Guided by Drew’s knees, she took off at a fast trot, picking her way through the snow and fallen boughs.
Each mile became more difficult. Her breath formed hot vapor in the air, but she trudged on. She sincerely hoped they weren’t lost. The visibility was horrible because of the swirling snow.
Suddenly, the dark outline of a building loomed before them.
“This looks like it, Saffa.” Drew swung his leg over her back and slid to the ground. He walked up the steps and set Justice down on the snow-laden deck.
In one easy motion, Justice assumed his human form starting from his head down. His leg had healed somewhat, but it was still misshapen.
He hobbled across the deck and tossed the set of keys he’d fished from under a bench to Drew. “Hurry up. I’m freezing my balls off here.”
Drew unlocked the door and pushed it open.
“There are some lanterns over by the sideboard,” Justice instructed. “Come on in, Saffa.”
Saffa trotted up to the doorway and slipped into her true self.
The great room she entered was unexpectedly warm. “Shouldn’t it be freezing in here?”
“The place is built over a hot spring. We’ll be grateful for it. I’m not going to start up the generator or light a fire.”
“Why not? It would give us electricity and heat,” Saffa asked, moving farther into the room.
“They’d be able to pinpoint our location by following the racket the generator makes and the smell of wood smoke.” He threw open a closet in the entranceway. It was stacked with the pile of neatly folded clothes every were household kept for guests.
Justice lit a pair of oil lamps before shuffling across the room.
“You should take the weight off your leg,” Saffa suggested, pushing him down into a chair.
“Soon as I let my father know we’re safe you can wait on me hand and foot.” Justice put batteries in the shortwave radio and fiddled with it. “Come in, worrywart, your cub is safe.”
Saffa chuckled because she knew Justice’s father was going to tear a strip off him for taunting him.
“Boy, if you ever worry your mother like that again I’ll disown you.” The relief in Hawkin’s voice was palpable. “Where the hell are you?”
“Papa wolf’s toasty nest,” Justice replied.
“Good, we’ll come to you as soon as the storm dies down. You might have company before sunrise. A large group lit out of the Redmaven den before the storm hit up here.”
Justice lifted concerned eyes to meet hers. “How did they know we went down so quickly?” he asked.
“Couldn’t say, but it’s a sure bet they’re headed your way. It wouldn’t be difficult to figure out the flight plan. All they’d have to do is follow that to find you.” Hawkin’s sigh shushed through the airwaves. “I hate to ask, but is Saffa carrying your cub yet?”
“No.” His answer harsh, Saffa looked at him, baffled at his reaction.
“Well, she’d better be before they hit you. It will be the only thing that will protect her. They won’t mate with a woman who’s carrying another wolf’s cub,” Hawkin reminded them unnecessarily.
Saffa saw Justice’s hand tighten on the handset. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Keep safe, out.” Hawkin ended the call, but Justice sat there, his face bleak.
“Just, what is it?”
He only shook his head and rose to limp across the room. “Drew, I need to talk to both of you.” He stared down into the empty fireplace.
“What I’m about to say is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to put into words.” He paused, and she waited for him to continue with her heart in her throat.
His body was taut as a bowstring, his shoulders hunched as if he were anticipating a harsh blow.
“Saffa, hear me out before you interrupt.” He turned to face them, his face like a granite mask. “The chances of me fathering a child are slim to none. Something to do with having low motility.”
Her mouth flew open and closed. Shocked, she stared at him.
“Drew is going to have to give you a cub.” The look in his eyes pleaded for her understanding.
She folded her arms under her breasts and searched for the right words to tell him to go to hell and comfort him at the same time.
“Well screw you, Ambervane. You should have laid all your cards on the table before letting me walk into this situation blind,” Drew sneered in disgust.
“You gave your word. You can’t renege.” Justice drew in a harsh breath. “You’ll be doing this to keep her safe, Drew.”
Drew avoided making eye contact with her. He appeared to be as much at a loss for words as she was. “Hell,” he said dolefully. He’d do as Justice asked, but she was not as accepting of this situation as she appeared.
The part of her raised to fulfill her duty to her race rejoiced in the fact another of her kind would be conceived. However, the woman who loved the tortured man standing all but broken before her rebelled.
“Back up a minute, to make sure I understand this completely. You can’t father a child, so you’ve chosen the man to do the deed and never thought to mention this to me before now? Should I bend over right here, right now, to get the chore of my impregnation taken care of?” He flinched at her tone, but even in the heat of her temper, she couldn’t fail to see the pain in his eyes.
“Saffa, please don’t make this any harder than it already is,” he gritted out. “It needs to be done. I’ll take the spare room.”
She didn’t know how or why, but she knew she’d bear Justice’s cubs in spite of what he’d told them. A purely feminine instinct filled her with conviction, born not in fact but in the preternatural, of what she was.
Trust your instincts, her grandmother had said. The words beat drum-like in her head.
Hell, she couldn’t work up the rage to be mad at him. She had to find a way to work around him. She’d kick his ass later.
Right now she had her hands full ensuring the right man fathered her child. “I’ll do it, but you have to be there.”
