The Vampire, The Witch and the Werewolf: The Wolfe Pack

by Louisa Bacio

  “You gotta live up to some high expectations there.”

  “Oh, I’m sure I’ll be able to do that.”

  She needed to know a little more before moving forward. “Where is your family, your parents, in all of this?” Silver asked. Here, she had spent most of her life looking for that place where she belonged, and besides the right here and now, she didn’t know much about Viktor’s life.

  “It’s a question that was bound to come up,” he said. “Remember how I said I didn’t always live with the Pack, and went to school?”

  “Sure. It was a bit surprising to me.”

  “Well, my family brought me there. We all lived in a house in the city when I was growing up. My mom was very formal about me receiving a good education and choice about blending in with humanity and living a ‘normal’ life. My dad”—his voice faltered—“humored her. I think his soul always stayed with the forest.”

  The longing and forlorn quality his voice took on made Silver cringe for asking the question. She wanted to know, truly, but sometimes it was best not to ask.

  “We also talked about how not all vampires are evil, soulless creatures, and I know you have personal experience with some you say are good,” he continued.

  Her throat and mouth grew dry, and she suddenly had an idea of where the story was headed. She didn’t want to interrupt him, and let the story play out. He explained how his father worked with some “unsavory characters,” running with the underground or the Others of society, some money laundering. While the family lived in an upscale neighborhood, the company he kept was definitely the dregs of society.

  “Then he ran into this vampire gang. They seemed to like to kill for sport. They wanted my dad to help liquidate the assets of their victims. You know, not everyone carries around hunks of cash, but sometimes they have jewelry and other valuables. He refused.”

  If his father would’ve been one member of a pack within the city, they probably would have been safe. After turning down the job, he suggested the family move back to the woods, and Viktor’s mother refused. What could they do to them? Plus, Viktor would be graduating soon, and going off to college. After a few weeks went by without any retaliation, his father started to feel safe, and then they struck.

  “Rogue vampires,” Silver whispered.

  “What?”

  “We call them rogue vampires. They don’t care about anything, and kill for sport. They torture the victims if they please, and they often leave the bodies out, drained, for authorities to find.”

  “Well, you’re wrong on one account there—they do care. They care very much for the blood and violence,” he said. “I was out the night they attacked. Partying with my friends, like teenagers do. They killed my family, brutally slaughtered my mom and dad in their bed. I didn’t find them until the next day. Here I congratulated myself for sneaking in past curfew without my parents knowing, and they were dead all along …”

  She reached out to hold him, and he shifted away, as if he didn’t deserve the condolences. “I got a hold of some local members of the Pack, who sent word to Nathaniel. He came out and helped me bury them, and let me finish out school. That’s one of the reasons why I went so far away—to San Diego—for college. I wanted to get away from it all.”

  “It’s only natural,” Silver said. “But you can’t blame yourself. If you had been home, odds are you would have been killed, too.”

  “I’ve gone through it too many times to count. I tell myself the same thing, but it still comes down to we’ll never know. After I graduated, I returned to New Orleans to hunt down the vampires but either they had moved on to somewhere else, or they had been killed. So I moved back here, and I’ve never met one whom I liked.”

  “If you met Lawrence, I think he’d win you over. He’s been alive for one hundred and eighty years and change, and his depth of knowledge is amazing. Don’t get me wrong, he’s not a know-it-all, but if you have a question, he’ll know the answer. And he’s very good at reading people.”

  “Good skill to have in the long run,” he said. He brushed back her hair, offering comfort when he himself refused it.

  “And no other family?” she asked.

  “Not really. My mom had come from another pack, so there might be some aunts and uncles out there somewhere. She never much talked about the time beforehand. My dad was a distant relation to Nathaniel.”

  Silver moved back. “We’re not related or anything, are we?”

  “No.” Viktor laughed, and the sound warmed her body. “Not kissing cousins. Although I wouldn’t mind that kissing part about now.”

