Blayne Edwards

by Caine

  But a dog, nonetheless.

  Chloe had never wanted to be a bitch so badly in her life.

  She almost winced at the fact that the wolf had been much, much better and much more sensual while performing the act than any man who had ever used his mouth on her had been. Not to mention the fact that he’d managed to get her to orgasm faster than any man she’d ever slept with.

  The alpha’s look on her softened as he lay his head down on her between her breasts. Chloe shivered under his gaze and under the still present fear and confusion over her situation. And because the February wind that had been so warm when she had gone to sleep was now much cooler as it blew through the open doors.

  She couldn’t help but notice how sedate the animal was as he lay there swapping looks and body heat with her. It could have been comforting, had he been a domesticated dog that she could make lay by her side instead of right on top of her. Or better yet a man. Chloe’d had more than her fair share of canine companions, though. Many more than the human companions she’d had, in fact. And several of those beloved companions had slept wherever they had wanted to in her home.

  They’d kept her feet warm and even snuggled up affectionately and innocently to her side underneath the covers on cold nights. As any dog person knows they will.

  But never…

  …ever…

  …had one shifted as this one did to cover and warm her after he’d glanced over to see her nipples hardening at the insistence of a cold winter wind.

  “Get off of me.”

  He was as shocked at her words and tone as she was. She could clearly see this fact in his face. But the command had come out before Chloe could censor it and evidently with enough authority to jar even the most dominate of beasts into shock, if not a bit of submission.

  The alpha raised his head but left his body pressing down on her.

  “Get off of me,” she repeated, even more firmly this time.

  He stared motionlessly at her for a moment before turning his head and looking at another of the pack. A wolf very similar in size to him who bore an ugly scar down his muzzle gave the alpha one of the same looks Chloe had been trying to convince herself she wasn’t seeing. They both then looked over to the runt of the litter as if to get yet another opinion.

  Chloe watched the silent exchange with an awe she had never felt before. And evidently a nerve that came to only those who desired an extreme form of punishment and death.

  She tapped the alpha on his…

  …shoulder?

  “Did you hear me?”

  If he could have laughed. If he could have snorted. If the animal on top of her could have chortled, he would have thrown his head back and let all three fly from his long, gorgeous, hairy, wolfish face. But he couldn’t do any of those things. So Chloe supposed he did the next best thing.

  He threw his thick, beautifully muscled throat forward and his head back.

  And howled.

  Long and low and mournful and strong enough in volume and emotion and ethereal quality to make tears instantly come back to Chloe’s eyes. It was a laugh and a snort and a chortle and a celebration of something that this animal had just found more entertaining than June bugs on string.

  And it was absolutely the most beautiful thing Chloe had ever heard.

  Especially when his brothers chimed in.

  She hadn’t known that she wasn’t breathing until the howls began to die down. And she had never in all of her studies known the full force the sound held until she felt the creature on top of her actually vibrating with his efforts to produce it.

  Hell, Chloe wasn’t sure she hadn’t added to the noise at one point. In fact, she felt quite positive by the time all was said and done that such an orgy of vocalization called for participation by all living beings present.

  And besides, who the hell would ever know, even if she had?

  The alpha was trembling almost as badly when he finished with his call to arms as Chloe had been. The howl and his excitement over their situation had zapped him of his sense of balance as much as it had her, it would seem. Chloe used the moment of weakness to shift and pull her body up somewhat on the bed. The sheet slipped down below her breasts and she watched the wolf’s eyes fix on the nipples he had attempted to warm.

  He stared nervously at them. Licked his mouth at the sight of her naked intimate flesh and whimpered a most adorable sound as he wriggled on top of her. Even growled a bit. But it wasn’t threatening and he didn’t try and stop her from peeling the sheets away from the rest of her body and slipping away from the pressing of his weight. As she started to rise naked from the bed, Chloe could feel his eyes roam the entire length of her, stopping occasionally to inspect and evaluate. Her stomach. Her thighs. The patch of hair between her legs.

