Valen had six shifters staying with them. He had been fortunate in that none of the shifters had balked at doing their duty.
People filed away in pairs or singularly, except for Anita and Walter, who remained.
“What is it?” Valen asked them.
“Yes, is something wrong?” Aaron stepped between them and Valen. “I don’t like that look.”
Anita sighed heavily and cupped Aaron’s cheek. “We feel it best that we leave the pack.”
“Mom!” Aaron exclaimed. “Not this again!”
Valen eased an arm around Aaron’s shoulders. “Let them explain.” He might have growled some.
Walter looked worn and old, as if the past few days had put a decade on him. “It’s not that we have a problem with you being a shifter or with the way Valen leads the pack. The fact is, though, we’re a risk, and we’re not willing to do what must be done to be turned into shifters. I can’t have intimate relations with someone besides your mother. She feels the same way. We promised to be faithful to each other, and we will. What anyone else wants to do is their right, but for us, we’ve lived good lives. If we must die, then so be it.”
“No!” Aaron lunged forward and Valen let him go.
Aaron clung to his parents. “No, you can’t do that. Don’t leave. You are both healthy still. There’s no illness about you. We might find a cure soon.”
Anita clicked her tongue. “We all know what the cure will be. Humans and shifters are being brought together by forces outside of our control. The species must merge to survive. Those who can’t will perish.”
“We don’t know any such thing,” Aaron argued. “Outside forces like what? Fairies? Ghosts?”
“Who knows,” Anita replied. “It’s happening. I feel it. Valen feels it. Look at what’s happening with the world, the weather, and not this disease or whatever it is.”
“No one knows,” Aaron argued. “Leaving now is unnecessary—”
“So we won’t leave right now,” Walter said. “But when we become noticeably infected, then you must promise to let us go without a fuss.”
Valen suspected that was what Anita and Walter had been working toward all during this conversation.
Anita nodded. “The other people in the pack will not want us here then. We’ll have to leave.”
“No. You can stay,” Aaron asserted.
Anita smiled sadly and stood on her toes to kiss his cheek. “You’re a good son. So is Matthew. I hope he’s saved from this.”
Aaron hugged her. “He will be.”
* * * *
Rivvie was only mildly embarrassed when Anita handed him a vial and told him it was to be used for lubricant.
Mildly embarrassed as in, he wished he’d just died on the spot.
Then he got over it. He had what he needed to take Matt’s anal virginity tonight. Excitement coursed through his veins. His canines started to descend as he imagined biting Matt,
really
biting him, pinning him down and fucking his tight ass while snarling and marking him.
Rivvie wondered if Valen knew what he’d had planned. For once, Valen didn’t send him out to hunt for dinner, and neither Rivvie nor Matt had guard duty that night.
Rivvie grabbed Matt by the elbow.
“Where are we going?” Matt asked. “We haven’t gotten to eat yet and—”
Rivvie crushed his mouth to Matt’s, while at the same time reaching behind Matt to get a nice, big handful of ass.
Matt gasped and jolted in surprise.
Rivvie pressed his fingertips into Matt’s crease. He grazed Matt’s tongue with his sharp teeth and tasted blood.
It hit his system like a giant dose of energy tangled with electricity. Rivvie rumbled with need and he began walking Matt backwards, toward a copse of trees. They’d stopped in a densely wooded area, with trees so tall it was hard to see the tops of them. The trunks were thick and covered in large pieces of tan bark. They carried a magnificent scent that seemed to clear out Rivvie’s lungs every time he breathed.
At the base of one was an opening big enough to lie in. He’d already set it up, adding plenty of moss and soft grasses to it. The lubricant was stashed there as well.
He had Matt on his back in no time at all. Only then did Rivvie break the kiss. He wanted Matt’s clothes off. “Naked,” Rivvie got out.
Matt bobbed his head eagerly. “You going to fuck me?”
“And bite you, and leave your ass covered in my marks,” Rivvie promised. “And this—” He cupped Matt’s balls through his clothing and began to slowly tighten his grip.
Matt’s eyes rolled back. “Oh gods. Oh fuck, fuck!”
Rivvie increased the pressure there then released Matt’s sac suddenly. “Naked. I want to see your balls when I’m doing that.”
Matt loosed a sweet, mewling sound while shoving at his pants. He got them off first, then the shirt.
