WOLF CHILD: A PNR RH Romance (The Year of the Wolf Book 1)

by Serena Akeroyd

  Eli?

  I’d known he’d be different, but I didn’t realize how different.

  It wasn’t in a bad way, there were just so many facets to his nature and Austin’s, then throw in Ethan’s… I was realizing how hard it would be to manage the three of them.

  I mean, hard in a good way. Worth it. But the experience was a little awe-inspiring, because somehow, these three incredible men, these powerful creatures, were made for me.

  And what that told me?

  That I was made to handle them.

  That they were so powerful, only because I was.

  Talk about empowering.

  I bobbed down, quickly pressing a kiss to his lips. “I love you.”

  His eyes instantly flared open. “Still?”

  My heart softened. “Of course,” I told him. “Eli, you’re not a monster.” Gently, I kissed him again, not stopping until he parted his lips and let me inside.

  There was an irony to the fact that I was doing this, that I’d had to entice him last night.

  If it was some kind of reverse psychology, I’d never have believed it.

  How could a being this intensely powerful be vulnerable?

  But he wasn’t the monster he seemed to think he was. He was a human too, with feelings and needs, all with an awareness of what he could do.

  I thrust my tongue against his, soothing both of us, before I pulled back and rasped, “You don’t scare me, Eli. You don’t have to worry about that.”

  I watched his eyes flutter open, then he mumbled, “The last thing I want to do is scare you.”

  I knew that.

  And I also knew we’d probably be edgy around each other until he felt more at ease about opening up.

  This time here, maybe it would help him.

  Maybe he’d feel better in letting his wolf out and around if he grew accustomed to it in this safe space.

  Okay, so it hadn’t felt so safe earlier on when those fucking wolves had come out of nowhere, but still.

  Safety was relative.

  “I need the pool,” I said, then I went to pull us apart.

  He snorted when I shrieked as a powerful wave of pleasure whispered through me.

  “I’m alpha,” he stated. “That means we stay knotted for a while.”

  I gaped at him. “I slept on you!”

  He shrugged. “So? I slept too. It won’t release us this first time until—”

  “Until what? And why do you call it ‘it’ like your dick is in control?”

  He chuckled at that, and his eyes twinkled, revealing a humor that was a little sarcastic and a lot dirty.

  Man, this mate of mine had so much of him to explore.

  He was like the Louvre or something. So many different walkways to traverse, so much to discover and to learn.

  And I couldn’t fucking wait to go down each and every one.

  With a sigh of pleasure, I listened as he told me, “It isn’t my dick. It’s my wolf. He won’t let us go until he knows you’re not scared of him.”

  “Didn’t he hear that conversation? That whole ‘I’m not scared of you’ one?”

  He shrugged. “Evidently not.”

  “We can still go in the pool, can’t we?”

  I yelped when he surged upward in a wave of strength that had me gasping as, in less than fifteen seconds, I went from lying on him like a thick duvet to being in a standing position.

  “Warn a girl, Eli!” I shrieked, my body doing all kinds of interesting things as the change in position and angle messed with me.

  Gravity pushed me down harder onto his cock, and the sensation?

  Electrifying.

  I almost scrambled to grab him around the neck, using that as leverage to give myself some relief, but it was no good.

  With each step, I bounced against him, and my eyes clenched closed as we walked into the water. It splashed around us, and the heat of it sank into my bones the second I was under the surface, but fuck.

  Just, fuck.

  When he gently pried off my arms, I let him, and when I was laying out in front of him, only then did I open my eyes as the water supported my weight.

  His hands moved over me, exploring my curves with a delight that was unfeigned, and when he wished, “I need soap,” I squealed a little when it plopped onto my belly, which made us both laugh.

  As he splashed the bar in the water, built up a lather with it, then soaped me up, I wasn’t sure whether he was trying to kill me, calm me down, or turn me on.

  Every time he swiped his hands over me, his fingers caressing my sensitive flesh as he did so, my pussy pulsed around his cock, and his cock responded with a little throb that I felt deep in my soul.

  That throb was better than a vibrator.

  Fuck.

  I learned how insecure the wolf was when, an hour later, and a long soak in the pool, plus a dozen conversations, I was released from the knot.

  I felt the change in him instantly, the sigh of relief escaped us both, and what else did?

  Something gross.

  I felt our cum released into the water as well.

  My nose crinkled at the thought of staining the place where we drank, but before I could, his arms were around me and he murmured, “Thank you.”

  “For what?” I asked in surprise, my mind still focused on sperm and vaginal secretions polluting where we drank. I mean, I guessed I could wish for Evian, but still—

  “For accepting me.”

  I sighed, then reached up and ran my hand over his head. “You don’t have to thank me for that. It’s my pleasure, my honor. Hell, it’s my purpose in this world, isn’t it? To be yours?”

  He smiled against my skin, and I smiled back, loving that he was a little lighter.

  “Your wolf was scared, wasn’t he?” I inquired gently, slightly blown away at the thought of that beast being scared when it was so crazy strong.

  “There’s only one thing in this world that could terrify him,” he admitted.

  “What’s that?”

