by Anna Craig
Of course, she did not realize yet the full extent of her new duties.
Her first new duty would be the claiming ceremony. Trevor recalled the soft, unfocused look she got when he slipped his fingers inside her. He lengthened his strides to a trot, eager to reach the official area so he could shift back to human and claim his mate.
Just before the exit to the back portico, Trevor forced himself to slow down. He sensed Cassandra slowing as well in some confusion, but his sister knew exactly what he needed. As if choreographed, Tamsin walked ahead of him with bold steps to open the door, then quietly stood and waited for him to pass through. Although her head was bowed, he flicked a glance at her and caught the tiniest lift of one corner of her mouth. She clearly enjoyed the game of one-upping the council.
His sister would be an excellent alpha female for a pack somewhere. But that was another problem for another day.
Once outside, Trevor took a deep inhale of the summery day. Heavy with the promise of an afternoon thunderstorm, at the moment the sky was blue, the few drifting clouds overhead were puffy and white, and perfuming the air were the scents of the gardens as well as the wilder smells of the pine forest beyond the manicured edges of the lawn that unrolled from the house all the way up to the border of the tall, needled trees of the woodlands.
The forest waited, deep and dark even in the brightness of the daylight. Nighttime would have been better for the ceremony for many reasons, but Trevor knew he could waste no time. Even if a steel trap still shuttered part of his soul, the irrefutable truth of his mate's existence insisted he proceed immediately in order to definitively secure his rightful place as Alpha of of the Wicked Mountain Wolf Pack, brooking no further question or challenge from anyone until after his death one day.
As long as Cassandra stayed alive, that is. An unbidden memory threatened to swarm up and crash over him, turning his limbs leaden and making it seem as if his paws stuck in a morass of grasping quicksand. Struggling to drag in a breath yet not display any weakness to the pack members stringing behind, Trevor forced himself to keep walking forward. Slamming down a mental gate, he shook his head once again. He had no time for useless memories, damn them all. Not now. Now, he must focus on the claiming ceremony.
Additionally, he was still tense from the interrupted time with the most delectably lovely Cassandra earlier. This way, he would not only seal another step toward the formal mating with her, he would also be able to assuage the bothersome frustration of being in her presence and feeling the need to take her again. At once. What would transpire immediately beforehand, however, might be even more challenging than the gauntlet he was certain his brother still toyed with somehow throwing into his path.
Forging on, Trevor led them deeper into the woods.
~~~
As soon as they tumbled outside, Cassandra sensed a change in the temperament of the pack members resolutely following her. A rising wave of intense scrutiny pushed at her back, urging her along. Something hot blew on the wind, lifting the skirt so it swirled around her legs for a moment. Like a caress, the soft material fluttered against her skin, rousing small shivers despite the heat of the day already simmering on the air currents.
The huge wolf in front of her kept going. He passed the edge of the grounds, the enormous, immaculately-tended flowerbeds, the huge, empty acres of lawn clearly meant for play. Trotting into the shifting shadows of the woods, Trevor turned his head to look back at Cassie. His enthralling eyes almost seemed to be lit from within. A beacon to follow into the depths of the forest. And a command to obey.
Cassie swallowed. Hard. Nerves tingling, she kept walking, incredibly thankful for the cute little ballerina slippers tucked onto her feet—although really, she would have to talk to him about exactly whose clothing was kept in his closets from now on—but not entirely sure how they would hold up treading over the duff and scattered twigs of the forest floor. She passed under the whispering branch of a huge pine tree, the breeze slipping among its limbs and teasing the needles. The sharp, wild scent of the forest filled her, instantly creating two responses at once. Nervousness...and arousal.
When Cassie was younger and had discovered the significant pleasure her body was capable of beneath the ministrations of her own fingers, she used to slip off into the woods, find a hidden little spot beneath the enormous ferns growing at the base of the huge trees, and experiment with every sensitive area on her body. Just because she'd been required to stay a virgin didn't mean she couldn't explore her own darned body.
