United (The Ushers)

by Vanessa North

  “Oh yeah, Jack is a big softie under that gruff exterior.” Monica scoffed. Jack was as dangerous as any wolf she’d ever met. He wouldn’t have been her Guardian otherwise.

  “Think about it. You know Jack. He was a sailor during WWII, and he still has nightmares. He will use force when necessary, but he also avoids it as much as possible.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Monica agreed. “And Ted is the same way.”

  “So, then Bianca was born, and Sara and I realized that either Ted or Jack would be her mate. It made so much sense that one of them would be strong enough to mate her but also forward-thinking enough to accept the changes she would bring. We never knew which one it would be, though. If Ted had come into Sara’s Inn that day, it would have been him that mated Bianca.”

  Monica tried to picture gentle Ted in Jack’s place but couldn’t imagine anyone other than Jack with Bee.

  “I cannot tell you how relieved I was when Fionn was born,” Annie continued. “I thought Roisin had decided she was done with diapers and nursing pups, and we’d be waiting for one of the Murphy brothers to father a baby.”

  “What was Fionn like, as a little boy?” Monica asked curiously.

  “I actually don’t know. After he was born, I left for a while. I came back around the time he made his first shift. Well, you know how that went. I cannot apologize enough to you for what happened.”

  “Annie, you slept with him one time, twenty years before I met him. You don’t need to apologize for having sex with a handsome man.”

  “You’re not angry about it?”

  “No. Jealous, maybe, but angry? No, I would never be that catty.” Monica waved her hand in a dismissive gesture before she realized what she’d said. Horrified, she clapped a hand over her mouth as Annie laughed, her giggles pealing out of her like a rumbling purr.

  “I’m so sorry, Annie,” she said around her own tense laugh.

  “I’m not offended. It’s in my nature to be possessive, so I guess it would be ‘catty’ to hate on me for having sex with him.”

  “Do you hate me?” Monica’s voice was barely more than a whisper.

  “No, Mon. I’m fine. He’s not my mate. I can’t bond to someone that way. Though I hope to maybe have a husband one day.”

  “He bit you, though,” Monica said, as if that meant anything special to Annie.

  “He did. Fucker left a scar, too. But since I’m not his mate, or even biologically compatible to reproduce, I didn’t have that super erotic reaction to it that you all have.”

  “Ooh. Ouch.” Monica frowned, trying to imagine the mate-bite being just a werewolf bite without any of the ecstatic feeling that came with it, and the thought made her shudder. “You must have been pissed.”

  “Honestly, it was more surprising than anything else. I mean, I knew why his body told him to mark or bite; I was just shocked that he actually did it to me.”

  “He was so young,” Monica reminded her.

  “Old enough to control his teeth in bed. It was really surprising to me.”

  “You and I are the only women he’s ever bitten. He was probably feeling really connected because you’re his Guide.”

  “I never thought of it like that before.” Annie’s face relaxed as she pondered the idea.

  “Where did he bite you?” Monica found herself asking, hoping it wasn’t the left breast, over the heart.

  “Here.” Annie pointed to a silvery white scar where her neck and shoulder met.

  Monica could tell from the shape of the bite that he had been behind her. She blushed.

  “Yeah, I know.” Annie rolled her eyes. “Dominance junkie.”

  “Was he really?” Monica’s eyebrows shot up. “He’s never like that with me.”

  “He was so bossy. Maybe you’re just better at standing up to him than I was.”

  “I’m the bossy one now.” Monica smiled. “We should get back and try to catch some small game on the way.”

  Annie laughed again. “Um, Mon, we packed a cooler. We don’t need to eat rabbits and squirrels.”

  “Oh, okay, sure. In that case, then, we should probably get back to our yummy modern snacks.” She smiled sheepishly as she began to shift.

  They had barely started back to the campsite when she heard the loud, unmistakable crack of a shotgun. She heard a roar from behind her and saw Annie shaking a bloody paw and spitting. She started toward the Guide, not thinking beyond making sure she was okay.

