Heart Of The Wolf (2 page)

Everything had
been said in one brutal act:
We know who you are; we know where
you live, and we know about your storm-wielder… We're coming to get
you.

Her stomach
churned in a wave of combined nausea and exhaustion.

Lydia wriggled
herself out from under Ryan's arm.

She froze when
he mumbled something incoherent, his voice thick with sleep, and
then his arm was around her waist once more as he effortlessly
yanked her back into his embrace, still asleep, and spooned her
into the curve of his muscled torso.

She caught her
breath at the feel of his prominent cock pressed firmly against her
rear, her arousal already blooming under the demand of the nearly
full moon.

But she
couldn't wipe away the memory that had woken her.

Another twenty
seconds and Ryan was snoring again.

In one fluid
movement – her lithe body and timing still pretty damn impeccable
from her early years dancing – she lifted his arm, rolled out from
under it, and brought down her pillow, angling it where her body
had been, before jumping lightly out of bed.

More sluggish
words; a possessive squeeze and rub of the pillow and …
snoring.

She smiled,
despite herself, and blew her mate a kiss.
It's a good job
you're mean as fuck when you're awake, because if anyone saw you
right now…

Grabbing her
vest and kickers, she slipped out the bedroom and into the hallway
before putting them on. The moon lit the hardwood floor through the
window.

She couldn't
sleep now – hadn't been able to sleep for four days without
tortuous visions invading her, and, where Lawrence's memories were
concerned, torturous
feelings
. She hadn't mentioned it to
him – that she relived the memory of his demise. She wondered if he
knew; after all, he knew that his blood flowed through her. Maybe
it came with the package: shared blood, shared pain.

Stepping
lightly, she approached the stairs, then hesitated, looking up
towards the third floor. Lawrence slept on the third floor, and
she'd never once been in his bedroom. His door was always shut. Did
he sleep with his prosthetics on? Surely not.

A part of her,
right in the centre of her navel, pulled her in that direction;
yet, another part – also from her navel – called her down the
stairs and out the front door.

She couldn't
deal with the complexity that was Lawrence right now, and that made
up her mind for her. She padded down the stairs on her bare, human
feet, quietly opened the front door, and breathed in deep when she
stepped outside. The fresh, woodland air was welcome, but the beams
from the moon – one day from being full – were not. It bathed her
in a silver haze that had lust careening sharply through her body.
Her skin prickled where beads of pheromone-coated sweat seeped out
of her pores; her breathing grew shallow as she tried to control
the flushes traversing her.

Led by that
aching tug in her navel, she ventured towards the pine trees that
lined the woods, acutely aware that she was inflamed and wet
between her legs, every stride she took grazing her against the
cotton of her underwear … and it felt like the moonlight grazed her
everywhere else.

A
half-whimper, half-moan left her as she swayed slightly from what
felt like a head-rush, her hand coming out to find purchase against
a tree.

She collapsed
against it, her breasts sensitised to the feel of the bark against
them; that tug in her navel now the wrong side of painful.

Arching her
back, she rubbed her swollen clit against the pine, or tried to –
she couldn't quite reach the spot…
Damn it!

Her navel
throbbed.

His name left
her lips in a whispered plea …
“Taylor…”
Where was he?

Blood rushed
through her ears sounding like the ocean. Her red hair matted
against her face with her drenched skin.

A rustle to
her left.

She moaned in
relief and anticipation.

Taylor emerged
in wolf form – golden brown and glorious.

The past four
days, when everything had fallen apart, Taylor had been her balance
– no, he'd been the group's balance. Something small, but
noticeable had changed within him since the fiasco with Sarah and
his last visit to his old house: there was more of an ease about
him. He could often be found in wolf form now, seeming to prefer it
even to some extent. And while Ryan had been preoccupied with
strategies to keep the pack safe, and Lawrence had been blowing his
usual hot and cold with her, Taylor had been her stability. Some
part of him had made peace with itself, and it put her at peace
when she was with him.

