by Mandy Rosko
The result was worse than watching an actual fight. Shelley felt like she should be arrested for animal cruelty for even seeing two wolves go at each other the way Alex and Macy did, all teeth and claws and flying fur mixed with blood.
Despite how neither wolf had their human memories or thoughts, the emotions and instincts must have been the same, because they knew to only attack each other, and several other onlookers had to leave as their own transformations took over their bodies.
Jake was the only wolf who sat calmly during the whole of the fight. The fact that he spent most of his time as a wolf must have given him an edge over keeping both of his minds under control.
Shelley’s eyes went up to Cal. He was just handing his empty bottle to Isaac, a little satisfied smirk on his face, as though certain that the fight would turn out in his favor.
Shelley turned away before he could catch her staring again, silently willing Alex to end it, to bring her down. Cal seemed to think Alex was his only competition, and that meant Alex needed to stay in the game just a little while longer.
Finally, Alex’s wolf managed to sink his teeth through the protective layer of fur around Macy’s neck. He twisted and brought her down so hard Shelley feared he may have actually broken her neck.
Macy whimpered as she went down but then twisted onto her back, exposing both her belly and her neck, paws coming up, but not in retaliation. Shelley didn’t need to be a wolf expert to recognize a submission show when she saw one.
Alex released her, and Macy rolled to her paws, shook the dirt from her body, and left the octagon. Alex had won the fight, and the surrounding members of the pack who were still in their human forms cheered, fists and beer bottles raised at what had so far been the best fight of the...tournament? Whatever it was.
Deena threw her arms around Chris’s neck. Jake only sneezed as the dust that had been kicked up finally made it to his nose.
Shelley couldn’t help but look back at Cal. He was frowning now, hands gripping the rail of the deck so tight his knuckles lost their color. He pushed himself off and stormed inside, pushing past Isaac just as the younger man came back out with another bottle.
* * * *
Alex’s victory put both Shelley and Michael in a celebratory mood. They left just as the third set of fighters entered the octagon.
“I missed you,” she said, sighing as Michael released the clasps of her bra, the cool air hitting her breasts. That sensation was quickly replaced by the wet warmth of his mouth. She laughed at him.
“I take it you missed me too?”
“So, so much, baby,” he said when he came back up, but then quickly sealed his lips over top of hers.
He had her back pressed into the door of their bedroom, hands under her ass so she could wrap her legs around his waist. Her hand fumbled down for the doorknob, and when she finally found it, she pressed her thumb into the center button that would lock it and keep out anyone who might want an audience with their still-alpha. They’d had him all month, even if it was sometimes by phone. Now it was her turn.
His ears picked up on the little click. “No one’s bothering us, Shelley. I promise. Even if anyone knocks, I am not here.”
“Good.” She worked the buttons on his blue plaid shirt, pushing it off his tanned shoulders. “’Cause we’ve got lots of catching up to do.”
Had it really been a month? It was a wonder Shelley hadn’t imploded with sexual energy.
His grin showed off his white teeth. He spun them both around and all but fell on top of her on the heavy sheets of their shared bed. For one of the first times since Shelley had been in it, it really did feel soft and welcoming instead of hard and way too big, now that they were both in it at the same time, that is.
Shelley untangled her legs from Michael’s waist and threw away her jeans.
“There’s my little hornbug.” Michael fingered the rim of her pink lace panties. “Remember the first time we did this?”
Of course she did. That night in his little hideaway. She’d still been chained to the post in the cabin, hadn’t known she was his mate at the time, but she’d felt safe enough with him to allow him to pull her panties away and fuck her.
Shelley almost missed that day, when it had just been the two of them and no one else in the world had existed. She swatted his hand away, gingerly removing the lace herself. “That I do, and I like this pair, so you’re not stretching it out like the last one, or the one before that.”
The last two times Shelley found herself in bed with her man-wolf, Michael had a habit of taking off all of her clothes except for her panties, his impatience driving him to just shift them out of the way before plunging into her, which then left them ruined afterwards.
His face took on an expression of mock hurt. “You didn’t mind it at the time.”
No, she certainly had not. “Come here,” she demanded.
He complied, and she kissed him, long and deep, their tongues intertwining and thrusting in a mimic of the sex they were going to have. Shelley had one hand gripping his hair and the other on his back, pulling him as close as she could get him.
“Does that make it better?” she asked when she pulled away.
“A little.” He looked down at the exposed triangle of curls between her legs. “Maybe it’s better we take our time.”
He slid down her body until he was off the bed. He gripped her knees and pulled her down until her legs hung over the edge, her feet barely touching the carpet. She tried to sit up until he pushed her back down.
“What are you doing?”
“Has no one ever done this to you before?”
Knelt down in front of her when he was supposed to be on top of her? “No.”
The feral grin was back. “That’s perfect, baby.” And he disappeared down her legs again.
She found out what he was up to reeeeally quick, and her back arched in a near-perfect, half-moon circle.
Oh, so that was what he wanted to do. She should’ve known, really, she did read romance after all, but she hadn’t exactly gotten around much before she met Michael, and, well, it had been a while since they’d gone to bed, too.