  All of his looks were just as intrusive as his nose had been.

  She carefully swung her feet to the floor and stood. Alternating her eyes among the three of them. The scarred wolf salivated and crouched as she stepped closer to the bedroom door. Chloe saw the smooth black hair on the back of his neck shift and rise at her movement and she froze. The brush of the alpha’s soft hair against the side of her leg as he passed her made her jump.

  The alpha approached his scarred brother with his tail high and a cockiness to his walk. The scarred one stood his ground and Chloe thought she even saw him straighten his spine a bit, despite his being obviously reprimanded by his superior.

  The alpha let out one long, low growl and Scar settled his rump back to the floor. The dogs stared at each other almost hatefully.

  Chloe glanced over at the runt and smiled when the animal wagged his bushy tail at her and panted out a long pink tongue in greeting.

  “Hey boy,” Chloe murmured as she kept her eyes on the adorable smaller dog and stepped to the door. The runt’s wagging grew more insistent and furious as she spoke to him. From the corner of her eye she could still see the alpha and his brother. Still engrossed in a silent, natural battle of dominance that could turn into necessary violence if the subordinate dog chose to push the matter. Chloe suspected the scar was the result of just such a test of placement in the pack.

  Their preoccupation with their hierarchy allowed her time to reach behind the door and grip the smooth wooden stock. And it allowed her time to check the chamber.

  The poor runt’s ignorance of her intentions and his enthusiasm for her human affection allowed her to set him right in her sights.

  And it allowed her to place her shot exactly where it needed to be to take him down.

  Chapter Two

  Caine’s fist connecting with Luke’s jaw sounded like one of the willow pines cracking in the wind. Luke stumbled only slightly before bringing his own fist up to give his twin an equally snapping blow. The wet, creek side ground caught both of their still naked but now much less hairy bodies as they tumbled in a whir of animal passion and human rage and brotherly love and hatred.

  “She’s got Lee!”

  Caine could sense the severity of his brother’s feelings of injustice in his words and each time the man’s fist found flesh. His own fists were pummeling more in self-defense and the necessary infliction of pain than anger. Luke had to learn to wait his turn, regardless of the situation and regardless of his needs. He had to be taught that he mated only when and with whom Caine said. And it was Caine’s job to teach him this.

  “You stood there and let her shoot him!”

  Caine heard the words come from Luke’s mouth just as another angry blow came from his fist. The strike was barely deflected and Caine reached around to work his arm around Luke’s neck. A swift kick between the legs came as his reward.

  Ugly human anger did cause Caine to hit his brother this time. And his words were the result of the same feelings of rage.

  “This is your fault, Luke!”

  Luke struggled to get his neck out of Caine’s grasp, but soon settled into a writhing mass of hateful muscle and unaccepted shame. He had never been able to beat his brot
her.

  Not in a fight, at least.

  Caine loosened his grip enough to allow his brother some air. Unfortunately, it allowed the man to speak.

  “If you had fucked the bitch like you were supposed to, none of this would have happened.”

  Caine fought the urge to snap his twin’s neck at the statement.

  Which bitch was he talking about?

  “She wasn’t ovulating yet,” Caine snapped and debated his next statement before making it. “And besides, she didn’t seem like the others,” Caine growled into his brother’s ear.

  Luke blew out a grunt of disgust. “They never do in your opinion, do they, Caine?”

  Caine’s grip tightened again but then released completely. He shoved Luke away from his body and wiped the trickle of blood from his nose with the back of his hand.

  “We don’t always have to be complete animals,” he stated to the back of Luke’s head. “I don’t see why it has to be unpleasant for her, especially if she wouldn’t have conceived tonight. And I think if this one was given some time…”

  He stopped because he couldn’t believe the words were coming from his own mouth. So soon after he’d sworn not to let history repeat itself, Caine was considering breaking yet another rule. And this was one that he himself had made. The urge he felt inside himself to let the woman in the cabin have a choice in what happened to her was stronger and more insistent than any he felt due to his animal ancestry.

