by Viola Rivard
As they made their way across the room, Mila noticed a large, black wolf sleeping on the dais that overlooked the bonfire. The dais was usually reserved for the alphas, and for a moment she thought it was Caim, but then realized it didn’t make sense, as he’d said he was rejoining the hunt.
Mila puzzled over the wolf as she came to sit in front of the fire. Still standing, Brae told her, “I will go get you some food,” before disappearing.
Looking forward to a few minutes alone, she relaxed and began rubbing her hands in front of the fire. Her alone-time didn’t last. Before she was able to snag a moment of quiet contemplation, Rosie and Gem sat down on either side of her.
“Hey, guys,” she said weakly.
Her blue eyes impossibly wide, Gem was brimming with excitement. “I’ve never seen Caim like that. He is so into you.”
“Huh?” Mila asked, taken aback.
“The way he held you? It was so romantic!”
Mila could feel her face begin to heat. “Get your head outta the clouds. He’s just acting like that because of the thrall.”
“You shouldn’t think like that, Mila,” Brae said, approaching the fire. She handed Mila a stick with several chunks of raw meat speared onto it. “However much you think he is affected by the thrall, imagine how devoted he will be towards you once you are carrying his pups.”
“I’d rather not,” Mila said under her breath.
Holding the stick over the fire, she watched glumly as the meat roasted. While it was nice having fresh meat for every meal, she was beginning to crave some variety in her diet. What she wouldn’t give for fries and a coke.
“What’s wrong?” asked Gem.
“Nothing, just a little tired of eating meat I guess.”
Gem gave a heavy sigh. “I know what you mean. I would kill for some ice cream.”
“I miss ice cream as well,” Rosie said thoughtfully.
Mila jerked her head to the side. “Wait a minute. You weren’t raised in a pack?”
Shifting uncomfortably, she said, “I lived in Leesburg until I was old enough to leave and join a pack.”
Brae sat down beside Rosie, an impish grin on her face. “Rose was raised by dogs.”
Mila watched as Rosie paled and then colored, her skin turning into a patchwork of splotchy reds. Without warning, she turned and shoved Brae, sending her careening backwards several feet. Before Mila could blink, Rosie had dove on top of Brae, her hands wrapping around Brae’s slender neck.
“I told Kallie that in confidence!” she shrieked.
Mila was marginally relieved to see that Brae seemed more amused than frightened, but she still backed away from them.
Laughing, Brae replied, “And I am confident that she found it just as funny as I do!”
Mila grimaced and looked away as the two began trading blows. It had made sense to her why male werewolves chose not to live with humans, what with them being constantly plagued by the scents of fertile women. Now she was starting to understand why females also chose to leave human society. Even women like Brae, who at times seemed so elegant and well mannered, could do an about face at the drop of a dime, yielding to the capricious beast within.
The wolves gathered around in a loose circle, watching the spectacle unfold. Neither woman shifted, but it still looked more like a dogfight than a brawl between two naked women. Mila couldn’t help but feel bad for Rosie, as Brae was clearly toying with her. Rosie may have been fueled by her anger, but it was apparent that she had no idea how to fight.
She kept her eyes glued to the fight, her entire body poised to bolt if the females came barreling towards her. Without looking away, she said, “I feel like I should be doing something.”
“Yeah,” Gem said. “You haven’t eaten your meat yet.”
Mila looked down at her half-cooked venison and shrugged, before taking a bite off the browned side. She wasn’t happy about them fighting, but it wasn’t as if she could really stop them. Asking nicely hadn’t worked, neither had asking not-so-nicely, and that was the extent of her arsenal.
There was a sound of sliced air, followed by a loud thwack! Mila looked up in time to see Rose cry out in pain as a large bone clattered to the floor. Their fight came to a halt as both women stared wide-eyed up at the dais.
She watched as a dark-haired, Amazonian woman jumped down, landing several yards from Rosie and Brae. The crowd of wolves backed off as the woman stalked over to them, her footsteps heavy.
