“What the hell was that for?” Warner rubbed his cheek.
Mari was furious. More than furious, she was hurt. His words had wounded her in a way like she hadn’t let anything cut her since she was thirteen.
She knew it was wrong to hit him because it sure as shit wouldn’t have been okay for him to hit her.
“I have done nothing but what was asked of me. I haven’t asked you for much. Nothing beyond what you owe a mate. I nursed you after you healed. I tried my best to be your partner. I’ve even come up here while you worship Saint Arianna, and have I judged you or asked you to be anything other than who you are? And this is what I get? I release you? Are you fucking kidding me?”
Warner seemed genuinely confused. “I said you’d still have your accounts—”
Which was precisely the wrong thing to say. “Do you think I give two bits of a damn about money? I have my own. I’m a freaking heiress. HEIRESS. Even without the mineral rights my father granted the Woolven pack, I could buy Woolven ten times over.”
Her fury fizzled as quickly as it had ignited because it gave way to sorrow. To pain. To the ugly truth that no matter what she did, no matter how hard she tried, she was never going to be good enough.
Not for her father.
Not for her pack.
And not for Warner Woolven.
She sank back on the ground. “I did everything right, didn’t I?”
“Of course you did,” War reassured her.
“And you still don’t want me. Still too pretty to be of use?” She threw his previous words back at him.
“Oh hey. That was a two way street, if you’ll recall. You said I was too old to be of use.” He eyed her with obvious censure.
She swallowed hard. “I guess you’re right there. I didn’t mean that. You just made me angry.”
He leaned forward. “I didn’t mean it either. I didn’t know what to do with you.”
“What to do with me? Like I’m some sort of present you didn’t want?” Then she wilted. “I guess that is what I am.”
“Mari, no. You’re young. You’re beautiful. You look like you should be a fairy instead of a werewolf. And I’m… old. Scarred.” He shrugged as if that word encompassed all of their problems.
“I like scars.” She hated herself for admitting it to him. For giving him that leverage by admitting she liked how he looked. Although Mari supposed it didn’t matter now.
“Why?” Warner seemed genuinely perplexed.
“Because scars show you’ve fought a battle and won. You’re strong. You’re fierce. All good things to have in a mate.”
“And so are you, but I’ll hurt you.”
“You’re already hurting me.” She pressed her lips together. “But you can’t help how you feel. I was going to ask you to take me with you Minnesota. Let me help. Let me be your partner in all ways. I thought I could convince you that I could handle it. That we could handle it.” Tears burned behind her eyes and it was hard to swallow, but she wasn’t going to beg. She may not have a mate, but at least she could salvage a remnant of her pride.
She got up, but he grabbed her hand again.
“Before the darkness, we would’ve made a great team. We would’ve had this conversation and I’d have hauled you back to the cabin and taken you every way you’d let me.”
His words caused desire to wash over her in heady waves. She wanted every part of that sentence to be a prophecy of things to come.
She didn’t understand why they couldn’t be.
“This isn’t fair, War. You can’t offer me everything I want in one hand and take it away in the other.”
“I know. That’s why I have to let you go. It’s because I want you.”
“No, you don’t. You’re just trying to hide a fuck-you-sundae in sprinkles. No thanks.” She pulled away from him and put her hands on her hips. “You talk about this darkness. I haven’t seen it. Where is it? Show me.”
“You really don’t want that.”
“Don’t tell me what I want. Furthermore, stop trying to push me out of this pack. You know what my life was like growing up. Remember that Christmas my family hosted yours in Tahoe?”
“I remember all the other wolves were outside playing. All we could see from the great room window were tails sticking up out of the snow.”
“Where was I, War?” she prompted.
He didn’t say anything.
“You probably don’t remember, so I’ll tell you.”
“I don’t need you to tell me, I remember. We sat quietly, reading by the fire and drinking cocoa.”
“I loved you a little then for not abandoning me like the rest of them. I’ve never fit in anywhere. Except here. Except as a Woolven. Here, it’s okay for me to be exactly who and what I am. Please don’t take it away.”
“You’re still Woolven. I’m trying to do the right thing here.”
