Green's Hill Werewolves, Volume 2

by Amy Lane

  But I did. And now that Jacky had declared his allegiance to us, I guessed Teague felt like his allegiances were perfectly clear. And Katy? Well, Katy had always loved them both. Unconditionally. I liked to think her life was a little bit easier now.

  The last day, as we were sitting at the beach, she came to sit next to me for a moment. Bracken took the moment to wander off in search of food—he’d been eating a lot lately and kept trying to drag me down into his evil vortex of calorie consumption as well. I wished he’d stop. Not only was I sort of queasy these days, but it was making me feel bloated.

  “How you doing?” I asked, enjoying her pretty smile. Katy was always so quiet and self-possessed. I felt grubby next to her, and green and young, but she seemed to like me, and I was honored that she wanted to be my friend.

  “I think we’re going to live. How ’bout you?”

  I shrugged. “You know us. Nothing’s bleeding, Bracken and I aren’t fighting, all must be right with the world.”

  Katy leaned in to me and spoke quietly. In the house, with all that wood to echo, she might as well have been shouting to the heavens—but here at the beach, with the waves and the wind, the gulls and the far-off sea lions… well, I’d never thought of it, but this must be what real privacy felt like.

  “You know Teague bonded to us, right?”

  I stared at her, surprised. Teague’s lack of bonding had been a source of concern for him and contention with Jacky practically since their marriage ceremony back in February. He’d actually come to me and Bracken about it—an act of self-revelation that had been the equivalent of Teague going without his skin.

  “That’s wonderful!” I said, meaning it. I would never doubt his loyalty—I was just glad he was happy.

  “You want to know why?” she asked, putting an earnest hand on my knee, and I blushed.

  “If you’re going to give me details about your sex lives, no.”

  Katy laughed, and it was low and charming. Then she shook her head. “No, not like that. He bonded because he and Jacky, they’re on the same team now. They’re on your team. You—I know you feel bad about what you had to do to keep us safe, to make that battle go. I know you do. But you protected your people, you protected yourself. It can be an ugly world, you know?”

  I nodded, not wanting to think about it. Even here, looking out on the expanse of blue ocean, came with the knowledge of ugliness. Somewhere out there, man’s dumb fucking ignorance and greed had made a place like this a sewer of filth, and men didn’t have a corner on the ignorance and greed market—although they did seem to have mastered the self-destruction caveat that came with it.

  “I know,” I said softly. Oh Goddess. All the blood on my hands—how could I not?

  “Well, you kept it beautiful for us,” she murmured. I smiled back, feeling weepy. I really wished this whole aftermath thing or whatever that was just ripping my emotions all over the planet would go away. I hated crying.

  “You guys make me believe in beauty,” I told her, and we both looked to where Teague, in a rare moment of true relaxation, was leaning back into Jacky’s arms like any other lover on the beach. He really was beautiful. They all were. Maybe like me and my lovers… or, well, at least my lovers.

  “They almost don’t need me,” she said softly, and I shook my head, positive that wasn’t true.

  “They’d self-destruct without you,” I told her, meaning it. “You’re the chocolate in the middle of the cookie, sweetheart. They’d crumble without you.”

  Katy laughed, the kind of laugh where she threw her head back and shouted that laughter to the blue sky. “A good thing to hear, mami. I like to think that myself.”

  Then she stood and kissed my cheek. “I know you want to go home tonight, but you take care of yourself, okay? You don’t go do no ninja-bitch shit without your men. Not until they’re okay with it, right? We need you. We’d die for you. You gotta give us a reason to believe.”

  I shrugged, embarrassed, but before I could come up with a reply, Bracken was there with a couple of loaves of sourdough bread, some hummus, and some salami, and suddenly I was starving. We called the guys over and had an impromptu picnic there in the sand, and Mario and LaMark and Nicky came in from where they’d been circling over the waves and landed, and we fed their bird forms salami and bread with ginger fingers.

  It was a good day, but I was still happy when it was over and we were purring through the night in the back of the Cadillac on our way home to see Green.

