by Celia Kyle
Want.
Need.
Possessiveness.
Domination.
Love.
The love bit definitely belonged to her. But some of the other feelings…
Agony possessed her and she gasped, the ache snatching away the lingering pleasure of her release. She jerked and twisted, fighting against the throbbing that plagued her.
Whitney’s skin stretched and tightened, as if the air sucked every hint of moisture from her. With the next wave of agonizing pain, she wrenched from their grasp and fell to her knees. Her heart thundered and her lungs heaved with the effort of simply pulling air into her body.
It hit her again, twining around every nerve ending and squeezing until her vision greyed. The pain intensified, the feeling of a thousand snakes pricking and gouging her skin overwhelming her while the light in the room faded further.
The greatest orgasm of her life and it was gonna kill her. As soon as she was done dying, she was so gonna open a can of Wickham whoop-ass on those wolves.
*
Emmett’s heart stopped when Whitney’s knees hit the ground and it shattered when she crumpled to the plush carpet. He flew to her side, wolf and magic granting him the ability to catch her before more than her hands touched the ground.
The arousal and feral need for her had been replaced by fear the moment her first cry of pain hit the air. That sound was immediately followed by unseen fists pummeling him with her agony.
He gripped her arms, turning her and then cradling her to his chest. Her body was hot, scorching and burning him with the heat. Her skin bubbled and stretched, inflating and then sinking back into place with an ever-increasing pace. She whimpered and moaned, twitching and jerking against his hold but he held her still.
“Levy?” He didn’t hold back the fear in his voice.
“Fuck. I don’t know, man.” His partner’s hands hovered just above her, the same worry tinging his words.
The temperature of her skin grew, increasing with every rapid beat of her heart. The tempo of her breathing doubled. Moments ago, he would have taken pleasure in the way her breasts bounced with each inhale. Now he dreaded what was to come.
Emmett’s wolf alternated between triumph and worry, howling and growling in equal measure. It urged him toward joy at her… transition? The magic—the other—pushed the same emotion forward. Possessiveness filled him. She was his. Theirs. No one could part them after the afternoon’s events. The wolf and the other were confident in that fact.
Whitney arched and struggled against his hold, but he didn’t relent. Not when her tiny, human nails dug into his flesh. Or when his skin burned so hot it charred.
“What the fuck?” Levy jumped to assist him; his friend’s hands gripping Whitney’s legs and ceasing her struggles. “We need help, man.”
No. No, they didn’t. Emmett shook his head. “No. It’s… It’s almost over.”
Whatever “it” was. The other part of him, his magic, was sure the end was near.
Emotions battered him. His. Levy’s. Whitney’s?
No, sensing other’s feelings wasn’t one of his gifts. Yet hadn’t he felt her earlier?
Her agony plowed into him with every hummingbird-fast beat of her heart and anger assaulted him each time her muscles twitched. Attraction, desire, affection akin to love, poured forward in tsunami-like waves. They had to come from her, especially that last emotion. He’d never allow his heart to venture there. Not with the laws governing Wardens. Never.
The air surrounding them crackled, drying and sharpening as if he and Levy called on their magic. But they weren’t. Who was?
“Levy?” He couldn’t afford to split his attention between the person gathering all their power and Whitney.
“On it.” His friend’s hands remained in place, and Levy closed his eyes, casting his powerful net and hunting for the stranger draining them.
Whitney jerked and cried out, back bowed. Her mouth stretched wide, and the breath in her lungs stilled, a scream bursting from her lips.
“Oh fuck.” Levy’s voice was barely audible.
Her muscles tightened and stretched farther.
“Oh fuck. It’s her.” Awe and fear filled his partner’s words. “It’s Whitney.”
“Wha—” Emmett didn’t get a chance to finish his question or process the fact a human woman was syphoning their power.
A pulse of magic larger and stronger than anything he’d ever experienced pushed from the beautiful woman in his arms. It flowed through her; it was her. The skin that’d burned and bubbled like molten fire now smoothed and glowed like the full moon. It throbbed with power similar to his and Levy’s yet so very, very different.
