Page 18 of Filthy Fae

If I was right, I would either have to knowingly kill an innocent man or kill my own sister with my bare hands.

There had to be another explanation. I’d sent off several texts to Zeezee, and she’d only said that she was working and upset, and she could probably meet up tomorrow. I had a gut aversion to demanding the meeting. What if she confessed?

No. I needed to look into this, find evidence. This could all just be my imagination running wild with me.

“Can’t sleep?” Darrel’s voice was a low rumble.

I looked up, just able to make out his bold features in the dim room. “Shit, I’m sorry, Darrel. I can go sleep in Aaron’s room.”

His hand rubbed down my back. “I can’t sleep either. I keep thinking about that ghoul that wasn’t a ghoul.”

It took me a moment to remember, and then I was hit with a pulse of guilt. Darrel had killed tonight. Yeah, he’d killed a creature that attacked us first and launched itself at Darrel instead of backing down, but no matter how berserk it seemed, it could have a family. Darrel didn’t strike me as someone who killed lightly under any circumstance.

Reaching up to his cheek, I rubbed my thumb over his dark stubble. “What should we do?”

“Nights like this, the only things that calm my wolf are a ride, a run, or...” He glanced down, his midnight blue gaze hitting mine in the dark.

“What?”

A smile quirked up the corner of his lips. “Sex.”

Oh damn, that sounded like exactly the distraction I needed. Leaning into him, I asked, “Do I have to pick just one?”

Twenty minutes later, we were riding up the coast as the moon stared down above us. I hugged Darrel’s waist as his bike hummed. The sky had cleared, leaving a crisp January night at around fifty degrees Fahrenheit, perfect weather for a run. The highway north cut between the ocean and forest. Parts had fallen off into the sea during the decade of storms, and small, warped bridges crossed over two-hundred-foot drops. Darrel took the bridges slowly and turned off the road about forty miles north into thick forest.

This was one of the most isolated areas on the coast, impassable from the north and dangerous to reach from the south. The small towns we’d passed on our way up here had been dilapidated and dark. The human population was probably so astronomically low the area wouldn’t even draw trolls.

All this passed through my head as Darrel pulled off to the side of the road near a path. Butterflies took flight in my stomach as I dismounted his bike. The bike had given a gentle hum of vibration just between my thighs, and as I turned to Darrel now, looking at his towering moonlit silhouette, I was ready to switch up the order of events to ride, sex, and then run.

As if he read my mind, Darrel nodded into the forest. “I have a spot in mind.”

“Can I at least undress you before the run?”

When he nodded, I grabbed the hem of Darrel’s shirt, pulling it up and over his head when he raised his arms. I ran my hands over his warm skin, exploring the ridges of muscle of his chest and abs, and my tension melted away. Darrel had that effect on me. As I undid his jeans, he smiled and whispered, “See, no damage.”

When I met his gaze, he was grinning in a self-satisfied way, and I decided not to reiterate my point that I cared about damage to all parts of him equally.

I slid his jeans down with his underwear still inside and ran my fingers down his naked body. “Not an acid burn in sight.”

“I should probably recheck you,” Darrel rumbled as he helped me slip off his leather jacket. He folded it over his bike before helping me with my shirt, pants, and shoes.

His eyes glowed with his wolf, and his voice filled with a growl as he said, “I want to show you something.”

The forest exploded in sights and smells as I changed into a wolf. She rejoiced in the musk of the trees and passing wood life. An owl cooed from deep in the forest. A rat skittered through the underbrush. Scent trails led on in all directions, and we pressed our nose to the soil, inhaling the chalky musk of a pregnant deer.

As Darrel’s massive form pressed up against my side, we reveled in his presence. Alpha. Of the three Knight brothers, Darrel’s wolf was the most dominant. My wolf might be as vicious as a wolverine, dominant as they come, but even she knew that if push came to shove, Darrel’s wolf was more dominant.

His presence drew us in, and we rubbed our muzzle along his face. It had been so long since I let my wolf have free reign when our lives weren’t in danger.

Had I ever?

We ran as a pack when I was a young teenager, but my parents had always hemmed me in, urging me away from the others. I realized now that they’d known what I was and wanted to keep me far away from our megalomaniac alpha. When Darrel tossed his head toward the forest and huffed, clearly asking if we wanted to run, my spirit soared within me, and I took off.

Moments later, he was beside me. We flew through the thick underbrush, leaping over logs and dodging thick redwood trunks. The heavy, moist air of the forest tickled my muzzle as our speed created its own wind. My wolf oriented herself to my mate, keeping track of him by instinct. We didn’t slow until we reached a ridge in the forest slope, getting an unimpeded view of massive redwoods stretching out to all sides. Darrel slowed in a patch of soft clover, but instead of braking my speed, I pounced. We rolled over one another, our bodies tangling until he had me pinned.

I licked his teeth while his weight pressed down on me. He rolled over, and I pounced on him again. This time, he let me pin him. It’s clear he was letting me, because a moment later, I was under his weight again. We continued to roll, but my wolf and I found ourselves very satisfied pinned under him. It felt like safety. I didn’t realize how much I wanted that until I felt it. I had to be so many other people’s safety. For these few moments, Darrel was mine.

It wasn’t complete submission, not the kind that would have given Darrel my pack alphahood, but it was a personal submission of a kind—a mating submission, my wolf telling his that we wanted him to protect us. After a time, we came to a stop and lay curled at his side, watching the forest gently sway around us. Clouds gathered overhead, making me think that the night had only given us a short reprieve. A cold drop of water plunked onto my muzzle, and I shook my head in shock.