by Dizzy Hooper
Grady still radiates a plea to not be touched, but my wolf sees through his ruse. He'll go to pieces at my touch—he told as much with his own human mouth.
But that's what he needs. His wolf cries out for it, and the man that beats within its heart is crying, too.
My wolf pushes past his defenses. Past the bristle of his fur, past his growl. We rub my scent into his fur. We dance around him, pressing the warmth of contact into him in every dimension that we can, and then he's shuddering. Shaking. His howl chokes off.
My wolf and I lean in and rest our muzzle on the mark we left on him with our teeth. Our bond hums through our blood. We scrape it gently with our teeth again.
Our big strong male, my impenetrable alpha…my poor aching, beloved soul.
He collapses into me in racking, wolfish sobs. The man beneath screams out within them, and the woman inside my wolf takes him in her arms. We both remain in animal form, but a new clarity comes to me. This male needs to be treated so gently. He needs so much love and care.
And I'm going to give it to him. Every day. Him and all my mates. I'll give them everything it is in my power to give.
Chapter 7
By the time we cross the boundary back onto our lands that evening, we're all wrung out.
Grady's moment of vulnerability didn't last long, but it left him calmer and less tightly wound. He stuck close to our pack, didn't hold himself at quite such a distance through the rest of the ceremony.
And thank God he didn't. When the howls of mourning finally came to a close, the elder who began it all shifted to his human form. He was joined by half a dozen others. They all donned simple black robes and then, there on that rock, they took turns naming all of their dead.
Each name resounded through the valley, met by howls and cries that shook the earth. My pack pressed in close together through it all, until by the end, Grady was practically shaking. Colt's eyes were closed, his head bowed low, and Landen leaned on me as if I were the only thing keeping him up.
Somehow, I locked my joints and held myself steady and strong. I gave my mates what support I could, until at last it was over.
Low whimpers and the muffled sounds of grief-sick wolf-song carried on the air as the valley slowly emptied. We stayed until our way was clear. My mates all but staggered out. Our run home was quiet, no playful nipping—no prancing off into the woods in pursuit of a hunt.
No touching.
While we'd supported each other through the memorial, each male seemed to need his space in its wake, and I gave it to them.
And now, I keep them each in view as we approach our home.
Colt is the first to shift. He crosses the last few feet to the door and pushes it open. Landen and I begin to return to our human forms as soon as we've crossed the threshold, but Grady hesitates just outside, his wolf still firmly in control. He growls and paces and eyes the horizon, and for one awful, awful moment, I think he's going to make a run for it. That maybe he'll just go and go and never come home again.
I take one step toward him, reaching out. He makes to turn away.
"Alpha," I stutter, my eyes damp and chest aching.
He whips his head around to meet my gaze, a whine falling out of his lungs.
"Alpha…" I reach for him again.
Thank God, this time he comes.
A ball of fur and man tumbles through the doorway. I step aside, giving him the option of falling into my arms or slipping past them.
But in the end, I'm the one swept up in his embrace. He clutches me to him, bones popping beneath my hands as he finalizes his transition. He buries his face against my throat and lifts me. I wrap myself around him and hang on.
"Mate," he rumbles, voice cracking.
"I've got you. I've got you."
"I know." He squeezes me tighter, holding me close.
"You can let go."
He chuckles out a wet laugh. "I already did." With that, he pulls away, if only by a fraction. His eyes lock onto mine, and a desperate searching fills them. "How did we do it? All these years, we went to that memorial alone. We had each other, but…"
"It was the worst day of the year." Colt speaks from our side, grim.
"We all ignored each other for weeks before and after," Landen says.
I look over at Landen, sitting naked on the blanket someone had the foresight to drape out over the bench beside the window. He seems so far away suddenly. Colt does, too, and something tears inside me.
These men accepted me into their pack, and I accepted the bonding marks they gave me. I gave myself to the life I'm building with them.