  Chapter Twenty

  After his story, she was more than happy to offer some physical solace. After a few passionate kisses, they shed their clothing. This time, there wasn’t any soft, slow foreplay. As soon as Silver got naked, Viktor was between her legs.

  Legs wrapped around his hips, she angled her pelvis upward for deeper penetration. Viktor moved with her, thrusting downward. He tucked one of his arms under her knees and slipped it over his shoulder, then did the same with the other leg. She literally lifted off the bed, and he jack-hammered into her pussy.

  With deep concentration, he licked his thumb, taking care to overemphasize getting the fleshy pad all moist, and he reached down and rubbed her clit, taking the swollen nub between his finger and thumb and creating all new sensations as his cock stretched her to new limits.

  Her sensations strung out. The touching. The kissing. The overabundance of feeling. Her nerve endings burned, and Viktor controlled the level of the flames. Right now, they went from a slow flicker to overdrive within a matter of minutes.

  “You are so fucking beautiful,” he said, “and you’re all mine.”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  “Tell me. Tell me, who’s your wolf?”

  “You, and only you.”

  Silver’s climax built up, starting low in her belly and exploding outward through her limbs. She bit her lip, holding back on her cries of passion. As the muscles of her tunnel spasmed around Viktor’s girth, he released her legs, coming down and kissing her, unleashing her lip and her control.

  “Don’t hold back on me. I don’t care who hears you come. Let them know.”

  The freedom, combined with his lazy circular thrusts, wound Silver right back up. He was pure devil to fuck her so deliciously. He licked at her lower lip, taking in the blood offering, teasing the front of her teeth and moving downward on her neck.

  “May I bite you?”

  “Oh yes. Please,” she said. She thought that moment of being bitten and climaxing at the same time was over. Before she could finish the thought, Viktor sunk his teeth into her neck, sucking hard. He moaned against her skin, and simultaneously his cock thrummed inside of her. She’d be feeling the aftereffects tomorrow and for a few days afterward, but right now, hallelujah, it catapulted her to the heavens again. Her muscles contracted, taking him all in, draining him of his come, and draining her of all her energy.

  As their bodies came down from the high, Viktor pulled her onto her side and spooned around her body. His cock lay, semi-hard, tucked against her ass, and she wondered how quickly he’d recover for another go.

  “What are you thinking about?” He nuzzled into the back of her neck.

  “I don’t think my body can handle any more of what I’m thinking about, so I’d better not mention it.”

  His laughter shook his body, and the tremors passed into hers. Such a content and safe feeling. Here, within his arms, none of the sadness of the world could possibly reach her. How could she have come so far, to find something with this much perfection? She’d thought she’d been happy before, but now in contrast it seemed like a midpoint section, taking her on the journey from her previous life, until now.

  * * * *

  Having sex with Silver made Viktor want to morph into his werewolf form and go out
for a run, howling at the moon. Adrenaline coursed through his body. Right now, he should be feeling sated, relaxed, but no. He wanted to tell the world he’d found his mate, and that she was his alone.

  He hadn’t meant to mark her during their lovemaking, but when he came upon ejaculation, that feeling of needing to bite her overtook him. He wanted to slide his teeth into her at the same moment as his cock filled her up. Good Lord, he needed to taper down those thoughts before he flipped her over and sunk himself into her again. As it was, her warm ass nestled against his crotch, and his special friend seemed to be seeking for a sleeping spot.

  He couldn’t imagine a time when doing this with Silver would become old hat. He told himself when he started up with her that he wouldn’t worry about the future, but right now he wanted to hold her in his arms forever, and he needed to ensure that nothing would stop that from happening.

  If anyone put her in danger again, he’d kill them. It didn’t matter who the person was. Even if it was the wife of the leader of his very own Pack, and the mother of his best friend. The thought caused him to roll over onto his back and toss his arm up, covering his eyes. Conflicted emotions boiled beneath the surface of his psyche. How could it be possible to be so wound up and so happy at the same time?

