Jace stretched, the bed of crushed pine needles beneath her body bathing her in their sweet aroma. Warm sunlight danced on her face, and heat of a different kind smoldered against her back. A body curled around her, firm chest and belly molded to the curve of her back and the swell of her hips. The unaccustomed weight of an arm draped across her middle. Jace’s blood thrummed thick and heavy, a steady beat of arousal spreading down her thighs from her loins. Her wolf sighed and grumbled. Still needy. Pricking her inside with needle-sharp teeth and claws. Demanding she finish. Take. Claim.
Bite.
Jace’s eyes snapped open. Still in the glade, the sun at half nadir. Late afternoon. She’d drifted, unaware of her surroundings, peaceful, her guard down, unprotected. Ash was still here—her arm encircling Jace’s abdomen, her fingers still tapered to blunt claws, resting possessively on the underside of her breast. Jace’s nipple tightened and her sex swelled. She’d never awakened this way before—she’d never slipped into such contentment after a tangle. Tangling was for the release of the pent-up tension and warring hormones that were a natural part of a Were’s life—sex was as essential as breathing, and she took about as much notice of it. Or who she tangled with. Until now. Jace growled softly.
Ash nuzzled her neck, her breath a caress that tingled in Jace’s clitoris. “You smell like the mountaintop after a spring melt—when the berry bushes break through the snow and the wind carries the first seeds of spring.”
Ash’s mouth moved slowly over Jace’s neck, tasting her, skimming ever so lightly with her canines. Jace shuddered, her stomach twisting with need. Ash squeezed her breast and rubbed the hard peak of her nipple with her thumb. Jace’s legs twitched and her glands pounded.
“Move away, Wolf,” Jace warned.
“Why. You like it. So do I.” Ash pressed her hips to Jace’s ass, swept her palm down the middle of Jace’s stomach, feathering the fine pelt line that dove between her thighs. Laughing lazily, Ash traced the cleft into the delta between her thighs and teased her sex.
Jace arched her back, lifting into Ash’s palm and rubbing her sensitive flesh against Ash’s fingers. She readied, the pressure in her belly an agony of desire. All she needed was for Ash to stroke her. The press-pull on her tense clitoris and bursting glands would empty her. She raked her claws down Ash’s arm. “Massage me.”
“Not yet,” Ash murmured, her canines trailing down the side of Jace’s neck to the curve of her shoulder. Ash bit down gently in the sensitive angle, not enough to puncture, just enough to incense Jace’s wolf. Jace’s wolf snapped and howled in a frenzy of sex and pheromones. Jace’s pelt shimmered beneath her skin and her jaw tensed. Close—so close to releasing, so close to giving her wolf the power to take what she wanted.
“You presume too much,” Jace snarled, yanking Ash’s hand from her sex. The pain became a whirlwind of slashing claws and rending teeth. Her wolf set upon her in a fury. Jace shivered.
“Stubborn wolf,” Ash chided and rolled onto her back, pulling Jace over with her. “You can’t stop now. I can feel you about to explode.”
“When I’m ready.” Jace straddled her, her breath catching as she glanced down and saw Ash clearly for the first time since she’d burst into the clearing and driven off the wolves who’d attacked Ash. Then she’d seen only the fierce power of Ash’s wolf in battle, quick and strong and fearless. Now Ash regarded her with an arrogant smile, the tips of her canines just brushing the edge of her full lower lip, sunlight casting her skin in bronze. Ash’s eyes glittered, hungry and demanding. Jace traced the angle of her bold jaw with a claw. Her wolf rumbled in satisfaction, and Jace’s sex quickened against Ash’s belly.
“We should not have slept,” Jace said, refusing her wolf’s call.
Ash gripped Jace’s hips in both hands and pulled her forward, arching beneath her, inviting, then pushed her away. “Our wolves would’ve wakened us.”
“I need to return to the Compound, and you to the barracks.”
“This won’t take long. Stop fighting it.” Ash kept up the back and forth push and pull, faster and harder, forcing Jace to ride her.
Fire shot through Jace’s loins, and she curled forward when her abdominals clenched. She fought to break Ash’s control of her, but every second she fought her need, the more her wolf fought her. The agony in her loins shredded her flesh from her bones. Jace gripped Ash’s shoulders, leaned down, and snarled in her face. “You mistake a tangle for more. You will not bite me.”
“No more than a tangle,” Ash growled. “Just that.”