“Six days,” she barked at them, her voice echoing throughout the cavern. “Six days I had to put up with the stench of oil, and sewage, and fat, filthy humans. Do you know how many hours of sleep I got?”
Gem put a hand on Mila’s shoulder and motioned her to follow. In a hushed voice she said, “Come on, you don’t want to be near this one.”
“Who is she?” Mila asked, allowing Gem to lead her away from the fire.
She watched as Rosie released Brae, staring up at the newcomer with rounded eyes. “I did not mean to wake you.” Pointing to Brae, she added, “She started—” The muscular woman grabbed Rosie by the head, twisting the smaller female’s hair around her wrist until she yelped out in pain.
Still whispering, Gem said, “That’s Sable.”
Mila recognized the name, and couldn’t help but size the woman up. Nearly as tall as a man, her diamond-shaped face was severely drawn, with high cheekbones and sharply angled eyebrows. With her dark features and tanned skin, Sable was an exotic beauty, and Mila could easily see why she was one of Caim’s favorites.
In fact, with Sable’s strong, muscular body it wasn’t hard to imagine her with Caim. She could just picture the two of them going at it, each of them battling for dominance until the big male finally pinned her down and took her from behind. Sable was no delicate human. Caim could take her with wild abandon, fucking her as hard and as fast as he pleased.
“Mila!”
She looked up at Gem, feeling dazed. “Huh?”
Gem grabbed Mila’s hand, holding it palm up. “You’re bleeding.”
Mila examined her palm, her brow furrowed in confusion. Gem was right. In the fleshy heel of her palm were four deep indentations, two of them pooling with blood.
“I…I don’t remember doing that.”
It felt inhuman, like there was a beast inside of her, writhing to free itself. She had the overwhelming and inexplicable urge to somehow assert her dominance over the other woman—and why shouldn’t she? Sable had no right to beat her friends around, and as the mate of the alphas, Mila was clearly the person to stop her.
The realization made Mila feel powerful, and she found herself leaving Gem’s side and moving to approach the trio. She had only gotten a few feet closer when she felt a hand clamp down on her shoulder. She glanced back, expecting Gem, but was surprised to see Lotus.
Mila arched a brow at her. She had mixed feelings about Lotus, the radiant beta female who had been one of Caim’s favorites. She used ‘had been’ rather liberally, considering she had no idea if Caim was going to stop sleeping with other women.
Looking between Lotus and the slender hand on her shoulder, she asked, “Can I help you?”
Probably the one good thing about Lotus was that Mila didn’t have to pretend to like her, and she seemed okay with that, as the feeling was mutual.
“Whatever impetuous decision you are about to make, I would suggest that you consider the outcome before blindly rushing in.”
Mila motioned to the brawl in the center of the cavern. “In case you haven’t noticed, she’s throttling my friends.”
“And you will do well to thank her when she is done.”
“Thank her?” she asked, throwing her hands up. “She’s hurting them.”
Lotus snorted in disgust. “Your friends have been running amuck since Sable left. They need to be put in their places. If they keep carrying on like this they will end up inadvertently hurting you. Asch and Caim will kill them.”
Mila brought a hand to her temple and
shook her head. “You’re insane. They would not do that.”
Lotus held Mila’s gaze, her expression flat. “After tonight, you will be carrying at least one of their pups. If you think that they’re going to be as lenient with these types of antics—or your need to rashly involve yourself in dangerous situations—then you are more naïve than I thought, which is rather impressive.”
Without another word, Lotus turned to walk away. Mila stared after her retreating form, forgetting everything except her embarrassment and the gnawing anxiety that was once again rearing its ugly head.
Once Lotus was a good distance away, Gem approached Mila. “Don’t let her get to you,” she said, patting Mila on the back. “Lotus has just been prickly lately, but she’s real nice, I swear. She’ll warm up to you.”
Mila turned back to watch the fight, which seemed to be winding down. Brae was lying supplicant on the floor, while Rosie sat in a sniveling heap. Sable loomed over them, a steady stream of vitriol spewing from her mouth. Mila tried to pay attention, but her mind wandered restlessly.
