Callan Read online

  She licked her lips and whimpered. “Please,” she begged. “I need this. I need you, Callan.”

  I’d never fucked my mate before. I didn’t know humans would have primal urges like she was experiencing. But the words were coming out of her mouth like a mate would speak them. The bond between us already existed.

  Before either of us could try to decipher the mate code the climax gripped me and I came inside her, shooting cum to her deepest depths. I pumped inside, holding her waist, wanting nothing more than to fill her with my cubs. I could see them. I could see her belly swollen and pregnant with my babies. I groaned as the last drops of my seed were emptied. Where in the hell had that vision come from? It threw me. I’d never thought it before. I’d never seen it so clearly before. I’d never wanted it like I did with Hannah. Things were as clear to me as they had ever been.

  I gasped for breath and then pulled Hannah to my chest as I rolled on my side. I kissed her temple and wrapped my hands to her stomach.

  “Holy shit,” she whispered. “That was incredible.”

  I nodded, needing water. I wasn’t about to tell her the French wine had given me a little buzz.

  “It was fucking amazing.” I kissed her neck. I wasn’t sure I could stop kissing her. I wanted to cover every inch of her body. I had my mate in my arms and it was everything I wanted.

  “I-I don’t want you to think I usually do that on a first date.” Her voice was quiet. “It’s not some European thing or something. I want you to know that.”

  I rolled her under me. “Hey, Hannah. I know that.” I kissed her lips slowly. “You don’t have to explain to me.” I was the one who was going to have to tell her about the mate bond. I’d have to explain about the claiming unless Ava had filled her in on those private and intimate details. Maybe I should ask her to drop a few side stories for me to break the ice about Hannah should expect when I finally took her as my mate.

  “It’s just I know sex can confuse things. Especially good sex. Really good amazing once-in-a-lifetime sex.”

  I laughed, studying her eyes. Fuck, she was adorable. “So you’re saying that was once-in-a-lifetime sex?”

  She nodded. “Wasn’t it?”

  “You have no idea.” I grinned. “It was.” I brushed the hair away from her shoulder. I had a quick flash to that move she did in the foyer when I was feasting on her pussy and she piled her hair on her head. I could get hard again just picturing it.

  “I’m glad it didn’t make things confusing between us.”

  I cocked my head to the side. “I’m not tracking.”

  “Because I have to go back to London, eventually. Intense sex can make things seem different all of a sudden and—”

  If what we had just done in bed was throw gasoline on a fire, the words that came out of her mouth had covered it with a damn avalanche.

  I pushed off the bed.

  “Callan?”

  I walked to the bathroom and closed the door behind me.

  “Callan? What’s wrong?” She knocked. “Damn it. I said the wrong thing. Please come back to bed. Sometimes I open my mouth and say something really stupid. It’s a bad habit. I do it all the time. Well, some of the time. Callan?”

  I turned the water on and jumped in the shower. I didn’t care that it was freezing. I needed five minutes to drown out my mate.

  9

  Hannah

  I sat on the bed and stared at the bathroom door. I heard the shower water running, but I wasn’t sure the man hadn’t crawled out an escape window. Could I blame him? I had ruined the most magical and erotic sexual experience of my life but opening my stupid mouth. Why did I have to say anything about London? Why would I even suggest I could ever leave his bed or arms after what we had experienced together? Why couldn’t I be in the moment? Just live in the afterglow of fabulous sex. That’s what a normal girl would do. She’d let the man hold her and bask in how satisfied she was. My body still hummed and tingled. I had ruined it by saying the dumbest thing that could have popped in my head.

  I should have pulled the sheet over our heads instead and asked him to do it all over again. That’s what I really wanted, to spend the entire night with him inside me.

  I buried my face in my hands. I had to get him out of the shower and explain what a mistake I had made.

  I twisted my lips together. First, I needed to come up with what to say, or I had a pretty good chance of making it ten times worse.

  “Callan?” I tapped on the doorframe.