She turned to
face him, swivelling so her back was now against the bark, her legs
shaking with expectation, barely able to hold her up.

He trotted
towards her with no hesitation, his green wolf eyes, bright, and
fixed on hers. With his muzzle he tapped the inside of her leg and
she opened for him; grabbed his fur as he sniffed her crotch,
taking in her scent. He licked the insides of her thighs, slick
with her need, and when his nose bumped the seat of her underwear,
it was just about all she could take. A “please” tumbled out of
her, and the next thing she knew, nimble fingers were bringing her
pale blue briefs down.

A human Taylor
knelt at her feet, eyes wild with fire, fangs bared in desire.

Since the
murder, the heat, fuelled by the moon, had been building between
them. Nevertheless, Taylor had kept his distance, allowing her to
mourn; allowing Ryan to fulfil his role as the Alpha, and Ryan had
completely possessed her in a bid to protect and comfort her.

Four days ago,
the four of them had shared one moment of intense healing – sexual,
yet purifying – bringing them all closer together. Since then, with
their union established, albeit still on shaky ground, Ryan had
been the only wolf to lavish her body with his own, offering her
assuage when her grief threatened to overflow. Taylor had stepped
aside, and Lawrence had retreated into the background, perhaps to
nurse his own wounds.

But a
storm-wielder bound to three mates needed more, or so it seemed –
she needed to feel the union of the quartet, and it was getting
harder to ignore by the second, but first…

She needed
Taylor.

Teeth scraped
her sensitive clitoris, the tip of his tongue sliding the length of
her sex, and she threw her head back, crying out with abandon as
she gripped his hair, so near to the edge already … for days…

Her legs were
lifted over his shoulders, her back pressed harder into the tree
trunk as he supported her with hands against her backside, thumbs
sliding up her soaking slit, opening her further…

He drove his
tongue inside her.

God help her,
that was all it took. She came with a shriek, more animal than
human, holding Taylor fast to her as she writhed against his lips.
A quick glance down through heavy lids caught the way his stubbled
jaw moved – open, close, open, close – lapping up her release, and
she was already spiralling at what the sight did to her.

Thunder
sounded overhead.

Inside her,
the wolf howled. It was
so
near the surface…
One more
night!

She was swung
through the air, Taylor's mouth still on her, until he brought her
down and she landed with a small thud on her back; the grass
beneath her soft and slightly dewy.

He nipped at
her hips, her stomach, her ribs, bringing her vest up –
sweet,
lord
– her breasts… And when he finally came up to meet her
eyes, his face held a searing longing that matched her own. Gone
was the sorrow she'd seen on him so many times – whether it was
because he'd let it go, or because the moon requested his full
attendance, she didn't know.

He plunged his
tongue into her mouth, drowning her in her own taste, then pulled
back with a growl that vibrated throughout his entire body. With
one of his hands, he flicked her clit lazily, she gasped in
surprise and then he drove his fingers in her, coarse words
tumbling from his lips… “I was the first one here – dreams aside –
do you remember that? I was the first to taste you; the first to
feel you come…”

Holy
Christ!

This man had a
hundred layers. Mated Taylor, when he let his wolf reign, was as
'alpha' as her other two mates. For some reason, she hadn't been
expecting it, though she had always noticed his feral nature, even
when he had denied it; had always seen the wildness he'd tried so
hard to bury. Both she and her wolf submitted quite happily.

“Lydia…” he
commanded, as he scraped her earlobe with his teeth, and it
was
a command, even if only her name was uttered.

She moaned at
his dominance over her. “You were the first one I came for,” she
affirmed.

Her words
brought down any final barrier he might have had in place against
taking her.

With a
guttural sound of want, his cock replaced his fingers and slid all
the way home.

“
Taylor…”
Two syllables riding on the breath of a desperate
inhalation.

