“I know you’re out there,” Jace snapped. “You might as well come in.”
The door to her single room, a privilege awarded the centuri, opened and her twin stepped in. He’d been among the cadre accompanying the Alpha to DC, and she hadn’t seen him since his return. She’d sensed him among the crowd witnessing the aftermath of her tussle with Ash. Which meant he’d seen the Alpha discipline her in front of the whole yard. She tightened her jaw and glared. “What do you want?”
Jonathan, his golden hair and blue eyes matching hers, smirked. “I can’t leave you alone for an entire morning without you causing trouble?”
“Being first in the birth order—by seconds—does not make you my keeper,” Jace snarled. “And I wasn’t causing trouble. I was performing my duty and a renegade wolf attacked me.”
“Not exactly a renegade.” Jonathan leaned back against the closed door, his smile widening, his wolf clearly enjoying the game of taunt and tease. “The way I heard it, the visiting Were is the Alpha’s guest, and she challenged you.”
“She never offered challenge. She just—” Jace frowned, still trying to make sense of everything that had happened. She’d anticipated Ash’s approach from the moment Ash had left the room at the far end of the barracks and bounded down the hall. Ash had broadcasted a potent mix of pheromones and aggression, and Jace’s wolf had reacted strangely. She should have been in full battle mode, but her instincts had been clouded by a mixture of anticipation and a churning excitement in the pit of her stomach.
“So she provoked you into tussling.” Jonathan shrugged. “Hardly a first for you.”
Her brother was right again, and knowing it only added to Jace’s frustrated confusion. She enjoyed a good tussle, and nothing pleased her more than a dominance match, especially when she always won. Well, almost always won. She had yet to best Callan, but he was a more experienced warrior. And she wouldn’t even think of a tussle with the imperator. No Were would. The only wolf the imperator ever tussled with was the Alpha.
Jace tussled for the joy of physical contact and often ended her match with an offer to tangle. When the hormones subsided and her needs were met, she gave it little thought. But today had been different. She’d wanted to tussle with this stranger from the instant she’d scented her intoxicating blend of cedar and sun-drenched earth, wanted it so much the need still burned in her loins.
“We tussled,” Jace said defensively. “What of it.”
“And you let her get the best of you?”
“No!” Jace’s wolf bristled, ready to challenge. “The Alpha intervened before I could defeat her.”
“I heard she was about to bite you,” Jonathan said, his tone halfway between provocative and questioning.
“No way was that happening,” Jace said. But she wasn’t really so sure. When Ash had straddled her, sex burning against Jace’s thigh, her canines down, her eyes wolf-gold, her claws gouging Jace’s flanks, Jace responded in a way she’d never experienced before. Her glands filled to bursting, her sex throbbed on the brink of release, and icy pain lanced through her muscles and deep into her spine. The pain, the need, was maddening. She’d known somehow that the piercing power of Ash’s bite would have given her everything her wolf howled for—release, relief, paralyzing pleasure. Infuriated, she fought her instincts. She had never submitted to another’s bite. Oh, she’d been bitten, and done the same to others, but a bite during tangling meant no more than spilling. But to burn for it, to verge on madness without it—to be ready to expose her throat? She stared mutely at her brother.
“You wanted it, didn’t you,” Jonathan said quietly. “Why are you afraid to admit it?”
“Never.” Jace’s wolf howled, savaging her with tooth and claw. Ash had released during their tussle, her victus hot and powerful, but Jace had not. Pain scoured her nerve endings, her sex swollen and throbbing. Pelt rolled beneath her skin, her jaw lengthened, her limbs splintered and reformed, and her vision sharpened. Bunching her powerful shoulders, she bolted through the window, struck the ground running, and raced off into the forest.
Her wolf covered the ground in long fluid strides, the warm midday air pungent with aroma of prey—fox and rabbit, small ground animals, and mice. Deer bedded down in the shade of the thick undergrowth. But she hunted none. Her hunt was for something far different. She scented her, and the foreign scent of an out-Pack wolf Were should have stirred her battle lust, but the sweet-pungent trail Ash left in her wake inflamed her wolf with a flood of pheromones. Ash’s trail was fresh, and Jace scented another wolf following her quarry, stalking what was hers to claim. She howled a warning, issuing challenge, and diverted from the narrow path snaking through the forest to cut over the crest of the ridge to her left and intercept her prey. She would finish what Ash had started.
