Alpha Queen

by Callie Rose

  It means he trusts me not to break. He knows I’m strong enough to handle it.

  And what’s more, he’s right.

  I am strong enough.

  I’m strong enough to meet Ridge right where he is, even if that place is full of chaos and pain, and not be lost to the pain myself. I’m strong enough to help him through this.

  That realization fills me with an emotion I can’t even name, and a new sort of certainty fills me as Ridge finally lifts his head from between my legs. He doesn’t even wipe his lips before he crawls up my body to kiss me again, so I lick them clean for him, tasting myself in his mouth as our tongues slide against each other.

  His broad cock nudges my entrance, but before he can slide inside, I press on his shoulder and shift his weight, rolling him over onto his back. He brings me with him to straddle him, and I reach between us to grab his cock, wrapping my fist around it as I rise up on my knees.

  Ridge’s body is tense beneath mine, the war of his emotions still raging inside him. But he stays still underneath me as I slowly, inch by inch, sink down onto his hard length.

  Once he’s fully rooted inside me, he drops his gaze for a moment to the place where our bodies are joined. His jaw clenches, his honey eyes darkening to a deep amber. With the hand that I used to guide him inside me, I massage my swollen clit, running my fingers over myself before spreading my folds to let him see even more of me. To let him see the way he splits me open, the way my body stretches around his thick shaft, the two of us fitting together perfectly.

  His hands land on my hips, the rough pads of his fingers pressing hard against my skin. “Ride me,” he grits out, his voice like sandpaper.

  My pulse, barely slowed from my first orgasm, picks up again at the sound of his voice. Using my leg muscles to balance myself, I slide up and then slam back down, making both of us grunt as our bodies reconnect.

  Ridge’s teeth are bared in something almost like a snarl, and as I move up and down on his cock, he finally releases his hold on my hips, moving his hands up to my breasts instead. He tortures my nipples with delicious pressure, pulling and tweaking and rolling his thumbs over them. My back arches, my head falling back a little as I find a rhythm. My leg muscles burn, and I can feel a bead of sweat dripping down my back, but I don’t stop.

  Nothing in the entire fucking world could make me stop.

  “Fuck, little wolf.”

  Ridge bites out the words, and almost before he finishes speaking, he sits up suddenly, wrapping his arms around me and burying his face against my chest. He presses his lips against my skin, sucking hard enough to make my nipples pucker even more as my nerve endings fire wildly.

  His hot breath gusts against my skin when he finally releases the pressure, and before I know what’s happening, he’s flipped me onto my back again. He presses my knees up to my chest, spreading them wide and giving him even more access as he drives into me in short, fast strokes.

  The lines of his face are taut and strong, his eyes burning as he stares down at me. When he stops to grind his hips against mine, the pressure on my clit makes an unexpected orgasm tear through me, and my mouth drops open on a breathy scream.

  His nostrils flare wide, and he draws out of me, flipping me onto my stomach and plunging in again. I don’t even have time to get my hands and knees under me, but it probably doesn’t matter anyway. My limbs are shaky, and Ridge’s thrusts are so powerful that I’m not sure I’d be able to stay upright on my hands and knees even if I tried.

  So instead, I turn my head to one side and grip the blanket in tight fists, arching my back and thrusting my ass back toward Ridge to give him a better angle.

  He drops his head to press hot, messy kisses to my shoulder, shifting my sweat-dampened hair to one side.

  “Touch yourself,” he murmurs in my ear, the words somewhere between a command and a plea. “I want to feel you come again.”

  I don’t hesitate even a second. I unclench the fingers of one hand from around the blanket and wriggle my hand between the mattress and my body. The first touch to my clit makes me whimper. It’s almost too much, my body too sensitive from the onslaught of sensations.

  But I want to come again, just as much as Ridge wants me to.

  I want him to feel me clench around him.

  I want him to lose himself in me.

  Starting with small circles around my swollen bud, I slowly work my way inward, letting the pressure build inside me until I’m writhing beneath Ridge, alternately grinding against my hand and pressing back against him.

