She-Alpha (Hell's Wolves MC Book 6)

by J. L. Wilder

  Owen shook his head. “I wanted him.”

  “That must have been hard for you. Fighting your own packmate.”

  “He’s no packmate of mine. Not anymore.”

  “Still—”

  “Stop talking about Damon and fuck me already,” he said, his voice a deliciously low growl.

  She nodded and took him inside her, rocking her hips gently against his, resting her cheek against his shoulder. Their lovemaking had always been so intense, so frantic, but tonight it felt calm and comfortable and safe. It felt like coming home.

  There were still unanswered questions between them, question about what the two packs would do now,, how they would move forward. There was still the baby to think of. Fiona badly wanted her child to have his or her father.

  And I want him too, arching her body against Owen’s to take him deeper. I want him with me. I want us to be together. We fought a war together. Maybe it’s not too much to hope for that we might be able to live together in peace now that the war is over.

  Her thoughts dissipated as Owen got his knees under him and began to fuck her harder, lifting her away from the mattress with every thrust. Soon she was gasping, head thrown back, as he gripped her hips tightly, holding her in place.

  “Fiona,” he moaned.

  “Don’t stop.”

  “I love you. I fucking love you.”

  It should have been a surprise. It should have been a big deal, that moment. But she felt as if he was telling her something she had known all along. “I love you too,” she breathed against his ear, as every muscle in her body tightened.

  And then his teeth were at her throat, nipping at her, then biting down, firm but careful. “Mine,” he mumbled, licking the wound carefully. “You’re mine.”

  Fiona could barely breathe for wanting to come. She grabbed his hand, drew it between them, and rubbed against his palm. A moment later, his fingers went to work, stroking her deftly until she thought she would lose her mind.

  She buried her face in his shoulder.

  She made no conscious decision to act, but a moment later she tasted the tang of his blood on her tongue and knew she had marked him, just as he had marked her. She had left her alpha claim on his body, and he had left his on her.

  They belonged to each other now. It was permanent, irrevocable.

  And as this thought occurred to her, she bucked against him and came, her body trembling. “Owen,” she gasped, shuddering, clutching at the hand that continued to work her through her orgasm. “Owen!”

  He groaned, and she felt him throb hard as he came too, his thighs clenching beneath her, his hand—remarkably—still at work—and then she was coming again, barely able to keep from screaming with the sheer pleasure of it.

  She returned to herself several moments later, lying flat on her back and staring at the ceiling. Owen was stretched out on his stomach beside her, his cheek resting on his hands, watching her as she came down from her high.

  “Are you all right?” he asked quietly.

  “All right? Fuck. That was amazing.”

  He smiled. “I think we’re going to have to stay,” he said.

  “You are?”

  “Yeah. I think we’re going to have to try to be a blended family.” He laughed. “If you’ll have us, I mean.”

  Fiona smiled. “I can’t think of anything I’d like more.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  OWEN

  Months later, Owen couldn’t quite believe how easy—how seamless—the transition had been.

  “We’re staying, aren’t we?” Angus had said when he’d appeared at the breakfast table the morning after the fight. He’d been sporting an untreated scratch along his right cheek—a battle scar—and the mark from that scratch was still there. Owen supposed every time he looked at his brother, he would be reminded of the day it had been earned.

  Percy, who had been spreading jam over a waffle, had looked up. He’d sought Fiona’s eyes for confirmation.

  But it had been Owen who had given it. “Yes,” he said. “That is to say, I’m staying. Fiona’s having my baby, and I’m staying here to be a father to it. The rest of you have a choice. You’re my pack, my family, and I want you with me. I always will. But if you don’t want to stay, I’m not going to force you.”

  “Of course we’re going to stay,” Dusty said. “None of us are Damon.”

  “There’s a middle ground between staying here and selling us out to an enemy,” Owen had pointed out. “You could go back up north to the cabin there, if that was what you wanted to do. I trust everyone around this table,” he added, including Fiona’s wolves in his gaze. “I know that if anyone says they’re leaving, they’ll be doing so to make their own way, not to cause harm to our pack.

  But the others were shaking their heads. “We’re staying,” Angus said. “We’re not going to abandon our alpha.”

  “Riley? Nova?”

  Riley nodded. “Us too,” she said. “There’s going to be a baby. We don’t want to miss that.”

  Percy got to his feet. “I’m pretty sure I speak for everyone when I say you’re welcome here,” he said. “I know we didn’t all get along at first, but we’ve fought together as brothers now. We owe our lives to each other. I consider all of you a part of my family.”

  Fiona had tears in her eyes. “You really mean that, Perce?”

  “I just wish you would have said something about all this earlier,” he scolded. “We could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble.”

  “Sure. Because you took it so well when you heard I was pregnant.”

  But the two of them were smiling at each other. Everyone in the kitchen was smiling. And in that instant, Owen knew things were going to be all right.

  Carla had delivered another stack of waffles to the table, and Owen had begun handing them out. Leo and Dusty had grappled over who was going to get the biggest one, and Wes and Angus had debated the merits of powdered sugar versus syrup. And suddenly, beautifully, the room had felt full of the warm energy that Owen was used to feeling when he sat down to meals with his pack.

