Wild Embrace (22 page)

Nuzzling at her from behind, he said, “Special order from New York.”

He was so damn wonderful. And she wanted the whole wide world to know he was hers, for no one to ever again question their relationship. Placing the beads on the ground with care, she turned into his arms and kissed him. He groaned, hitching her onto his thighs as he knelt on the ground. “Say yes,” he whispered. “Say yes, Dezi.”

Her heart overflowing with love, Desiree wrapped her arms around him, put her lips right to his ear, and said, “Yes.”

The mating bond ignited, stealing her breath and making the air rush out of his lungs. His arms locked around her, hers around him as the power of it gripped them both by the throat and demanded everything they had. Trembling in the aftermath, Felix in a similar condition, she realized she could feel the earth and the warmth of him inside her now.

Her leopard stretched out in pure, happy delight as Felix fell back, taking both of them to the forest floor. Lying flat on his back, his hands on her hips, he watched her push the hair off her face . . . and he smiled. A gorgeous, deep smile that creased his cheeks and that was so infectious she was grinning madly when she kissed him. “You taste smug.”

“I am smug,” he said, shifting his hands to her ass. “I just convinced my impossibly beautiful, dangerously sexy dominant leopard changeling to mate with me.” Amber eyes glowed with the wolf's delight. “This smug isn't going to wear off for a while.” He groaned
as she rubbed her body over his hard one. “Especially if you keep doing things like that.”

Desiree decided she liked him smug. She particularly liked how he held her eyes as they just lay there looking at one another with matching grins. “I feel slightly drunk.”

“Yeah, the mating bond packs a punch.” He ran a hand over her back. “Thanks for hitting on me right back at the start.”

“Thanks for taking the risk and playing with me.” Running her fingers through his hair, she rubbed her nose against his. “So, where are we going to live?”

They ended up
building an aerie near the SnowDancer den. As a wolf and for his work, Felix needed to be physically closer to his pack, and Desiree was plenty fast enough to run down to DarkRiver land whenever she wanted. Settling in the den was out, however—she loved the sense of family and stability that was Pack, but she'd go nuts living that close to so many packmates.

The aerie was a happy medium, ensuring her leopard had its own small territory while giving Felix quick access to the den. Desiree didn't stick to the aerie, of course, coming in and out of the den as needed. And Felix came down with her to see her parents and packmates regularly. The distance could've been problematic with her own responsibilities as a DarkRiver senior soldier, but Riley and Mercy had figured things out so she now worked with both the SnowDancer and DarkRiver teams.

Her alpha had cupped her face at the news of her mating and, panther-green eyes holding her own, said, “You may have mated with a wolf but you're DarkRiver—no way in hell am I allowing Hawke to steal you.” A snarl. “You're on the road to becoming a sentinel and I expect the same things from you that I expect from my other sentinels.”

“Yes, sir,” Desiree said, Lucas's approval the icing on her joy.

“It'll mean a lot of hard work and long hours for you,” Lucas warned. “Your mate going to be able to handle it?”

“Absolutely.” Desiree had not a doubt in her mind about that, not after Felix had offered to leave his beloved greenhouses and find a position at a lower elevation, should she need to remain in DarkRiver territory.

It had taken her over a month to convince him that she'd be more than fine with an aerie near the SnowDancer den. Leopards were far more independent than wolves in terms of their living arrangements, and it wasn't as if she didn't see packmates on a regular basis—especially given the increased cooperation between DarkRiver and SnowDancer.

Plus, her sister was grown and currently roaming the world, while Felix's sister was a teenager who looked to him often for advice.

When Desiree did need to be in DarkRiver territory for a longer period, she and Felix bunked in her old aerie, Felix adjusting his own schedule so he could come down with her. He'd already started talking to her father about setting up a greenhouse on DarkRiver land, and he was never not busy when in leopard territory. Once, she'd returned from a sentinel and senior soldier meeting to find three small leopard cubs asleep on the sofa beside him as he drew up plans for the proposed greenhouse.

“Emergency babysitting,” he'd said with a smile.

People trusted him not just because he was Desiree's mate but because he was Felix: strong and honorable and with a quiet courage that meant he'd fight to the death to protect the innocents in his care.

“We're making it work,” she said to him six months later, as they sat on the balcony of their SnowDancer aerie, spring a crisp green scent in the air around them. “We're really making it work.”

“Of course we are.” Picking up her hand, he kissed her knuckles. “We belong to each other. Whatever it takes to stay together, that's what we'll do.”

