“Jace... No biting?”
“No biting,” Jace promised. “Unless you decide you want it.”
How could he resist? He couldn’t. And Jace knew it. The alpha transformed into his powerful wolf form, dropping down to four massive paws. For the first time, Keiran noticed how unusually long his nails were. Most wolves had blunt nails with flat tips that they either wore down naturally or kept trimmed, but Jace’s nails were practically claws, curved and deadly. His pulse pounded in his throat.
The alpha lunged for him, paws slamming into his shoulders and sending them both rolling. Keiran yelped and hit the ground as a wolf, wriggling out from underneath the other and dashing for the corner of the room where he flattened himself against a shadow. His tongue lolled out the corner of his mouth, tail trembling with excitement. It felt so good. So natural. Just like in the garden, but a dozen times better.
Jace rose to his paws and shook out his fur. The loose skin covering his muscular frame made his fur wave in luxurious ripples, gleaming red and golden in the light of the chandelier overhead. Sticking his snout up into the air, he sniffed dramatically and started creeping toward Keiran’s hiding place as if following a scent.
Keiran held still, but he couldn’t stop his nails from clicking on the wooden floor as his paws flexed in anticipation.
Jace stopped right in front of him, sniffing around again. He swung his great head around, pretending not to see the omega clearly standing right in front of them. And then he swung back, dropping down low to peer intently at Keiran’s white leg fur. His ears twitched in an exaggerated display of curiosity. His jaws opened wide as he went in for an exploratory bite...
Completely caught up in their game, Keiran could stay still no longer. Kicking out against the wall behind him, he flung himself into a massive leap right over the other wolf’s head and came crashing down hard on the bed. Bouncing and rolling, he yelped his amusement as a much larger shape followed him up onto the bed and was immediately thrown off.
And then Jace was back, pouncing on him and battering at him with snout and paws, but so gently. Keiran fought back and the two continued rolling until they came to a rest against the headboard, omega beneath and alpha above.
Jace pushed his nose into the fur on Keiran’s neck, letting him feel the pressure of his teeth but not exactly biting. His shoulders shook from holding back, and the pressure started to increase.
Growling in annoyance, Keiran lashed out with a paw and caught the alpha upside the head.
And suddenly, Jace sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed, holding his human ear and laughing. “Geez! You really take your play fighting seriously!”
Keiran scowled at him. “That’s what you get!”
“Oh, yeah?” Jace tried to look annoyed but just kept laughing and shaking his head. “Well, are you relaxed yet?”
“I am,” he said, surprised. All his tension had fallen away as they romped.
“Good. Maybe next time, stop me before you do grievous injury to my person.” Jace crawled across the bed to him and lifted up his head so that their lips touched sweetly. “Growl,” he said.
“Grr,” Keiran replied, and wrapped his arms around the alpha’s neck. Their kiss deepened and he found himself on his back again with Jace above him, those powerful hands pulling his clothes away with far more tenderness than with which he’d shredded his own earlier. Soon enough, they both lay together naked, idly exploring each other’s bodies with their hands. Their hardened manhoods lay against each other’s thighs, but Keiran only focused on touching and being touched. One thing at a time.
Jace’s powerful fingers ignited a flame inside his stomach, his groin, his heart; their breath became searing, burning hot together as they kissed. A finger slid down Keiran’s spine and he gasped and then he writhed and moaned in overheated pleasure as those fingers squeezed his ass with firm pressure. He felt it deep inside, high up past his opening pucker where a man’s most secret and intimate pleasure was hidden.
“Jace,” he whimpered.
“Keiran,” the alpha moaned in response. “Can’t hold back much longer.”
Even as Jace spoke, Keiran felt a small dribble of wetness leak against his thigh. He looked down to see Jace’s tip was swollen and throbbing, the veins all down his length bulging as he leaked precum. He swallowed hard, imagining how his alpha tasted, but that wasn’t how he wanted this to end.
Pushing away from Jace, the omega rolled over onto his stomach and pushed his ass up into the air. “Take me!”
Hands wrapped around his waist, he braced himself before feeling himself be lifted and moved. He came to a rest on Jace’s body, the alpha gazing up at him from below. “Not like that.”
Keiran whined, “But I want it!”
“And you’ll have it!” Jace laughed. “But I’ll bite you.”
He won’t be able to hold back?
It looked to be true. Jace’s body was drawn tighter than a bowstring, every muscle aching for release. Keiran felt it inside himself.
“So...”
“Like this. Actually wait. Use this.” The alpha passed over a tube of lube. “It’ll hurt without this. I’ll do myself.”
“You better not,” Keiran warned. “That’s my job.”
He took the tube and watched for a moment as Jace covered the length of his dick with a generous amount of lube, until his skin glistened more than ever. Keiran followed suit, tentatively dabbing at his opening and doing the best he could to get some inside.
“Good,” Jace purred. “Now, let me...”
The omega felt himself being lifted again, one hand effortlessly holding him up while the other rearranged his limbs. He ended up basically squatting over Jace with the alpha’s dick tip lightly touching his opening.
“There. Now, you’re in control. Do what feels good. I’ll join in when I think you’re ready for it.”