  Jack and Teague and Katy would be along in a few days, I knew, and I hoped the privacy would do them good.

  Teague—Being

  IT HAD been hard to see Cory and the others go, but she’d left the vampires there for protection on the ride home, and Joshua had doubled the hill’s magic perimeter, and it was obvious that Cory needed the solace of the hill.

  All Teague needed was the solace of his lovers.

  When Cory and Bracken left, they were able to move the big hospital bed out of the living room, which made it a much more comfortable space, and Jack, Teague, and Katy all got to sleep down in the guest bedroom in the big king-sized bed.

  Teague would remember forever the moment he awoke the morning after his queen had left and it was just him and his lovers, skin to skin, without any pain to come between them.

  Cinnamon had kicked Jack and Katy out of the room the night before, laying hands on his shoulders, his neck, his hips, and his thighs for the first time since she’d relieved his pain so he could turn from wolf to man. Another less than stellar moment in his history—if she hadn’t been there, he was pretty sure he would have thrown up or passed out. Goddess, he was tired of pain. Her touch was as impersonal as it had always been, but she stopped in the middle and looked up.

  “You’re bonded, werewolf.”

  Teague had blushed and nodded. He’d felt it earlier that evening when he’d offered Ellis a quick snack from his wrist. It was courtesy—all the werecreatures offered blood easily after their first months on the hill. Teague was no exception, and Ellis, a pretty kid with a hot temper, had reminded Teague a lot of Jacky, in spite of his smaller stature and slighter frame. But when Ellis had bitten and endorphins had flooded Teague’s bloodstream—the pain cessation, especially after they had brought him home after the attack, had been exquisite—the endorphins had been all he’d felt.

  There had been no arousal, no awareness, no… anything.

  Katy had told him the night before that she’d felt it. He’d understood what she meant when Ellis licked his skin and he didn’t even notice a strong hand held his wrist. Cinnamon’s happy, clinical prodding confirmed it.

  “I have,” he said quietly.

  “So what changed?” the elf wanted to know. She sounded concerned—and he couldn’t blame her, since he’d set himself up to be the queen’s bodyguard and all.

  “Jacky did,” Teague told her, his voice resonating chest-deep with pride.

  Cinnamon looked at him with something approaching fondness. “So your beta wolf is truly your partner now. That is something. How’d you manage that?”

  Teague blushed. “I didn’t do anything,” he muttered. “Jacky did it all by himself.”

  Cinnamon laughed. “Oh, aren’t you lucky, Master Werewolf. As it turns out, some things don’t need to be reached for—they just come to you if you earn them.”

  Teague thought about that whimper. The one time in his life he’d ever let weakness voluntarily escape him. “I reached a little,” he confessed, embarrassed.

  Two maternal fingers grasped his chin and forced him to meet a quizzical pair of red-brown eyes with more than enough wisdom for the both of them.

  “Something you should never be embarrassed about, sir knight,” Cinnamon said softly. “And you know in your bones that’s something Green would tell you as well.”

  Teague’s mouth twitched up at the ends. “Cory too.”

  “Cory too.”

  She’d pronounced him sound and whole, if still a litt
le weak. The weakness would continue for another week or so—as well as the hairlessness where the plaster of the cast had ripped at his hair as he’d transitioned—but he was perfectly able to walk, run, and as she said, get in on some of the hot werewolf action that had been going on in his mates’ bed.

  Of course, when he’d gotten to bed the night before, Jacky and Katy were nearly asleep and just so glad to have him there between them that “hot werewolf action” consisted of lots of snuggling and skin stroking and that was about it.

  This morning, Teague woke up between his mates and was very, very aware that his body was sound and whole and well and hungry.

  He wrapped his arms around Katy and pulled her tight, pressing his erection into the soft flesh of her backside, and she groaned.

  “Oh, I missed this…mmmm….”

  “Missed this”—snuggle—“or missed that?” He thrust his hips forward. She giggled, and then Jacky did the same thing to Teague that Teague was doing to Katy.

