by Sam Hall
“Here,” he said, swinging me out, past the tables and the chairs, out of the kitchen and into the throng in a series of whirling movements. I laughed, feeling that same childish joy that came from doing whizzies, as I’d called them as a kid. Micah smiled too, but there was something more intent there. “Now, to really forget, you have to give up all those thoughts and feelings and stuff clamouring in your head.”
“Zack makes me do that when we’re doing mindfulness activities. I have to bring my consciousness to the here and now, what I can see, hear, feel…”
His grin spread slowly when I realised what I could see and feel most right now. I swallowed hard, the tequila buzzing in my head temporarily.
“That’s all a man asks for.” He swung us out into the crowd, into the mass of gyrating bodies where ours moved at a much slower rate. “Just feel the music,” his hand slid lower, “and feel me.”
I didn’t know what I was doing. My mum and my aunt had all tried to instil some kind of grace and decorum, giving me ballroom dancing lessons with my cousins when young. But I’d hated them, and my tutor had deplored of both forcing me to do them and getting a graceful result. My family had relented after three long years of stumbling, foot stomping, grumbling crap. So now, it felt oddly exhilarating to be moving with any sort of coordination, though mostly it was just following where he wanted our bodies to go.
“That’s it,” he said as his hands went to my hips, pressing me in closer, forcing them to shift as his did in long thrusting motions that were in time with the throbbing beat of the song. I felt a curious lightness in my body, lost in movement and the sensation of Micah’s body. He wrapped his arms tight before dipping me low, pulling a startled yelp out that quickly turned into laughter when he righted me, swaying again, his mouth grinning along with me, getting closer.
“I was gonna ask to cut in, but I think I just wanna join up.“
Declan’s voice was a low buzz in my ear, my eyebrows creasing for a minute as I felt two long hard bodies against mine now. I just had to follow, the both of them shifting me back and forth in more complex swivels and shimmies of hips, not letting anything but the music and them register. Hands moved, trailing over my skin, underscoring that as well, making me notice the arms that—
“What the fuck are you doing?”
The roared question was followed swiftly by a hard shove that had my dance partners, everyone’s partners scattering.
“Dancing, Mase,” Declan snapped, recovering his balance and then approaching the other man with eyes that bristled with anger.
“You’re feeling her up like a fucking whore. Both of you are!”
“She’s not a whore,” Micah said with a low growl. “And lemme just say that’s a shitty outdated term. I asked her if she wanted to dance, and she said yes. She just wanted to let loose for a bit. Everyone’s clothes were on, but the question to be asked, of course, is what fucking business is it of yours?”
“She’s Adam’s daughter.”
“She’s a grown adult,” I said drily. When I turned, Micah and Declan looked like they were about to say the same, and I smiled at them in thanks. But seriously, I’d been dealing with the particularly toxic brand of Mason Klein’s bullshit for some time. “She kicked your arse. She can do whatever the fuck she wants, up to and including stripping off naked in this room and taking all comers if she sees fit.”
“What?”
Mason snapped out the word, but to be fair, so did plenty of the other guys, just in different tones. Female sexual agency wasn’t exactly a concept that had filtered through to Lupindorf, apparently.
“I didn’t ask to have the golden vagina that will make you the true king of this pack if you dip your sword into it,” I said, drawing a cackle from behind me. Bridget, I was willing to bet. “But let me make this super clear—I dance with whoever I want because I’m a grown woman with all the rights and liberties associated.”
“You’re showing the town—” Mase growled out.
I shoved my finger into his chest and liked the way the muscle didn’t relent, liked more how he staggered back slightly.
“I touch anyone I want, because I’m a grown woman with all the rights and liberties associated.”
“This isn’t what your dad would want. He’d be horrified and you know it.”
Sometimes when you were dealing with conflict, it took a while for the other person to see your point of view. I’d dealt with that plenty in the gym, so I had this.
