Mated for Keeps Boxed Set: a BBW Werewolf Shifter Romance (The Lost River Pack) (12 page)

“But what if—”

Nico reached up and caught her hand, tugged it away from his face. His thighs flexed, muscles taut in his jeans, as he straightened up on his knees. It put his face level with hers. His eyes, hauntingly feral in his so human face, bored into hers. Silver and white, black and gray. “No what ifs,” he cut in softly. “Feed her. Let her run. We want you—all of you. We want you to make this your home, we want to protect you. That means giving every part of you the freedom to be who you are.”

Alek stood up from the table, snagging a piece of ham. “Dema, let’s go.”

Natalie started to look away, to ask him why he left, but Nico grabbed her face between his long hands and held her gaze on his. “No interruptions, Natalie. What do
you
want?”

The brothers left without another word, and she couldn’t decide if she felt abandoned or not—if this Nico, this stern man with the eyes who tore through her defenses, scared her or challenged her or something else.

He wanted her to…What?

Be herself?

Who was she?

Natalie’s fingers closed on his shirt, twisted the material in her fists. “I don’t know,” she whispered.

“Yes, you do.” He let go of her face to rest his fingertips gently on her bare knees. Five points of searing warmth on each leg. Her nerves tingled. Her skin tightened. “What do you, wolf and woman,
want
?”

“Freedom,” she managed, a husky rush of sound. “A home. Comfort.” The words came one after the other; as if the first confession stripped the dam from her mind. “Family, acceptance. Something to protect.
Love.
”

The heat of his touch eased up her legs. Drew furrows of sensation along her thigh. “And?”

Natalie’s eyes screwed shut. “I don’t know.”

His nails dug into her flesh. Pain, but no blood. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I don’t know,” she repeated, ragged as her back arched. Her legs opened. The raw, throbbing nerve of her body bloomed as mating heat speared through her. Hunger and need and wicked, wanton fantasy.

The air in the kitchen altered. The fringes of that power she could only chase, like phantoms on the wind, thickened. A tease. A taste.

Nico’s palms skated up her thigh. Eased between them, lifting her shirt hem to expose her to the morning light. She was already damp, already aroused, but as he leaned closer, as the heat of his skin flared mere centimeters from her flesh, Natalie shuddered. She grabbed the edges of the chair seat, her heart pounding.

“Then,” Nico said, his breath stirring the wet curls between her legs, “I will teach you.”

“Oh, God,” she sobbed, and then didn’t know how to put together any other words as his thumbs pressed against the soft flesh of her sex. Eased the folds apart, gentle pressure that sent shockwaves through her body. Her breasts ached, her stomach clenched.

“You spend too long human,” he said, his lips brushing against her skin. Her thighs tensed. “I want your wolf to see this land.” His tongue darted out. Flicked against her clit. She jumped. “I want you to see it the way I do. Love it the way we do.” Again, his tongue touched her. This time, he lingered, flicked over the small bundle of nerves and then eased lower.

Natalie’s moan wrenched from her as he plunged his tongue into her sex. His fingers slid over her flesh, massaging the sensitive tissue as he licked and thrust and plunged as far inside her as his tongue could go—soft and warm and not nearly enough.

She fell back against the chair, head tipped back as she clutched at his head, fingers plunging into the knot of his hair. “Why?” she gasped. And then, because the unraveling parts of her brain realized she needed to clarify, Natalie fisted his hair in her hands and wrenched his head away. Tipped it back so she could stare into the white hot heat of his eyes and demand, “Why are you so gentle with me? You’re their alpha. Why don’t you—”

“Command you?” Nico licked the wet gleam of her arousal from his lips.

She could come just from that. Just from the way he licked her off of his mouth like she was his favorite dessert.

But she didn’t want to get off that easy.

Nico’s thumb plunged inside her sex, so fast and so sudden that her knees came up, her hands pulled at his hair. He didn’t buckle. His smile as she cried out her surprise, her hunger, stretched from ear to ear. “Because I could,” he said softly. “Because if I let go of my wolf the way you want, I can daze yours. Make you think you’ve chosen, you’ve
both
chosen, when you haven’t. You can’t take it all.”

Fear undercut the burn of her need.

It only made her hungrier. Sent a delicious thrill down her spine. Her hips tilted, body straining to ride his thumb as she wrenched his head up even farther. Forced his face inches from hers.

