Wild Invitation

dirty trick he played as he attempted to wear down her resistance.
    And Cooper had some
very
dirty tricks in his arsenal.
    Moaning with remembered pleasure, she rose out of the bath, dried herself off, then shifted. Her wolf sniffed at itself,not too sure about the floral scent but deciding it was acceptable since Cooper’s scent underlay it, embedded into her very skin. Jaw dropping in a wolfish grin, she padded to the door, pressed her paw to the special footpad to open it and slipped out, the door swinging shut behind her.
    It took her no effort to track Cooper, his scent vivid to her every sense. He was outside, speaking to several of the senior soldiers. When she would’ve remained on the edge of the clearing, waiting for him to finish, he turned and smiled at her, angling his head in welcome.
    She padded over to lean against his leg.
    As she listened, Cooper finished working out some kind of a rotation schedule, and the soldiers began to break away one by one, the grins on their faces having nothing to do with work.
    Cooper came down in a crouch after the last soldier left, stroking his hand down the slope of her back. “You’re such a pretty wolf, Grace.”
    She yipped in a request for play.
    Hand fisting in her fur, he said, “Okay, you convinced me. Give me a minute.”
    It took him less than that to strip and cache his clothes in the hollow created by the thick roots of a forest giant. A wonder of light and color, and she found herself faced with a heavy-boned wolf who had become a familiar playmate. He was at least a hand bigger than her, maybe twice her weight, his eyes shimmering yellow and his coat a luxuriant dark red.
    She quivered as he pressed his body against hers, acting shy…before she pounced up to grip at his neck with her teeth. He snapped his own teeth in a pretend growl and nipped at her ear as she jumped back, making her release a startled squeak-bark.
    A wolfish laugh.
    Snarling, she attacked him and they rolled around on the grass, wrestling and whipping around one another. She knew he was letting her play—he was so much bigger and stronger that it would’ve taken him but a second to seize control. But she also knew he was having fun. So when a low-hanging branch distracted him, she took off.
    Grace didn’t like being chased as a rule—it was scary,stressful…except when it was Cooper doing the chasing. Then it was
fun
.
    Heart thudding, she scrambled up hills and across clearings, aware of him gaining on her—and then his paws were on her shoulders, taking her down. It was a classic demand for submission, but when the bigger wolf nuzzled at her and jumped off, she knew he was telling her he’d won the game, nothing more.
    Grinning, she rose up to her full height and yawned in a gesture of impertinence.
    Cooper bared his teeth at his mate—
if
the contrary female would just accept the bond—and stared into her eyes. She stared back, unafraid, her tail up, her gaze bright. Had anyone come upon them, they might have believed she challenged him, but that wasn’t it at all. It felt as if she was adoring him.
    All at once, her form dissolved in faceted sparks of color.
    He shifted alongside her and let out an “oomph” as she pounced on him again, playful as a pup. “Hi, Cooper.”
    His cheeks creased where he lay on his back with her over him. “Hi, Grace.”
    “Guess what?” A very wolfish angle to her head.
    “What?”
    Leaning in close, she whispered. “I decided.”
    His spine bowed as the mating bond locked into place, as gentle and as fierce a thing as Grace herself. Throwing back his head, he howled his joy, heard the wild wolves howl back. And then he heard his Grace, her voice melding with his in a harmony that was their song of the heart.



Texture of Intimacy



Surcease
    THE PURE PSY army, formed of militant Psy who believe the Silence Protocol is the salvation of their race, that emotion is the enemy, and that the changelings, with their wild hearts, represent all that is wrong in the world, has been defeated. Broken on the wings of an alliance that stretches across the three races that form the triumvirate that is the world.
    Human.
    Psy.
    Changeling.
    The lines have shifted forever.
    Will shift further…but not just yet.
    Now,
this
, is a moment free of violence, a timeless pause in which a Psy formed in Silence, and a SnowDancer wolf born to heal, discover the searing pleasures and startling textures of an intimacy luminous with hope.

Chapter