by Cooke, CJ
Liam suspiciously glanced over at my shuffling and then a wicked grin flashed across his face. “Whatever could you be thinking about?” he chuckled, and I caught him scenting the air.
Before we’d met Aria, Liam and I had always had a closer relationship than we did with Kyle. It wasn’t that we were better friends or anything; it was the attraction. It had always been there. I loved the way his grey eyes would flash with his amusement and the lean muscled tone of his body. I shuffled closer to him and held the back of his neck with one hand. We rarely acted on our feelings alone. But there had been a few times. He frequently featured in my fantasies, and now Aria was in our lives, he was featured in them more and more. I couldn’t help but remember how it had felt when we were both fucking Aria yesterday. I could feel his cock rubbing against me as he took her ass, and I was deep inside her pussy. I was so hard thinking about it, I had a deep ache lingering in my cock. I knew there was only one way to release it, but it wasn’t like there was much we could do about it with the other’s sleeping around us.
Liam’s eyes locked with mine and his tongue ran over his bottom lip. It was more than I could bear. I needed a taste. Just one quick taste. I wouldn’t sleep until I had. I leaned in slowly. This was still pretty new to the both of us, and since Aria had joined us, we hadn’t talked about what that would mean for us. Need flashed across Liam’s eyes, and I knew he wanted it as much as I did.
I gently brushed my lips across his at first. He let me take control and stayed still apart from clamping down hard on my wrist that was holding onto his neck. I came back in for another kiss and this time let my tongue gently run across his lips. He opened his mouth for me, but I kept it light and teasing. When his tongue flicked out to meet me, I pulled back and raised an eyebrow at him. I was always the more dominant of the two of us, and he knew he needed to wait for what I would give him. He almost pouted when he realised he wouldn’t get his way, and I couldn’t help the small smirk that lifted my lips as I went back in for another gentle kiss. As I pulled away, I sucked his bottom lip into my mouth, gently nibbling him, and a low, quiet groan escaped his mouth.
We both froze waiting to see if any of the others had heard what we were doing. None of them moved and judging by the heavy breathing coming from around us, they were all deep asleep.
It was fairly warm in the part of the woods where we were, and we’d all just fallen into the sleeping bags, meaning that none of them was securely zipped around us. It was easy for me to reach into Liam’s open sleeping bag and grab hold of the waistband of his pants. Once I had him in my grasp, I hauled him across to lay flush against my front in one move.
“If you want me to stop, just tell me,” I whispered into his mind.
His eyes flashed wide for a moment as he realised we had the perfect way to communicate without disturbing the others.
He groaned louder in my head than he had let escape from his mouth earlier. “Don’t stop, I don’t want you to stop,” he said, his forehead falling against mine in relief.
There wasn’t much we could do that wouldn’t wake the others, but we both needed the comfort of feeling the other against us and the relief only a release could bring.
I flicked the fastening on Liam’s pants open with one hand. My other still clamped around the back of his neck. He reached down to loosen my own trousers as I peppered his neck and chin with small, quiet kisses. We both kicked off our pants and underwear into the bottom of our sleeping bags, leaving us naked from the waist down. Liam moved one of his legs between mine and slipped close against my body. Feeling the brush of his hard cock against mine had me groaning in my head as I pulled his lips hard against me and kissed him the way I knew he loved. I shoved my tongue into his mouth, and he returned the gesture frantically. We were both lost in the other, and if one of the other’s woke up now I didn’t know if I would even realise, and I knew I definitely wouldn’t care.
I reached down and took hold of Liam’s hard cock. He broke our kiss and threw back his head. His mouth opening as he panted quietly. When he reached down and took hold of my cock, I knew exactly how hard it was for him not to make any noise.
Both of our hips started to move in tandem, each fucking the other’s hand. We peppered kisses along each other’s faces, neck and shoulders. I knew I wasn’t going to last long. The other’s sleeping around us and trying to keep quiet was just turning me on even more.