It gathered within her, and his body recognized the increasing mass. Beneath his gaze, it slithered under her skin, pressing against the now-translucent barrier. In its wake, symbols formed, twining twirls decorated her arms, shoulders, and chest then on to her legs. He had no doubt they appeared below her clothing, as well.
“What the fuck did we do?” Emmett barely passed the words between his lips.
A glass-shattering scream rent the air, destroying the strained quiet of moments before. Immediately on the heels of the echoing strains of her roar, the room filled with a blinding white light. His vision was clouded by the glow, searing in its intensity, and he blinked past the tears filling his eyes.
The white filled him, sinking into him and wrapping around his heart. It held his very life in its grip, tightening until the steady thump trembled and became uneven. He felt it studying him, judging him—digging through his body and mind—then it released him as quickly as it’d taken him captive. He coughed and gasped, waiting for his organs to steady once again. He risked opening his eyes. The moment he processed the vision before him, he gasped.
Whitney—their Whitney—lay still on the ground as he’d expected but she… glowed. Literally glowed as if the fire and power of the magic she’d torn from them had embed itself in every cell of her body. The twining symbols now burned, light playing along each line and shining in hues that shifted from pink to blue to purple and on and on…
Her body, brightened by the presence of this other—magic that filled her from head to foot—and the meaning of the markings became clear.
Whitney didn’t have a single Mark like her sisters, proclaiming her potential mating to an Alpha Pair.
She had hundreds.
So, what did that mean?
Chapter Three
Whitney woke to harsh whispers, the low sounds bouncing around her mind in a transparent hurricane of altos and tenors. After each snippet, she identified the speaker.
“… you did this…” Scarlet.
“… dying?” Gabriella.
“I’ve never seen…” Keller.
“… heard about…” Madden.
“… Warden Born…” Who’s that?
Some voices she recognized, Scarlet’s accusatory tone unmistakable as it twined with Gabby’s worried voice. That alone was enough to shove her closer to action. She tensed and flexed her muscles, surprised that no pain lingered. She didn’t remember much from before she passed out, but she definitely recalled insane pleasure followed by bone-breaking agony.
Thank God the agony had gone on vacation.
Whitney fought the heavy weight holding her lids closed and forced them to open.
Totally a mistake.
The minute her eyes were revealed, pain assaulted her, barraging her with the feeling as if needles attacked the aching orbs. She immediately slammed them shut and a groan reverberated in her chest. A groan that caught the attention of those around her.
“Whitney?” Scarlet’s voice pounded against her and another groan was torn from her.
“Shh… Whisper.” Whitney shoved the words past her dry throat.
“We are whispering,” Gabby’s voice boomed.
Fingers stroked her and she jerked from the touch, the pain of the caress sending another shot of agony through her
body. She trembled and sunk into the soft surface beneath her, anxious to be away from what caused so much pain. She whimpered and shifted again. She couldn’t figure out what was worse: the whispers or the touches.
“Open your eyes, love.” The deep tenor drifted to her like a gentle breeze, the familiar voice coaxing her to do as he asked. Emmett’s words were so gentle compared to the growling and snarling from… before. How long ago was “before?”
“Bright,” she grumbled.
“Turn out the lights.” Levy issued the order and she assumed it’d been carried out. “Try now.”
Preparing herself for the inevitable pain, she sighed in resignation and did as he bid. When a man like Levy spoke so softly and sweetly, she couldn’t help but listen. Carefully, and oh so slowly, she lifted her eyelids once again. She raised them in tiny increments, bringing the world into focus a sliver at a time.
“Lights are still on,” she whimpered.
“Um…” Emmett’s voice trailed off. “Just try for us, love.”
She sighed and did as he asked. Before long, the room materialized before her and that low glow still pervaded the space. “Did it. Close. Bright.”
Didn’t they understand that? Were they freakin’ blind?
Levy came into focus, his face and body filling her vision, and the man looked worried and nervous as hell. “Sweet, I’m going to hold your hand, okay? Just let me show you… something.”
