“So that’s where you’ve gone.”
“This is ridiculous, Lycell. Why were you looking for me?” Drayton said glaring at Lycell standing in the doorway. Lycell is regarding the two of them. He views Adrienne; longing for her touch with greedy sensuous brown sharp wolf eyes. Lycell’s blank and heated look at a half-naked Adrienne is unnerving her. Her breasts and taut nipples are falling out of the unbuttoned dress, which she’s frantically trying to button, but her panty is hanging from one leg and down at her ankles.
Drayton is lying with his hands behind his head, relaxed, with an obvious satisfied smirk on his lips. Lycell’s glare is telegraphing his feelings. He has a dull ache of desire running rampant through his body. He wants Adrienne and he wants her now.
Lycell’s werewolf self sees Drayton’s taking of Adrienne as a threat and challenge. But then, given the nature of Lycell, everything and everyone is a threat when he desires a woman, and his desire for Adrienne is burning red hot and insatiable.
“I wasn’t searching for you, Drayton. It’s her I’m looking for, and I find you sleeping with him. I thought you would have had enough of him by now. He’s nothing like me. He can’t raise the passion in you and satisfy you the way I can and will.” Lycell takes a step closer to the day bed. Drayton isn’t unnerved by him, but finds him comical. It’s good to see the great lover of females unhinged by his wife.
“How do you know that I don’t want to be treated gentle, kind, and thoughtful? Every woman wants that,” Adrienne says spitting out her words making Lycell angrier if that were possible. She leans down and kisses Drayton on the lips. Drayton wraps his muscular arms around her and releases her when she pulls away. If she had kissed Lycell with a warm loving kiss, he would have kept her in his grip until he was satisfied, and it would take a lot to satisfy him.
“You know the moon is full, and I’m in heat, and either you are mine tonight, or I will have to go someplace else to find my comfort.” Drayton is watching at Lycell with a furrowed brown and raised eyebrow. He’s definitely angry, but he’s trying to resist the wolf inside of him, which is becoming hard to control with every disrespectful word falling from Lycell’s mouth.
“Why wouldn’t you expect me to be with Drayton? He’s my husband.” She holds on to Drayton and gives him another kiss, and then she glances up at a disturbed Lycell. He growls at each kiss Adrienne plants on Drayton’s mouth.
Adrienne wants to punish him for being possessive since he knew that this wasn’t a part of their contract. But since she had his male pups, he has become more possessive than ever.
“You have nothing to say to me, Drayton.” Lycell’s tone is challenging, his amber eyes burning with possessiveness. “This is between me and Adrienne,” Lycell says making a move where Adrienne lays.
“I have plenty to say to you. Adrienne is my wife, and it’s her decision who she wants to sleep with tonight, not yours.” Adrienne tries to adjust her underwear and pulls her dress down which is wrapped around her waist as Lycell watches at her. He’s noticeably heated and irritable.
“Why are you doing that now? I have seen you nude with my cock in your mouth,” Lycell says to a furious Adrienne.
Drayton fuming, pushes Adrienne to the side of the bed, and stands zipping his pants. He walks over and faces Lycell. “Enough! You’re not going to insult Adrienne because she wants to be with me.” Adrienne manages to pull up her panties and steps from the bed. She stands between the two.
“Why would anyone want to be with you, Lycell? You don’t know how to treat a woman. You don’t respect women, and you don’t respect your brother,” Adrienne says stepping closer to Lycell.
“That may be true, I may not know how to treat this human woman.” He looks down at Adrienne with disregard, and his thick eyebrows meeting. “But I do know how to treat a werefemale, and I don’t have to worry about her preferring another over me. When I take a werefemale, she’s mine. She doesn’t have another werewolf over me. I can take her when and where I want. She lives to satisfy me and my needs.”
“Then I suggest you go and find yourself one,” Adrienne says locking eyes with Lycell. Lycell is immobile, silent, motionless, and shoots Adrienne a frozen devilish look. She doesn’t mean it. She tried to tell Wilder that this wouldn’t work out, yet he persisted, convincing her that in time Lycell would change.
Lycell hasn’t changed he has gotten worse since Adrienne had his pups. Wilder assured her that the brothers would not have a problem sharing her. But that is far from the truth. What is true is that they all want her to want only them, and now that’s not going to happen, especially since she’s married to Drayton.
The marriage has posed a threat to everyone and even to her children because now the brothers are no longer equal since she gave birth to Wilder’s pups and Lycell’s, but not Drayton. By not being pregnant for Drayton, it is presenting a problem she hadn’t anticipated. Drayton under the law has a right as her husband, but that’s not werewolves’ laws. Under werewolves’ laws, Adrienne mated with Wilder first, and had his pups. He supplants Drayton and Lycell, especially Drayton because he has yet to get her pregnant. Given all the upheaval and unrest among the Samsas because of Adrienne, it will take more time and a lot of patience on all their parts, but clearly time is running out for all of them.
