Alpha Queen

by Callie Rose

Oh! I’m supposed to shift.

  My cheeks flame, even though I know he can’t read my thoughts while I’m in human form. Mind speak only works when we’re both wolves. I tug my tank top and shorts off, then let the change roll over me.

  Now this—this comes easy. Shifting to wolf costs me nothing but a single thought, and the magic pours through me, elongating my limbs, bending my body, fur growing, ears perking, tongue lolling out happily. The absolute and immediate relief feels like plunging into cool water on a scorching day.

  I bounce a couple times on my front paws, and Dare responds by darting in and nipping at my heels before he bounds away. Without giving much thought to it, I follow him, my legs pumping. I chase him all around the village, up and down old dirt roads, past the meeting house, past Elder Jihoon’s tiny shack where he once told me I had a wolf hidden inside me. We race down one road and up another, darting between buildings, playing tag and pouncing on one another. There isn’t a place in the village we don’t see, though Dare never ventures outside the perimeter, just in case there’s any possible witch threat waiting beyond the safety of the town.

  My wolf howls with happiness as she stretches her legs. I feel good. I feel free. The evening sun glows rose red, and the ground is still warm from the day’s heat. I put on a burst of speed and pounce on Dare’s back, taking him down with a playful bite to the scruff.

  We roll on the grass, nipping and biting. He latches on to me, but I manage to get away. Then he takes me down, and we tussle a moment longer until I have him pinned on his back.

  Suddenly, magic flows between us, and Dare’s fur begins to sink back into his body. My first immediate thought is dammit, the fun’s over, but then the human part of me notices the very naked human part of him.

  So I follow suit and shift back, despite my howling wolf’s protestations.

  When the magic fades, I’m straddling his naked hips. I know it’s an indecent position to be in, being out in public and all, but I don’t care enough to crawl off him. I’m too distracted by the warmth of his skin, and the pressure of his body between my legs. Plus, we’re hidden behind a building at dusk in an empty village.

  Nobody’s around to catch me doing something I shouldn’t.

  So I move. Just a little shift of my hips, enough to slide with aching, beautiful slowness against his body.

  Dare’s eyes darken, and his hands come to rest on my hips. We stare at one another for a moment, and his gaze drops to my lips before he rakes it down my entire body. I straighten a little, pressing my core against his hard length and giving his eyes access to the rest of me. The desire that simmers between us, never far from the surface, bubbles up and threatens to take over.

  I lean forward, sliding my hands up his smooth, muscled chest. I kiss his collarbone, then trail my lips up his neck, feathering kisses as I grind against him. Then I place my lips close to his ear as I whisper, “I can be quiet.”

  I pull back a little after I speak, wanting to see his reaction. Even more heat flares in his deep brown eyes, and the gold flecks gleam like bits of flame.

  “I don’t want you to be quiet, moonlight,” he murmurs gruffly. He palms the back of my head, a growl rising in his throat. “I want you to scream my fucking name.”

  Then he pulls me down and kisses me.

  12

  Sable

  I don’t think Dare has ever kissed me with anything less than his whole being. And this kiss is no different. It’s like a conduit for every emotion he’s feeling, and the force of it nearly overwhelms me as my tongue slides against his.

  His hands are everywhere on me. They slide through my hair, trail over my shoulders, and mark hot paths over my waist and hips before trailing up my spine to do it all over again.

  When he reaches down to palm my ass, squeezing the rounded flesh with hungry possessiveness, I nip at his bottom lip. He digs his fingers a little deeper into my skin, spreading my ass cheeks in a way that makes me blush at the same time it makes heat shoot through me.

  I slide up and down, coating his cock with my wetness as I tease us both with how close he is to slipping inside me.

  “Shit, moonlight.” He breaks away from my lips, only to bury his face in the crook of my neck and devour the sensitive skin there. His tongue traces my fluttering pulse, and then he scrapes his teeth over it, making me whimper. “You drive me fucking crazy.”

