Dark and Deadly: Eight Bad Boys of Paranormal Romance (118 page)

Was it always like this, she wondered?
Was that me long ago, always quiet, afraid to make noise lest my sire would roar with rage?

Ryder nuzzled her neck, rubbing his nose along her pulse point, putting his scent on her as an obvious public claim. He held up his open palms.

“Everyone. Kara has returned home to us.”

And then they recognized her, and the anticipation in their expressions wrenched her heart. Excited murmurs swept the room as they began to smile.

He gestured to the floor lamps. “I’ve told you, it’s not necessary to save on electricity anymore. Turn the lamps on.”

Several bounded up to obey. Others jumped to their feet and approached, hesitant, yet hopeful.

“See? They’ve waited, hoping, as much as I have,” Ryder said softly. Releasing her hand, he stepped back. “They want you back, Kara.”

One by one, they embraced her, and the terrible scent of fear evaporated. And then a young Lupine pushed his way through the crowd. The others parted to make room.

“Kara!”

She turned at the eager, young voice and her heart turned over. Jason. The youngest pack member, he’d been only 5 when she’d left.

Thin and lanky, he wrapped his arms around her and squeezed tight. Kara hugged him back, emotion a thick lump in her throat.

“I’m so happy you came back to us! We need you.”

I’m not staying.

The words died in her throat at their expectant expressions. How could she let them down again?

A knot formed in her stomach. Gently she disentangled herself. “I’m here, for a little while.”

“But we need you, Kara.” Jason’s dark gaze grew troubled. “Ryder needs you, too. Everyone remembers how good you were to us.” Murmurs of assent rose in the room.

The pack didn’t hate her after all. Kara gazed at the children. Gods, she’d missed this, missed the closeness of pack and being surrounded by young, and their exuberant hope and joy. Aiden’s pack was mostly male, with only one mated couple who remained childless.

“You’re growing fast, Jason,” she murmured. “Getting older.”

His face fell. “Today’s my birthday, but I’m not supposed to say that. Today’s the official mourning day.”

Glancing around at the solemn expressions, she didn’t understand.
And remembered
. Her parents had formally mated this day, and Alastair declared it a day of mourning after her mother’s death. No one was permitted any celebrations.

For every hellish act Alastair had done to her, the pack had also suffered.

It’s not only you who bore scars from his wrath.

Their scars are equally deep, only hidden.

She turned to Ryder, whose expression remained carefully blank.

“You’re continuing to follow this tradition?” she asked him.

“It was meant to honor your mother. I’ll leave it up to you if the tradition should continue,” Ryder said softly. “What is your wish, Kara?”

The pack turned toward her expectantly, and the faint, damnable hope on their expressions made her fingers curl into fists. Anger burned through her, along with hard resolve. These past two years, she’d focused solely on the damage her father had done to her shattered spirit.

Kara now realized she’d been selfish, thinking herself the only victim. She hunkered down and clasped Jason’s arms. “Today we’re celebrating your birthday. You’re 7, right?”

Doubts filled the boy’s eyes. She straightened and looked at Jason's mother. “Go into town. I want the biggest birthday celebration this pack has ever seen. I want ice cream, cake, you name it.”

Kara beckoned to David and Marcus. “Both of you go with her, help her out. And get presents. Maybe even a piñata. Is the restaurant that served those awesome chicken wings still open?”

Seeing several nods, she decided. “I’ll call and order platters, they should be ready for you to pick up when you’re done shopping.”

Something flickered in David’s eyes that could have been approval. For a moment they seemed to shift from dark brown to vibrant blue.

“Money, it’s a little tight right now,” Marcus began.

“There’s twenty $100 bills my father always kept as emergency cash behind my mother’s photo on his desk downstairs. Use that.”

“I’m really going to have a party?” Wonder filled the boy’s eyes.

Kara struggled with the thick knot clogging her throat as she hugged Jason. “The best damn party this pack has ever seen. I think it's about time for a celebration. Long past time.”

Glancing up, she met Ryder's gaze and saw tenderness shining there, mingling with a raw, fierce heat.

He was right, and she was home.

***

Never one to sit idle, she joined the others in decorating the basement, then sped upstairs for a quick shower. When she returned to join the party, Kara smiled with delight.

