by Odessa Lynne
He pressed his mouth together and hauled her arm up. He wasn’t trying to hurt her, but she sure wasn’t making it easy to be gentle. She tried to jerk her arm back but he held on and placed the cuff around her wrist, knowing as he did it, he was probably putting a large bruise around her forearm. He’d done that to Gillie once, when he was younger, and it had made him aware of how much stronger he was than his sister. He’d never done it again.
As soon as he brought the open edges of the cuff together, it sealed around her wrist with a faint click. He barely heard it over her yelling obscenities in his face.
She tried to headbutt him.
Lake hauled her backward, even as she screamed louder at Mason. “You fucking traitor! You traitor, you fucking—” A sob broke through. “Why are you doing this? Why are you helping them? You’re—you’re a fucking…”
Mason gritted his teeth and placed the second cuff on her other wrist. Almost instantly, the two cuffs snapped together, locking her hands in front of her.
She struggled with that, before finally sagging in Lake’s hold.
Lake turned her with so little effort that it was almost comical and hauled her up over his shoulder. Her kicking continued, but his arm wrapped firmly around the back of her thighs and she could do little but yell and jerk.
Eventually she would wear herself out. Mason could already hear the hoarseness in her voice and the slowing of her movements.
He rubbed his hands over his face, suddenly bone tired. He let his arms drop to his sides, feeling so much like the traitor she kept calling him that he couldn’t even look at her. “You don’t want her riding with me?”
“I don’t trust her reasons for being in the vicinity of the laboratory and I don’t yet understand why the rogues wanted her with them. Until I have answers to those questions, leaving her with you would be too distracting. We have a lot of distance to cover. I feel the heat teasing at my senses despite the overwhelming doses of drugs we’ve taken to make this mission possible. Once I fall to the heat, the others will follow. Any distraction at all is too much.”
Mason nodded.
Five said to Lake, “See Gray about the drugs. If she’s sleeping, she’ll be more comfortable. Also, have him give you an extra dose of the repression drugs.”
“Of course, Alpha.” Lake jostled Cecily into a secure position, gave Five a sharp little nod, then turned and pushed his way back into the trees.
Mason watched them go, too many questions roiling in his head for comfort.
Chapter 24
Crickets sang in the night and the air smelled of damp earth and wood. Mason hadn’t done much sleeping outdoors in the last three years and he had a difficult time getting comfortable with Five at his back and nothing but a thin blanket spread out under him and another pulled up to his chin.
Still, he was warm enough, and he’d started to be able to see in the dark a little. The ATV sat parked behind them, blocking his view of the sleeping form of Cecily. She’d been left alone, drugged into unconsciousness hours before, and he couldn’t say it bothered him. He didn’t need her to tell him he’d done something he couldn’t reconcile with his own conscience.
If one of the wolves decided to mate her, he would be complicit in the act and that… that knowledge disturbed him deeply.
“She lies.”
The quiet words came from Five, spoken into Mason’s ear.
He shifted his arm until he could get it under his head. “About what?”
“About everything. I smell her deceptions but I can’t identify their cause. She has secrets and I’m worried about having brought you along now that she’s here with us.”
Speaking low so as not to disturb anyone else, Mason said, “She seemed okay to me. I feel sorry for her. If she’s infected… what are you going to do about that?”
“There’s nothing we can do, here. I’ve sent for help. She’ll be removed from our care early tomorrow. There are drugs that will get the truth out of her, whatever it is, before it’s too late.”
That sounded ominous. And like one more thing Mason was going to have on his conscience when this was all said and done.
He turned his head away and stared out at the deep, dark forest, where leaves swayed with the occasional gust of wind and an owl hooted somewhere in the distance.
“I didn’t like scaring people, you know. I never wanted to hurt anybody. It wasn’t fun—not for me. It just—it all seemed—it wasn’t fair, and it all seemed so goddamned important that we stand up for ourselves and take back what was supposed to be ours. Can’t change the past, though, don’t even know if it makes sense to wish you could.”
