Fierce Obsessions

  “Maybe we can reenact it when all this crap is over.”

  He smiled. “Yeah. We’ll do that.” He kissed her again. Harder this time. Deeper. And said what he’d wanted to say all day. “I want to claim you, Riley.”

  Her heart slammed against her ribs and began racing a mile a minute. “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  She licked her lips. “If this is to do with the stuff your mom said—”

  “It’s nothing to do with her. This is what I want.” Tao hadn’t thought she’d be so surprised. “What did you think would happen, Riley? I told you, we have something. It’s good and it’s real and it makes me fucking happy. I want to keep it.”

  She dug the heels of her palms into her eyes. “I should have known you’d do this.”

  “Do what?”

  She looked up. “Move so fast.”

  “This isn’t moving fast, it’s taking action. I’m not a person who holds back when I want something—you know that. I don’t see the point in committing to someone unless it’s on every level.”

  “Which is great, but don’t you want to be one hundred percent sure that I’m someone you could care for enough to imprint with one day?”

  He framed her face with his hands. “Riley, I’m sick in love with you. I don’t know when it happened or if it was some gradual thing, but it’s how I feel.” He’d cared about people before, but what he felt for her made those feelings seem like a cheap imitation of what it meant to care for someone. “I love that you’re smart and strong and fearless. I love that you’re a sly little fighter and you don’t sweat the small stuff. I love that you get me, accept me, and let my shit roll right over your head and just get on with your day.”

  Riley’s eyes stung. He’d turned her to mush again. “You think that if we give in to this, a mating bond will snap into place, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know. Now ask me if I care. Ask me.”

  She swallowed. “Do you care?”

  “No. The whole true mate thing is overrated. Your old flock has it right. Fate doesn’t always have to include a person’s true mate. If you tell me you’d prefer to search for your true mate, I’ll accept that. Okay, that was a lie, but it sounded good. Seriously, Riley, it’s pointless to go through life searching for that ‘click’ when it’s easy enough to walk right past your mate and not even recognize them for who they are—or who they should be—to you.”

  “It’s not as simple as you make it sound.” She wasn’t concerned that he wasn’t her true mate. Plenty of the couples in her flock had imprinted, including her own parents, so it was pretty much the norm to her. What concerned her was that . . . “If we claimed each other and it all messed up, we’d have to see each other every day. I’d have to watch you with another—”

  “Never gonna happen, Riley. I don’t want anybody else. Only you. I know I could never be happy with anyone else—not now that I’ve had you.” He was utterly sure of that. “I want you to be just as happy. No, that’s not right. I want to make you happy. Do I, Riley? Tell me.”

  “Yes. You make me feel happy and . . . safe.” She glowered at him. “I don’t need someone to make me feel safe.”

  He smiled. “Of course you don’t, baby. But I’m glad that I do.”

  “What if a mating bond doesn’t snap into place? I know you think it will, but what if it doesn’t?”

  “Hear me when I say this: It doesn’t matter to me if you’re the other half of my soul or not. You’re in my soul. I don’t know how you got there, I really don’t, but you are.”

  Well, it wasn’t just himself he needed to worry about. “And your wolf?”

  “My wolf is crazy about you. He wants to mark and claim you just as much as I do.” Tao stroked his thumb along her cheekbone. “How about your raven?”

  “She already thinks of you as hers,” said Riley. “She has for a while.”

  Relieved, Tao said, “So I want it, my wolf wants it, your raven wants it. Do you?” He held his breath, unsure what he’d do if she said no.

  “I wouldn’t be an easy mate, Tao. And I kind of come as a package deal.”

  He smiled. “It’s about time you admitted those kids are yours. You think that would put me off? I adore the way you love those kids to distraction. I love how you stand guard over them.” He wasn’t at all surprised by the fear in her eyes. Her uncles had warned him that she found it hard to believe she could hold someone to her. It was only natural that she’d worry. “Look, this isn’t something we have to do right now. I’ll give you time to think about it.”

  She looked at him dubiously. Since when did he possess patience? “You will?”

  “I’ll give you until tomorrow night to think on it. That’s as much time as I can give you without losing my mind. Then we talk it all out and I’ll claim you.”

