Rising high on my knees, I crawled until we were face to face. Cupping his jaw, I arched, breasts straining against the material confining them.
The scalding heat consumed me. I needed this man.
“Andie,” he snarled.
I pressed my lips against the taut muscles of his throat. “Touch me, Alarick.”
His arm circled my back, clamping my body against his.
That was it.
He kissed up my arched neck, and I couldn’t process the feel of him through the shivering intensity. My hands scrambled to force him closer, but Alarick lifted me bodily, fitting me over his left thigh.
My hips gyrated against the coarse denim. My left knee rested against his erection, brushing against him in time with my rocking movement.
“Fuck,” he hissed, head dropping.
I shoved his head back and trailed hot kisses along his jaw. His chest filled with a gravelled growl, spurring me. A fire built. I had no desire to see it end.
I ground against his thigh, using the friction to delicious effect.
His hands were fucking everywhere.
Heat focalised. I became nothing. His hands clamped either side of my hips as he took over, grinding me against his muscled thigh as I gripped his shoulders.
Frantic breaths.
Desperate, mind-numbing pleasure.
Alarick drew back to watch me as the molten fire low in my stomach shrunk to a nearly painful pinprick.
“Let me see you, beautiful bird,” he whispered.
His wish commanded me.
I choked on air, body shaking as I crested the most intense orgasm of my life. Useless for anything, I just let Alarick continue to rock me. My head thumped on his shoulder as the pleasure filling me went on without end.
My body had checked out.
I was a slave to the steady push and pull of his hands.
Alarick pressed his open mouth against my bare shoulder, teeth resting on the skin there. His hold tightened, and his shout was muffled as a wetness seeped through his jeans against my left knee.
I smiled dreamily as his entire body relaxed and our rocking eventually slowed. Not that the lack of friction stopped the incredible aftershocks rolling through me like an encore.
Holy fucking shit.
That was out of this world.
We didn’t speak. Was he trying to process the impossibility of how good that felt too?
“That’s a first,” I said hoarsely.
It seemed like something people with promise rings might do, but fuck me, hot didn’t begin to describe what just happened.
I tried to separate from him, but Alarick breathed hard against my shoulder. I leaned back, tipping his chin up, a lazy smirk at the ready.
The sight of his pitch-black eyes stopped me dead and cold.
No amount of blinking rid me of the sight. They were black.
Completely.
Not a speck of white showed around the edges.
“Alarick.” I released his chin, pressing a hand to my cheek.
He straightened, and I froze as his irises returned to warm honey.
What the fuck?
“Andie, that was… I can’t believe how incredible that felt.”
Yeah, that was the last thing on my mind at this point.
He frowned, the last of his dreaming daze clearing. “What’s the matter?”
Your eyes turned a different fucking colour. “Nothing,” I stuttered, standing.
Was I in danger?
I gripped the edge of the desk to remain upright, tugging my dress down. Behind me, he rose.
Shit. Shit!
I had to get out of here.
I grabbed my case and the money, turning on unsteady legs.
“I’m not understanding something,” the thing said. The huge thing that could easily overpower me. I couldn’t hear anything from the bar. These rooms must be soundproof.
Mustering my courage, I croaked, “I’m late to meet someone.”
“Your boyfriend,” he said flatly.
“Yep.” I latched onto the excuse. “He’s outside. I don’t know what happened just now.”
Distaste screwed his features, but whatever, he could think I was a cheating cow. I cared less than zero.
His eyes turned pitch-black again.
Oh my god. That wasn’t fucking normal.
He wasn’t human.
He couldn’t be.
“Andie, please don’t leave like this,” he said quickly. “It’s my mistake. I heard he left town and assumed things were over.”
He was watching me? Fresh terror chilled my veins.
I backed out of the room, clutching my case. “It’s fine. I’m not angry. I need to go, Bye.”
Slamming the door, I tried to keep my pace normal until I pushed through the staff door into the bar.
Hairy and Leroy waved, but I couldn’t muster any kind of response.
Lips numb, body in survival mode, I stumbled into daylight.
11
“Everyone, shut up for once! My niece is here. I don’t want her to think we’re animals.” Herc’s light-hearted greeting didn’t touch me.
“Mr Thana,” Wade said in a low, urgent voice.
The poor guy received monosyllabic answers the entire drive here.
Herc’s grin faded.
I wrapped my arms around myself.
Fingers touched my lower back, and I jerked away as though burnt. Rhona inspected my lower back.
“What happened to your dress?” she asked in a dark voice.
“What?” I mumbled in a voice thick with unshed tears. I struggled to look at whatever caught her attention.
She rested a hand on my forearm. “I’ll take a photo.”
Those around the huge kitchen cottoned on to the fact all wasn’t well with me. Their hushed silence was horrible.
Rhona tilted her phone screen so I could see.
Air hitched in my throat. The back of my dress was torn. Not in half. Four distinct tear marks were visible on either side.
Where Alarick gripped my hips.
“That’s impossible,” I whispered.
Rhona barked. “Wade.”
They guided me to a seat, and Herc crouched before me. The murder etched across his features nearly shocked me from my discovery.
