by Sam Hall
“There is,” I confirmed. All eyes went to me. “I saw this giant…wolf. He had eyes like the moon. It seemed like he…he took Mason away. I lost my shit and yelled at him—”
“We know,” Lorcan said, brows creasing. “We heard you.”
“He just stared at me, saw all my misery, and just…” I shrugged. “Somehow, I managed to change things. He transformed into her.”
“Who?” Micah asked, but those grey eyes were so similar to hers. I had a feeling he knew.
“Mother Moon. She appeared, and for a second, I just felt this love. Then she told me nixes were rising and that I needed to claim all of you.”
“I think I’ve found religion,” Declan drawled, smiling when he caught my eye. I needed that—that simple expression of joy. It created an answering one in me, filling that darkness I almost felt I’d brought with me. “I, for one, would like to start the religious rites as soon as possible.”
Snickers went up around the room which seemed to settle things somewhat.
“We need to make some contacts, find out more from people who aren’t consumed by all this misogynistic bullshit,” I replied, shaking my head. “I said we’d leave town when I put my father’s killer in the ground. Well, it’s Marshall and Nance. I’m breaking their hold on Lupindorf and on my family. They’re gonna pay for what they did.”
“Through sex?” Declan asked. “God, I love being with a nix.”
“Better than the fucking drills and other bullshit Mason always put us through,” Micah said. His eyes slid to me. “Training in bed sounds like a perfect way to end the day.”
“Yeah well, we’re gonna need to start that shit up again,” Mason replied. He just smiled at the sound of their groans. “You’ve been asked in the past to do your best to keep the Spehrs safe. Now,” he looked across at me, “you get to keep your mate safe. Nance will get wind of this, and she will have an answer. When she comes, we want to be ready.”
“But there’ll still be sexy times, won’t there?” Declan asked in a faux plaintive tone.
I walked across the room, shoved him back down flat on the bed, and straddled him, his grin reappearing twice as bright, his hands going to my hips, pulling me down and wriggling me against his groin.
“We need to formalise what’s between us before we deal with Nance.” I moved my hips deliberately in a slow grind, something that made his smile falter and his eyes roll back. “I’ll be taking your knot deep.” I’d started by teasing him, but as I felt a hard clench inside me at the idea, it felt like I was torturing myself. “So, yeah,” my voice was lower, huskier now, “sexy time is gonna happen.”
He rolled up, wrapped his arms around me, and slammed his mouth down on mine for a couple of hurried, hard kisses.
“Bring it on, I say,” he said as he pulled away, those whiskey eyes all hazy now.
“But not right this very moment,” Zack said. “Let’s sit down and sort out a battle plan.”
So Declan groaned as I shifted off him, the lot of us moving towards a small living area in the room, but before I got far, Lorcan grabbed me, hauling me back against his chest.
“Hey,” I said, feeling the tension in his hands, his body.
“Don’t,” he replied. “Just…stay here for a second.” Moments ticked by as the guys settled themselves, starting to throw some ideas on the table. “That… In the fight, you were a fucking avenging goddess, but at the hospital? I felt it, what you were going through, what the wolf was.” He shook his head violently. “Never do that again. Promise me. Not for me, not for any of us. I can’t fucking stand the thought of you facing that down again.”
“But I can’t stand losing you.” I turned in his arms, looking into his bright shining eyes, touching the harsh planes of his face. “No one or nothing is taking you from me. Nothing.”
He tried to tell himself he didn’t like my answer, I could see that, but he did. A little smile came and went, but the fire in his eyes didn’t. He reached over, brushed a kiss across my temple, and then directed me towards the others.
Sitting down in the circle of them, I could feel it now. What I’d before seen as maybe lust or attraction, I could now feel running through me like a current of electricity. It was a sense of them, Zack and Lorcan more pronounced due to our finalised bond, but I could also feel Dec, Micah, and Mason. With them, there was something…hungry about it, plucking at my consciousness, trying to pull me closer. It was a pull, I realised, like I had for them. I took a deep breath, scanning the lot of them, and for a minute, just cherished having them all here in the same room.
