Opal (Rare Gems Series Book 4) (22 page)

“
You’re going to love them. I told them all about you.” That made her groan. “I’ve already made arrangements with your family. They’re packing as we speak.”

“
Oh, you didn’t.” He said that he had indeed. “Do they—your parents—know that we’re all wolves? That we…that we require daylight and meat?” She was grasping at straws and they both knew it.

“
They are making arrangements now for you all.” She sat down, then stood again. “We leave in the morning.”

She turned slowly to look at him. In the morning. Glancing at the clock
, she saw that it was just after seven in the evening. She was supposed to be ready to go in the morning.

“
Were you going to tell me at all?” He shrugged and laid down on the bed. She liked him there most of the time, but for now, she wanted to murder him. “I’m not going to have time for you if I have to pack.”

“
Come here, Opal. I need to taste you.” Her body always responded to him when he spoke to her in that low, sexy voice of his. “Strip down for me. Take off everything and let me watch you play.”

“
Play?” He pulled her vibrator from under his pillow and turned it on. “I’m not in the mood.”

“
You are. Very much so.” He sat up and told her to come to him. He only ran the tip of the vibrating thing over her belly, but she moaned. “See? I knew that you needed this. Let me watch you while you bring yourself to peak.”

“
I don’t want to.” But she was pulling her blouse over her head even as he sat on the edge of the bed to watch her. He touched her bare skin everywhere she exposed. And by the time she was down to just her panties, she was close to coming with or without the thing in his hand, and she didn’t care who knew it.

He handed her the purple dildo and leaned back. She could see how hard he was
, and it made her want to make him come just like he was. When she ran the tip over her hard nipple, Opal moaned loudly and then slid it down to her pussy. She knew he was watching her, and when he sat up and pulled his cock free of his pants, she watched him slide his hand up and down while she pressed the cock onto her clit.

The climax was hard
; it took her breath away with the speed in which she came. When he dropped to his knees in front of her, she started to hand it to him but he told her no.

“
I’m going to drink the juices that run from you. Lick that pretty clit while you play with it. It’s so hard now that it is begging for me to nibble on it.” She moaned again as he spread her nether lips open. Touching the cock to her clit again had her screaming out his name as she came again. When Sloan suckled her, she cried out again when she released.

“
Fuck me.” He turned her to the bed and laid her over it. She spread her legs wide for him as she slid the cock into her. He never stopped sucking on her, and when she came again, he stood up and tore his clothes off. He stood over her gloriously naked and hard.

Sit
ting up, she took him into her mouth while the vibrator slid in and out of her pussy. She was being fucked at both ends and she was close to coming again. His hand curling into her hair had her moaning, and when he began to fuck her mouth, she fucked herself harder.

“
Come for me.” She moaned when he told her again to come. She didn’t want to come this way…she wanted him deep inside of her. When he tore her head from his cock, she moaned and he fisted his cock. “Come for me, baby. I want you to come.”

“
Fuck me. Please, I beg you. I want to feel your cock buried inside of me.” He turned her over so fast that she lost her toy, but as soon as he had her leaned over the bed, her ass in the air, she felt it roll over her again. As his cock moved to her pussy, she nearly begged him to let her come when he pulled back. She waited while he stood behind her.

“
I can’t decide if I want to fuck you this way or turn you over and eat you until you come.” She moaned when the cock he was still moving over her touched her clit. “Fuck it, I need to come inside of you.”

He entered her hard. She braced her hands on the bed and felt hi
m pull out then slam back into her harder than before. Every time he did this, every time he entered her harder, she felt her wolf scream at her to let her out. When Opal came, screaming out his name as he sank his fangs into her, Opal reached between her legs and cupped his balls. He roared out his release and held her down while he marked her again. Opal fell forward with his weight when he came the second time.

The only time she opened her eyes after that was when she felt him lift her into his arms and then settle her onto their bed. The new bed had arrived today and she
’d forgotten to ask him how he liked it. Just as she was drifting back to sleep, he kissed her.

