Chapter Twenty-Four
Marius waited by his truck while Hayley argued with her brothers. The rear parking lot was lit only by the faint neon lights coming from the restaurant’s windows, and a misty rain had started to fall, making everything darker still. Colder. He wanted Hayley by his side—she smelled like desperation and anger, and he wanted to help her. He wanted to make everything better, and it killed him that he couldn’t.
Will seemed determined to continue with the challenge. Marius was impressed with the guy. His face revealed almost no emotion while Hayley gesticulated and called him names and finally stood before him, shaking with rage. Jackson stood somewhere in the middle, between them. Typical middle sibling—he presented Will’s points to Hayley, and Hayley’s points to Will, as if in restating them, he might help them reach an understanding.
It wasn’t going to happen. Not tonight. Hayley’s world was threatened, and with this challenge, the Spokane Pride had come after the only thing more important to her than the territory—her family.
How did he know this? Because he knew Hayley.
He ignored the mist coating his skin and clothes and settled himself against the side of his truck.
Will raised his voice, slightly. “I thought you didn’t have an alpha. I’m stepping up.”
“Does that mean you’re gonna live here?” Hayley asked.
Will didn’t answer.
She threw her hands up. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
Marius watched as Will seemed to stand up, taller. The favor he had been giving his left leg looked unnecessary as he towered over Hayley.
“I’m the alpha,” Will said, and his voice held that power, that weight. “I’m in charge. I’ve accepted this challenge. Now go home.”
Will turned around and walked to a black Ford Raptor. His limp was noticeable once again, and Marius understood why Hayley didn’t want Will to take the challenge. The guy looked pretty fucking capable, honestly, but any old injury would be considered a weakness, and a smart enemy would figure out how to use it to their advantage.
Will climbed into the truck. As if sensing Marius’s thoughts, Will made eye contact and flipped Marius off. “Fuck you,” he mouthed.
It wasn’t Marius’s fault, but tensions were high, tempers on edge. Marius wasn’t in the Dark Pines Pride…yet. But he hoped to be, someday, and that no-nonsense giant was going to be his alpha. So instead of growling or roaring, he lifted his middle finger and used it to salute Will like he would a captain.
Marius’s night vision was great, but it was drizzling, so he couldn’t be sure…but he thought, just maybe, a ghost of a smile played on Will’s face as he drove out of the parking lot.
“Did you just flip off my brother?” Hayley asked, trotting over to him.
“Might have.”
“Good.”
Past her shoulder, he could see Jackson climbing into his SUV.
“I’m on orders to go home,” Hayley said. “My alpha said so.”
Marius opened the door for her. “I’m sorry it played out like that.”
“It’s what the Lockmans had in mind all along. Doesn’t matter if I met you two years ago or two days ago, they’ll say we aren’t bonded.”
He came around and climbed in behind the wheel. The drive was just half an hour, and when he reached Huntwood, he didn’t take the turn for Hayley’s road.
“Where are we going?” she asked. “I’m supposed to go home.”
“I’m taking you to your real home,” he said.
A few minutes later, they were parked in front of a ruined house. Marius climbed out of the truck. “Let’s go to the lake,” he said, stripping out of his shirt and pulling down his pants.
Hayley’s red-rimmed eyes brightened somewhat. “As our animals?”
“Hell yeah. We need to burn off some energy.”
Marius watched in appreciation as Hayley stripped. Goosebumps covered her skin, but otherwise she was unaffected by the chilly night air and the misty rain.
They put their clothes in the truck. Hayley dropped to all-fours and shifted into her mountain lion—a beautiful, tawny beast with wicked fangs and kind blue eyes.
Marius shifted into his bear, reveling in the magic that allowed him to grow seven feet tall and weigh over five hundred pounds. Being a shifter hadn’t always been easy, especially when he’d been young and his dad had brought him to the Clausens. There were some definite benefits, though. Marius was strong.
As he stood on all fours, Hayley nudged him with her golden-brown head, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder. He turned his head to the side to nudge her back, but she was already quickly walking in the direction of the lake. She twitched her long tail once and turned to stare at him.
Then she was gone, springing over fallen trees and dodging trunks and brush. Marius followed her. He was fast, but he didn’t have her speed, and he let out a gentle roar of irritation.
Suddenly, he stopped. He couldn’t hear Hayley running anymore, and she was nowhere in sight.
He could smell her, though. Red licorice and fur and—up. Just as he looked up to the trees, she pounced, landing on his back and twisting off of him. He batted at her, but she was already out of reach.
And the chase began again.
She led him deeper into the forest until they reached a clearing. Hayley stopped next to a giant cedar and stretched, reaching up with her deadly paws. After a moment, she fell to all fours and shifted to her human form. She stood again. “This is where I’m gonna build my house,” she said.
Marius shifted into his human form, as well. The giant tree must have reached upward of thirty-five feet. Deep green moss grew along the lower part of the trunk, and the limbs were draped in dark green sprays of flattened leaves. A sense of peace filled the area. “It’s a great spot. That’s a gorgeous tree. Cedar?”
“Alaska yellow cedar. I’ve been in love with this tree since I was a little girl.”
He looked from the tree and down to his dick. “I can’t compete with that,” he said.
“You’re close enough.” She laughed, softly. “Marius, I don’t know what to do. We’re about to lose everything. Even if I don’t lose Will, we could lose all of this. We just got it back.”
