by May Dawson
Callum’s lips pursed to one side. “But I guess we didn’t stop being family.”
Arthur groaned. “Cheesy as hell, man.”
But I leaned over and kissed Callum approvingly, and he flashed a smirk at Arthur in response that made us all laugh.
For the first time, this kitchen, too, felt like home.
Chapter 46
When I walked into the blue bedroom, between Logan and Arthur’s, it was clear someone else had stayed here. The bed was still rumpled, and I stood there uncomfortably. I couldn’t sleep in here. I barely felt like I could sleep at all, exhausted as I was. I’d only come to brush my teeth before I went to crawl into bed with one of the guys.
“Piper!” Fi said from behind me. I turned. Fi rushed toward me, her blond hair flying, and Caroline was right behind her. Relief flooded my chest when I saw them. I thought Fi felt the same way, but as she squeezed me in a tight hug, she said, “Don’t use the glass in there! I spit in it!”
I laughed out loud. Fi was always so unexpected.
She shrugged. “I had plans to be more helpful, but hey. I did what I could.”
“I’m so glad you did,” I said.
Caroline looked miserable, her cheeks flushed and her eyes downcast, and I rushed to hug her too. She stiffened in my arms, then hugged me back.
“Piper, I’m so sorry,” she started to say.
“Don’t be,” I told her firmly. “It wasn’t your fault. He changed all my memories, you know. He did terrible things to people. It wasn’t my fault and it wasn’t yours. Okay?”
Her lips flickered in a faint smile. “You’re so forgiving. But the pack…”
“The pack understands,” Arthur said firmly from the top of the stairs. Tuck stood beside him. “Or at least, they will. We’re going to be more like a family around here from now on. The way a pack should be.” He shook his head. “We got off to a bad start, with Roderick and my father. We’ve got to figure out new ways.”
“That sounds great,” Tuck said absently, and then jerked a thumb to indicate the door of my bedroom. “Did you happen to say that you spit in my glass?”
Fi pulled a face. “I thought you were evil at the time. In my defense.”
He nodded, looking slightly concerned.
Arthur glanced between the two of them. “One day, that’ll make a cute story about how you met. Like if the girl you love hits you with her car on day one…”
“Rude,” I said.
“I’m sure you two can work it out,” Arthur said, pretending to be blissfully unaware of how Fiona and Tuck were both blushing and uncomfortable now. “Piper needs…rest.”
I started to answer him, but he scooped me over his shoulder and carried me down the hall, and suddenly the world was a blur around me.
“Rest, huh?” I asked the small of his back as he kicked the door shut behind us.
He dumped me onto the bed. Sitting right-side up, I saw Callum sitting on the chair next to Arthur’s small desk in the corner.
Arthur shrugged.
“We were arguing about which pack would get to watch over you tonight,” Callum said drily. “We figured we could either play rock-paper-scissors, or we could start trying to all get along…”
“Sure,” I said. “That makes sense.”
My mind was racing with the possibilities.
As tired as I was, I wasn’t sure it was sleep I wanted, just yet.
“We’re really going to make this work,” I said, gesturing between the three of us, but I meant the whole pack. All nine of us.
Callum nodded. “The logistics will be complicated but…we’re going to make this work.”
“Right now the logistics seem relatively simple,” Arthur said. “I sleep in my bed. Piper can sleep with me.”
“And Callum can sleep on the other side,” I interrupted, knowing that he was about to offer Callum a comfortable slice of floor. “It’s a king bed. Plenty of room.”
Arthur crooked an eyebrow at me.
I pointed my finger at him. “You said I was your queen. Well.”
“Keep pointing your finger in my face.” Arthur captured my finger in his hand. “See what happens. You’ve already gotten yourself into enough trouble.”
“You’re full of threats,” I teased. “Or maybe promises. Which is it?”
“Both,” he grumbled.
“You know, this is another thing you both do,” I said. “This whole alpha I’m-going-to-teach-you-a-lesson-and-it’s-probably-going-to-involve-orgasms bit. You have a lot in common.”
“Oh really?” Callum asked casually. He ambled over and sat on the edge of the bed, an expression of mild curiosity on his face. That expression wasn’t one bit convincing. There was nothing casual about the rise in the front of his trousers.
“Hmm,” Arthur said. “Interesting.”
Suddenly I was keenly aware that I was in the middle of the bed, trapped between the two of them. But I was trapped exactly where I wanted to be.
Callum leaned in and brushed his lips across my cheek. It was a sweet, tender kiss. I put my hand on his jaw to hold him still as my lips moved to his.
The mattress dipped as Arthur sat on the bed, and I turned toward him, only to meet his lips. My lips parted against his, tentatively. His mouth was gentle, unlike the rest of Arthur.
When our lips parted, he smiled at me, his dark eyes warm and affectionate.
Then he put his palm on my chest and pushed me gently down onto the bed.
