by Aidy Award
"Neither does Kosta. They're Russian." Zara's tone laid the no-duh on thick.
Even with the weird and scary events of last night,Gal thanked her lucky stars she'd moved in with the sisters. It was moments like these where she wished she'd had an understanding sibling to confide in and poke. Her brother was way more like her dad and thought going off to college was a waste of time. For women in general, not just her.
Heli gave them both the whatever look. "Then it's the Russian mafia. That's a thing, right?"
Max opened the front door and waved them in the house. Even tired and wearing sweatpants and an old Sleepy Folk t-shirt, his looks took her breath away. It wasn't just how handsome he was, but more the way he watched her, like he couldn't tear his eyes away. He had that same charm his mother did, but with a sexy edge to it. When it was aimed at her, she wanted to laugh, and cry at the same time.
The three of them moved toward the house so their conspiracy theorizing would have to go on hold until later. Gal had to get one last rebuttal in. "It is, but I still don't think any of them are baddies. There would be rumors in town, everyone would know, but not really. Trust me, the moms at storytime are worse than the Enquirer for gossipy stories and I would have heard something."
When they got inside Heli and Kosta disappeared into her bedroom before anyone could even say anything. Zara rolled her eyes. "I think I'm going to take a nap. Thanks for helping us out last night, Max. Say hi to your brother for me the next time you talk to him."
Something flashed across Max's eyes at Zara's request, but he hid it with a quick smile. "No problem. I'm sorry those guys made trouble for you. Sleep well."
Zara went down the hall which left Gal and Max all alone. With nothing to do. Zara shut her door and the second the latch clicked indicating it was closed all the way, Max pulled Gal into his arms and mashed his mouth down on hers.
This kiss was nothing like the ones they'd shared last night. He was intense and needy, demanding even. He cupped her head in one hand and grabbed her ass with the other, yanking her whole body tight to his. His tongue swept along her lips and pushed into her mouth. Gal came right back at him slipping her tongue along his and wrapped her ankle around the back of his calf.
Max groaned and kneaded her butt with those big strong hands of his. His lips moved over hers, their teeth clacking together at the force of their rapidly increasing need for each other.
Pure need. She needed to know he was okay, that she was. She needed him to reassure her that everything was going to be okay, and she absolutely needed him to need her.
Gal pushed her hands up under his shirt, shoving it up, loving the feel of his hot skin under her fingers. Max broke their kiss for only the second it took him to cross his arms and pull the t-shirt off and throw it onto the couch.
Oh, the couch. Good idea. She put her palms on Max's pecs, gave them a quick squeeze, and small shove to get him to back up and sit on the couch for this post battle adrenaline make-out session. He didn't even budge. Geez, he was strong. She put a little muscle behind her shove and he still didn't move.
Max looked down at her hands and then back at her. "Babe, not that I don't love your hands on me, but what are you trying to do?"
She huffed and really put some force behind her push this time. Nothing. "I'm trying to get you to sit down on the couch. But you're like made out of stone, or adamantium, or I don't know. What are you? Like son of Kal-El or something?"
Max smiled down at her and booped her right on the nose. "Aww, my adorable little nerdy girl. I promise, I'm of this Earth."
"Did you just boop me on the nose?" She wrinkled said nose up at him.
"Yes. Now come here and let me boop you on other places. After last night, I'd really like to know that every single part of you is unharmed." Max lifted her up by the waist, plopped down on the couch and placed her straddling his lap, with her boobs right up in his face.
She squirmed, a little uncomfortable at the idea that she was going to squish his junk if she sat down at all. "This is not exactly what I meant."
"It's perfect." His phone rang. That same damn tone that meant his father was calling. Max dropped his head back onto the couch. "Fuck me."
Oh no. Not this time. His dad could wait. Mafia or no, Max needed some down time. "Leave it. Call him back."
He groaned. "I can't."
Wanna bet?
