Changed Ch. 08

"I'll never get tired of touching you lass," he said gruffly, his voice catching in his throat.

She let out a shuddering breath, and turned to face him, their bodies close enough that her breasts brushed against his chest. Gently, she mimicked his move, gently touching his shoulder, letting her fingers trail down over his chest.

"I don't think I'll ever get tired of you touching me," she said softly, a knot forming in her stomach as she was faced with the fact that she had feelings for the man in front of her.

He groaned softly, wrapping her into a hug, leaning his cheek against the top of her head, his heart pounding in his chest.

"Don't tease me lass," his voice raw with emotion "I couldn't bear it."

She shook her head, and snuggled against him "I wouldn't do that," she pushed back slightly, meeting his honey brown eyes that were filled with hope. She took a shuddering breath

"I think I might be fallin..."

He cut her off with a swift kiss, unable to bear her words while he was so raw incase they were misguided by their night of lovemaking. Within seconds, the kiss grew into a desperate need. They were grabbing at each other, frantic in the sudden burning need to be together. Soon, Theo had her hoisted up against the shower wall, her legs wrapped around his waist as he entered her.

"Oh yes," She hissed, her head thrown back, and her body arching off the wall to push closer to him.

Theo let out a throaty chuckle that lit her insides on fire, as he cupped her ass in his hands, his hips holding her against the wall. "You would think we hadn't spent the whole night lovin each other with the way we're acting."

Karen let out a breathy laugh as she wrapped her hands around his strong neck, gently clenching her inner muscles making him grunt "Don't care." she squeezed again "Want more."

"Always." he growled as he began to pound her into the tile. Neither of them lasted long, both of them still primed from last night. THe came at the same time, both shouting their releases. As they slowly came down, Theo removed himself and gently placed her back onto her feet, keeping her steady. They finished their shower, both with a happy glow, making small talk as they went. After they toweled off, they went back into Karen's room, to get dressed.

Karen walked over to her dresser when inspiration hit.

"What's your favorite color?" she asked with a twinkle in her eye

"Hmmm." Theo answered as he crossed his arms over his broad chest, his pants slung low on his hips "Why?" he countered with a crooked grin

"Oh," she mused "just curious." as she opened her undie drawer.

He chuckled and shook his head "Green, like the forest." he answered as he tugged his shirt on.

"Perfect," she answered, as she held up a forest green set of lingerie.

"Jesus," he whispered as the breath was knocked out of him, his member instantly going hard.

She gave him a soft laugh and slowly put the set on.

"I would never have thought someone putting ON lingerie could be as sexy as someone taking it off." he said reverently, slowing approaching her. She laughed again, though it turned into a breathy moan as he cupped her ass, pulling her against him. She looked up, tilting her head back, a smile in her eyes as she looked for a kiss. He complied readily, his lips covering hers, as he held her close. They kissed for a while, the heat building again, when Theo tore himself away.

"We need to finished getting ready, Becca is on her way home." he said with disappointment

Karen gave him a pouty look, before pulling on her pants. Theo watched, his mouth dry as the dark green panties disappeared underneath old jeans. He tried to swallow but his throat was too dry. Shaking his hand, he ran a hand through his short hair.

"I'm not going to be able to concentrate on anything today." he bemoaned.

Karen laughed, patting his chest as she walked towards the stairs "You poor thing," she headed downstairs "Come on, I'll make coffee and breakfast."

Theo's stomach growled loudly, answering for him as he followed her into the kitchen.

Karen quickly made him a strong cup of coffee while he sat at the small table in the kitchen. As she started to pull out all sorts of food, he cleared his throat.

"So," he said nonchalantly, "do you know what caused last nights trial?"

Karen chuckled, a pink blush spreading over her face. "Yeah," she said exasperatedly as she whipped up some pancake batter, the griddle beeping to let her know it was hot. Theo looked at her expectantly, and her blush grew.

"Ugh," she shook her head, pouring the first few pancakes on the griddle, "I was really shook up about what happened in the woods yesterday," she looked at him pointedly, and he gave her a small crooked grin. "Anyways, I called out to Josh, he said that if I ever needed him, I just needed to call him." She flipped the pancakes, he face taking on a serious set "We had a very interesting talk." she shifted her weight a couple times, then shrugged, and poured new pancakes. "I guess it took a whole lot of energy or power or something and that set off the trial."