“We’re not going back until we’re well armed, both physically as well as with intel,” Zack said.
“I agree.” My pack looked at me, their expressions somewhat surprised. “What?”
“I thought I would have to fight you a lot harder on this,” he replied.
“No.” I shook my head. “Seeing Mason in the hospital bed and Bridge in the clutches of those bastards…” For a moment I just re-experienced that, with all the subsequent pain and anguish that came with it. “I actually think we should head back to the city.”
“What?” This came from multiple sources.
“Just for a bit. Bridget doesn’t want to go back to Lupindorf, and I don’t blame her. I want her safe, away from…” I looked down at my hands. “Away from those fucking bastards. While we’re there, we can make contact. Maybe with some other nixes, maybe some other packs? Do some research. Set Bridget up somewhere. Train in the gym.” I shook my head, able to see it for a moment, something I’d put on hold.
Life.
I’d been so focussed on Dad and everything that came afterwards, it was like someone opened a door or something. No, it was more than that. Like being let out of jail, I could see everything—every place we could go, every future we could pursue…
“There’s something about Lupindorf.” I shook my head. “It…it sucks you into all the bullshit and minutia. Nothing’s changed, Nance is going down, but watching Mason get snatched away…”
My hands twitched, smoothing over each other until someone reached out and took them, cradling between them. It was Lorcan, watching me with those moss green eyes, ones that went wide and made him look younger, more vulnerable than he had before. Why?
“I didn’t want to build anything until everything was settled, but now? Now, I think we should lull Nance into a false sense of security. Leave town, take Bridget, find a place for the lot of us.” I glanced at each one of them, finding it hard to meet their eyes for long. This felt so insanely intense, what I was laying out for them. “Connect. Learn. Then when she least expects it, we use whatever we have to spring a trap on her and take her down.”
“So we walk away?” Micah looked personally offended by that. “She fractured your skull, or paid someone to do that.”
“She could be brutalising Selma as we speak,” Mason said darkly.
“Or getting Aidan to,” Declan said.
“So what do we do about that?” My question cracked across the room. “I’m open to ideas, seriously, but those options need to have safeguards in them, reassurances that it won’t be one of you that cops a fucking beatdown that rearranges your face, because I can’t take any more of that.”
My words were met with silence. Of course they were. So while the quiet reigned, I rubbed my thumb over Lorcan’s knuckles. Then my grip tightened.
In my mind, I saw Mason flop face first into the dirt over and over. “That’s not happening again. I can’t scream at dark wolf gods to rescue any of you again. You’re not fading away on me.” My eyes locked with Mason’s. “Zack, you always told me that a fighter goes in prepared. We’re not prepared.”
“No, we’re not,” he replied. “I don’t like it, but she’s right. We see what we can find out about this new power. We train, learn to fight together.”
“And then we come back and crush Nance into the ground,” I growled out, all the anger I’d been keeping carefully banked rising up. �
�We make her wish she never decided to step out of line, and then we end her.”
Rumbles of agreement went around the room, and now, when I met my pack’s eyes, they nodded. Whatever it was between us, it thrummed that little bit louder, buzzing in my ears, settling me in my chair.
Chapter 22
I wasn’t sure if this was a celebratory drink or one of commiseration, but being Australian, as soon as the work of the day was done, a couple of slabs of beer were sourced. I sat on Declan’s knees, leaned back against his chest, one of his hands around his beer and the other trailing across my neck. He laughed when I squirmed as those blunt tips trailed across my skin, sending my cunt twitching.
And the others noticed. The footy was blaring from the TV, the guys were talking shit, but I could feel it—a tugging on the electric bond between us. Eyes slid to me, over me, watching the way my hips moved and delving into the space between, as if with those silver eyes, they could see every response inside. Others trailed over where my nipples went to hard points, beading for my childhood sweetheart, begging for his and their touch.
