by Amira Rain
“What do you want?” She asked. The smug smile on Wiley’s face widened, prompting a deep-throated growl from both Jonas and Cara.
“You,” Wiley answered, eyes roving up and down her body.
Mary-Lou stepped in front of Jonas, halting the man just before he had a chance to pounce forward. She could do nothing about the roar he let out, however; a few windows slammed shut, the sidewalk becoming suspiciously empty.
Their neighbors were human, they could not afford—
Mary-Lou winced, understanding dawning. By God, he had gotten them good.
Wiley was not looking for a fight – he had wanted to deliver a message, to extract something without the need to worry about consequences. Slick, cowardly dog – Mary-Lou shook her head and focused, once again, on the smirking Shifter.
“Say what you want and leave,” she told him. Sasha hissed something that Mary-Lou tried very hard not to understand. It sounded like he was threatening to actually eat somebody; the two Wolf Shifters who stood nearest to the enraged Snake took a cautious step back.
Wiley was not moved. He was the kind of man who saw hard-headedness as bravery, Mary-Lou thought. A foolish, bumbling brute who understood nothing save violence, if that.
Speak, she urged, Speak and leave, before you lose your head.
“But I did,” Wiley declared, pausing for dramatic effect before finishing with: “I wish to issue a Challenge.”
The three Shifters flanking Mary-Lou froze for all of a moment, before exploding into varying decibels of shouts and angry gestures:
“HOW DARE YOU?” Jonas roared, neatly overlapping Sasha’s “Over my dead body.” Cara took a more hands-on approach and flipped the man off, screaming something along the lines of, “You sick fuck!”
Mary-Lou gathered that a Challenge was Not A Good Thing.
“You don’t even know what I said, do you?” Wiley ignored the deadly hostility which faced him, choosing to focus on mocking Mary-Lou instead. That arrogant quirk would bite him in the ass one day, Mary-Lou thought. Still, he was not wrong; she shook her head.
“That matters little,” Wiley grinned, turning to glare challengingly at Jonas. “All I need to know is whether your pet pussy will fight or not.”
Mary-Lou was feeling the urge to hit the dumb man with a stick rather poignantly, herself.
“He won’t,” Mary-Lou answered, just as Jonas snarled a low, “I will.”
“What?” Mary-Lou turned to Jonas, face losing some of its composure. “Jonas, you don’t have to—”
“He does,” Cara interjected. Mary-Lou glanced at her, eyes widening to find the girl sporting fox ears. “Cara, your—” Mary-Lou waved her hand above her own head, frantically scanning their surroundings.
“That’s not important right now!” Cara groaned even as the extra set of ears puffed out of existence. “Mary-Lou, don’t you understand?” she pleaded, “He is trying to claim you!”
A numb, cold feeling spread down Mary-Lou’s chest.
“Who?” she asked, needlessly and stupidly.
“Wiley!” Cara barked, more fox than girl. “That ugly fucker, Wiley! He issued a Challenge, which means that he wants to claim you, even though you belong with Jonas – she belongs with Jonas, you sorry ball of fur!” The last was screamed at Wiley, earning nothing but a derisive snort from the man.
“We will see.” Wiley grinned, eyes still on Jonas’ rumbling form. Mary-Lou tightened her grip around her mate’s upper arm, trying to soothe the anger that threatened to overwhelm him. “Two days from now, where I first met Mary-Lou. You don’t show, I come to collect her.” Wiley then turned to his pack, growling out a short command.
They were gone within seconds.
Mary-Lou stared at the empty cement before her, at Jonas’s flushed face. Her mate was trembling against her, his body pained with the need to shift, to chase, to kill.
In the end, it took both Mary-Lou and Sasha to ensure Jonas made it to their apartment and stayed there. Jonas did not speak a word for the rest of the evening; seemed incapable of it, human voice overtaken by its animal counterpart. Mary-Lou could do nothing but stay by his side, equally silent and sick with worry.
No one slept alone that night: All four of them crammed in Mary-Lou and Jonas’ bed, needing the comfort only physical contact could provide. Mary-Lou pressed against Jonas, hugged Cara close, and tried to ignore the ball of anxiety growing, black and heavy, in the pit of her stomach.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow, she will ask. Tomorrow, she will know.
Mary-Lou wondered if she would want to, once she did.
