by Alexis Wilde
And it was too much.
Natalie’s back arched, forced into a curve that would have been impossible if Jackson wasn’t supporting her. Her body rippled, bloomed as he thrust so deep inside her that she couldn’t begin to guess where he ended and she began. All she knew was that he fucked her. He marked her.
Uncompromising, unafraid.
Everything she desperately wanted and more.
She came with his fingers in her mouth, his cock buried to the hilt in her sex, and the prickling sensation of her skin as it knit around the bite that should have been the seal on his claim.
Instead, a black wall swamped her vision, rolled the world out from under her. As her climax crested its highest peak, Natalie’s consciousness collapsed.
Chapter Ten
Jackson braced himself against the bar counter, a bottle of water in one hand and sweat still drying on his skin. His heart thundered in his chest, still savage even after Natalie had passed out in his arms. He’d cleaned her up, tucked her back into bed, and restrained the hungry demands of a wolf that demanded he try again. Try, try and keep on trying until her wolf gave herself up in weary submission.
It took everything he had to leave her sleeping soundly, peacefully, instead of fucking her into submission.
Under that primal beat, worry gnawed at him.
He smelled Nico before the other man stepped inside the kitchen. It shot a spike of aggression through his senses, slapped another wave of adrenaline into his already fraying control.
The bottle crushed in his hand. Water exploded in a cool spray that pattered his hot skin.
Jackson cursed, long and savage.
“That was some soundtrack.” Nico’s voice was low. Carefully non-aggressive as he hooked a towel from the hook by the oven and tossed it over.
Jackson caught it, threw it over the mess on the counter top and focused on glaring that into submission instead of the man he wanted to be his alpha. “Fuck,” was all he could manage.
Nico chuckled. “Succinct. And obvious. What happened?”
“I don’t know.” He shifted his weight, dropped the wet towel to the floor and used his foot to clean up the water there. Droplets trickled down his chest, soaked into the waistband of his jeans, but he left it. It felt good against his superheated skin. “I gave it everything I got, man. Didn’t hold anything back.”
The other man skirted the circle of water. His wolf-pale eyes gleamed as he studied Jackson’s chest and neck. The wounds she’d inflicted were already well on the way to fading, but Jackson knew Nico saw them when his mouth hiked up in a lazy grin. “So I see,” he replied. “But nothing?”
“Nothing.” And he wanted to break something for it. “It felt right, Nico. I swear to God, it felt right. It just didn’t…” Jackson fumbled for the word, feeling slow and clumsy and angry for it.
Nico stopped on the other side of the counter, folded his forearms and leaned on it. His grin faded to a thoughtful line. “It didn’t click.”
“Yeah.” Jackson stared down at his feet. Then caught himself and met Nico’s gaze instead. “She wants to be claimed, Nico.”
“I know she does.” He rubbed at his jaw. “So does her wolf. Bad.”
“Then why?”
“Don’t know.” He reached across the counter and snagged an apple from a wide green bowl. “Maybe she and her primal nature are still hashing it out. Maybe her wolf needs more than she’s gotten.”
The answers didn’t make Jackson feel any better. They just made him feel worse—worse because he couldn’t figure out what Natalie needed, because he couldn’t give her what he didn’t know, and most of all, because he felt like he was letting her down. It ate at him, a black stain in his heart.
Battering at his pride.
The sound of Nico’s teeth tearing through the apple grated like knives against his awareness. Jackson’s teeth flashed before he caught himself.
Nico wasn’t so slow that he didn’t notice the effort. “Hey.” He pointed at Jackson across the counter with the same hand he held the apple with. “Keep this in mind: it’s up to her.”
“I know,” Jackson snarled, and felt every bit the broken record he sounded like. “Fuck, I know, okay? It’s just… it’s killing me, Nico. Not knowing what she wants. Even if it isn’t me, I just want to—”
“Give her everything.” Nico’s teeth gleamed with a smile that reached his eyes. “Yeah. I know. But you have to remember that it’s up to her. It means,” he added, stressing the words as Jackson took a breath to argue, “that she’ll work it out. Have some faith, Jackson.”
