His boys were still very young in wolf years. They were still in the playing stages, but no doubt they will grow up on this trip, Wilder thought. He wondered what they were thinking knowing that they had to rescue their mother. They didn’t show their concern. They didn’t understand the concept just yet.
Once in battle, they will understand survival, and their wolf instincts would be at their most critical stage. It would be then they will know, and he will know their true mettle, and whether one day his son’s will become the Alpha’s he hoped them to be.
Furthermore, Hunter and Devin would have to compete against Lycell’s sons for the Alpha positions, and there can be only one this time. Not like Drayton, Lycell, and Wilder, who chose to share that position. But it will be up to all of Adrienne’s son’s to decide that.
Drayton reached in the backpack and pulled out water handing it to everyone. Wilder reached into his leather rucksack and brought out a handful of dried smoked deer meat and sausages. He handed it to Lycell and Drayton who ate voraciously the meat before them.
They sat on the ground with their hands full. “You hunted, skinned, and smoked this meat all in one day?” Lycell questioned.
“I had help. My sons are fast learners. And after Adrienne turned me down the night I acted like a love sick ass, what was I to do?” Wilder hunched his large wide shoulders and shot a closed smile in Lycell and Drayton’s direction. He turned to Lycell. “What did you do? Last thing I heard from you, you were ranting and heading into town to fuck one or both of your old girl friends. One at a time I hope.”
“I didn’t do any of that.” Lycell looked down. “I rode my horses around the perimeters of the ranch, and when my steed got tired, I sat on the mountain and howled all night. I might have frightened a couple of coyotes, but that was it,” Lycell said with a wide smile, and he shook his head. “Imagine that? Me wanting to fuck more than anything in life, and I controlled my urge all because I didn’t want anyone but Adrienne.”
“And you, Drayton? You and Adrienne must have had a good old time laughing at us.” Lycell glanced at Drayton waiting for him to say yes.
“Adrienne turned me down, too.” Drayton fiddled in the snow drawing a circle with a dry fallen branch. “She said I had to learn to curb my insatiable appetite for sex.” Wilder and Lycell cut eyes at each other. Since when had Drayton turn into a sexual animal? They marveled at the thought and held back a loud laugh.
“I had to control my desire for her, because even though she was married to me, it didn’t give me the right to think that I had exclusive rights.” Wilder and Lycell hid a guarded smile. “And it was time to learn to keep the moon from dictating how I’m to behave around her,” Drayton said looking down on the ground. He didn’t know whether to reveal this but he had nothing to hide anymore. “And she said that I should learn to control my big cock. So I went into the forest, hunted, and killed a Bull Moose.”
“No way,” Lycell added. “The moose must have been sick or old. I don’t believe you. It would take all of us to hunt and kill a Bull Moose.”
“He’s in the freezer. I’m not lying.”
“Boy you were ambitious, or crazy, or horny,” Wilder said howling with laughter as Robert paced in a small circle near a half frozen stream not feeling like sharing in their personal stories.
“A little of all three,” Drayton admitted meeting their eyes embarrassed.
The talk took their minds off their troubles for a few minutes, and they remembered that they were brothers and they loved each other and more importantly, they all loved Adrienne.
Wilder and Lycell laughed, not at Drayton, but with him. They all looked up to see Robert pacing up and down at the edge of the stream.
“Robert makes me nervous. He could get one of us killed and I hope it isn’t me,” Lycell said cutting an eye in Robert’s direction. “I don’t like the idea of humans having anything to do with werewolves’ business. And Robert having a gun makes me uneasy. They always find ways to fuck things up,” Lycell added. Drayton nodded in agreement with Lycell for once.
“If I ever behave like that human, kill me,” Lycell said.
“Don’t worry you won’t have to ask twice,” Drayton said showing a large smile.
Wilder yelled for Hunter and Devin and they came running and hopped into the SUV.
“They seem to think they’re on a hunting trip,” Lycell said.
