by Viola Rivard
He drew in slow, steady breaths, determined to keep his rage in check. It was not fair. He was never given the opportunity to please her. Every time he upset her, Asch would appear with all of the right words to make her happy. Now, Asch would be the one spending time with her. He would bathe her and then they would likely couple without him. If they were allowed to couple without him, he should not be bound by their arrangement either.
Lotus stepped in front of him, catching his gaze.
“Your mate looks like she wants to scratch my eyes out. If you think things can be the same between us now, you are mistaken.”
Caim cocked his head. “She does not matter to me.”
“Well you matter to her.”
“She threw a fish at me,” he said, holding up the offending trout.
“You know very well that the ones we care for the most can make us the angriest.”
Caim exhaled and ran a hand through his disheveled hair. Lotus was making no sense. How could the human possibly care for him? He had done nothing to warrant her affection. He clearly did not understand her needs as Asch did.
He looked from side to side, ensuring that none of the pack was in earshot, before giving Lotus an even look.
After a moment’s hesitation, he said, “Sarah was always pleased with my father.”
Her eyes softened. “You were very young, Caim. Too young to remember how at odds they were when she first came to Shaderunner. He was still mourning your mother, and Sarah was barely a woman. They fought constantly.”
He blinked at her, surprised by the revelation. While Caim had wanted to be a father for several years, he had never thought much about having a mate. He had always assumed that being a mate would come as easily to him as it had to his father.
His brows furrowed. “Sarah was docile and obedient.”
“Sure, after a few years and a lot of pups, she mellowed out. They both did.”
“You are saying that once Mila has pups she will be less volatile?”
Lotus sighed and shook her head. “No, I am saying that a relationship takes time and commitment. Once you both get to know one another better, things will be less complicated. Mila will learn to love you, in time.”
Love. That was not something Caim had considered.
CHAPTER FIVE
Asch held Mila’s hand as she dipped her toe into the steaming water. She made a contented sound as she lowered her foot, and then her leg, into the tub.
While Mila ate breakfast, Brae had filled the large, metal basin with boiled water and a jasmine-scented soap from one of Mila’s bags. On the hard rim of the basin was a soft blanket that she could rest her back against.
As she settled into the bath, Asch began to regret bringing candles for her bedroom. The play of warm light on her soft, wet skin made his cock stir. He knew that he couldn’t stay with her.
Mila looped her arms around her legs and rested her cheek on her knees. She looked up at him, and her beautiful eyes compelled him to lower himself to his knees. He could stay, for just a moment.
“I caught a fish with my bare hands,” she told him, her eyes sparkling. She lifted one hand from the water and wiggled her fingers at him, smirking. “I used my claws.”
Asch laughed, reaching over to catch her small hand. He pulled it closer, examining her rounded nails with mock scrutiny.
“Quite a feat.”
Mila puffed air from one cheek. “You would think.”
He fought the urge to disparage Caim, an urge which was growing increasingly difficult to resist with the way the other alpha had been handling Mila.
He told her, “Caim despises the smell of fish. It must have bothered him, given how much he loves your scent.”
Mila arched a brow at him. “What makes you say that?”
Asch pulled her hand to his face and ran his nose over the back, inhaling deeply. If she only knew what her scent did to them…
“He likes to sleep with his nose buried in your hair. It’s why he doesn’t like it when I hold you at night. He wants to keep your scent close to him.”
Swallowing hard, she loosened herself from his grip and cupped the side of his face with her palm.
A light flush on her cheeks, she said, “You like my neck the best.”
He gave her a slow smile, before dipping his hand into the bathwater. He ran down the length of one leg, until he came to the apex of her thighs.
“There are parts of you I like better.”
Mila grinned, and then gave a sharp intake of breath as his fingers found her warm cleft and began to stroke. His cock began to stiffen, becoming more demanding as he rubbed her soft folds. He wondered if he would have the self-control to make her come without taking his own release.
He didn’t plan on Mila throwing her arms around his neck and drawing herself up to put her mouth on his. She moaned into his mouth, the sound reverberating through his body and heating his flesh.
She grew bolder every night, and was becoming a constant source of surprises for both males, as she came to learn the things that they liked. He loved the way her hands fisted in his hair, pulling him closer and deepening their kiss.
More reacting than thinking, Asch pushed two fingers inside of her. She squeezed her inner muscles around him encouragingly as he worked his fingers, rubbing her stiff clit with the pad of his thumb. She leaned into him, slipping her tongue past his lips. He ran his tongue along her, carefully guiding her fragile flesh away from his sharp canines.
Asch wanted to take her from the water and forget about everything outside of her bedroom. He wanted to toss her, wet and naked, onto the bed and bury himself inside of her where nothing else existed except the sounds of her pleasure and the feeling of their bodies moving together.
He pulled his hand from her, and after a gentle nip to her lip, pushed her back into the tub. She frowned at him, her shoulders slumping.
“Why’d you stop?” she asked, crestfallen.
Asch leaned in to press a kiss to her forehead. He let out a heavy sigh against her skin. “I have to go.”
“I don’t see why they need you to lead the hunt,” she groused.