“What is, is. A result of everything that came before.”
“Yeah.”
A grunt whispered through the air. Mason’s thoughts stopped in their tracks.
He blinked, straining to see clearly through the dark.
To the other side of Cord, Gray was sitting nearly twenty feet away with his back to a tree, watching and listening. It was obvious what his job was—lookout.
But the others, they’d taken to the ground the same as Mason and Five, and Mason had been under the impression they were supposed to be sleeping.
Five had told him to go to sleep more than ten, maybe fifteen minutes ago.
The flash of skin he saw under the moon told him sleep was the furthest thing from Cord’s mind. He and Rain had shared one of the few blankets and Mason hadn’t really thought a lot about it, but he could see now that he’d been terribly naïve to think it was because they were going to share body heat.
Five’s warm hand spread heavy across Mason’s stomach. “You need rest, more than any of us. I had hoped you would sleep at least a few hours tonight, but if you continue to smell of arousal, I do not think sleep is what we’ll spend those few hours doing.”
Mason closed his eyes, and tried to breathe deeply of the chill night air. The fall had been colder than usual this year, and now that late fall had set in, it was getting even colder. If not for Five at his back, he didn’t doubt he’d be freezing his ass off on the cool ground, even with the blankets.
The grunting got louder and someone let out a harsh groan. The sound of the wolves’ language whispered on the air. He swore he wasn’t going to open his eyes, but when another groan sounded, this one from a slightly different direction, Mason couldn’t help it.
His eyelids drifted up, and his eyes zeroed in on Jordan and Francis with unerring accuracy.
Naked flesh met his gaze and his mouth parted, his breath coming in a shallow pant.
He had trouble telling Jordan and Francis apart under the moonlight at that distance, their bodies so similar in shape. But one of them shoved the other’s arms up, then spent a minute grappling with him while kneeing his thighs apart. Jordan—yes, it was Jordan—tried to snap his teeth at Francis, but missed, and Francis rolled with him, taking him to his back, and shoving his hips forward, and then—
They were fucking, right there in the open, without a stitch of clothes or a square of blanket to block Mason’s view, and the sound of grunting intensified and the hoarse growls deepened.
He’d never watched two men fuck before—hadn’t had any particular interest in it and hadn’t ever sought it out in curiosity.
But watching it now did something to him. His cock was getting hard and his body tightening.
And then hands were on his stomach, running warmly over the hair leading down. He held his breath, not moving as one of those hands slid beneath the edge of his waistband and then the other reached for the fly of his jeans.
Five flicked the button through the hole and slowly peeled Mason’s pants open. “I’m going to fuck you now. It will set off my heat cycle, but I don’t think waiting would gain us much time. Your scent has become too much of a distraction.” He spoke the wolves’ language, and the cadence of his voice was hypnotic.
Mason swallowed and could hardly complain when Five’s mouth and nose brushed against the line of his throat.
He turned his head, not to get away, but to give access.
Five took advantage. He sniffed, deep and hard, at Mason’s skin, drawing his teeth carefully along the side of Mason’s neck.
Heat and want engulfed Mason. He hadn’t closed his eyes—couldn’t bring himself to give up the view he had—and he saw the way Francis’s ass tightened with his thrusts into Jordan’s limber body and the way Jordan tried to rock into the motion, and he could feel the desperate need clawing at them, barely contained. His chest ached, and he wanted to share in their excitement with a fierceness that baffled him, until he realized he must have done it again—opened himself to the mysterious bond forming between them.
A sharp, gasped cry brought Mason’s attention back to Cord and Rain, who were fucking even more vigorously, Rain’s back shadowed by the moonlight as he rode Cord with his head back and his chest thrust forward and his dick in hand between them.
Mason’s breath came faster. Five yanked Mason’s jeans down his hips and over his ass, and Mason’s whole body jostled. He couldn’t keep his head on his arm, so he rolled onto his stomach.
