Conquering Theana (10 page)

"Don't
go yet," he heard in his mind.
Theana
, on a mate's path.
"Let me be free for a moment,
because in the light of day I won't give in. I can't," she whispered, and
he could hear the entreaty in her voice. But how could she have spoken to him
on the mate's path if she wasn't marked yet? It made no sense.

"Stay.
Don't think. Just for a little while," she said then, and his wolf fought
against the man. A mate could be denied nothing. His wolf pushed the man in him
down and only thought of his mate running free, the scent of fresh earth, and
the clean air. He didn't think anymore about how this couldn't be true. Or that
they should be somewhere else. He only thought about the retreating tail of his
mate. And what a nice backside it was.

He
yipped with pleasure and ran faster. When she went to the left of a tree he
streaked to the right and then twisted, his massive body eating up the space
and then tackling her. She nipped him playfully, rolling with him on the
ground. He released her, and she
sprang,
ears perky,
tail high in the air. He indulged her playful mood and let her grip the scruff
of his neck. Then he rolled, getting a surprised yelp from her when he pinned
her. She squirmed and wiggled as her laughter whispered through his mind.

"Not
fair! You outweigh me by a hundred pounds. Move, you lug," she demanded
and snapped at him. He rolled out of the way.

"Beautiful.
Perfect.
In every way.
This is what it could be like.
Every day.
With me and Gregori," he told her then as he
snapped back at her playfully. When she stood he knocked her down again, but
softened the fall by rolling with her. She laughed again, but this time it
sounded sad.

"Maybe.
But I can't. I can't let anyone rule me. I'm not some toy. Some
tool. One would have been bad enough, but two arrogant males?
Never.
I'd die under your thumb. Let me go," she said,
twisting from him.

"Never,"
he said. "You are
ours,
and we do not let lose what is ours. We
will make you happy.
More so than any other woman in
existence.
We have waited for you so long. Why deny us? Why deny
yourself?" Rafael shifted, holding her smaller wolf in place when she
tried to run. He gripped the sides of her muzzle and forced her to look at him.
"Let us keep you."

"Camden—"

"I
am not Camden," Rafael said fiercely. "That pup is nothing compared
to me. Don't run. Let us catch you."

"The
woman I am can have no man. I play with them, and then I toss them aside. I
will
never...
never
be owned.
So
nice to dream.
But reality is much different. Wake up." He frowned
at her, feeling a slight buzzing roll through him.

"We
can make this a reality. I will not let you go, do you understand me?" he
argued.

"Wake
up," she said again, and the buzzing grew louder.

"I
will not let you go," he said again, louder. The buzzing moved through his
system, building until his thoughts from before overrode his wild side. How was
he here? Where was he? How was she here?
Theana
pushed forward and licked his face.

"I'm
sorry.
But no.
Wake up."

"No!"
Rafael shot up in his bed, breathing hard and shaking. He scrubbed his face,
feeling tired, as if he'd run for miles, and yet he'd never left his bed. His
door flung open, and Gregori, in wolf form, blasted in, growling. His hackles
were raised, teeth bared, and a deadly growl permeated the air as he spun
around, looking for a threat.

"Calm
down," Rafael said then, smiling. Gregori shifted slowly, dressed in only
his pajama bottoms. He chose to sleep in the connecting suite on the couch
while his room was being vacated. Today, Rafael would make sure the wall
between their rooms would be torn down.
Gregori's
place was in his bed, with their mate.

"What
happened?" Gregori asked, rubbing sleep from his eyes and sitting down on
the edge of the bed.

"Our
mate," Rafael answered. Gregori lifted an eyebrow in question.

"She dream-walked."

"Are
you serious?" Gregori asked, jaw dropping. Mates could dream-walk into
each other's dreams when they felt lonely, or the need to be close to their
mate. It was often done when they were separated for some reason, or when one
was hurt and in the healing sleep. But usually it was between mates that had
already marked each other.
Theana
was stronger than
either of them had reckoned.

"She's
powerful. Much too powerful for that upstart Camden," Rafael said.

"Of course.
She's meant to be our mate, and we are the two strongest wolves
of them all. It's only fitting that she would be stronger than any other female,"
Gregori said with a smile. "Did you take her?"

"No."

"You
can't mark her in a dream, Rafael. It would have taken the edge off,"
Gregori added with a pointed look at the tent Rafael's stiff cock made under
the sheets.

"I
told you that when I took her we would do so together and mark her. She's
running scared from us," Rafael said then.

"What
did she say?"

"That she couldn't be owned by any one.
That
she couldn't be our mate—in a nutshell."
Gregori grunted at that.
"My thoughts exactly," Rafael returned.

"She
has no idea," Gregori agreed.

"She's
going to fight this. We can't let her leave Seurri."

"Then
we mark her sooner than later," Gregori agreed. "If she's marked she
can't be away from us long. She won't be able to leave Seurri without us
knowing, and following."

"I
don't want her to leave at all. When are they supposed to bring that woman in
for questioning?"

"This afternoon.
Why?"

"I
think we should pay the
Dolphus
pack a visit. You
know, say good morning. Why not be neighborly?"

"We
can't sleep with her under her father's roof, Rafael."

"Who
said anything about sleeping? We'll give her an option she can't refuse. She'll
come back with us."

"And
what option, exactly, will that be?" Gregori asked.

"It's
time for pack cohesion. She'll need to be here to represent her pack. She can't
refuse the invitation. Get dressed and wake the rest of the pack up. We leave
within the hour."