He explained, “If Caim or I aren’t with them when they hunt, they won’t save anything. There’s more to being an alpha than just being large and strong. We have to always consider the welfare of the pack, and right now that means making sure there will be plenty of food in the den when winter comes.”
That was mostly true. Game was scarce in the area, and in order to get the types of meat they needed—deer and elk in particular—they would often have to leave the safety of the valley and hunt in more contested areas. It had been at least a year since they had even a minor skirmish with any other wolves, but there was a nearby tribe of cougars that frequently tried to scavenge their kills. Like most werecats, their tribe was very small—half a dozen members at last count. But while they were little threat to the pack as a whole, they could do serious damage to a leaderless hunting party.
These weren’t things that Mila needed to concern herself with though. While the cats were a nuisance, they wouldn’t dare breach the valley, and if they did, he and Caim would be waiting for them.
She tilted her head back to stare at him. “I’ll miss you.”
He searched her brown eyes, finding them clear and guileless. Something deep inside of him seemed to settle into place then. In a voice thick with emotion, he told her, “I’ll miss you, too.”
~~~
Mila had spent the past three days longing for her luggage. Her bags had been left behind after Wayne Ramsey’s truck broke down on the way to Lazarus territory. Her initial outrage at having to leave them behind had quickly faded, overshadowed by the exhaustion of the grueling journey by foot and the gnawing anxiety that had plagued her the entire way.
Once she was safe in the den though, the first thing she had wanted was to have her possessions back. She still felt so out of place in the pack, and she thought that being surrounded by her belongings woul
d make her feel more at ease. Instead, all it had done was made her realize all over again, what a clueless idiot she had been.
They ranged from the impractical: four pairs of stilettos, six sets of lingerie, and a manicure set; to the completely useless: a curling iron, a flat iron, a digital camera, a tablet, an iPod, and her personal favorite, thirty issues of Vogue. Seriously, what had she been thinking?
She just couldn’t put herself in that frame of mind anymore. Even though it had only been a few days, she felt like a different person, and that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. At least then, she had known who she was. Hadn’t she?
She looked around at her possessions, half-unpacked and strewn about the room. Even when she’d lived in Terry Creek, she hadn’t missed New York this much. Even during the worst of times, she’s known that she could get out. She could retake her aptitude tests in the spring and then go back and finish her final year of undergrad study. That knowledge had kept her sane in the face of the squirrel-hunting, frog-eating, square-dancing denizens of Tye County.
But this was entirely different. It wasn’t that she felt like she couldn’t escape. Mila was fairly certain that Asch wouldn’t keep her against her will, and Caim? He would probably be more than happy to haul her all the way back to Manhattan.
It wasn’t that she wanted to run, either. It was just the opposite. She wanted to stay, to fit in, and to be a part of the pack. She wanted the alphas to not fight over her in the bedroom, and she wanted Caim to at least pretend that he liked her outside of it.
It was a tall order though. Every time she started to think that she was figuring things out, a new insecurity would emerge and she’d be back to square one: lost and afraid.
Trying to distract herself from the haze of depression, she pulled the final piece of luggage into her lap. It was the bag that held all of her casuals: jeans, t-shirts, underwear, and a bathrobe. No sneakers, sadly, but she was just grateful to have anything besides pencil dresses to wear around the den.
As she reached in the back to pull out a bundle of undergarments, she felt something hard. Her brow furrowed as she grabbed onto the object, tugging it loose. It was her unabridged copy of Wolves of the Cordilleras.
The familiar smells of ink and old paper evoked a youthful nostalgia as she thumbed through the yellowed pages. Her father’s girlfriend, Margo, had given her the book for her twelfth birthday. During the five years that she’d dated Mila’s father, Margo had made it her personal mission to undermine Mila’s good Baptist upbringing, and had largely succeeded. Long after she had read and re-read the memoirs of Marie du Luponte, Mila relived the stories in her fantasies, fantasies which had grown increasingly more explicit as she had gotten older.
But in the midst of her fantasies, Mila was coming to recognize that she’d idealized Marie’s story. She had only remembered how handsome and powerful Rein was, how beloved Marie was by her pack, and how beautiful their children were.
What she never bothered dwelling on was how much Marie had suffered. Rein may have cared for her, but it was years before he committed to monogamy. Much of the pack resented Marie for expecting Rein to be monogamous, and it was only after she had her first son that they began to accept her. And as beautiful as her children were, she was always distressed by the fact that Rein kept her pregnant. Her life had hardly been a fairy tale.
Mila set the book aside and finished unpacking her clothes, feeling more somber than ever. Once she had everything folded neatly onto the shelves, she changed into a pair of jeans and a V-neck tee. She contemplated the tub, which was still in the center of her room, and decided that she’d have Brae or Rosie help her dump the water later, but she was keeping it. For the first time in days, she actually felt clean.
Without any shelf space left, she ended up repacking most of her stuff. She had a good laugh at her past self when she realized that she hadn’t packed any type of charger for her iPod or tablet. She really had not thought any of this through.
Mila was still chuckling to herself when she felt a change in the air.
