Bite This! (A 300 Moons Book) Page 12

  33

  Finn followed the wolf, his Darcy, into the trees. He slowed to a jog when he saw that she was streaking madly ahead.

  When the sound of the greenery shivering in her path died down, he found himself standing in the middle of the forest.

  Finn Butler, city boy, took in the cool moist air, the stars twinkling between the leaves above, and the chirp of crickets, and felt like a part of it. After all, he was Darcy’s human. He had a backstage pass to nature now.

  At least he hoped he did.

  Darcy had said that her 300th moon was special. She had said that if she didn’t shift and embrace her wolf this moon, she might lose her.

  Reading between the lines, Finn wondered if she had considered the opposite scenario.

  Darcy was impetuous, instinctive, loyal and brave. She was a great wolf.

  What if she immersed herself in the wolf and couldn’t come back?

  The idea of it pained him, even as he chastised himself for his selfishness.

  She had paid the price of three hundred moons unable to let go fully to the wolf. Didn’t she deserve to enjoy her gift? Just as he enjoyed his magic?

  So what would happen if Darcy lost herself to the wolf?

  Finn would go on being Finn, as he had to do. He would find a way to protect Luke. He would buy a cabin in the woods and share his life with her as a human can with an animal - a silent relationship of mutual respect: company.

  But he would never feel her soft embrace again.

  Luke could be the link between them, if he didn’t have parents waiting for him. If Finn could find a way to hold onto the boy. Which was doubtful. His magic couldn’t overcome those kinds of odds.

  Hopelessness threatened to overwhelm him. He pushed his mind back to Darcy.

  She had been so joyful, bounding past him down the stairs of the ancient amphitheater. It was enough for him that she was happy.

  He followed the path she had seemed to take. The land sloped slightly downward.

  At length he found himself at the bank of a creek. A large flat rock formed a ledge over the meandering water.

  Finn stepped onto the ledge and sat down. It was pretty here. And he was unlikely to catch up to Darcy anytime soon.

  The moonlight reflected in the black water. In the rippling movement of the current, the shape of the moon seemed to shiver and pulse. The effect was hypnotic. Finn lost himself to the quiver and sway of the glowing orb. Minutes passed, or maybe hours.

  All at once, the moon exploded into a thousand fragments.

  Finn was roused from his reverie to see the black wolf crashing through the water toward him, kicking up a spray and splashing him with cold water.

  He laughed and she stood still, a foot from the rock ledge.

  One moment a wet black wolf stared him down.

  The next, Darcy stood before him, tantalizing in her very human, very naked form.

  Droplets of water, fiery with moonlight, clung to her breasts. Her dark hair hung around her shoulders in wet ribbons.

  She didn’t speak.

  Finn wondered fleetingly if perhaps her mind was shifting more slowly than her body.

  When she leaned forward to press her lips to his, he rejoiced.

  And when she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed herself closely to him, his joy faded to need.

  He held her face in his hands and kissed her with all the tenderness his hunger would allow.

  When she sighed into his mouth, he slid into the water with her.

  The current was cold, but not cold enough to drown the raging heat between them. He clutched her tightly against him, for once not afraid that his strength would frighten her. She could handle his size, his strength. She was the strongest woman he had ever known. In every possible way.

  She kissed him back, but struggled in his hold. He was confused until he realized she was trying to get his clothes off.

  He released her and she ripped his t-shirt to shreds. They removed his pants together.

  At last he stood before her, naked as she was.

  The reflection of the moon wavered on the water between them.

  Finn called to it, lifting a finger.

  The moon’s reflection slid off the surface of the water like a circle of waxed paper. He blew air toward it softly and it took on dimension, floating like a bubble upward.

  Darcy watched in wonder, her face lit softly by the reflected moon.

  Finn called to it with his mind, and it hovered a few feet above their heads.

  But now there was another moon between them.

  Darcy grinned down at it, and then looked at Finn.

  He lifted it the same way for her. Then another and another and another, faster and faster until the echoed moons filled the air above them like a ceiling, reflecting back in the water as if three hundred moons were all full at once.

  And by the light of the three hundred moons, Finn knelt before her, to lap the droplets of water from her perfect breasts as he had wanted to do from the blindingly happy moment she had come back to him.

  34

  Darcy the wolf had thrown herself into the water, wild happiness bursting from her soul as if the emotion would disintegrate her. Her wolf was whole, nothing had been lost. The cold water tickled her tender snout but the sensation barely made it through her satiny pelt.

  When Finn gazed down at her with his gentle smile, the depth of her inner human’s emotion overwhelmed her, so she slipped back into her woman form. The wolf let go willingly, it was not her job to sort through these strange layers of human feeling where joy was so strangely linked to fear.

  Darcy looked back at Finn.

  She was naked before him, naked in her body but more importantly in her spirit.

  She was a woman and yet, she was not a woman. She would lope into the woods sometimes and eat a rabbit. Sometimes she would read the newspaper with him on a lazy Sunday morning. And sometimes she would answer the call of the pack and disappear in the night, robed in fangs and fur, putting her own life at risk to protect another - whether she knew them or not.

