Coyote's Mate

CHAPTER 26

She was warm. Toasty warm from head to toe. She could feel the warmth wrapped around her, like a brush of flesh, like Del-Rey.

It felt like Del-Rey. It didn’t feel like death. She didn’t feel feverish. She didn’t feel cold and in pain. She didn’t feel weak and lethargic.

Actually, she was damned hungry.

She opened her eyes as a rumbled growl of hunger caused a flush to heat her cheeks. How long had it been since she had eaten?

A warm, broad palm whispered over her stomach. She felt a bandage on her side and the tight sensation of flesh adhesive.

Memory rushed over her then. The meeting, the attack. Ashley and the girls.

Her eyes opened to meet the gentle, black gaze staring down at her.

“About time.”

She stared into his face. There was a rough, rakish growth of beard on his lower face. His lashes were heavy as though he had just awoken himself. Broad shoulders were naked, looming over her side as his fingers lifted to her cheek, his thumb whispered over her lips.

“Don’t move too fast,” he said softly. “The shot missed vital organs but you bled a lot. The doctors want to be careful that you don’t experience more shock.” His expression twisted. “The baby’s safe.”

She blinked back in shock. “Baby?”

“Those doctors you risked your life for—” he cleared his throat—“they knew so much that we didn’t, Anya. So much.” He shook his head. “I’ll let Nikki explain it all later. But you need to be careful at least until our child is born.”

His lips crooked into a grin. “I told you, they knew so much we didn’t. You were right, Coya, we needed them. You were right about so many things and I refused to listen.” He shook his head.

“Later. You need food.”

She watched, silent, uncertain where to allow her thoughts to land as he slid from the bed and tucked the blankets carefully around her.

“Ashley,” she whispered. “Jax?”

He swung around as he pulled a pair of cotton pajama bottoms from the chair and dragged them over his powerful thighs.

“Jax is currently sitting out in the hall, his proverbial tail tucked between his legs as he guards our door. Ashley is fine. A bump on the head to match Sharone’s. They were distracted by your illness. They didn’t have time to react to the attack.” He frowned at her lightly. “That’s why I demanded a security force when you left Haven, Mate.”

She stared back at him. “You took my girls,” she whispered.

He shook his head. “The pack leaders made a mistake in that unsigned memo Brim sent out. A mistake that will never happen again. A signed memo went out the second I learned what happened in that kitchen, Anya, reinstating your status and scheduling our ceremony for spring.

Unfortunately, you had left and the Feline Breed that betrayed us all was able to get out of the base.” He shook his head. “I should have told you my suspicions, but I didn’t want to worry you.”

“We were betrayed?” She licked her dry lips in confusion. “What the hell happened while I was gone, Del-Rey?”

“Everything went to fucking hell,” he suddenly snarled in male irritation. “My whole fucking base came down around my damned ears. I’m a general, Coya, not a fucking nursemaid. You need to get well to take care of their gripes and complaints before I start knocking their fucking heads together. You’ve slept for two days. I’ve spent that time in that bed.” He pointed to her side. “With a laptop, answering a million damned hysterical emails from Coyote Breeds who can’t seem to make a decision on their damned own.”

Her lips twitched. “All it takes is an occasional kind word, Del-Rey. They’re really very responsive to a little emotional pat now and then.”

He glared at her without heat. A hint of humor lit his eyes.

“Prove it, Coya.”

“Feed me first,” she demanded. “And God, I need to use the bathroom.”

He helped her to the bathroom first. He carried her in despite her protests, waited just outside the door, then carried her back when she was finished.

She had managed to wash her face and brush her teeth. She felt almost human again as he tucked her back beneath the warm blankets.

“The girls are bringing your food.” He sat down beside her gingerly, touched her face again. “I almost lost you.”

“I tried to contact you before the meeting,” she sighed. “I made them leave their links behind though. When Sharone borrowed one from Satin’s enforcer, she heard Satin talking to Wolfe about stopping us. We ran but lost the link in the flight. I couldn’t stop, Del-Rey.” She stared back at him desperately. “I couldn’t stop. We had to have those doctors.”

“Shh. The doctors are here, safe and making lists of equipment needed for Base. They’re our doctors. They know us, Anya,” he said softly. “I never saw so many things. Never suspected that a scientist could be more than a monster. They showed me differently. They showed me what we are, and what we were meant to be as Coyotes. But it wouldn’t have mattered. They saved your life. Nikki couldn’t have done it. She would have killed you trying to save you, and I was too damned arrogant to understand that.”