  When I come, I turn my head and bury my face in the blanket, muffling my scream of pleasure.

  Ridge stops.

  For a second, he hovers over me, the heat of his body behind me burning like a furnace. I can feel the gusts of his breath against my neck and feel the pounding of his heart even though his chest isn’t even touching me. I can feel the tension in him, the way his cock pulses inside me, so close, held back only by a thread.

  Slowly, he draws out, the friction of his cock against my inner walls making me shiver.

  Then he turns me over onto my back again, and the moment our gazes meet, I know I’ll never be able to look away.

  He slides back into me, and his last few thrusts are so deep and deliberate that I feel them deep in the pit of my belly, all the way down to my soul.

  “I love you,” he whispers.

  On the final stroke, he stills inside me, his cock throbbing and pulsing endlessly as he presses as deep as he can get, flooding me with his cum. My core clamps down around him, milking every last bit of his release, and even when he finally stops coming, neither one of us moves.

  We just stare at each other, as if we’re each seeing some part of the other person for the first time.

  I don’t know how long we stay like that, but when he finally pulls out, we both groan in protest, as if separating our bodies after such an intense experience is physically painful. It doesn’t hurt, but the emptiness I feel as he slides out of me makes me immediately pull him back toward me. I’m not ready to lose the contact between us just yet.

  He doesn’t resist, settling down beside me and tugging me into his embrace. We lie in a nest of mussed blankets, some of them hanging off the bed from the force of our coupling. I turn into him, his arm beneath my head, his other arm draped over my hip, and our legs intertwined.

  Ridge’s chest is slick with perspiration beneath my fingers, but his body is no longer that rigid stone he became when he was lost in his grief. All the tension has seeped away from him, leaving him languid and satiated.

  “I don’t know how to feel,” he says, breaking the silence so suddenly that it startles me.

  I glance up at him, brow wrinkling. “What do you mean?”

  “About Lawson.” He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “We weren’t close. Not since we were kids, and that was a long damn time ago. But now, I don’t know. I wish we’d found a way to connect. There was so much bad blood between us.” His voice cracks on the last word, and he clears his throat, his gaze moving away from mine as if he’s embarrassed by his emotions. “Too late to fix it now.”

  I trace my fingers over his chest but stay quiet. I get the feeling he isn’t done unloading, and I want him to. I want him to get all this off his chest. The longer he holds it all in, the worse it’ll be when it comes jettisoning out of him.

  “He did some shitty things,” Ridge mutters. “No way around that. But with his last fucking breath, he told us exactly what we need to gain the upper hand on the witches. The last thing he did in this life was protect his fellow wolves.”

  I make a noise of agreement. I never knew Lawson well, and I didn’t like him much, but seeing him tortured broke my heart. He didn’t deserve that. No one does. And still, he found a way to break out and come back to us.

  He tried to atone.

  “Does that absolve him of his sins against us?” Ridge goes on as if he’s read my thoughts, his gaze riveted on the wall be
hind me. “I don’t know. But it’s something, right?”

  “It is something,” I agree, reaching up to cup his face in my hand.

  I kiss him softly, forcing every last bit of love and empathy in my body into the kiss so that he can feel it. When we pull away, he slides his hands into my hair and presses his forehead against mine.

  “More people than just my brother have died in this mess. So many more. Too fucking many.” His voice is rough and quiet, as if it comes from the deepest part to him. “And I plan to avenge them all.”

  20

  Trystan

  Archer’s kitchen is alive with the smell and sound of breakfast cooking and coffee brewing. It’s the most normal, mundane situation I can find myself in these days, and it’s my favorite. Here in this room, nobody can touch us. We can laugh, we can eat, we can caffeinate, and through it all, all we need is each other.

  Fucking sappy, sure. But it’s my reality now.

  Although, this morning, none of us are laughing. It’s a grim goddamn day. Death feels like a sixth person in the room, and even the sky is gray and cloudy to match the mood.