“I need to come,” Liam groaned into my mind.
I gripped his cock tighter in my fist and worked him harder. His hips thrust into my hand, and he mirrored my actions with his own. I could feel myself getting so close to release. Liam slammed his lips against mine as his thrusts became choppy, and he muffled his groan into my mouth as he finally came in my hand. Feeling him spill himself across my knuckles was the last push I needed, and I quickly followed with my own orgasm.
We laid there gently panting and holding each other close.
“Do we need to talk to Aria about this?” Liam asked me softly. “What if she isn’t on board with the idea of us being together sometimes?”
I held him tightly against me. I could feel his breath tickling against my neck. “I don’t know. We’ve got so much going on at the minute. I genuinely don’t think she would be against it, though. She’s seen us kiss and I didn’t get the impression that she didn’t like it.” I huffed a laugh to myself. I remembered it very well, in fact. Liam and I had both been between her legs, feasting on her sweet pussy when I pulled him to me and kissed him. The fire in her eyes as she watched, she was definitely interested in seeing how much further it would go.
Liam rolled onto his back and draped an arm over his eyes. I could see the smile on his face as he was no doubt reliving the same moment I was.
“Let’s just see how it goes. If we get the chance and it feels right, we can talk to her,” I told him, and he nodded.
As Liam looked over at me, I could see his eyelids drooping as sleep started to take him over. I ran my hand across his cheek, and he nuzzled against my palm.
“Sleep,” I told him. “We’ve got another long day ahead of us tomorrow.”
Liam quickly fell asleep, and his soft breathing beside me was enough to lull me closer. I quickly pulled my pants back on and settled down beside him. He’d rolled away from me, and I cuddled up behind him, making him my little spoon. The only thing that would make this more perfect would be if we had Aria sandwiched between us. As sleep quickly came to claim me, I closed my eyes and hoped for dreams of Aria and Liam.
Chapter 25
Aria
I barely slept at all last night. I kept switching between dreams of being torn apart by a sea of squirrels to wild sex dreams featuring my four sexy mates. Thankfully the squirrels didn’t feature in the sex dreams, or I’d seriously be looking for the local loony bin to get myself checked in. It didn’t help that when I woke up, all I saw was the face of possibly the biggest fucking squirrel which ever existed hovering over me. It was really fucking big. Like, it could fuck up a dinosaur, kind of big.
I did myself proud and jumped up, giving the biggest girly squeal that has ever come out of me. In fact, I don’t think I’d ever made a sound like that before in my life. But, give me a break, I’d dreamt of being eaten by squirrels all night, and not in the fun, sexy dream kind of way.
The guys all jumped up, pulling blades out of nowhere. It was quite comical watching them trying to get untangled from their sleeping bags and draw a sword simultaneously. I was pretty sure the squirrel was laughing at us. It was officially freaking me out.
Virion seemed to come to his senses first. “Master Ratatosk, please accept our apologies. You startled us,” Virion bowed his head to the squirrel and its little squirrel chest puffed up for a moment. Well, maybe not little. It must have been bigger than a cow.
“He knows he’s talking to a giant squirrel, right?” I heard Sykes whisper to Liam.
Virion ignored him and continued. “Master Ratatosk, we seek aid to reach the t
op branches of Yggdrasil and access to Valhalla,” he explained.
The squirrel made a cute little scoffing sound and turned to leave. Virion shouted after him. “Wait, please.”
I shifted into my Valkyrie form and leapt into the air, flying so I was slightly above the squirrel. “Master Ratatosk, please, we need your help. I need to go to Valhalla so I can speak to my people. Or, at least, I think they’re my people. I’ve never actually met them.”
My shoulders slumped, and my wings slowed as I dropped back down to the ground. “We need their help. But I don’t know if they will want me, let alone if they will help me.”
When my feet touched the ground, I just stared at my feet. I felt like the weight of the world was crashing down upon me. This was the sort of stuff people with much more training than me were supposed to sort out.
