by J. L. Wilder
He pulled back and looked into her eyes. “You’re pretty good at that now,” he said, his breathing ragged. “You learned how to do that.”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t want to think about shifting and all the confusing and frustrating challenges that came along with it anymore. She wanted to forget her difficulties for a little while.
So she pulled him down to her again, her mouth meeting his. He seemed to understand at once what she needed—he parted her legs with his thigh, letting her settle her weight and grind against his leg.
“You’re so wet,” he murmured. “I can feel how wet you are.”
The best part of trying to learn to shift, Natalie decided as his hands roamed over her body, was that she had to be naked to do it. Now she was ready for him. There was no awkward shuffling of clothing, no hiking up her skirt or pausing to undo his pants. He simply backed her up against a tree, hooked his hand beneath her knee to lift it up over his hip, and slid his massive cock into her.
She had never been so utterly ready before, with so little preparation. For the first time since she’d learned she was an omega, she felt as if she really understood what Gage and Ozzy had been trying to tell her about her body being made differently.
I was made for this.
The position they were in made it almost impossible for either of them to move, but it didn’t matter. For the moment, it was enough to be joined with him, filled with him, their cheeks pressed together, both of them breathing roughly and heavily.
“You know how to do this,” he murmured in her ear. “Who taught you how to do this?”
She could have given him all kinds of disingenuous answers—she could have said she had learned the mechanics of sex from any of the men she had slept with before finding her way into the shifter world—but it wasn't true. Sex had never been like this before. Before, it really had felt like something she had learned, something she had studied and taught herself to do. It was only now that she was with Gage and Ozzy that it felt truly pure and organic.
She wasn’t doing any of the things she had learned. She wasn’t whispering compliments in his ear to make him feel surer of himself. She wasn’t guiding his hands to where she wanted them—she was letting him take the lead. She wasn’t sucking in her stomach or contorting her body to make sure she looked as desirable as possible.
She was just taking pleasure. Giving pleasure. Getting lost in her love for Gage. And he was absolutely right—that was something she had never learned.
Her body responded to his unthinkingly, knowing what to do. As he tilted his hips to rock into her, she brought her other leg up and wrapped it around his waist, reaching up for a branch she hadn’t even known was there to help hold her weight. As he bent forward to take her nipple in his mouth, her back arched, her body rising to meet him, as if she had known all along what he would do and when.
This is what it's like to be one with another person.
She could feel his orgasm rising—could feel it in the way his rhythm began to falter and his thrusts grew more forceful. She couldn't have said whether his orgasm was propelling hers, or whether it was the other way around, but they felt tied together, and when she came, desperate and joyful, heels kicking at his ass, thighs trembling on his hips, she knew that he was coming too.
She would have stayed like that with him all night, their bodies joined in ecstasy. He set her on the ground and kissed her again, deeply, and she pressed herself against him, reluctant to let go.
“If you can do that,” he said quietly, “you can shift. It’s the same principle. Let go of your human self and be the animal. You have it in you, Natalie. I can see it.”
Natalie only wished she could be as sure as he was.
Chapter Seventeen
GAGE
“Should we tell her?” Ozzy asked quietly.
Gage glanced over his shoulder. Natalie was working on building the fire—she’d gotten increasingly good at it as time had gone by—and she was far enough away that he didn’t think she could hear them.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “Why worry her, right?”
“But she’s bound to figure it out at some point,” Ozzy said. “She knows the pack that works against us most powerfully is the Rocky Mountain Pack. She knows where the Rocky Mountains are. We’re in Colorado now. She’s bound to put two and two together.”
“Okay,” Gage said. “If she asks, we’ll be honest with her. We don’t want her to start feeling like she can’t trust us. But we won’t bring it up unless she does first. How does that sound?”
Ozzy looked a little uneasy, but he nodded. “It’s the best we can do, I think,” he said. “I don’t want to cause her any unnecessary stress. But you’re right; we can’t lie.”
The two men were sitting with their backs to an oak tree, facing off in different directions. They’d gone to find the evening’s dinner, which was always an undertaking, though it was starting to get easier. Ozzy hadn’t spent much time hunting in the wild in his life, but he had picked up on the skills pretty naturally. Gage had to admit he was impressed.
Still, there was a lot of waiting involved in a hunt, and that meant that they had a lot of time sitting around, just the two of them.
Bonding, Gage thought, feeling the beginnings of a smirk rising to his face. He would never have imagined himself bonding with Ozzy. It wasn’t that he hadn’t liked Ozzy back when they were living in Washington together. But he’d never spent all that much time thinking about him.
It was different now. The only two people he had to talk to were Natalie and Ozzy.
Things with Natalie were easy, of course. They were natural. He didn’t have to work hard to feel close to her.
But with Ozzy, there was a distance. There was nothing biological holding them together—nothing except for the fact that they had both imprinted on the same woman.
He looked over at Ozzy now. Ozzy was gazing out into the distance, all senses on alert. Gage knew that Ozzy felt the same thing he did—an eagerness to get this hunt over with and get back to camp, to the relative ease of spending time with Natalie instead of with each other.
