Deni gave him a startled look, and then she laughed. The laughter soon turned to groans, and they gave themselves over to the frenzy, their cries ringing against the millions of bright stars.
* * *
Ellison found Jace and Deni where they lay together in the warm Texas night. Of course he did—Deni knew they’d given him plenty of time to find their scent, and they must have been throwing off pheromones like crazy, providing an easy trail to follow.
Ellison came trotting up as his wolf, then shifted to human and groaned. “Not again. I swear, I can’t come near you two without finding you tangled together.” His voice held relief though, even rejoicing.
Jace helped Deni to her feet and put her behind his warm body, but when he faced Ellison, he wasn’t defensive and angry—he showed his open hands, a posture of peace.
“Congratulate us, Ellison,” Jace rumbled. “I’m mate-claiming your sister, Deni Rowe, under the light of the moon, the Goddess, and in front of a witness—you. I plan to ask Liam or my dad to perform the mating rituals as soon as they can.”
Ellison stopped, moonlight gleaming on his light hair and wolf-gray eyes. He was Deni’s alpha, the leader of her small pack, but answering the mate-claim was Deni’s choice. “You good with that, Den?” Ellison asked, his voice going soft.
“Yeah.” Deni slid her arms around Jace from behind, loving the tall solidness of his body, his warm scent, the feel of his skin as she kissed his shoulder. “I’m good with that. I accept the mate-claim. Jace?” She heard the shaking in her voice. “You ready to go home? To my home I mean—it’s closer right now. We can call your dad from there. I be he’s worried sick.”
Deni held her breath, waiting for Jace to want to return to the leopard, to insist Deni come with him into the wild, or leave on his own if she wouldn’t. He wore no Collar now—there was nothing to stop him.
Even so, life in the wild was dangerous. Jace could be found, hunted, killed. And he could still go feral—Shifters who lived on their own, letting their beasts take over, often did go feral. The Shifters Ellison’s mate, Maria, had been rescued from had refused to take Collars, hidden out, and become feral and cruel. Collars, for their pain, and the Shifter laws, for their restrictions, at least worked to help keep Shifters sane.
Jace turned in Deni’s arms and looked down at her, his face in shadow. Ellison waited behind him, tense, uncertain.
Deni’s heart ached, both with the bond and with worry. Jace looked better, his burns pale streaks in the moonlight. He looked stronger too, and more at ease, any uncertainty he might have felt for his place in the world gone.
Then he smiled. Every bit of love was in the smile, every bit of tenderness. He brushed back a lock of Deni’s hair, his fingers warm.
“We’ll want to tell your cubs you accepted my mate-claim,” Jace said. “So yeah. Let’s go home.”
* * *
A Shifter meeting was called in Liam’s house the next day, after Jace and Deni had rested from the long drive back to Austin—well, Deni remembered with a blush—they’d done more than just rest. The meeting included Eric Warden, Jace’s father.
Deni’s heart squeezed as Eric strode across the house to meet Jace when he came in, father enfolding son in a long, hard embrace. Eric’s mate, Iona, who was heavy with Eric’s child, also hugged Jace, wiping away her tears when she released him.
Jace reached for Deni, who’d hung back from the family greeting, and pulled her forward. “You remember Deni Rowe, Ellison’s sister.”
Eric understood their connection as soon as he looked at Deni, and Iona caught on a second later. Eric gazed at Deni with eyes the same color as his son’s, then he put his big arms around Deni and pulled her into an embrace equally as tight as the one he’d shared with Jace.
“Thank you, child,” Eric said, his voice rumbling into her ear. “Welcome to the family.”
He stood Deni back and studied her, a satisfied look in his eyes. Iona slid past Eric and hugged Deni herself.
“Congratulations, you two.” Iona winked at Deni as she stepped away from her. “Jace is a sweetheart. A keeper.”
Deni smiled her agreement. “I think so.”
“And now Collar-free,” Eric said. “Thank the Goddess.”
Deni understood Eric was thanking the Goddess for more than Jace’s Collar being off. A shudder went through Eric, which Deni recognized as a father’s relief that his cub was safe and whole.
“Jace has a theory about that,” Liam said from where he lounged on a window seat in the living room. He held his black-haired daughter in the curve of his arm, little Katriona watching the adults with interest. “Carry on, lad.”
Jace held up his hand, which bore a red streak. Last night, when they’d returned to the Austin Shiftertown and after Sean and Dylan had gotten Marlo to a hospital—the resilient man was on the mend—Sean and Jace had painfully dug the remnants of the gold chain from Jace’s hand. Andrea had quickly done a healing on him, then Deni had completed the healing in the privacy of the Rowe family’s secret basement.
“Fionn saw the bracelet last night when he was visiting Andrea,” Jace said. “Andrea told me this morning that Fionn told her that this bracelet is made of Fae gold. Passed down through the female line of many generations of Deni’s mother’s family. Shifters used to live in Faerie—why couldn’t one of them have had access to Fae gold?” Jace slid his arm around Deni. “I was holding the bracelet, which Deni gave me as a keepsake, when the plane went down. I went through hell, nearly burned alive. The heat must have melted it into me, where it entered my nervous system or bloodstream, or skin cells, or something. I haven’t figured that part out. But somehow, my Collar loosened and fell away, without hurting me. Though maybe I didn’t notice the pain while my fur was being fried off.”