The Rogue

XXXVI

*Rian*

The moment my eyes fell open her, I froze mid-stride. Faye was strolling leisurely through the trees, humming a song unfamiliar to me. Her dark blonde hair draped off her shoulders and down her back. Though we weren't facing each other, I could picture the distant look in her eyes, the look she got when daydreaming.

I let out a long whine, unsure if I should believe Faye was really here. This could be a hallucination. Maybe my mind was substituting my sad, lonely reality with a figment of my imagination.

She turned to face me. All the air in my lungs came out in one gasp. Her eyes were bright and alive, so momentarily green that they blended in with the canopy. The whites of her teeth showed slightly through her parted lips. A smile suddenly stretched across them.

"Rian," she said calmly. "What're you waiting for? Get over here."

Say no more, woman. My legs broke into stride again as I closed the distance between us. The moment I reached her, I buried my head into her chest. She stumbled back, gasping, while her arms captured my head. Her fingers combed through my fur down to where my neck melded into my shoulders. A loud moan sounded, and I thought it was me until I caught the look on her face. She wasn't even blushing.

Lifting my muzzle with her palm, she stared into my eyes. Something in me squeezed but not in a good way. It felt like discomfort. Her mouth pressed a kiss to the top of my nose, and I took her off guard by sticking out my tongue. Squealing, she stumbled back a step and wiped my slobber off her lips.

"Rian!" Her laughter was strained. "You're such a dog."

My own lips pulled back in a mangled, wolfish grin. I whined at her again, filled with glee to have her back. She was still eyeing me when I leapt onto her, pushing her to the ground beneath me. This reminded me of when I marked her. Faye had put up such a fight and had been so angry when I bit her anyway.

"Are you going to keep me waiting?" she taunted. "Or are you going to stay a wolf forever?"

In the blink of an eye, all of my fur and snout were gone. I hovered over her on my hands and knees, completely naked. She didn't bat an eye. Rather, her hands reached up to cradle my cheeks. I turned my head to the side to kiss her warm palm.

"I love you," I told her. "I...I'm glad you came back."

Her brows pulled in over her nose. "I'll always come back."

"I wasn't sure that you would. But I'm glad you did. I'm never letting you out of my sight again."

"Fine by me," she remarked with a chuckle. "So, what do you say we make up for a little lost time?"

My skin flushed. Did that mean what I thought it meant? Her teeth nibbled on her bottom lip as she gazed lovingly at me from beneath her lashes. I finally found the ability to speak again.

"You want to do this here? Right now?"

"Are you protesting?"

"Uh, no." I gently tousled her crown of hair with my hand. "It just seems...not like you."

She thumbed the corner of my mouth, somehow knowing it was weakening my self-control as she replied, "Well, maybe I'm tired of being like me."

"Is that so?"

"Mhmm. So what do you say?"

I lowered my face to hers to steal a kiss. When I attempted to pause to give her my answer, she wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled me down on top of her. The aggressive gesture took me off guard, and she somehow managed to switch our positions, flipping me onto my back to straddle my waist. My fingers dug into her back. She claimed my mouth with force and playfully nipped at my lower lip as we broke for air.

My mind and heart were racing. This was it. We were mating, finally. Our bond would be complete after this. Nothing would stand between us once it was finished. She would feel no desire to leave me ever again.

We kissed again. I gently drew a path away from her lips, down her jaw, and onto the smooth surface of her neck with my mouth. Her nails cut into my ribs where they desperately gripped onto me. My tongue found the place where her mark was. Rather, where her mark should have been right between two little freckles. I began to withdraw to see where the scar had gone when someone interrupted me.

"Rian?" a familiar voice demanded, only partly comprehensible through my love-drunken haze. "You've got to be freaking me!"