by Callie Rose
Reach inside. Archer’s soothing voice guides me gently. You should feel your human side like a glowing light inside you. Once you step into that light, you’ll shift.
Closing my eyes, I do as he says and dive deep into my own consciousness. There’s wolf everywhere I look, taking over and absolutely brimming with strength. I like the way she makes me feel—as if I can do anything. Be anyone.
Then, finally, I see what Archer is talking about.
The glowing light radiates from the very heart of me like a flashlight. My human, I guess, nestled snug within me as long as the wolf has control. I reach for the light, letting it wash over me, feeling the warmth suffuse every inch of me. As the magic of the change shimmers through my body, I catch one last glimpse of my consciousness and realize there’s a dark corner I didn’t notice at first.
Inky black smoke filled with the sensation of power.
The witch, settled firmly beside the wolf.
I open my eyes to find my bare knees and human hands—and all the rest of my naked body on full display for the four shifters to see.
My skin burns, and I grab the blanket off the back of the couch, sliding it down over my body. Too late, of course. Ridge and Trystan are both looking at me like I’m a buffet they’ve had before and can’t wait to have again, while Archer and Dare are both gazing at me with a hunger that—in wolf form—would probably include drool.
It doesn’t help that every one of them is naked too. I can’t even think straight this close to so much bare skin.
“So.” Trystan finally clears his throat, breaking the tension in the air. “What the hell just happened out there?”
“That’s a really good question.” I chew my lip, tugging the blanket around my chest and tucking it under my arms. “I honestly don’t know. The wolf just rose up and took over. It came out of nowhere.”
“Did it have a trigger?” Archer asks. “Like your witch magic?”
“I-I don’t know,” I say, thinking back to the moment when I changed. “I realized that half the pack stood against us, siding with Lawson. All I could think was that my mates were in danger. And I couldn’t bear that. My wolf leapt out of me, ready to protect you.”
The tension returns swiftly, and all four men stiffen. They each take a step toward the couch, their gazes riveted on me.
“Say that again,” Ridge commands, his voice gruff.
Something changes in the air. A charged feeling hovers around me, between us, as the men wait for me to reply.
“My wolf leapt out to protect you,” I say. “My mates.”
The electric charge in the air pulses, making the fine hairs on my body stand on end. My heart pounds as Ridge takes me by the elbow and hauls me to my feet, his honey eyes hooded, his bare chest rising and falling with his breaths.
“You’ve accepted the mate bond,” he murmurs, his gaze sliding to my lips. “Fully. With all of us.”
Something seems to sweep through the room, and I can’t tell if it’s my own body reacting to Ridge’s words or if there’s been an actual shift in the atmosphere around us.
As if something invisible and weighty just settled into place.
Trystan moves behind me, and his fingers tease my hair away from one shoulder so he can place a warm kiss on the sensitive area where my neck meets my shoulder. His hands slip around my body and he grabs a fistful of the blanket, gently pulling it away from my naked skin. Cool air rushes in as the blanket pools at my feet.
“My mate. Our mate,” he says reverently, his lips brushing over my shoulder. His palms slide over my stomach, inching toward my hips.
“Little wolf,” Ridge growls into our kiss.
The rumble of his deep voice and the sound of my nickname on his lips makes a pleasurable shiver run through me. He called me that the night I gave him my virginity, even though neither of us believed it to be true at the time.
But now?
Now I know that it is true, and the possessive way he says those two words makes me feel the mate bond between us all the way down to my bones.
Our kiss deepens. The hungry, steady exploration of his tongue on mine raises my body temperature. I’m so lost in his attention that I barely recognize when he breaks the kiss and steps aside, letting Archer come closer. Archer’s lips are cool and sweet, and his kiss feels slightly more desperate than Ridge’s. He’s been nothing but a gentleman to me for every moment we’ve been together, even in the moments where I practically begged him not to be.
I can taste in his kiss, and in the way his hands roam my body, that he’s done being a gentleman.
Done holding any part of himself back.
Trystan’s fingers dip between my legs, and I gasp into Archer’s mouth. Ridge has slid to my right, and his mouth is hot on my skin as he trails kisses over my shoulder. Archer breaks away from me, his moss-green eyes shining with heat and love.
Then Dare is before me.
I remember this look in his eyes. It’s the same way he looked at me the night he found me by the stream, when he arrived in wolf form, shifted, and then kissed me like he intended to devour me.
The night he claimed me as his mate.
Now… the other three men freeze, still touching me but clearly watching to see what happens next. Dare and I face off, and I do my best to keep all emotion off my face. I’ve offered him the mate bond—officially, if Ridge is correct.
Will Dare reject me or put his walls back up like he’s done so often since the moment my witch side emerged?
Before my mind can get lost in a sea of worries, the black-haired shifter snakes out an arm and catches me around the waist. He yanks me to him, our bodies slamming together as his lips slant over mine. His kiss is wild and reckless, like he’s been holding it in for so long he can’t handle the pressure anymore. I gasp for breath as his cock hardens against my bare stomach.
