Authors: Lauren Dane
He sat on the bed. “Okay, I understand. I’d hoped that you would consider Pack law to be enough. You’re the Alpha. You’re their queen. But I want to make you happy. We can have a human ceremony if you wish.”
Oh god, she’d hurt his feelings. His pride. She sank to her knees and crawled toward him, touching her face to his feet, rubbing her cheek along the lines of his calves, being a submissive wolf. Letting him know how much she accepted him and the laws he upheld as Alpha. They could deal with the realities of legal situations in the human world tomorrow. For now she just wanted to love him, to show him she respected his world.
Reaching down, he stroked her hair, growling softly. She felt the vibrations through his bones, through his skin. His utter maleness, the musk of man and wolf, swirled around her.
She looked up at him. “My life for yours,” she said softly and saw the shimmer of emotion in his eyes, joy had replaced the pain.
He pulled her up to him, rubbing his cheek along her face, over her neck. His hands stroked over her skin softly. He murmured, “I love you, little wolf. Thank you for your apology and your fealty.”
Stretching up, she wrapped her arms around him tightly until a hand in her hair pulled her back enough so he could bring his lips to hers. There was nothing gentle or hesitant in his kiss. But his arms, so strong and large, cradled her as if she were the most precious thing he’d ever seen.
He moaned as she pulled his bottom lip into her mouth and laved it with her tongue. His tongue, hot and wet, swept in between her lips, tickling the roof of her mouth, caressing the flesh between her cheek and gums. Pulling her tongue into his mouth with gentle suction, he stroked over it with his own. He mimicked the in-and-out motions of sex and she whimpered with need, rocking her hips against him. Her hands, which had been on his chest, began to push his robe back until she was able to stroke the hard, bare skin beneath it.
He broke the kiss and stood, tugging the robe up and over his head quickly. Tossing it aside, he pulled her up to stand while he took hers off. Leaning in, she flicked the tip of her tongue across first one nipple then the other. He shuddered and gooseflesh broke out.
“You make me want to dominate you. Tell you what to do. Make you do it.” His voice was low and taut with need.
“Sounds gooood...oh yes...to me,” she gasped as he lowered his mouth to her breast and softly bit the nipple. Andreas understood the fine line between pleasure and pain. He bit just to the point of pain and shivers ran down her body, straight to her pussy.
Kari’s hands went to his cock but Andreas shook his head and dragged her over to the small love seat in the alcove near the windows. Sitting her down, he moved her hands back above her head, moving her fingers to grasp the back of the couch. “Leave them there, Kari. I love the way you look when you’re posed like this. Your tits offered up. Your back arched.
“I want you to stay still. Can you do that? If you can be good and listen to me, I’ll reward you.” His voice was serious and laced with authority that did wicked things to her body. She nodded mutely.
“Good,” he said, drawing her thighs apart, leaning in to rub his cheek over her mound. “Your panties are wet, Kari. Why is that, do you think? Hmm? Is it that you want me?”
She was dying to arch into his face to show him just how much. “Yes,” she gasped as he stroked a finger over her desire-slicked labia.
He stood and she whimpered. Staring up at his naked body, so fucking beautiful there in the low light, Kari licked her lips, aching to have him in her—mouth or pussy, she wasn’t choosy.
“Suck me off, Kari. Lean forward, but leave your hands where they are.” He knelt on the couch, thighs astride hers, and placed his hands on her head. As she leaned forward he cradled her head, helping her to keep her position. He groaned as she took him into her mouth. “Make me nice and wet.” Honey flowed, coating her pussy, hot and sticky. While he’d been dominant a bit before, this was a new level. It appealed to a dark part of her soul. Thrilled and excited her, and she wanted more.
She obliged, coating him while sucking him lightly. Her saliva made him nice and slick and he slid between her lips easily. His hands fisted in her hair. “Oh yeah, that’s it. Harder now.”