“I told myself I could be there to watch Drew give you the child you deserve. But I don’t know if I can,” Justice whispered, the desolation in his eyes tearing at her.
“I’m asking my mate to be there at an occurrence which will be difficult for both of us.”
She’d pleasure both men and take her pleasure. But she’d carry Justice’s cub inside her come morning. It was meant to be.
Chapter Ten
Saffa stalked determinedly across the slate floor and rested her head over Justice’s heart. It galloped under her ear at an alarming rate. She looked up into his face to see his eyes darkened to the color of clover honey as they did when his emotions were in turmoil and the wolf in him surfaced.
Saffa whispered softly in his ear. “I’ll do my duty, but I will have your loving arms around me tonight. I love you, Justice, and we’ll come through this together.”
His arms slid around her and held her to him tightly. He took her mouth in a deep evocative kiss.
“Our race is not monogamous by nature.” She reached out her hand to the last member of their trio. “Drew is your sec by choice. You like being in bed with him with a woman.”
He threaded his fingers into her hair and rested his lips against her brow. “A were shouldn’t have to share his mate during her mating cycle. This is hard for me. I should be able to give you children. Maybe it would be better if you put me aside.” The muttered words were full of bitterness.
He retained his grip on her forearms. His mouth uttered words of reason but his arms clung to her as his heart demanded.
“I won’t take another man as my mate. Would you put me aside if I were barren?” she asked stubbornly.
“No, of course not.”
“I’m not in love with Drew, but I do love him. You’ll prepare me for him. Let him have what you’d give and only that. The sacrifice you make…” Words failed her.
Justice’s eyes clouded over, a prim
itive look of possession flashing across his face. It held none of the stoicism he’d schooled his face into. It was pure wolf.
He clamped his teeth into the side of her neck, in the exact spot he placed his mate’s mark the night he’d claimed her. She almost slumped in relief and ecstasy. His marking of her there had turned the spot into her most erogenous zone.
He’d do as she asked.
“We’ll manage just fine.” She nipped Justice’s lobe and he leaned into the sharp caress. She had to make it so good for him all he could think of was the pleasure she gave him.
Justice turned and looked over at his friend, his face grave. “It couldn’t be anyone else.”
“I know what it costs you, Justice. It’s an honor and a privilege to serve as your sec.”
“Take her in there.” Justice motioned to a pair of double doors at the end of a short corridor.
Saffa hesitated. “You’ll be joining us?”
He brushed his fingers over her cheek. “I’m right behind you. I’m getting something to make it easier for you.”
Drew rested his hands on her shoulders, his thumbs working the tense knots in them. “I promise to follow your lead in this. Justice is too torn up to notice you’re not going along with this as calmly as you seem.”
“And you know me so well?”
“Hell no, but I had a wife once. It gives a man certain insights, makes him cautious even.” He looked down at her quizzically. “How come you didn’t tell him to go to hell?”
“He did it all for me, didn’t he? It almost killed him to bare his soul to us.” She stopped and faced him. “I intend to give him children, Drew.”
“But he said…” Drew began.
She gave him an enigmatic half smile. “I…believe a child of mine and Justice’s is meant to be.” He shook his head in puzzlement and she appreciated the fact he didn’t question her further because she didn’t have any answers.
In the center of the dim room sat a bed as wide as a field. She figured the Ambervanes either practiced communal sleeping or they’d had some wickedly sexual romps in the bed before her.
Drew kicked off his boots when Justice entered the room and closed the door behind him.
Justice walked stiffly over to the bed and took a seat on the edge of it.
“We can put this off until later,” Saffa said, going over to stand by him.
“It’s now or never. The Redmavens could very well be on their way.”
She pulled the sweatshirt over his head, pushed him back and straddled his hips.
Justice tugged at the hem of her sweatshirt. “Take off your shirt.”
She pretended to resist. “I don’t know if I want to. I might get cold.”
He slid his eyes over to Drew. “We’ll warm you,” he replied gruffly and tossed Drew a vial.
Drew snorted. “Well hell, I haven’t seen this for years.”
Saffa swung her eyes curiously between the two men. “What have you got there?”
“Fragrant oils, blended specially to warm up as we massage them into your skin.” He eased her sweatshirt up and pulled it over her head.
He sat up and took a peak into his mouth. She arched her back, pulled taut by the tug of the sharply sweet sensation coming from her nipple.
He ran his hand over her skin, buried his face between her heavy breasts and clutched her tightly to him with trembling arms.
He held out his hand, palm up.
Drew walked over to them and poured the slick liquid into his hand. Justice coated his hands with the oil and cupped her breasts.
He slid his hand over the pert globes, leaving them glistening in the lamplight. The fluid didn’t add to the experience as far as she could tell, but it helped Justice’s hands slide silkily over her skin.
Saffa pushed her nipple against his nimble fingers. He smoothed his wide palms down her torso, flicking her nipples before he cupped her breasts.
Justice sighed heavily and looked into her eyes. “Drew, come do her back.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
They listened to Drew shedding his clothes, their eyes connected. Saffa read the stormy turmoil Justice was in through his eyes. He caught the amusement in hers and scowled. He looked like a sulky boy forced to share his toys.
