Escaping Death

~4.5 years earlier~

Solana

“Happy anniversary, Princess.” Hunter whispers kisses down my naked back, starting at my neck and working his way down between my shoulder blades, down my spine, until he reaches…

“Mm, fuck!” I fist the sheets and bury my head in my pillow to muffle my moans.

“Have I ever told you how much I love breakfast in bed?” He purrs and then sucks my pussy’s lips between his teeth.

My body hums with desire, a girl could get used to waking up like this.

“Hunter,” I pant, “don’t…”

I trail off when his tongue sweeps across my entrance all the way up to my rim.

“Don’t?” I can feel him grinning against my folds.

My eyes roll to the back of my head where there’s a full display of sparks and fireworks.

“…stop,” I manage to groan out as he continues branding me with his tongue.

“Stop?” He tongues and nips at the sensitive skin on my thighs and ass. “You’re not making any sense, Princess.”

“Dammit Hunter, don’t stop!”

He hums with the satisfaction of getting me to beg, he’s always gotten off on driving me to the edge.

I’m rewarded for my begging. Hunter pulls me back, propping my hips up ever so slightly so he can drive his tongue into my core, curling it against the most sensitive parts inside of me.

Hunter knows my body better than I do, he’s skillfully executing all the moves that he knows drive me wild. He must be in a very giving mood because he’s doing that thing where he…

“Mm, fuck…yes…right there.”

My belly begins to tighten with anticipation of release but Hunter doesn’t slow down his torture. He latches onto my clit, lashing his tongue against me like a whip. He’s relentless in his lingual assault, winding me up hard and fast until I reach my peak and fall over the edge loudly and incoherently.

Hunter slows the swirling of his tongue, tenderly frenching my pussy and decorating me with delicate kisses to help me come down gently from my high.

Gods does he fan my flames. My heart is a blazing inferno and it’s fueled solely by him.

He’s everything you could want in a partner. He’s every adjective between attentive and wholesome and when he looks at me he makes me feel like I’m the only woman in the room, the only woman in the world.

He’s not shy about his affection towards me either. At meals he’ll sit me on his lap and feed me no matter how much I protest— and no matter how much my brothers snarl. He’ll use any excuse to kiss me whether we’re training or walking through the woods. I’ll never get my fill of him. I go to bed at night wrapped in his warmth and I wake to the light of his smile.

“When are you going to say yes and marry me?” He lays down beside me, pulling me to his chest while our legs automatically entangle.

“Keep licking me like you did just now and I’ll scream yes.”

His smile doesn’t reach his eyes, “gladly, my love. But I’m serious, Solana. Marry me.”

“Can we just make it past our centennial first? My ‘yes’ can be your birthday present.”

“How about you say yes now, and for my birthday you can marry me.”

We fall head over tail into each other’s green eyes getting swept away and lost in our own world. For the record, I would marry Hunter every single day if I could. But the elephant in the room that he dismisses so easily is the fact that he has a mate out there somewhere and I refuse to bind myself to someone who will eventually fall in love with another.

“Solana, don’t do that.” He reads me like an open book. My thoughts might as well be scrolling across my forehead like a sign in Times Square.

“I don’t want anyone but you, I won’t want anyone but you. I want to marry you,” he kisses me, “mark you,” another kiss, “and fill your belly with pup after pup.” His hand cups the back of my head bringing our lips together and he kisses away the doubt until I consider believing what he says.

“Say yes, and we can wait until our centennial. Just tell me yes now. Don’t make me suffer through the next decade without declaring you as my bride.” He whispers against my lips.

“Okay,” I breathe shakily.

His green eyes widen with disbelief. “Okay?” He confirms.

I nod eagerly, my smile stretching from ear to ear, “yes. Of course I’ll marry you.”

Hunter pushes me onto my back and rolls himself over on top of me, settling comfortably between my legs. He tells me he loves me with his tongue, he cherishes me with his fingertips, he proclaims his vows with every slow stroke of his length inside me.

He makes sweet, unhurried love to me. Our wolves purr with delight and sparks dance along my skin while we’re connected as one in the fragile light of the new day.

We come together with open eyes locked on one another. The proof of his pleasure coats the walls of my womb and his whispered proclamations of love fill my heart with an inextinguishable flame. Heat overwhelms me, encapsulates me as he holds me in his arms, making my skin tingle like there’s a sparkler lit beneath it.

“Solana, I love you so much it hurts. I don’t need fate to tell me what my heart and my soul already know. We are one.”

He reluctantly eases himself out of me and wipes away the rogue tears slipping down my cheek with his thumb.