But deep down inside, I've nursed this niggling doubt. At the first sign of Grady pulling away, my mind shot straight to the worst possible scenario.
All at once, the picture is reversed.
I'm not some extraneous outsider they brought into their pack. Removable. Replaceable.
I am the bond. I'm the glue that pulled them together. I'm the missing piece that made them pack.
They're mine to protect. To comfort and to love.
They're mine to pull together right now, when their individual miseries threaten to rip them apart.
Clutching Grady to me, I seek out Landen's gaze and extend my arm toward Colt.
I shake my head. "I don't want that. Tell me you don't want that now."
There's a pleading note to my voice, but I can't snuff it down. I've been doing enough of that these past few weeks. No more suffering in silence. No quiet brooding and walking around on eggshells with my mates.
We're alive. They survived.
And it's damn well time we started acting like it.
Chapter 8
The fire in my soul seems to catch in Landen's eyes. He stands, taking a step toward me and Grady. At the same time, Colt draws closer, until finally our hands touch, and that simple contact of skin on skin makes my heart pound.
I dart my gaze to Grady's. He's staring at me as if I'm the only thing holding him to this earth. His grasp on my body tightens. Throat bobbing, he presses himself against me.
And damn. Oh, damn.
I'm suddenly shockingly, painfully aware that we're all naked in this room. Nudity is a fact of life for shifters, so even though my alpha had all his bare skin pressed to all of mine, I ignored it while we talked. But just like that, sexual tension is a living, vibrating force between our bodies. My pussy clenches and my blood sings.
No one touched anyone yesterday. I don't think I've had more than a peck of a kiss from Grady in days. When I've joined with Colt or Landen, it's been distracted. Distant.
I want us to be close. As close as four souls can be.
And I can't think of a better way to prove we're still alive.
Grady's nostrils flare, his eyes darkening. I press my thighs together against the wetness gathering between my legs. Deep inside, I throb. His cock—disinterested to this point—gives a kick against my abdomen, filling and going hot with blood. My nipples pebble where they're pressed against his chest.
I squeeze Colt's hand, and he draws closer. When he lets his front brush against my back, my breath stutters. He's hard already; he's always been fast to catch on.
"Jessica…" I turn my head to find Landen right there, and he's clearly on the same page. I reach my other hand for him. My fingers graze hot skin.
And then my head is being wrenched back around. "Mate," Grady breathes. "Our very own. Our heart. Our life—"
He cuts himself off by crushing his mouth to mine. I let him in without hesitation. Our connection sings through our mate bond, and God, yes, this is what we need. It's what we needed all along.
"So patient," Grady mumbles between searing kisses. "Thank you. Thank you…"
"Shh." I let go of Landen and Colt to wrap my arms around my alpha's neck, sealing my lips over his to silence him.
But he won't be quieted. "You gave us the time to grieve."
I shake my head. "Now let me give you this."
With a groan, he accep
ts another, deeper kiss. I practically climb his body, and he finally gets with the program. He clamps his hands to my hips and lifts me. I curl my legs around him, and then we're in motion.
I close my eyes and just hang on as he carries me through the entryway and into the house proper. Doors slam closed behind us. Heavy footfalls follow.
I have the presence of mind to check that my other mates are still with us. I open my eyes to find them right there, only it's still too far.
"No, no." I shake my head, reaching for them. "Come here."
But the breath is driven from my body as Grady shoves my back into a wall. I groan at the impact and at the sudden crush of his body against mine. He keeps a hand on my ass to support me, while he braces his other arm against the wall beside my head.
He commands my attention, even as Colt and Landen follow my orders and fall in. I gaze into my alpha's amber eyes, while feeling the heat of all my mates surrounding me, close to me—exactly where they're supposed to be.
"You hold us together," Grady swears. "You're everything. Our mate. Ours."
"Always," I promise.
He groans, long and low.
