by Rebecca Main
I begin to rock back into his thrusts, hoping my participation will drive him faster. And harder. Though my body feels boneless from our previous lovemaking, I push myself onto my elbows and steal a hand back to finger my wet clit. Yet I am thwarted. His hand quickly snatches my hair just as my fingers find my wet heat.
He growls as he carefully pulls my head back. “No touching, Zoelle.” He tells me almost cruelly. “If that’s where you want my hand, then you have to ask nicely.” I whimper and remove my hand bowing my head as he releases my hair.
“Please.” I hardly recognize the throaty voice. “Please touch me.”
A hand crawls up my back, his touch guiding me to sink lower until my face presses into the mattress. I twist and shift impatiently raising my ass higher and grinding back, when still he does nothing. He lets out a breathy moan at my movements and lets his nails rake down my back, then brush over my hip and to my clit. We sigh in unison. And then he begins to push into me once more. In no time, our bodies rock together in a violent rhythm. Xander’s hands roam my body, each touch lingering to caress and stroke me until the tension in my body builds to a near-numbing breaking point. With each thrust, a groan and throaty exclamation sounds.
As his hand fondles my breast, pinching and massaging the oversensitive skin, I reach my hand back to cover his. Guide his hand lower once more. His growl of appreciation is accompanied by a few rapid thrusts of his hips. They drive me further into the bedding with a lustful keen.
“God, Zoelle, you’re so hot. You’re so wet for me, aren’t you, baby?” he practically whimpers against my back as he leans over me. I mewl in response, words lost to me as my body erupts into shaking bouts of pleasure.
“Xander!” I cry out, feeling my soaking core writhe around his hard cock. Xander takes me like a man without sanity. His hips thrust against me with no control. I moan his name once more, the pleasure and pain of his dominance spurs on my orgasm until he grunts and snarls his own release.
We collapse and intertwine ourselves with one another till neither of us knows where one begins and the other ends. My soulmark pulses blissfully against my skin, a sliver of a beat behind my heart. Xander trails his hand up my stomach and past my breasts till they reach my soulmark and brush lightly against it. My whole body tingles in response. It is the single, most satisfying feeling I have ever had the pleasure of knowing, for as he touches the mark and the link between us is left completely open, his love and admiration come pouring through.
I gaze up at him through half-lidded eyes and am pleased to find his satisfied smile.
“Good morning,” I murmur, letting out a hum of gratitude as his lips seek mine for a breath-stealing kiss.
“Good morning,” he replies, his voice a dusky timber. He brushes the hair from my face tenderly, eyeing the errant curls with quiet amusement.
“Tell me something.”
“Anything.”
I smile broadly at his lack of hesitation. “It feels… different. Before whenever you touched the soulmark, I felt like I was being pulled under by its power. Like I was drowning in its vastness. But just now when you touched it…”
“It calmed you?”
I bite my lip and gently shake my head, mulling over the right word to use. “It was nice.” I laugh at his slightly put out expression. “It was! I just mean that it was almost perfect. It wasn’t too much, but it was just enough. It wasn’t that I was getting lost in its depths. It was that we were together. It was—”
“Us,” he finishes with a smile. I nod. “That’s because the soulmark has been completed. We are bound, and in doing so, our souls are finally complete, having found and bound themselves to their other half.”
I blush like a schoolgirl at his rather romantic explanation and earn myself another kiss. “That’s nice,” I tell him, ignoring his short humph and letting out a small laugh.
“You’re happy, aren’t you?” he asks after a moment of silence. His voice shadowed by doubt, and though I wish to respond with an immediate yes, I give myself time to think over my answer. Am I happy? I certainly feel freer than I have in ages. As if our union lifts some strange weight and responsibility off my shoulders and now I can… live. Not just go on day-to-day trying to be normal, doing exactly as others expect of me. Though there have been so many reasons to be sad as of late, I find that I am. Happy, that is.
“Yes,” I whisper somewhat shyly leaning into him. “I’m happy.” His body relaxes, and his arms wrap around me tighter. “But,” I start, another thought coming to me, “I won’t be happy if you don’t come back from this fight tonight alive.”
Xander pulls back and looks down at me, then rolls over me and props himself up on his arms. “I’m coming back tonight, Zoelle. Don’t worry about me. Just make sure you follow your part of the plan tonight.” I scowl up at him.