Alarick had fucking claws.
Claws.
“His eyes turned black.” My shock cracked at last. “What are those? Claw marks?” The pitch of my voice climbed to hysterical territory.
A smaller hand gripped my shoulder, and I was so grateful to Rhona for grounding me in that moment.
“Andie,” Herc said, gripping my hands tight. “What happened? What did you see?”
“A guy from The Dens,” I babbled. “His eyes just changed colour. I got out as quickly as I could.”
Herc released me, exchanging a look with Rhona over my head.
“What?” I shot at them. “What is it?”
Why was no one reacting to this news? People’s eyes didn’t just change colour. And what other plausible explanation was there for the back of my dress? Four thin lines either side.
“Tell me,” I said harshly.
Herc returned his focus to my face, an inexplicable sadness crossing his features. “Leave us. Cameron and Wade, please stay.”
I scooted out of the chair, pressing my back to the wall as the room emptied until only four people remained.
Herc watched me, not moving to restrain me in any way.
“What’s going on?” I put the table between me and them. They weren’t the threat, but I needed a safety net.
Hercules took a seat at the head of the long table while Cameron and Wade sat on the bench seat opposite me.
Rhona stood behind her father.
“Andie. Niece. There’s an explanation, and I can help you, but I suggest you take a seat.”
If this was about to get more fucked up, my legs wouldn’t last.
I sat and looked at a pale Wade, sad
Cameron, and feisty Rhona. My eyes settled on the now calm Herc, but murder still glinted in those blue eyes, barely veiled.
“In my experience, there’s no great way to say this,” he said. “The next weeks of your life will be filled with uncertainty and fear. This situation isn’t normal but know that your reaction is. None of this is your fault. We’re here for you, Andie.”
“Get on with it, Dad.” Rhona rolled her eyes.
Herc leaned forward, and my chest tightened. He was about to say something that I couldn’t unhear.
I knew it when Mum told me about her cancer.
I knew it now.
“This world contains creatures that look like us,” he said. “But they are other.”
Rhona butted in. “The fucker was a werewolf.”
I stared at my cousin as pandemonium erupted in the kitchen.
“Rhona,” her father grated.
She flung her arms wide. “She’s not an idiot.”
“Everyone maybe chill out?” Cameron said nervously, rising.
Werewolves existed.
Alarick was a werewolf.
A werewolf made me orgasm.
What did the term mean beyond pitch-black eyes and claws? I could only think of the man changing into a wolf at the full moon.
My face slackened as another memory came to me. Let me see you, beautiful bird.
One person had called me bird before. A second after, they’d pushed me in a hole.
Alarick’s voice was strange tonight. Gravelly and uneven, just like that first night in the forest.
I covered my mouth.
The shouting continued, and I met Wade’s cool grey eyes.
Shock had rendered me incapable of thinking beyond single words—who, what, where, when, how.
Might as well start at the top.
“Who?” I whispered to Wade.
“The Dens. Those who work there. Hundreds more in the area. They operate in their pack on the south ranges of the valley. If a person is tall and really good-looking, you should tread carefully. Aside from me and you, of course.”
Later, I might appreciate his attempt to lighten the mood. But monsters existed, and if those monsters had claws, they had something I didn’t.
The others had ceased fire and resumed their seats. Rhona took the bench space on my other side, spitting eye fire at her father.
“Werewolves,” I managed. Funny how my lips felt different forming that word now the species was a reality.
Somehow, in seconds, I’d become someone else—I’d climbed over an imaginary fence and found no option to return to the first grassy field.
Words failed me completely.
Herc leaned forward. “Andie, three hundred years ago, a caravan of newcomers entered this valley. Our tribe, the Ni Tiaki, guardians of the land, saw the newcomers were starving and hurt and welcomed them to rest in this area. Wolf activity skyrocketed soon after, but it wasn’t until a hunter killed a wolf raiding his food stores that they discovered the truth. Imagine their shock when he changed from beast to man.”
The hairs raised on my arms because black eyes and claws were more than enough for me. I couldn’t imagine seeing a human become a beast and vice versa.
“By this time, the newcomers had lived in the area for many decades, but our ancestors took up arms then, desperate to protect their women and children from the monsters. The leader of the wolves met with our tribe alone, pleading the case of his pack. Had his wolves hurt any humans since arriving in the valley? If they could have some land to hunt freely without fear of encountering our own foragers and hunters, they wouldn’t need to resort to stealing from our food stores. My ancestor was merciful. We were mere guardians of this land, not its rulers or owners. We had an affinity with all creatures that nature deemed fit to grace us with. The werewolves were one such creature. Yes, my ancestor said. And to her tribe, she ordered, lay down your weapons. That day she granted the pack their lands. Not to own, you must understand, but to reside upon. But, she said, your pack must respect the very air of this valley and all between. The trees had known our ancestors since the beginning of time and would witness the rise and fall of them over the ages. The water had bathed them as children and cleansed their weathered skin before death. The soil underfoot contained the bones of their ancestors and this, above all else, was their heart and soul. This was their essence. That was sacred. If the wolves could respect the land, they could be nature’s guests here.” Herc’s blue eyes burned.