And maybe there's some inaudible signal, some sign between these males. But the next thing I know, Landen grasps one of my legs and Colt the other. They spread me, and oh God. They hold me open, make me ready.
And then Grady is there.
As his packmates hold me up, presenting my aching pussy for his cock, Grady pulls his hips back. He rubs his thick cock against my slit, drenching it with my juices, and my breath stops.
My careful alpha. My protective mate.
He looks into my eyes, checking. Subtly, I nod.
That's all he needs.
In one long slide, he presses into me. Fuck. I throw my head back at the intensity of the stretch, but I can take it. I have before and I will again, but it's not just his cock I'm taking.
I'm taking his grief and his pain. I'm planting them in my chest, holding them for him. He kisses me, and I taste the tears he shed into my neck this afternoon when he was more animal than man, and I love him. I love him, I love him, I love him.
His hips meet mine, and he pants my name against my lips.
"I can't," he mumbles. "I'm too wild—I need—"
"Take it. All of it."
So he does.
The pace he sets is brutal. He pounds into me with a speed and a desperation that makes that weird morning a few weeks ago look gentle and slow, and I don't care. He ravages me, and with every stroke, some of the fire comes back to his eyes. My alpha comes back to me, away from the edge he'd been sitting on. Away from the loneliness and the loss.
Longing shines in his gaze as he rears back. "Mate… I want… I want—"
His climax seems to take him out of nowhere. His jaw drops and impossible pleasure makes him seize up. Hot fluid floods me as his cock pulses and jerks. He slams home, pressing deep, then stills.
I squeeze my muscles around him, and it doesn't even matter that I didn't come. Peace falls over me as he pours himself into my body. He shakes, nearly as violently as he did back at the ceremony, but this doesn't feel like loss. It feels like life, and like it's finally returned to him.
Returned to us.
Murmuring my name, he makes a couple more lazy pushes of his hips into mine. The pressure against my clit stokes the fire inside me, but it's not enough to make it burst into flame. "Sorry—"
And this is so wrong, but I grab him by the hair. I jerk him back until he has to look me in the eyes. "Don't be. Don't you dare."
My heart cracks into two, light pouring in at the first sight of my alpha's smile in weeks.
"Cheeky," he says, and it's a rebuke, but barely. He runs a fingertip down my cheek, then kisses me once more, damp and soft.
He steps away. I grunt as his cock slips free, leaving me empty. His seed leaks from my used pussy, and that only makes my desire flare hotter.
"So?" I look between Landen and Colt.
They glance at each other.
As one, they peel me off the wall. I give out a little shriek, laughing breathlessly, because after all that intensity, they way they throw me around feels like fun. The somberness of the day evaporates like a fog before dawn, destroyed by the light of the sun. It feels good to play. To touch my mates and to fuck. To connect without burdens weighing us all to the ground.
After a bit more manhandling, I find myself on all fours. Apparently, Grady carried me into the den before he fucked me, and it's a cozy enough place to have ended up. The plush carpet is soft under my knees and palms.
Colt folds himself down to kneel behind me. He grasps my hips, sliding his thumbs along the curve of my ass. They slide farther inward for a moment, teasing at my back entrance, and I shiver.
"Fuck," he groans, before letting go. "Wish I had more time. I'd open you up. Fuck you here while Landen fucks your cunt."
I shiver. God, that sounds good.
He chuckles. "Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you? Love getting stuffed like that. Being that full."
"Yeah." My pussy clenches hard around nothing at the thought. More of Grady's spend drips down my thighs.
"Well, too bad for both of us, I'm never going to last that long. So you'll have to make do with this—"
The slide of his slick, hot cockhead against my thigh is my only warning, and then he's right there at the entrance to my pussy. In one long, rough thrust he drives himself in deep. I rear back, arching my spine as he bottoms out in my cunt. The stretch is just as intense as it was when Grady took me earlier, the fullness just as satisfying.
