He looked from side to side, ensuring none of the pack was in earshot, before giving Lotus an even look.
After a moment’s hesitation, he said, “Sarah was always pleased with my father.”
Her eyes softened. “You were very young, Caim. Too young to remember how at odds they were when she first came to Shaderunner. Things were not always easy for them.”
He blinked at her, surprised by the revelation. While Caim had wanted to be a father for several years, he had never thought much about having a mate. He had always assumed that being a mate would come as easily to him as it had to his father.
His brow furrowed. “Sarah was docile and obedient.”
“Sure, after a few years and a lot of pups, she mellowed out. They both did.”
“You are saying that once Mila has pups she will be less volatile?”
Lotus sighed and shook her head. “No, I am saying that a relationship takes time and commitment. Once you both get to know each other better, things will be less complicated. Mila will learn to love you, in time.”
Love. That was not something Caim had considered.
5
Asch held Mila’s hand as she dipped her toe into the steaming water. She made a contented sound as she lowered her foot, and then her leg, into the tub.
While Mila ate breakfast, Brae had filled the large metal basin with boiled water and a jasmine-scented soap from one of Mila’s bags. On the hard rim of the basin was a soft blanket that she could rest her back against.
As she settled into the bath, Asch regretted bringing candles for her bedroom. The play of warm light on her soft, wet skin made his cock stir. He knew he couldn’t stay with her.
Mila looped her arms around her legs and rested her cheek on her knees. She looked up at him, and her beautiful eyes compelled him to lower himself to his knees. He would stay, just for a moment.
“I caught a fish with my bare hands,” she told him, her eyes sparkling. She lifted one hand from the water and wiggled her fingers at him, smirking. “I used my claws.”
Asch laughed as he reached over to catch her small hand. He pulled it closer and examined her rounded nails with mock scrutiny.
“Quite a feat.”
Mila puffed air from one cheek. “You would think.”
He fought the urge to disparage Caim, an urge that grew increasingly difficult to resist with the way the other alpha had been handling Mila.
He told her, “Caim despises the smell of fish. It must have bothered him, given how much he loves your scent.”
Mila arched a brow at him. “What makes you say that?”
Asch pulled her hand to his face and ran his nose over the back, inhaling deeply. If she only knew what her scent did to them …
“He likes to sleep with his nose buried in your hair. It’s why he doesn’t like it when I hold you at night. He wants to keep your scent close to him.”
Swallowing hard, she loosened herself from his grip and cupped the side of his face with her palm. With a light flush on her cheeks, she said, “You like my neck the best.”
He gave her a slow smile before dipping his hand into the bathwater. He ran his fingers up the length of one leg until he came to the apex of her thighs.
“There are parts of you I like better.”
Mila grinned, then took a sharp intake of breath as his fingers found her warm cleft and he began to stroke. His cock stiffened and became more demanding as he rubbed her soft folds. He wondered if he would have the self-control to make her come without taking his own release.
He hadn’t planned on Mila throwing her arms around his neck and drawing herself up to put her lips on his. She moaned into his mouth. The sound reverberated through his body and heated his flesh.
Her boldness increased every night and was a constant source of surprise for both males. She came to learn the things they liked. He loved the way her hands fisted his hair, pulling him closer to deepen their kiss.
More of a reaction than a thought, Asch pushed two fingers inside her. She squeezed her inner muscles around him encouragingly as he worked his fingers and rubbed her stiff clit with the pad of his thumb. She leaned into him and slipped her tongue past his lips. He ran his tongue along hers, carefully guiding her fragile flesh away from his sharp canines.
Asch wanted to take her from the water and forget about everything outside her bedroom. He wanted to toss her, wet and naked, on the bed and bury himself inside her where nothing else existed except for the sounds of her pleasure and the feeling of their bodies as they moved together.
He pulled his hand from her, and after a gentle nip to her lip, he pushed her back into the tub. She frowned at him, her shoulders slumping.
“Why’d you stop?” she asked, crestfallen.
Asch leaned in to press a kiss to her forehead. He let out a heavy sigh against her skin. “I have to go.”
“I don’t see why they need you to lead the hunt,” she groused.
He explained, “If one of us—me or Caim—isn’t with them when they hunt, they won’t save anything. There’s more to being an alpha than just being large and strong. We always have to consider the welfare of the pack, and right now, that means making sure there will be plenty of food in the den when winter comes.”
That was mostly true. Game was scarce in the area, and in order to get the types of meat they needed—deer and elk in particular—they would often have to leave the safety of the valley and hunt in more contested areas. It had been at least a year since they’d had even a minor skirmish with other wolves, but a nearby tribe of cougars frequently tried to scavenge their kills. Like most were-cats, their tribe was very small—half a dozen members at last count. Although they posed little threat to the pack as a whole, they could do serious damage to a leaderless hunting party.
These weren’t things that Mila needed to be concerned with, though. While the cats were a nuisance, they wouldn’t dare breach the valley, and if they did, he and Caim would be waiting for them.
She tilted her head back to stare at him. “I’ll miss you.”