Trust. Faith. There was a lot of that being thrown around his way. Jackson swallowed his hot words and raked unsteady hands through his hair. “Yeah,” he sighed. A sharp sound. “I’m trying.”
“Good.” Nico bit off another chunk, took his time chewing. Then, after he swallowed the sweet fruit, added, “Meanwhile, I need your head in this game. Her pack’s here to bring her back.”
That stopped him cold. “The hell,” he snarled, every inch of him prickling like the savage wolf he couldn’t keep himself from being. Even on two legs, he felt ready to tear a body limb from limb.
Starting with the assholes who’d treated her like less than the incredible, beautiful, amazing woman that she was.
Nico straightened, apple held loosely in his fingers. “Victor brought an entourage. Not so big that we can argue, but big enough to be a problem if things go bad. The next few hours are going to be critical.”
No shit. Jackson took a deep breath, held it and closed his eyes. The images dancing behind his eyelids didn’t do much for his calm—Natalie naked, Natalie laughing, Natalie screaming as she orgasmed around his cock—but he didn’t need calm. He needed control.
She was worth every effort.
His heart thundered. He rode the anger. The savage need.
Rode the impatience.
When he exhaled, he opened his eyes to find Nico watching him with approval. He flashed a smile and tossed him the half-eaten apple. “Get some calories in you. I’m gonna need you in fighting form.”
He caught it easily, transferred his grip to the ends and licked the juices that splattered his palm. “You think Victor will want a fight?”
“I think if she doesn’t go with them,” Nico replied, “Victor will have no choice.”
Jackson’s spine locked. His eyes narrowed on Nico’s expression, which betrayed nothing of his thoughts. Nothing of his plans. It never did.
But trust. He’d learned to trust the mercenary leader.
They all had.
Even so, Jackson couldn’t help the growl that trickled from his lips. “She’s not fucking going back.”
Nico’s laugh was quiet, but it bit nonetheless. “It’s up,” he said gently, “to her.”
* * *
“No.” Natalie crossed her arms over her chest, clutching at the sweatshirt one of the men had let her borrow. She didn’t know which—it smelled fresh and clean, worn soft and faded where a sports team logo had been. Her chin came up, even if she did feel like something of a waif standing in flannel pajama bottoms and the too-big sweatshirt.
Every last eye settled on her. Only Alek’s and Nico’s expressions seemed unsurprised. They sat on opposite sides of the living area, each claiming a chair, while Damien leaned against the back of Alek’s and watched her with something thrumming under the surface. Something both hungry and delighted by her firm outburst. Trouble-maker, through and through, but she could count on his support for this. She knew it.
Damien, in the human form that looked exactly like his brother’s, still startled her. She was so used to his wolf form that she forgot sometimes that there were two of them with the same face.
Same face, but different in every other way.
Ben looked like he’d swallowed thumbtacks. His mouth twisted, but he said nothing. She’d learned enough about him that she knew she’d listen when he spoke, but she refused to be swayed by whatever he said. No ma
tter what.
It was Jackson who gave her exactly what she expected. “The fuck you say.”
“No, that’s what I do,” she shot back, “and I’m still saying no. I’m not hiding.”
Damien snorted, hiding his laugh behind his hand as he turned sideways to stare fitfully at nothing. Alek reached over and hooked an arm around his neck, pulling him tight against his side in a loose head-lock. Whatever he said in Russian, it had Damien turning red and digging an elbow into his brother’s ribs.
Nico held up a hand before anybody else could interject. “Speak your piece,” he said mildly. He leaned back in his chair, legs loosely crossed at the ankle.
No arguments. No aggression.
Jackson’s features blackened. His arms folded over his chest in the same way, but there was nothing defensive about his. He looked like he wanted to push away from the mantle he leaned against and grab her. Shake her. Hold her.
