Wolf and Soul (The Alaska Princesses Trilogy, Book 3)

by Taylor, Theodora

  The queen looked absolutely furious. “It’s not polite to rub it in, Husband.”

  “Why not?” Tikaani demanded, doing what looked like an Eskimo step dance of triumph. “You would if you were the one who got to choose what we watch on TV for the next whole year.”

  “Am I…?” Grady started to push into Tu’s head.

  “No, you’re not reading their lips wrong,” Tu answered back, sounding more than a little peeved. She turned the transmitter back on and said out loud to her parents. “You bet an entire year of television on whether I would be a good match with Grady?”

  “Yep!” her father answered, bopping his head up and down. “And I won! No Rap Stars Wives for an entire year. The remote control is mine!”

  Now Alisha and Rafe were the ones wearing appalled looks and tears sprang to Tu’s eyes. Grady could understand why. Her parents… well, as insults went, this was pretty much the king of them. And though he hadn’t expected to actually have to ban his in-laws from Oklahoma, he raised his hands to make it official.

  But before he could sign his pronouncement, Tu said, “You guys are the worst!” She then stepped forward and threw her arms around her parents, pulling them into a group hug. “I hate you so much,” she said, crying into their shoulders.

  The kind responded by saying, “Oh, and since you didn’t invite us to the wedding, we decided to give you the worst gift of all. Vince agreed to be your beta king’s beta!”

  “What?” Tu screeched. “No! Nooooo!”

  “Too late, cuz,” Vince answered coming out of his bodyguard stance. “You done fucked up, and now you’re stuck with my ass for life!” Her cousin then made a farting sound, before wrapping his big arms around Tu and her parents.

  Wait, now he had a new beta? What the… what was happening?!?! Grady looked to Rafe for an explanation. Rafe just signed back, “Welcome to the truly insane family.”

  “And don’t think you’re going to get remote control privileges when you come up to Alaska this Christmas,” King Tikaani said.

  “I didn’t realize we were coming to Alaska for Christmas,” Tu said.

  “Of course you are,” her mother told her. “You’ve got to introduce your king to the people of our kingdom, and everyone will be at our annual Christmas party. It’s the perfect place to do it.” She pulled Alisha into the hug then, too. “Alisha and Rafe will also be joining us, Janelle and Mag, too.”

  “Wait, what?” Alisha said. “When did Janelle or I agree to come up for Christmas?”

  “When you asked us to do all that babysitting while you were in heat,” her mother answered frankly. Then before Alisha could protest again, her mother said, “But wait, why are your kings still standing to the side? Do they think they’re too good for a family hug?”

  And the next thing he knew, Grady—who had never been accepted by his own family, much less hugged by them—was pulled into the Alaska family’s hug.

  “After we’re done hugging, lets talk about all these business deals you and the beta king have been setting up,” her father whispered in Tu’s ear, perhaps not realizing she’d started transmitting for Grady again. “Do you know if this guy’s predecessors got their lands surveyed for oil…?”

  It made absolutely no sense. Yet it did. Like a deaf beta king finding true love with the first she-wolf who ever kissed him, somehow this made perfect sense. And as he let himself get caught up in his new family’s embrace, he knew from now on, it was going to be all right. Him. Tu. Tu’s family. Oklahoma. They were all going to be healed. He had found in Tu the cure to everything, and he would spend the rest of his life loving her, heart and soul. No, even better…

  “I think I’ve got the name for our reality show,” he pushed into Tu’s mind. “’Wolf and Soul.’”

  “’Wolf and Soul’…” Though Tu’s face was buried into the shoulders of too many relatives for Grady to see it, he could sense the smile in her voice as she answered, “Yes, Wolf, I like that one. I think I like that one best of all.”

  EPILOGUE

  New Year’s Day

  “All my parents do is lie,” Tu groused as she went through her nightly routine, smoothing lotion over her hands and then taking out the two long braids she’d put her hair in that morning. She was probably the only natural woman in America whose husband made her take her protective style out before she came to bed.