Before I can even really adjust, though, Landen is grabbing me by my hair. He tugs just a little too hard, and the delicious sting grabs my attention but fast. I snap my eyes open to find him kneeling in front of me, his long, hard cock right there.
"Please, Jess—"
I open my mouth without another word. He moans as he presses in, and fuck, it's not quite as good as having one of these men in my ass and another in my pussy, but being taken from both ends like this shoots the same kind of fire through my bones.
They set up a rhythm between them, tugging back and forth. Colt slams into my pussy as Landen slides me off his cock, leaving just the tip between my lips, and then it reverses. Colt retreats, leaving my pussy all but empty while Landen nudges my throat, and it's so good, so perfect.
I was already primed from Grady's hard, fast fuck, so it's no surprise when I'm pushed to the limit fast. The slick sounds of sex fill the air—the wet slap of flesh on flesh and my attempts to swallow around all the precome and spit gathering in my mouth. I tense, following the pleasure that's ready to combust.
Then there's a thump beside me. My eyes fly open to find Grady kneeling to my right. He's hard again already, and his gaze sears me. He reaches out a hand. Pressing his hot palm to the center of my spine is like dumping gasoline on my inferno.
"That's it, baby. That's it. I love to watch you like this. Love seeing you take your mates, love you pleasuring my pack…"
His words are all I need.
Orgasm crashes over me, blacking my vision. I clamp down around the cock in my pussy, and it's all I can do to keep sucking Landen through the shuddering waves of overwhelming pleasure. Landen tightens his grip on my hair, fucking my face faster, and Colt follows suit.
Just as my climax starts to fade, they let out twin groans. Colt slams in hard. His cock pulsing inside me, flooding me with hot come triggers another wave of my orgasm. I scream around the thick flesh in my mouth. Seconds later, Landen shoots between my lips, and it's all I can do to swallow it down. Some slips past my lips to drip onto the floor beneath me, and I'm so full, so gorgeously full.
I'm so alive.
Colt collapses over me when he's done, kissing my spine. Landen pulls out, and I flutter open my eyes. He smiles at me and brushes a finger across my bottom lip to clean away some of his leavings. Gazing at him from under my lashes, I chase that finger, sucking it back between my l
ips to lick at his flesh. He groans, tugging at my lip before pulling away.
I feel good—sore and used but good. Connected.
Except when Colt pulls out, Grady comes closer. His eyes shine with need, and oh God. Oh, God.
"On your back," he growls.
Landen and Colt move away, and I do as my alpha commands. I lie there on the floor on my back. I spread my legs, and I must be such a mess down there. Two men's come leaks from my swollen pussy, and I have another man's seed still on my tongue.
My alpha doesn't care, though. He slots himself between my thighs, pulling them around his hips, and I'm a ragdoll. I'm weak. But all I want to do is make him feel good, and I can do that.
"Sorry," he grits out, sliding his fat alpha cock through the wetness between my legs. "You've done so much, but I need—I have to—"
I shake my head, reaching for him with trembling hands. Pulling him in. "Please…"
The slide in is so easy this time. I'm slick with come and desire, stretched out and open from the rough way I've already been taken.
With one hand on the back of my thigh and the other planted on the floor beside my head, he grinds in deep. There's no way I can come again so soon outside my season, but it doesn't seem to matter. The pressure against my clit has my pleasure sparking before I know it. I let out a soft sound of need, and he leans in closer to kiss me.
Just like that, things shift. He was so wild against the wall a few minutes ago, and Colt and Landen both seemed desperate. We're here affirming life in the wake of the anniversary of death, but now he seems to be celebrating something else. His pace stays slow and deep, his kiss soft.
He's not fucking me, this time. He's making love.
And after weeks of him being distant, I didn't realize exactly how badly I needed that.
For the longest time, he thrusts gently in and out of me. My muscles slowly start to come back online. I wrap my arms around him, holding him close, flexing internally to make it better for both of us.
And then he does what he did all those weeks ago, when he first set alarm bells firing off in my mind.