by M. L. Briers
CHAPTER TWELVE
“You learn something new every day.” Connor whispered in amusement as he nudged his sister and chuckled when he saw her swallow hard.
Chase’s arm moved swiftly, faster than her eyes or brain could quite manage to keep up with. The claws tore across the bared skin of the Akhlut’s chest. Four reasonably deep wounds appeared across his olive flesh, the wounds immediately leaking blood over the perfect skin.
Murmurs went up around her as she stood staring at the man. He hadn’t made a sound when Chase struck. His body only slightly convulsed forwards as the flesh was opened. Just by looking at the wounds Cassidy could tell they must have hurt like hell, but still the man didn’t move. Waiting for the next strike of the Alpha’s claws, but it never came.
Cassidy turned her gaze towards Chase. She could see the amount of control he was exerting by keeping his beast at bay beneath the surface. His wolf must have been demanding more of the white wolf’s blood than Chase had drawn, because he seemed to take a long moment to get his temper in check.
Cassidy went to take a step towards Chase, but Connor put a hand on her forearm to stop her. “Give him a minute...” He offered turning his head to look down at her as she looked up at him and questioned him with her eyes. “Akhlut hurt you. Chase needs to rein himself back in sweetheart.” Connor explained quietly and she nodded her understanding.
Nobody made a sound for the longest time while Chase concentrated on not ripping the other Alpha limb from limb. Even Akhlut stood stock still, his eyes averted from his punisher in a sign of respect for what Chase had done, what he was attempting to do by reining in his beast. One Alpha understanding what it took for the other to exert such restraint in that moment in time.
When Chase had a grip on his beast, when the claws receded and he was more human than wolf, he turned his attention back to Akhlut. “You’re free to go; you can understand that I don’t want to find you on pack land again…”
“Chase…” Cassidy half whispered. Connor sniggered and a slight rumble went through the pack. Chase groaned inwardly. This was a conversation he didn’t want to have. He especially didn’t want to have it in front of the entire pack. He tried to ignore her. He knew it wouldn’t end there though.
“Chase…” She hissed at him again, even bringing a slight smile to Akhlut’s lips. The first smile in a very long time.
Connor slapped his hand over his mouth as he chuckled beside her, but even if he had done a good job of hiding the grin; his eyes were still dancing in amusement. The buzz from the pack grew a little louder, a few chuckles, a giggle or two, before Nathaniel cleared his throat rather loudly.
“Alpha I believe your mate is trying to get your attention.” Nathaniel announced in a voice that boomed through the hall. More chuckles grated on Chase’s shot nerves and he turned to glare at Nathaniel.
“I got that, Nathaniel, thanks.” He snapped back at him, before turning his eyes on his mate. Her cheeks were a nice crimson colour as she rolled her eyes and looked anywhere but at Chase.
“If this is what I think it is Cassidy…” Chase’s tone held the warning that he thought she would do well to heed, especially here and now. But he could see she had absolutely no intention of that. She had saved the white wolf’s life. Why couldn’t that be enough for her?
“Chase it’s just a little…” She started and he felt the anger flare within him at the very thought of it. His eyes darkened to jet black in an instant and when he went to take a long step towards her, he noted that Connor and Ethan did the same, although they had a more protective posture in their stance.
What surprised the hell out him however was that Akhlut also did the exact same thing. His head snapped towards the white wolf, his eyes widened and his nostrils flared in warning.
“Blood, Chase. It’s just my blood. Otherwise it would have been kinder to end him now. Don’t you think?” The anger in her voice cut through the hushed whispers of the pack, silencing everyone in the ensuing standoff.
“Cassidy…” The warning growl was there again. He wouldn’t hear her argument. He wouldn’t allow any man to touch her in that way. To bite her soft skin, sink their fangs into her and taste her glorious blood on their tongue as they drank from her.
“No!” He growled. But she wasn’t about to let it end like this. Her eyes shot to Akhlut’s face, dragging his eyes towards her from where he watched Chase for a sign that her mate would threatened her.
“Does there have to be a bite?” She demanded and Akhlut shrugged his shoulders. He had presumed so, being a wolf, he had presumed that was what the witch had meant, but he couldn’t be sure. He went to tell her that when Chase growled again.
“Cassidy…” He wouldn’t be ignored. His word would not be dismissed and he would damn well not be disobeyed. No wolf would bite her, now or ever, except him.
Cassidy pulled the ceremonial Athame from the pocket of her top. Before anyone could make a move to stop her, she had unsheathed the dagger from its ornate cover that dropped from her fingers to the floor at her feet and closed her fist around the blade. With one quick movement she had sliced into her own flesh. The scent of her blood was thick in the air as Chase and Connor both made a move to stop her.
