Moonlight Betrayal: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 5)

by K. R. Alexander

Kage looked at the ceiling above me.

  I looked as well, moving quickly away, glancing all over the room, skin crawling.

  “Please stop doing that.”

  “Doing what?”

  I headed for the bathroom. “Make yourself at home.”

  He started wandering around the room, leaving box and key with my notebook by the bed, and I thought he was going to turn on the TV when he yelled, “No!”

  Sure he was pretending about a spider again, I still jumped and spun around. Just in time for Kage to dash through the open bathroom door and snatch the toothbrush out of my hand.

  “Don’t do that—” Holding it at arm’s length, he blasted it under the hot water at full force.

  “What are—? What—?” Bewildered, scared by the tone, speed, and lingering ideas of spiders leaping at me off ceilings, I stumbled back against the towel rod.

  Kage shook off the brush, shoved it aside on the edge of the sink and washed his own hands as if they’d just been splattered with raw sewage.

  He was breathing hard as he dried them, stepping back into the doorway. “Sorry.”

  “What is wrong with you?”

  “What’s wrong with you?” he snapped, still drying. “Doesn’t that burn your sinuses? We were trying to be polite before, right? Hosting you and doing right by you. And you didn’t have that vial rubbish with you since you only had the brush and not the paste until you got your bag back from Andrew. But someone’s got to tell you.”

  “Tell me … what?”

  “You can’t keep using that sterk around us. It burns.” Shooting a scathing look toward the sink.

  “Burns? You’re talking about my toothpaste? Peppermint toothpaste burns your nose?”

  He nodded, hanging the hand towel back up.

  I blew out a breath. “Goddess, Kage. You could have just said something. You scared me to death.”

  “You didn’t put any in your mouth, did you?”

  “No, I didn’t. But why hasn’t anyone mentioned this to me before if it’s such an issue for you?”

  I’d seen his toothpaste at home. Charcoal with coconut, or something like that. Non-vial rubbish, I supposed.

  “Didn’t want to hurt your feelings.” He walked over to me. “But you said just us tonight.”

  “Sorry—”

  He kissed me, sliding his tongue across my lips. “All right.” Nodding approval. “But wash your hands.”

  “Wash my…? Okay.” I put away all vial materials in my toiletry kit, then scrubbed my hands with, of course, unscented soap provided in the bathroom by our not-a-wolf host.

  I dried my hands and held them up for Kage, who’d hovered at my shoulder the whole time.

  He pressed his nose to my palm and kissed it, then the other and kissed that, while I watched him.

  “Better?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer, but trailed his tongue down my palm to my finger tips. Then back to the other hand, reversing the move. He inhaled long and slow against my skin, moved to the other palm, and repeated the breath, eyes shut.

  “It’s absurd that they think you can’t smell,” I said as I watched him, my skin tingling in a different way now.

  “Cassia?” He kissed my wrists, one after the other, turning his head back and forth to do it again. “I almost bit you in fur. I’m sorry.”

  “But you didn’t. That’s why it’s nice to be in a pack. Even between lovers. You were upset. It’s okay. I hope you’ll never treat Jason like that again, either, though.”

  “Cassia?” He repeated my name as he stepped in so my hands touched his chest. His nose brushed mine, breathing into one another’s faces, very close, feeling the heat of him, with little actual contact.

  “You’ll say to stop again,” he finished.

  “No, I won’t.”

  “You’ll say it’s the wrong place, wrong time.”

  “No. It’s just right.”

  “You’ll wish you were with someone else instead.”

  “I swear I will not. I’m already with someone I love.” I kissed him, gentle, lips closed, building heat off one another.

  Then pressure, the force returning to him, holding onto me. Finally believing me, giving me one more chance not to push him away.

  I reached to turn off the light, heading back into the bedroom, mouths together, parting my lips for him.

