Howl for Me Read online

  By the time his shirt was off, and he whipped his undershirt off over his head, and his long, brown hair cascaded across his bare, scarred shoulder, I was ready for anything he could have possibly done to me.

  He grabbed my hips and lifted me off the ground, and I wrapped my legs around him – that tantalizing thickness pressed against my sweetest, softest place.

  “You’re quite a catch, Damon,” I said, gasping, as he pushed himself against me. Just about then, my eagerness hit a boiling point. “How do you keep doing this to me?”

  My sex tingled, clenching and releasing as his strokes got harder, longer and more intense against my body. He pressed me against the wall of our house.

  Our house. Just thinking it still got my head reeling.

  The textured wall scratched against the bare skin, between the bottom of my shirt and the top of my jeans. The pressure between my legs had me almost gasping for air, when he finally pinned me there, and damn near ripped my shirt in half getting it off.

  “I keep doing it to you,” He paused to plant another kiss underneath my ear. “Because, you keep doing it to me. You’re all I can think about, all day long, Lily. You and me and… and this.”

  His hands under my shirt made the skin on my back prickle. Seconds later, when the pleasure wrapped around my stomach and crept up my chest, my nipples stiffened inside my bra.

  “Feels so good,” I moaned, as he traced my jaw with the tip of his tongue. “I’m so… so…”

  Damon’s skilled fingers curling against my back interrupted me, reduced my voice to a low groan – a mix of desire and longing, begging, and wishing.

  I had my eyes closed, when he unbuttoned my jeans and slid his down, somehow, not letting me off the wall, not even for a moment. His strength, his heat, pressed against me. He stoked a fire in my core so hot it could have melted iron. Or melted me, as the case may be.

  My whole body was liquid for Damon – every inch of me ready for his love.

  He twitched against me, hot on my thigh, and then the next moment, he shoved my panties aside, and we were one. Moving deep, so achingly deep, Damon made me feel things I had barely realized were possible, until we were together. Since then? I felt them more than any one person should have the right.

  I drew a breath, and held it in. I clenched my fists in his hair, and I scraped up and down the wall, the texturing pleasing and hot and scratchy against my skin. It was the kind of pain that’s just sweet and good enough, that after the first couple passes, it turns to warm, pleasured heat.

  “It’s a really good thing you’re holding me up,” I said, both laughing and moaning, at the same time. “If I had to stand up, I’d be in a giant heap right now.”

  I let my hands slide down Damon’s muscled back, my fingers curling and trembling, as he drove me ever closer to the edge.

  “Scratch me,” he groaned. “Scratch so… So good… Oh my God, Lily – just like that. I love it when you scratch those white hot tracks down me.”

  Digging my short nails into his shoulders, I gripped Damon as hard and as tight as I possibly could, squeezing my legs around him, and urging him as deep as can be. He shuddered, and I felt his heart beating, faster and faster, against my chest.

  A bead of sweat that started on his temple, made its way down his perfect face, and slid along one of the new lines on his chin, before disappearing between our smashed-together bodies. At exactly the same instant, I felt myself start to melt, to disappear into my Damon, just like the sweat, now vanishing between us.

  “I can’t,” I whispered. “I can hardly think… I’m right on the edge. I… I…”

  Unable to speak, anymore, I let my head relax. My hair softly rasped against the wall, the exquisite pleasure between my legs, more than I could handle. Damon didn’t answer, he just breathed deep, faster, harder, until he was sucking air between his clenched teeth.

  One moment we were there, in that room, making love. The very next instant, my soul was pulsing in time with the pounding of my heart. Every twinge of energy, every hot breath from Damon’s lips, pleased me, curled against my prickling skin. I wanted him to rip my bra off, to squeeze my breasts, but there was no time.

  One instant, we were two bodies loving one another, and the next, we were one.

  He threw back his head, howling a fierce, savage howl that made me shudder, as I convulsed around him, my entire body – my entire being – fluttering with sweet release.

