“If Seth is going to kill our son’s mate, then shouldn’t we strike preemptively?” I questioned, not liking what I was saying, but hadn’t I just told my pack this? Being a leader wasn’t always a party. Sometimes, you had to make the shittiest decisions imaginable.
“There is no point in trying to change the future. Seth and his sister were destined to fight. He cannot die. Neither can she. Putting distance between them is the wisest option.”
I glowered at Todd. “You say that like it’s easy. Sure, I can send him to our twin pack in Miami. They owe us a favor or two. But fuck, he’s evil. He’s a twisted little shit that gets off on making people cry.”
“Because he’s been possessed by the Father,” Todd explained. “It’s bound to flare out of him, and not always in a good way. With distance between him and his sister, things should calm down.”
“We never had any issues from Seth before Maribel got pregnant, did we? I mean, he was weird, and he creeped us all out,” Ethan stated, his tone calmer than I’d like, “but it was only once she was with child that things changed. When he started crossing a line.”
I couldn’t argue with that, because even though we’d seen Seth’s family rarely, I knew whispers would have reached my ears about his odd nature by now.
He had the ability to make grown women cry with his mean snipes now, so that wouldn’t have gone without notice before.
“He’ll get more freedom away from her, be able to live some life… Before she ends it,” Todd told us, as his hand slipped over Lara’s shoulder. She reached up to knot her fingers with his. Their bond was clear, and it ran a little differently to the bond I had with my mate. Not better, not stronger, just distinctly different—something my wolf told me, but that came to a halt when he disrupted any communication between my beast and me with his next words.
“The battle is important. Just as the hyena attack was. Sometimes, the end justifies the means.”
My nostrils flared at that. “We’ll see about that, won’t we?”
Ethan
I heard their laughter and had to smile. Things had been a little darker than I’d liked of late, and my own mental state was to blame for that too.
The hyena attack had been brutal. More brutal than anything I’d seen in my time.
I’d killed before, I’d attacked before. I’d seen nasty deaths, handled shootings that had gone wrong, and I’d just dealt with it. All of it.
But that day was emblazoned onto my retinas with the fine detail of a laser printer. There was no escaping it. No getting away from it.
Just the memory was enough to make my grin disappear, until I heard her laugh again, and in that sweet, sweet laugh, there was salvation.
“Are you coming?”
Her soft voice made an appearance next in my psyche, and I sighed at the sound, grateful I’d taken a walk this afternoon, grateful it had taken me to the totem.
But then, she was a lighthouse on an island in the middle of a dark ocean. She’d always beckon me toward her, bringing me forth to be captured by her light.
I saw them next, naked and unashamed, and I crossed into the sacred circle, needing that. Needing to feel clean again.
I’d done nothing wrong.
I wouldn’t have hurt anyone without them hurting me first, but truthfully, the bloodshed was a recurring nightmare I couldn’t escape from.
When she saw me, she held out her hand, and Austin stopped licking her clit to glance at me, before he went back to something far more interesting.
I didn’t blame him. We’d all been rubbing each other up the wrong way during Sabina’s milk moon, and after the attack, I’d been a little harder on him than before. He’d made up for his idiocy when it had come time to interrogate the hyenas, but still, even though I gave him shit, I was grateful he wouldn’t have the same memories I did.
As I walked over to her, I started to strip off. There was no artifice here. No coyness. No need for shyness either.
When I was naked, I got to my knees at her side, before I lay down and tipped my head toward her. She smiled, her eyes dazed with electricity that came from my brother’s ministrations, and I wanted to groan at the sight of her pleasure.
I loved that she owned her sexuality, that she reveled in it. It filled me with a joy that couldn’t be contained, and I took advantage of it at that moment, kissing her as she was half-drunk with a passion my brother had stirred in her.
She was gentle, exploring, hungry but not ravenous, and it was exactly what I needed. Her tongue slipping against mine, her mouth nibbling and tasting me. We breathed the same air, took cleansing breaths together, before she was all I could focus on, all I could see and hear.
My dick was hard, and every now and then, she’d gasp as Austin rocked her world, but I knew that, even as he helped her toward lift off, I kept her grounded too. Her base. Just like she was mine.
Austin stirred us into action when he moved off her. I half expected him to slide inside her, to find his way home, but he didn’t. If anything, he kissed his way up her body, stopping at her tits, giving them a kiss, before finding her throat. His head was so close to mine we could have knocked into each other, but we didn’t.
It was too perfect for that. Too inherently choreographed.
It was then, I knew, we were made for these moments.
We’d shared a womb. We’d shared a miserable childhood. We’d shared the highs and the lows, and we shared a mate and a son. But this? Something else for us to share.
To take our woman together.
For the first time, I resented the knot. The pressure of him squeezing into her ass while I took her pussy was something that would forever be denied to us. One wrong move on her part, or one right one, I guessed, could have us coming, have the knot forging inside her, and I had no desire to get my ear chewed off for her discovering that being knotted in the butt was not orgasmic.
Still, Austin continued to surprise me, because he moved toward her mouth, splitting her attention. I’d never know how, and could only think it was instinct, but as he kissed her too, his tongue tangling with hers, ours never touched.