The strange thing, and not so strange, was how his mouth was basically doing everything he’d been doing when he’d kissed her just then. Ugh, God, she loved it. Loved, loved, loved the feeling of him kissing her nether regions. She expected him to pull away as a wet warmth flooded her sex, that had to be unpleasant, but he kept right on going. Then the touch of his slick tongue deep inside, flicking over that spot that made her go wild, had her nearly flying off the bed. She would have, had his giant hand not shot out to press down on her belly.
He pulled back a little, eyes serious. “Stay still, trust me.”
She barely heard him. Her eyes were on his glistening mouth. It looked so incredibly erotic that she had no choice but to nod and let him get back to business.
He smiled and returned his mouth to what it had been doing, eyes sliding half-shut as though he was enjoying himself just as much as she was.
The familiar touch of his mouth, then the slide of his tongue once again, harder this time, and the delicious throbbing it brought to her was nearly too much.
Shelley’s breathing turned heavy, throaty moans escaping her next. She gripped his hand then curled her leg over his shoulder to let him work. Her hips gyrated as if they had a mind of their own, her chest heaving and gasping for breath as the knot in her belly got tighter and tighter as his tongue went in and out of her, her inner walls clamping around him.
I could come like this and be totally happy, she thought.
And she did. Her pulsing inner walls clamped down over his tongue, and Michael pressed his mouth harder to her cleft, encouraging the bloom of her orgasm all the more. Shelley couldn’t contain her pleasurable shout even if she tried, and try she did by holding her hands over her mouth.
Not nearly enough.
She came back down from her buzzing high to the feel of Michael’s mouth on hers.
She wasn’t even disgusted by the feel of her own juices on him. He certainly didn’t seem to mind.
“We should do that more often,” she said when he pulled away from her.
“And we most definitely will, beautiful, but there’s one more thing I’d like to take care of.”
Shelley fully woke up when her body registered the firm length of his cock, pressing against her thigh through his jeans, pulsing and needy. She laughed at him as he struggled to get them off. Right, didn’t want to be cruel and forget about him. Only with him had she ever laughed in bed.
That laugh melted into something else entirely when he abruptly pushed her down, spread her legs, and thrust into her.
There was no more willpower to hold back. Instantly his hips began a hard, fluid pumping motion that made her inner walls sizzle. There was nothing soft or gentle about this. They’d gone from lovemaking to fucking, and Shelley loved it. Her fingers clawed along the muscles of his back. She threw her head back and moaned wantonly as the thrusting of his cock inside her still brought pleasure even after she came. She thrust her hips up eagerly to meet his.
Then, holy shit, she couldn’t believe it. “I’m—I’m gonna come again.”
A noise escaped Michael’s mouth, maybe it was a reply, maybe it was a moan. She couldn’t tell since her brain was no longer functioning.
After a month of barely any contact, this was exactly what she wanted, what she needed. The best part was knowing that it didn’t matter how wild for it she went, because when it was all said and done, Michael would still respect her.
Suddenly her brain started working again.
“Gonna make you howl, baby,” Michael panted in her ear.
She didn’t doubt his words.
Chapter Six
Shelley left Michael to snooze off their activities under the duvet. The trial fights had apparently ended, Cal, Alex, and one other alpha coming out on top, and the next round wouldn’t take place for another hour or so. Michael hadn’t been around when Shelley overheard the news, but he did know how these things were scheduled, and he’d told her what would be expected for the final fight before his eyes shut and he passed out from several fabulous orgasms.
He totally needed his rest, and she needed to walk the soreness out of her legs.
She was eager to talk to Deena about her progress with Michael and figured she’d find her in the kitchen.
The conversation of about fifteen men and women halted the second she entered the room. Everyone stared at her, and Shelley felt her face go hot. She’d damn near forgotten about how many people were in the house, and it looked like not one of them sitting at the bar, or the table, or even mingling in front of the stainless steel stove or fridge was Deena.
Rather than just walk out and let everyone know how meek she really was—werewolves responded to acts of assertiveness after all—Shelley moved into the center of the kitchen and around the bar. She kept her back straight and her head high, but every pair of eyes followed her.
Was it because she was the reason their alpha was stepping down? Or had they heard her having sex? She had forgotten to hold her hand over her mouth after a while.
Don’t think about that, she scolded herself, really wishing they’d knock it off.
The two men in front of the fridge stepped out of the way so she could grab a Pepsi can. She nodded her thanks to them and all but bolted.
Not before she heard, “Can’t believe she’s human.”
That made her pause. She was already out the door, but she’d heard what she heard, even if she didn’t know who said it.
Still, she wasn’t about to march back in there and demand to know just what it meant. Michael told her that taking a human for a mate wasn’t that uncommon. Hell, Deena was human, and no one looked twice at her.
Shelley set off to find her again. She was probably hiding out in her room. Maybe Alex and Chris were with her.
She got to her door and knocked. A masculine voice called for her to enter. So Chris was with her. And everyone else in the inner circle of the pack, apparently. “All the Small Things” by blink-182 was playing on low volume on Chris’s CD player.