She shook her head. “Too concerned for your people,” she sighed. “This isn’t a blame game, Del-Rey. We survived, right? Jax, Brim, the girls? Everyone?”

“Several wounded, none of our people are dead, though seven city council members and one traitorous Feline Breed were killed.” He shook his head at that. “Douglas was hand-picked by me. He wasn’t even drugged; he just hated Coyotes. Nothing mattered but that hatred.”

She barely knew who Douglas was. He had stayed out of sight for the most part. Now she knew why.

“You have a lot to explain to me, don’t you?”

“Quite a bit.” He grinned as a soft knock sounded on the door. “Ashley is refusing to let me pay for her nails until she sees you. Sharone is still glaring at me, and Emma is playing with her knives every time she sees me or Jax. I think you should reassure them.”

“That ceremony.” She stopped him. “Why?”

“Because I love you,” he said simply. “You’re my coya, Anya. I won’t deny that any longer.

Denying it was killing both of us, and driving a wedge between our people. And I will remind you, I sent out a memo to that effect before you left Base.” He frowned down at her. “Not because you were hurt or because of our child. Because you’re mine, and I no longer deny what is mine.”

With that he rose, opened the door and let in her girls.

They eased into the room. Their faces were bruised, Emma was limping a bit.

“Em? What happened?”

“Stupid Wolf tripped me when I tried to rush to you,” she snarled, her gray eyes flashing.

“Bastard wrenched my ankle and held me down until the shooting stopped.”

“Son of a bitch sheriff slipped up on me while I was trying to sneak into the shrubs and blow that fucker Douglas’s head off,” Sharone snapped. “Knocked me out cold as hell about the same time Douglas caught Ashley by surprise.” A tray was set on the bed beside Anya, the scent of food beneath the metal dish covers making her mouth water.

“Milk,” Ashley growled. “Doc says you need the calcium for that little hell-raiser you’ve conceived. Geez, Anya, don’t you know about birth control? Do you know what a kid of his is going to be like?” She jerked her head to Del-Rey as he leaned against the wall and watched the Coyote girl show with something akin to male horror. “Hell, he probably doesn’t know how to breed girls either.”

Del-Rey winced and lifted his gaze to the ceiling as though he were praying.

She ate and listened to the girls fill her in. Between bites of chicken soup, baked potato and perfectly grilled steak with icy cold milk, she slipped looks at her mate. He listened and watched with complete male fascination and fear as they talked.

“Well, at least that arrogant pup Jax knows his place,” Ashley finally bit out. “I should have kept his earlobe as a trophy.”

Anya almost lost a drink of milk at that one. Del-Rey winced again.

“And on top of it all, they bring in those two totally uptight doctors from Russia. Katya refuses to go to the spa with us, and Alexi is just as stick-up-his-ass as he ever was,” Emma inserted.

“Yeah, but man, Petrov is as damned cute as he ever was. Forty-two looks good on him, Anya,”

Sharone all but purred.

Anya winced. Sharone had a thing for her father that Anya had just never understood.

“I’ll shoot you if you sleep with my dad,” Anya warned her.

Sharone only laughed, her eyes twinkling in a way that made Anya throw Del-Rey a desperate look. Since when the hell did he let her father in Haven? Why? Why now? She was not listening to any more of Sharone’s perverted fantasies about her father. It so was not going to happen.

Anya had suffered enough after Del-Rey had shot her father. Sharone had mooned over him for months.

She finished her meal, her eyes growing heavy as the girls argued over ceremony colors and shoes. She found herself drifting off, thinking of the white dress she had her heart set on, walking down the aisle on her father’s arm. Her cousins and their families there.

She felt warm. Liquid warm and excessively happy. For the first time in so long, the daydreams returned. Seducing her Ghost. Loving him. Touching him. Sharing things with him she had always longed to share. Sunrise and sunset. A caramel apple. The fights, the yelling, the loving.

And wasn’t there something about sex that Wolf and Coyote Breeds just loved?

She opened her eyes and stared at him, imagining it, feeling a tingle of warmth where she knew she shouldn’t. Something so wicked, so forbidden.

Her gaze slipped to his thighs as the girls’ chattering finally stopped. Would he, when she was well? she wondered. Would it be safe?

“Girls, time to go.” His voice was husky, rough now as he moved from the wall. “Ashley, get the tray please.”

