Pack Obsidian Gold

by C. M. Stunich

  “First time I've ever heard you cuss like that,” I whisper in his ear, biting his lobe as he drives into me hard and fast. I like the sound our pelvises make, that ancient symphony of flesh on flesh. It mixes nicely with the songs of frogs and crickets from outside the window. They're all singing their loneliness into the night, looking for mates.

  Lucky me I already found mine.

  “Well,” he whispers, struggling to get in a full breath, “I've read a lot about sex—a fucking library's worth …” Anubis sighs and slows the mesmerizing roll of his hips for a moment, enjoying just being sheathed inside of me. Our eyes are locked together and I know that I couldn't pull away if I tried; I'm loving this too much. “But … all the research didn't prepare me for this.”

  “How good I'd feel?” I whisper, but he shakes his head.

  “How much I'd like you.”

  And then he starts to move again, thrusting harder, deeper, faster.

  My throat gets tight with the rush of pleasure, my arms tightening around Anubis' neck as he comes a second time—yay for werewolves and being able to get it up again rather, um, quickly. Our species doesn't exactly have a refractory period the way human males do. Our men can get it up over and over and over again …

  And I've got seven of them.

  I wonder if I'll be able to keep up?

  Anubis collapses as magic skitters over our bodies again. As it does, I sneak a hand between us and rub at my clit, finishing myself off so quickly that another burst of golden color breaks across my skin, traveling between Anubis and me at the places where we touch.

  It's a hell of a lot more than last time, making me feel dizzy when it coalesces into the darkness of the rose tattoo. Except, instead of nauseous and weak and dizzy like last time, I'm now reeling with the feeling of power.

  “Right again,” Anubis whispers, rolling off to lay next to me, sweaty and sticky and satisfied. There's blood everywhere from the damn silver belts. Well, blood and … other things. Sex is ridiculously primal and messy. I wasn't exactly lacking in the sexual education department, but I was not prepared. Does it make me weird that I sort of … like that? “The silver … it really does protect. With it, we can retain even more of our new power.” Anubis turned toward me and held out his wrist. “It's being stored in here. I can fucking feel it.”

  “So can I,” I whispered back, looking at my own mark. “And I have a feeling the witches can't steal this from us.”

  Not everything about being the Alpha Heir was glamorous and violent—fucking in moonlight, summoning ancient magic, fighting off witches and vampires. No, I ended up falling asleep in Anubis' arms, waking up in a puppy pile of lovers, and then scrambling downstairs naked to find both Nic's and my laptops.

  We struggled to finish an important test for our online anthropology class, and then ended up taking yet another test in wildflowers that I'd forgotten about completely.

  I'd be lucky to get a C- on that one.

  “I admire your dedication to school and all,” Silas said as we sat in a restaurant down the street from the vampire cafe, Anubis teasing my feet under the table and throwing secret smiles my way. We were supposed to be gathering information, getting a read on the situation and possibly checking out the house I'd seen Selena disappear into.

  Mostly, though, I was just yawning and stuffing my face.

  “But do you really think you can handle that on top of the Contribution?” Silas finished as I glanced in the direction of the cafe where Julian had tried to drug me. The window Nic had crashed the SUV through was already prepared, and people came in and out in regular intervals. I had no way of knowing if they were Bloods or not—between the daywalking, the glamours, and the witch hazel, it was impossible to tell.

  “Schooling is important,” Anubis inserted, his hair purposely gelled into artful spikes today. He looked up and over at Silas. “You shouldn't discourage the alpha from continuing her education.”

  “I just don't see how she'll manage it,” he replied with a sigh, flicking gold eyes to mine. “It's not that I don't want you to, just … I don't want you to kill yourself trying to do too much.”

  “I'm okay for now,” I said with a smile, wiggling slightly in my seat and trying not to think too hard about Anubis' head between my thighs. “If I had to choose, of course I'd choose the pack over a human university, but I'd rather not make that decision. Not yet, anyway.”

