That alone reminded him all was not well. A creature normally ruled by his libido, Anton felt nothing. Nothing beyond a sense of terrible desperation.
Keisha slipped beneath a tangle of brambles and led him to a small glade protected from the chill night wind. There she waited, her feral pose as regal as a queen’s, head held high, ears forward, feet planted firmly in the frosty grass. She was everything he desired in a mate. Everything he’d ever dreamed of, hoped for.
Everything he no longer deserved.
Anton trotted up to her. Ears lying back against his skull, he dipped his head and touched his nose to hers in an uncharacteristically submissive gesture. His long tongue wrapped around her muzzle. She tilted her head and acknowledged his touch, but her thoughts remained closed to him.
What more could he expect? He’d locked her out for days, an even more cowardly act than the one that had brought him to this point. He still wasn’t certain if he was ready to open to the woman he loved. Not certain if he was brave enough to share the doubts and questions dominating his thoughts. For a man who embraced honor, integrity, and personal courage, the realization had come to him slowly—he was no longer worthy of her. No longer worthy of the esteem of his fellow Chanku.
Failure was a painful meal to swallow.
His packmates looked to him for guidance, for safety, for leadership. He’d failed them at every turn. Failed his pack, his lovers, his mate, and even his daughter. Failed to keep them safe, to protect them from those who would do them harm. In fact, he would have failed at life if not for the telepathic words of his child and the life-giving power of his packmates.
They’d shared their own life force to keep him from crossing through the veil when he’d hovered in that dark place between life and death. Seduced by the light and the peace it offered, he’d wanted so badly to follow. His people had given all they had to save his worthless soul when he’d been more than ready to leave this plane for the one that beckoned him.
It had taken the surprisingly powerful voice of baby Lily to force him to choose life with all its pain over the easy escape of death.
The truth unmanned him. The truth had nearly destroyed him. For all his abilities, all his empty words of wisdom and his arrogant orders to those who loved and respected him, Anton Cheval knew he had to face the truth.
He was a coward. Unworthy of the love and sacrifice of his fellow Chanku. Unworthy of their respect.
Unworthy of the woman who waited now, so patiently, for the physical love he couldn’t bring himself to share.
Do you love me, Anton?
Keisha’s question caught him by surprise. She doubted even that?
More than life. He met her forthright stare and once more felt unworthy.
Then love me. Here. Now. No barriers. No lies.
I’ve never lied to you. How could she even think that?
When you block me, when you refuse to open to me as my mate, you might as well be lying. Our bond is built on sharing, on complete and total honesty. You’ve been unforgivably selfish with your thoughts.
Her words were a coldly accurate assessment. They stung. Badly. Anton nodded in painful agreement. Will you ever forgive me?
Keisha’s chest moved in and out with her slow, steady breathing. It terrified him, knowing she actually had to think about his request. Had he pushed her too far? Destroyed the finest thing that had ever happened to him? Without Keisha, there was nothing. Without her love, he would have been better to follow that seductive light through the veil.
Choosing death, not life…with all its pain.
Will you ever forgive yourself? There was no sympathy in Keisha’s mental voice.
He hung his head.
Make love to me, Anton. Here. Now. Just the two of us, as open and free as we were when we first bonded. When you swore your undying love for me. When you pulled me out of my own hopeless pain. Do you remember how that was? Open your heart, your thoughts. Share what fears are holding you prisoner, the way you forced me to share mine. Prove to me that love is real, not just words without substance. Can you do that?
He trembled. Unbelievable! Anton Cheval, trembling before his mate, but he’d never been more frightened, not even when faced with his own mortality. To love Keisha here, now, with his barriers down and his thoughts open to her, was to show her the worthless creature she thought she loved.
She growled. Give it up, Anton. You’re wallowing in your perceived inadequacies. It’s not all about you. What we have is bigger than you. The sound rumbled up out of her chest and shocked him with the ferocity behind it. The anger. Her silent words stung.
The fur at her neck rose in an angry line along her spine and her lips peeled back to display sharp teeth. Anton’s ears flattened against his skull. His hackles rose. Blood rushed in his veins. His lips curled back in a silent snarl.
She challenged him! Insulted him, belittled his fears. She stared him down with her legs stiff, her body posture aggressive and angry. He’d never seen her like this, not with her anger directed at him. How dare she challenge him!
Lust enveloped him. Fierce and ravenous, it rose in his veins, a feral hunger like nothing he’d felt in so very long.
Passion, anger, and arousal, all knotted together in a twisted tangle of want and need, of fear and confusion. He felt her questions battering at his mind, a demand that he grant her access to his deepest fears, his basest desires.
If he let her in, all was lost.
If he kept her out…all was lost.
His chest ached even as arousal blossomed, blinding him to everything but Keisha. His female, her body ripe with need, her scent a musky aphrodisiac enveloping his conscious mind, grabbing hold of his balls in a powerful, visceral grip.
He charged, snarling, teeth bared, saliva dripping from open jaws. Startled, she yipped and turned to run, but he was bigger, stronger. He caught the thick roll of skin at her neck between his teeth and clamped down. She twisted beneath him, and he searched for her thoughts.
Her mind was open, a blazing eruption of emotions, all the fears she’d hidden from him, the desperate needs he’d ignored for too long. His fault. All his fault!
Keisha tore free of his grasp and faced him, legs spread wide for balance, head hanging low, breath charging in and out of her lungs. Her amber eyes nailed him and he felt her rage, the wolven equivalent of a powerful slap in the face.
No! The world does not revolve around you, Anton Cheval. The world is bigger than you. Our love is bigger than you! What is wrong with you? Where has the man I fell in love with gone?
Her angry words ripped a blindfold off his face and opened a window back into the world he’d fled. He saw himself through Keisha’s eyes.
Saw himself through eyes of love.
Arousal surged. He reached for her. Gently, this time, his paw raked her back and she watched him warily. He mounted her as the blood rushed to his cock and when he slipped inside, it was with the amazing sense of truly coming home.
She was hot and slick, her passage ready for his entry. He felt her muscles clench as she braced herself to support his weight. His forelegs tightened around her shoulders and he filled her. His hips thrust hard and fast. The knot in his penis grew, sliding deep within her heat, swelling to fill her passage, binding the two of them together.
Arousal expanded, blinding him to anything and everything but the female he loved, the one who loved him. Power charged through his testicles, the sharp jolt of pleasure streaking from balls to cock as his orgasm swept over him, filled and overwhelmed him. Hot bursts of seed blasted into Keisha and she groaned, but he knew she hadn’t found her own release.
Not yet.
Physically connected, his swollen cock locked tightly inside her passage, Anton