by Rae Foxx
He chuckled in my ear, "I will when you tell me why you want me?"
"Because you're my mate," I moaned, head back as his fingers thankfully pressed against my clit, moving furiously against it sending me writhing against him, back arching in desire.
"That's right, Ivy. You're mine." His fingers vanished as he lowered me down to the dirt again, his hands pressing against my hips as he shifted into me. Pounding against me as he moaned, as the swelling inside of me grew, something large pressing from inside of me.
Growing inside of me.
"Oh god," I gasped, collapsing down further as the swelling took my breath away and Howl pushed into me with more force than before.
"Take me, baby."
"Please Howl! Fuck me!"
Heat was everywhere, swelling inside of me as he came inside of me, filling me with streams of heat. His cock swelled and locked me in place.
A wild rage and need I never felt rumbled in a growl, feral ownership flaring as he continued to pulse inside of me. Filling me. Mating me. Pressing deeper and deeper.
Before I could second guess, my wolf took control, growing with need as I grabbed his arm, pulling his wrist to me. Biting down.
He howled, the call as feral as my growl as the taste of his blood filled my mouth, as that iron tether became an immovable braid and locked us together.
Forever.
"My mate," my wolf growled through me as I collapsed to the ground, Howl's staff still knotted inside of me as he lay on top of me.
"Always." He whispered, moving my hair out of my face, his alpha wolf that had taken control fading away.
"That always may not be so easy to come by," I sighed and nestled against him, basking in the faint lilac smell that drifted off him like a musk.
"Easy, hard, life-threatening danger." He mused like he was introducing a movie, and not the rest of our lives.
"I think we might be closer to the life-threatening danger one," I sighed, rolling onto my back. I was suddenly desperate for air.
"You might be right," he chuckled, pulling me back into him. "That doesn't matter. You are my mate, and whatever happens, I will always protect you, Ivy."
"And I, you."
We said nothing more. We lay in each other's arms, the reality of what we had done feeling like a weighted victory. When the animalistic knot of his dick finally released me and he turned me around to face him, I gasped at the light in his eyes, the yellow glow one I could have sworn I hadn't seen before.
‘Mates' eyes,' he whispered to me, his fingers tracing the bruises on my arms now.
"You'll always see me now," he smirked like there was something else there, but I didn't ask. I curled up against him, waiting until I could walk again. Only then did we slowly make our way back to the dorms.
"What happens now?" I asked when we turned the corner to my dorm, the dark hall stretching ominously before us.
"Let me take care of my father," he sighed, squeezing my hand. “Stay in your dorm until I come and get you, okay. Just in case."
"I don't like the way that sounds," I gave him a look, the golden yellow of his eyes laughing at me in the dim light.
"It'll be fine, Ivy. I won't let anything happen to you." With a chaste kiss, Howl left me at my dorm room, smiled at me and sauntered away, leaving me to bask in the still swollen memory of our mating.
Howl gave me a wink before he disappeared around the corner, leaving me in the silence.
The door squeaked as I opened it, the sound like a knife in the dark that must have woken Scarlet up, what with the moaning and muffled noises that were echoing in the dark.
With the incessant banging from her bed.
What the fuck had I walked in on? Or, what fuck had I walked in on?
As I was about to leave them some privacy, my wolf picked up the scent of fear and I turned on the light.
Scarlet was tied to her desk chair, trying desperately to wiggle free. Her mouth was stuffed with a white cloth. Her eyes bugged out of her head as she looked at something over my head.
A blow to my head had my ears ringing and the room started to spin. I grabbed onto the doorframe to remain standing, but there was no use.
The world went black.
Chapter 21
My wolf woke me with a growl that rattled over the hard stone I lay on, little pebbles hitting against my nose as cold and wet and aches worthy of an old woman's pharmaceutical cabinet wracked me.
I couldn't move, even opening my eyes was a chore as I lay there listening to her whine, my own joining in as we both worked to bring me back to life. Might as well have been trying to create Zombies with the good it was doing.
