Alpha Bear Princes Box Set

by Lily Cahill

  She plunged onto his cock again, taking him deep. He moaned so loud she thought he might be close. She felt herself tighten in response, and she wondered what he might taste like. But nearly as soon as she had the thought, he was pulling out of her mouth, leaning down to press kisses all over her face.

  "You've got me so close, baby," he said. "I need to be inside you."

  His words made her quake. She wanted to satisfy his need--and her need too. She wanted to make him as happy as he made her. And she definitely, definitely needed to feel him moving inside her again.

  He stepped out of the tub, picked her up, and carried her straight to the bed. She loved the feel of his chest hair against her face. She loved the feel of his hard, rippled chest too. She loved that he was strong enough to hold her, to carry her.

  He laid her down and spread her legs open with his knee. But instead of pressing himself inside her like she expected, he bent down and licked her.

  Oh, God.

  Her stomach went weak. The last time he'd done that to her she'd nearly lost consciousness it felt so good.

  He lapped her again, dipping his tongue into her entrance then trailing it all the way back up to that most sensitive spot at the apex of her thighs. She arched her back, writhed against him as he licked and suckled her.

  Sensation built deliciously again in her body, so much that she worried she might lose control and miss feeling him inside of her. She wanted his cock in her so bad.

  As though he could read her mind, he lifted himself up and settled between her legs. Then he dove into her fast and hard.

  The last time had been slow, soft. But somehow, this was better. It was more primal, more animal, and unlocked something inside her that wanted this and only this. She was suddenly full of demands, full of need.

  He thrust into her over and over, lifting her leg so he could pound into her deeper. She moved against him in time. She spread her legs open more fully, grabbed his muscled ass, wrapped her legs around his waist. She wanted every inch of his cock buried deep.

  He groaned at her touch, rewarding her with another hard lunge that coaxed her core to its boiling point.

  "Come for me, baby," he demanded.

  And she did.

  She screamed in pleasure. She could hear herself screaming--knew she was loud, but she didn't care. It felt too good. There was no keeping it in.

  She felt his tremors too, heard his cries. He pulsed inside her, only kicking her pleasure higher, making it last longer.

  Finally, he collapsed onto her trembling body. He circled her in his arms, rolled so they were on their sides, him still intimately inside her. She never wanted him to go.

  His lungs heaved against her cheek. Her breath puffed into his chest hair.

  As they calmed, he combed her wet locks with his fingers, soothing her wild heart back to its place inside her chest.

  She felt herself drifting toward sleep, and was suddenly afraid that if she slept he would leave for his own bed.

  "Don't go," she said. "Okay?"

  "You're mine," he whispered into her hair. "And I will never let you go."

  #

  Their life at the cabin quickly took on a routine, one that Annika was only too delighted with. In the mornings, they'd have coffee together on the porch swing, huddled in blankets as the sunrise melted a little bit more of the mountain snow. In the afternoons, they'd shift and swim in the river or go for a long run. At night, they'd build a fire and she'd settle in to read one of the many books on his shelves or watch a movie, tucked under his arm on the sofa. Then they'd make love and fall asleep folded into each other at night. It was a beautiful little life.

  But Annika also knew that time was running short. Maxwell would turn thirty-five at the end of the week, and he'd made no mention of returning to the palace to fulfill his promise.

  She brought it up at breakfast the next morning.

  "You have to go soon," she said, swirling her pancakes into syrup.

  He looked at her blankly for a moment.

  "You promised to abdicate. Unless you want to be Emperor? You still can. I won't ... I won't stop you."

  "Oh, that," he said. "I haven't forgotten. And I haven't changed my mind."

  "Can I ask why you don't want to be the Emperor?"

  "Why would I? I didn't grow up in it. I don't know my mother or my brothers, and I barely know anything about the shifter community. It has nothing to do with me."

  "For what it's worth, I think you'd be great at it," she said. "Shifters could use someone in leadership who's as strong and kind as you."

