“Okay, Eli, I won’t walk before I can run,” he repeated carefully, like he didn’t want to mess up. Then, he cleared his throat. “Eli?”
“Yes, Daniel?”
“I can walk already.”
Eli’s lips curved. “I know. It’s just a saying. You need to get used to walking as a wolf, before you can run as one. You see what I mean?”
Daniel took a big bite of his burger as he contemplated that. “I think I do,” he said, with his face now covered in ketchup to the extent where he looked like he was eating rare, bloody steak.
I had to admit, whatever I’d expected for a birthday meal, it wasn’t this.
Something quiet, something small.
Just us.
With Daniel.
Who didn’t really count, because he fit in.
It was weird how he did.
How right it felt to have him here.
I’d figured he’d cramp our style, but he didn’t. Even though his alpha was strong enough to rub our wolves the wrong way, it didn’t seem to matter.
I was glad for his sake though.
The meal ended with a massive sundae that had more toppings and candy on it than I could imagine, served with a slice of cake that had more buttercream frosting on it than actual cake, and it was then it hit me.
This was what every kid would want for a birthday meal.
Just looking at Daniel told me that. He was in a catatonic state of bliss as he scooped up the mountains of ice cream, syrup, candy, and brownie bites…
This was for the kids in us.
The kids who hadn’t been allowed to be that for too long before our culture had started to batter us.
Mother blessed, we were lucky men.
Lucky, lucky men to have a mate like this at our side.
And I’d never forget that.
Not as long as we lived.
Sixteen
Ethan
When I plunged into her, she was slick and hot, full of a fire that branded me. It filled me with a heat that melted the ice that took up such a large part of my soul and spilled out of my pores, enabling me to be me when I was around her.
The true me.
A side of myself that I only recognized around her.
A side that was free from the pack’s prejudices, that was uncaring over whether I was liked or disliked. That was liberated from a lifetime of being ostracized.
Knowing who I was, that we were tied to Eli, that we were mated to this glorious woman, was all I needed to know—that my past had caught up with me in the best way imaginable.
I blew out a breath as I settled in deep, and I wasn’t, I’d admit, surprised when I heard footsteps padding toward us.
Sabina’s bedroom was a communal space. Over the past two weeks since we’d been mated, we’d taken turns sleeping with her. I wasn’t sure when that would change. Didn’t know if it even would.
We were all alphas. All used to having our own dens, our own areas that weren’t tainted with others, so maybe this would always be how it worked…for Eli in particular.
Austin and I were a little different.
I’d wondered when he’d come to us, and I wasn’t surprised it was tonight on our birthday.
Not because he wanted a birthday gift in Sabina’s body too, but because he was as messed up over things as me.
She twisted her head to look at him, and her cheeks instantly heated up in a way that had me burrowing my face in her throat, hiding a laugh as I sucked on her there, wanting to mark her for all to see.
“Austin?” she squeaked, making me laugh a little more, so much so that I couldn’t control my shaking shoulders.
Sabina slapped my back. “Stop giggling, you.”
“I’m an alpha,” I countered, though the words were muffled. “I don’t giggle.”
She sniffed. “I say you do.” She cleared her throat, which had her body doing interesting things beneath me, “What are you doing here, Austin?”
“I didn’t want to sleep alone tonight.”
She sighed at that, then mumbled, “I’m kind of in the middle of things.”
Austin snorted. “I can see that. Don’t worry. Carry on.”
“Carry on?” she echoed, bewildered. “With you watching?”
I nipped her throat. “Watching you be pleasured is something I’d like to enjoy too.”
Her mouth dropped open, and when I reared up to look at her, I had to stifle another laugh.
She looked like she’d swallowed a fish.
My lips twitched as I moved to kiss her cheek. “Don’t worry. Everything that happens in this room is all about pleasure, isn’t it? No shame, no fear. Just joy.”
She relaxed a little at my words. “No shame, no fear, just joy,” she repeated breathily. “I think I like the sound of that.”
Austin hummed as he walked toward the bed and climbed on it. She didn’t tense up, but she did twist a little to see him in the flickering firelight.
When he cuddled up close to her, I moved my head out of the way, knowing that he’d kiss her, soothe her.
She’d tightened up on me, her tension translating to inner tension, but I knew Austin would relax her.
Both of us were careful not to talk to one another because we were well aware she could hear, and the last thing either of us fucking needed was her knowing that this wasn’t the first time we’d done this.
Neither would it be the last.
I’d known the three of us would head down this path together, I just hadn’t thought it would be so close to the claiming.
Still, I got it.
Austin rarely let on about feeling vulnerable, but we hated our birthdays.
With a passion.
Rebekkah, I felt so much better calling her that and not mother, always forgot our fucking birthdays, and it had just been a nightmare at school for us.
In a pack school, birthdays were celebrated in class.
For us? It was a horror just unfolding before our eyes, because kids didn’t want to celebrate the twin freaks’ birthdays.
Memories and kids were both bitches.