His pace sped up. Kari wasn’t so much moving her mouth on him as he was moving himself in her mouth, controlling the pace with his hips. Fucking her mouth, she realized, and the sheer carnality of it thrilled through her system.
She swirled her tongue over the head each time he dragged out of her mouth and flicked her tongue on his sweet spot underneath the head each time he pushed in. “Your mouth is so hot, so slick. I’m going to come. Yeah, oh god, yessss.” He hissed as his cock began to pulse as he came, filling her with his seed, nearly overwhelming her.
He continued to stroke into her mouth until he’d gone soft. Caressing her face, he kissed her forehead. “That was very good. Did you like that?” he asked huskily, moving off her and coming to kneel between her thighs.
She looked up at him, using all of her self-control not to whimper and beg him to fuck her.
Is that a rhetorical question?
“Yes.”
Slowly running his cheek up the insides of her legs to her thighs, he stopped and parted her, looking intently. “I can’t get enough of how fucking pretty your pussy is. Like a flower. I love your pussy. I love the way it feels around my cock. I love the way it tastes. I love to watch it clutching me when I’m inside you.”
“Ooh.” Kari’s response was involuntary. His words were driving her over the edge.
He leaned back and looked up at her. “What is it?”
“Please, taste me.”
“Here?” He licked the inside of her thigh.
She shook her head.
“Here?” He laved her navel.
Kari whimpered then in frustration and anticipation but all she got in return was one of his wicked smiles.
“Where?”
“Lick me, oh god, please. My clit!”
He hummed as he lowered his lips to her pussy and she nearly broke into tears of relief. He licked in one long line from her core to her swollen, needy clit. “It’s hard for me.” He drew it into his mouth, grating his teeth over it lightly, making her gasp and thrust her pussy into his face.
He leaned back. “So wanton. All for me.”
“Yes!” she snapped, frustrated that he’d stopped. She arched up and he moved his head back.
“Ah, ah, ah! Should I make you come?”
“Yes. Oh god, yes, please, please, please.”
He gave her that damned patented sex god smile and lowered his face to her. She was so close already that once he eased two fingers inside and flicked the tip of his tongue over her, once, twice, three times, she went off like a bomb.
Fingers clawing at the back of the couch, she screamed and clamped Andreas’s face into her pussy with her thighs. Her back bowed at the intensity of her orgasm but he didn’t stop. He gripped her hips and kept her pussy in his face. Kept at the hard pace, flicking his tongue over her clit with a featherlight touch. It was too intense. She’d moved her hands and had him by the hair, trying to pull him away when another climax hit. Sweat poured off her body, and she shook violently, screaming and moaning, trying to pull back to escape the intensity of his mouth.
“Please, god, stop. It’s too much,” she gasped out. With a chuckle he stopped, pressed a kiss to her belly and stood, looking down at her with greedy, glittering eyes.
Quickly, he flipped her over and faced her toward the back of the couch, arranging her so her ass was up in the air. Rapidly, his palm met that tender flesh and the shock of it morphed into a slow-building fire on her ass and thighs as he gave her several more slaps.
“You moved.” The velvet dangerousness of his tone strummed along her spine. She trembled with anticipation over what he’d do next.
Luckily, she didn’t have long to wait before he nudged her thighs wider and knelt between them. The wide head of his cock pressed against her. Taking a deep breath, she began to roll back into him. He put his hands on her hips, stilling her. “No moving. I’ll tell you if I want you to move,” he ordered and she stilled. “Good.” He petted the skin on her back softly. “I’m going to fuck you now. Is that what you want?”
“Yes,” she whispered, her body thrilling at the whip crack of his words.
He nudged his cock back, just barely against the cheeks of her ass. Kari stilled mentally. She’d never had anal sex before. She wasn’t sure she wanted to, either. Once, in college, a boyfriend had put a finger inside of her while he was going down on her. The idea was interesting, but there was a lot of cultural baggage that came along with one’s ass and Kari didn’t know if she wanted to jettison it or not.
