by Casey Morgan
“So, you are mine again?” she asked.
Her lips twisted into a sly smile.
“I never should have sent you away. I’m so sorry you shifted alone. I should have been there,” I pleaded. “I didn’t know we were already bound.”
The chains lifted away, leaving lines of welts.
“This is bad,” I told her.
Celeste looked down and shrugged.
“I’ve had worse burns in the kitchen.”
I laughed and then leaned in to kiss her.
I knew she was trying to make the whole situation better than it was and I loved her for it.
A ruddy, thin man came up to me and crossed his arm over his chest, his fist closed.
“I’m Augie, Alpha. Would you like your belongings retrieved from the Woodside motel?”
I smiled at the man. He was quick to action and good with change. He was a reliable member of the pack, indeed.
“Thank you, Augie. Yes, I would. Have the alpha’s chambers cleaned, please. And someone buy me new sheets. I will not sleep where that dog has been.”
Celeste ran to my arms. Her lips were on mine in an instant, soft and warm. My heart beat faster than it did the whole fight.
Here was my world. My mate was everything to me.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Mason
Someone cleared their throat behind us. I pulled away from Celeste and turned. Her parents were standing at the edge of the room just inside the door. Both of them were frowning and they looked exhausted.
Celeste pulled down the windbreaker she was wearing to cover her thighs as best she could and looked to her parents.
“Mom. Dad. Why are you here? Why are you even up? It’s almost one o’clock in the morning.”
Her voice was high pitched and worried.
Mr. Blenko pushed into the room. He eyed me for a second and then sat down heavily into one of the metal chairs. Moving was clearly still taking a lot out of him. His wife quickly moved to his side and stood with her hand on his shoulder.
“Yes, it is early, Celeste.”
He put his thin hands onto the table and pointed to the chairs across from him.
“Please, sit. We must talk.”
Celeste and I took the chairs he indicated. Under the table, I took her hand in mine and rubbed her palm with my thumb. She was shaking slightly. She was so brave while dealing with the pack, but I knew she didn’t want her parents to be disappointed in her.
“I received a call from Mr. Terrell around midnight. He told me—”
“You knew this man, Daddy?” Celeste interrupted.
She leaned over the table a bit.
Mr. Blenko dropped his head.
“Yes, Celeste. I knew Mr. Terrell. He and I had a deal and he called me at midnight to tell me that what I had always feared the most had happened.”
He looked up and right into Celeste’s eyes.
“You have shifted. You have become a wolf for the first time.”
My mate’s perfect lips formed into a little O. Her breath hitched and I could see in the distant look of her eyes that her mind was working.
“You knew what I was?” she asked both her parents.
My mate looked crestfallen.
Mr. Blenko nodded.
Celeste’s eyes went wide, and tears formed on their rims.
“Why didn’t you tell me what I was?”
Her voice was low and squeaked a little as she held back the tears.
“I thought you loved me!”
Her adoptive mother frowned a bit. Mrs. Blenko’s lips twisted and her black eyebrows pulled towards one another. Her usual hard expression was replaced with one of warm emotion.
“We do love you, Celeste,” she told her daughter. “We withheld all of this from you to keep you pure. So you wouldn’t know what a monster you were born to be.”
Her father nodded and took his wife’s hand.
“We thought we were doing God’s work with you. We prayed every day to suppress the beast within you.”
“But why?” Celeste begged.
Her shoulders bent forward, as if she longed to get up and run to the only parents she had ever known and seek their comfort.
“I am so much happier now. Everything about me makes sense. I fit in!”
She held her hands out before her in a pleading gesture.
Mr. Blenko sighed and combed his hands through his thin dark hair. I could tell he was still having trouble breathing through his mending nose.
“When we adopted you, Celeste, they told us what you were. They told us if you ever shifted, you would become dangerous and violent. So, we prayed and raised you in the church. It was the only way we could think of to hold back the blood lust that was within you. Then when you were younger, this man, Terrell, he saw you for what you were. He claimed you as an alpha werewolf. He wanted to take you right away…”
Tears started to fill his green eyes.
“But my child, you were so young and innocent. I fought with him, but he was much too strong for me. All I could do was make a deal. I begged him to wait until your first shift or your twenty-fifth birthday. It was all I could do.”
Under the table, Celeste gripped my hand strongly. There was tears in her eyes as her dad spoke and her whole body shook. There was so much they didn’t tell her—so much they had struggled with.
“Mr. Terrell wouldn’t let us move or he said he would come get you early,” her father continued, “and I was too weak to fight a werewolf. So, we stayed. We stayed so your mother and I could have a few more years with you. Even when the shops around us emptied, we stayed. Even when the customers stopped coming in, we stayed. Even when I had to start paying for protection, we stayed—though it cost your mother every piece of jewelry she ever had.”
He reached up and patted his wife’s arm.
Mrs. Blenko rubbed tears from her eyes.
“It was worth it,” she whispered. “You are our real jewel.”
Celeste was crying hard now.
“Oh, Mom,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I thought you two were weak, but this whole time, you were fighting for me.”
