by Sam Hall
This was getting confusing. Was I yelping in pain, or crying out in ecstasy? Was it Father Wolf that stood over me, merciless as the abyss, or was it my warm eyed Declan? Was he working me up to a goddamn incredible orgasm, or was he hurting me, punishing me for shit I had no business atoning for? I couldn’t tell you the answer to any of this, so firmly anchored to this tiny little space I was. I could only see Declan, echoed for kilometres within the shining glass surfaces. A terrible landscape of him, of me, of everything he wanted to do to me.
“Love hurts,” he said in a low growl, lifting my head up, his fingers still buried in my cunt, his other hand around my throat. He forced me to look at a naked, dripping, smeary eyed me. “I hurt. I’ll always hurt for you. You were a bomb I swallowed willingly, not realising what I was taking into myself, and then you went off. You left a Paige sized hole inside me, always aching for you.” He nuzzled into my neck, my mouth panting ‘yes’ when he took the skin between his teeth, but after giving it a tug, he let it go, leaving a gentle kiss instead. “I need to know that my pain matches yours.”
This wasn’t where I was supposed to be, was not how this was supposed to go. We were going to have a light-hearted day at the beach, we had been, and then we stumbled on…what? Declan cum Father Wolf, he didn’t let up his punishing pace, pushing his fingers in and out, over and over, not letting me calm or collect myself, and I knew why.
When I clawed at the glass, so close yet needing something else, something brutal, I knew what this was, what was happening.
We make so many dumb mistakes as teenagers that part of being in your twenties is laying a thick veneer over all of that, trying to smooth it into what we think adulthood is. I wasn’t gawky or insecure any more. I made sensible choices in my work, money, and partners. I was aiming for stability. I was reliable, safe.
But what lay beneath?
Declan, for whatever reason, was that first blueprint of a relationship. One where a boy cared for me, looked after me, discovered things with me, and then… My cunt clenched down as I felt it, something I never wanted to feel again. I grit my teeth against it, a pain I’d never felt the like of since. What happened with Mason was agony, but even then, I’d developed some boundaries, some defences. Not with Declan. My claws made horrible sounds as they scratched at the glass, as I lifted my head and met those whiskey-coloured eyes.
We’d walked away from each other because we couldn’t love each other anymore, only hurt. He’d been getting fractious as people kept talking to him about wanting to be the next alpha, while I’d been squirming at the thought of locking myself down to the one man I’d had any sort of a relationship with, and part of my heart already lay with Mason. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t agony walking away from him. I pushed back into his hand, when he worked me higher, when he slapped it down, harder and harder, needing it, needing him.
The last one cracked across my arse, my cunt, my clit, sending an explosion of pain and ecstasy through me. A scream slipped from my lips, getting bigger, louder, my chest and throat feeling like they opened wider to let it all out. Higher and higher, louder and louder, the sound brought sensation, washing through me like little hot prickles, making me writhe and buck against him, needing more and less, until finally, I wrenched myself away from him.
“Of course I hurt! I fucking love you,” I shouted. “I always did. You were the first. You got in here before anyone else, and I let you dig down so far that it was only when we broke up that I realised what I’d done. I let you in so deep, you destabilised me, left me off balance. I crawled to Mason on my hands and knees to try and fill that fucking ache that had my jaw clamped so tight, I feared my teeth would crack. I was tired of curling myself around that pain, of sobbing over it, weeping for what I’d lost. I needed something, anything to make it stop.”
When I looked up, it was Mason looking down on me with that same endlessly patient expression. It wasn’t an easy one to bear. It made you feel like he could see all the way inside you, that he accepted all of that but wasn’t entirely happy with it. But he endured it. That was always the key to Mase. He endured my neediness, Dad’s strictures, the town’s pressures, my return, all with a kind of stoicism other men admired, but it made me wonder what that cost him.
