By that afternoon, though, I was nervous again. Tara came up to help me with my hair and makeup.
“Why are you nervous now?” she asked. “You went through this last night.”
“And that’s why I’m worried. Because it was wonderful,” I confessed. “But what if tonight isn’t as good? What if Liam resents being second? What if I am not able…” I let my voice trail off.
“Are you suggesting that you’re afraid you might not be as hot for my brother as you are for your other mates?” Tara teased.
“No, not at all. But what if he’s not as interested in me as Owen is? Will I start to care about Owen more? What if Liam’s better? Will I like Owen less?”
“You are a mess,” Tara proclaimed. “You need to take a deep breath and relax. Your three pack-alpha mates are very different from one another. You’ll have different relationships with them, and they know that. Remember, they came up with this idea themselves. You don’t have to try to make it perfect. Let them do that.”
I took a deep breath and nodded. Tara was right. This wasn’t my plan at all, and the three men I was with had decided to work together to turn this into something real. I needed to trust that they could do that.
Stepping down into the kitchen this time was even stranger than the day before.
This time, I could hear the words James was saying to Liam. “… Anything extra you’d like to add to the ceremony?”
“No. I liked what you did last night. Just make me her pack-alpha mate and I think we will be good.”
I blinked. Liam really was okay with it. He sounded happy and confident, not at all worried. That was good. I needed to know that he was on board with this.
My wolf senses had heightened in other ways, too. For one thing, my sense of smell was even sharper. The scent of burgers had faded in the kitchen, but I could still pick it up. And out in the crowd tonight, I could scent both Owen and Dean.
Owen still carried the smell of me upon him, even through the scent of soap and shampoo. The smell of the two of us combined on his skin sent heat arrowing straight down to the center of my being.
Suddenly, the thought of smelling myself on all three of my pack-alpha mates didn’t seem strange at all. It seemed sexy as hell.
I stepped out into the main room, and from there, the ceremony really did follow the one from the night before.
Right up until I felt the pack magic settle over, around, and then into us. I clasped Liam’s hand tightly as he stood next to me, just letting that sense of combined belonging and responsibility soak into my body.
I was about to turn around to face the pack when an ice-white lightning bolt slammed through the room.
Liam grabbed me and pulled me down so that we were crouching on the ground away from whatever had caused the lightning bolt.
Pack members in both human and Wolf form scattered away from the central point where the bolt had hit.
A kind of afterimage glow seemed to cover above the spot, resolving itself slowly into a human form.
Or perhaps I should say a fae form.
It was the Winter Queen.
My three wolves surrounded me in an instant, creating a barrier between me and the Winter Queen. I had to pry open the space between Liam and Owen in order to be able to get a look at her.
She looked just as she had the last time I had seen her, when she’d briefly held me prisoner, a tall, thin, pale, ageless woman with long, flowing white hair in expensive clothing.
She looked around at all of us, a cold, proud smile on her face.
“I see you, little wolves,” she said.
One of the younger pack members who was already in his wolf form leaped at her—but instead of hitting a solid person like the one who seemed to be standing there, he sailed through her image.
“She’s not here,” I whispered.
Deliberately, I placed one hand on Owen’s shoulder and the other on Liam’s, adding just enough pressure to let them know that I needed to pass through.
They each took a step to the side, allowing me to move between them and step up to face the Winter Queen.
I caught a glimpse of us in the mirror that hung behind the bar. We couldn’t be any more different. With her frozen beauty in varying shades of white, she looked like the embodiment of death. Enticing, but without offering anything of permanence.
By contrast, my red dress and heated glare included all the life and vitality of the wolves. For an instant, I truly believed I could melt her away if only we met in person again.
“You’re not welcome here,” I announced, stepping up directly across from the Winter Queen. “Neither you nor your court nor even your shadow self.” I gestured up and down at her, then waved my hand through what seemed to be some kind of almost holographic image.
The Winter Queen laughed. “Oh, perhaps not now, Little Wolf Queen. But there will come a day when you will invite me to join you. You will welcome it, even.”
I had to clench my teeth to keep from shooting back with a denial. Even though I managed to avoid saying something, all three of my wolves—the ones I was marrying—stepped up around me, growling, and the rest of the Wolf pack followed their example, until there were more than a hundred wolves in varying degrees of shift, from human to half-shifted to full wolf forms.
We all stood against the Winter Queen.
She simply laughed—as well she might, given the fact that we were unable to actually touch her. Still, it was an impressive display, and it warmed my heart.
“What do you want from us?” I demanded. “Why are you here?”
“My husband has enthralled a wolf pack of his own. I was curious to see if I might do the same.”
“Find a different pack,” I advised. “If you come for us, I will make sure that you are destroyed.”
The Winter Queen laughed her throaty laugh again. On the surface, it should have seemed sensual. But the noise broke like glass over my eardrums, causing me to wince.
