Impulse: Southern Arcana, Book 5 (18 page)

“I’ll do that.” Sydney waved a hand toward a scattering of picnic tables that had been shoved together in two long lines. “This is no way to start a party, though. You two take a seat. Sera, honey, pick your poison. Beer, sweet tea, something stronger?”

“Beer’s fine.”

Sydney gestured, and a shy teenager who’d been staring at her snatched a bottle out of a cooler full of ice and trotted over. The boy gave Julio a nervous look before offering Sera her drink. “You’re really a coyote.”

Sometimes the spite was easier. Loathing and hatred were simple. The fawning awe made her feel freakish too, but it felt bitchy to snarl when the kid was trying to be friendly. And he
was
a kid, so she managed a smile. “So I’ve heard.”

“Where are you from?”

“I grew up in Louisiana. Not far outside New Orleans.” She tried to judge the boy’s age. Fifteen, maybe, a gawkish age for any shapeshifter, with instincts and hormones doing serious battle. “How about you? Do you live around here?”

He pointed toward a line of trees, through which she caught a glimpse of silver. “In the RV camp. Most of the pack lives there.”

Sydney clapped the young wolf on the shoulder and turned him around. “Go on and make yourself useful, pup.” The kid bolted, and Sydney’s face took on a strained expression as he turned back to Julio. “Your uncle and Coleman before him squeezed out a lot more than most of them could afford, especially in this shit economy. We all make do.”

Julio lowered his voice. “I wish you’d said something when Alec and Carmen came around last summer.”

“It’s easy to say you’re different,” Sydney replied just as quietly. “In my experience, nothing drives good intentions into the mud as fast as money on the table. Maybe I was still having trouble believing.”

“I’ll talk to Alec before we leave, see what can be done short-term.”

Sydney looked from Julio to Sera, and it was hard, keeping an impassive expression in the face of so much desperate pride as it bled into
hope
. “We’re not looking for handouts. But a little of our own back would be nice.”

“I understand.” Julio lifted his beer, then shook his head as he set it back down. “No, you know what? I’m going to go call him now. He needs to see this.”

Sera squeezed his hand before releasing it. “I’m going to stay here with Sydney and Patty.”

“Yeah, okay.” He flashed her a quick smile and walked away, digging his cell phone out of his pocket.

“He’s sweet as pie,” Patty murmured. “Where’d you find him?”

In a tiny exam room during the worst moments of her life. Not exactly a romantic start to the story, so she picked a different start. “He pulled my father from a burning building.”

“Well, now he’s just making me look bad,” Sydney grumbled. He leaned over to kiss Patty’s cheek. “I’ll check on the grill. Shout if you need me.”

“We won’t.” She winked at Sera. “We’ll be talking about you, that’s all.”

“Girl talk. Totally.” When Sydney was gone, Sera smiled. “He seems great too. Holding together a pack can’t be easy.”

“He’s had a rough time,” Patty conceded. “But like he said, you make do.”

Sera followed Patty to the closest picnic table and ignored the curious and assessing stares from the wolves. Most seemed unwilling to come closer—a wariness that no doubt came from uncertainty and a healthy dose of fear of what Julio might do.

Fear wouldn’t stop the powerful wolves, but maybe she wouldn’t always be a liability. “Julio and Alec will help all of you. Alec’s not perfect by a long shot, but he cares. And Julio’s sister does too.”

“I believe you, actually. And trust me when I say it’s been a long time since I could say that and mean it.”

“I’m not surprised.” Sera sipped her beer and watched as Julio held a low, animated conversation with Alec. “Will you tell me something?”

“Name it, sweetie.”

“Seeing him with me. Does it make it harder to trust him?”

Patty snorted. “After the mess with Coleman and the other Mendozas, it’s already damn hard to trust him. I’m not sure what you’re asking, exactly.”

Something inside her relaxed. “So you don’t care that he’s slumming with a coyote?”

For a moment, the wolf looked almost guilty. Then she sighed. “It’s a bit of a relief, actually. That he might not be thinking he’s better than a bunch of panhandle rednecks.”

Sera reached across the table to cover Patty’s hand. “No. Not remotely.”

