AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Galena giggles maniacally, her pupils dilated bigger than if she has polished off a fifth of fairy wine. “Three Furies and a Gorgon skate onto a Mad Mae’s team, and the joke’s on everyone else.”
“Thank the gods she’s not operating on anyone today,” Tisia mutters. “Let’s skate and win so someone else’s pouring our drinks tonight.”
“Don’t stone anyone,” I say with a nod toward her braids.
“No promises, witch sister.” She laughs and we’re off.
Wings flapping, elbows jabbing, magic dust blowing, snake hair flying, my whip wrapping around the railing to trip everyone else on the track while I pull Dottie to fly around the other teams, we win again and again. I laugh and forget my grief. The pain that has settled in my chest like a stone floats away as light as a Nymph’s glow globe.
When we finish partying the night away at the Hack and Ale, a giant copper wolf waits for me. The irony of the big bad wolf shifter walking me home isn’t lost on me.
Or at least to his cabin that has become my temporary home. My room at the House of Furies was destroyed in the blast, and every shop, restaurant, and spare room in the city has been overrun with those burned out of their Houses. Yet no one took his cabin after all he did to help stop the murders, chaos, and riots.
Staying with Nolan was the easiest answer. Not that I’ve seen him much. He is constantly away—digging through the evidence, talking to the victims’ families, and coordinating with the alphas to take down the small militia that remains of the marshals.
Tension and annoyance roll off him through the unfinished mating bond. “The alphas not playing fair?” I guess.
He huffs.
“How awful was it?” I ask. He bares sharp canines at me, and I fight a grin. “You can’t solve every shifter problem in a few days. You’ve gotta give yourself at least a month.” I’m not surprised when he bumps into me, trying to knock me off balance. “Not going to happen, wolfie. After last time’s drinking fun at the Hack and Ale got me a mating bond in the making, I stayed sober tonight. Not that I regret that first kiss between us because wow, what a kiss.”
The wolf nudges me into the woods, shifting into a very naked man and pinning me against a tree. Nolan nips at my lips. “You can’t say stuff like that and not expect me to kiss you again.”
I wrap my arms around his neck and drag him closer. “I was counting on it.”
Kissing Nolan tastes like power and possibility, belonging and endless teasing, hunger and home. Home. He’s my home.
There’s no hiding my pounding heart or the scent of how turned on I am from his shifter senses. And for once, I don’t want to. “Nolan?” I whisper against his mouth.
“Hmm.” He bites at my lower lip, and I almost stumble over what I need to tell him. Almost.
“I’m ready.”
His dark chuckle against my mouth has desire firing off inside me as bright and real as Fury magic. “For kisses? Yeah, princess. I got that.”
“To be yours. For you to be mine.”
“Same one night rule as before?” His tone comes out cagey, and I don’t blame him. Our give and take and give again relationship has weighed on him for years.
“How about a lifetime? Maybe more since I’ve already died and come back—”
He kisses me again—this time in a hard, bruising liplock of a claim. “Be sure. I can wait if you’re not.”
“I have my pain. You have yours. Those are from the past. I want us as my future.”
“Mine.” His promise comes out on a growl, but I’m not scared. His beast can never scare me again. Not when he’s my mate.
“As you are mine. My first, my last, my forever.”
“First?” His eyes flash gold. “Gods, Sadie. You’re a virgin? We should wait. I want to be gentle with you and—”
I grab his dark red hair and yank his mouth to mine. “I didn’t ask for soft or sweet.”
My words trip the hairpin trigger on his control. “Wings out, love, and hang on.”
I don’t have time to overthink the endearment he called me. He buries his face in my neck and nips at me there while moving his hands over my body as if stripping me to my underwear in seconds has become his latest mission in life. “Hope you’re not attached to these panties,” he says, and the memory him ruining another pair has me gasping as he tears the lace away. He smacks me on the butt. “I said wings out.”
“What—”