“I will certainly take that under advisement, Little Wolf Queen. I’ll be seeing you.” She waved, completing a complicated gesture with her hand. With a word, she was gone.
I was shaking, I was so angry.
I pulled my three men over to one side of the room. “What do we do?”
“I think we should send out scouts to see what we can discover about what, exactly, the Winter Queen is doing. The fae are never to be trusted, and the Winter Queen less so than most,” Liam said.
“I concur,” Owen said. He began moving around the bar, dispatching various wolves to their tasks.
While he did that, Liam placed one finger under my chin and turned my head back from watching Owen to looking at him.
“We have a ceremony to finish,” he reminded me
“Is that the most important could be doing tonight? After that?” Tears filled my eyes.
“Yes. I think so. We need to remind the pack that this is part of our order. We need to be able to show them that life continues even in the midst of trouble.”
I nodded. Liam’s kind heart had been part of what had drawn me to him. I loved knowing that he had a sharp mind to go with it.
“Everyone,” I announced, using what I was now thinking of as my new alpha voice, “we’ve decided to continue the ceremony. Unless Owen has sent you on an errand, we’re going to pick up where we left off. And,” I added on a whim, “we’ll have a bartender serving drinks for anyone who wants them after the ceremony.”
That got a wolfly howl of approval.
Twenty-Four
It was definitely going to take some time to get used to my new life, tied to three different men.
Assuming we live through whatever the Winter Queen has planned for us.
“You okay?” Liam lifted his lips away from where they’d been kissing my neck and regarded me steadily.
“Yes.” I ran my fingers through his hair. “Just thinking.”
I didn’t bother to clarify what I was thinking about. I didn’t have to.
/> “You need to try to put the Winter Queen’s visitation out of your mind,” Liam said. “I want to help you forget that she ever interrupted our night.”
“Do you have ideas to help that happen?” I asked—and I even managed to sound playful.
“I do.” He pulled my lips back down to his until I was kissing him again. He tasted cool and slightly spicy.
Pulling me closer to him, Liam deepened the kiss, his tongue tangling with mine in a way that was both brand new and achingly familiar.
The shape of his shoulders under my questing hands was different from my other guys.
I reminded myself that they’d all agreed to this.
As have I.
And when I pulled back to gaze at him, the expression in his eyes was kind and warm. I ran my fingertips down the back of his arms, tracing the sharply defined triceps and sliding my palms down to his elbows.
With a strangled noise in the back of his throat, Liam slid his own hands down my back until they cupped my ass, then pulled me up against him, the heat from the hard length of him burning through the clothes between us.
I wound my arms around his neck, taking a step backward.
“Should we talk more about this first?” Liam’s actions didn’t match his words as he slid my dress up my legs.
“Absolutely not. No talking.” I pulled Liam’s shirt off over his shoulders, baring his broad chest and the hard planes of his stomach.
Making a deep noise of my own, I moved my mouth to his chest, reaching up to flick my tongue delicately against one nipple, smiling at both the crisp feel of the hair on his chest and the way he shivered and pulled away from me.
I lightly nipped the other nipple, until Liam took the hem of my dress and used the fabric to trap my arms when I lifted them. He held me still with his arm as he closed his mouth over one breast, using his tongue to play with the nipple.
Giving up any pretense at attempting to escape from the dress, I reveled in the feel of his mouth on me. As he pulled away long enough to push the fabric out of his way, cool air rushed in, stippling the skin of my breast with tiny chill bumps until he once again sucked my nipple into his mouth, the flick of his tongue echoing my earlier teasing motion.
Liam released me long enough to toss the dress aside, and then turned his attention to the other breast, kneading it lightly even as he licked and sucked at it, sending sparks of lust shooting through my entire body.
By the time his mouth trailed down my stomach to the top of my panties, I was trembling. As he licked along the waistband, desire surged through me in a searing wave, rolling from my chest and moving down, as if it had been released directly from my heart. It settled in the deepest part of me as a hot throb of need.
With a deft motion, Liam slid my panties off my hips, dropping them atop the shirt.
I tugged ineffectually at his clothes. “Take these off, too.”
One corner of his mouth crooked up. “Is that an order?”
“A request.” I matched his smile, but the expression faded at the sight of his body as he stepped back to remove the rest of his clothes, then stood in front of me.
He was absolutely magnificent.
My mouth dried and I met his heated gaze with one of my own.
I stepped forward and ran my hands all over him—a less-than-subtle means of letting myself explore every inch of his body.
When I ran my hands up his rock-hard length, the muscles of his thighs tensed.
Moments later, he returned the favor, paying careful attention to my breasts and clit. I was shaking with need by the time he stopped.
Finally, unable to stand it any longer, I tugged him toward the bed.
Instead, he lifted me in his arms. I tightened my hold around his neck. He smiled against my lips and slid one knee between my legs. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Just making sure.” I punctuated my words with tiny kisses.
