Pretty poison, p.18
Pretty Poison, page 18
“Calm down.” Trudy appeared at Wade’s elbow, bare-breasted and with a towel in a negligent twist around her waist. Her nipples played peek-a-boo through her curtain of blonde dreadlocks. When she lifted her hand, she clenched the pre-loaded piercing gun in her fist. “Here. You’re all set.”
When Trudy pushed the tool at Wade, he stumbled back, dragging Noah with him. “No.” He gaped at Trudy, then at Noah. “No,” he repeated, pulling Noah against him, Noah’s back to Wade’s dripping front. He clutched his arms around Noah, holding him tight. “His wolf hasn’t totally recovered—”
“Only two,” Noah said, nudging Wade to force the room he needed to turn in his embrace and face Wade. “Trudy used ultrasound equipment at Vanguard to confirm it yesterday. There are only two.”
“Our treatments and proper shifting have fortified him considerably. Physically, he’s as capable and healthy as he’s ever likely to be. His body can handle the burden of two,” Trudy argued, piercing gun out-stretched. “If he carries to term, we’re only talking about sixty days. With his history, not shifting for sixty days should be a cake walk, easier on him than most.”
Ignoring the healer, Wade frowned down at Noah. “The pack accepted you and our mating. Where’s the hurry? We have years to fulfill our obligation. I already named Chase as the next alpha so we need never meet breeding expectations at all. Have you thought of that?”
“Would any other alpha mate wait to perform his or her duties to the pack? To you?” Noah cupped Wade’s smoothly shaven cheek. “I can do this, Wade.”
Wade squeezed, his grasp around Noah as snug as any viper’s. “I don’t care. Why won’t you understand?” He shook Noah. “If the pack demands children, then they can find another alpha to lead them. Nothing is worth risking you.”
Spine stiffening, Noah straightened. He squared his shoulders. “I’m not weak.”
“I never thought you were weak,” he said, fingers digging into Noah. His low voice rang with sincerity. “Never.”
Stomach twisting with bitter disappointment, Noah jerked his shoulder to try to break free. Wade held on more fiercely. “What about crippled?”
“No,” his mate shook his head once, vehemently. He leaned down until his dark eyes became Noah’s whole world. “You were ill when I met you. Suffering. They’d poisoned you for over half a dozen years. You needed help, but at no point did I believe you were weak or crippled. Since you were four, you didn’t stop fighting. You learned, more than most shifters do. You gambled on anything that might push your recovery ahead, and when you’d taken human therapies as far as you could, you adapted. You struggled to make a life for yourself even after this pack failed you. You never gave up. That isn’t weakness, little wolf. That’s strength, Power.” His lips curved. “Enough to lure the mating bite of an alpha.”
Gulping, Noah swallowed down the joy and relief balled in his throat. He’d suspected. Regardless of Wade’s motivations for forcing his family to honor the mating pact and tearing Noah from the farm, Wade’s wolf wouldn’t have accepted Noah if that wolf hadn’t judged Noah and his damaged, poisoned wolf worthy. The beast within Wade hadn’t hesitated. Wade hadn’t bitten Noah to mate them as much as Wade had mauled him. Noah hadn’t doubted the desires of Wade’s wolf, not after that bite. Of the two of them, Noah’s tentative bite at Wade’s shoulder had been the more uncertain. Wade’s wolf hadn’t suffered the same distrust and insecurities that had plagued Noah.
Noah hadn’t been as sure of Wade, the man.
“I have to do this.” Noah swept his gaze to the silent crowd of shifters watching them. “I’m no better or worse than any of them. I’m not a burden to you or this pack, but shifters won’t believe until I prove that.”
“You have nothing to prove. To anyone.”
“Yes, I do!” Noah smiled sadly, lifting a hand to brush Wade’s temple. “It’s safe here for us. Temporarily.” He glanced at Mia, so damn young and cute with her black pigtails and shiny new prosthetic leg. “Unless we show outsiders in other packs that shifters like me, like Mia, are useful and productive inside our communities. Once I give you the children I’m expected to provide to my alpha, they’ll know I’m capable regardless of my knees and migraines. I’m too valuable to be mercifully put down or hidden in the country like a shameful disgrace.” He tipped his head at the little girl. “And so is she.”
Wade’s shoulders drooped. “But you’re just twenty.”
Sensing victory, Noah grinned, glad when it wobbled only a little. “You probably should have considered that before forcing me to honor a mating pact.”
“I didn’t care about the pact. I used whatever I had to, whatever was necessary to get to you.” Wade’s lush mouth quirked. “Mating pacts. The duty to bear children for the alpha. No wonder humans think we’re barbaric.”
“If you’re saying the expectation to produce a litter of whelps after mating with an alpha is archaic, I agree. That should change.” Balancing precariously on the tips of his toes, he lifted up to brush his lips with his mate’s. “After our daughters are born. After I prove that being different shouldn’t be a death sentence. Maybe I don’t need to prove anything to this pack, but other shifters are watching us now. They need to see that being different is...okay. Good.”
Wade kissed him, tongue darting into Noah’s mouth to taste. “You don’t even like kids.”
“I like them.” He peered around Wade, at Mia and at Chase standing beside her. “Maybe not those kids. But a pair of our own could be intriguing.” Noah licked into Wade’s mouth. “We’re going to be great daddies, Wade.”
His mate kissed him back, a little greedy, a lot desperate, the wet slide of their tongues familiar but no less a wonder to Noah. “We’ll be outstanding parents.”
“Then pierce him.” Trudy harrumphed. “A barbell in each ear.” She passed the piercing gun to Wade. “His control isn’t what it should be.”
Scared, exhilarated, Noah shook as his mate took the tool from Trudy, and he stiffened to brace himself for the sting when Wade bent to position the silver stud at his right ear. “You realize this won’t make me love you,” the alpha said.
Pain stabbed briefly into the lobe. “I know.” Noah mightily resisted the urge to lift a hand to rub the fresh wound, angling his jaw instead to present his other ear for the same treatment. “But I don’t need to make you love me.”
“You don’t?” Wade solemnly accepted the second silver stud from Trudy. He winked at Noah as he loaded into the gun the extra silver that would help Noah halt shifting long enough for Noah to birth their daughters.
The slash of Wade’s mouth was as seductive and irresistible to Noah as their first night together, the first kiss. No. Not just sexy. They’d gone beyond physical mating to something so much better. Sweeter. “You love me already,” Noah said.
Wade leaned to kiss Noah’s lone naked earlobe. “Exactly.”
~ The End ~
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Kari Gregg lives in the mountains of Wild and Wonderful West Virginia with her Wonderful husband and three very Wild children. When Kari’s not writing, she enjoys reading, coffee, zombie flicks, coffee, naked mud-wrestling (not really), and…coffee! If you would like to catch up with Kari, caffeinate yourself and head to KariGregg.com.
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Also by Kari Gregg:
Spoils of War
I, Omega
Collared
In the Red
Plunder (Spoils of War #2)
I Don’t: A Christmas Wish
Half a Million Dead Cannibals
An Unauthorized Field Guide to the Hunt
Bump in the Night
Table of Contents
Copyright 2013 Kari Gregg
Dedication
D
Chapter OneNoah
Chapter TwoNoah
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter EightShoving
Chapter NineS
Chapter Ten
Epilogue
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Kari Gregg
Kari Gregg, Pretty Poison