He searched her brown eyes, finding them clear and guileless. Something deep inside of him settled into place then. In a voice thick with emotion, he told her, “I’ll miss you, too.”
* * *
Mila had spent the past three days longing for her luggage. Her bags had been left behind after Wayne Ramsey’s truck broke down on the way to the Lazarus territory. Her initial outrage toward leaving them behind had quickly faded, overshadowed by the exhaustion from the grueling journey on foot and from the gnawing anxiety that had plagued her the entire way.
Once safely in the den, though, the first thing she had wanted was to have her possessions back. She still felt so out of place in the pack, and she thought that being surrounded by her belongings would make her feel more at ease. Instead, they made her realize, all over again, what a clueless idiot she had been.
They ranged from the impractical—four pairs of stilettos, six sets of lingerie, and a manicure set—to the completely useless: a curling iron, a flat iron, a digital camera, a tablet, an iPod, and her personal favorite, thirty issues of Vogue. Seriously, what had she been thinking?
She just couldn’t put herself in that frame of mind anymore. Even though it had only been a few days, she was a different person, though that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. At least then, she had known who she was. Hadn’t she?
She looked around at her possessions, half unpacked and strewn about the room. When she’d lived in Terry Creek, she hadn’t missed New York too much. During the worst of times, knew she could get out. She could have retaken her aptitude tests in the spring and gone back to finish her final year of undergrad studies. That knowledge had kept her sane in the face of the squirrel-hunting, frog-eating, square-dancing denizens of Tye County.
But this was entirely different. It wasn’t that she felt like she couldn’t escape. Mila was fairly certain that Asch wouldn’t keep her against her will. And Caim? He would probably be more
than happy to haul her all the way back to Manhattan.
She didn’t want to run, either. It was just the opposite. She wanted to stay, to fit in, and to be a part of the pack. She wanted the alphas not to fight over her in the bedroom, and she wanted Caim to at least pretend he liked her outside of it.
It was a tall order, though. Every time she thought she was figuring things out, a new insecurity emerged and she would be back to square one: lost and afraid.
Trying to distract herself from the haze of depression, she pulled the final piece of luggage onto her lap; that the bag held all of her casuals: jeans, t-shirts, underwear, and a bathrobe. No sneakers, sadly, but she was grateful to have something other than pencil dresses to wear around the den.
As she reached in the bag to pull out a bundle of undergarments, she touched something hard. Her brow furrowed as she grabbed the object and tugged it loose. It was her unabridged copy of Wolves of the Cordilleras.
The familiar smell of ink and old paper evoked a youthful nostalgia as she thumbed through the yellowed pages. Her father’s girlfriend, Margo, had given her the book for her twelfth birthday. During the five years that she’d dated Mila’s father, Margo had made it her personal mission to undermine Mila’s good Baptist upbringing and had largely succeeded. Long after she had read and re-read the memoirs of Marie du Luponte, Mila had relived the stories in her fantasies—fantasies that had grown increasingly more explicit as she got older.
In the midst of her fantasies, Mila realized she’d idealized Marie’s story. She had only remembered how handsome and powerful Rein was, how beloved Marie was by her pack, and how beautiful their children were.
What she’d never bothered to dwell on was how much Marie had suffered. Rein might have cared for her, but it had taken years for him to commit monogamy. Much of the pack had resented Marie for expecting Rein to be monogamous, and it was only after she had her first son that they began to accept her. As beautiful as her children were, Rein’s efforts to always keep her pregnant had distressed her. Her life had hardly been a fairy tale.
Mila set the book aside and finished unpacking her clothes, feeling more somber than ever. Once she had everything folded neatly on the shelves, she changed into a pair of jeans and a V-neck tee. She contemplated the tub, which was still in the center of her room, and decided she’d have Brae or Rosie help her dump the water later, but for now, she would keep it. For the first time in days, she actually felt clean.
With no shelf space left, she repacked most of her stuff. She had a good laugh at her past self when she realized she hadn’t packed any type of charger for her iPod or tablet—not that there was any place to plug the devices in. She really had not thought any of this through.
Mila was still chuckling to herself when she felt a change in the air.
“I am glad to find you in good spirits.”
She turned to the doorway and stiffened when she saw Lotus. There was really no reason for her visceral reaction to the woman, but something about her really irked Mila.
“What can I do for you?” she asked in a tone that suggested, Talk fast, and see yourself out.
Lotus gave Mila a tight, unblinking smile. “I wanted to thank you. Asch told me what you are doing for the pack, and I could not be more relieved. I was so concerned that—”
Mila cut her off. “What do you really want from me?”
Lotus paused and her body tensed. She was remarkably beautiful, but in the closer proximity of her room, Mila saw she was older than most of the females in the pack. Fine lines framed her mouth and grew from the corners of her eyes—eyes that now regarded Mila with much less warmth.
Gesturing toward the bed, she said, “Have a seat, Mila.”
Laughter bubbled up from Mila’s chest. “What?”
“Have a seat,” Lotus repeated evenly. “We need to have a conversation.”
