by Jamie Klaire
Emma bit her lip, Elam's words egging her on as she found a rhythm that was bringing her closer and closer to orgasm already. She leaned over him, planting her hands on his chest as she rocked her hips against him harder, faster.
"That's it. Come for me sweet Emma. Ride me, take your pleasure from me, let me watch as you fall over that edge."
"Oh Elam...I'm..."
"Oh fuck Emma, you're so sexy when you come."
"Oh yes, oh Elam, yes, yes, yes!"
She folded over him as her orgasm hit, pressing her breasts into his chest and chanting the words against his neck and into his ear as the waves started rolling through her. She felt the urge to taste his skin, to kiss his neck as she came, and before she knew why she was biting his neck.
Little nibbles at first, nipping at him as she rocked her hips, but then she opened wider and sunk her teeth into the straining muscles in his neck. She bit harder as she climaxed, the feel of his vulnerable skin against her teeth as his cock still filled her making one orgasm roll swiftly into two.
She claimed him as hers then, marking him as she had been marked. Now she not only belonged to him, but he belonged to her as well.
He wrapped his arms around her waist and hips as she rode him, cumming for him, claiming him as hers. He thrust himself up into her as she rocked down on him, but it wasn't enough.
Her bite excited something in him, and as she started to turn to putty above him, he needed more.
He rolled her over so she was underneath him again, and he turned her onto her stomach.
She felt his need and responded by getting her knees and elbows underneath her, arching her back and offering herself to him behind her.
His animal urges had taken over, and she loved that she could bring out the animal in him.
She threw her head back, trying to watch him behind her as he gripped her hips with his hands and drove himself quickly, fully home in one smooth stroke.
He filled her, pulling out quickly just to fill her again.
She pressed her ass back against him, meeting him stroke for stroke, loving the sound of his hips smacking against her ass as he grunted and reached for his own climax. Her fists gripped the blankets as she rocked backward against him, and he slid an arm around her waist holding her still as he filled her again and again, each stroke hitting against her cervix as he bottomed out deep inside her.
His strokes got faster and shallower, staying deep instead of pulling out before thrusting again. With a primal groan his grip tightened and she knew he was almost there.
She reached a hand down between her legs, feeling where they joined together and then stroking and softly tugging his balls just in time to hear an animalistic roar rip through him as he came, pouring his seed so deeply inside her, making her fall forward on the bed and pressing her belly flat against the sheets as their legs finally gave out and his orgasm filled her.
They lay like that, him on her back, pressed against the warm bed until their wits started to return.
She sighed and then giggled as his mouth teased the heated, sensitive flesh of her neck as he nuzzled her there.
"Please, Em, don't ever scare me like that again, ok? When you were in trouble, and then to see you fall at my feet in pain. Going through that again would tear my heart out."
She laughed as well as she could, pinned beneath him, and said, "I'll try not to. It's not like I planned it, you know."
"Hmm. Did you plan to bite me or did that just happen, too?"
She felt herself turn quite a few shades of red as she remembered what she had done in the heat of passion, and wiggled underneath him until he let her up and she could roll onto her back and look up at him.
She assessed the damage.
She'd left a bite mark, for sure. She must have shifted at least a little, because two canine teeth holes were deeper than all the rest. She had drawn blood. It was already beginning to heal, but it would leave a mark on him forever, just like the one she wore.
"How does it look? Am I marked forever? Do we have matching claimings?"
"You are definitely marked." She said it with a shy grin. "Do you mind? I know it's usually just the female who bears the mark."
"Do I mind that my mate wants to tell the whole world that I belong to her and her alone? That I am loved? That if anyone wants to try anything they'd have a jealous she-wolf to explain things to? No, love. Of course I don't mind. I like knowing I can drive you to a passion strong enough to mark me. I will wear your mark proudly."
"As I wear mine, Elam. I wear mine proudly as well."
With a smile Elam pulled Emma into the cradle of his arms and dragged the blankets back up from wherever their rolling around had tossed them, tucking them in.
"I love you, Mate." Elam whispered the words into her ear in the moments before sleep took them both.
"And I love you back, you beast."
Chapter 8
Later on that night, Galen and Kate came by to check on Emma.
Emma was feeling fine, her romp with Elam and the nap that followed doing much to help her heal and restore herself. Her body was still pretty sore, but she felt way better than she ever would have imagined she'd feel after getting shot, twice, and killing an esteemed, if crazy, member of the pack she had only recently joined.
The foursome found themselves speaking easily and freely without anyone else from the pack being around.
Kate started it off by thanking Emma for jumping in front of her and taking the bullets aimed at her. She wanted to continue, to say more, but emotional tears kept tripping her up.
When she took a moment to wipe her eyes and take a breath, Galen stepped in for her. He started to thank Emma as well, but his speech started out as more of an apology than a thank you.
"I'm so sorry, Emma. If I had known just exactly how far gone my mother was I never would have let her out of my sight. I certainly never would have let her and Kate spend as much time together as they did. I appreciated that Kate was trying to get to know her, because it left me free to be with Thomas quite a bit in his final days. I'll always be grateful for that time. But, I never would have traded it at the expense of Kate's safety."