Blood boiling with lust, Jace kissed her. Ash’s eyes flashed gold and Jace caught her lip with her teeth and tugged. Ash jerked beneath her.
Yes. Now, yes. When you are mine.
Digging her claws in, holding Ash down where she belonged, Jace plunged her tongue into Ash’s mouth, taunting and teasing, daring her to struggle. Ash bucked beneath her, dug her claws into her hips, forced her clitoris hard against her belly. The tussling stoked Jace’s excitement, drove her wolf into a frenzy.
Ash jerked her head away, gasping. “You’re ready to spill.”
Jace snarled. “Are you ready to submit?”
Ash laughed, arrogant and possessive. She jerked Jace up onto her knees. “I’m ready to taste you.”
Helpless with need, Jace thrust her hips forward, presenting her sex for Ash’s mouth. Ash’s lips closed around her, her eyes wolf-gold and mad with hunger. Flame exploded in Jace’s sex and her glands burned. The pressure built, a fist in her midsection ready to tear her open. She arched her back, threw back her head, and howled.
Ash pressed her canines on either side of Jace’s clitoris while she licked and sucked and pulled her deep into her mouth. Jace gripped her head and rode her mouth, guttural cries torn from her chest. She locked eyes with Ash, thrust in, pulled back, faster and faster. Ash’s mouth slid up and down, her lips tugging and caressing.
Every muscle tense, Jace gripped her neck, claws possessive around her nape. “I’m going to fill you,” Jace gasped and emptied in a hot flood that ripped her insides with breathless ecstasy. Jace’s thighs trembled, her belly convulsed, and her sex beat in time with her raging heart. When the pulsations in her sex ended, she was drained, body and soul.
Jace slumped back, weak limbed and helpless.
Ash groaned, her chest heaving, her neck and chest gleaming with sex-sheen, her pelt shimmering close beneath the skin. The soft vulnerable juncture of flesh where her powerful shoulders, bunched and rippled, met her neck pulsed with the hot thick rush of her blood. She was a wolf in the fullness of her power, and Jace ached to sink her canines into her.
“Bite me.” Ash writhed, frenzied with need.
Jace glowered, lust and fury choking her. Her wolf growled, demanding she take what was hers. Demanded she claim. “No.”
Ash threw back her head, the delicate column of her throat bared. “Make me spill. Hurry. I can’t—”
“Not yet.” Jace clenched her jaws, refusing to take her. Not that way. She pushed her hips between Ash’s thighs and notched her clitoris, hard again, below Ash’s.
Ash bucked, her calves locked tight around Jace’s. She panted, her abdominals rigid, her face a stark landscape of pain and pleasure.
Jace grabbed her hips, fitted her clit tightly into the cleft of Ash’s sex, a joining, but not a mating. Jace gasped as pleasure impaled her. Ash was so beautiful in her wild need.
“Now—give it to me,” Jace growled and bit the etched muscle of Ash’s chest. Enough to make her release, but not a claiming.
Ash’s neck arched, her jaw lengthened, and her sex pulsed against Jace as she spilled over her. Jace roared as she released again, catching herself on extended arms as she sagged down, her face inches from Ash’s.
“Just a tangle,” she gasped, “nothing more.”
Ash bit her lip, drawing blood, and licked it away. “Nothing more.”
* * *
Drake paced the broad porch of the den, eager for her mate. More than a week apart, a too-short homecoming, and already the threat of new dangers. She wanted her again before duty claimed her, and another battle awaited them.
Where are you?
On our way.
Sylvan’s laughter reached her, and she scented their approach. Heart filling, her wolf ecstatic with anticipation, Drake watched the forest at the edge of the clearing for her family. Sylvan emerged with two cavorting young wolves at her heels, Kira silver pelted and blue eyed, Kendra midnight and gold. Kira chased Kendra, nipping at Kendra’s rear, biting her haunches and forcing Kendra to spin around and snap at her muzzle. Kira yipped and feint-attacked, jumping agilely to one side as Kendra countered with a sharp lunge and snapping jaws.
Sylvan, hands on her hips, studied the maneuvers as if the young were already warriors in training. Drake shook her head fondly. “They’re just playing.”
“First step toward learning to hunt.” Sylvan’s gaze met Drake’s, solemn and proud. “And to do battle.”
“They were supposed to be with Roger, working on tracking with the other young today.”
Sylvan grinned. “I just stopped by to see them. Haven’t had a chance since I got back.”