* * *
Ash searched for a place to confront the two wolves who’d been trailing her almost since she’d left the barracks. They were fast, but so was she, and as soon as she’d realized they were tracking her, she’d run into a stream and followed it downwind, making it impossible for them to catch her scent. They’d found her again, of course, but she’d circled back to the trail and, if she stayed on the trail, could be back at the Compound before they caught her.
She could escape a fight, if she wanted. But she didn’t. She would not relent now. She was ready, and she wasn’t afraid of two wolves, or twenty. Her wolf had been frustrated over and over since they’d arrived in the Timberwolf territory, and then she’d been humiliated in front of the entire Timberwolf Pack, shamed in front of her Alpha, and, worst of all, denied what she had won by strength—she’d been denied the tantalizing satisfaction of claiming Jace in the instant of release. She had fought for it, fought Jace for it, and been denied. She would not be denied now—even if the satisfaction of winning a challenge with a pair of strange wolves would be a hollow victory. Her wolf wanted more.
Leaving the stream, she bounded up a steep embankment into a clearing ringed by fallen pines on three sides that formed a natural fighting arena. Sunlight filled the glade, and she put her back to the slanting rays. Her wolf lowered her back, shoulders bunched and muscles primed to leap. Facing the far edge of the clearing, she waited.
Two wolves, a brown and white streaked female and a larger, heavier silver-tipped black male, bounded from the forest and circled the grassy area, one breaking left, the other right. A simple tactic when the prey was outnumbered. They would strike at her from two directions in rapid succession, one seeking to take her down by the neck, the other to mount her and tear out her throat.
Ash growled, challenging them to try. She crouched, waiting for the first attack, her ruff standing up, her hindquarters quivering, her sex growing heavy and full. She wanted this. Needed it.
The male growled and eased farther to Ash’s left, seeking to draw her attention. Ash kept him in her peripheral sight, but she watched the female. The pair expected her to anticipate the first attack from the male, but that would come from the smaller, swifter, more agile wolf. With no warning, the brown female launched herself at Ash, aiming to land on her back and sink canines into the back of her neck. The force of the blow would pull Ash to the ground where the male could take her belly and then her throat.
Ash pivoted to face the female head-on and counterattacked, leaping to meet her in midair where her greater weight threw the female off balance. Grabbing the wolf by the throat, Ash dragged her down, her canines piercing through pelt into flesh, drawing blood. Not a crushing bite—she had no need to kill her, not unless they took the attack that far. Shaking her head, Ash growled, flinging the female from side to side and threatening to clap her jaws tighter around the female’s vulnerable windpipe. The female whined, her body going limp in submission.
Ash rolled her onto her back and mounted her then, seconds from riding her to release. A heavy blow struck her in the shoulder and broke her grip on the subdued female. Rolling away, Ash spun to meet the new assault.
The male attacked again, canines clamping onto her neck, claws raking her underside, scoring her belly. Ash thrashed, snapping and growling, trying to dislodge him. He pinned her with his larger, heavier body, and she caught a foreleg in her mouth. He howled, and canines raked her shoulder. The hard length of his sex pressed against her belly, and Ash slashed at his flanks with her claws. He howled again and she twisted her body into a tight curve, still holding his foreleg in her grip. His weight lifted from her back as he rolled to prevent her from snapping his leg.
The female snapped at Ash’s haunches, but she ignored her. The male would submit, and then the female would give up the fight. Ash braced her rear and brought all her power to bear on the leg clamped in her jaws. The male whined and howled. The female raced in and out, biting and clawing. Ash was bloodied and tired, but she refused to loosen her grip. She could not hold off another assault.
The male closed his jaws on her ear, and Ash snarled. Then a silver wolf with gleaming blue eyes soared over Ash’s shoulders and struck the smaller female in midleap. Jace’s scent flooded Ash’s senses, and her wolf howled in triumph. Whimpering, the female slunk away. With a surge of power bolstered by Jace’s arrival, Ash flipped the male, straddled his belly, and set her canines into his throat. The hot flood of his victus streamed down her flanks as he submitted.
She held him down until he was completely motionless, his head tipped back, his throat exposed. With a final shake designed to remind him she could have torn out his throat, she loosened her grip. Their tussle had ended.