  Max looked at her. "That's nice of you to say, but I like my life simple. Like this right now, having breakfast here with you, no one to bother us. I'm just a regular guy. I'm no Emperor, Annika."

  She disagreed. But she wasn't going to try to talk him into it. If he took the job, he'd have to leave her behind. And she wasn't selfless or stupid enough to rally for him to do that.

  "Well, if you're set on abdicating," she said, "Then you need to go soon."

  "Yes. But I'm not going alone. You're coming with me."

  "But--but, Maxwell ... I can't."

  "Why not?" he asked.

  Annika's chest tightened. Did he not know? Had they been together this whole time and he didn't understand? She realized she knew almost nothing about his knowledge of the palace.

  "How much do you remember, from when you were a child?"

  "You mean before I left the palace?" he asked.

  She nodded.

  "Very little. Small moments, mostly. Playing with my brothers. Seeing my mother sip her coffee. Hearing my father laugh."

  "Do you remember how he died?" she asked.

  "I remember that he was assassinated, and being sent away not long after. But the details are fuzzy."

  "It was my father, Max. My father killed yours. And then your mother nearly killed him. He barely survived her attack."

  Maxwell furrowed his brow and stared at her for a long moment. She thought she could see a battle there behind his eyes--a fight between anger and control.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I thought you knew."

  Maxwell blew out a long breath. "I didn't. But it makes more sense why he wants to kill me."

  "So you understand, don't you, why I can't come to the palace? Why I can never go there? I'm a Zoltag. They'd kill me on sight."

  Maxwell met her eye. "You're not a Zoltag. Not anymore. They'll have you there, Annika, or they won't have me."

  "Max. Be reasonable. I'm perfectly safe here. And it will only take you a couple of days. I can tell you where it is. You could be there by tonight if you wanted."

  "We could be there," he said. "I'm not leaving you alone and unprotected. That's non-negotiable."

  Annika sighed. He was being stubborn and bull-headed. He didn't even know what he was asking.

  "If they want to retain control so badly, those are my terms," he said. "It's very little to ask."

  "Well, I'm not just going to show up there unannounced," she said, getting up from the table to put her plate in the sink. "It's a suicide mission. And you promised you'd go."

  "Fine," he said. "Then I'll call them and tell them you're coming."

  "You'll what?" she asked. Could he really just have a phone number to reach the palace?

  "I'll call them," he said, getting up from the table. "Right now."

  Chapter Thriteen

  Maxwell

  "It's Maxwell," he said. Then he uttered the code listed inside the letter from his aunt. "Verus filius redit imperatorem."

  "Yes, Your Highness," the voice on the other end said, awed. What kind of operation was this? "One moment, please."

  He heard a flurry of activity, the sounds of someone running over a hard surface. His mind flashed with the image of long, stone hallways.

  Then a voice. Her voice. It knifed into his heart the moment he heard it.

  "Maxwell?" she said. "Is it really you?"

  "As far as I know," he sa
id.

  "Where are you? I'll send a plane." Her voice was warm, ecstatic.

  "I want to abdicate," he said.

  "You--you what?"

  "You heard me. I don't want any part of any of this. I want to abdicate."

  "Very well," his mother said, her voice more steadied now, more cold. "I will accept your words at the palace."

  "About that," he said. "I'm bringing someone with me."

  "Your mate?" she asked.

  "Yes. A Zoltag." Then, his voice so cocky even he was annoyed with himself, he added, "You don't mind, do you?"

  His mother's words came out as a command, not a capitulation. "Absolutely not," she said. "She's not welcome here. No Zoltag will ever cross the gates as long as I'm alive."

  "No? I really don't think you get to tell me that. I'm pretty sure you need me a lot more than I need you right now. I'm coming with her, or I'm not coming at all."

  "Then you're not coming," his mother repeated.

  "Fine," he said. "Have a nice life."

  Then he hung up the phone and went back down to the kitchen where Annika was clearing the dishes.