  “Last year, they said, one Christmas. This year, they guilt tripped us into staying all the way to New Year’s, going on and on about how they deserved to get some real time with Mr. Chunky and Delicious. And you know they’re going to try to convince us to stay on until the Arctic Wolf Games tomorrow morning, right?”

  She fluffed out her Afro. “If we don’t watch it, they’ll have us up here every summer, too. I seriously think we need to get the Deaf School up and running by June so we’ll have a good excuse for not coming up here—” She cut herself off. “Sorry, baby, I know we promised not to talk business while we’re up here. I’m just so amped about the thought of there finally being a place where deaf wolves can find community and get a solid education.”

  Tu thought of three-month old Qimmiq, or as Tu liked to call their smiley baby boy, “Mr. Chunky and Delicious.” He’d just started magically sleeping through the night on this trip, as if he’d been merely waiting to return to his ancestral home outside of the womb to do so. So far, he’d passed the first hearing test when he’d been born two days past his due date in the Oklahoma kingdom town’s clinic, but his father hadn’t lost his hearing until he hit puberty, and they wouldn’t know if Qim would be able to talk for another year or so. They would love him either way, but meanwhile Tu was going full steam ahead with the idea she had presented to Grady when he first started accepting business proposals. If it turned out Qim couldn’t hear, thanks to their school for the deaf, he would never have to go through what Grady went through.

  “I mean, really excited,” she told Grady.

  “I’m excited, too,” Grady answered, “But you know these handcuffs are just for show, right?”

  Tu looked over her shoulder at Grady who was lying naked on his back, both his arms handcuffed to one of the headboard’s wooden slats. He was in the same position she’d put him twenty minutes ago… before starting her night-time routine.

  He had waited patiently as she washed her face and stripped out of her yellow sweater dress, leaving on nothing but the bright blue, thigh-high athletic socks she’d paired the dress with. And though he’d tracked her every movement with hungry eyes, he’d remained silent while she prattled on about Vince’s surprise decision to stay behind in Oklahoma, most definitely, in Tu’s completely offended opinion, to spend time with a she-wolf he hadn’t told her about yet; her theories about how the infant twin girls Alisha had given birth to would turn out; her parents’ relentless campaigns to get in more time with Qim even though their “greedy asses” had seven other grandchildren; and finally, the school for the deaf.

  However, judging from the size of the erection standing like a monument between Grady’s legs, already dripping with pre-cum, his patience had come to an end.

  “Keep this up much longer and my beast is going to come for you, tiny darlin.”

  Tu just laughed. It was an empty threat. Ever since the night his beast had saved her from Luke, Grady and his wolf had been at peace, as if the beast had realized he needed to let his human stay in charge now that he finally had a family. It had been quiet, even if it hadn’t totally disappeared…

  December marked the first change Tu had gone through since getting pregnant. She’d thought it would be a momentous occasion— Qim’s first change, which would take place in Alaska while he was with all of his mother’s family. But instead, she’d woken up on the far side of the Alaska mountain, Grady snuggled up beside her, her sex feeling sore and well used like they’d been going at it all night. They’d eventually found Qim curled up with his cousins on the other side of the mountain, sleeping off his first change.

 
Tu would have felt bad except Janelle just laughed it off when she told her oldest sister about what happened later in the day.

  “Same thing happened to Mag and me after Sarah was born. I was mortified. Mama laughed at me, too. Apparently it’s one of those things she-wolf moms know about, but don’t really talk about. Like how no one warns you how much you bleed after childbirth at the baby shower. We knew better the second time. After Koko was born, we sent her and Sarah out with the rest of the pack and changed in one of the basement’s custom cages.”

