Shifted Scars: A Wolves of Forest Grove Novel

by Lawson, Elena

  The night crept over the forest swiftly, the last dregs of sunset sucked away by the shadows. We didn’t speak as we wandered through the foliage, not heading in any direction really except away. Far enough away that we wouldn’t be heard, but close enough that we could be back in a flash if we needed to.

  Jared slid his hand into mine as we neared a gnarled old beech tree, its branches low lying, reaching out near its base like waiting arms.

  The sounds of the nighttime forest droned in my ears, humming almost as loud as my own heartbeat. I shivered, even though I was anything but cold. The late summer night just the right temperature to be comfortable. At least, for a shifter.

  Jared tugged sharply on my hand, making me spin as we walked up to the tree until my backside met the low branch and he helped me sit atop it, the cool bark surprisingly soft against my skin.

  Some unspoken thing passed between my mates as they regarded each other, each seeming to have made a decision I wasn’t privy to.

  “We’re…” Jared began, trailing off to tug his lower lip in between his teeth, considering the right thing to say. Reminding me of the Jared I’d first fallen in love with.

  “We’re going to try,” Clay finished for him. “But if this doesn’t work—”

  “It’s okay,” I blurted, my pulse spiking with an injection of adrenaline and something far more potent. “Just try. That’s all I want.”

  All I needed.

  Had been needing for so damn long it felt like forever.

  Jared stilled as Clay brushed his strong fingers down the line of my neck, making me tremble with need. A moan was already building in my chest, but I worked to contain it, not wanting to spook either of them away.

  “Don’t hide from us,” Clay demanded, sensing me holding back. “We can feel you.”

  I bit down on my tongue as his hand swept lower, passing over my breast to pebble my nipple.

  When Jared leaned in to press a hot kiss to my throat, I swear I saw stars, light, and color bursting around the edges of my vision as I gasped at the dual sensation. Of three souls joining into one.

  He kissed a path down my throat, pausing briefly at my collar before delving lower, his fingers tripping up my spine until he pressed his palm flat to the middle of my back. Holding me in place while he took my aching breast into his mouth, making a stuttering moan tumble from my lips.

  All the while, Clay’s fingers continued their downward descent, teasing lightly around my hips, my thighs, until they inched toward their mark. He groaned at the first touch of his knuckles against my core, already so wet for them both.

  “Fuck,” he groaned, reaching out his free hand to clutch on the low hanging branch, the pads of his fingers indenting the wood. Eyes like blue fire watched me as I tipped my head back in a cry of ecstasy. His fingers expertly circled my entrance, making my body writhe against the tree, against his hand, against Jared’s mouth.

  When his fingers pushed in, I cried out, every inch of my body electrified with desire. Jared’s lips came off my breast with a pop, gone for only an instant before they claimed my mouth instead.

  He kissed me with a brutality I didn’t know he possessed as Clay worked me to the edge of a climax I couldn’t have stopped even if I’d wanted to. His tongue slipped in, deepening the kiss until I was dizzy with need and a lack of air. Completely unable to remember the last time I took a breath. If I was breathing at all.

  “That’s it,” Jared whispered against my mouth, and I gasped for air. His amber eyes glowed with the power of his wolf as he palmed my breast, tugging lightly on my nipple. Rolling it between his thumb and index finger.

  “Come on, baby,” Clay grunted, dangerously close to shredding through the tree branch with how hard he was gripping it to maintain control. His eyes sparked to life with the presence of his wolf, and my own wolf responded, awakening with a primal need to claim her mates the way she’d been waiting to for four long years.

  “Come for us,” Jared commanded in a breathy whisper, his lips finding mine again as my body surged to the apex. Tightening and splintering apart all at once as I came, moaning into Jared’s mouth as Clay held me down, mercilessly drawing the climax out until I squirmed beneath them, the sensation almost too much to bear.

  I gripped tightly to Clay, snatching up his arm as he tried to pull back. Jared, too, moved to back away, but I pinned him with a lusty stare.

