My knees nearly buckled at the earnestness in his gaze and the firm grip he held on my throat. His voice dropped. “Don’t do this to me. You have to trust what we have.”
“I do trust what we have,” I said quickly. “But I worry about myself. That one of these days whatever they did to me is going to catch up. My mind will fracture, or my body will break down…”
“You let me worry about that, then,” he said as he stepped closer. “Maybe I’m cocky but I think I can keep you together.”
“If anyone can, it’s you.”
“Good, then don’t worry about trusting yourself now. We’ll get there. Trust me and us, okay? Can you do that for me?”
That was probably the only thing I was capable of. “Yes. When you crashed into my hut at the Whitethroat compound, I didn’t know what to think. I’d been conditioned for so long that returning to my pack was wrong, that it would result in so many deaths…”
“Do you still feel that way?” Bay’s voice dropped with worry.
“This attack makes me nervous,” I admitted.
“But you understand, right? Dare wants peace, and knowing the Blanks are a threat to that, to us, to a peaceful world order…he can’t ignore it.”
“I do understand why. And I believe in it. But they are capable of so much.”
Bay’s expression softened. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but that’s the Nash talking that was under their thumb, their experiment. You told me how you felt seeing the Blanks chained up, that it kinda fucked with you how they weren’t larger than life anymore?”
I nodded.
“Well, I think it’ll be the same thing here. Our pack is strong, and we have motivation on our side. Peace and happiness and the desire to protect our families. What are they fighting for?”
“I don’t really know,” I answered. “The Alpha has dreams of creating this immune Were army to defeat the Noweres. He’s led them all to believe that he will reward them once he establishes a new order when the Noweres are killed off.”
“Fuck.” Bay rubbed his temples. “This alpha thinks he’s God or something?”
“Pretty much.”
He shook his head. “That’s not the world I want to live in. And we have to fight for the kind of world we want.”
“I’ll still worry. About you. You have to promise me you’ll keep yourself alive.”
Bay shot me a look. “How can I promise that?”
“Because I’m yours, remember?” I barked back. “So if you’re not here, then whose am I? What am I?”
Bay’s face fell and he pulled me to him, letting me inhale the scent of his neck. He rubbed my back and I again cursed myself for being so weak. “Maybe a day will go by when I don’t lose it, when I don’t break out in a panic attack.”
He squeezed me tighter. “Look, I promise, okay? I promise I’ll stay alive.”
I clung to him, ignoring the fact that he couldn’t make that promise. He’d said it, so I’d believe it. I had to.
He pulled back and dropped a soft kiss on my lips. “Great, now let’s get some food and relax.”
Chapter Sixteen
Four days went fast. Too fast. I told Dare everything I knew, all the ways to infiltrate the Blanks’ compound, the guard shifts, where the alpha slept, even his favorite female to fuck.
Every word was like a purge, but now I was hollowed out, empty. I wanted to be whole again, the way I was before I was taken, but that Nash was another being entirely. I was okay just belonging to Bay, filling myself up with him and him alone, but that wasn’t fair to Bay.
He was sparring with Vaughn, and I sat along the far wall watching him. We’d trained every day, and each time, I gained a little more control of my Were. I still didn’t feel like it was enough, and Bay’s assurances were tinged with his own worry.
A shadow fell over me and Pace slid along the wall until he sat beside me. He propped his wrists on his bent knees as he watched the training with me. “How’re you feeling?”
I shrugged. “Guess as good as I can be. You?”
He pulled a long blade from the grass beside him and began to shred it. “All right. Worried about you all, but glad I get to spend some time with Reese.”
“You’re okay with staying while we head off?”
“’Course. Going to get some lessons on the crops you guys have, and I’m going to teach Reese how to grow ruebane. When you get back, we’ll evaluate. Vara’ll be fine.”
“You miss your pack?”
“Sure, but there’s something about this…I feel like I need to be here right now. There’s a reason I’m here, and maybe it’s to learn how to make my pack sustainable, or maybe I have yet to learn it. But I believe I have a purpose to serve here.”
