He growled, releasing his hold on Bryce’s cat, but I clung like a stubborn bitch, shaking my head, ripping through fur, skin, and finally a wind-pipe.
The wolf went lax beneath my hold, and I released and stepped back, heaving for oxygen while jerking my head toward Bryce.
He, too, stood over a wolf, panting, blood dripping from his mouth. Alive. Safe.
Our gazes caught as he lifted his head, and the wild animal within peered back at me, catching my breath.
Pisoiaș.
He stared with glazed, wild eyes, un-answering the call of my cat, and my heart beat stumbled in my chest.
Perhaps he’d been lost to me after all.
184
Bryce
The scent of wolf blood lined my nose. Coated my tongue. Rancid and foul, but the two who had taken from my mate lay lifeless. Revenge at its sweetest, but their mangy brothers still lived.
Pisoiaș, my mate called again, her green eyes glowing in the fire’s light, her snowy-white fur splattered with blood from the wolf whose throat she’d torn apart.
Mine.
I lifted my leg as my cat stated his claim and pissed on the carcass of the wolf-shifter I couldn’t recall a human name for. Mine, but a few of the cocksuckers drew breath when they shouldn’t.
Growls and quiet pops drew my focus toward the fire. Cat and wolf fought. Human’s combated hand-to-hand. Both beast and human sprawled in dirt, but too many still stood.
I licked the wolf’s blood from my lips, the lust for more tensing my muscles.
“Bryce...”
Blinking, I jerked my focus off the need for more bloodshed.
Woman. Curves and beauty. Sweetness like honeysuckle and berries...
Iubita.
Groaning, I lowered my head, my humanness drawing from her strength, the need for arms to hold her overtaking my beast’s desire for blood.
Fur and fangs retracted, bones shifted, and I stood upright, grabbing her against me, breathing in the scent of her hair, her humanness. “Ashlyn,” I whispered as she sobbed against my chest.
I kept watch on the fight dwindling down before us, drawing back into shadow in a vain attempt to hide her nakedness.
My beloved, my sweetness, my lover, had been faced with what I’d been desperate to keep her from—but she’d found her inner self. She’d shifted and protected me. I should have been livid at her disobedience to stay behind, but had she done so, I wondered if I would have escaped the jaws of Cueball’s friend, the second man who had raped my mate.
Both fuckers lay dead, and my body had self-healed whatever damage they had managed to inflict.
I sank to the ground, holding Ashlyn tight against my chest as the night finally stilled around us.
Wraith shifted to his human form and turned in a full circle, his hand holding his mate’s, taking in the carnage around the flickering fire. From what I could see, three Dark Leopard brothers lay unmoving. Not a single Lycaon remained upright.
Although his mate Angel—along with Molly and Shyla—walked around in nothing but skin, my disinterested attention returned to my president, my alpha, and I found him peering through the darkness, his gaze on my face.
We’re alright—she shifted and saved me, I stated in my head, knowing he would hear over the short distance separating us.
He nodded his head once and turned away, taking the lead in cleaning up the carnage of the revenge we’d extracted.
Epilogue
Bryce
Three months later...
Ashlyn exited the bathroom, gloriously naked, a full-on smile flashing her dimple at me and squeezing my heart in the best way possible. She climbed back onto our bed, straddling my naked thighs and spent dick.
“So...” Her smile remained as she lifted a plastic stick.
I tore my focus off her lush tits and their berry-like nipples. “What’s that?” I blinked as it came into focus. “Is that what I think it is?” I asked, lifting my attention to her dazzling smile once more.
“Yeah.”
Laughing, I yanked her down against my chest, devouring her mouth. For three months, we’d been focused on leaving our pasts behind, remembering loved brothers lost, and caring for the one widow of that night’s war. We’d also spent our private time wanting and attempting to start a family.
Ashlyn had gone into heat a half-dozen times during those months, but I’d been unable to give her what we both desired.
“Those damn things accurate?” I asked, lifting her face in my cradling hands—needing to see her face.
“Ninety-nine percent or something like that.”
“Not good enough.”
I flipped her off me and onto her back, and she giggled as I placed my ear against her soft belly.
“What are you doing?”
Closing my eyes, I let my cat loose inside me.
Heart beats.
I smiled and relaxed, my thumb drawing circles on Ashlyn’s inner thigh.
“Do you hear anything?” she asked tentatively, her hands in my hair.
“Mmm.” I kissed her belly—twice—and lifted my head.
“I hope they have your eyes,” I said, and her dimple faded, eyes widening.
“What?” she whispered.
“They,” I said, biting back a grin. “As in twins. A couple of Pisoiaș of our own.”
“Oh, shit.”
I laughed and crawled up over my mate’s lax body. Fear flitted through the bond between us, and I paused, my heartbeat stalling. Had her premonition ability warned her of impending danger? Grief?
“Ashlyn?” I managed to get her name past the tightness claiming my goddamn throat.
She blinked, focusing on my eyes. “It’s okay.” Her smile wobbled—I wasn’t convinced. “It’s not what you’re thinking.”
I lifted an eyebrow, still unconvinced all three wouldn’t be ripped from me in the blink of an eye—that she’d seen it. Felt it with her crazy as fuck gift of a sixth sense.
“It’s just … the thought of one kid seemed daunting.” My mate stared up at me. “Twins? Good Lord I’m scared shitless.”
My breath left in a rush, and I lowered myself to cover her soft, satiny curves that would soon be growing even rounder with our children.
Fuck, I couldn’t get enough of her body. Couldn’t get enough of her laughter, her peace. Her perfection.
It had been instinct from the first glance to love
