God, I needed to stop now, otherwise things might happen I didn’t plan on happening for a while.
“Addie,” Forest spoke my name quietly, and I brought my focus away from the twins, landing it on the alpha. He gave a new definition to the word smolder. He was so good-looking it hurt, so tall I had to crane my neck up to look at him. “What do you want?” he baited me, tempted me, as if he were oblivious to the fact that he and the other two males in the nearby park had growing hard-ons.
“I…” There were so many things I could say, so many things I wanted. But, me being me, I decided to say the one thing I probably shouldn’t, one of the most embarrassing things I’d ever said aloud: “I don’t want babies right now.” The urge to smack myself into oblivion had never been stronger.
Hmm. Maybe I could salvage this scenario.
“But I want you,” I added quickly, hoping the blush on my cheeks was because of my naked mates and not because of me bumbling around.
“You have adrenaline coursing through you at a rate you’re not used to,” Forest informed me, his voice low and even. “You are your wolf, which you weren’t prepared for. What you’re feeling, you can fight it.” Just like how he fought off the urge to sweep me off my feet and take me here and now, apparently.
Jeez. Now was not the time for the self-sacrificing alpha. Now was the time for the dominant Forest, for the one who had cornered me in the bathroom, the one who had me pinned beneath him and squirming with just his fingers. Where was the dirty alpha when I needed him?
“It’s not because of the wolf,” I said.
Correction: Not only because of the wolf. But whatever. If the alpha didn’t want to play, he didn’t have to.
I stepped around him, moving to Maze and Dylan. The thought of them being brothers, being twins, was a little unnerving, but it wouldn’t be weird as long as they didn’t touch, right? I was kind of new to this.
I ran a hand down each of their chests, directly down the center as I asked in a whisper, “What do you two think?” My voice was that of a temptress; I almost didn’t recognize it. Seductive and velvety, smooth like honey. They didn’t stand a chance against me.
“I think,” Maze whispered, “that if this is all one big tease, you’re going to kill me. You’re sure, yeah? Like he said, your first transformation is always…” His wordiness stopped when I leaned against him, pressing my bare body against his, swallowing up his words before he could speak them with a kiss so sweet.
“I think,” Dylan murmured, “she’s sure, based on your sudden silence and the blurry image I’m seeing of you two making out.”
My sudden kiss had caught Maze off-guard, but it only took him one second before he lost himself in me. He held me close, his hands drawing down my back, pressing my stomach harder against him, against his erect length.
Abstaining from sex had never been so hard, pun intended.
I smiled into the kiss, soon bringing us both down to the ground, the grass prickling my feet. I straddled Maze, drawing my lips everywhere. His neck, his throat, his stubbly jaw. Just as I started to hear him moan, right when I began to trail my mouth down his chest and grind myself against his hard length, a pair of strong hands grabbed my waist and pulled me off him.
“I don’t think so,” Forest said, tossing me over his shoulder, keeping a firm grip on my legs to keep me from sliding off. “Get off the ground, go back to the house. Make sure Sarah doesn’t see you like that.” Now he ordered around Maze and Dylan, as if he was their boss or something.
Their alpha.
Maze got to his feet, about to open his mouth to retort, but a stern look from Forest sent him scurrying. Dylan was close behind him as they hurried out of the park and away from Forest and me.
I tried to wiggle my way off Forest’s shoulder—which currently dug into my stomach, all hard and muscly—but I couldn’t move an inch. I swatted at his back, probably doing more damage to my hand than to him. Glaring down at his bare ass, past the scars that lined his back, I muttered, “Put me down.”
Forest, the freaking know-it-all, scoffed, “You’re practically in heat. If I put you down, I know what you’ll try to do, and once it starts, it’ll be a long time before it’s finished.”
I paused. “You’re saying I can be in heat like some animal?”
“I’m saying you are an animal now, and you’ll want to mate like one,” he spoke as if he were an expert on the subject—which, okay, maybe he was. But he also had a hard dick, just like the others. He wasn’t as superior as he pretended to be.
