The Last Werewolf (The Weres of Europe)

by Denys, Jennifer; Laine, Susan

  As Leevi dropped behind her, nudging her legs further apart to settle between them, she felt his claws gripping her hips as he nudged his penis in her moist entrance, holding there, almost requesting permission.

  “Yessss. I need you.” Her body was throbbing with the need to couple with this wolf, this alpha. That in itself gave her a thrill, that an alpha would want to mate with her, a foreign little she-wolf who knew nothing about the wolf culture and way of life. When he suddenly plunged into her she howled in ecstasy and pushed her rump back against him. God, this was bliss.

  It took a moment for her to realize that Leevi had stopped moving and was growling very slightly. As the light from the doorway to the storeroom was blocked, she tensed and dropped out of wolf form, back into human. It was Rik.

  He stood still, now clothed again, looking rather stunned. “What?”

  Summer felt a mixture of emotions, guilt at Rik finding her with Leevi like this being the foremost. She tried to pull away from Leevi, but apart from withdrawing from her, he refused to let her rise.

  “I had to. We had to. It was necessary. A mating bond had begun, and you know how powerful it is,” explained Leevi, wrapping an arm around her waist to pull her upright as she struggled. Summer could hear the sorrow in his voice. It seemed at odds with his tight hold of her.

  Rik was silent for a second, blinking hard, and then he ran a nervous hand through his hair. “Hell, I certainly understand the call of a mating bond. I—er—I’ll go.”

  He started to turn away, dropping their clothes on the floor when Leevi called out, his voice gruff, “Don’t go. Please. We—I need you to join us. I’m bonded to you too, remember. Don’t leave me again, Rik.” His voice cracked at the end, and she felt a twinge of empathy.

  Summer watched as Rik stood undecided, his eyes bright, showing his misery at seemingly being rejected by the two of them, and unsure of what Leevi was now saying.

  She decided it was time for her to add her plea. “Hey, Wolverine. Get your butt over here. I need all the tutoring I can get if I am going to be a proper werewolf and not have to hide it from now on.”

  Rik stared at her, astonished, and hope was beginning to shine on his face once more. “You’re staying?”

  “Hell yes. Unless you tell me there are more of them out there?” That worried her, but Leevi just shushed her as he stroked her thigh.

  That got Rik moving, and he knelt down on one knee, cupping her face in his hand. “It’s all right. Their leader is dead.” Turning to look up at Leevi he went on to report, “There’s only two of them alive. The one in the lookout room has a broken leg, so he isn’t going anywhere, and the one in the room below, the one you gashed, was rolling around in agony. I’ve tied him up just in case.”

  Leevi leaned forward, and, gripping Rik around the neck, he gave him a quick, but deep, kiss. “Thank you. Well done.”

  Summer added her own thanks by caressing Rik’s hand as he held her, and felt the tingle of the bond again. Rik clearly felt it too as he jerked against her touch.

  “It looks like as mates we are a threesome. In that case we need to continue to solidify the bond,” Leevi stated firmly, without asking them to agree. He grinned a little ruefully at them, and, pushing Summer forward, he eased into her pussy once again. He wasn’t as full as he had been before, but as he thrust in a few times, Summer could feel him thickening again, and she groaned in response.

  “Um, guys. What shall I do?” Rik sat back on his heels, a little dazed and a lot aroused judging by the tent in his trousers.

  Actually, Summer felt bewildered too. She’d never been in a ménage before. In fact, she suspected none of them had. “Well, you can’t do much with them on,” she stated jokingly, nodding at his jeans.

  “I hate to contradict you, my little English wolf, but all a man needs to do is to free his cock. The rest of his clothes can stay on,” Leevi dryly retorted. Summer laughed at this, but was rather startled at his next suggestion. “You can take him in your mouth, can’t you, Summer?”

  “Er, yes. Hell, why not?” She had no problems giving a blow job. Neither did Rik have problems receiving one, judging by the alacrity with which he freed his cock, which was already quite stiff she noted with amusement, and shuffling in on his knees, he maneuvered himself until she could take him in her mouth. As Summer was on her hands and knees, Rik had to hold her face to keep her steady. Her nose close to his pubic hair, she breathed in his scent, heavy and pungent, quite musky. Her senses rioted as the briny taste of his cock hit her.