Blue and yellow streamers hung from the ceiling, tangling with dozens of colorful balloons. A cake the size of a truck tire saying “Happy Birthday Jason!” sat on a table near the bar, along with enormous platters of chicken wings, hamburgers and other food. Several pack members crowded around the bar, drinking beer or wine. Lupines sat at tables scattered around the room or curled up on the sofas and armchairs. Children shrieked with laughter as Jason hit a blue donkey piñata.

This is how it was supposed to be, she thought. Not sadness and strictness and fear.

Sitting at a dining table, munching on a chicken wing, Ryder talked with Jason’s parents. Their expressions brightened upon seeing her and Alyssa, Jason’s mother, moved over to make room on the bench.

“Thank you for everything.” Alyssa squeezed Kara’s hand and Jason’s father piled a plate with food and set it before her.

Kara ate, listening to the light banter between the mated couple, but keeping her gaze centered on Ryder. Stubble shadowed his jawline and his blue eyes sparkled with life. He was so damn sexy, even when he drank beer. Watching his mouth close around the bottle’s lip, she shivered with awareness. An ache pulsed in her sex as she imagined his perfect, wet mouth on her intimate flesh. Kara clenched her thighs together.

When Jason’s parents finished eating, they excused themselves and joined a game of darts.

She was left alone with Ryder.

He thumbed his lip, slowly. Ryder squeezed his beer bottle, rolling it in his hands.

“You always play with your beverages?” she teased.

“I’d rather be playing with you,” he countered, his gaze flicking to her breasts.

When she finished the chicken on her plate, he got up and fetched her more. “Eat,” he prodded. “I want my female well-fed.”

“Too much food and I'll be rounder than I already am.”

“I like you well-rounded.” His heat gaze swept appreciatively over her body.

Desire tightened her nipples, turning them hard as pearls. She shivered.

“Cold?” Ryder asked.

“A bit.”

David noticed and loped over, unzipping his sweatshirt and shrugging out of it. He handed it to her with a flourish, but before she could thank him, Ryder snatched it with a scowl.

“Keep it.” A low growl rumbled deep in his throat.

Slinging the garment over one shoulder, David winked at her. “He was just being polite,” she told Ryder, who watched his lieutenant walk away.

“I don’t want you covered in any other males’ clothing but mine.”

Her eyes widened as Ryder unbuttoned his checked flannel shirt and tugged it off, placing it around her shoulders. The gesture screamed ownership and claiming. His chest was smooth with muscle and the sight made her boneless with sudden desire. Breathing in his rich, deep scent of pine and masculinity, she felt warm and safe and cherished.

“I like you in my shirt.” He rubbed his lip again.

“I like you out of your shirt.” Oh yeah, maybe a little too much. As in wanting to lick him all over, run her tongue across his small brown nipples, taste each valley and crest of his abdominal muscles and then maybe tug down the waistband of his jeans and put her mouth there…

Kara put her hands to her burning face.

“Guess you’re not cold anymore.” He gestured to her face. “You’re all flushed.”

She removed his shirt and handed it back to him. “I think you need this more than I do.”

Grinning, he slipped it back on. They sat watching the festivities. Ryder nodded at a younger couple heading for the stairs, followed by another set a few minutes later.

“Ah, methinks there will be another few additions to the pack in about nine months,” Ryder murmured. “About time, too. We haven’t had any births in more than five years.”

“There wasn’t much occasion for celebrating when Alastair was alpha. Doesn’t make for a relaxed atmosphere. And my sire never remembered birthdays.”

Not even mine.

“Did Aiden remember?”

She smiled sadly. “He’s a wonderful brother, but things were too hectic with trying to start his pack.”

He frowned. “When was the last time someone celebrated your birthday?

“Two years ago, when a certain arrogant and bold male brought a chocolate cupcake with a candle to my room and told me to make a wish.”

Ryder gazed at her intently. “Chocolate with blue frosting. Your favorite. Did your wish come true?”

Sadness arrowed through her as Jason successfully split the piñata with the baseball bat. Candy splattered over the floor.

“No. Aiden and I fled before it happened.” Kara faced him, her heart squeezing tight. “I wished I could have a lover who’d cherish me as much as my father had cherished my mother.”

