Winds of Change

by Kat Keppeler

  “I can’t be as rough as I’d like…” Ever gentle at least until the babies came.

  “That’s okay…” his hands slid down her body until he cupped the soft mound between her legs, he dipped his head to kiss her neck.

  “I’m not all that fragile,” Skye pointed out. Her blue eyes were luminous and her pale skin and hair caught the spring moonlight like she was some ethereal creature. She relaxed against the grass even as the slight chill in the air goose bumped her skin and turned the soft pink of her nipples into tight peaks. Skye made no complaints, though, she trusted that Finn would keep her warm and a soft sigh left her as he stroked his fingertips over her skin in tender exploration. Her hips arched upwards as his big hand covered her and she couldn’t help but smile at a memory as he gently pressed his thick fingers into her. She was wet and ready but Finn still took his time, drawing out the sensation of being penetrated until she was gasping to try and catch her breath.

  “Do you remember,” Skye wanted to know as Finn nuzzled along her neck, leaving a soft trail of kisses until his mouth brushed against the marks along the pale flesh of her shoulder. Skye shivered and it wasn’t from cold as her fingers tangled in his dark hair, “...In the library?”

  When he’d grabbed her for the first time, in anger, but then he’d touched her so intimately, so sensually, that Skye’d felt the imprint of his fingers long after he’d left; as if her skin had been branded permanently.

  Finn gave her an all knowing smile.

  “Mhm,” Finn murmured his agreement, his fingers stroking between her soft flesh. “I didn’t want to stop…”

  She arched against him, his mouth found one stiff peak of a nipple as he continued kissing her body.

  “I don’t have to now..” Finn kept his fingers searching there, slowly bringing her little ebbs of pleasure until she began to make little noises of impatience. He laughed a little before kissing her again, propping himself up and unbuttoning his jeans. The unfortunate reality of being an amputee was that there was no grace in removing his pants. He left Skye for a few moments while the jeans and the leg came off.

  The burgeoning swell of her belly was a definite obstacle, Finn didn’t want to hurt her. He slipped behind her, pulling her body on her side. His kisses found her shoulder again, teeth gently marking her shoulder as her pulled her rump firmly against him. Finn pressed himself against her wet core, slipping in after some resistance as he nipped her shoulder hard, his hands gripping her breasts.

  Skye had rolled to watch him. It might not have been graceful but that didn’t mean she found him any less beautiful to watch. She exhaled on a groan as he manipulated her ass to where he wanted it and claimed her.

  “You’re so handsome,” Skye murmured as she twisted so that she could press a kiss to his jaw. He really was. Finn was large and broadly muscled and the scars didn’t detract from that, not in Skye’s eyes. They were all parts of the road that had led him here, to her. “I love you, Finn.”

  Finn his thrust into her, holding her close as he claimed her. With his lips against her ear he whispered, “I love you too,” before he nipped the lobe gently. The cadence of his hips only gained speed as his urgency grew, her own little noises of pleasure fueling his need.

  “So much,” Finn whispered. Skye groaned softly, her breath coming in those soft little pants and gasps that Finn knew meant she was close even as he felt her muscles start to clench and flex as she moved with him. The spring grass was soft under his hip and his gaze fell to the gentle curve of her neck where he’d teased the marks that bound them together as if to remind Skye of the claim he’d staked in her very flesh; on her very soul.

  Perhaps it was the setting, or perhaps it was the tightness of her core around him, Finn felt himself suddenly hitting his edge and falling over it. As he climaxed, losing himself in her, Finn could feel the way her pleasure rose to meet him. Sometimes, he wondered if she was right and they’d really been created as parts of one whole.

  Skye returned to herself slowly, her breaths slowing and evening out. When Finn shifted and slipped from her, Skye rolled so that she could snuggle deeper into his arms. Her thigh tangled between his, her ankles tucked along his good leg and Finn’s hand shifted to rest on the curve of her belly where it pressed against his stomach.