  With his family.

  He hadn’t realized until that very moment how much he’d missed that feeling.

  THEY HAD BEEN TO A doctor exactly once, early in the pregnancy, just to make sure the baby was healthy and there weren’t going to be any surprises.

  But there was a surprise. A big one.

  Owen supposed he should have expected it. After all, everything else that had happened since the day he had met Fiona had been surprising. Why should their pregnancy have been any different?

  But when the doctor told them that Fiona was expecting twins, he felt his mouth drop open in shock.

  They didn’t discuss it between themselves until they were back home, isolated in the bedroom they now shared. “Twins?” Owen said. “That’s unbelievable.”

  “Oh, that’s unbelievable?” She raised her eyebrows. “That, but not the fact that you and I conceived in the first place?”

  “I just mean...it seems so unlikely.”

  “It seems completely likely. Lots of shifters have multiple births.” She cocked her head at him. “I’m sure some members of your pack were part of a litter.”

  “Yes, okay, obviously. I was part of a litter myself,” he said. “But in order to carry a litter, you have to be an omega. An alpha shouldn’t be able to do it.”

  “Well, it’s not a litter, she pointed out. “It’s just a plain case of multiples. Regular humans do it, so I definitely can. I probably have a little more propensity toward having multiples than humans do.”

  “You’re really taking this in stride,” he said.

  “I can’t believe you’re so shaken up by it.” She came to his side and wrapped her arms around him, and he could feel the way her body was beginning to change. Her stomach had swollen, and her breasts were larger. He thought her hips were widening too, though he was less sure about that. “Aren’t you happy?” she asked. “We’re going to have two ba
bies.”

  Owen imagined it. Two babies. Twins. One for each of them to hold in their arms. It would be more work, certainly, but it would also be twice as much fun. He thought about the joy of watching them grow up together, the little world they would create and inhabit together. He thought about how they would almost certainly become each other’s best friends and closest confidantes, and how one day, when they were old enough, they would lead a pack of their own.

  That thought gave rise to a question he hadn’t thought of yet. “I wonder whether they’re going to be bears or wolves?”

  “Wolves,” Fiona laughed. “Definitely.”

  “What makes you say so?”

  “Because the wolf gene is the dominant one. I’d think that the past several weeks with me would have taught you that much.”

  He growled playfully at her. “You still think you’re dominant over me?”

  “Think,” she scoffed. “I know I am.”

  “That’s not what you were saying last night when I had you naked on the floor.” He grabbed both her wrists in one hand and pinned them above her head, and Fiona lost her breath to a gasp.

  “Who’s dominant?” he asked her.

  “I am,” she breathed.

  Keeping her wrists carefully pinned, making sure not to hurt her even as he held her in place, he slid a hand down the front of her pants. Two fingers found their way inside her, and he pressed the heel of his hand against her. “Who?”

  She keened, rocking against him. She had been so sensitive lately, her body so primed to respond to his every touch. It was insanely hot.

  “Who’s dominant?” he asked her once more.

  “You,” she sobbed. “You, you.” She bent her knees to gain more friction and soaked his hand as she came.

  EIGHT MONTHS HAD PASSED since that moment, almost to the day.

  Owen came upon Fiona in the kitchen, making a sandwich. “You’re supposed to be in bed,” he scolded her lightly, taking the bread from her and wrapping it up to put away in the cupboard. “You’re supposed to be letting me know if there’s anything you need.”

  “I know that’s what you think,” Fiona said lightly

  “That’s what we agreed on.”

  “Well, we didn’t agree so much as you said it and assumed I was going to go along with it. I don’t need to be on bed rest, Owen.”

  He sighed. “You’re not going to let me take care of you at all, are you?”

  “Why do you think I need taking care of?”

  “Look at you.” He turned her in his arms. It was difficult—the pregnancy had left her absolutely massive, and he could hardly get his arms around her anymore. He ran his hands up the sides of her belly instead. “I don’t know how you even walk around without falling over.

  “Impeccable balance,” she grinned. “Now will you please let me finish making my lunch?”

  “Go back to bed. I’ll make it and bring it to you there.”

  “You’re not my alpha, Owen,” she reminded him. It was something they’d taken to saying to each other, half in jest, every time one of them tried to boss the other around. “You can’t tell me what to do.”

  Owen wasn’t in the mood for their usual game. “I’m not telling,” he said. “I’m asking, Fiona. Please go back to bed.”

  “Why? I’m really fine, Owen.”

  “Because I worry,” he admitted. “And because even if you don’t need it, strictly speaking, I like doing things for you while you’re carrying our children. I like feeling like I’m taking care of you.”

  “You do?”

  “You know I do.”

  She looked up at him, a bewitching smile crossing her face. “I know a way you can take care of me,” she said.

  Owen grinned. He loved the effect her pregnancy was having on her, how constantly turned on she seemed to be. “If we do it, will you stay in bed afterward?”

  “I’ll even let you bring me lunch,” she promised.