“How can you ask me that? Not to worry?” I scoff. “I feel you. I feel your fear and your concerns about tonight. What if you get hurt? Will I hurt? This bond between us is strong, Xander. And what if… what if you—”
He silences me with a harsh kiss till I’m breathless and whimpering against him. “Don’t,” he pants, pulling back a hair’s breath away. “Nothing will happen to me tonight, and I’ll be damned if I let anything hurt you. We can control the bond between us now that it’s complete. Open it up wide. Or constrict it till it’s nearly closed.” He hikes my leg up around his hip, my other naturally following. I groan at the feel of his hot length, hard and ready to go again against my heated flesh. “I won’t let anyone hurt you,” he promises, sliding into me slowly. And making me feel every inch of his cock as it stretches me. A flood of wetness pools around him, and he takes in a harsh breath. “Not even me,” he growls, burrowing himself to the hilt inside of me. We savor our moment together like this, eyes locked onto each other. Bodies one. And then we begin again. And again. And again.
+++
The forest is still.
The birds quiet their songs. The trees hush their leaves. The wind dies down.
Predators are afoot. Lycans.
Tonight, blood will be shed. It is a fact both the Adolphus and Wselfwulf packs know to be true but does nothing to stop the coming events. Both packs desire vengeance. For family and friends lost. For pride. Two sides of the same coin, yet one is more prepared than the other.
+++
“I want you to wear this,” I tell Xander once he finishes sending off a few pack mates into the forest. We linger near the kitchen table, our lovemaking cut short as the clock nears six.
Xander eyes my necklace curiously, “What does it do?” Another wolf passes by, shaking Xander’s hand before jogging out the back door of Gran’s kitchen.
“It—” A group of eldritch witches file around us, they laugh together at something someone has said, and I pass Xander a strained smile. “It provides protection. When I was ten, I was in a car accident with my family. Everyone ended up being killed from the crash, except me. And it’s because of this.” I hold out the jade necklace to him, “I want you to wear it.”
+++
The Adolphus pack mates thread through the thick tree line with ease. The forest is their territory. They fight with the advantage. The wolves eagerly take their positions. Canvasing the greenery with vigilant eyes and spreading themselves across the land.
Their numbers are strong. Made stronger with the eldritch witches who will fight beside them. Lycan and witch fighting side-by-side, a sight to behold. This moment will shake the supernatural world.
But they do not know this yet.
+++
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he says softly. He lets out a soft whine at my crestfallen expression, pulling me off to the side as more and more people peel out of the house to take their stations. “Hey, don’t think I don’t want to wear this. I do. I’m honored that you would think to give this to me for this fight, but I’ll be shifting from man to wolf, I don’t know how many times tonight. And I don’t want to risk brea
king the chain.”
“I understand,” I tell him lightly. He presses a kiss to my forehead and holds me tight.
+++
They do not know what lies in wait before them.
Fire and fury.
Anger and fear.
Man and beast.
The Wselfwulf pack arrives well prepared. A mixture of man and wolf donned for war. Those on two legs fill their hands with knives and guns. Those on four find purpose stalking the forest floor.
The forest releases its breath, and on the wind, a pack mate smells the threat. The Adolphus pack stills. Except for one. Justin. The young man glides forward quietly. Eyes alert. His pack mates ready behind him.
He does not see the trap they’ve set, nor the dozen others. Not until it is too late.
Justin’s cry pierces the air as the bear trap captures his foot. Its metal teeth sinking into his flesh without remorse. Digging to the bone.
+++
“I love—” Xander’s voice breaks off in a strangled cry, and he pushes me away, dropping to his knees. The witches who remain inside gasp in shock as he reaches up a hand to hold onto a chair, neatly splintering it in half when he lets out a bellow of rage. “Go!” he commands to the last of the wolves.
“What’s happening!” A young witch cries. One of the healers. My knees buckle at the weight of the alphas fury. That, and the pack’s sudden fear and rush of anger.
“Go!” I shout at him. He sends me a short look of panic, hesitating as he reads the worry etched across my face. “Go,” I tell him again, my voice stern but barely steady. He nods curtly and sprints away. The last of the wolves and eldritch witches follow behind him. My legs give out beneath me as the chaos of the pack emotion swells inside of me, and I let out an uncontrollable sob.
“Now, come on, sweetheart. You can’t let yourself fall in so deep to the pack bonds. Get up.” Gran pulls at my arms, bringing me to my shaking feet.
“They were already there. Waiting,” I gasp, forcing myself back together and closing down on the pack bonds so only a trickle of emotion could be felt. Gran rests a cool hand and its comforting presence on the back of my neck as she breathes with me. In and out, in long steady pulls of air. “Why didn’t we see this?”
Aunt Lydia waves her hand at us, then to the phone pressed tightly between her shoulder and ear. She wears an uneasy frown. “Moon says she still has no idea when they will attack.”