The smell of tart pines, lush green undergrowth, and the tantalizing scent of an unfathomable, undecipherable wildness under it all brought the naughty memories rushing back into her head. Her pussy also instantly got a little plumper as the smell of the forest transported her to those many furtive hours of self-pleasure spent not that far away from this very spot.
Ahead of her, Trevor abruptly stopped. He stood in a small clearing filled with lush green grass. Wildflowers dotted the little meadow in a few places, and a bright yellow butterfly even bobbed by the petals. Cassie relaxed a little bit. What a pretty place. What a pretty day. How silly for her to feel apprehensive. No one had eaten her yet—well, Trevor had, in the best way possible, and hopefully that would happen again soon—she was accepted by the council, and today she wore not only clothing but even shoes.
Win. Right?
With a shimmer and ripple, Trevor's shape flashed back into human and deliciously gorgeous. He fixed those magnetic eyes on her. Oh, god. Cassie felt a deep shiver work its way down her flesh, centering in her pussy, which suddenly felt not only full, but deliciously slippery. The scent of the woods, the sight of the stunning man standing in front of her in a thoroughly glorious display of pure masculinity, and the soft rub of the air on her bare legs and arms all served to make her feel liquid and loose while edgy and excited at the same time.
“Cassandra.” Trevor's voice rumbled out through the tiny meadow, filling it with his presence. He seemed utterly unconcerned by his nakedness before the council members, all of whom Cassie could hear rustling as they stopped behind her. “You shall be claimed by the pack now, sanctioned and approved.”
Cassie swallowed again. “Okay?” she whispered, her mind suddenly running amuck again with crazed wonderings of what that entailed. Surely it wasn't the actual fulfillment of what had almost happened yesterday? Surely he wouldn't be asking her to—to have sex with the members of the pack?
Trevor's gaze was like stone, although she saw his pulse beating hard against his neck. She also noticed his cock was beginning to stir. Not the hard shaft she remembered so well from multiple times of being extremely pleasurably speared on it last night, but still pretty damn impressive. It drew her attention even as she remained aware of the council members ranged behind her.
Blocking her way out.
Her heart began to beat an erratic rhythm, slapping into her chest wall in awkward tempo with her own banging pulse.
Trevor lifted his gaze from her and looked to the council behind her. Clenching his jaw tightly, he spat out the words as if they sliced through his mouth, hot and bitter. “Who here offers to claim this woman for the pack?”
Oh, god. Oh god, oh god. No way. Yesterday that had been her fantasy. Today, though, she only wanted Trevor. This couldn't be happening now. She looked at Trevor with pleading eyes, although she literally bit her own lip until she tasted blood to keep her mouth shut. Maybe she'd known by some bizarre instinct exactly what to do earlier. But now, she once again had no earthly clue.
Slowly, Cassie turned around. The council members all stared at her, quiet but with the suddenly focused attention of predators on their prey. Cassie's heart really began to thwack out of time then, and her breathing sped up as every instinct she possessed ordered her to run.
There was nowhere to run. What the hell were they planning to do to her? Kill her? Fuck her? Was she literally being thrown to the wolves?
To her utter shock, Tamsin stepped forward. Her stu
nning features were arranged into the same predatory lines as all the other shifters, and her violet-blue eyes fixed on Cassie's enormous ones as she stepped the few paces to stand in front of Cassie.
“I do,” the alpha's sister said, very quietly but with deadly pure intent.
The sword-edged sharpness to her tone made all the tiny hairs on Cassie's body bristle as her legs threatened to buckle beneath her. This woman had told her she wanted a sister! Feeling wild-eyed, she looked back at Trevor, taking a lurching step toward him. But Tamsin shot out a hand and grabbed Cassie's arm, hard. Cassie cried out, which did something interesting to Trevor's face. It tightened as his entire body tensed as if to leap toward her. Then he checked his expression as well as his body, clearly forcing himself to stand still. Instead, he spoke once more in a gravelly voice, the words obviously ceremonial. “And whom do you choose as the council representative to claim this woman with you?”
Great. This was the part where they killed her. First some hanky-panky, then a blood meal for the cruel beasts of legend?