  “Go!” Annie shouted in her mind. “The flechettes are silver. Get the hell out of here. They won’t kill me, but they sure as hell can you.”

  Monica felt a whine escape from her lips as she turned and ran as fast as she could toward the campsite. She heard Annie behind her, running clumsily on three legs.

  “Fionn!” She reached for her mate with her mind, knew he could feel her fear and her urgency.

  “Mo!” His voice ripped into her, clear and beautiful.

  “Darling, Annie’s hurt. Someone shot her!” She burst onto the campsite to find her wolves all in a state of midshift.

  “STOP!” she thundered into their minds, watching as they shifted back to their human forms, unable to resist her compulsion. She shook herself, reaching for her clothes before her body had even finished its shift.

  “She’ll be here in a minute,” she said, chest heaving. “They shot her with silver. I don’t want to see any fur until we’re out of this Goddess-forsaken park, you got that?”

  Annie stumbled into the campsite and shifted. Her hand was bleeding heavily as she sat down and groaned.

  “Fuck!” Graham reached into his tent for a towel, coming forward and wrapping it around Annie’s hand to staunch the flow of blood. “Let’s see what we’ve got here, Ann, okay?” He swallowed, and a wave of nausea rolled over all of them as they sensed his thoughts when he saw two of her fingers were missing, silver needle-like projectiles sticking out of her hand.

  “Oh shit, Annie, it’s fucking bad.”

  “I know it’s fucking bad,” she hissed.

  “Fionn, get the first aid kit out of the car. We need to stop her pain and prevent her going into shock so her body can heal. First, I need something to stop the bleeding. Go.” Graham gave orders so naturally that even the Alphas obeyed.

  “Graham, do you have medical experience?” Ellen asked quietly.

  He shook his head, gritting his teeth. “No, but this isn’t the first shot wound I’ve seen. Thank the Goddess she’s not a wolf. The flechettes that ripped off her fingers would have poisoned one of us.” He picked at the silver bits sticking out of her hand until he was certain they were all gone.

  Fionn came back with the wolf first aid kit. In addition to bandages and antiseptic wipes, it contained doses of morphine far beyond what would be lethal to a human. Graham pulled out a needle and administered the shot. Annie’s eyes immediately rolled back as pharmacological euphoria took her out of her senses.

  Graham nodded as he examined her hand. “She’s starting to heal already. She’s lost two fingers, but she’ll be okay. Let’s let her rest.” With concise, efficient movements, he cleaned, wrapped and bandaged her hand. Gently, he picked her up and carried her to the car. Monica helped him settle her into the comfortable passenger seat, where they threw a blanket over her sleeping form to cover her nudity.

  “Thanks, Graham,” Monica whispered, enfolding him in a friendly hug. “I’m so glad you were here.”

  They both turned in surprise when they heard an angry growl behind them. Fionn was watching them with his teeth bared, looking as shocked as they were when he realized the sound had come from his own throat.

  “Sorry, Graham. I guess my wolf doesn’t like seeing a naked man hugging my mate,” he apologized sheepishly.

  “Come here.” Monica reached for her mate. She held him tightly, rocking against him. “We need to get our wolves out of here. How fast can we break up the camp?”

  “Fast.” Fionn nodded to Graham, who, along with Ellen, immed
iately started dousing the fire and breaking down the tents. Fionn pressed a kiss to Monica’s hair. “You scared the hell out of me, lover. Thank the Goddess you’re okay,” he whispered.

  Mere minutes passed before they were all in the car.

  “Fionn…drive east, and don’t look back,” Monica commanded.

  Chapter Eleven

  TED MET THE WOLVES from Amazon at the entrance to the Murphy estate. He reached out and enfolded his youngest brother in a hug.

  “Fionn, thank Goddess you guys are okay. Blake and some of his team are going out to West Virginia to investigate.” Ted’s face looked wan, exhausted. Clearly, Mid-A was locked in a struggle that weighed heavily on its Alpha.

  “Ted, they shot her with silver.” Monica stood beside her mate, wrapping an arm loosely around his waist. “They knew I was a wolf.” She shuddered.

