Healing the Wolf (BBW Paranormal Romance) (Luna Junction) Read online

  Such as small piece of a werewolf, and yet so vital. I kissed Talon’s arm. It was time to finish mourning what was. It was time to move on.

  Talon growled lightly in his sleep, rolling restlessly. I didn’t have much time.

  I climbed on the bed and bent to Talon’s body. His large manhood responded instantly to my touch. He was rigid inside my mouth and as I ran my tongue along his length a low moan sounded in his throat. I played with the sensitive tip, wanting him fully engorged. It didn’t take much.

  Talon moaned again and I heard the sound of his muscles pulling against the rope. As his mind recognized he was tied to the bedpost he woke sharply. “Sheree!”

  I responded by sucking him deeply into my mouth. The end of his shaft pushed into my throat and I moved my head deliberately up and down to stimulate him.

  Talon swore in a ragged breath but his body disobeyed. His hips bucked beneath me, urgently seeking the rhythm his swollen organ craved. When I was sure he was nearly to the precipice I abruptly released him, rising to a straddle.

  His eyes burned in the darkness and he jerked as if to shove me away but I was already guiding him inside my moist center. Talon threw his head back and cursed again as I buried him deeply.

  My body welcomed his massive hardness, opening like a flower. I rode him fiercely and was quickly consumed by the first shuddering orgasm. I said his name over and over as the waves of bliss washed over me, raising me to impossible heights and then breaking free in spasms of ecstasy.

  And still I rode him with wild euphoria.

  He shook as he reached his breaking point and there seemed to be more of his hot seed than ever before. I squeezed him between my legs, coaxing that last bit of pleasure out and then released him from my body.

  Talon breathed heavily in the aftermath. His eyes, which had been closed, opened, peering at me angrily. His left hand was still tied to the bed post.

  I knelt beside him on the bed and stroked his face. “Talon,” I said firmly, touching his rough cheek, “All the grief and despair you’ve been consumed with…it has to come out, baby. So take it out. On me.”

  It happened so quickly my mind couldn’t register it all. My clumsy rope job had never really secured him. Talon was far too strong for that. With a mighty snap of his wrist he jerked free, tackling me with a roar. We fell to the floor together. I yelped with pain as my shoulder crashed into the hard wood.

  I tried to rise but Talon wouldn’t allow it. His weight was suffocating and he was already hard again. I had demanded no mercy and so Talon would give me none.

  He flipped me onto my belly with such abruptness it took my breath away. As my breasts were crushed into the cold floor, I was still struggling to get my bearings. Talon’s left arm snaked beneath me and yanked my hips up. I gritted my teeth as he plunged in with all of his strength.

  Talon said filthy things as he pounded into me. He was out of his mind and for the first time I began to feel a vague sense of fear. But no, this was what I had asked of him. I raised myself determinately up on my elbows and arched my back, pushing against his assault.

  When I thought he must be nearing the end he withdrew suddenly. I fell back to the floor but a second later felt the pain of his hand pulling me up by the hair. His enormous stiff organ was in my face and Talon forced himself inside my mouth. I sucked him greedily, tasting our mixed essence.

  After a moment Talon pulled my head away roughly and threw me back onto the bed. As I tried to scuttle backwards, he wedged his elbows between my knees and opened my legs, pushing himself into me again.

  His chest rolled over my breasts and with his one hand he reached up and kneaded them harshly, twisting and crushing. Wanting to match him hurt for hurt, I sunk my teeth into his shoulder, deep enough to draw blood. He grunted in surprise but the sting seemed to urge him on even more frantically.

  I came with a ragged scream, my knees pushed into my chest, my nails digging into the muscles of his back. He stiffened as the pulse of his seed filled me again. And then he fell onto my breasts, breathing heavily.

  Tentatively I stroked the top of his head, damp with the exertion of these chaotic moments. I feared he would shake me off but he stayed there for a long time under my gentle touch.

  “Talon,” I whispered.

  He rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling. “The drink sends them away.”

  I propped myself on one elbow. “Who?”

