Predator's Serenade Read online

  “Oh, I will fuck you, baby.” He penetrated her with his cock, grunting at her glove-like grip. “I hope you can swim, because I may fuck you right through the dock.”

  Their mouths met in a hurricane of passion, welded together. He pumped her with an aching slowness at first, so deliberate and luxurious, he felt his balls tighten at once and worried they’d fall off. She clutched at his ass, prodding him, silently asking him to pound her. He would not disappoint her.

  But first, there was something else he needed to do.

  Soren gazed at her face, the face which had become so precious to him, and decided on her left cheek. The side of her heart. Calling on his bear to witness the act he never thought he’d perform, Soren opened his mouth on Gioia’s cheek and bit gently down. She stopped moving under him, also taken by the moment, if not understanding it. Her hands slid up from his ass to hold the back of his head.

  This time, he would not leave an actual scar. It would happen during the marking process. Right now, he just wanted to lay claim to her, as bears did in the wild. His teeth on her cheek was about surrender and commitment, just as it was between full bears. Male bears chomped down on their female’s cheek during the mating process as a sign of dominance. Soren, too, was making a pledge. In biting her, he promised to take care of Gioia, to use his strength to keep her safe always. And in turn, she surrendered to him.

  The most astounding moment of his life.

  He squeezed a tear from between his eyelids and removed his teeth from her cheek. He then laved the area with his tongue, sealing in his scent on her body.

  He laid his arms on either side of her head and gazed at her. “You will never be with anyone other than me.”

  “Never,” she murmured, her eyes wide and black. And then she smiled and smacked his ass hard. As he recovered from the sting, she bit his cheek in a playful recreation of the marking. “And you’re mine. Don’t you forget it.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it, you scary woman.”

  As she burst into giggles under him, he began pumping. He was still inside her, and his dick throbbed in annoyance at not being given free reign. Soren gave into temptation and moved his hips against her, feeling himself grow in her slick cavity. Gioia held on tight and he thrust, meeting her movements measure for measure. She gasped and wrapped her legs around his back. His balls pulled up, and he relished the sweet burn as it streaked through his body. He was close, so close. It would only take…

  “I know what you need, baby,” her voice rang out in his head.

  Gioia reached around his ass and tickled his perineum. Somewhere over the lake, someone shot off fireworks. And then Soren realized it was him. There was no light display over Lake Gemini. His body had exploded, or so it seemed. As he poured himself into his mate, while she tightened in her own orgasm, extreme pleasure hurtled through all his limbs and muscles. Each sinew vibrated and stilled, like a violin string being plucked. And somewhere deep inside him, his bear was pounding on a big bass drum with gusto.

  He collapsed against her in awe. When he could finally lift his head much later, Soren grazed his lips against hers in a gentle, life-defining kiss. Her skin glowed, and he could see every mahogany highlight in her hair, lit as she was by the lights around them and his love.

  He really loved her. His first and only love.

  Gathering her to him, he bundled them in the blankets, and they leaned against the dock. She rested her head on his shoulder, and he ran his fingers over her marked cheek.

  In silence, they watched the luminous boats on the lake until one by one, as the dawn kissed the sky, the last dancing flame extinguished.

  Chapter 11

  As they walked back toward the lodge together around eight the next morning, Gioia’s heart did a dance in her chest. It had been twirling and boogying under her breast since Soren claimed her the previous evening. As they held hands, she looked at him from the corner of her eye.

  Her bear man looked different today.

  Yes, his eyes bore the slightest of dark circles underneath. Of course, he had been a busy boy. As soon as all the lights on the lake had dimmed, Soren had turned to her and taken her in his arms. He’d made love to her again and again. Her head was still spinning at the ferocity and the volume they’d experienced. God only knew her energy level needed a boost too.

  No, it wasn’t fatigue that made Soren appear like a different man. It was something else.

  A new strength radiated from him. Sure, he’d always been a massive, muscled being, but today he wore a new determination. His head was held high, and he surveyed the area ahead of them through keen eyes, as if always assessing any possible danger to her. He gripped her hand, his clench tight and secure on her, but his thumb stroked her with gentleness. His body was relaxed, the posture of a man who knew what he wanted and who wasn’t afraid to fight for it.