Mrs. Blenko put her head to her husband’s and let her tears flow.
“Everything we have done, was for one more day with you, Celeste,” Mr. Blenko explained. “Even sending Mr. Whitepaw away. Mr. Terrell called me and told me that Mr. Whitepaw was also a werewolf and that he would push you to shift. And apparently that has happened?”
Celeste nodded.
“I’m a werewolf, Daddy,” she cried.
Her face was red now, twisted with sorrow.
“I am the monster that you feared all this time.”
The old man’s shoulders dropped. His thin hands slid off the glass table and into his lap.
“I see.”
His voice was filled with sorrow and resignation.
“But she’s not a monster,” I told them.
My voice seemed loud among all their whispers. Everyone turned to look at me.
“Celeste has shifted,” I explained. “But she will not run with the blood lust you feared, Sir. The wolf within her is bound to me and she is calm. Celeste is in control of herself.”
His green eyes brightened.
“This is true?” he asked.
I nodded.
“My baby girl will be as she once was.”
I grinned.
“Well, she will be what she was, but also a whole lot more.”
I shrugged my shoulders a bit.
The old man dropped his head.
“Mr. Terrell said that once she became a true werewolf that she would no longer be able to see us. He said wolves and humans don’t mix.”
I snorted a laugh.
“Terrell is gone,” I explained. “I beat him in combat. I am alpha of this pack now. What I say goes. Celeste is welcome to visit her parents as much as she wishes. She can work with you every single day if that makes her happy.”
&nbs
p; Both of the Blenkos’ eyes fixated on me. Their mouths opened slightly. They were clearly shocked and eager to still have their daughter in their lives.
How could I ever break up such a family?
“Oh Mom! Dad!”
Celeste jumped up from her chair and ran to her parents. She put her arms around them both and pulled them close.
Mr. and Mrs. Blenko cried in their daughter’s arms. I sat back in my chair and let them have their moment.
This wasn’t about me and the wound that had been tearing apart this family needed to heal on its own.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Celeste
Valentine’s Day
My alarm went off at four in the morning on Valentine’s Day and I groaned. I rolled over and swung my arm out, but the alarm clock wasn’t in its usual place.
My hand felt around; what was below it was just more bed. I scooted over and felt again.
More bed.
A question entered my mind and then I remembered that I wasn’t sleeping in the same twin bed I had occupied since I was five. This was a king-sized bed.
This was Mason’s bed.
I rolled over to my back and pushed my hair out of my face. After finding and turning off the alarm, I glanced around into the darkness.
This room would have to change, and soon. It was too punk-rock. I saw no need to have pleather covering the walls. It just made it seem like a sex dungeon.
The old alpha had odd taste. I giggled to myself and pulled my arms up into a stretch. My body ached a bit.
Mason and I had shifted to wolf form earlier in the morning and had run together. It was an incredible experience. Wolf form offered so much adventure. I loved the new way of seeing and smelling my world.
Mason promised we would shift again soon and do a proper hunt with the whole pack. The idea excited me on a primal level— a level I was just realizing I had.
I turned my head and looked at my sleeping alpha. Mason snored happily; the alarm clock had done nothing to rouse him.
I thought back to how he woke me with a kiss after our first night together. I decided to do one better. We didn’t have a lot of time before we needed to be at the bakery, but there was enough.
I pushed the covers up and off, delighted to see that Mason was already hard and ready. Balanced on my knees, I leaned down and slipped his tool into my mouth. I was at just the right angle that I was able to see his eyes shoot open as he woke with a start.
“Oh hell!” he grunted, looking me over.
I smiled at him, keeping his long, hard cock in my mouth and then closed my lips to suck him. He moaned and thrust his hips at me just a little.
“Oh darlin’. I love being woken up like that,” he told me, eyeing my every movement.
I bobbed my head up and down, sliding his shaft in and out of my mouth. I let my spit cover it and get it very, very wet and warm. Mason thrust his hips, bumping them up and down on the bed. His cock rammed into my throat. I relaxed and let it slide deeper.
When I pulled back to take a breath, he grabbed my waist and flipped me, then burrowed his head in between my legs. The first lick of his warm tongue on my lower lips sent shivers throughout my body. Mason licked and sucked at me, making my body twitch and tense up.
His stiff cock was still in front of my face, so I opened my mouth and let it slip between my lips. He pumped his hips, fucking my face as he ate me with abandon.
My stomach tightened. My legs tensed. I was close to coming. I tried to push at Mason’s face to tell him to back off, but he just licked me harder. He formed his tongue into a curve and tickled my insides with it, licking up my juices.
My pussy tightened and then released hard. Tingles ran up through my body as I orgasmed, and my pussy clamped over Mason’s tongue.
He didn’t stop. He just kept licking, pushing me further and further, until I was so sensitive that I came again. I screamed around his cock. It slipped out of my mouth and I dropped my head back onto the bed. I was panting.
Mason dropped to his back next to me. He was grinning like a mad man and I swatted him on the shoulder.