  Shoving another bite of hash browns into my mouth, I set down my fork on the empty plate and breathed a sigh of relief. Between the sex, and the magic, and the tests, I'd been starving. A werewolf with an empty stomach is not a pleasant creature to be around. We're ravenous little beasts.

  “And if any of you want to enroll, I support that,” I added, knowing that it'd take a hell of a lot more than a few low test grades to get me to drop out of school. Nic had always thought of his time at the university as temporary, but I'd seen in his eyes so much getting an education outside the pack's metaphorical walls meant to him.

  He needed this more than I did, and I wouldn't take it away from him unless I absolutely had to.

  “I don't even know what I'd study if I went back to school,” Anubis said, looking at me from across the table. The toe of his Converse was still sliding along my calf, drawing a smile to my lips. I felt like it should be hard to smile with all the death and the bullshit, the bloodshed and the constant threats. But I couldn't let that happen. We had an entire year of this. If I let it break me down, I'd take the boys with me. “The only things that really interest me are Numinous culture, politics, history and … Zara Wolf.”

  “Oh, laying it on thick, huh?” Che said, but Anubis just ignored him, taking a sip of his orange juice as I glanced down the long length of booth to where Harlem and Aeron were sitting. Still no messages from Whitney, but I wasn't sure what to do about that except maybe send the faerie princess herself up to Coven Triad's door. Her glamour was strong enough that she could probably pass as a human, even in front of the witches. “Got some booty and liked it, huh?”

  “Don't be vulgar,” Anubis growled, turning his attention down the line to Che. “This is our alpha female. Be respectful.”

  “I am being respectful,” the Pack Violet Shadow Alpha Son said, crossing his arms behind his head and leaning back against the booth. His purple eyes were focused wholly and completely on mine. “I got some booty and I liked it. Zara gives good booty.”

  “That's hardly respectful,” Nic snarled out, but I just raised an eyebrow. Che might play at being an asshole, but I could see in his eyes that he wanted to be accepted here. He wanted to fit in with his pack, just like any werewolf. If he was trying to push the rest of us away, it wasn't going to work.

  “Cool it boys,” I said, tapping my fingers against the tabletop. Still no word on last night's Convocation meeting. It was eating Tidus up, too. His parents were okay—he'd called to check on them—but something wasn't right. The only reason I wasn't on the verge of panic was because I trusted Nikolina to trust me. She wouldn't move on anything until I told her who the traitor was. “We're supposed to be scouting out vampires, remember?”

  “Whitney warned you not to go within a ten block radius of Coven Triad,” Aeron hissed from the end of the table, her sloe-eyes the only part of her real form that shone through the glamour. It wasn't enough to mark her as fae, just enough that if you'd seen her in both forms, you'd know exactly who it was you were looking at. “We're just inside the circle of the spell. Are you certain you want to move further inside of it?”

  “They won't activate the spell unless they know we're inside of it. They don't and they won't if we're careful. And even if they did, I doubt they'd waste it on us. They're expecting a war, remember?”

  “Which we'll give them if you give us a little more time,” Harlem said, her blue eyes stern as she looked over at me. “Just keep the packs out of it.”

  “Working on it,” I said, but in truth, I was running out of ideas. Nikolina wouldn't wait forever. E
ventually, she'd start looking for the traitor herself. Either that, or like I said, Allister would start making things happen for himself. I couldn't risk either scenario. “So let's go scout out that house again. Selena was there and so was that vampire woman. She stank like wolf—and not Selena either. There's a chance more of our missing wolves are in there.”

  I didn't say it aloud, but I knew the sense of urgency had ratcheted up substantially since yesterday. Getting Kit's body … it showed that Kingdom Ironbound and Coven Triad weren't above killing their prized possessions to make a point.

  “Let's do our best not to die,” Tidus said, trying to lighten the mood as he leaned into my right side, putting his blonde head on my shoulder. “If I go out with my virginity still intact, it'll take me at least three reincarnations to live it down.”

