by Elaina Jadin
Everything in the room is understated, modern—the room doesn’t feel cold or uninviting, just… blank and unlived-in, like a large canvas that’s been coated in gossamer, awaiting the bold strokes of an artist’s brush.
Mentally retracing my movement since entering the building, I deduce that I’m on the second floor, but there are no windows, no television, and no clocks. It’s a vault, guarded from the outside world, which is strangely comforting somehow. But it also means there’s no way to tell the passage of time, nothing to mindlessly occupy my attention. I don’t know what they expect me to do to entertain myself over the next month.
Then again, I’m not their guest, and this isn’t a jaunty little stopover at a bed-and-breakfast.
The room is completely devoid of personal touches, and I wonder if I’ll be allowed to add anything during my time here. That is, if I had anything. That reminds me of my phone—it’s in my purse, which is on the floor of Draven’s office. Well, fuck.
I need to get dressed, but I don’t want to put the wrinkled dress back on. I eye the dresser.
The man who carried me said everything I need is here, but I’m not sure if he meant supplies to take a shower or literally everything. As in, this is my room for the next month and it’s been fully stocked.
I wrap my fingers around the small handle of the dresser drawer, but hesitate before pulling it open. There are equal chances of the drawer being empty, filled with clothing, or stuffed full of adult toys.
I tug it open, and a small oh escapes me. It’s not toys, but lingerie. Really, really nice lingerie. Certainly not the cotton bikini panties I usually wear.
Hypnotized by the soft silky materials in a rainbow of jewel tones, I pull a dark red one out and my eyebrows go up when I notice the size is correct. It’s only a thong, but it’s better than nothing.
I drop the towel and slip it on, the cool material soothing against my still swollen flesh. Hell, now that I think about it, I’m grateful it’s a thong—I don’t know if I can handle wearing anything that rubs against my sore ass cheeks.
The matching bra is also perfectly sized, and I slip it on, too. But after quickly inspecting the rest of the drawers, I’m left confused.
The top three small drawers are filled with gorgeous bras and underwear that I’d never be able to afford. But the larger four drawers are completely empty. I spy a closet and stroll over to it, and yet again I’m surprised. It’s a walk-in closet, nearly the size of my apartment’s small bathroom, but it too is nearly empty. Only a handful of items hang on the bar to my left.
Silk robes… in the same rich jewel tones that match the items in the drawer. I pull the burgundy one down, ignoring the thrill I get from the elegant dark red material flowing between my fingers. Wrapping it around me, I roll my eyes when I see that the hemline only reaches the top of my thighs, barely covering my ass.
Somewhat decent, in underwear that cost more than my favorite dress, I sit on the edge of the large bed, waiting. For what… I’m not sure.
The room is utterly silent and sterile, like a doctor’s office after hours, when all the patients and staff have gone home. Finding my courage once more, I creep to the door and try the handle, wondering if I’m locked in here. Slowly, wincing in fear of making any sound, the handle lowers and I’m able to ease the door open.
Pausing with my ear to the crack of the door, I listen. But I don’t hear anything in the hall, and after a moment, I swing the door open further and press my head against the doorframe, angling to see down the hallway. Again, it looks the same as the floor I was on earlier, the one with Draven’s office, but there are more doors on this level from what I can tell. It’s so quiet.
There are no footsteps, no distant strains of music or television, no murmurings of conversation through the surrounding walls, so I slowly poke my head out to look down the other side of the hallway and nearly scream.
There’s a shape in the shadows that’s darker than the rest.
I slam the door closed, a cold sheen of sweat on my brow, my heart racing like a frantic butterfly once more. I scramble for the handle, but there’s no lock on this door. I scan the room, but there’s no furniture light enough for me to move that I could use as a barricade.
I press myself to the door, sliding down with my back against the wood, and sit on the floor, my knees bent and my feet digging into the plush carpet. I use my body as a wedge to ensure the door doesn’t suddenly burst open.
