Survivor

by Sam Hall

  Nothing can hold you down, not unless you want it, my Tirian said.

  And apparently, I wanted it. I relaxed into the tight position, then looked Aidan straight in the eyes.

  “Put your fingers inside me.”

  His eyebrows jumped up at that, but his smile was a pleased one, his touch ticklish at first, gently, gently opening me up.

  “Aidan…” I moaned.

  “Stop fucking around,” Peter growled. My eyes jerked around to see his fist encircling his massive cock. Here, in the cold light of day, I could see just what he was packing, which I admit, was a little disconcerting, but then he slid his hand up and down its length, making the head swell a vicious deep red.

  “This what you want, love?” Aidan watched my face as his fingers worked their way in, seemingly hungry for every reaction. “You want to play at being powerless, at being at our mercy? That’s a delicious little kink you’ve got there. We could force you to come and keep on coming, past the point where you want to stop, each orgasm tearing through you with more and more violence, until you just want to cry out.”

  “Yes…” My voice was little other than a prolonged hiss.

  “Each of us fighting over the pleasure of giving you yours.” His thumb pressed down hard on my clit, making me jump, but Peter held me fast. “Watching you come apart.”

  I couldn’t look into his eyes anymore, my head lolling back, putting even more tension on my tortured shoulders. I wouldn’t be able to hold this position for long, but I didn’t need to. He beckoned it closer with his come-hither movement, a familiar prickling at the base of my spine heralding what was to come.

  Stars burst behind my eyes as the most exhilarating of pleasures spread through me, my cunt feeling helpless as it spasmed around Aidan’s fingers, only underscored by Peter’s hold. Aidan tested out his words, pushing me further and further, until I wiggled free of both of them.

  I sat on the back seat of a car that stank of sex, watching Aidan unzip his jeans and wrap his still damp fingers around his hard cock, using me as his lubricant. His brow knotted as he made his first stroke, long and slow.

  But not Peter. His rhythmic little pants registered now, his strokes almost a blur. I crawled forward as he rasped my name, pushing his hand away and replacing it with my mouth.

  “Not long,” he ground out. “So close.” So I didn’t finesse it, going for speed and suction rather than sensuality. Which he seemed to appreciate, if his groans were anything to go by. I wrapped a hand around the base, squeezing tight, which pulled a roar from him. His hands landed on my skull, so, so gentle, even when he wanted to force me down on it. His cock swelled impossibly harder, my teeth just grazing the granite shaft, and then he came.

  My mouth filled with his salty cum, his helpless little grunts music to my ears. I swallowed while his cock was in my mouth, something that had him jerking away, then dragging me up. He shoved me against the back of the seat, his lips crashing down on mine before hauling me against his chest.

  “Mine…” he said, the word reverberating throughout my whole body until I could feel it in my toes. He tipped my chin back, looking into my eyes for a moment, the surface of his suspiciously shiny, before dropping a much more gentle kiss on my lips. “My mate.”

  I nodded, my forehead pressed against his before I threw my arm around his neck and hugged him close.

  I could lose myself in Peter. He was like this bottomless pool of strength. I’d never be able to plumb its depths, yet I knew it would never be directed against me. Having it at my back, always, helped me when I wobbled or fell. He wasn’t going to do everything for me, as I wouldn’t for him, but we could each step up without being asked.

  Aidan looked wrecked when I turned around, his face pale as milk, his eyes wide and staring.

  “Fuck…” he mumbled, shaking his head and holding it down, as if I wouldn’t see him dashing away tears.

  “Aidan…” I said, crawling through the gap between the front seats, an ungainly struggle, but then I was kneeling on the passenger seat.

  “I’m OK,” he said, blinking and then smiling, a sweet, sad thing. “I’ve just…” He frowned. “We talk a lot about mates here, but I’ve…I’ve never seen that before.”

  “Me giving Peter a blow job? Pretty sure you have.”