I shoved Mason hard, watching his arms flail as he reeled backwards, and I kept on coming as he recovered.
“My dad doesn’t own my vagina. This town doesn’t own my vagina. No one owns it but me.”
“And what a nice one it is too.”
Our eyes jerked up to see Zack standing there, leaning against the doorway. He looked like the ultimate gym porn thirst trap in just a well-worn pair of grey sweats hanging low on his hips, almost outlining the clear V there.
“Still with the archaic bullshit, brother?” He strolled over, clapping Mase on the shoulder, but the other man just shrugged him off. “Feminism was a movement in the seventies. You might want to look it up sometime. Has all these radical ideas in it about women owning their own bodies.”
“You don’t get it. You just float on by, like none of this matters. Because it doesn’t to you. If this gets tough, if she gets tough, you’ll be off again, leaving me to pick up the pieces, as always,” Mason snarled.
“Fuck…” Zack shook his head. “Like I can see you’re drunk and everything, but you really have no idea who I am, why she…” He pursed his lips, looking down, then over at me. “Whaddya reckon, baby? Ready for bed?”
And just like that, I was. I didn’t have the energy for this anymore. My head was spinning slightly, my body leaden, and collapsing onto the soft surface of my bed sounded like heaven.
“Thanks,” I said to Micah and Declan, “that was fun. You cleared my head for a bit.”
I got slow, cocky smiles at that, Micah crossing his arms to reveal a pair of very impressive guns the tequila hadn’t made possible to notice until now. Damn, past me had missed out.
“Bridget?”
“Yeah?” she said, untangling herself from Will’s arms.
“Make sure the cousins all have somewhere to sleep upstairs and don’t tell Aunty or the uncles I let you do this.”
“Dude, snitches get stitches.” She cast an eye over our younger cousins. “You don’t even have to ask.”
“Then I’m for bed. Someone wants to make me bacon and eggs for breakfast tomorrow or do a Macca’s run? I’ll pretty much hand the reins of this town to you there and then.” There were some mumbled replies at that. “Or use whatever funds we have to get Stevie to cater it. I don’t care.”
When I turned back, Zack was watching me with that patient amused stare he usually had. That’s what I liked about him. Some girls bitched about predictability, but not me. I loved that the leash was off with him, that he’d never threaten the guys I was dancing with, but he’d be there when I was done, as he was now. He reached out and took my hand, pulling me after him away from the enforcers’ quarters, into the night and then back into the house.
The problem was Mase came too.
“He made me do it, y’know,” he announced, but it wasn’t that which had me turning around, pulling away from Zack. I didn’t think I liked drunk Mase much. Emotion I’d never seen before on his face was all there on the surface. He looked…destroyed. Because of Dad, because he’d died, because we hadn’t had enough sleep and too much alcohol and were gonna pay for it tomorrow. But those dark eyes lifted, skewering me through so thoroughly, I felt actual physical pain in response.
“Your father, Adam, he took me to one side—”
Stab, stab, stab.
“Mase, now’s not the time,” Zack growled out, but I held him off with a raised hand.
“I knew what was coming. I fucking craved it. When you walked away from that boy, Declan, and came
to me, I knew what I’d always known—that you were my mate.”
My blood dripping on the finely polished marble floor, scarlet red.
“My dad, he told me, you know. Klein men know. He knew my mum was his when they were both still in primary school, but he watched and waited until…”
“Mase!” Zack shouted.
“Every time I held you, I knew it deep inside. Every time I brushed away your tears, listened to your hopes and fears. Every time you came to me, I knew.”
My chest aching as his claw like fingers work their way past the bones of my ribcage, shattering them, reaching in deeper to get what they wanted.
“I loved your father like he was my own. I waited for you to be ready, would still be waiting, if that’s what it took.”
“No,” I ground out, shaking my head for emphasis. “No, you said—”
“He took me aside the night of your birthday, what I thought was going to be the happiest day of our lives, and he said, ‘When she asks you to be her mate, take your place by her side, you have to say no. You’d make a damn fine alpha and a good partner to my daughter, but if you love her, you’ll say no.’”