“Kari.” Andreas spoke and she heard the tremor in his voice. “Have you ever had a cock in that tight little ass?”
She gulped. “No.”
He moved his cock down, back to her pussy. “We’ll have to change that. Not right now, though. It’s something we’ll have to work up to.” Without missing a beat, he plunged inside her so hard and deep he nudged against her cervix. She shuddered.
He rammed into her hard and fast, his balls slapping against her mons on each thrust. Kari gripped him with her vaginal muscles and felt him tremble. “Your pussy is so fucking tight. Squeeze me.”
He moved a hand that had been pinching a nipple down to her clit but she choked out, “No. Too much. Just fuck me.”
“Come for me now. I want to feel your pussy grasp and pulse around my cock,” he gritted out.
She didn’t know if her body could take it but she wanted to try. Wanted to please him even as she pleased herself. “Can I move?”
“Yes. Do it.”
She dropped a hand to her pussy and softly stroked herself, circling around her clit instead of touching it directly, stretching the hood, stroking skin on skin.
“Pet yourself. That’s the way.” Reaching around her body, his fingers met hers. She thought he was going to help but after he drew his fingers through her very wet folds a few times, he moved his hand away. Suddenly he was back, slowly stroking down the crack of her ass and then over the bud of her anus. She gasped, freezing up.
“Trust me,” he murmured, lips against her spine for a brief moment before he moved his body back, continuing his relentless pistoning in and out of her pussy. She realized then he had more access to her ass.
Kari willed herself to relax, to concentrate on her hand as it circled her clit, dragging herself higher and higher. Andreas’s middle finger stroked her, wet with her juices, and slowly he worked it in.
“Easy, little wolf. Relax.”
At that point, hearing the desire-taut character of his voice, Kari realized that he was more turned on than she was at the intrusion. Continuing to slide his finger in, past the first knuckle, he pressed into her inexorably until he’d penetrated her to the webbing of his hand. He slowly started to stroke in and out of her and she realized that he was also touching himself through the thin wall that separated pussy from anus.
Oh god
, knowing that, coupled with all the sensations that bombarded her—new and unused nerve endings being stroked by his fingers, her hand on her clit, his cock moving deep into her cunt—brought her orgasm rocketing through her with electric intensity.
Her pussy gripped the girth of his cock, showering him with cream. He moaned and with a last deep thrust he came. Kari felt his cock pulse over and over until he exhaled with a long, shuddering breath and pulled out.
Picking her sweaty, boneless body up quickly and easily, he walked them over to the bed, put her under the sheets and joined her, as always bringing her into the shelter of his body.
“That was the single most incredible sexual interlude I’ve ever had,” he said into her ear.
“Yeah,” she managed to stutter before falling into a deep, sated sleep, her head against his rising and falling chest.
Chapter Seven
Kari woke to an empty bed and enjoyed the moment of solitude. Wincing, she stretched her sore muscles before rolling herself in the sheet on Andreas’s side of the bed, wrapping herself in his scent. The night before had been pretty spectacular as nights went. As sex went it was spec-fucking-tacular.
With a smile, she poured herself a glass of water from the bedside pitcher and drank it down in two gulps. Teach her to drink so much in one night. She was lucky she didn’t have a headache. She did have a nasty taste in her mouth, though.
She heard noise downstairs. Laughing and talking and the smell of coffee rose, strong enough to motivate her to get out of bed. She padded into the bathroom and took a long, hot shower.
She towel-dried her hair and got dressed, leaving her hair free behind a headband. She had a moment of dizziness as she pulled a sweater on over her head and realized she was starving.
Outside the door Phillip and Ryan sat at the table in the loft area playing cards and drinking coffee. Phillip smiled sheepishly when he saw her. Still feeling bad about the pictures, she guessed.
“Morning, boys,” she said, reaching out to touch them both as she walked past. Andreas saw her and yelled up to Phillip to keep playing his game, that he’d take it from there.
