Authors: Soraya Lane
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Riley watched him sleep. She was human. She hadn’t been able to stay in leopard form. Exhaustion had seeped through her bones and demanded her attention, leaving her brain too tired to stay focused. But it seemed Hunter was worse. He still hadn’t woken up, and she felt like she’d already slept for days herself. Her body hadn’t even recovered from the fight. Still.
All she cared about was Hunter. And healing him.
The downside of being human was that she couldn’t speak to her sister, but she knew there was nothing more that could be done. She’d changed back and forth, changing, making sure she was in touch with both sides of her world. But Claudia had told her to rest because she’d already collapsed once from the exhaustion of changing too often.
She’d had to rest as a human.
Besides it helped that being human meant she could keep calling her parents. The last thing she needed was dealing with them freaking out about her lack of contact.
The bites had caused a fever to take over Hunter’s entire body. Not to mention the blood loss. Or the wound in his side, covered by gauze. It made her nauseous just thinking about what he’d gone through. When she was leopard, blood didn’t faze her. Right now, she would puke if she had to deal with what had happened all over again. Or ever think about it too much.
She walked over to him again, her fingers aching to stroke his fur. But she resisted. Claudia had said to let him rest, and she was the one who’d seen the future after all. She’d also locked him into leopard form, forcing his mind to allow it, until he woke from the coma. Or whatever state he was in.
Hunter was alive, and that was all she cared about. So long as there was hope, so long as he was breathing, she knew he would make it.
Riley still wasn’t sure she believed in predictions, any of them, but right now believing in Claudia was all she had to hold on to. And if Claudia said he was going to be fine, then she was prepared to believe.
She traced a finger over the raw scar on her arm. Her skin was golden, even browner from the sun here, but it only made the wound look worse. She knew Hunter would be angry when he woke.
Riley turned away to look out the window. They were hidden, but she knew the place was being watched. That she was safe, for now. But the calm wasn’t going to last long. It couldn’t.
“Riley?” The voice took her by surprise.
She turned, half expecting to have imagined it.
Her heart almost stuttered to a halt. Hunter was pushed up, one arm propping his entire body upright.
“Hunter!” She ran to him, stood there, as if expecting him to be… not real.
Then her face burned hot, as if pure sunshine had been splashed on her skin. Hunter had pulled himself up to a sitting position, and was now bare-naked as the day he was born having obviously changed involuntarily as soon as he’d woken.
She pulled her eyes away and focused on his face.
He looked confused. Annoyed. Angry.
“Hunter?”
He sat up properly, legs hanging over the edge of the wide bed. Hunter rubbed at his eyes, before focusing his steely gaze on her.
“You’re back.” She exhaled the words, hardly hearing them herself, before she grabbed him and pulled him against her, embarrassment long forgotten. She just wanted him close, to make sure it was really him. That he was really awake.
“Did I just change then?”
She nodded as he pushed her away slightly. He didn’t let go of her, just gave himself space to breathe. Like he needed air.
“Claudia said that once you healed enough that your body would resume its human form.”
He went to stand and she tried to help him, not sure if his legs would buckle when he tried to take the weight of moving.
Hunter looked around the room, his eyes unfocused. Then he swept back to her, before a slow smile broke out over his face.
“What are you doing here at my place?”
Now it was her turn to smile. “Did you not hear what I said while you were recovering?”
He sat back down, looking happy but suddenly exhausted. She guessed he was weaker than he’d expected to be.
Riley reached for the soft blanket hanging over the back of the chair she’d been sleeping on. She threw it at him, not coping well with seeing him so … naked. So… like nothing she’d ever seen before.
“I’m yours,” she said simply.
He grinned. “If you’re mine why do I have to hide beneath a blanket?”
She scooted up beside him, curling tight against his frame. Trust him to be cheeky as soon as he woke from the dead.
“You’re mine, but there will be none of that yet,” she said.
“Don’t go easy on me just because I’ve been unwell.”
“Unwell!” She glared at him. “You almost died, Hunter. You have a long recovery ahead of you.”
He groaned and let his head fall back against the sofa. “You had to fight them, without me, didn’t you?”
She nodded. He looked torn. Tortured. “You protected me, Hunter. When it mattered you protected me.”
He still didn’t look sure. “I never should have left you, Riley. I’m so sorry.”
Riley shook her head. “Forget it, okay? Please promise me you’ll forget it.”
She felt bolder now. All these days of sleeping in the same room as him, of thinking about how much she wanted him, that she couldn’t be without him, had emboldened her.
Riley tucked her feet up beneath her until she was kneeling. She put both palms against Hunter’s hard chest and held him back. Pushed him.
He groaned, maybe in pain, but she didn’t care. He could handle this. She’d been waiting a long time to do it. Hoping that she would have the chance to. That he was going to make it.
Riley leaned over him, kissing first his jaw, then his neck, and then trailing a path up his cheeks with her lips.
“I must have been bad,” he whispered.
“Sshh,” she commanded, before straddling him, her legs over his.
She was pleased the blanket was separating them. It was too soon for anything like that, but she did want to kiss him. Over and over and over again, until he begged her to stop.
She touched her lips to his, traced her tongue over his and pressed against him. He moaned. She growled.
“Riley.”
She rocked back and looked down at him. “I love you, Hunter.”
He grinned. “I should try almost dying more often.”
That made her growl even louder. But he wasn’t letting her be in control any longer.
Hunter flipped her effortlessly. “Be careful! You need to…”
“Do this,” he said, as he pinned her body with his.