CHAPTER THREE
The bedroom was dark, silent. Shadows hung from the ceiling, draped over the room and all within it like a shapeless veil. There were only two figures in the spacious bed tonight, the night before it was all to end. They, too, were still and quiet – but not asleep. How could they be, when uncertainty threatened to drown their entire world?
Mary-Lou blinked red-rimmed eyes, trying to keep the blinking digits of the alarm clock in focus. 2:59 AM. She felt her lashes burn where they pressed in the sleep-bruised skin of her eye-sockets, felt tired and too-awake.
For the first night in many weeks, Mary-Lou’s insomnia was not called forth by phantom shadows and bloody dreams. The terror that squeezed her heart was very much warranted, for the danger that loomed over them – over Jonas, over her family – was intolerably real.
Wiley. Mary-Lou gritted her teeth around a frustrated scream.
What would she give, to have her fears remain locked within her consciousness! When Wiley had first walked toward her – face smug, eyes filled with hate – Mary-Lou had briefly thought him a nightmare: Had believed herself asleep against Jonas in Sasha’s car, safe on her way home. But Wiley had remained stubbornly real; a monster of flesh and blood. And when he had spoken—
Mary-Lou felt Jonas shiver against her, violent and sudden. Anger thrummed across their mental bond, hate and passion and fear so potent it shook her to her bones. Hesitantly, Mary-Lou turned to face her lover, gasping to find glassy blue eyes staring hungrily into hers.
Wiley and his disgusting advances had left Mary-Lou shaken, Sasha and Cara – distraught and angry in turns. But Jonas – Jonas had been enraged. That first night, it had taken the entire pack and hours of physical contact, of soft words and gentle gestures just to keep Jonas stable. Mary-Lou had felt her mate teeter, felt him pull back from the edge of pure, bloodthirsty insanity more than once. An awful experience for which Wiley, too, was to blame.
“He is going feral,” Cara had whispered sometime in the early morning, face pale and drawn as she regarded her alpha. “Had we not stopped him, he would have chased after them. He would have fought.”
“There were seven of them,” Mary-Lou had gasped out, quickly falling silent as Jonas let out a menacing growl against her neck. She shivered, letting Jonas nuzzle into her and calm himself with her scent.
“That would be the problem,” Sasha offered in the resulting silence. He was pressed along Cara’s other side, legs curled so his toes brushed against Jonas’ taut calves. “No sense of self-preservation. No sense at all. He would have been torn apart.”
In the present, Mary-Lou watched Jonas watch her and wondered who lay in this bed: Her mate, or the Lion in human skin.
Jonas must have felt her anxiety. He let out a soft growl and lifted a trembling hand – his fingers were slightly curled, nails glinting sharper then they ought to be – and rested it gently against her hair. He seemed uncertain, almost afraid. Mary-Lou pushed into his hand, tilted her head up and to the side to reveal her throat.
I trust you, she said without words, I trust you, so trust yourself.
Jonas’ hand tightened in her hair – a brief sting he was quick to soothe by rubbing large, gentle fingers against her scalp. Hesitantly, he moved closer, blue eyes flickering from Mary-Lou’s throat to her face. Mary-Lou fought to keep her expression mild and her mind at peace; her mate needed reassurance, needed her to
be strong tonight. She would be. She was.
Mary-Lou almost sighed with relief when golden hair finally brushed against her cheek. Here, Jonas was finally here with her – not lost in his mind, human consciousness buried beneath primal instincts. She let herself move closer, let her body relax and press against her mate’s.
A rumble, low and deep, shook through Jonas’ body. Mary-Lou smiled and nuzzled into the hollow where her mate’s neck and shoulder met, trailing her lips against the soft skin. She tasted the next rumble, opened her mouth and pressed her dull, human teeth where the sound shook through Jonas’ throat. Jonas groaned and arched into the bite, eyes too bright as he stared down into Mary-Lou’s flushed face.
“Mary,” he whispered, words spilling clumsily from his mouth. He had not spoken for two days; Mary-Lou smiled, blinking back relieved tears.
“Jonas.” She pushed herself up on one unsteady elbow. Jonas bent down to meet her, lips soft and open as they swallowed her own.