It is a hot mess and Adrienne can’t sort it out.
“I’m going to find a woman that’s responsive to me and can satisfy my needs.” Lycell makes a step in Adrienne’s direction and Drayton steps in front of them. They eye each other as if they will tear each other apart.
Lycell says, “It’s apparent you don’t think Wilder and I are equal to Drayton. You’re acting as if you prefer him to us. We are all Alpha males with one female and that may have to change.” Lycell’s dark eyebrows meet once again, and his brown eyes bristle with anger.
“What is wrong with you, Lycell?” Adrienne moves from behind Drayton and stands facing Lycell and Drayton.
“I know what’s wrong with him. Let him go,” Drayton says taking Adrienne’s hand and pulling her away when she attempts to get close to Lycell to touch his face.
Lycell takes a hard look at Adrienne and turns quickly disappearing into the dark of the night. Adrienne steps in the doorway calling Lycell’s name. She wanted to reassure him that he was wrong and that she loved him equally.
Standing in one place, Adrienne gazed long where Lycell had dashed. It was in the direction of the forest and snow covered mountains. Then Adrienne heard the loud call of a wolf. Not any wolf, it was the painful cry of a werewolf. A wolf who had lost his mate.
“Come, we should be getting back. The way Lycell is behaving, he will be gone for a few days maybe a week.” Drayton took Adrienne’s hand, picked her up into his arms, and carried her to the ranch. He opened the door and set her on her feet.
They walked in through the kitchen, and as they were entering the hallway leading to the dining room, Wilder was ambling down the stairs as Adrienne was walking up. Wilder handsome as ever, dressed in a pair of jeans and a blue lumberjack shirt. She paused a moment to take in his manly beauty. His strong jaw line. His large shoulders and powerful arms and legs.
He watched long at Drayton at the bottom of the stairs and his glance moved to Adrienne. He felt her. He smelled her as she passed, he thought of her in his arms when they first met, but he kept walking until he reached the bottom of the stairs.
“I’m going to the cave for a week. I’m taking Hunter and Devin with me. They have gone on and will meet me there. I have to teach them about hunting, tracking, and fishing. I won’t be back for a week or two.”
“Everyone is leaving, and I just returned,” Adrienne said turning to face them at the top of the stairs as she leaned over the railing.
“You have Drayton,” Wilder says tilting his head in Drayton’s direction. “He doesn’t look like he wants to be far from you.” A quick closed grin is on Wilder’s lips. Wilder is visibly upset. “He doesn’t appear to want to do anything but trail behind you.” The tone of his voice is impertinent to both of them.
“You and Lycell appear to be the ones who are taking this badly, Wilder. It was your idea for us to share Adrienne, and now you try to imply that I’m no longer a werewolf, but some kind of man that wants to be under a woman’s foot all the time,” Drayton’s voice is ill-humored and combative.
They are eyeing each other and Adrienne is standing watching just so nothing will happen between them. That is the last thing she wants is to cause problems between the brothers.
“You don’t see me hanging under Adrienne every minute.”
“That’s because she won’t let you.” Wilder moves close to Drayton. Drayton is a foot taller than his elder brother.
“Be careful how you talk to me. Just because you have married my mate, don’t think you can challenge me and win.”
“No one is going to challenge anyone,” Adrienne interjects. “Drayton, I need your help with my babies. Let Wilder go and roam the woods. That’s what he’s good at.” Drayton turns to walk up the stairs.
“Just as I thought. The human female commands you, and you go running.” Drayton is slow to anger but he knows that Wilder is upset, and it’s of his own making. Drayton takes it in stride and walks around Wilder to meet Adrienne, as Wilder watches with a smirk and a dark covetous stare.
When Adrienne and Drayton reaches the nursery, Robert is there giving the pups a checkup, and Mena is sitting rocking one of Adrienne’s six pups.
“Where is Lycell,” Robert asks. “Shouldn’t he pitch in and give you a hand. If not, you will need more nurses.”
“We can’t risk calling in nurses from outside of Samsaville it’s just too risky,” Drayton says taking one of the babies in his arms, and sitting in a nearby rocker facing the mountain range. “I’ll help Adrienne at night when the nurses leave.”
“Maybe that will be enough with everyone pitching in to help. Mena and I will do what we can, but she’s having our own children, and from what I can tell, she’s going to have at least four.”
“That’s what I wanted to discuss with you, Robert. I need to see you at the clinic tomorrow. I can’t discuss it now,” Drayton says in a low voice as he watches as Mena and Adrienne feed the small white pups.
“Tomorrow is a great time. Say about one o’clock. I have to take Mena into town for shopping.”
“I’ll take her,” Adrienne says beaming. “That will give us girls time to shop for baby clothes and maybe a dress or two.” Mena looked to Robert.
“Sure. Go. Is it ok with Drayton?”
“I come and go as I please,” Adrienne interrupted. “I don’t have to ask permission from Drayton or anyone else,” Adrienne says dismissing anything Wilder had said to her about going into town alone.
