Chapter 4: The Forest Walk and the Pack's Teasing
The scent of him was in her lungs, on her skin, woven into the very strands of her hair. Maya woke to the solid, warm weight of Kade’s arm across her waist, his face buried in the pillow beside her, his breathing deep and even. Dawn was a faint gray suggestion at the windows. For a suspended moment, she just watched him sleep. The ruthless Alpha, undone. His lashes were dark against his cheek, his mouth, usually set in a hard line, was softer. Vulnerable. The sight did something complicated and tender to her chest.
She carefully extricated herself, the cool air raising goosebumps on her naked skin. His shirt from last night was a black puddle on the floor. She pulled it on. It swam on her, the hem hitting mid-thigh, the collar falling off one shoulder, saturated with his scent. She padded silently to the window.
The Blackwood estate stretched out in the pre-dawn mist, forests and fields rolling toward distant, moody mountains. His territory. And now, in some irrevocable way, she was part of it.
“Stealing my clothes?”
His voice was a sleep-roughened rumble. She turned. He was propped on one elbow, the sheet pooled at his hips, his gaze a lazy, possessive sweep from her bare legs to the fallen collar of the shirt. Amber flickered in the gray, just a hint.
“Borrowing,” she corrected, her voice still husky with sleep and the memory of his use.
“It looks better on you.” He swung his legs out of bed, utterly unconcerned with his nudity. The man was a sculpture of hardened muscle and old scars. He stretched, the powerful cords of his back shifting, and she felt a fresh, aching pull low in her belly. He caught her staring and a smug, knowing smile touched his lips. “Later,” he promised, a dark vow. “Right now, we’re going for a walk.”
“A walk.”
“You’re thinking too loud. I can hear it from here. All that city-brain logic trying to process what happened.” He pulled on a pair of low-slung jeans, not bothering with a shirt or shoes. “The forest will clear your head. Or confirm everything you’re afraid of. Either way, you need to see it. My land. Our land.”
Our land. The words shouldn’t have felt so right.
The trail behind his mansion was a vein of beaten earth and moss, winding into the heart of the woods. The air was cold and clean, smelling of pine sap and damp, decaying leaves. The full moon had passed, but its echo seemed to linger, a silvered tension in the shadows. Kade walked beside her, his bare feet silent on the path, his presence a tangible force. He reached for her hand, his fingers lacing through hers with a casual certainty that stole her breath.
They walked in silence for a while. The woods were not quiet. They were alive with chatter—birds, the rustle of unseen things in the underbrush, the distant rush of a creek. And something else. A feeling of being watched by intelligent, amber eyes.
“They’re here, aren’t they?” she whispered.
“Of course.” He didn’t look around. “Always are. Patrols. Sentries. The pack is the land.”
As if summoned, shadows detached themselves from the deeper gloom. Five figures, moving with a predator’s grace, emerged onto the path ahead. They were young, maybe late teens to early twenties, dressed in worn jeans and flannels, their eyes bright with curiosity and wolfish energy. They smelled of fresh air, pine, and wildness.
Their gazes locked on Maya, then dropped to her and Kade’s joined hands. Then they inhaled, subtly, nostrils flaring. She saw the exact moment they caught his scent all over her, layered under the borrowed shirt. A collective, sharp intelligence flashed across their faces.
One, a lanky boy with reddish hair, let out a low, appreciative whistle. “Well, hell. Morning, Alpha.”
Kade’s grip on her hand tightened, a warning. “Ethan. Report.”
“Perimeter’s clear, sir. Nothing but deer and a pissed-off badger.” Ethan’s eyes slid back to Maya, a grin spreading. “Didn’t expect to see you out here… with company.”
Another, a burly young man with a shaved head, chuckled. “Company? She’s wearin’ him, Jace. That’s not company. That’s a claiming.”
Jace, the one who spoke, smirked. “Guess the rumors are true. The big, bad Alpha’s finally been tamed.” He winked at Maya. “You got a sister, darlin’? Someone who could maybe work a miracle on the rest of us?”
Kade’s growl was a low vibration that seemed to come from the earth itself. “Watch your mouth.”