I felt something on my head, and when I looked up, I realised I was getting patted on the head by a squirrel. I challenge you to try not to smile when a giant, cow-sized squirrel patted you on the head. Seriously, it’s not possible.
I looked up into his big black eyes, and I swear that squirrel smiled at me. It lifted its head and made a weird chattery noise and four more giant squirrels appeared from around the side of the tree trunk.
Sykes skittered back with a girly squeal which we would definitely be addressing later. It was only fun if he thought he’d got away with it first.
Virion stepped forward and addressed the first squirrel again. “Thank you for your help.” Then he turned around and looked at the rest of us. “Okay, choose a squirrel and hang on, we’re getting a ride up to the top,” he said, stepping up to the nearest squirrel.
Virion made climbing onto a squirrel look completely natural. The first one Virion had called Ratatosk had remained at my side. It patted me on the head again. “You want me to go with you?” I asked it, and it nodded at me. This was just getting trippy.
Having seen how ridiculous Kyle currently looked trying to climb onto a giant squirrel, I flapped my wings and flew up to the squirrel and onto his back. I looked over to see what Virion was doing and took hold of the squirrel’s fur. Just when I felt like I was settled, the fucking squirrel shot off up the tree with the speed of a runaway train, and I swear the little fucker started laughing at me. I clenched my thighs around him and hung on for dear life as we started a sheer vertical ascent.
Once you got used to the breakneck speed, and the fact if you fall, death was guaranteed, it wasn’t too bad. Don’t get me wrong, I kept my wings open, so I had a fighting chance if I fell. There was no way I could fly this high, but hopefully, I’d be able to slow my descent. Or actually, maybe that would just make it worse?
I, at least, was managing to keep my eyes open, even if I did have a death grip on poor Ratatosk. The guys and their squirrels were behind me so I couldn’t see how they were getting on. I could hear Kyle swearing consistently and continuously under his breath and Sykes every so often doing his little girly squeak. Virion was just laughing like a mad man.
We passed through the cloud layer without stopping, and Ratatosk just continued. What was strange, or at least I thought that it was strange, was that above the clouds the sky just seemed to go on forever. There didn’t seem to be an end in sight. I would have thought we’d reach space at some point.
After several hours Ratatosk darted inside a notch in the tree trunk. We were still yet to reach any branches, but the notch was big enough for all of us to get inside. The poor squirrels just sank to the ground, clearly exhausted. They’d kept up the fast pace for at least four hours, constantly running, while carrying one of us on their back. We all climbed off their backs, unsteady on our feet. My thighs were killing me, but I didn’t dare voice my discomfort.
I walked around so I could kneel in front of Ratatosk. He was flat on his belly, his head on the ground and his tail wrapped around him. “You doing okay there?” I asked him concerned. How much further did we need to go? Would they even be able to make it?
I looked over at Virion who was checking on this own squirrel. All of the guys looked concerned. “What can we do?” I asked him.
Virion just shrugged. We were nestled into the side of a massive tree. It’s not like we could nip to a shop for supplies, or pop out and hunt down some dinner. What did squirrels even eat? Nuts? I’m pretty sure it was nuts.
I felt a tap on my leg and saw Ratatosk was trying to get my attention. I bobbed back down beside him and stroked his head. He nudged me again, and I laughed and did it again. He pulled me in close to him and wrapped his tail around me. He was so soft, and I was so warm. As his eyes closed and he fell asleep I could feel my eyelids fluttering closed. This was so ridiculous; I was having a nap cuddling a giant squirrel. It might have been a bit weird, but this was the safest I’d felt in a while, and I gladly snuggled in closer and drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 26
Kyle
Aria had fallen asleep snuggling Ratatosk. It was ridiculous at first, and when we’d seen them cuddled up together, we’d all laughed at the sight. But looking at her now, she did look pretty cute. It was almost like she was cuddling a massive teddy bear.
