by Odessa Lynne
Hot tongues delved deep—mouth, ass, balls. They teased him until he couldn’t breathe.
They teased him until he was whimpering with every flick of a tongue or press of a finger slicked with lube.
Until he was begging.
“Tanis… Fuck, Tanis, come on, please. Tanis… Please…”
They continued to tease him, until Leif’s eyes dilated and his nostrils flared and his body ran hot and sweat coated his skin and his kisses started to take on an aggressive edge and he tried to push Eris away when Eris touched Gerald’s shoulder.
At that moment, Tanis pulled Gerald off Leif and pushed him into Raleigh’s arms.
Eris wrestled Leif to his knees. Tanis grabbed Leif by the neck, causing Leif’s long torso to stretch backward.
“Submit!”
Gerald shuddered at the power in that command as Raleigh’s arms went stiff and tight around his chest. An impressive bulge pressed against Gerald’s bare ass.
Leif stilled for one brief moment and that was long enough. Tanis drew his claws up Leif’s spine. Leif reacted as if someone had stuck a live current to him. He sucked in a deep breath, cutting off a sharp cry, his back arching, head falling back.
Tanis surged forward, going to his knees and biting down on the column of Leif’s throat.
Gerald had no idea what he was witnessing as his gaze skipped over the tight-fitting t-shirt that outlined Leif’s muscled chest and hard nipples and the spreading dark spot at his groin.
It hit him then, exactly what he was seeing.
Leif panted, his clawed fingers scratching at the floor below as Tanis gripped the back of his neck and held him in that awkward position, back bowed, thighs stretched taut and stomach visible beneath the hem of his shirt as he shuddered out the rest of what looked like an impressive orgasm.
Raleigh spoke into Gerald’s ear. “I can’t wait to feel my alpha’s touch. Only a true mate can bring more pleasure.”
Tanis raised his head, eyes glittering. He looked straight at Eris. “Fuck him. Claim your pleasure.”
Eris took hold of Leif and lowered him to the floor while Tanis rose to his feet.
Gerald couldn’t take his eyes off Tanis, who stalked toward him like a god from another world. Raleigh’s arms tightened on Gerald again, then released just as Tanis stopped in front of them.
Gerald had never felt inadequate as a lover before, but after what he’d seen between Tanis and Leif, he couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe the only thing special about him was the fact that he was human. Tanis had shared something with Leif he would never share with Gerald and there was absolutely nothing Gerald could do about that.
An odd feeling twisted through him, one that made no sense. He’d known Tanis only thirteen days. Thirteen days—and all of those spent locked up in a house where only Tanis visited him, for sex, for mating, and little else.
It was stupid to be jealous. Stupid.
Tanis touched Raleigh’s face. “Call me Alpha, Raeshikid.”
Raleigh made a noise in his throat and said quickly, with an eagerness that didn’t seem warranted, “Alpha. Thank you, Alpha. Thank you.”
“Go take your pleasure with Eris and Leif. I’m going to fuck the human, and our time’s running short. Eris has caught this one’s human scent and he’s trying his best to bury it under the smell of pack. Help him.”
On the other side of Tanis, Eris already had Leif’s trousers on the floor beside them and was rutting between Leif’s well muscled legs, back bowed, mouth and nose thrust deep into the crease of Leif’s underarm.
The muscles of his tight ass—
“Yes, Alpha.”
Gerald jerked his gaze away from Eris and Leif, the heaviness in his cock almost too much to bear.
Raleigh hurried to join the other wolves, and Tanis turned that fierce gaze to Gerald.
Gerald, who was now standing alone in the middle of the compartment more than half-naked, his jeans hanging off him at the knees, and his cock still stiff enough to stand upright.
Gerald scratched the center of his bare chest, heart thundering. “You’re going to fuck the human, huh?”
A rumble grew in Tanis’s chest. “Submit, human.”
“Sure,” Gerald said.
