by Delta James
Gareth became tired and winded, but he pressed on. He did not want Sloan to be alone in the dark in an area that she did not know without friends or support of any kind. He found the spot where she had stretched out in the sand and rested and then turned inland. He shifted briefly to human form.
“You men fan out. See if you can find a village or farms. Sloan is smart enough to know she’s going to need clothing and supplies. She was an adept thief before she came to Calon Onest and so will be looking to help herself.”
“And if we find her?”
Gareth smiled grimly. “Short of injuring her, run her to ground, tie her up, and bring her to me. I’m going to continue to track her, but it’s getting dark and I’m hopeful we can find her before she manages to get herself hurt.”
His men separated as each sought to be the one to return their alpha’s mate to him. Gareth thought about calling for her, but feared he was too far away for it to be effective and would only serve to give her warning. He shifted and began to follow her trail once again.
* * *
Every instinct in Sloan told her that as the light began to fail, she needed to try to put distance between herself and the dam-builders. The problem was that in her exhausted state she had dozed off and now found herself caught between them. She could smell some of them above the dunes and some below her on the beach. There was no way for her to leave her hiding place and not be spotted. The worst part was that she had reverted back to her human form. She knew the rotted fish still masked her smell but was worried about trying to shift. She didn’t want to call any attention to herself or reveal her precarious position.
She peeked over a piece of driftwood and saw several of the male dam-builders in a circle around a female of their species. She knew which ones were males as their phalluses were out—odd, scaly, pointed things. While wolf-shifters in their human form had normal penises, these mutants had ones that were pointed and conically shaped. Granted, the alpha wolves could form knots, but other than Gareth being well endowed, his hadn’t looked any different from any other human male’s.
She crept around the group she believed to be above her, trying to stay upwind of them. She got to a small hillock with tall grasses and looked down into the village. She could hear the pitiful cries of female captives coming from a small hut. Sloan heard a short bark combined with a whistle behind her. One of them had spotted her!
“Female!” he chortled.
“And human,” said another, joining him.
They ran to surround her. Sloan was shocked to see their cocks emerge and come to attention quickly as they gathered around her. The first one grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet. His gnarled hand with its thick nails grasped her breast, pinching her nipple. He lifted her off the ground. It surprised Sloan that he was as strong as he was. He gnashed his protruding front teeth together and they made a disturbing clacking sound. She fought down a wave of panic. The mutant shoved his nose between her legs and inhaled before exhaling in a huffing kind of way.
“Breedable?” one asked.
“Smells like it, but her scent is off. Maybe she’s just dirty... we haven’t left them much water to bathe in.”
“Let’s take her down and each have a turn,” said one of the others, stroking his short, but fat prick. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I haven’t earned enough credits to get to breed and I’m tired of my own hand.”
The others nodded in understanding and empathy. Two of the creatures grasped her by her arms and started to force her down by pressing down on her shoulders. Sloan had dealt with lustful animals before... they may have been human, but she had discovered one species was much like another when it came to wanting to fuck.
“All of you for just one of me?” she asked, hoping her voice sounded somewhat seductive.
“That’s what we do,” said the one closest to her head. “We share. Our females are bred repeatedly until they quicken. Then we leave them in our lodges until they give birth and the cycle starts again.”
“But I’m not like you,” Sloan stammered.
“But sometimes humans will quicken. If not, we just use them for sport.”
They forced Sloan to her knees onto the sand and surrounded her. Their flat tails started to slap the ground, and she watched as they shifted their weight back and forth. Sloan gathered herself and tried to find her calm, centered space. She had not yet mastered shifting to the point that she could do it on the move. She ceased all movement and worked to clear her mind of all thought and emotion.
Her task would have been easier had she not been surrounded by mutants intent on raping her. She began to relax as she realized they were no match for the wolf she would become. She sensed the she-wolf lurking at the edges of her mind. Sloan could feel her strength and fury gathered and ready to spring forth. Quietly she released her hold on her human form. For the first time, her body shifted seamlessly and painlessly from human to wolf.
While Sloan felt her body morphing from one form to another as if in slow motion, she knew that to anyone watching she appeared to shift in the blink of an eye. Her body settled into its wolf form as power surged throughout her system. Whirling in a circle, hackles raised, she growled and snapped at the dam-builders who had not counted on her being a wolf-shifter. Sloan went on the offensive, managing to inflict numerous bites that were deep enough to draw blood. The dam-builders jumped back and Sloan bounded through the opening, running down the beach and putting distance between herself and the grotesque beings.
She needed to escape, but she also needed to figure out a way to free the women being held and get word to Gareth and to those at Calon Onest that there were mutants in the area. She wasn’t sure of the actual territorial boundaries of Calon Onest, but the dam-builders were far too close to her former home for Sloan to simply ignore them.
Chapter Seven
Gareth’s men had regrouped and approached him, and Gareth shifted to greet them. One threw him his clothing.
“Speak,” he said as he began hastily getting dressed.
“There’s a fishing village up ahead,” said Toby, who was one of Gareth’s best swordsmen. “I got close enough and noticed the smell was off. I got closer... mutants... a whole village of them. Dam-builders, which would explain why some of the farms we found have been abandoned.”
