Shoving those thoughts aside, because they were, thankfully, in the past, I waded into the water, content when I was up to my waist in it.
I turned and grimaced when I realized Eli was in the pool up to his thighs, and he was drenched now.
Wincing, I muttered, “Sorry.”
“You never have to apologize,” was all he said, and as lovely as that was, I shook my head at him.
“That isn’t fair.”
He arched a brow. “Isn’t that for me to decide?”
His snooty tone, despite my distress, made me snort out a laugh. “You’re so arrogant sometimes,” I commented softly, my grin widening, and the fact that it could make an appearance at all was enough to blow my mind straight out of my ears.
Okay, I sounded hysterical, and I was a little.
I was all over the place, and I felt winded.
I’d left this place with a broken mate in my arms, and now I was here with another, and he needed answers and wanted things explained to him, but I had no words.
I could only giggle and tell him he was arrogant.
I almost slapped myself in the face, but instead, I let myself flop backward and float in the water.
I heard him wade back to shore, and was grateful he gave me a handful of moments to get myself together.
Composed I definitely wasn’t, but I knew I needed to be. I needed this to be our time, because that was what this was supposed to be.
What the fuck was even happening here?
How had things morphed so fast?
I’d felt rested and loved, warm and happy, and now, I just felt traumatized.
This place was spoiled, and I was angry at that, annoyed and raging because this was supposed to be precious.
I smacked my hands flat against the pool, appreciating the splash and enjoying the way that the water cascaded over me.
I wanted to scream and rage my annoyance, but I didn’t.
Instead, I just took some deep breaths, floated a little, then a thought hit me.
Eli was probably stripping.
The thought made me feel terrible, especially considering how out of whack my brain was, but I couldn’t stop myself from rolling my chin forward so I could look at him.
He was dragging off his jacket now, and I caught him just in time to see him drop it on the ground.
When it disappeared, as had mine and Austin’s clothes, I laughed because he muttered, “What the fuck?”
I grinned and snapped my head back down when I knew he was going to glance over at me to ask me what had just happened.
When he grunted, thinking I was still having a ‘moment,’ I quickly peered up again and saw him strip off his tie. That hit the ground and disappeared too.
My lips twitched as he scowled, peering around him like a pixie or a sprite was there and stealing his clothes away from him. I dropped my head back into the water again when he looked over at me.
I could sense his movements in a way I hadn’t been able to before I’d come to this horrible fucking place.
Being claimed by Austin had probably done it, or maybe communing with the spirit of the totem, or perhaps it was just my becoming more comfortable with my she-wolf while I was here. I had no idea what the reason was, just knew it was the truth.
I quickly peeked up at him when I knew he was working on his pants. They were wet rags around his thighs, and I knew he was going to find them hard to drag off.
Wishing he’d turn around so I could see his ass, because that was a thing of beauty, I watched as he began to slide them down his legs, revealing long, strong muscles that made me think, shit, I shouldn’t be thinking right now.
Not when I was in the middle of commuted hysteria.
Still, he was so fine that I just wished Austin was here and Ethan too, because then I’d know everything was well. I wouldn’t have to worry about a pack of wolves coming out of the trees to attack us.
Maybe we’d been short-sighted staying close to the pool. Maybe we should have gone and explored, but there’d been no ants, no bugs, no fucking anything. Not even birds.
Why the hell would there be none of that, no rabbits or mice, but there’d be wolves? Didn’t the wolves frickin’ eat here?
As I started to get worked up again, I watched him and had to admit that just viewing him was enough to right my mood. Not only because he was hotness personified, but because he was inadvertently funny.
Plus, he gave me the show I was asking for. When his pants were around his ankles, and he toed off his shoes and socks, which miraculously didn’t disappear, he leaned up on tiptoe, then somehow did this quick swipe so the fabric didn’t brush the ground. It worked. He didn’t lose them.
I sensed his triumph, and as I wondered what his next move was, I watched him pull off the other pant leg too. He kept the fabric bundled in his hands, holding it off the ground like the ground was a crocodile’s mouth or something.
The sight of which, of course, made me want to laugh.
When he turned around, he finally gave me a glimpse of that fine naked butt. He was also commando, which meant, had I known earlier, I could have pulled down his fly while he was dressing me up like I was a child and grabbed a hold of the good stuff. Yum.
Holding that thought for another time, I watched as he strode over to a nearby tree. This one had dark green leaves with a petrol blue sheen that reminded me of when gas was on the road, gleaming iridescently when the light hit it at unusual angles. He went to hang out his pants, trying to keep them all neat like, and then he hung them over a low-lying branch.
I couldn’t stop myself from snorting when the magic immediately snatched them away from him.
He heard me, naturally, and grumbled, “What is it with this place?”
“It wants us to be naked.”
That had him scoffing, “Why? What’s wrong with clothes?”
“Clothes maketh the man?” I teased.
“Yes. Exactly. What is this place anyway?” he asked, scowling around, evidently finding no beauty in the glorious pond, on the hunt only for threats.
