Cursed Wolf

Rex woke from the deepest, most peaceful sleep he’d had in seventy-five years. The soft curves of his mate were nestled up against the hard planes of his body. His arm was wrapped around her middle.

As he came to consciousness, he snuggled more deeply into her. He took a long draw of the scent of the back of her neck and let out a satisfied breath. She stirred and then turned to him in the soft morning light.

“Good morning.” She smiled sweetly.

His heart burst. He felt light as a cloud as he rubbed the pad of his thumb over the rise of her cheekbone.

“You are so beautiful,” he whispered.

Last night had been the most significant, most beautiful night of his life. Luna was like an angel from heaven, with her tousled hair across the white pillowcase, against a backdrop of the lacy curtains around her canopy bed.

The softness where he lay was nothing like anything he’d ever had in his life. He’d been a backwoods man, like all the other men in his family for generations. They were self-sufficient hunters. Outdoorsmen.

Luna’s apartment, which she’d inherited from her grandmother, was full of paintings and the soft comforts of a lady who’d spent her life collecting the beauty and the wonders of the world.

While the softness should have made him feel ill at ease, instead he sank into it, feeling as if he had finally come home to rest with the beautiful gentle soul who’d always been meant for him. Somehow it made all those long years of loneliness and torment worth it, just to see the sunlight stream over Luna’s pink cheeks in the morning.

“My beloved,” he said, k!ssing her forehead. “I’m so happy I can barely speak clearly.”

Luna sighed with contentment and k!ssed his l!ps.

“I feel the same. I don’t know what I did to deserve this. And part of me thinks it’s all going to just disappear and fall apart like an illusion.”

“This is no illusion, my dear,” he said, k!ssing her more deeply as he grasped the gentle curve of her neck.

“I can’t help my doubts. I’m a modern woman of the human world. Shifter love is all so new to me.”

“Don’t be ashamed of your doubts and fears. They make you stronger. They are part of who you are.”

“Oh, Rex. Where did you come from?” She ran her fingers through his hair, drawing him closer.

Their k!sses deepened and he rolled on top of her body. He could feel her becoming slick and w*et and open to him, even in her sleepy state.

Her mouth and pvssy were w*et as he slipped inside her. She gasped as he pushed deeper, their tongues tangling against each other. Her body yielded to him like an open flower, and he moved into her with the gentle rocking of his powerful h!ps.

His own dreams were still so close as his body awakened to the day. He was a man again. Still with her—his dream girl. And when he came inside her, hot and sticky and w*et, she pulled him deeper into her as if consuming every last drop of his seed. When he pulled away, he k!ssed her belly and held her as she stroked his head.

“There could be a child,” he said, caressing her belly.

“I only quit taking the pill a few weeks ago,” she said. “It’s highly unlikely.”

“I should have held back. I should have protected you.”

“Maybe I’m the one who made the mistake. I could have told you to use protection, but I didn’t. I accept whatever the fates decide to bring us.”

“Do you mean it?” he asked her, k!ssing her neck and cheeks.

“I do.”

Rex wanted to claim her right then and there. The wolf at the back of his mind sprung forward, growling with bright eyes and bared teeth. He ran his canines over her neck, but he drew back.

She told him a baby would most likely not result from the night before. He did not have the right to push her into a major bond before a full courtship. He understood that modern women were different from the women of his time, and that he needed to go at an appropriate pace.

She drew him up from the bed and took him into the bathroom where she started to shower. He watched her walking around the small room, her beautiful na*ked curves exposed to his hungry eyes.

He stiffened again as she stepped behind the lacy curtain into the shower. He walked in behind her, and watched the soap run down her back and over her plump, round a*ss. Growling, he slid his hands around her waist.

She turned to him, her full br*easts covered in soap and water. She lathered her hair with sweet-smelling soap, and the scent of roses and lavender filled the air. He grasped her br*easts and felt the flesh slip under his fingers. She giggled and began to rub the soap over his body, focusing on his e******n.

He growled and mimicked her actions, using the liquid soap to wash between her legs. They stood under the stream, k!ssing and l!cking each other’s skin. His finger slipped into her pvssy and her br*easts pressed against his chest.