The other squirrels had all curled up and gone to sleep. I wasn’t ready to sleep; it was only lunchtime.
I wandered over to the entrance where Virion stood sentry. “How much further up do we need to go?” I asked him.
“Asgard lies at the top of the tree. Valhalla is technically one of the many halls of Asgard, but we can reach the entrance slightly lower down the tree, just under the canopy. I think it will probably take another day and a half.” Virion said, peering down the way we’d come.
My heart lurched into my throat, and I grabbed hold of him and pulled him back inside. “Dude, don’t do that,” I said, genuinely worried.
Virion laughed but thankfully stepped back from the edge. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of heights.”
“No, no, I’m not afraid of heights. It’s more the fall and then the death that gets to me.” I gulped, much to Virion’s amusements.
“This is going to get so much worse for you, man,” Virion laughed, clapping me on the shoulder.
We raided the packs and put together some lunch for us all. Once it was ready, Aria and the squirrels started to stir. After eating, it was time to go higher up the tree.
Liam pulled me off to one side as the others were getting situated on their squirrels. “What do you think of Virion?” he asked me.
“What do you mean?” I asked him. I hoped he wasn’t feeling pushed out or that there would be an issue between the two of them. Aria was finding this hard enough, and conflict between her mates would not help the issue.
“Truthfully?” he sighed. “I like him. I think that Aria likes him more than she’s willing to accept. I also think we need to do what we can to help her get past that. She needs to mate with him as soon as possible so she can bring him into the mating bond.”
“Whilst I agree with you, we can’t force her to rush into this. It’s a serious, permanent connection. She can’t go through with something like that if she doesn’t completely want it. It wouldn’t be fair on either of them,” I reasoned with him.
“I understand that I really do. But in the current circumstances, it is too dangerous to have him outside of the bond,” Liam argued.
“Where is this coming from, Liam? Why are you so worried about this?” It wasn’t like Liam to be pushing for something like this. He was usually the sensible one out of all of us.
Liam looked over at Aria. She was eating her lunch and playfully making fun of Sykes and his girly screams. It was the most relaxed I’d seen her in a long time. Even when she seemed to be, I knew the truth. And she had more than proved that when we had stepped through the portal yesterday. I knew her magic was strong, but she’d sensed the demons long before any of us. My wolf didn’t catch any scent of them until well after Aria was on alert.
“I can’t lose her,” Liam whispered. “This will make her stronger
. She needs as much magic as she can handle if she is going to make it through this.” His eyes didn’t leave her, and I’d never seen him look so sad.
It was then that it hit me and I felt like a massive jerk and a crap Alpha for not having realised it earlier. Liam had lost so much in his life. Both of his parents were killed, and he was sent to our pack, as a young child, to be taken in by an indifferent Alpha. If Aria died, our animals would all go crazy, and we would lose control until someone had to put us down. But that hurt would run so much deeper for him than the rest of us.
I threw an arm around Liam’s shoulders and stood by his side as we both watched Aria having fun. “We will keep her safe together, brother,” I told him. Liam just sadly nodded, and I knew this would be something he wouldn’t easily let go.
Before long, it was time to leave again and whilst I wouldn’t admit it to anyone else, it was time for the terrifying climb to continue.
Chapter 27
Aria
The two days we’d spent climbing the tree had been exhausting. When the squirrels finally reached the bottom of the canopy and stopped at the base of the first branch, my thighs were a burning mess of agony, and I didn’t think I could have hung on for any longer. I’d like to say I gracefully climbed off Ratatosk’s back, but I just slid off him and collapsed in a heap on the floor.
“I don’t think my legs work anymore,” I lamented to anyone that was listening to me.
Ratatosk gave me a head bump and then chittered at the other squirrels before they all scurried back the way we’d come and disappeared.
“What? They just left,” I said, looking around. A small part of me was glad the guys were all in their own little heaps on the ground. Apart from Virion, who stood lording it over us. “Why are you not on the ground?” I scowled at him.