  Apparently, if you kept two wolves pent up inside their humans for an entire year, the first night you let them out, they were going to spend it fucking, infant puppy be damned. But other than that one incident, Grady’s beast of a wolf had been quieter than a small mouse.

  His human was another story though. He not only demanded she come to bed every night with her hair out, but when she took too long with her night-time routine—which she often did because she liked teasing her wolf—he started making all sorts of threats to hurry her along.

  Threats that turned Tu’s wolf on more than a little. Down girl, she told her own eager beast, and she walked slowly over to the bed, rolling her hips in a way she knew Grady liked.

  She crawled onto the bed and over his body, purposefully dragging not only her breasts, but also her sex, over his erection as she did so.

  The sound of wrists yanking hard on the handcuffs was her reward.

  “Hold on, Grady,” she told him, taking a seat on his massive chest. “We don’t want to unleash your beast. And see…” she opened her legs wide for him. “I’m not wet yet.”

  More yanking on the handcuffs.

  But she pretended not to notice as she stroked a hand over her breasts.

  “I’m not sure what to do. I mean, you’re so big, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to even attempt penetration… but you’re all tied up.”

  She waited for him to tell her to touch herself. This wasn’t the first time they’d played this game and she knew he liked when she did that.

  But instead he said, “Move closer. I know how to get you wet.”

  Her eyes widened. This was something new, but she gingerly did as he said, pressing herself into his face, not sure if either of them would really like—

  The awkwardness wore off in an instant, giving way to a wet and warm sensation. The pressure of his face against her sex, his nose pressed into her clit, his tongue inside her folds—oh, God! It felt so good. It was all she could do to keep her mind transmitting as she let him listen to her moan with the pleasure he was giving her.

  And as always, her pleasure seemed to increase his own tenfold.

  “Fuck, Tu, lean back. Let me see you play with your tits. Yeah, baby… just like that, Squeeze your nipples and think about how hard I’m going to fuck you when I get around these handcuffs.”

  She did as he said and to her surprise, her breasts swelled with milk and dribbled white liquid down her chest.

  “Oh, my God!” she cried out, beyond embarrassed.

  But Grady’s whole body bucked, as if the sight of her so turned on that she was leaking milk, had sent a tsunami of lust crashing through it. And inside her head, Grady said, “Oh fuck, why does that turn me on so bad?” as he licked at her even harder.

  More milk came streaming out as Tu came hard into his mouth, the orgasm trembling down her inner thighs as she gave in to what Grady’s tongue was doing to her.

  Whatever plans Tu had for further teasing her husband flew out the window when Grady ended all game playing with one wrench of his arms, pulling the handcuffs through the wooden slats with a loud crack.

  Then she was underneath him, his mouth on her breast, his cock embedded deep inside her sex, his back bent nearly in two as sucked and fucked, sucked and fucked…

  And if she thought the claiming in Luke’s bedroom was insane, this was even crazier than that, because the feel of him drinking her milk, his mouth and tongue tugging on her nipple… it did something to her, made her whole body burn with helpless lust as lightning bolts of pleasure ripped through her with every tug.

  And Grady wasn’t much better. She had to wonder if his beast had returned as he took from one breast and then the other.

  But no, there was his voice in her head saying, “So good, so good. Tiny darlin’, I wish I could fuck you forever.”

  Then he let go of her breast, a bellow ripping out of him as he released into her. That sound. That animal sound—it sent her over the edge, too and she clawed at his chest as she came with a violent fury.

  “Happy New Year” he said for the second time that night, smiling down at her after she was done coming.

  “Happy New Year,” she replied, wondering if Grady’s human was actually the bigger beast.

  But then with a gentleness that belied the unexpected bout of triple-X fetish sex they’d just had, he rolled her over so they were both lying on their sides and still connected.

  They’d fall asleep like this, she knew, even though they weren’t in heat—most likely would never go into heat again, considering many she-wolves went into heat only once and Tu had been lucky enough to go twice. Her beta king liked falling asleep, still deep inside her with one more go around, as he like to call it, lodged in his shaft. It made it easier to wake up in the morning, he claimed, because he knew what he would do, first thing.