  The two men soon got a rhythm going, Leevi in, Rik in, Leevi in. Summer had never felt such intense sensations as her body thrummed with arousal. She felt her orgasm rising fast. Sucking hard on Rik every time he retreated, she was determined to bring him up to the same level as Leevi and herself.

  “Oh God. I’m coming,” Rik soon cried.

  “Christ, Rik, you are such a light-weight shifter,” mocked Leevi, much to Summer’s astonishment. He clearly had quite a dry sense of humor.

  “Fuck off. You won’t be far behind. I promise you that,” taunted Rik as he leaned forward, reaching over her. Summer guessed he was fondling Leevi’s balls. She found this so erotic that her climax suddenly jolted through her body, and her scream over Rik’s cock forced his orgasm to culminate. As she tried to gulp Rik’s come down, she felt Leevi pour his own spunk into her womb.

  The three of them collapsed in a heap on the floor, Leevi at Summer’s back, Rik in front of her. She could see Leevi reaching out a hand to tenderly stroke Rik’s face and Rik nuzzling into the brief touch. Then Rik in turn winked at her as he caressed her tender breasts. She felt protected between the two of them.

  Leevi heard something first and started to sit up as several men burst into the room. Summer screamed, afraid that more of Jaakko’s men were back. The leading duo moved aside to allow three older men to enter, all gray or white haired, the middle one with a pure white beard. Summer gripped Rik’s hand. She was less worried about the older men as they looked quite normal and dignified, but the younger ones were strong and muscular, and looked at her as fiercely as Jaakko’s men had. In fact, it was more than ferocity, it was disgust, and she suddenly felt dirty. Were these more werewolves? What was it that she had done that deserved all this animosity?

  Scurrying to her feet, she hid herself behind the two men with whom she had just had amazing sex, wishing Rik hadn’t dropped her clothes by the entrance. She could feel Rik’s hand on her back trying to calm her.

  Leevi, meanwhile, had moved in front of her and Rik. Summer watched, astonished, as he bowed respectfully. She guessed they were important people, although she could feel Rik tensing as he whispered in her ear, “They’re the honored Clan Elders.”

  The white-bearded man stepped forward, although they were all looking very somber, and almost angry. He spoke in English, “We hear about English woman. She is ihmissusi?”

  Leevi answered, “Yes, she is a werewolf. Her mother was from this clan.”

  “But her father, human?”

  “That is true, I believe.” Leevi looked at her for confirmation. She nodded. He explained to the elders, “Jaakko is dead. He challenged me, and I had to kill him.”

  The Clan Elders tutted and grumbled to themselves, and they spoke to each other quietly, but urgently. Summer wondered what they were saying. She discovered it was about her when Leevi suddenly gripped her and declared in English, “Summer is now my mate. I know you want me to marry a respectable woman from one of the other clans, but I prefer Summer over your choice of woman for me any day.” She looked up at him, stunned by this. Her shock was worsened when he then pulled Rik to him as well, and stated, “And Rik is also my mate. Both of them are.”

  Holy shit. Well, she wanted to find her family. And now she was bonded to the Clan Prime Alpha plus another werewolf. And this all happened in, what, a couple of days?

  Before she could come to grips with that, one of the elders shook his head. “This is bad, Lee
vi. We have to call meeting of Council.” Summer nearly smiled at his sing-song way of speaking. She hadn’t been particularly aware of this with Rik and Leevi, but then they were of the younger generation, more cosmopolitan. Her smile dropped when the elder continued, “There are doubts now over your leadership.”

  Chapter Ten

  As he was led down a dark, dimly lit underground corridor by the Enforcers, Leevi knew exactly what was going to happen.

  It was now the second night of the full moon and several hours since the fight with Jaakko and his pack, and the confrontation with the Council Elders. Leevi had been separated from Rik and Summer and had no idea where they had been held, but he still heard Rik’s cries of anger in his head as they were removed.