He reached for his jeans and yanked them up to mid-thigh. Denim clung damply to the insides of his knees and he cringed just as a whiff of ammonia tickled the back of his throat. He’d pissed himself earlier. Funny how quickly he’d forgotten about that in all that had followed.
Tanis snatched hold of Gerald’s wrist, narrow eyes blazing, hair swinging forward to frame the hard lines of his face.
Gerald stopped moving, eyes fixed on that powerful hand wrapped around his wrist, knowing Tanis could snap it with a negligent twist. His cock gave an impatient twitch and he could feel heat rising into his face.
“Hey, hey, hey. I submit. I do. You’re the one who said the floor’d be hard on my knees.”
Tanis’s expression eased, his chest rising and falling with a speed that sent caution spiraling through Gerald.
Tanis was losing his hold over his heat cycle. No other explanation for those glassy eyes and the sweat that made his longer hair stick to the sides of his face.
Gerald dropped to his knees then and wasn’t surprised when Tanis immediately followed him down.
Gerald had just enough time to get his hands on the floor before Tanis yanked Gerald to him. Gerald’s palms burned with the friction of sliding along the floor, but the denim did protect his knees.
Two seconds later, Gerald’s breath left his body in a desperate rush as Tanis thrust right through Gerald’s asshole and buried his cock deep.
He shouted. Having his ass lubed by the others had obviously been a really good idea. Every muscle in his body tightened as the sudden stretch stole what breath he had left.
He couldn’t relax; he didn’t want to. The mingling pain and pleasure of Tanis thrusting so forcefully inside him grew into a tight knot inside his balls.
As soon as he tried to touch his dick, Tanis growled and knocked his hand away.
“Fuck! You have to let me, come on.”
“Submit!”
“I do, I do, I submit.” Gerald arched his back into the next thrust, desperate to touch himself. “Please, Tanis.”
“You’ll have your pleasure when your alpha sees to it. Not before.”
But Gerald couldn’t stand the wait, not after all the touching and licking and sucking earlier. “Fuck it,” he muttered. He grabbed at his cock.
Tanis shoved Gerald’s hand flat to the floor and held it there, fucking Gerald until his own movements became frantic and Gerald’s arms trembled from holding them both up.
Then Tanis roared and Gerald felt semen filling his ass in a hot pulse. Tanis seemed intent on crushing Gerald under him before abruptly pulling away with a sob-like whimper that startled the hell out of Gerald.
With unexpected speed, Tanis flipped Gerald onto his back.
Gerald’s breath rushed out of his body as his overheated back made contact with the cold floor. His back arched and he grunted, and that was the moment Tanis shuffled forward and grabbed him by the hair—
What the fuck?
—and splattered his alien semen all over Gerald’s face.
“What the fuck!”
Just as he was swiping cum out of his eyebrows, an unnamed anger bright and hot in his chest, Tanis lurched forward and kissed Gerald, forcing at least some of that musky, bittersweet cum onto Gerald’s tongue.
Moments later, Tanis started kissing and licking his way down Gerald’s chest, and soon after that, Tanis sucked his dick dry.
Chapter 16
The floor was cold. That was the first thing Gerald noticed when Tanis shook him out of his stupor some time later. He jerked upright, then groaned and shifted so he wasn’t putting so much pressure on his tailbone and asshole.
That was the second thing he noticed: his asshole was sore and somehow he’d bruised his tailbon
e.
How the hell had he bruised his tailbone?
Tanis had a dark cloth in his hand and he swiped it across Gerald’s forehead. When Gerald raised his eyebrows, his skin pulled. He’d obviously been out for more than a few minutes. The cum on his face had already started to dry.
He groaned again and said, “It’s like glue.”
“It was necessary.”
“That’s bullshit. You did that because—hey, that’s one of my shirts!”
He grabbed for the fabric.
Tanis snatched hold of Gerald’s throat, and Gerald jerked to a stop, adrenaline flooding through him. That was when he noticed the third thing: they weren’t alone.
Not Eris or Leif or Raleigh.
The female wolf from earlier was back. She stood near the compartment door, just at the edges of Gerald’s peripheral vision.