  Talon passed a hand tiredly over his face. “The wolves.”

  The wolves. The brutal pack of bitten wolves who had murdered his brother. Who had robbed Talon Ivanov of his pride when they severed his hand. He had never spoken of the attack. All I knew I had heard from Tess. How they had found him, already broken and bleeding, in the clearing deep in the woods. How Javier had stood in front of his wounded body when the bitten wolf attacked. The vicious creature was finally felled by an arrow to the heart by Gideon Casteel’s mate, the huntress Artemis.

  Of the events before that, pieces had leaked out from the other patrol members. The ones who lived. Hunters and wolves alike comprised the Luna Junction patrol. That night, the night when Sheriff Michael Casteel had been killed, the patrol entered the woods to clear out the treacherous bitten pack which had been skulking for months, killing intermittently and sinking fear into hearts everywhere.

  It was an ambush. As several packs joined and descended on the patrol things quickly grew chaotic. Hunters loaded their deadly silver-tipped arrows and fired at the enemy wolves. It wasn’t enough. Anton Ivanov was taken down by three of them. The Landon alpha, Cade, was wounded. And as for Talon, he managed to separate several of the bitten and chase them away, through the woods and into a bloody confrontation.

  Talon spoke with quiet dread, lost in that terrible night. “I killed two of them outright. Just as I finished the second one off the third lunged and sank his jaws around my right paw. I could have beaten him were it not for the other wolf.”

  I waited, not daring to interrupt, not even daring to touch him.

  Talon coughed painfully. “He was a blood wolf, not a bitten. And a big bastard, but he was in human form. He came right out of nowhere, as if I had been led to him. He smiled at me, Sheree.” Talon closed his eyes. “I never want to see that look on another face. He also held a giant machete in one hand. ‘Join us,’ he said. The other wolf still had my paw in between his jaws. As an answer I sunk my teeth into his back. And the waiting blood wolf, he lowered the machete with one clean stroke.” Talon held his right arm up, examining the blunt end. “Must have been a prayer to the moon that got me out of there. I could hear his laughter as I ran. And Sheree, that was the last time I ran.” He lowered his arm. “The next thing I remember was Tess. And…and Javier.”

  Talon clenched his remaining hand into a fist. His tone grew icy. “I don’t even recall the moment when I found out about Anton. There’s nothing useful left in me, Sheree, no good. I know you try. But it only ever seems to make it worse. All I feel, most of the time, is mind-numbing rage.” His eyes narrowed. “If that doesn’t frighten you, then it should.”

  “No!” I shouted, springing to my feet. My carefully purchased lingerie had torn hopelessly in our physical tussle and I ripped the last shreds of it away. I grabbed his hand, laying it across my naked breasts. “Don’t hold it in. Show me.”

  Talon blinked but his jaw was set. Whatever had briefly broken through his spell was gone and he was retreating again. I pushed his hand between my legs, forcing his fingers inside me. Still he didn’t move. So I began beating on his chest with all of my strength, pounding his hard muscles, slapping his face.

  “SHOW ME YOU MOTHERFUCKER!”

  Talon snarled and leapt from the bed, crashing into me, pushing my body against the wall so roughly my head bounced against the wood, causing me to see stars from the impact. His hand was still between my legs. He was hard but he wouldn’t take me. His fingers invaded me so cruelly it hurt. I opened myself wider, welcoming it. The pain, the vague humil
iation of his rough exploration.

  When he turned me around to face the wall, his hot breath was on my neck. His hand entered me again and lifted me up harshly. I bit my lip. It would take more than that for me to cry out.

  “Is this what you wanted?” he growled.

  I gritted my teeth. “Yes!”

  Talon pushed me onto the bed and bent me in half. His fingers were inside me in one place. And then, with a shock of agony, his mighty male shaft entered me in another. He bored down and drove into me like an anvil hammering a spike. I clutched at the thin quilt which covered the bed. Tears formed in the corners of my eyes as I tried to bear it. And then, with a sob, I couldn’t.

  “Stop!” I yelled, not at all sure that he would. Or could.

