Deer Heart [Shifter Crossroads 3] Page 5
Venny moaned, groaned and with every muscle in her body clenching at the same time, her body rocked in a release driven strictly by the mouth of her mate.
Dimly, she felt Athon tugging at her dress, but when she could think again, he was behind her, stroking his hands over her body, cupping her breasts and caressing the slick folds of her sex.
Athon pressed his mouth to her neck, and he set his teeth at the base where her shoulder began.
Venny fought the deep shudder that ran through her before she realised that there was no point in fighting it. He was her mate now. He had earned her honest reactions to his touch.
His erection was pressing against her ass, and she rocked her hips against him, teasing him.
His teeth gripped tighter as he seated his cock in her. His fangs shot out, and he thrust into her in the same moment.
She hissed, grunted and gasped as he started to move inside her with no restriction.
Venny moaned, gripped his thighs as he pumped into her. She inhaled sharply when he rolled her to her belly and resumed thrusting with power and speed.
She clawed at the sheet under her, pushing up against him before he pressed her back to the bed.
His Alpha nature was coming out, and she was a little conflicted as to how she felt about it.
She muffled her shriek as her orgasm struck with a rush of energy that tingled her fingers and heated her toes. It went on and on as Athon continued pounding into her with sharp slaps of skin on skin.
Venny felt his heated breath on her neck a moment before he bit down on the other side of her neck, and his howling groan echoed in the room as his cock flexed and jetted into her. He released her with a jerk just as she was feeling the swelling at the base of his cock again.
She twisted to give him a rueful glance. “That was close.”
His eyes were the crystal shade that he wore as a wolf. His cock was shining and swollen at the base. As she watched, it started to relax.
He sighed heavily and leaned down to kiss her.
“You have no idea how tempting it was to stay inside you.”
She finished flipping to her side, and she casually tried to close her legs and sit up. Her limbs were shaking, but she managed it. “You had better feed me before you plan on getting stuck again.”
Chapter Nine
Her heat hit hard and blurred time. When she finally came back to herself, it was two days later and she was sore. She wore the thick blue silk robe that he had offered her, and though it was too long, it helped her return to the confines of her body.
Athon looked a little worse for wear as well.
His stride was slower, and he wore a grey silk robe rather than put normal clothing on. They were sitting out on the balcony attached to the bedroom and having coffee. Athon was staring at her with a rapt expression. “Can I take your picture?”
She was still dazed but she asked, “What?”
“You look amazing right now. Your eyes are bright, your hair is crystal white and your skin looks like pearl. I want to capture that image.” She blushed. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
He finished his coffee and walked back inside.
“Humour me. I have this in my mind now, and I want to see what a camera does to your skin.” She frowned and sat while there was a banging noise from inside the apartment. She sipped her coffee and watched the ships as they moved through the grey-blue water.
They had an appointment for dinner with the area Alpha but that was hours away.
Venny finished what was in her cup, and she went inside, washing the mug and setting it on the draining board.
Athon emerged from his studio and grabbed her hand. “Come on.”
The backdrop was a stormy blue, the same colour as the sky the day they arrived. Athon bullied her into sitting with her legs twisted to one side, looking back over her shoulder at the camera.
He started clicking, and two hours of posing, licking her lips and tousling her hair later, she was aching and he was pleased. He hauled her to her feet and kissed her. “You are lovely, beautiful, stunning and mine. Your colouration makes you unique, and your soul makes others see it.” She chuckled. “If you had wanted to get weird with any of those images, you would have seen how my soul was feeling about it.”
“I don’t need the world to see you naked, they just need to see you.” He caressed her cheek.
She grimaced. “I don’t know what I would do when they stopped staring and actually spoke to me.”
“Let me stand with you as you find out. I am guessing it will be spectacular.” She sighed and leaned against his chest. “Don’t pin all your hopes on me.”
“You pinned yours on me to get you through your heat. Now for some quid pro quo.” He held her and ran his hands up and down her spine.
“We will grow into this union. Nothing will happen overnight.”
She smiled up at him with watery eyes. “I usually shove things into place.” He laughed. “You can shove all you want, I am not moving.”
They got dressed. The fabric seemed harsh on skin only used to the touch of their lover.
Venny picked a long skirt and a wrap top that she had picked up at the Crossroads. Her heels elevated her until she was six feet tall, and Athon looked at her ruefully. “You aren’t wearing underwear, are you?”
She shrugged. “I am wearing a bra. This shirt requires it. As for anything else, I am not telling.” He sighed and asked, “Do you have a jacket?”
“Not one that matches this shirt. You will simply have to keep me warm.”
Athon laughed and put his arm around her waist as they exited the apartment. It was time to meet her in-laws.
Apollo Wells and his wife, Henrietta, were both pleased to see her, if a little apprehensive about eating with a deer.
A shifter ran the restaurant. Venny could smell the magic.
“So, Venezia, what do you do for a living? Athon didn’t say.” Henrietta was trying to make small talk while the men spoke in low tones.
“I am a bush pilot. I fly supplies and personnel to and from the northern reaches inaccessible by ground.” She nibbled at the roll she had placed on her plate. It was nice, fluffy and still warm. She missed baking while she was making the rounds.