Cameron shifting reminded me others were in the room, but I couldn’t budge my attention from Herc, captivated.
“What happened?” I pressed.
He exhaled. “What always happens? Greed. From our records, decades went by in this peaceful manner, but one day, the wolves made a show of force at the tribe’s main camp upon which this manor is built. The pack was sick of the land being loaned. To them, this made their future uncertain. It wasn’t enough. Now, they wished to own the land they occupied. By this time, our tribe had a new leader, the son of the woman who first granted the wolves space in this valley. He had the wisdom of his mother, and the essence of the land ran strong in his blood. No, he said. And let me tell you why. This wondrous place does not belong to a blink in time, and that is what we are, you and I. Land ownership is a concept so small that the power of nature cannot even see it, let alone recognise such a thing. No, is my answer as guardian of this place. We can share in what the land gives, wolves and humans, but that is all.”
Herc leaned back. “The wolves didn’t accept this. A battle erupted right there, and many were lost on both sides. Because our ancestors were merciful but not stupid. For themselves, they would not fight. For the ground underfoot, to protect the burial grounds of those who had come before, for the essence that filled them, they would die a thousand times. They’d watched the wolves for their strengths and weakness, for their behaviours and tendencies. To see how they worked when in groups and when alone. Though the wolves were stronger, faster, and with far better senses, the tribe was prepared. The wolves retreated, not beaten, but with equal losses and the knowledge they’d underestimated the Ni Tiaki. And so it continued for far too long.”
This story was somehow believable where I still struggled to grasp the term werewolf. “What did they do?”
“Our wise leader was killed in battle years later. His daughter inherited the mantle. Her soul cried for the trees who preferred rain to blood. Their roots were soaked with it. In her journal entries, she spoke of how, in her darkest dreams, blood rotted the buried bones of their ancestors, leaving a stench that their loved ones could smell in death. The death and anger left her cold, and she could not rest as things were.” He took a breath. “To the wolves she went, alone and with child. Stop, she commanded the same pack leader who’d always ruled. This is not how life should be. Stop with me, and our children will not live in fear. He laughed in her face, giving his thoughtless reply. Give us ownership of this land. Still, the land was not hers to give, yet she refused to leave without a solution.”
My mouth dried as it clicked. “The game.”
I stared around the table and four serious faces looked back at me. “Laser tag. It’s not laser tag.”
“No,” Herc replied, “Just yesterday I said that if you chose to join this game, it would change you forever. I told you the game formed our town. Our plight has existed longer than anyone here truly realises. By our records, over two hundred years, with some failed attempts at peace dotted throughout.”
“You play the game to prevent bloodshed.” I tried to assemble the puzzle pieces in my mind.
“Every Wednesday, we fight werewolves.” His lips pressed together. “We fight to protect these lands and those within them.”
This was insanity.
None of this could be real. I couldn’t be sitting here, listening to the fabric of everything I knew unravel.
Yet I was.
Alarick wasn’t a man.
Before my very eyes, he’d exis
ted somewhere between his human disguise and a beast. He had the ability to turn into a creature that I didn’t have adequate nightmares to visualise.
Did he recognise me from that night in the forest? Is that why he’d tried so hard to employ me after?
What the hell had he planned to do?
“You wanted to know why your mother left,” Herc said, snatching my focus back. “The beasts damaged something inside of her that never healed again. My sister always did feel too much.” His voice hitched.
That description fit her perfectly. All Mum’s mistakes and pitfalls—they’d happened because life was always too much for her to handle. I’d often wondered if Dropkick leaving broke her, but apparently it happened a long time before him.
I closed my eyes.
“Each loss and defeat against them took her further from me,” he said low. “Ragna shut off. Because of them, your mother ran from this valley to hide from the monsters in the night.”
My mother lied to protect me from werewolves.
A strange calm filled me. The supernatural reason for her subterfuge soothed my heart on some level. Nothing possible would have been enough to explain away her lies.
But this was done to her.
Once, my mother was whole and happy.
The regrets of my life. The heartache and pain. They convalesced to a thrumming fury that filled my bones.
Locking my mother in her room when I was ten so she wouldn’t visit the pokie machines.
Holding back her hair as she vomited after chemo.
Sitting at the bench at eleven, trying to understand the utility bills spread before me.
Cowering in the cupboard as people kicked and pounded at the front door for their money.
If not for the wolves, someone would have been around to help me. I wouldn’t have been alone as my mother’s last breath rattled in her sunken chest.
If not for them, I might have known a different version of my mother.
It was so much to feel. Lifting a hand to my chest, I pressed inwards to contain the mounting pressure there.
I had to know why.
I had to know what they did to her.
“I didn’t want this life for you, niece,” Herc said so quietly I almost missed his words. “Your strength nearly changed my mind, but I’d since resolved not to bring you in. My sister didn’t want this for you, and I wanted to respect her wishes. To my great regret, a beast has revealed the truth and that path is now closed.”
Shifter Wars: Supernatural Battle (Werewolf Dens Book 1) Page 12