  Silver turned toward him. “Hey, where did you go?”

  “I’m right here,” he said. He slipped his arm under her shoulders. “I didn’t go anywhere.”

  “Not physically, but mentally. Where did your mind go?”

  “Just thinking.”

  “Well, obviously. I could tell that. You’re not, um, regretting what’s happening between us, are you?”

  “Lord, no,” Viktor said. He gazed down into her clear blue eyes, as light as the sky on the brightest day. “Never. In fact, the opposite. I don’t want to lose you.”

  “Who said I’m going anywhere?”

  “No one, but I want to convince you to stay here with me, always.”

  She cupped his balls into her palm and gently massaged them. Immediately, his cock stood to attention, and she skimmed the top, folding over his pre-come and mixing it with the remainders of their previous session of lovemaking. His cock slipped within her grip, and she held on harder. He moaned from the sensations. He watched her mouth, intent on the biting—again—of her lower lip, and the way the tiny pink tip of her tongue poked out and licked.

  “That might be arranged,” Silver said. “You’ll have to show me how much you actually want me, though.”

  “I thought I just did that … a few times, and so did you.”

  “Hm.” She twirled her tongue over the knob of his cock, fitting that sneaky tip into the hole at the end and sucking. His hips rose off the bed, shoving his cock deeper into her mouth. She slapped him down. “Someone needs to have a little patience.”

  “Sorry about that. Sometimes he has his own agenda.”

  “And right now, that would be…?”

  “You deep throating him until I can’t take it any more, and then me flipping you onto your belly, raising that pretty ass of yours into the air, and ramming him back into your moist pussy.”

  She growled her pleasure. “Oh really? What did you tell me earlier, ‘that can be arranged’?”

  Within her hands, his cock jumped and she laughed and took him back inside her mouth. The vibrations traveled down his shaft, sending shockwaves of pleasure through him. Definitely she was a keeper.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  After sleeping in the next day, Silver and Viktor spent most of their time in bed, getting to know each other very, very well. Late in the afternoon, a knock sounded on the door and a sheepish-looking Dominick held out a piece of paper.

  “Sorry to bother you,” he said, “but your presence has been requested at a general council meeting. Thought I should give you some advance warning.”

  He attempted to look around Viktor’s body, but the larger male blocked his view. “Silver and I will be there.”

  “What does it mean?” Silver asked as soon as the door was shut.

  Viktor unrolled the scroll. “Looks like your stepmother is going to have a little hearing.”

  * * * *

  The trial didn’t take long. One of the hired assassins was found with Sheba’s name and contact information in his pocket, along with a photo of Silver. Likewise, her phone contained his number. Some of the times she was slipping away from the encampment, she must have been setting up the hit.

  As evidence built, Sheba attempted to make a run for it. With a hiss that bared her teeth, Jana grabbed Sheba’s arm. “Where do you think you’re slinking off to?”

  Nathaniel raised himself to his full height and gazed out over the Wolfe Pack. “For the wrongs conducted upon one of ours, Silver, I condone Sheba to be banned from the Pack. Henceforth, no one may speak to her or speak of her. I denounce you as my mate. You will be provided basic provisions, and you should leave immediately.”

  Sheba slipped from Jana’s grasp, and threw herself on the floor before Nathaniel. “No. You can’t do this. I promise. I’m sorry.” She clung to his pant leg.

  Despite what had taken place, part of Silver’s heart ached for the woman. She knew all too well what it was like to be alone in the world. At this point, what she said wouldn’t matter. She held her tongue.

  “Lay off me. I have done nothing but mollify you. I gave up my own children, my heirs, and stayed with you, and even still you try to have my daughter killed? It’s not like you had anything to lose. You were at no risk. Your own petty jealousy was your undoing.”