Me in control? That’s not how it’s supposed to be. Alphas are on top. Always. Literally.
But, this was Jace’s bedroom, Jace’s rules. They didn’t have to bend to society and technically weren’t overstepping any boundaries, since Jace wasn’t the one being penetrated.
“Don’t think,” Jace whispered. “Just do.”
Just do?
Like when he was the only one to step up and start helping the other omegas. He’d been in control then.
Squeezing his eyes shut tight, Keiran grabbed on to that feeling of being in control, of losing himself in an act, and let go of his thoughts. He was here with Jace, their skin pressed together, their bodies very nearly entwined. There was nothing to stop them, and so he opened his eyes again and got down to it.
With Jace helping to support his weight, Keiran reached down beneath himself and spread his ass cheeks. With nothing between them to cause friction, he sank down just slightly and felt Jace’s tip press against his pucker before pushing it apart and sliding inside.
The feeling was like nothing he had ever experienced and doubted he would experience again. It wasn’t the most pleasurable thing he had ever felt in his entire life right then, but it meant that they were on their way and that was more than enough to make his own dick stiffen even harder as if he was already about to cum.
No, he begged himself. Hold on.
“Fuck,” Jace grunted. “You’re so tight. Relax, baby.”
Being called “baby” didn’t exactly do much to help Keiran hold back any better, so he went for it and pushed himself down another inch. And then another. Once he was there, he tried to go even lower, but Jace’s hands holding him up wouldn’t allow for it. In fact, they moved him back up before letting him come back down to the same level again.
Thrusting, Keiran realized and felt stupid for not following the logic here. And then he felt even worse for trying to dissect this act like it was an injury he needed to figure out how to treat. The good thing was that it was easier to let go on this occasion, and he followed Jace’s lead for some time before realizing the alpha no longer guided hi
m. His hips moved of their own accord, rocking to a rhythm that came naturally now that he knew it existed.
He could feel Jace’s dick inside his ass, stretching him, and he could feel his body accommodating the alpha. The fire inside his blood mounted in intensity again. Jace sensed it and gave Keiran another inch. The process began again, both of them now rocking and pushing together, straining apart, and meeting again.
Soon enough, Keiran’s ass settled fully down against Jace’s hips with the alpha fully inside him. He felt full to bursting, pleasurably so, and the alpha’s cock inside him hit that pleasure point over and over again as they thrust. But something still kept him from going over the edge. As his need mounted, so too did his frustration.
Then, a hand wrapped around Keiran’s dick. He looked down at the alpha gripping his manhood, face red, body trembling with need and the effort it took to hold back. “I’ll help,” Jace gasped. “Just this once.”
What? He didn’t understand.
The next moment, he did, as Jace slid his hand firmly all the way up his length from hilt to tip. A spasm shook through Keiran’s body, his senses all straining toward that peak before finally, blessedly spilling over as he came.
His ass muscles tightened around Jace, but the alpha pushed through it, pumping once, and then twice before giving a hoarse cry and releasing.
As they lay there in the aftermath, unmindful of the wetness between them, Keiran had a single drifting thought before he fell asleep.
We didn’t use protection.
Chapter 12
And so a period of days began where everything seemed to suddenly be on the mend. The number of reported crimes in the Capital went down on its own, even though no new punishments, laws, or countermeasures had been agreed upon by the council. Peace sprouted on its own, a tender little sprig of a thing.
“We can’t explain it,” said the head councilman, a weathered alpha named Gareth. “Absolutely nothing has changed.”
Another member of the council spoke. “Our theory is that the transition period of uniting the two kingdoms might finally be drawing to an end.”
Jace assessed the group of 13 alphas that sat around the table with him and Keiran. Eight males and five females, many of them were old or otherwise world-weary in some way. However, none of them were so old as to have been alive when Dexus became one kingdom. They, like himself, were born into a torn world. Would their grandchildren finally know peace?
Would his own kids grow up, once more able to play with friends regardless of their status in life?
That night, as Keiran lay in his bed after having sex, the omega tugged on his shoulder.
“Yes?” Jace growled. He wasn’t tired at all and made no effort to hide it. Of all the things he pondered, this arrangement was the one that never truly left his mind even when concerned with other things. Each day, he and his “servant” grew closer together. Each time they had sex, it became that much harder to resist the temptation to stake his claim. Somewhere, something had to break.
“Jace, do you really think that this means peace?” Keiran whispered.
Doubt stained his omega’s voice. Jace rolled over and blinked into Keiran’s reflective eyes, heavy-lidded with sleepiness but still somehow frightened. “I think it’s a fluke,” he answered, after a long moment of thought. “All the murderers decided to stay home today.”
That really didn’t seem to do much to brighten Keiran’s mood, not that Jace could blame him.
“Maybe it does mean something,” he finally continued. Thinking out loud really. “But for it to mean something, it has to keep happening. But if this is just the start of peace after 100 years of waiting for everyone to adjust, can you imagine how long it will be until things settle down for good? I don’t know if either of us will be alive for that.”
“I’d like to be...”
“So would I, but I’m being realistic.”