I leaned my head back against the wall. “I wish I felt so sure of something.”
“You don’t?”
“I feel sure I belong with Bay. But other than that…I’m not so sure.”
“Maybe once the business with the Blanks is behind you, you’ll see the future clearer.”
I rolled my head to face him and lowered my voice. “What if it all goes bad though? You know all I’ve told you about the Blanks. The Alpha and his guards are powerful. They have that entire pack under their control, plus the Were prisoners.”
“And you have a smart, healthy pack who knows the ins and outs of the enemy compound. Could it go bad? Of fucking course. But it could go oh so good too.”
I sighed. “You and Bay are the optimistic ones.”
He laughed bitterly. “It’s easy for me to say all this when I’ll remain behind these safe walls.”
“Yeah.”
“But.” He grinned. “Dare has ruebane. And you.”
“I’m not—“
“Mark my words.” He leaned forward, his honey eyes glittering in the sun. “You lost your purpose at the Blank compound. And I think you have to go back to find it again.”
He clapped me on the shoulder and rose to his feet. “Think about it,” he said, before walking away.
I did. All day, all night, and I was still thinking about it when we woke on the day we were supposed to leave.
“Nash,” Bay’s voice called to me.
I looked up at him from where I sat on the bed. “Yeah?”
He stood naked with his hands on his hips. “I said your name ten times.”
“Oh, sorry.” I rubbed my hands on my thighs. “I was just thinking.” If we stayed on track after we set out, we’d get to the Blanks’ compound under cover of night. Weres could see in the dark but not as well as in the daylight.
Bay sat down beside me. “About what?”
Where should I start? “Everything.”
Bay was quiet for a long time. I kept my gaze on my hands, but I could feel him watching my profile, the heat of his stare boring into my temples. “You’re still in survival mode,” he said.
“What?”
“Did you know you make no sound in your sleep? I wake up and check to make sure you’re still breathing. When we enter a room, you stay along the wall. You rarely let anyone at your back unless it’s me.” He gripped my chin and turned my head. “I see it in your eyes every second of every day. You’re not letting yourself live. Or love.”
“I love y—”
He shook his head. “Not like I love you. You avoid planning anything past a day, let alone after the mission. I love you now and in the future. You live only in the present.”
He was right, but I didn’t know how to change that. “I don’t know how to do anything other than just survive.”
His smile was sad. “I know. Do you think you’re the only one who worries? I’m terrified of what will happen when we reach the Blanks. I don’t know what we’ll find there and how it will affect you. I can only hope that you see they no longer hold power over you. And maybe that’s what you need to figure out in order to live for a future for yourself.”
“What if it doesn’t?” I whispered.
He pressed a kiss to
my lips, then slipped down to his knees between my legs. I spread my thighs wider as he grinned up at me, all green eyes and sleep-tousled hair, pink lips and wicked tongue. “Then we’ll figure it out as we go.”
He buried his face in my groin and my eyes fell to half-mast. “Maybe one day you’ll realize I’m too dependent on you, too possessive and needy.” His teeth clipped the sensitive skin of my balls. A warning. “But it’s already too late. You’re not getting rid of me.” I gripped his hair and pressed his face to me. “I’m unsure about everything except how much I want you.”
Bay’s hips humped the air, and the scent of his arousal flooded my senses. He lifted his face to lick the head of my cock. “I like you dependent on me. I like you possessive and it turns me on how much you need me. How much you want me. You think I’m not possessive over you?” His fist closed around the base of my shaft, squeezing it until I had to grit my teeth at the pain. “If you hadn’t killed those Blanks, I would have done it myself. No one hurts you again, Nash.”
“You can hurt me,” I whispered.
His eyes closed for a brief moment. “But I won’t.” He kept the firm grip on my shaft and took the head into his mouth. I sucked in a breath as my cock entered the tight, wet heat. He sucked me down until his lips touched his fist, then he pulled back slowly, hollowing his cheeks and watching me the whole time.