  “We can’t afford for you to be weak this time, Caine. You can’t feel compassion for this one,” Luke reminded. “You’ve said it a hundred times yourself. Compassion won’t fill the belly of a predator.”

  He had used those very words. And Caine also knew that compassion wasn’t going to allow him or his brothers to breed as quickly and as often as they needed to in order to ensure their pack’s survival.

  “I understand our situation and our needs,” Luke snapped, causing Caine to growl at his brother’s insolent tone. “And I would hope the alpha of our pack understood it as well.”

  Caine stepped forward, causing Luke’s stance to falter just an inch or so. The brothers eyed one another. “I understand more than you’d like to think I do, Luke. I understand the bulk of our father’s ways. And I understand that I don’t care for them,” he stated. “The ways of our kind are dated and I believe that it’s time for some changes in the way the pack is run.”

  “We’re animals, Caine…”

  “But we’re part human as well,” Caine interrupted, earning him a grumble from his twin. He lowered his voice before posing his next question. “Don’t you ever crave things like compassion and love?” he asked. “Doesn’t the human side of you ever need anything?”

  Luke scoffed and crossed his arms. “The only human emotions I crave are those of the cruelty and kindness that come with the taste of freshly spilled blood,” he growled. “We can’t afford the other emotions, Caine. Full blood humans have courts and laws that protect property,” he noted.

  “We have only our pack.”

  Caine knew this. And he knew that his pack was in danger of losing its territory. The realization that his brother was partially right in his way of thinking made Caine’s eyes swing around to meet his twin’s. The look on Luke’s face told Caine that his rage, the human emotion that had often been this wolf’s weakest trait, was still controlling him.

  Luke nodded. “You think she understood us, don’t you?” he asked sarcastically. “You think that she somehow knew what we were.” He smiled before raising his eyebrow at his brother. “I’ll tell you what she understood, Caine. She understood that Lee was the most vulnerable. And she understood that we were too preoccupied with trying to piss on each other to see what she was doing with that gun.”

  Caine shook his head but pulled his eyes to the side to look at his brother. “She won’t hurt him.”

  Luke grunted a laugh. “You don’t know that.”

  Caine shook his head harder this time. “She won’t.” Caine kept his eyes locked with his brother’s.

  Luke motioned with his hands and shook his head.

  “She shot him!”

  “It was a tranquilizer gun,” Caine stated. Almost convincingly.

  Luke seemed to hear the doubt. He grumbled and narrowed his eyes.

  “You saw it?”

  Caine shook his head.

  “It sounded like an air rifle.” Caine shook his head again. “It wasn’t a real gun.”

  “Caine, he dropped like a…”

  “He’s all right, Luke!”

  The men stared at each other with a hatred that only their love for one another could keep from killing them or driving them apart. Caine finally broke the silence again. Quietly this time. Attempting to soothe some of his twin’s rage. And his pain.

  “He’s fine.”

  He nodded and watched as Luke’s head slowly began to mimic his own.

  “And I’m telling you, she somehow understood.”

  Caine watched his brother’s face relax somewhat. A scary sight this soon after one of their battles. For Luke, the quiet always came after the storm. And when it happened this soon, it always led to more bad weather.

  “Like Meagan knew,” Luke said calmly. “Like Meagan understood us, right?”

  Caine cautiously kept his eyes on his brother at the mention of his late wife’s name. The smile that curled Luke’s lips caused the scar on his cheek to pucker and distort. The scar, or more precisely what it represented, and three minutes were the only things that had ever come between the men in the nearly thirty years they had lived.

  Luke pointed to his scar. “You see this, Caine? This is what distinguishes the beta from the alpha in this pack.” Caine’s eyes avoided the scar. “And not a day goes by that I don’t thank God that you had the strength to do this to me.”