It was like a magnet kept us apart, like it kept us away from one another, but Sabina? Mother, the way she responded to his joining us was impossible to deny.
Her hand moved from where she’d placed it on my belly, and I just knew it was heading down south. Just fucking knew it.
I opened my eyes, saw my guess was right, and found nothing surprising about her touching herself.
Hungry now for more, I rolled onto my back, pulling away, whispering, “Help me?”
He didn’t give me shit, not like he could have done. But just pulled away before he began coaxing her to turn on her side before he shifted her onto my lap.
She stared at me with hungry eyes, and I smiled at her, reaching down to carry on teasing her clit for her as she bit her lip, watching Austin as he moved too.
He got to his feet, making her gaze flash with hunger, and when her position put her at the same height as his dick, I knew we could enjoy this at least in one way.
I thrust a finger into her, testing for a readiness I could already feel on my dick, but as I tugged downward, her hips rocked back, and she surged up, reached down for my cock, and slotted it home. Her eyelids fluttered shut as she took all of me, not stopping until I could feel her labia against my lower belly, and when she started to rock, I grabbed a firm hold of her hips to keep her in place.
Digging my feet into the ground sent electricity through me, and I worked her instead, jerking my ass up, making sure that we stayed connected, so that every time I thrust up, it went higher than usual. My thumb was on her clit as I controlled the pace, wanting to make it easier for her as she took Austin’s dick into her mouth.
Catching his eye with mine, I released a shaky breath as I saw him watching her from above. I could only imagine what he was seeing. Tits swaying, tawny hair curling around them, dancing over her shoulders. Fingers clawing into her thighs,
lips wet and rosy, cheeks pink and eyes needy.
He grabbed a hold of his dick at the base, then stepped closer, and she let him—let him feed his shaft into her mouth.
The sight had me growling, and I grabbed her hips, grinding her down into me, even as I worked us higher, hotter. Harder. She moaned around his shaft, and Austin groaned, his head falling back as she took him, all of him, swallowing him whole.
I swear, it was like watching porn mid-sex, because I could switch myself with Austin, and think of her sucking me even as she was fucking me.
Talk about a mindfuck.
Tweaking her clit, I reached up with my other hand and cupped her breast. I was careful because I knew she was sensitive still, but I had no choice but to rear up, which made her shriek, and to make tiny nibbling bites around her nipple. She wiggled on me, like that was too much, and the desire to bite her, for her to see my mark in the morning was too strong to deny.
I tucked my face into her throat, where her scent was deepest, and sucked on her there. We rarely bit each other during sex, not unless we were angry, which I wasn’t, or overwhelmed, which I was.
Right now, I just needed the reminder in the morning. I needed to see her wear my claim.
Stupid, sure, but stupidity was something I was having to come to terms with at the moment.
My emotions weren’t rational, which in my mind, made them dumb.
“You could never be dumb,” she whispered, her hands moving to my shoulders, keeping me close, her nails digging in. “You’re perfect as you are. The battle hurt you, as it should. No one should go through something like that without being affected. And that’s why you’re here. Why you need me. I’ll remind you of how perfect you are. How exactly right you are for me, and for Knight.”
“I’m being irrational.”
“We all are from time to time.” Her thoughts dissolved so that the level of communication between us faded away, and I knew why. She was coming. Even as her concentration had split in two with my own headspace invading her moment, she sought and found the peak of her pleasure, and her pussy pulsed around my cock.
As I locked into her, like I always would, I let my teeth dig into her throat, let her feel the pressure, and wasn’t surprised when she gagged on Austin’s dick in her surprise at my ‘attack.’ She creamed around me though, growing wetter, which made the knot’s fix on her even more perfect, because she couldn’t go anywhere.
“Fuck, quick!” Austin garbled, and he pulled free of her, watching with hooded eyes as she opened her mouth, tongue fully out as his knot forged into being and he fed her his cum while he milked it out of his shaft.
She swallowed, her eyes on his, and all the while, I kept my teeth buried in her throat, my hands on her ass, my body pressed to hers, and somehow, it felt like I’d never been closer to her than at this moment.
It wasn’t the first time Austin had come in my presence, wasn’t the first time we’d fucked at the totem.
But it was the first time since her milk moon, and since the battle too.
I’d always needed her before. She was my mate. I was born needing her. I was born wanting her. But equally, I’d never needed her like this.
As my cum slalomed out of my body, filling her womb, I released my hold on her throat and burrowed my face there instead. She felt the tears that came, slipped her hand through my hair, gripping it tightly as she turned into me too, kissing the side of my face as she did so.
Austin staggered back a half-step, then dropped to the ground at my side. I felt him watching, but not judging, staying silent for once in his life as he let me have this moment.
Let me have this release.
She hummed a song I didn’t recognize as she held me, as the knot tied us together forever, and whispered, “Let it out, baby. Let it out.”
There was nothing to let out.
Nothing.
So why was I this fucked up over what had gone down?
“Because, and you guys forget this too much, you’re part human. You’re not all beast.” She kissed me again. “I love you.”