They kissed slowly, gently – without urgency or need other than that to touch and be touched in return. It was a kiss of reassurance, of love and heat: A memory to be cherished. A promise to be kept.
The darkness of the day to come loomed above them, heavier than ever; Mary-Lou wished to forget, to make Jonas forget, if just for a while. So she deepened the kiss, guided Jonas back against the bed until his body stretched, supple and strong, against the white sheets. She sucked at his bottom lip, pulled the plush flesh in and bit – gentle, wet, desperate. Jonas groaned against her, opened his mouth wide and consumed her with eager kisses, large hands sliding down her back to grasp her hips. Mary-Lou let him pull her in, let herself fall fully against his body: Bare thighs spread over Jonas’ hips, hands braced on either side of his head. Jonas’ eyes were a soft, dazed blue; Mary-Lou’s own green gaze curled in a smile, glistened with mischievous happiness.
“Hold on,” she whispered and ground down.
Jonas gasped, thrust up against her as the softness of her flesh moved away – only to return again, and again, an insistent roll that left him shaking, fighting to ease his grip around her thighs. Mary-Lou grinned wider, pressed down faster as she felt him harden and strain beneath her. Electricity surged between them – Mary-Lou moaned again, low and drawn-out. She fell against Jonas’ naked chest, arms too weak to support her even as she continued to grind down, guided by her own pleasure as well as Jonas’ gentle hands. Her breasts pressed between them, aching with lack of contact and an excess of desire.
“Let me—” Jonas rasped, voice still unsteady. His hands were sure against her body, however – slid up her trembling legs to where she was wet and aching.
Mary-Lou surged up at the first touch, swallowing a sharp scream as pleasure thrummed through her. Her thighs tightened, ground down against Jonas’ fingers in reflexive need to keep the touch there, there, there. She bit her lip, bit Jonas’ shoulder in retaliation and shuddered to a stop.
“N-no,” Mary-Lou shook her head, shook it again when Jonas froze – uncertain and needlessly guilty –against her. She lifted her head, covered his mouth with a soft kiss she broke with a playful bite. “Not tonight. Tonight, you let me.”
Jonas nodded hesitantly. He let Mary-Lou guide his hands back to her hips, fingers sliding beneath the waistband of her soft underwear to caress the skin beneath. Mary-Lou blinked when nothing else happened; a meaningful prod and an exasperated eye-roll later, Jonas was hurriedly sliding satin over pale skin, pushing the cotton of his own sleeping pants down and off.
Mary-Lou pulled the large T-Shirt she slept in – one of Jonas; and had that not been a fun kink to explore – off her body, almost moaning in relief at the soothing caress of air against her oversensitive skin. Jonas drew in a breath beneath her, eyes half-lidded and hot. His gaze was possessive, hungry; Mary-Lou shivered in pleasure as he reached up to caress her breasts. The difference in size, in strength between them was never so obvious as when they were like this – wrapped around each other, Jonas’ body solid and large against her smaller, softer form.
Mary-Lou never felt as powerful as she did in Jonas’ arms.
Skin slid against skin as Mary-Lou lowered herself against Jonas. The large man remained still beneath her, muscles stiff with urgency and tightly-controlled desire. Jonas watched her move, watched her slide a hand beneath her own hips. The resulting wet, slick noise had his lips pulling tight against his teeth, the Lion swallowing a snarl of desire as he watched his mate ready herself for him.
Mary-Lou smiled around a moan and let her hand slip free from her body, trailed wet fingers along Jonas’ hard length. “Ready?” she husked.
Jonas bared his teeth in answer, hips thrusting shallowly against her hand. Mary-Lou let out a breathy laugh, the sound hushing into a soft groan as she guided Jonas’s hardness into her. Too big, too full – she gasped, fingers twisting the sheets at Jonas’ sides. Jonas’ large hands trembled as he caressed her back, her sides – palmed her breasts. The touch was soothing and devastating at the same time. Mary-Lou took a breath, then another. On the third, she moved up – then down, slower, slow, fast – faster. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale—
Jonas thrust up, control disintegrating as pleasure overwhelmed his senses. When Mary-Lou only moaned, he let himself do it again and again – sat up to envelop her fully in his arms. The pressure was deep like this, his movements restricted to powerful grinding and searching caresses. Jonas snarled again, claws extending ever so slightly against his mate’s flesh as he nosed sweat-dampened curls away and opened his mouth against Mary-Lou’s soft neck. Mary-Lou choked on a scream as sharp teeth pierced her skin, senses overcome by painful pleasure. Jonas growled as his own body tensed, hips stilling with a last, powerful thrust that settled him fully within her. The bond that stretched between her and Jonas trembled with life, full and happy and complete.