Emma was a bit uncomfortable with all the thanks and attention aimed at her, and tried to wave it off by offering to pour everyone a glass of wine and aim the conversation to more interesting, to her at least, topics. Like the new knowledge that Ziva was raped and that instead of just being adopted brothers, Elam and Galen were actually half-brothers, since they both shared the same mother.
Elam waved Emma back into her seat and rose to open a bottle of wine for the group, as Galen steered the conversation in an entirely new direction.
"There is a lot to be discussed on the brother front, for sure, but before you get too carried away with the wine- pour three glasses only, please."
"Do you not want a glass, brother?" Elam said the term with a big grin at Galen.
"Oh hell yeah I do."
Kate interrupted them, saying, "It is me who won't be drinking."
"Since when do you turn down wine?" Emma ribbed her.
"Since I started carrying Galen's cub."
That news made everyone stop what they were doing and turn to the couple, congratulating them, hugging Kate and slapping Galen on the back.
"That's another reason we are grateful to you, Emma. Since Kate is with cub, you saved more than just her from Ziva. You saved them both. I owe you everything, Emma. Anything you ever need, you just say the word. I mean it."
Emma nodded, not really sure how to respond, so she teased Kate instead, trying to lighten the mood.
"Holy shit, Kate. What are your parents going to say when they hear? They expect you back, straightened up from our wayward path, at the end of this next year. Won't they be surprised?"
"Ah, but I have straightened up. I'm very happily married, or mated, or claimed, or whatever. Come to think of it, they very well may demand a church wedding, but..."
"I'm game." Galen re
assured her. "If a church wedding will please your parents, I'll marry you in each and every church they require. I will want a wedding night though, after each wedding. I'm just sayin'."
"I'm just sayin'? Since when are you down with old human lingo?"
Emma couldn't help teasing Galen. She was so very happy for her friend, and she had an inkling she was carrying her own cub as well. She turned down her own glass of wine, feigning recovery. She hadn't told Elam yet, she was waiting to be sure. Hell, he'd probably scent the change before she could tell him anyway, but she was waiting just the same.
"Hey, I'm down." Galen responded, teasing back.
"Oh jeeze. Don't. Just don't."
"You think humans are the only ones who can be hip?'
"Oh God. Seriously. Stop before you hurt something."
Once the teasing passed, and everyone was sitting together once again, Galen cleared his throat, and addressed the group in a more serious tone.
"If you think Elam and I being half-brothers is wild, wait until I fill in more gaps."
"There's more?" Emma asked, sipping her fruit juice out of a wine glass.
"Lots more," Galen continued, settling in.
"After you two first arrived with Henry, but before the challenge, Thomas called me to him. He knew he was dying, of course, and at the time, I was still favored to be the next Alpha. Plus, being his blood son- well, let's just say he had a lot of stuff he wanted to tell me before he passed on. To get off his chest, so to speak."
Emma tucked herself against Elam's body, smiling as he draped his arm around her as he sipped his wine and listened to Galen.
"Thomas knew he wasn't long for this world, so he didn't pussy foot around. He told me his story and wouldn't let me interrupt very often. I think he was afraid he'd pass before he got it all out."
"Before he got all of what out? How many secrets could he have?"
"Quite a few, apparently. He started at the beginning. Thomas told me that when he was younger, about twenty five or so, he heard his parents discussing him when they thought they were alone. They were discussing whether or not they were ever going to tell him that he was adopted."
"What?"
"You have got to be kidding!"
Galen shook off the reactions with a wave of his hand, carrying on over the interruptions.
"He said his dad, Alpha Aiden, reminded his mom that they had planned to tell him once he reached adulthood, but they still hadn't. It was his mother who didn't want to do it still. He listened in as they debated it, and learned that his parentage was, at best, a rumor.
It seemed that at the time, his mom had yet to be able to carry one of Aiden's cubs to term, so when a baby boy was dropped off at their den, they took him in. They tried, at first, to figure out who the cub belonged to, but all they ever heard in return was rumors.
The most insistent rumor being that Thomas was the son of a shape shifting father and a witch mother. I guess they reminisced, as Thomas listened in, about shape shifting things Thomas used to do as a young child, before they were able to corral him some and turn his shapeshifting into more of a wolf shifter only situation. As welcome as wolf shifters are, shape shifters are a totally different breed, and aren't welcomed usually. The shape shifter's history..."
Emma nodded her understanding, saying that Elam had told her some of this already.
Galen continued on, "Well, it seems that Thomas didn't take the news well. He started hanging out with those the pack didn't approve of. Witches, mainly, as shape shifters are harder to find. They introduced him to certain herbs and plants in the woods, and taught him spells and what-have-you.
Thomas said that since his parents never bothered to tell him of his origins, he never bothered to tell them who he had started hanging out with, or what they were doing when they were all together."
"Wait," Emma raised her hand, interrupting for a second. "What about Reine? Was she also adopted?"