  A man in love?

  Gioia frowned, feeling like a silly school girl. Yes, she understood mating implied a certain depth of feeling, but Soren hadn’t actually said the three words. She didn’t expect him to at this juncture. Of course, neither had she. Did she love him? She must if she was willing to give herself to him like that. Yet adding the label “love” seemed a little scary. It was so soon. Mating was one thing. It smacked of primal urges and fate, but love told of undying devotion and an element of choice.

  She wasn’t naïve enough to think Soren had chosen her. She was likely the last person he would have chosen.

  Surely this wasn’t love. She wasn’t sure she could love again. She’d thought she had unending love with Paul, but life had thrown a heavy encyclopedia at her head, rendering her incapable of ever feeling the same way again.

  Or was she?

  A teensy part of her still felt guilt. Poor Paul hadn’t understood his own illness, hadn’t been able to help the changes. In his own way, he had loved her to his dying day. Didn’t she owe that to him? Was she supposed to live in mourning all her life, or was she supposed to move on?

  Suddenly, she wasn’t sure. Soren seemed sure of himself as he strode toward the lodge. And for some reason, a pinprick of ominous doubt poked at Gioia’s insides.

  Something felt off.

  Maybe it was Gunnar and wanting him to accept Soren. It must be nerves. After the care and consideration Soren showed her last night, she had no reason to doubt his intentions. He cared deeply for her, even if love wasn’t involved.

  The kernel of unease began to jump around in her belly. She clenched her stomach muscles, willing it to shrivel into nothingness. What was wrong with her all of a sudden? Why are you thinking like a basket case?

  Something was wrong.

  She stopped moving. She didn’t want to go to the lodge. Gioia yanked on Soren’s arm and tried to turn back in the direction of the woods and their floating dock, where they’d been happy.

  “Gioia?” he inquired, his face pale at her expression. “What’s wrong?”

  She couldn’t make her mouth work, couldn’t catch a breath. Paralyzed by something she didn’t understand, Gioia stared at him, willing him to understand her irrational, out-of-nowhere fear. “I don’t want to go back, Soren.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. There’s something bad here.” She shook her head back and forth. “Please take me back. ”

  He put a hand on her cheek and looked her in the eye, his blond brows knit with concern. “I won’t let anything hurt you. You’re safe with me. And now that we’ve begun the marking process, the men will leave you alone.”

  “I can’t explain it.” She swallowed the prickly lump in her throat. “I have the worst feeling…”

  He pulled her close, and she buried herself in his broad chest and arms. She wrapped her arms around Soren’s body, clawing at him, holding him close.

  A faraway voice in her head told her it might be the last time.

  She heard shouts and the sound of strong feet pounding the pavement ahead of them. “Soren!”

  They both loo
ked up to see Ryland running toward them, his face pinched and red. He stopped short in front of them, his dark eyes shooting confusion toward Gioia, and then he turned to his brother. “Uh, we have a situation.”

  Her heart sank. She felt it plummet past each of her ribs and hit the floor.

  “Is Gunnar okay?” Soren demanded, as if he were the boy’s father.

  “Yeah,” Ryland answered, unsure. “But for how long, I don’t know. Bro, I don’t know how to tell you this.”

  Soren pulled Gioia to him and growled. “Spit it out, Ry.”

  Gioia watched Ryland shift uneasily on his feet. Her attention was diverted by the sound of more footsteps a few feet away. She looked up.

  And watched as her world began to crumble.

  *

  Soren eyed the people approaching as a horrible apprehension made his stomach lurch. He saw Lia, as pale as a sheet, and another man he didn’t know. The brown-haired dude was a shifter, that he could sense, but had no other clue as to his identity. The man’s fists were clenched, and his nervous gaze was trained on Gioia.

  “Ah, fuck,” Soren muttered. “I thought we’d seen the end of the pheromone shit.”