Wilder had said it would be best to have one of them accompany her because of the dangers of outside people finding their way into town, and that the Samsas are a rich family, and because of the errant werewolf packs upset over the loss of their Alpha, they could pose harm to her.
“You should have one of us with you at all times,” Wilder had previously cautioned Adrienne.
Wilder had discussed this with all of them at dinner. He revealed that one of the beta werewolves said that Bane’s Oregon pack heard how the Samsa brothers had impregnated a human female. The beta warned Wilder that they might try and kill her because she’s a human, and because she’s still young and fertile, and the Samsa pack may reach as many as twenty fighting males if Drayton manages to get her pregnant soon. That would ensure the Samsa brother’s dominance over all of North America and Europe for years.
“The human is indeed a threat to the Oregon pack and the Alaska pack,” the beta had said.
“I’ll take you,” Drayton said to Adrienne. His voice demanding.
“No you aren’t,” Adrienne said crossing her arms in defiance. Mena watched in amazement. She wasn’t used to the ways of human females. They were independent and free. She had lived under her father’s rules too long and the laws of being a werefemale.
Werefemales lived to serve the males in the pack. Their lives and existence depended on the goodness of the Alpha’s in their communes, and their worth was dependent on them giving birth to pups. Before, she did what she was told, and married whomever her father saw fit. Now all that has changed for the better, and she is relevant, and valued as the wife of Robert.
Mena’s Alpha father thought he was marrying her off to another more powerful Alpha, Drayton Samsa. But she fell in love with Robert, and Drayton fell in love with Adrienne. Robert wasn’t like the Alphas she had been promised to.
He wasn’t like any man she had met, but she hadn’t met many living in the wilderness of Alaska. The day he came to her pack she fell in love with him and she knew that she couldn’t be with anyone else. Her father saw how they looked at each other, he would have sent Robert away, but he needed Robert to care for his diminishing pack because all the females were sterile including Mena.
Instead of Robert trying to unravel the mystery of why the werefemales were sterile, instead he concentrated on developing a serum to counteract and reverse it. Now he had found a way to prevent the future females from becoming sterile. But Robert expected side effects, and he didn’t know in what form it would take. It was something new to him and to Mena. Mena was just happy to discover that she’s pregnant.
“I think it’s best that I drive you and Mena into town.” Drayton’s tone is a little more forceful than usual.
“No. I said no you will not, Drayton. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself and Mena isn’t an ordinary woman. If anything happens we can handle it. Do you think someone will rob us of our packages? I don’t think so. Not with the police force Wilder has contracted. Why there are more police than we have citizens. I could use a few more nurses, but then my wants aren’t at the top of Wilder’s priority list.”
“Mena’s pregnant she couldn’t help you if she wanted,” Robert adds.
“Pregnant women are tougher than you think,” Adrienne remarked to Robert. Mena watched at Adrienne still not comfortable with her new found independence.
“Wilder and Lycell would never let me live this down if anything happened to you. So that settles it, I’m your husband, and I’m taking you.”
“You may be my husband, but you’re not my lord and master. I will not be treated like a child. I have children and I’m an adult.”
“You are not acting like one now.” That was the first time Drayton exerted his position in Adrienne’s life. Before he was quiet and felt as if he didn’t have a say, but after he married her, he has been more dominating.
“That doesn’t settle anything,” she said walking away in a huff.
Drayton set the baby in the bed and took the other baby from Adrienne as she watched on. She was seeing him for the first time. She thought there was a difference between the three brothers, but clearly there wasn’t any difference when it came to her. He was beginning to act like Wilder and Lycell. They were bossy enough, but to be married and live with three bossy controlling werewolves was too much for Adrienne at this moment.
“We have to talk.” Drayton took her elbow and led her out of the room.
“What is it you want to say to me? I really don’t care to discuss anything with you, and I didn’t like that you spoke harsh to me in front of Mena and Robert.”
“I apologize to you if I did what you said, but I need to protect you for your own self and for the good of your children.”
Drayton walked close to Adrienne expecting to kiss her, she turned her head. “What is this?”
“It’s exactly what you think it is. You will not be sleeping with me tonight.” Adrienne turned and walked away from him. It was the night of the full moon and he thought that he wouldn’t have to endure the same torture that Wilder and Lycell must be going through. He wanted to finish what had started in the outdoor shed.
His thoughts were premature. And his orgasm would be premature if Adrienne had anything to do with it.
“You pride yourself in being in control. Let’s see how much control you have under this full moon.” Adrienne pulled the curtains aside and then she heard the cry of a werewolf in heat and agony. She knew now the difference in the sound of their voices. It was Lycell giving out a piercing fierce howl.
Adrienne sauntered down the hall and strutted into her room and slammed the door. At least Drayton had made his point, and there was no way she would go anywhere tomorrow, he thought. But Adrienne had made her point and it hit him hard especially when he lay down to rest that night. He couldn’t.