by Kaia Pierce
With a gasp of relief, Liam spun around and dropped to the floor. I grabbed him by the hips, and I claimed him, my heart racing as I plunged my cock into his sweetly familiar asshole.
“Is this what you want?” I said as I fucked him. “Is this how you want it?”
“Mmm, yes,” Liam said breathlessly.
His entire body shuddered with pleasure, and I continued to give it to him.
Just a pawn and nothing more, I repeated mentally to myself. My muscles wound up tight as I veered closer to the edge.
Liam reached back and grabbed me by the outside of my left thigh. “Please, alpha…”
I groaned. “Shit…”
“I need you alpha,” Liam said with a sexy little whimper.
I pumped my cock until I reached the edge, and I kept pumping until I jumped over it, careening rapidly as my senses exploded in ecstasy.
Chapter 7: Liam
That day, I watched Caleb leaving my house. The next day, I went to work. The next day, Riverrun got its first snowfall of the season, and the days wore into weeks after that. It was holiday party season, pie season, and a busy time for the bakery. Any time I didn’t spend at work was mostly spent at home, reading books and wondering where the hell Caleb was.
In the first week of December, Kaden’s twins had their first birthday party. It was held at Kaden and Josh’s ranch house, which was nestled on acres of private, roamable land. After gorging ourselves on dinner, the parents brought out a cake. They turned off the lights so they could sing in the candlelight. Kaden’s face was slightly distorted in the soft, orange glow, and I could hardly bring myself to look at it.
Before long, a month had passed since I last heard from Caleb.
It snowed some more. Logan and I took turns shoveling the front walk and driveway. There was a party every weekend, so there was a lot of food. We collected stacks of leftovers in our refrigerator, accumulating them faster than we could eat. I liked this time of year because it reminded me that my pack was my family, something I hadn’t known in a long time.
And as a family, every member of the pack knew to keep Christmas Eve open on their schedules, because that was the day Diana and Sam threw their famous Christmas Eve party.
I could never say no to Diana. When she called me on December twenty-third to ask if I could come over early to help, I showed up on the morning of the twenty-fourth, ready to work.
Of course, Diana assigned me to cookie duty, along with Rowan Esposito, a friend of the pack. Together, we picked out the six best recipes in Diana’s stash, and we started baking.
“Maybe next year, we’ll finally have dates to some of these parties,” Rowan quipped.
Like me, she was well-used to measuring precise quantities of ingredients and putting them together. The only difference between the two of us was that I was a baker, and she was a witch. She sat across the table from me, slicing strawberries for homemade jam, which we would use to make window cookies.
Naturally, I was sifting the flour. “It’s always the two of us, isn’t it? The single ones,” I said.
“Hey, who said I was single?” Rowan said.
I glanced up from my work, surprised. “Oh? So who’s this special man in your life?”
Rowan’s cheeks turned pink under the frames of her glasses. “No comment.”
“Or is it a woman?” I said.
“Shut up, Liam. I’m not even a packmember. You’re the one who didn’t couple up with anyone during the last Big Heat. Why don’t you tell me some more about that?”
It was my turn to turn pink-cheeked. I threw a cupcake wrapper at her face. “Mind your own business, witch.” Then, I added, “What do you mean by last Big Heat?”
“I said last Big Heat because there will be a next one coming up any day now,” Rowan explained distractedly. Her fingers were stained with red juice as she combed through the last of the uncut strawberries. “It’s been a whole year already.”
“Wow. A whole year,” I murmured faintly.
“Yeah. So who knows? Maybe you’ll find your mate sooner than you thought.”
I snorted. “Whatever. Let’s just focus on baking some cookies that’ll blow Lucy’s whiskey fudge out of the water.”
Rowan shrugged. “I won’t argue with that. Cookies have never disappointed me the way men have.” She popped a whole strawberry into her mouth.