  “You’re so certain I’ll agree?”

  He smiled. “Ah, baby, do you really think I’ll ever settle for anything less than what I want? What I want most is you. And I’ll get it.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Watching the miniature pirate ship seesawing back and forth, Taryn shook her head. “I don’t know how they could go on that thing after an ice cream and not spew up.”

  Riley smiled. “It’s moving pretty slow.” Still the young riders screamed, cheered, and laughed. Kye even daringly had his hands up.

  Taryn gestured at a small ball pit. “Lilah would have liked that. Shame she wasn’t well.”

  Riley had almost canceled the day trip, feeling shitty that Lilah would miss out, but Grace had insisted that it was best if the other kids weren’t around, or Lilah would never take a nap. Shifter children tended to recover quickly and could often sleep off bouts of nausea. Still, Riley had hesitated. The Alphas, however, had practically ordered them to go and had even come along. They’d been at the amusement park for hours and the kids had ridden everything from the carousel to the bumper boats. They should be tired and bloated after all the walking and junk food, but they were still bundles of energy.

  “Look!” Dexter, who was currently taking a break to eat, threw one of his fries on the ground and laughed when a bird swooped down and grabbed it.

  Riley chuckled. “Don’t forget to feed yourself.” Keeping a close watch on the cub, she spoke to Tao, who had his arm curled possessively around her. “They’re loving it, aren’t they?”

  Tao tucked her hair behind her ear. “They are.”

  When she’d woken up that morning, she’d expected to be dealing with a very pushy and impatient Tao. Instead he’d been calm and casual. He hadn’t once bugged her to agree to mate with him. Hadn’t once even mentioned their conversation of the previous night. She could almost think he’d forgotten it . . . except he cast her the occasional look of challenge, a dare to reach for what they both knew she wanted. Riley blushed every time.

  “It’s a nice park,” Tao added.

  “Aside from the bat cave, sure.”

  Tao smiled. “Why don’t you like bats?”

  Was that a trick question? “They carry rabies, and drink blood, and make horrible squeaky sounds, and their wings are weird. I mean, what kind of wings don’t have feathers?”

  “So you’re scared of them.”

  “No, but I’ll concede that I might have been scared of them if I was a lesser female. Anyway, bat cave or no bat cave, I’m glad we brought the kids here. They needed this.”

  “It has to be hard for them to be cooped up all the time,” said Taryn, licking her melting ice cream.

  “Our territory is vast,” began Tao, “but being confined to it can make you feel like you can’t breathe.”

  Trey absently nodded in agreement, busy eating the giant turkey leg he’d bought from one of the food vendors.

  As Riley gave her surroundings a quick, surreptitious glance, Tao tugged on her ponytail. “Don’t worry.” She didn’t look worried, but he could sense it. Massaging the tension from her neck, he kissed her lightly. “Ethan said all the ravens were on
Exodus territory. He’ll know the minute one leaves, and he’ll contact us immediately.”

  “I know,” said Riley. “But while the whole flock business feels up in the air, I can’t relax. I’ll try, though.” Noticing the pirate ship slowing to a stop, she waited near the exit. The human operating the ride soon opened it, and Savannah and Kye came rushing out, not looking the least bit dizzy.

  “Can we go on the teacup ride now?” asked Savannah in the sweetest voice.

  “Seriously, it’s like they want to vomit all over themselves,” said Taryn.

  Feeling a pat on his leg, Tao looked down to see that Dexter was pointing one of his fries toward the sky. A stray red balloon was drifting upward. “If we can get you a balloon from somewhere, we will,” Tao told him. Dexter’s answering smile tugged at Tao’s heart. The kid was becoming more and more relaxed around him, and Tao had to admit it felt good. He wanted Savannah and Dexter to see him and Riley as a unit. In order for that to happen, they needed to trust him as they did Riley.

  Savannah would be a little harder to win over, Tao knew. But she was warming up to him little by little. The thought made him smile . . . right up until some of Dexter’s ketchup dripped off his fry and splattered on Tao’s jeans.

  “Uh-oh,” said the cub. “Sorry.”

