by Emilia Rose
I loved Charolette, but I didn’t want Aurora to use the stone to save her. There had to be another way. If Aurora took out her stone, she wouldn’t be able to walk, never mind shift. And while I’d make sure she had the best life possible, I didn’t want her to be bound to a wheelchair or to a bed for the rest of her life.
My wolf could barely handle seeing our mate not able to shift. He really wouldn’t be able to handle her not able to walk.
She tilted her head toward me and placed a lingering kiss on my neck, right over the mark she’d left on me last night. I moved my head to the side and pulled her closer to me, letting her suck it softly.
Last night had been perfect—before she asked me to use her stone. She had marked me, I had gotten a chance to show it off to everyone, she’d finally stood up to her dad, and I’d found out that her brother was alive. Hell, I was still in shock at everything that had happened, especially—she drew her tongue against my mark—that.
“Kitten,” I mumbled.
She climbed on top of me, her breasts grazing against my bare chest. Ruffles meowed at her and hopped off the bed, annoyed. Aurora ignored her and sat up taller, grinding her hips back and forth against mine.
“Alpha,” she whispered.
I placed my hands on her waist, loving the way she touched me like she owned me.
“Let’s go for a run.”
“It’s barely even morning.”
She kissed me again. “Guess that means we’ll have the whole forest to ourselves.” She hopped off me and pulled on a thin white crop top from the closet. Her breasts bounced against it, nipples hard. “None of your warriors will interrupt you.”
I sat back on my elbows and cocked a brow at her. “Interrupt me from doing what?”
“From stopping by the lake, ripping off my clothes, and getting wet,” she said.
But I wanted to do more than that to her, especially with how she was dressed.
She smirked back at me. “That’s if you can catch me, Alpha.”
My lips curled into a smirk, and a chuckle made its way to my mouth. She slammed the door and sprinted down the hallway. I tugged on a pair of shorts and let her get a good distance into the woods before I chased her out.
The forest was silent this morning, only birds chirping in the distance. I growled lowly, so she knew I was coming and then followed her lovely lemony scent.
There was no if I could catch her.
There was only when I caught her and what I’d do with her when I did.
Though the woods were relatively clear by the pack house, the farther we ran, the foggier it got. Perfect to sneak up on my mate. Her footsteps came to a halt, and I crept around her, careful not to make noise.
“Mars?” she whispered through the mind link. “I think I’m—”
I sneaked up behind her and pushed her against the nearest tree, pressing my hips against hers. “Think you could outrun me, Kitten?” I asked, fingers trailing dangerously up the column of her fragile neck. “Did you think I’d let you run away from me after you marked me last night?”
She pressed her thighs together, and I could just about taste the juices running down them. I harshly brushed my thumb against her jaw, my teeth grazing against her ear.
“You should’ve run faster,” I said. “I like chasing you.”
“Yeah?” she asked breathlessly. “Why’s that?”
“Because when I finally catch you, I get to hear you purr for me.”
I trailed my fingers down the center of her chest and slipped them into her shorts, touching her clit. Digging her claws into the tree bark, she tensed and tried to breathe steadily.
“Come on, Kitten,” I murmured against her ear, rubbing my fingers harder against her clit. “Purr.” I strummed my fingers against her bare neck, right where I’d claim her soon. “Do it for me.”
One finger slipped inside of her, then another, and another. She arched her back ever so slightly and moaned for me.
I ground my hips against hers and smirked against her neck. “That wasn’t hard, was it?”
She reached behind and grasped my cock through my shorts. “Please.”
I pushed down her shorts, placed my hand on her lower back, and made her arch harder. “What was that?” I asked, pulling out my cock and rubbing the head against her wetness.
“Please.”
“Please what?”
“Please, Alpha.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, I drove myself into her. Her whole body shuddered against mine, her pussy tightening. I growled lowly to hold back my groan and let her move her hips back and forth against me.
“This doesn’t change my mind,” I said, turning her around so she was facing me, grasping her hips, and thrusting my cock back into her. “I won’t let you risk your life for my sister.” I pumped deeper inside of her, groping her breasts. “Because there are only two times I want to see you unable to move, unable to stand, and unable to fight me, Kitten.” I wrapped my hand around her neck and brushed my thumb against Ares’s mark. “After I fuck you,” I said into her ear. “And when your stomach is swollen with my pups.”
Lips parted slightly, eyes a hazy blue, she curled her fingers into my chest and clenched hard on my cock.
“You like that, don’t you?” I asked, brushing two fingers against her clit. “You want to carry my pups?”
She moaned quietly and sucked her bottom lip between her teeth.
“Louder,” I said, feeling the pressure in my dick.
She buried her face into my chest, her pussy tightening even harder on my cock, and moaned louder.
I pounded into her faster and faster until I was about to come. “Do you want me to come down this pretty throat of yours? Or do you want me to come deep in your pussy?” I asked, edging myself.
She furrowed her brows. “Come inside of me.”
“Then, beg for it,” I growled against her ear, not knowing if I could wait that long. “I want to hear my luna begging to be filled with my cum. I want your claws digging into my chest. I want you to call me Alpha.”