Tamsin turned her face to the rest of the council members. A second shock knifed through Cassie in a ripping jolt at the female shifter's words.
“Thayne Reginald, brother of the alpha, I call you to help claim this woman for the pack.”
Chapter 7
As Tamsin called out their brother's name, Trevor forced back his enraged possessiveness. His primal part longed to shift back into his wolf and leap forward to rip into Thayne with lethal claws. The level-headed alpha part held himself still, crossing his arms over his chest to force himself to stay rooted to the spot.
Tamsin's entire plan became brilliantly clear now. Oh, his sister was thinking so well. She obviously approved of Cassie. More importantly, she understood the vast significance of this moment for the continued Reginald hold on the leadership of the Wicked Mountain Pack. Making Thayne part of the claiming ceremony would ensure Reginald blood permanently and irrevocably tied Cassandra to the pack. There was no better way to ensure Trevor's alpha status.
Despite the lucid, cold logic of it, Trevor could feel a raging blackness start to darken his vision as Thayne reluctantly stepped toward Cassandra, throwing his sister a murderous look. He could not resist the call, even if he wanted to. During this moment of the claiming ceremony, Tamsin now represented the implacable bonds of the entire pack, and there literally was no way for any wolf shifter to disobey.
Yet even though Thayne obviously wanted no part of this, Trevor couldn't help the fierce drive of his need to dominate the situation. That was his mate his own brother was about to claim for the pack with unbreakable blood ties. This time, Trevor could not pull rank and order a halt to the ceremony. This time, it had to happen. His hold as alpha, his new mate's status in the pack, and his very lineage were all on the line.
Snarling under his breath, Trevor cursed pack policy and protocol to all the hells that existed, and then some.
He also couldn't help the piercing bolts of sheer lust that tremored throughout his body as he looked at Cassandra, standing vulnerable and achingly beautiful as she awaited her fate, renewed terror writ large upon her face. He sensed her wish to flee, her apprehensive confusion about what was going on. The protective side of him longed to soothe her, despite the irritation of other emotions still threatening to break out in mass riot within him. As it was, he simply stood motionless, taking in the succulent curves of her hips and most alluring ass, the flow of hair rippling down her back that made him want to grab it and hold her still while pillaging her mouth with his lips and tongue, thrusting his cock into her welcoming wet heat, hearing her cries as she panted only for him.
Only a few more moments until that became reality.
Thayne snapped out the required words when he finally reached Tamsin's side, still glaring at his sister with a barely-restrained fury. “I, Thayne Reginald, brother to the alpha, claim this woman for the Wicked Mountain Wolf Pack. In front of the council and our esteemed alpha”—he leveled a look filled with smoldering hated at Trevor—“this woman shall be claimed.”
Cassandra finally managed to stutter out, “Wh-what are you going to do?” Her voice was a wobbling pitch of genuine dread.
In crackling fast response, Tamsin and Thayne each snatched up one of Cassandra's arms, pulling them taut away from her body so she was trapped between them, easily bound by their far superior strength. Trevor's insides lurched when she screamed in uncontrollable panic, wildly trying to turn her head to look at him as she thrashed uselessly against her captors. The crystal blue eyes caught his, her stunned horror showing the whites around her beautiful cobalt irises. His jaw trembled with the effort to not order a stop. Ringed between her and escape, the council watched in silence as the ancient ceremony ran its course.
As if planned, Tamsin and Thayne each bared their teeth with a wicked flash of the razor-sharp canines they allowed to shift into sudden existence. Before Cassandra could draw air to scream again, although she still struggled like a wildcat, they simultaneously bent their heads toward her. Each one punctured her upper arms with sharp teeth, drawing her blood into their mouths and sending their own into her.
Placing their irreversible claiming bites upon her to bring her into the pack.
Cassandra screamed once more before abruptly going limp and silent in their grasp. The council sighed. Thayne and Tamsin drew back their heads, a few drops of blood trimming their lips as they retracted their dangerous wolf canines. Gently on Tamsin's part, with somewhat less grace on Thayne's, they let go of Cassandra's arms.