And take her. Again.
And again.
The mere thought of it filled her with conflicting emotions—fear of what she wanted, hunger for what he could give her. Terror that she was the mistake.
She’d woken up aching and feeling empty. Unmated.
Scared.
Her fingers clamped over her own arms. “I can’t stay here.”
She was all too aware of the breaths they all took, the sudden inhalation that signaled argument. Nico held up a hand before anyone could interrupt.
She wasn’t sure she could manage to say it all if they did. Her gaze pinned on him, desperate to get it all out. “I can’t stay here,” she repeated, “while you guys go off to face them. I have to talk see them, see Victor. I have to tell him I’m not going back.”
His pale eyes searched her face. “Why?”
“Because it’s my life,” she replied raggedly. “Because it has to be. There’s nothing for me there, and…” And everything for her here.
As if he could sense her uncertainties, her fears, Ben’s dark eyes filled with slow warmth.
It did more to ease the shaking fear inside her than anything she told herself. Support. God, she hadn’t known how strong it made her. How strong she could be when she didn’t have to fight for every little thing.
They didn’t demand she swallow her pride. Didn’t ask that she humble herself.
This pack of strays trying so hard to become family were all that she wanted.
But now it would cost them, and the thought scared her deeply.
She swallowed the ache in her throat before it welled up into the tears she didn’t want to shed. “I know it’s not perfect. Nothing is working out the way it’s supposed to.” Damn it. A tear rolled down her cheek. She brushed it impatiently away. “Maybe the mating thing is my fault—”
Alek stirred. “No.”
“No way,” Damien echoed flatly, crossing his hands into a T for timeout.
She didn’t realize that she’d edged closer to Jackson until a large, warm hand settled at her back. “Females are rare enough that there is no standard,” he said, and though she could feel the anger crackling through his voice, she knew him enough to know it wasn’t at her. Somehow, she could sense it.
He was angry at the situation. At the Yellow Canyon Pack, the demands Victor made of her, even at the fact that he couldn’t protect her.
Ben shifted his dark gaze to Nico. “Seems clear.”
“So it does.” Nico scratched at his scalp, easing his fingers through the loose bun he kept his hair in, and studied her with thoughtful interest. “I don’t even think we could argue her down, at this point.”
The hand at her back eased to her hip. She laced her fingers through it, but didn’t dare look at Jackson. If she did, if she saw the worry she knew he fostered in his stare, she’d crack.
Protecting them, protecting herself, meant it was time she stand up for what she wanted.
And that meant meeting Victor with every weapon at her disposal.
“Victor thinks he owns me,” she said, voice low. Nerves swirled in her belly, but she forced them down into a tight knot—of anger, of determination. She lifted her chin. “He doesn’t. He needs to know he doesn’t, and I can only think of one thing that he’ll pay attention to.”
Nico’s head tilted. “What do you want?” A phrase he asked so often.
One she was never getting tired of hearing. Her mouth eased up at one corner. “Mark me.”
Jackson’s fingers tightened at her hip. “What?”
“I want you to mark me,” she repeated. Her fingers cramped in the sleeves of her sweatshirt, but she couldn’t seem to let go. It wasn’t fear, exactly. Not quite nervousness. Anxiety of a sort, but also, anticipation.
Slow, sweet hunger.
A desperate urge. A last ditch effort. Everything, anything she could grasp.
Victor scared her in every way. His violence, his demands. The effortless way he could ignore her and what she wanted, force her to submit by sheer arrogance and overwhelming force.
She needed to make her voice heard. Make her will heard. She mattered.
She mattered to the wolves of the Lost River Valley and, damn it, she wanted everyone to know.
They wanted her. They wanted to protect her. They wanted to love her, and she…
Natalie wanted to acknowledge that with everything that she was.
Ben understood. He leaned forward in his chair, clasping his large hands together, elbows braced on his knees. “If she smells like us, if she’s marked by us—”
“—Then Victor’s claim loses something,” Nico finished slowly. “And we gain a bit of an upper hand.” His features were only unreadable in that the faint line of his smile didn’t shift, but his wintry eyes flicked to Alek and Damien with unmistakable authority. “What do you say?”