Time ceases to exist as I sit there, the minutes slipping away until my hands stop shaking and I’ve talked myself down from the ledge. Then I crawl onto the bed, all the way up to the smooth headboard. I curl against it and hold one of the soft pillows to my chest, hugging it with one hand while the fingers of my other clutch the warm metal of my pendant, rubbing the smooth surface over and over.
I need to get control of myself if I’m going to survive here for thirty days. I can’t jump at every shadow or lose my damn mind each time I see a dog.
Drawing in a deep breath of resolve, I vow to hold the delicate strands of my sanity tightly in my fists. I can do this. This place will not get the best of me. And I will not let these men see the fragile cracks inside me that I’m barely holding together.
It’s only a month. Afterward, I’ll walk away from everything—from this place, from Bryan, from my shitty job, and my even shittier apartment. I’ll be free from all of it.
10
Kade
Leaving Jemma alone in her bathroom was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
Carrying the petite woman in my arms made my blood rise and my manhood achingly hard. She smelled of fresh arousal, her body ripe for mating, and the beast inside me is clawing to get out. To mount her and make her mine. To fill her with my seed and scent so all the others know who she belongs to.
She’s ours, Draven said, for the next thirty days, and when I laid eyes on her there in the office, it took everything I had not to pin her down and fuck her until she was clenched around me, screaming with pleasure.
But when she slipped into the panic attack at the sight of Xander and Nio in wolf form, another primal urge came over me. Protect her—at all costs. I cradled her in my arms, her face burrowed against my chest as she hid from the world, using me as her shield.
I’d almost thrashed the young wolves for causing her such intense distress, even if it wasn’t really their fault. Xander and Nio, twins born to a high-ranking bonded pair within our pack, have progressed far in their training and one day might rise to the top of the Barons as alphas, or form their own allied packs within The Brotherhood.
Yet my impulse to punish them for simply doing exactly as commanded—guarding Draven’s office—was instinctive and demanding.
Jemma is supposed to be nothing to me. Just a trade by a shit stain of a human to save his ass. And yet...
No. I can’t let her tempt me like this, to consume me. I’ll deny her, even if it’s only to myself. I swear she will be nothing more than a warm body to use. I will take Bryan’s debt out of her flesh as she agreed, wringing every drop of pleasure from her. I will not submit myself to her—she’s a human and I’m an alpha wolf, for fuck’s sake. I don’t fall to my knees after scenting a wet female.
I make it to the den, a space off-limits to everyone except us alphas, a private retreat away from the rest of the pack. It keeps us sane and separated from the pups who want to bang their chests and gnash their teeth.
We’re the only ones who have bedrooms here. We covet our privacy. The rest of the Barons either live at the pack house or at one of the many complexes we own around the city.
Draven’s already settled into a leather armchair, a tumbler of whiskey in his hand, his characteristic brooding expression on his face. The only time he doesn’t look disgruntled with the world is when he’s got a woman tied up to do with what he pleases. He slowly breaks his women apart, never needing to use anything other than firm words and strong hands to accomplish his goal.
Not
like Bishop, the third alpha of the Baron wolf pack, who wields his wicked tools with the skill of a surgeon. He’s here, too, stretched out on the couch, an open book in his hands. He examines me with a glance, the man’s mind working faster than a supercomputer as he takes in every detail and forms his conclusions.
Out of all of us alphas, he’s certainly the pretty boy, with long, dark eyelashes and tousled hair that looks like he spent the day at the beach. As he does now, he often has on black-rimmed reading glasses that on anyone else would scream nerd, yet somehow make him look even more cunning. With his lean, whipcord muscles, he’s also the smallest of us.
Though, that isn’t to say he’s small—he’s still an alpha wolf. Stupid pups who think they’re infallible with their youthful vigor have made the mistake of challenging him, thinking he’s the easiest alpha to defeat.