“Please, Alpha …” she breathed, her body trembling. “Please, come inside of me. I’ll come with you. Just”—another pant—“please, come.”
Groaning against her, I stilled and felt my cock pulsing inside her tight little hole. She cried out and dug her fingers into my chest. I could feel my cum starting to coat the folds of her pussy.
After slowly pulling out of her and letting her watch every inch of my cock slide out, I pulled one of her legs into the air. “Watch my cum leak out of you,” I said.
She gazed down at her pussy creamed with my cum. The cum dripped from her mound onto the ground, and her pussy quivered even more as she watched.
“Look how much of my cum you’ve taken today.” I brushed two fingers against her inner thigh, catching my cum on them. I wanted to stuff my fingers into her mouth and tell her to suck them, but I pressed them against her entrance. “While I love to see my cum run down your thighs, Kitten”—I plunged my fingers deeper inside of her and curled them against her G-spot—“I like rubbing it into your wet little cunt better.”
Chapter 46
Ares
After we returned to the pack house, Aurora and I showered together. I grabbed a towel, wrapped it around my waist, and stepped out of the steamy shower. Ruffles sat on the counter, licking the condensation off the mirror.
“We still need to find the person who betrayed us,” I said, my thoughts lost in the limited possibilities of how Tony had found out about Mom.
Nobody in my pack talked to outsiders about Mom’s death. Nobody in my pack talked to many outsiders, period. We stayed together, bonded together, hunted together. That was how we remained strong.
But someone had betrayed us, and I had to find out who.
Aurora shut the water off, hopping out after me and arching her brow at the one and only towel wrapped around my waist. Her hair was wet and plastered to her tits. “What’d you do with the other
towel?”
I smirked at her. “Looks like you’re going to have to walk around the house, naked.”
“And have one of your warriors come in and see me?” she asked. “Fine by me.”
I growled and tossed her my towel. “Go get dressed before I tear the damn towel off you and fuck you again. And this time, I won’t be gentle,” I warned.
She wiped the beads of water off her body and then wrapped it around her hair. “That wouldn’t be a bad thing, would it?” After winking at me, she walked into the bedroom, leaving her lemony scent all over.
My wolf growled lowly, watching her hips sway from side to side. I grabbed another towel from the closet and dried myself off. Ever since she had marked me, I had this insatiable urge to fuck her whenever, wherever.
Mars might’ve wanted to take it somewhat slow with her, but I wanted her carrying my pups soon. I didn’t want to wait. We had no reason to … except that fucking traitorous prick who had sold us out to Aurora’s old pack and Tony.
Tony could rot with the hounds for all I cared, but I needed to figure out who the fuck had told him about Mom. Only someone in this pack had that kind of information, and I’d made sure of that, so nobody could use it against me.
When I finished drying off, I walked back into the bedroom to find Aurora standing at our door in a skimpy tank-top and a pair of shorts in front of Elijah.
I growled and curled my arm around my mate to pull her out of sight from him. “What the fuck are you doing in my pack house?”
Aurora pulled a shirt over her head and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Ares, it’s okay. I asked him to come over. I need to tell him about”—she paused, her eyes glistening like they had last night—“about Jeremy.”
Elijah’s eyes widened. “About Jeremy? What about him?”
She stepped between us and grabbed Elijah’s hands. “Jeremy is … alive.”
Elijah tensed and stepped back. “Don’t fuck with me like that, Aurora. It’s not fucking funny. I watched him die.” He shook his head and tugged on his dark facial hair. “He’s not alive. He can’t be.”
Aurora grabbed his hands back. “I saw him. He saved me during the attack.”
“Why didn’t he come see me or you?” Elijah whispered.
I eyed their contact, getting agitated at how close he was to her. All my wolf wanted to do was rip them apart, take Aurora back to bed, and fuck her senseless yet again, just to make sure she knew that she was mine, but I held myself back.
“The ston—”
“Ares!” someone yelled from down the hall.
I blew a breath out of my nose and pulled on a pair of jeans.
Marcel appeared behind Elijah with his jaw clenched and his arms crossed over his chest. “I found the fucking rat.”
I stepped beside Aurora and out of the room, adrenaline pumping through me. It was about time someone had found his fucking ass. I was ready to beat whoever it was to a pulp and demand to know why they had done it.
“Marcel!” Charolette shouted, stomping up the stairs. “Why did you leave—” She turned the corner, saw me, and pressed her lips together.
It was almost seven in the morning. What were Marcel and Charolette doing together?
Marcel flared his nostrils and clenched his jaw harder, not sparing her a glance.
“Who’s the rat?” Aurora asked, breaking the silence.
Marcel clenched his fists. “That fuckin’ rogue the warriors escorted home from Hound Territory when we brought Aurora back.”
“Oh my Goddess,” Aurora said quietly, her eyes widening. “That rogue is still here?” I could hear her heart racing and could feel her hurting. She wrapped her arms around herself, as if she was in pain. “This is all my fault. I can’t believe it. I … this …” She stared up at me in tears. “Ares, I’m so sorry. I should’ve told you sooner.” Her hands trembled slightly. “She’s working with Tony … or at least, she’s in contact with him.”