“Well, stop it. Because you’re screwing it up.” She swallowed her tears and what was left of her pride.
She should leave him there in the cemetery clinging to memories of the dead saint and take all that he offered. Take her freedom and make some kind of life for herself. She wouldn’t be anyone’s property, asset, or chattel. She’d go somewhere and buy herself some peace.
Except that wasn’t what Mari wanted.
She wanted what all the other Woolven brides had and she wanted it with Warner Woolven.
Mari looked down at him. At the questions in his eyes and the earnest expression on his scarred face.
Yeah, she wanted him for exactly the reasons he tried to send her away.
“What is the right thing, then? Tell me.”
“Can’t you just try?” she asked.
“What does that mean to you?” He pushed his hand through his hair. “Shit, what am I doing? Fuck. I can’t let you risk yourself.”
She cocked her head to the side. “And when did that ever work for your nephews’ mates?”
“You’re different, Mari. You know that.”
“You mean I’m not strong enough. Not good enough. Just not enough.”
“That’s not what I said and not what I meant.”
To her shame, she couldn’t stop thinking about the answer to his question.
What does that mean to you?
What was her idea of Warner trying? What did it look like?
Damn it, she could see it all as if it played on a drive-in theater screen. He’d take her in his arms right there on the hill underneath leafy arms of the oak tree. He push her down in the soft grass and it wouldn’t matter that Arianna was buried there. He’d let her go and embrace what he had right in front of him.
Literally.
He’d make love to her. He’d fuck her. He’d mark her for real. It would be enough.
Mari would be enough.
Only that was just a fantasy, wasn’t it?
She remembered his broad, scarred hands on her flesh when he’d stolen her out of that limo. When he’d ripped the roof off with his bare hands. His eyes flashing amber with the power of his wolf.
He’d made her so wet.
Yet to her eternal disappointment, he didn’t seem inclined to do anything about it. Just like now.
He’d closed his eyes, breathed deep. She watched as his chest rose and fell with the mechanics of breath.
“You smell good, Maribella.”
Goddess, but she felt like a shit. She wanted nothing more in that moment than to seduce him right here. She’d even shed her human skin and run with him. She wanted to know what it felt like to run through the dark woods by his side. She wanted to know what it was like to be his in every way. She wanted it so much she thought the ache of it would kill her. She’d never wanted anything like she wanted Warner Woolven.
She swallowed hard. “What do I smell like?”
“Like hot, wet female and strawberries and champagne. I bet that’s how you’d taste too.”
His voice had dropped an octave. Lower than any human could go. It made her shiver with desire.
“So why don’t you taste me?” she dared.
“That’s not a good idea.”
“We do lots of things in this pack that aren’t a good idea. It seems to work out,” she taunted.
He didn’t move. He didn’t accept what she offered, but that didn’t stop her.
Maybe it should have.
“Unless you really don’t want me.” Her voice wasn’t small and soft, it wasn’t the utterance of a woman who was unsure about her appeal. It was sex-kitten sultry. It was like she was under some kind of spell.
She leaned in toward him, some polarity pulling her forward, guiding her. His eyes burned with the amber light of his wolf and he narrowed his intensity on the fullness of her lips.
Mari would swear she could feel them swelling under his scrutiny, plumping to welcome his mouth on hers, to entice his body into hers.
Oh yes.
Her desire spiked and his nostrils flared.
Part of her began to understand why it was good to be a wolf.
She could scent his lust too.
It was like caramel and burning leaves. There was a scent underneath it all that was different. Wrong. It smelled like no natural wolf or were. It was different. It was other.
It was darkness.
It was blood.
Instead of frightening her, or even setting off her warning bells, it made her that much hotter. The darkness and blood called to her like nothing had ever before.
Maybe because it was wrapped up in Warner Woolven.
Whatever the case, she couldn’t get enough and her intrinsic need to devour the beast that bore that scent—and be devoured by it in turn—would not be denied.
It was as if every wolfy instinct she’d had and ignored for so long had been magnified on a quantum level.
There was only War.
Only this pulsing need between them.
“You don’t know what you’re doing, Mari.” He worked his jaw as his teeth fought to elongate and he crushed the animal inside of him with an obvious iron fist.
