by Lynn Red
-Jill
“Get back!” Jill hissed, rolling off her bed and backing against the cabin wall.
This went a lot better than the first time she stared down a werewolf. She was actually feeling pretty good about how action movie-esque her moves were.
The smooth wood warmed her naked back, and her hands trembled slightly, gripping the pistol. She took a deep breath, steadying herself, steeling her nerves. The overhead fan was going, throwing cool breeze down across Jill’s bare body.
She always slept naked, especially when it was so humid that just standing up was enough exertion to get her sweating. It wasn’t every day that she was awakened an hour after going to sleep by a wolf crashing through her window.
I wonder if the National Geographic Society will give me a prize for finding a clan of werebears, and reducing the local feral werewolf population?
She laughed bitterly as the silver backed wolf hunched its shoulders and dropped his head in a silent gesture of aggression. He pulled his lips back over his teeth, baring yellow daggers as long as Jill’s fingers.
Tightening her grip, she slid her finger from the side of the pistol to the trigger. “I’ll blow your damn brains out,” she hissed. “Don’t try me. I did it to your friend. You know I did, don’t you?”
The wolf crept forward, testing her resolve. His eyes were orange – the kind that comes from a flame licking against the side of a fireplace. Jill relaxed her fingers and gripped again. “One more step,” she said as she tried to back away again, but remembered the wall when she couldn’t. “Don’t try it.”
She knew the wolf understood. That was the strangest thing. Well okay, the first strange thing was that a wolf dove through her goddamn window in the middle of the night, alone, like it had gone insane.
Jill narrowed her eyes, sighting the end of the gun straight at the middle of the monster’s chest. This thing was about double the size of a normal wolf, and much more thickly muscled around the neck and shoulders.
“You... wouldn’t,” Jill thought she heard.
“Did you just talk? What in the actual fuck.”
“You’re in... a new world,” the creature moaned. The voice was scratchy and pained, as though it hadn’t been used in quite some time. “Leave.”
Her hands went right back to shaking. Jill closed her eyes tight as a drop of sweat ran down from her temple to her chin, and then dripped to the floor, even though it was slightly cool in the cabin.
Partly from physical sensation, and partly from adrenaline, her senses were flaring. She heard more clearly, felt the cool air against her nipples with a swirling, irritating, thrilling sweetness. The wolf crept one step closer. He wasn’t going to turn around, she knew. It was quickly becoming a battle of wills.
“No,” Jill said out loud. “You leave.”
She shook her head, banishing thoughts of Rogue and King. No time to think about the bears, no time to rest on her laurels, hoping her mates would come to save her. Jill was staring down an insane wolf, and he wasn’t going to wait.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked when she saw him twitch to the side. He shook his head like a dog with a bunch of mosquito bites, scrunching up his face for a moment and then shaking again. One of the wolf’s legs trembled, and then as soon as his tremor had started, it was done.
“Wrong... with me?” the wolf made some kind of guttural noise that vaguely resembled a mocking laugh. “Noth...nothing.”
“You’re twitching.”
She slid along the wall, stalling for time. “And you know I’m serious. Keep coming and you’re gonna get a bullet in your throat.”
“You,” his throat clicked. “You haven’t... yet,” he snarled, taking another step forward.
Jill stuck her lip between her teeth, biting down until the pain sharpened her attention. “I don’t want to do this,” she said, her voice a hiss between her teeth. “Just go.”
“Your bears aren’t here to save you, girl.” His speech came easier, thought it was still halting, gravelly and scratchy when he spoke. “Only me, and—”
He took another step.
That was one step too many.
Squinting and readying herself for the blast and the recoil, Jill squeezed the trigger.
One determined flash, one explosion of light and smoke and sound, and the wolf howled, screeched, and reeled backward from the impact. He scratched at the ground. Jill’s chest heaved with adrenaline. She took a deep breath, then a second, and a third. Each time her heart seemed to slow, time seemed to dilate.
