Moon Craving

A keening sound broke from her throat and his body went rigid with pleasure at the recognition of his claiming. His wolf howled so loud inside him that his head reverberated with it. Her entire body bowed, lifting his much-larger form several inches before she collapsed back into the furs.

He shifted his hips until his granite-hard erection pressed into the slick opening to her soft body.

“Do it.” Her hands grabbed at him, pulling him down. “Do it. Do it. Do it. Claim me.”

He could not have stopped himself if he had wanted to. He claimed her with his bite and with his manhood.

As he surged inside, two things happened. The first was an overwhelming sense of coming home, even stronger than he had the night before. So strong, he could not begin to deny it. So strong that it paralyzed him into temporary immobility.

And the second was that he heard her cry out his name. In his head.

He recognized the soft cadence of her voice, but there was a timbre to it he had not heard from her before, a richness that her spoken words did not have.

No. It was not possible. She was human. She was his king’s choice, not Talorc’s. She was not Chrechte. She must have said it out loud and he just thought he had heard it in his mind.

That had to be it.

All inner arguments fled as the pleasure built with unprecedented speed between them. She moved under him with wanton sensuality. His hips thrust of their own accord, moving his hardness in and out of her with a speed and strength he would not have thought she could handle, much less rejoice in so clearly.

He slid his forearms under her knees and pulled her legs up so he could thrust more deeply.

“Yes. Yes. Yes . . .” Each affirmative barely whispered past her lips, but the intensity of the demand was more obvious than if she had screamed the words.

He spiraled toward climax. The strange sensation that he could feel her doing the same only increased his pleasure. Building it and building it. Until they reached an orgasm together that was so intense his shy wife screamed out so loud it would have shattered his inner ear.

If the cry had not sounded inside his head.

He put his head back and howled in indescribable pleasure as he planted his seed deep in his wife’s body and cried out her name in his mind.

“Abigail.”

Her breath seized in her chest and Abigail’s body convulsed with another wave of wondrous bliss as she heard her name shouted in her husband’s pleasure-drenched voice.

Heard it.

Heavens above and all the saints besides. Could it be true? Had she truly heard Talorc yell her name as he reached his own pinnacle of gratification? Yet, how could it be anything but real? She who had heard nothing, not even a ringing in her ears, for too many silent years, had heard her own name called out.

She gasped at the sheer miracle of it, tears of joy burning with welcome sting in her eyes.

Grabbing his face with both hands, she demanded, “Say it again. Say my name again.”

But as she spoke, cold dread lapped at the edges of her joy. She had not heard her own voice.

He stared at her with satiated pleasure and obligingly complied with her frenzied request. “Abigail.”

She watched his lips form the syllables she knew made her name, but no sound penetrated the cocoon of silence she lived in. Desolation choked her even as she begged, “Again. Please?”

Talorc’s brows drew together and he asked her a question with his amazing blue eyes.

She could not answer it though, only beg again, “Please.” Though each word she uttered eroded the hope that had blossomed at what she had thought was a miracle.

Because she could not hear her own words and now questioned whether she had indeed heard her name. But if not, then what? It had been so long since anything but silence had assailed her, she could not remember sound. She fought the forgetting of normalcy, but each year drew her further into a world that felt as if it had never had sound at all.

Still, how could she have imagined something she never even experienced in her dreams anymore?

“Are you not well?” he asked.

And she read the meaning on his lips, in the concern now masking his features, but she did not hear.

How could she answer?

They had just shared a pleasure beyond belief and she was allowing the imaginings of her mind to ruin it. She was not well, but it was no one’s fault but her own.

She forced a smile and pulled his face toward her, intent on hiding behind a kiss. “How could I be anything else?”

How indeed?

And he cooperated in helping her hide, kissing her with a tenderness and leftover passion that assuaged the pain of her self-delusion.

He did not take her to soak in the hot spring this night, but led her on another sensual journey that did not end with any inexplicable experiences. Then he kissed her after—right into slumber.

Talorc woke with his arms wrapped protectively around his mate. Not just his angel in a flight of fancy, but his true and sacred mate. If he could believe the evidence of his mind and senses. How was it possible?

The arguments against the probability of finding a sacred mate the way he had were just as valid as the day before, but none of them mattered in the face of one inescapable fact: He had heard her voice inside his head. They were capable of mindspeak. Not all true mates were, but it was an indisputable sign that the mating was blessed.

It also meant that until Abigail or he died, they would be physically capable of mating with only each other. Not that he would have considered doing otherwise. The Sinclairs, particularly the Chrechte among them, placed high importance the physical act of sex. Most members of the clan, warriors and women alike, considered it a sacred bond, not to be broken.

Even more important, the sacred mating bond meant that not only could Abigail have Talorc’s children, but most likely she would have them. What had seemed an impossibility the night before now had a strong chance of happening. Talorc would send his wolf nature into the next generation if he was blessed with Chrechte offspring rather than human.

It was enough to make him howl in delight. However, his joy was tinged with melancholy.

He could not tell Abigail of his full nature and risk her revealing the secrets of his people to outsiders. Thus he could not share some of the benefits of the true mate bond with her, like mindspeaking. Since he had accepted a while ago that he would most likely not find his true mate, that should not bother him. But it did.

Knowing the mental intimacy they were capable of made him long to participate in the ancient Chrechte act. Yet part of him was relieved he had a reason to avoid it. The true bond was disconcerting enough; the deep intimacy of mindspeak was not something he was comfortable sharing with a woman he had met only a few days before. Particularly a human who had been born and raised in England.

He must be careful not to speak into her mind as he had done when shouting her name during his first climax the night before. He could not risk revealing the true state of their mating before he was ready. If that time ever came.

Abigail’s first view of the Sinclair holding was more than a little imposing. Her sister’s letters had described a keep similar to their father’s, with timber fence surrounding the motte and bailey. Not so now. In the almost three years since her sister had first gone north, that timber had been replaced with stone, and the Sinclair keep looked more like a castle. A solid, impenetrable fortress, to be precise.

A wide moat surrounded the high stone wall. The water was dark, indicating a depth that would prevent easy crossing.

Horse hooves clattered as their party went over the single access point, a narrow bridge that led to the only opening she could see in the wall. Clanspeople had come out of their cottages to welcome their laird home and