  We had jumped each other before turning on a single light in his house. It was the first date. Everything between us was fast and unexpected. When I was with him I didn’t want things to slow down. I didn’t want to take my time. It felt right falling into his body.

  Was it crazy I completely trusted him so quickly?

  I pressed my cheek to the door, listening to the shower water. I sighed, not knowing how to fix this utter screw up. What if I couldn’t?

  I didn’t know enough about shifters. I hadn’t taken the time to ask Ava the serious questions. I should have learned more. I should have known more than I did. I cursed myself. I looked around for my phone and then realized it was in my clutch.

  I grabbed the sheet from the bed and wrapped it around my chest. It made a train as I walked through Callan’s house. Luckily, it was small and it was easy to find my way to the front door. Shit. I had left my clutch in his car.

  I peeked outside. He didn’t have any neighbors. I opened the door and tiptoed to the car. I wasn’t sure why I was being so secretive. I wanted to call my sister. I needed her input on how to handle Callan. I wasn’t embarrassed to tell her we’d already had sex. She’d know what to do. She always did. I reached the car and looked through the passenger window.

  “There you are,” I whispered, discovering the only lifeline I had at the moment to salvage my stupidity.

  I pulled on the handle, but I turned when I heard something crackle and break behind me.

  The hair on the back of my neck stood at attention and my spine coursed with a shot of rushing chills. I needed to grab my phone and get the hell back inside Callan’s house. The crunching sounded closer. Forget it. I didn’t my phone that badly. I clutched the sheet, ready to run to the safety of the porch when the tiny whimpers of child echoed across the yard.

  I stopped short of Callan’s stairs. Was that a baby? There were no other houses for miles. At least when we drove from the restaurant, I didn’t remember seeing any neighborhoods or other houses. Why was there a baby outside at this time of night?

  I heard the small cry again near the thick foliage.

  “Hello? Is someone there? Do you need help?” I took a step closer when the baby hollered as if it was in distress.

  All I could think about was how the cries sounded like Olivienne. What if it was a baby like her somewhere lost? What if someone had abandoned the child? Or what if the mother was hurt and needed help? The cries became more persistent and I knew what I had to do.

  I ran toward the infant and into the woods.

  10

  Callan

  I ran the towel over my face and then wrapped it around my waist, tucking it against my hipbone. I had to ignore the knocks and calls through the door while I cooled off. Hannah had no idea what had happened when I bolted out of bed like my ass was on fire. How could she have known? She was human. She wasn’t battling an animal beneath her skin. All of this was new and foreign to her.

  The way I reacted may have seemed like the biggest slight, but I had to escape before things got out of control. It was the only option, before I did something I couldn’t undo.

  As soon as she said she was going back to London, my bear wanted to claim her now so that she never stepped foot out of Hunter’s Lake again. Thank God there was enough humanity inside me to know that was a fucked up way to treat the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I had more respect for her than that. She had a say in whether she was claimed. She had the right to choose me, the sam
e way I had chosen her. She had a right to know the truth. But it shouldn’t happen under duress. There was a right way to tell her what I knew.

  There was time to work through this. There was time to talk to her about mates, bonding, and cubs. But if I didn’t get the hell out of that bed and under a steady stream of cold water, my bear would fight me every step of the way.

  I had him back under control. Now, I just had to explain part of it to her without going into the mate side of it. She wasn’t ready yet. I didn’t think I was either.

  Before yesterday I had no idea who my mate would be, or if I would even have one. Maybe I would have mated with another shifter breed like Griffin did. How did the human-shifter connection work? I had questions too. Questions I needed to answer before I laid it out there for her.

  “Hannah, sorry I took a longer shower than I expected.” I exhaled.

  I walked into the center of my room. The bed was empty. Our clothes were strewn from one end to the other. Her bra was flung over the lamp on my dresser.

  “Hannah?” I walked into the hall, turning on the lights as I went.