  “No,” I muttered, still panting. “I want you. I want both of you.”

  I knew this was pushing it to the limits of what they could take, but I had to try. Greedy bitch or not, I’d waited for this for far too long for them to stop now.

  Jared’s cheekbones flared, his fiery gaze passing over the shadowed ground while Clay stared openly at me, a question poised on his parted lips.

  “Are you sure that’s what you want?” he asked.

  I swallowed, finally able to catch my breath, my pulse still pounding, but less erratic than the moment before. “So fucking sure.”

  Clay’s bright gaze passed over to Jared, but my other mate didn’t acknowledge him. Though after a second, he uttered a shaky, “All right. I just need a second to get control.”

  He backed away a step, turning away from us to take a few shallow breaths. I’d give him all the fucking seconds he needed if he would just try for me.

  And I could tell he was already. I could feel the effort he was exerting to maintain control. From both of them.

  Was I awful for forcing this?

  Was I being selfish?

  I cringed inwardly, dropping my head as a darkness crept into my thoughts, hollowing out my insides.

  “Hey,” Jared said, spinning back to face us. “Don’t do that. We want to give you this.”

  Clay nodded his agreement, and I took solace in the fact that I felt very little discomfort from them. Only a visceral need to claim their mate that overshadowed everything else. A need to be the only one, even though there were two souls bonded to my own instead of one.

  I understood it, even if I wished it weren’t like that.

  “Brother,” he said, facing Clay, his sharp stare skating between us. “I’m sorry in advance if I rip your head off.”

  “Apology accepted. So long as you know it’ll be you who ends up on his ass.”

  Jared smirked and some of the tension lifted as he nodded to Clay, giving the go ahead.

  The instant Clay turned his attention back to me, my core began to throb with need again, a beautiful ache spreading like wildfire through my belly.

  He snatched up my chin, jerking my mouth up to meet his with the rough brush of his thumb. I moaned against his lips, my arms rising on their own to find something to hold onto, tangling in his hair and gripping at the solid muscle of his back.

  He jerked against my touch, shuddering as I slipped a hand between us, circling his proud length. He was already rock hard as I slid my hand up his shaft, teasing his sensitive head until he bit down hard on my lower lip, making me gasp.

  “Not so fast,” he growled, fingers clenching my hips as he lifted me from the branch, twisting me around so I had to grip the underside so as not to fall face first over the other side.

  His hand explored the curve of my ass, coming down with a little slap that sent shivers of pleasure coasting over the planes of my body. Bent over the thick branch, I could turn around enough to see Jared, but it was enough knowing he was there, watching as Clay pressed two fingers to my opening, readying me for him.

  “Jare,” I gasped as Clay slipped them inside and my thighs clenched tight, trying to hold him in.

  “Fuck!” I shouted as Clay removed his fingers and thrust into me in a movement so quick I didn’t see it coming. He filled me to bursting, making my back arch, trying to adjust to the size of him.

  A low growl that I knew to be Jared’s broke the sound of our panting breaths as Clay carefully eased out a bit, settling himself inside me as his fingertips bruised my waist with their hard grip.

  I reached out bli
ndly, beckoning to my other mate. “Come,” I called. “Please.”

  As he came into view, ducking beneath the branch so that he was on one side while Clay was on the other, I licked my lips. I ached to smooth the knot between his brows. To relieve the tension lifting his muscled shoulders high.

  I looped a finger into his jeans, drawing him closer, asking silently if this was all right.

  He helped me when I fumbled with the button, my hands sloppy as Clay began thrusting into me, alternating between painfully slow and quick jabs that hit me in just the right spot.

  Jared’s cock sprang free as his jeans fell to pool around his ankles, and it was a lesson in restraint that I didn’t immediately jerk him closer.

  I wanted him to do it. I needed him to be comfortable or else I didn’t want it.

  I jerked as Clay quickened his pace, groaning his own pleasure as he fucked me from behind.

