Free Wolf Bite by Heather Long Page A

her wine glass down while looking at him from beneath lowered lashes. “If you break my bed tonight, you are paying for a new one.”
    “Deal.” And he slammed his mouth down on hers.
     

Chapter Six
     
     
    Mason broke the headboard and sliced through the mattress. He was also there when she woke in the morning, rousing her in a slow, devastating sensual assault that left her boneless as well as breathless. Their day together—bed shopping included—reminded her of all the fun times they’d spent as teens—though they’d hardly shopped then. The familiarity lay in the ease with which they fell into familiar routines and how comfortable he was to be around.
    The bed he purchased included a hardened steel frame and it had to weigh a ton. But he handled the delivery, loading it in his truck rather than allowing others into her place. He also replaced the doorknob he’d broken and the faceplate. After he’d put the new bed together, he enticed her into christening it. Spent and drifting, she sprawled atop him, her cheek pressed to his shoulder. White feathers floated down around them and she began to laugh. “Well, the bed survived, but you managed to kill my last pillow.”
    “What is your fascination with birds?” The rumble of his voice accompanied by his heartbeat had her curling her toes. She wanted to make love to him all over again, which didn’t seem possible—she could barely move.
    “I like soft things,” she smiled, then pressed a kiss to his chest. No, she definitely didn’t want to move. “And hard ones. If I have to pick a pillow, then I pick you.”
    Tension coiled where he had been relaxed before, but she pretended not to notice. They’d enjoyed two days since he charged back into her life, but despite his actions, she couldn’t shake the feeling that he remained poised to charge back out. “Mason?”
    “Hmm?” He trailed his fingers up and down her spine. Her muscles were liquid under his light touch.
    “Tell me what it means to be a Lone Wolf.” He’d used that term a few times, even explained some of it, but she didn’t understand. She couldn’t wrap her mind around the concept, not when it flew in the face of everything she’d always known about the wolves.
    Silence met her question, but he continued to stroke her spine and she closed her eyes. One of the hardest parts of dealing with a dominant was they decided the right time to share information. If he didn’t want to tell her, he wouldn’t. The assumption she would understand the label hadn’t been an unfair one. She’d grown up surrounded by pack politics and games, but while everyone else always knew what was happening, her playbook seemed to have huge chunks redacted from the contents.
    “How much of pack structure do you understand?” The question surprised her and, more, it pleased her.
    “The U.S. has five packs of wolves. Every pack has an Alpha, he—or she…” She added the second as an afterthought because a female Alpha ruled Delta Crescent pack. “Is the final arbiter of all decisions. Their word is law, but they are also tasked with upholding pack law. Every pack has dominants.” She tried to remember the way it had been phrased in school. “Dominants determine rank amongst themselves. Even one with a smidgeon more dominance than another can pull rank. Second to the Alpha are the Hunters. They are both in and out of the pack hierarchy, but they aren’t lieutenants so much as an extension of the Alpha’s will. They are spread throughout a pack’s territory to protect it from within and without.” There were other ranks and types: Betas, Omegas, Gammas, and Healers.
    Mason loosened her ponytail and stroked his fingers through the strands. The light tugs at the end of each stroke were curiously soothing.
    “Family groups are important within pack structure, with the dominant in each family taking the role of matriarch or patriarch.” Not Alpha, but alpha of their family. The role didn’t mean