  The kitchen and living room were both quiet. Where was she? I saw the puddle her skirt and thong made in the foyer. The front door was cracked, and I had an instant moment of panic.

  “Hannah!” I ran outside. My car was parked in the driveway. Where was she? She’d never leave without her clothes. I lived too far outside of Hunter’s Lake for her to catch a ride in a taxi or have someone pick her up. I’d been in the shower a while, but it wasn’t enough time for her to coordinate that with her sister.

  It didn’t make sense. Where was she?

  I jogged inside and rummaged through my dresser for clothes. I dressed quickly. I reached in the top shelf of my closet where I kept my police gear. Something was off. I sensed it. I tucked my radio into my back pocket and loaded my weapon before sliding it into my chest harness. I wasn’t going to be unprepared, no matter what was ahead of me.

  I laced up my boots and grabbed my phone before I headed outside again. Hannah wasn’t inside my house and she hadn’t driven back to Ava and Nolan’s house. I surveyed the woods that backed up to my house. They seemed serene and peaceful, but I knew better. There were supers out there, and I damn good chance the woman in black was still pulling their strings. It didn’t matter that I lived miles from where I had found the abandoned camp site. She was on the run. The shifters were hunting. Hannah was suddenly missing.

  The thunder crackled overhead, and I saw a flash of lightning in the distance. Fuck.

  Hannah was somewhere in the forest. It was the only possibility. After what happened with Olivienne I knew there was no way she had gone into the woods voluntarily. That super had scared her to death, and she had sworn off hikes.

  I growled lowly as I headed into the thicket. My mate was in danger, and I had to get her back.

  11

  Hannah

  The farther I walked the closer and more distant the baby’s cries became. Every time I thought I had reached him or her, the sound shifted to another part of the woods. I had wandered so far, I could no longer see the light at Callan’s house. It was the only one on when I left—it was the bathroom light.

  I slumped against a nearby tree. I couldn’t keep searching for this baby. Maybe I should go back to the house and tell him what I had heard. He was a cop. It shouldn’t matter if we were fighting. Were we fighting? Was he mad? Was he just being a bear?

  I sighed. I didn’t know anything, other than I saw lightning flash and I was scared. I couldn’t find the baby. I was naked with his bedsheet wrapped around me. I needed Callan.

  I thought I could find my way back to the house, when I looked up.

  The horror spread through my body. There were red eyes. Eyes that glowed and retracted. My stomach lurched with terror. There wasn’t time to think. I had to run like my life depended on it.

  Oh my God. It was one of those things. The kind that could shred me with one swipe of their clawed hands. What were they called? It was crazy I was even trying to think while I ran for my life. I had hoped I’d never see another one again. With their sewn mouths and red glowing eyes, they were the things nightmares were made.

  I had to resist the urge to close my eyes. If I did how would I keep running? I had to find a way out of here before he caught up to me.

  I didn’t want to die. Who did?

  I tripped over a tree root protruding from the ground and caught myself with my palms before my face hit the dirt.

  “Ouch.” I winced, realizing something jagged had sliced the center of my hand. I shoved off the ground and held the cut to my chest and kept running. The blood soaked into the white sheet wrapped to my chest.

  There wasn’t time to stop the bleeding. I had to move. I looked up when I heard the thunder rumble overhead. This couldn’t be happening. A flash of lighting streaked across the sky. That’s when I saw them.

  My heart froze in my chest. I tried to scream, but I opened my mouth and nothing came out.

  There were two more sets of red eyes. I turned to run in the opposite direction, but I knew there was another one in that direction.

  I was cornered.

  The rain dropped in heavy splashes, covering my face and dripping from my nose. It was so intense I couldn’t see two inches in front of my face. I knew they were drawing closer. Those things. Those beasts. They were hunting me like a fawn.

  And there was nowhere else to run.

  “Please,” I whispered. “Please, I don’t know what you want.”

  It was stupid I was talking to beasts whose mouths couldn’t even open.

