Her other hand grasped my head, and she pushed me toward her neck and the bruising fingerprints left behind. I obliged, my tongue cleaning the dirt off her satiny skin, licking the drying blood, healing with every swipe.
The scent of feminine arousal, sweeter than any huckleberry rose from between her thighs, and my head spun, my heart thumping madly in my chest.
Instinct to bite, to claim, roared through me, and I fought against my animal’s need. Concern for her wellbeing, her frailty over the abuse she’d suffered kept my animal in check, but barely. A strength I hadn’t realized I’d possessed before flooded through me, a level of self-control I’d never experienced—the desire to protect my mate.
A long gash along her side drew my attention, and I gave her what her human body needed, my saliva closing the wound before I lifted my head once more.
Hazel eyes more green than brown, peered up at me without an ounce of fear—or surprise. “You’re healing me,” she whispered, her shaking hands running along my jowls to my neck.
I licked her wrist, and she pulled me close, resting my furry forehead against hers.
“My Pisoiaș.”
A shiver slid over me, ruffling my fur, and shifting back to my human form came easier than it ever had, bones realigning, skin replacing the fur, knees in the dirt alongside her thighs, hands rather than paws beside her head.
Although my animal wanted to claim our mate, I withheld, my dick aching—dripping pre-cum in need to cover the stench of the fuckers who’d thought to touch what belonged to me.
Her fingers ran along my shoulders, down my back, and I lifted enough to look into her eyes once more, blown away by her lack of fear—or surprise at having a beast turn into man right above her.
“I’ve found you,” she murmured, her healed lips quirking, revealing a dimple in her right cheek. “Am I dead?”
“No,” I rasped, needing to clear my throat, the fog of need to claim still rushing through my blood. “You’re very much alive.”
Gorgeous, I wanted to add, your scent driving me wild.
“Those men hurt me.”
A growl rumbled in my chest, and instinct to protect, to cover, lowered my body to hers, soaking in the warmth of her lush curves, the softness of her skin their greedy hands had exposed.
She let out a sigh as though content beneath my weight, unbothered by the fact she’d experienced horror in the previous few hours. “You’re real. You’re here.”
I nodded as her hands once more held my face, her thumbs rubbing along my beard.
“Your eyes are onyx jewels,” she murmured, her dimple appearing. “Even more beautiful than I’d imagined.”
“You came back for me,” I heard myself say at the exact time my inner beast whispered the same truth.
“I’d hoped to find you.”
I stared at her lips—life would be found there, I had zero doubt, but she’d been hurt...
“Take what you want, Pisoiaș.”
Gentle, so as not to rile her fear, I swept my tongue over the swollen flesh, tasting sweetness, the rightness I never thought to find.
“Mine,” I whispered against her lips.
“Yes.”
175
Ashlyn
My dark angel’s touch swept all fear, all anxiety away, and I swallowed in his scent I clearly recalled from twenty-seven years earlier. Musk and wildness, my creature of the forest. Had I hallucinated the cat before the human? The fur that literally disappeared beneath my fingertips into warm flesh and hard muscle?
Surely my mind played with my senses, my fanciful love of romance novels and the paranormal influencing a brain that had endured trauma one too many times.
The weight of him rested on me, but not overbearing, the heat of his body, the hardness of his cock against my thigh—all man. Purely human and naked. But this man, didn’t instill the instinct to flee, the surety of danger as the other had done.
My glasses no longer rested on my nose, but I’d clearly made out the mussed hair atop his head, the strong, slightly crooked nose, the black eyelashes fluttering over his closed eyes as he’d kissed me.
Another growl escaped him as he trailed his mouth along my jaw. I shifted my head, bearing my neck, giving him permission to do as he wished. In that moment, I wanted nothing more than him to claim me like the animal I imagined him to be.
My sub-conscious tickled my thoughts, whispers I couldn’t make out like static in my brain. Being beneath him on the forest floor felt right—he was what I’d come south for.
“Tell me you’re alright,” he murmured against my ear, his low voice rumbling down along my body, straight to where my core ached for more than one reason.
Arousal flooded from me, stinging along torn flesh to drip to the ground. Those men had hurt me, but I couldn’t remember a single moment after the darkness had taken over me.
My wild angel’s tongue, his saliva had healed parts of me—but not every part. I needed him to erase the darkness just beneath my conscious, I wanted to beg him to heal my aching core as well, but the thought he would taste another man’s cum between my thighs turned my stomach.
“I’ll be alright,” I finally answered, knowing I’d at least found where I belonged.
He pulled back to study my face in the dying light, his dark eyes fathomless—bottomless—sucking my soul into his.
I dug my fingernails into his tensed shoulders as he pushed up to plank over my body. “Don’t leave me,” I heard myself whisper.
His scowl would make any grown man tremble, but I felt no animosity in his stare. “Never.” Tilting his head, his focus slipped to my neck once more. His tongue flicked out to wet his lower lip, and a tingle raced over my skin.
Yes.
The whisper sounded loud in my ears—and he jerked his attention back to my face.
“Yes?” he asked, his tone lighter, his eyes