“They’re still young and you could call it a hunting trip. I haven’t taught them everything they will need to know about hunting. They still don’t know that they may have to do battle with older and seasoned werewolves. I think it’s better not to frighten them. Let them be natural. Then I can see what my sons are capable of, but I hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“Do you think that’s the best way?” Drayton questioned walking to the car. Passing Robert where all three of them glanced at him.
Robert felt a touch of discomfort returning their glances. He didn’t know the Samsas, but he thought they were decent werewolves. Not like the ones he came into contact with traveling through Alaska. Those Alaskan werewolves are wild, and no amount of telling them he was there to help their werefemales, could convince them to give them the serum he had developed.
If it hadn’t been for Mena, they would have killed him and eaten him in one sitting. She got him to nurse her mother back to health. Mena’s mother died the next spring because her father wouldn’t let Robert administer the medication to her.
“It was our father’s way,” Wilder added sitting under the wheel and driving off. “We were their age when a pack from Wyoming wanted to take over our territory because they had heard that there were no older shifters in our pack, but father.
“Boy were they ever wrong,” Lycell said fiddling with the stations on the radio as if he thought he could get a reception. They were in such dense woods that not even their phones would work. Lycell fidget around with his phone hoping that he could send a text to the nurse to inquire about his sons.
“Do you know that if something happens, all I have are my sons?”
“At least you have your sons. Mena is carrying all I have with her. If Adrienne hadn’t been so stubborn we would all be at home now throwing her a baby shower.”
Drayton’s eyebrows met and his eyes blazed. “Don’t say anymore, Robert.”
“Why? You know that you let Adrienne go too far. She does what she wants. At least Mena listens to me, which was until Adrienne started influencing her.”
“Mena listened to you because she’s a werefemale. They are taught to listen to males and obey them. Adrienne is a free soul. I like a woman with spirit,” Lycell added. “So don’t try to compare the two. I don’t know why I have to listen to you anyway.”
“Stop it. We have a common enemy. Now isn’t the time for you two to argue,” Wilder interjected. His voice hard and impatient. Lycell and Robert remained silent. Drayton glanced over at Robert. Robert had gone too far with all of them. Silence fell throughout the car and no one talked or found anything to break the quiet.
Chapter 10
Adrienne woke, her eyes searching around. The glare from the early morning sun had covered her bed. The bright streams of light landing on her eyes, and the fresh new fallen snow brought in more light than her eyes could handle or she had been used to.
Not realizing she wasn’t in her own bed, her own room, waking up at the ranch, she opened her arms and lazily stretched. Languishing for a moment, she felt the sheets. They were coarse and hard but it hadn’t reached her brain yet exactly where she is. She made an excuse in her mind. Too much detergent. She would have to tell the maid to use less next time. Maybe take over the chore of washing her own sheets. She wanted them to be soft and enticing when her werewolves came to her bed at night.
She turned feeling the pangs of hunger. She wondered why she didn’t smell the aroma of her usual breakfast of eggs and bacon wafting from downstairs up to her bedroom. She sat up quickly and looked down at herself. She felt her
body. Passed her hands over her arms and neck. There was a raw strong scent of an animal. Not the scent of Drayton, or Wilder. Not even Lycell. They smelled nothing like this. Their scents were of humans. The smell of aftershave and pine trees. Fresh grass and fresh water.
When Adrienne’s hands passed over her breasts she was wearing a piece of leather covering them and little else. No panties and nothing to cover her. Lying across the bed was a large fur piece belonging to some unsuspecting animal. It looked and smelled like a bear but she couldn’t be sure because she didn’t know what a dead bear smelled like.
Her eyes focused, she wiped the sleep away and looked around at the sparse room. Nothing but a bed made from uncured lumber and a chair. No mirror. Women needed mirrors, and clearly there were none around that she knew of, except her and Mena. There was a fire in the fireplace filled with wood burning hot. Although she felt comfortable, it wasn’t the ranch. Then her brain began to work. She had been kidnapped. She was brought to this place, along with Mena, by some werewolves at the command of the Alpha known as Bane.