But Maya felt it—the lack of real heat in his threat. There was an undercurrent here, a familial teasing she hadn’t anticipated. She squeezed his hand back and found herself laughing, the sound bright and unexpected in the solemn woods. “Sorry, fresh out of sisters. You’ll have to manage your own miracles.”
The pack boys stared, then burst into louder laughter. It wasn’t mocking; it was delighted.
“She talks back to you too?” Ethan crowed. “Oh, this is rich.”
Kade’s ears were tinged with red, a fascinating blush on a man so formidable. He scowled, but the effect was ruined by the way his thumb was stroking the back of Maya’s hand. “Don’t you all have duties? Patrols to run? Scram.”
They didn’t scram. A wolf named Derek, lean and sharp-eyed, leaned against a tree, his grin wide. “Nah, this is too good. She’s got you wrapped around her little finger, Alpha. We can all smell it on you. Both of you.” He nodded at Maya with a newfound respect. “Better watch out, sir. She’ll be running this pack before the next full moon.”
Kade snarled, a real one this time, but his eyes—when he looked down at Maya—were soft, molten. He pulled her into his side, his bare arm slipping around her waist, his large hand sliding down to rest possessively on the curve of her ass, right through the thin cotton of his shirt. The pack boys whooped.
“She already does,” Kade muttered, the words gruff and meant only for her, but of course, with their enhanced hearing, the pack caught every syllable.
Their laughter faded into respectful, knowing chuckles. They melted back into the trees as silently as they had appeared, leaving only the echo of their teasing in the air.
The moment they were gone, the atmosphere shifted. The playful tension snapped into something else, thick and hungry. Kade turned her to face him, his hands on her hips, backing her up against the rough bark of a massive oak.
“See what you’ve done?” he murmured, his mouth hovering over hers. “Undermined my authority in front of my own pack.”
“They weren’t scared,” she breathed, her heart hammering. “They were happy for you.”
“They were insufferable.” He kissed her, a deep, claiming plunge of his tongue that tasted of possession and pure, unadulterated want. “And they were right.”
His hands pushed the hem of the shirt up her thighs. The cool, damp air kissed her skin. He hooked his fingers in the waistband of her panties—the only thing she’d put on—and ripped them down her legs with a single, fierce tug. The fabric tore, a brief protest swallowed by the forest’s breath.
“Kade—” Her protest was weak, already morphing into a gasp as his palm cupped her, his fingers sliding through her folds. She was already wet, her body responding to the woods, the danger, the raw masculinity of him.
“They’re right that you own me,” he growled against her lips, working two thick fingers inside her, curling them. “They’re right that I’m wrapped so tight around you I can’t fucking breathe.” He added a third finger, stretching her, preparing her with a brutal efficiency that made her sob. “But they don’t get to see this.”
He withdrew his fingers, bringing them to his mouth, sucking them clean with a dark, glinting look in his eyes. Then he unfastened his jeans, freeing his erection. He was fully hard, the tip leaking. He used it to smear the moisture over her clit, a rough, maddening circle that had her hips bucking.
“Tell me you want it,” he demanded, his voice guttural. “Here. Against my tree. On my land.”
“Yes.” It was a hiss. “Now.”
He lifted her, his hands under her ass, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. He didn’t bother lowering his jeans further. He just angled himself and slammed upward, burying himself to the hilt in one devastating thrust.
The cry that tore from her throat was swallowed by the forest. The stretch was exquisite, a perfect, burning fullness. The bark scraped against her back through the shirt, a sharp counterpoint to the relentless pleasure of him sheathing himself inside her again and again.
He fucked her with a driven, pounding rhythm, each drive pushing her higher up the tree, his hips pistoning. His mouth was on her neck, teeth scraping, not biting, but promising. “This is mine,” he chanted, his breath hot. “This tight, greedy cunt. Taking me so deep. Fuck, Maya… you feel like heaven wrapped in sin.”
His words were filthy, explicit, painting the act in raw, glorious detail. She could feel every ridge, every pulse of him. The sounds were obscene—the wet slap of their union, his ragged grunts, her choked moans. An owl hooted, distant. The world was this tree, his body, the coil of pleasure tightening beyond bearing.
“I can’t…” she gasped.