“But then you were there, always there. Over and over, I’d come crawling to you on my metaphorical hands and knees, and you’d pick me up and hold me close…” He moved in, sweeping me up, holding me against him like I weighed no more than a kitten. But then he curled his arms, making sure my cheek pressed against his bare chest, creating the perfect cocoon of him and me. His lips pressed against my forehead.
It was the gentleness inside Mason that cut me the deepest. I’d seen him take down guys older than him with brutal efficiency. Stop threats, hold off pushy townsfolk, basically keep order where another man of the same age would have struggled. Not Mason. He was always this hard façade of relentless competence, providing a face of calm invulnerability.
Until this.
He made me feel like I could see under the mask of perfection, that when I settled against him, letting out a long sigh, that finally he was softening, opening for someone else. That somehow, I was special, the only one to see past Mason’s Great and Powerful Oz and curl up with the man behind the curtain.
“You were.”
I stiffened at the words, said quietly, calmly, and when I looked up, we were both reflected in the mirrors, seated now on a worn down recliner I knew well. A hand rubbed up and down my leg, slow and soothing, but also, now I was old enough to acknowledge it, something more. When I met his eyes, they were molten brown, staring without blinking.
“When your father told me what I had to do?” He nodded slightly, the pain starting to build in his eyes like a growing thunderstorm. “It fucking killed me. I’d left Mum’s, run away because I couldn’t cope with the chaos of her household, figuring I’d just scrub out an existence on my own.” He snorted. “Turns out I wasn’t real good at that. There’s only so much rabbit you can eat, even in fur.”
He stroked a hand through my hair. “To be taken in by your family, to grow up with a man like your dad stepping up to help steer me on the right path? It was beyond anything I could have hoped for. Too far from the reality I knew to even conceive of, and yet that’s what happened. I got bigger, stronger, faster, better than any other enforcer, rising in the ranks and standing by your father’s side, feeling something I’d never dared—pride. That’s probably what was my undoing.”
I counted the breaths he took, one, two, three, before he spoke again.
“When you came to me. When you crawled into my lap and made yourself small. When your tears soaked my shirt, when you pushed your face into the crook of my neck, instinctively seeking my scent, I felt it again—pride. You and me, we fit together like puzzle pieces. I knew Adam respected me, only wanted what’s best for you, and he told me early on that wouldn’t be Declan. Or that’s how I heard it.”
He smiled when he looked at me, but it was a painful thing.
“‘Declan won’t be alpha of this town,’ is what he said, but that’s what I took it to mean. He could have you now, give you some experiences, take you to parties that just bored the crap out of me, be involved in all that school girl shit, but when you were a woman…” His eyes travelled down the length of me, cataloguing all the ways my body was different to the way it looked then. “You’d be mine. He’d be the boy of your heart, but I’d be your man. And then Adam told me how it was meant to be.”
They meant this place to be one of cheap thrills and jolts. Something to get your heart rate pumping as well as a few laughs before you stumbled onto something else. So why was I getting flayed alive?
“I should’ve told you. Adam told me not to, but it was a fucking mistake giving him my loyalty. He was a good man and I’m proud to have served under him, but you…?” His hand slid up my leg slowly, his eyes burning into mine. “You were my heart, and I needed to be true to it. I’m sorry, Paige.
I love that Zack found you, could be the man you needed, helped you find the strength to be what you are. I feel like I’ve come in late, way too late, whilst hoping like hell I haven’t.”
His kiss, when he pressed it to my lips, hit way harder than Declan’s hand. I closed my eyes, leaning into it, letting that simple press of lips say what I needed to say, before the words came.
I didn’t open my eyes to say them. It was easier from the darkness that still lay within.
“You scraped me clean, sliced me open, cut me in two, then cauterised my heart with your words. When I came back, you just kept on stabbing. You know I love you.” I paused, waiting for an answer but just got the sound of his breath instead. “But I will cut you out of my life with a ruthless intensity you’ve never seen before if you ever, ever put ideas like honour or duty before me again.”
“That’s my girl.”