  “No…no,” he said, shaking a hand at me. “Don’t joke, not yet. It…it hurts somehow, but not like you think. Not like that. I’m not jealous or anything, it’s just…” He sighed. “It’s beautiful.”

  We all keep a mask or two over our eyes, to keep all that raw burbling mass of emotions from polite society, to keep our reactions to ourselves until it's safe to share them. Well, Aidan had none of that. I looked into those hazel eyes, standing out starkly against his skin, the early afternoon light bleaching him pale.

  I heard a hum in my skull as I leaned forward, a terrible sense of rightness in my bones. Everything before this was just leading me here, everything but Kade. I pushed his hair to one side as he shook his head.

  “No, no, it’s not what I meant…” he protested, but his words were weakly delivered. I caught his hands in mine, the buzz letting me stare into his eyes as the venom burned in my mouth.

  “I know, Aidan.”

  I couldn’t get the rest out, that I knew he’d never ask for this. Because he was raised that way, because he didn’t ask for anything for himself, or because that’s the way his heart worked, I didn’t know. I probably should have, because I was about to do something permanent.

  “I love you,” I mumbled against his lips, stopping his. Yet when I pulled back, he fell into what I now realised was a customary posture. He tilted his head to one side, baring his neck to me, not out of expectation or anticipation, but in surrender. I’d bite him or I wouldn’t, he wouldn’t know until it was done. So he waited.

  Tears pricked at my eyes, blurring the view of one of my most beloved of faces, so I moved forward by scent only, breathing him in and then pressing my lips to his skin.

  He trembled beneath me, hissing when he felt the burn of my saliva. Yes, yes, yes… went the hum inside my head. I grabbed a fold of his skin between my teeth, listening to his inarticulate growls and bit down.

  I’d been barely alive the time this had happened with Peter, so the bolt of white light that swelled within us shocked me. It was glorious—it, us, the great big white wolf standing before us, watching us with her gleaming green eyes. I felt filled to the brim with a love so complete and all-encompassing, it was hard to imagine ever wanting anything again. She nodded to the two of us, and then it all faded away.

  “Flick?”

  For a minute, all I could do is stare. My brain was offline, but then he smiled.

  How a big strong bloke like Aidan could look fragile, I had no idea, but he did. Tears streamed down his face, completely unchecked. His brows were mobile things as he searched my face.

  “Did you mean to…? I mean…”

  “Of course I did,” I said. “I don’t go around accidentally biting people. I dunno what’s gonna happen with the full moon, the shift, or the heat. But I do know I want you two with me, for as long as you want to be.”

  21

  We never did get to Ophelia’s, which was OK, because it appeared everyone was going to be coming around to our house.

  “So, Kade, we’ve got something to talk to you about,” I said.

  We were all sitting down at the kitchen table, though the paling of my son’s face and his eyes nervously flicking around had me reaching to take his hand.

  “It’s not bad, mate,” Aidan said, rubbing his shoulder.

  “So, you know how I bit Peter when we first met him.”

  He nodded solemnly. “You made him your mate.”

  “Well…”

  Aidan was still looking a little soft around the edges when he pulled his shirt collar away from the bite site.

  I watched my son, saw the creasing of his brows, the way he craned his neck to take a look at the pink mark. He s
eemed to study it for some time, almost as if he was having trouble recognising what he saw. His fingers went white as he gripped the tabletop, then the fine tremor began.

  “Kade?”

  Kade held himself still as a stone, but it cost him some effort. I could see it now, the muscles in his arms straining to keep him in his seat. Then he turned towards me.

  “Baby…”

  My arms went around him as soon as I saw his wide eyes and the tears filling them, then spilling out onto his cheeks. But he didn’t make a sound, not even when I hauled him up against me. He buried his face in my neck, and I felt the sobs racking his whole body. Then he began to howl.

  Kade had cried plenty since we got here, but it was often a quiet, little, heartbroken thing. We’d clustered around him in bed, providing him with a wall of comfort, until he finally dropped off into a fitful sleep. Ophelia assured me it was a good thing, a processing of the unprocessable. But things had been so much better recently. It was as if my Tirian had waited until she knew Kade was OK before I’d made Aidan my mate.