Adrienne checked her body. She hadn’t been violated. At least not yet. Today she felt excessively hungry. She had the same horrific pangs of hunger in her stomach when she discovered she was pregnant with her twins by Wilder.
“Oh no. Not now. Now is not the time to be pregnant,” she murmured. She checked her stomach and it looked like a small swollen ball. Not big like a soccer ball, but a ball nonetheless. She pulled her tired body from the bed and glanced around. The only thing she saw was a pair of large leather pants. Pulling them up to her stomach, she was able to tie them around her waist. She looked down at her stomach and made a sigh.
“How does that happen? How did I end up in this and like this?” Adrienne murmured. She patted her belly again making a long sigh. She knew the answer to one question, but not the other. When she said that she was pregnant, she had lied to the blond werewolf. She thought she could get a little sympathy. She would milk that for all it’s worth, and still function where she could try to run away.
Adrienne traipsed over picking up the leather pants. Holding the pants with both hands she measured it against her body. They were two sizes too big for her. She faced the fire. She rubbed her hands together. It was cold in the room even with the fire, and for some reason she couldn’t get warm. Her feet were cold because she didn’t have any shoes. How was she to run anywhere without shoes on a cold frozen earth? For now, running away was an imaginary game she had conjured up to keep her mind occupied. To keep her mind off her real problems—that there was no way in hell she could or should attempt trying to run without risking her death and the death of her unborn pups.
“I can answer your question, Adrienne. Your name is Adrienne. We weren’t formally introduced last night. “My name is Bane. I’m the Alpha in this pack. And since you’re acquainted with our ways and rules, because you are the mate of Alphas, then it shouldn’t come as a surprise that you would end up here, and with me.”
Bane walks close to Adrienne and smells her hair. Her instincts tells her he’s handsome and overly appealing and he knows it, but he’s also a cunning werewolf, and she leans away from him frightened.
“Now come, come. You must know that I will not hurt you. But I won’t return you to Wilder. You’re mine now. I will fuck you at will. I will treat you like I would my dogs, only a little better. You will be my mate and will have all my pups.” Adrienne narrows her eyes and her eyebrows settle together. She jerks away from him and glares with contempt and scorn into his fiery eyes.
Bane looks at a shivering Adrienne and shows her a sly closed mouth smile. His words are chilling. He meant them to be just that.
He’s saying that there is no hope for her unless Wilder comes to get her. But shouldn’t they be here by now? Her mind is telling her.
Her mind is playing tricks with her. Adrienne thinks that after she treated the brothers so shabbily that they may not come to get her. After all, they got what they wanted. They got the pups they wanted to keep their pack strong and the brothers together. What good is she to them now? Her only thought now is to stay alive and protect Drayton’s pups.
Moving in Adrienne’s direction, Bane strolls up to her. This time Adrienne composes herself and stays in one spot. She plants her feet and meets his gaze. She keeps telling herself not to be afraid. He doesn’t respect females if they’re afraid of him. She learned that from Lycell. Adrienne calms herself and raises her chin. Oh Lycell where are you? Her mind questions.
The soft flesh of her neck is so inviting. Bane could kill her with one quick motion to her jugular vein. But instead he lowers his head and slides his nose the length of her long pale neck, taking time to push her auburn curls aside. His breath glides the length of her neck, from her ear lobe, down to her shoulders, as he nips her with one canine tooth along the way to her breasts. Adrienne grips the side of the fireplace mantle without moving.
“You no longer have the smell of the Samsas on you. That pleases me. I can mark you now and take you if I want. But, I have more important things to take care of.” His hands move to her breasts. He runs one hand under the brown leather vest she’s wearing, and flicks her nipple. Her nipple responds, and rises to a hard pebble, not from the cold, but to her astonishment from Bane’s smooth soft touch.
He raises his head and Adrienne can hear a deep moan escape from his lips and feel his breath stir her skin until chills rise and fall all over her body.
