by Riley Moreno
Dalton stalked closer, inspecting the giant gash that had started to scab over on the top of her forehead.
“You need to clean up before the elders get here.” He threw her a sac filled with clothes and some other things, soap, some makeup.
“Why? I want them to see me like this, so they’ll know I’m telling the truth when I declare you a murder, and demand your execution. You should die for what you did to my father…”
Her words were cut off with a ringing blow to her already bruised cheek. He grinned down at her, the expression one of pure joy as she gasped, holding a hand to her face. Jana glared at him.
“The elders are coming because you and I are going to be mated.”
“Hah!” She spit the word out before she could think better of it, and cringed when he raised his hand again. She hated herself for that. “That’ll never happen, Dalton. Not in a million years.”
“No? I thought you might say that.” He pushed open the door, calling for Gray. The older wolf stepped into the trailer, looking haggard. He glanced at Jana, wincing slightly, and then straight at Dalton.
“What is it?”
“Sir. I told you to address me as ‘sir’.”
Jana saw Gray grit his teeth before replying. “What is it…sir?”
“That’s better,” Dalton said, and it sounded suspiciously like good boy. Gray stiffened his shoulders but didn’t say anything, just waited for his orders.
“My future mate needs a little encouragement.” He paused, placing a meaty hand to his chin in mock thought, “Oh, I’ve got it! You know that little cub she always fawned over, Isaac? The little one with blond hair and big blue eyes, just like her own.”
Jana swallowed hard. She and Isaac had bonded when she had found him crying after being made fun of because of his eye color. Blue was the rarest color among wolfs, most were brown or amber, sometimes lighter or darker. She didn’t know what Dalton was planning, but her stomach still twisted painfully. She knew it wouldn’t be good, and she was right.
“And then, what.” Gray paused, swallowing hard, “Sir?”
“If she doesn’t agree to be my mate, then kill him.”
“NO!” Jana cried, her heart breaking as Gray, pale faced and sad eyed, turned and left the trailer to get Isaac. “You can’t”
“Yes, I can. You see, Jana. I’m alpha now. I can do whatever I want.”
“It doesn’t matter, you’re too late, anyways!” She growled the words at him, unthinking.
“What do you mean, too late?”
“You’re too late, Dalton! I’m already mated.” Jana collapsed against the wall with a harsh chuckle as she finally accepted the truth her wolf half had been trying to tell her all along. “I’ll never be yours.”
“What!” He stormed forward, grabbing her hair in a painful gasp, her vision blurring when he pulled her back to her feet, sniffing at her. He let her go, and she slumped again as he took a hasty step back.
“I can smell him on you! Who is it? Tell me!” His face flashed fire red before he stopped. “It doesn’t matter. You’re mine now. We’ll perform the ceremony in front of the elders, and you will go along with everything I say. Then the rest of the pack will have no choice but to follow me. You have to listen to me, Jana,” His voice was soft, quiet, and it terrified her. “or Isaac is dead. And it will be your fault. Do you understand me?”
Dalton didn’t wait for an answer, just left her with one last warning to get cleaned up and dressed or he would come back and do it for her, and she wouldn’t like it one bit. Jana sighed, then went about washing off the now dried blood. The problem was, she believed him.
She wasn’t sure how much time passed, maybe an hour, maybe several, but eventually, Dalton came to collect her, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her out of the trailer. Jana squinted as her eyes adjusted to the painfully bright light.
She had done what she could with the makeup, but there was no covering up the massive bruise starting to form on her forehead, or across her arms, legs and torso. Luckily, the dress he had given her was full length, and had long sleeves. It was pale cream, the color of fresh snow. The customary dress a bride wore for the mating ceremony that would bind together the lifeblood of two wolves forever.
He jerked her forward, into the square and towards the rocky alcove that served as the sacred place of her pack. When new cubs were born, they were taken there to be initiated, and when old wolves died, that’s where the last rites would be spoken by the elders.
Jana had racked her muddled brain for an answer, for any escape, but she couldn’t let him kill Isaac. He was just an innocent cub. She had to find another way out of this. She prayed for Adrian and Gabe, missing them desperately, afraid she would never see them again. She knew they were probably frantic after she disappeared. She should have listened to her instinct and stayed with them. Should never have left their sides.
As they approached the alcove, Jana began to notice something. A stillness in the air as pack members began to circle around them, surrounding them until the entire pack was there, standing, watching, eerily silent.
“My people!” Dalton shouted, smiling, unseeing. “Where are the elders? It’s time for this joyous occasion to begin!” He jerked Jana forward, pretending to be holding her up, “I have found my mate!”
He glanced around at the still silent faces, his own smile beginning to fade as he finally sensed the tension hanging thick as honey in the air.
“What is it? You should be cheering me. I’m your Alpha!” The last was shouted with an edge of rage that had several of the pack taking a step back. Suddenly, a voice sounded from the front, old and wizened.
“You are not our Alpha, Dalton. You never were. You are corrupted!” He turned to face the Cora, the eldest, as she spoke again. Her voice sending waves of relief skittering through her.