He stopped me, leaning back and holding my gaze. “Tell me you will be mine as much as I will be yours,” he demanded. His own voice rasped with need. “I will still be myself. Tell me you know that.”
I paused, torn between the ache at the center of my being that insisted he come into me now, and my need to reassure him.
“Liam,” I breathed. “You will remain yourself. I will belong to you and you to me.”
At the final word, Liam lifted me up until he slid into me with a groan.
He held my ass with his hands, keeping me still as he pumped into me.
After a dizzying moment, I met him, pushing until he touched that innermost part of me, the part that had been aching for him my entire life, even before I knew he existed.
The part that held my other two wolves, too.
Twenty-Five
The next morning, I felt calmer than I had the night before.
I was beginning to think that the pack magic that settled over me during each ceremony brought with it some of my pack-alpha mates’ personality traits with it. After I had completed the ceremony with Owen, I had been able to face the Winter Queen with strength and determination. She had called me Little Wolf Queen, but as I faced her, I didn’t feel like that so much as I felt like an alpha wolf protecting her pack.
And this morning, I felt calmer than I had since this whole strange werewolf adventure had begun. It was like I had taken on Liam’s kind, calm, loving demeanor. And it radiated from me.
I floated through the day on a blissful cloud of confidence. My wolves were out finding out everything they could about what was going on with the Winter Court Queen of the Fae, and I was letting them. I had the three smartest, strongest pack-alpha mates ever. I was convinced of it. And with the four of us working together, the Winter Queen didn’t have a chance against us.
That feeling lasted all the way through getting ready for the third and final ceremony.
For the first time, I was more excited than nervous.
I had found myself alternating all day long between thinking about the two nights before with Owen and with Liam and thinking about the times Dean had kissed me.
I’d been afraid by the time I got to the third night I would be wishing I had never agreed to embark on a sexual relationship with three different men.
But the opposite was true. It was like the more I was with them, the more I wanted them.
Tara had done my hair much more quickly on the third night—she had finally figured out how to make it work, along with a little help from me.
And then one of the other female wolves stuck her head into the room and asked if she could speak to Tara for a minute.
I didn’t pay much attention to it other than to think that I really needed to start learning everyone’s name. Our pack wasn’t that large. I should be able to call everyone by name on sight, and pretty soon, or I’d have to consider myself a failure as an alpha.
Then, Tara returned.
“I need to tell you something,” she said.
The worried tone of her voice snapped me out of my happy trance and pulled my attention to her. “What is it?”
“Dean is missing.” She stared at me with worried eyes, as if she were fearful that I would lash out at her over it.
I hoped she hadn’t had that kind of experience with an alpha before.
“Missing how?”
And why? All the worst possibilities flashed through my mind before Tara answered.
“He went out to search for news on the Winter Queen. He didn’t come back.”
“Where are Liam and Owen?”
“They were out searching for him and just returned. They should be on their way any minute.”
“Send them up as soon as they get here.”
Tara nodded and left the room.
I paced back and forth, waiting for my two mates to join me. I was glad to be able to collapse into their arms when they appeared.
“Does she have him?” I didn’t even have to specify who she was. Both of my wolves knew instantly who I was talking about.
“We think so,” Owen said, his voice taking on a militaristic tone, like a soldier giving a report to a superior. “The last people who saw him say that he was walking with a tall blonde woman. I can only assume it was the Winter Queen.
“Are the rest of the pack members downstairs yet?” I asked.
Liam nodded. “Yes, and the word is starting to get around about what’s going on. We should probably make an appearance soon.”
“Have we learned anything else so far?”
“The wolves we sent out last night have returned. Some of them have some information you probably want to hear. I have them waiting outside.”
He opened the door at my gesture, and three wolves in their human form walked in. Owen introduced them as Michael, Braden, and Quincy. “These are some of our best trackers,” he explained. “That includes both in wolf form and in human form. They’re basically our pack detectives.”
“Tell me what you discovered,” I commanded.
“Yes, Alpha,” the three of them said, virtually in unison, before dropping to their knees.
“I know you have good intentions, but please don’t stand on ceremony. Tell me what you know.”
“A lot of this is rumor,” said Michael, “but the story among supernaturals is that the Winter Queen is in thrall to the Winter King.”
“She didn’t much look like she was enthralled last night.”
Quincy stepped forward. “The king’s hold is tenuous. That’s what I’m hearing. And the queen is willing to use any method she can to break free from it.”
“Including kidnapping one of my mates?”
“I think she would be willing to do much more,” Braden said.
“What else do you know?”
They gave me all the rest of the information they had, but some of it conflicted. No one seemed to know exactly where the Winter Queen was, or how she had managed to wrest away what limited autonomy she had from her king.
“I heard the Winter King has some of the wolves of another pack under his control. Is that right?” I asked. I’d almost forgotten about it, but I remembered the comment that one of my men had made recently.
Wicked Souls: A Limited Edition Reverse Harem Romance Collection Page 57