“
I love you. Will you marry me?” She whispered yes, knowing that he was joking, and closed her eyes. Tomorrow she’d laugh about it. But for now? She was exhausted.

~~~

Sloan held his breath when she walked into the castle. Last night he’d taken a chance that she’d say yes, but now…well, now he wasn’t so sure. He’d more or less tricked her. And now that it was time to tell her the truth, he was as nervous as he’d ever been. His dad came forward, and he realized something he’d forgotten in all the bustle of getting here.

“
My father the king.” She turned to him slowly. “I forgot to tell you. My mom is the queen, too.”

“
Really?” She turned to his dad and was engulfed in his arms like she weighed no more than a feather. Then he kissed her on the mouth and set her back down. His dad looked at him.

“
She’s lovely, just lovely. Just like I knew she’d be.” He slapped him on the back as he moved them toward the receiving hall. “I’m glad you decided to have the wedding here. Makes it so much nicer to have everyone here when we have so much…what’s wrong?”

“
Dad?” He knew the exact moment his dad realized what had happened. “I meant to tell her last night. After I proposed, but I got sidetracked.”

“
I just bet you did.” Sloan was a grown man, older than most anyone he knew, certainly old enough not to blush when his father guessed why he’d been distracted. “Lovely way to spend the night. And day, too, if you want to know the truth. Keep that up and there’ll be grandchildren before the wedding.”

“
There will be no wedding.” Opal turned to glare at him. “How could you? How could you do this to me? And my family? I suppose they know too.”

“
Yes.” He felt stupid and then he got mad. “I was trying to make you happy, damn it.”

“
Sloan.” His mom had a way about her that made him want to crawl into a hole, never to come out. He knew the tone of her voice too. Like Opal, he’d disappointed her.

“
Her family is on their way here. I messed up.” His mom gathered Opal into her arms and started away with her. Sloan looked at his dad. “I really fucked this up.”

“
Maybe.” That wasn’t at all helpful. “Then again, maybe not. Your mother will fix this. See if she doesn’t. In the meantime, let’s you and I have a walk about. I need to ask you a few things, and there are a few people here that want to see you. We’ve invited Ursula and that man of yours…what’s his name?”

“
Rufus?”
Christ
, he thought,
could this day get any worse
? More than likely he’d bet it could. When they entered his father’s office, Sloan took the seat across from him. Within minutes they were joined by two other men, neither of whom he knew. Then after that, Allen, Blair, Thad, and Quentin joined them. For some reason, Sloan had a feeling he was being set up.

“
I’d like to ask you all to raise a glass to my son.” Each man took a glass, but only the one his father held and the two men were filled with a red liquid, while the rest were filled with champagne. “To him and his lovely bride. May they have centuries of a wonderful life together. And many a grandchild for me to spoil.”

Everyone drank
, and then in a tradition of his kind, each glass was tossed into a large open container made of crystal that sat on his desk. He watched as the glass former stepped into the yard with the container and began to heat the glass.

“
What’s he doing?” Sloan looked over at Allen when he asked. “I know what he’s doing really, just not what he’s doing.”

Sloan laughed.
“Each glass within the framework has a small part of us on it, sort of a part of the whole. Our DNA, our prints from our fingers. Anything that makes us what we are is now going to be melted together and formed. I’m not sure what it will be; only the blower and the glass knows.”

They each watched as the man took the glass, now molten hot
, and started to mix it around. Colors were added, dark blues and reds of his crest and a deep green to be added for the color of the Erickson clan. They all watched as the glass was added to a long pipe and the process began. Large bamboo sticks were used to mold it, smaller stones on the tips of more glass were pressed against the form to make textures and lines. No one said a word as the man worked for nearly forty minutes on making the thing come to shape.

“
Well, I’ll be damned.” Sloan smiled, thinking that Thad had it right. The form had taken on a shape that he’d been surprised about as well. Then when the former set the piece aside, he pulled out a second piece of stone and put it on the back of the wolves. The opal melted down over the back of the smaller of the two of them and settled over it like a coat. Sloan looked at his dad.

“
Did he know?” His dad shook his head. “You had to have told him that Opal and I are wolves?”

“
No. I gave him the opal and asked if he’d try to work it in, but I never told him anything. You know we wouldn’t be able to shape your future like that.” Blair asked him what he meant. “The glass, as fragile as a heart, can be shaped in any way you make it. But if you let it go freely, form around the other heart that it knows, things—great things—will come of it. And once it is together, cooled into something hard, then that love will last for longer than lives can be lived.”

“
I like that.” Quentin smiled as he looked over at him. “That’s very nice. A great way to start your marriage. She’ll love it.”

“
If’n she don’t bash it over his stupid head.” They all looked at Rufus, who stood in the doorway. “You might want to come on out here, boss. That mate of yours has got herself all tangled up in a mess.”

He moved as quickly as he could and stopped when he saw her. She was
standing in the middle of the receiving room with a sword in one hand and his mother shoved behind her with the other. Sloan had no idea what was going on, but the further he walked into the room, the more he was scared.

“
Opal?” She turned to look at him. “What’s going on? Why are you trying to…why are you trying to do whatever it is you’re doing?”

“
They were going to kill her.” He looked at his mom, then back at the people standing bunched near a wall. “You should have seen that first one. They were going to cut her up.”

“
I was only doing my job, Master Sloan.” He nodded to the man that spoke. “We tried our best to make her understand, but she…she’s not hearing us.”

It took him several seconds,
precious seconds really, to realize that they were speaking the language of his people. He asked the young man if he spoke English. His head shook hard and he looked slightly insulted.

“
She doesn’t understand us or what you’re trying to tell her.” He moved slowly to Opal as he continued talking to the man. “She’s protecting my mom because she fears you’re going to harm her. Instead of being upset with her, you should be thankful that she was so brave against so many.”

He pulled her
into his arms when he reached her. She sobbed gently against his chest as he looked at his mom. The smile on her face was wide. He had no clue why she’d think any of this was funny.

“
She was going to kill them all and not think a thing about it.” He nodded, noting that his mom was speaking in English now. “She had not a single clue what was going on, yet she came in here when they were readying me for her and immediately took offense.”

“
They were hurting you.” Opal turned in his arms to look at his mom. “You were hurt and bleeding. What the hell was I supposed to think?”

“
Just what you did. That I’d been hurt. I had been hurt, but due to my own stupidity, not what they did. I was with the ravens. You know how they can be, don’t you?” She shook her head. “Well, they can be a might on the bitchy side when I’ve not been out to play with them in a while. And with your wedding coming up, I sort of—”

“
There is no wedding.” The room, everyone there, dropped to the floor when Opal cut off his mom. “I didn’t say I’d marry him. And I don’t even know if I like him very much right now.”

His mom laughed
, a big booming laugh that had the servants looking up then back down again. She pulled Opal into her arms and hugged her tightly as they made their way to the other end of the room. Sloan was still standing there when Blair patted him on the back.