“We made a deal in the caves,” Callum said. He laid beside me, his jaw propped up on his elbow, and his free hand skimmed over my side. His touch, even over my clothes, raised pleasant goosebumps along my skin.
“What deal was that?” Arthur asked.
“She healed me with her mouth, and promised I could return the favor.” Callum stroked his hand across my thighs. The sensation made me long to take his hand in mine and press him hard against my throbbing inner core. But, I had a feeling that would only lead to teasing in the name of sweet punishment for my so-called sins.
“She’s wearing an awful lot of clothing for that.” Arthur’s brow furrowed, mock-critically.
“I’m not particularly attached to any of it,” I said, my voice coming out soft and languid and coy. I’d never heard myself sound like that before.
“Good,” Arthur said, and he hooked a finger under the hem of my t-shirt. I thought he was pulling it up, and then his other hand caught the hem and he tore it away.
I stared at him in surprise, laughter bubbling up in my chest as I shrugged off the shreds of my shirt. “You, sir, are a hazard…”
“I’ll buy you new ones,” he grumbled. “I’ll buy you a hundred new ones.” He leaned forward, sweeping his lips across the swell of my breasts.
No matter how kinky this scene was rapidly becoming, it still struck me as incredibly sweet that the two of them were here together to please me. They knew how much it meant to me that the two packs united. I rested my hand on his shoulder. “Are you two showing me that you can get along?”
“Maybe,” Callum said, and Arthur said, almost at the same time, “And you’re ruining it.”
“Sorry, sorry.” I let myself fall back into the pillows. “Please continue. Leaving my clothes and my innocence in tatters.”
Arthur’s brows lifted. “There are a lot more things we can do to tatter your innocence, believe me.”
“And we have all the time in the world,” Callum promised. His deft fingers danced over the button and zipper of my jeans, and then as he began to draw them down, I lifted my hips.
Callum moved to the foot of the bed as he pulled off my jeans, then straddled my ankles. He began to kiss his way up my body, his lips tracing over the curve of my calf, the side of my knee, my thigh. By the time he reached my inner thigh, I was trembling with desire for him.
He kissed my very inner thigh, and then turned his head and pressed a kiss to my clit. His eyes were steady on my face as my hips leapt, rising with the intensity of my lust. I wanted h
im inside me so badly, in every way.
Callum’s tongue stroked over me, teasing and flitting, and my hips rose again. Arthur’s hand dipped low over my abs, pressing me down to the bed. His mouth was so near mine now. I put my hand against his face and turned it toward mine, and our lips met.
Arthur’s mouth parted against mine. I slipped my tongue against his upper lip, feeling him open up to me, and then our tongues slipped together, dancing. At the same time, Callum settled into a steady pulse, his mouth working against my clit, and when my hips tried to jerk up, greedy and lustful, Arthur’s big hand was there pressing me against the bed. My ache for them built and built, and finally, unable to bear the so-good-it-hurt sensation of Callum’s mouth on my clit, I broke away from Arthur’s kisses.
“I want you inside me,” I said, putting my hand over Arthur’s. His rough, calloused knuckles were against my palm. “Both of you. I can’t take any more…”
Arthur glanced toward Callum. Callum’s eyesbrows lifted above his amber eyes, but he didn’t say anything, since he still had his mouth wrapped around my pussy.
“We’re quite confident you actually can take more,” Arthur said, as if he was speaking for both of them. Maybe they really did always know what the other was thinking.
Callum returned to his steady pulse, his tongue thrusting inside to my g-spot and then his mouth sucking gently against my clit, over and over and over until my thighs were trembling as my orgasm built.
Arthur nuzzled my throat with his mouth, peppering kisses over my bare skin, sweeping my hair out of his way with tender hands. The combined sensation was incredible, and almost unbearable. I’d never known pleasure so intense before.
As my orgasm crested, the moonlight flooding into Arthur’s room seemed to glow. My head fell back in the pillows, and as my back arched, Arthur stroked my breasts. The roughness of his hands, when he palmed my breasts, felt too good against my nipples and my hips bucked helplessly, but Callum’s arm slid across me, holding me down as his mouth worked relentlessly.
Distantly, I could hear myself calling both their names as I came. Then both their bodies were against mine, their lips worshipping every inch of me as I lay between them, warmed and loved and sated. I smiled as Arthur’s lips pressed against my shoulders and Callum teased my nipple with his tongue before covering it with his mouth.
“You don’t think we’re done now, do you?” Arthur whispered into my ear, as his hand delved between my thighs, stroking against my heated clit.
I could barely speak, but I smiled, and he covered my mouth with his sweet, greedy kisses.
I hoped we would never be done.
Chapter 47
The next morning, I slipped away from everyone. I just needed some time to rest after all the commotion of the past few days.
I was sitting on a big rock on the beach, so close to the ocean that I could feel the salt spray beading on my face, when Callum walked down the hill and sat down next to me. He looked out over the ocean too.
“I have something for you.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of notebook paper. It was creased and worn, but nothing special looking. He turned it over in his fingers, fidgeting with it. “I found this in the house when I was searching for spell books.”