  “You do too,” I gasp, arching my back a little and shifting my position so that the head of his cock brushes my clit every time I glide over him. “You make me… oh, fuck…”

  I can’t even get the words out before they’re swept away by a torrent of sensations, and I finally move upward just enough to notch his cock at my entrance. When I sink back downward this time, I impale myself on his thick length, and I can feel the vibrations of his groan in his chest.

  He squeezes my ass again, using that grip on me to guide my movements as I begin to ride him, moving up and down on his cock.

  I like the feel of his fingers digging into my soft skin. I like the way I can feel them flex each time he bottoms out inside me. I pick up my pace a little, swiveling my hips and grinding against him as my clit throbs.

  Keeping one hand right where it is, Dare slides the other one over, pressing a finger into my tight back hole. My movements stutter for a second as my breath hitches, and he chuckles beneath me.

  “The first time Trystan did this to you, I just about came right then and there. I could tell you liked it. You looked so fucking gorgeous, your face flushed and your eyes bright. Does this feel good?”

  I nod, dropping my head to kiss and bite his neck. My core clenches around his cock, and at the same time, I can feel my ass clenching around his finger. They’re both such different sensations, but when they’re combined liked this, they send an entirely different kind of pleasure than anything else shooting through me.

  I feel so full of Dare, consumed by him, overwhelmed by him—and I fucking love it.

  “More,” I gasp out, pushing my ass against him a little, forcing his finger a bit deeper. He grunts, pulsing his hips up to meet me as I ride him.

  “I’ve got you, moonlight. Don’t worry.”

  With that hoarsely whispered promise, he slides his finger out of me. But a second later, there’s pressure at my back hole again, and I whimper softly when I realize what it is. He’s added a second finger. This time, the stretch is more palpable, the feeling of fullness even more intense. I clench around him again, and he starts to move his fingers in and out slowly as I rock up and down on his cock.

  I promised I could be quiet—I wanted to be quiet—but I have a feeling Dare’s going to be the one who gets what he wants, not me. My breath is coming faster, and every exhale comes on a moan as sensations dance through my body, filling me up from head to toe.

  We’re hidden behind a building on the far side of the village, and there are less than a dozen people in the whole place right now. But that doesn’t mean someone couldn’t find us. Maybe one of the guards we brought will venture out of Shawn’s cabin thinking we’re done training for the day. Or maybe one or more of my mates will come looking for us.

  If they do, they’ll find us sprawled out on the ground, Dare’s cock buried inside me and his fingers stuffed into my tight back hole. The thought of what we must look like, and the vague worry that we could get caught, makes my heart beat faster and faster as Dare matches the movement of his fingers to the rhythm of his hips.

  “I knew you were perfect for me, moonlight,” he groans, finding my lips again in a searing kiss. “Perfect for us. I love you so goddamn much.”

  I moan louder as I rock against him, my clit pulsing with arousal. Dare tells me he loves me every single day, but hearing him say it right now, like this, makes something warm burst open in my chest. There’s a rawness and openness in his voice right now, as if I could look down and see directly into his heart.

  This man loves me.

  He loves me so much that he’s accepted me for just
who I am.

  He loves me enough to share me with the three other men who love me.

  His love is as deep and wide as the ocean, and I want to drown in it. To drown in him.

  I slow down my frantic movements, tightening my inner walls around him as much as I can and dragging myself up and down his cock. The noises falling from my mouth are well past whimpers by now. They’re deep, throaty groans that almost sound like they’re coming from someone else. How could such wild, hungry sounds be coming from me?

  When Dare slides a third finger inside me, I arch my back, my eyes flying wide as every sensation in my body intensifies a hundredfold.

  “Yes,” he groans, trailing his lips over my collarbone as he fucks me. “Just like that. Let go for me. You’re so fucking beautiful when you let go.”

  “Dare!” I cry, rising up and slamming back down over and over again, lost in a sea of pleasure.