The words were whispered in my ear, and not my mind. “I love you too.”
Austin shuffled closer, and when his thigh pressed against mine, I knew he was too close for comfort, but close where we were concerned was neither here nor there. He was my twin. My wombmate.
His words were muffled, telling me he’d pressed his face into some part of her body, as he mumbled, “I love you.”
“And I love you.”
So many ‘I love yous’ and all of them needed right about now.
How long we sat there like that, our limbs entangled, our bodies connected, I’d never know. But then her scent changed, turning deeper, richer. Fuller. Like a full-bodied red wine that was blossoming as it aerated, developing a million more essences, tangs, and perfumes.
I pulled my face away from her throat to stare up at her, seeing a future in her eyes I could never have imagined, that I would never have dared to dream of.
So, smiling at her, I whispered, “Sabina, I have something to tell you.”
Eighteen
Austin
I hated saying goodbye. Even if it was only goodbye for now, I fucking hated it.
And I hated even more that we were bidding farewell to Daniel to save that prick kid, Seth.
Giving him a squeeze one last time, I muttered, “Daniel?”
“Yeah, Austin?” He peered up at me with shining eyes that seemed to see all my guilt and shame and distress, because he grinned at me. “Don’t be sad. I’ll be home again one day.”
My jaw worked at that. “You know this is home, though, don’t you?”
He nodded. “Sure do.”
I squeezed his shoulder. “You’re my kid, yeah?”
His smile beamed at me. “Yep.”
My throat felt a little too choked, so when Eli grabbed him, hauled him into his arms for a tight hug, I let him, and watched when Ethan did the same.
All of us had fallen for the kid. Over math lessons that none of us really understood, except for Ethan, boring Civil War stories that were for history class, and trying to undo the shit his father had put into his head, he’d become ours.
And we were sending him away.
It felt so fucking wrong, I couldn’t stand it.
My hands balled into fists as I watched Ethan whispering something in his ear, and I twisted around to look at the SUV that was going to take him and Seth to the airport so they could catch a plane to Miami.
Seth was already in there. Staring straight ahead like he didn’t give a fuck about leaving home, and maybe he didn’t. We hadn’t dared let Maribel see him, just in case he did something crazy like try to kill her again, and whether or not he’d recognize he was leaving his father behind was something we hadn’t asked. Leon was driving them both to the airport, so they’d have their goodbye there, I guessed. But I couldn’t see it.
Seth, as bizarre as it was, only seemed to respond to Daniel. Nobody else.
“He’ll be okay,” Eli muttered to me.
“I know he will, but I don’t like it.”
“Me either,” my elder brother admitted. “Me either.”
“We don’t have much choice,” Ethan rasped as we all watched Sabina bend over to hug Daniel tight. She squeezed him harder than any of us did, and to be honest, I envied her the tears she willingly shed.
Daniel didn’t seem too upset by the situation, not like I’d imagined he’d be, especially when I’d seen his terror when Todd had come sniffing around, trying to get him tossed out of the pack. But then, I guessed this was a kind of relief. He would still be with a pack, it just wouldn’t be us.
Maybe he thought it was an adventure.
Or, maybe the little dude knew this was his duty.
The shit we did for the Mother. Christ.
When Daniel pulled back, he gently patted Sabina’s cheek, and with small fingers, rubbed her tears away. Berry, behind him, yipped, then nuzzled into the kid’s s
ide. She’d started hanging around the packhouse again, gradually spending more time with us, but she hadn’t slept inside since Lara’s arrival. As she played with Daniel, her twins made an appearance, dancing around him too, making him laugh.
When he’d stopped giggling, he said, “Sabina?”
“What is it, love?”
“During my covenant, the Mother told me to tell you something about Berry.”
She arched a brow. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t know how to, but now, I have to tell you before I go.”
“What did the Mother tell you to tell me?”
His voice grew a little distant, and I knew he was going to repeat what he’d heard, word for word, “She is unable to shift now. There is no malice to her actions. She serves Sabina, and is my means of protecting her. Nothing more, nothing less. She serves out of love for all her sons, and out of a desire to seek forgiveness.” He blinked at me. “I think that’s everything she said.”
“You did well,” she murmured, surging forward to hug him but I knew his words would be re-examined after he’d left. “You’re going to call me at least twice a week, aren’t you? I want to know everything. And I want to know how you’re getting on at school, because if you don’t study, then I’ll be flying down there to make sure you’re learning everything you need to.”
He grinned. “Well, if you want to visit me, I’ll just stop doing my homework.”
A chuckle escaped her as she got to her feet, tugging him into her once more for another squeeze. “Don’t be cheeky.”
Daniel mumbled, “But it’s fun.”
She gulped, pressed a kiss to his head, and whispered, “I know. I’m going to miss you, sweetheart.”
“I’m going to miss you too,” he agreed, but he still sounded chirpy. “But it’s okay. When I come back, I know everything will be in place.”
“What’s ‘everything’?” she asked warily.
Moon Child: A PNR Shifter Romance (The Year of the Wolf Book 2) Page 30