"No. It seems that sometime after Aiden had taken Thomas in as his own, he sired Reine. Reine was the only cub the pair managed to actually have, together."
"So Reine and Thomas were not biological brother and sister after all? Wow. And Thomas never confronted Aiden? Or his mother?"
"No, he said he never spoke of it to anyone before telling me."
"So Reine never knew, either?"
"No."
Emma nodded her understanding, putting puzzle pieces away in her mind and turning her attention back to the rest of Galen's story about Thomas.
Galen continued.
"Thomas said that during the time he was hanging out with the witches on the edge of the pack's territory, without anyone's knowledge, he'd gotten involved in some questionable practices. The roots and mushrooms they partook from, and the spells and skills he learned from the witches, led to many a crazy afternoon. Afternoons that he was never quite sure actually happened, or if they were just herb induced hallucinations."
Galen paused then, allowing the rest of the group a moment to ponder everything.
Elam was the first to press.
"Hallucinations? Like what? Did he say?"
Galen nodded.
"Oh yes. He said."
Chapter 9
"Thomas spoke of one such hallucination, in particular.
He said that the group had been partying pretty hard there for a while, lots of herbs, lots of sex, lots of drunken tutorials on how to shift one's shape and wreak havoc on the general population.
He told me of this one time where he was still learning how to shift into things other than his wolf form. He remembered being pretty high when he was practicing, and horny as hell because they wouldn't let him join in with the group sex part of the party until he proved he really could be one of them.
So he threw his essence out into the forest.
He said that when he materialized again, there was this beautiful girl there with him, all alone. He thought it was one of the witches, teasing and testing him by taking on a human appearance in the middle of this clearing. So he took her.
He said he pounced on the female, there in the woods, and took her there, on the forest floor. When it was over, all of the others celebrated with him, and the party continued on into the wee hours of the night.
He said he never really thought about it again.
Until the night his father pulled rank and made him attend a meeting between the two adjoining packs.
As the meeting was getting underway, one of the other pack's females came in. Thomas said he recognized her immediately, even though he hadn't seen her in about a year or so. He asked around discretely. He said the people he asked took his interest to be from more of a primal place than a curious one, something about the look in his eyes and the strain to his voice.
They told him she was available. She was, of course, Ziva."
"Holy shit." Elam was the only one who spoke.
Galen just looked at him, and continued.
"The rumors around her pack were that she wasn't right in the head. That she'd gone out by herself into the woods one day, and when she came back she'd told stories of a mist-man. A mist-man who came out of nowhere and raped her. The pack never mentioned the child, though. They probably felt like they needed to give the amorous Alpha's son some kind of a heads up, since she was so damaged mentally, but no one spoke of the babe she'd recently had. And wouldn't have anything to do with, apparently.
So Thomas said he claimed her because he felt guilty. He knew she was the female he had taken in a drugged, shifting stupor in the woods that day, not one of the witches playing around. He knew that he was responsible for breaking her, for her being the way she was.
So he claimed her and took care of her. And having his actions staring him in the face every day made him step away from the witch crowd he'd been running with, and really take his place in the pack as someone who had a future in the pack instead of as a spoiled Alpha's son going through a rebellious phase.
He said she never recognized him as the
mist-man she'd come across in the woods, and he never told her that he knew anything about it. He said he planned to, at first. That he wanted to come clean, to confess and do right by her, but that she never would talk about her life in her old pack. Not after her old pack was wiped out, anyway.
So he never spoke of it either. He just took care of her.
He said that after he lost the challenge, she turned away from him some. And that once she was with cub, with Galen, she really didn't do well. She kept to herself a lot, taking long walks in the woods alone.
Thomas said that he was never completely sure, but he thought that she had something to do with Reine leaving the pack.
Thomas grieved his sister leaving, but he had his hands full with a newborn Galen, and then almost immediately after that, trying to lead a pack that was angry and confused when their Alpha walked away.
He said Ziva got better, eventually, after Reine left. And he felt that he was able to be a good wolf to her over the years, and that somewhere along the line he realized that he did love her. And that she loved him as well."
"He just told you all of this? Out of the blue?"
Kate asked the question this time.
He nodded at her.
"Yes. He said that as his son, he owed me the knowledge that his parents had hidden from him. He told me to be careful, to be aware, that shape shifter blood coursed through my veins, too, and not to let that fact change anything when I became Alpha. He wanted me to learn from his mistakes, but I've never felt any kind of ability to shift into anything other than a wolf. I'm certainly not going to seek the witches out though, just to find out for sure."
Galen sighed, and went on some more.
"Thomas also said he realized over the years that family was everything. That's why, when Henry mentioned the trouble you were getting into in the human's world, Emma, he pushed Henry to bring you here. Against Ziva's protests."
"I've been meaning to ask," Emma piped in. "How was it that my dad was still in contact with you all? If he and mom walked away still pregnant with me? I remember him saying that pressure from mom's family was one of the reasons he sent me here instead of leaving me in jail to deal with my own consequences."
