The moment was fast approaching and I groaned as the rich, thick sensations took a hold of me, rocking my body this way and that, ricocheting between my men. The guys met me and matched me, their long-deferred need now impossible to stop.
From three directions my orgasms came and seemed to try and tear me apart, before rushing together into one blinding explosion of sensation and pleasure, like nothing I had ever felt before.
As I came, Gray roared and spurted into my mouth, practically howling with relief as he jerked and bucked against me. At the same instant, Tanner and Hudson thrust into me from below and behind, filling me with their hardness and then erupting as orgasm overtook them, painting my insides.
Whether it was the feel of them coming together inside me, or just the idea of it, or some combination of the two, seconds later, another orgasm crashed over me. It seemed to catch the tail of the first ones, rolling them over into a series of orgasmic firecrackers that went off all over my body, rocking me with endless climaxes, robbing me of strength and sanity.
We collapsed into a sweaty, fleshy heap on the bed, shivering with the last dregs of ecstasy. I reached out to drag my men to me, to touch as much of them as possible, to let them know that I loved them.
We had won.
And what a victory.
Chapter 18
I woke early.
I had no idea why - after the night before, I'd have said there was a decent chance of me never waking up again.
Can you die from orgasms? I can confidently say not, because if you could, then I would have last night. We slept where we lay, cuddled together as a comfortable foursome - wolves have no issues with sleeping naked, curled up together; why should they? - and that was how I woke. I peered across the landscape of muscular flesh surrounding me.
Even in sleep they looked somehow alert, their strength undimmed, their sexuality as fiercely potent as when they were awake. Curious, I looked between Hudson's legs: no morning wood - I really must have exhausted him. If I were to wake one or any of them now and asked, then they would happily start again. And it would be as awesome as before - my stomach turned flip-flops just thinking about it.
But, looking at them now, as gorgeous as they were, as impressive as they were, as powerfully sexual as I found them, that wasn't where my mind went. Looking at them now, all I felt was an overwhelming wave of love and affection, so strong that it almost choked me. I could have cried for my love of them and for the thought that they loved me back. What had I done to deserve that sort of happiness?
And was I really contemplating giving it away?
I had woken to misgivings fluttering in my stomach, and I would not be able to resolve them here, surrounded by my mates. Gently, I pried myself out from under and between limbs, careful not to wake any of them. Stealing out of my room, my clothes under my arm, I went along the corridor to use Tanner's shower, nodding a good morning to a maid as I went - nothing seemed to surprise them.
I turned the water up as hot as I could stand, hoping it might scald away the fresh memories of the night before that were making it so difficult to make an informed decision. It wasn't about the guys. Of course, it wasn't - they were the best things that had ever happened to me in so many ways. The sex was beyond amazing, and the idea that I might have that in my life was certainly a bonus, but good sex will only get you so far - amazing sex will get you a little further, but not much. If it had just been good - or even amazing - sex I was leaving behind, then I'd have gone back into the bedroom, had one more go just to be polite, and waved goodbye.
But these guys had gotten under my skin and into my head and into my heart. They were special. They were different. They were brave and loyal and loving. They were the best-looking men I had ever seen and yet lacked any arrogance. They were generous and intelligent. Above all, they seemed to care about me no matter what. They accepted this simple, singular bond between us as something wonderful and unique. They wanted to be with me and no one else – which, for a wolf, was really saying something.
But they were also the heirs apparent to the Kenai Pack. Of course, that might change according to the wishes of their father, but either way, if they took me as their mate, then I would be hated, they would be hated, and we all would be targets for violence. Look at the shit that had happened in the last month. Did I really want to be part of a society that treated death in so casual a manner?
If I stayed with them, then that was my life. I thought I was pretty tough, but I didn't want to have to watch my back for the rest of my life. And I didn't want to cause them problems.
I was part-wolf. One way or another, that diluted the great line of the Kenai. If they took other mates with whom to breed, then it would probably be okay, but they didn't want that and I didn't want that. Where did you go from there?
Tonight would be the Lunar Hunt - a month since all this had started. The brothers would be there, and it was as good an opportunity as I was likely to get, to make my excuses and go.
I poured shampoo into my hand.
And stopped.
And stared.
Fuck me.
If it hadn't been for the coincidence of thinking of the Lunar Hunt just as I was looking at my hand, then I might never have thought of it. Perhaps I was mistaken, but as I recalled, Hendry Lennox had had no scar on his hand as the attempted assassin of King must have had.
I finished the shower quickly, dried quicker, pulled on clothes and hurried out, panicked thoughts seething in my mind. Maybe I had made an error. I had had other things on my mind, after all, it was quite possible that I had just missed the scar.
The Kenai holding cells were beneath the Pack Lodge, accessed via a side entrance that led down to the basements. I found a female on reception.
"I need to see Hendry Lennox."
"No one's allowed in." She had sniffed the air on my entry, recognizing me as a part-wolf.
