Mac had seized her immediately, dragged her into the wood surrounding her parents’ cottage and claimed her on the forest floor, clasping the chain he’d carried in his pocket for centuries around her waist before he’d done it.
Until the deed was done, Mac didn’t even know her name.
And that was the wolves’ way. Wolves didn’t f**k around.
The male seized the female, claimed her and their lives began.
Although wolves didn’t shy away from talking about sex and mated wolves didn’t balk at unseemly (to other cultures) public displays of affection, Callum was grateful not to know the particulars of his mother’s claiming as he did some of his friends.
What he did know was that was it. Regan was then Mac’s and their lives together started there. Callum wasn’t a romantic and never imagined their relationship was perfect in the centuries they had together. But it was solid, it was strong, it was affectionate and tender and, last, it was loving.
What Callum had with Sonia might not have started like other wolves but with the way he felt the moment her hand drifted toward him last night while he was wolf then stroked his muzzle with drowsy affection. The way he felt when she threw the covers aside and offered to make him warm. The way he felt when she pressed herself to him and fell asleep. The way he felt when her eyes opened that morning and she stared at him with that sleepy look of love. The way he felt when she was connected to him and agreed she was his. The way he felt when the claiming was done and he smelled the beauty that was them. And, lastly, the way he felt through (practically) every moment in between, he knew it had ended that way.
Human or not, what he would have with Sonia was solid, strong, affectionate, tender, loving as well as spirited, fiery and unbelievably sweet. Sonia felt the pull of their connection. He knew it and she herself had declared she was his.
But now Regan was without her mate and, although his mother kept up a bright, cheerful façade, her eyes always betrayed her loss, sometimes her sorrow, sometimes even her confusion as if she didn’t know what to make of a life without Mac in it.
That was to be Callum’s future. There was no way of escaping it.
And this thought didn’t make him anguished.
It enraged him.
So much, he felt the change, again against his will, coming over him, heating his blood and tightening his skin.
Any other time, he’d give into it, become the wolf and run.
But he couldn’t, not in bed beside Sonia, nor could he go outside and roam the city streets.
So he did the only thing he could do.
He fought back the change as he released his conscious human will to his innate wolfish instincts.
And his instincts told him his mate was finally at his side. She was there for him, to take care of him, ease his way, soothe his frustrations and tame the beast within.
His hand slid over her hip, back over her bottom, between her legs and he found her. Without easing into it or waking her, he manipulated her until he heard her breath become heavy in her sleep, her h*ps moving unconsciously against his hand.
And then she woke, already wet, her breath escalating sharply as she realized what Callum was doing but she didn’t begin to fight.
Callum’s sweet Sonia began to moan.
Yes, asleep, awake, Sonia was f**king his.
His other hand pressed under her and between her legs. Taking over, he used the hand that had been working her to yank off her underwear and then it went back to start f**king her with two fingers.
Stroking deep, feeling her growing wetness coat his fingers as they drove again and again into the silk that was Sonia, his heart rate rose as his blood still boiled under his prickling skin and his breath grew thick when he heard her moans turn to pants. She bent a knee deep to offer him better access and she wiggled out of her nightgown as her h*ps started jerking, demanding, slamming down on his fingers.
Christ, she was f**king glorious.
His c**k hard and throbbing, he could wait no longer. He growled into the back of her hair, stopped f**king her with his fingers and flattened his hand against her pubic bone. Using his other hand to shift her hips, he roughly pulled her up with the hand between her legs until she was on her knees and he positioned himself between them.
Then he entered her with a violent, driving thrust, seating himself to the hilt.
He f**king loved it that she could take all of him. Even she-wolves couldn’t take all of him.
And he loved that she was made for him. Loved not only that she understood it but also that it was Sonia who explained it to him.
He loved it that she loved to play, just as much as Callum, and just as rough and hard and hungry.
Like at that very instant, Sonia was on her knees with her sex offered to him shamelessly, her thighs quivering in joyful anticipation and he gave her what she wanted. He pulled back, surged forward and seated himself to the root yet again.
And again.
And again.
And he did it with a ferocity he would only use with a wolf, never a human. Fucking Sonia so hard her moans were sharp and curt, jolted to silence by his thrusts.
She came up on her hands and, when she assumed the position of a wolf, his need quickened, his strokes deepened and she took him, all of his cock, all of his power, feeding the force of his hunger.
He reached his long arm out and grasped her thick hair, using it and his hand at her waist to grind her into him as he drove into her, harder, harder. It hit his consciousness she wasn’t only taking the pounding force of his thrusts, she was rearing her h*ps back to meet him.
He felt her sex quiver around his shaft and her breath start to rasp and he knew it was upon her.
He twisted his fist in her hair.
“Say it,” he demanded.
She reared back into his cock, her rasping breath turning to scratchy cries.
“Sonia, f**king say it.” His own orgasm was coming. He felt it building in his groin and he finally understood the panic she displayed the two times he had her because the force behind his oncoming cl**ax seemed like something that would tear her apart.
Not of his will, his hand twisted again in her hair, forcing her neck to arch as she moaned deep in her throat, his own voice gravelly when he changed his command, “I want to hear you f**king scream it.”
“Wolf,” she whispered, then her sex convulsed around his c**k with her orgasm and she did as he commanded, her words shrieked so loud, it wasn’t a possibility the neighbors heard, it was a certainty, “My wolf!”
At her words, he buried himself inside her silken wetness and exploded with a guttural snarl, feeling an intensity he’d never experienced. It was akin to the change to wolf, it was like exploding out of his skin.