by Emma Dawn
My men dropped first, each of them to one knee. Then outward the kneeling went, as the other vampires dropped one at a time, including those with swords.
“There will be no more death.” I turned a slow circle as I spoke, letting my hands touch my men one at a time.
Preacher.
Wick.
King.
Celt.
Spartan.
Malcom.
Six men, bound to me and making me whole in ways I’d never understood was possible before. “There will be no more death, as long as I am queen.”
One of the vampires pushed to his feet, pointing a sword in my direction. I glared at him and he lowered the tip, but still spoke. “Our rules are set. Those you have not chosen must die.”
“Rules are made to be broken,” I said.
“You can’t love more than one,” he snarled, and took a step forward.
I flung my hand at him, palm out. “Do not!”
But it was too late, his momentum and anger swelled upward and seemed to spill into the rest of the vampires, the last of Terra clinging to them.
How did I stop this? Already my hold on them slipped, the power in my words faded with the rage Terra had left them with. I saw that now, they fed on their queen’s emotions. Her stability became the hive’s.
Terra had been filled with fury and cruelty.
The last vestiges of it were now facing me.
As the other vampires stalked toward us, I drew my breath to speak.
A long, echoing howl rolled through the arena, stilling every foot. A rush of winter wind, and then the arena was flooded with a pack of giant werewolves that circled around me and my men.
Havoc was there, looking far better than when I’d seen him last in his wolf form. His fur was no longer matted, his ribs no longer showed, and he didn’t stink like shit and death. A decided improvement.
Our eyes met, and I gave him a nod.
“Our allies stand with me,” I said softly. “A war between us and the Windrun pack would result in much death.”
I bit my lower lip, wanting the right words, the ones that would make them understand. But how to make them understand what love was, and the power of it?
Spartan held something out to me.
Essence of Lillianna.
She’d been the queen that all had loved. I moved to take it, to take whatever help she would give me.
No, this had to be all me, or not at all. They would never trust in me fully if I let Lillianna have her speech now in this pivotal moment. My words would sway them, or none at all would.
I dropped my hand, not taking the bottle. “This world,” I said, stepping between my men and standing between the ranks of the werewolves, “it is too dark a place to fill it with more anger. Friendship, love, laughter, these are what I bring to you. I bring you an era of peace, of loyalty, and freedom.” I made my way past the circle of the werewolves to the other vampires.
To my vampires.
I walked straight to the one who had challenged me. “I give you freedom. I give you the choice to stay or go.” He blinked at me, like I’d spoken a foreign language.
“Why would you do this?”
“Find your passion, find your love, find your joy.” I reached up and touched his face, cupping his cheek gently. “That is what I want for all of you.”
The tension in the room spiked, and I realized that this moment would tell me whether we lived or died. The fight with Terra was nothing to this. This moment would define whether I would truly be the queen, or I would have to fight once more for my life, and pray my men survived too.
He slowly went to both knees, his eyes never leaving mine.
“My queen, I have waited all my life for you.”
I kissed him on the forehead, gently. “I’m sorry I took so long.”
He barked a laugh and shook his head. “We have been under Terra’s thumb for too long. We will have to learn to trust our queen again.”
I helped him stand and then went back to my men, my throat tightening as I did so.
I looked each of them in the eye and spoke softly. “I will give each of you the same choice. Stay, if you wish to stay with me, and go, if you wish to go.”
One by one they dropped to a knee and bowed their heads to me. Until Malcom. I smiled at him.
“It’s okay, Malcom. Do what your heart tells you.”
His shoulders tightened and flexed and he looked to the ceiling before slowly backing away. “Freedom is not something I’ve ever had, and I will never forget you, Allianna. Thank you.”
I bowed my head to him, strangely sad that he would not stay. But I understood. This was not his place, this was not his story.
“You will always have a place here, if you wish it.”
He grinned at me. “Perhaps one day I will, but not today.”
With that he turned and was gone, disappearing into the crowd.
After that, things got a little...chaotic, to say the least.
If I’d ever wondered what a bunch of drunken werewolves and vampires looked like as they ushered in a new era, I had that answer shortly after Malcom left.
The werewolves had brought a drink that contained alcohol and blood, and they freely shared it with the vampires, including my men.
I made my way through the crowd to Cassie and Dominique, who held back, and I didn’t blame them. Cassie’s eyes rested on Havoc more than once, and I wondered if that was a good or a bad thing. Remembering the dream I’d had of her surrounded by werewolves, I suspected her journey was just starting.
I grabbed Dominique first, dragging her into a hug. Even though she was only a couple of years younger than me, she was, and always would be, my baby sister.
“Ally?” She hugged me tightly.
“Yeah?”
“You were seriously bad-ass out there. Remind me not to get into a fight with you.”
I laughed and kissed the side of her head. “I was so fucking mad they’d snatched you.”
Her eyes so like my own blinked several times as if she didn’t comprehend. “You...you did that because of me?”