  And maybe it was Clay’s display of pleasure that made Jared give in to it as he slipped his long fingers into my hair, curling them into a loose fist at the base of my skull as he stepped forward, easing his cock to my lips.

  I took him in slowly at first and then with a hunger unlike any I’d felt before. He glided over my tongue, finding the back of my throat and shuddering.

  “Shit, Allie,” he sighed, his grip on me tightening as he rocked into my mouth and I slid my tongue over his head again and again as I felt the tension leak out of him with each passing second.

  Clay shifted his grip, splaying one hand over my back while the other slipped between our joined bodies and the branch to rub my clit.

  I convulsed as the already building pressure in my core spiraled to new heights, almost choking on Jared’s cock.

  My nails dug into Jared’s hips, spurring him on faster, needing him to fuck my mouth just as rapidly as Clay was fucking me. I ground against Clay’s hand, knowing I was near the edge and wanting—no, needing—them to come with me for the fall.

  I cried out against Jared’s cock, my toes curling into the earth as my world shattered into a million tiny pieces. Propelled by my mates reaching climaxes of their own.

  Clay growled, hunching over me as he thrust his last, his breath fanning over the back of my neck. Jared came only an instant later, his warmth filling my mouth as every muscle in his lower back tightened beneath my clenched fingers.

  I sagged, utterly spent but still jerking with the aftershocks of the best orgasm of my life as Jared slid from my mouth, crouching down to lovingly caress my face between his palms.

  His wolf had receded, the glow no longer a fiery halo in his eyes. I smiled sleepily, unable to remember a time where I’d ever felt as content as I did in that moment.

  “I love you,” I murmured, and he dipped his head down, pressing his forehead to mine.

  “Always.”

  31

  The barrens seemed as good a place as any to make our stand.

  Once I’d gotten my bearings after escaping Devin’s temporary camp, I’d realized that he hadn’t been all that far from the barrens after all. Barely forty miles. Likely closer to thirty.

  Making him come to us here had other benefits, too. The benefit of having our own pack land and Dante’s to our back, discouraging an attack from behind. With the bonus benefit of being the first ones here, giving us time to prepare and preventing him from having the ability to set any sort of trap for us.

  He’d have to approach head on, from the east, and we would be ready for him.

  I’d spill his blood on the same ground where he’d spilled Sam’s.

  An eye for an eye.

  Or in this case a heart for a heart.

  “We’re ready,” Layla said, handing me a slender flip phone and giving my arm a squeeze before stepping away. Distantly I could hear Viv and Destiny arguing about her staying out of the fight. She was one of the weaker few, but would still be an asset if this came to a fight. Destiny had almost no match for her fiery will, except maybe her mate.

  Hopefully, there wouldn’t be a need for any of them to fight and their argument would prove utterly useless. That was my one hope for this bleak morning. That only one life would end by the time the dawn mist lifted and the sun rose to drink up the moisture from the earth.

  My gaze flicked to my mates, their steadying presences bolstering my strength.

  “Make the call,” Clay urged. “Let’s end this.”

  I flicked the burner phone open, tension making my fingers stiff as I flicked through the missed call log, seeing that Devin had already tried to call twenty-six times.

  A few more and he might’ve drained the battery to nothing. As it was, there should be just enough juice for this one last call.

  I jabbed the button to call, a flash of heat rushing down my back as my untethered fury warred with my need for sound logic.

  It didn’t even complete the first ring before the line connected and my jaw clamped tight.

  “Where the fuck is she?” Devin hissed down the line, his tone manic. Completely unhinged.

  “Right where she should be,” I replied, shocked at the even cadence of my tone.

  He paused. “You’ve been a naughty girl, Allie. Eight of my men are dead—”

  “And a great many more will die along with them if you don’t listen to me very carefully.”

  I had no illusions that Devin cared at all for the members of his pack, but I had something he wanted. I was something he wanted, and I had no doubt that he would put each and every single life under his command in danger to get me.