As she descended the stairs, Kari took a long, greedy look at her man. Wearing a pair of low-slung jeans and a T-shirt, he looked quite edible. He smiled, drawing her to him when she reached the bottom of the stairs.
“Good morning, little wolf.” He kissed her lightly.
“Mmm. You taste like coffee with cream and cinnamon. I want more. Lots more.”
“Oh you’ll get more. After breakfast we’re going right back to bed. Let’s get you fed. You’ll need your strength.” His voice was low, eyes glimmering with sensual promise. “Anna made
you
cinnamon buns but let me have one. Let’s go into the dining room, see if she’ll let me have another.”
Seated at the table and watching the byplay between Andreas and Sean over the cinnamon rolls, Kari rolled her eyes but shortly afterward broke out in a cold sweat.
“Are you all right?” Laurent asked her, coming over to crouch next to her chair.
“Elaine! Come in here, please,” Andreas bellowed.
“I’m all right. I just felt a bit nauseated for a moment. I’ve been through a bit in the last week, you know. It’s probably just the flu.”
Andreas shooed everyone away from her when Elaine came into the room.
“Kari isn’t feeling well. She went all pale,” Laurent told Elaine.
“Just a dizzy spell. A bit of nausea. I’m all right,” Kari insisted.
“Just the same, let me look at you.” Elaine put her medical bag on the table and popped a thermometer in Kari’s mouth, causing her to gag. “Okay. Well, let me check your pulse and look into your throat and ears.”
After she’d given Kari a cursory look-over, she put her things back into her bag. “You look okay. You’re a bit warm but we run warm anyway. Why don’t you go and lie down for a bit?”
Before Kari could protest, Andreas swooped in, picked her up and carried her toward their room.
“Bring her some tea and toast please, Anna,” he said as he started up the stairs, leaving Anna scurrying into the kitchen to make her a tray.
“I’m fine! Put me down!” Kari protested as Andreas walked into their room. Phillip followed behind them, looking worried. “Are you going to be like this every time I sneeze, Andreas Phinney?”
He laid her gently on the bed, propping pillows up behind her. “I’ll be however I need to be to protect you,” he said shortly.
Anna came in with the tray and set it down on the bed. “Here, eat it slow. You’ll be right as rain in no time.”
“Thank you, Anna,” Kari said, patting her hand.
Andreas started to pick up the toast and feed it to her. She grabbed his wrist. “That is
not
necessary. I can feed myself, you know.” And then she had to bolt into the bathroom to throw up.
She could hear Andreas yelling for Elaine again and then he pounded on the door to be let in.
She sat on the bathroom floor, trying to catch her breath. “Leave me alone for a moment!” she yelled back, thanking her ability to shut and lock the door as she’d entered the room. A girl needed a bit of privacy now and then. Jeez.
“Kari, you will open this door right now or I’ll break it down. You know I can.”
She crawled over to the door and unlocked it and he nearly fell in over her body as he rushed inside. He fell to his knees beside her. “Baby, are you all right?”
“
Yes
. I told you, it’s probably just the flu.”
“We don’t get the flu, Kari. You’re beginning to spike a fever,” Elaine said once she’d entered the room, checking Kari’s lymph nodes again. “Open.”
Kari opened her mouth and Elaine made a distressed sound. “This is more irritation in the mucus membranes than I like to see after vomiting. Damn it. Your eyes are clear. You haven’t eaten anything that others haven’t, have you?” Elaine asked, looking worried.
“I had chicken salad yesterday that Anna made just for me but I don’t think that’s it.”
Cramps racked her body and she doubled over in pain. “Kari?” Elaine said, but it sounded to Kari like she was underwater. A thick sweat broke out all over her body and she started shivering. Elaine spoke but Kari couldn’t understand her.
“I... Oh shit,” she mumbled and everything went black.