Those challengers soon learn that his brutality matches his beauty. And that his clever intelligence surpasses both.
Personally, I think the only reason why Bishop hasn’t challenged Draven for lead alpha is because Bishop cares more for chaos than true leadership. He handles the political and logistical schemes of the pack with shrewd expertise, but he doesn’t have the emotional temperament that managing and guiding a pack requires.
I don’t either. I don’t have Draven’s calm, measured control. I’m the one who’s unleashed when it’s time to fuck something, or someone, up. And right now I want to fuck Bryan up. Bad. Almost as much as I want Jemma’s hot, naked body wrapped around me, gasping for more as I sink into her.
I need something to pull my thoughts from the woman down the hall. I eye the bar service, something only this room and Draven’s office contains, but I don’t seek the relief of alcohol. One drink won’t draw her scent from my body, and I never allow myself more than one.
“She must be something special if she’s got you both wound tighter than a guncoil.” Bishop’s voice is studious, his eyes processing every tiny detail of our body language and movements, as if he’s observing an experiment and we’re just mold in a petri dish. Fucking sociopath.
“You won’t be teasing us when you meet her.” Draven’s low tone rumbles with a note of menace. But whether he’s issuing a threat to the alpha—a fair warning to restrain himself—or cautioning him of the temptation Jemma presents, I can’t tell.
Settling on a soda, I sink into my preferred chair, the one in the corner closest to the custom billiards table lined with red felt, and let myself slump into a relaxed pose. “She’s just another female for our entertainment. She’s not even a shifter,” I say dismissively.
I’m not sure who I’m trying to convince. I haven’t even tasted her yet, and she’s already burrowing under my skin.
I should go to the pack house, where I can have my choice of females. I could take one of the sweet betas and fuck her until Jemma’s out of my system. I could find one that won’t cling to me as if I’m all that stands between her and destruction. Someone I won’t care about, who I won’t feel the need to protect by standing guard outside her door in case her demons try to seek her out.
When Jemma peeked out of her bedroom door, that little scrap of red silk wrapped around her body, her hair still damp from the shower, I wanted to pounce.
I wanted to barrel her back into the room and mount her right then. She’d showered, but I could still smell her feminine pheromones lingering and it hit me like a punch to the face when she opened the door.
Even though I knew I blended well into the shadows with my dark pelt, she seemed to sense me there. Panic and fear rolled off of her, overwhelming every other scent and she slammed her door closed. I could hear her panicked breath as she pressed herself to the other side of the door, as though she was hefting her small weight against it in hopes to ward off intruders.
Satisfied she’d stay in her room, I retreated here to the den.
But even now, my feral thirst is scratching at me, restless under my skin. I want to go kick down her door and shove her against the wall like I warned her about, to fuck her like the animal I am. I want her to fight me, to scratch my face and neck as she did when I plucked her up from the hallway.
I want to taste that fire and rage as I thrust into her over and over, until she’s nothing but pure heat, crying with pleasure as she comes with me buried deep inside her.
“We’ll use her until her time here is done,” Draven says, eyeing me. “Then she’ll be out of our lives along with a chunk of our money. Remember that.”
I turn away from his all-knowing gaze, leaning my head back to look at the ceiling. I know the unspoken rules of our lifestyle perfectly well, despite the tension coiled in my muscles and the thoughts running through my head. Females are never more than a temporary measure for the three of us. There’s no room for them to be anything else in our lives.
“Well, you two certainly have me looking forward to meeting this delectable morsel,” Bishop says, snapping his book shut with finality.
He swings his feet around to the floor and sits up, removing his reading glasses before tossing the book onto a side table. The man always has a book on him, one bizarre title after another, always on obscure topics, and the thicker the better. It’s one of his many oddities, in my opinion.