  He sighed, and then broke my heart as he disclosed, “Your rejection.”

  And that had me clinging to him wordlessly. I felt mute, unsure what to say, but then I realized that his wolf didn’t speak English, and all he needed from me?

  To be there.

  Though the man needed the words, and I was going to use them liberally to ease his concerns.

  “I love you,” I murmured. “It’s going nowhere, will never go anywhere because I recognize the truth—I was born to be yours. Just like you were born to be mine.

  “The Mother would never have put us together if we weren’t meant to be, Eli. You just have to have faith in me and in her. Can you do that?”

  His answer was to kiss me. The softest, most tender kiss I’d ever experienced in my life, and I’d never forget it.

  Not until the day I died.

  Sabina

  When I woke up in Eli’s arms after what, I assumed, was the fourth night here, I yawned out my fatigue.

  I was exhausted, but in a good way.

  My body was sore and loaded with aches and pains that I hadn’t experienced in years, but I felt good as I awoke in his embrace.

  The man was insatiable. And I knew why.

  If he’d been holding back all this time, I could only imagine how goddamn boring sex had been for him.

  Hell, more of an exercise in torture than anything else.

  We’d spent the last few days getting to know each other, and more importantly, learning how the other worked.

  He was a caregiver, and I didn’t even think he knew it. In his mind, it wasn’t giving care to rule the pack. It was duty and took strength and control. But he was. I knew that from how he cleaned me every day. How he rubbed my legs and body, and how he applied lotion to my skin like he was trying to figure out how to end world hunger.

  He was careful.

  Every move he made, it was like he consulted some inbuilt monitor that I had no access to.

  He
watched the world with an eye that even Ethan and Austin, though strong alphas, didn’t.

  There was something about his caution that made me feel safe. And while Austin had achieved that, Eli compounded it.

  With two strong mates always willing to fight for me, I knew I was safe from my past.

  Safe from my boogeyman, and that liberated me in a way I’d never have imagined possible.

  If Eli was all twisted up inside, tangled in fears and concerns and dread, I was just as muddled.

  But through him, I realized that if I stayed that way, he’d never be allowed out either.

  And I wanted that.

  His wolf needed to see the light of day more.

  Austin had told me how Eli rarely shifted, so I knew he contained his wolf not only mentally, but physically too.

  And the she-wolf?

  Demanded the wolf.

  There was no messing around with her either.

  She knew who her mates were now. Knew the mettle of the men. Testing them with silly tricks to make them lose control wasn’t something she needed to continue doing. In fact, I knew I’d have to apologize for trying to trip Austin up that way.

  It had been stupid of me and wrong.

  “What’s wrong?” Eli asked sleepily.

  I blinked at him, taken aback by his realization that I was upset about my treatment of Austin. “Huh? Nothing.” Aside from feeling like I’d been riding a horse for ten days straight.

  Which, I guessed, I had been doing. What with Austin and Eli? Sheesh.

  Poor Ethan. When it was his turn, I was just going to fall asleep on him.

  The thought, however, sent longing through me.

  I wanted him here. I wanted Austin.

  This was mine and Eli’s time, though, and I embraced that, all while longing for the moments when we could come together as a unit like a jigsaw puzzle put back together again.

  I sighed at the thought, then murmured, “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Your she-wolf was grumbling.”

  I loved how he knew that.

  Sometimes, he knew what the creature wanted more than I did.

  “She was?”

  “Yeah. You sore?” He peeped at me through dense lashes that would make any woman jealous. “I can give you a massage again, if you want?”

  My lips curved at that. “As kind and generous as that it is of you, mate, we both know it’ll end up with me on my back again. Or my knees.”

  He grinned, and the lighthearted expression made my heart happy.

  Smiles looked good on him, and I’d seen them so rarely in our recent past, but they were popping up with more and more frequency now.

  Something I was definitely proud about.

  If anything, I considered that a massive achievement, because if lightening his load was pivotal to keeping him sane, it wasn’t hard to make him laugh.

  He had a good sense of humor. It was just knotted in the web of his control, and until here, this place, I hadn’t known that. Hadn’t seen it or registered it, and I was so happy to see this side of him.

  Pleased with him, I reached over and rubbed a finger down his nose, then a strange thought occurred to me.

  “Why can’t I hear you in my head?”

  His brows rose, then he blinked, seeming to register he couldn’t hear me either. That didn’t come as much of a surprise to me though. Telepathic communication was the last thing he was accustomed to. “I don’t know.”

  “Is something wrong, do you think?”

  His smile was tender, and the sight made me melt. Before the claiming, he’d been gentle with me. But now? It was like… Shit, it was like he looked at me as though I’d set the world on its tracks for him.

  Which was crazy because the world was nuts, and I wasn’t much better in the aftermath of what had happened to Austin.

  The time with Eli had soothed me though, I had to give the Mother that—even if I really didn’t appreciate her throwing me into the crapper the way she had.

  “Mate,” he half-crooned, reaching up to push a lock of hair behind my ear. “You needn’t worry about our connection.”

  I hummed under my breath. “True.”