  But he withdrew all at once and collapsed against me with a noise I had never, not in ten years, ever heard from him. Talon Ivanov, my mate, the fiercest werewolf I had ever met, sobbed with grief and hurt.

  I turned and held his head against me, pillowing his rugged face against my breasts. He breathed deeply a few times and then, with almost excruciating tenderness, kissed me.

  “Sheree,” he whispered and I touched his lips with my tongue.

  Talon’s arms circled me and we sank onto the bed, our mouths glued together. We had never kissed so long, or with so much gentleness. The hard currency of passion had always interfered. I could feel the ache of his want and I wanted him too but we stayed in that same pose for a long time.

  Gradually, a question in his eyes, he pulled back and spread my legs. I nodded, reaching for him. It was gentle this time. So achingly sweet that tears, not of pain but of tender joy, came to my eyes and fell from my cheeks. Talon moved inside of me slowly, carefully. With his only thumb he rubbed my tears away.

  “Don’t leave me,” he said softly.

  I shook my head. “Never.”

  “You’re mine,” he said and began to move more urgently.

  I clutched at him willing him to pump faster. “Yes.”

  “Always.” Another thrust.

  “Yes.”

  Deeper he plunged. “Say it again.”

  “I’m yours. I belong to you.”

  “Mine,” he said, thrusting deeper. “Mine.”

  I was building slowly this time, a gradual rise to the incomparable ecstasy I had found with my mate thousands of times over. He waited, pushing deliberately, bending his head and softly kissing my breasts, which still felt bruised from his rough treatment. The nipples hardened, begging for his attention. He willingly gave it.

  The shudder began slowly, from somewhere far too deep for me to ever reach myself. Only Talon’s immense extension could plunge so completely into that secret place and bring me screaming to conclusion. And, when was certain I had finished, he joined me.

  “Talon,” I whispered, cradling his head as he caught his breath.

  He was startled when I pushed his body away, but I had a reason. Taking the thin covers from our mating bed, I spread them on the floor in the front room. The wind still howled against the cabin as if it held the rage of a thousand blood wolves. Ice crusted around the panes of the small square windows.

  I lay back on the clumsy pallet I had created and pulled him to me. “Keep me warm,” I said.

  Talon stroked me with his hand, letting his fingers play along the spongy flesh of my stomach, scarred and distended from the years of childbearing. His thumb found the place where his seed still dripped from me and he carefully touched that battered opening.

  “You are warm,” he said, and bend between my legs, kissing the insides of my thighs. When his tongue reached inside of me I gasped but he was insistent, holding me down and exploring that tender place.

  After the fullness of another orgasm, I drifted off to sleep. My mate’s body covered mine and with all his weight settled on top of me, I drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter 7

  The voices didn’t make sense. I had been in the fog of agony for so many hours it was all I knew. My body was tiring and the tiny creature inside of me fought to be freed.

  I recognized the growling. It was my mate. Someone had angered him.

  “I have the right to overrule you here.”

  The other voice was female. I struggled to understand it. “Don’t you lecture me, boy. I’ve birthed seven times.”

  I struggled to open my eyes. Talon towered over his mother, Kate. It was rare that he contradicted the head of the Ivanov family but with his face a mask of rage and his fists clenched he seemed ready to violently battle her right there at the foot of our bed.

  She shrugged. “The child will come eventually. She’s had three others, after all.”

  My sister, Amy, loomed over me, white faced. She sponged my forehead. I didn’t need to be told something was wrong. Her face was a mask of fear.

  Kate was unmovable. “That medicine has no place here.”

  Talon’s voice was deadly. “And can you live with being wrong?”

  Another spasm of agony rent my body but I scarcely had the strength to even whimper any longer. As my mate bent over me, I thought there had never been a more terrifying sight than the hideous dread in his face.

  The knock was loud and precise. Talon ran to the door.

  “What did you do?” Kate shouted.

  He yelled over his shoulder. “I already called him. And I don’t want to hear another fucking word.”

