Chapter Eighty-Four
Catherine stared up at the skylight. Rain came down in sheets and traced down the glass. She pulled the blanket up her body and stretched. She heard Graham coming back up the stairs, still on the phone call that pulled him out of bed in the first place. He stopped outside the door and she sat up on her elbows trying to listen.
“No, just stay put. Keep an eye out. Have you split the guys up to cover the exits?” Graham asked before he opened the door. She smiled at the armful of goodies he carried.
“… headed north… hotel in the… whatever he’s up to… Dominic…”
Catherine’s eyes shot up as she overheard the voice on the other line. Graham caught her reaction and shook his head.
“Sounds like he’s going to stay put for the time being but I still don’t like it. It’s too close. Keep me updated. I want to know the second after anything happens,” Graham said.
“Yeah, Boss,” the other voice that she now recognized as Theo mocked.
Graham pulled the phone from his ear, ended the call and threw it onto the nearest chair. “How are you feeling?” he asked, stepping up to kiss the top of her head.
“Sore,” she confessed.
“Thought so.” He began to set the various items he’d carried up on the bedside table. “Well it’s been a few hours since the last… episode. Maybe I’ve finally succeeded in fucking you through your first heat.”
“You’re not supposed to say that out loud! Knock on some wood, get some salt and throw it over your shoulder, get some chicken out of the freezer so we can sacrifice it or something.”
“Shit, that reminds me. I’ll be right back.”
Graham stepped away and went back through the door. She took stock of his haul: snacks, drinks, painkillers, a couple dvds, and another row of condoms. Catherine groaned inwardly and glared at the condoms. She grabbed the painkillers and slammed two
back.
It had been two days of practically nonstop sex. They’d defiled every room, and nearly every piece of furniture in the last forty-eight hours. One time, she had become so overheated, Graham carried her out to the pond and dumped her in it before joining her and taking care of the problem up against the dock.
She considered herself lucky to get an hour without another wave of heated pain. Even at night, she would wake up in a pool of sweat begging Graham to take her. So when Graham reminded her it had been a few hours, four hours and twenty two minutes to be precise, she wanted to smack him for possibly jinxing them.
Graham strutted back into the bedroom, completely unaffected by the entire situation. He had something behind his back and she narrowed her eyes in suspicion. His smile only grew at her curiosity. He whipped the mystery item from behind him and Catherine’s eyes started to sting with tears of pure happiness.
“The ice pack? Is it frozen again?”
Graham nodded and took the last few steps toward the bed. He threw the blankets up and disappeared beneath them. Catherine gasped and shoved at his head under the blanket.
“What are you doing?” she gasped.
1/5
“Helping,” he said, his voice muffled.
“Don’t do that! You might… cause a reaction or something. I don’t want to get all worked up again. Get out of there and.. Ah!”
Graham pressed the ice pack delicately along her heated folds. Her head fell back and a pleasurable groan slipped through her lips.
“Oh my Goddess, that is the most incredible thing I’ve ever felt,” Catherine whispered.
Graham’s head appeared from under the blanket. He rose up on his elbows, causing the blanket to fall to his hips. “Ouch. That’s the most incredible thing you’ve ever felt? After I pulled out all the stops over the last two days? You sure know how to hurt a man’s
ego.”
“If you could freeze your dick, I’m sure it would be even more incredible than this,” Catherine teased.
Graham smirked. “I’ll put some condoms in the freezer.”
“No!” Catherine admonished. She pointed at him and narrowed her eyes. “It’s done. There won’t be a need for another condom. It’s over now. Got it?”
Graham chuckled and kissed her lips slowly. “Who’s the jinx now?”
Catherine guffawed and shoved his chest. Graham fell to his side of the bed and held his stomach as he laughed. Catherine sat up against the headboard and started opening the snacks. Graham sat up beside her and took the water she offered. They sat in contented silence as they ate. Graham put a show on the tv and Catherine resituated herself so that she sat up against his chest.
“Now that we’ve eaten and have had a chance to rest from the major inconvenience of your heat,” Graham teased. Catherine pinched his forearm where he had a tattoo of a scorpion. He kissed her shoulder and then bit her in retaliation. “We have things to
talk about.”
“Like what?” she asked, taking a bite from a strawberry.