“Your hold over your betas is impressive,” she said. “You seem to have this one trained well.”
Gerald wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be sarcasm or an actual compliment.
Tanis’s nostrils flared and his eyes seemed to glint in the warm light that came from everywhere and nowhere to brighten the ship’s compartment. His fingers flexed at Gerald’s throat and the tips of his claws pricked delicately at Gerald’s skin. “He’s still learning his place.”
Gerald winced. Sarcasm, then. He liked to think he didn’t let his dick rule his head, but he’d let himself completely forget that he had a very important unanswered question where Tanis was concerned.
Was Tanis a traitor—or a spy?
It was a question Tanis wasn’t going to answer, because if he meant to, Gerald would already know. So self-preservation kept his mouth shut and his body still. Submission was the only real option he had.
The tension between the female and Tanis grew, right up until the moment another wolf stepped through the door. He wasn’t as large as Tanis and he had several deep gashes across his face that appeared to have scabbed over. A blood soaked bandage covered one ear and the bones below one cheek had lost their prominence.
The wolf might be healing, but his injuries were still severe enough to make Gerald flinch at the sight of them.
Tanis released Gerald and stood.
Gerald fell back on his hands, becoming immediately aware of the fact that his jeans were still down around his knees. He quickly straightened and started pulling up his pants, his movements jerky. He didn’t like the way the injured wolf’s eyes had fixated on him.
“You changed the plan,” Tanis said. “Why?”
“The watchers are nervous.” Then she said something Gerald couldn’t translate, probably another name. “—break with his alpha has caused problems with some of the other betas.”
Her gaze flickered toward Gerald again, lingering in a way that made him wish his shirt wasn’t on the floor beside him covered in drying semen. “Not yours, I hear. They’re very loyal.”
“Because they’re mine,” Tanis said, emphasizing “mine” with the sudden appearance of claws from beneath the dark material of his fingernails.
“Your status is safe, Paetaniskeille. But it won’t stay that way if you forget your place in the prophecy.”
Tanis sniffed at the air. “You smell of humans and sex. Is that why you were late after ordering the early departure?”
Her gaze flickered from Gerald to Tanis. “I will not talk about Alpha’s business in front of him.”
“Then we’ll go elsewhere. The human will stay here.”
The female looked speculatively at the injured wolf and back to Tanis. “Maenesterarki will watch over him while we’re gone.”
Mane. That was about all Gerald got out of the obvious name before Tanis growled, then cut it short for an abrupt, hard, “No.”
She’d offended Tanis, Gerald could see it in the way Tanis held his shoulders, in the way his eyes burned right through her.
“If someone must guard him to satisfy your concern, my betas will guard him,” Tanis said.
Her eyes flared wide. “You question my hold over my beta?” she demanded.
“We both know I submit because I choose to, Zeintaegoer. If you try to take him from me, I will not submit.”
He picked up the first sound he recognized. Z. Zena. As good a nickname as any.
Her claws had come out but she didn’t take a single step in Tanis’s direction. “I don’t want another human to fuck. But he came from there and I won’t trust him until Jetikima trusts him.”
Zena glared at Gerald.
Gerald quickly looked down. He let another moment pass before he looked up from under his eyelashes.
Her attention was on Tanis again, her nostrils flared, her eyes glassy and bright. The other wolf, though… His attention had not wavered from Gerald, and Gerald immediately lowered his gaze again.
Shit. His heart started to pound uncomfortably hard. He really didn’t like the look in that wolf’s eyes, not one bit.
Tanis’s growling voice cut through Gerald’s uneasy thoughts. “Get him out of here.”
Gerald looked up just as Zena finally noticed her beta’s fixated stare.
“Maenesterarki!” she growled.
Mane turned his head, but the motion seemed exaggerated, as if he were having trouble comprehending what was going on around him.
“Leave us!” Zena roared.
The ring of her voice echoed painfully against Gerald’s eardrums. He cringed and covered his ears.