  “Hey…” Aidan said, getting up out of his seat and crouching in front of us, his hand going to Kade’s shoulder blade. My son detached himself from me in that instant and then threw himself at my newest mate, clinging to him like a spider monkey. “It’s OK, mate. If you don’t want this to happen…?”

  Aidan looked up at me in concern as Kade’s wails only got louder.

  “Kade, baby…” I said, my own voice breaking.

  What the hell had I done? Wantonly fooling around in a car and making a permanent decision for the family like I was some feckless twenty-year-old? The shock I felt was so deep and thorough, I felt ice cold and frozen as I struggled to get my mind around it all. Kade… I thought. I’d let one man hurt him and then was hurting him with—

  Peter’s hand felt burning hot when it came to rest on my shoulder. I jumped, spinning around to look at him, expecting to see condemnation, rage, disgust, or some other echo of my own feelings on his face. Instead, there was the same old warmth and concern and something deeper. My own eyes pricked as I shook my head slightly. No, I thought furiously, not compassion. Not that.

  “Look,” he prompted.

  I wanted to shout that I was looking, but I didn’t dare. Cringing, self-hating Flick came rocketing back, so I clamped my mouth shut. I stared at the two of them, cataloguing the evidence as I saw it. My son’s distress, which I had caused. Aidan’s terrified look as he stroked my Kade’s back, something I should have been doing. The ragged, hacking, hysterical scream of my child, as all the fucking poison I had been unaware was lurking there was thrust out into the world. It was the most harrowing song of pain I’d ever heard, and I’d made it happen.

  I sat still and quiet, not moving, not doing anything. I didn’t dare, did I? Hadn’t I done enough? I needed to help Kade, make this better. I was his fucking mother, wasn’t I? I needed to fucking—

  My thoughts stumbled to a stop when Kade finally pulled away, his face a sodden mask. He struggled to get words out, snot streaming down his face, his breath coming in great hiccuping sighs.

  “Here you go, mate,” Peter said, getting out of his chair and pulling a hankie from his pocket. He crouched down low, pausing with the handkerchief held up until my son had a chance to see it, and when he registered it, he wiped the mess from Kade’s face as best he could.

  “You…you…you…you’re…” Kade forced out haltingly, then stopped with a frustrated hiss. He looked at Aidan, then rested his head against my mate’s forehead. “You’re…my, my, my…my dad now?”

  If someone had burst into the room brandishing a machete and sliced me open, I couldn’t imagine it hurting more right now. Tears fell with a rapid plop onto the tabletop, and my hand shook when I went to wipe them away.

  “Of course, mate.” Aidan’s voice was a ragged mess, Kade watching his every response.

  “We both are, Kade,” Peter said, “if that’s what you want?”

  His face crumpled again, and mine did the same as he wrapped his arm around Peter’s neck too.

  “Kade,” I said when he finally came back to me. “Are you OK with this? We can—”

  “We can stay now. Never go back,” he said with a long sigh.

  “We were never going back anyway. I would never let that—I’d never let your dad near you again, after what happened. Is that OK?”

  If this was a Hallmark movie or something, he’d have just moved towards his new dads with open arms, but of course, it wasn’t. There’s something about that parental bond, as if they imprint upon us by just being around when we’re born. Some use that amazing opportunity to perform one of life’s greatest services—raising a child in a loving environment, noticing them and what they need, and making sure they get it. They shower them with love and affection and let them grow up feeling safe, safe enough to branch out and be who they are when they become adults. But even when you don’t, when you take that gift and ride roughshod all over it, disregarding the pain and uncertainty it creates in someone so small and unable to fight back, that bond persists.

  Because what is a child without a parent in that child’s mind? Their lives are shaped, constrained, and created by the adults around them. Their little egos are still forming in response to us. And Rick, for whatever reason, had helped shape my son. His fingerprints stayed long after the bruises had healed.