  He stopped the momentum, shoving me into the doorway and pulling up my top. Dropping this on the bathroom floor, He closed his teeth around my windpipe, hard enough to be painful, holding me in place that way while he tugged my jeans down my thighs, then pushed down his own. All in a quick scramble, breaking his teeth hold in a second to pull his own shirt off over his head, then bending to get my pants, shoes, and socks off while I held the doorframe behind me to keep my balance.

  It took an absurdly short amount of time for us both to be in nothing but bra, for me, and underwear, like he’d vacuumed our clothes off.

  Breaths already coming short with the intensity of him, I tried again to move toward the bed. It wasn’t until he groped to feel between my legs, pushing aside the little bit of remaining cotton, that I realized he had no intention of moving from exactly where we were.

  After all this? A quick fuck in a bathroom? We could do better.

  “Kage—” I grabbed his head with both hands, pulling him with me. “Bed—”

  But I tripped, him yanking down my panties, following me rather than staying upright himself—though he could have kept me on my feet.

  It wasn’t a hard impact, the fall slow and awkward, twisted together. Still, it knocked the breath from me as I hit my ribs and he remained right there, smothering me.

  “Kage, get on the—”

  He kissed me, pinning me to the smooth carpet on my side, right arm under him, supporting some of his weight and holding me against him, left hand pushing down his boxers.

  I kissed him back, bit his lip, then shook my head, struggling to get my arm out from under him and push his face away.

  “Your rules, your decisions,” he growled. “Your choice to be with everyone but me. Always by your book.”

  “No, that’s not why I—”

  “This time it’s mine. My time, my place.”

  “Yes—”

  It was only … bewildering. Everything going from slow motion as we’d tried to work through issues all evening to a sudden snap of the fingers and he had me pinned to the floor.

  On his knees over me on my side, pushing, using his legs and one hand to move me. In another second, another blink it seemed, I went from feeling his erection pressing between my thighs to feeling him surge into me. Both pressures, Kage on top of me and the solid floor below, were unforgiving and I gasped, letting out an, “Ah!” of surprise as well as pain while he crushed me onto a surface without springs or other cushioning.

  “Now you have me too. You’ll have my pups, Cassia. Then you'll stay us.” Kage shuddered, holding himself in, thrust a few more times, then sank far too much of his weight against me.

  Which left me to be incredibly slow on the uptake, only knowing from the feel inside that he’d already come. Meaning he’d reached his high in about ten, no … in all honesty, four or five seconds.

  Perhaps that was why he didn’t savor the idea of moving an extra six feet to reach the bed.

  I waited, sore all over, crushed by him, but hoping I didn’t have to say anything.

  After a minute, he pulled back, freeing me and turning onto his hip beside me.

  I twisted my upper body to see him: eyes closed, mouth open, panting, but quickly catching his breath.

  “Feel better?” I asked.

  He nodded. Then, “Might try the bed now.”

  Chapter 45

  A short time later, we really were in the pliable bed with smooth sheets. We were both hot and Kage lay on his side with his head propped in his hand, watching me check my phone one last time, then plug it in. Also above covers, I reached to switch out the lamp but Kage touch
ed my leg.

  “Don’t.”

  I left it. Instead removing my bra, then lying back to face him.

  “When you’re ready, I’ll show you another angle,” I said, reaching to touch his jaw.

  “Ready now.” His gaze was fixed on my breasts.

  “Are you sure, tiger?”

  He ignored me, sliding down to kiss my nipples.

  “You’ll stay, won’t you?” He withdrew to look at me, stroking with fingers only. “Now that you’re going to have our pups?”

  I had to smile at that. “I can’t, Kage. We’ve been over this.”

  “It can happen—”

  “A shifter and human pregnancy can happen. Rarely. Not pups. Even if I had your child it would be a child.”

  “Hmm…” He considered that and gave a little shrug on his side, still caressing my breasts. “That’s something, I guess. It’s not her fault if she can’t be a real wolf. A witch then. You train her. After you’ve trained me. We’ll look after you. She’ll still have the instincts. She’ll hear better, smell better than a worm.”