Rivvie was too hungry for this man to be patient. He bent right over and bit at Matt’s tits, first the left, then the right, leaving purple marks on his chest. Each nipple got plucked and sucked, pinched and twisted until Rivvie had worked the nubs into swollen, hot stalks. He gave them each one last twist, eliciting a shout from Matt.
Then he moved down and cupped Matt’s furry, heavy sac again. “You want this.” He squeezed. “It’s not too much.”
“Not—” Matt panted, moving his legs restlessly. “Not enough.”
Rivvie added more pressure, closing his hand tighter. He licked a stripe up Matt’s cock from base to tip.
“Rivvie!” Matt jutted his hips.
Rivvie didn’t move his hand at all, so the tug to Matt’s sac had to have been startlingly sharp.
Matt yelped and bucked again. He pinched his own tits, and cum spurted from his cock.
Rivvie kept a hold of his nuts, though not as forcefully. He raked the nails of his other hand across one of Matt’s thighs.
Matt writhed and whimpered until the last ripple of his climax ceased.
Rivvie flipped him over onto his belly. He grabbed the vial of lubricant and eyed Matt’s upturned ass.
Rivvie set the vial down. He pushed Matt’s cheeks apart and licked over his asshole.
“Yes, oh please, Riv, please, please!” Matt wiggled his hips.
Rivvie reached beneath Matt and found that his dick was still hard. He started to stroke it while pushing his tongue into Matt’s pucker. When it slipped in easily, he lapped and lapped at Matt, tasting the man’s core, rubbing his nose into Matt’s crease and soaking in his scent.
Matt’s skin was heated and yet covered in goosebumps. He made the best sounds as Rivvie tongue-fucked him.
When that tight little rim was loosened and soaked, Rivvie sat up and got the lubricant. He opened it and poured some right over his cock, then more over Matt’s hole.
“Riv…Riv…” Matt seemed unable to say anything other than Rivvie’s name while Rivvie fingered his ass open.
Rivvie worked two fingers in easily, twisting and turning them, making Matt ready for him. He teased Matt’s gland, touching it lightly, just enough to make Matt shiver. Then he rubbed it harder and made him scream.
Sliding in the third finger took a little more patience. Matt’s pucker was loosening for him but it was by no means ready. Rivvie had a nice, fat dick that was going to spread Matt open so wide he’d feel the fucking for a week.
“How do you like this?” Rivvie asked, getting that third digit all the way in. Rather than give Matt time to answer, he went right to caressing his gland.
Matt said a lot of things, but none of them were words. His grunts and gibberish ratcheted up a notch when Rivvie began pressing his pinkie in alongside the other three fingers.
“Rivvie!” Matt whined and tilted his ass up.
Rivvie tapped Matt’s balls lightly, a bare swat that was just enough to give him some sensation.
Matt howled and got out the words, “Gonna come!”
Rivvie pulled his fingers from Matt’s ass. “You’d better not if you want me to fuck you.”
“Yes,” Matt hissed.
“Get on your elbows, ass tipped up and begging for me.” Rivvie helped Matt get into position. He slapped Matt’s ass rapidly, five swats per side, warming up that pale, soft skin. Before Matt could catch his breath from that, Rivvie lined up his cock and began pushing into the tight, gripping heat of Matt’s hole.
“Matt,” Rivvie panted, eyes wanting to close as pleasure washed over him. He couldn’t give in to the impulse to thrust hard and fast or close his eyes. Not until he had Matt ready to be fucked without reserve. Rivvie seated his cock fully and held still as Matt’s inner muscles went wild around his invading length. The fluttering, contracting movements were quickly tipping Rivvie past his control.
He couldn’t even ask Matt to relax. Rivvie’s throat was too dry and his need too great to even try to ask something from Matt that he himself wasn’t capable of doing.
Then Matt moaned and rocked back. Those silky internal walls loosened, and Rivvie was able to move.
It was glorious, perfect and beyond perfection at the same time. Rivvie folded over Matt and began to thrust, small movements at first as he reveled in the beautiful sensations flowing up from his cock.
He licked Matt’s nape, licked his neck and ear, then he slipped an arm beneath Matt and held Matt by the chin. He turned Matt’s head and began fucking him harder, driving in so forcefully at one point that Matt’s teeth snapped together.
And Matt pushed back into each thrust, mewled and moaned and begged for more.