I couldn’t see or feel anything but the single tear running down the side of his face, following it until it dropped on the floor.
His hand holding my bleeding heart, still pumping, within it.
“I love you, so I said no. That’s why I said no.”
Chapter 17
In the life of an heir, your time is not your own, but sometimes you have to make it so.
I hadn’t responded to Mason, said anything, couldn’t even look at him. Zack knew what was going on, having seen me max out plenty of times before, so he put a hand on my shoulder and steered me upstairs. Mason called out for me, his voice getting harsher and more pained, but I couldn’t. My lips were welded shut, my mind blank, my body limp when Zack put me to bed.
But of course, Mason followed us up with the peculiar selfishness alcohol sometimes brings.
“We need to talk about this. You can’t stop that,” he shot at Zack.
“Probably, but she can’t right now. She drove all night to get here, then saw her dad die, then sat up all night to mark his passing. You’re gonna have to move the town meeting.”
“I can’t!”
“She won’t be up for a day or two. She pushes and pushes herself until she can’t anymore, and then she collapses when her body forces her to rest and recuperate. If you loved her, you’d know this.”
“She didn’t do that when she was living here, ever.”
“Well, she does now. Sober up, get your shit together, and alert the town. I’ll fight the lot of them if that’s what it takes.”
“And we’ll fight beside you.” A long sigh. “Fine. I’ll have someone bring up her food in the morning.”
Then there was a heavy weight against my back, then blessed nothingness.
Sleep was an ocean, and I dived deep into it. Occasionally I’d surface, feel Zack’s body against mine or his hand in my hair, stroking it, but I’d push myself back down into oblivion, trying not to resurface for some time.
“Paige, you need to eat. You haven’t eaten much lately and—”
I caught snippets of conversations, some directed at me, some not. They didn’t make a whole lot of sense in the format I got them, so I paid them little mind. I just closed my eyes and dreamt of great dark oceans that swallowed me down, dragging me lower and lower into their endless depths.
It was nice down there. No noise, no sounds, no feelings, no thoughts. Just seamless dark peace. For a long time, I just listened to the sound of my own breath and stared into the void.
But the human tendency to neglect our bodies does not work with shifters. We were two souled, and the other part of mine could feel the ways we were weakening, staying down here. It was OK for a time, to try and process the pain we’d been forced to endure, but there comes a point where the medicine causes more bad than good. My body shifted into wolf form and then trotted out of the bedroom on legs stiff from disuse, going down the stairs and following the smell of food.
“Hey, Paige…”
We knew this human as family. She laughed a lot and we enjoyed being around her, but right now, she did not look happy at all. We shied away, unable to entertain human emotional complexities when our body clamoured for food.
“Paige…”
The same noise said over and over by more man things, but we ignored them, moving to the table groaning with food. That was what we needed, not their bleating. We jumped up, putting our front paws on the table and angled our head to snatch a chunk of meat, but a sound behind us had us wheeling around.
“There you are, sweetheart,” the low rumble said. Mate, that was our first thought, then meat. He lowered a huge plate piled high with it down to the ground, and this was right, true. Mates provided food. We licked his hand once, then fell to scarfing down the meat as fast as we could. We felt her shifting, moving, protesting, wanting to put all of her many teeming thoughts between us and what we needed, refusing to take the satisfaction that comes from being cared for by your mate. We did not hold onto this form for long normally, but we growled, defending our turf, even from ourselves, and when she finally quietened, we filled our belly to the point of groaning, then let go.
When I came back to myself, the first thing I felt was my stomach was full almost to the point of pain. The second was I was standing naked in the kitchen, most of the enforcers and my family sitting around the dining table in the adjoining room. Zack went to pull his shirt off, but Mason went to the kitchen door and retrieved the old robe hanging there for just this purpose. It smelled of Dad. The third was the silence as everyone just stared.