  “Maybe we'll organically get in the mood at mini golf?” I said, letting his lightheartedness seep into me, taking some of the leaden feeling from my limbs, lightening the load of stress I felt weighing down my shoulders. “I've always wondered if there was enough room in the miniature lighthouse to get it on. It's the last hole on the course.”

  “Oh, is it?” Tidus asked, sitting up and giving me a look with raised brows. “The last hole on the course, huh? Do I need to get a hole in one to win?”

  My mouth cracked into a smile despite myself.

  “It'd be a little awkward if you missed, wouldn't it? Not very romantic to get stabbed in the taint—or so I hear. It's never happened to me.” The waitress popped by our table and grabbed Nic's debit card. Well, Pack Ebon Red's debit card, I should say. The pack had a lot of revenue sources, and we never hurt for money. Everyone in the pack had a card attached to my mother's business account; we all lived out of the same pool of wealth although there were restrictions on who could spent what, how much, and why.

  “Crap, now I'm feeling the pressure,” Tidus said, the only star that was dim in my night sky. It made me ache for him. I wanted to pull him close to me, straddle his lap, and mark him. He was the last one of my men to be mated, and I didn't like that.

  Still, I understood his request for a more … natural encounter. Although, my night with Anubis felt anything but forced. It was the most natural thing in the world, to join my body to his.

  The waitress dropped off our receipt and card and the boys and I took turns sliding out of the booth.

  “Don't feel pressured,” I said, leaning up on my tiptoes to kiss Tidus' cheek. “When your time comes, I'm more than convinced that your body will know exactly what to do.” My lips pressed against the smoothness of his cheek and his hands came to rest on my hips.

  In them, I felt the promise of what was to come between us.

  And I knew for a fact that it was going to be a-fucking-mazing.

  With the witch hazel, we didn't have to worry about being sniffed out. If we couldn't smell the Bloods then there was no way in hell they could smell us.

  Still, we made a wide circle around the block and came at the house from the opposite side as last time, just in case there were more Kingdom Ironbound vamps enrolled at the U of O. I was almost certain there were—even if I couldn't catch their scents and know for sure. The last thing we needed was one of them coming up behind us while we were crouched low and spying.

  The boys and I had split up into three groups—Tidus, Jax, and Silas were with me. I think it made Nic sick to my his stomach to be separated from me, but he was good at following orders so I sent him with Che and Harlem. Montgomery, Anubis, and Aeron made up the final group. I could see them across the street, hanging out inside a bus stop like they were just waiting for their ride. I had no idea where Nic and Che had gone, but I trusted them to pick a safe spot.

  My boys and I were closest to the house, crouched in a neighbor's yard and peering through a cracked board in the wood fence. The property we were trespassing on clearly belonged to a family of humans—their stink was on everything. And it was also pretty clear no one was home at the moment, so I didn't worry much about being discovered. I had the hearing, sense of smell, and eyesight to keep from getting caught.

  Jaxson was already in wolf form, sniffing along the perimeter and pausing occasionally to lift his nose to scent the air.

  'I can't smell a fucking thing,' he said, the corner of his lip curling up in a wolfish snarl. 'Well, nothing beyond the stench of human pups. Why do they reek so damn badly?' I almost smiled at that … almost.

  But the sound of a car door drew me along the length of the fence so I could peek out at the street instead of at the back deck. There was nothing much to see there except a large barbecue and some outdoor chairs. Didn't exactly solve any mysteries for us.

  'Holy shit,' I whispered in wolfspeak, watching as the door to a silver Cadillac swung wide and out stepped Allister Vetter. 'Silas,' I started, but he was already behind me, his body tense, his gold eyes watching as his father made his way across the lawn and toward the front door of the house.

  The man was completely nonchalant, like he didn't give a fuck whether anyone saw him here or not. The swagger in his step made my hands curl into fists … and the next few events stole the breath from my lungs … and the blood from my body.

  The front door of the house swung open and out came Selena, big and round and pregnant. She'd been kicked out of the pack last year, just before the first of December. I wasn't exactly sure how pregnant she was—it was hard to tell with werewolves since we carried full litters, even in human form—but she looked about ready to pop.

