Summer's Wolf Page 8

  “So then we’ll practice?” The glint was back in her aquamarine eyes.

  He couldn’t help the laugh that came to him. His heart pounded with desire and an emotion he was unfamiliar with but he might call hope. “As much and as often as you want.”

  His hands shook as he reached out to caress her torso. She shivered and his body temperature raised another two degrees. He could feel the heat between them and he was afraid he might burn them both. Her breasts were small and firm. Her nipples hard and pink sat atop and he promised himself he’d pay them their due in a moment.

  Moving of their own volition, his hands reached out and cupped both her breasts while his body moved to straddle hers more efficiently. Her skin was softer than any silk he’d ever felt on any of his travels and he wanted to move down and lick it. But he knew there’d be time for that later. For now, he wanted to move slowly.

  She reached up and pulled his neck down until he kissed her. Each kiss getting hotter than the one before it. She moved beneath him restlessly, squirming. Each little movement sent electricity to his groin, which begged for him to hurry up and relieve the mounting pressure. He did his best to ignore its demands.

  He wanted to memorize every part of her body with his hands and mouth. He leaned down to kiss a line down her chest, stopping again to fondle her breasts. She moaned and he squeezed them harder before he followed the path he’d begun and arrived with his mouth on her belly button. He spent a few minutes tonguing the small indent as his hands pushed and caressed her flat abdominal muscles and round hips. Summer might be small in stature, but as far as he was concerned, she was curved in all the right places.

  “Cullen, please.” Summer’s small movements became more directed. Her hips finding and pushing against his groin.

  “What’s your hurry? I want to know every part of you.”

  He moved his hands to her breasts as his eyes roamed down her body until they reached the v-shaped patch of hair that covered her core. He stroked and played with the soft hair, carefully avoiding actually touching the tender flesh it covered.

  “Are you teasing me?” Her eyes sparkled even as her voice shook.

  “I am. But it’s only fair play since you can’t be in the room with me without me getting completely hard.”

  He kept his fingers gentle and slow. “I wish you could see what you look like to me.” “You won’t be seeing anything in a moment if you don’t stop torturing me because I will gouge out your eyes.”

  That was his Summer, feisty and forthright. She was a woman who knew what she wanted and she was right, she was every bit his match. If it was possible, she might have been even more stubborn than he was.

  “Okay, enough.” Summer grabbed his hard length in her hands. He thought he might spill his seed right there. “Two can play the teasing game.”

  Was this really happening to him? Was this woman really being playful with him? His throat felt tight. He could have cried when she gave one long hard stroke up his shaft. “Summer, don’t do that again. Damn, it feels really good, baby, but I don’t know if I can hold out.”

  Summer raised one eyebrow at him. “Is that to be my nickname then, baby?” She said the last word with a bit of a sneer. He groaned.

  “Don’t like it?” She shook her head in response.

  “How about goddess? Summer, my goddess, please don’t do that again.”

  She nodded and giggled. “Okay, that one is better.” Finally, to his relief, she removed her hand from him and he felt like maybe he might actually make it inside of her before release.

  He pushed down on top of her, their bodies entwined so it was hard for him to tell where she began and he ended. In one swift motion, he entered her, pleased beyond reason when she cried out in delight. She wrapped her legs around him and pulled him in tighter. But, gods, she was flexible.

  If he’d thought the heat between them was intense before, it was nothing compared to the molten lava intensity he found inside of Summer. He closed his eyes for a second to regain control so he didn’t embarrass himself and ruin it by ending too quickly. Feeling safer, he pushed in and out of Summer’s hot womanly embrace. Every noise and movement she made drove him on. He could feel completion coming and he was desperate to hold it off. Summer was so tight, so warm, so welcoming. Had anything in his life ever prepared him for this?

  She was his mate. She would always be his. He had waited three hundred years for this very moment and he would treasure every breath she took for the rest of their lives. Beneath him, Summer cried out his name as he felt her release take her. Her face in rapture was the most exquisite sight he’d ever seen. He followed her into oblivion.

