A thin trail of blood dribbles to my collarbone, and the whispers howl within a heavier breeze full of raw magic. My jaw is clenched, and my own canines prick against my chin. This feeling – this sensation – is beyond this world. It’s beyond my soul. It’s beyond the laws of nature. I can feel everything. Everything. Every touch and bump and slight pressure to my sex’s walls. Every spot where his skin rubs against mine. Every nerve in my body is lit – exposed in a wave of intense and pleasurable heat.
When he releases his teeth and licks at the wound, I lunge and return the bite. No second guesses. No regrets. No wavering.
The world explodes again, and he hollers his surprise – his pain – his intense and all-consuming pleasure. Still, he cups the back of my neck, holding me in place while he slams and pounds and moans. Heat builds inside me once more. A more intense heat. As though it could be a tangible thing and bring the whole house down in flames.
I groan against his skin, even as something widens in my head – in my brain. A space once void, now filling with something else . . . Someone else.
Jacob.
“I hear them,” he whispers in surprise. “I hear the voices.”
And then, I come undone around him. Together, we shout our release to the sky.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jacob Trent
Rain patters against the windows early the next morning. Its rhythm is soothing, a steady beat that had gently woke me. I’ve been awake for at least ten minutes, and the entire time, I’ve stared at my mate and the unhealed mark on her neck.
When shifters mate with other shifters, the mating mark heals quickly. Within hours, it’s a pale, puckered scar. But not Jinx’s. Her skin is acting like a human’s skin, and I suppose, in a way, that makes sense. She’s not a shifter. She doesn’t have fast healing. Not in the way shifters do.
Dried blood clings to the skin around the wound, but at least it’s scabbed over. It is not red or swollen, either. Only scabbed.
I fight the urge to trace it, and my wolf, lazily lounging inside me, is content to just watch her.
The mating is so different than what we both had expected.
After sex, we had sat in silence while we listened to the whispers together. Kaya’s words had come to mind, a conversation that feels like it happened a lifetime ago.
There is no death, Jacob. Not really. Only a change of realms.
The whispers I hear are those still lingering, still stuck on this realm. My view of the realms has shifted, reshaped and made more colorful.
“You hear these all the time?” I had asked Jinx, closing my eyes to sort out the many voices.
“You’ll get used to it,” she whispered back.
This wasn’t what I expected. Even now, I can hear them linger in her room. Hear them chitter and chatter but nothing I can make out.
We had tried mindspeech too, but it didn’t work. I didn’t admit it to her, but I was disappointed that this normal mating trait hadn’t trickled down despite our unusual relationship. She had heard it anyway. The whisperers had told her my feelings on the matter as though the spirits in the wind could read my thoughts and relayed the message to her. Instead of being upset, she had been startled.
“They’ve never – I’ve never – what is this?” she had stuttered.
Still naked, I had risen, sat on my calves, and blinked at her. “It’s a different twist. We can’t communicate telepathically but we can –”
She had gaped in wonder. “We can communicate through the spirits.”
We laughed. Laughed and marveled and pulled each other into an embrace.
At least there’s one thing that resembles a normal mating bond: I can feel her in a pocket of my mind.
Our heartbeats do not match. Normal mates do, but at least I can sense hers, taste her emotions in whichever way they sway, and she can do the same with me.
In this pocket of my mind where she now exists, I can feel her love for me. Even while she’s sleeping. It’s settled so deep inside her it’s like a vital organ itself. But what got me most – what I hadn’t expected – was her sense of belonging. By mating me, she belongs somewhere in this chaotic world.
When we had left the porch and tip-toed back to her old bedroom, we’d stared at one another in the dark, holding each other on the bed. She had touched the mark often. Her skin hadn’t stopped glowing either, and we had studied my own, which had a certain sort of shimmer. It’s barely detectable, but it’s there, hovering over the surface.
A mate. I’m a mate to a skinwalker.
Jinx stirs in my arms and blinks sleepily up at me. “Morning,” she says through a lazy smile.
“Morning. Where did you go last night?”
A brief scowl knits her eyebrows together. She yawns and says, “I needed a drink. The dust must be getting to me.”
Murmuring my agreement, I touch her cheek then gently trace the scab on her neck. “Are you bringing the food upstairs again?” Mid-stretch, she freezes. “We don’t have to. We can –”
“I thought we could eat breakfast with the rest of the coven,” she interrupts shyly.
I quirk a brow. “Oh?” My eyes instinctively dart to the mark on her neck. “You’re not worried they’ll . . .”
She chuckles in a dark sort of way, kisses me, and slides off the bed. “Oh, they’ll be pissed,” she says as she walks naked to her dresser. I watch every curve, trace every inch of the body I now get to call mine. She bends and snatches clothes from the floor, peering at the door. “But I really don’t care anymore.”
I sit up in bed, using my elbows to prop myself up. The quilt falls away, and she smirks at my body. “Are you sure, Jinx?”
Gaze snapping back to mine, she runs a hand through her tangled hair. “It’s time. Time for all this bullshit to stop. I’m not going to begin our mating by being scared of what we are.”
Pride swells in my chest, and my heartbeat thumps faster. Sliding from the bed, I pad softly to her. Her warmth seeps into me when I fold her into my arms. Our naked bodies brush against each other, and my erection hardens further when her nipples pebble against my chest. The scent of her arousal reaches me, and I inhale it deeply, fighting to remain focused on the topic.
“And if they kick us out of the house?” I ask softly. Our eyes swivel around the room in time as the whispers push against us. It feels so odd to hear things unseen.
“I’ll unleash Sara on them,” she says simply, visibly shrugging off the voices as if they’re a coat she’s discarding to the floor. “Besides. Marian likes you. That should be enough. If not, the prospect of ruining All Hallows’ Eve will dislodge the wedgie up their ass.”
She tilts her head up, and I kiss the tip of her nose. My stomach grumbles and growls at the mention of food.
We both laugh, and soon we’re dressed and headed down to the main floor for breakfast with the vipers.
With every step down the flight of stairs, I marvel at the woman holding my hand. Not a hint of nervousness trembles my way through the bond. She’s sincere – she’s not ashamed of me, but . . . Eating with the others . . .
There’s no way they won’t notice the mark. There’s no way they won’t judge her for it, and there’s no way she won’t see or feel their judgment. I can’t shield her from this. I can only stand by her and endure it with her.