  “Kage?”

  “A proper witch-wolf,” he murmured and leaned back in.

  I sighed. “I would love to have a daughter, or a son, with all of you as their dads. But I can’t have pups. I’m a worm and there’s nothing we can do about that.”

  “It’s fine.” He kissed up my chest to my throat, finally my lips. “We’ll love them however they turn out. Don’t have to be wolves. They’ll still know they’re special.”

  I returned his kisses, wrapped my arms around his neck, and held on.

  Goddess, I hadn’t been letting myself wander through such flights of fancy lately. I hadn’t been walking through those imaginary beaches with Zar and our children, or envisioning the stone cottage with the sprawling gardens and the beck flowing through it with Isaac there. But now Kage had me going.

  We would have saved the pack by then. Redeemed both my name and all of theirs. Kage would be top core, not Peter or Hannah. We could live as verge members, be a part of the pack, but keep our own lives with our children, not pups, going to human schools. If it came right down to it, I could homeschool them. That was a job in and of itself. Not launching a career, but launching a life…

  “Kage.” I shook my head forcefully. “The odds of me having a child, even one child, with any of you, are so remote there’s just nothing to be gained by planning for that sort of thing.”

  “So how come you’re still thinking about it?”

  “I’m not. We have a job to do.”

  “Going to America.” He kissed between my eyes and pulled back. “That’ll be a laugh.”

  “Where do you get these wild ideas?”

  “Where do you get this denial?”

  “I’m not in denial. I’m being practical.”

  “Does ‘practical’ fall in love and raise families and find killers and save lives?” He really focused then, looking into my eyes. “Is ‘practical’ what you want on your headstone? ‘She didn’t get much done because she was always weighing the odds and breaking up fights and struggling to live her life practically.’”

  I looked back, silent for a minute. “What do you want on your headstone?”

  To my shock, he answered without hesitation. “Kenaniah Allyn: loving mate of two, devoted sire of eight, canny wit and arse-crushing silver. Maybe add … the only caster wolf.”

  We stared into one another’s eyes for so long I got a chill.

  “You can’t have eight offspring with me anymore than you can with Jason. If you had one it would be nothing short of Divine intervention.”

  He pulled a face. “All we need is to try harder.”

  I laughed, snorting and dropping my face against his chest.

  When I looked up, he said, “How about you?”

  “What do I want on a headstone? I’ll be cremated.”

  He gave me a look.

  I let out a breath. “Honestly? I haven’t the faintest idea. Which … scares me a little. Maybe it means … I still don’t know who I am. I don’t even know where I belong. I don’t know if I want to be witch or mundane. And you … I really admire that you know yourself so well. And I admire your ambitions.”

  He looked away. “You won’t mention that…”

  “What?”

  “What I said.”

  “Of course not. I’m not telling anyone what you say to me about something like that.”

  “Only … you’ve said I can’t be a caster. Even if you teach me about magic. And not like I could ever be silver. Be Moon’s luck if I ever even get core, maybe in another twenty years.” He sighed.

  “I think you’ll be a great leader one day.”

  He glanced at me.

  “I do. You’re good at seeing what needs to be done, you’re wonderful at looking after your pack and spotting problems and solutions. You’re strong and sensitive at the same time. Give it some more years. More … life. Keep working at core. I don’t see any reason you couldn’t be an ass-crushing silver someday.”

  He chewed his lip—which was not like him.

  “I mean it.” I kissed him. “I really, really mean it.”

  “You think I could be a pack silver? But not make my hands glow? Or that we should go to America? Or that you’ll ever have a pup—or even a baby—with us? Not so practical after all.” He leaned in.

  When the kiss broke, I said, “‘Mate of two?’ You’ll make up with Jason, won’t you? I never meant to come between you two. That was the last thing I wanted. You know that.”

  “Yeah, he’s fine.”

  “Fine? You’ll talk to him?”

  Kage tried to keep kissing along my jaw but I moved back, holding his face.