Rivvie licked his neck again. He dragged his canines over it and delighted in the way Matt cried out.
Then he bit, without hesitation or worry, sinking his teeth deep into Matt’s flesh.
Matt bellowed and shook so hard he should have flown apart. Those velvety inner muscles gripped Rivvie’s dick and milked the cum right out of him. He was demolished by the intense ecstasy that overtook him, demolished and put back together by the quivering man beneath him, by the metallic taste of blood on his tongue, by the scent of Matt’s seed and the knowledge that he’d come with that part of him untouched.
Rivvie disengaged his teeth from Matt’s flesh and licked over the wound several times until it stopped bleeding.
They came back down together, Rivvie easing Matt onto his side so as not to crush him. Curled up, warm in a way that had nothing to do with heat, Rivvie held Matt.
“Wish we could stay right here, like this, forever,” Matt said eventually. “Gods, I didn’t know I’d love having you fuck me so much. Thought I’d have to think of how much I crave doing it to you instead, but no. I want you to fuck me again and again.”
Rivvie wasn’t offended. In fact, he knew how Matt felt. “I figured I’d grit my teeth through bottoming the first time I did it, but nope. Ended up thinking I might want to do just that from then on. I came around though. Topping, bottoming, I love it all. And I’ll gladly fuck you again, though we should wait a few days because—”
“Now,” Matt demanded. “You’re going to get hard and keep your dick right where it’s at.”
Since he still had it buried in Matt’s ass, Rivvie wasn’t too inclined to argue. He did have to make sure Matt understood how sore he’d be. “Your hole isn’t used to this. Neither all those soft muscles inside. Tomorrow you’re likely to be too sore to squat and walking will be sheer misery.”
“I’m about to be in sheer misery if you don’t move.” Matt clenched his ass around Rivvie’s cock. “And bite me again. Slap my ass. Pull my hair and do whatever you want with me. Just make me feel you all over.”
“If you’re sure,” Rivvie said.
As it turned out, Matt knew just what he wanted. Rivvie was left nearly unconscious and more content than he had ever been by the time they were ready to call a stop to it for the night.
Chapter Twenty-Three
It took another week of traveling before Valen found it. He came out on a rise overlooking a meadow covered in flowers of every color imaginable. Tall grass swayed in a gentle breeze, and the sky seemed to be an even brighter shade of blue than he’d ever seen it before. The trees were numerous, their foliage lush. The leaves ranged from a deep, rich green to almost yellow ones.
The trees themselves were unlike any Valen had seen before. When Aaron nudged him, Valen shifted, as did his mate. “Have you ever seen trees like that before?” Valen asked, looking out at them. “White bark, yellow bark, green—I’ve only ever seen black, brown, gray. A little red I guess. I wonder if any of them are fruit-bearing.”
“It looks like home, doesn’t it?” Aaron tucked his hair behind his ears. “Not like our former home, just…right. With the mountains so close, and the streams cutting across to the north and the east, and the smell of prey all around. It’s perfect.”
“It is.” Valen turned and held his hand out. “These will be our new pack lands. We’ll set up an area for both parts of the pack soon. For now, I expected everyone to respect each other’s wishes.” He left it up to his original human pack members as to whether or not they wanted to mingle with the new ones.
Rivvie came over to join him. “It’s beautiful. I sure hope Mom can find us.”
Valen flinched. “I hope so too. I was thinking of sending someone to look for her. I’d go myself if I could.”
“But you can’t, and I…” Rivvie sighed. “I can’t leave Matt. Not yet. He hasn’t shown any sign of being turned into a shifter. If something happened to him because I didn’t stay here with him, I’d never be able to forgive myself.”
“I’m not asking you to go. Besides, we don’t know if the new people are correct about the length of time it takes for the disease to progress. Best to stay here.” He patted Rivvie’s shoulder.
“Okay. So who would we send?” Rivvie asked.
Valen didn’t have an answer for that. “I need to think about it.”
“Can you decide soon? I’m really worried about her.” Rivvie frowned. “Maybe I shouldn’t be, but she’s our mom and we love her.”
“Exactly. You tell me who you think I should send and I’ll do it,” Valen suggested.
Rivvie gave him two names and the matter was handled.
Valen led his pack down into the meadow. He watched with a grin as the children and pups ran and frolicked, appearing less burdened than they had seemed to be for weeks now. The cross-country trek had been hard on them.