“I want you. But I have control, and I won’t take you now. Now isn’t the time. There will be time for me to break you in.” Adrienne releases her breath out of relief. With time she can think of something to prevent him for taking her. But what does he mean by breaking me in, she wondered.
“When I’m ready for you, you will offer yourself to me. That way I will fuck you the way of a wolf. I will take you from behind. I think the Samsas allowed you to have your way much too long. They are soft with their females. They don’t know the way of werewolves anymore.” He places one hand on the leather pants Adrienne is wearing and pulls on the binding until it loosens. He reaches down her leather jeans to her opening, and brings his finger back to his nose.
“I will relish taking you, and placing my seed in you.” Bane’s glowing eyes burn into Adrienne, as if he’s ravaging her by his scorching look, which moves gradually, leisurely, from her neck to her breasts, and down to her pelvic area.
“I’m pregnant,” Adrienne blurts out as if she thinks that will prevent him from wanting her. She is hoping he will see her as a disruption, and not worth his time, and send her back to Wilder. What can a pregnant female be to him but a burden?
“Do you think I will let that stand in my way? I could kill the pups in your womb. And then be ready to fill you with mine right after that.”
Bane’s eyes have a sinister carnal glow. It is as if he’s relishing taking Adrienne when she’s pregnant. If Adrienne wasn’t afraid of him, she is now. She’s terrified of what he could do to harm Drayton’s pups and her.
“Which one of the Samsas will I have to kill first?” He takes his long fingers and wraps them around her neck. “Will it be Lycell? Drayton? Or Wilder?”
“I don’t know,” she murmurs low. Her voice is shaky. She lowers her eyes. “They all shared me at the same time,” she said lying, then putting her small hands over his, and pulling his hands from around her neck, then drawing her body away from him, trying to conceal the tremor running throughout her body. Her skin feels sensitive and cold. Her hand is still holding the spot where Bane had her by the neck.
“I don’t allow another werewolf to have my female when I’m sleeping and mating with her. They aren’t even following our laws. That’s another reason why I will keep you. You must be tired of them. When you are with me, it will be only me. That is if you come to me willingly. If not...” He pauses and tilts his head to the side and a closed grin passes over his lips.
Bane likes the notion of shielding Adrienne from the Samsa brothers.
He mistakenly believes he’s her protector, and their relationship in his mind takes on a different meaning.
How could he think she’s tired of the most handsome, virile, and loving werewolves she ever set eyes on? Bane’s arrogance and narcissistic nature has prevented him from seeing the truth. Adrienne would rather be dead than to not have the Samsa werewolves in her life, and in her body.
Her life began and will end with the Samsa brothers and her children. She thinks.
The lie about the brothers only made Bane more determined to take Adrienne away from them. She didn’t know why she denied that she didn’t know who the father is. She regrets it now, but she can’t change that. It’s done.
“Get your coat. I have a change of plans and I’m taking you to a safe place.”
“What about Mena?”
“Her father’s pack was waiting when my wolves brought you two in. They took her. She’s gone. She’s on her way back to Alaska. They were here last night while you slept so soundly. I could have fucked you then, but that wouldn’t have been fun. I like my females awake biting and scratching.” Adrienne wanted to say something snarky to him, but she knew now wasn’t the time.
“Where are we going?” Adrienne put on the heavy lynx fur coat given her yesterday.
“Don’t ask me any questions. Just do as you’re told.”
“I need to make preparations for my pups. I need special food to eat.” Adrienne holds on to her stomach being more dramatic than usual.
“You were pampered by those wolves. I will not pamper you. If you are to be my mate, you will have to live as I live, or you will die. Now get ready to go. I have provisions for us.”
“Will it just be us?”
“Just you and I,” Bane says with a sly smile.
“So you will run and hide and leave your pack to face the Samsas. What kind of Alpha are you?”
“The merciful kind, otherwise, I would have killed you last night. Don’t let me have to tell you again to get ready to go.” Bane’s eyes narrowed at the sound of her words and his eyes blazed with anger.
Insatiable Box Set: Books 1-4 Page 28