  I opened my eyes, as my spirit’s vibrations slowed to a low thrum, and found Damon doing exactly the same thing. With a tantalizing slowness, that almost seemed like we were both teasing each other, we slowly opened our eyes, and shared a gaze.

  “I am safe,” I whispered. “No matter what, no matter where we find ourselves, as long as I have you, I’m safe.”

  I don’t know why I said that. It just seemed right.

  “I am, too,” Damon said softly, lowering my feet to the floor. “You’re all I need, Lily. You keep me strong, keep me from falling down in the dark. I’m… I’m gonna be honest with you, though.”

  I curled my toes into the carpet, anticipating a weakness in the knees that never came.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  Damon ran his hand through his hair, sweeping it backwards, and giving me a full look at the delicate lines that were already healed on him. That reminded me of the mark on my wrist, which was much redder when I looked down at my forearm.

  “The way Poko was going on and on about trials and tribulations.” He paused to take a breath. “Yeah, I guess I’m a little worried about something coming down the line. The way he was talking, it was almost like he knew something was about to happen.”

  I chewed my lip, looking up at him, and wishing I could do something to take away his worries, but knowing there was nothing to be done. This was his life – our life – and this is just what it was going to be. No time to rest.

  “Well,” I said, smiling warmly. “As long as we’ve got each other, right?”

  I wrapped my arms around his thickly-muscled waist and held him tight, the heat from his shirtless chest emanating through me.

  “Right?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I guess Poko also kept saying that, too, huh?”

  Looking away from Damon, I couldn’t stop thinking about the last thing the ancient werewolf said, as we’d left his cave.

  “What do you think he was talking about, with that thing at the end? About us having a great deal to celebrate, I mean. Do you think that was just about the ceremony?”

  Damon shrugged, and gave me half of a smirk.

  “No way to tell with him,” he said, sliding his hands along my back. Up and then down my bare skin they went. He hooked a finger in my bra and tugged it, until I pulled my head away from his chest and looked up at him.

  He bent and kissed me, exploring my lips with his tongue, before he sucked a kiss off my bottom lip, and pulled away.

  “No way to tell what he meant.” Damon smiled. “But, he’s right about one thing.”

  “Yeah?” I asked, grinning. “What is it?”

  “The two of us. We’ve been through more than most people do in a whole lifetime. And I can’t think of a person I’d rather have with me, through all the ups and downs. I don’t have any idea what he was talking about, but it doesn’t even matter. Whatever vague hint he was giving, the only thing that matters to me, is right here.”

  He kissed my forehead and I could have just about died.

  But then again, if I’d died, then there’s no way I could keep doing this – keep being with him. I giggled softly.

  “What is it?” he asked, letting a little space open between us. “What are you getting all giggly for? Did I screw up another old saying?”

  “No,” I said in a low whisper. “No. You’re just so perfect, you’re just so… So you. I was giggling because…” I smiled to myself. “Because without you, I’d laugh a whole lot less. I’d smile a
whole lot less. And without you, I’m almost sure I’d never have left Fort Branch. This little town woulda been my birth and death. But, with you? I get the feeling we’re going to see the world together.”

  Right there, in that one moment, with Damon’s arms draped over my shoulders, and the moonlight streaming through the bay window, I had everything in the entire world – more than I ever dreamed.

  *

  My phone was so loud, that even in the bathroom on the far end of the house, I heard Rod Stewart yelling about Maggie May, in a voice sexier than most any other one on earth.

  Except for Damon’s.

  Damon’s leathery, gruff-and-soft voice could turn me to Jello on a bad day, and if I was already in a good mood when he gave me one of those ‘Come here, Lily,’ lines that he gave me all the time? Just thinking about him gave me a little wriggle of pleasure.

  I took the little plastic stick out of the wrapper and made sure all the parts were in the right place, and that I knew how to use it. My hand had just a little bit of a shake, as I looked at it, and compared the almost ominous baby-blue stick to the picture on the box.