The shape of his smile tightened. Strained.

Hunger, feral and
real
, altered Nico’s features. Sharpened them.

“What if,” she managed, “I want to try?”

If she had any doubts about Nico’s control, how much of him was human and how much was something stronger than wolf, it bled away. His canines sharpened as the structural shape of his face subtly altered. Slowly. The finger inside her thickened. The faint sound of flesh as it altered, as it shifted, stretched, filled her ears.

And inside her own skin, her wolf began to howl.

His other hand captured the nape of her neck. Dragged her closer. “Then try,” he said, voice deepened to a guttural demand. He licked her mouth; a long, slow drag as much a claim as it was a challenge. “Run. Give her the lead and see what happens.”

J
ackson knelt
at the edge of the old riverbed, fingers knuckle-deep in the soft earth. Down the steep slope, crouched in the verdant field that was all that remained of the river the valley was named after, Ben carefully hid the traces of the system Damien had helped design and implemented as part of territory security.

“The wolf pack’s on the move,” Jackson called, brushing the dirt off his hands.

“The Yellow Canyon envoys won’t risk this way,” Ben agreed. “The wolves would warn us simply by protecting their territory.”

“Great.” Jackson looked up at the open sky, brilliant blue and empty of clouds. It made for gorgeous color, but bitter cold. Snow would roll through the valley in a couple weeks, if not sooner. If the damned Yellow Canyon envoys would wait until then, the Lost River would be in a better position, but he doubted they’d be that stupid. “When are you supposed to make contact?”

“Could be a matter of hours, could be days.” The second-in-command strode away from the fine layer of cable. “As long as Damien’s network works, we’ll have a good lead on them.”

“Trust,” Jackson said wryly.

The other man flashed a grin as he leapt up onto the bank.

The wind rolled through the trees on either side of them, plunged frigid fingers through skin and flannel. Jackson inhaled deeply, drew the icy promise of winter into his lungs until the burned. It smelled of woods and water and sky. Of freedom and the warm, pulsing musk of prey.

And of something else. Something familiar.

Jackson went still, head cocked to one side as awareness sliced through him.

He smelled her before he saw her. Like warmth and the unique fragrance of a woman in heat. Like arousal and hunger. Beside him, Ben echoed his stillness—but he didn’t linger in it. Didn’t roll himself in it like Jackson wanted to, didn’t give chase. Every inch of Jackson’s skin tingled.

Hunger swelled inside his flesh, gripped his wolf by the throat until he had to swallow back the urge to growl.

Ben made a thoughtful sound. “Nico’s got her running the land.”

“Yeah.” A rasp.

The other man ran a hand through the air, as if he’d pluck the currents of her scent from it. “
And
she’s running hot.”

Jackson grunted.

Hot and sweet and like a beacon. He’d be able to track her from anywhere. Could all but taste her on his tongue. Feel her under him. All her soft flesh and desperate urging. What would it be like to pin her against the earth, sink his cock into her as the forest loomed around them? A damned sight different than letting her ride him back in those other woods, that was for sure.

Ben shot him a steady eyebrow. “You can’t keep getting in her way.”

“I know,” Jackson replied between gritted teeth.

“Does your wolf?”

“
Barely
.”

Ben’s chuckle was dark, a baritone humor undercut by more calm than Jackson could scrape together. Fucking deep waters. “Explains why you’re still here with me instead of out there prying Damien’s puppy eyes off her ass.”

What would her wolf look like? Light fur? Dark? Tipped like Damien’s or brown like most American-bred breeds?

What would her fur feel like? Soft and silky or rough and thick?

It took more effort than he liked, but Jackson pulled his gaze away from the line of trees she ran through. “Why aren’t I prying
you
off her ass?”

Ben shook his head, his own eyes flicking to the forest. He rolled his shoulders in an idle stretch, easing the tension Jackson hadn’t realized crept into his muscles until then. “She’s sweet. Fucking incredible,” he admitted when Jackson snorted. “But it’s not right between us.”

“And that’s it?”

“That’s it,” Ben said. When Jackson said nothing, the other man and clapped him on the shoulder. “I can’t explain it. You know or you don’t.”

“And you know.”

“Yeah.”

Another gust of wind dragged through the trees, bringing with it the sound of a brittle branches, falling leaves.