  It also, she’d noticed, made it easier for them to talk. Especially about more difficult subjects, like Tu’s five-year struggle with grief and depression, which still sometimes reared its head in a cloud of guilt because she’d emerged from her dark tunnel, happy and fulfilled, while her first-born pup had only been able to enjoy twenty difficult minutes of life. In this position, Grady had told her about more of the bad stuff from his childhood. Not just the tornado cellar, but the beatings he’d received for not controlling his beast and his regrets for trying to suppress it instead of working with it as he did now.

  And that night, she confessed something she’d been holding on to for a while, because it had taken her a year of happiness to fully understand it.

  “I love you,” she told him in this strange position. “I loved you from the start. From the very first moment our eyes met.”

  She felt him go still and she knew what he was thinking. How about finding her with Luke? How about her choosing Luke over him that night? Her talking to Luke on the phone for nearly a year? Lying to her parents so she could spend her last weekend of freedom with him?

  Tu answered all his questions with the story of what had happened after that mind-blowing kiss.

  “That night after we kissed, I got into this stupid fight with Alisha. She was pissed about how little say we had in our parents pledging us off, and I didn’t want to admit it, but I was pissed, too, because that kiss… it felt life-changing, but I knew we couldn’t be together and that made me sad. Back then, when I got sad, I’d go looking for a bottle. So I snuck out of the guest house and went to raid Rafe’s whisky stash. Luke was already there, pulling out a bottle for himself, and he said he had some weed back in his room. And that was it. I didn’t think about it. I tried not to think about things too hard back then. I just went with him. Because if I couldn’t have you, the wolf who’d rocked my world with just one kiss, then I might as well have fun. But I know I more than hurt your feelings, and I’m sorry about that.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” Grady said almost immediately after she finished. “Sorry, I didn’t fight for you. I loved you from the start, too, but my beast—it was kind of like your parents. I didn’t think it would let me have you.”

  God, she loved him. So much. And it now felt like every moment she had gone without acknowledging that love to him or herself had been spent in her own personal hell. But she was here now.

  She lived on.

  And Tu knew in her truest heart, and also because Grady told her all the time, this was all that truly mattered. She snuggled her nose into his chest and settled in for a good night sleep in the
arms of the wolf she’d loved from the start—

  Grady abruptly pulled out of her, his eyes going to a spot beyond her shoulder. She sat up, too, turning toward the floor-to-ceiling window with its view of their kingdom town and the mountain that sat just beyond its yellow cedar and stone houses. But she saw nothing save a few lights of wolves, who like them, still hadn’t gone to sleep after ringing in the New Year. However, more lights came flickering on, like something had disturbed the residents in the darkened houses. Maybe the same thing that had her beta king’s eyes fixed out the window.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked him, searching the landscape for anything amiss. “What did you see?”

  “A flash on the mountain,” he answered. “I think the Alaska time gate went off!”

  EVERY STATE HAD TEMPORAL GATES, portals that could throw wolves across space and time, either in banishment or to find their fated mates. This was how each state decided where to place their kingdom towns. And a few of the larger states, like Texas and California, had two. Tu’s father once told her the California time gates had dozens of wolves coming through them each year, but the Alaska time gate went off very rarely. Only three times during Tikaani’s reign, and only once in Tu’s own lifetime. She hadn’t expected it to go off ever again. According to Alisha, the North American Lupine Council had put a lot of effort into stamping out fated mate spells.

  So when the Alaska time gate flashed that evening, Tu wasn’t surprised to find Rafe, Alisha, Mag, Janelle, and her parents already gathered in the living room when she and Grady came running downstairs.

  But before she could say anything, a voice behind her said, “Uncle Tikaani, I saw a flash of light on the mountain.”