The black wolf, panting and shivering, turned his head away and crept off. Ash spun around and padded over to where Jace crouched, watching the forest for any sign of another assault. Her ears flicked as she cut her gaze to Ash.
Her whine was a question, even though Ash could not hear her in her head.
Are you hurt?
With a snort, Ash licked Jace’s muzzle as if to say From them? Ha.
Grinning a pure wolf grin, Jace rubbed a shoulder against Ash’s.
So close now, Jace’s call was clear and sharp—laden with the promise of sex and power and pleasure. Ash’s wolf rumbled, her ears rising in invitation as she backed away. Jace followed her with her piercing wolf-blue eyes. The air around her shimmered as she shed pelt.
Ash followed, and an instant later they faced each other, naked, flushed with triumph, Jace’s eyes still glowing with the power of her wolf.
“What were you trying to do,” Jace demanded, her tone rough with fury.
“Your wolves needed to be taught a lesson,” Ash said offhandedly, watching Jace for signs she was about to attack. Jace’s chest glistened with sex-sheen. Her breasts strained, tight-nippled and taut. Her stark abdominals rippled like granite. A mist of pheromones engulfed her, black currant and crushed pine, Jace’s call.
Ash’s claws punched out and her clitoris pulsed painfully. She ran a hand down her middle, watched Jace’s eyes follow the path of her fingers as she traced the line of her pelt to the juncture of her thighs.
Jace growled, her gaze snapping to Ash’s. “You had no call to challenge them.”
“I answered challenge, as was my right,” Ash said.
Jace circled her, a shimmer of snowy white pelt shimmering on her torso. Her wolf pressed close to the surface.
“As I will answer you, Captain.”
Jace grinned. “You think you can?”
“I’m ready,” Ash whispered. She wanted to tussle. She wanted the slick heat of Jace’s sex rubbing over her skin as they rolled and thrashed. She wanted to put the arrogant dominant under her. She wanted Jace in her mouth. Pelt streaked her belly, lust raking her middle.
“I know,” Jace growled. “You were about to spill all over Deirdre.”
“Is that her name?” Ash taunted her, provoking her. “I’ll have to find her later. She was willing and ready.”
“No.” Jace cleared the distance between them in a leap so swift Ash barely had time to brace herself. A claw-tipped hand grasped her nape. Fierce blue eyes bore into hers. Jace’s breasts, hot and firm, crushed hers. “You won’t.”
Ash growled, her thighs hard as rocks, her glands so tense she was about to release against her will. “Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because I’ll have you first.”
Jace snarled and took Ash’s mouth in a crushing kiss. Canines caught at Ash’s lip, and a velvet tongue—demanding as a blade—slid into her mouth. Jace’s sex pressed to hers, the hard prominence of Jace’s clitoris riding hers. Ash cupped Jace’s breast, circled her nipple with a blunt claw.
Hips thrusting restlessly between Ash’s thighs, Jace gasped. “Now. Now you are mine.”
Jace bit her neck, and Ash howled. Jace locked her arms around Ash’s waist, canted her hip, and threw her to the ground. Ash landed on her back and Jace rolled on top of her. Jace’s thigh shot between Ash’s legs, crushing her sex, and fire scorched her brain like wildfire cresting a mountaintop. Ash thrashed and twisted, got a hand between them, and squeezed Jace’s sex. Hot firm flesh filled her palm and Jace’s scent thickened in the air around them.
Jace reared back, a grimace of pain and pleasure etched in the sharp angles of her face. Ash pushed her away and, as Jace rolled, straddled her, ending up with her thighs clamped to Jace’s midsection.
“Now I will have you,” Ash panted, her glands ready to empty. Her heart pounded, her stomach clenched over and over, the muscles strained to force her essence over the wolf beneath her.
Jace bared her canines. “I will never submit to your bite.”
The gleaming skin just above Jace’s breast swelled with a rush of blood and hormones, and Ash fought her wolf’s raging demand to bite her there, to claim her. Shuddering, Ash cupped Jace’s sex and milked her with long, relentless strokes, working her thumb over the base of her clitoris. “I don’t need you to submit.”
Jace rode Ash’s hand, wild and demanding. With a sudden thrust of her hips, she threw back her head and released into Ash’s hand.
Ash gripped Jace’s neck, pulled her upright, and kissed her. When Jace drove her claws into Ash’s back, Ash spilled over her. Jace’s howl of triumph was the last thing Ash heard before her strength deserted her.