And a long, wild howl. Liquid silver, smooth and haunting and
hungry
.

The hair on his nape prickled. The skin drawn tight over his muscles shifted ever so faintly. His wolf clawed at his restraints, snarled and frothed and strained with everything it had to take over, to shift and run and chase and
hunt
.

And hard on the heels of her fragrance, the whiplash scent of their alpha followed.

Ben sighed. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” He flung a hand to the forest spread out behind them. “If you’re so keen on going nose to nose with Nico,
go
.”

It was all the push he needed. Jackson leapt into a sprint, already stripping off his shirt. Heedless of the cold, the brittle ground, the frigid sky, he shed his clothes and allowed the change to take his body—flesh and bone, heart and soul, until four paws hit the earth and the world took on stunning, vivid life around him.

And through the center, colored in ways humans would never know, Natalie’s scent. Beckoning. Drawing him.

Drawing them both—two male wolves with a desperate desire to claim.

Run
, he thought, and tipped his muzzle to the sky.

N
ico didn’t corral her
. She could feel him, smell and sense him in the woods around her, but he didn’t shepherd her, didn’t force her the way he wanted her to go. Natalie wasn’t sure if she expected him to, or if she wanted him to, or if she thrilled in the freedom he gave her.

It didn’t matter. She ran through the Lost River Valley and let the smell, the colors painted in fragrance and sound, envelope her. The wind smelled like snow from the distant mountains, like the deepest recesses of the forest clasped lovingly between the valley walls. The earth beneath her paws, the sharper odor of grass and brush as she forged through it, the vibrant sense of
life
surrounding her filled her from nose to tail, wrapped her in it, cradled her.

She’d have sticks and mud clinging to her tawny brown fur when she was done, but Natalie didn’t care. This was freedom; this land, this sky, this speed as she darted between the trees. She tipped her face up and howled in joy.

An answering echo merged with her throaty cry—a long, rippling harmony that forced its way under her fur, clawed into her skin and left her shaking, shuddering, in response.

That wasn’t Nico. That was another wolf.

Another male. One she knew?

One she didn’t?

The feel of the alpha at her back, the pressure that whipped through the trees and curled into her senses, altered. Grew heavier.

She leapt over a fallen trunk, paused on the other side and cocked an ear. Her nostrils flared—instinct urged her to run, flee, force the males who hunted her to tear the ground up on a merry chase.

Make them work for her.

Make them hunger.

Mate
. She wanted it. Wanted to be run to the ground, wanted to know that the males on her tail
could
.

Her ears flicked as bracken cracked in the distance. Birds chirped in cheerful accompaniment, and the sound of their wings as they fluttered peppered the thrumming forest. She could smell everything, taste everything on her tongue—the tiny creatures burrowing in for the winter. The wolf pack who’d passed through this part of the Valley a few days prior.

The werewolves who closed in without fear.

Her teeth bared, a wolfish grin. Shaking herself hard, Natalie darted through a knot of thick oak and tangled thorns. She moved with a surety that her human body lacked, agile form and thick fur brushing through undergrowth as if it was made of water.

The air thickened. Grew warmer. The pressure of the alpha as he closed in heightened.

Challenged the other male who dared to trespass.

Let them try.
Natalie gloried in the chase. Loved that they chased her for the want of it—the want of
her
—not to take her freedom. Nothing could take her freedom now. This was air and sky and the fresh scent of water ahead. This was the welcome of nature, the comfort of home.

She backtracked, circled back on her own trail until the scent of it cut through theirs. Nico’s was easy to pick out—brisk and strong, like open fields and crackling storms. The second was different in her wolfish nose, but something about it earned her attention. Stalled her in the path of it, panting deeply.

Forest upon forest, cool and shadowed.

Jackson.

Her tail hiked. Her heart sped in her breast.
Want
. She wanted. Was he the one?

Was this the test her wolf demanded?

Another howl tore through the woods, answered by a closer challenge that had the birds around them taking wing. The cacophony filled her sensitive ears, but the scent around her altered. Changed.

Nico’s scent.

Her skin prickled. The birdsong went still, and she crouched in wary patience as even the warm-blooded creatures nestled in their hollows froze.

Male to male. Dominance. Challenge.

For her.

Run.

It wasn’t a fight. It was a race. They were racing to her, and Natalie leapt in delight—in fierce pleasure. Her paws thundered on the earth, her heart echoed in wild refrain. Wind battered at her, rippled through her fur, but it wasn’t cold. It was fresh. Goading.