“They’re attacking now!” I all but growl back.
“Exactly, darling, and Moon had no clue. She’s had several premonitions of when the Wselfwulfs will attack, and though one or two of them was early evening, there were several others that showed late in the night.”
“That’s not good enough,” I argue, stepping out of Gran’s embrace. “We’ll lose this fight before it's even begun.” Aunt Lydia ends her phone call.
“Settle down now, Zoelle. We made plans for this. We stick to the plan,” Gran tells me. A sick bile rises in my throat as I catch glimpses of fear and sympathy running across the other witches faces. “If Moon is still getting mixed premonitions it can only mean one thing. That there will be multiple attacks tonight. What the pack is facing now may very well just be the first fleet of wolves sent to attack. In the next hour or two more may come.”
“That isn’t what we planned for,” I say dejectedly.
“I know, but it’s all right, darling—”
“It’s not all right!” I shout, silencing the entire room. “It’s not.”
“You’re wrong, Zoelle,” says a new voice. A woman with long brown hair and large blue eyes enters the room, much to the amazement of the others in the room.
“Melissa, by the Goddess. What are you doing here?” Aunt Lydia exclaims. Melissa? I eye the newcomer with trepidation, but the witches surge toward her and embrace her like some long-lost sister.
“Who are you exactly?” I ask, my impatience shining through.
“Melissa Wall.” Well, that was helpful. I plaster on a tight smile.
“Nice to meet you,” she smirks at my obvious distrust and ignorance. “You were saying something about me being wrong?” I prompt, crossing my arms over my chest. I feel a pinprick of discomfort through the soulmark and close my eyes in concentration. They are fighting out there, not knowing what will come next, and we can’t do anything to help them, save running out into the forest ourselves to deliver the message. Maybe we could spell a piece of paper to one of our own and get them a message. My eyes snap open at the thought and I note that Melissa has made her way toward me, hand outstretched.
“You are wrong. There’s a way to get your message to them.”
“I know,” I tell her smugly and turn to Gran. “We just need to write this down on a piece of paper and charm it to fly over to them! Someone—”
“There’s a faster way,” Melissa cuts in.
“Oh really? And what is your grand plan, then?”
“You.”
“Me?”
Melissa smiles and grasps my hand to give it a squeeze. I startle at the touch and step back, unsure why I instantly associate it with pack. She takes my hand again and squeezes. “Don’t be afraid,” she tells me kindly. “What you’re feeling is real. I know we’ve never met, but my soulmark Malcolm was once part of your pack.”
Oh.
“You’re Melissa.” My eyes widen in understanding. The witch from years ago. The one who was involved in the soul binding gone wrong. I’m struck by the way she speaks so fondly.
“Yes,” she says, smile brightening. “We need to act quickly now though, Zoelle. You must open up the soulmark bond and communicate to Xander what we’ve discovered.”
“I don’t know how,” I blurt out. “Xander’s the one who’s been doing it. He has the bond between us tightly closed now so that I don’t—”
“Feel any sort of pain. I know,” she says, her own past pain slipping into the narrative. “But you can still communicate with him. When Malcolm went to speak with my father about our sealing. To tell him it wasn’t forced and that we wanted to try… he did the same to me. He cut me off as much as he could from our small bond. But you can open it back up, Zoelle. It will hurt, but you can still get the message across.”
I process the details quickly, pushing aside my curiosity and focusing back on the task. “How?”
“Just like you close off the pack bonds. Concentrate. Find the light that is his soul in your mind's eye and open it wide enough for you to get your message through,” she urges me. “This will be much faster than magic, and once Xander receives your message he can communicate it to the other members of the pack through the pack bonds. Those in human form will tell the eldritch witches. We still have a chance.”
“Okay,” I breathe and squeeze my eyes tightly shut searching out the little light with my mind. Where are you? My search frantic and harried. Doing nothing to aid me.
“Breathe, Zoelle. You can do this, sweetheart,” Gran tells me softly. “Calm your heart. Take in what’s around you and find your center.”
I take a few deep breaths and attempt to rid my mind of its worries. Allow my other senses to clear my mind. The kitchen smells of spices and magic. Like lightning lingering in the air. My skin warmed by the constant flames burning on the stove. The sound of bated breath stands eerily in the background of my own. Like an audience in wait for the show to begin. And then I look again.
“I found it,” I whisper, following the dulled but brilliant light tucked safely away in my mind. Out of sight, out of mind. How appropriate.
“Now just open it wider, Zoelle, and speak to him.”