And then, before her eyes, the lupine creature began to... unwind. His legs grew longer and thicker, his arms did the same. The fur on his neck and back receded. Moments later, the thing on the floor was no longer fully wolf, but a twisted combination of man and canine.
She stared, horrified, at what she’d done, even though she knew it wasn’t a choice she’d made, but a choice that had been forced on her.
The twisted creature dried out, right before her eyes. Seconds later, he began to crumble, and then was shortly nothing more than a pile of fluffy, speckled, gray and white ash.
She sat back, falling into a limp seated position on her thin mattress. Wide-eyed, she stared at the corpse on the ground and very carefully set the pistol on top of her desk. The sounds outside were growing closer by the moment. She only hoped that whatever was making them wasn’t something else she’d have to shoot.
I can’t... I had to. I did what I had to do, and that’s all there is to it. There wasn’t a choice. Am I in their territory? Does such a thing even exist out here?
A shiver ran through Jill’s body, from her neck to her toes. When it finished a wave of warmth radiated from out of her core, and on the tail of the tingling sensation came tears.
“I didn’t want to kill you,” she said, sniffing. “You made me do it. You wouldn’t stop, you kept coming. I told you I’d do it, I—”
“She’s here,” she heard Rogue’s voice come from outside the door.
“And safe,” King added as he opened the door. “You gave her silver?”
Rogue nodded to his brother and both men crossed the room when they saw the terror on Jill’s face, and noticed her naked vulnerability. “I didn’t,” she started and then trailed off. “I didn’t want to, he...”
King clutched her against his chest, Rogue ran a hand down her back, curling his fingers against her prickled flesh. “You had no choice,” he said in his smooth, calming way. “Something has driven the lupines insane. They think you’re in their territory, or—”
The two alphas exchanged a glance, and King shook his head. Rogue fell silent.
“They do that?” Jill asked. “I had no idea any of this even existed. I had no idea I was wandering into a warzone.”
She opened her eyes, staring first into Rogue’s ocean blue eye and then King’s burning green. “I thought I was just gonna come out here, watch some bears, get some ticks, and write a book. I didn’t—”
“You saved lives,” King said, in his short, but still somehow caring way. “You might not know it, but when you are strong, the lupines respect it, no matter their insanity.”
“He just vanished,” she said with a gulp. “He’s just dust. But that other one, he didn’t do the turning-into-a-guy thing.”
King nodded. “They do that,” he said.
“People wonder why they’ve never caught one, or found a body?” Rogue added. “That’s why. They don’t leave bodies. The creatures are so wretched, so cursed, that when they are freed from life, their souls ache to leave. They go in such a rush that it dries them out, and then... well, there you have it.” He poked the pile of dust with the toe of his boot.
The two exchanged another glance and an almost imperceptible nod. “They were testing the limits, wondering if it was safe to take you and come to the clan camp. You stopped that one, and the one before. I think even the most tenacious lupines will think twice now.”
“There’s a camp?”
&n
bsp; Jill shook her head. This was the first she had heard of any camp. “I don’t...”
“You can’t have a clan without a place for it to live,” King said. “Well you could, I suppose, but there’s hardly a reason.”
They both fell silent, and in the heavy-breathing heat of the moment, Jill felt warmth creep out of the mark on her chest. She grabbed Rogue’s hand and placed it over the mark, then slid his palm down her chest far enough for the heel of his hand to hint at brushing against her nipple.
She let out a soft breath. “You’re both here now,” she whispered. “I’m... safe?”
“We are, too,” King said, kissing her softly. “You might not know it, but you mean more to us than we can ever say.”
She arched her back, trembling at his kiss – though it was out of aching pleasure, not the fear she’d felt with the wolf. “I hope you can,” she breathed, only pausing to moan as King’s lips, and Rogue’s fingertips, caressed her, sending a wave of pleasure followed by a streak of goosebumps, down between her legs.
“Maybe someday,” she breathed.
King groaned against her neck, laying her back against the bed and trailing soft circles of his fingertips up her thigh before settling between her legs, running the back of a thick finger along her sex.