“Mary-Lou,” Jonas gasped, soft and wet against her throat. Mary-Lou nodded, laughed weakly and nodded again.
“Welcome back, love.”
Morning found Jonas and Mary-Lou wide-awake, naked bodies pressed together beneath thin sheets. They did not speak – had not spoken since those last, passion-filled words some hours ago. Instead, they shared comfort and love through touch – bodies and minds so attuned to the other’s they needed no words.
Daylight spilled into the room, the transparent drapes doing nothing to contain the sun’s cheerful might. Mary-Lou sighed, the soft warmth in her chest receding as cold uncertainty once again weighted her mind.
“We have to leave soon,” Jonas murmured beside her, words echoing her gloomy thoughts. Mary-Lou nodded and rolled out of bed –reluctant and clumsy and slow. Jonas rose to watch her go, mouth set in a tight frown.
Mary-Lou paused by the bathroom door. “I won’t cover the mark,” she said, the corners of her mouth twisting up in a ghost of a smile. It was an old argument of theirs – one she kept up mostly for amusement. Mary-Lou had long grown fond of wearing a necklace of bruised skin about her throat. It was not the healthiest of things, she suspected.
Jonas shook his head in response, unable to muster the will to engage in their usual banter. He moved up to join her at the bathroom door instead, large body hot and hard against hers.
“Be careful today,” he growled. His eyes glowed a muted blue – twin flames in a face swathed by shadows. Mary-Lou nodded, moved closer to whisper the same words against his lips.
Cara knocked on their door almost an hour later. Mary-Lou and Jonas stood ready to receive her, then followed her in the hallway and down the stairs without a word. Jonas wore a soft pair of pants and a tight, black shirt – clothing meant to allow movement and prevent undue grappling by his opponent. Mary-Lou’s outfit was similarly simple, with the addition of a sturdy leather jacket that was to protect both her skin as well as conceal the sharp, thin dagger secured along her left arm. The fight may be Jonas’, but only a fool would not take precautions when dealing with Wiley and his cowardly gang.
The drive
was silent, the air filled with anger and a kind of despondent misery. The whole thing was unfair – ridiculous, really! Wiley’s plan was beyond obvious, yet they were still forced into going along with the farce of a Challenge.
“It is the Law,” Irma had growled over the phone the morning following Wiley’s message. Both she and Jonathon were currently away, miles from the city and any type of transportation – and was that not a lucky coincidence for Wiley. “An outdated rule, and one that needs to fall with the system that spawned it. As it is, however, it still stands – Jonas must fight,” Irma had sighed, ire softening in cold glee. “It will certainly be good to see the last of that sorry mongrel.”
Mary-Lou did not share Irma’s amusement. The human woman had been terrified to learn the nature of the fight: One to the death, the victor inheriting the other’s pack and possessions, like so much cattle. It was a sickening arrangement, one that would torture her family no matter the outcome. How would Jonas live, with Wiley’s blood on his hands and his death on his consciousness? How will they welcome a pack of wild, merciless predators in their midst?
Mary-Lou did not want to think about the other possible outcome. The idea that Jonas might be the one to lose, that Jonas could be the one to fall— it was too painful to consider. Thanks to a hushed conversation with Sasha during the few moments she had been able to escape Jonas’ possessive grip the day prior, Mary-Lou learned that it was also not as improbable as she’d hoped.
Wiley Turbo was an alpha to a pack – had been for many years. He was a born leader, bigger and stronger and faster that all around him even when he had nothing to his name save bravado. Years in a position of authority had only encouraged his natural tendency toward aggression, enhanced his power as his pack grew.
That, and the man was built like a tank.
Jonas was no weakling, but he was not a natural alpha either. Jonas had been a beta in his small pack, then an unwilling omega following his parents’ death. It was only after he met Mary-Lou – after he fought by her side, joined their souls and pronounced his devotion to her and her family – that he had gained the status that Wiley had possessed since birth.