“As for the matter of business I attended to tonight—the Latian pack is defiant.” Bishop pauses in his report until both Draven and I focus on him, then he cracks his knuckles as he looks between us. “Not openly yet, but it’s there. My informants tell me of their intentions. They know they can’t take us on directly—not pack against pack or alphas against alphas. They’re attempting to be discreet and clever, wanting to undermine our position of authority in the city, to weaken us politically first.”
Anger rises in me. It’s always fucking something. If it’s not the fox shifters, it’s another wolf pack trying to challenge us.
We dealt with Sampson and the Redtails the other night, ruthlessly and swiftly, delivering a lethal blow to his business. Sampson escaped, but not before we took out half a dozen of his men. If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll flee the goddamn country and never show his face in the realm of The Brotherhood again.
But the fucking Latians—they don’t know when to quit.
They should have been put down years ago after they went off on a killing spree. We hunt, it’s in our blood, but the law of the shifters has always made humans off-limits.
Few humans know of our existence. There are rumors, certainly, but nothing that can ever be proven. It’s always amusing to see game wardens or Animal Control driving through our turf after calls about stray dogs and wolf sightings.
They’ll never find us. Not if we keep to the laws that have protected us for centuries.
But the Latian leaders wanted to expose our true nature, to once again inspire fear in humans as our ancestors once did. They wanted to reveal us as the alpha predators we are, to make humanity bow at our feet. They needed to feel mighty, to display their wrath to the world in order to feed their insufferably greedy egos.
It could have been so much worse. They were organized and aggressive, with dozens of attacks happening on the same day, creating terror across the country as their pack’s vast network carried out the plan.
But they made a fatal mistake—they fucked with our city. Our humans.
Only fifty people died before Draven, Bishop, and I ripped out the throats of the alphas who’d led the call. The remaining pack quickly submitted to us after that, but we knew they did it with hatred in their hearts and vengeance etched in their souls.
They loathed us then, and the sentiment hasn’t changed in the decade since. Justice as a wolf is usually bloody and swift, but they’ve played it quiet, keeping their tails tucked between their legs. Until now, it seems.
“They’re getting too comfortable,” I say, cracking the soda open. I want to down it fast, to feel the sting of the carbonation against my throat, but I stop myself.
It’s the little things I have to temper myself w
ith. Small measures to keep everything else in check. If I can’t control how quickly I drink a fucking soda, then I can’t stop myself from charging back down to Jemma’s room and burying my face between her legs like the depraved heathen I am.
“Who’s the lead dissenter?” Draven asks before taking a long swig of his whiskey.
I eye his fingers as they curl around the sparkling crystal tumbler. His hands still smell like her—I don’t know how he can stand having her scent covering him like that and still stay in control. I’m practically salivating with need, struggling to keep my beast reined in.
“Terrion,” Bishop answers, and we both growl.
He’s the son of the head alpha we killed years ago. Of course it’s Terrion fucking with us now. He was only a pup when we put his sire down, and now he’s risen to lead the Latians. We should have put the entire family in their graves, hunted down and removed every trace of that bloodline from the world. But Draven decided to show mercy, to stop an outright pack war.
It seems it’s only delayed the fight.
“I want eyes on him,” Draven orders and stands, setting his drink down on the marble coffee table with a clink. “I want to know everything he’s doing, who he’s talking to, where he’s going, who he’s fucking. I will not risk our pack being exposed because he’s got dreams of returning to a mythological glory.”
“That’s what I assumed you’d say,” Bishop leans back against the couch, his hands behind his head. “I’ve got three of ours on him, and I made contact with his favorite bitch. Rumor has it, the Latians will be at the next Tribunal fights, so we’ll want to make an appearance, I think. Remind them that we’re always watching.”
A crooked grin twists my lips. “I’ll put my name in the ring, then.”
Neither of them protest. They know better than to try. Alphas of my stature rarely participate in the fights—not in the ring, at least. But Draven and Bishop learned long ago that keeping me from enjoying my second favorite pastime was futile.