  I sip my coffee, watching Sable squeeze Ridge’s arm with a small, secret smile of comfort. When Archer, Dare, and I returned last night, we found the two of them asleep in each other’s arms. It’s still such a weird sensation, looking at another man holding my mate—naked, no less—and not feeling an ounce of jealousy. All I could feel was relief that Sable had been able to calm him down. She was there for him in a way none of the rest of us could be.

  I mean, me in particular. I’ve come a long way since this woman came into my life, but I still don’t know fuck-all about comforting someone whose life has fallen apart. A dozen lessons on being an empathetic person couldn’t prepare me for that shit. Grief is complicated as hell. You add the fact that Lawson betrayed his pack, and there are all sorts of gray areas I’m not equipped to deal with.

  Though, in the end, Lawson was tortured by the witches, and he fought his way free to come back to us with highly important information. That can’t be discounted.

  What a confusing fucking nightmare. How do you survive that? How do you honor a man’s sacrifice but also address the many ways he fucked up before his final destination?

  Archer sets his mug on the table with a definitive thud, waking us all up with the noise. “We need to talk about the elephant in the room.”

  I glance around. “What elephant?”

  He shoots me a look, like I’m supposed to read his damn mind. “There’s a possibility that Lawson was sent here on purpose. The witches could’ve let him escape to come back to us with what he knew in order to lure us into a trap. Or, worse, he could have been double-crossing us. Helping them out on purpose.”

  Startled, I glance at Sable, and she gives me a raised eyebrow in return. On her other side, Ridge’s face has turned to stone.

  I’m honestly impressed Archer’s the one bringing this up, since it’s a pretty cynical viewpoint and he’s basically Mr. Good Guy. The East Pack alpha keeps surprising me though. He’s a smart man, capable of considering all possibilities. Clearly, he isn’t ruled by his do-gooder optimism if he’s got the balls to speak up about this.

  On the other hand...

  I’m not sure I agree, so I give my two cents. “Nah, man. I don’t think either of those are what happened. It’s a thought to consider, for sure. Kudos for thinking about all the angles. But I do think Lawson genuinely escaped to try to help the packs.”

  Dare nods. “He was too badly injured. He didn’t get those fresh injuries from the torture that started all this. He fought his way out and suffered for it.”

  Dare would know, after all. He ran right into the vipers’ nest and got his ass kicked trying to get out too. Dumbass would probably be dead if he hadn’t had the presence of mind to come back to us for help.

  Ridge has been silent for so long this morning that I worry for his mental health. We all saw Archer go through this after his father died, and I know the grief is still weighing on him and probably will for a long time. I expect it’ll be the same for Ridge. None of this has been fucking easy on any of us, but especially on them.

  He nods, the first motion he’s made that had nothing to do with eating or drinking, and the movement is a little jerky. “I saw it in his eyes. Lawson wasn’t lying. My brother was a lot of things, but he was never a good liar.”

  Sable reaches out to put her hand over his where it rests limply on the table. “I trust your judgment. You knew him better than any of us.”

  He smiles, looking more like himself than he has since the pack meeting last night. “It’s likely he got away from them by pure dumb luck. He always was a lucky son of a bitch.”

  Archer takes a deep breath and rolls his coffee mug between his hands. “Okay. Good. So if we believe the information Lawson brought us is accurate… what do we do with it?”

  We all look to Ridge. No discussion necessary, no worrying over who should call the shots. Maybe this is how we honor Lawson’s final good deed—letting his brother spearhead the plan to avenge him.

  Ridge’s face goes hard, his eyes glinting with determination.

  “We end this.”

  The windows of the meeting house are open, and a nice breeze cools the sweat at my hairline. I bend over a table, my arm brushing Sable’s and my attention fully distracted by the scent of her skin. I swear I’m trying to pay attention to the meeting, but she makes it fucking hard.

  In more ways than one.

