“Fucking touch me, Caden,” she groaned out. “Properly!”
“So demanding,” he chortled against her breast, making the nipple throb with the vibration of his laughter rubbing the tender skin.
Her hands returned to his head, and this time, she tugged at his hair, hard enough to make him wince, but she pulled him up from her breasts, and smashed her mouth against his. She bit his lip, hard, and slipped her tongue in between them. As she enticed his out to play, she grabbed his hand with her own and maneuvered his fingers so bare flesh was touching bare flesh.
It was like this morning had never happened. She had no thoughts left of what had occurred between her family or between Chloë’s. Caden had zapped her from those heavy concerns with the power of his touch, and with the power of his need.
The muscles of her stomach rippled when his fingers caressed her pussy lips, and she almost clamped her legs together when he rimmed her clit. She moaned into his mouth, as he started to fuck her with his tongue. He took her breath away, refused to let her pull her lips from his and, all the while, his fingers slid through the slippery folds of her pussy.
He pulled away, leaving her a panting mess, only to grab her legs and to physically turn her on the sofa so they were facing one another. He pulled down her jeans and panties, baring her lower half within ten seconds, and then, he spread her legs wide apart and buried his face in her cunt.
She exploded the instant his lips touched her clit. Lia hadn’t realized how ready she was, how desperate she’d been for his touch until the stardust streamed behind her eyes, leaving her deaf and dumb for countless seconds. And all the while, she knew his lips were still on her clit, tormenting the nub, forcing her back to Earth only so he could make her fly again.
She yelped when he nibbled the sensitive nubbin, then moaned as his tongue slid through the sticky wet folds of her sex, before he plunged the flexible muscle into her cunt. He rimmed the hole, before sliding down, and burrowing between her cheeks. The instant his tongue touched the pucker, tears flooded her eyes with the power of the punch to her stomach. She almost reared up from the sofa with the ferocity of that caress, but he pressed a hand to her belly to clamp her down.
Finally he pressed an open-mouthed kiss to her clit, then sat upright on his knees in front of her. She opened dazed eyes to stare at him, and saw the smug satisfaction on his face. It was written into every possessive line. She was his, and she knew it.
Lia didn’t try to be coy, or try to taunt him. It was the truth. They both knew it.
And when his cock suddenly start to press against the folds of her cunt, she no longer cared about anything other than being fucked.
But he didn’t fuck her. He slid the thick, blunt head of his shaft up and down, along the drenched lips of her sex, prodding her clit, teasing it, then taunting her cunt by almost penetrating her, but then moving away.
He did that three times before she shrieked, and ignoring the hand clamping her belly down to the sofa, she reared up, grabbed his head, and brought it down to her level. She ate at his mouth, knowing this was the way to break his control, and when he responded in kind, his cock was there. Sliding all the way in. Deep to her core.
Her eyelids clamped down as he filled her, every luscious inch branding her as his again. The delicious heat made her moan against his lips, and her hips rocked with the pleasure of his claiming. His butt retreated, pulling his shaft from her greedy cunt slowly, out and out until he’d almost escaped, until she had to clamp her muscles down to entice him back in. But he ignored them, ignored her whimpers. Only when he was on the brink of pulling out, did he slam back in again.
She screamed with the power of that thrust, then sobbed when he did it again. And again, and again. She was going to cum, and she knew it, and she knew he knew it. The agony of being so close was astounding, and for a second, she didn’t realize what he was doing until he’d done it. He’d rearranged her so that his arms could slide under her legs. She blinked when she felt herself being lifted, up and up, only to drop down slightly, until she was impaled on his shaft. His cock, one of three things holding her up.
Oh, she knew his arms were supporting her weight, but when he moved from the salon of the suite her grandparents had put them in for their stay and headed toward the bedroom, she didn’t feel his hands.
She felt his cock.
And he was deep.
Oh boy, was he deep. With every step, he fucked into her harder, and he kept on moving. Even when they reached the bed and he could have put her down, he didn’t. Her heart began to pump and her lungs began to burn as release sizzled her nerve endings with its proximity.
He broke the bittersweet agony roiling around her system with his gritted out, “Open your eyes.”
She obeyed and looked into eyes as green as a spring meadow. She drowned in the depths, was engulfed by them. And when he whispered against her lips, “I love you,” and followed through with a speed up of his pace, Lia Drummond née West was a goner.
Light as hot and as bright as the sun exploded behind her eyes as her climax pummeled her senses with its power. His words echoed around her skull with bruising force, branding her in more ways than one with the essence of him.
She cried out, her cries and mewls turning into a scream until she fell limp against his chest. Her fingers tingled, her toes, too. She sagged against him, moaning when his celebratory shout of release filled the air, and his hot cum pumped deep inside her. Another mark that declared her his.
Hell, maybe he was right. Maybe she was more cat than she realized. All this inner talk of branding and claiming felt right. She was his, and in more ways than the ring on her finger shouted to the world.