Gareth swore under his breath and nodded. “They dammed up the water supply. Locating Sloan and getting her to safety is now more important than ever. We will find my mate first, then we will worry about the mutants. I want two of you to take a position where we can stand our ground if we need to and a point at which we can rally once we have Sloan safely in custody. There should be pitch in my saddlebags. While Toby and I continued to search for my mate, start dipping your arrows in the pitch. If we need to, we can use fire to fend them off.”
Gareth sharply inhaled as the pain of knowing Sloan was in danger hit him. He breathed through it and swung up onto his horse. He only hoped she stayed in wolf form so she wasn’t overwhelmed by the agony that could easily possess a person when parted from their mate.
They turned their horses toward the village. Gareth stretched out his feelings and located her. It was faint, but he could sense her presence. He lifted his head and sniffed the air. Her scent was there but muffled somehow. He breathed in again and smiled. She had rolled in something to mask her smell.
They crested the dunes and spied the village. Between their position and it, six dam-builders had Sloan and they were trying to force her down. He and Toby unsheathed their swords and were set to charge, when he watched her shift and attack those who had thought to rape her. The mutants jumped back, and Sloan was able to get away.
“Alpha? Do you hear them? Women... not mutants,” said Toby, drawing his attention away from Sloan.
Gareth listened. Toby was right. He could make out the distinct sound of females crying and in distress. There were several of them, and they were being held in the village. He scanned the landscape for Sloan. He knew her well en
ough to know if she had heard those women, she would not leave them behind.
“Alpha, is that your mate?” said Toby, pointing to something moving in the grasses on the other side of the village.
“Yes. Apparently, your mistress has decided upon a rescue mission. Toby, go get the others; we’re going to need to charge into that village and get those women and my mate.”
“Our mistress is a she-wolf of rare courage and beauty, Alpha,” said Toby with admiration.
“She is a she-wolf that will feel the sting of her mate’s hand on her backside when I get her safe,” responded Gareth.
“They say the Madonna of the North often felt her mate’s displeasure. Perhaps human-born she-wolves are just more difficult.”
Toby wheeled his horse and went to get the others. Gareth breathed deeply and watched Sloan. He wanted to reach out to her to reassure her she wasn’t alone and that he was close by. The problem was that he worried if he did, that she knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t abandon those being held prisoner and that she would use the time it took to secure their safety to evade his capture.
His men joined up behind him. They each had an arrow dipped in pitch and set alight. They handed him one of his own and his bow.
“Fire the village,” Gareth called back as he spurred his horse forward and loosed his arrow.
His men did the same and then formed a lopsided v-formation as they charged the village. Gareth slashed and battled his way through the meager defenses of those who had occupied the village. Even though Gareth and his men were badly outnumbered, the mutants were no match for true warriors and easily fell to his men.
Gareth easily mowed through those who stood between himself and Sloan as she broke through the back of the hut and began helping the women out. Gareth leaned out of his saddle and picked her up, throwing her across his horse. There were only three women and so Toby and his other men each grabbed one and galloped toward the spot they had left the pitch.
Gareth brought his stallion to a sliding stop and turned back toward the village. The entire village was on fire and the surviving dam-builders were far more concerned with trying to save their possessions than pursuing the wolves who had discovered them. He howled in triumph and landed a stinging blow to his mate’s backside when she struggled to get up.
His men passed him, their faces alight with victory that even the descending darkness couldn’t hide. He leaned down to his mate. “You, my beloved mate, have a lot to answer for. You will remain draped over the front of my saddle until I choose to allow you up.”
He punctuated the end of his sentence with his hand connecting sharply with her upturned and naked backside. He spun his horse on its haunches and closed the distance between his men and himself as they headed back for their camp.
They made good time and once they were far enough away, Gareth signaled his men to stop and allow the three captured women to sit up in front of them.
“I am Gareth, Alpha of Ravenscar,” he said, addressing them. “You are safe. The she-wolf draped over my horse is my beloved mate who has been at her naughtiest today. I am going to hold back so that I can let her up and allow her to get dressed. My men will keep riding until you have reached the safety of my encampment where you will be given shelter, and then we will decide what’s to be done.”
He reined his horse to a stop and waited until they were out of eyesight. As the darkness had fallen and their only light was a full moon and the starry sky, it didn’t take long. Gareth dismounted and then let Sloan slide off the horse.
“I’m glad to see you have fully recovered from your transition,” he rumbled at her as he tossed her clothes to her.
“I never agreed to be your mate,” she seethed.
“I have witnesses that say differently,” he said, happy to see that her spirit was undaunted by her close call at being rutted by the dam-builders.
“Fucking me to the point I could neither think nor do anything to protect myself, then ripping open my neck and stripping me of my humanity before forcing me to kneel at your feet so that I would say what you want negates my vow.”
Gareth chuckled. “You learned very little of our ways at Calon Onest. Defiant she-wolves have had their vows forced from them for as long as our story has been recorded.”
“I am not a she-wolf!”