  Cullen wasn’t sure how long his brain collapsed. When he came to he realized there was a change happening to him. He looked up. He and Summer were both bathed in a warm white light. She reached up and stroked his face.

  “What’s going to happen now?”

  This was mating. The part that none of their kind ever discussed because it was so private, so eternal. Truthfully, Cullen had no idea.

  “That’s okay, we’ll figure it out together.”

  Had he spoken his thoughts out loud? How had she heard that?

  “Because I can hear you in my head. I bet you could hear me too if you calmed down.” He laughed. She was right. A reassured sensation filled his body and he was overcome with the feeling that just was Summer. Pieces of Summer’s uniqueness, parts that could only be called her soul entered his body and lodged themselves in his very core. He knew he’d always be able to find them now.

  For the first time in his life, he felt complete. As if he’d always been hollow and just now realized it as he filled with Summer’s warmth. He could see each piece of her clearly as it opened itself up to him through a translucent cord he could see but not touch. They flowed to each other through it, connected as strongly as if it had been made out of steel. Honesty—Summer was practically encoded with the inability to tell a lie. She was truthful from her head to her toes. Its color shone a bright orange, the kind you saw on small children at Halloween. Loyalty, trust, protectiveness—they each had their own colors wrapped around thousands more as the depths of who Summer was plunged into him with loving completion.

  Finally, the last and thickest cord attached itself to him. He could see Summer was in love with him, had been since she’d seen him at the age of twenty. Even as her self- doubts and misunderstandings filled her, she hadn’t lost that love. It was like a thick steel rope that tied her to him. Not breakable or changeable but secure and unerring.

  He was suddenly acutely aware that she must also be receiving his soul. Self- loathing washed over him and he closed his eyes for a moment. She’d given him all of the most beautiful gifts in the world, and he’d sent her over trash and destruction. He opened his mouth to speak but she covered it with her hand.

  “I can see all of you now, Cullen. Not a bad part in there. I know you’re filled with unnecessary self-doubt. You think you’re not as good as you are. But I can see clearly. I have you inside of me. There’s no part of you that I would trade.”

  Because he had to, he leaned down to kiss her as they floated together in the white light that was their love for each other.

  “I haven’t lived three hundred years, Cullen. But I’ve waited for you my whole life too.”

  No words could have sounded sweeter to him.

  “So this is the hotel? Or is it a spa?” Cullen looked down at his mate and ran his hands through her hair for the hundredth time since they’d mated. She was dressed, much as he wished it was otherwise. She wore a pair of his sweatpants that she practically swam in and a plain white tee-shirt. In his life he’d never seen a more beautiful site.

  Cullen laughed. “It’s both. The idea was that your father and some of his compatriots would offer their services here for basic plastic surgeries and luxury recoveries. It’s also a hotel. This is Maine. When it opens, people will come here to both undergo surgery and recuperate from it while t
hey drink expensive cocktails. Or people may want to stay here while they ski in the winter, look at the leaves in the fall, hike in the spring, and canoe in the summer. Ashlee feels that between the staff we will need to help run the place and the vacations and surgeries we should be able to bring a large amount of our pack home. The others we’ll find a way to find.”

  Summer shrugged. “Not my department. I can’t possibly imagine running a luxury hotel.” She paused for a second. “How is she going to make sure the right people see it?”

  Cullen raised one eyebrow. “She and Tristan have concocted some way to place spells on the ads so they will feel absolutely compelled to come here whether they want to or not.”

  “You sound skeptical.”

  “At least she’s trying. But I will reserve judgment until I see if it works.”

  He looked around the hotel that was supposed to save the pack. It was finally complete, although now that the Institute would need to be rebuilt, the plan would be delayed again. Truthfully, Cullen wished they’d come up with a new name. Kendrick had taken the name and used it in Mexico, named his evil laboratory ‘The Institute’ In mockery of the Westervelt home. Yes, it was time to move on from things of the past.