“You will.” He shifted his grip, one arm banding across her back, the other hand sliding between them. His thumb found her clit, pressing hard, circling in time with his thrusts. “Come on my cock. Let the whole fucking forest hear who you belong to.”
It shattered her. The orgasm ripped through her with violent, silent intensity, clamping down on him in rhythmic waves that milked a ragged shout from his lungs. He drove into her once, twice more, then stilled, his own release pumping into her, hot and endless. He held her there, impaled, panting into the crook of her neck, his entire body trembling with the force of it.
Slowly, he lowered her until her feet touched the ground. Her legs were jelly. She sagged against the tree, him still buried inside her, softening. He kept her pinned, his forehead against hers.
“They smell this on us too,” he whispered, his voice wrecked. “The sex. The claim. They’ll know I took you in my woods.” He sounded savagely pleased.
Finally, he pulled out. A slow, intimate ache. He tucked himself away, then gently pulled the shirt down over her hips. His touch was tender now, at odds with the ferocity of moments before. He smoothed her hair back from her damp forehead.
“Your head clear?” he asked, a faint, smug smile on his swollen lips.
She laughed, a breathless, shattered sound. “I don’t think I have a head left.”
He kissed her, soft and lingering. “Good.”
They walked back hand-in-hand, the silence between them comfortable now, saturated. As they neared the edge of the tree line, Kade stopped, his head tilting. His nostrils flared.
“What is it?” she asked.
His expression hardened, the softness evaporating. The Alpha was back, his eyes scanning the distant tree line. “Blood. Fresh. And not from a deer.” He looked down at her, the possessiveness in his gaze now edged with a new, protective ferocity. “We need to get you inside.”
The peace of the morning was gone, shattered by the coppery scent on the wind. The pack’s teasing felt like a memory from another lifetime. Something was wrong in Silver Hollow. And it was coming for them.
And it was coming for them.
Kade’s hand tightened around hers, a silent signal that moved her from the open trail into the cover of thicker pines. His pace was swift, sure, and silent. The playful man from moments before had vanished, replaced by the predator who had scented blood on his own land. He didn’t speak until they’d cleared the tree line, the dark shape of his mansion rising ahead.
“Inside. Now.” He released her only to open a heavy side door, ushering her into a stark mudroom.
“Whose blood?” she asked, her own senses stretching, finding nothing but the residual musk of their sex and the clean soap from his shirt.
“Not ours. That’s all that matters right now.” His silver eyes scanned the grounds through a window, his jaw a hard line. “But it was spilled in a challenge. I can taste the aggression in the air.”
The main house was a contrast to his private mansion—warmer, busier, lived-in. The scent of woodsmoke and something baking lingered. Lyra was in the great room, pacing before a stone fireplace large enough to stand in. She turned as they entered, her keen eyes missing nothing: Maya’s disheveled hair, Kade’s bare chest, the tense set of his shoulders.
“You felt it,” Lyra stated.
“Smelled it,” Kade corrected, his voice a gravelly rumble. “Where?”
“Eastern border. The creek that divides our land from the Anchor Woods.” Lyra folded her arms, her gaze flicking to Maya with an appraising look. “They’re fighting again.”
“Who?” asked Maya, moving to warm her hands by the fire, consciously refusing to be an invisible spectator.
Lyra let out a short, frustrated breath. “The Anchor Wolves and the Bright Moon Pack. They were in the main room here just yesterday, posturing and making demands. Now they’re at each other’s throats on the border.”
“Oh,” said Maya, the names meaning nothing. “I have no idea who they are.”
“Neighbors,” said Lyra, her tone dripping with ironic disdain. “If you can call packs who’ve coveted our territory for generations neighbors. They’ve always been rivals, but it’s been manageable. Until recently.”
“What are they fighting over?” asked Maya.
Lyra’s eyes held a flinty resignation. “Me.” She glanced at her brother, whose expression had turned to granite. “I’m to marry. And we’ll merge territories, or form an alliance, or some other political bullshit that sounds reasonable to old men drawing lines on maps.”
The room felt suddenly colder. Maya understood the calculation, the cold exchange of a person for power. It was a different kind of claim than the one Kade had made on her in the forest. This one was sterile, mercantile. “But shouldn’t you marry your mate?” Maya asked quietly.