“I know.” He came forward and took her into his arms. “I wish there was something I could do. Can we find another enforcer? Someone to call that Gregorio guy’s decision into question?”
“From what I know of enforcers, they don’t allow that sort of thing. It defeats the purpose, they say, because if they’re called around to dispute other enforcers’ decisions, nothing would get decided.” She sagged against him.
He hated that she was hurting, but it made him feel proud to be able to support her. She was delicate, yet strong. Her skin was cool to his touch, and he widened his stance, pulling her closer against him.
“I’m not cold,” she said, but she snuggled closer, anyway.
Her golden-brown hair was curling in the damp, and he pressed a kiss to the spirals. He would do anything for this woman.
He felt her move against him, her lips pressing against his chest, trailing kisses across it. She reached between them and put her hand over his cock. Immediately, it began to engorge.
“Hayley,” he whispered.
“Take me out of this,” she said. “Take me out of my mind, just for a few minutes. I can’t think about this anymore.”
“Okay,” he said. “Okay.”
He tilted her head up and kissed her. Immediately, her tongue twined with his. All of her desperation, all of her love, all of her passion could be felt in this kiss, and he strove to share his own intensity in turn.
The rain barely reached them here, beneath this giant tree. Marius’s cock was hard in Hayley’s hand as she stroked him. He walked them back to the tree, pressing her against the bark but bearing its roughness with his arms.
“Marius,” she whispered. “Now.”
He let go of her with one hand to dip a finger into her wetness. “Is the tree hurting you?” he asked.
She shook her head wildly. “No. I want more. I want more feelings, more sensation. I want more of you.”
He stroked his finger within her, feeling how tightly she clamped over it, and using his thumb to spread the wetness over her clit.
She moaned and hooked her leg around his waist, trying to pull him closer. “Marius, please,” she whined.
He smiled into her neck, pressing kisses below her ear, and pulled his hand away. Before she had a chance to take a breath, he’d replaced his finger with his cock.
“Yes,” she hissed through her teeth.
“You’re mine,” he said, thrusting in as far as he could go. “Aren’t you?”
“Ye-yes,” she said.
“And you’ll always be mine?”
“Always.”
The pleasure was growing. He didn’t know how long he could last. “And when I mark you, when I claim you…you’re going to be okay with that?”
She knotted her hands in the short hair at the back of his head and pulled him away from her neck. Her eyes blazed in the dim moonlight filtering through the trees. “Do it,” she said.
He pumped into her wildly, feeling out of control. This was the moment. Their moment.
“I want—your mark—too,” he said. He bent his head to her shoulder where it met her neck and sank his teeth in. The sharp tang of her blood filled his senses. So sweet, so Hayley. He felt her orgasm take her, her legs tightening and her pussy clenching, and she leaned forward and bit his shoulder, just over the collar bone. The slickness of her wet heat around his dick and her skin beneath his hands, the scent of her blood and arousal in the air, the pain of her mark—it all came together and filled him until he fragmented around her. He whispered her name as he filled her with his pleasure.
“Marius,” she said, brushing away some of the blood on his chest. “I bit you too hard.”
“Not a chance.” He glanced down at the mark and felt a warm sense of pride washing over him. They belonged to each other now. “Mine’s already healing. How is yours?”
She lifted her hair to the side. “I can’t see it. It feels fine, though.”
The punctures in her skin were knitting together. He’d marked her. She was his, he was hers. Forever.
“We should go back to my apartment,” Hayley said.
Something sounded false in her voice. “Are you okay?” he asked. “Was that really what you wanted?”
She smiled at him, her blue eyes softening. “Yes. I wanted it more than anything.”
That, at least, sounded true. No tension there. He held out his hand. “Let’s get home and snuggle up in your bed together.”
“Your bed, too,” she said.
He couldn’t keep the surprise from his voice. “So we’re moving in together?”
“If…if you want to,” she said, suddenly sounding shy.
“Dream come true,” he said, winking.
They drove back to her place, chatting about where to live. The house Hayley would build on her family’s property, eventually. But until then, they had fun decisions to make on whether to crowd into her studio or move to Marius’s circa-1970s one-bedroom rental, or find something else together.
“Can we stop for some food?” Hayley asked. “I’m famished.”
“Sure. I worked up your appetite, didn’t I?”
“Smug bastard-pants,” she said with a laugh. “But yes, you did.”
He drove up Main Street and pulled into the diner’s parking lot. He got out of the truck and came to get Hayley’s door, but she cranked her window down.
“Sorry,” she said, “but, um, would you mind going in alone? I don’t think I should be seen like this.”
He checked her out—her hair was a snarl of golden-brown wilderness. She looked exactly like she’d just been thoroughly fucked in the woods. “Is that…is that a chunk of bark in your hair?” he asked, reaching for a particularly clumpy tangle.
“Probably,” she said, laughing.
“Okay, what do you want?”
She gave him her order, and he jogged into the diner. When he came out, a giant white bag full of greasy food in his hand, he saw that she was on her phone. Probably one of her brothers. He climbed into the truck and put the bag between them.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“As good as it can be.” She sighed. “Will’s such a twatnugget.”
They drove back to her place. He wanted to talk more about the conflict with the Spokane Pride, and Will’s challenge on Sunday, but Hayley seemed determined to keep their conversation on living accommodations and other light-hearted topics.
Something about that bothered Marius, but he wasn’t sure why.