I didn’t want to think about where he’d learned to suck so well, how he knew just where to flick his tongue under the head and the perfect spot to press a finger behind my balls. I couldn’t take my eyes off him as his green eyes shone with arousal. “You make me feel—” My voice dropped out as he rolled my balls in his fist. I licked my lips and tried again. “In here, when it’s just the two of us, and you’re looking up at me like that on your knees, you make me believe I’m the alpha I always wanted to be.”
He pulled off and stroked my dick a couple of times. “Yeah?”
I gripped his head and guided him back to my groin. “Yeah, you do. You look at me like I could conquer the world, take out a whole Nowere pack and the Blanks with my bare hands.”
“Maybe I believe you can,” he said, his voice muffled as he ran his lips along my shaft. I’d never seen anyone do that, not the way he did it, bathing me in his spit. I slid my hands down his back, until I was hunched over him. He took my cock back in his mouth just as I tapped a finger at his hole.
He lurched against me, his moan vibrating down my dick and into my balls. I let him work me a couple more times as I pressed just the tip of my finger inside of him. He was so hot for it that his slick was dripping down his balls, his inner thighs. The whole room smelled like an aroused Bay.
I pulled back to see Bay’s eyes shiny and dazed. His hips humped the air and he balanced on one hand so he could reach between his legs. I didn’t let him touch himself. With a grip under his arms, I tossed him onto the bed. He landed on his stomach, and I didn’t give him a chance to move before I was hauling him onto his knees and slapping his ass.
He moaned, long and loud, pushing his ass back into me as the begging started. “Fuck me, please. Fill me. I need you.”
His pretty hole was clenching, aching for my dick. I wasn’t ready yet though. When I had Bay like this, needy and begging for me, I forgot about everything—the Blanks, my fucked-up state. In this room, with the Were I respected most in the world needing me, I was an alpha.
I spread his cheeks with my hand, rubbing my thumbs around his slick, dripping hole. His face was smashed into the bed and he reached for his dick again. I brought his wrists together, holding them at his lower back with one hand. I smacked him again, and again, and each time his hole pulsed more slick and his dick dripped more pre-come until he was a mess of sticky, slick liquid. The smell was all around me, seeping into my skin, and still I needed more. I flared my nostrils and inhaled deeply as my brain focused on one thing and one thing only—pleasing my mate.
I dove into his ass, and he screamed. I didn’t stop, nibbling along the wrinkled pucker. He was stretched open from constant fucking, and I could easily torture him with my tongue. He tasted like nothing I’d ever had before. Bay and home and mine and mate and pack. I growled as I ate his ass, and my dick swung between my legs like a heavy club, my balls full, screaming to unload into Bay.
When Bay’s knees gave out and he collapsed onto the mattress, I let his hands go. I rose above him and in one fluid motion, drove into him hard.
My balls hit his ass on a slap and he cried out. “Nash, oh fuck.” His back curled and in the far recesses of my brain, I thought about slowing down, taking it easy, but I was beyond that. My jaw ached like I was about to shift and my nails grew an inch as my claws sought to spear the bed. I held my Were back and pounded into my mate, punctuating each thrust with a low growl. I might have said words, like mine and mate, but I wasn’t sure, hovering somewhere between Were and human. I slipped an arm under Bay’s throat, and he gripped my forearm like it was a life preserver as I drove us farther up the bed. He’d spread his legs, allowing me all the room to go as deep into him as I could.
“You’re an alpha.” His throat vibrated on my arm as he spoke through gritted teeth. “You please your mate and you care for this pack and you can defend us—”
I thrust hard, cutting him off temporarily because his words were amping me up. I pounded into him harder as he bit into my arm with sharp teeth. “Fuck me, Nash,” he said around my skin. “Fuck like the alpha you are. Claim me. Own me.”