  She shifted so that her head was pillowed more comfortably on his bicep and stroked her fingertips lightly down the lines of his chest, tracing the chiseled muscles with one light fingertip. If someone had told Skye that she’d find herself content to lay in the grace stark naked and sweaty with a man just a year ago, she’d have found the whole idea more than a little insane but with accepting her wolf came a much greater appreciation for the wild places still left in the world. “Why did you want to drive out here tonight, Finn?”

  “Because,” Finn started, his eyes on the darkening sky above them. “Because I had lied to you Skye and I wasn’t proud of it. And I know how badly it hurt you, I could see it. It hurt me to do it. I don’t know what it is about you, about this…”

  He turned his gaze back to her, his hands once again caressing her cheek softly. “I’ve never felt like I was losing something so precious before, except when they took Bennett. I wanted to bring you up here so I could tell you. Alone. Far away from as many prying eyes and ears as I could.”

  The sounds of the water as it feel, the calls of the local birds and insects around them. It spoke to his wolf more than anything, the feeling of the woods around them.

  “And because here we could feel safe... The wolves would be content. I could tell you how I feel without…” Without the other of their mates interfering. Finn sighed, sweeping a lock of her hair gently away. “I am okay with sharing you, sometimes I just need it to be you and me.”

  Skye smiled up at him, her pale hair catching the light like a halo as she tipped her head back to watch his expression as he spoke.

  “I need that sometimes, too,” Skye said easily, because it was absolutely true and she wasn’t sure that it was something she’d ever expressed to Finn before. Her fingertips traced along his jaw gently, following the strong line. Her gaze followed her fingertips before she met his bright blue eyes with her own.

  “We’re not just one uniform whole moving around en masse. I like having moments with all of you and with each of you, as well. There are conversations and moments we have when its just the two of us or when it’s just a couple of us, like when Lee and I were snuggled up in your bed after we found out about the babies… I love that memory. It’s perfect just as it was.” Skye stretched up then to press a gentle kiss to his lips, “...and considering the mark that Lee won’t talk about it on his skin, I imagine the two of you will want to have moments where you’re alone as well. Rory and Chance are super private about their moments together. I wasn’t even sure they had them until Lee confirmed it to me.”

  “Those two were always close. Well as long as I have known them.” Finn said with a half smile. “I could have told you that. It’s not really abnormal for two males to take up with one another, but it’s not terribly welcome either. Especially between two dominant males. The omegas were always prime for the taking but between those two if they had been caught…” Finn shrugged, a sigh leaving him. “Well, they might end up missing a hand. Or even their dicks.”

  He started moving as it kept getting darker, moving for the leg and their clothes. They got dressed and to the car just as the lightning bugs began rising from the ground and signaling dusk.

  “Hungry?” Finn asked though he already knew the answer before he even had put the car into drive. He stopped at Pete’s on the way back to grab a bag of greasy burgers and fries, and they ate quietly on the way home.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The pack was on high alert when Skye and Finn pulled up to the parking area. All of the able bodied males were out, searching the perimeter of the house. Scott and Caleb rushed by in their wolf forms while Rory and Chance both were stripping quickly on the front porch.

/>   Finn got out of the car and blinked at the chaos, “The hell’s going on here?”

  Rory squinted at them both before he pulled his jeans off and tossed them to Betty. “Someone’s been in the house. While we were gone. We pulled up and spooked them, they ran out the back. They were trying to get into Chance’s safe.”

  Skye hustled out of the car right after Finn, her features pale and drawn with concern. When she heard what had happened, Skye reached for the bottom of her shirt, drawing it off over her head quickly.

  “The hell you think you’re doing?” Chance shouted at their pregnant mate as he, too, shed his jeans, tossing them to Betty as well. “No. Fuck, no. You stay here where Finn can keep you safe. Rory!”