Silently, we fell back into the rhythm of baking. While we worked, I turned my face away to gaze out the window. Right now, the snow was coming down in gauzy sheets, floating as if in slow motion. They clung to the glass like lace.
Caleb is somewhere out there, I thought. I hadn’t seen him in over a month.
At least the holidays were keeping me busy. My days were filled with family, laughter, and companionship, so I was never lonely
I only ever felt lonely when I thought about him.
Chapter 8: Caleb
Snow spilled off of the burgundy-and- white coffee shop awning that stretched over my head. My latte gone cold, I sat with my arms crossed, my gaze directed at the three-story brick office building across the street. A beanie was pulled low over my eyes, and my scarf was tucked around my nose and mouth.
I was incognito, because I couldn’t risk staking out the Grayback Industries headquarters wearing Kaden’s face.
It was the start of a new year. Well-dressed employees had been streaming in and out through the gleaming glass doors for the past two hours. I knew that over half of them were shifters. If I were sitting a few feet closer, I could’ve identified exactly which ones.
While I studied each person entering and exiting the building, my mind wandered back to Liam. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him since the last time I saw him. I’d meant to go back, I just hadn’t had time.
One of the glass doors opened across the street, and I rose up in my chair. The woman who emerged was petite, no taller than five feet, with mousy, badly trimmed hair. She wore a lumpy brown coat over an ill-fitting suit. Her face was makeupless. In spite of it all, she could have been called pretty. Her name was Stevie Bishop.
She jogged across the street, hunched forward against the drifting flecks of snow. Then, she slowed to a walk, heading straight towards the coffee shop’s entrance. I was sitting right beside it.
Her chin was parallel to the ground. She gazed ahead, never sideways, and never at me. I still knew she was studying me from the corner of her eye.
That was what her kind, fox shifters, were like.
I’d found Stevie about a week ago, catching a glimpse of her walking out of the building as I rode by, my face hidden behind my helmet. I’d recognized her as a fox right away, because she was doing the same thing that she was doing now. Foxes were always looking out the corner of their eyes. I pulled a U-turn and followed her to a market, and then I waited for her to come back out and approached her.
Any fox could be convinced to do anything, as long as the price was right. I’d been ready to pay her in exchange for what I was about to ask. To my surprise, she hadn’t wanted money at all.
“Did you bring it?” Stevie asked briskly, dropping into the seat opposite mine. Her work badge still hung from the lanyard around her neck, displaying her name and headshot under Grayback Industries’ corporate logo.
Hooking my index finger, I pulled my scarf down to my chin and quirked an eyebrow. “Did you get what I asked?”
Stevie reached into her handbag and pulled out a USB flashdrive. “This has Garland’s schedule for the next three months and his address book. I didn’t have time to get into his email, but I copied over a folder that was titled ‘Upcoming Projects.’ I thought you’d appreciate that.”
“I thought you only worked in the mail room. How the hell did you manage that?” I asked, reaching for the flash drive.
Stevie yanked it out of my reach and arched her eyebrows at me. “You don’t want to know.”
I picked up the backpack at my feet and handed it to her. There was a flannel shirt inside
, wrapped three times around a handgun. Stevie took the backpack from me, looked inside, and zipped it back up. Evidently satisfied, she finally let me take the flashdrive.
“Can I ask you something?” I said.
Stevie was already standing up to leave. “Hmm?”
I eyed the backpack looped over her forearm. “Why does a girl like you need something like that?”
Stevie acted as if she hadn’t heard my question. “Thanks. See you.”
She walked away, but I got what I needed anyway. After tucking the flashdrive safely into the inside breast pocket of my jacket, I chugged the rest of my latte and waited ten more minutes before leaving my spot under the awning. I retrieved my motorcycle, which I’d parked a block away, and I rode back to the motel.
One step closer, I thought.
Once I got into my room, I locked the flashdrive in the safe, and I celebrated with a run through the snowy mountains.