Gregori
nodded and left.

Pack
cohesion wasn't a card that Rafael ever played. He didn't need to. As the
strongest pack in Seurri, most times the other packs asked for it to keep in
the
Ulric
pack's good graces. Pack melding called for
one of the females of another pack who was unmated to come and spend one week
with the requesting pack. During that week she often took in some of the
unmated males as bed partners. It wasn't often done, but it was an enjoyable
event for everyone involved.

Tilla
, the chosen female for the
Ulric
pack
who was requested for pack cohesion, often came home with dreamy eyes, and
loaded with gifts from the receiving packs. It was something that they didn't
share with humans, as they wouldn't understand. They wouldn't see the
camaraderie that was developed by such a simple act, and
Tilla
was not forced to sleep with anyone. She chose to, for her own reasons. Rafael
believed, in her own way,
Tilla
was looking for her
mate in the other packs. As the chosen female for pack cohesion, she was also
in an elevated status within the pack. Once
Theana
was made alpha bitch, then
Tilla
would be her beta.
Once she mated another woman would be chosen to receive the other packs, but
Tilla
would be the permanent beta to
Theana
.
Most female wolves fought for the chance.

Rafael
was sure that Walter would make sure that, for today at least,
Theana
would be the chosen female. She may want to fight
it, but she would not be able to fight an order given by her alpha. Walter
would be assured that only Gregori and Rafael would be seeing to his daughter's
needs, and he knew they were her mates. It would be Rafael and
Gregori's
job to quell her fire over being forced into
their home, for twenty-four hours, but Rafael believed they would be up to the
challenge.

Chapter Six

Theana
wasn't sure what had possessed her to dream-walk with Rafael the
night before. Her mother had taught how to do it when she was young, telling
her that every female wolf of any strength needed to do so.  Dream-walking,
Ariana had told her, was a mate's right and privilege. It was one of the few
things her mother taught her before she died.
Theana
had
never thought she would feel the urge to use the skill. Hell. She never thought
she would mate in the first place. Maybe it had been meeting him at the lake
when he'd been in wolf form. Lord, she had never been dominated by a man the
way he had with such ease. She'd known he would be stronger than she was, but
he hadn't forced her under him, he'd simply shown her how powerful he really
was. Her wolf had reacted first. She had felt elated that she had finally met a
wolf stronger than her own. Much like when
Theana
had
met Gregori. Then the woman half of her had agreed with the wolf inside of her,
and had waited for Rafael to take her. She could taste his desire on the air,
the need, and then his resolve as he stepped away. And that's what scared her.

He
wasn't a man ruled by his cock. He thought with his head first. Even when he'd dream-walked
with her, he had fought to understand what was going on at first. She had to
get his attention another way, which she thought would have been a no brainer
when she showed up naked. It should have irritated her that he wasn't
completely entranced by the sight of her, but she appreciated, at the same
time, an alpha
who
was aware of the world around him.
It made her feel...secure. Not an emotion she was used to getting from anyone
other than herself. She had at one time felt that from her father, but after
things had gone bad with Camden she was looking at him sideways, too.

Men
,
she huffed. They were better used for what she needed and tossed. They didn't
stick around when the going got tough. They ran or changed their minds to
benefit themselves. She was sure that Gregori and Rafael would end up being the
same way. It didn't matter that her father had quite obviously loved her
mother, or that other mated pairs she had known seemed to be completely wrapped
up in each other. That was just what they showed in public, she was sure. At
least Camden had shown from the beginning that he wanted to have her under his
control. He was dominant by nature. There were even some that said he was an
actual Master Dom at that.
Theana
didn't know. And
while she found it sexy to be dominated by a man stronger than she was, she
didn't know about being a submissive. That just wasn't in her. She wasn't sure
how much of that her father knew, but it had led to her running away.

Now
she had two more problems: Gregori and Rafael.

It
didn't help that she'd reacted to both of them, that she'd actually had
sex
with Gregori, and that they seemed to resonate with her inner need to have a
man who was stronger than she was. There was no doubt that her wolf had wanted
them both. And if she was honest with herself,
which
she always was, that
she
had wanted them, too. Sighing roughly she
climbed out of bed. She was
not
going to mate with the two of them. It
wasn't in the cards. It couldn't be. She was going to meet with her father,
find out what the hell was going on with this shifter attack, and get back to
her world. The sooner she did, the sooner she could forget Gregori and
Rafael—no matter how delicious he'd looked in her dream.

But,
God, the man was a dark-haired Adonis. His hair, as black as her own, had
fallen around his shoulders in a seductive glide. She'd fought the need to step
up to him and run her fingers through it to see if the strands were as soft as they
looked. Dark, thick eyelashes had framed his eyes, long enough to make any
woman envious. His nose was straight and his lips a study in sexy.

He
was perfect, in that I-have-to-have-you-now way.
And his
body.
Jesus. He was at least six-foot-six, something that was drool
worthy. As an alpha male he was larger, built on the lines of almost a
linebacker, but he wasn't so packed with muscles that he looked unreal. He was
built streamlined with broad shoulders, roped muscles for his stomach that she
wanted to lick, a narrow waist, and devil's horns. The indentations leading
from his hips to his groin showed power, something she had always been
attracted to.
And his cock.
Stare-like-an-idiot
worthy.
It was long, thick, and slightly curved to the right. She was
sure that he would stroke her sensitive inner walls like no other. When he'd
leaked with pearly cum she’d wanted to taste it, to swallow it down.