* * *
Andreas looked down at the shivering, doubled-over body of his Mate, trying not to panic. She smelled wrong. “Elaine, what’s that smell?”
“Poison. Jesus, she’s been poisoned.” She started pressing Kari’s stomach to see what her kidneys felt like, if her internal organs were swollen or hard.
Kari looked up at them, mumbled and passed out.
Elaine stood up and took charge. “Andreas, get her to one of the cars. We’ve got to get her to a hospital right now.”
Andreas picked her up and they all ran down the stairs. Phillip had started the SUV and waited for them. Sean didn’t know what was going on but jumped into the backseat, helping Andreas hold Kari. Phillip got behind the wheel, Elaine got in next to him and Ryan shoved into the front seat with them.
“We’re taking her to the hospital in Wenatchee. I’ll call later,” Elaine called out to the puzzled group left behind as they tore out of the drive and onto the two-lane highway.
“She’s going to be all right,” Sean said to Andreas, who looked more scared than Sean cared to admit. Elaine was on the phone, speaking to the hospital to get them ready for Kari.
Ryan called the lodge and explained to Anna what had happened. Anna was to set aside any of the leftover chicken salad, just in case. He admonished her not to say anything about poison to anyone other than Tomas, Skye, Laurent or Devon.
“Laurent and Devon are on their way. Your dad had to take your mom back to their cabin, she’s very upset,” Ryan said over his shoulder to Andreas, who nodded blankly before going back to rocking Kari’s unconscious form, stroking her hair and speaking softly to her.
Sean stroked gentle hands over Kari’s legs, up under her pants. She was soaking wet and clammy. Her eyes fluttered beneath closed lids.
“What’s taking so long?” Andreas’s voice was laced with fear.
“I’m driving as fast as I can, Andreas. This road is narrow. If we got into an accident, it would kill her,” Phillip answered calmly.
Ryan turned in his seat and put his hands over Andreas’s as he stroked Kari’s hair and face, lending his strength to his Alphas.
Twenty minutes later—a land-speed record—they pulled into the emergency lane of the hospital. Andreas jumped out, directed by Elaine, who had him place Kari on a waiting gurney. Ryan went to move the car, and Sean, who practiced out of that hospital, helped Elaine get Kari through the ER quickly.
“We need to pump her stomach right now,” Elaine said to the attending physician as he approached them. “We think she’s been poisoned. She’s vomited. She’s got a high temperature. She passed out less than half an hour ago and has been in and out of consciousness.”
She continued to fill the other doctor in as they ran toward a set of double doors at the end of the hallway. There a nurse approached Andreas. “You’ll have to wait here.”
“Like hell, I will. That’s my wife!” His hands shook as his voice cracked with anguish and rage. The nurse took a step back, pale at the sight of such a large man so close to losing control. The emotion radiated from his body in waves.
Elaine had never heard him in such a state before. She turned to him. “Get yourself together, Andreas. You can’t come in. We need you to stay out here. Someone will be out to tell you when we know anything.”
Grabbing his arm, Sean pulled him back. “If you don’t calm down, they’re going to kick you out of here. You terrified that nurse.” He put his face close to his brother’s. “Focus, damn you! Get it together. Come back to the waiting room.”
Andreas blinked, seeing his brother, anguish twisting his features. “I can’t leave her.”
“You
aren’t
leaving her. You’re right here. Elaine will stay with her the whole time. Now, please.”
Numb, Andreas allowed Sean to lead him into the waiting room. A moment later Ryan, Laurent and Devon came in and sat down around Andreas. Phillip stood there, looking down the hallway, before striding over to Andreas. Dropping to his knees, he exposed his throat. “I failed her. Kill me, Andreas.”
Snapping out of his numbness, Andreas looked at Phillip. Then at Ryan and Devon, at Sean and Laurent. Men whom he’d grown up with. Men he loved. His stomach clenched and he reached out to draw Phillip close.