“Don’t act like you’re better than me,” I said. “I saw your—”
He interrupted me, jostling me a bit rougher than he should’ve to prove his point. “I might want you, but I can hold myself back, because now is not the time to lose ourselves in each other. Once I have you like that, it will be a long time before I let you out of my bed. Days, maybe.”
My eyes widened in both curiosity and horror. “Days? You’re kidding.”
Forest turned his head slightly, as if to shoot me a look, almost smug. “Am I? Am I known for my jokes, Addie?”
He had me there.
“Besides, there’s the claiming we have to think about, too. We can’t fully be one until you’re claimed, wolf and all. Now is…” He let out a groan, as if it pained him to admit it. “…not the time.”
I hung over his shoulder limply, muttering, “But I want another orgasm.”
“I will give you all the orgasms your body can handle, and I’ll show the others how to do it. Your life will be full of orgasms,” he promised me as we came upon the street where his house was. “You’ll just have to wait for them.”
In the houses they passed, I saw a few shifters peeking out of their windows. The town was still on lockdown until Clay was dealt with—and it was with that thought I knew Forest was right. There was a time and place for orgasms, and now was not the time. I sighed the deepest sigh my lungs could muster.
How depressing. I didn’t want to wait for the mountains of orgasms Forest promised me, but I would. I had no choice. My hand was forced.
Once we reached Forest’s house, daylight now shining brightly overhead, he set me down on my own two feet before meeting Maze and Dylan on the porch. Maze held Forest’s clothes, while Dylan had mine. We got dressed in silence, mostly because I was too busy thinking about orgasms.
Forest turned to me, lifting a single black brow as he gestured toward the house. “You ready? I believe there’s a wolf inside awaiting judgement.” Around him, Maze and Dylan looked uneasy, as if they weren’t too particularly fond of judging an elder, but they’d make do.
I breathed in, steadying my heart which still beat as if I were on top of Maze, all fired up and ready to go—only with nowhere to go. Nothing to rev up my engine. Logic said now wasn’t the time to get lost in each other, but if I couldn’t shake this feeling, what good was holding back? All I could think about was sex, sex, sex.
Oh, and orgasms.
Yeah, those lovely orgasms.
I didn’t exactly want to go inside and see Henry, because I was half afraid I didn’t have the balls to do it, and half certain I’d try to rip his throat out for what he did to me. But I didn’t have a choice.
Giving a short nod, I said, “Yeah, I’m ready. Let’s get this over with.” I moved past Forest and the twins, and as I did, I thought I heard Maze mutter something about how Forest was no fun.
Having to agree, I smiled, though the smile fell off my face the minute I stepped foot in that house.
Chapter Twenty-Two – Addie
They were in the bedroom, the same room I’d been sleeping in when Henry snuck inside the house and forced me to turn. My mom stood near the window with her arms crossed, the shattered glass a broken mosaic of shards on the windowsill. The expression she wore was murderous, and for once it was not directed toward Forest. The particularly vehement and violent face she wore was turned toward Henry, who sat on the edge of the bed, hands on his lap, as if he
were in timeout.
A timeout. Like a child. Like none of this really mattered to him.
And, I realized as the old man slowly turned his hazel stare to me, he didn’t care anymore, because he got what he wanted—me to shift, me to basically forgo my magic half. Who knew if I’d even be able to cast a single spell or detect any magic now. Henry might’ve ruined everything; he may have sentenced us all to die, and that was something I could not forgive.
Landon leaned on the wall that Henry’s back had cracked when the others had barged in. Forest hadn’t even hesitated to show the old man some force, and now that I was relatively calm, I remembered the action with a twinge in my stomach. I didn’t want to consider myself a damsel in distress, but at that moment in time, I very much was. A man protecting his woman was attractive in ways I couldn’t even describe.