  Maybe they’d all have to move into the hotel now. It was fortuitous that they weren’t due to open for another six months. Not Cullen’s problem. He’d always lived apart in his cabin and preferred it that way, but maybe he should start paying more attention.

  The lobby was a mixture of greens and copper tones, with some slight touches of pink Ashlee and Summer’s mother had once called ‘accents.’ Whatever that meant. The pack was spread out in a circle. Theo was not there and Ashlee was also absent, as were the children. Tristan stood by the long winding staircase that led to the rooms above with his arms crossed. His face told Cullen he was mad. This wasn’t a surprise. Tristan didn’t like to be kept waiting, and he and Summer had been gone a long time.

  Cullen felt his neck get flushed with embarrassment. He hoped it didn’t reach his face.

  Tristan studied the two of them for a moment. His eyes moved back and forth from one to the other. Did his Alpha abilities mean he could see that he and Summer were now mated?

  Tristan cleared his throat and Cullen noted his eyes were less hostile. “Thanks for finally joining us. Must have been a very important…conversation you two had.”

  Gabriel opened his mouth but Tristan silenced him by raising his hand. Evidently, Tristan was going to leave the reason for their lateness alone. Cullen would be eternally grateful for that gesture.

  Cullen moved to take his usual place in the circle, just to the left of the Royals. Twenty-nine sets of eyes watched him walk. For the first time in his life, he didn’t join the circle alone. Summer, in a gesture meant to garner notice, grabbed his hand and walked next to him. He watched as her eyes challenged anyone in the room to ask them where they’d been.

  No one spoke a word.

  “How is Prince Theo? Does he live?” He’d not thought one second about the fallen prince during the past few hours. Even though he knew he should feel badly about that, and without a doubt did care what happened to him, he didn’t feel the least bit sorry that he’d been otherwise focused.

  “He fares very poorly.” Tristan matched Cullen’s formal speech. Most of the pack did that without even realizing. They’d all lived a very long time, seen dialects and customs change so frequently, they could speak almost any way they wanted. “We were hoping you might be able to help Ashlee and tell her what to do for him since you seem to have greater knowledge of these things.”

  “Only luck and time can help Theo now. No ministrations of ours will save his life. Should he live, and I hope deeply that he does, he will never fully recover. He will always look burned where the creature touched him.” The grumbles that filled the room made his spine stiffen. He was always the bearer of bad news, always the messenger they wanted to kill.

  “I am very sorry to hear that.” Tristan looked down. “My brother lays upstairs near death, struck down by a creature that attempted to kidnap my son and burned down my home. My wife is hysterical, shaken. I have never seen such things before nor read about them in myth. Yet, you Cullen, you knew what to do about them as if you were very familiar with them.”

  Cullen nodded. “I am, my Alpha.”

  “So tell me what the goddamn things are, why they came after Braden, and then you can explain why you never told me about them before.” Tristan had raised his voice so loud that some of the pack had taken subservient positions in their body language and gazes. But not Cullen, he knew better. Tristan wouldn’t take or believe that kind of behavior from him.

  “They are called Flying Demons. I know how to kill them because I have before, unfortunately many times. I cannot know, but I’m reasonably certain, that they came after Braden because Kendrick sent them for him.” He paused.

  “And?” Tristan prompted.

  “Give him a minute.” Summer’s voice was hard. Cullen looked over at her. The blues of her eyes flared in anger. He could practically read her thoughts. She didn’t like the way Tristan handled her mate.

  Not wanting to give Tristan a chance to respond to her, he finished his thought. “I didn’t tell you because I thought the problem long gone. Or rather I hoped it was and I thought it an unnecessary conversation.”