  He, himself, had been taken to Matias’s house, the former Prime Alpha of the clan, his predecessor, who had also been something of a mentor to him. When relinquishing that role the former Prime had taken on the job of Council spokesperson and caretaker of the house that Leevi had been held in, which was on the outskirts of Ruovesi. It had been a deliberate decision, he knew, to build it there at the turn of the 20th Century to avoid the prying eyes of the town’s folk, for in the grounds they had also dug a root cellar.

  That wasn’t uncommon in Finnish homesteads, but what was unusual was that the digging had continued deep underground to the room he was now being taken—to the Council assembly hall, called The Wolf’s Head Hall, or in Finnish, Sudenpääsali. This was one of several underground passages and bunkers that was all that saved the clan from extermination from the Southern and Northern clan during that war. His being the central clan, they had gotten caught in the middle of these two warring clans, and yet somehow managed to remain undetected.

  As he arrived in a well-lit room Leevi blinked. This room was a huge natural cavern, roughly square, now connected to the root cellar his forebears had dug by means of the corridor. The room was reinforced here and there by wooden pillars, but it was mostly rough-hewn walls of gray stone covered with woolen handmade tapestries depicting natural scenes—forests, lakes, wildlife, et cetera. As he turned his head his attention was instantly taken by the sight of Rik with anguished face sitting off to his left immediately behind the Council.

  Leevi swore. Rik was the last person he wanted to see witness the tribunal that was to follow. Wrenching his eyes away from the sight of his first love, they were then held by another set of distressed eyes, those of Summer. Leevi had to fight hard to tear his gaze from hers and barely managed that feat. How had both of them done that, he wondered? It was a skill that usually only the pack or clan Alpha had. Maybe it was something to do with being mated.

  Hell.

  He was prodded harshly forward by an Enforcer toward a circle of chairs in the middle of the large room, eight on either side for the leaders of the eight packs that made up the clan and for the elected elders, chosen for their wisdom, knowledge, and political savvy.

  The sixteen chairs were filled, but there was a seventeenth, which would have been his place as Prime Alpha. Normally in the event of a deadlock, he, as Prime Alpha, had the deciding vote, but in this case it would have to go to the Council spokesperson—the one and only time Matias ever got to vote.

  As Leevi moved into the center of the circle that represented the natural order, the circle of life, he shuddered as everyone looked at him. He might be the Prime Alpha, but he had never liked being the center of attention, and the room was filled to bursting. Every member of the clan had a right to attend tribunals like this, and it seemed that the majority had taken advantage of that right. The chairs for the members of the clan to watch started off in a circular pattern around the central chairs, but ended up more haphazard the further away they were from the middle. There were so many people in attendance there weren’t enough chairs for everyone, so the latecomers had squeezed into the space between the chairs and the walls.

  Glancing around, Leevi’s eye was caught by the green banner hanging over the entrance depicting a profile of a wolf’s head on a yellow lozenge, a diamond shape, but horizontal instead of vertical.

  He winced. Until today he had believed in everything the clan stood for and he had worked hard to enforce it, although his loyalties had been hard-pressed when he had taken Rik as his mate.

  That reminded Leevi that Jaakko had been partially responsible for his break-up with Rik, and he looked around, seeing Kari from Jaakko’s rogue pack, along with the two others they had knocked unconscious on their way into the fort sitting on the other side of the hall from Rik and Summer. Leevi guessed that Kimmo, whose leg had been broken, was lying injured at home under guard or at a clan sanitarium. He glanced at the final member of Jaakko’s pack, who snarled at him as he passed. Not unsurprising since this was the one he had clawed badly on their escape, the bandages around the man’s chest showing the truth of that statement.

  Leevi’s hearing picked up the sound of the fans which were working full-time to compensate for the crush of bodies in this underground lair, especially since were-creatures had a body temperature a degree higher than humans. Drawing on his reserves, he tried to dampen the whirling sound.

  The Enforcers who had escorted him to his place in the center of the circle moved back a pace to give Leevi space, but no further, to remind him that he was not in charge here. These Enforcers were the clan’s police force, nominated by individual packs, but they then dropped their fealty to that pack upon being appointed to the higher rank of clan Enforcer. This was a highly regarded honor and a much sought after civic duty that lasted five years. Those chosen were selected for their integrity as much as their strength. All were in their twenties or early thirties and very fit, as it was necessary from time to time to enforce the rules, particularly with any unruly teenagers. The yellow lozenge badge on the left shoulder of their jacket wasn’t a brand for some sports company, but the insignia of their rank. The yellow was for the color of a wolf’s eyes, even if the shifters kept their human color.