His heart started pounding with a brutal rhythm that left him breathless and dizzy.
He wasn’t just letting Five fuck him—he was offering himself to him.
“Submission is your duty,” Five said against the top of Mason’s spine, “but your submission is also a gift.”
Five pulled aside the collar of Mason’s t-shirt and his mouth found the prominent bones at the base of Mason’s neck.
Mason shuddered and let out a quiet breath, trying not to draw the attention of the others.
Five took Mason’s t-shirt by the hem and shoved the fabric up Mason’s back, then kissed his way down Mason’s spine from neck to tailbone.
Mason shook with the surge of blood to his dick. He turned his head, tried to stop watching the others and concentrate on the feeling of Five parting his ass cheeks.
The unrestrained slap of flesh and the low cries coming from less than thirty feet away made it impossible.
Mason turned his head again, but a low laugh from Five tickled the hair at the crack of his ass, and he felt his face go hot with a self-conscious flush.
“Watching my betas fuck is only one of the many pleasures you’ll have as my mate.”
Breathlessly, he said, “You’re just a bunch of voyeurs, aren’t you?”
“Watching someone else’s pleasure is a pleasure in itself. You’re enjoying it.” He squeezed Mason’s ass, and Mason felt claws against his skin. “Aren’t you?”
“I—yeah. I am.” It felt useless to make excuses. His dick was hard and his body was thrumming with arousal and he didn’t know when he’d been so turned on just from the anticipation of what was coming.
“Then watch,” Five said, “while I prepare you for mating.”
It was the peculiar change in pitch when Five said “mating” that clued Mason in to the fact that more might be going on here than he’d realized.
But by then it was too late, because Five put his mouth to Mason’s asshole and the underside of his balls, and Mason lost sight of everything except the feel of hot, wet tongue and pressure and his own hard cock trapped between his belly and the blanket that was protecting him from the cold ground.
He was gasping into the back of his hand when Five stopped fucking his asshole with his tongue, dragged Mason up onto his knees, and started rubbing something cold and slick into the rim of his quivering hole.
Mason whimpered and bit down on his knuckle to keep from making any loud noises. He thought Five was using his knuckles, but he wasn’t sure, and of course the others could see them, if they were to look, but Mason was doing everything he could to keep quiet so he didn’t draw extra attention to himself and Five.
Fabric rustled behind him and then dark fabric hit the ground. He felt the blanket under him shift a few inches backward as Five moved. Mason rose on his elbows and continued to watch Rain and Cord fuck while Five stood and stripped out of his pants.
Small jolts of pleasure fired through him every time he caught a glimpse of Cord’s dick sliding into Rain, and he wasn’t paying attention to Five as he knelt behind him. But then Five’s hand curled around the back of Mason’s neck with startling speed and Mason sucked in his breath.
Five leaned over him, letting his long alien dick slide along the crack of Mason’s ass. Hot and hard, Five’s flesh caught at the pucker of Mason’s asshole.
Mason’s breath hitched. He couldn’t stop himself from clenching up.
Five licked up Mason’s spine, and then bit gently at the side of Mason’s neck and positioned his dick, pushing the broad head firmly enough against Mason’s hole to make Mason feel weak all over. “Watch all you like, but do not forget who you belong to, Mason Waters. You are mine.”
The emphasis at the end of his declaration was accompanied by a sudden hard thrust.
The sudden pressure forced a harsh gasp out of Mason’s throat, but he’d been well-fucked by Five’s tongue and well-lubed, and that one thrust was enough to let Five bury half his dick in Mason’s ass.
Five felt even thicker and longer than Mason remembered and his asshole clenched around the cock impaling him. He squeezed his eyes shut and gasped for breath, his head down between his shoulders, his back tight with the tension riding him. His knees dug into the soft bed of leaves and earth beneath the blanket, and the earthy smell of the forest filled his lungs.
“God,” he said on a groan, not sure if he was praying for Five to pull out or push his way further in.