“But you’re naked,” she protested.
“Exactly.”
Riley scrambled for the blanket before realizing it was worthless. At lease she still had her clothes on.
He kissed her shoulder, her collarbone, and then nipped at her ear.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything?”
A deep male voice sent Riley clambering from beneath Hunter and onto the floor. She locked eyes with a stranger, took in the army fatigues he wore, and the steely, flickering stare on his face.
Riley growled. Her body threatened to change but she managed to hold it in check.
“So this is the little she-cat who had you all tied in knots?”
She saw the humor in the stranger’s eyes, watched as his face broke out into a smile. Riley spun to look at Hunter, who was glaring back at the intruder. She waited for him to offer up some kind of explanation.
“Riley, meet my little brother, Archer.”
The brother in question just chuckled.
“You look beat up bro.”
Riley wanted to scowl at the laughter in his tone.
Beat up
was an understatement, but she did her best to play nice. Couldn’t exactly go attacking Hunter’s family. What the hell was he doing here anyway?
“Pleased to meet you, Archer,” she said.
He dropped his pack, stepped forward and kissed her on each cheek. She bristled beneath his touch.
“Every bit as lovely as I’d imagined. He talked about you enough.”
Riley saw the wink he threw Hunter and she sighed. So he’d gone to his brother when he’d left here, just like Sophia had said. She wasn’t so sure she liked that Archer knew all about her.
“You missed the fight, if that’s why you’re here,” Hunter’s tone was playful.
Riley just stared between them.
“Actually, I didn’t want to miss the ceremony. Although I can tell she’s still available right now.”
She turned to Hunter and raised an eyebrow. Ceremony?
Hunter moved to jump out of bed, but she was faster.
For once
. Her hand flew up, hitting his chest with a force she hadn’t known she possessed.
“Sit,” she commanded.
That made Hunter grumble and Archer laugh. But she wasn’t going to let Hunter off the hook, not when he’d only just woken up. Brother or no brother, for now she was the one in charge.
“Easy!” Archer stepped back, hands up like she was a policewoman. “I see you’re tamed now, huh? Domestic cat and all that.”
Riley realized why Hunter had reacted so ferociously. Aside from his brother being an dickhead.
Their
mating ceremony
. That’s what Archer was hinting at. She might have Hunter’s scent now, but it wasn’t official. Which meant a bachelor like Archer could still threaten her mate to be. If he really wanted to.
She moved to sit back on the makeshift bed with Hunter, her hand searching for his. Just because it wasn’t official didn’t mean he had anything to worry about.
“As you were,
lovers
.” Archer grinned again and walked back toward the door. “I’ll be back when you’re not in the middle of something. Wouldn’t like to start a fight over the tabby here.”
Hunter’s face looked like it could explode. Like every bone from his body would burst into the room like a grenade going off when he changed.
“I’m yours, Hunter. Yours.” She took his face in her hands and whispered kisses over him. Across his cheeks, his nose, then when he relaxed, his mouth. Reassuring him.
“Just don’t ever leave me again. Promise?” she asked.
He didn’t hesitate. “I promise.”
She felt him soften beneath her. She didn’t care about Archer’s goading words.
“I could kill him,” he muttered, his lips moving against hers, starting to relax. “I could actually kill him.”
Riley giggled. “I kind of need all your energy.”
That made him smile.
“Can we keep doing this? You know, keep me distracted for a while?” Hunter asked.
She wriggled closer to him, arms around his chest.
“Deal.”
This time when he moved, she didn’t tell him to be careful of himself. His mouth on hers, fingers skimming her skin, and his weight pinning her down felt too good to stop.
She only wished it could go on forever.
EPILOGUE
Riley didn’t know what to say. All these weeks of being here, days of thinking of nothing other than the world she’d found here, and now it was time to go. Her parents were inside with Sophia, waiting for her, wanting to hurry back home. Not interested in making small talk with the woman who’d helped heal their daughter.
But Riley didn’t want to go. The pain stabbing in her heart, in her lungs, suffocating her, told her that she had to stay. That she couldn’t leave. But she knew that wasn’t possible. She needed to finish the school year, get through this term, before she could come back for good.
It was going to be the worst, longest months of her life, but once it was over she would be free. Free to come back here for good, free to give herself to Hunter and live with him as his mate, and free to be with her sister. Her guider.
“I’ll wait for you.”
Riley looked at Hunter. Watched him. Absorbed the way he leaned against that tree of his. The way his lanky body braced it, muscled arms like extras boughs of timber as they touched the trunk.
It was how she would remember him, how her mind would imprint him when she lay awake desperate to be near him.
“I know you will.”
He winked. “I love you,” he mouthed.
It still made her blush, hearing him say it so openly. Despite all they’d been through, hearing that word in particular made her terrified of what they had. What they shared. What their future held.
Riley watched, eagerly, as Hunter waved his fingers in a goodbye salute, before walking a few steps away from the tree, stepping from his jeans, then changing.
She watched as his tawny body shifted, his shiny white teeth pulled back into a smiling snarl when he turned to face her one last time.
A month ago, she would have been scared of him. Now, Riley loved the ferocity, the intensity of him. Her body tingled with longing, to change with him and race across the fields, but she’d made him a promise.
He looked at her, green eyes flashing. He was saying it again. She could feel it.
“I love you too.” Riley knew he could hear her. She only wished she could change and disappear with him.
He’d told her he’d wait for her. And she believed him.
Hunter was her soul mate. Her future. Her destiny.
Once school was out for good, she’d be his.
Forever
.
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