Something was wrong.
The last thing I remembered was blissfully skipping back to my room, freshly mated and all sorts of blissed out. The room was dark and Scarlet had been tied to a chair. Not in a good way.
Then a shout, and pain, and darkness.
Judging by the damp air and uneven stone that was pressed against my cheek, all of that had happened more than a few minutes ago and I was no longer in our dorm room.
"Ivy!" Scarlet's voice sounded like had been ground up with bits of glass and shoved into my head, it ground against my pained skull. I still couldn't find it in me to move. Everything hurt too damn much. "Damn it. I heard your breathing change. I know you're awake."
With a moan and a whine from my wolf, I opened one eye, my face still shoved against the stone as I stared into the dark. I should have kept my eyes closed with all the good it was doing me.
"Where the hell are we?" I asked with a grumble, face still pressed against stone and all that. I couldn't find the energy to move more than that.
Fuck. They must have given me something.
"If I would have to guess, I would say this is the old catacombs. Deep in the forest, so far down that screaming isn't going to do us much good." Judging by the sand in her voice it was clear she had tried.
"So, your standard everyday kidnapping then?" I asked, counting the drugging in that assessment. I still couldn't move.
"You say that like you've been kidnapped before."
"Nope. First time, but I am curious as to the benefits of a punch card," I mused, thankfully Scarlet was starting to come into focus. Either that or I was hallucinating the darker blob among the dark in the dark cave.
"Are you okay?"
"Not sure. I'm either drugged or I'm drugged." The dark blob chuckled and shuffled toward me, hands as cold as the cave wrapping around my arms and hoisting me up, leaning me against an uneven cold wall that was as uncomfortable as the floor. At least the room didn't smell quite so much like mildew now that I wasn't smashed against the ground.
"This is because I mated Howl, huh?" I said. I didn't sound quite as drugged now that I wasn't kissing rock rot. Kind of wish I still did with the reaction I got.
Scarlet gasped, her face bursting out of the darkness in time for me to see the widest eyes in the world.
"You fucked Howl?"
"You say that like I committed some terrible sin. I mean, I didn't go into the woods planning to get fucked by my wolf shifter mate."
"You didn't?" Her shock faded into a narrowed glare, of course, she didn't believe me.
"No. I had planned to ride my Vampire until he turned into a bat, or whatever it is they do when they come." I wasn't going to tell her I already knew what happened when Vampires came. I had the bite marks to prove it, but she was already looking at me like I might explode.
"Damn it, Ivy." Scarlet was pacing in her usual trapped animal anxiety, although this time it made sense. "I thought it was weird the Gorilla brothers came crashing into our dorm, but now it all makes sense."
"You mean that Anatoly and his band of brutes are Pater's lackeys? I think we all know that." She shrugged and kept right on pacing.
"Sorry, I got you into this," I sighed after a minute, sagging against the stone more.
"Yeah, well next time warn me before you gonna let the son of a tyrannous k
ing use you to grease his rod!" She was testy. I didn't blame her, which is why I felt really bad that I was having trouble not laughing at her.
"Grease his rod?" The chuckle snuck out anyway and she whirled, her fox glaring down on me.
"Oh, fuck off. I'm a virgin, miss ‘mated to three guys. Just warn me next time," she sighed, ever the nice-guy and went back to pacing. "You got me down here, the least you can do is help me figure out a way out. Your wolf is big, maybe she can break down the door or something?"
"There's a door?" I asked, peering into the darkness, I guess my eyes hadn't focused that much. "Look, I'm high as a kite, or my mom. While I see the appeal, I'm not going to be able to do much but slur words at you and attempt to get my right eye to open."
"I still don’t understand why they’d drug you." I tried to give her a curious scowl, but all that happened was my head slumped onto my chest, thankfully Scarlet helped to lift it back up again. "Mortal medicines don't work on Shifters. If they wanted to restrain you they would have to knock you out indefinitely."