  Tao tried to soak up the sauce with a napkin that Riley handed him. “It’s okay, little man.” Unfortunately, wiping at the sauce only succeeded in making the stain look worse. With a shrug Tao balled up the napkin and dumped it in a nearby trash can.

  “Teacup ride! Teacup ride!” Kye fairly demanded as he madly twirled in a circle.

  Trey snorted at his son. “No more sugar for you.”

  Kicking the brake off the rental stroller, Riley said, “Time to get moving, kids.” Savannah and Dexter clambered into the double stroller while Kye climbed up his father’s back. Once Trey had more comfortably positioned the pup on his broad shoulders, Tao gently bumped Riley aside and pushed the stroller as they began an easy walk.

  The place was pretty busy, full of other families, groups of teenagers, and even couples. As a woman passed with two crying toddlers, Taryn said, “I think the kids have been really well behaved, especially considering it’s hot.”

  Riley nodded. “They’ve impressed me.”

  Savannah leaned out of the stroller as she spotted a row of stuffed animals hanging around a game stall. “Ooh, can I have one?”

  Tao brought the stroller to a halt and studied the basketball toss game. Nothing he hadn’t played before, he thought. “Which one do you want?”

  “The snake,” replied the viper, eyes wide with excitement, as she leaped out of the stroller.

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” said Tao. He handed five dollars to the human manning the stall, who then gave Tao three balls and told him the rules of the game. As soon as Kye hopped down from Trey’s shoulders and climbed onto the shelved barrier, Dexter deserted his fries and scrambled his way up Trey’s back—no doubt to annoy Kye for the fun of it.

  Keeping tight hold of the stroller, Riley watched as Tao stood with his legs almost shoulder width apart, flexed his knees, and basically shot all three balls into the hoops like it was his job.

  A bell dinged and Savannah released Riley’s leg, squealing, “You won it!” As Tao handed her the stuffed snake, she wrapped an arm around his leg and gave him the most angelic smile. “Thank you!”

  He tugged on her pigtail. “You’re welcome.”

  “Damn,” Taryn cursed quietly as a plop of ice cream landed on her shirt.

  “I have some wet wipes in the mesh pocket at the back of the stroller,” Riley told her. “Time to get back in the stroller, kids.” Kye hopped off the barrier and turned back to Trey while Savannah slid inside the stroller with her snake. Dexter . . . Dexter didn’t follow her. He was also no longer hanging off Trey’s back.

  He was gone.

  Riley went cold from head to toe. She spun in a circle. “Where’s Dexter?” The words came out quiet, shaky, but every wolf heard them. “Dexter! Dexter!” There was no sign of him fucking anywhere. Panic choked her. She grabbed Tao’s arm, as if he could keep back the hysteria. “Where is he?”

  Fighting the dread beating at him, Tao inhaled a deep breath, sifting through the scents. Catching Dexter’s, Tao turned to their right. “He went this way.”

  “I’ve got the stroller, go,” said Trey.

  Riley, Tao, and Taryn sprinted down the path, following Dexter’s scent. Whatever was on their faces made the throngs of people gasp and part.

  “There’s another scent tight with his,” Riley realized. And both scents were leading to the exit. Riley didn’t think. She just shifted right on the spot.

  The raven shook off Riley’s clothes and flapped her wings hard, pushing herself off the ground. She sailed through the air and over the exit of the park. Soaring above the rows of vehicles, the raven searched for the cub. She saw him. He was limp. An adult male was dragging him to a vehicle where another male waited.

  The raven swooped down and knotted her talons in the male’s hair. Enraged with this male who would try to steal the cub, she clawed at his scalp, drawing blood. With a loud cry of pain, he released the cub and slapped at the raven. She didn’t let him go. She dug her talons in harder. Bit his fingers. Shrieked at him.

  “Get the fuck off me!”

  A burning pain blazed along the raven’s leg and pricked her belly. She released the human and recoiled. He turned toward the cub, knife in a hand that dripped with blood. The raven blocked his path, aggressively flapping her wings at him.

  “Leave the kid, Mathers! Get back in the car!”

  The male glaring at the raven froze, looking from her to the cub.

  “The others are fucking coming, move!”