Yes,
Desiree thought as the setting sun's rays hit them both. It gilded his hair, stroked his skin with gold. “I really love that our folks get along.” The four were having dinner together that night, having clicked at their very first meeting.

Desiree loved Felix's mom and dad, could see where he'd gotten his heart and warmth. “When's Maddy back from her camping trip?” That trip, run by Riley, was meant to teach the pack's young dominants advanced survival skills.

“Two days.” Felix's smile was affectionate. “She wanted me to ask if she could go on patrol with you sometimes after she comes back, to get some experience.”

“Sure. But why didn't she just ask me?”

“You know she idolizes you.” Another kiss on her knuckles. “I'm her hero for mating with you.”

Her lips quirked. “You're her hero anyway.” The way Felix treated his sibling, and all the other young cubs and pups who were drawn to him, it was simply another indication of the huge heart that beat in his chest.

And the way he treated her . . .

Her eyes stung, her throat closing up.

He gave her flowers
every day
.

“Hey.” His arm coming around her, tucking her into the protective warmth of him. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said, her voice husky as she looked up into the eyes that never hesitated to meet hers now, the trust between them an unbreakable thread. “I'm really happy, Felix.” Sometimes she just had to say it aloud, release all the happiness building inside her lest it explode.

Her mate's startled half laugh, half smile was her reward. “Me, too,” he whispered. “I'm so glad we didn't give up.”

“Want to go exploring together?” she asked some time later, after the sun had set and the stars had started to sparkle. “Indigo told me about a hidden waterfall about a mile from here.”

“I'd go anywhere with you, Dezi.”

Her heart, it was all achy and full of puppies and rainbows and all kinds of other things that weren't the least tough-shit and Desiree didn't care. Not here, not with Felix. Nipping affectionately at his throat, she said, “Come on, mate. My cat wants to race your wolf.”

“Only after we're on the ground.” A scowl. “If I try to jump off the aerie like a certain cat, I'll break both legs.”

Desiree laughed . . . and her sneaky wolf mate pounced on her.

Kenji saw Garnet
take off into the trees.

The party to celebrate their alpha's mating was going full blast and he could tell from the way Garnet had danced and laughed that she was more than enjoying herself, but he'd predicted she'd sneak out to the lake sooner or later. Garnet was as much a pack animal as the rest of the SnowDancer wolves around her, but she loved the lake deep in central den territory, always visited when she was up in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

He followed her even though he knew he shouldn't. He'd made himself a promise a long time ago when it came to Garnet and a whole lot of that promise depended on keeping his distance. But tonight the stars were out and he'd had a couple of beers and he'd been watching her dance with everyone but him except for that one time when he'd broken in for half a song; his defenses were at an all-time low.

He just wanted to spend a few minutes alone with her.

Yeah? And what if she isn't looking for alone time by the lake? What if she's heading off to exchange skin privileges with another packmate?

Kenji's gut lurched, his claws pricking the insides of his skin.

If he saw Garnet with another man, he'd force himself to walk away as he'd been doing since the day of her twenty-first birthday,
seven years earlier. No matter if he wanted to tear that other man to shreds. He'd had a long time to learn to control his primal instincts where Garnet was concerned.

He refused to think about the fact that it was getting harder rather than easier to rein in his possessiveness. As if as he matured, so did his need for her. He'd probably go to his grave loving Garnet Sheridan.

Tonight, however, he didn't have to call on his dwindling reserves of strength. It soon became clear that Garnet wasn't meeting a lover. A smile on her face and her eyes looking up at the stars, she was walking barefoot and unhurried through the forest in a direction that would eventually spit her out at the lake. He stayed upwind, content to see her so simply
happy.

Not at all stalkerlike and creepy, Tanaka.

Shut the fuck up. It's only one moment.

The rest of the time, she ran the Los Angeles den—which wasn't in L.A. proper at all, but in the Santa Ana Mountains, and he ran the den at the southern end of the San Gabriel Mountains, his remit including the San Fernando Valley. Garnet's geographic region was smaller but it had more people packed in, with the attendant higher incidents of trouble, so they had around the same level of responsibility.

Busy as they were in their own regions, their paths only crossed via comm conferences, or the occasional pack event. They worked together to keep pack lands safe and they flirted in a way that was all sarcasm and razor-sharp wit, but that was where it stopped. He couldn't—
wouldn't
—cross that line. Even if he slipped up and betrayed his need for her, it wouldn't be a total disaster—after all these years, he was pretty sure Garnet didn't take anything personal he said seriously.