I got the sense he was at the end of his patience, and that he needed answers about this world he suddenly found himself in.
I had to admit, his tolerance in the face of where we’d landed, and what had happened in the run up to his popping in here like he was a genie in a bottle, had been far more extensive than I’d thought him capable of.
Amused and touched and grateful, I stopped floating and righted myself so that my feet touched the bottom of the pond. There, soft pebbles greeted my toes, and I curled them around the smooth stones, anchoring myself as I kept my chin dipped in the water.
“It’s another time, another place.”
That was what Austin and I had taken to calling it.
“Another time and another place? This isn’t The Wizard of Oz, Sabina,” he said drolly, peering around as he began to unfasten his last remaining item of clothing—a shirt. Yep, he’d been walking around Risky Business style, only without the socks. “I mean, where is it?”
“I don’t know. We never found out.” I turned my head to the side a little and mused, “I never would have taken you for a fan of The Wizard of Oz.”
He stilled at that, then sighed. “I left myself open to that one, didn’t I?”
I grinned, hidden by the water line, and bounced up only to shrug and say, “Well, I mean, we have nothing else to do other than get to know one another.”
“My mother loved it. I hated it. That’s pretty much all there is to that conversation.” He arched a brow, like he was daring me to continue talking about this subject and, naturally, because I was difficult, I had to do that. Had no choice but to test him and tease him.
It hit me then, that unlike Austin, who needed me to shore him up, who needed to believe he was special to me, unique when he wasn’t in his own eyes, Eli had none of those issues.
He was self-assured to the max, and maybe with another person, he’d come across as a dick, and I gues
sed, even to me, he was slightly, with his habit of trying to command every situation, but I figured that was my role…to prove to him that he didn’t always have to command the situation. There was more to life than being a leader.
I wondered if he knew that. Wondered if he’d appreciate me telling him that.
After all, it wasn’t fact, could even be fiction. I had no real idea why we were here. Had no cognizance of the true reason we were brought here during the claiming.
Into my thoughts, my muddled ones, Eli muttered, “Father mentioned that when he was with mother, the claiming was surreal.”
I snorted at the understatement. “Surreal? That pretty much sums it up.”
He hummed, and that was as much of an answer as I got when he folded up his shirt and rested it on the branch, only for that to go bye-bye as well.
Sniggering a little, which made bubbles pop in the water, I watched him heave a sigh, reach up and pinch the bridge of his nose like he was trying not to lose his shit, then suck in a large breath before he began to stride over to the pool.
As he waded in once more, I appreciated him, truly appreciated his majesty.
What a treat I was in for.
His body was dusky in color. Golden, but like he had a hint of Native American in him along the way, a thought that was confirmed when I took in the smattering of hair on his chest, the way it gathered under his arms, and nowhere else. That black was so dense, it had to be native, and he was all the more beautiful to me because I hadn’t known that. His face was a pale olive, and his hair was a rich, deep onyx. His muscles were thick and roped around his body, making me long to explore them with my tongue. And how he moved, making each of them flex, had him exuding a power that was undeniable.
I was, I’d admit, in awe of him. And even as a part of me—the she-wolf—wanted to leap on to him, it felt wrong.
Weird.
Austin had just been in a fight for our lives, and in another place, he was injured and recuperating while my third mate was watching over him, waiting for me to return for him.
To claim him.
Because that was what this was.
I knew that like I knew nothing else.
They’d all spoken of claiming me, and while that was the case physically, in every other sense, that wasn’t true.
Spiritually, emotionally, I’d done that, and I had to figure that this entire situation—as much of a dream-slash-nightmare combination as it was—was what it was all about.
About us getting closer, about me coming into my powers. About my being tied to them and to the Mother in ways they would never understand.
Which meant, horrendously enough, I knew there’d be another scenario like what had happened with Austin.
My heart rate plummeted at the thought as I longed for the innocence of what I’d had with Austin. Those initial days were filled with peace and tranquility, a joie de vivre that would be impossible to replicate, especially now that I knew that things could be turned on their heads in an instant.
I sucked in a breath as he moved toward me though, and even as stressed as I was, even as my brain struggled to deal with what had just happened moments ago, the urge to be in his arms was so powerful I couldn’t fight it.
I moved over to him, drifting through the water as he walked toward me.
There was fire in his eyes, a fire that would cleanse and reset me, but mostly, I saw something else.
I saw a need for me that went beyond sex.
A need that would tie him to me, and me to him. That would ground him.
It was lonely at the top, and Eli had it lonelier than most, with his strength and with how he’d shifted so early. Then with the covenant not granting him a mate, he’d had to fight for every last thing by being the strongest of them all.
I wanted to be that one person who could make everything better, and I hoped I could do that. Truly, I did.
Maybe it was a lot of pressure, but I didn’t think so.
If I was born to be able to deal with all of this, then wasn’t I born to handle him? To give him exactly what he needed, and for him to give me the same?