“And you liberated them.” Drake sighed. “You couldn’t wait, could you?”
“Roger said they were disrupting his lessons. Too much energy.” Sylvan watched her young tussle. “Plus, every time they shift, all the other pups try and then Roger can’t keep any of them on task. I was doing him a favor.”
“They’re getting better at turning at will, aren’t they?” Drake braced herself as the twins loped around the clearing and launched themselves at her in a tornado of paws and wet tongues and joyful barks. Grabbing them by their ruffs, one in each hand, she shook them in playful welcome. Both had grown since the last time they’d shifted. “They’re nearly as large as the adolescents now.”
“They’re young Alphas,” Sylvan said proudly. “They should be the largest and the strongest.”
“They’re all that and more.”
“Just a little sooner than we expected.” Sylvan wrapped an arm around Drake’s waist as the young tore off toward the forest. “Look at them—they’re fine.”
“I know.” Drake tried not to worry, but as healthy and as strong as the twins appeared, she couldn’t forget they were something entirely different than anyone had ever seen before. Kira and Kendra were born of the most dominant Were in the Northern Hemisphere and a human-turned Were who’d survived Were fever. Whatever genetic enhancement Drake’s mating with Sylvan had produced was still being studied. By all rights, she should have died within days of being bitten by a fevered Were, and she almost had. Sylvan’s mate bite and the fusion of their genetic and cellular chemicals had saved her. She’d not only survived, she had been able to bear young, and now Kira and Kendra were likely to be a new breed of Were. They might even be resistant to Were fever. If knowledge of that were to get out, they’d be in even more danger than being the Alpha’s heirs already presented.
“Remember who we are,” Sylvan said softly and rubbed her cheek over Drake’s. “No harm will come to them.”
As if to underscore her truth, the pups burst out of the undergrowth, a sleek white wolf in close pursuit. Sophia, the Pack Omega, the healer and calm center who maintained the balance between Were aggression and protectiveness for the entire Pack. She romped around the clearing, Kira and Kendra yipping and tumbling over their own paws in exuberance.
Drake pulled Sylvan’s shirt loose and caressed her. “I know.”
She and Sylvan—the whole Pack—would protect them with their lives. And for now, they were young who needed to learn the lessons all young needed to survive. “I suppose you had a plan once you helped these two escape their lessons?”
“I thought we’d run and wear them out.” Sylvan stripped off her shirt and unzipped her pants.
“Be sure you save a little energy for me.” Drake took in the long muscular lines of Sylvan’s body, the power in her shoulders, the delicate dangerous contours of her abdomen, the beauty of her bold jaw and brilliant eyes.
“Always.” The air around Sylvan shimmered and her wolf stood in the center of the clearing.
“I love you.” Drake tossed her clothes onto the porch behind her and called her wolf. She padded to Sylvan’s side and bumped shoulders.
Sylvan’s wolf rested her muzzle atop Drake’s. I love you, mate. And don’t worry, they’ll tire long before me.
Rumbling, Drake nudged her playfully. Lead the way, Alpha.
Join us? Sylvan called to Sophia, who crouched panting at the edge of the forest.
Sophia loped over and licked Sylvan’s jaw. With pleasure, Alpha.
Sylvan barked a wolf command and the two young stiffened, their ears perking, eyes flashing. Sylvan raced across the clearing to the trail behind their den. Drake fell in beside her, Sophia and the young racing behind. Sylvan set a rapid pace, leaving the trail soon after they entered the denser forest, leaping over fallen trees, scampering up rocky escarpments, bounding across sun-drenched clearings. Drake and Sophia kept pace, while the young—loose limbed and heavy pawed—yipped and howled their excitement and made enough noise for an entire Pack on the hunt.
Their joy was infectious, and Drake raised her voice with theirs.
Sylvan leapt over a stream, and her ears perked, muzzle lifted to the wind.
Wolves nearby.
Drake caught the scent of sex, lust, and dominance all wrapped together. Not a simple tangle then. We could leave them.
Sylvan’s ears flickered. They do not have leave to challenge. In this I was clear.
They have leave to run?
Yes.
Drake’s wolf grumbled. But this is more.
Sylvan snorted and glanced at Sophia. Omega?
One of them is seeking a mate. And they both fight it.
Sylvan snarled. One is out-Pack. My centuri should stand down.
You may be too late to prevent that, Drake cautioned mildly.
We shall see. Sylvan growled and bounded up the slope.