by J. L. Wilder
“Victor was right about you,” he murmured.
“What do you mean?” She should have been offended, maybe, but she was barely even curious. He was hypnotic. It was impossible to focus on anything but his presence.
“You do have some kind of power about you,” he said. “You’re bewitching. How are you doing it?”
“I’m not doing anything,” she said. “You’re the one with the power.” It was a frightening thing to admit, but it was the truth.
“If I told you to take your clothes off right now,” he said, “would you do it?”
“I don’t know,” she said. It was true. “Maybe you should try and find out.”
He nodded and inhaled slowly. “Take off your clothes,” he murmured.
For the second time in her life, the compulsion to obey swept over Lily. She pulled her dress over her head and cast it to one side. Carefully, she removed her underthings as well.
His eyes swept across her body appreciatively.
Lily could imagine the feel of his hands on her so vividly that it was hard to believe they weren’t already there. She ached to ask him for his touch. But there was something delicious about allowing him to take the lead, about submitting the power he so clearly had over her.
This shouldn’t feel so good. I’m a kidnapping victim. I shouldn’t be enjoying it.
But Pax wasn’t the one who had kidnapped her. All he had done was to bring her food and try to make her comfortable.
Maybe it was all right to give in.
He moved closer. “I want you to tell me if you want me to stop,” he said quietly. “Will you do that?”
“I’m not going to want to stop,” she said.
“Tell me if you do.” That was an order. It sent a shiver of pleasure down her spine, as acute as if he had touched her.
“I promise,” she whispered.
He laid her back carefully on the bed and parted her legs. “Close your eyes,” he said.
She did so.
At first, she felt nothing at all.
Then, slowly, a heightened awareness of her own body began to grow within her. It was as if she could actually feel his gaze moving over her, a touch so light it was hardly perceptible.
Her breathing accelerated. She shouldn’t be so turned on just knowing that he was looking at her, right?
But it was overwhelming. It was intoxicating. It was so much better than the times she’d explored her own body alone in the woods.
She surrendered to it completely. She would let him do whatever he wanted.
Then his fingers were upon her. They were thick, just as she had imagined when she’d pleasured herself in the woods. But his touch was even better than her own had been because it was both masterful and unpredictable.
Her skin tingled wherever he touched her. It was light at first, gentle caresses of her arms, the side of her neck, the curve of her hip. Then he grazed the side of her breast and she couldn’t help herself—she arched up into his touch.
He drew back his hand for a moment. She suppressed a gasp of dismay. She longed to open her eyes, to see what was happening, but he had ordered her to keep them closed.
A wave of pleasure passed through her, and she shuddered happily. It was so good to give herself over to obedience.
He slid a finger inside her.
Every muscle in her lower body clenched. Her hips bucked.
He let out a low laugh and pressed the heel of his hand against her. She let out a sob of relief and desperation and rocked into him, needing more.
“You’re wrong,” he said, and through the haze of her pleasure she was shocked by how ragged and desperate his voice sounded. “You’re the one with all the power, Lily.”
He withdrew from her again. This time she didn’t suppress her cry of frustration. Her hips continued their rolling motion of their own accord, as if desperate to find something to give her the friction she needed.
She felt the weight of his body covering hers. Then he was pressing against her, sliding his massive shaft into her, filling her in a way she had craved without understanding for years.
Her eyes filled with tears.
His lips grazed her cheek. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she breathed.
“Do you want to stop?”
“No. God, no. It’s wonderful.”
His forehead pressed against hers and he began to move, rocking slowly in and out of her, letting her body adjust. Letting her enjoy every moment, every sensation.
It was better than Lily could ever have dreamed it would be. So many times, she had imagined what it would be like to be with her mate for the first time when she finally met him. But it had never come close to this.
He’s a southerner, she told herself, but somehow, that didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was his body and hers, the way they were joined. It felt like their lives were suddenly joined just as inextricably, just as pleasurably. She never wanted anything to come between them.
She clung to him as her orgasm rocked her body, already dreading the moment he would leave her, already anticipating the next time they could be together.
He’s a southerner. But he’s my alpha.
Victor had been wrong.
It was possible for people from such different worlds to become mates.
Chapter Eight
VICTOR
“I don’t care what Pax did or didn’t do,” Victor said. “You can’t have your power struggles on my pack’s territory.”
“None of your people were involved, Victor,” Donovan said. “They wouldn’t have been hurt.”
“I’m still the alpha here,” Victor said. “This is my land. There can’t be any fights here without my approval.”
“So approve it,” Donovan said, his voice near a snarl.
“No, I won’t,” Victor said. “Pax is here as my guest, and I’m not going to have my guests attacked, no matter what your history is with them.”
“He’s a renegade,” Donovan said. “He can’t be trusted. You made a mistake leaving him in charge of your pack while you were away.”
“It looks to me like he did a decent job of keeping things under control,” Victor said. “What mistake did I make?”