“God, it feels like forever since I’ve touched you.” I felt Declan’s voice rumble through me, making me shiver. “It’s been one thing or the other. I’m watching you go through so much pain, and I’m just standing there, hard and waiting, wanting to drag you into the nearest room and rut inside you, but I know I can’t.”
“You can,” I breathed. He needed to stop, I needed to stop him. My slick was pooling between my legs, and I was gonna ruin my jeans. As if hearing my thoughts, Declan froze.
“Yeah?”
I knew that voice—low, husky, promising a world of pleasure, but at the same time, just slightly reverent. Like he couldn’t believe his luck but would press it anyway. In answer, I arched my back, hearing the hiss of his breath as my breasts were thrust upwards, as my butt was forced back harder against the hard lump in his jeans. I wrapped an arm around the back of his neck, then with the other, grabbed his hand and put it on my stomach.
“Yeah,” I agreed belatedly.
“Gimme the keys to one of the rooms, Mase. I’ve got a long-awaited date with our girl.”
“No,” I said.
“What? But you said—”
“Yes to you, no to going in another room.” The room went perfectly silent except for the TV, and Micah moved slowly, grabbing the remote and turning it off to fix that. Every eye in the room was trained on me, which made me bloody uncomfortable, but that was how it needed to be, I could feel it. “We need more information and to make contact with other nixes and all that, but one part I can sense right now is you. All of you. When I’m in the room, this feels more intense, stronger. It’s like a live wire, and it vibrates inside me.”
“I wouldn’t mind seeing something vibrating inside her…” Lorcan muttered, grinning wickedly when he saw I’d caught that. “There’s gotta be a sex shop in town, yeah?”
“That could be an option,” I said with a nod. “I think we need to experiment.”
“You want to try sexual scenarios with the group,” Zack said, trying for clinical calm, but his eyes were just as heavily lidded and full of fire as everyone else’s. “The power of a nix is a sexual one.”
“Which means we could blow the fucking roof off if we’re not careful,” Mason said, eyeing the ceiling. Some of the others hissed. “Look, I want to see her naked and writhing on Declan’s lap as much as anyone here, but—”
“Put a pin in that thought,” Declan said, pushing me to my feet and pulling my shirt off in one quick motion, flicking open my bra with the next, then easing it from my breasts.
Holy shit, the intensity of their focus just ratcheted up exponentially. It took everything I had to hold my ground, to not give in to the sudden urge to run.
The whip of white cotton in the breeze as the girl ran before the wolves, their paws hitting the ground, faster and faster.
“Tell me again what your objections are?” Declan asked.
“Yeah, I got fucking nothing,” Mason said, his eyes sliding over my bare skin.
“So what, is this some kind of circle jerk?” Lorcan asked, trying for a sardonic smirk and failing. His eyes kept flicking to me, his expression shifting to one of hunger.
“If you want,” Declan replied. “But what about this? For as long as Paige wants it, everyone who wants in gets a turn.”
“Yess…” Micah hissed.
“But in light of what Mason said, no sex.”
“It’s all sex, Dec,” Mason said.
“Then no dick in vag or arse.”
“And the last is off the table anyway,” I said, forcing my fingers to go to my jeans and take them off. I wanted, needed this. I needed them. Sex was the way wolf shifter mates connected. It was pleasure and procreation and bonding and love all rolled into one, and I needed that from all of them. Declan’s hands went to my hips when I stepped free of my clothes, one sliding up my spine and pushing me down.
“Hold onto the coffee table, Paige.” The throb of dominance in his voice made that an easy prospect, every guy watching me do just that. I gripped the sturdy wood tabletop as I felt his fingers skim up my thighs before pushing them wide apart. “Fuck,” he growled. “You’re soaked.”
“I need you.” I wanted that to come out strong and demanding, but as a finger lightly brushed against my seam, it went all breathy.
