Chapter 116
TESSA POV
Walking back from Block E, the stunning arrows safely placed into our weapons cabinet, my heart fluttered with contentment. Hope and excitement, all those beautiful sensations had my wolf scattered, producing the softest little flutters upon my heart.
Only to see dozens of slightly drunk men and women scampering around. “Where’s another fucking red flag!”
“They’ve already had the train station ones!” another shouts.
“Why are there only two shitting shades of gravel! SHIT!”
“Blades! Blades area has pinkish stones!” before rushing past me in a giddy sprint. “II’VE GOT A BOTTLE!” some over enthused man bellows like a bull.
Somehow, I just know Maxim is behind this. The groups giddiness is infectious. I’m practically skipping back to the packhouse, my head full of only the happiest thoughts.
Maxim worries I wouldn’t like to live in that little house on the outskirts. But I know we could make it our own. Yet equally, to remain in the pack has its wins too. Surrounded by the buzz of activity and daily pack life.
I don’t think he’ll ever believe that I’m happy because I have him. Not because of where the bed we sleep in is located. Everything else is just window dressing when you have the love of your life next to you.
He defines what it means to be loved, a feeling he constantly sends rushing from my head to my toes. I know the way to make him feel the same warmth in return is to avoid returning to shy muteness. Sometimes it is to just hold him. Listen to him. Press my lips to his and think only the sweetest thoughts, knowing our wolves are connected beyond anything we can truly comprehend.
Deep down, there is a young boy who had to create so many tough, shell–like layers of defence in his childhood. Yet I see Maxim trying everything he can to remove them for me.
When he gave me the arrows, my brain flitted thought to Luca for a second. The first person to ever give me a real gift. The days when his dark hair and eyes were my only source of friendhsip. How excited and dazzled I was at his generosity. He started off my love of archery, inspiring me to reach Ravenbow in the first place.
I don’t know what path the Goddess intended my life to take, but I know Luca, the childhood friend was lost to me years before our matebond was revealed. Even then he was stubborn and inflexible. The man who returned took pride in his damage. How tough it made him.
Loving Luca, accepting being mated to him would have been trial after trial. Not like Maxim. Not the way I feel every time I look into his face and see his eyes light up a little bit more.
All those tiny little expressions only I get to see. His sleepy, unimpressed face when I roll away. The quirky eyebrow raises when he catches Silas is being a drama queen, or Kai overthinking,
How the scar down one side of his face feels under my fingers and lips. The way he grits his jaw and holds onto me like I might float away, just as he’s about to lose control and fill me until I moan with unfettered bliss.
I adore it all. Everything. Even the suprises.
Which is good, because just as I approach the packhouse a door slams open to the side, facing the accommodation blocks, swiftly followed by my mate.
His nose is bleeding and the other side of his face has a nasty bruise swelling underneath his jaw. “Maxim!”
“Tess! Ah, don’t worry I’m fine,” he grumbles. Just as I run into his arms and examine his face the huge, furious figure of Alpha Remy exits the same door.
Maxim stands tall, taking a step to the side to place his body between us. I know he was planning to mention the house and quitting his service, I never imagined he’d get beaten up for it.
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Chapter 116
But Remy looks different too, almost vulnerable. Scowling up at the full moon above like it’s taunting him. He grits out. “I’m sorry Mazin, I am then we no need to hit you.”
Maxim says nothing, just wipes a hand across his mouth, checking for blood.
Around us the packhouse erupts into choruses of boos and cheers. Someone must have won a game. The air around the three of us is tense, the sound of tables scraping along the packhouse floor and big, hearty cheers splitting the silence.
Placing a hand on his arm, “Maxim?”
“It’s fine Tess. Honestly,” adding his own hand on top. “Remy and I are sorting things out.”
Remy offers his hand, outstretched and waiting.
“I won’t hunt her down for you,” he states, calmly and clearly.
“Okay. Then help me find another way. Anything. But you’re right. I don’t want to be this man. The mate bond being corrupted and fouled, it’s what sent my father on his spiral, I can’t let that happen to me,” choking on his final words, head dropping down.
It is enough for Maxim to pace forward and give him the handshake and shoulder slaps he needed.
“You’ve got this Remy. You’re not your father. Not for a second. If I thought you were capable of being like him, I wouldn’t have sworn a thing to you. It’s fucking you up, because you’re fighting it. It’s a bond, not a curse.”
Remy nods, taking some deep, settling breaths. “I just need my wolf to settle down. I think the full moon is making it worse.”
“You want to stay at the party?”
“No.”
“Then don’t. Do what you need.”
Without thinking I add quietly. “I go and fire arrows. When my brain is too busy, and I can’t explain it, I just shoot and shoot. Sometimes for hours.”