So, when we collided, it wasn’t a kiss that would let the world end around us without us knowing, it was me sliding into his arms, my slick body against his, his against mine, and his arms curving around me, providing me with a shelter I knew would always be there.
It would never go away.
He would never leave me.
Fuck, just knowing that I’d never be alone again, that I’d always have these men, him, with me?
It made me cry.
Honest to God cry.
With how overwhelming things had been after the wolf attack, with fearing for Austin and now being plunked here once more to deal with round two of whatever the fuck the Mother cooked up, I needed the solace of his embrace more than I needed my next breath.
He pressed a kiss to my head, then held the back of my skull to him, so when he sank down into the water, I didn’t even yelp in surprise, I just went with him.
His dick was there, and he was rocking a semi-boner, which I knew was his natural response to me, but it wasn’t like he was pushing things. It wasn’t like he was making me aware of it either.
His dick, my tits, the parts that made us sexual creatures, they were just there.
We were mates in another way at that moment.
Our souls collided as I sank into him and gifted him with my trust.
“He’ll be okay,” Eli assured me, his words soft, his tone husky. “Trust me, those boys have been getting into worse shit since the day they were born.”
His words had me reaching up to slide a hand over my wet cheek, knuckling the silly tracks away as I chuckled. “I’ll bet. You’ve been watching over them for a long time?”
He snorted. “Since the start. I’ve always liked them. I didn’t piece things together for a while, of course, but I have a connection with them, and they have one with me. They just always thought it was because I was the strongest in the pack, that they were tied to me through our wolves, and their wolves knew I was the more dominant of them all.
“But I knew otherwise. I’ve always watched over them and given them things to do to keep them out of trouble.”
I peered up at him, settling my side into him. I could feel his abs against the flat of my palm, and he was literally muscle everywhere. With a face like the 49ers’ quarterback, Eli was one of the three most beautiful men on the planet by looks alone, but this went deeper.
His eyes were a thousand shades of green. His nose was strong, Roman, but it led to tawny brows that shadowed the crevices of his eyes, giving him a darkness that could be spooky if you were on his bad side.
His mouth was so soft, so kissable, but his smile and those eyes? Kind. They held traces of both, even though I knew his temper was quick to stir. Hadn’t I seen that last night?
I thought about that, even as I reached up and traced his bottom lip.
While he tensed some, I felt his control clamp down. Felt it in how his entire being grew rock-hard—his dick included. Until, out of nowhere, he began to soften.
I’d already known the three of them had impeccable control, but to literally feel him control his fucking erection?
I wasn’t sure whether I was impressed or wanted to pout.
I mean, I wasn’t starting something, but the need to touch him was imperative.
Just being in his arms, on his lap, made me feel a whole helluva lot better.
I stopped touching him because I didn’t want him to think I was leading us somewhere I genuinely wasn’t ready for. I needed a time out, but I wanted it with him. Here, like this.
So I tucked my face against his throat as I nestled my head against his shoulder, and murmured, “I can’t imagine them as troublemakers.”
He chuckled. “That’s because you didn’t see them when they were fourteen. Rebekkah had no control over them. My father was a dick to do what he did. He had to know that alpha children need mor
e care than the lesser ranks.”
My brows rose at that. “They do?”
“Yeah. Especially from the same gendered parent. For them to have to do without their father, an alpha, was really hard, and I tried to pick up the strain, but there was only so much I could do.”
“Why?”
“Because Father loathed them.” He sucked in a breath. “Now that I have you, I kind of understand, but after last night’s conversation, I was thinking about it, and I realized that if you needed a fourth mate to ground you, if you were truly so powerful that it kept you sane and healthy? I’d deal with it, even if I truly hope it never happens. I’d have to. For you.
“Which,” he grunted, “tells me that my father was a prick, and while I always knew that, it sucks because I did love him. He was a good father to me, but he was a shit alpha for the pack.”
“You can right his wrongs,” I rasped, feeling his irritation and wanting to soothe him.
“I can only try.” He sighed. “Anyway, when they were fourteen, they’d get into the worst shit in school. I had to take them under my wing—had no choice, or they’d have been expelled. Pulling stupid pranks—”
“Ethan?” I jerked back to gape at him. “Ethan was pulling pranks?”
“He wasn’t always the Tin Man he looks like now,” he said dryly. “Back then, he was a real piece of work.”
“What changed?”
He shrugged. “A girl. He got all serious with someone, and then she found her mate. It made him turn to books.”
My nose crinkled at that. “I’m jealous. How stupid is that?”
He shrugged. “Not stupid.” He pulled a similar move as I had earlier—ran his finger along my bottom lip—then he tapped it. “I wish you’d never lost your child, sweetheart, but my jealousy wishes that it’d been mine.”
My eyes prickled with tears. A few days ago, I’d probably have taken that the wrong way. But now? I got it.
I did.
They hadn’t come to me pure, and I wouldn’t be going to them the same way either, and we both accepted that, but it didn’t stop the wolves inside us from demanding more. Demanding everything.
WOLF CHILD: A PNR RH Romance (The Year of the Wolf Book 1) Page 21