She didn’t want Lotus to ‘warm up to her.’ She was really starting to hate Lotus. It was a wholly unique blend of hatred, the kind of hatred a person could only feel for someone who could see right through all of their bullshit.
CHAPTER THREE
Shortly after leaving the meeting with River and Fern, Asch found himself standing outside of Mila’s room. He hadn’t expected her to be there. Now that she was becoming more comfortable around the pack, she spent most of her days in the central cavern, rather than holed up in her bedroom.
He walked over to the bed, picking up the black pelt that rested on top of the blankets. He brought it up to his nose, inhaling his mate’s potent scent before throwing it over his shoulder and heading back into the passageway.
Unable to focus, all of the things he should have been thinking about, namely Blackthorn, had taken a backseat to thoughts of Mila and the impending thrall.
When they had been juveniles, Caim had asked Asch to describe the mating thrall. Despite being fourteen, Caim had been far from sexually inexperienced, and yet Asch had struggled to explain the all-consuming lust he’d nearly succumbed to.
“It starts off like a nagging feeling in the back of your head,” Asch had told him. They had been sitting in the bed of his truck, a half day’s drive out from town. Caim had insisted the distance and the mountain air would help Asch clear his mind, and he’d been right. “It feels like you’re forgetting something, but every time you try and remember, your dick gets hard.”
Looking unimpressed by the explanation, Caim had responded, “I believe it is just your lack of control.”
“Believe me, my dick is the one thing I can control. This was, I don’t know, it was just different. My body was reacting to her and I tried to ignore it, and then fight it, and then it just…It was like something inside of me had just snapped and all I could think was that she was mine. It wasn’t even about sex. All I wanted was to get her pregnant, like some sort of fucking animal marking its territory. If you hadn’t been there…I would have ruined that poor girl.”
It had been a while since Asch had thought about that low point in his life. As he entered the central cavern, he was reminded why.
Mila.
She sat next to Gem and Brae on the dais. Rose was behind her, fixing her glossy brown hair into a large braid. In her skin-tight jeans and her generous scoop-neck top, Mila looked delectable. With the added lure of her heat, Asch found himself fighting for control of his body.
As he made his way to the dais, he noted that the other males had already cleared out of the den. Undoubtedly they could smell her impending heat as well, but were unlikely to be as affected as their alphas. They had imprinted on Mila, making it impossible to ignore the call of her body.
This time, Asch wouldn’t have to hold back.
~~~
Mila may not have gotten the confrontation she’d wanted, but she had gotten the dais, so at least that was something.
After the fight had broken up, Sable had left the den, leaving Mila with two abject friends to attend to. Despite her best efforts, Brae still looked miserable, but Rosie’s mood had brightened as soon as Mila had offered up her nails for painting. She decided it must have been a pride thing. Rosie was used to being picked on and degraded, but Brae was in a much higher position in the pack. Not as high as Sable’s, apparently.
Rosie painted Mila’s nails, and then moved behind Mila to braid her hair. Mila tried to distract herself by focusing on Rosie and Gem’s conversation, but for once in her life, she couldn’t bring herself to be interested in a discussion on different types of nail polish. She tried engaging Brae in conversation, but she was impossibly gloomy and there was just no helping it.
Mila noticed him before the other women did, a fact that made her both proud and a little scared. It was as if she had a sixth sense that existed solely to feel her alphas when they were near. Every nerve in her body tingled with an acute awareness and her eyes would immediately seek them out.
As comfortable as she was becoming with the pack’s nudity, seeing Asch naked always affected her. He was a large man with bronze skin and the most beautifully sculpted chest she had ever seen in her life. Unlike Caim, Asch spent most of his time in his human form, taunting Mila with his gorgeous abs and perfect bone structure. She wanted him every time she saw him, and tonight was no exception.
Their eyes locked, and Asch held her gaze as he cleared the room in purposeful strides. As he neared the dais, the other women took notice of him. Rosie shifted uncomfortably behind Mila, while Brae and Gem perked up.