Home.

God, could it be?

The smell of water merged with the sound of it, and she tore out of a copse of trees to find a small creek bubbling across her path. It smelled fresh and clean. She dropped her nose into it, lapped at the crystal clear liquid and thrilled to find it tasted like heaven.

Here. This was where she’d make her stand.

This was where she’d face them.

It didn’t take her any effort to shift back. She’d always found changing form easy, and as she rose to her feet, gloriously naked, she tipped her face to the sky and raised her hands. The sun streamed through the clearing, dappled the creek and painted her skin in diamonds.

With her wolfish senses dampened by her human body, she didn’t hear them approach. Didn’t realize they’d both arrived until Nico and Jackson stepped out of the ring of trees simultaneously—one from each side. They had already shifted back to form. Like her, they were naked, unabashed.

Beautiful.

Jackson with his broad body, heavy muscles and sculpted strength. Nico, shorter but no less defined, with effortless muscle control. Both were hard, unashamed of their erections; they wanted her.
Her.
In all her glory. Both stared at her—deeply green and wolfish white and black. Hunger battered at her.

She cupped her breasts in each hand. Stroked her own nipple with a thumb and shuddered when it set sparks through her belly.

They approached on bare feet, soundless on the earth, but it was Jackson who hesitated first. He glanced at Nico, fingers twitching before they closed into fists. “Alpha,” he said hoarsely.

Acknowledgement. Deference.

The strongest among them.

Nico’s mouth curled into the lazy smile she no longer assumed meant he was weak. The heat of his skin shimmered in front of her eyes, the
feel
of him—the weight of him—battered at her senses. He wasn’t weak. He was careful. Controlled.

Aware of the way he affected those around him.

He could take her, take whatever he wanted, and she knew in that moment as he stared at her that she’d never complain. His wolf could dominate her so thoroughly that she’d never even think herself trapped.

A trap in itself.

She raised her chin. Locked her knees when they shook.

Nico’s eyes trailed over her. Skimmed from her lips, which tingled, to the column of her throat. The sweep of her clavicle, the heavy spill of her breasts cradled in her own hands. His eyes shimmered. “What do you want, Natalie?” His voice wrapped around her, a low, velvet thrum. Almost a growl. Teasing. Knowing.

A knot formed in her belly. “Both of you.”

Jackson’s voice strangled in a grunt, but he didn’t move. Every muscle in his body vibrated with the effort to close the distance between them, to overtake his alpha—she could see the toll it took on his face. In his taut skin.

But he waited.

“How?” Nico pressed.

Her throat dried. Her fingers plucked at her nipple, until she shuddered. “I want…” The images assailed her all at once. Nico’s cock inside her, Jackson’s in her throat. Just like the twins, but harder. More.

But what could be more?

She shook her head, her hands stilling.

“
How
?”

She closed her eyes as Nico’s growl lashed out. “Oh, God,” she groaned. “I— I want something different.”

Jackson eased out a shuddering breath. “What did the twins do, Natalie?”

“Alek…in my mouth,” she whispered. The breeze skated over her bare skin, dragged cool fingers across her heated flesh. Her sex twitched. “Damien in my…my pussy.”

“Beautiful,” Nico murmured. “What else do you fantasize about?”

She couldn’t say it. Didn’t have the words. Them, on her. In her. All over her.

“She wanted to know about what we’d do to her ass,” Jackson said, his voice throttled into strangled calm. She opened her eyes to find him searching her face, cords on his throat standing out. “She’s never tried it.”

“Just what you did,” she admitted. His tongue at that part of her, licking at her, was unbearable by itself. She couldn’t imagine more.

“Is that true?”

She sucked in a breath. Nodded.

Nico held out a hand. “Come here.”

More than just a hand. More than a command. That hand held her future.

Summoning every ounce of courage she had—every iota of control she had left—she forced her body to move. Forced her legs to carry her, shaking and desperate, until she could slide her hand into his.

His fingers closed over hers. Slowly, like he had all the time in the world, he brought her hand to his lips. Slid his tongue over her knuckles.

Between her fingers.

“Do you understand what it means to be caught by me?”

She’d never expected the fine skin between her fingers to be so sensitive. She shuddered. “Yes.”