that simple. If that was all it took, then Karl would never have looked so conflicted about things. Chewing on her lip, she watched his face as he put together his answer.

He shook his head, and her heart pounded.

“I wish it were that easy,” he said, his face like stone. “But… Allison, I’ve never heard of anyone over the age of twenty learning how to control their animal.”

For a second they sat in silence, watching each other. Allison looked at Karl, not knowing what to say, and eventually he continued.

“I have some friends in the shifter community who might be able to help,” he told her. He spoke firmly, but there was an edge of sadness to his voice. “People who might have more experience with this kind of thing. But I’m not going to lie to you, there isn’t much time. Once someone starts to lose control to their animal, it happens quickly – and there’s no coming back.”

Allison gasped. It wasn’t that the idea was a shock; she’d been expecting something like that, but it didn’t help. And there was something, some pain, behind Karl’s eyes. Something that she couldn’t identify, something that wasn’t about the here and now.

She squeezed his hand again, trying to look calm for his sake. “You’ve seen this before haven’t you?”

“Not quite this,” he said, shaking his head. “Similar, though. It’s something that comes for the older shifters too, sometimes. When they lose their faculties, the animal comes out in them and they can get lost in it.”

Another pause as Karl withdrew into himself. Scooting her chair around, Allison put her hand on his shoulder and held him. “Who was it?”

“My father.” Karl’s voice was hard and rough, and she could feel the tension in him. Opening up didn’t come easily to her man, she could see that. She didn’t press him, just held him and waited, offering what support she could.

“There’s not much to tell,” he said eventually. “He was a strong and proud man, a great man. He taught me what it means to be a man, and a bear shifter. And then, one day, he just started to slip away. The bear came out more and more, and there wasn’t anything anyone could do to bring back the mind of the father I loved.”

Abruptly he turned to face her, his eyes shining with determination. “I lost him to this curse, Allison. I’m
not
going to lose you, too.”

* * *

A
ngry at himself
, he stalked back to the bedroom to grab his phone. Karl hadn’t intended to share that with Allison, but it wasn’t easy to keep up his reserve with her. And she deserved to know the truth.

That doesn’t mean I should just open up about everything in my past like that,
he told himself.
There’s a reason I don’t think about that story: it’s depressing, and Allison doesn’t need doom and gloom right now. She needs
help.

Fortunately, he did have some idea of where he might get some. Scrolling through his contacts list, he dialed Harper’s number.

“Harper,” the wolf shifter answered almost instantly. “Is it done?”

Karl bit down on his urge to hang up on the man.
Is it done?
As though killing a werewolf was a simple chore rather than a tragic necessity. Even if in this case the werewolf hadn’t been his mate, that would have been tasteless.

“No, Harper, it isn’t,” he growled. “There’s a lot more to this than I expected.”

“Oh?” The polite curiosity in Harper’s tone didn’t do Karl’s temper any favors, and he felt the phone creak in his hand as his muscles tightened. “Has it been seen by the humans?”

“
It
hasn’t done anything, you jackass.
She
is a person, even if her wolf is taking over.”

There was a pause, and then a sigh on the other end of the line. “My apologies, Karl. This isn’t easy for me, you understand. Condemning one of my own to death, just because she has lost control to her wolf, is not something I take lightly – I hope you can understand if I want to distance myself from it somewhat.”

Oh, I understand alright,
Karl thought humorlessly. Some people handled violence that way, but he didn’t like it. Lose sight of the fact that you were killing people and you lost something important about yourself. Even in the Special Forces, killing terrorists, he’d made the effort to remember that his targets were humans. Humans who had taken up weapons for an evil cause, yes, and who needed to be dealt with – but losing sight of the humanity of their enemies was part of what made them evil. He didn’t want to make the same mistake.

But this wasn’t a time to lecture Harper on his ethics. He needed to act, and for that he needed more information.

“I’m going to take that burden off you,” he said instead. “I’m going to teach her to control the wolf, and I need your help.”

Harper was silent for a second, and Karl thought he could hear the other man’s confusion. Then he heard a muffled sigh. “That is impossible, as you well know. Killing her may not be pleasant, Karl, but it
is
necessary. Once a wolf shifter starts to lose control, it’s a swift downhill slide.”

“No one has ever tried to teach her, Harper. She hasn’t had a chance.”

“And I grieve for her, my friend. I truly do. But it doesn’t make any difference, she’s lost. She won’t be able to control her shifting, and eventually someone will see it happen. Our secret will get out. Put her out of her misery before her wolf takes over and she brings disaster to us all.”

Karl snarled, anger rising to overwhelm him. It wasn’t just his own rage and frustration he was dealing with – his own animal soul was brimming with emotion at the thought of harm coming to Allison, let alone him having to do it.

“You don’t understand, Harper,” he said, keeping his emotions under control as best as possible. “I
will
teach her. When you asked me to do this, you said I should do whatever was necessary – you may have meant that I should kill her, but that’s not what I agreed to.”

“Ah, I see,” Harper said, and there was a sadness in his rich voice. “This is personal, isn’t it, my friend? Well, I don’t suppose that’s something I can criticize you for, under the circumstances.”

“Damned right it’s personal,” Karl growled. “She’s my mate. I knew it as soon as I saw her.”

That shut Harper up for a moment, and Karl couldn’t help enjoying the shocked silence a little. It wasn’t like the dubious pauses he’d gotten out of the man previously, this was much more satisfying.

“Are you sure?” Harper asked eventually. Before Karl could respond, he hurried on. “No, that is a foolish question. Of course you’re sure! That does indeed change everything – I am certainly not going to try to argue with you about how you should treat your mate.