Derrick forced himself to be still, watching with anticipation as Roane tensed and groaned, coming down her throat.
“That’s it.” Roane stroked her cheek, and Hale moved closer to rub circles over her back. “I’m not sure if we’ll still need Zack and Ace to finish the bonding. That was pretty intense.” He sighed with satisfaction and slowly pulled out.
Derrick’s beast sensed a faint click as the power in the room shifted from the alpha and beta to settle over Derrick and Sabrina.
“Better?” he leaned over to ask.
“Yeah,” she breathed, nuzzling her cheek against his.
“We’re done here,” Roane said and pushed Hale toward the door. “Come on. Give the newlyweds some time.”
“I’ll try. But all this coupling is leaving me the odd man out. I need to get out of the compound for a while.”
“Go. I’m going to find Caitlyn and get this fucking need out of my system. Nice pair, aren’t they?” The glance Roane threw Derrick and Sabrina was blazing hot.
“Yeah.” Hale swore and changed back to his human form. Roane did the same.
“Thanks,” Derrick called after them.
“Our pleasure,” Hale said with a smile before closing the door behind them.
Finally, they had the room to themselves.
My mate, he tested internally, pulling out, only to slam into her again.
She moaned his name, and he pulled out completely.
“No, don’t go.”
“I’m not going anywhere, princess,” he rasped, positioning himself at her anus. He pushed forward slowly, secreting more oil at the tip of his cock. As if his body knew what it needed, his excitement lubed up his cock until he slid easily inside her.
Changed, Sabrina accepted Derrick’s penetration, though she was still tight in that virgin hole.
“God, Derrick. That feels so good.”
“Oh, oh yeah,” Derrick said and grunted when he seated himself fully inside her. “I’m going to own you before the night is through, Sabrina. You’re mine,” he repeated and began fucking her.
The scent of his brothers lingered over them. It was enough to ensure her loyalty, to strengthen her bond to the squad. But this claiming was about Derrick and Sabrina. His mate needed to know where she belonged. As he took her, he stroked the pads of his fingers over her back, in love with the firm yet soft skin of her ass. Her changed frame screamed sex.
Built to endure and more sensitive to touch, Sabrina would feel everything he did to her a dozen times over. Derrick intended to make her come so hard she passed out, just as soon as he found what he needed.
Her surrender.
“You belong to me,” he panted as he claimed her. “This is my ass. My pussy. My woman,” he growled and sank his claws into her waist.
She pushed her ass into him. “Fuck me.”
“I am. Every inch of you belongs to me. I want to hear you say it.”
“No.” Sabrina dared challenge him. Bent over and his for the taking, and she wanted to fight?
“Fine.” He snarled at her and swore, then gave her the ride of her life. He came hard, filling her ass with warm seed, but he didn’t stop. He fucked her again, filling her twice more before he paused to take a break.
“You’re mine, dammit. Say it.”
Sabrina shook. He could feel her body trembling with the need to experience the same bliss he was still recovering from.
“Derrick,” she moaned.
He pulled out and shoved back inside. “Say it.” Reaching around her, he found the tight bud between her legs and pinched.
She screamed at him, on the verge of climax, and he backed off. “Please,” she whispered, her head bowed in a position of submission that nearly undid him. He had his cock buried in her ass, his fingers over her clit, and she bent her head, assuming obedience.
“I’m yours.”
Derrick roared and squeezed her clit, groaning when she came and clenched him tight, squeezing her ass along with her vaginal walls.
“Fuck,” he said thickly and spent yet again, leaving her a mess. The room smelled like sex. But more, it smelled like Sabrina immersed in him.
Sabrina’s orgasm lasted for several moments, and while she gathered her wits, he pulled out and stood on shaky legs.
Changing back, he waited for her to do the same. Still on her hands and knees, she trembled and slowly shifted back into the form of a woman. Derrick lifted her in his arms and carried her to the lavatory in silence. He washed them both in the large shower stall built to accommodate Circs. Throughout it all, Sabrina said nothing. But her gaze lingered on him, puzzled yet satisfied, as if she wasn’t sure how to feel.
“Turn around,” he said in a guttural voice as he soaped his mate.
His mate.