  When a scent wafted through the clearing where we rested, strong and pungent, but not fetid, the sudden urge to be my other self hit me.

  It was weird.

  Like a switch clicking on and off in my head where there’d never been a damn switch before as a compulsion to act overwhelmed me. Dazedly, I murmured, “I want to run.”

  He blinked at me, then stared down at my breasts. “I wouldn’t be averse to the show—”

  Even though my brain was decidedly on other things, I grinned at him, because it was such a man thing to say, and Eli, while all man, wasn’t like a usual guy. Austin was quite capable of leering at me as I did a two-mile jog with no clothes on. Eli? While I was sure he’d look, he would never hoot or holler at me as I did so.

  Austin?

  Hell yeah, he’d be down for that.

  My lips curved wider at the thought, as did the realization that I genuinely missed him. And Ethan.

  But I’d admit, Austin more than Ethan. That totally made me feel shitty, but Kali Sara, I knew why. The second Ethan was mine was the second that I’d be so fucking ready to never be away from any of my mates.

  The thought of being with the three of them, however, made me want to purr.

  Unfortunately for me, I’d changed, but I hadn’t changed to the point where my she-wolf could suddenly do cat things.

  My she-wolf.

  Just the thought was a reminder of her wants and needs, and right this second?

  She wanted out.

  Now.

  Right now.

  Completely in the dark, and unable to do anything other than obey, I stood up, and without another word, shifted.

  I didn’t even want to reply.

  I needed to run.

  The urge was in me.

  Out of nowhere.

  Maybe in another place, I’d have questioned why. Would have questioned what was going on, but here and now? I wasn’t questioning anything.

  Couldn’t.

  The only thing I could do was run.

  Run my fucking ass off.

  So I did.

  And within seconds, I felt the air itself shift as Eli’s wolf made an appearance.

  The effect on me was staggering.

  It was like, out of nowhere, the place throbbed with an ominous atmosphere, even though I knew Eli would never in a million years hurt me.

  I’d been running, not away from him, but running toward the forest behind the pool where I knew Austin had been making weird noises that time before the attack.

  Now?

  I came to a halt.

  I had to.

  Eli was so dominant that my she-wolf felt like she was magnetically attached to him.

  Though that chafed at my independence, it wasn’t like I had a choice. When he approached me, his muzzle ran all along the side of my body. He scented me, all of me. From my sides to my snout to my butt.

  Of course, that was when I ground out, “Back off, bud.”

  When his voice connected with me, I sighed with relief, even as I wanted to roll my eyes. “I’m not your bud,” he rumbled, and if he’d been in human form, and I as well, I’d totally have jumped his bones.

  Fuck.

  That voice?

  Alpha.

  And while it was enough to make the she-wolf quiver, I was glad when he pushed alongside me, scenting me with him.

  I could feel that in the air now.

  The way his essence perfumed me like the best aftershave ever.

  He nipped at my heel, then barked, “Run free, sweetheart.” It came out as an eager yip in wolf form, but I’d take either command.

  He was right too.

  There was a sense of freedom that came with each step I took now that I was running with him.

  It made me realize what he’d done.

  When
he’d shifted, he’d pulled some alpha mojo to get me to slow down, to make me stay put.

  “Jerk,” I muttered in my head.

  He snorted. “Wasn’t about to have you running off into danger, was I?”

  I’d have liked to argue about that, but my other mate was still probably feeling the aftereffects of a natural wolf attack back home, so it wasn’t like I could chide him for being a dick.

  I huffed, though, and carried on.

  Exploring the woods in this form was a revelation.

  As a human, it was beautiful. The sky was so mottled with color, it was like looking at the best kind of tapestry, because the strangely rich hues here were so much better in this form.

  I felt the wind brushing through my fur, and it scented of me and Eli, but also of honeysuckle. I could smell green verdancy too, and I was overjoyed to note that the temperature in this skin was perfect.

  Ambient so that, even though I was running hard through the underbrush, even though Eli and I were sniffing things out amid the different trees and brushes, hunting as it were through the majesty of this place, I didn’t feel overheated.

  Eli and I did that for over two hours.

  Exploring the place, enjoying its beauty. Wherever we were, be it heaven or some such paradise—with predators waiting in the wings—it was big.

  Huge, even.

  So expansive that it made me wonder what this place was for when it wasn’t being used by alphas to claim their omegas.

  But even as I felt Eli start to relax, especially after I’d been approached by his wolf and I hadn’t been scared—I knew my chiding him for sniffing my ass had both amused and relieved him—everything seemed to turn to shit.

  It hit me in the face exactly as it had with Austin.

  It was there and then it wasn’t.

  The scent. Again.

  The power in the air.

  It almost made me cringe.

  It was nothing like what he’d exposed me to before, this was different.

  I could sense it, even if I didn’t recognize it until the cat’s smell littered my space.

  The creature stank. It wasn’t earthy and pungent like I’d thought before—the beast had evidently wandered close to us, triggering my she-wolf’s response. But this scent was vile.

  Death and decay surrounded it, and only when I saw it leap out of the bushes at me, did I even realize what it was.