“Mine,” Five growled. “Mine.”
Then it was no question what Mason wanted, because Five pulled part of the way out and all Mason could do was think about how it was going to feel when—
A shock of sensation jolted its way through him.
“Yes,” he hissed through his teeth. Then, groaning, “God, yes.”
Five was already coming with a rough growl, but Mason knew after last night that this was just the beginning for Five; Five’s dick wouldn’t soften and he would keep fucking Mason for however long it took for his heat cycle to burn out.
Mason brought his head up and looked across the way.
Francis was still fucking Jordan in the ass with random, hard strokes that were being met with fierce growls while he held Jordan’s arms to the ground over his head. Jordan’s body bowed every time Francis’s muscular ass clenched.
Mason let his eyes drift shut again while he reached under him and touched his swaying cock, hard with the flush of blood and sensitive to the touch. He closed his fist around his flesh and let Five’s fucking do most of the work for him. His shoulder took his weight on that side and his body twisted to accommodate the motion of his hand.
He jerked off to the feel of his asshole stretching around Five’s thick cock, and the steady, hard rhythm into his body.
He almost expected Five to stop him the same way he’d done the night before, but he didn’t. The air was cool in Mason’s lungs, and he was ready to come much too fast. Five caged him to the ground, his hands landing on each side of Mason and clawing through the thin but soft blanket as his movements turned ragged with another approaching orgasm. At least, that was Mason’s assumption as he felt the hard jut of bone at his spine and the warm, ragged heat of moist breath, coming fast and shallow.
Warm semen spurted deep inside Mason for the second time. His ass clenched at the still unusual sensation and he began a harder, faster pull on his cock.
Then Five pushed himself up on one muscular arm, and used to the other to grip Mason’s hand. “Let me.”
“I’m close,” Mason gasped, not even thinking about stopping as his balls pulled in tight.
Teeth snapped too damn close to Mason’s ear.
“Submit,” Five growled.
Pressure squeezed Mason’s chest, sending a fierce tingle shooting through him, and he jerked his hand away from his dick with embarrassing haste.
“What did you—�
� he choked out, before gasping as the pressure disappeared and the only thing that remained was warmth and pleasure and Five’s hand curling around his stiff cock.
“Yeah,” he said. “Oh fuck. Jerk me off. That’s good.”
Five somehow managed to not only jerk Mason off but keep shoving his dick into Mason’s ass. Mason glanced up, not even intentionally looking, to see Cord’s head turned his way. He met Cord’s glowing gaze.
“Oh fuck,” he said, not able to turn his gaze away from that hot stare. The tension in his whole body released at once.
He came with a strangled groan and a furious clench of his fist on the blanket beside his head. Five milked his cock with practiced strokes, not too much, not too little, and a shudder wracked Mason’s entire body from the top of his head to the soles of his feet.
Things got hazy after that. He breathed hard into the blanket and Five fucked him a little too long, and at some point, Mason noticed the others had calmed but Five had barely slowed.
A while later, maybe an hour, maybe less, Five ran his hand down Mason’s side and slowly pulled away from him with a quiet, tired sigh. “You should clean up, so you can rest easy.”
Mason stretched out on his back with a groan before rolling to the side. “It’ll be dawn soon. Not sure there’s any point trying to go to sleep now.”
Five’s glowing eyes lingered on him. “Would you like me to help you?”
He made a choked sound. “No. In fact, hell no.” He pushed upright on his arm, then slowly climbed to his feet.
Five rolled to his back, resting his head on his arm. “Then go before I change my mind about letting you go alone.”
Mason stumbled off into the woods, careful to choose a path that wouldn’t trip him up when he had to make his way back to the camp.
He was only gone for ten, maybe fifteen, minutes tops.
But when he came back, the blanket had been removed and the moonlight spilled on the trodden leaves and the bed of pine needles where Mason had spent the last few hours, and there was no indication at all that wolves had ever been there.