“Not,” the woman continued firmly, “that I think of you that way. But I’m used to other wolves looking at me like… Well, like I might not be fitting company for anyone, much less important people like them.”

“I
am
a redneck,” Sera said lightly. “The only shapeshifters I had around me growing up were wolves. The boys thought I was fitting company when they got lonely, and a stray who needed to be kicked to the curb when they weren’t. So I get it.”

Patty smiled, the expression edged with hard reality as well as commiseration. “Then you are one of us.”

In a lot of the ways that mattered, maybe she wasn’t so different. If she wanted to be with Julio, she could use that. She could help him regain the trust of the wolves who’d lost trust in anyone with power.

Of course, it wouldn’t change the other challenge. Julio’s family had been willing to risk Carmen’s life to try to turn her into a wolf. Diego Mendoza had looked at his daughter and had decided that she’d be better off dying as a newly made wolf than living as a human psychic.

If they’d destroy their own family to protect their precious bloodlines, she didn’t want to imagine what they’d do to her—or what price Julio might have to pay to stop them.

Running with a wolf pack was a new experience for Sera.

She’d run with wolves. Miguel and Anna took her running as often as she wanted, and there was always a camaraderie between them. It was fun to test herself against Anna’s strength and speed, or to tumble across the grass in a fake battle with Miguel, who had enough nervous power to exhaust even Anna.

Running with a pack was different. They
were
a pack. They flowed together under the moonlit sky, the communication between them so subtle Sera could only wonder at it. They ran as a group and played as a group, the youngsters testing themselves in teasing challenges that Sydney always broke apart before they could turn too real.

Sera ran with them, her blood pulsing in a primal, familiar beat that matched the fall of her paws against the ground. A little quicker than Julio’s—she had to fight to keep up with his larger stride. She was smaller than all of the adults and most of the adolescent wolves, but pride made her push herself until the pack began to splinter, veering off in private chases or circling back for games of tag.

She nipped at Julio’s tail and took off toward the denser part of the woods, slowing her pace to give her tired legs a chance to recover. He followed her, growling at another wolf who broke apart with them. The stranger tucked his ears and backed off, hunkering close to the ground, his tail between his legs.

Sera kept running without guilt. They’d done their duty. Talked to wolves all through dinner and into the evening, and men approached Julio with growing surety, and women talked to Sera with a heartbreaking mix of caution and envy. It was hard to blame even the ones who looked on Julio with covetous eyes—he represented safety and security in a world that had taken too much from them.

But he was hers. And now, after sharing him all evening, she wanted him to herself.

Julio slowed to a walk, his gaze focused on her. She could feel its weight, its careful assessment.

So serious. So carefully protective. She circled back and nipped at his tail, trying to tease him into playing with her, but he was having none of it.

Too many strangers, then. She huffed and nipped at him again, then took off into the woods, heading away from the pack and into the darker, stiller parts of the forest.

He ran her down after half a mile, his panting breaths moving closer and closer until he’d drawn even with her shoulder—running beside her instead of chasing.

This was peace. This was life as she was meant to live it, as comfortable in her fur as she was in her skin, strength at her side but not overwhelming her. The forest lay quiet around them, but still they ran. Sydney owned endless acres around his house, enough to give the pack a taste of solitude whenever they needed it.

She’d had no idea how very much she needed it.

Julio stopped and wandered in a wide circle around the edge of a shadowed clearing, then threw his head back in a wild howl.

The sound thundered through her. Not a call, but a warning. A proud statement of ownership, if only for a while. No wolf would trespass on his territory. No wolf would dispute that it
was
his territory.

He was strong and beautiful, and Sera crept to him with her head bent low, savoring the whisper of instinct that urged caution and respect, because for the first time she had no fear of rejection or danger. He met her with a soft rumble, rubbed his nose against hers.

The clearing was thick grass covered in leaves. Comfortable enough to stretch out upon, even when she let magic shimmer through her on a wave of giddy heat that left her human and tingling, naked beneath the endless sky. “I love the woods at night.”

Another pulse of magic behind her. “So do I.”

Shifting brought arousal, a high no drug could match. Awareness left her limbs liquid as she rolled to her stomach. “I love running with the big bad wolf too.”