  When Tristan finally spoke, his voice was deceptively calm. But Cullen had known him since he was a child and knew his calm was only a façade to hide the fury within. “You thought it at unnecessary conversation?”

  He nodded. “I did.”

  “You do realize that withholding information from the Alpha of this pack is punishable by death?” Tristan stepped forward, his wolf eyes furious and cold.

  “I would beg for mercy, my Alpha. Not for me but for the sake of my mate who would also be condemned in such an action. She is your wife’s sister.” Saying the words was not as difficult for Cullen as he thought they would be. In his life he’d never used the word beg, but for Summer evidently it was easy.

  “That’s enough.” Summer’s voice was as loud as Tristan’s had been moments earlier. All eyes were on her. “I’ve had as much as I’m going to take of this male display of testosterone. This has nothing to do with your wolves, only your egos. Ashlee might be content to watch you do it, but I am not.”

  Tristan raised an eyebrow at Summer. “You have something you wish to add?”

  She nodded. “I do. If Cullen did anything, it was mistakenly trying to protect the members of the pack from something he thought they couldn’t handle. I’m sure he can explain himself. But more importantly, Kendrick has the creatures and he sent them here. Its Kendrick we need to be focused on.”

  When Cullen spoke, his voice was soft. “Do you have a plan for doing that?” He didn’t say ‘my love’ but Summer’s eyes shone like he had.

  “I do.” She smiled. “Cullen is going to pretend to defect. He’s going to get in there and then he and I are going to kill Kendrick and Claudius and be rid of this whole mess once and for all.”

  He was going to do what? He gaped at his mate, the love of his life, and knew he was in big trouble.

  9

  “What do you want him to do?” Tristan’s eyes bulged out of his head.

  Summer took a step towards him. “Look, Kendrick and Claudius have done some serious things to me, to you, to all of you.” She turned; the pack’s eyes followed her as she moved. As much as she loved performing, public speaking was a much different matter. But she could feel Cullen’s self-confidence inside of her. You don’t care what they think of you, let them look, his soul seemed to be saying to her.

  “If I understand this correctly, thirty-three years ago, Kendrick, your former Alpha and the father of Tristan and the Royal Six, came to you as a pack and wanted you to consent to being experimented on by the man who killed my parents, Claudius Brouseax.” She looked at Cullen for confirmation and he nodded. “You guys refused. So, to try to force yo
ur compliance, he found himself a witch who bespelled the mated male members of the pack to kill their mates.”

  “That’s right.” Tristan interrupted her. “The men killed their mates. Afterwards, they awoke from their trance, realized what they’d done and then committed ritual suicide.”

  “It’s part of the mating bond, I get that now. One-half of the pair cannot live a full life without their other half. The compulsion to end one’s existence and meet their other half in the next life would be almost impossible to resist. What I don’t understand is exactly why Kendrick thought this would make all of you want to be experimented on.”

  Tristan shook his head. “I’ve never really understood it myself.”

  Cullen cleared his throat. “I might. I know how his mind works. He must have figured he’d never get the consent of the whole pack. Mated men are stronger, more sure of themselves. By eliminating them from the equation, he had a pack of mostly younger, less secure members. He thought he could manipulate them by threatening to kill their future mates.”

  Next to Tristan, Gabriel nodded. “But he didn’t count on our mother.”

  Cullen laughed, his eyes shone brightly as he looked at Summer. “That’s right. Mary Jo did the unthinkable and betrayed her mate. She took the unmated females away in the middle of the night and cast a spell so no one could find them. Leaving Kendrick with thirty, angry, grieving young men who rose up against him instead of caving in. But we were all left alone without any women and no idea how to get them back.”

  Summer knew this wasn’t entirely true. There had been two aunts who had suffered through the agony of being without their mates for thirty years to help keep the pack alive. They had transferred all of their power and wisdom to Ashlee before they committed suicide three years ago. But she had never met them and she was so sick of listening to the noble deeds of those who had passed that she thought she might gag on the boredom.