When I entered the room, Landon’s blue gaze locked on me. It was small, but his position changed, his posture straightening. I noticed it and knew it was because I smelled different now. I was fully and wholly a wolf, and probably more attractive to him than I was merely hours before.
An animal thing, for I felt the same. I really, really wanted to throw it all away and be claimed, both in my human and wolf forms. But, of course, Forest was right. There would be plenty of time for that later.
Now was purely Henry’s time. The special old man.
As Maze and Dylan filed in behind me, Forest moved before Henry, meeting his unrepentant stare. The old man was anything but sorry; his feelings were plain as day on his face. Even in the face of his alpha, Henry barely blinked.
“You have some explaining to do,” Forest spoke lowly, flashing teeth that were just a bit too sharp in his mouth. A rumbling came from his chest, and I fought the urge I had to lay down and submit.
That growl wasn’t meant for me.
“I will explain nothing,” Henry said, holding his head high, even though he was not the one holding the superior position here. Nose upturned, as if he looked down on everyone. The bastard. “I have made my feelings about magic perfectly clear—”
“And I thought I made my feelings about your opinions perfectly clear—you were not to interfere here, Henry. Addie was supposed to choose, after Clay was dealt with. But you went ahead and fucked it all up. You do realize that, don’t you? You may have doomed us all.”
Henry had the audacity to laugh, to chuckle right in our faces. “She wasn’t good at spellcasting anyways. Did you see their house? All the holes in the walls? It would take a seasoned warlock or witch to go head-to-head with a death priest.”
I felt my blood boiling. Granted, he might’ve been right, I was nowhere near powerful enough when it came to my magic to fight Clay head on, but now the option to try was off the table. I felt nothing inside but my inner wolf—who admittedly was very happy about being released, but I wasn’t. This whole thing was asinine.
“What are you saying, Henry?” Forest questioned him. “That we should give Clay our stomachs and give up?”
“I would never suggest we surrender,” Henry quickly snapped, eyes flashing metallic. “Instead, we should fight him how wolves would: as a pack. As one. His magic cannot be everywhere at once, we could overwhelm him with sheer numbers—”
“Maybe,” I muttered, earning myself a glare from Henry. The hand I’d snapped at had stopped bleeding, but his fingers did look gross. Holey, bloodied. Too damn bad. I wasn’t sorry. “Or maybe he’d kill us all!” I couldn’t keep calm anymore, not when Henry’s plan was so stupid.
Did the old man forget about the magic Clay had used to encircle the whole town and stop anyone from leaving? Granted, it’d only been one night’s worth of a spell…and it had taken a grievous toll on his physical body, but that wasn’t the point.
It was Forest who spoke next, “Regardless of what we do, Henry, it won’t matter to you. You don’t have a say in this.”
Indignant, Henry started to argue as he got to his feet, but one harsh glare from Forest stopped him.
“Did you think you would walk out of here without facing any repercussions for what you’ve done?” Forest laughed, and though it was a forced laugh, it still sent a shiver down my spine. He could be downright menacing when he wanted to be. “No, you will face punishment just like anyone else would. Being a pack elder does not elevate you above the laws of the pack.”
Knowing he could not argue, Henry’s mouth thinned. “Fine. What is it, then?”
I felt everyone’s eyes on me, but I didn’t let it bother me. Henry deserved so much worse than what he’d get, but I wasn’t like Clay. I could never sentence anyone to die. For my beloved grandfather, though, there was a single fate worse than death.
Henry realized everyone was busy looking at me, and he muttered, “I don’t understand.”
Taking his time to reply, Forest said, “I won’t be the one doling out your punishment.”
I moved beside him, glaring at Henry as I added, “That prestigious honor falls to me, sadly for you.” When the old man did nothing but glare at me with an intense anger that ignited my own fury, I asked, “Anything you’d like to say to me before I tell you what your punishment is? Anything you’d like me to know…pappy?”
People called their grandfather pappy sometimes, right? Or maybe that was just something people did in the movies? It was hard for me to know, since I had no extended family to speak of. Before coming to Crystal Lake, I never much thought about them, for Sarah had been all the family I needed.