Chris lounged in front of his TV on a leather swivel chair, playing one of his old 8-bit video games. The wall that shared the TV was floor-to-ceiling shelves loaded with more games. Most of them old systems, some of which Shelley recognized, most she did not. The one sitting on Chris’s lap being a prime example, but it was small and red and had the word Famicom written on it. Whatever it was, the text was English, and he seemed to know what he was doing. He didn’t even look at her as she entered the room, too engrossed in his little pixelated Pac-Man knockoff.
He did have a lousy little smirk on his face as he spoke. “You disappeared for a while,”
“Shut up,” she snapped.
Alex was lying on the bed, and Deena had a cotton swab and brown bottle of peroxide in her hand and was gently swabbing a cut over his eyebrow.
Jake was inside as well, in his human form. He sat on his haunches in the corner, naked, and watching everyone like he always did, dark hair shadowed over his serious face.
Shelley shut the door and moved for the bed. She put her hand on Alex’s shoulder. “How’re you feeling?”
He smiled. “Pretty good. I’m fighting Cal next. After that there’s only one more alpha to beat down, and then you’ll be looking at the new head alpha.”
“I heard.” She smiled at him as he winced over another treatment of disinfectant. “Hold still,” Deena said, zero compassion in her voice.
“She’s heartless,” Alex accused. “Don’t know how you put up with her, Chris.”
“Well, for starters, she has yet to make me sell my games,” Chris said, not bothering to take his eyes away from the screen as his little dragon-creature thing collected ice cream cones.
Deena shook her head, but Shelley caught the smile on her face. Men would always be little boys on the inside. Though Deena herself could hardly be against her husband owning every gaming system known to man, being the free-spirited type with pink hair and all.
Shelley grabbed a spare chair and pulled it up to the bed. “Can I ask you a question?”
Alex sat up, gingerly touching the bandage over his eyebrow. “Is this girl talk, or is it the kind of question we can all hear?”
“All of you, sort of.”
Deena shifted so she was sitting on the edge of the bed. “What is it, sweetie?”
Shelley didn’t hesitate. “It is normal that I’m human, right?”
Chris half turned, taking his eyes away from his game for only a second. “You and Deena are the only normal ones in this room, last I checked.”
“I know, I mean I don’t know, you are all normal to me, but when I left the kitchen, someone was muttering about how they couldn’t believe I was human. I thought it was normal for werewolves to take human mates.”
Shelley knew something was up the instant Chris turned the TV off, and Deena reached over to lower the volume of the music. Chris turned to look at her from his chair, and the silence from everyone else spoke volumes. Shelley just wished she knew what they were saying.
She couldn’t take being stared at anymore today. “What?”
“Well, it is normal,” Deena said, taking her hand. “I mean it’s not common, but there’s nothing irregular about it.”
“If people are talking about you because you’re human, they’re being dicks,” Chris said.
“Or angry that I’m the reason Michael is stepping down.”
“They can’t be angry about that,” Alex assured her. “It’s the responsible thing for him to do. He gave his reasons at the meeting, and those reasons were just.”
“Maybe what they really meant was how shocked they were that you’re a famous movie star,” said Deena.
“Not that famous. By the way, how did your appointment go?” Shelley asked.
“Oh, well…” Deena blushed as she and Chris looked at each other. “We resc
heduled the appointment for later, because of the trial fights,” she said.
“Oh,” Shelley stamped down on her disappointment at not yet knowing. She wanted so badly for there to be good news for them.
Jake growled in the corner. It was such a sudden sound to interrupt the awkward direction the conversation had taken that everyone turned to look at him.
Shelley slid from the bed and got to her knees in front of him, but she didn’t touch him. Jake could be more wolf than man, but in his man form, it felt wrong on all kinds of levels to stroke his face and hair the way she would attempt to calm the rise in his fur, or in this case, the bunching of mega-huge muscles.
“Jake, what is it?”
He didn’t answer. His lips lifted in a snarl that had Shelley scrambling back, and fast, but he didn’t attack her. In fact, he wasn’t even snarling at her. He just continued to stare into space, growling and showing off his teeth, heavy muscles rippling, ready to transform him back into the shape he was most comfortable in.
Alex and Chris were on their feet, looking as battle ready as Jake.
Shelley feared they thought Jake would strike, and she shot her hands out to hold them off. “No, he’s not—”
Alex grabbed her wrists. “You need to hide.”
“What?”
Chris already had Deena by her arm, yanking her up and none too gently pulling her toward the closet, despite her many attempts at questioning. He ripped the door open and began rearranging the clothes, shoes, and various other items inside to make space. Enough for two people, it looked like.
“No matter what either of you hear, stay down and don’t come out until—”
The power went out. The sun was still out, so it wasn’t like they were shrouded in darkness, but Shelley could tell by the sudden silence around her. The TV and music had already been powered off, but the central air stopped humming, the block numbers on Deena’s clock radio had blacked out, and above her head, the ceiling fan was quickly losing its momentum.
Chris stopped throwing boxes and shoes around. He, Alex, and Jake all remained perfectly still, heads tilted slightly to the side, as though listening for something. Shelley and Deena hardly dared to breathe, not wanting any of the boys to lose their concentration.