Not wanting to lose my erection, not when my dick had breached heaven’s gate, I hummed as I started to nip at her throat again, sucking and laving as Austin began to twist her mind and make her breathless as he stole kisses from her.
I could feel the instant her body softened, her acceptance coming to the forefront as she opened up to me, her nails no longer digging into my spine as she relaxed and invited us both in.
Satisfied, I started to rock my hips, but I leaned down and began to suck on her tits too, nipping here and there, sucking hard and fast on her nipples, raking my teeth with them, until I heard her breath catch.
She moaned into Austin’s mouth before her hips started to rock back, arching up to meet me until she was as eager as I was.
A groan escaped me as she tightened that delicious pussy around my dick, and I curved up over her, putting my hands on either side of her arms so I could find my balance. Once I’d reached it, I pushed into her harder, grinding down as I leaned up on one hand and used the other to rub her clit.
She came within seconds, surging to that peak so fucking fast that I almost blinded myself in the fireworks that exploded to life in my head as I was drawn into the mix too.
With the knot, it wasn’t like in the past where we could screw and take turns. I’d be in her for hours now, but I figured Austin was aware of that and just wanted to hunker down with us.
As I groaned out my release, her high-pitched shriek had me wanting to laugh as she clung to me, clutching at me as the knot forged into being, triggering her second orgasm that made me cry out too.
“Fuck!” I ground out, my head falling back, neck arching as I dealt with the pummeling blows of pleasure on my nerve endings.
Jesus, that felt so good!
I roared with the release, not stopping until her pussy calmed around me, no longer drawing every ounce of cum from my balls.
As
the pleasure turned into a memory, I slumped on her before Austin helped roll me onto my back so she was draped over me like a blanket of warm female curves I would never be able to get enough of.
When he pressed a kiss between Sabina’s shoulders, I knew he wasn’t jealous or annoyed at not getting any. This was different.
This was our mate.
Things changed when you were mated.
Stuff like blowjobs and anal were no longer on the menu. Well, they were, but you couldn’t end that way.
You could start off with both before you had to go inside her pussy, because if you didn’t?
The knot would appear, and it didn’t take too kindly to not being able to burrow into the female. I knew Austin didn’t feel like spending the rest of his birthday with an ice pack on his dick.
“What happens?” Sabina asked, and I felt my balls crawl into my body.
How much she could hear of our thoughts wasn’t something any of us had figured out yet. But it was disconcerting to say the least.
“I can hear plenty,” she mumbled. “But I give you privacy. Just not so easy when my brain is mush.”
“What are you talking about?” Austin questioned softly, and I felt him roll onto his side as he spoke.
I cleared my throat. “I was thinking about… Well, remember old Bill Levers?”
Austin snorted. “Levers is famous, bro. How could I forget?”
“Yeah, well, tell Sabina the tale.”
Another snort escaped him. “You were thinking about knots?”
“I was thinking about knots,” I confirmed.
Austin laughed. “When Levers got older, he said he couldn’t get it up as much so he took some Viagra.”
“That works on shifters?” she queried, her voice drowsy.
“You’d be surprised what works and what doesn’t,” I said dryly. “Viagra does to a point, but we’re not supposed to take it.”
“For reasons which I will explain,” Austin interjected, and I was glad because I didn’t have the energy to say shit, never mind tell a story, but then Austin was damn good at sharing stories.
I could remember being a kid when he’d talk me to sleep some nights, speaking about this and that.
The memory was a pleasant one, and it had me smiling into Sabina’s hair.
“So, Levers took some without telling his mate, and he kept having random erections throughout the day. He kept her so fucking exhausted all day that neither of them realized the knot wasn’t functioning like normal.”
She gasped. “You’re kidding?”
“No. Levers said they were like jackrabbits—”
“He talked about this with people?” she demanded, outraged.
“Well, it was funny,” I mumbled. “Plus, he was warning us not to take Viagra. This was when it had just been released,” I tacked on with a little laugh.
“Anyway,” Austin rumbled, tapping her on the butt. “If I can continue…”
“Sorry,” she muttered, but I heard her smile.
“They were so tired they forgot about the knot, so when Levers got another hard-on, and his mate was too tired and sore to take him anymore, she clambered down the bed and sucked him off.”
“Oh God, what’s going to go wrong here?”
“The knot fused to her cheek.”
I started snickering, just remembering how Levers told the story, and how his mate, for months, hadn’t let him near her again.
He’d been a cautionary tale for a lot of men back then.
“To her cheek?” Sabina shrieked, jerking in my arms in response.
“Yeah. It was like a misfire. It wouldn’t normally do it.”
“It wouldn’t?”
“No. But because he’d fucked up his system, jacking it with Viagra, he made a clusterfuck of things.” Austin snickered. “So, his mate was tied to his dick like that for nearly thirty minutes—”
“Thank God it was only a half-hour! Your knots can take all night to let go of me.”
I hummed. “Sign of the strength of our bond, plus how strong we are as wolves. It’ll lessen with time, and with how often we mate.”
She rolled her eyes at that, muttering, “You get plenty,” before she carried on with, “Levers wasn’t an alpha?”