“Damn it, Cassidy, let me see.” Chase ordered, closing the gap between them in a heartbeat and wrenching her injured hand towards his face. Her fist still closed over the wound as her blood dripped from the valley of the crease at the side of her hand onto the wooden floor.
“No bite. Just blood Chase. Please. The Fae in me demands I do this, just as the Lycan in you demands that he didn’t bite me.” Cassidy stared at her Alpha, his head was down and his eyes were focused on her hand, the blood. He didn’t move, didn’t speak and she wasn’t even sure if he had taken a breath the whole time.
When he slowly raised his eyes to hers, she could see the humanity had taken over. His eyes were no longer black with his wolf. A deep frown was etched into his forehead as he gazed at her, and then he half closed his eyes and nodded.
“Thank you Alpha.” She made a great show for the pack of dropping her head down and to the side, with her eyes averted from his. She heard the murmurs of approval from the pack around her.
Chase turned his attention towards Akhlut, his eyes were as hard as steel as he delivered his warning.
“Be careful what you do here Alpha. I shall not be so forgiving a second time.” He cupped Cassidy’s elbow and walked her slowly towards Akhlut, who stood as though he were frozen to the spot.
Cassidy offered her closed hand to the Alpha in front of her. She saw the beast within him scent her blood, as his eyes turned obsidian black. When he opened his mouth his fangs were already starting to push through his gums. He needed to be as careful as Chase was being now. He couldn’t lose control of his beast and risk biting into her flesh. He would be dead within a heartbeat.
When he was sure he had his beast under control Akhlut nodded to her. Cassidy opened her hand for him. Her blood covered her palm and her inner fingers, and she felt the anxiety that came from Chase in waves. It made her slightly nervous as the man gently brought her palm to his mouth, his fangs sheathed behind his lips as he tasted her blood, closing his lips over the wound he gently sucked against her blood.
Right then all hell broke loose. Akhlut felt his body start to shift into his beast and threw himself backwards away from her, afraid his beast had planned to attack her. But that thought was ripped from his mind as he shifted into his wolf with the most powerful intensity he had ever felt in his life before. The transformation tore through him.
Chase grabbed Cassidy around the waist and threw her behind him, his wolf was already shredding the clothes from his body as he shifted in an instant, the fabric that remained over his fur were just scraps of cloth, as Chase roared at the white wolf before him.
Connor already had Cassidy in a death grip by the time Chase had shifted. The pack was already postured ready for an ensuing fight, when Akhlut shifted again b
ack into human form. The growl of agony torn from his lips, as he tried to push his body up from the floor before the next shift took him back into wolf form. He dropped to his stomach on the floor, his wolf’s body convulsing as his fur seemed to shimmer.
Cassidy had been trying to squirm out of Connor’s hold, but to no avail. When Akhlut made his last transformation back into human form, he laid there spent. His chest heaved in the breaths that had been torn from his lungs with each transformation. His wolf’s claws still embedded within the wood flooring beneath him and when he managed to lift his head to find Cassidy’s eye, she saw the eye’s of a wolf. Not a rogue looking back at her.
Cassidy stomped on Connor’s foot with everything she had in her, and he let her go on a huff of annoyance and a dark curse. Chase had shifted back into his human form and Connor’s curses brought his head around to where she was about to walk past him.
He reached out and snagged her then. Pulling her against his hip and locking her there.
“Chase, it's fine. He’s fine. It worked.”
“I know sweetheart, but he’s naked and you’re prone to zap him.” The amusement in Chase’s tone told her that the joke was on her, as she heard Connor chuckling behind her.
“Very funny. Let me go.”
“Not for the next fifty years. Especially with the trouble you seem to attract woman.” He growled down at her, too possessive to even argue with, at that moment in time. So she didn’t, she gave way.
Connor walked around them to where Akhlut lay. Bending down onto his haunches, he waited for the man to bring his attention towards him.
“Guess it worked. How you feeling? Up to making a phone call to your pack and getting some clothes on? Chase is right; she’s liable to zap you if you’re naked. Did it to me the first time I met her.” Connor was babbling. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say to a legend that had just been cured of a witches curse.
“Thank you Cassidy. I owe you everything. If you ever need me…”
“We’ll be sure to call.” Connor assured him as he heard his brother’s low growl of annoyance. No wolf liked to think his mate had another protector, even if that was the whole pack.
“You defied me.” Chase wasn’t about to listen to her protestations of how everything had worked out for the best in the end.
“I’m not a dog.” She snapped at him, from where she was lying naked on her back across the bed, her head hanging over the edge of the mattress, so that she could better see what he was up to in the bathroom. She could see that he was freshening up after their lovemaking.