As he watched, she took a deep breath of the cool mountain air and did a little swirl. Her soft blonde hair was up in a fancy knot and her midthigh-length dress was the color of a blood orange and
fitted, but at that instant, she moved as if she were a pixie with flowers in her hair, one who wore a frothy summer dress.

The image made him smile. Garnet had never been the frothy-skirt type—she'd always been so small that she'd had to fight to be taken seriously, even as a powerful dominant. Now only the stupid didn't realize that she was as lethal as any of her fellow lieutenants. However, there were no hard edges on Garnet. Not only was she petite, one of the smallest adults in the pack, her face was delicate, her hair fine, the tiny tendrils around her face kissing skin of sun gold.

His fingers curled into his palms as he fought the urge to reach out and thrust his hands into her hair, bunching the softness in his grip as he brought his mouth down on the lush temptation of her own.

•   •   •

Garnet
was enjoying the brilliantly clear mountain night and trying
not
to think about a certain man and how damn good he'd felt against her during their dance, when she caught the scent of oak and fire and something intensely masculine. A scent that had surrounded her a half hour before, when Kenji broke into her dance with another SnowDancer lieutenant. She'd caught it on her skin afterward, a silent, aggravating taunt.

Her wolf rising to the surface of her skin on the memory, she growled low in her throat. “Go away, Kenji.” There was no need to raise her voice—his hearing was as good as her own, and he was close. He must've stayed upwind to sneak up on her.

“Why do you have to be like that?” he said, prowling out of the trees to fall into step beside her, tall and graceful and with the handsome features of a Japanese pop star. All clean angles and dramatic bones. That his slightly overlong hair was dyed a rich purple and sprayed with tiny golden stars only added to the effect.

She'd have thought it an affectation, except that he'd been doing
things like that since he was a kid too young to think about being cool. As a seven-year-old, he'd once drawn “tattoos” on himself with permanent marker.

Then there was the time he'd painted his hair with house paint. She could still remember his shaved head afterward—it had been the only way his parents could strip off the toxic paint, as shifting might've redistributed the paint all through his wolf fur. They'd been more distressed than Kenji. He'd asked the barber to cut zigzag patterns into the resulting stubble.

She liked the way he wore it now, how it was just long enough to hint at rebellion, the strands thick and silky.

“Going to the lake?” he asked, green eyes locked on her.

Putting a half meter of distance between them because she knew it wasn't a good idea to be alone with gorgeous, teasing Kenji Tanaka when she'd had a drink or three and her inhibitions were lowered, she said, “Going to the lake
—to be alone.
”

He closed the distance that separated them. His boots touched her bare toes, he was so close—and neither part of her changeling nature would allow her to give way now that he'd pushed. Not moving her feet an inch, she tipped back her head to look him in the eyes.

He frowned, stepped back. “Sorry. I keep forgetting you're shorter than me.”

She couldn't figure out if that was a compliment or an insult. “I'm leaving now. Don't follow me.”

“You sure can hold on to a mad, Garnet,” he said when she would've turned away. “Like an elephant holds on to its memories.” His voice was playful, light, as they'd been with each other for so long now.

“Go away,” she said again, a staggering sense of loss echoing inside her.
No,
she ordered herself,
you
do not
go there.
Kenji's and her time had come and gone. No second chances, not when Kenji had shown her exactly how badly he could hurt her if she opened her heart to him.

And not when the man he'd become was nothing like the smart, laughing boy with whom she'd once fallen in love. Kenji was a great lieutenant, a packmate she could rely on in a crunch and one who made her roll her eyes with his outrageous flirting, but he didn't know the meaning of commitment when it came to women.

“Shoo,” she said when he stuck stubbornly close. “I want to be alone.”

“One of those times, huh?” Sliding his hands into the pockets of his jeans, his black shirt sitting easily on wide shoulders, he continued to walk beside her. “You never minded me going with you before.”

“I was twelve.” And thought he hung the moon.

Reaching out, he tugged on a tendril of her hair. “We used to be friends.”

She stopped, faced him. “It was a long time ago.” More precisely, seven years and two months ago—otherwise known as the night of her twenty-first birthday. But she wasn't about to bring up that night, a night that had devastated her tender and hopeful heart.

What she had to remember was that it had also saved her.

It would've been far worse had she ended up with Kenji only for him to walk away a short time later when another woman caught his eye. Because, unlike him, she'd been weaving dreams of a permanent relationship, perhaps even a mating if they were lucky. “How's Britney?” she said instead of dwelling on the lost dreams of the girl she'd been.

“Britney?” Dull confusion in the green eyes that were a throwback to his paternal great-grandmother. Then a light sparked. “Britney Matthews?”