“Good night, Asch,” Brae said by way of greeting. Typically Mila could overlook Brae’s thinly-veiled affection for Asch, but for some reason when she looked at Brae, she couldn’t keep her lip from curling. When she realized that Asch was still staring at her, Mila had the grace to look embarrassed.
He glanced between the females, grinning. “Ladies, if I may.”
Brae and Gem stood in unison, excusing themselves. Rosie quickly finished with the braid she was working on and patted Mila on the shoulder, before joining the others. It never ceased to amaze her how obedient the pack members were towards their alphas.
“Very smooth,” she said, watching her friends vacate the dais. Asch squatted down in front of her, picking up one of her feet.
“You painted your toenails,” he remarked, examining her foot. She smiled, wiggling her toes.
“Rosie did it.”
Asch sat, pulling her foot into his lap. With both hands, he began massaging her, applying deep, hard pressure with his thumbs. Mila leaned back, bracing herself on her arms. With her legs parted before him, the position was very intimate, but she took solace in the fact that they were in public. Even if Asch didn’t have reservations about feeling her up in front of the pack, she certainly did.
He massaged her thoroughly, starting on her heel and working his way up, digging his thumbs into the arch of her foot and massaging the mounds below her toes. Rather than relaxing her, the intimate gesture made her pulse quicken.
As he began to work his way up her calf, Mila raked her teeth along her bottom lip. Despite all of his attractive body parts, she had a major thing for Asch’s hands. They were big, but not brawny; calloused, but still nimble, and they were wicked as sin. His long fingers were multi-talented—they always knew when and where to brush, caress, and apply the right amount of force to make her body throb.
Mila shifted, trying to covertly press her thighs together. When she saw Asch’s nostrils flare she inwardly winced, knowing that he could smell her arousal.
“Who taught you how to give such a good massage?” she asked, not sure if she was trying to distract him, or herself.
“I’m very attentive,” he told her. His eyes ran the length of her body before settling on her face. “While I’m touching you, I pay close attention to your breathing, the pace of your heartbeat, your scent…”
He
trailed off as his hand slipped between her inner thighs, the ball of his thumb rolling over her sensitive patch. Mila let out a quivering breath, her inner muscles clenching with need. His hands moved to her hips and he leaned over, pressing his forehead against hers.
His scent—masculine and woodsy—filled her nose, making her body tingle. Powerless to stop herself, Mila wet her lips in anticipation. Before she could pull her tongue back, Asch caught it between his teeth, sucking it into his mouth.
With a growl, he pushed her back onto the hard floor, his hungry mouth moving across hers at a feverish pace. The noises of the cavern faded away, being replaced with the loud thrumming of her heartbeat and the sound of Asch’s heavy breathing as he took possession of her mouth.
Her mind was scattered, thoughts rolling away from her like spilled marbles. It should have bothered her that they were in plain view of the pack, but the only things that mattered were hips lips, his tongue, and his hands—hands that were pulling her hips against his, grinding his stiff length against her.
As her flesh heated, the clothes that had been so comfortable a few moments earlier now seemed tight and restrictive. They scratched against her sensitive skin, and all she wanted was to rip them off and be naked beneath her mate. Her hands fumbled with the button on her jeans. If she could just get them off, Asch could be inside of her, giving her everything that she needed so badly.
Mila let out a wretched noise of protest as Asch pulled back suddenly. Cool air brushed against her sweat-dampened skin, bringing her mind back to reality, a reality in which she’d wanted to have sex with Asch in the middle of the central cavern—and still did. She sat up, running a plaintive hand across his hard chest, but his attention was diverted. Frowning, she turned her head to the side to see an irritated-looking Caim.
She blinked, and then blinked again, trying to gather her runaway thoughts as the two males glared at one another. Her first impulse was to ask Caim if he wanted to join them, but as her eyes darted around the room, taking in the numerous onlookers, Mila bowed her head, her face heating.