“Like why you talked to Tammy,” he whispered.
Catherine stiffened. “You first.”
“Nope.”
Catherine sighed. “I just… wanted a different opinion and I didn’t want Nancy to go tell you or Jensen.”
“She wouldn’t.”
“But you could command her.”
“Maybe. I’ve never tried.”
“Well… I knew there was a clinic in Sterling. I thought I could go there, get an opinion and make my decision without any bias. I didn’t know Tammy worked there and I would have chosen someone else but…”
“You didn’t think you could sneak away again?” he asked as he ran his hands softly down her thighs.
“No, I just didn’t want to risk waiting longer.”
His lips caressed the skin behind her ear. “Did she say anything else you haven’t told me yet?”
2/5
She took some blood and said my heat would be during the next full moon.” Catherine glanced back to find him grinning proudly. That didn’t happen.”
“You blocked your wolf, Baby. It’s not my fault you’ve apparently been repressing your carnal desires.”
“Yeah, yeah. Anyway, she tried to convince me to try other tactics to protect myself from… you know. They were either something that could be withheld or something permanent. I didn’t like the idea of either.” Catherine looked back at Graham to meet his coppery eyes. “She and Juno didn’t like my choice, just so you know.”
“That’s probably why she warned me about you needing to shift,” Graham reasoned. “What else did she say?”
“My blood… she detected a male wolf. She said based on the amount in my system that someone in Blackmoore was giving it to me and that…” Catherine gulped down her disgust. “That for the amount found in my system it had been recent and, most likely, it was concentrated blood rather than the micro doses Matt gave me.”
As she spoke, she felt Graham’s hold on her get tighter. He buried his nose in her neck and inhaled deeply, a tactic he often used to
calm his lycan side.
“It’s your turn,” Catherine reminded him.
He sighed and she heard his head fall back against the headboard. “When you were in your funk I went to her to see what I could do. She told me perhaps it was because you hadn’t shifted. She advised me to try to get you to do it as soon as possible. She also warned me that after you shifted, you might go into heat.”
“Is that why you brought me up here with an apocalyptic stockpile of condoms?”
“Aren’t you glad I did?”
She laughed softly. “Yes. Why did you go to her and not Nancy?”
“I told you my list of trusted people is very short right now. When Jensen cut your palm, I could smell that fucker in you. It was potent. I knew someone had fed his blood to you within the last few weeks. I started thinking about how it could get into your system. You cook your own food so I checked out the farm and Robert and they all passed with flying colors. Tap water was clean as were the drinks made in the kitchen. Then I remembered the medication Nancy had given you along with the shift suppressant.”
“You think Nancy is the one?” Catherine asked in disbelief. She thought about the warm, kind doctor who had tended to her in her
lowest moments at Blackmoore.
She felt Graham shrug behind her. “We used up all the medication so I couldn’t test it. Until I know who’s doing this, no one is ruled out and we’ll use someone else if you need medical attention.”
Catherine took the hand he offered her and she intertwined their fingers. “And Dominic? What did Theo say?” she asked in a small voice that was not her own.
His free hand wound around her middle and pulled her flush against his chest for comfort. “He’s visiting another pack outside of Columbus.”
“Ohio?” she squeaked. He held her firmly, keeping her from pulling away as fear gripped her heart and threatened to pulverize it. “That’s two states away, Graham. What is he doing there?”
“Like I said, he’s visiting another pack. We don’t know what he’s doing, it’s a closed pack similar to Blackmoore. There’s no way they’d allow three Blackmoore lycans through their borders and even if they did, I don’t want Dominic to know we’re following him. Lucas is preparing a special team to go and relieve the other men and they will be able to not only follow him but maybe catch him doing something he shouldn’t.”
“Why can’t you just storm the pack and take him out? Blackmoore is known for their tactics and strategy. The tattoos on your skin tell me you’ve done far worse than kill an alpha wolf. Why is he still alive, Graham?”
He sighed and squeezed her hand. He flexed his arm outward and she knew he was looking at the ink that told his story. “I earned most of these far before we won peace. There are laws, Catherine. Treaties, peace deals between lycans and wolves made by Jensen himself. If I were to kill an alpha without just cause…”
“Without just cause’,” she sputtered. “He held me against my will, he held all of us against our will. He killed our leaders, he tortured us, he forced his mark on me…” She shut her eyes tight, fighting back the memories that threatened to surface.