  Darcy stood proudly because she liked who she was.

  She intended to wait for Finn to declare himself.

  But the wolf read his heartbeat and told her the truth of things.

  So she leaned forward to anoint him with her kiss.

  And he reminded her of his own gift.

  They stood in cold water, the air above them dancing with glowing moons.

  Finn didn’t wait to see if she would accept his magic, because even without the senses of a wolf he knew her heart.

  As he knelt and his hot kisses warmed her cool skin, Darcy felt a sharper heat.

  Her belly was burning.

  The tattoo.

  She ignored it, and the warmth seemed to spread.

  Finn abandoned her breasts in wonder as the whole creek turned warm as bath water. Steam drifted on its surface.

  “What’s happening?” he asked her.

  But she pulled his face back to her breast instead.

  He licked one nipple into his mouth, tugging and sucking madly.

  Darcy felt it to her core. The pain of the tattoo receded as pure pleasure pounded through her veins. She ran her fingers through his hair, and then used her hold to pull him closer, closer still.

  One of Finn’s arms tightened around her waist, but he slid the other down, drifting his hand between her thighs.

  Darcy moaned in entreaty, and he slid a finger against her opening.

  She held her breath, feeling her own body blossoming at his touch. She closed her eyes and saw the afterimages of glowing moons as Finn slowly penetrated her swollen sex with his warm finger.

  “Oh,” he breathed against her breast, flexing his finger slightly and causing a rainbow of sensation inside her.

  She echoed him with a whimper, and he slid his finger almost out and back in again.

  Half-crazed with need, Darcy tried to pull him to his feet. They had to get to the
bank, had to make love, now.

  He made a sound of protest against her breast and thrust his finger inside her again, this time extending his thumb to graze her clitoris.

  Darcy’s body tried to turn itself inside out for more contact. Her hips tilted forward of their own accord, even as she knew that this honeyed pleasure wasn’t what she needed. She needed him to be inside her.

  “Please,” she whispered.

  Finn slid his hand out from between her legs and wrapped both arms around her hips once more.

  Darcy sighed with relief as he lifted her, carrying her to the shore.

  He laid her on her back on a fragrant bed of fallen leaves.

  “Shouldn’t we go back, to one of our places, a warm bed…?” he asked, trailing off as she reached up for him.

  The tattoo was burning again now, but touching Finn took the pain out of it.

  “You’re so warm, Darcy, you’re burning,” he whispered.

  “I need you,” she told him.

  His hazel eyes searched hers. At first his expression was filled with concern. But he must have seen what she wanted him to see in her eyes.

  Suddenly he fell on her, covering her mouth with his, his tongue seeking hers hungrily.

  Darcy wrapped her arms around his big body, allowing her nails to sink into his shoulders.

  She could feel the heat of his erection pressing against her belly, making the tattoo writhe in ecstasy. She tilted her hips up, pressing against him.

  He pulled away from her mouth and gazed down at her again, his eyes half-glazed with desire.

  “Is this what you want?” he asked brokenly.

  “Yes,” she told him.

  “It means something to me,” he told her, “you mean something to me. You mean everything to me. What I’m trying to say is that I love you, Darcy.”

  Tears filled Darcy’s eyes.

  “I love you too. But please, please I need you to be inside me,” she begged.

  He leaned down to kiss her forehead, then she felt the heat of him against her.

  Slowly, so slowly he pressed his impossible length inside her.

  Darcy felt herself stretched with his girth almost to the point of pain.

  He stilled inside her and gazed down at her, his jaw tight.

  Fresh desire surged in Darcy at the raw need in his eyes.

  She squeezed herself around him even more tightly.

  “Oh god, Darcy, you feel so good. Am I hurting you?” he asked, his enormous biceps trembling with the effort not to thrust.

  She smiled and shook her head.

  He lowered his forehead to touch hers as he eased himself slowly back out of her.

  The friction was delicious, but the emptiness was agony. Darcy whimpered and lifted her hips.

  He rewarded her with a gentle thrust and she was filled again. The pleasure was dizzying.

  She cried out, and he thrust again and again.

  Darcy could feel herself building, building to a place where she was afraid the pleasure would be so intense it might harm her.

  And that it was Finn who was making her feel that way, Finn’s cock filling her, Finn’s spicy scent in her nostrils, Finn’s long hair falling around them both like a curtain - the knowledge was intoxicating.

  The tattoo was alive with heat now, pressing upward against the underside of her skin.

  Darcy felt the tension of her pleasure wind up another notch.

  “Please, Finn,” she begged, one last time.

  Finn groaned and slid a hand between their bodies and his thumb found her clitoris.

  Darcy lost track of her own sounds as he massaged gentle circles while keeping up a punishing rhythm of thrusts.

  She heard a ringing in her ears just as he cried out her name.

  The pleasure lifted her to an astonishing height, and then brought her crashing down, each crushing spasm of ecstasy clenching her sex tighter and tighter on Finn’s throbbing cock.

  “Darcy,” he growled pulling her to his chest as he flooded her with surge after surge of his own rapture.