  Chance voiced his protests loudly, his growl reverberating through the clearing. He couldn’t stay to argue and Chance knew that. Chance was a damn good tracker and he was by far and away the best in the pack. He gave Finn and Rory a furious look, a warning that they best not let Skye join the hunt, his grey eyes gone ghost pale before the black furred wolf took his place and he bolted off into the tree-line.

  “I’m not arguing about this. There isn’t anyone in the pack faster than I am and the pups are too tiny to slow me down, especially on four legs. I’m going,” Skye was saying as she didn’t slow down in dropping her clothing to the ground.

  Betty didn’t say a word. No one in this pack would hurt a hair on Betty’s head but it was ingrained not to interfere when the dominant wolves had tempers flaring; it was a survival skill.

  Rory immediately agreed with Chance. “Skye, this isn’t going to be about speed. If you outrun us and they get you, then what? We’re going to find them, and we’re going to kill them and we can’t have you in danger.”

  Finn also was nodding, his agreement with the two other dominant males was clear. On cue a smoke grey wolf bolted from behind the house, stopping in front of Rory and Finn and snapping at them both. The tuft of turquoise hair down its back made it clear just whom the wolf was, Lee growled as if to hurry his alpha along.

  One hand on her elbow, Finn had a grip on his mate. “Don’t take it personally, Skye, you can’t even harm a deer without feeling bad. Let them go, don’t get in the way, and don’t get mad. They aren’t doing it to be assholes, they’re doing it for the pups.”

  Skye growled, low and it reverberated in her chest. Her wolf was close to the surface but she stood with stiff outrage as Rory followed Chance and Lee into the woods on four paws. Her blue eyes glowed and she had to take a slow, unsteady breath.

  “Fine,” she said shortly to Finn, her temper leashed but barely. They all knew just how much Skye hated being left behind ‘for her own good’. She loathed the idea of being treated like a fragile creature and in part that was because she wasn't one and her wolf knew it. Neither woman nor the wolf within cared to be separated from her mates when there were threats, “Go, then. I’ll watch over the house and whoever is here.”

  She didn’t reach for the discarded clothes, merely turned to hold her hands out for Finn’s clothes and prosthetic. “Go on. Go ahead.”

  “No. I’m staying here. Rory gave his orders, and he knows I’m better suited to stay here with you and with the others.” Finn obeying Rory’s command was an absolute shocker, instead he put a hand out as if to make peace. “Come on, let’s get Betty and Micah inside with the rest.”

  Skye shook his hands off and turned to lead the way into the house. Finn turned back to take charge, raising his voice until it boomed through the clearing, “Everyone in the house, Micah, don’t cry we’re going to be just fine. Kevin, let’s get a perimeter set up. I don’t want any surprises or ambushes. Anna, inside.”

  Skye frowned at him, her mouth flattening as she couldn’t encourage him to disobey Rory’s orders but she clearly didn’t appreciate being given Finn as backup.

  “I am not helpless, Finn,” Skye said with frustration before she threw up her hands and left him to settle the wolves so she could get dressed and reign her temper in before she said anything that she would truly regret. Skye knew better than anyone how sensitive the lower ranked wolves were to her moods and emotions. A few minutes would give her time to get her agitation in check before it made things harder on the rest of the pack.

  Rory and Chance were wolves within seconds, the three of them took off in a looping run to where Scott and Caleb had bolted. Once they caught up to the other two wolves, Chance moved up, little more than a shadow with his midnight black fur. In this, Chance took the lead, his nose leading them with Rory coming up right behind. Together the five of them moved as one, following Chance out into the deeper woods.

  Chance bounded through the forest, following the scent of the intruder. They were clearly in a hurry to escape, enough so that they didn’t taking the time to hide their tracks. Chance found his trail within minutes; a black shadow bolting through the underbrush without a sound.

  Caleb and Scott had to take their cues from Rory and Lee who were used to Chance’s tendency to be little more than a ghost when he was on the hunt.

  After a few minutes of running flat out, Rory’s keen ears caught the slight chuff from Chance as he cut away to break off. That meant they were close enough that their sprinters could start to flank.