“Hell, yeah. Nobody messes with a Swift and gets away with it, you know that.” I hugged her a little tighter. “Dominique...have you been having dreams?”
She stiffened and pulled away from me. “No.”
Nothing else, just no, so I guessed that meant yes. “Just don’t worry when weird shit starts happening. I think it’s supposed to. I think this is the world where we belong.”
“You’re taking this all rather well.” Cassie had both eyebrows high.
I shrugged. “I wrote about it for years. If I’m dead, then this is my heaven. And if I’m alive, this is the best life I could have imagined.”
Cassie laughed. “Of course, you would get my fantasy, wouldn’t you?”
Her eyes drifted to Havoc and I leaned in close to her ear. “Thinking of doing it doggy style, are you?”
“Damn straight.” She flashed me a smile and I couldn’t help the laugh.
“Honey, just make sure he doesn’t bite you, or you’re going to need stock in Bic razors.”
I linked arms with them both and drew them into the crowd. “Come on, I want you to meet the five men who stole my heart.”
“FIVE?” Dominique bellowed, and I grinned at her.
“Well, there could have been a sixth, but I let him go.” I gave her a wink and she just gaped at me. I couldn’t blame her. A week ago, I would have been shocked about two men and one woman, never mind five.
Now, here I was introducing those five men to my baby sister while she blushed and stammered, and to my best friend Cassie while she...kept looking for Havoc. He was in trouble if she’d set her sights on him.
Preacher met my eyes and nodded his agreement.
“Do I have to be here? Like do I have to be sworn in or some official shit like that?” I asked the men, and they all shook their heads in tandem.
“Nah, lassie, this is it.” Celt took my
hand and kissed it. “You beat Terra, you claimed us all and calmed the masses. Let us play with the puppies. You take those pretty lassies back to your room and talk about makeup and boys.” He grinned and I gave him a mock shove on his shoulder.
“What do you want me to do, rate the five of you?”
The shocked looks on their faces were priceless, so I took that as our cue to leave.
Cassie and Dominique walked with me back to my room.
We did indeed talk about men, sex, and all manner of things except that which we probably should have talked about. What would happen now? I was queen of the vampires. Where did that leave me?
I slapped my hand to my forehead. “Shit, I didn’t meet the deadline on that last book.”
Cassie shrugged. “Does it matter?”
“Yeah,” I said, “to me, it does. Maybe I’m not going back to being a writer, but I can’t leave my readers hanging. I just can’t be that author.”
“How long will it take?” Dominique asked as she slid her hands through my hair, braiding it into tiny sections.
“A couple of hours at most. I just had to wrap up the last of the edits and send it off to my publisher.”
“Then we can do it tomorrow,” Dominique said.
“A day trip,” Cassie said.
“And then back to the pack?” I lifted an eyebrow at her. She rolled her eyes.
“Well, duh.”
A few minutes later, Cassie was snoring, leaving me and Dominique time to talk sister to sister.
“Dominique, you are handling all of this really well, too.”
She shrugged. “After reading all your stories for all these years, this doesn’t seem all that weird.”
I put my hands on hers. “You know that no matter what happens, I will always look out for you.”
She tightened her fingers around mine. “Yeah, I know.”
Time to tell her what I’d seen in my dream. Just in case it was real. “I had a dream about you and there was magic all around you, Dominique. Magic and more than a few men. I think...just be safe, and—” I couldn’t get the words out because I wanted to tell her to always come back to me, but I didn’t think that would happen. Not this time.
My baby sister was going to grow up finally.
Her eyes were on mine. “I know. I’ve been running from them a long time. I...I am going to face them down.”
I blinked at her. “Face who down?”
“The men who call to me in my dreams,” she said. “They call to me. It’s why—”
“Why you sleep so much.” I nodded. “Okay. If you need me, you know where I am, right?”
She hugged me to her. “I know where you are, where you’ve always belonged and where you are finally treated like the queen you are.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“THE END.” I typed the last words to what would be my last book, at least for a while. I had a whole hive to take care of, clean up, and make room for all the newcomers. Word of my succession had spread, and vampires were asking to come into our hive from all over the world. Most interesting were the female vampires from the few hives run by a single king.
They were beautiful, but so very broken. I wasn’t sure that coming into our hive where the men were yet learning to throw off the violence and anger that was Terra’s influence was a good idea. But I was willing to meet with them.
A large pair of hands kneaded into my shoulders. “This is a lovely house you live in, lass,” Celt said, nipping at the top of my ear.
I leaned back into him, and hit send on the email that held my final manuscript.
“It is.”
“With a rather large bed for a single woman,” he pointed out. He’d been snooping, had he?
Celt was the only one to come with me to my house. Not because the others didn’t want to come, but because they’d drawn straws. There was much to be done at the hive to make it a better place, and that started right away. Which meant we couldn’t spare more than one guard.
The moonlight flickered in around us and I shook my head. “We have a few hours before we have to be back to the hive. Do you want an official tour of the house?”