Aurora knew that this rogue was working with Tony? When? How?
“I’m sorry. It slipped my mind. So much has happened, and I … I’m sorry. It’s my fault.”
I shook my head. “Still, it shouldn’t matter. Liam has been watching over her since we got here. Even if she was working with Tony, she couldn’t have known what had happened with my mom. Nobody in this pack tells outsiders shit.”
Charolette stepped forward. “Wait, Liam is watching her?” she asked, brows furrowed together in confusion. She stood oddly close to Marcel, her shoulder brushing against his. “We went over to visit her the other day to welcome her to the pack, and he acted like he had never seen her.”
It wasn’t a secret that Liam had been checking up on the rogue almost every night, so why had he kept it from Charolette? He usually shared everything with her.
“That fuckin’ son-of-a-bitch,” Marcel said, storming down the hall.
Liam was my second-in-command and had all my trust, but he’d kept something this big from Charolette? I didn’t know what it was, but it didn’t feel right. Whatever the reason for Liam hiding something this big from her … I needed to find out myself. And if he had betrayed us and told the rogue about my family, then we’d have bigger problems than him lying to my sister.
Chapter 47
Aurora
Marcel flung the front door open, nearly taking it off its hinges, and sprinted out into the forest.
Charolette still stood in the hallway, rocking back and forth on her heels. “No … no, this can’t be happening. Why would Liam do this? He’s a good guy. He’s our beta.”
By the mere look on her face, I could tell that she was thinking the worst. But if Ares had lied about knowing another woman and had been checking up on her without my knowledge, I would be thinking the worst too.
I grabbed Charolette’s hand and hurried through the woods, following the hazelnut trail.
“I want more information on Jeremy.” Elijah hurried right by my side. “But we have more pressing matters. The hounds didn’t attack last night. They just camped out by my property. I didn’t engage … but something isn’t right,” he said, his voice heavy with concern. “They’re planning something, something terrible, and I can’t figure out what it is.”
Deeper into the forest, someone growled.
“Marcel,” Charolette whispered and sprinted away from me.
And though she might love Liam, her heart belonged to Marcel. It always had, and it always would.
Grabbing Elijah’s hand, I pulled him as fast as I could run in human form. “Did you see Tony?” I asked, brows drawn together.
There must be something more going on because it was unusual for the hounds to camp out near a pack and not attack it.
“I haven’t seen him, but I heard that he was spotted with hounds.”
I cursed under my breath and clenched my free hand into a fist.
What was Tony’s damn problem? Why had he betrayed his own people? Had the hounds promised him something? My stomach tightened. Maybe they had promised him the Malavite Stone—the one Jeremy had.
But it still didn’t make sense. Tony had always lusted over my place as alpha, but he knew about the stone in my back. If he’d wanted just the stone, he could’ve killed me for half of it.
What’d Tony want?
Power? The hounds were some of the most feared creatures in Sanguine Wilds.
Reputation? He had blown that the moment he ran from the hound attack.
Me? I blew a breath from my nose. Well, he had tried to protect me from the hound attack, had tried to get me back from Ares by pinning the stone on Elijah even though he knew I had it, had purposefully tried to get Ares to lose control just to show me how unstable he was.
Maybe the hounds had promised him the other half of the stone for me.
It might be the craziest thing I had come up with, but it was the only damn thing that made sense at the moment.
Charolette disappeared into a house that had its door wide open, and suddenly, Liam was t
hrown through the front window. He landed with a thud on the grass, glass raining down around him, completely naked and … hard. Elijah grabbed my hand and stopped me in the middle of the street, watching the drama unfold.
Marcel leaped through the window in his human form, stalking around Liam, who had stumbled to his feet.
“Do you know how fucking much she loves you?” Marcel shouted, the vein in his neck pulsing violently.
Charolette appeared at the front door again with Ares behind her. He had a look on his face that told me he wanted to kill, slaughter, and take Liam’s head for something.
The woman rogue stepped past him, trying to button up her shirt, and Charolette lunged at her, but Ares held her back.
Oh my Goddess. Liam had been doing more than just telling pack secrets. He was cheating.
Marcel threw Liam to the ground, straddled his waist, and rained down fists on his face. Blood spewed everywhere. Bones cracked. Teeth broke. Liam tried helplessly to get Marcel off him, but Marcel refused to budge.
“Do you know how fuckin’ much she does for you? And you repay her by fucking the woman you were supposed to be watching as the beta? You’re a fuckin’ ”—punch—“no good”—punch—“piece of shit.”
Liam lay lifelessly underneath Marcel.
With swollen biceps, a twitching jaw, and golden eyes, Marcel pulled him up by his throat. “You’re not getting off the hook that fuckin’ easily.”
“Alpha Ares,” a warrior said through the mind link.
I listened through the pack mind link, as this was one of the first times I could listen through it since our mating bond was complete, and hoped that there was nothing to worry about because we couldn’t deal with another problem at the moment.
But I was wrong. So terribly, terribly wrong.
“There is a hound at our border. Not showing signs of aggression, but he wants entry.”