His rough, callused fingers slid over her skin and she braced for the pain surely to come as it had when her sister’s had touched her. Only… it didn’t. Maybe that was done and gone. At least, she hoped.
As promised, her hand replaced the wolf in her line of sight.
Her glowing hand.
Her glowing, with weird lines all over it, hand.
Wait, back it up. Glowing. And the lines weren’t stripes or squiggles, but had a definite shape and pattern. They pulsed with an iridescent light, the rainbow of colors flowing along each curve. And they looked like, exactly like, her sister’s Marks.
But all over.
“What. The. Fuck?” The words were raspy, but she got them out.
“We, uh, don’t know.” Emmett’s words were timid and that snared her attention. He was a Ruling Warden, one half of the most powerful Warden Pair in North America. The werewolf didn’t have a timid bone in his body.
“We have a guess.” Hell, even Levy wasn’t sure of himself.
“And what, pray tell, is our guess,” she licked her lips and swallowed, her panic quickly overcoming any pain that lingered. “As to why I suddenly resemble a graffiti covered glow stick?”
Scarlet popped into her vision, and this time, she really did whisper. “We were thinking more like a freakily tattooed firefly. But you haven’t blinked yet. Could you blink?” The innocence in her gaze lasted less than a second and then a wicked grin graced her features.
“Nah, not a lightning bug. I vote for night light.” Gabby nudged Emmett aside. “I mean, you won’t ever need one again.”
It was just like her sisters to use jokes to cover the scary drama. Like that one time Gabby had broken her leg when trying to prove she could fly and they’d joked and laughed the whole way home. Well, Scarlet joked and Whitney laughed. Gabby spent a lot of time sniffling and cursing them. They’d been ten.
Whitney raised her hand once again, staring at her fingers, palm and then arm in awe. Somehow, someway, her bow-chicka-bow-bow-ish-ness resulted in a Day Glo body.
“Emmett?” Even if he’d been the growlier and jerkier of the two Wardens, she reached for him first. Beyond the man’s asshole-esque behavior lurked a protective need that exceeded even Scarlet’s mate Madden. “Levy?” Although she called him second, she knew he’d temper Emmett and provide an easy soothing she needed.
Scarlet and Gabby were nudged aside and then the men were there, bracketing her as they had moments ago. Moments? “How long was I out?”
Levy grimaced. “Six hours.”
“Scared the hell out of us.” Emmett glared. “Don’t do it again.”
A grin eased to her lips. “I’ll try. We really don’t know what this is?”
Her blond wolf looked away, his attention fixed across the room as he spoke. “We have a guess.” He slipped his hand beneath her neck, and Emmett was quick to mirror his movements. “Let’s sit you up and then we can tell you what we know.”
“What we think we know,” Scarlet interjected. “You two and Gandalf here don’t have a clear answer.”
Twin growls surrounded her and despite her pain, she was quick to pet and soothe them. “Let’s just talk.”
Both men nodded and amidst her grunts and groans they got her vertical-ish. It was then she realized she sat in the middle of a massive king sized bed inside a gigantic bedroom. Clothes were scattered over every surface, shirts and shorts fighting for space with the evidence of meals rested on tables, chairs, and dressers. The tempting scents of freshly cut wood, dew-covered grass, and male musk surrounded her.
A man’s room. No, her men’s room. She’d been brought to their den.
Sitting up, she also saw the others surrounding her. Scarlet stood in the circle of her mate’s arms, Keller and Madden stroking her sister. Gabriella was in a similar state as she leaned against Berke’s chest while Jack pressed against her back.
It was the other male in the area that was unfamiliar. Positioned near the door, an older man—must be “Gandalf”—stood stock still, his eyes intent on her. For some reason, she felt compelled to take a deep breath and analyze the scents in the room. A wolf. Old. Weak. She didn’t ponder how she knew those things about the strange male. Not at all.
“Miss Wickham—”
“Whitney,” she was quick to correct him.
