Claimed and Mated

by James, Delta

  There was no priest or officiant. As alpha, Marco basically presided over his own ceremony.

  “Catherine Livingston, I, Marco DeMedici, claim you as my fated mate now and forever.”

  “And I, Catherine, formally accept your claim and declare you to be my mate and alpha for all time.”

  Marco pulled her into his arms and kissed her with a quiet passion that caused their friends and pack to howl and holler at the moon that was rapidly rising over the lake set behind the pergola.

  The kiss had barely ended before a dazzling display of fireworks began. Catherine laughed with delight as did many others. The show lasted for about a half an hour and was as impressive as any she had ever seen.

  They spent the evening with their friends and pack eating, dancing, and celebrating the night away.

  Catherine made the rounds of their guests, all under Marco’s watchful eye. She watched him as well and would smile when their eyes met.

  “Still afraid she’s going to bolt?” asked Griffin.

  “No,” Marco admitted. “Afraid she isn’t real.”

  Giovanni laughed and said, “Your Madonna is real, Marco and appears to have been here all her life. If I didn’t know she had just transitioned to a wolf I would swear she has always been one with us.”

  Marco nodded. “She does seem to have always been here. I am finding it difficult to remember when I didn’t wake with her in my arms.”

  “Valentina said that our pack feels the same... as though she has always been here.”

  At long last Marco scooped his mate up off the dance floor and carried her back to their room to the sound of her laughter and the well wishes of those who had celebrated with them.

  * * *

  Catherine laughed and nuzzled Marco as he carried her up the stairs.

  “You do know that I’m quite capable of climbing a staircase, right?”

  He looked at her questioningly.

  “You are forever carrying me up them either cradled in your arms or slung over your shoulder.”

  Marco laughed. “The latter only when you are being a naughty mate and need to be shown the error of your ways.”

  He entered their bedroom and set her down, closing and locking the door behind her as he pressed her into it.

  “You know,” she drawled, “the last time you had me up against our bedroom door you stripped me naked, impaled me on your cock, and fucked me before you bit me.”

  He looked down at the mark he had left on her that was rapidly healing. He bent his head and kissed it with great care and feeling.

  “As I recall, I only nipped you until you pulled my head back down and indicated your wish to be marked and claimed by me.”

  “I know,” she said softly. “I think I wanted that more in that moment than I’ve ever wanted anything.”

  “As did I.”

  He backed away, drawing her with him and toward their bed, which someone had turned down.

  “Do you like your ring, my Catherine?”

  “Are you kidding me? It’s gorgeous. I thought the earrings were stunning, but they pale in comparison to this. It’s old, isn’t it?” she asked, looking again at the large pale pink diamond surrounded by baroque pearls and white diamonds.

  “Very. It was brought to the property when the pack first came to live here.”

  Catherine shook her head. “I love having something that is that old and has been with our family for so long. For it to stand testament to the eternal love I have for you.” She giggled. “Gawd, that was a bit much.”

  Marco chuckled and kissed her hand. “Perhaps, but the beauty of that ring pales in comparison to she who wears it.”

  Catherine reached up and stroked his cheek before running her finger down the strong column of his neck as she began to unbutton his white linen shirt.

  “You do know, Catherine DeMedici,” he started with a voice that was deep and heavy with lust, “that I am the dominant partner and it is I who decides when we will make love.”

  “You may be the dominant partner and I may have to submit to your authority, but if you think I’m not going to fuck you whenever I want, you’ve got another thought coming.”

  She pulled his shirt free from his trousers before unbuckling his belt, sliding it from its loops, and flinging it across the room. She opened his fly and slid his pants down past his strong, muscular buttocks and hard thighs. With her dress made and fitted to her body as it was, she knelt down to help him step free and was eye-to-eye with the hard evidence of his need for her.

  She smiled and drew off his briefs and was confronted with his engorged cock, which seemed to be twitching with its own need. She flicked her tongue over the head and heard him groan in response. She looked up into his face and saw him smiling as his hand gently grasped her head and directed her to do what he wanted.

  Catherine licked down the top of the column of his staff and then back along the sensitive underside. She opened her mouth to express some disappointment that there was no knot, but found her mouth filled with the enormity of his member. Slowly Marco began to fuck her mouth. She had quickly learned with her mate that she didn’t so much suck him off as he fucked her mouth instead of her pussy. Often times he withdrew at the last minute only to mount her quickly so that he came inside that part of her that seemed made for that purpose alone.

  Even so, she enjoyed using her mouth and tongue to pleasure him as he so often pleasured her. Catherine had come to know that her needs would always be well attended. Marco seemed to know her so intimately and how to coax her body to respond even if she was angry or exhausted.

  He fisted her hair and brought her up from her knees. Marco unfastened the elaborate barrette in her hair, freeing both it and the veil. The veil fluttered to the floor as Marco moved his hands down her back and untied the corset strings, loosening her gown and sliding it off her body.

  As her breasts were revealed, he sighed contentedly and reached up with one hand to grasp a nipple as his mouth captured the other. Catherine swayed against him. He had a way of fondling her that made her literally go weak at the knees. She could hear the muffled chuckle as his mouth, full of her areola and nipple, was busy suckling.