My eyes flicked open to find me standing on my feet, facing down Zack.
Chapter 33
My hands were taped, my body covered now in my usual training gear. He took in my stance and my fists with an approving nod.
“That’s it. Poised, weight on the balls of your feet, fists up. You’re ready, baby.”
“Ready for what? To get the fuck out of the Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror, because can I get a fuck yes to that?” I growled out.
“Not that, not yet. The only way is through, you know that.” And for all his calm, confident tone, my heart sank as I saw what rose in the mirrors. Huge, dark as the pitiless night.
“Zack…”
“I’ve taught a lot of people over the years, but none of them am I more proud of than you. You take every challenge on the chin. You take the hit and keep on rolling.”
“Zack…”
I shifted closer, wanting to edge in between the beast and my mate, but his dark shape was reflected in every mirror. I felt a pang of something I hadn’t felt in so long—powerlessness.
“Don’t let your defences waver, babe, no matter what’s going on around you.” I felt Zack’s fingers on my shoulders, lifting my fists higher, keeping them protecting my face.
“Zack!”
In the glass, I saw the black wolf step free of the crystalline surface, coming to stand behind my love in the exact way he had behind Mason, his mouth opening slowly wider.
“It’s OK, babe. We’ve trained for this. There’s nothing you can’t do. He might look a helluva lot bigger than you, but you know what to do. Let your training, not the emotion, run the show.” His finger went to tap my temple, but instead, they just trailed down the side of my face. “You’ve got this.”
And I did, I just didn’t like it. He protested when I pushed him behind me, but all the tricks and techniques weren’t going to help me here, and I saw the moment when he realised it too. His eyes went up, up, up, trying to take the wolf in, but it was nigh impossible. That same harsh, grasping wind picked up, filling the room with an impenetrable gloom.
Somehow, I was right back where I was with Mason, having no idea how I got here and how to get out of it again. What was the fucking point? What did this Father Wolf want? As I heard my voice echo in the darkness, I realised I’d shouted just that at him. His eyes glowed like the moon itself as he lowered his head down, those terrible jaws opening farther, his breath tugging at us with every exhale.
“This is what you saw in Mason?” Zack ground out, trying to keep me here, not let my feet scud across the floor. I nodded abruptly. “And how did you stop him last time?”
It was then my muscles released, my footsteps instantly moving forward several inches, while Zack held on hard, trying to be my anchor as always, but not this time. I wriggled my way free, turning to face him, not the wolf, because if I was gonna do this, I was gonna do it looking at him.
“Sacrifice,” I said finally, letting him go. “That’s what it took.”
I saw his face fall, and for the first time, honest to goodness fear rose in my mate’s eyes as I threw my arms wide, abandoning everything he taught me, because not everything could be fought through.
“I love you,” I said, hoping he could hear me over the rising wind. “I love that you always stood by me. That you built that place for us. That you hassled Margaret to work out what I was and how to help me. It took me way too fucking long to work that out. I’m sorry. So fucking sorry.”
I didn’t get to say anything more, as the beast sucked in one last breath and me with it, swallowing me down.
For a long time, or maybe seconds, I’ll never know, there was only darkness. Pure, cold, unadulterated darkness. I wasn’t floating or hovering within it. I wasn’t, full stop. The only part of me was a tiny speck of consciousness that sensed I was out there, surrounded by the nothing. And then, there was pain.
“NO!”
Part howl, part scream, it tore through what was and what is to become and what could be. Fingers slashed through the immense blackness, clawing wildly at the nothing. Slicing into it at first, then shredding it with his claws, and then they reached, blindly hopeful, for me. As if summoned by his offer, I felt my body, myself return, and my first act as a newly restored being was to take that hand.
I was wrenched into reality, the mirrors, the black painted floor, the dusty and slightly mouldy scent, all rushing back in, but the only thing that caught my eye was him. Lorcan stood, gripping me tight, so tightly, staring at me like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing, his whole body shaking, those green eyes boring into mine.