His eyes narrowed a moment, but the hint of dislike was gone before she could question him. “Whitney, I think I may know what has happened, but I’ll need your version of events.”
“Version of events?” She looked to Emmett, then Levy, with her eyebrows raised. The massive males had the grace to blush.
“Yeah, love, all of it.”
Now it was her turn to blush. “Um, I met with Emmett and Levy—”
“You mean the Ruling Wardens of North America.” That distaste was back.
“Yes, but considering Emmett had a good old time under my shirt and Levy had his hand in my panties, I think using their first names is appropriate,” she snapped. “Especially since the two of them turned me into a glow stick.” Her voice rose with every word as hot anger suffused her. It felt like her earlier ire yet so much more.
“Easy, sweet.” Levy stroked her arm and she leaned into the touch, the emotions fleeing as quickly as they’d arrived.
Crap, going Day Glo had really messed with her head.
Gandalf glared for a moment, but the instant all eyes returned to him, the look vanished and a concerned expression graced his features.
Oh, she didn’t trust this guy. He had something against her, the situation, and she was waiting for him to snap.
“Very well. Continue.” All that was missing was the condescending flip of his hand.
“First, what the hell is your name? Why should I tell you anything?” Bitch, party of one.
Emmett cleared his throat. “This is Elder Warden Sarvis. He was our mentor while we trained as Wardens as well as our surrogate father since training requires children to be taken away from their parents at a young age.”
Damn, apparently she’d have to be nice to the guy. “I see.” She pasted a bright smile on her face, internally wincing at the sting. “I’m so sorry.” Liar. “This whole thing has my head a little turned around.”
“Accepted. Continue.” The jerk did do the whole hand flippy thing that time.
Something inside her burned and bristled at his tone and attitude, but she didn’t have time to examine the strange feelings coursing through her. She wasn’t normally so quick to anger, but now…
“I went to speak to Emmett and Levy
about why I was summoned to the Gathering.”
“You don’t have a Mark.”
If the man didn’t let her finish her freaking story… “No, prior to being lit up like a lighthouse, I didn’t. But I got an ‘invitation.’”
He harrumphed. “Impossible. The spell was rewritten—”
She ignored him, and his little ‘rewritten’ comment, and continued. “They weren’t able to tell me anything so I tried to leave. We had words and then we, uh, got intimately acquainted.”
Emmett chuckled. “You said ‘fuck you’ and I accepted your invitation.”
A heated blush stole over her cheeks and she glared at the wolf.
“Detail your intimate encounter.”
Whitney narrowed her eyes and then turned her attention to her sisters, specifically Scarlet. The woman was mated to the Ruling Alphas, dang it. Couldn’t she stop all this?
Scarlet rolled her eyes. “Just tell him. I mean, you’ve been listening to us boink all hours of the day. This isn’t any more embarrassing than that.”
“Fine,” she huffed. “Emmett and my breast had a wonderful meeting of the mouths while Levy shook hands with my pussy. Good enough?” The Elder’s face flushed and his anger whipped at her. “Then there was a little sting, a great big orgasm and boom, I’m a firework. Are we all happy with rehashing Whitney’s embarrassment?”
Through it all the Elder stared at her, his dark gaze seeming to bore into her soul. His eyes flashed amber once or twice, but otherwise, he showed no emotion. “You felt pain at the time of your completion?” He said it like a dirty word and she wanted to scratch his eyes out.
“Yes.”
Sarvis’s attention left her and turned to Emmett and Levy. “You stupid, stupid fools.”
Whitney snarled and yanked herself from the wolves’ grasp, clawing her way across the bed, intent on swiping the man with her… She glanced down. Holy shit, with her claws. Well, they were claw-ish. More like human hands with suddenly long fingernails.
The Elder gestured toward her, his waving arm encompassing her body. “You see what you’ve done by violating the laws? What you’ve created? You’ve tied this human to you and are turning her into an abomination. You began the mating process and this is what’s left.” He spat the words, flinging the hate filled message at her across the room’s expanse.