Julio huffed out a laugh a split second before his mouth descended on the back of her neck.

Teeth dug into her skin, and she gasped, fingers closing helplessly on the grass as the sweetly edged pain brought her body from lazily interested to starving in the space between heartbeats. Her hips lifted without her permission, driven by the urge to submit. To offer herself, to
beg
to be taken.

He covered her body with his and continued to nibble on her skin. “How much do you love it out here?”

“I could live in a cabin in the woods.” She curled her toes as his teeth scraped across her shoulder, and had to fight the urge to squirm. If he dragged her to her knees and drove into her, she wouldn’t complain. Not when she was this hungry, this ready. Thinking enough to talk was a struggle, and her words came out breathless. “As long as I got cable and a modern kitchen.”

“
Here
, or anywhere?”

“Anywhere.” She shivered as his breath ghosted across her skin. “But I like it here too. I like Patty. She knows about hard living.”

He brushed her hair away from her shoulder and covered the newly bared skin with kisses. “They like you more than me, that’s for sure.”

“Because they don’t know you.” His lips found every spot that made her breathing hitch, but he kept kissing her, slow and easy. She was starting to wonder if he knew how to go fast. “You’re a Mendoza, baby. They’re always going to assume you’re one of the elite. And I’m a coyote. They’ll always
know
I’m not.”

“You’re better than elite.” His fingers trailed down her spine to her hip. “You’re Sera.”

She twisted to look over her shoulder at him. Darkly handsome and so serious, even now. “I’m your girl. And you’re my wolf. You’d better keep that in mind. I may be a submissive, but I’m still damn territorial.”

He smiled, slow and dark, and jerked her hips up, pulling her to her knees. “I know better than to forget.”

Oh yeah. The less-human parts of her thrilled as she bowed her back, stretching her arms out above her head and pressing her forehead to the grass. “I don’t know what to beg for. Your fingers, your tongue or a fast, hard fucking.”

He slapped her ass, driving a startled moan from her lips. “Then let me decide.”

Her skin burned where his hand had fallen. A good burn, the kind that fuzzed the edges of the world and let her focus on nothing beyond her body. She dug her fingers into the grass and wiggled, teasing him with a throaty laugh. “Can’t keep your hands off my ass, can you?”

“You don’t mind.” He leaned down, his chest against her back, and nudged his erection between her thighs.

She whimpered and arched, entirely unselfconscious for once in her life. “Again? Please?”

He rubbed his hand over her tingling skin, then rewarded her with another slap.

Heaven. Not tied up in games and guilt, just something that afforded them both pleasure. She closed her eyes and gave herself over to sensation as her lips formed another plea. Mindless, begging words, tangled up with his name.

Julio pushed forward, the head of his cock slicking close to her entrance. “Sera.”

She edged her knees apart. “I want you inside me. So bad. So deep.”

“If we weren’t rolling in the dirt, I’d make you wait.” Then he thrust into her, only a few inches, but hard enough to claim.

She bit her own arm to muffle her cry, a helpless noise that squeaked out regardless. One knee slipped on damp leaves, and it was so much hotter like this. Outdoors, on the ground. Messy and a little uncomfortable, with a twig digging into one arm and the sharp smell of crushed grass twisting with the forest and Julio and the unmistakable scent of sex.

It was raw and real, and she pushed back against his grip, ready to take every stretching inch of him. Ready to be fucked inside out, to scream her release to the sky and not care that every wolf in the pack heard her.

Julio twisted a hand in her hair and pulled her head back. “You want to be loud, don’t you?”

“Yes.” A rasped confession. A groan, because the fist in her hair was the right kind of dirty. “I don’t care if they all know. I want them to know that you’re mine.”

“You think they can’t tell?” His skin slid over hers, and he breathed his next words in her ear. “They saw the way I look at you. How much I want you.”

She twisted against his grip and pressed her lips to his jaw. “How much? Tell me.”

He buried his nose in the hollow of her throat and inhaled deeply. “I didn’t even want them breathing in your perfume. You belong to me.”

Oh, that touched off a shiver—one of fear as much as longing. Those were words she’d heard before. Words that she’d craved, words that had turned claustrophobic and cruel.