“What the actual fuck!” he spat. “You do not fucking do that ever again. I don’t know what the fuck they taught all of you in that fucked-up town, that endless bloody misery is better than having a damn life, but you all need to stop this shit!” He wrenched me in against him, holding me so tight, I couldn’t take a full breath, but instead of clawing at him, pushing him away, as my lungs screamed at me to do, I softened into him.
I let Lorcan hold me, let him keep me up. Let Lorcan take responsibility for me, for breathing, for existing, because right now, I felt so very tired. What the fuck was all of this? Why the hell were we back here? I’d taken Mason back fair and square, but it seemed that by taking him, I’d opened something else up. A doorway for the man with the black hair to step free.
Like he did just now.
I felt Lorcan tense, shove me behind him, heard the sound of strange feet against the concrete, and over my mate’s shoulders, I saw him. Smiling now, cruel as a knife, the black-haired man straightened up, then punched his fist into his other hand.
“I have to fight for her, is that what this is?” Lorcan’s body snapped into readiness. Not with the well-trained stance of a fighter, but the loose one of a street scrapper. Someone who’d been through hundreds of grubby little spats, the survival of which formed a more essential form of training. “Then fucking bring it, cunt. I’ll take down you and any other bastard that tries to get between me and her. You better beat me to a bloody smear, because that’s what it’s gonna take. She’s mine.” His voice went to a roar at that last assertion, the challenge ringing through the maze.
“She’s theirs,” the other man replied with a tilt of his head. “You’ll never have all of her, ever. When you want her, they’ll be with her. When you need her, they’ll jostle you out the way. When it’s been so long since you’ve touched, when you fear just a tiny gesture will unman you, they’ll be there, monopolising her attention. Then the children will come.”
“Is that it?” The sheer disgust in his voice made even the black-haired man start. “That’s your big psy-op, is it? I won’t have enough of her? I’d never have enough of her, even if she shucked off every one of the other fellas and was left with only me. What I feel, burning true inside me, is her. A need for her, sure, a desire, a pleasure, a sheer fucking joy at being around her, breathing her in. But that always came with a price. No matter that my beast paces back and forth inside me, wanting to drag her away to somewhere where no one can find us, I never would.”
My hand wen
t to his shoulder at the sound of raw pain in his voice, and I felt something settle when I did.
“Because I love her, and that means all the petty bullshit that you describe doesn’t fucking matter, except for kids, because if she wants that, I’m one hundred percent in. I’ll be the best fucking dad I can be with everything I am. It’s her, she’s what matters. What she wants, she needs, she desires, because…” I moved around so I could see Lorcan’s face. He wouldn’t let me get too close, holding out an arm to stop me approaching the Father Wolf, but when his eyes slid to mine, I saw it. A wonder spread across his face, and for a second, I saw that dazzling smile. “Because she’ll do the same for me. What I want, what I need, what all of us need. She’ll work her arse off to make sure we get it too.”
“Very sweet,” the man said with a smirk. “Then I guess you must fight for your love. It would be much better if you surrendered. One of you will, you know. I am coming back, coming through.”
“You’re gonna get a smack to the face, you jacked up piece of shit,” Lorcan snapped back and then struck out.
This was a messy, savage, brawling thing. Defence and fancy footwork were thrown out the window for sheer bloody instinct. I winced when I heard the crack of glass as one threw the other into a mirror, but then knees thrust up, arms locked around necks as they pushed away, each clawing at the other. The black-haired man pulled away for a moment, breathing hard as his hand went to his nose, catching a trickle of blood, then licking it from his finger, his eyes now a steely grey.
Grey?
I squinted my eyes, dancing out of the way in the small space, trying to keep clear of them before the guy launched himself at my mate. Lorcan dodged right, hoping to send the other man back into the mirror, but he corrected at the last minute, shoving Lorcan at me, sending me pinwheeling backwards. I hit a mirrored door, the glass swinging open so I might slip through before slamming resolutely shut.