  “So either it was other wolves, or we’ve been exposed.” Grimly, Ted scrubbed his hands over his eyes. “Who the fuck discharges a weapon in a National Park, that’s what I want to know?” He scowled. “We’ve had some suspicious activity going on, Blake’s team is working ’round the clock trying to get to the bottom of it.”

  “Well, we’re not going to figure it out standing on the front lawn in the middle of the night.” Fionn put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “It’s gonna be okay, Teddy.”

  Fionn watched Monica’s face as they entered his family home. He’d grown up here, knew every creaking floor board and exactly how the light would spill in the windows in the morning. Monica’s face glowed with appreciation as she looked around the kitchen, which was obviously well-used, and followed him up the stairs. Graham and Ellen came behind them, Graham carrying Annie in his arms. Wordlessly, Fionn pointed to the guest rooms, and their wolves disappeared inside one. Taking Monica’s hand, he led her into the room where he had slept for most of his life, until he came to her five months before. Her eyes widened as she took in the big four poster bed that dominated the room. Hanging above the bed was a huge photograph of entwined lovers. Looking closer, she realized it was a print of the famous Annie Leibovitz portrait of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, taken mere hours before Lennon’s death. A stereo sat in one corner, an overflowing bookshelf in another.

  “Huh,” she said softly.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s not what I expected.” She shrugged.

  “What did you expect?” He put his hands on her hips and pulled her close, nibbling at her ear.

  “More color,” she confessed. “You’re a colorful guy. And it’s so sad, isn’t it?” She gestured to the photograph.

  “Mmm. It’s beautiful. Their love for each other, the passion in the photograph. They didn’t know it was his last day on Earth, but they loved as though they did.” He tugged her earlobe into his mouth, and she shuddered, a frisson of heat running down her spine.

  “Fionn,” she whispered. “I need you.”

  “I know.” He looked in her eyes, and something in them changed. “Do you trust me to give you what you need?” His voice was smoky-low.

  She nodded.

  “Take off your clothes and lie on the bed.”

  Monica shivered, then started pulling off her clothing. As she lay on the bed, she wondered what he would do. She heard a drawer opening in the bedside table, then felt his hand caress the back of her head.

  “I’m going to blindfold you. Then I’m going to tie you up and do whatever I want to you. You’re going to like it, Monica,” he whispered.

  She felt him slip the blindfold over her head, felt him secure it.

  “Can you see?”

  She shook her head. She felt something soft fasten around her wrists as he secured them to the bed posts. She groaned as she felt him tug her legs apart. She knew he could smell how turned on she was, could feel how much she was liking this. She felt his hands sliding up her legs, over the soft flesh of her buttocks.

  “Your skin is the most satiny-smooth thing I’ve ever touched,” he whispered. “I want to touch you every time I see you. I fought against it for so long. I didn’t want to want you like this. But now, I can’t believe I resisted.” His hand traced one of the tattoos on her back. “I love your tattoos. They each tell me such a story. This one is so old, you couldn’t have been much more than a pup. You fought someone. A man?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, remembering the fight. She’d been a very young wolf, not long after her first shift, and a man had made an unwelcome pass at her. She’d turned him down, and he’d attacked her.

  “You tore him apart.” Fionn sighed, seeing the moment in his head. His brave, beautiful woman standing over a bleeding wolf, watching in visceral satisfaction as the wolf’s life seeped away. It should have been chilling, but he was filled with pride that she had defended herself like that.

  “I wasn’t going to let him take by force what I wouldn’t willingly give. I was still a virgin—both to loving and to fighting. It was my first fight as a wolf. Robert tattooed me himself.” She referred to her first mate with a wistfulness that tugged Fionn’s heart.

  “Was he the Alpha then?” Fionn traced another tattoo, a more recent one.

  “He was. I was very young, I thought I just had a crush on him, but he recognized our connection for what it was. He asked me to mate with him the night he tattooed me.”

  “Did you?” Fionn asked. He watched as she nodded.