“Pleased with yourself, my alpha?” I asked in my most snarky tone.
“You coming is music to my ears,” he told me seriously. “I would gladly only listen to your moans and cries for the rest of our lives.”
I tried to think of a silly comeback, but the seriousness of his words stopped my lips. He loved me and I was so happy that he did. I had found the man who would be my husband and he came with a whole new world to explore.
I broke the seriousness of the moment by turning over and moving to my hands and knees. My butt was to Mason’s face; the invitation that I offered was very obvious.
He was on me within seconds. His cock, hard as a rock, pushed between my wet folds and inched into my pussy. He pushed in sharply and quickly, driving himself into me until his balls hit my clit.
I ached with the feeling of fullness he gave me; I ached with how he stretched my pussy walls to their limits and hit my cervix. Then he started to fuck me, hard. His hips slammed into my butt cheeks at a rapid pace.
His cock slid in and out of me. My pussy walls and lower lips grabbed at it, causing a strained, aching friction that felt so good. My abdomen pulled into a knot. My inner walls clenched him harder and harder, and still he slid in and out of me, his cock ramming me and then gliding away.
Mason sped up. He grabbed my hips, pulling me back into him. My breasts swung with his thrusts. My nipples rubbed patterns into the sheets. I loved how my alpha dominated and controlled my body. He made me do what he wanted and my whole body loved it.
Tingles started to flow through me, and I came, squeezing Mason with all the force I could. He grunted and gave me his seed. I could feel his thick cock swell further and then release. Cum coated my womb. It was warm and wet and made me feel good inside. I grunted and came again.
Mason slowed to a stop, but still held me by the hips. He nestled his happy, spent dick in my pussy for a few minutes, like he didn’t want to stop and disconnect.
I didn’t really want him to either, but I looked at the clock and time was ticking away. This morning was too important for the bakery. We couldn’t stay in bed.
“We have to get going,” I reminded him.
With a sigh, he released my hips and slipped out. I sat up on my knees, turned and gave him a quick kiss. But when he tried to push me down to take me again, I giggled and rolled out of his reach.
“No time for that now,” I told my love.
He sighed again, but then gave me a lopsided smile. Pleasantly aching, I pulled the sheet around my body and ran towards the shower. Mason joined me there a few seconds later.
We were late to the bakery. Very late.
Mom, Dad and Mary were already hard at work when we got to the shop and there was a line of customers outside of the door waiting for it to open. Mom and Mary had set up a stool behind the cash register, so Dad could sit as he helped customers. He smiled at Mason and me as we came in the front door.
“Happy Valentine’s Day, Dad!” I grinned at him.
He held his thin arms out and pulled me into a hug.
“I am so pleased to see you, little one,” he said into my hair.
Mason inched up behind me.
“Good morning, Mr. Blenko,” he said.
I could tell he was nervous.
“How is your leg?”
“Mr. Whitepaw,” Dad said with a nod. “It mends, slowly, but it does.”
The two men eyed each other for a second. Then Dad sighed.
“I’m glad you are here, Mr. Whitepaw,” he said.
I grinned at him, glad that he was trying to accept Mason and welcome him.
“You are, Sir?” Mason asked.
My Dad’s grin pulled up at the corners and he looked a bit sheepish.
“Indeed,” he replied. “Someone needs to lift all those heavy cookie baskets and I’m glad that this year, for once, it’s not me.”
Chapter Thirty
Celeste
When four o’clock in the afternoon rolled around, we were all exhausted. Dad leaned against the counter and pressed his head to the top of the cash register. The drawer was so full of cash that it wouldn’t close. He had a bit of a smile on his face, the first true smile I had seen on my father in years.
I went over and put my hand on his shoulder. He reached up and put his own narrow hand on mine. He nodded towards the cash.
“I emptied the drawer twice today, Celeste, and still they came. It is enough money to move to a new area and set up again. If that is still what you want.”
He squeezed my hand.
My gaze drifted to Mason. He was standing outside and talking to one of the other Weres from The Grinder.
“It’s not,” I told my father. “I hope that you and Mom will stay here. I want us all to be a family.”
He pulled my hand down to his lips and gave me a gentle kiss.
“So, you forgive me, my child?”
He didn’t look me in the eyes.
“Can you accept me for what I am?”
I leaned into him and smelled my father’s cologne. He had been my protector for so many years—raising me as his own, even though I was not.
“Yes,” he said. “I should have sooner. But I was scared. I see now that you are the same willful child you always were. Only now, you are stronger… and occasionally, you bark.”
“The better to lift the cookies with, my dear,” I joked.
Dad smiled.
“Plus, Dad, I’m a wolf. I howl, I don’t bark.”
Mary stuck her head through the double doors and gave me a look.
“You do too bark. You and Mason both. I’ve heard you.”
I shooed her away and closed the doors to the kitchen. Dad laughed lightly and put a hand to his nose. He still wasn’t quite healed. Then he nodded outside with his chin.
“Will you marry him?” he asked.
I watched Mason take something from the other Were and start walking towards us.