Silence draped between them as he studied her face.

“I wished for you, Ryder.”

“Wishes can come true. Especially birthday wishes, if you want it badly enough,” he said softly.

Someone switched on the stereo in the corner to a thumping dance tune. Couples began gyrating and swaying to the melody. Ryder stood and held out a hand. “Dance with me, Kara.”

She went into his arms.

Kara leaned into his embrace, resting her cheek on his broad shoulder. Contentment filled her for the first time in years. Murmurs rippled through the air. Glancing up, she saw everyone had stopped to look at them. Many were smiling and some of the older Lupines nodded in approval.

They wanted this match. She sensed it.

Ryder buried his face into the curve of her neck.

“I want you in my bed, now. Your scent is driving me mad,” he whispered. “I’ve dreamed of it, tried to forget it. Every night I spent dreaming of lavender and vanilla. Going outside and searching the fields, the garden, desperate to see your face one more time, hold you in my arms. And then I wake up, my arms empty, my dreams shattered. I’m afraid to open my eyes in case this is a dream.”

Halting, she framed his face with her hands. “I’m not a dream. I’m very real.”

Ryder’s nostrils flared. The warmth of her touch burned through his shirt. He kissed her hand, and then trailed his fingers down the softness of her unmarred right cheek, across to her slender neck where a pulse beat hard and fast beneath his thumb. He stroked the big vein.

“This is where I’ll bite you and put my mark on you.”

Kara trembled harder. “Will it hurt?”

“They say it stings, but then has an unimaginable pleasure.” He blew a hot breath against her skin. “It’s an intimacy only mated couples share, intoxicating both male and female into consummating their bond.”

“And if they do not…”

Tunneling his fingers through the heavy fall of her ebony hair, he tugged her head backward, gazing down at her.

“I don’t believe there’s been a case of Lupines who didn’t consummate the bond. I imagine it would be quite unpleasant. But it’s not an experience I intend to have.”

He kissed her, relishing how sweet she tasted, and how she opened for him on a sigh. Kara’s lips were plump and ripe as cherries and the flavor bursting onto his tongue tangling with her rich, female scent shot straight through to his groin.

Ryder slid a hand up her back, holding her tight against him, never wanting to release her.

That awareness of connection surged again. He felt awake and free, and wanted to laugh with the joy of it. Two grim years spent without Kara, and with her in his arms once more, he felt alive.

Her lips were lush, plump and wet as he ravished her mouth. Ryder kept kissing her, feeling her light push away the darkness consuming him since her departure.

Sensuality was in their nature, the craving to touch and connect, but for a long time he’d only felt the touch of Alastair’s lash. The memory of Kara’s kiss had eased that sting.

Ryder surrendered to carnal bliss as he licked and tasted in a kiss meant not only to claim, but to awaken.

Kara responded sweetly, her body curling into his, her scent wending around his body in ribbons of erotic spice. He grew drunk and dizzy from her taste. This was the mating bond.

Breaking the kiss, he gazed down into her smoky eyes, aware of their ragged breaths and pounding hearts. Sex with Kara would not be fleeting pleasure.

It promised total consumption, dry wood set aflame.

And tonight, he intended to burn both of them. Ryder tugged her hand. “Come Kara,” he said softly. “Upstairs. It’s time.”

He wanted her and she wanted him equally.

With a hand at the small of her back, Ryder escorted her upstairs to the third floor. At the end of the hallway he opened a door, revealing a room with a bed big enough to sleep eight Lupines.

“My only indulgence,” he said, leaning against the doorframe and hooking a thumb into his jeans pocket. “I redecorated the alpha’s room, and bought a new bed. Purged all the bad memories.”

“I’m glad.”

There were many more to purge as well. Kara closed her eyes, breathing in his scent, trembling with need as he tugged her inside. Ryder closed the door and caressed her cheek with a thumb.

“Open your eyes, sweeting. I want you to undress me,” he told her.

She unbuttoned his shirt, tugged it off with an impatient yank and threw it to the floor. Ryder looked amused as she stared at his naked chest. Kara reached up to flatten her palm against his smooth skin, and drew it away.

“You can touch me,” he said softly. “It’s okay now. No one will punish you.”