“Um, I don’t think so. You can’t just barge into my room and order me around. Besides, I know what you want to talk about, and I don’t care. You can have him.” Her voice cracked traitorously on the last part.
Lotus gave her a dry look. “Do not presume you know why I came here. I do not need your permission to have Caim. I have known him from the time he was born. Much of my life has been devoted to ensuring his happiness, which means, I must help you.”
Mila felt mildly dumbstruck as Lotus moved from the doorway and took a seat on her bed. Curiosity won out over pride and Mila followed suit, sitting down a few feet away from her. Lotus smiled again, and this time, it seemed less forced.
“Good, now talk to me. How are things between you and our alphas?”
The question caught Mila off-guard. She did not want to admit to this golden goddess that she was hopelessly overwhelmed and at a complete loss on how to handle the two men in her life. She looked down at her hands and picked at her nails.
“I have two insanely hot men vying for me in bed. What could possibly be wrong?” Mila thought she had sounded pretty convincing.
Lotus put a cool hand on her shoulder. “You have two extremely aggressive males fighting over you in bed. If you were not frightened to be stuck between Asch and Caim, I would think you were the insane one.”
Mila looked up at Lotus. Her throat constricted. Lotus’s crystalline gaze unnerved her and made her feel stripped, exposed, and strangely eager.
Her mouth opened and closed before she said, “It would be so much easier if it was just Asch.”
Guilt permeated her. It was the thought that had been on loop in her mind for days.
What if I just rejected Caim?
No one had said she couldn’t reject one of the alphas, just that it would be impractical for her to choose a male without first determining who was strongest. But strength was a wolf value. Mila was not a wolf—she was a human, and she had other needs.
To her relief, Lotus didn’t pull away. She said, “Asch has a way of making you feel special and needed.”
“Yeah,” Mila whispered. “When he looks at me, I don’t know. I feel like one day he could love me, like really love me.”
“And you do not think that Caim is capable of loving you as well?”
Mila shook her head. “I don’t see it. He’s so hot, and then he’s cold. Just when I think I get him”—she snapped her fingers—“he turns into a giant jerk.”
“So you would rather it just be you and Asch?”
Mila frowned. “I just said that.”
Lotus nodded. “Yes, but it didn’t make any sense.”
“What?”
“That you would claim you only want Asch when you are so clearly besotted with Caim.”
Mila recoiled as if she had been struck. “Besotted?” she huffed.
Lotus tapped her cheek with her index finger. “Perhaps that is not the right word. Possessive, maybe?” When Mila opened her mouth to protest, Lotus cut her off. “Do not bother denying it. You will only be doing yourself a disservice. I told you, I am here to help.”
Mila hesitated, then said, “I don’t want to like him.”
Lotus squeezed her shoulder and gave her a meaningful look. “Asch will cherish you, and he is easy to love. He is the safest choice. Caim will make you doubt yourself at every turn. He is also easy to love, but nearly impossible to be in love with. If you let yourself love him, he may very well hurt you. One thing I can assure you, though, is that Caim is just as capable of loving you as Asch is, only in different ways.”
“What if I end up loving one of them more?” Mila asked, unsure who she referred to.
“That is all in the future. The question is: what do you want right now?”
Mila didn’t have to think about it. “I want them both,” she said, then added, “and I want them both to be okay with that.”
Lotus moved to take Mila’s hands in hers. “Then you must listen to me. I will tell you what you need to know to have both of them on their knees for you.”
6
It was hard keeping an open mind as Lotus gave her advice.
The older woman had a wealth of information to share about Asch and Caim, and it was obvious she had slept with both of them, maybe even at the same time.
Mila tried not to let it get under her skin. The things Lotus told her were very helpful: how to quell Asch’s jealousy and how to make Caim pay attention. She even had suggestions on different positions they could try. Mila had never been so conflicted in her life. On one hand, Lotus had told her many of the things she desperately needed to know, but on the other, Mila found that she was battling against an inexplicable rash of possessiveness. Throughout the conversation, she found she focused less on what Lotus said, and more on images of the alphas having sex with the she-wolf.
Lotus rested a hand on Mila’s leg, drawing her away from a downward spiral of disgruntled thoughts. “When you speak to one, be sure to touch the other,” she said and brushed her thumb over Mila’s thigh. “This way, even though you are not addressing him, he knows that you are thinking of him. It placates Asch, and I find, in most cases, Caim would rather enjoy a female’s touch than talk.”
Mila nodded and remembered the way Lotus had touched Caim earlier that evening. Her stomach hardened. Had Caim enjoyed Lotus’s touch then, too?
“Most important of all, you must remember why they want to mate with you.”
“That’s easy. They’re horny.”
“It is much more than that,” Lotus said with a sweep of her hand. “For Caim, it is about asserting his dominance. For Asch, it is about being desired. If you want them both to be happy, then you need to find a way to ensure that both males receive what they crave from you.”
Mila considered this for a moment, then said, “It makes sense, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to deal with Caim. He’s so overbearing, and I can barely handle him when I’m not letting him ‘assert his dominance’ over me.”
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