* * *

After Lo gave me the go ahead, I set off down the beach in the direction of the tunnel. I looked through that hazy fog that sometimes settled on the beach at night trying to see anything, my senses leading the way.

My heart almost gave out when the moonlight shone through the fog for a split second and I saw something up ahead in the distance.

“What the fuck is that about over there?”

The guys stopped next to me and looked through the fog that was rolling back out, and we could now clearly see a man and a woman up ahead.

It was hard to tell from this distance if they were struggling or playing around, but something didn’t feel right. My senses screamed and my lungs filled as I heard the word ‘go’ loud and clear coming from somewhere deep inside.

“What the fuck?” My feet started moving before my brain had time to send the message. My heart beat out of time and there was a strange ringing in my ear. Someone or something was screaming at me to hurry and there were tears in my eyes for the second time that day. What the fuck!

I heard my brothers and our friends behind me as we raced towards the scene but I was well ahead of the pack. It only took one look once I reached them for me to know that something was definitely wrong here, and I went into beast mode.

I kept my eye on the female, or rather the female form, since it was too dark to see the person that well. But I saw enough to size up the situation. That fire in my gut was a full on five-alarm blaze now as I moved in closer.

I literally wanted to break his fucking neck, could feel his flesh and bones beneath my hands; I think I heard the snap. Fuck me, I think my ‘gift’ had gone feral.

In reality I had moved in between them as much as I could and was pushing him back away from her. He refused to release his hold on her, but I could scent his fear.

“Hey asshole, let her go.”

“Stay out of it this has nothing to do with you.” He tried making his voice sound tough but he wasn’t fooling anyone least of all me. He looked around as if expecting someone to come to his rescue, the girl meanwhile never stopped trying to get away from him.

“Fuck that hands off.” My brothers had caught up by now and I had my hand in his chest pushing him back while trying to free the very obviously frightened young girl with the other.

Something, there was something about her, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen her before. My senses had gone into overdrive and my signals were all kinds of fucked up. I had the urge to hold her, this unknown girl, and the need to kill him.

I finally wrestled her away from him and kept my body between them facing her with my back to him, shielding her with my much larger frame. That scent was coming from all around her and though I still had no idea what it was, I understood the affect it had on me.

My vision swirled and I saw the world in color, bright vivid colors. There was a warmth beneath my skin that had nothing to do with the atmosphere. I shook my head to release myself from my thoughts, time to focus.

“What’s going on here sweetheart, you know him?” Still couldn’t see her that clearly but this time it was because her head was hanging as she rubbed her arms where he’d held her too tight I guess. I could see more of her now and a few things registered at once.

She was shaking, half naked and cold; and she was tiny as fuck. Second, although they were well away from the tunnel when we caught up to them, I wasn’t sure they hadn’t come from there. I got a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach; that and rage, the likes of which I’ve never known.

My brothers and I have been staking out this place on the down low for a few months but the fuckers always seemed to be one step ahead of us, which was beyond frustrating.

We’d found the tunnel sure, but we had yet to see anyone using it. I wasn’t sure if this had anything to do with that, but as far as I’m concerned even if this douche was her boyfriend he had no right to be treating her this way. And then she spoke.

“No I don’t know him, he…he...” She retched and I barely jumped out of the way in time to avoid being puked all over.

“Hold him.” I shouted to the others before I turned back to her and gave her the bandana from my back pocket to clean up. I removed my jacket and wrapped it around her shaking shoulders.

“You’re going to be okay now, you’re safe.” My skin felt hot and itchy but I ignored it as I left her side again. “Stay here!”

I approached the asshole who was now surrounded by the others. “Who are you asshole and what were you doing with her?”

“She’s my girlfriend.”

“She doesn’t know you-you lying fuck try again before I call the cops.”

I had no intentions on calling the cops. I was more interested in snapping his fucking neck for putting hands on her. Again, what the fuck? I looked back at her and felt that burn under the skin shit happen again.

“The others.” She started to run back in the opposite direction and I moved to stop her still without touching her. She’d been manhandled enough for the night. Still I had the strongest urge to put hands on her. Instead I concentrated on her words. “What others?” I looked in the direction she’d been headed in and only then saw the silhouettes that had been buried in the fog.

It looked like people were moving quickly away from us, but it’s not that easy to run on sand unless you’ve had training. “We’ve got this, stay with her.”

Mancini, Lyon, Law and Creed turned and headed down the beach moving swiftly and silently. The fool who’d been trying to drag her away was still making noises but I couldn’t hear him any longer. No, my full attention was on her.