“No, you are the mate of the Alpha; you’re the last person who should openly defy me.” He shot back and she rolled her eyes a moment before she saw him coming towards her, wash cloth in hand.
An upside down Chase looked bigger somehow than a right side up Chase. He seemed to dominate the space around him as he sauntered towards her, his half mast bobbing and bouncing with every step, and she couldn’t help but grin at it. It just looked funny somehow upside down.
“So I can defy you indoors, but not in front of the pack. Got it.” She shot back, and when he stood in front of her all she could see were thick, muscled, thighs and his penis, until he bent down and dropped his face into view.
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.” He straightened up again and she reached out with one fingertip and ran her nail gently up his thigh. Just that simple touch caused his penis to harden, reaching out towards her as though on instinct.
She wove her hands around his thighs and pulled him towards her, her tongue reaching for the tip of his glands and she rolled around it, from where she was laying, she thought she was in the perfect position to take him in her mouth.
Excitement fizzled through her, and she heard Chase growl down his approval from above.
“Why don’t you give me an order now and see if I follow it.” She hissed up at him, knowing exactly the order she was hoping for. Chase knew it too. His heartbeat double tapped in his chest with just the thought of what he was about to do.
“Open your mouth wide.” She didn’t need telling twice, she complied immediately. The smooth, silken slide of the top of his arousal against her tongue as he pushed into her mouth had her purring her delight.
Chase growled out his pleasure as he moved his hips back and forth, it was a strange feeling to look down at his mate like this as he took her mouth, her head was basically trapped against the edge of the mattress and she couldn’t move, he was totally in control and it appealed to his dominant nature.
But it didn’t mean he couldn’t bring her pleasure. Chase leaned over her body. “Open your legs.” He growled and she complied immediately, his hands sought her inner thighs and he held her wide open. His tongue ran long and hard over her inner folds as she gasped around his hardness, sucking him harder with every stroke of his tongue against her.
He worked his hips in long, deep strokes into her mouth, taking her as far as he could. Each stroke brought him closer to release until he was so close that he worked feverishly against her sex, determined for her to orgasm before he did. When her body tensed beneath him, he sent her over the edge, her hips bucking up against his mouth as he released her and pulled back, his fingers replacing his tongue as he kept her orgasm rolling through her.
He felt his own body’s release start at the base of his spine and thrust into her mouth, holding fast as his seed travelled the length of him and exploded into her mouth and down her throat, pulling back and thrusting in again, over and over, until he was spent.
Damn, but that had felt good. He stepped back away from her, sliding out of her mouth and she opened her eyes to look up at him.
“Now that is an order I will gladly follow anytime my Alpha.” She purred breathlessly as he grinned down at her.
“That’s an order I will be glad to deliver my mate.” He leaned down and kissed her, tasting his juices on her tongue as she tasted her own juices. She pushed him back, a small giggle on her lips.
“I think kisses work better right way up.” He reached down and flipped her over onto her stomach; with his hands under her arms he dragged her over the bed and up his body with ease as she giggled at his hold on her.
“As you wish.” He grinned before devouring her mouth in a long, slow, passionate kiss that had her dizzy with excitement again by the time he released her.
“So you’re going to follow my orders from now on?” He asked trying to give his question an air of seriousness as he raised one thick brow at her and she balked at him.
“Goddess no. Whatever gave you that idea?” She couldn’t help the giggle that escaped her lips, as he gave her an exasperated look.
“Cassidy, can you at least pretend you are, until the next time you decide to disobey me…” It was something of a plea and she took a long moment to consider it.
“We can do that. And I promise the next time I zap you for being an arse you can order me to lay on the bed and open my mouth…” He growled down at her. He liked the idea of her compromise, but he wasn’t looking forward to being zapped again. Although for what she was offering it seemed more than fair.
“Are you sure you want to risk zapping me again?”
“You’re right. But I don’t really want to offer that deal to Connor.” The low feral growl that emanated from him wasn’t just a warning. It was so primal that she felt it in her very toes. “Kidding. Geez Alpha. Get a grip.”
“Says the Fae who goes around zapping people for no good reason.”
“Well, I thought you were going to attack me and you’re brother was naked and coming at me. I think we all learned some valuable lessons that day.” She lifted her chin in air and gave him her best innocent look. He couldn’t help but chuckle.
“And what lesson did you learn?”
“What big ears you have…” She teased and heard him groan. “What a big nose you have…” He tightened his hold on her and gave her a low, slow growl of warning. “And what a good kisser you are.” S
he grinned up at him and he chuckled.
“You’re such a little Fae, the things I want to do to you right now, but I don’t want to risk breaking you.” He pressed his arousal against her stomach and she chuckled.
“You won’t break me Alpha. I was made for you.”
The End.