“No, Phillip,
I
failed her. Someone poisoned her. A member of our Pack. If you can’t trust your Pack, who can you trust? You did your best by her. You’ll continue to do so when she recovers. For now, get up. This is a public place.”
“I don’t deserve your trust.” Phillip’s eyes remained downcast.
“Did you poison her?”
“No! Of course not! I’d die for her. I love Kari like a sister.”
“So, why don’t you deserve my trust? Enough, Phillip. Enough guilt. I don’t blame you and you know she won’t, either. I need someone to call Skye. Have him ask Anna who was in the kitchen yesterday when she was making those sandwiches for Kari. I know it wasn’t the bread, I ate some of that. Everything else she ate, at least that I know of, others ate too.”
Glad to have a task, Phillip got up, taking his phone outside to make the call.
“Oh, and Phillip?” Andreas called to him.
“Yes?”
“No one leaves yet,” Andreas said and put his head back in his hands.
* * *
Back at the lodge, Skye listened intently as Phillip relayed Andreas’s orders. “Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll call you back.”
He hung the phone up and went to go speak to Anna, who was beside herself thinking that it was her fault that Kari was ill.
He did his best to reassure her and get her to focus on who might have been in the kitchen around the time she’d made the chicken salad. Right then it was the only thing they had to go on.
“Well, you know how it is at a Gathering. Everyone under my feet. You were in here, grabbing milk and stealing apples. Drew brought me a flat of peaches. Alex came in and got something out of the pantry. Johanna was here to grab a cup of coffee. Andreas came in with Tomas and tried to get me to make him a sandwich with the chicken salad. I relented later and made him a turkey sandwich with the bread I made that morning. Thank god he didn’t eat the chicken salad too. Ryan came in and got a beer and Ellen came by for a bowl of ice cream. I think that’s it. At least within an hour or so before, during and after.”
Alex and Johanna. The two Pack members he trusted the least. Johanna certainly hated Kari. But Kari, the sweet but surprisingly vicious little wolf she was, had taken care of that threat. Alex had sniffed around Kari a bit long for Skye’s tastes but had been properly submissive at all times. He trusted Drew with his life. There was no way Tomas would hurt his daughter-in-law and he didn’t believe Ryan or Ellen capable of hurting a woman they had both seemed to really take to. He knew that
he
hadn’t done it. Hell, if Andreas hadn’t been around, he’d have jumped on a woman like Kari.
Kari would unite the Pack as never before, in his opinion. He knew Andreas adored his Mate. He knew Anna’s loyalty to Cherchez ran so deep she’d die herself before allowing any of them to be hurt. So back to Johanna, who was dead. And Alex.
After a quiet word to Gregory about the issue of the missing poison from a few days prior and an order to check on what they had on hand and if anything else had gone missing on the property, Skye went out to speak to the rest of the Pack, who’d gathered in the great room. They’d kept the number of people who knew Kari’d been poisoned as small as possible. Laurent wanted to see what people’s reactions were as they all found out.
“I don’t know anything new. Kari’s being examined now,” he said. “I’d like to talk to you all to see if you saw or heard anything that might help us figure out what’s wrong with her. She’s still unconscious and hasn’t been able to say anything.”
* * *
At the hospital, Elaine held Kari’s hand while they pumped her stomach. Her blood—which was handled personally by Sean, as werewolf blood was so different from humans’—showed positive for a common poison often used illegally on animals. Whoever had poisoned Kari did it knowing that she wasn’t human.
The doctor administered a medication meant to counteract the poison. All they could do now was wait. Kari’s newly transformed system could fight off illness and damage ten times better than any human’s could and that gave them hope. If she’d been human and given the poison, it would have killed her within hours.
But the more Elaine and Sean talked about it, the more they doubted it was the chicken salad. With their metabolisms, it seemed unlikely that the poison would have taken so long to affect Kari, and then so severely. Kari had transformed the night before and had been in a fight with Johanna. If she’d been poisoned before that, why hadn’t it affected her then?