  Rory let out a quiet growl, his eyes cutting to the both of the younger wolves behind him to give instruction. Just as they went to move Lee’s wolf was in front. Never before had Lee ever taken point in a hunt, especially one where an animal wasn’t their target. Rory looked on with surprise, but instead took left with Scott’s brown furred wolf. They slowed to began their quiet trek forward where a cornered wolf was seeking escape. They could all smell the intruder now, Lee was snarling quietly waiting for his cue to strike.

  There was a growl from the brush, the offender’s eyes flashed a bright yellow in the night. Clearly the intruder realized that they had been run to ground and turned, as any cornered creature would, to attack. A black wolf surged forward from its hiding place.

  The sudden attack drew a yelp from Caleb, as the unknown wolf hit him broadside. Lee snapped at the big wolf, a beast almost twice the size of himself, teeth digging into the ruff of fur as Lee struggled to get Caleb free.

  Rory was there in a flash, the other two wolves right behind him. This wolf might be a big bastard of a beast but there were more of Rory’s pack here and this was their territory.

  Rory sank his teeth into the haunch of the other beast, the flesh tearing as he shook his head and pulled. Lee was relentless, once the big wolf let go of Caleb to turn its attentions on Rory, Lee flung himself at the intruder snarling and growling. He hit it like a sack of bricks, his teeth sinking into the neck.

  The fights of werewolves were a bloody business at the best of times.

  “Enough,” It was Chance’s voice in the deeper cadence it took on when his wolf rose to the surface. He stepped out of the brush, tossing the corpse of another man to the ground with a thud. His eyes glowed with that unholy ghost grey light and those flames that had so frightened Lee were licking down his arms.

  “Lee,” Chance said, giving no other command but when Lee leapt away, Chance flung his arm forward, forming the witchflames into chains that snaked around the snarling enemy. It was a strain; Rory and Lee knew their mate well enough to see the tension in his features that had nothing to do with anger. He was using magic he’d only barely begun to understand in a body that had barely healed from the last time he’d used it. Chance sketched his fingers through the air, snapping his fists out to each side and the magic he controlled yanked their would-be thief up into the air and then rolled over him, forcing him back from wolf to person.

  “Ask… him,” Chance gritted out as sweat started to bead his brow. His muscles were tense and taunt as he held his hands out one to each side spread wide as if he were physically barring the wolf from taking the human that they needed to question. “...Rory.”

  Rory shifted, the wolf bleeding away as Chance strained against the magic he w
as using to quell the offender. “The fuck are you… The fuck do you want.” His pack surrounded their alpha, snapped and snarled at the chained wolf. They did not fear the magic and they were eager to demonstrate the price for daring to invade the territory that belonged to the pack. The strange wolf snapped back but fear was there in its eyes, the smell of singed fur filled the air as the wolf was burned away to leave a person.

  Rory sniffed, making a face. “Not even an alpha, what is this amateur hour?”

  A tangle of black hair obscured her face, a growl that rose. Rory stared for a moment as realization took him. Not an alpha at all, no, the face that eventually stared back at them was one that three of them had known for decades. She was of Aiden’s pack. He reached out a hand to snag her by the hair and forced her chin into the moonlight.

  “Akira.” Rory growled, his eyes slitted with banked fury. “My father sent his pet fucking torture bug here? Let her go, Chance.”

  Rory gripped the slender woman by her throat, his fingers digging into the flesh there as she began to choke. “How dare you come into my territory.”

  Chance sagged, releasing his magic and nearly buckled from the strain. He curled one hand around his abdomen and his still bruised ribs as he wheezed in air.

  “I’m alright, honey. I’m alright,” he muttered when Lee’s nose brushed his thigh in concern. Chance dropped a hand down to run it through Lee’s ruff as their mate was still growling his displeasure. “Look at you, Clarence Lee, you’re mad I took your kill, aren’t you?”