“Release her!” Cora commanded, her voice as hard as steel.
“No! I am the Alpha! I killed Colt Dubois in challenge. You do what I say!” Desperation tinged his voice, making Jana pull away but his hand was still latched onto her arm, his fingers digging deep enough to leave bruises. The least of what he had done to her. She jerked her arm again.
“Let me go, Dalton. You’ve lost. Can’t you see that?” Jana taunted, struggling fiercely now as his grip tightened even more. He looked at her, his red rimmed yes daze, but then they filled with malicious intent as he stared at her.
“If I’ve lost, princess, then so have you!” He snarled as he threw her to the ground, leaping on her. He was going to kill her; she could see it clearly in his eyes. They were mad, completely mad, and she wondered if he had ever been sane. She fought back savagely, just as her father taught her, using her size and speed to her advantage, and as she feinted to the right, he did just as she expected, taking her move for weakness.
Surprise filled the bigger man’s eyes as she rolled with him, using his momentum against him until he was down on the ground on his back, dazed just long enough for her to grab a wickedly curved knife from the belt of someone in the crowd that had rushed in to help her.
Jana appreciated it, but as she held the blade against Dalton’s throat, images of him killing her father replaying over and over in her mind, she had only one thought. Revenge.
Hands gripping her, one at her shoulder and one at her wrist, stopped her. She looked up into the most beautiful faces, both staring down at her with identicall expressions of abating fear, and rising love.
“You don’t have to do this, Jana.” Adrian’s voice reached her through her rage induced haze.
“But, he killed my father. He stole everything away from me.”
“No, he didn’t. Look around you.” Gabe gestured to the entire pack, standing there, ready and willing to risk their own lives to save her from Dalton. And also willing to let her mete out her own justice if she wanted it. Her friends, her family. Her pack. Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them away fiercely.
“He deserves to die.”
&n
bsp; “Yes, he does,” Gabe said, “But you don’t deserve to have to live with the guilt and horror of taking another’s life.” Slowly, she turned her head, staring up at him, knowing he was talking about himself as much as her.
The knife dropped to the ground with a metallic clang and before she knew what was happening, she was on her feet, Adrian and Gabe both restraining the still dazed Dalton. Is was like all the life was already gone from him, even though she hadn’t been the one to take it.
Jana straightened her spine, throwing her head back as the wind caught at her long hair, pulling it out behind her.
“Dalton Lefevre, you are forever banished from this, and any other pack. I will spread the word. No home will welcome you, no fire will warm you.” As Jana spoke the ancient words, a peace settled over her, as if her father were there with her, nodding his approval.
“What?’ Dalton sputtered, “you can’t do that! You don’t have the authority.”
“She does!”
“I say it is so.”
“She is the Alpha!”
“She is our leader.”
Tears sprang to her eyes again as the pack’s shouts washed over her, but this time there were of joy. She looked over at Cora and the elders, and the old wolf sent her a small, wrinkled smile, nodding her assent.
All it took for one to become Alpha was the pack to accept her as so, and they had. They cheered her as several men broke away from the group, leading Dalton away, and he went with them like a child, not fighting, his shoulders slumped in defeat. She had won, she had finally won. And she was Alpha.
Jana glanced around the crowd as they swarmed her, hugging her, touching her shoulder, accepting her. Finally, she caught sight of what she was looking for. Adrian and Gabe, standing at the outskirts of the crowd, looking unsure for the first time that she had met them. Without a thought, she ran to them, throwing her arms around them.
“And who are they?” Cora’s voice had her releasing them and turning to face the eldest. Jana looked up at Adrian, his light grey eyes laughing down into hers, and Gabriel. So strong, so dark, but with a love so fierce shining in his gaze she felt a wave of warmth rush over her. Finally, she looked back at Cora, unable to keep the smile from curling her lips.
“They are my mates.”
Epilogue
They carried her into their new home held tightly in their arms. Each kissing her soundly before finally setting her on her own feet. Jana laughed as she swayed unsteadily, but luckily Adrian was there to catch her.
“I can’t believe it.”
“Believe what, love?” Adrian asked as he scooped her up again. Jana let out a peal of lighthearted laughter that soon turned sultry as he kissed her, soft at first and then deeper. Biting her lower lip, licking at her mouth as if he couldn’t get enough of her.
She pulled back just enough to whisper into his mouth. “We are mated. You are both part of my pack.” She paused, wonderingly, “and I’m Alpha.”
Gabe smiled down into her laughed face, his own gaze hot on hers as he helped Adrian shed her long, white dress, the same dress she had worn earlier that day as the elders had joined them together, twining the strands of their lives into one.
“You are forgetting one very important thing, my heart.”
She sent Gabe a look of confusion as he continued to smile before whispering hotly in her ear.
“The consummation.”
Her entire body tingly brightly at his words and she realized for the for time that she was completely naked.
They didn’t even make it to bedroom.
Gabriel’s mouth was on hers, sweetly demanding, and she responded because she had to. Her body could deny them nothing, and by her heart, and her wolf’s heart howled in joy as Adrien stepped up behind her, crowding her even closer to Gabe’s hot fingers and questing mouth.