“Oh. Do you do that a lot?” Henrietta blinked but there was something behind her eyes.
“What are you actually asking?” Henrietta leaned forward and whispered, “Do you think you can bring Athon back more frequently? My mate would never say it, but he misses him, and your mating has removed Athon from the pack succession, so he can stay here now if he likes.”
Stay here. Stay in a city crowded against the ocean where the mountains loomed and the open fields and icy meadows would be a thing of the past. “I am sure I can mention it.” She sat quietly, her appetite gone. Living in a city had never been in her plans.
She looked at Athon when she heard him say, “I am planning an exhibition here in four months.”
Apollo raised a brow. “What is your subject matter? You usually work along a theme.” Athon raised his glass of wine. “My theme is Venezia, in both her forms. We are heading north tomorrow, and thanks to her skills, she can get me to parts of the wild I have never been able to manage before.”
Venny felt a blush creeping up her throat and heading for her hairline. “Me?” He lifted her hand and kissed her inner wrist where her pulse was hammering a thousand times a minute. “You. The digitals that I scanned in before we left are amazing. You are incredibly photogenic.”
Apollo ignored the byplay and asked, “So, sister. What do you think of Athon?”
“I think he takes some getting used to. It’s a good thing I am a patient woman.” She smiled.
“Why did you turn to the Crossroads for a mate? Are you defective?” Apollo was going on the attack.
“No more so than your brother. I am just an albino reindeer. It appears that jackass runs in his family.” She kept her face calm, but she was furious at the idea that she
was unworthy.
Apollo sat with his mouth opening and closing while Athon sat and laughed his ass off.
A few other tables looked over at them, but Apollo was fighting to be furious. When Venny didn’t look away, he let the wolf trickle into his gaze.
Venny called her reindeer and let it stare down the predator. He growled, and she snorted through her nose. Her fingers tapped on the table in warning.
Dimly, she could hear Henrietta whisper, “What is she doing?”
Athon answered, “Being the woman I chose and the one that chose me. She isn’t going to back down, and she is way bigger than Apollo is counting on if she shifts in here.” Apollo finally inclined his head in stalemate.
She smiled and did the same. It wasn’t the easiest meeting of in-laws, but it wasn’t a disaster by any stretch of the imagination.
Chapter Ten
Four months later
Venny stood with a glass of white wine and tried not to look at the images of herself all over the walls. While she wasn’t nude in any of the images, she had never felt more naked.
Apollo and his entire pack were here, and she could tell which of the folk in the gallery were wolves, they were the ones staring at the image of an albino reindeer nose-to-nose and far larger than the black and silver wolf it was standing with.
The couple’s shots had taken a lot of stamina on Athon’s part. He had to have her stand, get the frame set and then shift and meet her in time for the camera to click. Half the time, the camera had frozen or he had gotten irritated with the wait.
Athon grabbed her arm and hauled her to the beginning of the exhibition. He called it Black and White.
It was egotistical of him to take self-portraits, but having them sitting in a yin-yang configuration, their human bodies draped in matching silks, was quite a striking image.
The image of her lying, with artfully draped silk covering breasts and hips, was particularly striking. She was looking at the camera with lazy sensuality and fire in her eyes.
“You do realise that it isn’t comfortable for me to have people looking at me like this.” He wrapped his arm around her and hugged her. “I know. But it was important to show them.” She blinked and suddenly realised that this was the only way he could show his pack what she was and what she meant to him. She swallowed a lump in her throat.
The images of the black wolf cavorting with the reindeer and her horned form backlit against a sunset were powerful. Interspersed with her were images of black bears, snowy owls gliding across the landscape and just enough other animals to make the reindeer seem like something that could occur in nature.
Apollo and Henrietta came up to them. “Athon, this is a very impressive collection.” Athon inclined his head. “I had an inspiring subject.”
Henrietta took Venny by the hand and led her through the gallery. “Apollo wasn’t sure what he was going to see tonight, but I am glad we came. You are really impressive.”
Venny laughed. “Thank you, but that is an accident of birth as much as my colouring is.” A voice sneered, “And that colouring can be found at any salon supply shop. I don’t know why he had to get a freak for a mate.” Venny paused, and Henrietta was furious.
“Leah. What are you doing here? This was invitation only.”
Venny turned to face the sneering woman and saw a female with the colouring and pinched features of a shape-shifting vixen. The woman was literally a fox.
The fox backed up as Venny looked at her. “We have not been introduced.”
She extended her hand to the stranger, and the fox had no choice, she met the handshake and tried to regain her attitude.
Henrietta made reluctant introductions.
“Venezia, this is Leah. Leah, this is Venezia Wells. My sister-in-law. Venny, Leah used to date Athon.”
Leah pulled the collar of her dress to one side.
“We were going to be mates, but he got cold feet.”
“Really. Why are you showing me the marks?” Venny knew what she was going to say. Athon had given her the ex briefing.
“Because he gave them to me before he even met you.” She crossed her arms and crowed.