"What about if I do this?" She pulled the fancy new shirt off and tossed it over her shoulder. Her brand-new expensive bra followed. Gal cupped her breasts, rubbed her hands over them in tantalizing circles, and twirled her nipples between her fingers until they went hard.
"Holy fuck. I'll call him back." Max shoved Gal's hands aside and replaced them with his own. "You have no idea how many times of dreamed of doing exactly this."
Had he? He probably didn't mean that literally, but it boosted her confidence nonetheless. "Talk dirty to me, Max."
Yep, that had popped out of her mouth. She wasn't normally a tiger in the sack. She did just fine, but she wasn't exactly one to ask for what she wanted. She'd always kind of hoped the guy would figure it out. It wasn't like it was hard. Being here with Max was so much hotter and yet more comfortable than any other sexual experiences she'd had in college.
"You like that, do you, my dirty girl? Then let me tell you exactly what I've been dreaming of." He rolled one nipple, pinching it, making her whimper. "First I take these tight, hard nipples and I suck on each of them, licking and tasting and teasing until you're moaning beneath me."
He lathed his tongue over one nipple and pinched the other one at the same time. Then he switched, giving her only the tiniest preview of his dream.
"Mmm-hmm. Tell me more."
"Just how dirty do you want me to get, kiska? Do you want to hear about how I wake up so goddamn hard after dreaming about fucking these lush tits? Do you want to know that I fantasize in the shower about pushing my cock between them while you're on your knees, holding them together? Because if you do, then you'll find out that I come calling your name imagining you sucking my head into your mouth with every thrust."
Holy fantasy, Batman.
"I, uh,--" Yes, she wanted to know all of that and more, so, so, so much more.
"Fuck, I'm not looking, I'm covering my eyes. But dad is freaking the fuck out that you didn't answer your phone and thinks you're dead. We have to go. Now." Kosta stood an inch into the living room, one hand over his eyes, and the other tugging his pants up.
Heli dropped down and fell sideways onto the couch, covering her chest with her hands. That put her into the awkward position of her bum across Max's lap, straight up. As if she was waiting for a spanking. If she wasn't already flushed, she'd be turning fifty shades of pink.
Max placed the palm of his hand on her derriere and held her in place. "Fine. Give us a minute. Dad can wait one goddamn minute."
"I'll be outside." Kosta whizzed through the living room.
Gal buried her face in the couch cushion until she heard the door open and shut. "You can remove your hand now. I need my shirt."
"Not quite yet. I like you in exactly this position and I want to remember this moment for the rest of a night that is going to be very trying." Max's hand moved across her butt, squeezing one cheek and continued down to her thigh. His fingers dipped in between her legs. "The scent of your arousal is intoxicating."
Gal wiggled to get away. Her scent? He might sound turned on but she was sure he was politely telling her she needed to bathe. "I think your minute us up and apparently I need to go take a shower."
Max did not let her up. Nor did he react to her embarrassment at him telling her she smelled. "I want the scent of you on me tonight. Given a little more time I could have had you riding my fingers while I sucked on your tits. You're wet and I'm dying to touch you, taste you."
"Maxy, I do not relish the ass-chewing we're both getting when we get... uh... home. You're not the only one leaving with blue balls, let's go." Kosta shouted from the front po
rch in a stage whisper. The neighbors were probably cursing him.
"I will be there in a fucking minute." Max's words came out on a low growl.
A growl that had her stomach and pussy fluttering. She did not have a thing for angry guys, but Max with a mad-on was like a damn aphrodisiac. The pure dominance in his voice had her wondering if she didn't have a little bit of a kink.
He sighed and gave her butt a smack. "Up you go, kiska. I have to go, but when you're taking your shower, I want you thinking about every word of that fantasy."
Gal rolled off his lap, which landed her on her knees on the floor right between his legs. Neither of them had gotten as far as unbuttoning pants, but the huge bulge at the front of his jeans was begging to be let out. She placed a hand on each of his thighs. "If you stayed we could live out your fantasy right now."