  A map of the area where Wolfsbane Mountain sits is spread over the table top. There’s a small town in its shadow a few miles away—not a big one, the population maybe ten thousand people strong, if that. When Sable and the other alphas and I traveled to reach the hermit witch, I assumed it was all wilderness in that area. The only person we encountered was Gwen. But a few of the pack elders have been there before once or twice to trade for supplies, though none of them knows the place particularly well. This ancient map is probably pretty outdated, but at least it gives us a starting place.

  Elder Patrice has her battle face on. For an old gal, she still looks like she could kick ass and take names. She plants a finger on a segment of the map. “This is the town. Anatoly. It’s small and mostly self-sufficient. It’s populated by humans—hunters and mountaineers, mainly. If I remember correctly, there is a mountain range over here.” She circles an area to the south that isn’t fully marked on the map, pursing her lips. “So why doesn’t it show?”

  “Magic,” Grady says, the word sounding closer to a snarl. He’s one of the twenty or so pack members we asked to join us here today, aside from the elders. He’s one of Ridge’s guys—older, broad-shouldered and bald, and unafraid to say what he’s thinking. I like him.

  Ridge’s jaw clenches and unclenches, then he says, “You think the witches hid the mountains? Is that kind of magic even possible?” He turns to look at Sable questioningly.

  She looks taken aback at being singled out. “Oh, um, I’m not sure. I can’t imagine a single witch would have the power to do something of that magnitude. But a full coven? Maybe.”

  Dare shakes his head. “Then why could we see Wolfsbane Mountain? I saw it years ago. We saw it together a couple weeks ago. Elder Patrice has seen the range while in Anatoly. It makes no sense.”

  “Unless…” Sable chews her bottom lip, staring at the blank area on the map that should indicate mountains. “Unless it was a ward set up specifically against humans. Maybe shifters can see through the magic. We’re magical beings, after all.”

  Patrice’s face screws up and her gaze goes unfocused, like she’s putting herself on the streets of Anatoly to stare back at the wilderness. “It’s a beautiful place. I’m almost certain the mountains are there.”

  Elder Jihoon takes hold of her hand and shifts her finger half an inch to the east. “Here. There are twelve peaks. Wolfsbane must be hidden from the city by them, situated on the interior.”

  Patrice stares down at th
e map and his hand on hers, then glances up. “You know what, I think you’re right.”

  Elder Jihoon shrugs and releases her hand, a hint of color rising in his cheeks. “I have traveled.”

  I don’t miss the assessing look in Patrice’s eyes, or the way she seems to look at the North Pack elder with a new level of respect. I’ve always thought Elder Jihoon was crazy as a fucking loon, but hey, if she wants to develop a crush, I’m not judging.

  Ridge looks around as if he’s seeking something, and Amora holds out a permanent marker. He nods and uncaps it, then draws a circle around the place where Patrice’s finger still rests.

  When he’s done, we all stand back and look down at the map, pressed together like a mob. I can see a muscle ticking in Ridge’s jaw, and Archer has that thoughtful look he gets when he’s mulling over information in his head.

  Sable speaks up. “Wolfsbane was a massive mountain when we saw it. With steep cliffs. How are we going to march on the area and find the bunker without being seen?”

  “We send a scout,” Dare says. “Me. I’ll do it.”

  Sable shakes her head vehemently, but before she can open her mouth and object, Archer says, “No, Dare. Your place is with us. Leading. Elder Patrice, do you think you could put together a small group and scout the area to look for the bunker?”

  The older woman inclines her head. “Of course, Alpha Archer. I’d be honored.”

  I like this old lady and her willingness to work. Half the shifters in the room look ready to follow her into the wilds without question, so I add, “Small group, no more than three or four, enough to protect one another but stay agile. And stay out of sight. In and out. Quickly.”

  “Yes, Alpha.” She bows to me, then wades into the crowd of shifters, pointing at several men and women as she goes so that they’ll follow her.

  I realize she’s not just choosing members from one pack. She’s choosing sturdy members of all three. It’s a very pointed gesture, one that says she’s going to support the merger with everything she’s got.