  “If you… When you’re older, you could—”

  Kade shook his head with a gleam in his eye. “This is home now. We’ll stay here forever?”

  I smiled, something that came out a bit watery. I brushed his hair away from his face.

  “Sure, love. One day, you’ll grow up and find your own mate.”

  He looked at the two men surrounding him and then nodded.

  “So, if you’re my dad now, you don’t have to ask Mum for permission to let me watch movies,” he said with a smile.

  “Oh no, you are not getting me in trouble there, but…” Aidan looked up at me. “An afternoon sitting on the couch watching cartoons might be in order. It's customary after a mating that the families put on a big celebration.” He shook his head when he saw me tense up. “Mum will be halfway through the preparations now. But I’ll give her a call, see if we can’t set it up for tomorrow or the next day.”

  “How would she know?” I said, frowning.

  “They know,” both men replied. “They always know.”

  22

  We spent a quiet afternoon watching yet more episodes of The Clone Wars until we fell into a kind of half sleep. Our eyes were still open, we were still conscious of each other, lying tangled up as we were on the couch. Hair and limbs were stroked, like stoking a fire, keeping the low embers of comfort and closeness I now associated with pack going. When we were forced to, we ordered some pizza from the mess kitchens, and then watched a bit more TV until we fell into a deep sleep.

  Kade slept with us again. I noticed he was very tactile with Aidan now, snuggling up to him whenever he could. I looked over at Peter, who watched all of us.

  “It’s OK,” he whispered to me. “It’s often like this with our kids. You have a different relationship with each dad. I know I did with mine.”

  “Me too,” Aidan said. “You’ll meet them tomorrow night, but Cooper was always the one I went running to when I was upset.”

  “Rob was mine, though Frank was the one who used to patch up whatever was wrong.” Peter’s arm slid around my waist, pulling me tighter against him. “No one has the exact same bond with every member of the pack. We’re all different. It’s good to see Kade bonding with Aidan like this. He needs it. Now what do you need?”

  Sex and heat was hot and all, but there was something about the complex layers of being in a relationship that I’d always loved. That mix of need and love and attraction and affection I could hear in his voice was always my preferred state. I had to admit, the concept of going into a heat, of experiencing total and utter sexual surrender, had given me some very
interesting dreams of late, but doing so with my mates by my side, with the prospect of adding others…

  Adding others…

  “Shit! Sen!” I gasped.

  “It’s all good. I let him know what was happening after you bit Aidan,” Peter replied. “No man’s gonna try and get between the newly mated. He’s still keen if you are?”

  He watched me squirm on the bed as I thought about the idea with hooded eyes.

  “Good,” he said, brushing his lips across my ear. “I for one am looking forward to trying out your little scenario.”

  A shiver went down my spine, sending a wash of heat through me, but Kade shifted groggily in his sleep, drawing my attention back to him. I stroked his hair back from his face and then looked into Aidan’s eyes, ones that watched my child with a wonder I remembered well. It was that stunned, ‘I have a baby’ look I’d found myself sporting all the time when I was left alone with Kade. I studied his expression hungrily, finally, finally seeing what I’d always wanted on the face of a male partner—reverence.

  “Thank you,” I said, yet more bloody tears forming.

  “No, Flick, thank you.”

  23

  Chaos descended on the house as soon as morning came.

  “Oh, Flick…”

  Aidan’s mum, Renee, was standing in the doorway, looking at a very bedraggled me, while I just stood there in one of Peter’s discarded shirts and nothing else. She swept in and grabbed me in a hug.

  “We’ve barely had a chance to chat, what with your recovery and everything, but, darling…” She pulled back to look me over, something I didn’t want anyone doing before a shower and a coffee. “I’m so happy you chose my boy! He loves Kade so much. He tells me about everything he’s been up to when we talk on the phone. Now, this is probably a bit presumptuous, but he mentioned how much Kade likes Star Wars so—”

  “Mum?” Aidan staggered out of the bedroom, blinking owlishly. “What are you doing here? It’s really bloody early.”