He could not get enough of her. He needed to claim her. His fangs descended, sharp and ready, but she dropped to her knees and began to l!ck his c0ck from balls to tip. She svcked and stroked and l!cked, driving him mad as he gripped the sides of the shower stall.

He didn’t want to come like this. He wanted to give in to his desire for her and to satisfy her needs too. He lifted her to her feet and pushed open the shower curtain. Taking her slick w*et body in his arms, he returned her to the bed where he devoured her pvssy, l!cking the sweet w*et flesh of her s*x over and over.

She gr0aned and writhed under him, her body splayed among the tangled sheets and blankets. When she could take no more of his tongue, he pulled her up onto all fours and gripped the globes of her a*ss. She thrust her a*ss up to him, her s*x open and begging for him.

He drove into her, harder than before. His fangs dripped with mating venom, but he held back. He could give her this and no more. And when he turned back to a wolf, she would remember him and wait. Her pvssy throbbed and clenched around him over and over as he drove into her.

The wolf inside him howled and barked and demanded he claim her. His fangs cut into his l!p as he held himself back. She yelped and gr0aned, praising his name as he drummed into her from behind.

“Oh Rex, yes, yes, yes,” she repeated as he made her come again and again.

For the second time that morning, his come released inside her, spraying against her cervix. If a baby was at all possible, he had just done his best to ensure it would happen. And when it came time to claim her, his family would already be there. Waiting for him.

They collapsed together in the bed. She whimpered into his chest as he held her in his arms, caressing her damp skin and hair.

“I can’t lose you, Rex,” she said, looking up at him. “The potion is ready today. Maybe it will work. Maybe we’ll keep you a man.”

“What potion?”

“My grandmother was a witch. She knew you were coming. She had a potion she’d been working on for months, and it’s ready today.”

“What do you mean? Is it here?”

“Yes, it’s in the pantry.” She took his hand and guided him into the pantry where she displayed a huge bottle of brown liquid.

“That’s meant for us?”

“From what I can discern from her diaries, I’m fairly sure it is. Nothing else makes any sense. As you know, fate controls everything. It’s up to us to act when it comes knocking at our door.”

“That means my brothers could be free of it. Even if they don’t find their mates.”

“Yes. But I wanted to cure you first.”

A few moments later, Rex and Luna were dressed and washed, standing in her kitchen with the bottle sitting on the counter. “My witch friend Teal is coming over to help me in just a few minutes,” Luna said, looking at her phone.

The young witch arrived moments later. Rex watched them as they strained the potion into another bottle and then filled several other smaller bottles with little droppers that allowed for liquid to be dispensed one drop at a time.

Luna had her grandmother’s journals out on the table and was trying to decipher exactly the dosage she expected to work for grown men.

“I think just one drop is where we should start,” she said, pointing at a line in the journal. She suggests that it’s best to work up from there.”

“How will we know if it works?” he asked.

“I suppose you won’t shift tonight at dusk.”

“That would be a miracle,” he said.

“We should go out to the Doolittles’ and give it to my brothers too. I don’t want to take it without them.”

After saying goodbye to Teal, Rex drove Luna out to the Doolittles’ ranch. It had been such a dreamlike fantasy since he’d met her. Bringing this potion back to his brothers was just a continuation of the same dream. He hoped that it would all have a happy ending.

From what he could tell by the tone of Luna’s voice, she had her doubts. Luisa had been unsure of the potion’s effectiveness. She hadn’t known if it was complete or would need additional tweaking, but now the expert in alchemy was gone.

His mate was meant to take her place, and he could tell that Luna wasn’t sure she was up to the challenge. He knew in the depths of his soul that Luna was every ounce as capable as her grandmother of anything she set her mind to. Fate had brought her here for this very reason—to step into her grandmother’s shoes and to be his mate.

He longed to go back to the apartment and run the shop with her. He never would have expected to have such a domestic life as a merchant in town, but now that he’d had a glimpse of what they could have together, there was nothing else he could even imagine wanting for himself or her.

He parked in front of the Doolittles’ house, and the two of them looked at each other before they got out. She carried the small case with the bottles to the front door. Patrick invited them both inside.

“I expected the two of you to spend the rest of the day together,” Patrick said.

“Luna’s grandmother had a potion. She believes that it will break the curse.”