“There’s no game,” Ozzy said. He sounded frustrated.
“There is,” Gage said. “We haven’t been sitting here that long.”
“Forty-five minutes.”
“Well, sometimes it takes forty-five minutes,” Gage said. “You know that.”
Ozzy sighed. “I don’t know how you can choose to live like this so much of the time,” he said. “Every time you took off, even though it was only ever for a few weeks at a time, it always blew my mind.”
“You don’t like living wild?” Gage grinned.
“I like it fine as a novelty,” Ozzy said. “And, I mean, it’s nice to know that I’m capable. But the pleasure has definitely worn off. I’m ready to be back at our cabin. I’m ready to have a roof over my head when it rains, and to sleep in a bed, and to have meals that come from a kitchen.”
“Human,” Gage said.
Ozzy shrugged. “I’m not denying it.”
“I’m only teasing,” Gage said. “I don’t have a problem with you being as human as you are.”
Ozzy glanced at him. “What are we going to do?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I think you know what I mean. When we get back with Natalie. We’re in a fix, aren’t we? Both of us are mated to her, but you know that Randy’s going to want her for his own, and Chuck might too.”
“Your brother’s not laying a hand on her,” Gage said. “I’ll kill him if he tries. I’ll rip his hands off.”
“You won’t be alone,” Ozzy said. “You know that, don’t you?”
“I know,” Gage said. “I know you wouldn’t let anyone come between you and Natalie.”
“So we’re on the same page about that, at least,” Ozzy said. “But what about the rest of it?”
“The rest of what?”
“Don’t play dumb,” Ozzy said. “It’s
not getting us anywhere. You know what we need to talk about as well as I do, and there’s no sense in avoiding it.”
Gage sighed. “Look, I just don’t know the answers to what you’re trying to ask,” he said. “What do you want me to say? I never wanted to be the alpha. That was never a part of my plan.”
“It wasn’t part of my plan either,” Ozzy said. “I think it’s safe to say that neither of us was planning for any of this. But here we are. She’s in our lives now. We have a responsibility to her.”
“Chuck isn’t going to let us just come in and take over,” Gage said. “Neither is Randy.”
“They might not have a choice,” Ozzy said. “Our connection to Natalie is going to give us a lot of power. The rest of the pack might start to defer to us without meaning to.”
“We can’t both be alpha, though,” Gage said.
“Yeah,” Ozzy said. “That’s the problem I’m talking about.” He tipped his head back and considered the stars for a moment. “You’ve seen people living like this before, haven’t you? Omegas with more than one mate?”
“I have,” Gage said. “But never in a pack. Always on their own. The omega can mate with more than one alpha. That part works. But how do you get an entire pack to follow more than one alpha?”
“I don’t know,” Ozzy said.
“You’re the one who’s always reading history books,” Gage said. “Isn’t there anything in there? We can’t be the only people this has ever happened to.”
“I’ve read about it as a concept,” Ozzy said. “But I’ve never read anything about the finer points of what makes it work for people. I have no idea how to plug this arrangement into a pack.”
“Should we not go back to the pack?” Gage said. “I know that’s not your first choice. But if it’s not going to work for us to live there...”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Ozzy said. He didn’t sound nearly as put off by the possibility as Gage had thought he would.
“And?” Gage said.
“And I think we need to at least try going back,” Ozzy said. “She’s been separated from her people all her life. She deserves a chance to know the pack. If it doesn’t work out, then it doesn’t. But we have to try. We owe her that.”
“You’re right,” Gage agreed.
Ozzy looked at him. “Am I?”
“You don’t think so?”
“No, I do. But I guess I expected you to push a little harder, is all. I thought you would be determined to try living wild for good.”
Gage shrugged. “If it was just Natalie and me, I might want that,” he said. “But she can’t live without you. And you can’t live in the wild.” He smiled wryly and elbowed Ozzy. “There’s too much human in you.”
“I’m glad you don’t resent that about me.”
“Nah,” Gage said. “I can’t be mad at you for being what you are. It’s probably what she was attracted to. And the fact that you’re so human means I don’t have to be, right? She likes us for different reasons.”
Ozzy was quiet for a moment. “This is definitely a weird situation,” he said.
“Yeah, it is,” Gage agreed. “But it could be worse. Weirder, I mean.”
“How?”
“You could be someone I hate,” Gage said. “I never got to know you well, but I definitely don’t have anything against you. If I was mated to the same omega as Randy, for example...that would be a hell of a lot worse.”
Ozzy let out a surprised laugh. “You’re right,” he said. “That would be worse. I can’t imagine Randy being willing to share anything with anybody. He would insist on being the sole alpha, and he wouldn’t let you have any time with her. Which would ruin both your lives.”
“He’s an asshole, you know,” Gage said.
“Oh, believe me, I know it,” Ozzy said. “There have been plenty of times when I’ve wished I could get away like you do.”
“So why don’t you?” Gage asked. “It’s not hard to leave for a while and then come back. You know I do it all the time. You could get a break from the way Randy treats you.”
Ozzy was quiet.