As his hand settles in my hair, fisting the blond strands close to the roots so he can angle my head and take the kiss deeper, I have a sudden vivid memory of the first time he kissed me. He strode across the clearing in the moonlight, naked and beautiful and dangerous, and he kissed me like this.
But this moment?
This kiss?
It’s a million times better.
Because now we’re not two strangers drawn together by an attraction that defies explanation. We know each other. We care about each other. We’ve been pulled apart, our bond tested almost to the breaking point.
And we survived.
We’re still here, lost in each other’s arms once again with my three other mates gathered close around us. This time, there are no angry snarls or snapping jaws. There’s no jealousy. There’s just us.
All five of us.
Cementing a union more real than anything I’ve ever felt before.
I whimper into Dare’s kiss, overwhelmed by the emotions swelling in my chest. It’s almost too much to bear.
He draws away from me, his lips flushed and swollen. The gold flecks in his brown eyes glint as he gazes down at me, his large hand sliding down from my hair to cup my jaw. He stares intensely into my eyes as he says, “You are my mate.”
My throat tightens, tears stinging my eyes as I nod. My hand reaches up to settle over his. “Yes. Always.”
A smile blooms on his face, chasing away the dark shadows that always lurk at the edges of his expression. He looks almost boyish, and my heart thuds hard in my chest. Before I can say anything else, he reaches down and scoops me into his arms. I yelp, instinctively wrapping my arms around his neck. Trystan laughs as Dare begins striding purposefully toward the bedroom, and I look back to see my other three mates following close behind us.
Good.
Despite my worries that Dare wouldn’t accept the bond and my elation that he has, this moment is about all of us. I want all four of my men with me, and even the small distance that separates us right now feels like too much.
When we reach the bedroom, Dare deposits me on the bed, and I quickly scoot upward o
n the mattress. He stands at the foot of the bed as the three other men fall into place beside him, forming a wall of naked male bodies in front of me. It reminds me of the night they rescued me from Clint’s basement—that moment of anticipation as they all gazed down at me in the bedroom of the mating cabin.
That same anticipation hovers over us now.
Last time we did this, we were interrupted by my witch emerging from wherever she once lay dormant inside me.
This time?
There’s not a thing in the whole damn world that could make me stop.
24
Sable
As if all the men have read the thoughts in my head—or the hungry expression on my face—they all move at once.
Four massive, muscled bodies join me on the bed, making the wooden frame creak a little. They surround me on all sides, and four pairs of hands begin to touch me. Four hot mouths brush over my skin. Four voices let out satisfied groans of pleasure.
Holy shit.
I thought I might be prepared for what this feels like. After all, we’ve done something like this before, so this part isn’t entirely new. But just like my kiss with Dare was better than our first kiss, this is better than that night at the cabin.
Because these men are mine.
That word, so simple yet so full of meaning, reverberates in every touch, every kiss.
They’re claiming me.
Giving themselves to me.
Consummating the bond between us.
My eyelids droop as red hot pleasure charges through me. Someone is between my legs, kissing a line up the curve of my ankle. Someone else has their lips wrapped around my nipple, teasing it into a hard peak. Hands skate over the dips and contours of my body, and I reach out almost blindly, trying to touch them all back.
When two broad hands grip my thighs and press them open, my heartbeat picks up. My eyes fly wide, and I look down to see Dare kneeling between my legs. The other men are still gathered close around us, and for a moment, their caresses cease as I wait to see what Dare will do.
His thick fingers make indentations on the flesh of my legs as he presses my thighs even farther apart, baring me completely to him and the others. I’m spread out, open wide, nothing hidden or secret. Old habits make my thighs clench against Dare’s hold, trying to press my legs closed. But with a low growl, he holds them firm until I relax in his grip. I’m practically squirming now, but I force myself to stay still. Force myself to let them see all of me.
It’s the most intimate feeling in the world, and although my cheeks flush a little with embarrassment, something else rises up inside me too, drowning out any shyness. I feel just like I did when I told Trystan how to touch me in the hallway outside Archer’s room.
Powerful.
Sexy.
Wanted.
Dare takes his time soaking up the sight of me, his gaze running over my body as his breath quickens. His chest rises and lowers, and then he dips his head and drags his tongue through my folds, all the way from the bottom to the top. He flattens it as he passes over my clit, dragging the firm, wet heat over my sensitive bud.
My back arches off the bed, my heels digging into the mattress as my toes splay wide. “Dare!”
He growls against my skin, pressing small kisses to my mound as his gold-flecked brown eyes lift to gaze at me. The heat and satisfaction in them makes my entire body hum.
He wants this.
He wants me.
There’s nothing left between us. No more walls or barriers between our hearts. Dare has accepted the mate bond with me and the feelings growing between us knowing full well who and what I am.
Suddenly, his mouth on me isn’t enough. I need to feel him inside me, need to merge our bodies into one. With my other mates still gathered close around us, I reach down and tug at Dare’s shoulders, urging him upward. He gives in to my silent plea, crawling up to hover over me, his muscular hips settling between my legs.