Celt’s hands tightened on my shoulders. “Yes, I’d like to test that bed out.”
I took his hand from my shoulders and led him out of the office and up the wide staircase. I pushed the double doors to my bedroom open and swept a hand outward. “The bed.” I took a running leap and jumped into the middle of it.
Though there had been no blood exchange, I was gaining the power and the strength of a vampire. According to Preacher, that was a result of besting Terra. The magic conferred upon me all the strength and power a queen would need.
Boo-ya for me.
Celt leapt onto the bed and we bounced around like kids, putting the bedsprings to the test for sure. From the floor, my husky dog, Luke, watched with concerned eyes.
In mid-jump, Celt caught me and dragged me to him. “I believe I owe you an orgasm or two.”
“I’ll take two, thank you very much.” I leaned into him. “And maybe I’ll let you have one?”
“Ah, my queen is too kind.”
He kissed me, his lips hot and hard against mine, his mouth tasting of one piece of my heaven. I had my hands under his shirt and was stripping it off, breaking the kiss only to get the shirt off his head. After that, clothes flung in every direction until we were naked, our skin flush against one another, hot and full of need.
His hands trailed over my skin. “I want every inch of you, lassie.”
“I don’t think we have quite that much time,” I murmured as his mouth began a wicked trail from my throat over my chest and to my nipples. He sucked the first one into his hot, wet mouth and dragged on it, holding it between his teeth and flicking the tip over and over. I arched my hips, wanting to feel his cock inside me. I might have even said that out loud, I’m not sure. All I know is that I wanted to be royally fucked.
I laughed at my own pun, and Celt glanced up at me. “What is it, lass?”
I shook my head as he slid the tip of his cock over my clit, rubbing it with his hardness, as he whispered into my ear, “Come for me, lassie, come hard and fast.”
The combination of his voice and cock brought me to a screaming climax before I could answer him. The wild sensation floated through my limbs, tightening its hold on me and then slowly releasing my body until I floated back to earth.
Celt stroked my face as he slid his hard length into me. “You going to tell me what you were laughing about?”
I smiled up at him. “I can’t explain it, but let’s just call it writer’s brain.”
We made it back to the hive with plenty of time to spare before dawn. Luke came with us, of course I couldn’t leave him behind. He happily trotted at my side, almost strutting like he knew we’d moved up in the world.
The quarters I’d been given as the queen were huge, easily five times the size of my previous one. I made sure they weren’t giving me Terra’s old room. I didn’t want anything to do with that crazy bitch, even now.
Celt strutted in first. “Hello, laddies.”
“Got laid, did you?” Wick shook his head and rolled his eyes.
I swatted Celt on the ass and started stripping my own clothes off. I wanted to shower, and then crawl into bed. While they assured me I didn’t need to sleep, I wanted to feel that soft oblivion after all that happened. I wanted to feel my men’s bodies close to me, holding me and knowing we were all safe. I wanted to be reminded that we had done the impossible and all had survived.
Surprising me, Preacher helped me shower. “Why is it surprising?”
I shrugged. “King has been the one with the deft hands for helping me. Not that your hands aren’t deft, but he tends to lead in this area.”
Preacher smiled down at me, his dark blue eyes full of peace now. Peace, instead of sorrow. “Come on, we have a surprise for you.”
Wrapped in nothing but a towel, my hair still damp, I followed him through t
he suite into the bedroom.
My jaw dropped. Not only was the bed massive, easily big enough for me and my five men, they were all waiting for me. Everyone single one of them naked, every single one of them wearing a shit-eating grin on his face.
“You did say you were going to take us all for a ride, didn’t you?” Preacher whispered in my ear, as his hands slid over my breasts, cupping their weight. I leaned into him, his cock hard against my ass.
“I hate to be the one to ask, but anyone know where everything is supposed to go?” I asked.
They laughed with me as I crawled into bed with them, touching and tasting as I went...my heart swelled as I let them take over, as I let them share my body, my life, and my heart. Who knew it would take five men to bring me to a love I could have never understood, could never have even dreamed of?
I closed my eyes, letting the sensations roll over me. I was their queen, they were my men, they were my everything.
And for the first time I knew I was where I belonged.
I was home.
Coming July 4th, 2017...
As a skydiving instructor with a black belt in karate, Cassie Denver would never have thought facing down a couple big dogs would be a problem.
But great big wolves, that turn into even larger, sexier than sin men, all who want a taste of her body? Now she has a rather delicious problem.
Surrounded by seven of the big bad wolves who all want a shot at being her Alpha in and out of her bedroom, she must choose between them if she is going to save any of them.
One night of mind blowing sex, and soul shattering pleasure with each of them.
A simple problem, with a simple solution.
Except Cassie wants every single one of those wolves on her very own leash, begging for more.
“Emma Dawn writes a laugh out loud, hang onto your panties book that will leave you panting for more.”
— Early Reviewer
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