Cassandra swayed, then fell to the ground where she groggily supported herself on all fours. The scrap of dress flipped up around her thighs, exposing their sweet, soft length. Golden-blonde strands of hair tangled around her face as she looked up at Trevor, confusion still evident, although the sheer panic was dissipated. A wolf shifter's claiming bite did that, similar to the bite of a predator on its prey's throat prior to the death strike. Calm acceptance would be sluicing through Cassandra's veins now as the blood of the pack mingled with hers. She was theirs, forevermore.
For his part, Trevor felt himself grow rock hard at the sight of his mate, claimed by the pack and now ready to be formally claimed by him.
“Now, Cassandra,” he finally allowed himself to speak, slowly advancing on her. His voice skittered and whispered through the grove, the power behind it blending with the hot air, the wild scents of the forest surrounding them, the promise of what her life now would become. “Now, I shall claim you as mine.”
~~~
Cassie felt lightheaded and sort of floaty. Languor warmed her entire body even as her shock at being grabbed and bitten—bitten! Holy shit, she thought, although even that was sort of muffled and far away—by wolf shifters slowly faded. She wasn't exactly sure why, but now she utterly sensed no danger from them. She was one of them.
Okay, she wasn't a wolf shifter. She hoped. But she was part of the pack now. The pure knowledge of that coursed through her blood, singing to her with a feral harmony. Claimed by the pack indeed.
“Come,” a deep voice said above her. Trevor stood before her, still wonderfully, amazingly naked, his body a sculptor's dream of perfection. And now his cock was definitely part of the program. Oh, god, was it ever. Cassie stared at it for a moment, mesmerized by its length, its hardness, the beautiful pearlescent drop of delicious fluid lightly beading at the tip of the swollen head. “Come to me now, Cassandra.”
That voice. That command. Desire flooded over Cassie, drenching her with its shaking need. The shock and tumult of the past hour demanded release. The alpha of the pack extended a hand down to her. She reached for it. Easily, he pulled her to her feet as if she weighed no more than a feather. Bringing her to his chest, Trevor crushed her to him, streaking the blood on her arms as he splayed his fingers against her waist, dipping one finger lightly down into the top of the crack between her ass cheeks.
“Oh!” Cassie exclaimed. Fire licked through her. The denied pro
mises of their morning in his bed came tumbling back, setting her body to trembling as Trevor's entire body pressed firmly against hers. His hard, muscled chest met her softer breasts, pressing into their sensitivity and causing her to moan lightly. Oh god, he felt good.
A rustling sound made her tense up. The council. Still watching them. Cassandra tried to turn her head, but Trevor took her chin in his hand. The ice of his eyes flared with untamed ferocity. She realized he balanced along the trigger edge of man and wolf, rational and instinctual, reasoning and utterly wild.
The thought of it slicked her thighs with her own moisture despite her keenly mortified awareness of those watching them.
“Cassandra. They will leave as soon as I place a claiming kiss on you.” He captured her with his eyes, with the hard planes of his face, with the energy she felt coursing between them. Something in her heart beat extra strong, extra fast. It felt like a live thing inside her, something that was her, yet not her.
Claimed by the pack. The words staccatoed in her head, echoed by a low rumble as if repeated by others.
“This is what it will be like now.” His voice whispered, slipping over her with a soft yet sizzling feel, flickering over her nerve endings, lighting up her every sense. Her breasts felt full, aching for his touch, while her pussy clenched between her legs, almost painful with its need. From fearing her violent demise to truly, completely understanding Trevor meant her no harm was a whiplash of emotions that now left her ready to be assuaged. To have the growing heat somehow appeased. To have it explode in sheer ecstasy, the way she fully knew he was capable of doing to her.
His next words feathered over her skin, startling her with their delicacy. Their request. “May I claim you, Cassandra Wakefield of Wicked Mountain Town?”
She could say no, she thought, looking back at him, the truth of that thought calm and deep. She could say no. But she didn't want to. She felt the mate connection with him more strongly now. She knew it was real. She wanted to be with this man. This wild, wicked wolf shifter of a man. There was no doubt in her mind.