  “I was honored to be the Alpha’s mate, and we were well suited. I loved him.”

  “I know. It’s the strangest thing…through the bond, I love him, too, for what he was to you.”

  Fionn’s hand had wrapped around her body to cup a breast. He pinched her nipple the way she liked, taking satisfaction in the hiss that erupted from her. Her body leaped from the bed, pulling against the restraints as she reacted to the rougher touch after his soft caresses and quiet conversation. He leaned over her and pressed a series of gentle kisses down her spine, then bit down on her beautiful ass. She shuddered and groaned at the feeling of his teeth. He didn’t break the skin—he didn’t want to let her come yet. His hand slipped down the seam of her buttocks to her pussy, and he smiled to find her wet for him already. His fingers teased around her clit, making her arch and whine.

  “Please…” She didn’t recognize her own voice.

  “Please what, love?” he asked.

  “Mount me. Mark me, make me come,” she begged.

  “Oh, I like the sound of that, but you’re not ready yet. First, I need to taste this beautiful pussy.” He untied the leg restraints and pushed her knees up under her, her ass in the air. She felt his hands spreading her, and then, oh thank Goddess, his mouth was making magic on her. He hummed against her clit, letting the vibrations stir her fervor as he worked two fingers inside her. Shamelessly, she ground herself down against his face. He slapped her ass, growling, and she stilled. She felt tension building in her spine as he curled his fingers inside her, his lips still humming against her clit, occasionally punctuated with a lick or a nibble.

  He pulled away to whisper, “Don’t come yet. If you come before I tell you to, you won’t get my cock tonight.”

  She swallowed. There was no way she was going to let that happen. She needed him like she needed the air she breathed. He resumed his tender ministrations, and she wanted to weep, he felt so good, his beard brushing the insides of her thighs, his fingers buried inside her, his lips on her clit.

  “Please, Fionn, I need…” she begged.

  She felt his hand slap down on her ass again, and she bucked against him.

  “I know what you need,” he told her. “You’ll get what you need, my greedy love.”

  She felt her wolf whine as he pulled his fingers out of her. He chuckled as he pulled away from her, and she wanted to hit him. She growled.

  “Oh?” he murmured, taking her breasts in his hands. He pinched both nipples at the same time, and she felt herself literally panting her need.

  Then she felt him pushing against her entrance
, and she hissed, “Yes.”

  She was rewarded with another firm pinch on her breasts as he slid inside her so slowly, she could hardly stand it. When he was all the way inside, rocking into her, she felt tears gathering in her eyes. He felt so vital, so right, in her body, like nothing she’d ever experienced, not even with her first mate. The tears spilled against the blindfold. Fionn’s hands left her breasts, stroking down her body. One stirred against her clit, the other rested on her ass. He flicked his thumb across the star of her anus, and she bucked.

  “You like that?” he asked.

  She couldn’t answer, could only bite the pillow. Then she felt something cold against her ass, realized he was working lube into her. She felt one long finger sliding inside, and she pushed back against him, racked by this new pleasure.

  “Someday, I’m going to fuck you here,” he whispered, finding a rhythm between the finger in her ass and his cock in her cunt.

  She felt her teeth lengthening in his pillow.

  “Not tonight, though. Now, Monica, I want you to come for me.”

  His fingers went to work in earnest against her clit, and she felt the heat and tension she’d been holding back erupt as he gave her permission to feel everything he gave her, to let go and let him take control of her pleasure. She shook and sobbed his name as the waves of it crashed over her. As though from deep underwater, she heard his shout of release as his seed spurted inside her. He released her hands from their bonds and pulled off the blindfold, dragging her into his arms and holding her tight against him.

  “Oh my god, Mo,” he whispered. “Do you know how beautiful you looked, tied up with your pretty ass up in the air?”

  She laughed weakly, still feeling tears seeping from the corners of her eyes.

  “Are you crying? Did I hurt you?”

  She felt his alarm and shook her head.

  “No, I just had the most amazing orgasm of my life.” She grinned at him through the tears. “I think my brain is short circuiting.”