“Let’s get you cleaned up, my beautiful bride.” He gushes then scoops me into his arms and carries me to the bathroom.

After a long shower together in which he lathers me with kisses and bubbles, we manage to leave my bedroom and join our families downstairs.

“And what are you so happy about this morning, hmm?” My sister, Calla, probes Hunter the moment we enter the kitchen together.

“Isn’t it obvious, Calla? They’ve been —“ my brother, Rhys, begins but our eldest brother, Cole, stops him with a growl.

“Rhys,” he warns.

“Can’t a guy be happy? The most beautiful woman in the grove finally agreed to marry me.” Hunter beams at me and pulls me to his side so he can kiss my forehead while I blush crimson and bury my head like an ostrich against his chest.

Calla screams, like actually screams. So loudly, in fact, that her head guardian, Griffin, teleports into the kitchen armed to the teeth.

“At ease, Griffin,” Cole commands. “Calla’s just overreacting.”

“Overreacting? He’s asked her every day for months and she finally said yes!”

“They already act like an old married couple. Now if you had told me he marked her…”

“Dammit Rhys,” Cole’s fists bang against the counter, “can you not? She’s our sister for Gods’ sake.”

“Not to interrupt this happy family discussion,” Griffin thankfully changes the subject, “but your parents have requested the four of you in their office after breakfast.”

“This ought to be good,” Rhys says sardonically, leading the way to our mom’s office. We don’t need to be told where to meet, if any of our parents want to see us it’s always in mom’s office. She’s the Queen bee.

“That means you too, Hunter. Or should I say brother-in-law?” Cole smirks at Hunter. He may act like our relationship bothers him but Cole is one of our biggest supporters, and not just because Hunter is his best friend and Beta. In his own way I know he’s happy that we’ll finally be making things official.

Naturally, Hunter and I walk hand in hand towards my mother’s office but the closer we get there the more tense Hunter becomes. The more erratic his heart beats and the more I can sense his wolf, Fox, becoming unsettled and agitated.

“You okay?” I can’t mask the concern in my voice.

“Of course, Princess.” He smiles, but for the second time today it doesn’t reach his eyes.

When we get to the office my parents are there, along with all four of our grandparents, my uncle Incandis, aunt Kat, and our three cousins. There’s also a woman I’ve never met, a dragon by the smell of her, and what I’m assuming are her four children. Three boys, one girl, early to mid twenties, all wolves.

Hunter stands behind me, holding me tightly — possessively — against him.

“Ah, finally you’re all here,” my great uncle Dex welcomes us.

“Eh hem,” he clears his throat and anxiously wrings his hands together. “As you know, a few months ago I helped out with a job we had for a pack up north. Well, while I was there I reconnected with Elena. She was one of the people we freed from Drow Hollow and I remembered that she was one of the ones I helped relocate in the aftermath.”

I have a feeling I know where this is going. I catch my mom’s eye in my periphery and she gives me a knowing look, like she’s having the same thought I am.

Hunter is rubbing my arms and shoulders, determined to keep his hands on me and occupied.

“Well anyway, her husband had passed away a few weeks prior to my arrival there and since then his pack has been pressuring her to leave. They weren’t thrilled that he married outside of the pack and really only allowed her to stay because of him.” Dex squeezes her hand affectionately, lending her comfort during the retelling of her misfortune.

“I’ve been traveling back and forth a lot since then. At first it was to help her find a new place, be a shoulder to cry on, but as time went on it became more. And so I’ve asked her to come live here and start a new life together with me.”

An uncomfortable amount of time passes before my mother offers the first congratulations, after which the rest of us chorus her sentiments.

It’s unlike Dex to settle down. He’s the free and fun member of the family, unburdened by most duties and responsibilities and certainly not tied down to a woman who has four adult children.

I have so many questions for him. Was her husband her mate? Are her kids moving here too? Are they going to get married? Does he even want to get married? Does he even really love her?

My siblings and our cousins follow my parents’ lead and line up to greet Elena and her kids, but Hunter pulls me out of the room and rushes us down the hall out of earshot.

When he’s satisfied with the distance he’s put between us and the room, he slams me against the nearest wall, grips my throat, and possesses my mouth with his. I love his dominant side, I love giving him my submission behind closed doors because it pleases him and his wolf. But this feels different.

It feels like he’s holding on for dear life, trying to fan the flame to keep it from going out.

“Hunter, what is going on?” I question him when he finally lets me breathe.

“Sol,” he says my name with such painful desperation it actually hurts. “That girl in there…she’s my mate.”