  Just as I start to go over the edge, flying toward blissful release, my mate releases his bruising grip on my ass, sliding his hand up my body to pinch my nipple between his thumb and finger. He tugs lightly, and it’s like a current travels through every nerve ending in my body. I scream his name again, just like he wanted, my loud cry carried off by the breeze as he drives his hips upward, impaling me as deep as possible on his cock.

  And I shatter.

  My entire world seems to fly apart as intense pleasure crashes through me like a wave. I throw my head back, grinding my hips against Dare as his cock pulses and throbs inside me. He thrusts his fingers in and out of my ass a few more times, and the fresh sensation makes the ripples of my orgasm go on and on, making me shudder all over before they finally subside.

  I collapse on his chest, my body draping over his as our hearts thud against each other. It takes several long moments for me to collect the scattered pieces of myself, and when I finally come back into my body, my toes curl at the feeling of Dare slowly withdrawing his fingers from my back hole.

  Before I met these men, I never would’ve guessed I’d like that so much. But I do. I really fucking do. And even as he trails his other hand lightly up and down my spine, his cock still buried inside me, I can’t stop thinking about what it would be like to have, not his fingers, but another one of my mates inside me at the same time Dare drove into me from below.

  A dozen dirty images pass through my head, and I let out a shaky breath as my core pulses around Dare’s cock. He chuckles, the vibrations of his chest traveling into my own body through the connection between us. Then he tilts my head up and kisses me roughly and hungrily. I have a feeling he might know exactly what I was just thinking about, if the urgency of his kiss is any indication.

  We lie there for a little while longer, just enjoying the feel of our bodies molded together. I know we’re still out in the open, and we should probably shift and return to the others before we get caught out here, but I still can’t quite get myself to move.

  After a few long, peaceful minutes, Dare rolls me over onto my back, sliding out of me as he settles me on the ground by his side.

  Bracing himself on one elbow, he looks down at me, his brown eyes gleaming in the light. “I like the way you scream my name.”

  I grin up at him, goose bumps rising on my skin at the memory of what we just did. I was totally sated a moment ago, but I’m already hungry for more. I don’t know if that will ever change when it comes to my mates, and I honestly sort of hope it doesn’t. “I didn’t mean to. But I couldn’t help it.”

  His smile turns wicked. “That’s an acceptable answer. I love watching you lose control. Love watching you give yourself over to it. To me.”

  I bite my lip, lost in the depths of his eyes. “I like giving myself to you. You can have any part of me you want.”

  Heat flashes through his eyes again, and he leans down to kiss me. When he draws back, his expression turns serious. “Can I ask you a question, moonlight?”

  “Sure.”

  Dare smooths the wild hair away from my face, his eyes bouncing between mine. “When we shifted earlier, did you think about running? Think about sniffing? Or any of the other things your wolf does?”

  I tilt my head and wriggle beneath him to get a better view of his face. “Um… no. I mean, those things just happen instinctively, don’t they? I don’t have to think about them.”

  He grins as if I’ve just revealed the meaning of life. “Exactly. Because you just let your wolf take over. When you let the shift happen, you don’t overthink it. As a wolf, you don’t wonder if you’re running the right way or if you’re using your nose properly. You give in to that side of yourself, give in to the wolf. You become her.”

  I narrow my eyes at him. “What are you saying?”

  “You’re getting better at magic, even if you don’t feel like you are. I see you working so hard and getting so damn frustrated. But, moonlight…” He leans over me a little more, his hand sliding gently down my arm as he looks me straight in the eye. “You’re not going to get all the way there until you let the witch take over.”

  13

  Sable

  Let the witch take over.

  The refrain plays over and over in my head that night, filling me with a strange mixture of fear and wonder. I’m in bed with my men while Ridge keeps watch in the chair next to us. The room is silent except for my mates’ soft breathing, and the rustle of Ridge’s book when he turns the page.