"My name is Lana Malone. If I go to the Pack Leader now, he will give me permission, just before he has you turned inside out. Let me in."
Fortunately, there was someone around who had been there last night and who recognized me and could verify that me and the Pack Leader were best buds. I was led down to the cells where Hendry Lennox was still being kept for now, pending an investigation into his claim that he had been acting on orders.
"I need to see your hands." I said on entering - no time for small talk.
"My what?"
"Your hands, show me your hands, palms out."
The werewolf flicked a look at his jailer, who gave a shrug as if to say 'part-wolves be crazy'. Lennox held out his hands. I flipped them over to look at the other side, just to make sure. Not a scratch on them. Werewolves heal fast, of course, but a scratch like King had described would have left a scar.
We had the wrong man.
It was possible, of course, that MacKenzie Sean had still been responsible and there had been another assassin, but that started to look pretty fucking shaky when you realized that our only definite link to Sean was the word of Hendry Lennox, who was lying. He had attacked me, of course, but that didn't amount to shit. My gut told me that something more was going on, something I wasn't close to the bottom of yet.
I trudged back up to ground level with my mind even more of a whirl than it had been when I went down.
What now?
I had to talk to King, to tell him that he was still in danger, especially with the Lunar Hunt tonight. I needed to talk to the guys, to tell them that someone was probably still trying to frame them. I also needed about half an hour of peace and quiet so I could think clearly about how this had been pulled off and who might have done it.
Frankly, it would be nice if a great big fucking clue bashed me over the head.
Then one did, and I fell to the ground, unconscious.
Chapter 19
The first thing I was aware of as I slowly drifted back into consciousness was pain. A sharp, persistent ache at the back of my head that was going nowhere. The nex
t thing I was aware of was embarrassment. That sounds stupid, but I had been a private investigator all my adult life, only to be clobbered over the head in broad daylight. That's incredibly embarrassing.
Had all my better instincts been sapped by sexual excess? Probably not; I'd just gotten careless and stupid. And there was a decent chance that I was going to pay for it.
I tried to move my hands, and found they only got so far before being forcibly yanked back with a metallic clatter. Peeling my eyes open, my fuzzy vision focused on chains about my wrists, embedded in the wall. Great.
Inch by inch, my body complaining all the way, I levered myself up into a kneeling position and paused there while the room spun unpleasantly around me.
"Good morning, Miss Malone."
I started at the sound of the voice, which just made my head ache all the more. A blurred figure came into focus in the grim room in which I found myself - a werewolf in wolf form, their hair a gleaming white, shot with grey so it looked almost silver. While werewolf males quite like splitting their clothes open when they transform because it looks cool and means they can still have suits tailored to their human body - despite the expense - many females choose to have clothes made to accommodate the change and look equally good in either form. This one, I was sure, was equally well-dressed in human or wolf shape, the red material having slits built into it to allow for the expanded wolf muscles, through which the silvery mane of Arctic Venus protruded.
"You really are part-wolf aren't you?" she growled.
"So are you," I replied - I'd never met a wolf who could speak when changed before, there seemed no other explanation.
Venus waved a hand. "Distantly so. Not even a werewolf nose can pick up my humanity, while you stink of it. But that ancestry does give me some advantages."
"You can talk in wolf form."
"Less use than you would think. More importantly," Venus explained, "I can think." She smiled. It was not a comforting sight. "Werewolves, you see, are very stupid. Hang around them and you start acting stupid, too. You forget simple, basic things because you just think; wolves don't act like that. You assume loyalty in pack members and never think; someone might have been paid off. In your case, even after you made the discovery that Lennox had been disloyal to his Pack Leader, you still didn't think to watch your back in Kenai territory."
"You had someone keeping an eye on me." I had every right to be embarrassed - I was a fucking moron.
"Of course. Wherever you went." Venus laughed. "People are so obsessed with the idea that werewolves are loyal to the pack that they never even wonder. They never think about what bad habits we might have picked up from living amongst humans. Not to mention, breeding with humans. In my case, my human ancestry gives me the advantages of disloyalty, deviousness and cunning. In yours, your wolf ancestry has made you as dumb as a brick."
That was hard to argue with at this moment.
"The original assassin?" I asked - even if I was going to die here, I wanted to know.
"Now, she was one of mine," nodded Venus. "For a job like that, I wanted an Arctic werewolf. There's no point in your looking to find the one with the scar on her hand, she died the night of the last Lunar Hunt, shortly after returning to Arctic territory."
"The price of failure," I guessed.
"Fear works a hell of a lot better than 'loyalty'."
"The plan was to create chaos in the Kenai Pack, then you could move in?"
Venus nodded. "The brothers are too close for them to fight amongst themselves, but if everyone had thought that one of them had King killed, then there would have been total chaos, and I would be best placed to take advantage."
"Why not the other packs?"
"Jack would be too busy raging because he wasn't the one to kill King, and Sean is all talk. You presumably guessed as much when you visited them." She smiled. "And yet you still didn't guess it was me."
