Between Two Wolves and a Hard Place (12 page)

It's too much. I start forward, and then stop as Marv turns the gun to point it at my chest. "No closer," he says.

I shake my head as I stare at him. "First you use me to pay all your bills. Then you steal my company and everything I have. Now you point a gun at me?"

"Lower that weapon," growls Drake. "I won't ask again."

"Dean," says Leena. "Please. I love you. You have to see her for what she is. An opportunistic nightmare just waiting to break your heart again."

"Don't listen to her," I say. "Dean." I step up to him, and turn his face toward mine. "You know how I really feel about you."

"Do I?" His voice is quiet. "You're leaving for Charleston."

Leena crows with delight. "See? I knew it!"

Drake takes a step toward Marv, who tightens his finger on the trigger. "I may not be able to hurt you with this, but I can hurt her. Not one more step, Mr. Wolfman."

Drake and Dean both growl at that, a sound so low and menacing that Marv's smile wipes completely off his face.

"Dean," whispers Leena. "I love you. I need you. Come to me."

"Please, Dean," I say. "Please don't listen to her."

He looks to me again. There are gulfs of pain in the depths of his eyes. "And why should I listen to you?"

"Because I -" I stop. This is it. The moment of truth. I have to choose. No more hedging. No more waiting. I need to pick what I want in my life. Love, or my art career?

Dean's eyes are golden and burn with a searing passion. His soul is open to me in that moment, and I can see how much that evening by the river scarred him. How he stopped trusting himself for driving me away. How he blamed himself for ruining everything. And how now, at long last, a little flame of hope has started burning within him again. A flame I've nearly blown right back out.

Marv snorts. "You always were a liar, Kiera." I look back to him. "You said you loved me, and then two days after we break up, you're in bed with two other men. You said you don't want to charge high prices, and as soon as you leave me, you're fighting for the same contract." His voice oozes with contempt. "You're nothing but a lying, manipulative whore."

Click.
I blink. Something just connected in my mind. My argument with Marv comes back to me in a flash. I never wanted to charge high prices, because I wanted my art to be accessible to people like my mom and dad. Because what mattered to me wasn't the money, or the fame, but that my art was real, and that anybody could enjoy it.

Harrowgate could give me that platform, so that the world could see my art - but I don't need that platform to be an artist. I can make my art right here and share it with people like my parents. I might not have the global reach that Harrowgate would give me, but is that what I truly want? No. What I truly want is to create art that touches people's lives, whether that's in Tokyo, London, or here in Honeycomb Falls.

And like that, my decision is made. I smile, and Marv seems to find the expression so disconcerting that he actually takes a step back. "What?"

"Thank you, Marv. For reminding me who I am. For reminding me what's really important to me."

"What?" He's bewildered. "What are you talking about?"

I'm not afraid of him anymore. Instead, I feel pity. His life is ruled by jealousy, fear, and greed. He's a small man. A weak man. I begin to walk toward him. "The opportunity to work as Harrowgate's Artist in Residence blinded me. But you've helped me see again. What matters to me is the moment when I'm creating my art, not what happens after."

"Stop!" His voice cracks. "Stop, or I'll shoot!"

"Harrowgate is an amazing honor, but I don't need honors. I don't need fame. I just need my pipes and furnace and glass."

"I'm warning you!" His gun is moving in crazy circles as he backs toward the door.

"Kiera," hisses Drake. "Stop!"

"Thank you, Marv. You can have the money. You can have the Harrowgate contract. In five years, you'll have lost it all. Because you can't create. You can only take." He twitches, but I know he's too much of a coward to ever pull that trigger. "All I need to do is create. And I can do that right here. With Drake and Dean." I turn to look at them, tears in my eyes, and smile. "I want to stay. I want to stay with you both. Forever."

Marv whimpers and lowers the gun. "For crying out loud," says Leena.

"And you," I say, turning to her. "You're even more pathetic than Marv. You're hollow. You're poisonous. You can only ruin things, and what's worse, you enjoy doing that."

Leena rolls her eyes, as if she's bored by my words.