  Teague groaned, tightened his embrace around Katy, and shuddered. Oh Christ. He… he could barely breathe for the fire of want that pulsed in his belly and racked his limbs. Katy stopped giggling and with a quick move shucked her panties to her knees and then kicked them off. She took Teague’s arm, which was wrapped around her shoulders, and shifted so his hand was on her breast, and her nipple butted hard and insistent and tender under his palm. Jack’s hand came around his hips, and when Katy angled her thigh, Jack grasped Teague’s cock and placed him at Katy’s already slick entrance. Katy moaned and slid down him, and Teague’s body flooded with desire and must have must have must have must have….

  He was pounding into Katy hard enough to shake the bed, and Jacky was at his back, caressing his shoulders, his back, his hips, and Teague… oh Goddess, he wanted them both so bad… so damned bad….

  Jacky’s big hands framed his face from behind, and Teague leaned tensely into them. Two fingers slipped into his mouth, and Teague sucked on them hard while his hips continued to move. He wanted more pressure, he wanted more control than he could get at this angle, but he didn’t want to lose Jacky at his back, so he kept doing what he was doing. Katy groaned and lifted her leg, throwing it backward around his knees, and he used that to move faster. Then Jack pulled the fingers from his mouth, and—

  Oh Christ.

  Jack had never done this before. He’d never even tried it before. He knew Teague had issues, he’d been respectful of Teague’s boundaries, but his fingers… they traced their way to Teague’s backside, to his entrance. He stopped for a moment, but Teague forced himself to keep moving, so Jack took advantage. Keeping pace with Teague’s rhythm, he slid a finger inside Teague’s asshole, and for a minute Teague’s rhythm was actually the shuddering of his body as a new element of intimacy, a new pleasure, almost made him lose track of what he was doing.

  Another finger joined it, and together they started to stretch. Teague made a noise, a throbbing, cracked cry into Katy’s shoulder, and tried to keep his head while he thrust inside her with as much force as he could.

  Jacky was going to… he was going to… he wanted to….

  There was a snick—Jack must have kept the bottle by the bed—and then the fingers inside him grew oily and slick, and they were stretching, making him loose, easing inside him, making him ready.

  Jack spoke into the hollow of his ear. “You have to want this. I know it feels good, but you have to want this. You’ll have the rhythm. You’ll have the control. And you’ll have both of us. Do you want this?”

  Teague could only grunt and nod. His pounding stopped for a moment, and he stayed still, quivering, while Katy whimpered and writhed around him, tightening her muscles and begging him for more.

  Jack’s fingers stretched him wide, and Teague whimpered just like Katy. Then Jack’s cock took their place, and Teague couldn’t help the sound, the roar that came out of him. He thrashed for a moment—backward until Jack was buried to the hilt, forward until he was buried in Katy, and then back again. Everything in his body sang fire. Every pulse of his blood screamed pleasure. It was them, his lovers inside him and outside him. He was cloaked in the flesh of those he loved best.

  He lost finesse and reason and just kept moving, just kept fucking, being fucked, being loved, searing the feeling of Jacky’s cock deeply inside his body and glorying in the wet heat of Katy as it sucked at him and gave him power.

  Then Jack adjusted his angle and hit something inside Teague, and he came just a little. He thrust forward and then back and came just a little again, and again, and again, and again, until his eyes were blind and the screams coming out of his mouth and into Katy’s hair were hoarse and ragged.

  “Papi!” Katy screamed—in agony, she was so close—and Teague remembered his responsibilities and moved his hand down her mound, fumbling for a moment with the fleshy slickness of her until he found the swollen bundle of nerves that would send her over. Over she went, screaming into her shoulder, spasming around him, gripping him so tight it was almost painful. Then Jack thrust so hard into him that Teague was surprised Jack wasn’t fucking Katy, and Teague’s vision went black and stars exploded behind his eyes. His cock swelled and spurted, his orgasm burning through it, and even as he felt Jacky come in his body, he came into Katy’s.

  They couldn’t speak for a few moments—none of them. They just trembled around each other, blind and panting and grateful.