“How long?” I asked, my voice creaky from disuse.
“Two days and a bit,” Zack replied, putting down the spatula he was holding and walking over to me. He held me at arm’s length, taking me in, and then pulled me close, wrapping his arms around me. I felt like crying then, my wolfish instincts still fresh, still pressing. My teeth ached to mark him, to make him mine as I knew he was.
But as I looked past him to the table beyond, I realised to my wolf, he was only one of a few. I sighed, not ready to take on that burden yet.
“Paige, now that you’re awake, we—” Nancy said.
“Stop,” I said.
“You’ve had a tough—”
“Stop.” I injected a whole lot more dominance in that command now, and when I looked down the table, I saw they all had frozen. The only thing anyone did was breathe. “It appears I’m the heir until I can find some way around this. The men are not prepared to accept another in my place. I’ll be spending the day looking through Dad’s papers, seeing what I can find, if there’s some kind of loophole.” I looked up to my cousin Selma. “If you’re still amenable, I’m happy to work night and day to try and find a way to transfer the role to you.”
I let my hold on everyone go, heard the gasps and the sighs of surprise, the rising protests, but when I let my gaze trail over everyone, they fell silent again.
“I’m amenable,” Selma said belatedly, “if I have family support.”
“I’ll let you guys sort that out yourselves. I smell like death, so I’m going to go have a shower, and then I’ll be in Dad’s office. Set up the town hall meeting for tonight. I’ll be ready to talk to everyone then.”
“So no discussion beforehand?” Nance asked, getting to her feet. “No preparation? You can’t expect us to walk into this meeting blind!”
“No,” I said, “and yes, I do.”
Mumbling began before I even left the room, but I went to the fridge and pulled out a massive bottle of OJ, chugging about a quarter of it before taking it with me as I did exactly as I said.
He came to me as I washed, my mate, opening the door, stripping off, revealing a body aching for mine. He opened the shower cubicle door and then filled it with him, hanging back for a moment, but that never lasted. There was so much to be said,
to be explored. We’d never talked about him and Mason. Had he known I was fleeing his brother when I met him in the city? But as often was the case with Zack, when I stared into those dark eyes, words died but understanding bloomed. He smiled, just a small, crooked facsimile of his usual grin, and I reached out and touched it with my fingers, like I could memorise its shape, because it would be difficult to do so going forward, with all the restrictions coming.
And then my other hand dropped lower.
There it was, what we both knew and tacitly ignored, the big swelling in his cock, his knot. It’d developed not long after the first time we had sex, and while we’d both stared at it, we’d never said anything about it ever.
His head jerked up, and his breath sucked in abruptly as I encircled his thick length, something that only increased when I jacked my hand up and down.
“Fuck, Paige… We don’t…”
There were no full sentences. There couldn’t be right now. There wasn’t enough room in this cubicle for them and us, so I chose us. He trembled under my grip until his control was shredded, until he pulled my hand away, shoved me against the glass wall, and then dropped down to his knees.
“No, Zack.”
“Yes.” He looked up at me, those eyes way too canny. “This feels like goodbye, and if it is, I want you bursting all over my face, filling my mouth with the taste of you before I fuck you.”
“Not goodbye.” I stroked his face. I would walk the fuck away from this place and let it burn if that’s what it took to keep my mate, but it wouldn’t be that simple.
Because he wasn’t the only one.
“Then whatever this is, you come first.”
And with that, he opened me wide as he did my heart, slinging my leg over his shoulder and then diving in.
Zack was often a careful, methodical lover who took great pains to wring every damn pleasure out of my body before attending to his, but there was none of that right now. He was unleashed and off the chain, devouring me, and my fingers clawed at the walls as I rode his face. Teeth, lips, tongue battered my most sensitive flesh, the sensations coming on too fast, too strong, but I couldn’t do anything but ride them out.