“Everything he did was legal in the eyes of your former culture. It was outlawed for lycans centuries ago because of how barbaric it is. It’s legal for him, Catherine. No matter how much what he did to you makes me want to smash his skull under my boot, I can’t until he crosses a line with lycans. If we struck first and failed… He could ask for compensation.”
“Compensation? Like money?” she asked.
His hold tightened further as if someone were about to try to rip her out of his arms. “No.”
“Oh.”
He nodded into her shoulder. “That’s why I can’t risk it. I won’t let him take you from me. They’d have to kill me and then Jensen would declare war. Both our kind would go to battle. All the peace we’d fought so hard for would be lost and I’d still have lost you.”
“Okay. I’m frustrated, but okay,” she relented, knowing she would never force him to act on something solely for her revenge that would have such major repercussions.
“My vow to you still stands. I just have to wait for the right moment. Do you believe me?”
She sighed. “Yes, I believe you.”
His tense grip slackened slightly at her words. He kissed her shoulder. “Good.”
“So, what’s next then?”
“Well, when we get back you’ll resume your training. I’ll put you against Theo and then Lucas. You’ll have to meet with Rebecca and, if you’re up for it, maybe you can have a few sessions with Chloe to work on your magic. I think she’s still in Sterling.”
“What about the beta ceremony?”
He nodded. “That’s a few days from now. I told you the lycan alphas will be in attendance as will a few wolf alphas. There will be a dinner with just the higher ups on Friday and then the ceremony itself will be on Saturday and have two parts. One will be in Blackmoore where I will be inducted and you will be introduced. Only members of the pack can attend that. Then we will head to Shepherd’s bar to host the ‘celebration’ with the alphas and their people and we’ll be introduced together.”
“Shepherd’s? Really?”
“Yeah, as you can imagine no one is really keen on having a bunch of outsiders inside the fences right now. Sterling has hotels, entertainment and Shepherd’s is secure enough to make me semi-comfortable.”
“Sounds exciting,” she purred.
He grumbled. “I’d rather not do it, personally.”
Catherine ran her hand along the images of his right thigh. His muscles clenched and relaxed as her nails scratched along his skin. “When do we need to be back?” she asked.
“Two days,” he whispered before tugging the shell of her ear with his teeth.
“Hmm,” Catherine hummed. She sat up and turned around to straddle his hips. “So much time and so little to do.”
She ran her fingers through his hair and locked them behind his neck. She pulled him forward and claimed his lips with hers. He pulled back, startled. He narrowed his eyes in suspicion and touched her forehead with the back of his hand.
“You don’t feel hot. What are you up to?” he asked.
She laughed lightly and shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe I’ve just gotten used to having you inside me. Ever thought of that?”
“Oh yeah?” he asked, quirking his eyebrows up.
In one swift motion, Graham rolled them and pinned her underneath him. She giggled as his lips moved down her throat and to her collarbone. He grasped the icepack still between her legs and pulled it away. Immediately Catherine hissed and pushed at his chest. He raised one eyebrow in question and she felt her face get hot in embarrassment.
“Maybe my eyes are bigger than my stomach?”
He gave her a sultry, dangerous smile. “You mean your eyes are bigger than your pussy?” Her blush grew hotter and he clicked his tongue. “Look at you, burning up again. If I can’t screw it out of you, I’ll have to be more inventive.”
Before she could beg for them not to have sex, he rolled off the bed and tugged her with him. He threw her over his shoulder and started walking from the room.
“What are you doing?” she asked as he trotted down the stairs.
“You’re overheated. We need a solution that doesn’t involve sticking my dick in your…” Catherine smacked his ass, cutting off his sentence. He stopped walking and she immediately regretted her decision. “Oh, you’re going to regret that, little wolf,” he whispered menacingly.
He started walking again and once outside she realized what he meant to do. She struggled in his grasp. She cried, she pleaded but Graham continued through the heavy rain until she heard his bare feet slapping against the wood of the dock.
“You wouldn’t dare do that again!” she yelled.
“Oh, I would dare,” he growled.
A moment later, Catherine was soaring through the air and then she hit the water.
Surrendering to Destiny