“Oh man, there they go getting all hot and bothered,” Ashley said and pouted. “I’m going to tell Armani on them. She’ll rein his ass in.”

“It’s not his ass that’s the problem,” Emma snickered as they moved from the bed.

“Night, Coya.” She was surprised by Ashley’s quick kiss to her cheek. “Kick his ass before you give him some. He was such a male Breed.”

“Yeah.” Anya grinned in delight. “He is, isn’t he?”

Ashley rolled her eyes as the girls left laughing. They were laughing. They were happy. And her mate was happy.

He moved to the bed, beside her, his lips lowering to hers gently, whispering over them. “No sex for three weeks,” he told her. “Doctor’s orders.”

She pouted. “I won’t last three weeks.”

“Three weeks,” he repeated.

But his lips slanted over hers, his tongue touched her lips, slipped between them. That taste of the mating hormone wasn’t there, but the heat, the hunger, the need still filled her.

This was her Coyote. Her mate. Her lover. He would be her husband. But first, damn, three weeks. She might not survive it.

“Four weeks was uncalled for.” Anya was sniping when she entered her and Del-Rey’s rooms.

She threw her PDA in a chair and turned to face him. “What did you do to her this time? What did Brim do to her? Four weeks, Del-Rey. She’s made me wait four weeks.”

“Just get your damned clothes off,” Del-Rey snarled as he jerked his boots off. Black eyes gleamed in hunger.

“Get ’em off or I’m ripping them off,” he snarled in complete male dedication to the arousal that had been about to drive them insane for weeks.

She jerked her sweater over her head.

“Brim’s been harassing her again, hasn’t he?”

“Hell if I care,” Del-Rey grunted as he ripped the buttons on his shirt in his desperation to get it off. “Stop bitching and get ready to start fucking.”

Her bra clip broke as she tore at it. Grimacing, she flung the piece of lace across the room before jerking her shoes from her feet.

Damn, Del-Rey was beating her. His pants were almost off. She tore at the snap on hers and pushed them, along with her panties, over her thighs. She was barely stepping out of them before she found herself picked up, gently, and moved to the bed. On her back.

He jerked the jeans off her legs and threw them behind him. He stopped then, stared down at her.

His fingers reached out and touched the small pink scar at her side.

“Don’t start, Coyote Man,” she ordered fiercely. Del-Rey could get rather intense over that scar.

“We’re here to fuck, not stress over something that didn’t happen.”

“I can stress later?” He lifted his gaze to hers. “If I never forget, Anya, then I’ll never let my arrogance get out of hand again. I want to always remember what I nearly lost.”

“Later. Fine.” She thumped her hands on the mattress, then lifted them to his hair. “Kiss me first.

Then do that wicked, naughty thing I made you blush over in the doctor’s office.”

He blushed again, his black eyes going wild just as they had in the office when the doctor had slid that little look his way. The one that was equal parts amusement and curiosity.

“You tease,” he groaned. “You weren’t serious.”

His erection assured her he was very seriously interested.

“Are you gonna turn it down?” she teased him.

“Ah God. Turn that ass up to me and its fucked,” he groaned, his lips sliding over hers. “So damned fucked.”

She loved it. She’d heard of it. Hope and Faith had snickered over it a time or two. They had no idea what caused it. Defiance could get it for them. They argued, they yelled, they got their way in the form of their mates going all super dominant and showing them who was boss.

Nikki Armani had been confused by it. She called it a Breed thing. Something about submission and seduction and dominance. The forbidden. She had shaken her head and shrugged.

Anya hadn’t tried that with Del-Rey yet. They yelled, they argued, but she’d been saving the defiance stuff for later. Maybe after the baby was born. But this, she didn’t want to wait any longer for this kind of intimacy.

She wanted him though, she wanted that. She wanted it until it had tempted every fantasy she’d had for four weeks. Every one. To the point that she had awakened to his heartfelt groans as he rolled from the bed at the scent of her arousal. Refusing to take her, refusing, until the doctor signed off on it.

Well, the doctor had signed off on it.

“Kiss me, wild man,” she groaned. “Hard and deep. Convince me.”

He chuckled, a rough, sexy sound. “You need convincing?” “You never know,” she moaned, reaching for him, dragging his lips to hers. “Please me, Mate, like you’ve never pleased another.”

His lips stole hers, like the first time. A deep, slanted, tongue-thrusting kiss that had her moaning, arching against him, her juices easing from her sex, preparing her for later. Definitely later.

