12
Are you sure about this?”
Lobo grinned at Tehya as they stood, completely naked, at the top of a ridge that overlooked the forest that was their home. Their own personal playground.
Sure, they’d begun to consider MoonBound their home as well, especially now that Tehya worked there a few days a week as the clan’s resident dentist and Lobo served on Hunter’s advisory committee. He’d been accepted into the fold—not just accepted, but welcomed. There were a few holdouts, older members who eyed Lobo with distrust; but Hunter was sure that a war with the humans was coming, and someone with Lobo’s abilities could only be an asset.
Hunter was definitely not his father.
But as happy as Lobo was to finally be a real part of a community, he also recognized that at heart he was a loner, content to dedicate the majority of his time to Tehya—and soon, he hoped, their growing family.
“Absolutely,” he replied. “I want our children to share our gifts. That is the only way to ensure it happens.”
She worried her bottom lip between her teeth for a moment. “And you really think skinwalkers will be accepted in the future?”
“Times are changing, Tehya.”
Hell, they were changing faster than he could ever have predicted. The more the clans came together under Hunter’s vision, the less important their differences became. The common enemy was the human race, and vampires could no longer afford to fight over ideology, prejudices, or ancient grievances.
“Okay,” she said breathily, “let’s do it.” She shot him a playful wink, and then she was off and running, shifting gracefully as she went.
Son of a bitch. How did she do that? She had far less practice than he had, but she could shift much more quickly, and she could do it on the run without missing a step. Nicole suspected it had something to do with the fact that less of Tehya’s energy was spent on the transformation because she could shift only into one species, while he could morph into almost any land mammal of somewhat similar size. A brown bear pushed the very top of his limits, while a large coyote was at the bottom. In her dry, scientific way, Nicole had explained the role of checks and balances in nature, but what it boiled down to was that Tehya always got a head start when they went for their runs.
He’d catch her, though, and this time when he did—
He growled in anticipation as he completed his shift. Throwing his head back, he howled through the last of the pain, sending Tehya a message.
I’m coming.
Pulse pounding, he raced after her, ears flat, his claws digging into the soft earth with every bounding leap. He caught glimpses of her silver fur weaving through the vegetation in the distance, moving fast. She was running full-out, making him work for this.
The effort would only make this better.
For a few minutes he lost sight of her, but her scent was a beacon, thick with need. His body responded, heeding the primal call like the animal he was, and from out of nowhere, he found more speed.
She slowed to slip under a massive fallen log instead of leaping it, which proved to be her fatal mistake. He sailed over it, landing just inches behind her. She yelped and bolted, zigzagging through a maze of ferns and spindly saplings, but she’d lost her momentum, and he hit her flank with a shoulder maneuver that spun her off her feet.
Snarling, she wheeled around and bit him in the hip, tearing out a chunk of fur but not breaking the skin. If he’d been able to, he’d have smiled. She was playing rough, and he liked it.
She lunged again, but he rammed her with his chest and knocked her back. Before she could recover, he crowded her, using his superior height and size to force her backward into a mass of brush and fallen logs, cornering her. Now he would have her.
She growled, arguing with every step. Then, in an impressively quick, agile move, she leaped, twisted, and went over the logs.
Clever girl. But she didn’t get far.
He caught her a few yards away, this time bringing her down beneath him. She rolled onto her back and snapped at him, lips peeled back from sharp teeth. Gently but firmly, he closed his jaws around her throat, demanding her surrender.
Heat rose from her, along with her mating scent, and his loins tightened. They posed there like that in a display of dominance he was going to win. She ruled his life and his heart, and he was putty in her soft, slender hands.
But out here in the forest, with a wolf heart beating in his chest and the call of nature pounding through his blood, he was going to claim his mate. He waited for her signal, knowing she wouldn’t drag this out. She wanted this as badly as he did, and moments later he heard the swish of her tail wagging through the twigs and leaves on the forest floor, and she relaxed, submitting.
And yet she still held all the power. The battle had been a test of worthiness for him, not the other way around.
He released her, and she came to her feet, rubbing against him, flirting with him, inviting him. He’d earned the right to take her, and nothing would stop him now. Rearing up, he mounted her, seizing her scruff between his teeth.
They’d mated in the forest before, pretty much daily, but always as vampires, never like this. He was attuned to everything around him, from the whirring of insects to the wind as it rustled through the trees. This was as basic and perfect as life got, and with any luck, they would make a new life today.
Afterward, exhausted, they shifted back, settling against a tree full of squirrels that had gotten an eyeful. Lobo held Tehya against him, her head on his chest as he stroked her hair.
“If you’d made that easier,” he said between panting breaths, “we wouldn’t be so tired.”
She trailed a finger down his abs, leaving pleasant tingles in its wake. “Just for that, I’ll make it harder next time.”
His cock stirred, taking the harder thing to heart. “You’re already thinking about next time?”
“I’m always thinking about next time.”
Sweet Maker, he loved this woman. He loved her even more when her hand closed around his rapidly swelling cock. Her fingers were magic as they slid up and down his shaft, nothing serious, just incredibly arousing foreplay.
When she paused, he damned near whimpered. “Okay, I have a question. Making a baby while in a shifted form guarantees a skinwalker offspring, right? I mean, that’s why we did this.”
“That’s what the elders said.” They’d also said that when a skinwalker died, he—or she—could manifest as a material spirit to haunt those who had wronged him. Being a skinwalker had some serious perks. Perks he wanted to pass on to his young, knowing that their lives would be considerably better than the lives of skinwalkers before them.
“What if only one parent is a skinwalker?”
He pressed his lips into her hair and inhaled the soft jasmine scent of the shampoo she’d gotten from Aylin. “Then they still have a substantially increased chance of having a kid who can shape-shift.” He paused. “But only if the parent who can shift is, ah, in the alternate form when the child is conceived.”
She didn’t dwell on what that meant, thank goodness, because he didn’t want to either.
“Well,” Tehya mused, “what if one person can shift only into, say, a cougar, and the other person can shift only into something like an elk?”
This conversation was becoming less sexy and more wrong by the second. “You had to go there, huh?”
Tehya laughed. “Aren’t we supposed to share everything? Even disturbing thoughts?” She bounded to her feet. “Come on. I want to run some more. And,” she said saucily, “I want you to catch me.”
He let her go this time, giving her a head start. He didn’t shift until he heard her howl, and when he was done, he answered, sending his voice up into the darkening sky. A dozen voices howled in reply, each one distinct. Then Tehya’s call, pure and unique, joined in, calling him to her.
This was life.
And it was perfect.