Jill lay her head against the pillow Rogue shoved underneath, and let out a soft, quailing sound as one bear inserted a finger, and the other kissed her sweetly aching breast. “I’ve never imagined,” she drew a breath, words trailing off.
Rogue brought his face to hers, kissing slowly from her nipple to her neck, and then up her chin before sucking her bottom lip between his teeth and exploring her with his tongue. He pulled away with a click of his teeth, and a trail of breath that slid down either side of her neck, tingling all the way.
“Yes you have,” he whispered. “The dreams. They weren’t just dreams, they were—”
Her adrenaline surged again as King pushed his fingers deep inside, spreading them in slow rotations, stretching her walls and drinking her in with long, slow laps of his tongue. He growled low and rumbling against her sex, sending a flush up her belly to her neck.
Rogue leaned over, cupping Jill’s face in his hands, kissing her behind the ear, and then along her jaw. As he sucked her lip, he slid his thumb inside her mouth, wetting it before circling her nipple, then pinching gently.
“Oh yes,” Jill moaned, hissing her letters at the end. “This is, I can’t... I can’t believe I’m doing this, I—”
“Shh,” King whispered, lifting his head from the sweetness between Jill’s legs. As soon as she quieted, he went back, up one side then down the other, before pressing the tip of his tongue against her clit and pushing another finger inside. Jill heard the sound of skin on skin, and realized that he was stroking himself as he pleasured her. The attention, the unbridled lust, the... fated love? Is that what it was? Whatever it was she felt, there was more to these moments, to these beautiful seconds of release and surrender to herself and to these two incredible men, than Jill had ever felt before, or even thought possible.
“I’ve never felt like this,” she sucked in a breath. “This is...”
“You’ve never met fate,” Rogue whispered in her ear before sucking her lobe into his mouth and warming her neck with his tongue. “You were meant for us,” he breathed. “And we for you.”
He touched the mark on her chest, then kissed it with slow, fluttering lips.
Jill lay her head back, awash in pleasure and not entirely sure what to do or how to do it, but unlike any other lover she’d ever had, these two seemed perfectly content to worship her, to do whatever she wanted.
But what she wanted was to taste one of them.
“Let me suck you,” she whispered when Rogue came near her ear again. “Let me taste you, lover.”
Through narrowed eyes, she saw him smile.
She shuddered, trembling with every teasingly slow curl of King’s massive fingers against her inside wall. Every single time she opened her mouth to breathe, Rogue kissed her again, squeezing harder, making her hurt just enough to enhance the pleasure.
The mark on her chest glowed hotter, almost burning her skin. Rogue flattened his hands on her chest, climbing on top of her when she reached out and rubbed his erection through his torn jeans. In one smooth motion, he opened the fly and threw them off to the side.
Hungrily, as if she was possessed, enthralled, helpless to resist, Jill took his tip in her mouth, sliding her tongue around his ridge and then underneath his head to the most sensitive place. He shook, and grabbed her hair, urging her down his thickness.
With every passing moment, the intensity of pleasure inside Jill was growing hotter, deeper, tenser, and tighter. Her body grasped King’s fingers, sucking him deeper and holding him inside. She felt like the three of them were moving as one as she breathed Rogue, tasted him, and spilled herself down King’s chin.
They moved in grasping, clenching, halting movements for what seemed like a beautiful eternity. “Bite... me,” the bear on her chest growled. When she did, gently at first to test, and then harder, he hissed and tugged her hair, sending chills of electric pleasure down her neck. “Again,” he groaned. “Yes, yes, again!”
In a moment of pure, feral lust, she wrapped her legs around King’s head and dragged her nails along Rogue’s muscled thigh. The bear between her thighs groaned, his voice vibrating her sex, and the one sitting on her chest began to quake.
Rogue roared, King gasped for air, Jill writhed and sucked and pumped. All three of them moved as though they were three spirits in one body. Before long, the tension grew so irresistible that all three of them knew it wouldn’t last forever.