"Dumb as a brick," I agreed, and meant it. "You had me attacked on my way back home. You hired Lennox to attack me and 'accidentally' show his face, then show up at the Lunar Eclipse party."
"A good insurance policy."
"What if they had killed me?" I asked.
Venus rolled her eyes. "They were supposed to beat the hell out of you - make it look good - and then run off when the Kenai heirs arrived to save you. I didn't think those idiots would take that long. And then my wolves got a bit caught up in the fight. That's how it is with werewolves; stupid, stupid, stupid."
"I suppose things will be different with you in charge?" I suggested.
Venus shook her head. "Nope. I like things this way. Stupid people are easy to manipulate. Case in point." She indicated me.
"Thanks. And now you're going through with the same plan again?"
Venus shrugged, seamlessly changing form as she did so. "It's a good plan. No point in throwing it out just because of one careless wolf. Someone more reliable will do the assassination this time. And I know he'll be more reliable because I showed him what happened to the first assassin. King will be killed, and without you to save them, those three idiot brothers will be completely helpless. Chaos reigns."
"Till you step in."
She nodded. "Exactly. I did tell you that I wanted what was best for the Arctic Pack. Taking over the Kenai territory is what's best."
"Won't a whole lot of your wolves get killed in the process?"
"I guess 'best' is open to interpretation. You can't make an omelet without breaking skulls."
"I'm not sure that's the saying."
"Well, I'm not trying to make an omelet." She strolled over and placed a finger under my chin to tilt my face up to meet hers. "You're probably wondering what happens to you now."
I said nothing, but the question had crossed my mind.
"After your mates – yes, I know about that, too - saved their father's life last night, selling them as the assassins will be a little harder than before. I need some other event to make it plain that they can't be trusted. Everyone now knows that you were working for King, so after your mangled corpse is found in Heir’s House, I think people will start asking questions. Should be enough to seal their guilt. But," she strolled away again, "to really sell the idea, you need to die after King. These coroners can be so accurate nowadays. I won't be able to do it myself, I'm afraid, but don't worry, one of my guards will tear you apart later. He's under orders to make it quick. After all, I'm not a monster."
With that, she went out the door. Isn't it funny how a little humanity can make something as harmless as a werewolf into something truly terrible?
With Venus gone, I was left alone with the two guards who stood on the door, their gaze fixed on me. One of those werewolves was going to kill me later. It was not something that I wanted to think about, but that sort of thing does unavoidably concentrate the mind. I tried to turn my attention to the manacles on my wrists. I'm not what you would call an expert at picking locks, but I had taught myself the basics because this is the sort of thing that can happen to a private investigator, especially in this town.
"Leave it." The warning growl came from one of the guards at the far end of the room.
"I was just..."
"I know what you was 'just'. You 'just' do that again and you'll regret it."
"You're killing me later," I pointed out. "How much worse can it really get?"
A leering grin spread across the faces of both guards, showing sharp fangs. "It can get worse. Trust us."
I left the manacles alone - there was no way they would let me finish picking the locks anyway.
What now? I wracked my brain for ideas. I've been in some tight spots before with my life in danger, and I've always been able to get out of them using my wits. But I'd never been in quite as tight a situation as this before, and suddenly my wits didn't seem enough. Nothing was occurring, I couldn't see any way out. Short of some serious stroke of luck, I was going to die in this room.
To try to take my mind off of this depressing fact, and in the v
ague hope that there might be some cause for optimism located elsewhere in the room, I turned my attention to my surroundings. You could have described the room as 'empty', except that it invited the word 'abandoned'. The floor was presumably wood below the thick layer of dust that coated it. The walls were flaking plaster, augmented here and there by the tattered remains of wallpaper that had once adorned it. The door swung off its loose hinges at an angle that veered between drunken and suicidal, and the windows were broken. From the center of the ceiling hung a single bare light bulb that was on its last legs, providing only a sickly orange haze. As casually as I could, I tried to look out of the window, but one of the guards saw me and drew a sheet, that might once have been called a curtain, across it.
"We'll have none of that, neither."
Nothing in the decor gave me any escape plans and everything about the place suggested that it was not somewhere people were in the habit of dropping by, meaning, I was unlikely to be discovered, but there was one thing that interested me. Cautiously, afraid of transgressing another rule, I turned my eyes to where my shackles were attached to the wall. It had occurred to me that if this place had been regularly used by the Arctic Pack to detain prisoners, then there would have been a lot less dust. More likely, therefore, this was just a convenient and quiet location - so why would such a place have shackles attached to the walls? Unless the previous occupants had enjoyed an active and unconventional sex life.
My suspicions were confirmed as I saw that the bolts fastening my shackles to the wall were brand new, and a pile of plaster dust on the floor suggested that they had been added very recently, perhaps today.
So, what did that mean and where did it get me?
Her Werewolf Harem Page 13