“With pleasure,” Damien replied. His body was still under Alek’s arm, shoulders tight, but his gaze raked over every inch of her body with deliberate appreciation.
The mirror image of his brother’s gaze didn’t roam, but pinned to Natalie’s. Maybe she was wrong about the question there, but she answered it anyway. “I want to feel you,” she whispered. A muscle jumped in Alek’s jaw. “All of you. I need to stand with all of you. Like…” Like she belonged.
Behind her, Jackson eased out a low, shuddering growl. “Then you’ll have us. Every one of us.”
This time, Nico’s smile slipped wider—a hitch at the corner that caused his eyes to crease. “Slow,” he cautioned. He didn’t have to. Jackson pushed her gently to the center of the room, left her to stand there alone in a ring of werewolves who all wore the faces of men but smelled like the predators they were. Rich and dark and deep, mysterious and powerful. Every one of them had branded themselves into her senses, into her skin and soul, until she could differentiate each male merely by his presence.
Could taste the fragrance in the air as each slowly let go of the control that leashed their primal natures.
But the one that overwhelmed them all belonged to the alpha male they all looked to.
Nico rose to his bare feet with slow, predatory ease. The flex of muscle under his clothes may have been invisible to the eye, but she could feel the rolling thunder of it as his power uncurled through the air. The heat of it, the pressure, slipped under her skin like a warm tide—somehow soothing and anticipatory all at once. She remembered all too well what it had been to be chased through the Lost River forest. Could all but feel the way his hands had gripped her, held her as he took her pussy while Jackson had filled her ass.
The thought left her aching and wet. Just like that.
Damien’s eyes dilated. “Holy God,” he breathed. “She smells good.” One of his hands fisted in Alex’s shirt.
His brother murmured assent, his gaze falling to the hem of her too large sweatshirt.
Natalie’s hands curled around it. With her breath sharp in her chest, she inhaled deeply and pulled the shirt over her head.
All eyes fell on her. Seared her skin. She could feel them
like hands upon her, cradling her lush breasts, easing over the wide flare of her hips. Nico murmured approval as she dropped the sweatshirt to her feet. “Bold.”
“Hungry,” she whispered.
His smile made her feel warm inside and out. “How hungry?”
“Desperate.”
“Empty?”
She nodded, a jerky motion that went still as he reached for her nape.
His grip wrapped hard round her neck and held her still. His animal eyes filled her vision, his power flooded her body until she was shuddering from the feel of it—warm, velvet softness that scraped her senses, rubbed her nerves.
Thrust like fingers into her sex.
“Then let us fill you,” he whispered, and seized her mouth with his.
She still wasn’t used to kissing. Not as easily as he did it. As fiercely. The act surprised her, but as Nico’s fingers tightened at her nape, angled her head for better access, his lips nudged hers open and his tongue swept inside.
Natalie’s moan tangled in his mouth. He took it, took her breath with his sheer presence. His arm banded around her lower back, dragging her close enough that her breasts flattened against his chest—the thin barrier of his own shirt was even too much for her sensitized nipples.
Nico didn’t let her back away. Didn’t ease even a fraction as she shuddered beneath his thorough, gentle assault.
When he finally let her come up for air, the room spun in a luscious haze. He smiled into her eyes, his own hungry but quiet. Controlled. “Do you trust us?”
She nodded.
His thumb bit into the side of her neck. She made a small sound, and he glanced down at the taut skin under his fingers. His teeth flashed, a wicked grin. Bending, he ran his tongue over the seam of his grip. Delved into the hollows where his own hand splayed, and shot conflicting sensations through her—the hot, wet glide of his tongue, the rough rasp of his hand.
The other slipped to her left nipple, seized the hard point between thumb and forefinger and rolled gently.
Her knees wobbled.