“Let me taste you,” he growled, moving from her lips to her nipples.

They were sensitive, so sensitive that she nearly orgasmed as his tongue lashed them, his lips suckling them gently.

His kisses wandered down her stomach then. He kissed her scar, kissed her belly, then laid his cheek against it for long, breathless moments before he spread her thighs wider and took her with his tongue.

“Del-Rey!” She screamed his name as she arched to him, feeling his tongue thrusting hard and deep inside her.

Wicked, slashing forks of pleasure raced through her sex, to her clit. She writhed beneath him, feeling him taste her, lick her. His tongue was ravenous, his moans fueling her desire as she felt his fingers moving lower.

He parted the cheeks of her bottom, tempted her there. He caressed and massaged the puckered little opening of her rear.

Oh, she liked that. She arched at the spike of pleasure, the tingle of incredible heat as he smoothed her juices back and the tip of his finger pierced her slowly.

She lifted, moaned for more.

“Ah hell, you’re going to give me a stroke,” he groaned against the wet folds he was devouring.

“Breeds don’t have strokes,” she panted. “Good hearts. Remember?”

“I’ll be the first,” he breathed out roughly. “Ah fuck.”

She cried out as his finger slid inside her.

“Ah hell. Baby. Anya. This is for the heat cycle.”

“No. For now.” She twisted against him as his tongue circled her clit. “Oh yeah, that’s so good.”

A second finger pierced her and she wondered if she could pass out from the pleasure. She felt herself stretching, relaxing. Eager. Oh, she was so eager for this.

“I should spank you for this,” he growled.

“Yeah, spank me.” Her hands gripped his hair as she rode his lips. “Do it. I dare you.”

Don’t dare a Coyote. It should be on a plaque on every wall in Base. “Never Dare A Coyote.”

His free hand landed on her raised rear.

Anya froze, felt the tingling burn and gave a low, drawn-out moan.

“Dare ya to do it again,” she panted.

Before he could do more than gasp, she found herself rolled to her stomach. Hips lifted. His hand landed on her rear and she felt something better than mating heat.

Oh damn, this was wicked, and she loved it.

One hand moved between her thigh, palmed the wet flesh, his fingers stroking her clit as he held her in place and delivered another little slap to her rear. It wasn’t painful; it was hot. It was sexy and wicked, and she wanted more.

She rolled her hips, cried out his name and lost count of the heavy caresses. She didn’t lose count of the burn though. It was racing through her bloodstream, sensitizing every nerve ending in her body. Oh yes. She loved this. She was dying for him. She wanted more and more and she wanted to sink beneath the onslaught of pleasure/pain she could feel was coming.

“I can’t wait.” His fingers slid back to her rear.

One finger eased in, then out. Two pressed inside her, stretching her. He gathered her juices, drew them back, teased her with the little strokes that weren’t really strokes. Just stretching, just easing her.

“Don’t wait,” she cried out. “Oh God, Del-Rey, please.”

How long was she supposed to bear this torment? She needed. She had needed for four weeks.

“I’m ready dammit. Oh God, do something.”

She was dying for him. Her thighs were slick with her wet need. She was hot, so slick that when he gathered more and eased it back, he was able to press three fingers inside her as she screamed out his name.

“Oh yes,” she cried out. “I’m so close. So close.”

His fingers eased back. A second later she felt the blunt, wide tip of his cock press against her in the same spot.

Immediately a spurt of pre-cum shot from his cock against the little entrance. She felt it burn brighter. Her back arched as the tingle in her rear became hotter, deeper.

“Hell,” Del-Rey snarled as he eased against her, pressing slow and easy. So slow. So easy.

His cock jerked as it spilled again, shooting into the opening he had created. The tingles turned into something more. Something that ached and burned and eased his way as the essence created a lubrication that made her even slicker, easier to penetrate.

Another. Another.

She was screaming his name as he stretched her, pressed inside her. His hands were hard on her hips, holding her still as his muscular legs pressed hers apart.

“Fuck. What the hell have you done to me?” He groaned as the fluid shot inside her again.

He shuddered behind her, his cock jerking, and more filled her. He was sliding slow and easy inside her now, stretching her until she swore she was going to come from the pleasure-pain of that alone.

It was exquisite. It was more pleasure, more intensity, a naughty, thrilling sensation of submission and being dominated. Of complete trust and the need for a pleasure so extreme that the border between it and pain dissolved.