She felt Drew’s presence behind her seconds before the weight of his hands dropped onto her shoulders. He ran them down the length of her back.
She leaned forward and slid her tongue through the seam of Justice’s lips.
Saffa touched the tip of his tongue with hers and tried to withdraw it coyly when he attempted to suckle on it. She chuckled playfully when he caught a hold of the tip with his teeth. They played tongue tag while the four hands on her body glided over her increasingly sensitized skin.
The contact of their hands against her skin had soothed at first. She couldn’t discern the exact moment when they’d begun to warm up.
Saffa released Justice’s mouth and looked at him questioningly. The beginnings of a radiating heat traveled over her as the men caressed her. The look of disgruntlement eased from Justice’s face. The raw desire she now saw there stopped her breath in her throat.
Her nipples, already hard, tightened further. She glanced down at her aureoles to see they had furled into crinkles around the aching nubbins.
Each pat, caress, nuzzle and stroke engendered something in her.
Desire?
No, there was more to it. The fragrance of her body’s readiness suffused the air. Something burgeoned in her. What she had become was fully aware. The men’s unsteady pants were harsh with their arousal. The pounding thuds of their heartbeats thundered in her ears. She tasted their anxious sweat of restraint on her tongue. If the situation wasn’t fraught with undercurrents, they’d have taken her by now. In sync, they put their mouths on the responsive lines running down her neck. Drew made sure he didn’t encroach on her mate’s mark.
The lure of her body’s readiness to be impregnated would stir Justice’s ingrained instinct to procreate. Now Saffa truly knew what it meant to be a multimorph. She was the vessel to ensure the bloodlines. Nature would not be denied.
She had never been more certain of anything in her life. Justice would give her a cub tonight.
She threw back her head and laughed. The thing of it was, the way she felt had nothing to do with the oil slicked over her.
Saffa read Justice’s growing need for her in the tight lines of his grim face.
She pressed her back into Drew’s hot palms, arching her breasts into Justice’s hands.
A body-racking shudder gripped her.
Their tireless caresses were enough to bring her to the brink of orgasm. It was a fire needing to be fed, and the men were the fuel. She ground her crotch on the bulge nestled between her thighs.
“Justice,” she called to him huskily. “Now…I need you.”
“I know, but not yet, honey.”
He pushed her off his lap. “Help me pull off her pants,” he instructed Drew. Together, they tugged off her clothes and settled her between them.
The two men crouched by her feet and started to massage the emollient into her legs.
She writhed under their hands. Moans and soft throaty pleas slipped from her lips.
Justice slipped between her quivering thighs. He uncorked the bottle and dropped a dollop of oil on his tongue.
“Ahh…maybe that’s not such a good idea,” she cautioned, holding his head back just inches from her cleft. Didn’t the man see she was on the brink of going up in flames?
“He knows what he’s doing, Saffa, trust me. You’re going to love it.” Drew grinned knowingly, working more oil into the muscles of her belly.
Justice pulled her hand away and speared his tongue through the dewy lips of her slit.
Pleasure under a layer of soothing warmth, followed by flickers of unremitting bliss given to her by the broad swirls of his tongue, drove her to the brink. Saffa held onto his hair as a
n anchor. The heat spread through her core whipped up by his tongue.
Saffa’s hips quaked in Justice’s wide palms. She tilted them up to his suctioning mouth and bucked to end the sweet torture. She came in a burst of flaming heat, yet she yearned for more. Him and only him.
Justice cradled her body between his thighs. “Now, do it now,” he instructed Drew.
Drew moved to do as he asked, blatantly erect.
She grabbed Drew by the wrist to hold him by her side, shaking her head at him. She was primed and ready for intercourse, but Justice was the one she’d be taking inside her body tonight. Drew, she’d take care of another way.
She turned and straddled Justice. He jerked under the weight of her body. “Saffa, no. It must be Drew. You are at the height of your fruitfulness. The scent of it is driving us both mad.”
“I know. Let me do this my way.” She struggled to rid him of the sweatpants. He sprung from his clothing fully aroused. Saffa wrapped her hand around him and his cock flexed against the palm of her hand.
She looked down at his tumescence, veins protruding and seeping come. She turned to Drew. It was time she rewarded him for his patience and his sensitivity. Saffa could tell by the tenseness of his clenched jaw that he too was caught in the painful grip of unfulfilled needs.
She shifted her body to set the head of Justice’s staff between her folds.
He reared up and grasped her by the hips. She stiffened her thighs and lowered her hips before he could push her back and off him.
The crown slipped into her. Her body opened up to him and she slid down the length of him. Her inner tissues, slick with her secretions, eased his passage. He pulsed and bucked in her. Saffa’s muscles undulated around her mate’s lance.
“Saffa…” he said achingly. She didn’t know if it was a plea to stop or to go on. Either way, she was too far gone to give up the sweet intrusion of him. She cradled his hips between her thighs.
She pulled Drew up onto his knees and took him into her mouth. He hissed when she pursed her lips around him and cupped his scrotum.
Her Chosen Wolf: The Were Chronicles, Book 1 Page 9