12. Lila
12
LILA
K age’s comment never should’ve hurt as deeply as it did. I didn’t want them to claim me, even though I could only assume what that meant. So, why did my heart bleed when he told me they wouldn’t?
We went down to the fourth floor. There was a viewing room with a window that Kage and Rainor went into. To Kage’s disgust, I left Max with Rainor, hoping he would ensure his safety.
Weylin and I went through a different door, one that led into an arena the size of multiple football fields. How big, exactly, I couldn’t see, due to the design of the space. Rocks, grass, a pond, and trees filled the arena, giving it a very natural look, if not for the fluorescent lights in the high ceilings.
I followed Weylin along the wall and through a locker room door. There were a few people—shifters—undressing and getting ready to go into the arena. No one blinked at the nakedness of one another; it was as normal as wearing clothes.
“You can put your clothes in the locker here.” He pointed to an empty locker. “Same with your phone and devices. In the future, you’re welcome to bring a lock, but no one is going to search through your belongings here.”
I nodded and began to undress, taking my blazer off and folding it before placing it into the locker. Weylin followed my lead, taking off his suit jacket.
“Do you know him?” I asked. “I mean, I know he’s your teammate, but do you know him?”
“You don’t want to know that.” He began unbuttoning his shirt.
“Why?”
“Because if you humanize the wolf…” He took a breath, clearly uncomfortable. “If you see him as a person, it makes it more difficult to kill him.” He took his shirt off, revealing the scar that took up half of his chest.
I frowned, my fingertips reaching for the mess of half-healed tissue. “What happened?”
Seeing my hesitation, Weylin took my hand in his and placed it over his heart. “I was given a choice—kill another or put myself in harm's way.”
“Did you kill him?”
“No. I wasn’t raised like the others in this pack. I came from nothing, and yet, at times, I felt as if I had more than them.”
“Why didn’t you kill him? It looks like he nearly killed you.” I flattened my palm to his mutilated pectoral muscle. I swore I could feel his heart as if it were closer to the skin because of the wound.
He looked down at my hand before smiling and glancing back up to me. “I don’t know. I held the gun, loaded with silver, in my hand. Finger on the trigger, safety off, and still, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. A moment of weakness, if you will.”
“Everything is ready,” someone called into the locker room.
I pulled my hand away from his chest and started undressing again until I stood before Weylin, naked. He grabbed my hand once more before I could turn away. “I can’t stop the fight, the challenge, but I won’t let him kill you. This is something you agreed to, something you asked for. If I don’t allow it, they will see you as a weak member of the pack. Weak members do not get treated well—do you understand?”
I nodded, though I didn’t really understand. “I received combat training at the academy, though this will be my first fight in wolf form.”
Weylin cursed before taking off his pants. I smiled, taking him in, hard cock and all. Weylin was very well endowed.
“So, what was your count today?” I asked.
He took me by the hand and led me outside. “One.”
I frowned. I had expected more, but oh well.
He shook his head as we stepped out the door, grass tickling the bottoms of my feet. I wish I had flip-flops. “Lila, I have been hard since we stepped off that fucking elevator. I think it might be a permanent thing when I’m around you.”
I rolled my eyes. Glancing around, I watched shifters change from human to wolf within seconds. I swallowed.
“After you,” Weylin said.
“I…my transition time is a lot slower than theirs.”
“No one will attack while you’re in transition. There’s no honor in that. I’m right here, Lila.”
I nodded before beginning my shift. The crunch of bones breaking into place, snapping of ligaments, and the rearranging of organs filled all my senses so that I couldn’t concentrate on anything else around me. My lush white fur sprouted along my limbs, and my ears felt heavenly as they stretched up to the sky. My wolf was more than pleased to display herself, and that’s exactly what she did.
Having gained a small crowd, I stretched my front paws out before standing upright and giving a bit of a shake.
“Fucking gorgeous.” My ear twitched back to Weylin’s voice. He stared at me in complete awe before making his transition. He was quick; within a couple of blinks, a large magnificent grey wolf stood where he’d once been.