  I heard murmurings of a strange voice. I vaguely recognized the doctor, having seen him in passing on the rare occasions we visited the office in Flagstaff. The one in which the pair of werewolf doctors practiced.

  He was handsome and dark-haired with eyes which were almost intimidatingly sharp. As he bent to examine me, Anton entered the room and firmly escorted a blustering Kate away.

  “Sheree,” the doctor said crisply. “Your child faces the wrong way. He is too far into the birth canal for me to turn him. And I do not have the tools here to safely remove him. The only way is to push him out.”

  Push him out. The words kept ringing in my head. It seemed impossible. I had labored so long and was so very tired. I sank back onto the bed, wanting only to close my eyes again.

  “Sheree,” the doctor held my chin firmly, “you need to do this now. Otherwise both you and your baby will die.”

  I felt myself being picked up from behind. Talon had lifted me and settled resolutely at my back. His arms came around from either side, each tightly seizing each of my legs at the thigh and pulling them backwards. He breathed heavily in my ear.

  “Push,” he ordered.

  I leaned into him, trying to conjure what little strength I had left.

  “PUSH!”

  He tightened his hold on my legs, pulling me wider as another contraction seized me.

  “I can’t,” I whimpered.

  Talon’s grip tightened. His voice was low but lethal. “Sheree Ivanov, you are the mother of wolves. Now PUSH!”

  His hold was solid as rock as the doctor reached between my legs and with a scream which threatened to dissolve me, I forced the baby outside of my womb.

  The doctor worked intently and a few seconds later I heard the plaintive cry of a new life.

  “Talon,” I moaned, leaning back into his broad chest.

  “Shhh,” he whispered, rocking me. “It’s another son. He’s okay.”

  I opened my eyes and saw the tiny baby had already been wrapped neatly. But I was so exhausted I couldn’t raise my arms to take him.

  Amy glanced at Talon with a question in her eyes and then took the warm bundle from the doctor.

  The doctor looked at me kindly and patted my arm before retreating into the front room.

  Talon held me to his chest as I fell into a deep and blissful sleep. Dimly, before the black hold of oblivion took me for many hours, I felt my mate’s hand gently stroking my hair.

  ***

  I knew the first wisps of light were peeking over the horizon even before I saw their soft glow. The storm had finished its fury and retre
ated in front of the sun. The floor of the cabin would have been uncomfortably cold were it not for the warm cover of Talon’s body.

  My mate’s arms curled around me protectively as he slept. As I looked carefully I noted the easy peace in his resting face. His sleep in recent months had become so fitful he needed a hearty dose of the bottle to vanquish its demons. I hoped those terrible nights were over. My fingertips lightly touched his brow and after a moment small smile played on his lips.

  Ours had never been a storybook romance. Perhaps there was no such thing. Maybe those lives and loves I’d envied were as imperfect as anything I had with my mate. We were not alike, Talon and I, and most of our days were fraught with trouble and misunderstanding in one form or another.

  But I’d spent a lot of time recently lost in the reveries of the past. The bliss and the furies, the weariness and the lust. There were so many way in which we were bound. Our connection wasn’t just physical. Talon was my heart.

  “What are you doing?” He was staring at me.

  “Tracing your heart.” I kissed his chest, at first with light little pecks and then, as I ran my hands down his hard muscles, I kissed him more insistently.

  Talon only watched me as I straddled him. He was ready, of course. He was always ready.

  I pumped as furiously as I could, reveling on wave after wave of pleasure as he stayed rigid inside of me. He fondled my heavy breasts with his one hand. After he had groaned his way to satisfaction, I carefully took his arm, the one which had nothing at the end, and placed it over my left breast so he could feel how he made my blood pound. We stared into one another’s eyes and I didn’t believe that in our ten years together we had ever seen one another quite so clearly as we did in that moment.

  He touched my face. His voice was gruff. “I never said I loved you.”

  “No,” I admitted. “You never did.”

  His only hand gripped me at the base of the neck. His strong right arm which ended in a void, circled me nonetheless and he spoke with intensity. “I do, Sheree. Always have.”