He was an
overwhelming combination of forceful and gentle, rough and smooth,
wolf and man, friend and lover…

“Oh, god, I
can't … the wolf – she's so near the surface. One day is too long.
I'm so close…”

He paused,
embedded completely inside her.

“That was
not
a request for you to stop.”

He laughed,
“Hold on…” and then repositioned himself as he held her down by her
hips; moved himself deeper in and further up her body, brought her
legs higher, knees up near her shoulders and then
—

“Shit!” she
cried, as he pushed into her, hard. She hadn't even known he could
go any deeper.

“Fuck, yes,”
he belted out, and then he moved relentlessly, the top of his shaft
hitting her sweet spot over and over with every calculated thrust.
“I've got you now,” he growled out through gritted teeth.

With his right
arm he held hers into the ground; his left hand brushed the side of
her face and then he hooked his thumb into her mouth, knowing she
loved the taste of the earth on his skin.

A keening
noise left her as her ache escalated at the rate of knots.

His body
slammed into hers.

“
I've got
you now.”

The force of
his approaching climax matched hers.

Lightning
flashed through the sky directly above her, making her body buzz
with electricity, but this time, she didn't bring it down. It's not
what she was seeking. She was looking for that other type of wonder
that she had shared with both Ryan and Lawrence; that strange and
beautiful fusion, borne of acceptance, that melded her to her mate
in an ecstatic, forever union.

And there it
was.

Invisible, yet
tangible coils ran through and around both her and Taylor,
swallowing each of them up in the other.

He moaned in
abandon, finally letting her in – finally losing himself in her…
“You've owned me from the first moment I saw you,”
he
whispered, hoarse and carnal; words from the past now cementing
their tie.

His scent
poured off him, blending with hers, and he grew huge and hard
inside her as her swollenness sucked him in.

She screamed
his name, and he came in a raw cry of rapture, exploding within her
as she convulsed around him, bonded for eternity; willing slaves to
the cosmos that threw them together.

~*~

With a rumble
that ran through him, he squeezed his throbbing erection with his
right hand and came, fast and furious, and as if his life depended
on it; that feeling of constant, slight panic – of always being on
the edge – the legacy of a travesty befallen him, over twenty years
ago now.

Lawrence
clutched the handrails on the side of his bed, to his left, until
his knuckles turned white; the need to balance his body – find his
central point of gravity – the reason for his brutal grip, but not
the reason for his brutal climax.

No.

That had to do
with the zesty red-head he was mated to … and by blood, too. He
wondered if she knew the extent to which he could feel her reaction
to pretty much every goddamn thing. It sent him into a tailspin. It
sent him wild. It sent him needing to bring himself off in
synchronicity to her don't-you-just-love-the-universe,
cosmo-bonding with Taylor.

Fuck.

He'd known it
would be like this when Ryan had demanded he save her. Wolves
didn't mate through blood and couldn't … unless they carried the
storm-wielder gene, which both he and Lydia did. But he hadn't been
able to deny the former rogue wolf – not when Ryan had saved his
life all that time ago and looked after the pack at his
request.

Sperm coated
his chest and …
shit
… the wall behind him.

He reached
over to the nightstand on his left and snarled lightly when he
found his tissue box empty.

Quadruple
fuck. Skip the double and the triple – it would save him time,
because the 'fucks' just kept on coming.

With effort –
because he'd just ejaculated half his fucking body weight – he
hauled himself up to sitting, reached for his wheelchair (always by
the side of the bed) brought it around and levered himself into it,
before steering his way to the bathroom.

~*~

The Egyptian
sun rose over the dusty horizon, piercing its rays into the
blue-grey sky, still sprayed with pinks and oranges … and this was
the bit he loved most about his life, whether as a Trident or a
human: the sun would always rise.

The moon could
throw as many tantrums as it liked, but the sun, in all its
splendour, would always meet it head on.