  Gioia began to pull away, her eyelids fluttering. Her lips moved of their own accord, trembling. Fear was etched into every corner of her face.

  “Baby?” Soren asked. She was staring at the stranger, shaking her head, trying to pull out of Soren’s grasp so she could bolt. “Gioia! What is it?”

  Her eyes narrowed on the dude in agonized bewilderment. Her voice came out as a crazed whisper. “I saw you die.”

  A chill traveled down his spine. No fucking way.

  Soren turned to the other man and was suddenly hit by a family resemblance. Wes’ thick hair. Gunnar’s hazel eyes. A bear tattoo peeking out from under his short sleeve. And a troubled expression that could only belong to one person.

  Paul Clementine. A walking dead man.

  The dead man peered at his wife, and his eye twitched as he spied her hand linked with Soren’s. He cleared his throat and spoke to Gioia. “You didn’t actually see me die, Gioia. You saw me get injured.” He blinked quickly, as if trying to dislodge a painful eyelash. “God, I'd kill for a hug, sweetheart.”

  “Over my dead body,” Soren roared, enfolding her shaking figure in his embrace. “What the flying fuck is going on?”

  “I saw his bloody body.” Gioia turned her horrified gaze upon Soren, her expression frantic. “Wes went with me to identify him.”

  Paul took a step forward. Soren moved her a step back. Paul let out a quiet laugh laced with cynicism, clearly expecting such a reaction. “I should have known someone would have snapped you up. Let me explain.”

  Gioia’s body appeared still, but Soren felt the tremors climb up and down her spine. “What explanation could there possibly be?” Her hushed cries nearly broke his heart. "I saw you. I saw the tattoo on your bloodied arm. I saw what was left of your face. I saw your remains laid out on a table in the morgue."

  "It wasn't me."

  "Then who the hell was it?" she whispered. "Grizzly Adams?"

  Soren watched as the tendons tightened on Paul's neck. The shifter was sweating, and his body rippled with nervous tics. Still, Soren didn't get the impression Paul was lying. If his story was fabricated, he obviously believed it. His tension seemed to arise from having to confront his wife with such an ugly truth.

  "Gioia," he continued. "I didn't know where I was, or who I was, most of the time. I was sick."

  "And now you're all better," Soren couldn't help interspersing, tightening the curl of his fingers on the back of Gioia's neck to let her know he was there for her.

  The other man looked him in the eye. "I believe so." He regarded Gioia with sadness. "Look, can we talk somewhere private? There are things you need to know."

  Soren released his mate and marched over to Paul. "You don't go anywhere with Gioia without me being there. Understand?"

  "And you are?"

  Soren was tempted to answer he was Paul's worst nightmare but resisted. "Soren Snow."

  Paul chuckled without mirth. "I thought I knew your face. My boy thinks you're the cat's meow."

  Soren made no comment about that. "Like I said, anything you say to Gioia, you say in front of me."

  Gioia took his hand. "Soren, it's okay. Stay with me." She nodded at Paul, her face so pale. "Let's talk."

  * * * *

  Ryland kindly offered his office. They shuffled in. Soren ushered Gioia in first, his hand on the small of her back, and she was glad to have it there. She still didn't trust herself not to collapse. Paul followed them. The others waited outside in the lobby.

  Soren led her to his brother's executive leather chair. She sat and stared at the ghost of her husband on the other side of the desk. She didn't know what to do. This was the man she'd loved for years, and who she likely always would. He was also the man she'd seen dwindle into a sick, violent shadow of what he used to be. He'd hurt her and scared her many times, even if he didn't mean to. This was the man their own son felt compelled to kill.

  Oh God, Gunnar! What would he say?

  As much as she did want to hug Paul in relief, she felt it necessary to maintain a distance. Her emotions were already on edge. She couldn't afford to sever whatever lifeline she still had attached to her sanity. "What happened to you?"

  Paul took a breath and began. "I was close to death. I should have died." He smiled at her. "That boy of ours is a good fighter. He almost tore my heart out."

  "It's a shame he had to in order to save his mother," Soren added.