“Yes,” said Lyra, and for a second, her mask slipped, revealing a deep, weary loneliness. “But I’m yet to find him. And they… my brother is powerful. They both want closer ties to him. A marriage alliance is the oldest play in the book.”
Maya nodded, the pieces locking into a grim picture. The blood on the border was a symptom of a hunger for Kade’s strength, a hunger that viewed his sister as a conduit. She looked at Kade. He hadn’t moved, but the air around him vibrated with a contained, lethal fury.
He turned without a word and left the room, the front door closing with a definitive thud. He didn’t slam it. The quiet finality was worse.
Lyra sighed, rubbing her temples. “He’ll go to the border. He’ll stop the fight. And he’ll make threats that will hold for a month, maybe two. Then it’ll start again.” She looked at Maya, a genuine curiosity in her dark eyes. “He’s different with you. Softer. “
Maya said nothing. She just listened to the clock tick in the silent, spacious house, feeling the new, fragile bond inside her chest stretch taut.
Hours later, long after dark had fallen, she heard his truck return. She was in the great room still, pretending to read a book she hadn’t absorbed a word of. He came in smelling of cold night, damp earth, and a sharp, acrid scent she now recognized as other wolves.
He didn’t speak. He walked to the sideboard and poured three fingers of whiskey, downing it in one swallow. The muscles in his back were corded with tension. He set the glass down carefully, his head bowed.
Maya stood. She didn’t ask if he was okay. She didn’t ask what happened. She crossed the room, the floorboards cool under her bare feet, and took his hand. His fingers were ice-cold. He looked at her then, his eyes hollow, the amber completely banked. She led him silently out of the main house, across the dew-slick grass, and into the sanctuary of his private mansion.
In his bedroom, she pushed his leather jacket from his shoulders. It fell to the floor with a heavy thump. He stood passive, allowing her to undress him, his gaze fixed on some middle distance only he could see. She unbuckled his belt, dragged his jeans and boxers down his legs. He stepped out of them.
His cock was soft, nestled in dark curls, utterly unresponsive. This wasn’t about the fevered hunger of the woods. This was something else.
She got on her knees on the plush rug before him.
“Maya,” he breathed, a protest that lacked any force.
She ignored it. She took him in her hand, feeling the soft, heavy weight of him. She leaned forward and pressed her mouth to his cool skin, licking a slow, wet stripe from root to tip. She tasted salt, the faintest trace of the forest, and him. She took the head into her mouth, swirling her tongue around the rim.
A low groan rattled from his chest. His hands came to rest, trembling, on her head. Not guiding, just holding. She worked him deeper, using her hand at the base, her mouth warm and wet and insistently gentle. She sucked him with a steady, patient rhythm, her other hand cupping and gently rolling his balls. She felt him thicken, lengthen, the blood flowing hot and insistent under her lips until he was fully, achingly hard, his flesh pushing against the back of her throat.
She looked up, meeting his dazed, stormy eyes as she took him deep again, her cheeks hollowed.
“I love you,” he said simply, the words raw and unfiltered, torn from a place deeper than the Alpha, deeper than the wolf.
She released him with a soft, wet pop, a string of saliva connecting her lips to his gleaming crown. A smug, tender smile touched her mouth. “I didn’t know I’m that good,” she smirked, her voice husky.
But she rose then, kissing him, letting him taste himself on her tongue. The kiss was slow, a profound reconnection. The hollow look in his eyes was gone, replaced by a blazing, vulnerable warmth. He was here again. With her.
“You’re that good,” he murmured against her lips, his arms wrapping around her, crushing her to him. “You’re everything.”
He lifted her onto the bed, following her down, his body covering hers. This time, there was no frenzy, only a deep, relentless claiming that felt like a vow sealed in sweat and whispered breath. He pushed inside her with a sigh that was almost a sob, burying his face in her neck. He moved, a steady, grinding rhythm that sought not just pleasure, but solace, an anchor in the turbulent dark.
She held him, her legs locked around his hips, her fingers in his hair, and let him take what he needed. Let him forget the blood, the politics, the weight of being king. Here, he was just a man. And he was hers.