  Matias came past Leevi to take the lone chair slightly forward of the others at the head of the circle and raised onto a dais. In the past, challenges to the death were held if someone wanted to take another’s place as Alpha or Prime. These days it was more civilized, and when the Prime decided he’d had enough and wanted to retire, the Council called for a challenge, but it was only held between the young wolf shifters who challenged one another for the right to that promotion.

  In Leevi’s day it had come down to him and Jaakko, and Leevi had won, in effect ending their friendship. It was kind of funny since Leevi hadn’t actually wanted to win and had become the Prime while losing his childhood friend in the process.

  He had lost so many when he had become the Prime. People only saw the prestige of the position, but they conveniently forgot all the sacrifices that were made. Not being able to have close friends the way he had before. Having to watch as his mother and father left, for it was customary for the parents of the Prime Alpha to leave Clan grounds, so they could not be used to influence the leader. They now lived in Albufeira, Portugal, and although Leevi rarely saw them, but at least spoke to them on the phone from time to time, the separation had been incredibly hard on them. He was glad they weren’t here to witness his failure, degradation, and shame.

  Yes, Leevi had lost plenty when he had taken the station of Prime.

  Clenching his fingers, Leevi looked around the circle of those about to judge him. Erno, the Alpha who had taken his place in his birth pack when Leevi had been elevated to Prime Alpha, looked away, his body tense, almost in hunting mode. And Leevi had always regarded Erno as a good colleague, yet now his face was virtually that of an enemy.

  On the other side of the circle his gaze was held by Annukka. Leevi let his face relax. This was Summer’s grandmother, the woman she had come all this way to find. He was glad they would be reunited, but his heart lurched that it had to be under these circumstances. Annukka smiled encouragingly. And once again he found it hard to turn from her stare. Dammit. D
oes that mean that I am subject to the family of my mates now?

  Thankfully her spell, if it could be called that, was broken by Matias.

  “I call for order.” His voice may have been old and a little weak, but it carried with it the resonance of his years of command.

  The clamor in the room diminished quickly, everyone keen not to miss a second of this spectacle. Leevi wondered how many were there to support him and how many to see him taken down. He gritted his teeth. Despite not wanting to be Prime, he had been a good leader, he had always thought, but wolves, like humans, would blithely follow the leader until the moment presented itself for them to be part of a mob that confronted authority, demanded change. Humans called it “voting.” Wolves were opportunistic by nature.

  “This tribunal will follow procedures set down by our forebears. But we will break tradition and conduct entirely in English for sake of our guest from overseas.”

  Leevi was glad of that, despite Matias’s less-than-perfect English, otherwise Rik would have been spending the whole time translating for Summer.

  He grimaced, on the other hand, that might have been a better thing as it would have diverted Rik’s attention from what was going to happen.

  “State your name and birth pack.”

  Oh, for fuck’s sake. He was the Prime Alpha. Everyone knew who he was. He gave Matias a look of incredulity, but acquiesced. “Leevi Valo of the Lakeside pack.”

  “Enforcer, please step forward and read charges.”

  One of the Enforcers moved to Leevi’s right as directed and began to intone. Nothing in his voice indicated a bias, but then the Enforcers were deliberately picked for impartiality. “Leevi Valo, you have been accused of causing the death, along with your conspirators,” Leevi growled at that moment, but the Enforcer simply ignored him and continued, “of three members of the clan. There have been no killings of wolf shifters since the end of the Winter War. On your assertion, however, you take full responsibility for all these deaths, including the ones caused by the outsiders, so no charges will be brought against them. Secondly, you are accused of taking a half-blood mate, thereby making the dilution of our wolf genes a strong possibility, and weakening the Prime bloodline by doing so. In addition, that said person is a foreigner, going against the tradition of making alliances with the other clans as has been our custom since the Clan Wars. This in turn upsets the negotiations being carried out at this current time by the Council.”