  When at last he was still, and there was nothing but their beating hearts and the glow of the reflected moons, Finn rolled onto his back, pulling her on top of him.

  Darcy rested her head on his chest, listening to his heart.

  “You are one impatient woman,” he murmured, the vibrations in his chest tickling her ear. She could hear the smile in his voice.

  She sat up, straddling his already stiffening member.

  “You’re a fine one to talk. You can’t even let a lady stop being a wolf for a minute before you sweep her off her feet.”

  “Hey, what’s that?” Finn asked, looking at her belly.

  Darcy looked down.

  She had forgotten the tattoo. It wasn’t hurting anymore. Most likely because it had finally reached the surface. The delicate swirls were dark against her tan skin.

  She had a feeling she knew what it meant now.

  “How much do you know about shifters?” she asked him.

  “Just stories from my granda,” he said.

  “Do you know what a bonded mate is?” she asked.

  “No,” he answered.

  “I’ll tell you all about it.” She smiled and slid herself against him. “Later.”

  “Much, much later,” he agreed, wrapping his hands around her hips possessively.

  35

  The morning sun shone softly through the farmhouse kitchen window.

  Gentle light burnished the banged up copper pots and softened the contrast between the four white coffee cups and the dark soapstone of the island.

  Darcy sat on a stool, feeling out of place in a cotton dress, hair in a modest braid. Beside her, Finn perched on another stool, his big fingers drumming a secret beat against his khaki-clad thigh. Darcy hoped they looked like a wholesome couple, though she was pretty sure they looked more like a couple of Monster High dolls stuck in an Old Navy commercial.

  Across from them, Kate chatted lightly with Maureen.

  Maureen was a social worker from Child Services. She was also a wolf, and someone Kate had worked with many times. Someone they trusted with the secret of the children at Harkness Farms.

  Maureen smiled at Darcy, her gray eyes enlarged behind a pair of thick glasses.

  Darcy smiled back and nervously fingered the silver bullet she wore around her neck as a pendant. The one that Finn had stopped for her, but not before he’d stepped in front of it. She’d asked him why he didn’t just use his magic to stop it from where he stood, and he told her because it was more dramatic to do it his way. But she knew the real reason. He hadn’t been sure if he could do it. And if he failed, he wanted to be sure it hit him, and not her.

  “Well,” Maureen said, clearing her throat and pulling a folder out of her bag. “I know you didn’t ask me here to talk about apple season. We’ve done an extensive search. We have found no trace of the young boy’s parents. We have found no next of kin. Based on what he has shared with the psychologist about the last few months of his life, I’m going to tell you that this is probably good news for him.”

  Darcy’s mouth went dry and she tried to swallow past the lump in her throat. Though she’d forced herself to hope for Luke’s sake that he had loving parents waiting for him, she had known in the back of her head all along that it must be something like this. That he wouldn’t have bonded to her as he did if she weren’t the best thing that had happened to him in a long time. She fought the anguish and fury of her wolf at the parents who would sell out their child, begging the wolf to remain calm, to demonstrate that she could be patient.

  Maureen had paused, as if she knew this news would affect Darcy. Now she continued.

  “Luke will be a ward of the state. And we’ve made arrangements for him to be fostered here at the farm.”

  She smiled warmly at them all. This was great news, wonderful news for Luke.

  But Darcy wanted more for him. She wanted to give him the world.

  “C
an Luke be placed with an adoptive family?” she heard herself ask.

  “It can be difficult to find a… suitable adoptive family for a child with Luke’s gifts,” Maureen said, a line forming on her brow.

  “How long would it take for an adoption to go through?” Darcy asked.

  “As with any child in the foster care system, that depends on many factors, including how long it takes to find a compatible family,” Maureen answered.

  “What if I fill out the forms today?” Darcy asked.

  “Oh,” Maureen said quietly, Darcy’s intention dawning on her at last. She pressed her lips together as if she were gathering her thoughts. “Miss Harkness, the agency looks for the most stable environment possible, particularly in the case of a child who has endured what Luke has. I have to tell you that your chances of approval as a single parent are low.”

  Darcy’s heart sank.

  Finn’s big hand enveloped hers.

  “She won’t be single for long,” he murmured.

  And then he was on one knee, holding a ring in his hand.

  Darcy could barely see it. The whole room was swimming with the tears in her eyes.

  “Darcy, will you marry me?” Finn asked simply.

  A few days ago, Darcy would have expected something flashier out of Finn. He never seemed to do anything without a flourish.

  But his manner now was so humble, so plain.

  Darcy was quickly learning that Finn’s showmanship, the character trait that used to make her roll her eyes, was just an act - something Finn produced to keep other people at arm’s length.

  She recognized it, because she kept people away too, with her toughness.

  But the walls between them were down. He knew her heart.

  Making them a family here, in the very place where she learned what family truly meant, was the grandest gesture he could ever make.

  She fell into his arms, sobbing happily.

  The bang of the screen door and the thumping of sneakers on the floor alerted her to Luke’s arrival.

  “Darcy?” he asked, his small voice frightened.

  Oh no, she was on the floor, crying.