He chuckled roughly. “We’re going to start limiting your dares,” he warned her. “You get your way too often.”
She had dared him to buy the beds and quilts for the new Coyotes who had arrived. They watched her like the sun and the moon set on her. She dared him to find a decent cook that he could tolerate. He ended up with a full kitchen staff. Humans. He would have shuddered at the thought, but they were damned good cooks and he never had to worry about finding his coya stacking the damned dishwasher.
She did nothing more strenuous than carry her PDA or e-pad. The girls made certain of it. If she tried to do more, they called him.
She distracted his thoughts as she stretched beneath him, causing a groan to tear from him at the pleasure in the heat still wrapped around him.
Finally, long minutes later, he eased back.
“I’ll move later,” she murmured. “After I sleep.”
He smiled. She made him smile. She made him warm. She made him happy and made him look forward to each day and the surprises she had in store for him.
Shaking his head, he moved to the bathroom, washed up, then carried a damp cloth and towel to the bedroom. Despite her grumbling, he cleaned his seed from her, kissed a pale buttock, then patted her rear gently before crawling into the bed beside her.
Immediately, she was curling into him. They shifted and tussled for position for long minutes, until finally he was curled around her, her head pillowed on his arm, his cheek against her hair.
Sleep came easily. It came with a sense of security. It came with warmth.
“I love you, Del-Rey,” she whispered sleepily. “With all my soul.”
“I love you, Anya,” he said. “You are my soul.”
EPILOGUE
The bride wore a long gown of white lace and satin with the traditional one hundred pearl buttons running down the back. She looked like a fairy-tale princess as she walked up the rose-strewn aisle.
The groom was dressed in black. It suited him.
The bride’s father, tall, proud, still broad and strong at forty-two, wore black as well, a good contrast to his dark red, nearly auburn hair.
A spring snowstorm couldn’t cancel this ceremony; weather-equipped heli-jets were parked for miles outside Haven, and the underground sports facility at Haven was packed to capacity with Breeds and humans alike who were there to witness the joining of the Coyote alpha, Del-Rey Delgado, and his mate, Anya Kobrin.
Vows were spoken. Those were important. Rings were exchanged. It was said that the groom, or alpha, had had the rings specially made by a master jeweler in Russia. It was said that there was an inscription inside each: Let the past not be forgotten. Let the lessons not be in vain.
It was the wedding of the year. Journalists from around the world were in attendance, and when it came time for the bride to go to her knees and swear her loyalty to the alpha of the pack she had just married into, the alpha shocked them all.
He went to his knees. His hands clasped hers.
“You proved your loyalty, countless times over. As a child fighting for your friends’ freedom. As a woman fighting for her mate’s heart. As coya fighting for the peace we all dream of. I pledge myself, Alpha Del-Rey Delgado, to my mate, my wife, my coya, Anya Kobrin Delgado. May our future be filled with promise and may your smile always light my way.”
There wasn’t a dry eye in the house, as a reporter, Cassa Hawkins, even checked to be sure. Well, maybe there was one dry eye in the house, besides hers. The large Breed that stood in the shadows across the room. His eyes were, like hers, scanning the crowd, watching, as though he were waiting, hunting.
What, my beautiful Bengal, are you hunting?
Unfortunately, despite her wicked, wicked fantasies, she had a feeling he wasn’t hunting her. Too bad. She heard he was a wild man in bed; she’d never had a wild man in her bed.
She almost snorted at that thought. It had been a long damned time since she had had any man in her bed.
Her attention was drawn back to the ceremony as howls and roars, cheers of goodwill and laughter echoed through the cavernous underground arena.
Del-Rey and Anya had turned, hands clasped, to face the crowd watching them while the priest that officiated over the ceremony pronounced them man and wife.
It really was a beautiful affair.
What made Cassa’s heart clench, though, was when Del-Rey turned his bride back to him, lowered his head and took her lips in a kiss that looked more like a promise.
As Anya Delgado arched in his arms, Cassa’s brows lifted at the small, rounded mound of her tummy as it became visible. Was it possible? Was this mate actually pregnant? She looked closer.