Claimed by the Alphas: Part Three (3 page)

Asch held Mila’s hand as she dipped her toe into the steaming water. She made a
contented sound as she lowered her foot, and then her leg, into the tub.

While Mila
ate breakfast, Brae had filled the large, metal basin with boiled water and a jasmine-scented soap from one of Mila’s bags. On the hard rim of the basin was a soft blanket that she could rest her back against.

As she settled into the bath, Asch began to regret bringing candles for her bedroom. The play of warm light on her soft, wet skin
made his cock stir. He knew that he couldn’t stay with her.

Mila looped her arms around her legs and rested her cheek on her knees. She looked up at him, and her beautiful eyes compelled him to lower himself to his knees. He could stay, for just a moment.

“I caught a fish with my bare hands,” she told him, her eyes sparkling. She lifted one hand from the water and wiggled her fingers at him, smirking. “I used my claws.”

Asch laughed, reaching over to catch her small hand. He pulled it closer, examining her
rounded nails with mock scrutiny.

“Quite a feat.”

Mila puffed air from one cheek. “You would think.”

He fought
the urge to disparage Caim, an urge which was growing increasingly difficult to resist with the way the other alpha had been handling Mila.

He told her, “Caim despises the smell of fish. It must have bothered him, given how much he loves your scent.”

Mila arched a brow at him. “What makes you say that?”

Asch pulled her hand to his face and ran his nose over the back, inhaling deeply. If she only knew what her scent did to them…

“He likes to sleep with his nose buried in your hair. It’s why he doesn’t like it when I hold you at night. He wants to keep your scent close to him.”

Swallowing hard, she loosened herself from his grip and cupped the side of his face with her palm.

A light flush on her cheeks, she said, “You like my neck the best.”

He gave her a slow smile, before dipping his hand into the bathwater. He ran down the length of one leg, until he came to the apex of her thighs.

“There are parts of you I like better.”

Mi
la grinned, and then gave a sharp intake of breath as his fingers found her warm cleft and began to stroke. His cock began to stiffen, becoming more demanding as he rubbed her soft folds. He wondered if he would have the self-control to make her come without taking his own release.

He didn’t plan on Mila throwing her arms around his neck and drawing herself up to put her mouth on his. She moaned into his mouth, the sound reverberating through his body and heating his flesh.

She grew bolder every night, and was becoming a constant source of surprises for both males, as she came to learn the things that they liked. He loved the way her hands fisted in his hair, pulling him closer and deepening their kiss.

More reacting than thinking, Asch pushed two fingers inside of her
. She squeezed her inner muscles around him encouragingly as he worked his fingers, rubbing her stiff clit with the pad of his thumb. She leaned into him, slipping her tongue past his lips. He ran his tongue along her, carefully guiding her fragile flesh away from his sharp canines.

Asch wanted to take her from the water and forget about everything outside of her bedroom. He wanted to toss her, wet and naked, onto the bed and bury himself inside of her
where nothing else existed except the sounds of her pleasure and the feeling of their bodies moving together.

He pulled his hand from her, and after a gentle nip to her lip, pushed her back into the tub. She frowned at him, her shoulders slumping.

“Why’d you stop?” she asked, crestfallen.

Asch leaned in to press a kiss to her forehead. He let out a heavy sigh against her skin. “I have to go.”

“I don’t see why they need you to lead the hunt,” she groused.

He explained, “If Caim or I aren’t with them when they hunt, they won’t save anything. There’s more to being an alpha than just being large and strong. We have to always consider the welfare of the pack, and right now that means making sure there will be plenty of food in the den when winter comes.”

That was mostly true. Game was scarce in the area, and in order to get the types of meat they needed—deer and elk in particular—they would often have to leave the safety of the valley and hunt in more contested areas. It had been at least a year since they had even a minor skirmish with any other wolves, but there was a nearby tribe of cougars that frequently tried to scavenge their kills. Like most werecats, their tribe was very small—half a dozen members at last count. But while they were little threat to the pack as a whole, they could do serious damage to a leaderless hunting party.

These weren’
t things that Mila needed to concern herself with though. While the cats were a nuisance, they wouldn’t dare breach the valley, and if they did, he and Caim would be waiting for them.

She tilted her head back to stare at him. “I’ll miss you.”