Lia sighed when he placed her on the bed, carefully pulling out of her. When his body heat was away from hers, she mourned its loss, then shrieked when he ducked down and pressed a sloppy kiss to her clit, before retreating upward to anoint her nipples with a similar snog, then mashing his mouth to hers in one final declaration.
“Mine,” he growled, confirming her thoughts. His words were a rumble, a deep vibration that tormented her already singed nerve endings.
“Mine,” she snapped back, glaring at him sleepily, demanding he accede to the claim. She didn’t really know where the demand came from, but it was imperative he answer.
His grin was wide, as he said, as simply as two plus two, “Of course.”
The bed wobbled when he fell onto the mattress at her side, and the two of them lay there, exhausted in the aftermath of that impromptu lovemaking.
Their breathing evened out, their bodies returning to normal as their senses worked through the overload they’d just received.
She looked up at the ceiling, staring at the corniced corners of the walls, and a thought popped into her head. It was an inappropriate time for it to appear, but, it was an impossible one to withhold from him.
“Do you think my dad was murdered?”
The words fell into the heavy silence of the room. Caden’s breathing had only just reverted to normal, and she knew he’d been on the brink of snoozing. But with thoughts of Jessica’s fate returning to the forefront of her mind now her body was at peace, thoughts of her own father’s destiny came with them.
“I don’t know.”
Honesty throbbed in his words, and she tilted her head to the side so she could look at him as she asked, “No, I know you don’t know, but what do you think?”
“I think the only thing that could take me from you, Lia, is death.” When her eyes watered at more of his honesty, he shook his head. “I didn’t say that to make you cry, I was just stating a fact. A fact that happens when you’re mated. Your father would not have left your mother. I know that, like I know my own name. There’s no way a mate could abandon a mate unless his free will was taken from him. Be that by abduction or by death. So, to answer honestly, I don’t know for definite, but I think it’s likely he was murdered. Yes.”
She nodded at his reasoning, and even though her
stomach twisted at the knowledge that he was probably right, she made sure her features were ironed out, and free from tension. She didn’t want him to know he’d upset her, because it was a side effect she hadn’t expected.
“Talk to me, Lia,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to her shoulder.
She tried to talk, then cleared her throat when her words were foggy with emotion. “I’ve blamed him for so long,” she whispered, “hated him for leaving us, and damned him for putting my Mom in an early grave. How am I supposed to reconcile that with this? That he might have died because of who he was and who my Mom was.”
“You don’t. Not really. What happened happened. It doesn’t define you. It defined your parents, but it won’t define us. The Enforcers will find out what happened. They’ll find out if it was the Puristas, and they’ll learn the truth. Things are different nowadays. Look at all the cold cases the cops solve. This is the same. We need to find justice for your father, and then he and your mother can rest in peace. Together, with the Lea.”
Tears trickled along her lashes, swiftly drenching her cheeks. It came to her then that change was coming, and that she and Tommy were at the center of the turbulence that was going to hit the Pride.
With Caden at her side, she knew she’d cope. She just wondered how Tommy would, mateless, and still undergoing a transformation that would terrify anyone.
She curled into Caden until her back was flush to his chest. Smiling when he rested a hand on her belly and the child sleeping within, she knew this peace was temporary, that it wouldn’t last. But that just made it all the more precious. As did the knowledge that this was the start of a whole new life in a whole new world, and she had the man who was the other half of her soul right at her side.
It didn’t matter that she’d be giving birth in a few months rather than the seven she’d expected, nor did it matter that once she had the child, she’d suddenly start bulking up like a female Hulk. The prospect didn’t seem to bother Caden, so, she wouldn’t let it bother her.
There were many questions in need of answering, many aspects of her life in need of exploring, and the answers she would eventually find, and those explorations made.
For now, things were calm. Chaos would return, but she’d find an order to it. It wasn’t like she had a choice, after all.
She wondered, if at seventy, Caden would look at her the way her grandsire did her granddam. If so, she had plenty to look forward to.
With that in mind, she settled into a dream-free sleep. The first of many in a lifetime that would never be boring. Shit, an interesting existence and the fact Caden loved her would be the only guarantees in her world.
And hell, if that didn’t make her the luckiest half-breed in the universe, then she didn’t know what did.
* * * *
Four months later
Anchor Clinic, two hundred miles from National Pride headquarters
“Caden, oh God, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. So sorry.”
At his wife’s tearful mumblings, Caden closed his eyes, and pressed a kiss to Lia’s sweating brow.
They’d been in this hellhole for the last forty-nine hours, and Lia’s labor was still going strong.
It didn’t matter that his mother repeatedly tried to assure him such was the way with multiple litter-births, it didn’t help that the doctors believed everything to be just A-OK, his mate was suffering. In more ways than just physically.
Today was the culmination of all their dreams, and their nightmares.
They had two baby girls.
And their son was doing his best to make his way into the world.
The pride Caden felt was so humongous, his chest hurt with the strain of withholding it. His need to shift, so his Lion could roar out his exultation was a constant, nagging ache.