  “Yes,” he said, irritable. “I’ll talk to him tomorrow when they’re up here.”

  “Thank you.” I hugged him with one arm.

  Kage kept kissing me, soon finding my hand to draw down to his groin. I fondled him, getting him hard again while he moved against me.

  “Okay, sit back.” I sat up on my knees to show him.

  Kage followed, trying to bite my neck. They all seemed to have a thing for necks as much as for enjoying my hair. Maybe it was a trust thing? An animal that killed by throttling prey with its teeth?

  Isaac or Zar had been nothing like Kage’s pressure on my throat, though.

  Perhaps a bit more communication would help trust along.

  “Kage? When you do that it actually really hurts. Maybe just a tiny bit less?”

  Teeth around my throat, not quite as hard, still painful. I eased away from him, finally hooking two fingers into his mouth, separating us so I could properly face him and straddle his lap on my knees.

  Kage forgot about his strangle hold when I reached once more to hold his shaft and guide him into me. While I lowered myself, he thrust upward. Slow this time.

  He relaxed back, eyes glazing over, as he found he didn’t have to struggle for the contact. I lowered myself as far as I could take him, breath catching, chills up my spine, yet my body burning for him. Tightening my muscles, I stayed against him, my tongue finding his mouth when he opened it in a groan.

  I rocked against him, lifting and lowering from my knees, while Kage held my face, keeping our mouths together. He occasionally tried again to thrust, but it felt instinctive, mostly letting me guide.

  I reached my climax before him this time, Kage following while I was still lost on the fading ripples, pushing up and pulling me to him at the same time, biting my neck as he came.

  Once we rested on our sides, I turned out the light. Tonight, I wasn’t worried about nightmares: mind a million miles away, grateful for Kage beside me in so many ways.

  I was just about asleep with this blissful oblivion, finally reaching down to pull the sheet over me, when Kage was nuzzling my nose, stroking my lips with his fingertip, kissing my eyelids.

  “What?” I murmured.

  “What did you do with Jason?”

  “We
don’t want to talk about that right now.”

  “I do.” He didn’t sound upset. “Show me. I wish I’d been there.”

  Which had me remembering all Jason had said that night.

  “We wanted you there also,” I said. “He talked about you the whole time.”

  “He did?”

  “Of course he did. He’s not really that interested in me. In case you hadn’t noticed. But he might be again if it was all three of us. That’s what he really wanted.”

  “Show me how you were.”

  I rolled over for him, then shook my head. “Wait, it was the other side.” I climbed across Kage in the dark and below the sheet, bathed in golden lights from London filtering up through the curtains.

  “Okay,” I said. “We were like this to start. And we talked about you.” I pulled Kage’s arm around my chest as he curled in to spoon against me.

  “That’s it?”

  “What did you think? Someone had their hands strapped to the ceiling? Nipple clamps and hot wax?”

  “Well … his first time with a female in skin.”

  “Anticlimactic? Would you have rather we had some dramatic encounter?”

  “I don’t know… Touch me.”

  I slid my hand down along our bodies until I found his penis. It took him a while to grow fully hard this time while I played with his foreskin. Then I let him go and tried to remember details for the reenactment I was supposed to be leading.

  “Do we feel different?” Kage asked in my ear. “Each bloke? Is a dick just a dick, or can you tell? If you didn’t have anything else to go on?”

  “Kage, I don’t—”

  “No, really. I want to know how it feels to you. I’m not being a prat. Just want to know.”

  Indeed, he didn’t sound snarky, kissing my ear and moving slowly inside me.

  “Yes, you feel different. And we didn’t stay like this.”

  In a minute, I turned, continuing face-to-face. He kept asking and I told him a little of what I could remember Jason saying.

  Then, “We came together. Same time. Talk to me. When you’re close. We can too.”

  We did.

  And I was so damn tired, I wanted to tell him that he better not dare wake me up again before 7:00 a.m. But I couldn’t do that. Not with what we had tonight.