Her tightness clenched first. Jill felt every muscle in her body squeeze at once. King growled in excitement, and she heard him stroking quicker and harder on himself. She tugged Rogue harder, every stroke thrilling deeper and deeper.
Unable to control herself, Jill threw her head back, sucking as hard as she could on Rogue as the trembles in her belly spread to her sex, her chest, and her arms. Her fists clenched and released, her tongue slid in desperate circles, and her hands twisted on Rogue’s thickness. She opened her mouth, feeling him erupt, and felt herself go limp as her climax wracked her body.
King’s sucking kissing, his wet fingers, teased her entire body, her soul, to life. White light flared inside her, and as soon as Rogue’s pulsing finished, she urged King up to replace him.
With her hands closed on him like an axe handle, she pumped fiercely, wildly, hungry.
“Ah!” he grunted.
She hissed out loud as Rogue’s tongue replaced King’s, slowly circling and coaxing out the very last of her climax. King’s didn’t take long to follow. His heat on her cheek, dripping down her neck, filled Jill with a sense of security, and a sense that everything was... right.
They lay still, breathing each other in.
Jill smelled their sex on the air, the sweat of her two mates, the musk of their bodies, and the lingering hints of earth and leather on Rogue’s skin. King propped himself against the wall, with his legs splayed out on either side of her. She curled up between them, stroking the soft hairs lining his muscled thighs, just breathing it all in.
Her entire body tingled, but not just from physical pleasure. “Something changed,” she said as Rogue returned. She hadn’t even noticed he’d gone until he returned to the side of the bed, a hot towel in his hand, that he stroked against her legs, and then between them. “I feel different. Not good or bad, just... different.”
King curled her hair around his finger, pulling a curl tight and then letting it spring back as the other alpha slid the warmth of the towel up Jill’s belly, cleaning off sweat, sex, and cooling her skin.
She let out a soft purr, and then smiled. Her hair fell around her nose, and rather than displace herself enough to move it, she just let it stay there, tickling her nose, until she sneezed. The two bears stared at her for a second, and then both cracked
laughs.
“What?” she said, curling up between the two of them, and then stretching one of her long legs out and looping it around Rogue, who finally sat down when he was satisfied at having cleaned the sticky sweetness from his mate’s perfect skin.
Rogue shrugged, and King gave him a short glance. “You’re very tall,” he said, in his plain-spoken way.
Jill wiggled her eyebrows. “You just now noticed? That’s usually the second thing anyone says to me, right after talking about how intimidating I am.”
“Why would you intimidate someone?” Rogue asked. “Unless the intimidated person was a werewolf, and you had a gun trained at his head.”
Jill expected to feel emotion overwhelm her after he said that, but instead, she felt purpose. She felt hard and cold, but at the same time, she felt like she was... home?
King shifted his weight and lifted her head from his lap. “I must go,” he announced in that stilted, lovable way he had of speaking. “There are things at home that need attention. The cubs are restless; the youths are trying to range too far, I... I’m afraid with the lupines rampaging, and the helicopters,” he shut his mouth quickly enough to be audible. Then, he shook his head.
“Helicopters? What are you talking about?” Jill asked. “How the hell can something have gone this crazy this fast?”
Rogue cracked a smile at that. “You mean you’ve completely adjusted to reality with a war between werebears and werewolves, but now helicopters are what make a situation crazy?” The dimple in his cheek and the little glimmer of his blue eye in the lamplight made Jill a little crazy. For a split second, all she could think is how badly she needed him again – needed both of her alphas again – but then she shook her head.
“No,” she laughed softly. “No, helicopters aren’t weird. Are you sure it wasn’t the one that flew me in? My next food delivery isn’t for a few days, now that I think about it, but—”
“No,” King said, his voice flat. “It isn’t. It’s one we’ve known for a long time. One that’s haunted my people for years. One that,” he fell off, not able to finish. “I have to go. I have to make sure the cubs are safe.”