It was easier to be a wolf these days. The plan I’d formulated to defeat Kaden was an elaborate one, and it required constant tweaking and vigilance when I was in my human form. As a wolf, all those human troubles melted away.
As a wolf, all I had to do was run, eat, and survive.
Snowflakes clung to my thick winter pelt as I sprinted through the white landscape. The forest was still and cold under an overcast sky. It was silent, and it was peaceful—until the first, distant howl split the air.
Every individual hair on my body stood on end, and the human part of my mind, slumbering deep, deep in the base of my brain, was wrenched awake.
The heat, I thought with alarm.
The smell permeated the air so thickly, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed before. Now that I realized what it was, though, it was overwhelming.
The sweet scent of fertility, of sex.
It was finally time for the female shifters to go into heat again. In a few moments, the mountains would be flooded with shifters, driven by pheromones and seeking each other to mate.
I have to get out of here, I thought to myself.
Already, my wolf was reacting to the scent of the heat. I had to be stronger than that. I couldn’t be discovered until the crucial time; that was the plan.
I threw my head in the opposite direction, pointing myself back towards the way I came.
This is just like last time, I thought to myself.
Last time, I’d been running through the woods as a wolf when the heat crept up on me. I’d picked up a fragrant scent trail and tracked it to a small cave. That was where I first found Liam.
I had to tell myself that this wouldn’t be like last time. Rutting with Liam had been a huge risk. The fact that he agreed to keep me a secret from his pack was out of sheer luck. With things being as complicated as they were, I couldn’t afford any more risks.
As much as it agonized my wolf, I had to head back to my room.
I trotted down the side of the mountain, back towards the highway and the motel serving as my Riverrun home. Then, as the light-up letters on the side of the motel finally flickered through the trees, I noticed something strange and stopped short.
The scent…
It was getting stronger.
A million alarm bells went off in my head. I had to get back into my room as soon as possible.
I scurried down into the valley and sprinted towards the motel. Meanwhile, my wolf was growing more and more agitated by the second. The scent of the heat was strong and heavy, and it was seeping into my veins, into my core…
My mouth watered. My stomach clenched. Every hair on my body was standing on end. All of a sudden, I was on fire, and the only way to put it out was to bury my dick in the slick, wet channel of a fertile wolf in heat.
Back to my room, I thought. My legs burned with effort as they churned through the snow. Back to my room before I get too distracted—
But it was no use. The scent was just too strong. Before long, the hunger had gripped me, and I could no longer deny my wolf what it craved.
I absolutely had to find the closest wolf to mate with.
Half-wild with the mating frenzy, I threw my head back to sniff the air. I inhaled and pulled in the strong, undeniable scent.
Blood surged through my body. It’s close…
According to my nose, the scent was coming from the motel itself.
Chapter 9: Liam
Yesterday, when I felt the first flutter in my stomach, I instantly knew that I was about to start a new heat cycle. My greatest fear was that I’d be sniffed out by a fellow packmember—or worse, a Grayback packmember.
It wasn’t unheard of for males to go into heat. After all, Kaden’s mate Joshua had gotten pregnant and given birth. I just had no idea how to admit to my pack that I was like Joshua, or if I would ever admit it to them at all. Kaden and Joshua were fated mates, so it kind of made sense. What didn’t make sense was for me to go into heat, all on my own.
So I decided to hide out for a couple days until the heat finally waned.
I chose the Gaslamp Motor Inn because it was cheap, and it was just far enough. There was no chance of me being sniffed out when there were so many females already in town and ready to mate.
It was cold in my room, but I was too hot to notice. I’d woken up his morning burning with fever, which was the first sign that I was in heat. My stomach kept twisting and churning as every cell in my body screamed at me to shift into my wolf and run, driven by instinct to seek a mate. I tried to distract myself by watching T.V., but my symptoms worsened with each passing minute.