When he held it out to me, I took it from his fingertips, but for some reason I found myself hesitating to unfold it. “What is it?”
“It’s a list of girls’ names,” he said. “Most of them were crossed out. I don’t know for sure, but I can’t imagine who else would have been debating baby girl names but…”
My parents.
I’d known for the past few months that I wasn’t Piper Sullivan. I’d longed for the connection with my parents, to have the name they’d given me. It seemed ridiculous to carry Rippedthroat’s last name all my life. I was never a Sullivan. I was never his.
“What if it’s hideous?” I asked. “What if I’m actually a Bertha?”
“Helga,” he suggested.
“Hilda.”
“Fanny.”
I finally peeled the two halves of the paper apart and looked at it.
The handwriting was neat and looped dramatically. My mother’s handwriting? It was pretty. I ran my fingers over the bubbly shapes of her letters, and part of me thought that I might begin making big loops on my y’s and l’s like she had.
Mackenzie
Laura
Julia
Rachel
Alice
Ashley
Tera
Deidra
Jada
And at the bottom was my own name, the only one that hadn’t been crossed out.
“Oh wow,” I said. “I don’t know that I feel like a…”
“Who do you feel like?”
I shook my head. “What’s the point of a name, anyway? It’s just so people can hand back your math tests and call your name at the DMV. It doesn’t really matter.”
Callum nodded, but he didn’t look convinced.
I folded the paper back up and slipped it in my pocket, determined to protect it from the salt water.
“I don’t want to be a Sullivan,” I said. “I don’t want to carry his last name. That’s all I know.”
“Then choose a new last name,” he said. His lips tilted at the corners. “You could always name your pack. We could take your name.”
I had to grin at that. “I can’t imagine Arthur taking my name.”
“I can’t imagine Arthur denying you anything,” he said.
I rested my hand on his leg and squeezed gently. “I’ll be up at the house in a while, all right? I’ve got something to do.”
“Sounds ominous,” he said, but he got up and brushed his lips over my forehead in a sweet goodbye.
I caught his collar with my hand and pulled him down toward me, kissing his lips in a way that wasn’t sweet at all. It made him grin when he straightened again.
“See you tonight,” I said.
“I’ll count on it.”
When he had gone back up to the house, I walked down the beach.
The name made me picture my parents, although their faces were nothing but a blur in my mind. Maybe my mother had her feet up on the arm of the couch because her feet were swollen, and my father was—what did men do to make themselves useful to a pregnant woman? Maybe he was scooping her ice cream in the kitchen or something. And he came in carrying her bowl of ice cream, with sprinkles and chocolate syrup because he knew what she liked, and she looked up from the list, smiling at him with her pen in her hand still, and said, “I think I’ve got it.”
It was just my overactive imagination, trying to picture my parents, but the thought still made tears sting my eyes. They’d been real people, and then they’d been killed.
I’d thought before that when their bodies crumpled to the floor and Rippedthroat stepped over them to carry a desperately-crying infant away from the life she’d been meant to have, that he hadn’t just killed my parents. He had killed that version of me too.
I knelt and wrote that girl’s name in the damp sand, where the ocean’s waves would wash it away.
I was a different person than I should have been, but I still liked who I was. I was strong. I was loved.
It didn’t matter what my name was. I knew who I was.
When I walked back down the beach, I walked back toward the men I loved. The men who would always be there for me.
I went up the sandy path to the dark Victorian mansion, remembering when it had seemed so foreboding and lonely. Now, the light shining out the windows looked friendly. There were a lot of logistical details to figure out—how to unite the two packs, where we would live—but that all seemed small. We’d survived, and we were still together.
There were low voices and laughter on the front porch. Then I saw Logan, Josh, Nick, Finn and Sebastian, all kicked back on the porch, talking like old friends. The sight of them made my heart leap in my chest.
It was all going to work out.
Josh saw me and his face brightened. He clapped Logan on the shoulder and said something to him, his gaze on me, and it was Logan who turned and came down the path.
Logan offered me his arm. “Callum told me that you might need some time alone,” he said softly. “Do you want to head to your room or…”
I shook my head. “No. Everything I need is in that house.”
Once, I’d turned down Logan’s offer of an arm to steady me, when he’d thought I was wobbly in high heels. I was barefoot now, my feet dusted with sand, but this time, I settled my hand against his corded forearm.
“Welcome home, princess,” he said, and the two of us walked up the stairs and into the warmth and love of that front porch, filled with friends and brothers and the men I loved.
THE END
A Note From May
Hello, and thank you for reading.
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About the Author
May Dawson’s first crush was Indiana Jones, and it wasn’t just for Harrison Ford’s rugged good looks. She’s always been drawn to adventure, and she found it in Bali and the Antarctic, traveling widely before she settled down to raise two red-haired munchkins/hooligans. These days you can find her embracing a very different kind of adventure: love. Living it. Writing it.
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