Claws pricking at her palms, she smiled sweetly. “You know any other Britneys you banged like a drum?”

A hot red burn on the high planes of his cheekbones. “That was
a lifetime ago. I was eighteen! You're mad about that?” He shook his head, eyebrows drawing together. “I thought you—”

Garnet cut him off before he could mention the night they'd never spoken about, never would speak about; there wasn't anything to say. Kenji had led her on, stolen her heart, then kicked her to the curb, the end. But they did have other things to discuss, because now that she'd brought up Britney, she
was
mad. Maybe it was the alcohol talking, but she had things to say to Kenji “Casanova” Tanaka about his taste in women.

“You knew how awful she was to me, how she made my life a living hell, and you not only took her to prom, you dated her for a
year
!”

A befuddled expression on his face. “I know you two didn't like each other, but I thought it was, you know, girl stuff.”

“Girl stuff?”
Was he really that clueless? “She tried to make my nickname Runt.” The only reason it hadn't caught on was that pretty much all her friends and packmates already called her Jem, and she had enough dominance even at sixteen to scare most people into shutting the hell up before they used anything else.

Kenji had always called her Garnet. He'd just liked it.

As she'd liked hearing her given name on his lips.

“I thought she was just messing with you when she said that.” He scowled. “You never minded when I called you Short Stuff.”

That was because he'd been her friend, who she knew didn't mean anything by it. The same way she'd affectionately called him Beanpole when he first got his height. By eighteen, the muscle had caught up with the height and he'd been gorgeous. “Jesus, Kenji, Britney was a first-class bitch.” Garnet wasn't about to pull her punches. “She got her kicks from picking on younger girls.”

“It's not like you couldn't handle her.”

She'd still been a teenage girl with the attendant fragile ego . . .
and she'd been carrying around a truck-sized crush on her older brother's best friend. The same friend who was standing in front of her right now. “Whatever. I lost all respect for you the day you hooked up with her.”

His mouth fell open. “I was a teenage boy!” he reiterated. “She had boobs out to here and legs up to there and she thought I was the best thing since sliced bread!”

Garnet had apple-sized breasts, if she was being generous, and, given her height, her legs were never going to be a supermodel's. Baring her teeth and folding her arms across her chest, she smirked. “All. Respect. Lost.” She leaned toward him. “Poof.”

“Yeah?” Suddenly belligerent, he got in her face. “What about you? Dating No-Brains Bacon?”

Seeing red, she pushed at his chest. “His name was Barton, and he was a nice guy!”

“Who had a lot of space inside his skull. Must've been all the knocks he took on the football field.”

Garnet refused to admit that sweet Barton had, in fact, been a little intellectually challenged. “At least he knew how to handle a real woman.”

Kenji's growl made her own chest rumble in challenge. “You were fucking fifteen when he moved on you,” he gritted out. “I should've done more than punch out his lights.”

Garnet's eyes went wolf. “That was
you
?” Barton had broken things off with her without warning, after turning up with a black eye he'd shrugged off as a training injury.

Kenji's muscles bunched. “He was a fucking senior and you were—”

Garnet plowed her fist into Kenji's face, slamming his head sideways.

He jerked, one hand going to his jaw. “What the fuck, Garnet?”

“That was for Barton,” she said, her breath ragged. “And for me. Thanks to you, I had to go stag to the junior dance.”

His eye already looking like it might blacken, causing a twinge of remorse in her gut, Kenji said, “Better than you being taken advantage of by a guy who should've known better.”

Furious heat flooded her face, wiping out all traces of remorse. “I knew what I was doing.”

“Fifteen!”
Kenji said again, his voice more growl than sound. “And you still looked like a kid. He was a fucking deviant.”

“I had boobs!” She shoved her hands under those boobs. “Just because you go for balloon-sized tits doesn't mean anyone who dates me is a deviant!”

Eyes flicking up from her breasts, Kenji growled low in his throat. “That's not what I said.”

“Yeah? Sure sounded like it.”

“God damn it, Garnet, I—” No warning, just his strong, beautiful hands thrusting into her hair and his mouth slamming down on hers.

Pleasure, raw and violent and vicious, punched through her with the force of a freight train.
Finally,
her body sighed.
Finally.

Hard on the heels of that pleasure came fury. Jerking up her knee, she would've got Kenji right in the family jewels if he hadn't twisted out of the way, breaking the contact between them. “Good move,” she said with a glare, even as her wolf lunged against her skin, wanting more, wanting
him
. “What did you think you were doing?”