Holy shit. That can’t be right. A moment of panic intruded, and Sabrina stilled. More concerned with her than his own worries that could wait, Derrick ignored his panic, kissed the top of her head, and continued to wash her. His beast was in heaven, feeling soapy breasts and warm skin under his palms. Finally, it snarled. My female.
“You okay?” he forced himself to ask, prepared to hear whatever she’d say.
To his surprise, she nodded shyly and kept her face averted away from him.
Sabrina? Shy?
He nudged her chin, forcing her to meet his stare. “You going to obey me now, princess? Have I finally fucked the fight out of you?” He followed his comment with a soft kiss, a reminder that he could be gentle too. When he met her eyes again, he was pleased to see daggers in her gaze.
“Please. You were good, I’ll grant you that. But don’t get a fat head over it.” Derrick laughed and hugged her tight, shocked at the contentment stealing over him.
A feisty Sabrina made his head spin and his world right. Go figure, but he liked her a bit mean. It meant she was okay, and that he could stop worrying about her, if only for a while.
They still had to fix the mutation inside her. But if anyone could help her, it was Doc.
“Yeah? Well, you weren’t so bad yourself. But I’m not sure I came enough inside you.” He frowned down at her. “That mouth is looking awfully empty.” She tried to scowl but couldn’t hide her smile. “You wish. You’re going to have to work to earn one of those, hard-ass,” she teased, before her expression sobered.
“What’s wrong?”
“About what happened in there.” She blushed, her face turning bright red while the shower rained beads of water over her shoulders and back. “I can’t explain it, but I feel different now.”
He nodded. “You needed to bond. It’s a Circ thing. The sex pulls us closer together.
You don’t have to do them every time,” he warned, not wanting her to like it so much that she wanted them again. Truth be told, now that their group encounter had ended, Derrick didn’t want to share her again with anyone.
“I don’t want to. I can barely tolerate you,” she grumbled. “I just hope Caitlyn won’t try to rip my head off.”
Good point. “Roane had to bond with you. Now you’re a part of the squad, so to speak.” His beast was delighted, but Derrick still had doubts. He felt a connection to Sabrina he’d never felt with another woman. But he didn’t trust it, nor did he trust her 100 percent. He admitted he now believed much of what she’d told them. Her facts about Pearson Labs made sense, as did her stories about what she’d seen inside Pearl’s laboratories. But something inside him wouldn’t let him surrender everything to her.
Hell, I still don’t really know her, he argued with his beast, who wanted to lie down and give her everything. His trust, his heart, his soul…
“So, uh, does that mean I have to go through all this with the others too?” Zack and Ace. Would they need to take Sabrina as well?
“I don’t know.”
His answer bothered her, clearly. She frowned and shook her head. “But Kelly --”
“Is a Circ. She understands better than you think. Besides, I know she wants to trust you, but until you’ve bonded with the whole group, I don’t know that she will.”
“What about Caitlyn and Kelly?” Sabrina grimaced. “I don’t have to mess around with them, too, do I?”
Derrick got hard at the thought. “Hmm, I’ll see what I can do.” She slugged him in the stomach, enough to make him bend and cough to catch his breath.
“Or not,” he added. “I think so long as you bond through the males, you’ll be fine. I don’t remember Kelly fucking Roane or Hale. But then, her mates are pretty weird.”
“Oh?”
“They, ah…” How did he tell her they liked dick as much as pussy? Considering he occasionally fucked Hale and had done the squad, how could he differentiate between his sexual needs as his beast and those as a man?
“They like each other? I know. Kelly’s mated to two men, who are also mated to each other. Pearl hadn’t counted on that, but it did make for interesting reading.” She gave him a speculative glance. “I assume you’ve done your share of ‘bonding.’” He flushed, though he’d thought himself beyond embarrassment over needs that were natural to the man -- the beast -- he was now. “I, well --”
“Relax, Derrick. I understand all about the mating heat.” She scowled. “I just did three guys, remember?”
“Right.” He cleared his throat, not wanting to ask, but he had to know. “It doesn’t freak you out at all? That I was with Hale and the others?”
“Truthfully? No.” She closed her eyes and let the water sluice over her hair.
“That’s it? Just no?”
“What do you want me to say? That it’s hot? That the thought of you fucking the others, of being handled by a big, strong man, is turning me on all over again, even though my body is completely worn-out?”