She was begging by the time he filled her. Tightening on him, trying to milk him deeper inside her, to suck all the pleasure from the act that she could bear.

“Baby.” He rose over her as he filled her, his arms catching his weight, his lips going to her neck.

Sensation tore through her as his lips found the mating mark, caressed it. The sensitivity there was almost too much to bear. He laved it with his tongue, sucked at it and slowly began thrusting, fucking inside her rear with deep, slow thrusts.

She hated slow. She bunched the blankets in her fists and screamed out at the need.

“Faster,” she cried out. “Harder.”

She needed faster and harder. Oh God, she needed to come. She was going to come, if he would just move.

“Anya, baby.” He kissed the mark as she stared back at his tightly clenched expression. “God.

I’m trying here. Stay still, sweetheart.”

Stay still? Was he kidding?

Her hips writhed beneath him. It was agony, it was pleasure. It was so many sensations she wasn’t certain she would survive it.

“Now, dammit,” she cried. “Please, Del-Rey. Now. All of you, now.”

He pulled back. He meant to go slow. Del-Rey commanded himself to go slow. Slow and easy.

But she was killing him. Clenching on him.

He clamped his lips on the mark, licked and sucked at it as he began to move. He could feel the spurts of pre-cum, the mating fluid that normally eased her snug, hot little pussy but was now spilling into her rear, easing her there. She was burning tight around his dick, milking him, destroying him. One hand gripped her hip, the other found her hand.

Holding on to her, he fucked her. Deep, powerful thrusts that sent an agony of pleasure sizzling up his spine. He wouldn’t last long. He was going to take her until she found her release. Only until then. He wasn’t going to find his own release here. The swelling mating knot was thick, hard. He wasn’t going to hurt her. Never again. His mate would never hurt again.

He worked inside her, fighting to push her over the edge as he teetered on it himself. His hips thrust, driving his cock inside the snug channel, feeling her tighten, her throaty cries growing deeper. She was clenching, convulsing; she was screaming in orgasm, tightening on him as he fought to draw back.

Too close. Too close.

“Ah fuck!”

His teeth pierced her neck. He slammed in hard and felt his cum spilling, that additional swelling locking him inside her, spreading her farther until he swore he filled not just her rear, but that tight little pussy as well.

Anya lost awareness. She felt him spurting inside her, her release catching her off guard. She felt him swell, lock into her, and amazingly, incredibly, she felt that swelling press against the thin tissue between her rear and her vagina. She felt stuffed with him. Filled from one end to the other as another explosion tore through her, shattering her mind as every nerve ending in her body pulsed in response.

She tried to scream his name, but she could only manage strangled cries. Her fingers locked with his, her teeth bit into his forearm, and another explosion rocked her.

She was lost within this pleasure, lost where she needed to be, surrounded by him, held and anchored by him as she flew, free as the wind, and shattered into an exhausted heap beneath him.

“My love,” he whispered.

“Hm. My love.” She kissed his arm, turned her head for the gentlest kiss he had ever bestowed upon her and grinned back at him drowsily. “Dare you to do it again later.”

He chuckled roughly. “We’re going to start limiting your dares,” he warned her. “You get your way too often.”

She had dared him to buy the beds and quilts for the new Coyotes who had arrived. They watched her like the sun and the moon set on her. She dared him to find a decent cook that he could tolerate. He ended up with a full kitchen staff. Humans. He would have shuddered at the thought, but they were damned good cooks and he never had to worry about finding his coya stacking the damned dishwasher.

She did nothing more strenuous than carry her PDA or e-pad. The girls made certain of it. If she tried to do more, they called him.

She distracted his thoughts as she stretched beneath him, causing a groan to tear from him at the pleasure in the heat still wrapped around him.

Finally, long minutes later, he eased back.

“I’ll move later,” she murmured. “After I sleep.”

He smiled. She made him smile. She made him warm. She made him happy and made him look forward to each day and the surprises she had in store for him.

Shaking his head, he moved to the bathroom, washed up, then carried a damp cloth and towel to the bedroom. Despite her grumbling, he cleaned his seed from her, kissed a pale buttock, then patted her rear gently before crawling into the bed beside her.

Immediately, she was curling into him. They shifted and tussled for position for long minutes, until finally he was curled around her, her head pillowed on his arm, his cheek against her hair.

Sleep came easily. It came with a sense of security. It came with warmth.

“I love you, Del-Rey,” she whispered sleepily. “With all my soul.”

“I love you, Anya,” he said. “You are my soul.”