  This wasn’t my first pregnancy test, but it was the first one where I wasn’t absolutely sure what the result was going to be. Between my inheritance, and the mystery packages that Damon’s parents kept sending him, money wasn’t a concern, really, but the idea of becoming a parent was strangely confusing to me.

  I always wanted a couple of cute, little babies, but the reality of it happening hadn’t ever really occurred to me. I mean, there wasn’t anyone I wanted to have them with, until Damon, so I hadn’t even considered the possibility. Sitting there, on the toilet, with the test in my hand, listening to Damon grumble on the phone, I realized that it wasn’t fear I felt.

  It wasn’t even anxiety, or the dull ache of worry.

  It was hope.

  Everything was okay. For the first time in my life, I didn’t have anything to complain about, or worry about, or think was going to fall apart, the next time I turned around.

  My whole life, as crazy as it might be, was stable.

  Thirty seconds or so later, it was over, and I was standing up, pulling up my jeans, and staring wide-eyed at the little blue thing on the countertop, waiting for one line, or two.

  Damon – and whoever it was he was talking to – didn’t sound very happy. He had that not-quite-yelling thing going on, where he was speaking low and slow, but his voice was so deep, I could hear it from all the way at the other end of the house.

  I stared, hard, at the little blue stick, willing it to do something before my head exploded in anticipation.

  One line showed up.

  “What do you mean, now?” Damon shouted from the other end of the house. Damon never shouted.

  The second line popped up.

  It was faint, yeah, and fighting for life, against the white background, but it was there.

  I could hardly breathe.

  I grabbed the test, stumbled over my half-zipped jeans, and managed to pull them the rest of the way on, as I yanked open the door.

  “I don’t care what happens to him,” Damon was saying as I wheeled my way out of the hallway. I was gripping my little, blue friend so tightly my fingers hurt a little. “After what he did, he doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t have a brother. I never did. Not really.”

  Whoever he was talking to said something else, and Damon clenched his jaws.

  “Fine,” he growled. “I’ll go, but not for him. I’m only doing this because you’re telling me to, Poko. Bye.”

  Damon took a deep breath and let his arm fall to his side.

  “Damon,” I said, holding the test out in front of me. “Damon! I’m… I’ve got…”

  “I’m sorry, Lily,” he said, tossing my phone onto the sofa. “I don’t want to do this, but I have to go.”

  Without even looking at me, he moved past, and out the door.

  “Be back soon,” he shouted, from outside. “I hope, anyway.” Then he grumbled another apology.

  The test dangled from my fingers for about four seconds, before it dropped to the floor, with a gentle thump.

  “…I’m pregnant,” I finished, staring at the closed door, as his motorcycle roared to life.

  The tears didn’t wait very long, at all, before they flooded my eyes.

  -3-

  Damon

  It was cold by the time Damon put his foot down on the asphalt and looked at the sky. The stars reminded him of Lily, of her hair and her eyes. There was a hint of lilac on the handkerchief Damon used to wipe his forehead. Two days before, just sitting around the house, she’d borrowed it to tie back her hair.

  He took the cloth from his chest and balled it up in his fist, then inhaled the last of her scent.

  Regret panged in Damon’s chest at leaving Lily, but he knew he had no choice.

  Keeping her safe was the only thing that mattered, and right now, that meant leaving her behind – but only for a while.

  Looking up at the low-hanging Orion above him, Damon rubbed his temples and spat out four hours of road dust that had accumulated since the last time he took off his helmet.

  He knew that he’d only done what he had to do, but even so, he couldn’t get his mind off what she looked like when he’d left in such a hurry. It must’ve been important.

  Damon shook his head, both to clear his exhaustion, and to try and get Lily out of his mind for a few minutes so he could think.

  It didn’t work.

  Lily’s lips had been twitching, and her hands shaking, like she had something to tell him. And she was standing there in the living room, holding something, but even thinking back, Damon couldn’t quite place what she held in her trembling hand.