He searched her brown eyes, finding them clear and guileless. Something deep inside of him seemed to settle into place then. In a voice thick with emotion, he told her, “I’ll miss you, too.”

~~~

Mila had spent the past three days longing for her luggage. Her bags had been left behind after Wayne Ramsey’s truck broke down on the way to Lazarus territory. Her initial outrage at having to leave them behind had quickly faded, overshadowed by the exhaustion of the grueling journey by foot and the gnawing anxiety that had plagued her the entire way.

Once she was safe in the den though, the first thing she had wanted was to have her possessions back. She still felt so out of place in the pack, and she thought that being surrounded by her belong
ings would make her feel more at ease. Instead, all it had done was made her realize all over again, what a clueless idiot she had been.

They ranged from the impractical: f
our pairs of stilettos, six sets of lingerie, and a manicure set; to the completely useless: a curling iron, a flat iron, a digital camera, a tablet, an iPod, and her personal favorite, thirty issues of Vogue. Seriously, what had she been thinking?

She just couldn’t put herself in that frame of mind anymore. Even though it had only been a few days, she felt like a different person, and that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.
At least then, she had known who she was. Hadn’t she?

She looked around at her possessi
ons, half-unpacked and strewn about the room. Even when she’d lived in Terry Creek, she hadn’t missed New York this much. Even during the worst of times, she’s known that she could get out. She could retake her aptitude tests in the spring and then go back and finish her final year of undergrad study. That knowledge had kept her sane in the face of the squirrel-hunting, frog-eating, square-dancing denizens of Tye County.

But this was entirely different. It wasn’t that she felt like she couldn’t escape. Mila was fairly certain that Asch wouldn’t keep her against her will, and Caim? He would probably be more than happy to
haul her all the way back to Manhattan.

It wasn’t that she wanted to run, either. It was just the opposite. She wanted to stay, to fit in, and
to be a part of the pack. She wanted the alphas to not fight over her in the bedroom, and she wanted Caim to at least pretend that he liked her outside of it.

It was a tall order though. Every time she started to think that she was figuring things out, a new insecurity would emerge and she’d be back to square one: lost and afraid.

Trying to distract herself from the haze of depression, she pulled the final piece of luggage into her lap. It was the bag that held all of her casuals: jeans, t-shirts, underwear, and a bathrobe. No sneakers, sadly, but she was just grateful to have anything besides pencil dresses to wear around the den.

As she reached in the back to pull out a bundle of undergarments, she felt something hard. Her brow furrowed as she grabbed onto the object, tugging it loose.
It was her unabridged copy of
Wolves of the Cordilleras
.

The familiar smells of ink and old paper
evoked a youthful nostalgia as she thumbed through the yellowed pages. Her father’s girlfriend, Margo, had given her the book for her twelfth birthday. During the five years that she’d dated Mila’s father, Margo had made it her personal mission to undermine Mila’s good Baptist upbringing, and had largely succeeded. Long after she had read and re-read the memoirs of Marie du Luponte, Mila relived the stories in her fantasies, fantasies which had grown increasingly more explicit as she had gotten older.

But in the midst of her fantasies, Mila was coming to recognize that she
’d idealized Marie’s story. She had only remembered how handsome and powerful Rein was, how beloved Marie was by her pack, and how beautiful their children were.

What she never bothered dwelling on was how much Marie had suffered. Rein may have cared for her, but it was years before he committed to monogamy.
Much of the pack resented Marie for expecting Rein to be monogamous, and it was only after she had her first son that they began to accept her. And as beautiful as her children were, she was always distressed by the fact that Rein kept her pregnant. Her life had hardly been a fairy tale.

Mila set the book aside and finished unpacking her clothes, feeling more somber than ever. Once she had everything folded neatly onto the shelves, she changed into a pair of jeans and a V-neck tee. She contemplated the tub, which was still in the center of her room, and decided that she’d have Brae or Rosie help her dump the water later, but she was keeping it. For the first time in days, she actually felt clean.

Without any shelf space left, she ended up repacking most of her stuff. She had a good laugh at her past self when she realized that she hadn’t packed any type of charger for her iPod or tablet. She really had not thought any of this through.

Mila was still chuckling to herself when she felt a change in the air.

“I am glad to find you in good spirits.”

She turned to the doorway, stiffening when she saw Lotus.
There was really no reason for her visceral reaction to the woman, but something about her really irked Mila.

“What can I do for you?” she asked, in a tone that added, ‘
talk fast, and see yourself out
.’

She gave Mila a tight, unblinking smile. “I just wanted to thank you. Asch told me what you are doing for the pack, and I could not be more relieved. I was so concerned that—”

Mila cut her off. “What do you really want from me?”

Lotus paused, her body tensing.
She was remarkably beautiful, but in the closer proximity of her room, Mila could tell that she was older than most of the females in the pack. Fine lines framed her mouth and grew from the corners of her eyes, eyes which were now regarding Mila with much less warmth.

Gesturing towards the bed, she said, “Have a seat, Mila.”

Laughter bubbled up from Mila’s chest. “What?”

“Have a seat,” she repeated evenly. “We need to have a conversation.”

“Um, I don’t think so. You can’t just barge into my room and order me around. Besides, I know what you want to talk about, and I don’t care. You can have him.” Her voice traitorously cracked on the last part. Lotus gave her a dry look.

“Do not presume you know why I came here, and I do not need your permission to have Caim. I h
ave known him from the time he was born. Much of my life has been devoted to ensuring his happiness, and right now that means I must help you.”

Mila felt mildly dumbstruck as Lotus moved from the doorway and took a seat on her bed. Curiosity winning out over pride, she followed suit, sitting down a few feet away from her. Lotus smiled again, and this time it seemed less
forced.

“Good, now talk to me.
How are things between you and our alphas?”

The question caught Mila off-guard.
She was not interested in admitting to this golden goddess that she was hopelessly overwhelmed and at a complete loss as to how to handle the two men in her life. She looked down at her hands and began picking at her nails.

“I have two, insanely hot men vying for me in bed. What could possibly be wrong?” Mila thought she sounded pretty convincing.

Lotus put a cool hand on her shoulder. “You have two extremely aggressive males fighting over you in bed. If you were not frightened being stuck between Asch and Caim, I would think you were the insane one.”

Mila looked up at Lotus, her throat constricting. Lotus’s crystalline gaze was unnerving. It made Mila feel stripped, exposed, and strangely eager.

Her mouth opened and closed before saying, “It would be so much easier if it was just Asch.”

Guilt permeated her. It was the thought that had been on loop in her mind for days.

What if I just rejected Caim?

No one had said that she couldn’t reject one of the alphas, just that it would be impractical for her to choose a male without first determining which was strongest. But strength was a w
olf value. Mila was not a wolf—she was a human, and she had other needs.