  Owen took her by the hand and led her upstairs, suppressing the urge he felt to break into a run. Sex with Fiona was all about suppressing urges these days—he couldn’t throw her onto the bed when they arrived in their bedroom or press her up against the wall as firmly as he would have liked to. He had to be gentle at all times.

  But there was something wonderful to be found in that restraint. Their lovemaking had been frenetic in the beginning, and now it was luxurious and slow. He laid her on her side and entered her from behind, arms around her so he could cup her swollen breasts and feel her engorged and extremely sensitive nipples.

  Fiona’s body was so sensitive these days that she just seemed to give in to bliss every time he touched her, and Owen used that to his advantage. He fucked her slowly, setting a rhythm that had her rocking back instinctively against him, and he had a feeling she was barely aware of what she was doing. He licked his thumb and then returned it to her nipple, circling the sensitive spot before brushing over it with quick, gentle strokes that had her moaning in ecstasy.

  God, she made the most beautiful sounds.

  He knew her body well enough now to know when her orgasm was approaching by the way she tightened around him. He brought her to the edge several times before backing off, wishing that he had thought to position a mirror beside the bed so that he could see her face as he worked her. He knew she was too far gone at this point to speak to him, to answer any questions. She probably wouldn’t have known her own name if he’d asked her.

  He could have gone on like that for hours, if it hadn’t been for his own escalating need. Next time, he thought desperately, trying to control the rhythm of his thrusts, trying to make this last as long as he possibly could. Next time I’ll keep all my clothes on, and I’ll just lay here and touch her for hours and hours until she doesn’t know which way is up.

  The thought of that was enough. He dropped a hand from her breast to her hip and pulled her tight against him as he came. With the other hand, he rolled her nipple in a way that always seemed to electrify her, and suddenly she was coming too.

  Her breathing slowed and became deep and even, and Owen felt the moment she fell asleep in his arms. There was something powerful and wonderful about satisfying her so thoroughly that she couldn’t even stay awake once they’d finished. A slow, contented smile spread over Owen’s face.

  Everything will be different in a few weeks, he thought. Everything will change again when the twins are born, and we’ll have to learn a whole new way of life.

  But for now, they had everything they needed, and Owen was as happy as he had ever been.

  He closed his eyes and in moments was fast asleep with his love in his arms.

  Chapter Twenty

  FIONA

  Two Years Later

  “Fiona!”

  Fiona looked up from the pile of wood she was chopping. Percy was standing across the yard on the porch steps, looking harried and exhausted. She swung the axe down, lodging it in the tree stump she used for this purpose, and jogged over to meet him.

  “Everything all right?” she asked.

  “No,” he growled, “everything is not all right. I don’t see how you can leave me alone in situations like this.”

  “Because I trust you, Perce,” she said. “What happened?”

  “They’re in there throwing salad fixings at each other!”

  Fiona chuckled. “I’ll take care of it,” she said. Ostensibly, she was going to have to scold her children, but the truth was that she never got tired of seeing them do battle. It was a beautiful thing to watch the way they could be in the throes of rivalry one minute and absolute best friends the next, without skipping a beat. It gave her hope for the future.

  If my little wolf and bear can live together so easily, she thought, the rest of the pack ought to be able to do the same thing.

  “I’ll finish chopping the wood,” Percy said.

  “I think we probably have enough for now,” Fiona said. “Maybe you could get dinner started instead?”

  “Is
that an order?” he asked, his mouth twitching slightly.

  “You’re hilarious.” Percy knew perfectly well how hard Fiona tried to avoid giving orders these days. After her pack and Owen’s had blended into one so easily, so willingly, she had felt a desire to avoid bossing any of the constituent members around as much as she could.

  They hadn’t been sure of the chain of command for quite some time. With some of her wolves—Wes and Carla, for example—Fiona’s command had been unwavering. But the alpha power she had over Percy had loosened for a while. As things restructured themselves and everyone got used to living together, the power had resolved itself. Nowadays, Owen and Fiona were both in charge, and everyone else took their orders easily and willingly from either alpha.

  The pack itself had to be renamed, of course, and it had been Owen who had suggested the Wild Hellions. Riley had redesigned the tattoos each member of each pack already wore so that they could be modified into a new, blended tattoo to reflect the new blended pack.

  But nothing that had happened over the past couple of years was more indicative of the life they all led now than Fiona’s twin children.

  So far they had only shifted in their sleep, when dreams had drawn them to the very core of themselves. But it was enough. She had seen Eric snuffle into his pillow, wolf legs kicking as he dreamed of running. She had seen Kayla curled up, bear nose twitching as she smelled an imagined scent on the air.

  They were beautiful, her children. They were perfect. And they took after her and Owen in equal measure. Fiona couldn’t have asked for anything more.

  Percy trailed after her into the kitchen. The twins were sitting at the table, each with a bowl of lettuce, shredded carrots, cheese, and croutons. As she watched, Kayla snatched up a handful of roughage and flung it into her brother’s face.

  Fiona had to suppress a laugh. She knew by now that if her children thought they’d amused her, they’d repeat whatever offense they’d committed a hundred times. Instead, she bent over the table and took the salad bowls away.