  Katy turned in his arms and kissed him. She tasted so sweet—God, he loved kissing her. She was everything a woman should taste like, sweet and tart, and wet and soft and willing. Then Jack’s hand came around and cupped his chin, and they managed an awkward, needing kiss from behind, and Teague almost cried with the taste of Jack on his tongue. His Jacky—his and no one else’s. Jacky, who stood beside him, who would stand beside him as they did their job and served their queen and made a life for their family that they could be proud of and protect. He didn’t cry, because Teague didn’t cry. But it was a near thing.

  Eventually, though, their breathing stilled, and Teague’s stomach grumbled, and Katy laughed and kissed him again and slid out of his arms. “I’ll go fix you two breakfast, okay, papi? Let me shower first, and I’ll be back.” She stopped and looked at them firmly.

  “And no fights while I’m gone. I don’t want to get back and find Teague halfway to home because Jacky was an asshole, okay? You promise me, okay?”

  Teague smiled his best fuck-me grin. “Sugar, I promise I have no plans today that involve moving far from this bed.”

  Behind him, he heard Jack gasp—because Teague was a workaholic and they all knew it—but Katy took him at his word. She came back to bed and kissed his forehead.

  “I’ll hold you to that. Us in bed, all day. Tonight we take a tour of the property as wolves. It’ll be good. I love you—even you, Jacky, you asshole. Let me make you breakfast.”

  And then she disappeared, leaving Jacky—still inside Teague, still deliciously there even though he was growing soft in the come that had filled Teague just moments ago—chuckling in his ear.

  “You liked that?” he asked, needing reassurance, and Teague nodded carefully.

  “Not all the time,” he asserted, because he did like to be in charge, and he really liked to fuck Jacky blind, but… but this morning, it had been perfect.

  “Oh, of course,” Jacky said, the smile evident in his voice. “I love you, you know. I’d do anything for you. I’d let you fuck me blind every day of the week”—and he often had—“but sometimes… sometimes I want to give to you too. Is that okay?”

  Teague smiled a little and closed his eyes even as Jacky slid out of his body and warm spend began to trickle down Teague’s thighs. “That’s fine, beloved. You and me—as long as we’re together and Katy’s there with us, I think everything is fine.”

  It would have to be, he thought, clasping Jack’s arm to his chest. Cory was pregnant. She’d be helpless. She’d need them, probably all three of them. But Jacky was with him. J
acky would help him serve. It was, he realized, all he’d ever wanted and feared to reach for.

  He’d keep reaching for it now. He would, because his mates needed him, and he’d reach for anything to keep them happy.

  Even happiness for himself. Even the contentment of just, for the moment, being.

  Purple

  Amy’s Alternative Universe Romance

  In the world of the Little Goddess

  Teague Sullivan and Jack Barnes work in the dangerous gray area between the natural and supernatural worlds, helping people who get separated from the safety of Green’s Hill find their way home. Teague’s in the game for redemption—but Jack’s in the game for Teague.

  Teague is damaged, haunted, and about the loneliest man Jack has ever met, but Jack sees beyond Teague’s scars and gruffness to the kindness and bravery underneath. Teague is pretty sure Jack’s a green idealist—a scarred old dog like Teague will never be good enough for a sweet young pup like his Jacky.

  When Jack is injured, the two hunters are sucked into the paranormal world they’ve been defending. Teague must reevaluate everything he’s believed about their relationship. While Teague is sorting out his life both with Jacky and as a member of Green’s Hill, Katy steps into the mix. She’s loved Teague since she was a child, and that love has only gotten stronger now that they’ve survived into adulthood. Teague Sullivan, who has lived “without” since he was born, is suddenly given all the things that make live worth living “with.” Does Teague have the courage to reach for two lovers and a place on Green’s Hill?

  A Green’s Hill Collection

  Companion to the Little Goddess Series

  Welcome to Green’s Hill, a small, secret collective of the fey, furry, and undead, existing unnoticed in the California foothills for over a hundred and fifty years. Whether your passion is exotic were-animals, angels, elves, or vampires, you can find them here—although things are changing on the hill.