The moon had chosen to stop playing peekaboo with the clouds and fog and I could see more of her. The sound of my brothers’ voices as they questioned the skell faded as if they’d walked away but I knew they hadn’t they were still right there. My eyes were planted on her face, her eyes especially, and everything inside me settled for the first time in forever.

I moved towards her as if in a trance, leaving the asshole to my brothers. If I was fanciful I would believe there was something magical going on here, but even with my… whatever the fuck it is that happens to me, I’d never believed in this shit. I felt my knees weaken and my cock go on full throttle; this can’t be real.

It was the family curse, that thing my old man had tried to snuff out of me until the state had taken me away after the last beating when he almost killed me.

I had a million thoughts go through my head as I stood there looking down at her in the moonlight and I felt new wetness gather in the corners of my eyes

Even as I felt it happening, as I felt that knowing like I’d known her my whole life, that feeling that we were meant, it made no sense. I’m a SEAL for fuck sake, I don’t believe in this shit.

Okay the premonition shit I can’t do anything about, that shit just shows up when it wants to, does its thing and moves the fuck on. But this, this was another ballgame altogether.

The legend ran through my head on a reel. It was believed that the men in my family not only had the ‘gift’ of second sight, but they were also cursed or blessed depending on which way you look at it, with the ability to know their mate on sight.

It was her that I’d been scenting, on the wind. Not her perfume if she was wearing any, but her skin, her natural pheromones.

I blocked out everything else, not that I had a choice. I was in the grip of something. That fear and uncertainty that had been riding me was no longer there, but the fire still burned; for a different reason this time.

Still I didn’t believe, didn’t want to believe. For a man like me who’d restructured his life, who’d trained himself to be a warrior, this was some fairytale bullshit. But I couldn’t seem to stop myself from moving in. Up close and personal.

Knowing that she must still be scared out her fucking mind, I reached out my hand slowly, as you would when facing a cornered animal that had been taken down. As soon as my hand touched her electricity ran up my arm. “Fuck!” I jerked away in surprise and stared down at her.

She finally lifted her head and I saw her face more clearly for the first time. Sheer beauty stared back at me and something in me went in and out of time. I lifted my hand to her cheek and rubbed my thumb gently back and forth across her soft flesh. “Mine.” The fuck?

It felt as if I was walking through Jell-O, nothing felt real. It was only when I dropped my hand from her face that the world came back into focus. This all happened in a matter of a few short seconds and when my head cleared a little the other’s voices came back loud and clear.

Logan had the asshole in a headlock, pulling him back while I could hear the others making their way back. But I was more interested in what had just happened here. What the fuck was that?

I think I pushed her away from me, I can’t be sure, but the next thing I knew she was stumbling and I caught her against me. That was all it took.

I picked her up in my arms and started heading for home at a dead run. I could hear as if from a distance Connor and Cord calling after me but I knew I couldn’t stop. It was Logan who told them to stand down, he understood. I knew he did when I heard his muttered ‘its about time’ on the wind.

As usual, Lo knows the story only too well as he’s in the habit of dragging shit out of us. Even things we try to keep hidden from ourselves. He’s the only one who knows about this part of my ‘gift’, because the shit’s too embarrassing to share with the others.

I ran away from them and back the way we came, carrying her lightweight like it was nothing. She didn’t even question me, just clung to me with her face buried in my neck.

There was no longer any fear in her. Somehow I knew I would’ve felt it, sensed it. It was as if she knew too. I wasn’t sure if she was supposed to. It’s been a while since I’d heard the old legend, and much longer since I’d stopped believing in it.

I didn’t take the time to explain my strange behavior, what would I say? Hey, I know we just met but I’m pretty sure you’re my life mate? She’d probably laugh in my face.

It didn’t matter anyway; I was no longer in control, whatever was inside me had taken over. Something had me in its grip, hard.

Everything in me, all my raw senses, were focused on one thing, her, getting inside her. Swear to fuck it was almost a compulsion. Having her this close wasn’t helping as the protector in me warred with the animal that wanted to take her down on the nearest flat surface and mount her.

In the back of my mind I heard rational me asking this out of control beast what the fuck he thought he was doing. All of society’s bullshit etiquette went out the fucking window in a heartbeat.

Whatever I’d learned about being a gentleman when it came to the opposite sex was dashed to pieces and all that was left was the most primal urge to fuck.