  "How'd that go?" she asked. Her tone said she knew full well it had gone terribly.

  "We haven't come to agreeable terms yet," he growled. "But we will."

  "Just go see them," she said. "I'll be fine."

  "Absolutely not, Annika," he said.

  She sighed, studied him for a moment. Then her expression seemed to change, soften.

  "Want to go for a run?" she asked.

  "Yes," he said, nostrils still flared. "And I'd put money on the fact that there will be a message waiting for me when we return."

  #

  There was not a message on Max's phone when they returned. Nor did anyone call for the rest of the day.

  It really pissed him off. She was being unreasonable. It wasn't Annika who had killed his father. Annika had been a victim just like his father had. But his mother hadn't bothered to ask a thing about her--not even her name. She'd refused him blindly, without so much as a single question.

  It was her loss. Anyone who met Annika would be lucky to know her.

  He didn't care if they all burned in hell.

  He went to bed that night with a fire in his belly that made it difficult to sleep. A noise late into the night woke him. It was a rush of air, the purr of an engine, and finally, the squeal of tires. Was someone landing on his goddamn runway?

  He bolted out of bed, waking Annika, and looked out the window.

  It was a plane all right. A jet.

  "Hide," he demanded. "In the basement. There's a false panel on the east wall. Lock the door and don't come out until I--"

  "No," Annika said, the look in her eyes solid, resolute. "If he's here, you're not fighting alone."

  Max's heart plummeted to his gut. No way was he letting her father even lay eyes on her again, much less fight her. His gut told him to toss her over his shoulder and put her in the room himself, but the lock was on the inside, not the outside, and he suspected she might have some choice words about that option. He searched his mind for a solution.

  "You said you had a lot of brothers, right? If they only see me, maybe there's a chance we won't have to fight at all. And if we do, then you'll be closer to the weapons. We can come at them from two directions. You know how to shoot, right?"

  She studied him for half a second. "Yes."

  "Then please, Annika," he begged. "Hide. Now."

  She nodded, then dressed quickly and ran downstairs. He pulled the Glock from his bedside table and was right behind her. When he saw her safely down the stairs, he raced out the front door, gun drawn.

  The plane's hatch opened, and three giant figures stepped out, silhouetted by the moon.

  He fired off a warning shot, and the figures spooked, ducked. Only one stayed standing, raising his arms in surrender.

  "Turn around," he said. "Get back in your plane and get the fuck off my property."

  "Please, Maxwell, we just want to talk," the standing figure shouted. "We're unarmed."

  Something about the voice made him hesitate. It sounded familiar. It sounded like his own.

  "State your name," he shouted.

  "Hudson," he said. "Hudson Royce. Your brother."

  Chapter Fourteen

  Maxwell

  "How'd you find me?" Max asked, his gun still trained on Hudson.

  "We've been looking for you everywhere. Mom thought you'd call eventually, so we had tracers set up on the phones. My security team tracked you down from there."

  Max knew well enough that his phone was traceable--all phones were traceable if you had the right equipment--but it took some high-level, illegal-as-shit hacking to pull it off. And some very, very expensive toys. He'd never imagined anyone would have either the skill or the desire to pull it off, especially a family that had wanted to get rid of him so badly.

  "Just put down the gun, and I'll explain everything. I promise," Hudson said.

  This guy really thought Max was just going to put down his weapon without even searching him? With the way they'd shown up unannounced? Screw that.

  "Come here. Just you first," he said. "The other two stay on the ground."

  Hudson obeyed. As he came closer, Max could see the family resemblance. At least the guy wasn't lying about the brother part. Didn't make the situation any better, necessarily, but at least there was that.

  Max kept his gun aimed at Hudson, and an eye on the other two. If any of them were trained in combat, they were doing a good job faking it. Any guy worth his salt would have taken the three-against-one odds and fought.

  These guys weren't fighting. They hadn't moved from their positions or reached for weapons. But Max wasn't about to take any chances.