"Ah," Theo said, nodding and taking a sip of his coffee. "I actually wanted to talk about what happened yesterday. About why I came to find you" he set his mug down and leaned back in the chair "I know you don't know about how a pack is ranked, but do you remember the young man you used to deliver the picture?"

Karen nodded, unease settling in her stomach.

"Basically, there are three tiers of wolves in a pack, Alpha is the top, Beta is second, and theta is third. Now there are some other levels, but you don't need to know about them yet. Anyways, there are rules that are in place for the safety of the pack. One of them is that no unaddressed letters get sent to a high ranking wolf without a theta opening them first. Theta's are the lowest rung, and are gentle, soft wolves who aren't very good at defending themselves. Now before you start in about how it's unfair for them to open potentially dangerous mail, they were the ones who asked for the rule to be put in place. THis is because the higher ranking wolves protect the entire pack, and the thetas felt it would be better to sacrifice themselves instead of one of the key protectors of the pack."

Karen looked at him confused, "Okay?" she asked good naturedly.

Theo sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. "The whole pack knows that you spar with Becca, and can keep pace with her. Becca is a beta, on of the main protectors of the pack. You being able to spar with her, places you on that same tier to the thetas. You threatened a theta, a young one too, to deliver an unaddressed letter to the second highest ranked wolf in the pack."

Realization dawned on her and she cursed under her breath "He didn't know that I was playing, did he?"

Theo simply shooked his head negative.

"Shit!" she whispered "I'm sorry, I was just playing, I didn't think he'd take it seriously."

"It's okay," Theo said with a small smile "Though I think it would be a good idea to maybe apologize to him and explain, or he'll fear you for the rest of time."

Karen nodded as she started on the eggs, potatoes and the steak that Theo had taken out.

they sat in silence for a while, the sizzling of the steak the only noise in the room. Karen cleared her throat and looked at Theo sheepishly. "I also have something I want to talk to you about too."

Theo smiled a reassuring smile "Shoot." he said

"One of the things me and josh talked about was some library that he thought would be good to check out..." she paused abruptly and tilted her head, confusion and fear crossing her face.

"Karen?" Theo asked getting up from the table and approached her.

She didn't hear him, instead she was shocked when a soft voice spoke in her mind:

Tell him the truth her spyrim half spoke you need to trust him, he is your new guardian, he has to know the truth.

But why does it matter if I tell him it was my moms library?

Because, he'll understand how important this trip is for you. Do you think the Alpha will let the last spyrim go on some weird quest? If Theo understands how important this is to you, he'll help you fight for it.

"Karen," his soft worried voice brought her back out of her head and she blinked at him confused for a second.

"Are you okay?" he asked worried, his hand cupping her cheek, his eyes searching hers.

"Yes," she said uncertainly "That was... weird." she shook her head, her thoughts finally aligning themselves "I'm sorry," she smiled at him "I was reconnected to my spyrim half some time last night, and it's just really weird to have some other half in my brain, she was talking to me." she chuckled, "That's going to take some getting used too."

Theo let out a relieved sigh "Yeah, I couldn't imagine what it would be like to all of a sudden have a second half. I still struggle with it, and I was born with mine."

He helped her plate up all the food that she had made and went over to the table.

"So," he said as he piled his plate with mounds of food "a library?"

"Yeah," she shrugged "Apparently my mom was a keeper of knowledge for the spyrim, and it's her library. Inside, Josh said that there was her personal journal, that she wrote when she realized that she might be the only spyrim left. It's like a how to manual for the child she knew she would have to have to continue on the race."

Theo nodded as he chewed his food. "I don't think Brett will think the trip is a good idea" he said hesitantly "You are the last one of your kind, and you've sort have become part of the pack," he gave her a goofy smile "He'll want to keep you safe at all costs."

Karen tried to smile back, but her stomach sank. "Yeah," she said with a heavy sigh "I figured as much," she looked at him with pleading eyes.

Theo groaned, "You're a human." he said in mock anger as he pointed a finger at her "You should NOT be able to pull off puppy eyes so well." He absently rubbed his chest as her gaze cut right to his heart. "I'll see if I can't convince Brett to let you go on this trip, but you need to be prepared for the chance that he'll say no okay?"

