either.'
She didn't want to hurt her baby, but she had to ran.
With two deft movements, he removed his plaid. Suddenly the air crackled like it did during a lightning storm and before she could take a breath, he had taken wolf form. He bounded to the door, leaping past her and landing against it. He circled to face her and growled, baring his teeth.
She'd been around werewolves and femwolves her whole life, but she'd never known fear in the presence of one. She knew it now… a primal fear that had nothing to do with concern he would harm her. It was a sexual fear of being dominated and yet it was mixed with the need for just that.
She could not change during pregnancy, but she felt no disadvantage facing him as a woman rather than a femwolf.
She took a step toward the door. 'You won't hurt me.'
But he didn't have to. He blocked the door as effectively as a stone wall. He was huge as a wolf, almost as tall on all fours as she was standing up.
'How long will you keep your wolf form?' She smiled provokingly. 'You cannot claim me that way.' And then she would win. The taunt hung, unspoken, in the air between them.
He began to stalk her again, a fierce growl rumbling in his chest, his ears pinned back, his tail straight up, his huge animal body shouting intimidation in every sinuous movement. And in spite of herself she backed up and kept backing away from the threat that her brain told her was not a threat. Her instincts demanded she avoid contact with the wolf that looked at her with eyes shining with a man's intelligence… and determination.
He wouldn't attempt to claim her as a wolf, not when she couldn't make the change. Her mind told her that, but his feral behavior mocked her certainty. So, she kept moving, no longer caring whether or not she reached the door, only that she kept distance between them. She didn't realize where he had herded her until she stepped backward into a dark room.
The bedroom.
The air shimmered again and then he was there, a warrior towering over her, his body no less intimidating than it had been in wolf form… perhaps more so because she knew that as a man, he really would claim her in the ancient mating rite. His fully aroused nudity was silhouetted in the doorway to the other room, which was still lit by candlelight.
Her gaze skimmed his body—she could not help her self. And she sucked in air when she saw the size of his male organ. He was bigger than Sean. Much bigger. Dark, angry veins pulsed on Drustan's erect flesh, reminding her that he came to her as a werewolf, not merely a man.
A responding rush of wetness between her legs told her what her femwolf thought of his readiness to mate with her.
He grinned, his eyes lit with arrogant certainty. He knew her wolf wanted him. 'Undress yourself, Cait. Claim me as I plan to claim you.'
She stared at him, inexplicable emotion curling inside her heart. The claiming was supposed to be mutual, but often it was not. Werewolves and men alike often saw their wives as possessions rather than true mates. Drustan's words said he thought differently, that he recognized her worth and strength. Of their own volition, her hands began to peel her clothing away until she stood before him as naked and proud as he was.
Her stomach protruded, but she was not embarrassed by it. Femwolves did not become pregnant easily and to be with child was evidence of the deepest level of her femininity, not something to be ashamed of. The changes in her body made her more beautiful. Any wolf would say so.
Drustan's gaze, so intent on her, reflected agreement with those thoughts. 'I have never touched a woman with child,' he said hoarsely.
She reached for his hand and laid his palm against her belly. The heat of this simple touch seared her and a shudder went through his big body, showing he was as affected as she was. Tears she did not understand welled in her eyes. Everything was different with him. Everything.
He swung her up in his arms and carried her to the bed, then laid her out on it, his touch possessive. 'I cannot let you run from me, but I will prove my strength to be your mate.'
She stared up at him, her whole body shaking with the need to feel his in intimate contact. 'How?' she asked in a bare whisper.
'You will beg me to take you and in this way I will prove the rightness of our mating.'
He thought to make her plead? A femwolf never begged. Not ever. 'You cannot do it.'
She wasn't taunting him, but was truly concerned. He'd set himself an impossible task and she didn't want their mating to be impossible.
'You doubt my strength?'
'I am a femwolf,' she reminded him, knowing better than to make a direct challenge:
'And I will make you beg. Believe it.' He inhaled deeply and smiled like a Viking conqueror. 'The scent of your arousal is like an aphrodisiac to my blood. You will beg, you will plead… you will ache for my possession before I claim you.'
Sean had never made her ache.
She realized she'd said the words aloud when Drustan chuckled. 'He was not a Balmoral.'
'He was wolf enough to make me pregnant,' she snapped back, unwilling to accept the implied slight on the clan of her birth.
Drustan did not look even mildly offended, but smiled again… a predator's smile that made her shiver. 'I will make you wish the baby were mine.'
Then he touched her, his fingertips gliding along her skin, the caress so soft, it made her fine hairs stand on end and goose bumps form on her skin. He used his mouth, his hands and his body to mark every bit of her exposed flesh with his scent and in the process, he brought her excitement to a fever pitch.
She arched off the bed, her body in an agony of pleasure. 'Drustan!'
He laughed low, the sound another impossible caress. 'Do you want me, little one?'
'Yes!'
'Enough to beg?' he demanded.
Her mouth clamped shut on the words she wanted to utter and then opened again immediately in a gasp of delight as his fingers trespassed her most private flesh.
'You are wet and luscious.'
She made a garbled sound, unable to talk.
He pressed his fingers deep inside her, but was careful not to touch the small nub of her utmost pleasure. He played with her, sliding his big fingers in and out and all around her swollen folds.
Then he put his fingers to his mouth and sucked. 'Delicious.'
She moaned.
He pushed her thighs wide and then lifted her hips with his werewolf strength before lowering his mouth to the exposed heart of her desire. He kissed her with closed lips all over her sensitized flesh. Then he kissed her with his tongue in shocking intimacy. Sean had never done this and she could not believe it was permissible, but it felt too wonderful to question.
Besides, if she opened her mouth to speak, she feared broken words of pleading would be all that came out.
He tasted her for long minutes, drawing away when her body trembled on the brink of spending. He did it over and over again until she was writhing below him, trying to get that final touch that would send her over. But he held her where he wanted her and continued to pleasure her until she was mindless with need. He pulled his mouth away and sat up between her spread thighs. She cried out in protest, only to moan again when his fingers delved deep within her once more.
He pulled them out and her wolf's vision could see her glistening wetness on them, even in the shadowed darkness.
His expression was somber as he marked first his penis and then his chest right over his heart with her intimate scent. She broke, unable to hold back her words of need any longer, and cried out with guttural pleas for him to take her.
He did with one hard thrust, joining their bodies in complete oneness. He was big and she was swollen with excitement. She felt stretched to the point of pain-edged pleasure. He pressed against her from head to feet,