  He patted Hudson down--he was clear.

  "Like I said, we're unarmed. All of us."

  "Quiet." Max pressed the Glock to his temple. Then he shouted to the two standing by the plane. "You, near the stairs. You're next. If either of you does anything to make me nervous, Hudson eats it. Are we clear?"

  "Clear," the next guy said, coming forward. His hair was so short, he almost didn't have any. His face grew clearer as he approached.

  "State your name," Max commanded as he patted the guy down, keeping the Glock trained on Hudson.

  "Sam," he said, sounding completely annoyed.

  No, not Sam, Max thought. Sammy. Deep in the recesses of his mind, he remembered.

  You weren't supposed to have favorites. But Sammy had been his favorite. Loyal. Brave. Sammy used to follow him around everywhere, trying to do everything Max did.

  He forced the memories back down. Things had changed since they were boys. They were no longer the children Max remembered. They'd spent their entire lives being pampered in the palace, while Max had been sent away. They were adults now too, and just as guilty as his mother. He didn't know them at all anymore.

  He shoved Sam and Hudson over to a nearby tree. "Hands on the trunk," he said.

  They obeyed.

  "Your turn," he shouted. The last guy loped forward, his flop of hair blowing in the breeze. He had to be Elliott. The baby. The last time Max had seen him, he wasn't even crawling yet.

  Max repeated the process. Elliott was clean too. Max shoved him toward the tree with the others.

  "Nice to meet you too, brother," Elliott said sarcastically.

  "Who else is on board?" Max asked.

  "Nobody," Hudson said. "Just the pilot."

  "Tell him to come out."

  "Look, he has nothing to do with this, okay?" Sam said.

  "He's here on my property without an invitation. That makes him involved."

  "Oh, for Christ's sake," Elliott said, rolling his eyes.

  Hudson elbowed him to shut him up. "We obviously made an error in judgment coming here like this. We should have asked first."

  "No shit you should have asked first," Max barked.

  "We were excited," Sam said, still sounding annoyed.
"We were looking forward to seeing you."

  Max kept his demeanor stony. He wasn't falling for any emotional ploys either.

  "You see that window up at the house? The dark one on the corner?" Max asked, pointing. "My girl is in there with a sniper rifle. And she's a damn good shot." It was a lie. But it was all he had. "You keep your palms on that tree while I go in for the pilot, or she'll blow your fucking brains out, understand?"

  "Yep. I think we're pretty clear about the impending doom to our brains," Elliott said. Max could hear the eye roll in his tone. Looked like he'd found the dumb one.

  "Shut the fuck up, Elliott," Hudson said. "Before you get us shot."

  "He's a fucking Navy SEAL, idiot," Sam said.

  And the smart ones, too.

  "That's right. I'm a fucking Navy SEAL. And fucking Navy SEALs do not fuck around. So I suggest you listen to your elders, you little shit."

  And with that, he made his way toward the plane, sidestepping and shifting his lookout between his brothers and the hatch door.

  The pilot spooked when he saw the gun, but otherwise came easy. And the rest of the plane was clear too. The idiots hadn't brought a single weapon with them. They'd flown onto a Navy SEAL's property uninvited and hadn't thought to arm themselves.

  He'd say one thing for his brothers. They were some lucky motherfuckers.

  "All right, you can relax," he said, holstering his weapon. "You were being square with me, and I appreciate that. Now what the fuck do you want?"

  A fist sailed through the air and landed on his jaw. It was the baby, and he had some power behind his punch.

  But so did Max. He socked Elliott right in the gut.

  After that, it was sort of hard to figure out who was hitting whom. Punches were flying everywhere. Max was at the center of a tumble of his brothers, each one kicking harder than the others.

  BANG.

  A shot rang out over their heads.

  They all startled, stopped.

  Max looked up. Annika was standing there with his rifle.

  "Break it up, boys," she said. "And come inside. It sounds like you have some things to discuss."