Remy lets out another deep breath. “Worth a try. I’ll be down at the blades section.”
He stumbles away down the gravel path. Before I can ask Maxim what the hell is going on he is swept up into the tug of war. Sinking a full pot of beer, as demanded by a triumphant Vigo, who won some kind of scavenger hunt, he took up the slack of one end of the rope.
As before, Warden Marshall waited on the other. Returning Warden’s and Beta’s on one side, Maxim, first years and the other officials on the other. There was no Allette to dramatically open the proceeding, a pretty Healer girl named Rose agreed to do it.
Maxim kept his eyes on me. Last time, amusement flickered. Tonight there was something else. Hunger. Whatever he and Remy discussed has set his mind on other matters than beer and dancing. Which is good, because I have my own plans.
With short brown hair and a quick, flirtatious smile at a mesmerised Kai, Rose let the grunting set of men loose. Maxim was merciless. The crowd hollered and whooped. As promised, Warden Marshall’s end was roughly dispatched over the line and into failure in an instant.
“Rematch!” some of the beaten Wardens grumbled. But my mate was immovable. “Not for me,” Maxim said, striding towards me. His amber eyes shone, giving me a quick kiss before wrapping his arm around my shoulder and taking a seat next to me.
“We’ll stay a little longer, for Silas?”
“Sounds good. I’d like to keep my memories tonight,” grimacing at the memory of strawberry wine. Accepting beers from the triumphant Vigo we settle in onto a table, my legs swinging above the ground and he quietly fills me on Remy and Daphne.
“I love that you said no,
“If I put her in danger when she helped us, it wouldn’t be right.”
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The fluttering feeling I had before Seeing him injured returns. Silas is finally smiling and relaxed, the mood of festive mayhem restored. I begin to plant me
next move.
“You have got one peculiar little smile going on, Heathen.”
“I do?”
“You know you do. What is going on in that head of yours?”
1 let out a sigh of contentment and rest my head against his shoulder. “I’m just thinking, how I said I didn’t know about the whole mini–Pagano thing?”
“Babies?” he snaps quickly, not even trying to disguise his interest.
“Yes, babies. With you. Well…maybe I like that idea. Maybe since you mentioned us running around with a little pack of wild Paganos i can’t get the idea out of my head?”
“Then what the actual fuck are we still doing here?” he whispered roughly into my ear, his hand finding mine with that searing tightness that sent a rush of blood flying through me.
“Move, move,” he urged the people sat in fron of us, forcing me to cover my mouth as I chuckled. “Make way! Warden of Care. Pack Hero, make some room,” before deciding everyone was too slow and drunken and simply picking me up himself.
Swung over his shoulder he marched straight out of the packhouse.
“Maxim! The rematch?” Silas and Kai shouted in unison.
“NOT HAPPENING!” he answered back, not even breaking stride. Facing his confused friends I gave them a wave, mouthing “sorry!”
I didn’t mean it. When he flung me back down to earth and pressed me up against the wall before we were even ten metres away from the door I groaned with need. “Yes. Maxim, yes,” as his hands gripped my hips, my waist, his mouth claiming mine with ferocity.
“Yes?” he repeated. “I need a better word than yes for the idea of filling you up with our babies. Fuck Tess,” his cock hard, squashed betwee our bodes. “Yes a thousand times. Yes to whatever you want. I’ll make it happen. Anything. Everything. I’ll make it happen.”
I gasp when he lifts me up and for a moment panic he might actually get carried away enough to try something out in front of the packhouse, in full view of any drunken people meandering home.
But just as his hand rakes up to the top of my hip, he pauses and growls. “Get running Tess. Because if I get you before, I don’t even know how I’m going to stop myself from just making you mine. Anywhere. Now. I need to be inside you so badly it hurts,” his voice turning more feral by the second. His hand, disguised by the folds of my dress, reaches between my thighs. Talking a lingering glide between the folds of my pussy until I whispered, “oh Goddess. Oh…”
“I mean it Tess. Run,” the glint in his tigerish eyes more than enough to convince me. Pulse racing I placed my hands on his chest and guide him a few steps backwards, a broad smile creeping up my face.
Still guiding him, his fingers trying to toy with mine I turn him around so he’s facing the wrong way. Then he gasps when I drop to my knees. “Tess. What the fuck? I mean…” as my head presses against his pants. Where I can feel just how much he wants to make this moment count. Hook up at him with the most innocent expression I can muster. “Yes?”
“Wait are you? NO!” he cries out laughing as I jump up and begin my run. His laced tied together gave me the few seconds I needed. There is no
I sprint across the gravel. Twisting around the stone archway, down the corridor, I barely make it to the door. The instant my hand hits the handle he grips my waist, his breath hot against my neck.
“Got you now, heathen.”
ence.