“And I need your taste on my tongue. I’ve dreamt about this, about you, about your sweet fucking pussy so many times since high school. I’d wake up with my cock spurting over my stomach and tears in my eyes.”
“Dec…” I went to swivel around, to check in with him, but he wasn’t having that. He held me still and then covered my cunt with his mouth.
They caught the moment my eyes went wide, hands going to zippers, pushing down on the front of their jeans. They saw my eyes close halfway, my mouth drop open as I felt the first push of that mobile tongue. He was teasing me with little stabbing licks, making me ache for him deeper, with little flutters that had my hips pushing back against him, trying to make him progress things. They heard the groans as my skin came alive, singing at the feel of Declan’s tongue and his beard pressed into my most tender flesh, groans that just kept getting louder, longer, more frustrated as my love refused to give me what I wanted.
“Dec!” I panted, but he pulled away.
“You’re needing?” he asked me, and I could hear the amusement in his voice.
“So fucking much.”
“Give her what she wants or I will, Dec,” Micah snarled. His eyes blazed bright, his fangs half down. He looked like he’d fight Declan if he didn’t start looking after me. I smiled and gestured for him to come forward, taking his mouth with mine in savage messy kisses.
“Well, if you’re sure?” Declan said, then I felt something big stabbing at my aching entrance. Not his cock but fingers, so many fingers. I yelped into Micah’s mouth as I felt the stretch pushing me too far, and yet I fucking loved the burn. Micah held me still, making me take Dec, approximating what it would be like when I finally took their knots.
“Fuck yes…” I mumbled against Micah’s lips.
“What are you doing to her?” Lorcan asked, getting to his feet, and my eyes followed the tantalising gap in his jeans.
“Stretching her, getting her ready to take our knots. Not now, not tonight, but soon. One after the other, she’ll need practise taking the stretch.”
“Fuck…” I whimpered as Micah’s fangs raked my neck, sucking at me like he wanted to eat me whole.
“There’s nothing fucking like it,” Lorcan groaned. “I saw the moon, the stars, and the Mother herself.” His hands snaked under his jeans, reaching down to squeeze at his knot, I bet. “Never felt anything that compares. I ache for it to happen again.”
I dimly heard the rumbles of agreement as they came closer, ringing me, closing me within their circle. And circles, they could be sacred things, ways to contain power, keep it swirling within. I forced my eye
s up and met theirs as they watched me come apart, jolting when Declan’s mouth joined his fingers, his shoulders pushed between my thighs as he flicked my clit with his tongue.
My breath came in rapid pants, my cunt trying to clamp down on his fingers, but he just kept forcing them in, creating a deep, beautiful burn that I just luxuriated in. Lorcan might like the way I squeezed down on his knot, but that feeling of being completely and utterly full was just so fucking good. My body tightened, my fingers clawing at the coffee table as I felt it rise, as I felt all of us rise. A hum started, much like it had been in the dark with the giant wolf, but I didn’t know who made the sound. It got louder and louder, drowning out my little cries until both sounds combined.
It felt like I spiralled up and out of my body, and yet I was completely transfixed by what I was feeling. My hands locked up at the prickle of Declan’s beard, the throb of my clit, the shove of his fingers, until finally, I came.
His fingers stilled, caught tight by my body as wave after wave of pleasure rushed through me, swamping me, swelling and swelling, going beyond my usual rush to become something much bigger. It was still washing through me as I pulled away, knowing I needed something else now. I turned and looked down at Declan’s flushed face, his beard matted with me, but I kissed him deep, tasting him, me, us. I felt a zing of pleasure running up and down my spine as I fell to my knees, pushing him up on that poor coffee table and clawing at his jeans. He had the fly down and the button open in seconds, giving me exactly what I need. I kissed my way down his aching length to the distended knot at the base.
“You didn’t have that before.” Wolves rarely did until they were grown.
“No, unh…” His hand came to rest on my scalp, stroking through the strands as I licked then sucked at the swollen lump. His words became garbled sounds as my hand jacked his length. “Fuck, Paige…”