LOGINFinn'She's here.'That's the first thing I’m aware of. Before the light, before the pain, before I've even worked out that I still have a body, my wolf informs me calmly that Tori’s here.'She's mostly whole and she's breathing. Don't move your left side.'I move my whole body and holy fucking shit it hurts.'I did warn you.'It feels like somebody left a hot coal under my collarbone and stitched me shut over it. That fucker obviously shot me with a silver bullet and it seems to have done a little meandering inside me.I can feel the path it took. A line of fire burns straight through to my back, and every breath gets about halfway in before the coal tells me that's far enough.My left arm's strapped across my chest. There's a needle taped into my right one, and whatever's entering my bloodstream through that needle is making my thoughts shimmery around the edges while doing absolutely nothing about the burning.I smell antiseptic and old hay, so this is Doc Merrin's garage. Under th
NoahHe hooks my leg up over his hip and does as he's told, pushing in slow enough that I have time to relish every bit of it.The blunt head of his cock penetrating me, the delectable stretch, the long thick slide as he keeps going deeper. There's no burn, I'm too wet and too ready for that. There's just him, more and more of him, and a fullness I can feel all the way up in my stomach.Then he's as deep as he can get, and we're breathing each other's air.Emotion surges through me, leaving me breathless and dizzy. I never want to lose this again. The ability to feel undone by the enormity of my love for Dax Holt."Tell me if your arm hurts," he whispers."My arm's the last thing on my mind.""It's the first thing on mine. Well. Third.""What's first?""How tight and perfect you are. Second is your face right now.""If you want it to stay that way you should stop talking and move.""Still giving orders.""Always."He moves his hips, making me gasp as he rocks into me, deep and easy. H
NoahThe strike bites into my throbbing flesh and finally breaks me.The pain's the same bright, flat burn as all the others, but this one knocks the padlock off the steel chest that’s been hiding my feelings and they come pouring out. As if Pandora’s box had been opened.My stomach roils, like I'm about to throw up, and a sob bursts out of me, so big it hurts my chest and tears at my throat. Then another one. I try to stop the third and I can't, and that's when I understand I'm not in control of my emotions anymore.They were all in there the whole time. Hiding. Now they’re boiling up, everything at once, and it's so much worse than I expected, but I'd still rather have this than the nothing.I hear the paddle hit the floor. The mattress dips, and then Dax is all around me. Even now he lifts my cut arm out of the way first. Then he turns me over, gathers me into his lap with the quilt around both of us, and pulls me against his broad chest."I'm here," he says into my hair. "Let it c
DaxMy whole body says no before my ears even relay the message to my brain.We're facing each other in the now half-empty bathtub. I promised him I’d do whatever he wanted not twenty minutes ago, and he's gone and chosen the one thing in this house I’m not comfortable giving him right now.That paddle has hardly been out of its drawer since I bought it.We're not hugely into impact play. Noah loves toys with batteries and settings. The paddle was me wanting to see my name turn pink, and him being game.It was fun, and I’d gladly do it again some other time, but I’m worried he’s choosing this because he wants to be punished.There are people who genuinely get off on pain, and I love that for them, but it’s not who we are. I also don’t think it’s what he needs. I want to comfort and hold him. Pour my love into him until he stops being lost. Spanking him tonight feels contradictory."Baby, no. Pick literally anything else. Please. Or I'll take you to bed right now and fuck you through t
DaxWe're barely inside when Noah shoves me back against the front door, which shuts it for us, and goes for my belt.His left hand still won't close properly, so he does it one-handed, and he does it in a pair of my boots that are three sizes too big for him, which means the whole attack comes with a clomping sound. His mouth is hot on my throat. He's hard, and he's riding my thigh to prove how much he wants me.But in my heart, where he lives, there's still that terrifying blankness. I can't even feel the want his body's being so loud about. He's just flat and quiet, the same as he was the whole drive home from Merrin's.The house is dark. No Mato on the couch, no Cody turning red to the ears. For once we can be as loud as we like without starting out trying to be quiet, and I'd give anything for that to feel like good news.I recognize this. I did it to him on this same spot not long ago, on a night when I didn't want to be alone with my thoughts, and he didn't let me get away with
Noah"Property of Dax Holt," my sister says into Dax's shirt.Her voice is a croak, her lip's split, one eye's swollen shut, and she still manages to sound disgusted."In capitals, Noah. I hung over that for ten minutes. I had one working eye and it had to keep seeing that.""It's a good font," Dax says. “Very sure of itself.”"I need both of you to never speak to me about it again."Something in my chest loosens a little. If she's feeling good enough to be horrible to me, she'll be alright.Then the blood starts flowing back into her hands. She goes white, curls over them and says a string of words I definitely never taught her.I blame Finn."Pins and needles?" Dax asks."Knives and fucking chainsaws.""That's good. It means they're waking up." He turns toward the door. "The truck's warm. Let me get you settled first, then I'm coming back for your idiot brother.""My knife and my gun are in that blue truck," she tells him on the way out. "I'm not leaving without them.""I’ll get the
NoahThree miles from where you should be standing.The asshole could have at least given me a direction.Fortunately, I’ve learned to trust my instincts.Hunters don’t have any inherent magic, but our senses are more developed than those of ordinary humans.So here I am.Three miles out from the N
DaxThe wolf wants to turn around.He's wanted to turn around since I cleared the fence, and he isn't being quiet about it, because quiet isn't a thing he owns.He just keeps shoving the same word into the back of my skull like a toddler with a doorbell.Ours.Ours, ours, ours."He's a hunter," I t
NoahThree weeks I've been hunting this wolf, and tonight, finally, he does me the courtesy of holding still long enough to kill.Big of him.He's at the tree line where Northgate's fence gives up and the real woods start, and he's shirtless.Obviously. He almost always is.Cold's got nothing to sa
DaxThe thing's in pieces at our feet and my body's still waiting for round two.I never come down off a kill clean. My blood's still up, ears still straining, every muscle still voting to hit something else.I don’t think it’s a werewolf thing. It’s an adrenaline thing.So when the wolf decides to