"You act superior and cruel, but the truth is that you're running. You can't stop. You can't stand to be by yourself, can you? You need to be hurting somebody. You need to be making other people feel pain." I study her perfect face as her eyes go wide. "Why is that? Is it because you can't stand to think of your pain? You must have been horribly hurt when you were younger. What did they do to you, to make you like this? What are you running from?"

"That is
quite
enough," says Leena, her voice brittle. She leans over and snatches the gun from Marv's nerveless hands. "You may be able to browbeat this miserable worm of a man, but not me."

"Leena," says Dean, and he steps up to stand next to me. "Put the gun down."

Leena laughs. "Don't you see? She doesn't understand you, Dean." She raises the gun and points it at me. "She doesn't know the real you. Not like I do. I know what you are, Dean. You're broken. Like me. You're in pain. Like I am. I understand you. I love you. Those dark urges of yours? I welcome them. Your desire to hurt people? I want you to hurt me. We're perfect together. Come with me. You will never be happy with this woman. Not in the way I can make you happy."

I can't breathe. A wild, hopeful light burns in Leena's eyes. Her smile is wide, confident. I glance at Dean, and his face is as inscrutable as stone. My heart squeezes. Is Leena right? Is Dean broken? Has the pain of the past six years really twisted him so?

"I'm sorry, Leena," he says at last. "You're right. I am broken. I am in pain. And I've done things with you that I'll regret for the rest of my life. But Kiera is my chance to step back into the light. Kiera is my chance to start again. And if I'm given that chance at real love, if I'm given that chance at redemption, I'll take it every time."

Leena's smile holds for a moment longer even as tears fill her eyes. "No. You don't mean that. You're mine."

"No, Leena." Dean reaches out and folds his fingers around the barrel of the gun. "I'm not."

"You're mine," says Leena, her voice quavering. "Mine!" There's a terrible
bang
as she pulls the trigger.

I scream, and Dean staggers back. He looks down at the flowering of blood on the front of his shirt, then back up at Leena.

"Oh," she says, and drops the gun. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean -"

Dean growls. He shivers, and then hunches his shoulders. Fur explodes from his skin, and his face elongates into a snout. He rises into the air, growing to seven feet in height, and in a matter of moments the drop-dead gorgeous man has been replaced by the creature of my nightmares.

Leena's eyes go completely wide, and then she and Marv turn and scramble out the door, sprinting down the hall and out into the night.

Dean's growl is terrible to hear. It seems to come from the darkest recesses of my mind. It's completely predatory, and I feel like prey.

He places his hand to his gut, and it comes away bloody. His lips writhe back from his fangs, and I see the bullet hole close over as his supernatural healing kicks in.

It's too much. I feel like I'm eighteen again, in those dark woods, terrified to my core. Dean turns to me, his golden eyes glowing.

I step back, into Drake's arms. "Shhh," he whispers, holding me tight. "It's OK."

Dean steps toward me. He towers over me, massive and lethal. His fur is a brown so dark it's almost black. Long talons extend from his hands. His legs are bent back like those of a wolf. I can smell him, a rich, loamy, wild smell. He's inhuman. A killer.

He's Dean.

My heart racing a million miles an hour, I step forward. It's the hardest thing I've ever done. I leave Drake's arms, and step up to the monster. The creature from whom I've run these past six years. He lowers his great head, and I raise my shaking hand. Run my fingers over his pelt, down the length of his terrible jaw. His eyes almost close, and I realize his growl has changed to a rumble of pleasure.

I let out a breathless laugh, and glance over my shoulder at Drake, who is grinning right back. Dean takes a deep breath, and then shifts back down to his human form. It takes but a few seconds, and then he's standing there before me, naked and virile and sexier than hell.

Dean. The monster from whom I've fled. The man I love. The werewolf I want to spend the rest of my life with.

He steps up to me, comes right in close, and takes my hands in his. My eyes crawl down the length of his perfect body, and I see his tattoo for the first time. It's the Conway River, waterfalling over his shoulder, and pouring across his torso in a torrent. It's stunningly beautiful, done by a real artist.

"Did you mean it?" His voice is soft. I have to wake up. This has to be a dream.

"Yes," I whisper.

"You'll stay?" Drake steps up behind me.

I look up at him. "Yes." Tears are in my eyes. Tears of joy.