  Caine’s eyes fought looking at his twin. Luke had earned his injury with his impatience to breed with Caine’s first bitch. And not a day went by that Caine hated the fact that he’d had to disfigure him in order to prevent him from ever posing as the alpha male again.

  “This is what being the alpha is about,” Luke dragged his finger down the scar. “Doing whatever it takes to protect the pack,” he added. “Regardless of whatever human emotions that alpha feels.”

  Luke’s words jarred Caine with their inaccuracy. Only occasionally did he admit to himself that his anger had been more over the possibility that Luke had made love to Meagan than because he’d gone against the rules of the pack.

  “So, tell me, Caine,” Luke tightened his arms across his chest, “do you think this bitch is going to understand when you tell her that her job is to breed for us?” Luke snorted a laugh. “Think she’ll understand when you admit to her that we were both going to fuck her tonight regardless of whether or not she had been so understanding of us?” The chuckle that came from Luke’s throat was demonic.

  “I think I’d save that minor revelation for the honeymoon, little brother.”

  Caine found a place beside his brother’s gaze to watch. Three minutes and one woman. The only things that had ever come between them. Until now, it would seem. But Luke’s breathing told him that he wasn’t finished purging his pain and adding to that list of wedges yet.

  “Think she’s going to understand when you flip her over and fuck her like she’s a German Shepherd? Or when you bite into her hard enough to draw blood when you come? And when you get aroused again by licking the very wound you inflicted upon her?”

  Caine took deep breaths to keep his anger in check. He knew that power, true power at least, sometimes meant letting someone else appear to have it for moments in time. Caine knew this because he was the alpha. And he was the alpha because he knew it.

  Human ego and rage, Caine could control. And this thought gave him hope in his battle against his other human weaknesses.

  Like the ones coursing through his human heart and mind as he thought about the female he’d just pleased.

  “Caine, do yo
u honestly think the woman is not going to freak out when you tell her what we are?” His look questioned Caine as harshly as his words had. But Caine remained silent at his brother’s anger. “That wasn’t your wife underneath you. Finding a bitch who enjoys being fucked like Meagan enjoyed it isn’t going to happen again,” he grumbled. Caine’s continued silence seemed to force Luke to continue.

  “We have to breed, Caine. And we have to breed soon,” Luke nodded. “The new packs are announcing every day that cubs have been conceived.” Caine saw from the corner of his eye that Luke was holding up his hand, all five fingers extended.

  “Five months, Caine.” He nodded. “That smell has come down wind every four weeks for five months now and you still haven’t mounted her. I know you like the sickening, emotional aspects of mating, Caine, but we don’t have the luxury of waiting until you find another bitch who enjoys the way you like to fuck, little brother.”

  Caine finally brought his eyes to meet his twin’s.

  “She seemed to enjoy the way I fucked her tonight,” he stated with a growl. “How many other women do you know could come with a wolf grinding against her clit?”

  Luke threw up his hands and shook his head, and then grinned a quiet, challenging grin at his superior.

  “You know, I think you’re right, Caine. I think maybe she did know.”

  The sarcastic tone of Luke’s voice made the human hair on Caine’s arms stand up. And it forced him to look back into his brother’s eyes just in time for him to finish his verbal assault. Luke cocked his head to the side and the scar puckered even more under the increased smile.

  “Just like I happen to think that your wife knew exactly who fucked her that night.”

  * * * * *

  Did I finally score?

  Lee opened his eyes just enough to see the tail of a housecoat. The fur throw underneath him was wet and his ass hurt like something really awful had just happened to him.

  She was standing right next to him. He could smell her, although he couldn’t get his eyes to focus enough to see up her robe. So Lee closed his eyes and tried to remember what had happened to his poor ass. Her voice droned on in the background but he didn’t think she was talking to him. It wouldn’t have done any good anyway, he decided.