“You called the San Francisco First and told him about our Omega?”  Cooper growled, turning hostile eyes toward the angry girl, but she was too intent on glaring at Georgie to heed the warning in that voice.  “And who the fuck said anything about her being from San Francisco?”

That made Stacia stop glaring at Georgie long enough to show confusion.  It also meant that she finally got a good look at her First’s very unhappy face.  Her belligerent look faded into fear and confusion before the spoiled girl came back in all her teenage glory.  “No one had to tell me.  Everyone knows that’s where the conclave was held this year.”

“So, you assumed since it was one of the places I visited that it was where Georgiana is from?”  The growl behind his words rose in volume, and then clear disgust came back into his voice.  “Never mind that I toured my own territory as well while I was gone.”

“Are you telling me she is not from my territory?”  Raoul interrupted to ask in surprise.

“I am telling you that taking the word of a rambling jealous child to start a war is a good way to get your people killed over nothing.  Not what I would expect from another First.”  His hard eyes took in all his people and then the First before him.  “I am telling everyone who cares to question it that it would not matter whose territory she was found in.  Georgiana is mine.  Accept it, or petition to join another pack.  I don’t give a fuck.”

Raoul turned to Georgie and finally addressed her directly.

About fucking time, Georgie thought.

“Do you have anything to say about this?”  She could not tell what he was thinking as he was nearly as good at the cold face as Cooper.  “From what I was told you were brought here and kept against your will.  If you want to go home I will make that happen.”  He looked from her to Cooper again.  “No matter your status, or lack, even primes are not above the law.”

It was a good question and the statement behind it was clear.  Even if he added that last part about her lack of status.  He might be an ass, but he would take on Cooper if she asked.  That was something.

Georgie licked her lips and raised her chin thinking of everything that had been said and about the people of the pack she had come to know. She blew out a breath and made her choice.  It was really a no brainer when she got right down to it.

“I am home.” She said with finality.  Then went on ignoring the jerk of Coopers muscles beneath her arm.  “I’m not sure what game Stacia is playing. I think wanting the First for herself has affected her teeny tiny brain, but I certainly don’t need to be rescued.”

There was a long stretched out silence while Raoul studied her, and then flicked his eyes for an equal amount of time to Cooper. 

She felt Coopers eyes on her and she tucked her arm though his and felt the tension drain from him as if a balloon had popped.  None of that showed but she could feel it.  Though it was more than obvious to anyone who looked at him that the wolf at least had retreated in favor of the man.

Finally, Raoul spoke.  To Cooper. “I see. I was misinformed.  Forgive me for intruding on your territory Cooper.  I will see you at the next conclave.”

Stacia started to shriek but was abruptly silenced and Georgie turned to see a very unhappy looking Justin had picked her up and was hauling her away.  She still sounded crazy, but no one was paying her any mind, least of all the First from San Francisco.

As soon as the fancy SUVs had left through the main gate, and the gates clanged shut behind them everyone started talking.  Cooper started barking orders and Georgie took her chance to slip away in the hubbub.  She waited until she was inside the tree line to call for one of the wolves for an escort back to Coopers house.  After the whirlwind of emotions she had gone through the last few hours she really needed some alone time to digest.  And to make sure she was doing the right thing for her, before Cooper showed up and befuddled her again.

***

When Cooper finally showed a few hours later she was sitting at the kitchen table with a sandwich in front of her and a book at her elbow.

She felt his eyes on her first and she felt her nerves stretching to the breaking point as she refused to look up.  With feigned nonchalance she said without looking at him, “You know he didn’t really believe I wasn’t from his territory.”

“It was a way of saving face,” he answered mildly enough.  “He did not want a war with me.”

“You mean over a half breed latent Omega?” she asked with obvious disgust.  “Yeah, I got that.”  She finally looked up and had to catch her breath at the naked emotions on his face.  That was not all that was naked.  Cooper stood before her without a stitch of clothing covering up that hard, ripped body.  The man was beautiful, hard and big, everywhere.  She had almost convinced herself that the time she had seen him before was her imagination.  No man could look that good.  For once the truth was even better than her imagination.

 A punch to her gut, he looked at her without any hint of his usual ice shield and she realized just how much that mild voice had been lying.

She opened her mouth to try to get the breath back into her lungs, but he was already in motion.  With the speed of his kind he had the solid oak table swept clean and her laying under him across it before she could form the words to slow him down.  If the thought had even occurred to her.