  As they formed a triangle around me, one of them stared at me and began to mimic the cry of a baby even though the stitches on his mouth didn’t allow his lips to move.

  My eyes widened. They had lured me here, using a signal they knew I could never deny.

  “Why?” I screamed. “What do you want?”

  The false baby sounds turned to snorts and they motioned to each other in a code that could only mean they were ready to eat me alive. I was surrounded by monsters.

  I gripped the sheet. I didn’t think I could look when they lunged. I sank to the ground, praying it would be quick and painless when they attacked. I hoped I wouldn’t feel it. I hoped Ava wouldn’t stay awake at night reliving the way I died. I didn’t want Callan to take the blame. I didn’t want Nolan to think he should have done more to keep me under house arrest.

  I folded my knees under me and began to pray. Prayers were all I had left.

  Until I heard the shots.

  I looked up, the tears streamed down my cheeks.

  I saw one of the beasts fall to the ground, followed by another. The third ran straight into the direction of the bullets. I watched in disbelief as both of the monsters on the ground began to rise.

  “Hannah, wherever you are, don’t move!” Callan shouted.

  My heart leapt in my chest. He was here. He had found me. I wasn’t going to die being mauled by a pack of shifters in the lonely woods. I’d live to see my niece say her first words. I’d live to tell Ava how much her love had brought light to my life. I’d live to tell Callan I thought I had found something in him that no other man in the world could give me, and I didn’t care if it made me sound crazy as hell.

  “I’m okay!” I yelled into the darkness. I couldn’t see him, but his voice had wrapped around me, filling me with hope and reassurance. He’d never let me die. He’d protect me. I knew it. I could feel it without him having to say a single word.

  At the sound of my voice one of the monsters stopped charging toward Callan. His head whipped around and his red eyes focused on me. He snorted. I froze, not knowing what to do next.

  “Callan!” I screamed just as he lunged, springing off the ground and reaching his long grotesque nails at my face.

  The monster howled in agony as a bullet lodged inside his abdomen. I gulped and watched as he curled into a ball on his side. The blood pooled around hi
m on the forest floor.

  I couldn’t sit here like this. There were just going to keep coming for me. I didn’t want to make it easy for them to attack. I scrambled to my feet when I heard another roar. It wasn’t like any of the sounds I’d heard the super shifters make. My eyes widened. It was a strong and powerful sound. One that could command the entire woods. It vibrated off the trees and echoed louder than the thunder in the clouds. My stomach flipped and my knees trembled. I knew exactly what it was. It was Callan.

  I wasn’t the only one suddenly on high alert. I saw the red eyes jumping and darting through the woods. Two of the creatures were running for their lives. The third was fighting Callan. I heard the roars and grunts. I crept closer, trying to keep distance. I knelt behind a thick bush, wiping the rain from my eyes. It was almost impossible to see, but with every flash of lightning I caught a glimpse of the shifter trying to slice through the most magnificent animal I’d ever seen in my life. Callan growled as he grabbed the monster by the neck, his claws gripping and twisting while the super gurgled for air. I didn’t know how those things breathed, or if they even did. It seemed entirely possibly they were undead. Nothing seemed to stop them. Not a ninety-foot fall off a cliff. Not bullets. Not even a formidable bear shifter.

  Was it possible they were indestructible? The forest lit up under the storm and I saw the fury in Callan’s eyes. He wasn’t going to back down. He didn’t care if the shifter never stopped fighting. He wasn’t going to let him go. He was going to find a way to kill him for what he and the others had done to me.

  But what was the price? How far would this go before the super was the last one standing?

  I had to do something, or I could lose him forever. The shifter would never stop, no matter how strong Callan was. No matter how fierce or ferocious he was. No matter what kind of warrior he was as a bear shifter. I shook my head. I didn’t want to lose him. I didn’t want to ever be apart from him again. Nothing had seemed clearer to me than the feelings I had for Callan. It didn’t matter that we had met yesterday. I loved him. I knew it. I felt it.