“Maybe I don’t, but my wolf does. I can’t control her, War. And I don’t want to. It’s been so long since I wanted to let her out.”
“Don’t say it’s for me.” His growl was low, lower even than she’d ever heard it before. Even when he was fighting to the death.
“Not for you.” She licked her lips. Their mouths were almost close enough that she could’ve tasted him, had she dared. “Because of you.”
She wanted to touch him everywhere. Trace her tongue down over the brutal mesh of his scars, she wanted to give him another scar. On his throat. She wanted to tear at the flesh there, to mark him as her own.
Mari had never had feelings this intense before.
She’d never felt so connected to her wolf.
She never knew she could.
And she wanted him to do the same to her. To tear into her throat with his long, sharp teeth and brand her as his own.
To really belong to Warner Woolven, body and soul.
The very idea caused a strange spasm between her thighs that she felt all the way to her toes. It wasn’t quite an orgasm, but it wasn’t a stab of desire either. It was like the both the question and the answer at the same time. A yearning, and fulfillment both.
“The way you smell right now,” he confessed, “makes me want to do things to you, Mari. Things you can’t possibly want. You want a kiss in a graveyard and I want to tear open your throat.”
Another of those delicious shudders wracked her body at his words and she tilted her head to the side and tugged the sleeve of her dress down to give him complete and total access.
He slammed her to the ground and his face was buried in the tender crook of her neck, his breath was hot on her skin, but he didn’t bite.
Dear Goddess, why didn’t he bite?
Her breath came in ragged gasps and she put her arms around him and pulled him closer.
His weight pressed her down into the soft grass beneath her back and she could feel the thick bulge of his cock against her thigh.
This mating might kill them both, but she knew it would be worth it.
Every cell in body vibrated with a hollow frequency, that awareness before the strike. And the longing for the sharp pain, and the pulsing sensation that couldn’t be distinguished from pain or pleasure.
He pulled back from her neck and looked down into her eyes.
Holy Hecate, but he was a fearsome beast. His beautiful amber eyes had gone blood-red and they were no less beautiful. Mari could see the shifting skin and bones sliding around beneath the surface of his human façade and it too was horrifically beautiful.
War was still holding back and Mari, secure now in his desire for her, wasn’t going to tolerate his denial any longer.
She arched up and pressed her mouth to his.
When he kissed her back, the whole world changed. It was as if she’d only been seeing the world in faded memories of color and every sensation, every moment, every breath was brought to stark and effervescent life.
Just like the champagne bubbles she’d had to use to induce her Change as a kid.
Warner’s kiss made everything champagne.
Mari knew then this was exactly where she was supposed to be and this would be no half-assed mating.
Warner was her True Mate.
He might not know it, might not be ready for it, but she belonged to him, and he to her.
His hands began to move over her body and she drowned in a haze of sensation and pure, animal lust.
Until he had her writhing and aching beneath him, and then he took it all away. He pulled back from her, no longer touching, tasting, or grinding his hard body against her heat.
She opened heavy-lidded eyes to gaze up at her mate and what she saw didn’t make sense in her brain.
The thing that was above her was not Warner Woolven.
Yet, somehow, it still was.
He was misshapen, wrong. She didn’t have the words to describe his new form. Everything about him was other.
It seemed that even the dirt beneath them screamed in agony at his nearness. His wrongness.
Those red eyes that burned like the fires of hell had focused on her.
Specifically on the pulse in her throat, but for some reason, she wasn’t afraid.
Maybe because beneath all that “other” she knew he was still Warner. Still one of the strongest, noblest wolves to breathe air.
Westwood had said he was a dark champion.
Well, she’d be damned if she’d leave him alone in the dark.
Mari was strong enough to do this. Strong enough to be his mate.
She turned her head to the side, once again exposing the full, creamy expanse of her neck to his elongated jaws with their bear trap of razor tusks.
With a roar, Warner opened his death maw, but his jaws never closed around her throat.
Instead, with a terrible otherworldly howl, he tore off into the woods as if the very hounds of hell were on his heels.
Leaving Mari alone with her lips swollen, her body aching and unfilled, and her heart battered.