  “You ungrateful cunt—”

  “Shut up,” I roared, my voice coming out double with the presence of my wolf. “Now, let’s try this again, shall we? I’m at the barrens with...a few friends.”

  The phone chirped, telling me the battery was critically low.

  “If you want me,” I spat. “Come and fucking get me.”

  The line went dead a beat later, cutting off whatever Devin had been about to say as I clapped the phone closed, letting Jared take it from my grasp.

  He removed the sim card and battery and tossed the pieces to someone in the line behind us to get rid of.

  My body hummed with anticipation, rocked with little tremors as my wolf knocked at the door to my soul. Letting me know that she was there. She was ready.

  “You think he’ll come?” Jared asked, hard gaze already set on the other end of the barren field.

  “I know he will.”

  They emerged just as we thought they would. Not even two hours after I made the call, Devin and his pack slipped through the trees and into the barrens like water from a sieve. But this time, his numbers weren’t overwhelming. They didn’t make my insides quake with unease.

  They didn’t matter anymore.

  This was a battle between him and me and no others.

  His eyes glinted in the light of the rising sun like sharp cut gemstones. Hard and unyielding at first, but then, as he noticed the breadth of my pack with the addition of Dante’s shifters, I had the satisfaction of watching his smug smirk falter.

  He recovered quickly, though, lifting his chin as he stepped ahead of his pack, all of them already in their wolf forms, as most of my own were.

  “What now, love?” he called across the expanse, and the taunting tone of his voice gave me a moment’s pause. He seemed way too pleased with himself for someone going to their death.

  Unable to hold it in for even another second, I curled my hands into fists at my sides and shouted loud enough for all to hear. “Devin Wright, I hereby challenge you for the right to rule your pack.”

  Truth be told, I didn’t give a flying fuck about his pack, but I did give all the fucks about tearing him into a thousand pieces. And this was how it needed to be done.

  Unnervingly, he smiled at my challenge, lifting a hand to tap a finger against his chin.

  “Hmm,” he purred, brows crinkling as my pulse picked up speed. “I think not.”

  My lips parted as I looked to my mates for clar
ification. Their grim faces told me everything I needed to know. Though as a general rule it was never done, an alpha had every right to refuse a challenge from another. But such a refusal meant only one thing.

  “I prefer the other option,” he stated, his slippery gaze tracking to my mates with a fiendish gleam.

  Did he really still think that if he killed them, I would mate to him? Did he really think that even if I did mate to him that I wouldn’t kill him for the things he’d done?

  His ego really knew no fucking bounds.

  “I refuse your challenge, Allie Grace,” he declared, lifting his arms high as though he were a priest or a saint. “But I have a counteroffer: return with me now and there will be no fight. Your pack will live. None will be injured, and none will die except for those two.”

  A savage growl ricocheted through my chest as he pointed two fingers at my mates, my wolf vibrating with unspent rage as she backed herself into a corner.

  My pack had already pledged to stand with me if this came to a fight. They’d reaffirmed that pledge just last night. They were ready and willing, but that didn’t mean I wanted any of them in harm’s way.

  “Allie…” Clay’s low growl brought me back to the surface, up out of the darkness and into the light.

  I just had to kill him. And quickly. Then the rest of his pack would cease fighting.

  I wondered if he still believed that my wolf was bound. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful surprise to show him just how little he knew me.

  Instead of answering Devin, I glanced over the pack forming two neat lines behind him.

  “We will give no quarter,” I called to them. “If you stand with him, I will not hesitate to cut you down if you get in my way…but if you step away now, you will not be harmed. You have my word.”

  The wolves shifted uneasily at their alpha’s back, several tucking tail and several more looking like they may truly back out of the fight.

  Devin whirled on them, one scathing look from him rooting those most uncertain back into place. I couldn’t imagine what it was like for them living under his thumb, at least, those of them who weren’t just as fucking psycho as he was.