"Galyna, you're killing me. I'm this close to betraying my entire family to stay here and fuck you until we both forget our names."
She leaned forward and ran her tongue across his entirely too lickable abs and reveled in his deep groan. "I know you can't stay. That was to give you incentive to come back later."
"I honestly don't know if I can. There's some serious shit brewing that I need to keep as far away from you as I can. But I swear to the moon and back, I will try my best to be in your bed as soon as I possibly can. If I'm not back by sunrise..." Max stood and pulled her up with him. He grabbed her head and took her lips in a hard, needy kiss, pushing his tongue in and out, fucking her mouth, making her breathless. "I want you to slide your fingers between your wet pussy lips and imagine it's me, my tongue lapping at your clit, until you come calling my name."
Oh, she wasn't waiting until morning to do that.
Max rubbed his thumb across her lips. "I'll be back. I don't know when, but I will. I swear it."
"Go. Before you get in trouble, or I drag you to my room and tie you to my bed." Gal finished her statement with a nip to her thumb.
Max's already dark eyes sparkled and his eyelids dropped so his gaze was sultry and hooded. "Saying something like that does not exactly make me want to leave, darlin'."
"Because I don't exactly want you to leave. But I get that you have to deal with the demands of the family. So go already, so you can come back."
Max searched her eyes for another minute longer. Did he get when she said the family, she meant mafia or whatever the Troikas were into? Probably. He was a smart guy, and when the time was right, he'd tell her what their business really pertained to and how she and the sisters fit into the so called serious shit he was trying to protect her from.
He nodded, scooped up his shirt, and walked out the front door, with one last longing look back at her.
Phew. She fanned herself. Man, he made her hot. She grabbed her clothes off the floor and headed down the hall to take that shower. A very cold one.
The giddiness that tingled inside of her from head to toe was more than the almost sex. Max's attention was so much more than she was used to. The guys in her past were mostly the nerdy type, the kind who knew that human sexuality was filed under 306.7 or 612.6 under the Dewey Decimal system at the library and had probably studied said texts to prepare to have sex the first time.
Not Max. He knew what he was doing. He was probably the sexiest virgin ever. She'd been a slightly awkward virgin who had worked really hard to hide her lumps and jiggles in the dark.
Max's complete and utter lust for her had given her a boost to her confidence she hadn't even realized she needed. It was so easy to be confident with him. She couldn't imagine having asked him to talk dirty, or said anything about tying him to her bed with anyone else. He was so easy to be herself around. Mostly because he seemed to not only like her real self, but was turned on by it.
That was not something she had any experience with and what she needed was some serious girl talk to analyze the crap out of everything. She took her shower and a short nap, really grateful this was her weekend off. Monday was going to come way too fast.
Around seven in the evening she'd waited as long as she could to knock on Zara and Heli's doors. She was prepared to offer drinks, take-out, or ice cream in exchange for getting their butts out of bed to talk men.
Heli answered the knock on the first try. "Buy me Thai food and I'll happily dole out the Troika men talk over noodles all night. I could use some advice myself. What goes with pad thai? Chardonnay?"
"I don't know." Gal laughed. She stepped across the hall to knock on Zara's door. "But your sister might. Let's see if she's in. I have a five dollar credit at Doordash or UberEats, I can't remem--"
Zara's door swung open when Gal rapped on it. Zara wasn't in there.
"Zara?" Maybe she'd gone to take a shower? Gal didn't hear any running water. She turned back to Heli. "She didn't have to work did she?"
"No. The center is closed on the weekends." Heli stuck her head into Zara's room. "She was exhausted too. Said she was probably going to be out for the night."
"Zara," Gal called toward the kitchen and living room.
"Gal. Look." Heli pointed to Zara's bedroom window. The curtains fluttered in the evening breeze. "She never opens that window. There's no screen and the bugs get in. Mom always says they bite her more because she's so sweet."