  He tugged her dress down past her derriere and then gently pushed her onto the bed. He removed her dress completely only to find her stockings held up by beautiful garters and that she had on no panties whatsoever.

  “Naughty mate,” he said, grinning up at her. “That you have been uncovered in this manner indicates a wantonness that will need to be seen to frequently.”

  “I was hoping you’d think that,” she said, teasing him.

  He removed her shoes and stockings before kissing his way back up the inside of her thighs as he closed in on that place that most held his attention. He smiled as he caught scent of her increased arousal, the swollen lips of her labia, and her engorged clit. As he had with her nipple, Marco latched on to her distended nub and suckled, causing her to throw her head back and writhe under his assault.

  “Marco,” she growled softly as she came.

  He kissed his way up her mound to her belly and up once again to engage her nipples. He had no more than taken one in his mouth that he plunged two of his fingers into her heated channel, making her arch up into his hand and come a second time.

  “Marco, please,” she cried.

  “Such a greedy mate. Most women are happy if their lover can make them climax once. But mine not only wants numerous orgasms but wants most of them done by my cock stroking her pussy or better yet being knotted and rocked.”

  “Right now she wants her mate to shut up and fuck her,” she growled low, making him laugh.

  He stood ensuring he was between her legs and caught her buttocks in his hands, lifting her so that she was at the perfect height for him to surge forward, ramming his cock deep within her and making her climax yet again.

  Marco strengthened his hold so that she couldn’t move and began to thrust with a hard, rhythmic stroke. He enjoyed wat
ching and feeling her come apart in his hands. He held her in such a way that she could do nothing but act as a willing vessel for his lust. He continued to ram his cock into her over and over. Her orgasmic spasms only inflamed his need.

  Catherine began to respond as she did when knotted to him. One climax followed another as if they were waves lapping upon the shore, one barely retreating before the next surged forward.

  She reached up and covered his hands with hers before trying to grasp his powerful forearms to pull him down on top of her. He rutted within her for more than an hour. She wailed her need and he did nothing but stroke her further into ecstasy. She began to notice something different in the way his cock felt as it seemed to hit her cervix. Her rational mind failed her, but her body remembered—he was forming a knot as he fucked her.

  She surrendered to his mastery and could tell he recognized it. He growled in a seductive way and she could feel and hear his call throughout her entire body. As once more she crested the top end of an orgasm, she felt the fully formed knot force past the entrance to her pussy and lodge in its place.

  She felt her body relax and her legs wind around him as he slid them both fully onto the bed, grabbing a pillow for her head as he lay down upon her, grasped her buttocks once more as he began the timeless need of his kind to rock his mate until he spilled his seed deep within her before tying her to him for several hours.

  Catherine clung to him as she always did as he rocked her through a series of climaxes and as he began to fill her with his cum. She felt the hard contractions of her pussy that coaxed every last drop of his seed from him. When at last he finally stilled, she sighed with great contentment and satisfaction.

  “I love you,” she said as she kissed, licked, and nipped him.

  He chuckled. “That is a good thing, my Catherine. I love you even more and you are now mine for all time.”

  “Haven’t I always been?” she asked softly.

  “Yes, but you were being difficult when first I caught scent of you.”

  “Not my fault,” she said defensively.

  “How do you figure that?”

  “You hadn’t knotted me...”

  Marco laughed. “Then it is entirely my fault.”

  “Entirely,” she agreed wrapping her arms around his neck.

  Marco took hold of her buttocks and rolled to his back, keeping her sealed to him but placing her where he knew he could coax her into napping. She would have need of her rest when she could get it for he meant to make their first night as a legally recognized mated pair memorable.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Catherine woke as the sun cleared the eastern horizon. Marco was spooned around her with his arm draped over her waist and his hand resting over her mons. He had promised, or was it threatened, to ensure she would never forget the night of their bonding ceremony. He had been as good as his word.

  After first using her mouth for their pleasure, he had spent most of the rest of the night with his cock lodged in her pussy, either stroking long and hard without the knot, or knotted and tied to her. Three times he had been actively fucking her, forming the knot as he did so and then forced it into her to claim her as she climaxed.

  Catherine knew she was going to be sore. She also knew that he had planned it that way and that everyone in their pack would know. She giggled and felt him nuzzle the back of her neck.

  “What is it that pleases you so this fine morning?”

  “Other than waking up with me wrapped in your arms?” she said, sighing and wiggling backward to get even closer to him.

  “That should now be normal for you. It will be a rare morning you do not find yourself so, or already underneath me having your pussy plowed.”

  She giggled again. “You do know I’m going to be sore as hell from you, don’t you?”

  He chuckled in a distinctly masculine and satisfied manner. “And are you complaining about that? Should I apologize?”

  “If I did, you’d probably spank me for lying about it. You damn well know that I got far more pleasure from you than you did from me last night.”

  “No, my beloved, a great deal of my pleasure comes from pleasuring you and feeling you surrender yourself to me completely. Should I have them bring you breakfast in bed so you can stay up here to rest and recuperate today?”