But, their son, a baby that had hidden behind his sisters in utero—and Caden really hoped he wouldn’t go through life as he’d started it—was wrecking their hopes to stay out of the Pride political scene.
Two cubs, and they could have gotten away with it. The media would have questioned why the Mater didn’t want her fertile granddaughter to hold any power, but there would only be whispers.
Now, with three cubs, there wasn’t a hope in hell that Lia could exclude herself from Pride politics.
While his son was a gift from the Lea, he was also a message from her. That no matter how much they tried to run, no matter how they tried to hide from their past and their heritage, they couldn’t escape their roots.
“Please, baby, don’t be upset. You don’t want little Junior to hear his mama cry, do you? You don’t want that to be the first sound he hears?”
Her chin wobbled, and her eyes, her big, emerald eyes, looked up at him with such misery, he felt ashamed. Enough so, tears began to prick his own.
Pressing a kiss to her trembling mouth, he moved his lips closer to her ear and whispered, “We can do anything together. We can change the world, even if it isn’t ready to be changed.”
She gulped. “But our plans….”
“They weren’t fixed, honey. You know that. We’ll just have to adapt, just have to roll with this. This baby’s a blessing, and we mustn’t forget that.”
“I don’t want to be a politician,” she wailed, making the four doctors around the bed arch their brows in surprise.
Because Lia was who she was, she had attendants from all over the Pride nation. The Mater had flown God knew how many consultants into Anchor’s clinic to make sure Lia would coast through the delivery, but no one, in all the tests and scans, had ever seen the biggest shock of them all. A third cub. A cub that would forever change his family’s destiny.
“I know you don’t, baby, but we can do it. Together. Remember, you’re not alone. You’ll never be alone now.”
Her head suddenly flew back as a contraction quaked through her body. Her roar would have done a Lioness proud. He sucked in a breath, knowing he’d never get used to seeing her in such agony, yet knowing it was part and parcel of life.
Her scream reverberated around the clinical room, making most of the occupants wince at the decibels ricocheting into their ears. When the contraction finally came to an end, her breath was ragged as she gritted out, “Never leave us, Caden. I’ll hunt you down if you do.”
Rather than annoy him, he grinned. “As if I’d dare.”
She shook her head. “No joke. Won’t survive. Not if you’re not there.”
Her gasp was sharp as another contraction hit.
And to the sound of one of the doctor’s declaring, “We can see the head,” Caden whispered in her ear, “Where would I go when this is the only place in the world I ever want to be?”
Epilogue
Present Day
Tommy West lay flat on his back staring up at the stark walls of the ward he was in. If his sister and her husband hadn’t assured him it was a clinic, he’d have thought it to be either a mental asylum or a prison.
As it was, the nurses looked at him like he was a monster, shoving food through the holes in the door like he’d snap them into a million pieces if he got too close to them. There was nothing to do apart from look at the blank walls or study the view from his window.
Bored of the ceiling, he decided to do just that. Rolling off the too-slim bed, the dimensions of which seemed to shrink every day, he headed to the window and looked out. Spotting a car pulling up outside reception, he watched as two women alighted from the vehicle, a beautiful BMW that he’d have carjacked back in the day. Both blondes, he studied the women for no other reason than he was bored shitless, and kept his eyes trained on them until they entered the clinic.
Grunting at his loss of entertainment, he stared out at the large town, looking at sights he’d already memorized days before. It was an affluent place, anyone with eyes could see that. He was on a high enough floor that he could look out onto the streets and see the houses and stores. Unlike his neighborhood, everything was pimped up. No corkboard windows, no broken glass or graffit
i. It was like Thomas More’s Utopia.
The thought made him long for his bookcase, hell, he’d settle for his e-reader. He never thought he could be as bored as he was at the moment, and fuck, the boredom was making him aggressive.
He thought about asking the doctors for a book, knowing they’d probably refuse but equally knowing he had to ask. If you didn’t ask, you didn’t get, his mother had used to say, and she was right.
Grunting, he turned around to face the barren room, then tilted his head as he saw a sheet of folded paper on the floor in front of his door. It hadn’t been there twenty minutes ago when he’d slipped off the bed.
With a frown, he walked to the door and reached for it. As he bent over, he looked out into the hallway. There was no privacy here, making this more of a cage than a ward. He spied no one through the grills though, no one who could have left the note. He made to open the folded paper, but before he could, the sound of footsteps echoed down the hall.
Tommy stilled as the most beautiful scent seemed to float down the corridor and perfume his room. He’d never smelled anything like it. It was like sex and woman, heat and ice, ecstasy and joy all wrapped into one. His cock went from soft to pike hard, and he crouched on the floor trying to get a stronger whiff of the smell.
“It won’t be for long,” one of the doctors said. He recognized the doc as Havensly. She was pretty decent. If he asked for a book, it would be her he asked. She wouldn’t refuse him just for the sake of being mean.
Then, the woman he recognized from outside reception appeared. She looked shaken. Nervous, and upset. “You don’t know that, Hilary.”
Hilary Havensly? Christ, her parents had played a real joke on the doctor.
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