The two of them crossed the room and pulled the curtains away. A whole swarm of mosquitos hung in the air not three feet away. Gal stuck her head out to look into the back yard. The grass and dirt at the side of the house had been disturbed.
Her heart jumped into her throat, beating hard enough to choke her. "Heli. Look."
Scratch marks similar to what the wolves had left in the front yard were in the dirt under the window sill. Gal stepped back and when she removed her hand from the metal something stuck to her fingers. A small smear of rusty brownish red smeared when she touched it. "I think this is blood."
6. Zara goes missing, and no one will believe her that she's been kidnapped (except Max). (The police are all Grimm pack and they try to get her off their trail, she's being too nosy.)
Max
“If it is war they want, it’s war they’ll get.” Max’s father prowled in huge figure eights through the sacred circle in the clearing. He had gathered all the enforcers again tonight. Even though most of them were going on little to no sleep as Max and Kosta were, the lot of them filled the woods with their warrior’s energy.
The calm before the storm, and their father was whipping up a tempest with his pre-game speech.
Last night’s fight hadn’t been the only one. Packs around the world were lining up, taking sides, and battling for territory and dominance. Without a strong Tzar at the helm, all the riff raff, the lone wolves, and the scariest of all, the one-bloods, had come out of their hiding places and wreaked havoc on good law-abiding wolf-shifters around the world.
Without Mic Volkov and his iron fist of enforcers, without a clear heir to his throne, and without consequences, wolves around the world were revolting against the long-held rules, laws, and customs of their kind.
Wolfspace was exploding with reports of pack wars, each worse than the next. If someone didn’t take control soon, their entire species would be exposed.
Which is exactly what the Grimm pack, and others wanted.
“The Troikas will take control of the packs in the Northeast. It will be a hard battle to convince many of the alphas and the wolves under their protection that we are not the enemy. Many know us and have been in contact to say they stand with us.” Piotr stopped and stared into the eyes of each enforcer, saving Kosta and Max for last. “Many more have declared us outlaws. That is where we must take the battle first.”
Grumbles and growls of approval sounded from all around the clearing. The wolves who remained after Mic and Niko’s deaths were loyal to the end. Max glanced at the band of brothers he was proud to call his pack. He would give his life to protect theirs, and they his.
He only hoped it wouldn’t come to that. They all had a lot more living to do.
/> Piotr continued on with his plan. “I will go to the largest packs myself, and am sending the strongest of you out as emissaries to the rest. You must convince many angry alphas to join us. You must show them that a united front is the only way to survive the coming war.”
Aleksei, a huge mountain of a man, and an even bigger wolf stepped out of the ranks and into the path of Piotr’s march. “Who will defend and protect our families, this town, if we are out begging for fealty from our rivals?”
Piotr did not have a quick reply as Max expected. In fact, he said nothing. What was he waiting for?
This was the part where Niko would have stepped up and given a rousing speech. Whipping the enforcers into a frenzy and convincing them they were all invincible.
Max was not Niko.
It was time the pack understood that.
He stepped into the clearing to face Aleksei. He was one of the six who had been with a human woman last night. His fear was the same as Max’s own. Who would protect the fragile human women they both cared so much about? “I will. I swear to you, and all of the Troika pack, that I will protect those you love with my life. It is my right and duty as heir to the alpha.”
A similar round of growls moved through the enforcers. This time with a marked relief. Even the scent in the clearing changed, the edge of smoky tension lifted. They’d been waiting for him to step into his place at the right hand of his father.
This was his first step.
His father nodded at him, the second time in as many days he'd gotten the old man's approval. Finally he was doing something right.
Poitr paced again targeting the enforcers who would be tasked with this mission under his glowing stare. “None of you have long to complete your tasks. The full moon begins is in four more days. We will have a mating ceremony on the third and final night. If you can find mates among the packs to cement out alliances, bring them here in no more than a week. A mate will make you stronger and will be your rock in these difficult times. Choose wisely.”