Venny shrugged. “Two things. One, if he had met me before he met you, you wouldn’t have those marks. Two, that isn’t his bite. He has had a chipped lower canine when he shifts them for half his life. It shows up in his pictures. I just got him to get it fixed last week, and the tearing that that canine caused isn’t in evidence on your neck.” Venny had her own marks with precisely that jagged blur, though the actual cause was not what she had thrown at Leah.
Leah flushed scarlet and turned to leave.
Venny reached out and gripped her shoulder, “Stay away from me and mine, or I will stomp you into a fine, bloody paste. It won’t be the first time.”
Her voice was a quick whisper, but a pale wash ran through Leah when she looked into Venny’s eyes. She nodded quickly and headed for the exit, grabbing a wolf male as she passed.
Henrietta gave her a look of respect. “I didn’t know that about Athon’s tooth.” Venny grinned. “That is because I lied. The truth is he is a sloppy biter when he is horny, and I tend to squirm. He bites twice, but I didn’t want Leah to figure that out.”
Henrietta winced. “That sounds painful.”
“I know, right. Oddly enough, I don’t mind.” She shrugged and walked with her in-law, meeting pack members who showed polite respect that they normally didn’t display when meeting a ruminant.
Henrietta didn’t mind having a reindeer as a sister-in-law. The amount of contact that Athon and Apollo now had made the Alpha happier and that made Henrietta’s life easier.
In one email, Henrietta had told Venny that if she was a tap-dancing weasel and Athon was happy with her, she would be happy.
“I can’t believe he got you to pose for all those pictures. The human ones, I mean.” Henrietta was standing in front of a risqué image of Venny wrapped in heavy white satin, her back bare and facing the viewer while her head and shoulders were turned to face the camera. Her hair was a snow-white cascade and there were minute braids in her locks. With the red of her eyes digitally enhanced, it was an eerily frightening image.
A familiar voice spoke. “I never thought to see you like that, Venny.”
She turned and smiled at Pierce. “I never thought to marry a photographer. The world turns and life changes us.”
She hugged him and he hugged back.
Henrietta cleared her throat.
“Oh, pardon my manners, Henry. This is Pierce, Reindeer Herd Master. Pierce, this is Henrietta, my sister-in-law and Alpha female of the local pack.”
Pierce took the wolf’s hand, and he bowed gracefully. “I am pleased that Venezia has found family at last.”
Henrietta blinked. “I was not under the impression that she was an orphan.” Pierce stood and shook his head, “I mean since her family abandoned her to my care. Our clan normally destroys albinos. They are usually weaker, but Venny has proven all our histories wrong.”
Henrietta looked horrified. “That’s barbaric.” He cocked an eyebrow at her. “What do you do to albinos?”
“We simply shun them.”
“Do you not think that denying them the society of their own kind is a detriment to their sanity?” Pierce had Henrietta thinking, and Venny’s wine glass was empty.
She wandered to the serving station and poured a champagne glass full of ginger ale.
Athon freed himself from his crowd, and he whispered, “How are you doing?”
“Fine. As long as I stay away from the crab puffs. Those things are killing me.” She chuckled weakly and moved away from the food with her camouflage beverage.
“Only two more hours and we can be back in bed and relaxing.” He pressed a kiss to her temple. “So, what do you think, puppy or calf?” She sighed. “I don’t care if it’s a zebra unicorn. When can we go home?”
“End of the week, love. I have invited my sisters for the holidays.”
“They are staying in the tropics. It will be a charming family holiday with you holding centre stage. When do you think you will stop being able to shift?”
She shrugged. “I have no idea. None of my family will return my emails and Pierce is hopeless on that side of things.”
“That isn’t it. You haven’t told anyone, have you?” He frowned.
“No. You?”
“No. I was waiting for you to make an announcement at dinner with Apollo and Henry. You didn’t.”
She frowned. “I don’t know how folks are going to take it, so I just want to keep it safe. It must be the reindeer in me, but I don’t want to expose the child to danger before it is even born. Afterward, I am guessing that I will be a complete pain in the ass.”
He laughed and hugged her in the midst of the very elegant photographic exhibition. “You already are, and I love you for it.” She wrinkled her nose, and then, her eyes widened as they heard the sound of an argument coming from the rear of the gallery.
“Pierce is here?”
“I left him arguing with Henrietta, and I am guessing Apollo joined in.” She winced as the voices rose another notch. “Go stop them.”
“Me? Why me, he was your Herd Master.” He crossed his arms and scowled.
“You are the Alpha. Go get him.”
“Living goddess.”
She opened her mouth and closed it with a snap. She could never argue with that logic. “Wish me luck. I am going in.”
She strode into the argument and offered Pierce a dinner with the Alpha and his wife so they could continue their debate. It would be a private event at Venny’s home, but everyone would be free to scream as much as they liked.
She exhaled as the cluster dissolved and returned to Athon.
He grabbed her and dipped her in his arms.
“My hero.”
She snorted, but his kiss was holding back any true expression of frustration. The frustration faded as her mate nibbled at her lips and caressed her back. Venezia sighed and held tight to his shoulders. Dealing with family appeared to be her venue, and she added it to her side of the balance that they created together.