Startled at the passion in her voice, Derrick didn’t know what to say.
“So now that we have that out of the way, when’s dinner?” She blinked up at him, a sly grin on her face. “You’re cute when you’re embarrassed, you know that?”
“Cute?” he growled. Derrick wasn’t cute. He was mean, abrasive, a hard-ass who liked to play the odds. Yet watching her, this woman his beast claimed as his mate, Derrick wasn’t sure how much he was willing to risk to hold on to her. Because if he let Sabrina all the way in, she’d take his heart with her when she left. “Shit. Let’s dry off, so I can feed you.” His heart leaped when she smiled at him, and a frisson of doom snaked over him.
Trouble all the way, from the first moment I laid eyes on her. Now what the hell am I going to do about Sabrina?
Zack and Ace eyed her warily throughout dinner. Kelly and Doc seemed oblivious to the undercurrents in the dining room. Roane, Hale, and Derrick tried to act as if nothing had happened. Caitlyn, however, was absent from the table.
Sabrina felt like a home wrecker, despite the fact that she’d had no control over herself.
She’d been denying her beast for weeks. Once it broke loose, she’d had no choice but to follow where it led. That foreign part of her still struggled for dominance. It was much more powerful now that she’d finally undergone a transformation. Scared, she concentrated on mentally and physically locking it tightly inside her. More than once, she saw one of the others watching her with concern. She refused to show her anxiety, and as the meal progressed without incident, tension around the table eased.
Still, no one mentioned Caitlyn’s absence.
Sabrina finished eating, her surprisingly large appetite sated.
“Damn. You eat a lot for someone so little,” Derrick murmured.
“I’m not little. You’re just big.” She looked up and found him right there in her personal space. The old Sabrina might have bristled, but the beast inside her thrilled at her mate so near. And that was another thing that bothered her, something she’d been trying to avoid thinking about. All that mate talk. She knew what it meant. Did Derrick and the others actually consider her and Derrick mated?
“You look troubled. Is everything okay, Sabrina?” Doc asked.
She forced herself to look away before she drowned in Derrick’s gaze. “Sure, yeah. I’m done.” She stood and took her plate to the sink, wanting a moment to herself. Clenching the kitchen counter, she studied her short fingernails, remembering how her hands had looked only an hour ago. Long fingers, thicker and rougher, ending in needle-sharp, inch-long points. Sensing no one around, she gave in to her curiosity and watched her hand grow, right there in front of her eyes.
The feeling was both heady and scary. Finally, Sabrina had an ability that put her on equal footing with the Circs, yet there was more writhing just beneath the surface of her skin. She sensed danger to herself and Derrick’s friends should she let it go.
Not good, not good at all.
She left the kitchen and joined the others. “Thanks for dinner.” She cleared her throat, awkward in the sudden silence that descended. “I’m, ah, just going to go back to my room.”
“I’ll take you.” Derrick started to stand.
“I know where it is. I’ll be fine.” She kept her voice mild, but her irritation must have shown.
Derrick exchanged a look with Roane, who shrugged. “O-kay.” He slowly sat back down, a frown on his face as he studied her.
She left the group and turned the corner, looking at the junction of two hallways.
Instead of heading toward her room, she followed Caitlyn’s scent. Stopping outside of the room Roane and Caitlyn used when they stayed in the house, she paused and took a deep breath. Before she could knock, Caitlyn called out, “You might as well come in.” Sabrina entered and shut the door behind her. Caitlyn sat propped up in bed reading a book, but Sabrina had a feeling the woman hadn’t turned a page in a while. Her hands clenched the book’s edges. Her nails were sharp, threatening, and lengthening as she watched.
Sabrina’s inner beast warned her to be cautious, but Sabrina couldn’t let this go. She felt as if she’d wronged Caitlyn by being with Roane, and she needed to make amends.
“Just say what you came to say.” Caitlyn lifted her head, staring at Sabrina with a curious detachment.
“Look, this isn’t easy for me.”
“I know, it’s really scary,” Caitlyn mimicked, further reminding Sabrina that she’d taken advantage of Caitlyn when trying to escape.
“Hell.” Sabrina leaned back against the door. “You can’t hold that against me. I had to try to escape. I don’t belong here, and I think you know that.” Caitlyn said nothing.