Keiran pouted in the darkness. “No, you’re being Prince Moody.”
“Oh, god,” Jace groaned, rolling his eyes. “And here I thought I’d finally found the one person who doesn’t think I’m moody.”
Keiran giggled. His nose crinkled when he did that. Jace leaned in and kissed it to make it smoothen out again. “So, you know that everyone calls you that?”
“Please. That was my mother’s pet name for me. Everyone else got it from her.” Despite his grouchiness, he couldn’t help but to smile slightly. “It’s like part of her still lives on, in that way.”
A light touch on his shoulder was all it took for Keiran to convey his sympathy. “I don’t think you’re Prince Moody most of the time. You can be a little obstinate though. And brooding.“
Jace gazed at the man who shared his bed. He might call Keiran his boyfriend, if he was a normal member of society. Or they might be called lovers. He wished they could use a simple word like that to describe themselves, but the only one he could think of was ‘scandalous’. “What do you think it means, Keiran?”
The omega stayed quiet for so long that Jace thought he might have fallen asleep. “I think it’s bad.”
Wasn’t expecting that.
“Why?”
“It’s like... the calm before the storm. When everything is forming but nothing’s happened yet.” Keiran’s voice grew quieter. “Like when I had a good day with Abigail before Pa sold me for pocket change.”
Far from being angry, all Jace felt was sorrow. Sorrow for Keiran, but perhaps even more so for that foolish man who couldn’t recognize what was right in front of his eyes. “Do you ever miss her? Your friend?”
“I do,” he whispered. “I wish I could see her again without having to go back there. She always thought I could do good things.”
“You did, and you will.”
“Good night, Jace.”
“Night.”
I should mention this to Don. I wonder if we can summon that girl somehow.
The next day was business as usual. Keiran had been at the castle for several weeks now, and he really was a valuable asset. A new pair of eyes, a nonjudgmental ear...
Even Don, forever unimpressed, seemed to be developing the same grudging fondness for Keiran that he had toward Jace. However, that wasn’t enough to spare them the disapproving looks that came their way whenever they acted too familiar in public.
One such look pierced Jace straight through from behind as he ate lunch with Keiran. He was feeding the omega different types of pudding and forcing him to guess the flavor. So far, he’d only succeeded with guessing banana cream.
“Hello, Don,” he said, as casually as possible while slipping a spoonful of blood pudding between Keiran’s lips.
The omega gagged and politely spit out the mouthful into a napkin. “Where did you get vomit pudding? Oh. Uh, hi, Don.”
“Hello,” the dark-skinned advisor said stiffly. He fiddled with his clipboard, as he usually did when distracted. “I’m glad to see that you two are enjoying yourselves.”
“What do you need?” Jace asked. He wasn’t in the mood to be lectured silently. People called him the moody one?
“I have just been informed by your secretary that your next meeting has been canceled.”
Which one was that?
“Oh, the one in the city? That’s a shame. Keiran hasn’t ever actually had time to explore the city.”
“And he would not have had time during an important meeting,” Don said, shortly. “Your next appointment is with the council in two hours. Enjoy yourselves, but try to do so in a different manner than you normally do.”
The moment he was gone, Keiran turned toward Jace and peered up into his eyes. “We aren’t going to do that, right?”
Jace scowled. “Of course not. I’m the prince. No one tells me what to do. It just so happens that you haven’t had much of a chance to explore the castle either.”
“That would be because I’m always busy following you around and looking at your...” A servant passed by with a cart, humming to himself. Keiran snapp
ed his mouth shut so quickly that his teeth clicked.
Jace stood. “That sounded painful.” He chuckled and took Keiran’s hand. “Let’s go out to the rear grounds behind the castle, shall we? It’s a nice day for a walk.”
The grounds resembled more of a gigantic garden than anything else, gardeners roaming here and there with shears to prune a wayward branch or two from the hedges that had been shaped into a variety of animals, prey and predator alike. There were fountains as far as the eye could see, each one surrounded by benches and flower beds. Here and there, trees dotted the landscape. Most of them bore fruit, branches laden with their offerings, while others were studded with nuts. A pleasant breeze blew in from the east, and that was why he didn’t catch the scent of the attackers until they were already upon them.
Jace reacted upon instinct as no fewer than 15 animals leapt out of hiding from behind a huge fountain to the right. He thrust Keiran behind him, snapping off a command. “Don’t move!”
The omega froze, fingers clutching at Jace’s wrist before dropping away.
The animals were all prey. Jace scented that now, though their different smells mingled so thickly that he couldn’t pick out individual species. From the thick pool of scent behind the fountain, they hid for quite a while. Not a single one of them wore a castle uniform, and he didn’t recognize their faces.
“Greetings,” he said, as casually as he could. “Pleasant day, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps for you,” one amongst them hissed between clenched teeth. “Taking a leisurely stroll while others suffer and toil 18 hours a day just to afford housing.”
A threat then. Keiran was right.
“If you have a problem to be discussed, you can send a representative up to the castle and we will arrange a time to talk about the matter at hand.” Jace readied himself.
Wild Ride: An M/M Shifter Mpreg Romance Bundle Page 88