“I am glad to find you in good spirits.”
She turned to the doorway, stiffening when she saw Lotus. There was really no reason for her visceral reaction to the woman, but something about her really irked Mila.
“What can I do for you?” she asked, in a tone that added, ‘talk fast, and see yourself out.’
She gave Mila a tight, unblinking smile. “I just wanted to thank you. Asch told me what you are doing for the pack, and I could not be more relieved. I was so concerned that—”
Mila cut her off. “What do you really want from me?”
Lotus paused, her body tensing. She was remarkably beautiful, but in the closer proximity of her room, Mila could tell that she was older than most of the females in the pack. Fine lines framed her mouth and grew from the corners of her eyes, eyes which were now regarding Mila with much less warmth.
Gesturing towards the bed, she said, “Have a seat, Mila.”
Laughter bubbled up from Mila’s chest. “What?”
“Have a seat,” she repeated evenly. “We need to have a conversation.”
“Um, I don’t think so. You can’t just barge into my room and order me around. Besides, I know what you want to talk about, and I don’t care. You can have him.” Her voice traitorously cracked on the last part. Lotus gave her a dry look.
“Do not presume you know why I came here, and I do not need your permission to have Caim. I have known him from the time he was born. Much of my life has been devoted to ensuring his happiness, and right now that means I must help you.”
Mila felt mildly dumbstruck as Lotus moved from the doorway and took a seat on her bed. Curiosity winning out over pride, she followed suit, sitting down a few feet away from her. Lotus smiled again, and this time it seemed less forced.
“Good, now talk to me. How are things between you and our alphas?”
The question caught Mila off-guard. She was not interested in admitting to this golden goddess that she was hopelessly overwhelmed and at a complete loss as to how to handle the two men in her life. She looked down at her hands and began picking at her nails.
“I have two, insanely hot men vying for me in bed. What could possibly be wrong?” Mila thought she sounded pretty convincing.
Lotus put a cool hand on her shoulder. “You have two extremely aggressive males fighting over you in bed. If you were not frightened being stuck between Asch and Caim, I would think you were the insane one.”
Mila looked up at Lotus, her throat constricting. Lotus’s crystalline gaze was unnerving. It made Mila feel stripped, exposed, and strangely eager.
Her mouth opened and closed before saying, “It would be so much easier if it was just Asch.”
Guilt permeated her. It was the thought that had been on loop in her mind for days.
What if I just rejected Caim?
No one had said that she couldn’t reject one of the alphas, just that it would be impractical for her to choose a male without first determining which was strongest. But strength was a wolf value. Mila was not a wolf—she was a human, and she had other needs.
To her relief, Lotus didn’t pull away from her.
She said, “Asch has a way of making you feel special and needed.”
“Yeah,” Mila whispered. “When he looks at me, I don’t know. I just feel like one day he could love me, like really love me.”
“And you do not think that Caim is capable of loving you as well?”
Mila shook her head. “I don’t see it. He’s just so hot and then he’s cold. Just when I think I get him—” she snapped her fingers, “—he turns into a giant jerk.”
“So you would rather it just be you and Asch?”
Mila frowned. “I just said that.”
Lotus nodded. “Yes, but it didn’t make any sense.”
“What?”
“That you would claim you only want Asch when you are so clearly besotted by Caim.”
Mila recoiled a
s if she had been struck. “Besotted?” she huffed.
Lotus tapped her cheek with her index finger. “Perhaps that is not the right word. Possessive, maybe?” When Mila opened her mouth to protest, Lotus cut her off. “Do not bother denying it. You will only be doing yourself a disservice. I told you, I am here to help.”
Mila hesitated, and then said, “I don’t want to like him.” Lotus squeezed her shoulder, and gave her a meaningful look.
“Asch will cherish you, and he is easy to love. He is the safest choice. Caim will make you doubt yourself at every turn. He is also easy to love, but nearly impossible to be in love with. If you let yourself love him, he may very well hurt you. One thing I can assure you though, is that Caim is just as capable of loving you as Asch is, only in different ways.”
“What if I end up loving one of them more?” she asked, unsure which one of them she was referring to.
“That is all in the future. The question is, what do you want right now?”
Mila didn’t have to think about it. “I want them both,” she said, and then added, “and I want them both to be okay with that.”
Lotus moved to take Mila’s hands in hers. “Then you must listen to me. I will tell you what you need to know to have both of them on their knees for you.”
CHAPTER SIX
It was hard keeping an open mind as Lotus gave her advice. The older woman had a wealth of information to share about Asch and Caim, and it was obvious she had slept with both of them, maybe even at the same time.
Mila tried not to let it get under her skin. The things Lotus told her were very helpful: how to quell Asch’s jealousy, how to make Caim pay attention, and she even had suggestions on different positions they could try. Mila had never been so conflicted in her life. On one hand, Lotus had told her many of the things she desperately needed to know, but on the other, Mila found that she was battling against an inexplicable rash of possessiveness. Throughout the conversation, she found that she was focusing less on what Lotus was saying, and more on imagining the alphas having sex with the she-wolf.