  Her stepmother reared up in half-wolf form, claws extended and eyes glowing yellow. “She’s nothing but a half-breed. Bringing her into the Pack brings disgrace upon all of us,” she spat out. “And if she breeds, she’ll pollute the gene pool.”

  The muscles on her haunches flexed as Sheba readied herself for battle. A ferocious roar rattled Silver’s ear, and Viktor shifted and launched himself in front of Silver.

  “That’s my chosen you’re insulting,” Viktor said, knocking Sheba down.

  She whelped, and fell to the ground. Blood dripped from her arm, and she changed back into her human form.

  “I only wanted what was best for the Pack,” she said.

  “You wanted what you thought was best for yourself,” Nathaniel said. “And now it’s time for you to leave. Anyone else who doesn’t agree with my decisions can choose to go now, too.”

  No one stood up, and a few people glanced away. The woman dusted the dirt off her clothes and patted her hair into place. “There are plenty of other packs in this forest that would be happy to take me in,” she said. “As a pure breed, I have a lot to offer to another mate.”

  “Yeah, you keep telling yourself that,” Jana said. “Bye-bye.”

  Silver hid a grin at her friend’s sudden self-confidence. Feeling protective must have brought out the best in her. Another member of the pack laid a bag at Sheba’s feet. She slung it over her shoulder, and with a final glare at the members sitting round the fire, she walked off into the darkness. Once she was gone from view, a lone howl broke the stillness of the night. As if the sound was some sort of sign, the rest of the Pack broke up and headed to their own dwellings. Most walked in clusters, reassuring themselves of their place.

  “Viktor, make sure to increase security and patrols around the encampment, especially at night,” Nathaniel said. “With her unstable history, we should expect some sort of retaliation in the future.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “As for your relationship with my daughter, I expect we’ll be having a talk about that in private,” Nathaniel said.

  The agreement came a bit softer the second time around, and a tremor of thrill replaced the dread in Silver’s stomach. If she was going to be mated to Viktor, she wanted all of her family there, and that included Trevor. It might be the perfect time for a fu
ll family reunion.

  “Father, I am sorry for the trouble my coming here has caused,” Silver said, her head hung in shame. “If you don’t want me to remain, I understand fully.”

  “Look up, daughter of mine. Your eyes shine like your mother’s did. So gorgeous. If anyone, I am the one who should be offering my apologies. I should have been a better parent years ago. Although I thought I was making the right decision back then, all it did was give Sheba more power than she deserved. You and your brother should have taken priority.”

  She launched herself into his arms, and he stumbled back a step from surprise. He quickly recovered, petting the back of her hair. “My girl. You are such a woman now. I missed so much of your life. Please consider staying with us, so I won’t miss any more.”

  She nodded her head in agreement, taking in the lines around her father’s eyes, and the spreading gray along his temples. He looked worn down, and the events of the past couple of days probably had not helped. Then she looked back at Viktor, standing strong and handsome, and fully resolved in his love for her. “Go easy on him, will you? He’s more than half the reason I’m staying.”

  “I never would have guessed when the great Viktor finally succumbed to a woman, it would be my daughter. You’re not trying to overthrow my authority, are you, son?”

  “Never. You are our leader, and I am proud to serve you.”

  “And you shall promise to be true to Silver, protect her, and undertake the duties of the heir apparent?”

  “I do.”

  With a “hmm,” Nathaniel rubbed the hair on his chin, and took in the now-empty gathering area. The only ones remaining were Silver, Viktor, Jana, and himself. “Well, it seems like we’re going to be having a party in the near future, wouldn’t you say?”

  Beside Silver, Jana cheered and jumped. “I told you he liked you,” she said.

  “Yes, you were definitely right there.”

  “And you liked him.”

  The two men shook hands, and Silver wondered if it was all that easy. Her future changed so quickly. From one person wanting her dead and gone, to another offering an unfathomable happiness.