My dick was hard as fuck and I kept running as fast as I could until we were a good distance away from the others, holding her safely and protectively in my arms.

I was having some sort of out of body experience. Never before in my life had I endured such a rush of emotions, as though everything I was, everything I’d ever been, came down to this moment in time.

I didn’t even make it back to the compound. A feeling of such intense lust hit me that I stumbled and almost fell to my knees. I looked around with my senses open until I found a hidden spot well into the dark.

I pulled at her clothes as she stood in front of me wordlessly, not making a sound. Some rational part of my being was telling me that this was wrong, that she’d just been through something horrible, but the thing that now dwelt in me wasn’t about to stop.

I took her down to the sand and covered her body with mine. My pants weren’t even half way off before I was feeing between her thighs with my fingers. Need pounded away in my chest and my cock was harder than I’ve ever felt it before.

There was something riding me hard, something that overshadowed my judgment and pushed me forward even when somewhere in my head I asked myself what the fuck.

There was a strange ringing in my ear and her scent was everywhere now until I couldn’t breathe without breathing her in.

If she’d cried out, fought me, I would’ve pulled back, at least I hope so. But she didn’t struggle, instead she looked up at me with those bright eyes as if she understood when I didn’t. I knew I was in a the grip of something that was bigger than I, something I’d long dismissed as a fable. But this was no fairytale.

I felt like I needed to get inside her in the next second or die. That’s how desperate she made me feel. Once my cock was free I slammed into her and caught her scream in my mouth.

I’ve never been that careless with a woman before, but now that I was inside her the madness seemed to be fading away, just a little. The beast was still crouched inside, teeth bared but he’d stopped growling.

I pulled back just a little with my hand around her throat holding her in place, almost as if I expected her to fight me. I got my whole cock in her tight little pussy and she opened her legs and accepted me. Now I could breathe again, now I felt whole.

I heard the beast inside me settle down a little once the heat of her pussy wrapped around my throbbing cock. But now there was a new madness beating away inside me.

‘Mate’ I heard the word like an ancient whisper on the wind and that’s just what the fuck I did.

As the fog started to clear from my head I felt her nails in my back and the cool night wind on my skin. She moved with me, our bodies seeming to know each other, perfectly in sync.

I pushed my cock into her tight sweetness over and over and she took me. My thrusts grew wild and I wasn’t sure I wasn’t hurting her. But I couldn’t stop, I had no control left. Something else was at the helm and it wanted in deeper.

I pulled out and put her on her hands and knees before me, and slammed my cock back into her hard, going deep with one stroke. She cocked her ass and pushed back against me as she cried out.

I placed a hand over her mouth as I pulled her back on my cock with the other on her flat stomach and rode her like a rutting bull, while something chased me. Some deep dark mystery that had awakened inside me.

I wasn’t fucking, and I damn sure wasn’t making love, no, this truly was a mating, and she was my only mate. I knew it down to my soul. It was her all along. It was my mate who’d been calling out to me because she was in danger. I’d felt her before I even knew her. I knew it as sure as I knew my own name.

My cock grew longer, harder with my thoughts as I fucked into her warm supple body. I sank my teeth into the flesh of her neck and marked her as the hardest orgasm of my life slammed into me with such force a veil fell over my eyes.

Our bodies locked together. Her pussy tightened and clenched as if milking the seed from my cock as it emptied into her. I turned her head roughly and gave her my tongue so that the roar that had built in my chest wouldn’t escape into the night.

My cock refused to go down but I was worried the sand might scratch her knees so I pulled out once again and put her on her back before slipping back into her wet heat.

I ran my hand over her body, hefting the weight of her breast while the other hand held her nape as if holding her in place for me.

I caressed her body, pushing her top and bra up over her breasts so I could feed on them as my still hard cock moved inside her. I didn’t even know if she’d cum, so I set about seeing that she did.

I fucked her slower this time now that the beast had been fulfilled, and felt her pussy quiver and her legs shake as she coated my cock with her pussy cream while I had her tongue in my mouth.

“That’s my girl.” I kissed her lips and she accepted me without question, and the last of the madness evaporated like the fog. The kiss was almost as wild as the mating and I wondered fleetingly if it was always going to be like this between us. I’d be dead in a week and so would she.

Her eyes stared into mine when I finally lifted my head to look down at her. “Welcome home baby.” I rubbed her cheek with my thumb as she smiled and stretched with me still inside her and swear to fuck I was ready to take her again.

But then I heard the others coming back and reality hit me like a brick upside the head. What the fuck Quinn?