Page 29 of Clawless

I was pretty sure it was actually a pissed-off growl, but I wasn’t about to ruin the moment by translating. Especially since his hands went straight to the buttons on my shirt. I held my breath as he thumbed them open and peeled the fabric back. For a long moment he just stared at my chest as my heart hammered against my ribs. But then he swiped his thumbs across the lace cups of my bra, dropping a tender kiss against the straining peaks. It wasn’t nearly enough, and my back arched, pushing my breasts into his hands. It was a pretty clear invitation, but he just wrapped his arms around me and pulled me tight.

“You feel that?” He held me still, and I realized our chests were now vibrating in unison. “That’s our wolves, Vail. They don’t need words. They already know we belong together. You get that?” I nodded, feeling the vibration down to my toes. “That sound says you’re mine. Not Reed’s. And not Marrow’s.”

I nodded again, but I could still feel the angry edge to my growly purr. Part of me was ecstatic, but the other part was all anger, and my hand went to the collar. “Then take it off. If we’re meant to be together, you don’t need this.”

He stared at me with hooded eyes. They were heavy with lust, but it was an unrelenting gold that gleamed through his lashes. Scary Alpha was still in charge, and as the realization washed over me, I pushed him back and fumbled with the edges of my shirt. But he grabbed my hand and smoothing out my curled fingers, pressed something into my palm. Paper crackled, and when I looked down, I saw the letterhead of the fancy hotel in Huntington.

“No more secrets, Vail. And no more letters. You want to invite Marrow onto my lands, you ask me first.”

Twenty-One – Jasper

I left Liam watching Vail, because if there was one thing I knew for certain, my sweet thing ran when she felt cornered. And by intercepting her letter, I’d taken her one small attempt at freedom and shoved it back in her face. Not a proud moment, but a point that needed to be made. She had to stop thinking of the collar as a punishment, and appreciate the motives behind it. Yes, I liked the fact it stopped other males from getting near her. But it was more than just a warning. It marked her as something beyond a status or a bloodline. She was chosen. She was protected. And there was no way in hell she wasn’t making it to her eighteenth birthday.

Especially since our wolves had started a mating dance.

Pushy fucker. I’d been fighting to restrain him since the hotel suite, when Vail was trussed up and panting under our gaze. The promise of the collar was the only thing that kept him from pushing through my skin. Still, her scent had been everywhere and the urge to hold her down had been almost uncontrollable. To stop her from running, but also to mark her. So, everyone knew she was claimed. The Luna to my Alpha.

There weren’t many secrets a shifter could keep from his beast. But the fact the collar suppressed her wolf while also keeping the males away, was one I’d had to hide until it was safely in place. My wolf had known instantly, and while I’d been aching to lie beside her in the hotel bed, he was having none of it. He’d pushed through the shift, raking his claws over my balls in the process, and then slept beside her all night. While I’d been walking with a limp ever since, he seemed immune to the injury. As if his rage at my betrayal was blocking out the pain.

I couldn’t help but smirk as I reached the packball pavilion and began shedding my clothes on the porch. The only thing that came close to releasing her wolf was skin-to-skin contact. Something I’d also kept from him, since he wasn’t beyond chasing her down and stripping her naked in the lobby of Omega House. But he’d ridden me hard from the moment I’d stepped into that dance studio and seen her in the arms of the Sawyer wolf. The only thing that saved Xavier from a pair of raked balls was the look of suffering on his face. But my wolf had no interest in rules or politics, or what had actually sent me to the room in the first place. Which was why I’d pushed her up against the studio wall and stripped her of her shirt.

Satisfaction rumbled through me as we both savored the memory. Pale skin, still sheathed in our glow, and those little bits of white lace with hard nipples peeking through. Reliving the image was as painful as when she’d been in my arms, since my wolf had kept a firm grip on my aching balls. Not that the threat had done much to discourage me. Forget the lobby, I’d been ready to feast on those pink buds right there in that kinky room of mirrors. But then my wolf had taken matters into his own paws and summoned the mating purr.

I had to chuckle as I kicked off my shoes and left my clothes in a heap. The pushy fucker was gloating like he’d just won the Packball Cup. But as he began to strip away my skin, I used my alpha power to hold him back. We were aligned on our ultimate goal, but had very different ideas about how we were getting there. Not that I could blame him. Ever since Michael Warren had laid out his plan in the diner, I’d been on the verge of tossing it to the wind and going straight for the jugular. But storming the Marrow Compound, and putting Vail’s grandfather under a blood claw, was a suicide mission. And then who in hell would be standing between my mate and her enemies?