In a second, they were on the floor, Jana on her knees in between the two men that had completely stolen her heart, had changed her forever. She helped them to shed their clothes as well, not satisfied until she had them both back again, only this time there was nothing but skin against skin.
The exquisite sensations had her calling out as their hands moved over her in rhythm as old as time, teasing her, bringing her to the brink only to ease back, until she was panting, begging them.
“Please. Please, Adrian.” She turned her head for one last soul-searing kiss before he tipped her forward, her hands landing on the floor and his hands on either hip. She looked up to see Gabe tilt his own hips forward, his heavy erection too tempting to resist as she sucked him into her mouth. He moaned, low and raspy, his hands tangling in her dark hair, pulling her even closer.
An answering moan was pulled out of her chest as she felt Adrian behind her, the head of his hot shaft teasing at her wet entrance. Unable to beg with words, she moved her body, arching her back in invitation and was rewarded as he grasped her hips once more, sinking deep, deep inside her.
They all paused for a moment, soaking in the sensations of being so connected. But Jana couldn’t stay still for long, the need to move against them hot and urgent.
Jana gasped in pleasure as Adrian pounded into her from behind, every thrust sending her further onto Gabe’s thick cock as he kneeled in front of her. Soon he found a rhythm that had her crying out with every movement, the tension in her body ratcheting higher and higher until finally, it burst, ripping a scream from her throat as her orgasm hit. Adrian stiffened behind her, his climax powerful enough to send another wave shooting through her.
Suddenly, Gabriel pulled away from her mouth, taking Adrian’s place as the other man collapsed on the floor beside them, his hands making lazy circles across her over sensitive skin. A long moan was drawn out of her as she felt Gabe behind her, grasping her hips, sinking all the way in, claiming her.
He leaned over her back until his mouth was at her ear.
“You are ours, now.”
Jana sent a look at Adrian, who was smiling up at her, and then back, her gaze colliding with Gabe’s and she swore she could see sparks fly.
“Always, my love, always.”
THE END.
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SHIFTER LOVE
(PRANORMAL MULTI SHIFTER ROMANCE)
By Riley Moreno
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Epilogue
Chapter 1
The huge double doors that led into the throne room banged open, and Dejan stepped in even as the reverberations still danced on and off the sturdy walls. His son, Jon by his side, there was an aggressive twitch to his long, sharp whiskers as he strutted upon the tiled walkway towards his throne thirty meters away. There was a congregation of people on either side of the royal walkway, all grim. The silence was loud, and the heavy footfall of the giant, armored paw of the tiger king, Dejan echoed menacingly about the great hall.
Jon stopped just short of the steps that led up to the gold-edged throne, leaving Dejan to take the three steps to the throne which electromagnetically floated thirty centimeters over the cold, tiled floor. He bounded upon the throne in one loud swoop, almost causing it to touch the floor. He turned his gaze towards the crowd, and the subsequent, icy glare of his golden-green glass eyes held the crowd as all and sundry knelt.
“Davron!” Dejan roared, his eyes searching the crowd, “Where is Davron, my son?!”
The silence remained palpable.
Their tiger gave a fierce roar, causing several cringes in the crowd. Davron, the wild,, happy-go-lucky, and younger son of the feared tiger king Dejan, was not liked much by the more serious at court, his antics often bearing repercussions. The crowd, which had since gotten off its knees, had several people averting the golden-green gaze.
“He appears to have gone on a trip
father,” Jon, the elder son, spoke tentatively, subservience written all over his face. The amused glint in his eye, however, was not missed by his astute father, “I last saw him heading into the Saution Chamber”
In a flash, a man, tall, dark-skinned, and sturdy as an oak sat where the tiger had just a few instants ago, “You find this funny?” the armor which had previously adorned the tiger, jangled freely upon his nimble frame as he jumped off the floating throne unto his feet, “I come in from ousting rebels, and one of my sons is not here to greet me, not even in this world to greet me, and you all find this funny?!” heads were going to roll, and all present knew that it would be a matter of minutes before the doomed candidates would be revealed, “The Saution Chamber is used for research, and exploration of other worlds, and not for pleasure trips. Who let him in? There is protocol to follow, and I put officials in charge.” He bellowed, “Where are they?”
An uneasy hush passed through the crowd, “At their posts my lord.” Jon answered again
“Bring their heads to my chamber within the next one hour! You know the penalty for disobedience, and incompetence.”
“Uh if I may dare to plead my lord,” Jon began deferentially, “it is the same fear of disobedience that compelled those in charge to step aside before Davron. Their heads would have been lobbed off even before your arrival. Your counsel is always just, but may I suggest a great warrior like you put your sword to rest for now rather than lowering it to the level of minor officials at court.”
Dejan did not like going back on his word, but he needed rest from all the recent bloodshed, and craved now, above all else, rest. Jon had just given him a way out; sometimes he felt the young man was too intelligent for comfort. Vain, as most kings are wont to be, he had to have the last word.