“I’ve seen it, you know,” Gage said. “He treats you like you work for him. Worse than that. Like you’re his dog.”
“It isn’t that bad,” Ozzy said.
“Yeah, it is,” Gage said. “It’s weird—now that you and I are both mated to Natalie, I’m really regretting that I never stepped in before. I should have let you know that I was on your side. It always seemed like it wasn’t my problem. But now I feel like you are my problem.”
“I’m your problem, huh?”
Gage groaned. “No,” he said. “I said that wrong. I don’t mean problem. I mean you’re my responsibility.”
“I guess I feel the same way,” Ozzy said. “I need to look out for you, just as much as I need to look out for Natalie, because you’re a part of her.”
They stared into the night in silence for a while. Gage pondered what Ozzy had said.
One of us is going to have to be the alpha, right? We can’t both do it.
Could they?
What if they could?
His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden movement. Ozzy lunged forward, sharpened stick in hand. When he withdrew, Gage saw that he had speared a fat rabbit.
“Nice,” he said. “You’re getting really good at this.”
“Better than you,” Ozzy said.
Gage got to his feet and brushed the dirt from his pants. “You’re not a better hunter than me.”
“In human form, I am,” Ozzy said.
Gage opened his mouth to argue, but he hesitated. Maybe it was true. Ozzy was good at hunting in human form. And he himself was much better in wolf form. Maybe Ozzy had surpassed him at this.
And if he has, that’s good. It’s good for us to have a lot of different skills. I don’t need to be the best at everything.
He was pleased to find that he didn’t have to convince himself of the truth of that. He actually believed it.
They made their way back to camp, where the fire was now glowing brightly. Watching it flicker as they drew closer, it occurred to Gage that starting the fire might be something Natalie did better than either one of them. She had insisted on doing it often, and Gage had obliged her, knowing that her ego was a bit bruised by the fact that she still couldn’t manage to shift. The success of starting a fire was building her up.
Ozzy jogged ahead a little bit, clearly eager to get back. Gage let him go.
Then a horrible howl broke through the night.
It chilled Gage to the bone. He knew immediately that the sound had come from Ozzy, and that his friend was in terrible pain. And he understood on a basic, intuitive level that pain for Ozzy would mean pain for him as well.
He broke into a run.
Ozzy was on his knees, his fingers digging into the dirt, as if he was hanging onto the world to keep from being thrown off. “She was right here!” he said, his voice nearly a scream. “We were only a few yards away! We could see her!”
Gage looked around the camp, desperate not to understand, desperate to be wrong.
Natalie was nowhere to be found.
Chapter Eighteen
NATALIE
The moment Natalie saw the tattoo on the man’s forearm, she knew what she was dealing with. It exactly matched the tattoo she had seen back in her hotel room in New York—a mark she had hoped never to see again.
The Rocky Mountain Wolves.
She’d suspected that she was in their territory. Neither Gage nor Ozzy had said anything about it, but they’d been quiet and extra watchful for the past day and a half. Natalie had been so charmed by their obvious desire to protect her from any emotional distress that she hadn’t bothered to tell them she knew what secret they were keeping.
Maybe I should have. Maybe if we’d all been open about what we were thinking, this wouldn’t have happened.
It hadn’t been at all like the last time she’d been captured, when the Feral Fan
gs had picked her up. This time, she’d been lying down by the fire, half-asleep in its warm glow, when unseen hands had grabbed her. She had felt the sharp prick of a knife against her throat.
“Don’t scream,” a voice had rasped in the darkness.
She’d very nearly screamed anyway. But he seemed to sense she was thinking about it and slashed the knife down her arm. The cut was shallow, but it was enough to tell her that he wasn’t afraid to draw blood.
“We want you alive,” the voice had breathed. “But we’d rather have you dead than not have you at all. So keep your mouth shut.”
She had. What else could she do?
The man had picked her up, thrown her over his shoulder, and jogged away. She thought desperately about what she might be able to drop to let Gage and Ozzy know which way she had been taken.
In the end, all she could think to do was to pull out a few of her own hairs. She scattered these behind her as the man ran. They would help her mates follow her scent, if nothing else.
Eventually, they arrived at a pickup truck with a canopy over its back end. The man carried her to the rear of the truck, opened it, and set her on her feet.
“Get in,” he said.
She stared at him.
He showed her the knife again.
Her resolve caved. It sickened her to be participating in her own abduction like this, but it was better to do what he said than it was to die.
If only I could shift!
She opened her fist, releasing the last of the hairs she had pulled out. At least it wasn’t a windy night. They probably wouldn’t be carried too far from this point.
Then she pulled herself into the back of the truck.
The door was slammed behind her, and it was then that the moonlight shone brightly on the man’s forearm, revealing his tattoo. She had suspected who he was, of course, but now she knew for sure.
She was in the hands of her pack’s greatest rivals.
They didn’t drive for very long—perhaps an hour—before the truck was brought to a stop and the back opened again. A different man was looking in at Natalie now, and behind him, she could see a ramshackle longhouse that looked as if it was in serious need of some repairs.