"The three of us, together?" Dean's voice is soft with disbelief. "You'll be our mate?"

"Yes," I say again, grinning through my tears. "Yes, yes, yes, yes."

Chapter 15

Dean's gaze is laser intense. "Then we're going to take you now, and mark you as ours."

"Now?" My voice comes out in a squeak.

"Now," says Dean. "We're both going to fuck you at the same time, and claim you so that no other shifter will have any doubt. You'll be our permanent mate, and we'll be yours."

I want to gulp, but I can't swallow. Now? I thought maybe we'd date a little longer, maybe there was some kind of ritual - but no. How much better could I get to know them? I know them better than anybody else in the world. We're going to mate, now, here, and I realize I want it more than anything in the world.

Dean's already naked, and I drink in his body while Drake steps off to the side where a large chest is shoved against the wall. I run my hands down Dean's body. It's sculpted perfection, his abs like cobblestones, his chest muscled and broad. My fingertips follow the contours of his body, and I can't look away. It's my every fantasy come true, and I want to explore and kiss and lick every inch of him.

Drake opens the chest and pulls out a bunch of blankets, which he throws out across the floor. Five or six of them. Dean takes me by the hand, and never breaking eye contact leads me to the center of the studio, where the blankets are.

"I can't believe we're here," I say, almost breathless. I feel light-headed. "The three of us. Together."

"Believe it," says Drake, and he shrugs out of his shirt.

Oh, this just isn't fair. He's stunning, tall and broad-shouldered like some crazy hot lumberjack, his muscles heavy and perfect, his waist tapered and narrow like a dancer's. He's got that insanely hot 'V' cut that disappears under his jeans. I follow the V, and I see that his package is causing the front of his jeans to bulge.

"At the same time?" I whisper. "Both of you?"

Dean's answer is little more than a growl as he runs his hand into my hair and closes it into a fist, bringing my face to his. His aggression betrays his fierce need, and I kiss him with all the desire I've repressed over these many long years. I've stared deep into his eyes while he was in his manwolf form, and now I have nothing left to fear. I want him. I want his complications, his pain, his tortured depths - so that I can heal it all with my love and passion.

Drake's hands move around my jeans, unbutton them, and peel them down. I step out of them, and find myself naturally leaning forward, my lips tracing a path of kisses down Dean's naked body, down his neck, across his chest, down his abs to where his cock strains against the air.

Drake kneels behind me, his hands on my ass checks, which he parts so that I feel the cool air against my slit. I'm already so wet I can't believe it. I feel feverish with desire. Drake licks me from clit to asshole, pushing my legs wide so that I moan as I stare at Dean's cock, one of my hands curling around its thick base above the thatch of wiry pubic hair.

"Damn," whispers Drake. "You taste like fucking heaven."

I grin, and begin to pump Dean's cock slowly. His crown is smooth and large, and I see precum appear on his slit. Unable to resist, I lean down to lick it just as Drake licks me once more, his tongue parting my lips and sending a flare of sheer pleasure shooting through me. Dean tastes salty and delicious, and his tortured groan as he pulls my hair aside sends a thrill through me.

I'm really here, with them both, about to cross a line I'll never be able to return back over. We're going to be mated. I'll be theirs, and they'll be mine - forever. The thought is more than I can bear, too perfect, too impossible, so with a grin, I lean down and take as much of Dean inside my mouth as I can.

His cock fills me, stretching my lips, pushing against the back of my throat as I strive to take all of him. Drake is tormenting me with his tongue, licking and suckling at my lips and clit, stoking my fire, making my knees tremble as he pushes my every button.

I raise my head, pump Dean's cock once, twice, then push back down. He's too large for me to take completely, but I try again, straining to push my lips down to the base of his cock. He's perfect, beautifully shaped, thick and long and I can't wait to feel his head thrust deep within me.

"Damn," whispers Dean, his head thrown back. I can feel his muscles tensing under my hands. "Like that, Kiera. Oh, god, just like that."

I move my head up and down, faster and faster, swirling my tongue around his head and then down the length of his shaft, pumping occasionally to pull his skin tight and make his head swell even more. I cradle his balls in one hand and gently massage them, and it's amazing, sucking on him as Drake pushes me to the edge from behind.