  Paul didn't dignify Soren's comment with a response or even a look. Gioia reached over and squeezed Soren's knee, and he quickly covered her hand with his. Paul continued. "Somehow I found the strength to run. I didn't even know where I was headed. My body just pushed me out the door. Thank God we live in the suburbs. I was able to stumble into some surrounding fields. At some point, adrenalin kicked in and I shifted. In that state, I made it pretty far. My bear drove me into an empty field, probably with the intention of dying there, and I collapsed. My mind was a blur. The next thing I remember was waking up in a small home owned by a couple of Blackfoot brothers. Turns out they'd found me in that field. While I was unconscious, I'd shifted a few times, or so they told me later, and they had taken me in. Their legends speak of the bear people, and they recognized what I was. They looked after me and healed me."

  "But you were beyond repair," Gioia said. "Gunnar almost tore you apart."

  "I can only credit my bear for being stronger than me as a man," he replied. "I don't know. Maybe my guardian angel took pity on me." He let out a bitter huff of a laugh, which detailed precisely what he thought of his guardian angel. "Anyway, by hook or by crook, my Blackfoot friends patched me back together with their traditional remedies, and my shifter genes took care of the rest."

  "So you got better but never thought to call your grieving wife?" She couldn't resist asking. Part of her wanted to rejoice at Paul's news, but part of her wanted to scream at him for letting her think he was dead and for letting their son think he'd killed him.

  "Gioia, I'm so sorry," he replied. “The fact is, although my body improved, my mind took a lot longer to catch up. There was a lot of nasty shit in my system, and I was living in a dream world for so long. Memories felt like visions. And there were days when I was so high on Blackfoot medicines, I didn't know my own name. I honestly thought I'd made you and Gunnar up for a while. With my head so clouded, I never thought to reach out to anyone." His voice lowered. "Hurting you is the last thing I'd want to do."

  She felt Soren tense in the chair next to hers. She tried to pick out his thoughts, as she'd been able to do lately, but his teeth were gritted and his mind was a cold, hard slate. She wasn't sure who she felt worse for: the husband she'd lost or the man with whom she'd felt an instant bond.

  So many questions. No suitable answers. “But your body…the body in the morgue had your tattoo.”
/>   “Are you sure about that? Maybe a similar tattoo, but it wasn’t mine.”

  She forced herself to remember the grisly scene, the image she’d banned from her heart and her consciousness for the better part of a year. She forced her soul to take the lonely walk into the morgue once more, to follow the somber attendant as he led her and Wes into the cold room. In her mind’s eye, she saw Paul laid out, his body a gruesome network of wounds, which may have been cleaned, but which still appeared heart-wrenchingly fatal. There was so little left of his face. What was left of his arm bore hints of a bear tattoo…or so she thought? It looked like his bear at the time. Or was it simply her heart seeing what it needed to see to give her closure? She had looked away rather quickly, out of necessity of course, because she’d needed to bolt from the room and vomit into the nearest trash can. Wes had followed to comfort her.

  They’d believed the man was Paul. It had made sense.

  “Then who was it?” she dared to ask.

  “I don’t know,” he conceded quietly. “A mauled hiker? The victim of a horrible crime? I wish I could tell you, Gioia, but it wasn’t me.”

  “We assumed your body had been out in the elements. That you’d been mauled. The doctors all agreed. They couldn’t even take fingerprints.”

  Paul sniffed. “Convenient, wasn’t it?”

  “And these people who took you in,” Soren asked, “they just did so out of the goodness of their hearts? Fed and clothed and sheltered you for months? No questions asked?”

  “Oh,” Paul said. “Questions were asked, believe me. Lots of them. I just had no answers. The Blackfoot were kind to me, unusually kind. When my strength came back, I did all I could to repay them by working for free. One of the brothers owned a farm. I felt it was only right to give him some free labor. You have to understand, nothing made sense in my head. And what I could remember…” He looked at Gioia. “Well, I didn’t want to remember.” His eyes grew moist. “I hurt you. Many times, I think.”

  She did all she could not to dwell on the past. She was concerned with what was happening in her very bizarre present. “Are you really better?”