  If he knows I’m awake, he gives no indication, so I’m alone with my thoughts, trying to piece together what it would mean if I just let the witch take over. For so long, I’ve assumed she can’t be trusted. These nightly watches my mates do are meant to keep me from hurting someone when the magic rises unbidden or, God forbid, if Cleo comes back and takes over my body.

  But I think of what Gwen said when I sat with her in her little cabin deep in the mountains. My magic shouldn’t be fighting me or trying to take over like a villain. I’ve come to equate my powers with the dark cloud of evil inside me or even with Cleo, the witch Clint tied me to when he did his fucked up little experiments and carved sigils into my skin.

  But they’re not the same thing. My magic is mine. It’s me. I was born with it because one of my parents was a witch, and that makes the power mine by birthright, not because Clint bound me to Cleo.

  Whatever the dark cloud is, whatever the bond with Cleo means, those things are something else entirely. They don’t make my witch inherently bad.

  My witch is her own goddamn woman.

  I hold on to that thought with all I have, and with an inkling of hope that I can handle giving her the reins, I finally fall asleep.

  The next morning, I trudge back out to my practice table to start again. I left it as-is last night, too tired and strung out to even pick up all the broken glass. It isn’t like anybody’s here to step on it. But I’ve barely hit the street before I realize someone’s cleaned my area for me. The packed earth is clear, no glittering shards of soda bottles forming a carpet around the space where I practiced yesterday, and the last bottle I worked with sits front and center, ready to go.

  My men also set up new targets at intervals along the street like some kind of train-the-witch obstacle course. I rake my gaze over chairs, traffic cones, bottles, and cans, and at first glance, gratitude swells in me. They did all of this for me. As their way of showing how much they support me.

  Following closely on the heels of the warmth in my chest, anxiety settles deep in my gut. I haven’t even started, and I’m already wondering how badly I’ll fail.

  But as I step up to the rickety card table and stare down at the one bottle I didn’t break yesterday, something settles in my chest. A sort of… certainty. Acceptance, maybe. Or just a general fuck it mentality, which is a very new feeling for me.

  Dare’s right. I have to let the witch out. I have to let her take over, to give myself permission to be powerful. Otherwise, I’ll never get any of this right. Most importantly, I have to trust that she isn’t the evil I felt during my cha
nge. That dark cloud isn’t my witch.

  I lift my hand toward the bottle, drop my barriers, and let go.

  A new sensation flows through me. It reminds me of how I feel when I let go and become a wolf. Although, when I shift to wolf, it feels like leaping into a cold pool on a too-hot day, whereas this… this warms me. Heat floods through me as if I have pure, raw energy simmering through my veins. It feels good. Feels… right.

  Holding on to the sensation, I trace the necessary sigil in the air, directing my attention toward the bottle. A small part of me still expects that overburdened feeling, as if the bottle weighs more than a car.

  Instead, the bottle flies up in the air as light as if it were a feather.

  Giddy elation fills me, reinforced when my mates begin to whoop and holler their own excitement from the side of the road.

  The way they cheer my name bolsters me. I let the warmth flow through me and allow the witch to step up again. I trace another sigil, aiming for a ceramic plate sitting on top of a traffic cone. Black smoke curls at my fingertips, and then magic shoots out of me, slamming into the plate with as much force as a bullet. The plate shatters into hundreds of tiny pieces, but the cone doesn’t even quiver.

  My hands move quickly, tracing spell after spell in the air. I twist a water bottle into a pretzel; I burn another in flames, turning it to a blackened, melted blob in a matter of seconds. These are spells I’ve studied in Gwen’s book, and most of the time, I can’t even cling to the meanings or remember the exact sigils without consulting the book. With every spell I cast at the obstacles my men have set up for me, I grow more confident in what I’m doing.

  Soon, I’m having no trouble recalling the sigils. The more the witch comes out of hiding, the more it seems like she knows what to do innately. Like the knowledge is partially contained inside her. An instinct, ancient and powerful. She is the magic. Not separate from it.