"I have no idea what you are talking about," I mumbled, her eyes growing very wide again.
"Do you think they know about Finn?" She was looking so proud of herself I was almost shocked a light didn't appear overhead while a disembodied voice shouted ‘Eureka' like in those cartoons they made us watch in school.
Instead, it was just dark. I stared at her, trying to keep up.
"I'm sorry, what does Finn have to do with me being drugged?"
Scarlet sighed. "You are mated to a Fae, doesn't that mean you can tap into his magic or something? A little spark to start a fire, or blow down a door. I mean, if they want us to disappear down here they would want to restrain that wouldn't they?"
I snorted. Did she really think we shared magic?
"I don't think so. I mean, I haven't felt anything unless he is..." Considering why we were down here I wasn't interested in completing that sentence. Turns out I didn't need to anyway.
With her mouth upturned, Scarlet nodded. "Okay, so what about your parents. What were they?"
I banged my head against the wall behind me when I tried to shift my weight. "Um...assholes?"
"Your parents, were they Fae? Witches? Witch blood would be nice right about now."
"Witch blood?" I gave her a dry laugh. "Funny. My dad ran out on us when I was a kid. Before that, I was in prep school and had a nice big house. When he left, so did everything good in my life. He was nothing but an asshole."
"Okay, so what about your mom?" Scarlet was still pacing, her eyes shining as her fox looked out. I wasn't sure exactly how long she would last in the place.
"What about her?" I snapped, with more frustration than I had intended. "She's a nobody. She drinks, smokes, gets high, and when it came down to it, she gladly sold me to Nicky."
"Sold?" Scarlet stopped pacing, her tangles of hair fanning around me as she wiped around to stare at me. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, the second Nicky showed up she was glad to let me go as long as Miss Ampste herself promised to pay my mom a big check." Repeating it all was doing weird things to me. All that hate and frustration and hurt of those moments were bubbling to the surface. My heart pounded against my rib cage as though it wanted to rage and run around the room, with every angry pulse the fog that surrounded me burned away.
"Why are you so concerned about my dead-beat parents all of a sudden anyway?" I asked, shifting as life came back into my limbs, the air warming up. "You think the trailer park would be a step up from an underground dungeon of death? I'm here to tell you, they are about equal."
"If you being mated to Finn didn't give you magic--"
"I didn't say that. I said I didn't know if it did." I interrupted her, she waved me off, watching the floor as she paced.
"Well, if they aren't scared of you and Finn, or don't know about Finn, then they are scared of you." She stopped pacing, her fox eyes staring at me as she breathed, staring into me like I was some kind of god. Gross. "They drugged you because they are scared of you, Ivy."
"Are you going to start rattling about how I'm the chosen one or some shit because if you are, I'm out." She didn't even snicker, she just rolled her eyes and went back to pacing. "Why does this even matter, Scarlet?"
"Because of your bond to Finn. Magic bonds to magic. You have to have some in your family line somewhere. That is, you have magic. That’s why they drugged you."
"That's a lot of ifs."
The first time I met Finn, a force in my blood reached for his. At first, I thought it was his magic racing through me but now, hearing Scarlet openly talk about it, maybe she was right. That, along with the creepy talk from Nicky at pack lands seething about testing my blood, and that weird look she had when she saw my birth certificate…
Fuck.
"Maybe I have magic," I whispered more to myself than anything else.
"Duh. Come on. Try to make a spark or light this piece of wood on fire. Just don't go crazy and magic my arms off or some shit, I kind of need them."
I stared at her as she kicked a wet piece of former firewood toward me, the thing rolling and bumping as we stared at each other. I swallowed, she nudged me on with her chin. I guess there was no going back now.
"Okay. Right. Magic." I shut my eyes and scrunched up my nose, trying to focus on some unseen power, or forcing said power out of me. That's how magic was done, right?
"Oh my God. Are you trying to get us out or take a shit? Come on. It should be just like shifting to a wolf. Connect with the magic, feel it inside you, then guide it to what you want to do."