  A car whizzed by, spraying a fine mist of road rain onto Damon’s leather-covered jeans. Moments later, it vanished over the single hill on the desert road that had led him all the way through Albuquerque. He’d been on the road since before midnight. Dawn was still a half hour or so away, judging by the way the sky was going gray. The chill in the air was still deep, evidently not getting the message that deserts were supposed to be hot.

  “I wish you were behind me,” Damon said to no one, staring at the horizon. “I wish I could have more than just the smell of your shampoo from your ponytail.”

  Taking a deep breath, Damon indulged in remembering what it felt like to have Lily’s arms around his stomach, how she clutched him, held him tight with her arms and her thighs.

  He had to fight his instinct to turn around, and say to hell with the Skarachee, to hell with the Carak and their war… and to hell with his brother, Devin, who tried to kill him once before.

  No one had seen Devin, or even heard of him, since he left Fort Branch.

  But then it all came back in a flood.

  “Your brother is alive, but he’s in danger. The packs are in danger,” Poko had said. “I can’t explain it, not right now, but your brother has found something that was meant to stay asleep. Older even than me, this was never meant to happen.”

  Out here, he felt like he was on the edge of the world, looking off the side.

  The story sounded ridiculous. An ancient being? Some kind of elder wolf older than even Poko? Damon shook his head, ran his tongue along his teeth and spat again. None of it made any sense.

  A tingle crept down Damon’s back, as the strange words Poko spoke during the tattooing filled him. He ran a fingertip along the now-healed lines that accentuated his cheekbones. His skin was hot and burning, but not from the ink, or from a fever.

  “I’ll find you, Devin,” Damon whispered, as he threw his leg back over the seat of his bike and revved the engine. “I don’t know why I feel like I have to save you, but… if that’s what it comes to I’m not going to let you die.”

  He shook his head, throwing his hair back, and replaced his helmet. He took the handkerchief out of his pocket and gripped it in his fist, then wrapped turned the throttle and kicked his motorcycle into rumbling, thu
mping, roaring life.

  Damon was halfway to Texas by the time the day started to warm, and in El Paso before noon. By the time he hit I-20 – the road he’d ride all the way to Shreveport, where he hoped to find his brother – cool air started to settle in over the Texas desert.

  By the time he hit the border between Texas and Louisiana, not far from Shreveport, Damon was worn ragged from the road. Dirty, hungry and exhausted, he wanted nothing more than a shower and a kiss from Lily.

  Then he looked at the moon, and heard a howl.

  “Duty,” Damon said under his breath, as a Sysco truck turned off the highway, and he had to veer around it. “Duty before love. Without the pack, there’s nothing.”

  He said it again to make himself believe it.

  Another howl pierced the night, rattling Damon’s spirit. He felt a stir behind him, like Lily was there, holding on for dear life, as he sped around a curve, and off the main road into a stretch of swamp.

  “I’ll be home soon,” he whispered. “You won’t have to wait long. I promise.”

  Under the heel of Damon’s heavy boot, the ground squished. Water seeped out of the sponge-like moss. He pushed his bike underneath the boughs of a drooping, waterlogged tree, and swatted at a mosquito.

  Slowly, he undressed, carefully rolling his clothes, and sliding them into a burlap sack that he slung across his chest.

  Naked, beautiful, and striking, bathed in the light of the mostly-full moon, Damon tossed his head back and forth. He knelt, and clenched his eyes as the pain of transformation gripped him.

  Every pore on his body screamed as hard, wiry fur pushed out. His fingers twisted and curled, his knees shifted and his hips slid backwards. With a snap of his huge, muscled jaws in the cold, wet swamp air, Damon cast a glance at the moon.

  The same moon Lily would see, if she were looking. Somehow, he felt like she was. Warmth coursed through him when he remembered his mate – remembered the only thing in the entire world that mattered to him more than his pack.

  She shouldn’t, he knew, but what was the point of fighting his emotions?