“You got lucky,” Donovan said. “The pack didn’t need defending. But if anything had gone wrong, you have to know that Pax would have put himself first. That’s what he’s always done. That’s why he ran away from Moose Jaw in the first place.”
“Look,” Victor said. “Whatever happened between the two of you in Moose Jaw has nothing to do with me. Stop trying to make it my problem.”
“You trust him too much,” Donovan said. “You put him in charge of that omega the moment you arrived here. Why would you do that? Why not put her in the hands of your second-in-command?”
In fact, Victor hadn’t yet chosen a second. He hadn’t been alpha long enough to worry about such things. But there was another reason for assigning the task to Pax. “I wanted to get him out of the yard,” he said. “I could tell as soon as I arrived that you were about to tear his throat out.”
“I wouldn’t have killed him,” Donovan said. “I just wanted to prove my dominance over him.”
“And then what?” Victor asked.
Donovan shrugged. “Ideally, I’d have wanted him to rejoin the Moose Jaw Pack.”
“He’s not going to do that,” Victor said. “He’s a loner. I’d be pretty surprised to see him join any pack at all at this point. It seems clear to me that he’s going to spend his life alone.”
“He was one of us once,” Donovan insisted. “You don’t know him like I do.”
Victor cocked his head to one side. “This isn’t only about dominance, is it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Donovan said.
“You miss him,” Victor said. “You want him back in your pack. That’s the real reason you’re trying to get him to submit to you, isn’t it? You want him to relinquish his alpha status and live
under your authority.”
Donovan was quiet for a moment.
“He was my brother,” he said at last. “We were raised together. There’s a bond between us. There probably always will be. That doesn’t go away because of what happened.”
Victor nodded. “I can understand that,” he said. “It would be hard for me if any of the members of my pack went rogue.”
“And I know I should have expected it,” Donovan said. “I know there was never any real likelihood that Pax was going to stay with us. But I guess I hoped that he would forget the feeling of being alpha. I hoped he would put his love for the pack ahead of his desire for power.”
Victor shook his head. “You know that isn’t how it works,” he said. “You can’t ask him to deny what he is. Even if you do beat him in a fight—even if you do prove you’re more powerful than he is—you won’t be able to change his nature. He’ll still be an alpha. And that means he could never have stayed a part of your pack.”
“I don’t know if I can accept that,” Donovan said.
“You have to,” Victor said. “Multiple alphas can’t exist within the same pack. You know that. Pax was doing you a favor when he ran away from Moose Jaw. If the two of you had tried to stay together, you would have fought relentlessly until one of you had killed the other.”
“You don’t know that,” Donovan said.
“Of course I do,” Victor said. “Just look at yourself. You’ve been here for only a few days with him and you’re already about to claw each other up. You can’t be together without fighting.”
Donovan turned away and said nothing.
“But you can’t fight here,” Victor went on. “You’re both my guests, and I’m not going to allow it. You can leave, or he can leave, or you can both leave and try to kill each other somewhere else. But you can’t do it here. Understand?”
“You’re not my alpha,” Donovan pointed out. “You don’t have authority over me.”
“If you can’t respect my authority on my own property, my whole pack will help me run you off,” Victor said. “And I know you don’t want a fight between your pack and mine.”
Donovan sighed.
“Do you?” Victor pressed.
“Of course I don’t,” Donovan said. “Do you have to be so difficult all the time?”
“Yes,” Victor said. “Look, go inside and get something to eat. Have a beer if you want. Take the edge off. Unwind. I’ve got to go check on the omega and make sure she’s settled in.”
“What are you going to do with her?” Donovan asked.
“I don’t know.” Victor didn’t want to admit—not to Donovan or anyone else—that he had imprinted on an Arctic omega. It was too shameful. The first time he’d laid eyes on her, he had fallen victim to her wiles—and he’d known going in how tempting she would be.
My father would be humiliated if he knew.
If only there was some easy way to get rid of Lily. But he knew he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to harm her, and not just because of the fact that he had imprinted. It would be wrong. He didn’t want any part of that.
The most he could do was to keep her as a prisoner, away from the rest of the Arctic Wolves. As long as she was secured in the omega room of the cabin, he thought he would be able to resist her charms. And as long as she remained unmated, she posed no threat.
He took a deep breath. Being around her on the journey back from the Arctic Circle had been challenging. More than anything, he had wanted to claim her and make her his own. Only the thought of what his father would have to say about such an unnatural pairing had stopped him. He couldn’t let his father down. Not now.
He headed down the hall to the omega room, opened the door—and froze in his tracks.
She lay naked on the bed, sprawled out, breathing heavily and smelling of sex.
For a moment, Victor’s resolve wavered. He felt pulled toward her as if by gravity. His mouth watered, and his hands twitched, wanting to reach out and grab her. He felt himself grow uncomfortably hard.
Her eyelids fluttered. She didn’t seem to have noticed him.
Then Victor registered movement in the corner of the room. He turned and took in the room’s other occupant.