  The male spat a curse and hurried to the car. The raven wanted to chase him, wanted to pursue the vehicle as it raced away, but her human half urged her to stay with the cub and guard him—something her human half felt she’d failed to do herself.

  Tao dropped to his knees beside Dexter and the raven, his lungs burning. He could see the gentle rise and fall of the cub’s chest, could smell the drug. “He’s unconscious, but he’s alive.” But that didn’t calm Tao whatsofuckingever, because he had the image in his head of the human pulling a knife on Riley. The tang of her blood scented the air. His wolf snarled, offended by the scent and wanting to hunt the human who would dare harm her.

  Panicking that she might have been stabbed, Tao reached out to the raven, who stood on the grass. “Come here.” She backed up instead. He gritted his teeth. “I need to check you out.” She snapped her beak at him. “Riley, shift back for me.”

  “I’m not sure her raven will pull back anytime soon,” said Trey. “Let’s just get in the SUV and get out of here. Taryn can fix her when we get back.”

  Kye touched Tao’s shoulder. “I want to go home.”

  “We’re going home,” Tao told him, gently scooping up Dexter, knowing the raven would follow. They all made a quick dash to the SUV. Trey slid open the side door and ushered Savannah and Kye inside. The raven followed and perched herself on a headrest.

  Instead of hopping inside, Taryn spoke to Tao. “They’re both okay, Tao. Please don’t lose it on me.”

  “I won’t,” Tao ground out, hanging on to his control by the thinnest, most fragile thread.

  “The raven’s leg is bleeding and there’s a little blood on her stomach, but I don’t think he stabbed her or there would be a lot more blood. Dexter’s drugged and unconscious, but he’s otherwise fine. Don’t get yourself wound up. The kids need you to be calm while Riley can’t be.”

  After Tao gave a curt nod, Taryn slid into the third row of passenger seats, where Kye was already waiting. Tao then sat in the second row, placing himself beside Savannah.

  It was mere moments before Trey was in the driver’s seat and they were on the road, heading home. “The scent on Dexter is human,” said the Alpha.

  “
The guy who tried to take him was one of the people who were with Ramón that day outside the diner,” Tao told him. Silently he cursed himself. He should have considered that Ramón might still present a threat. He hadn’t even thought that Ramón could simply have been biding his time. He’d been so sure that they were fine, and now both Riley and Dexter were hurt.

  Savannah clicked off her seat belt and moved to Tao, chewing her thumb and looking from the raven to Dexter. “Will they be all right?”

  The tremor in her voice made Tao’s chest ache. “They’ll be fine. Dexter’s just sleeping; he’ll wake up soon. The raven’s a little hurt, but Taryn can heal her as soon as she shifts back.”

  “Why won’t she shift back now?” asked Savannah.

  “She’s angry and worried, so she wants to stay close and watch over you.”

  “But if she does that, Taryn won’t be able to heal her because she needs their mouths to touch.” Savannah crawled on his lap and stroked Dexter’s hair. “You have to shift back,” she told the raven, but the avian didn’t.

  Taryn leaned over the seat and handed Tao a T-shirt. They kept plenty of spare clothes in the pack vehicles. “Use this for her leg,” she told him.

  Tao shook his head. “There’s no way she’ll let me wrap that around her.” The raven was strung too tight, so all he could do was hope she didn’t lose too much blood and pass out.

  The drive to Phoenix territory felt like the longest journey of his life. Dread. Rage. Anxiety. All of it clawed at him. The smell of Riley’s blood kept his wolf pacing and snarling, but the raven refused to shift back for him.

  After whipping the car into a free space in the concealed lot, Trey opened the side door. “Let me take Dexter,” he said to Tao. “You try and get the raven inside—” The Alpha jumped back as the raven snapped her beak at him.

  Unsurprised, Tao explained. “She’s too on edge because she doesn’t understand what’s wrong with Dexter. I’ll keep hold of him; she obviously trusts me with him.”

  The moment Trey stepped aside, the raven soared out of the SUV. Blood had soaked the headrest, making Tao grind his teeth. If that fucking bird didn’t shift back soon so that Taryn could heal her, he’d go nuclear.