The searing heat of his cock brushes against my core, sliding through my slippery folds, and I groan at the feeling. “Dare, I need you. Please…”
His large hand captures my face, fingers splayed over my jaw as he gazes at me intently. “Watch me, Sable,” he commands, the deep sound of his voice filling my body with liquid heat. “Watch me fill you up. I want you to see how perfectly we fit together, how we’re made for each other.”
My legs squeeze his hips in response to his words, and when he releases his grip on my jaw, I let my gaze travel downward to the space between us. His cock is thick and smooth, a little darker than the rest of his skin, and glistening with our combined arousal. The sight of it makes my whole body clench in anticipation, and I realize with a shock that I’m not the only one who followed Dare’s command.
The three other men gathered around us on the bed are watching too. They can see the way he slides through my folds with every pulse of his hips, teasing my entrance but never slipping all the way inside. They can see how wet I am, how flushed and swollen.
Dare wants them to see, I think. He wants them to know that he’s claiming me just like they are, that I’m just as much his as I am theirs.
Trystan makes a strangled noise in his throat, and a fresh wave of arousal almost undoes me. They like seeing me like this. The days when it seemed like the four men would fight over me, when jealousy and possessiveness would occasionally ripple through our small group?
Those days are gone.
“Dare!” I gasp out again, unable to hold back any longer. Some of the courage I found with Trystan rises to the surface as I blurt, “Please. Fuck me!”
All the men react to that. It feels like someone turned up the heat in the room as Dare curses under his breath, drawing his hips back to line himself up with my entrance. Then he surges forward, filling me in one long, deep stroke.
I do just what he asked. I watch every moment of it. It’s dirty and overwhelming and one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen. When he’s buried to the hilt inside me, he drops his head to give me a searing kiss. Then he begins to move, driving in and out as the men around me begin to touch me again.
Once more, I lose myself in a sea of sensations as hands and mouths and teeth worship my body. And through it all, there’s the steady rhythm of Dare’s thrusts, pushing me higher and higher as ecstasy builds inside me.
Just as my body begins to flush, filling with the tingling burn of an impending orgasm, Dare stops. I let out a shocked cry of frustration, and he chuckles darkly before stealing another soul-shattering kiss. Then he draws out of me completely. Before I can protest about that, his hands are on my hips, flipping me over on the mattress as if I weigh no more than a feather.
I land on my stomach, and a jolt of heat rips through me as Dare’s large hands dig into my hips, pulling them backward until I’m on all fours. When he plunges inside me again, my back arches as something almost like a howl erupts from my throat.
“Yes,” he growls. “Let them hear you. Let them see you.”
I’m so overwhelmed with need that my eyelids feel heavy. My head wants to droop between my arms as they brace on the bed, but instead, I force my chin up. I want to watch my mates just like they’re watching me.
Ridge, Trystan, and Archer are no longer touching me. Instead, they’re touching themselves as they watch Dare fuck me from behind. The looks on their faces, the sight of their fists wrapped around their cocks, the sounds that fill the room as pleasure washes through us all… it’s too much. It’s more than I can take.
My body tenses, my hips thrusting backward to meet Dare’s as my fingers dig into the soft comforter on the bed. The orgasm explodes outward from my core, rushing through my entire body with such intensity that my vision goes white around the edges, little sparks of light dancing before my eyes.
Dare gives a harsh grunt behind me, slamming into me and grinding his hips against mine as he comes too. He’s still twitching inside me as we both collapse forward onto the bed, his large frame covering mine.
For a second, I can’t think.
I definitely can’t move.
All I can do is revel in the feeling of closeness, the feeling of rightness, that floods my body.
“Sable? You alive under there?” Ridge’s deep voice is raspy with desire and tinged with humor.
“Of course she’s alive,” Dare grunts. “Do you think I’d crush my mate?”
“Kinda looks like that’s exactly what you’re doing,” Trystan puts in, a teasing tone to his voice too.
Dare shifts his weight a little, and I have a feeling he just flipped Trystan off. Then his lips brush the shell of my ear, his whisper meant only for me. “Am I crushing you?”
I make a contented noise of disagreement. He’s heavy, but I’ve never felt anything more perfect in my life.
He nips my earlobe, his heartbeat thudding against my back. “Good. Because I’m not ready for this to end. I plan to be inside you so many times we both lose count, but as long as I fuckin’ live, I’ll never forget this moment.”
The raw honesty in his voice makes my heart melt. I turn my head, craning my neck so I can find his lips with my own. Our kiss is long and deep and sweet, and when we finally break apart, he pulls out of me and helps me turn over onto my back.
I thought I was sated and boneless, but as I look around me at my three other mates, my clit throbs, already aching for more.
They’re all still hard, hands still wrapped around their shafts as they look down at me—sweaty and flushed, Dare’s cum spilling down my thighs. I want every single one of them, even though I’m not quite sure how to make that work. But as my gaze roams over each of their faces, Ridge and Trystan turn to look at Archer.
My stomach does a little flip.
I know exactly what they’re doing. They’re letting him take the lead. They’re sharing me.
The men all know what happened between me and Ridge, and I’m pretty sure they know something happened between me and Trystan too. Archer is the only one I haven’t consummated the bond with yet, and instead of fighting him for it or trying to push him out, the men are ceding to him.