I wondered if my grandmother had been anything like Henry, or if she’d merely been with him because of the whole alpha-chose-him-as-her-mate thing. Didn’t matter much now, seeing as she was gone.
Henry did not choose his words carefully enough. “I did what’s best for you.”
Blinking, I let his words sink in. Whatever I hoped he would say, that wasn’t it. It was the very opposite of what I’d wanted, and it only served to further rile me up. “That’s the thing, old man,” I said, frowning, “you don’t get to decide what’s best for me. I do. And now your fate rests in my hands. It’s ironic, isn’t it?”
Irony was evidently not something Henry thought amusing.
“I think there’s only one punishment that’ll really make you realize how badly you screwed up,” I said. “This pack is no longer yours. You’re not our elder. You are not one of us, since you don’t hold the pack’s well-being in your heart and only care about yourself.” The more I spoke, the wider Henry’s eyes became, until I would’ve sworn they’d pop right out and fall onto his lap. “I’m exiling you, Henry, in case I’m not being clear enough.”
I was being perfectly clear, given the red spreading on his skin and the wrinkles deepening on his face. Henry practically spat as he said, “You cannot exile me, pup—”
“Oh, but she can,” Forest spoke with a nod. “And she’s not a pup, Henry. You made sure of that.” When Henry made a sputtering noise, he added, “I will give you one hour to go to your home and take what you need. If I so much as smell you around here after that, I will make you wish you had left. You know the punishment for breaking an exile decree.”
Judging from Henry’s expression, it wasn’t a good one.
The old man said nothing as he stormed out of the room and pounded down the stairs, slamming the front door behind him as he went. He didn’t glance at me or my mom, or any of the males behind me. Henry truly didn’t care about anyone other than himself, and he was stupid to think he’d get away with this.
Once he was long gone, I whispered, “He was right about one thing, though.”
From his position on the wall, Landon asked, “About what?”
“We can’t rely on magic to beat Clay. We’ll have to hope Arthur and Zak made it to the assembly and convinced them of his crimes. Without his magic, he’ll stand on our turf,” I explained, glancing to each of my guys.
“Then we’ll tear him apart,” Maze said. “I call first dibs.”
As I laughed and rolled my eyes, Sarah spoke up
, “May I have a moment alone with my daughter?” She needn’t say anything else. The twins were quick to look meek as they nodded and left; Landon took his time, eyeing me up as he went, the hunger in his gaze palpable.
I really hoped Sarah didn’t notice that.
Forest lingered the longest. His voice was quiet as he murmured, “You should try to rest. You can take my room, if you want.”
I knew he meant well, so I nodded. Mostly to get him out of the room and away from Sarah, who had finally returned her glare to the alpha. I was exhausted now, due to the absence of the adrenaline that had kept me up most of the night as a wolf. I could use sleep that wasn’t interrupted by a conniving relative, but sleep could wait.
After Forest had left and gently closed the door, leaving me alone with her, I faced her just in time for a hug.
“I’m so sorry, honey. I’m so sorry. I can’t believe he did this to you,” Sarah whispered, the emotion plain in her voice, her arms practically squeezing the breath out of my lungs.
There was nothing I could say to make her feel better, so all I managed to croak out was, “I know.” When she finally let me go, I absentmindedly ran my fingers over the cut on the top of my hand. A fresh scab sat where a cut should’ve been—the shift had sped up my healing. The cut Clay had made on my arm for my blood was near nonexistent now.
This really did complicate things, didn’t it?
“How are you feeling?” she asked, talking gently, as if I had just lived through a traumatic experience. In a way, I supposed I did, but being scratched by Henry—while a betrayal—was nothing compared to the torture Clay had put my mind through.
“I’m okay,” I said, not sure if I was lying or not. I knew I’d be even more okay if Clay was out of the picture entirely, but that wasn’t the case yet. “Do you think Henry will really leave without a fuss?”
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