"Yeah, because shifting was so easy for me the first time."
"But you did it," she said with a shrug. "What did you do? Maybe you could repeat the process here?"
I stared at her. I hadn't done anything. Howl had guided me through that sucker step by step.
Howl had done it. My shifter mate.
"Right," I mumbled to myself, closing my eyes again and thinking back to the day I had met Finn. How my veins ignited with a power I hadn't known before, how it flowed through me even when he was far away.
That's when I realized that the magic I felt wasn't his--it was mine.
Just like I imagined a snout and paws when I was a wolf, I thought that scrap of wet wood turning into a blaze of red and gold. I thought of warmth.
I could feel it against my toes, hear the crackles, see the specks of red from behind my closed eyes.
"Holy dog balls," Scarlet gasped as I opened my eyes, both of our eyes dropping at the crackling log in the middle of the dark cave.
This shit was happening.
"You are so freaking awesome," Scarlet gasped, holding her hand out to help me up. "Let's get the door."
My body still aches, but with my new power buzzing through me, I was feeling unstoppable. A few shaky steps and we were facing a wood and iron door, the old thing covered with blood stains and claw marks from the last hundred years of some of the people trapped against their will.
Creepy.
Trying not to think about it, I repeated the process. Closing my eyes and focusing on the heavy oak, on the iron, and that little lock that snapped open.
The door swung with a groan, opening up to a long dark cave that looked like it had partially collapsed at some point.
"Let's go," Scarlet said. "I don't scent the Gorilla boys, so let's hustle before they come to check on us."
My legs shook as we ran through a maze of turns and twists that no human would've been able to make heads or tails of. Thank god I was being led by a fox shifter who seemed to know exactly where she was going. I was happy I was still upright, my blood still trying to pump the last of the drugs out of my system.
"This way," I said, scenting a faint but pungent smell of pine, blood, and wolf. Wolf was better than a Gorilla, which even Scarlet had picked up on with how she backed away from the cave to our left.
Quickly changing direction, we plowed on, the shaking in my legs becoming a rat
tle as the swell of pine took on a more earthy quality. We were close, we had to be so close. We turned another corner when the ground beneath us rattled, an echo blasting through the caves behind us like, the deep bellowing shout distorted thanks to the depths of the caves that swallowed it.
There was no questioning what that was.
"Gorilla," I gasped as Scarlet picked up the pace, pulling me behind her as my legs started to give out, a faint blue light blazed ahead.
Moonlight.
Daylight.
I didn't fucking care, we were almost there.
I blazed ahead, everything aching as I bolted for the light like it was a finish line, throwing myself onto the pine needle floor the second we emerged.
We were finally out--who in the fuck knew where, but we were out, the gorilla still screaming behind us.
"Get your hands off me, it's this way--" Distorted words bolted through the trees, cutting through the cricket’s song as the crunching of pine and leaves and sticks drifted over to us.
A lot of pine and leaves and sticks.
People were coming our way, and they weren't being quiet.
"Rest assured I will not lead you astray, Alpha male, for we have the same goal." A second voice said. I almost backed away, ready to bolt into the forest. Their scent hit me, their voices rattling familiarly.
"Is that who I think it is?" Scarlet asked, grabbing my hand and hauling me back to my feet.
"Yes!" I nearly screeched as the stomping grew louder, the sun peeking through the balcony of the trees as not two, but three of my men, broke through the tree line before us all backlit and muscled and beautiful.
They looked like fucking Greek gods.
I jumped, ready to wave, but the three were arguing so intently they didn't see me.
Finn scrubbed his hand over his face, the worry clear in the dark crescents under his eyes. Howl was angry--of course. His fists were balled and he paced back and forth over a two-foot line on the ground. Saxon looked like he was along for the ride, cool, collected and fucking gorgeous.
It was him who saw my first or rather smelled me with how his fangs were glistening. Scarlet took a step behind me.