“You are now. You are not the first, nor will you be the last, to be brought to heel by a male wolf intent on making a reluctant mate his... as you are mine. What will be remembered and recorded was that you voiced your vow. Your vow was heard, not once, but twice. Once while you were in the throes of my passionate embrace and once exhausted from the same and kneeling beside me. You bear my mark and will do so until the end of your days. There is no one to dispute that you are my fated mate.”
“I’m not what you want,” she cried.
Gareth was confused. “You are the only one I have ever wanted.”
“Arielle...”
“Is a child. I would have found her more to my liking than Eloise, but neither would ever have provided me with the passion and helpmate I will have with you. Never would I have lost all reason and claimed and marked Arielle in a tunnel while others listened to her rapturous cries. Were you human at all today?”
“Only briefly when I went to get those women...”
“And did you feel the clutch of anguish that being parted from me caused?”
“I just thought that it was a side effect of being in wolf form.”
He shook his head. “Sometimes I forget you are not shifter-born. That pain would only have increased with time and distance. It gnawed at me from the moment I discovered you gone; it only started to abate when I put you on my horse with me. Get dressed, Sloan.”
“You may forget, but I won’t. And I won’t forget that you didn’t even bother to ask me.”
Gareth growled and pulled her to him, his mouth devouring hers and silencing all her protests—letting her feel the torment her having run from him had caused. He crushed her in his embrace as he allowed her to experience all the emotions that were whirling around and threatening to drown her in their depths.
* * *
Sloan knew she should be frightened of him, but she wasn’t. The fact was that she had never felt more safe or loved than she did when he opened himself to her and let the waves of his energy crash all around her while he kept her safe in the harbor of his arms.
His kiss started off punishing and letting her know the agony and fear she had caused him. But as she allowed herself to soften to him, to mold herself to his hard body, she realized that resisting him was a waste of time. She recognized there was nothing she could do to ever truly escape him... nor did she want to. If she was Gareth’s mate, then just as assuredly, he was hers.
Sloan clung to him, matching his passion and fire. Their spirits bonded and slipped their earthly bonds as her physical body sought to assuage his need. She wanted nothing more than for Gareth to ruck up her skirt and take her roughly and thoroughly as he had done in the tunnel when he claimed her. Her nipples beaded up and ached for his touch. She reached for his hand that was clasping her ass and drew it up to her breast, encouraging him to envelop it, squeezing it before focusing his attention on her nipple.
She knew that Gareth felt her surrender to him as his mouth softened on hers and instead of demanding, began to coax her to kiss him back. His tongue danced in her mouth and emboldened hers to do the same. His mouth slanted across hers before lightly kissing down the side of her neck, nipping her ear and growling seductively. She sighed and threw back her head as he rolled her distended nipple between his thumb and forefinger.
Gareth kissed her mark, laved his tongue all around it before kissing it again and nuzzling up the other side of her neck until he captured her mouth again with his. Sloan’s body came alive in a way that it hadn’t before. She could feel sparks exploding throughout her entire being. Her clothing was smothering her; she didn’t want anything between herself and Gareth. She wante
d—no, needed—to feel his strength as he possessed her and drove her to the heights of passion.
Sloan began tearing at his clothing, trying to remove his armor to get to him. Frustrated that there were so many layers, she reached beneath it to unfasten his breeches and smiled and growled seductively at the growing bulge concealed within.
Gareth grasped her hands and pinned them to her back. He held her wrists with one of his fists and then swatted her backside with considerable force with the other. Sloan growled at him and bit his lower lip. Gareth turned her out of his arms, fisted her hair, and found a rock outcropping on which he could sit. He had barely taken his seat before he trapped her between his legs, tilted her over his knee and raised her skirt, baring her derriere to the night air. He palmed her ass, rubbing it lightly. Goosebumps rose all over her rear end, both in reaction to the chill in the air and the arousal she could feel building between her legs.
He raised his hand and Sloan yelped in anticipation of the strike she knew was coming. She didn’t want him to spank her; she wanted him to fuck her. Gareth brought his hand down slowly and traced the crack between her lower cheeks to fondle her back entrance before trailing further down to stroke her labia, chuckling as she moaned and rubbed her swollen nub along his thigh. Gareth dipped his fingers into her sheath and Sloan felt humiliated—she was drenched and her channel pulsed around him, trying to find something larger and harder around which it could constrict. She desperately needed him to do something other than spank her.
Gareth chuckled at her discomfiture before raising his hand and then bringing it down on her ass in a stinging blow repeatedly, landing one strike after another on her upturned rump. Sloan squirmed and kicked her legs, but he held her in place while he methodically inflicted the punishment she knew he believed she was owed. Pure energy that morphed into arousal shot through her with each swat.
This spanking was worse than any of those that had come before. She wondered if it was because her senses were so heightened by her transition from human to wolf. The feeling of his callused hand connecting with her bare bottom caused waves of arousal to ripple throughout her body. It wasn’t just her bottom that felt his discipline, it was every fiber of her being. Her nipples were now stiff to the point she feared they would never soften and be comfortable again. Her clit was swollen as well, and she wanted him to cease striking her backside and instead rub against it, preferably with his pubic bone as he stroked her sheath with his cock.