“No. If he was, his mate would have probably gnawed off his cock after the eighth hour,” Austin said, amused.
“That isn’t funny,” Sabina argued.
“It was at the time, primarily because Maggie May was the one who told most people about what happened, and Levers had to get up during a council meeting, explain everything, and tell us not to use Viagra.”
“Was this when Eli was alpha or his dad?” she questioned.
“His dad.” Austin snickered. “That was more hysterical than anything else. That old fucker was such a goddamn stickler.”
“He was the only one who wasn’t snickering that night.”
“Poor Maggie May.”
“Poor Levers,” I retorted. “One mistake, and he was denied access to his mate for over six months.”
“He deserved it,” she replied with a sniff, which made me roll my eyes.
“We can agree to disagree,” Austin countered with a snort. “Mates can’t be apart for that long.”
“Well, no,” she agreed softly, and I could tell she was thinking about being without us for that length of time. “But she was traumatized!”
“Hardly. A freight train through the living room wall wouldn’t faze Maggie May.” My lips twitched at Austin’s tone. “We need you to meet her properly. You’ll probably like her. She was the woman who spoke out at the pack meeting.”
“I remember her.” She cleared her throat. “Conrad attacked her, didn’t he?”
Was I surprised she’d learned about that? Not exactly. Still, I’d have preferred her not to know.
“We can take you to the diner tomorrow,” I concurred, changing the subject as I accepted that Sabina would like Maggie May’s inherent bluntness.
Sabina had to get to know the pack, and Maggie was a good way to start.
Though she and Levers weren’t high ranked, they worked the diner, and that meant their place was an unofficial meeting ground. Everyone knew them, and it was why, though poorly ranked, people tended to listen to them.
You never ignored the people who made your dinner. Especially not when their chicken pot pies were the best this side of the Columbia River.
I hummed. “You’ll like her, and I bet you’ll like her BLTs.”
She laughed. “If there are BLTs involved, then can we take Daniel too?”
“Of course. Kid needs to eat more.”
Since she’d wheedled Eli into taking the boy in, he’d managed to eat us out of house and home.
His metabolism was working extra time right now, and we all knew he’d be shifting soon. I figured that was why Eli had agreed to Sabina’s request, even though it was damn awkward in the midst of all the pack turmoil with the council.
Bringing in another alpha’s spawn, an alpha who was unpopular to boot, who’d lost a challenge, could never happen at a great time. But with the shit with the council too? Yeah, couldn’t be much worse.
Still, I got it.
Eli, more than anyone, knew what it was like to shift at such a young age, and Daniel needed all the help and support he could get.
That was why he was staying with us. I wasn’t sure if it was permanent or temporary, but knowing Sabina, it would be permanent.
Surprisingly, having the kid around didn’t irritate me. He was good and quiet, but just ate like a…you guessed it…wolf.
“Probably be good to introduce Daniel to Maggie too. She might settle things for him after he shifts and can take his place in school,” Austin reasoned.
“Yeah, good point.”
“I still don’t get why he can’t go to school—”
“Because he’s technically illegally here,” I interjected dryly.
“It’s not even a legal school,” she counter
ed.
And it wasn’t. The pack school wasn’t like a normal public school. All the kids were registered under human law as homeschooled, when really, we had our own system.
“He needs to be at home when he shifts,” Austin explained.
“When Eli was close to shifting, he didn’t go to school for around eight weeks.”
“Kali Sara, so long? He must have been lonely!”
Trust her to think that.
I’d never looked at it that way, mostly I’d been jealous about him getting to stay home from school, but now that I thought about it, in this great big house with a fucker for a father and a weak bitch for a mother—that wasn’t much fun.
Her hand glided down my arm, and I knew my bitterness had drifted into her awareness.
“Sorry,” I whispered.
“No need to apologize.”
Wasn’t there?
Merinda was still Eli’s mom.
He still respected her. I didn’t want to cause any tension between us with my inability to get over the fact we’d been dumped on Rebekkah like we were stray cats.
“It takes time,” she soothed, and it figured that Austin knew what we were talking about, because we were going through this together.
“I just find it hard to believe that all this time, he was watching over us and he never said anything.”
“You know how controlled he is, how he plays every move cautiously,” she replied. “I’m not surprised at all. It’s exactly the kind of thing he’d do.”
Austin sighed. “She isn’t wrong. Didn’t he put up with the council just because he didn’t want to upset his father’s memory while Merinda was around? Then, the second she was gone, he started stirring shit up.”
I hummed at the thought.
Eli was an odd man.
Sabina snorted. “That’s one way to phrase it. I don’t think he’s odd, more just unique.”
I jerked at how she picked up on that thought.
“He isn’t going to be like his father, but neither is he going to be as soft as taffy. He’s just Eli. He wants to see the best in people, he wants to give them enough rope to hang themselves and if they don’t, then he’s pleased. He’s very watchful, and he watched over you, making sure you had the support you needed, even if it wasn’t from the people who mattered the most.”
WOLF CHILD: A PNR RH Romance (The Year of the Wolf Book 1) Page 34