Pax.
He had his back toward the door. He was stepping into his pants, pulling them up, and it was immediately obvious what had happened.
“What the fuck is this?” Victor snarled.
Pax whirled around. Lily sat bolt upright, clutching the blankets and pulling them to her chest, her eyes wide.
“Vic,” Pax said, his voice placating. “Hang on. Let’s go somewhere and talk about this.”
“Like hell,” Victor snapped. “You don’t tell me where to go in my house.”
“We shouldn’t talk about this in front of her,” Pax said. He pushed past Victor and out of the room, into the hall.
Victor looked at Lily for a long moment.
She seemed to guess what he was thinking. “You told me you didn’t want me,” she said. “You said we couldn’t be together.”
“My father was right about you,” Victor said. “And I was right not to want you, wasn’t I? Everything I’ve heard about the Arctic Wolves is true. You act like you’re submissive to your alpha, but in reality, you’re trying to rope in as many of us as you can.”
She said nothing.
He turned and left the room, locking the door behind him. Right now, he felt he didn’t want to see her again as long as he lived.
Pax was waiting for him a few feet down the hall. “I can explain this,” he said.
Victor shook his head. “Come with me,” he said. He was determined to regain some control of this situation, even if it was through something as basic as choosing where they were when they had it out.
He led Pax to his study, the room set aside for the pack’s collection of books and the place where Victor kept his desk and his drawers of papers dealing with the pack’s finances. He sat down at the desk and gestured to one of the two armchairs in the room. Hopefully, Pax would feel as if he had been called to report to a superior.
Pax sat down. He did look somewhat chagrined.
“Explain yourself,” Victor said.
“I know you imprinted on her,” Pax said, clearly not interested in beating around the bush. “She told me.”
Victor closed his eyes. He had been afraid that Lily would let that slip. He supposed it had only been a matter of time. “You knew that, and you still decided to fuck her? In my house?”
“I didn’t decide anything,” Pax said. “I imprinted on her too. I took her to her room like you told me, and I got her something to eat—”
“Which I did not tell you to do.”
Pax spread his hands. “I can’t explain what happened,” he said. “One moment, we were just sitting there and talking, and the next...it was like I was falling into her. You imprinted on her too. You must be able to relate to the feeling.”
The truth was that Victor could relate all too well. He knew exactly what Pax was describing because it was the same thing as what had happened to him.
But that didn’t mean he was ready to excuse it. “You should have been ready for that,” he said. “You know what they’re like. How many times have we talked about it?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Pax said. “It doesn’t change how I felt about her. How I still feel about her.”
“You’re saying it’s not just about sex,” Victor realized.
“I really care about her,” Pax said. “I think I’m in love with her.”
“You can’t be,” Victor said. “You just met her.”
“But I imprinted, Victor,” Pax said. “I didn’t know that it would affect me this powerfully, but it has. I don’t want to be without her.”
“Are you really this weak?” Victor demanded. “I imprinted on her, remember, and I managed not to lose myself completely. How can you just set aside what she is? She’s a temptress. She’s a member of the Arctic Wolf Pack, and you kno
w what the northern wolves are like. They’re wild. They don’t respect their alphas. They’re our enemies.”
“Your enemies,” Pax said quietly. “Not mine.”
Victor stared. “What are you saying, Pax?”
“I don’t have anything against the northern wolves,” Pax said. “That’s your family’s rivalry. I respect your father, Victor. I came here to honor him. But I’m not going to live and die by his prejudices. I’m not going to fight his battles. The Arctic Wolves aren’t my enemies.”
“The northern wolves are the enemies of all civilized shifters,” Victor said. “You know that, Pax. Can’t you see what this omega is doing to you? She’s turning you against the person you are.”
“No,” Pax said. “Maybe she’s waking me up to the person I am. All I know for sure is that she’s my mate. I’m going to be with her.”
“She’s mine,” Victor said. The words slipped out before he had time to think about what he was saying. “I found her first. I imprinted on her first.”
“But you don’t want her,” Pax said. “You told her you didn’t want her, and now you’re telling me.”
“It doesn’t matter whether I want her for a mate. I imprinted on her. She belongs to me.”
Pax shook his head. “I know you don’t really believe that,” he said quietly. “You’re not that kind of man. You don’t think that imprinting on someone makes her your property.”
“I think you’re a guest at my home and that you should keep your paws off of other people’s omegas,” Victor said with conviction. “I definitely believe that.”
“Well,” Pax said, “why don’t we ask Lily who she wants?”
Victor couldn’t bear the smug look on Pax’s face. To think he had gone out of his way to save Pax from the fight Donovan had been trying to start! And this was how Pax repaid him.
Well, he wouldn’t make that mistake again. Let Donovan do whatever he wanted to Pax. Pax didn’t deserve Victor’s protection.
He got to his feet. “You’re no longer welcome in my house,” he said.
“I’m not going to leave the area,” Pax said. “Not without Lily.”