But Mane didn’t leave. His nostrils flared and his eyes brightened and his chest rose and fell with rapid, shallow breaths. His gaze wandered back to Gerald.
Gerald stopped breathing, his entire body frozen under that scary as hell look.
Mane was about to lose control—his alien instincts had grabbed hold of him and weren’t letting go, and Gerald knew it to the marrow of his bones.
Tanis clenched a handful of Gerald’s hair.
Gerald scrambled to his feet under Tanis’s firm tug. Before Tanis released him, he gave Gerald’s scalp an unexpectedly gentle rub and Gerald looked askance at him.
Every bit of Tanis’s attention was on Mane.
Zena growled, showing the points of her teeth. She rushed Mane, clawing at his face. Mane twisted under her, then surged free. But they were fighting and Tanis took that opportunity to shove Gerald toward the other end of the compartment.
Gerald stumbled shirtless toward the door that probably led to the outside. Just as they reached it, Tanis did something with his hand, fingers pressing to a small panel, and the door opened, splitting at a seam Gerald hadn’t even seen.
Tanis pushed Gerald through the door and Gerald nearly fell to his knees at the edge, caught himself, and jumped the few feet to the ground.
His boots crunched dark snow and cold air stole the breath right out of his lungs. His skin turned to gooseflesh in an instant.
And when he looked up, he forgot to take his next breath.
He wasn’t sure when they’d traveled, or where they’d gone, but they weren’t in a field anymore, and a steep hill covered in moonlit snow blocked his view. He turned just as Tanis leapt to the ground beside him, and even as a shiver shuddered through him, he saw the steep grade of a ridge and a broad swath of dark valley below, half hidden by the hulking ship.
It was too early for snow. Much too early. Fall hadn’t faded yet, not completely, with the leaves still red and gold and yellow, and this made no sense.
He hugged his chest and just resisted giving his arms a brisk rub. Not a good idea if he wanted to delay the loss of heat where it mattered most for as long as possible. “I’m going to freeze to death out here. Shit.”
Tanis stripped off his shirt, the sudden movement startling Gerald into a quick step backwards.
The dampness at his crotch became an icy chill.
Without giving Gerald time to even think, Tanis dragged the shirt down over Gerald’s head.
“This will do for now. We won’t be exposed for long.”
G
erald stuck his arms through the sleeves and yanked the soft fabric down, covering his stomach. He clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering and started tucking the shirt in, trying to get some of the fabric between his wet jeans and his crotch.
Thank God Tanis was so damn big.
He’d just finished when Tanis took him by the arm and dragged him toward the steep slope.
Gerald wanted to argue, but he didn’t know what the hell to argue about so he stumbled along. He’d grown up in the warmth of the southern U.S., lived his whole life there, and the only thing he was sure of was that he wasn’t there anymore. None of the mountains he’d grown up around had this much snow this time of year.
“Watch your footing,” Tanis said, directing Gerald to a nearly hidden path that wound along the edge of the ridge.
Gerald’s breath puffed in the night air. The naked skin of his arms burned with the cold. As Tanis pulled him along, Gerald caught a glimpse of Tanis’s bare feet.
“God. How can you stand it?” he asked.
Tanis barely spared him a glance, his eyes focused on the treacherous and dark snow-covered path ahead. “It’s unpleasant, but not unbearable. I grew up facing much harsher winters than you face here.”
It was the second hint Tanis had given Gerald about the world the wolves had come from and Gerald grasped the words and committed them to memory. He’d think about them later, when he wasn’t worried his next footstep was going to put him on his ass in the icy snow.
But a mere second later, his boot skidded a few inches along a slick patch and the only thing that saved him from falling was Tanis’s unyielding grip on his arm.
“Whoa,” he breathed out. Two seconds after that—
“Oh, whoa, shi—it!” His breath whooshed out of him in a painful rush as Tanis’s shoulder dug into his belly.
“Be still, human.”
A heavy, clawed hand landed on Gerald’s ass to keep him in place while the back of Gerald’s shirt pulled out of his waistband, exposing half his spine to the frigid air.