She had spent the last few hours thinking, so at the feel of his long hard muscled body pressing into all her soft curves Georgie figured thinking had been done, all she wanted to do was feel.  She had wasted every moment since she had met the man trying to not be overwhelmed by the call of his touch and scent.  Now, she decided she was going to wallow in all of it.

Neither of them felt the need to speak as the flare of heat between them went white hot.  His lips took hers in a savage claiming that she reveled in even as she fought to touch every inch of his skin she could reach.

When she tried to take control by slipping her hand down to his thick shaft he reared up and growled, biting her shoulder over his claiming mark in warning before he trapped her hands beside her ears and used his mouth to quiet her protests.  His tongue slipped between her lips and she groaned at the sheer beauty of his taste.

“Mine,” he growled.

At that one word, pleasure and need threw Georgie’s head back and arched her back.  She gasped and groaned as he pressed that hard shaft against the core of her.  She wrapped her legs around his hips and tried to pull him inside her despite the clothing she still wore.

“Say it,” he growled again digging his hips down into her and making her moan again.  He nipped her bottom lip when she did not respond as fast as he would like.  “Mine.”

Georgie reared her head up and thrashed her hips trying to get closer, tightening the legs she had locked around his hips but to no avail.  Other than an involuntary thrust that he controlled almost immediately he held her still.  His eyes burned into hers as he held her down and demanded her complete surrender.  His message was clear even to her over-heated wits.  Her eyes sparked with anger as she met the determination and possession in his.  She would like to think she could say something at this point that challenged him or caused him to lose control being the strong independent woman that she was, but… fuck it.  Thinking that deep was beyond her now, as it seemed to be every time he touched her from the first moment they met.  So, she gave him the truth instead.  “I’m yours.”

He reared back and shredded the clothes from her body until she lay naked beneath him.  He was inside her before she could draw a full breath and the feel of his hard, hot length filling her was almost too much.  He tried to take her in one thrust, but as wet and ready for him as she was, his size and her tightness made him work for every inch. 

He didn’t give her time to adjust to his size or anything else, and she could see in the hard planes of his face and the fire in his eyes that his wolf was more in control than the man at that moment.  He looked wild and untamed, like a conqueror claiming his mate. 

Looking into those wild eyes as he claimed her threw her over some invisible edge so that the discomfort melted away and all she wanted, no needed was more.  She pulled him tighter, canting her hips so that he could take more, take all, and he did.  Pistoning in and out of her, he gave no quarter and accepted nothing from her but complete surrender.

“Mine,’ he said again the vicious growl in his voice making it almost impossible to understand the word. 

Then he bit her, and she screamed as her pleasure rolled over her in waves.  She felt the heat of his seed fill her deep inside as he howled his own release, and the mate bond snapped fully into place.

***

Sometime later he had managed to carry her up the stairs and had taken her again, fast in the shower, and then slow and easy in his big bed.  Now they lay quiet, Georgie laying naked over him with her head on his chest and her feet tangled with his much longer ones.  Already she could feel the heat building back up between them.  But for the moment she could ignore it and wallow in the feel of her mate.  Truthfully, they were both too tired to act on it, anyway.

And she was distracted by the feel of the pack bond that had formed following her mating.  Beyond Cooper she could feel threads connecting her to others in the clan, spread out down the mountain.  Her pack, her family. She closed her eyes and sighed at the feeling of completeness she had never known she was missing.

“Did you mean what you said?” he asked, breaking the quiet with that growl back in his voice, as if the wolf was asking as much as the man.

“About staying?” she raised her head from his chest and sucked in a breath, realizing the sight of him had once again robbed her of the ability to breathe.  Damn it, the man was too…everything.

  “Yes,” she said licking her dry lips and going for casual.  The look in his eyes was making that difficult.  “Turns out I like it here.”

He growled at that and kissed her hard before he allowed her to drop her head back down on his chest.  Only then did Georgie allow the smile on her lips to show.

“It wouldn’t have mattered,” he finally said low, his arms wrapping her up tighter against him in the dark.  “I wouldn’t have let you go.”

Georgie rolled her eyes at his arrogant and autocratic response.  But snuggled closer just the same.  She waited until she could feel his breath even out in sleep before she whispered her answer to the dark room.  “Good.”