  “And let you have bragging rights? Oh, hell, no,” she teased. “I’ll walk down those bloody stairs if it kills me.”

  “You may be downstairs, but it has yet to be determined if I will allow you to walk.”

  He exited their bed and then lifted her up to take her into their shower.

  Catherine couldn’t remember a time the fragrant steam had felt so good. Marco held her steady and gently washed her body, taking great care and lingering on her breasts and between her legs.

  He dried her off gently and helped her to dress. She sat on their bed as he dressed and wondered at how different her life was going to be. That it was going to be better with him was not even a question in her mind. Marco made everything better. Even the knowledge that her sister had been abducted and most likely forced into a pairing with an alpha not of her choice was made easier knowing that they would see it through together.

  Her dark thoughts started to cloud her face, but she pushed them away. Shannon was strong. She would endure. And she was, as Marco and those of their pack who knew pointed out to her, a member of the DeMedici pack and they would find her and make those who harmed her pay. She meant to urge Marco to end the practice of kidnapping women, wolf or human, and forcing them into lives not of their choosing. She knew there was human trafficking on a global level and meant to see they got involved in those causes as well, but felt in this limited area they could be a part of the solution that ended the problem.

  “What troubles you, sweetheart? Thinking of Shannon?”

  “Yes. But Marco, you should know that you were right—sharing the knowledge that something had happened to her with you helped lighten that burden. And then the way you committed your resources...”

  “Our resources,” he corrected.

  She smiled. “Yes, committed our resources to bringing her home makes me hopeful for the first time. Tony said he wanted to talk to me so I do want to do that.”

  He kissed her tenderly. “You may do whatever pleases you... within reason.”

  “I take it that means running off and getting on a train is out.”

  He smiled ruefully. “It does indeed.”

  “Killjoy. But I’m sure Valentina will have thought of something.”

  He rolled his eyes and then joined arms with her as they walked down the stairs and into the dining room. Catherine saw that Valentina had brought Sera to their table and that she was engaged in some kind of spirited discussion with Luca.

  “You go sit down. I will bring you a plate. Is there anything in particular that you have a taste for?”

  “Other than you? Although you didn’t let me taste as much as I’d like last night. And anyway, isn’t that beneath an alpha of your standing?”

  “Far from it. How the alpha treats his mate sets the standard for the rest of the men and is reflected throughout the pack.”

  “Then all our women are in for a treat.”

  “As are the men if their mates reflect the response of their Madonna. Of course the pack will be retiring earlier in the evening and getting up much later so that my men can enjoy their mates as I do mine.”

  She blushed but laughed at his teasing.

  Catherine walked to the table and all the men stood.

  “Okay, guys, that has got to stop. You don’t stand when Marco comes over. I get it... you respect me. Now just sit down and relax.”

  “My brother seems more relaxed than I have ever seen him. Relaxed is not a normal state of being for Marco,” said Tony.

  “That, little brother, is because he is newly mated to his Catherine and likely she took full advantage of his devotion last evening.”

  “Stefano, enough,” said
his mate. “Do not embarrass Catherine.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Louisa,” said Catherine. “I’ve already grown used to hearing the DeMedici men tout their own prowess in bed. But I wonder, Stefano, if Louisa would attest to your abilities in that regard. I can assure you that your brother’s legendary status as the ultimate lover is greatly deserved and vastly underrated.”

  Stefano seemed a bit outraged at both her tone and her words.

  Griffin pounded the table, laughing. “Well said, Catherine.”

  Marco set a plate full of tantalizing food in front of her and sat down beside her.

  “Your mate,” said Stefano in a scolding tone, “should learn her place where other alphas are concerned.”

  Marco stilled her retort before saying, “In case you missed it, brother, my mate is an alpha in her own right and you sit at her table. Perhaps it is you who needs to be reminded of his place.”

  “And perhaps,” said Catherine sweetly, “the two of you could just take them out, put them on the table, and measure them to settle the dispute.”

  Marco and Stefano looked at her in outrage. The others at the table all began laughing riotously. The two brothers looked at each other and joined in the humor.

  “It would seem, sister, I underestimated your strength and resiliency. You will need both to survive being mated to Marco,” said Stefano with affection in his voice.

  “Perhaps, but it was his strength and virility I enjoyed throughout the night.”

  Stefano laughed. “You, my brother, married a spitfire. And you, my love,” he said, turning to his mate, “do not need to emulate her.”

  “I don’t know,” she said sweetly, “she seems to be having a great deal of fun and is already much loved and respected by her people.”

  Stefano took Louisa’s hand in his and brought it to his lips. “As are you and most of all by your mate.”

  Catherine glanced at Sera, who appeared to be fascinated.

  “Don’t you just love male displays of testosterone?” Catherine said to Sera.

  “Actually on the way here, I was worried that you might find life out here too quiet for your liking, but after the party last night and this morning’s shenanigans, I’m beginning to think you’ll have far more fun out here.” Sera looked directly at Marco. “You do plan to continue to spoil her rotten, right?”