Karen nodded, her mood instantly lifted "Josh gave me the coordinates, do you wanna see them?"

"Mmmmhmm." Theo said with a mouth full of food.

Karen got up and got the slip of paper that had Josh's hand writing on it. Theo looked down at the slip of paper before grunting and shaking his head.

"What?" Karen asked, suddenly nervous.

"Do you know where this is?" he asked her.

"No" she said hesitantly, "Is it bad?"

"This is going to be one hell of a trip lass," he replied, digging back into his food "It's in the middle of the amazon, in the northern top part of Brazil. We'll have to be air dropped in, there isn't a single city, even a small one, within hundreds of miles. I'll have to look at a map to be sure, but I'm also pretty sure that we'll have to be dropped off miles away from this spot because of the dense jungle. So on top of having to pack in everything we'll need and carry it, we'll have one hell of a hike through dense jungle."

Karen thought about that for a minute, before a smile slowly spread across her face. Her excitement at the challenge was palpable. Theo shook his head, his smile mirroring her, his wolf close to the surface, ready to meet the challenge with his mate.

"Do you know how many hard trips I've been on?" she asked him as she ate.

"No, but I did know that you've been on some based on the letters in your desk." he waggled his eyebrows at her as she gasped indignantly

"I'm still mad about that," she said, before smiling "Anyways, I've been on a lot. When I was 16, Dad dropped me in the middle of the Himalayas, with nothing but a day pack and the clothes on my back." She took a sip of coffee, not noticing Theo's surprised look "It took me me 45 days to finally make it to the nearest village." she stood up excitedly, pride radiating out, as she lifted her shirt, and pointing out a triplet of thin scars on her ribcage that he hadn't noticed in the heat of last night. "I got these when a leopard thought I'd make a tasty snack..." her voice trailed off as she finally caught the anger in Theo's gaze as he finally got a good look at the many scars that crisscrossed her stomach. "Uhm," she mumbled lamely, as she quickly sat back down, confused as to why he was so angry.

"Did I do something wrong?" she asked as she visibly saw him battling his wolf.

"Where did all of the scars come from?" he growled out, his hands holding his utensils in a white knuckled grip.

She swallowed, and pushed her food around on her plate. "Uhhh," she said, absently rubbing one arm, closing one eye as half of her face scrunched "Some are from animals and falls when I went on the excursions my dad planned, the others are from training with him when I was old enough to train with weapons." She flinched at the vicious snarl from across the table.

"What the fuck was your dad thinking?" he exploded "You could have died!"

"But I didn't," she responded, stating the obvious. "Besides, he pushed me hard, but he never did anything that I couldn't handle, also, on those trips, I know he had a tracker on me and monitored how I was doing. He sent me on trips like that so that I never had to worry about taking care of myself. If I can survive the himalayas, the tundra, the saharia, and australia, then I can sure as shit handle living in a city on my own."

She stood up, slightly miffed that Theo thought so little of her father, and gathered the empty plates from the table. As she went to the sink, she said over her shoulder "He trained me so hard so that I would never need a man to protect me. So that I never had to rely on anyone but myself" she ended her statement by tossing the dishes in the sink, before walking out of the kitchen. Theo growled softly and followed her out of the kitchen.

"If there hadn't been wolves at the cemetery, you would have died the night you fought the night fairies. Regardless of what you say, you do need someone. Especially now, when all sorts of things that go bump in the night are out to get you. You need someone, you need me." he ended on a smug note, crossing his arms over his chest.

Karen whirled on him, fury etched in her features, her eyes glowing a soft blue as her tattoo pulsed under her shirt.

"I will never," she hissed the word and jabbed a finger in his chest "need you."

She took a step back, "I may want you, and I may have 'needed'," she used finger quotes "you to help me get through my trial, but I could have easily used a toy if I had one. You need to realize, that I do not need you, or anyone." and with that she turned on her heel and stormed out of the kitchen.

Theo stared in shock at the empty space that she was just occupying, his own fury rising. No one had ever talked to him like that. He whirled and put his fist through the wall, rage and hurt battling for the top spot. He started at the figure that was storming away and his wolf came rushing forward. Theo let him take over, giving him full control, and shifted to his four legged form. The beast growled as the man withdrew completely. Acting on instinct, the wolf charge after the woman.