“Mine,” I rumbled out and latched onto his neck as I came on a roar. He cried out and his body shuddered beneath me. I emptied myself into him, fucking through my orgasm as I felt it leak out around my dick and down my balls, coating Bay below me.
I sank onto the bed, onto Bay’s body, and he took my weight, not bothering to roll me off. A soft tongue worked at my arm, and I realized he’d broken the skin. I stuck my own tongue out, catching a drip of blood from the bite on Bay’s neck. I lapped it closed without opening my eyes, and when the ragged edges smoothed out, I still didn’t move. I liked my weight on Bay, knowing he was below me. Safe. I wrapped my fingers around his throat and pulled his head back enough that I could nuzzle his neck, his ear, his temples.
We lay like that for a long time, long enough that my dick hardened again inside of his body. He moaned long and low when my hips began to work against him again, and he widened his legs further. “You need more?” I said into his ear. “Didn’t get enough the first time?”
“Always need more,” he said. “If we had the time, I’d ask you to shoot three loads in me a day. I’d walk around with your come leaking out of my ass, dripping down my legs, so everyone could see it and smell. Everyone would know how well my alpha claims me.”
“Fuck, Bay,” I growled into his ear, and his soft chuckle only spurred me on. His ass was soaked, full, and fucked open, so the sounds of my dick sawing in and out of him were loud and sloppy. I loved every minute of it, the feel of him full of me, the way he humped the bed beneath me. I coated my hand with the mess and rubbed it over his mouth.
“Oh fuck,” he mumbled against my hand, nostrils wide as he inhaled the smell of my come and his slick. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes as I pounded into him harder, and when I stuck four fingers into his mouth, he sucked on them greedily, his throat working, his tongue cleaning between them. He made a mewling sound, like he wanted more of my taste. “I’ll give you more after I come again, okay baby?”
He was dazed, high on pheromones and alpha come, so all he did was nod.
I reached under him to feel his dick, hard again while covered in the stickiness of his previous release. I jerked him and he cried out, probably sensitive from scraping along the rough blanket. I stroked in rhythm with my thrusts into his body and this time when I came, I couldn’t even cry out, my voice hoarse. Bay’s body shook beneath me as he came again, his soft whimpers muffled against the bedsheet.
This time I pulled out of him and kneeled between his thighs on shaky le
gs. His hole was a little puffy but not sore-looking. I kneaded his ass, watching as my come leaked out of him.
I gathered as much as I could with my hand, rolled him onto his side to scoop up some of his release, then we lay on our sides, lapping at my hand together, our tongues mingling as we licked between my fingers. Bay’s eyes were closed, but he licked at my hand eagerly, his whimpers now contented little sighs.
When we were finished, he opened his bleary eyes, but could barely keep his lids open halfway. “Do we have time for a nap?”
“Yeah, Dare wants to leave around dusk.”
He hummed and closed his eyes, licking his lips as he burrowed into me. I thought he was asleep until he spoke against my chest softly. “I’ll remember that for the rest of my life. What we just did. Because no one can take this from us again, you know? We did this, we loved this hard, and that’s all that matters.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, and leaked grateful tears. Grateful for the heart of the Were in my arms, for his love, for his determination to let me heal on my own time. For him, I’d do this. If not for me, for him. We’d both come back alive or I’d burn the world down.
Chapter Seventeen
Dare hadn’t left the Hive yet.
The group of us picked to head out on the mission waited in the dusk, naked, ready to shift to our werewolf forms to begin the journey to the Blanks’ compound.
Finally he emerged, Reese at his heels, his head bent. Dare’s jaw was clenched, eyes narrowed as he strode across the front of the compound toward us, kicking up dust behind his large boots.
When we drew closer, Reese raised his head, and although his eyes were shiny, his expression held the same determination as his mate’s.
“Is Dare going to be okay separated from Reese?” I asked Bay. Being True Mates meant Mate Pain for Weres. The longer and farther Weres were separated from their True Mates, the more their bodies ached.
Chasing Destiny (Silver Tip Pack Book 2) Page 15