My asshole had been lubricating itself for the past twelve hours. By the time my juices soaked through my boxer-briefs and the bedsheets under me, I decided to finally do something about it.
I tore the covers off of myself and swung my legs over the side of my bed. A commercial for car insurance played on the T.V. as I bent to reach into the gym bag sitting on the floor. After digging through my clothes, I finally pulled out what I’d been looking for.
My throat tightening, I stared at the cucumber in my hand. I’d picked it out because the length and girth of it reminded me of somebody.
Caleb.
His name floated through my mind often, as common as a heartbeat. With each day that passed since our last meeting, I’d gotten better and better at swallowing my desires and pretending I didn’t miss his touch. And then today happened. Now, my body was in agony, craving a cock.
Craving his cock.
“Finally, some relief,” I whispered to myself.
But before I could do anything else about it, there was a scratch on my door.
I nearly dropped my cucumber.
I tilted my head slightly, wondering if I was hearing things, but it happened again.
Scritch-scritch-scritch.
“What in the world?” I said aloud.
Slowly, I stood up and crossed the room, barefoot and naked except for my underwear. I looked through the peephole and saw nothing. Then, I opened the door and looked into the golden eyes of a lanky, gray wolf standing right on the doorstep.
I stumbled backward in alarm. At the same time, the wolf leapt over the threshold and shifted back into a man before he even landed on the carpet.
“C-Caleb,” I stammered out.
He slammed the door shut behind him, making it rattle in its frame. “What are you doing here?” he said.
I was too shocked to speak. I hadn’t seen him in so long that I’d nearly forgotten the details of his face. Now, he was standing before me, his features sharper than ever. His hair had grown shaggy. It was now long enough to shield his eyes. There was a dark trail of stubble lining his jaw and chin. His panting lips were pink from the cold, as if they were stained with wine.
With my eyes, I followed the line of his neck down to his naked chest, and I stopped there.
My mouth was suddenly dry. There was a persistent slamming against the insides of my ribs. Each beat of my heart racked my body like an earthquake. I was equal parts confused, frightened, and turn
ed on.
My voice cracked when I finally spoke. “How did you find me?”
“Your scent,” Caleb said flatly. He took one step forward and inhaled deeply. His eyes fluttered. “I’ve been staying in one of the rooms upstairs…”
I raised my chin, keeping my gaze locked on his face. I didn’t dare glance down. I already knew what my presence was doing to him. I could tell by his expression. The air in my room was thick with musk and pheromones and the scent of my fertility. Caleb had become drunk on it the moment he walked in and shut the door.
There was a hard steeliness in his eyes. I sensed the lust radiating off of him, and I began to tremble. The intensity in his gaze was so fierce that I was afraid of it. As he took another step towards me, I was actually afraid of what he might do to my body. He closed the distance between us before I could even blink. His hands were suddenly on my shoulders, and he wrenched me around.
He shoved me so that I fell on my stomach across the bed.
“Yes…yes…yes…”
I was hearing my own voice as Caleb dragged my boxer-briefs down to my ankles, exposing my bare ass. My asshole throbbed with heat, and my sack was damp with my own juices.
Caleb cursed, the sound of it low and rumbling. My cock, pinned between my stomach and the soft bed, gave a stiff throb.
“Fuck me, Ca—”
My words were choked off when Caleb roughly shoved his cock into my ass.
His rhythm was frantic as he thrust into me.
“Oh god!” I cried out, my eyes already rolling to the back of my head.
Caleb held my arms down as his hips plunged over and over behind me, filling the room with the rapid clap-clap of his thighs slapping my ass cheeks. The mattress bounced as he fucked me into it, each thrust coming harder than the last. He was fucking me so hard that it was like a punishment, and I screamed, going crazy with ecstasy.
He slammed his dick through my wet tightness a few more times before releasing my arms to grab my hips. Still buried deep inside of me, he pulled me backward until my feet touched the floor.