My wolf howled and pushed the shift, but not before I felt his grudging consent ripple through him. Leaping from the pavilion, he tore away through the snowy woods, and for a moment I let him have his head. His instincts were screaming at him to turn back and track her down, but his promise to me kept him moving forward. And as much as my balls still hurt, I felt a pinch of guilt at the way it was killing him to follow my plan.

Which is why I didn’t rein him in when he leaped onto the porch of the hunting cabin and slammed his shoulder into the wooden door. I caught a glimpse of a panicked guard, before my wolf threw his head back and howled his fury into the rafters. Wentworth didn’t stand a chance. Not only was the teacher now my wolf to command, but he was the focus of a frustrated mating bond. All the pheromones my beast had built up to lure out Vail’s wolf flooded the small cabin and the omega hit his knees like a felled tree. My wolf didn’t let him shift, instead forcing him to crawl to our feet in his human form. Rolling onto his back, Wentworth showed me his throat, and something dark and ruthless slithered through my soul.

“Enough.” My voice cracked in my throat, which was still vibrating from my wolf’s howl. To say nothing of the quiver in my spine at my sudden shift. “On your feet, Omega.”

Wentworth lay panting for a moment, his glasses sitting crookedly on his nose. “That was unnecessary, Alpha.”

“You don’t know how wrong you are.” My guard tossed me a pair of sweats and I pulled them on. I was dressed and sitting at the table before the omega had picked himself off the floor. I ignored the scent of his wounded pride; the asshole had that and a lot worse coming his way. When he didn’t move fast enough, I kicked out the chair opposite and growled, “Don’t make me fucking wait, Wentworth.”

He gave me one of his snooty looks and I felt my slight grip on my temper fray. Blasting him with enough alpha power to put him on his ass, he made a helpless sound and fell sideways onto the chair. He’d given up his fancy suits, but he was still wearing a neat button-down and linen pants, and he smoothed down both before gripping the edge of the table. “Your outbursts are beneath you, Alpha.”

I gave him a small shrug. “I have to get my kicks where I can. And you don’t want to know what my wolf is urging me to do to you.”

He lowered his gaze to the table and I picked up the pad and began reading his neat hand-writing. After a slow start, he’d filled two of the things in the time he’d been holed up in the cabin. And as much as I didn’t like the male, I appreciated his recall abilities and attention to detail. I flicked him a glance as I came to the end of the section he was working on. “I bet you killed your communications classes, Omega. You’re quite the storyteller.”

Something dark flashed behind his glasses. “Not every pack provides their wolves with an academy education.”

He’d hinted at this before – and there was enough darkness peeking through his written descriptions for me to get the gist of how he’d grown up. “And yet you ran straight into the arms of the biggest, baddest asshole in these parts.”

“He sponsored my work visa.” Wentworth was fiddling with his cuffs, and I knew the back of his shirt was already soaked through with sweat. At my insistence, the guards kept all the windows and doors bordered up, and a roaring fire going day and night. I was literally sweating the truth out of the former Math teacher, and yet, according to the guards, he still washed and ironed all of his clothes every day. Stubborn fucker. “Part of my contract was to provide reports on wolves of interest,” he went on, “but I never put anyone in harm’s way.”

Even though there was no hint of a lie to his words, I drummed my fingers on the table. We’d been through this before, and I didn’t give a fuck about his excuses. He was a Marrow spy in a Hunter Moon den, and that alone could have him skinned and staked out for the scavengers. That was definitely one of Marrow’s favorite ways of dealing with his enemies, as Wentworth had already reported in vivid detail. “You’ve covered what you know about his business operations, close contacts and the compound layout. But you’ve given up little on the man himself. Torture and murder I already knew about. You need to go deeper. Tell me what makes him tick.”

Wentworth’s mouth narrowed into a thin line, his nostrils white at the edges. I thought he was going to give me some spiel on how he’d already given me everything he knew, but he surprised me by dropping his head into his hands. He was silent for a long moment and I felt the guard watching him blankly, although I could sense the worry under his professionalism. Fucking omegas. Even tough-as-nail security crews went soft after too much exposure. Finally, he said in a small voice, “I try to block it out. He’s… not a person you want to get too close to. But he likes omegas. Especially males.”

I felt the guard’s anger at the implications and shot him a quelling look. He instantly busied himself loading logs on the fire. “He screw you, Wentworth?”

“Not sexually. He has a stable for that. But he likes putting vulnerable wolves in painful positions.”

Truth. As much as my wolf’s hackles rose at this new piece of information, I simply picked up the pen and tapped the pad. “More on that, then.”

He flashed me a look of bitter dislike. “It won’t help you protect her from him.”

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