  As we watched, she rushed forward and … threw her arms around Allister's neck.

  “What the fuck?” Silas breathed, clamping his own hand over his mouth. 'Are you guys seeing this?!'

  'We're seeing it,' Nic confirmed, confusion rife in his voice. 'Is your dad … the father of Selena's pups?'

  'I have no fucking clue,' Silas growled in wolfspeak, crouching next to me, his knees in the muddy grass. He didn't even seem to notice, so fixated was he on his dad.

  'Zara!' both Tidus and Jax called out at the same time.

  But their warning just wasn't fast enough. Before I could even react, a smell like peaches and wine filled the air followed by the copper stink of blood—my blood. The smell hit me before the pain did, blooming across my throat as a hand tangled in my hair and dragged me away from Silas.

  Whoever my attacker was, they deposited me roughly on my back and then swung a silver sword down to dance millimeters in front of my left eye. I caught a glimpse of stark white feathers, pale blonde hair, and the most brilliant turquoise eyes.

  I might've found the man pretty if I wasn't bleeding to death from a slashed throat.

  My hands scrambled at the wound, pressing my palm over the gash to help staunch the flow of blood. The fucking asshole angel standing above probably didn't know our magic was back; I'd heal from this in a few minutes flat and then I'd tear his goddamn throat out with my teeth.

  Sticky red oozed around my fingers as my head swam with a sudden wave of dizziness. I could feel the boys gathering around me, but none of them moved.

  They knew how fast the angel could kill me, shove his silver sword through my eye and into my brain. They might not have superior smell or hearing, but angels could move fucking quick. They were faster than vampires and werewolves by a lot.

  The angel lifted his chin, his old-fashioned plate armor gleaming in the spring sunshine. I heard the clink of a chain and then Whitney was just suddenly there beside me with two black eyes, a swollen mouth, and a gaze burning with rage.

  “Those responsible for freeing Sutannoc and Eanimeg from their prisons,” he began, his voice a celestial kiss of power that wrapped around me like a strong breeze, “will face trial. You,” he continued, nodding his chin in Monty's direction, “offer yourself up and save me the trouble.”

  “If you don't release my alpha,” Montgomery growled, more wolf than human, “I'll tear your wings from back and eat them with a smile on my face.”

  “You can certainly try,
” the man said, his smile this wicked slash that in no way helped perpetrate the persistent myth that angels were the messengers of an infallible god. No, they were beasts—just like the rest of us. “But freeing the Dark Princes from their prison is an offense punishable by torture and death. I'm positive you'll be found guilty anyway; I'm sure the Arbiter will grant me leniency if I kill you now.”

  “We don't much appreciate the way you're treating our new friends, do we Noc?” asked a silky smooth voice, criminally executed and almost too perfect.

  “Not particularly, Nim. But then, I've never much enjoyed the company of seagulls.”

  The demon twins were back—and using racial slurs for angels that did not generally go over well. Calling an angel a seagull was even worse than calling a human a Sightless or an Eternity Chaser.

  I could smell the scent of sulphur and ash, and I knew it was just a matter of time before Allister, Selena, or one of the Bloods in that house did, too. Fuck. I kept my hands clamped over my neck. It was eerie; I could literally feel the edges of my wound closing up, knitting back together with magic. But I didn't dare try to sit up, not yet.

  The angel really could kill me before the boys or I could move a muscle.

  “Filthy, filthy seagull,” one of them said, stepping closer. “What are you doing so far away from your trash heap? Come to collect souls from the innocent? Corrupt the world with lies and false profits? Or are you here to see us?”

  In the span of an instant, the sword was knocked away from my face and I was rising to my feet, helped my several of my boys. They made a wall of muscle and fur and claws in front of me, half in human form and half in wolf. Monty had his sword out and at the ready as we watched the demon twins circle the single angel.

  I was pretty sure that in this fight, either Noc or Nim would be an equal match to the angel.

  Both of them was a bit overkill.

  The blonde with the white wings and the turquoise eyes, he was going to die.