I couldn’t communicate with him anymore, but I read his body language. Our crowd of onlookers had as well, falling in line behind Weylin and me, flanking us as we ran up a hill towards a clearing.
Most of the wolves in the pack were black with various markings. Some of them were white, and I saw one wolf with red tips that shimmered under the lights. There were a couple that were grey, like Weylin, but he was much larger in size, his colors somehow more majestic.
Standing in the clearing, with a small following of his own behind him, was a black wolf with white paws and a white-frosted chest. His eyes told me who he was, the one who had challenged me.
His lip twitched and pulled with a snarl as he tracked my descent into the clearing. Weylin stayed next to me, right up until the invisible, though obviously, circle that everyone was respecting, but before I could leave him, he turned and pressed his muzzle into my shoulder. He would be watching my back.
I walked into the ring, taking in the crowd and the sheer beauty of the pack. Maybe now wasn’t the best time to notice such thing, but I’d grown up as the only wolf, and now I was being thrust into a group of so many.
There was no pause. There was no time for me to take in any more than what I already had. The black wolf ran straight for me, teeth bared and hackles standing on end. He sank his teeth into the side of my neck.
I cried out, snapping my head back and biting at his side, shaking when I took a large piece of flesh between my teeth.
The last time I had attacked anyone, in even remotely close to wolf form, was back in fifth grade, when Danny Hubert pulled my braids and called me a dead brain because I was shy and quiet. I hadn’t completely transitioned, and it was the first time I realized I could shift specific parts of my body. I bit his arm, ripping a chunk of flesh back in a way that, when I finally let go of the screaming child, the muscle on his arm flapped back and forth in the wind.
My father, Jacob, gave me a good lecture that night about self-control. Danny had lost that muscle on his arm. He worked at the local gas station now, and every time I go in, I can’t help but look at the missing flesh from the arm. Scar tissue over bone, that’s all that was there. He now claimed it was a freak accident, that he couldn’t explain it but didn’t hold it against me. Still, I’d never lashed out in such a way to another human again.
But I wasn’t among humans.
At first, I jumped, turning my head and snapping at his face until he let me go. Now, the hackles on my back were raised, my teeth bared as a warning. The black wolf didn’t take my warning and lunged for me again. This time, I fought back.
It was a mess of rapid bites and shakes, one body fumbling over another. The crowd of surrounding wolves went wild, yipping and howling, whining and surging back and forth. They wanted in on the fight as well but held themselves back. Not as well as Weylin, though.
I couldn’t just see his concern whenever my eyes caught his, and it wasn’t the fact that he kept creeping forward that alerted me that he was holding back. I heard him.
“ You can do this.” His voice began echoing in my mind, starting quiet at first and then growing louder. I wasn’t exactly sure if it was him or if it was my brain dubbing a voice to him, but it sounded like him. “You are better than him, Lila. You are stronger.”
I was? I paused and looked to Weylin, caught off guard in the moment, and that’s when the black wolf capitalized on his attack.
He came up behind me, taking my hind leg in his mouth and shaking. I let out a cry, but it was the pain that did something to me.
Twenty years of holding myself back. Twenty years of preventing myself from being the wolf that was inside of me, of forcing my animalistic nature into a box held by human etiquette. Twenty years…and it was that one moment that sent me back.
The black wolf had no time to react to my vicious attack. It was his turn to cry. For all those times bullies picked on me on the schoolyard and I took it. For all those times in the academy when I was laughed at for being a woman, being told the chances of me getting a real job were slim. For all those times perps walked all over me, attacked me, thinking I was the weak one. For every moment a coworker or someone higher up harassed or attempted to sexually assault me, and while I could have ripped their throats out, I stood by and took it because my wolf didn’t belong in the human world.
My wolf didn’t belong there, but she sure as shit belonged here, and I wouldn’t allow anyone to take that away.
The black wolf lay limp on his side, his panting breaths rapid and loud. He kept his head down and his eyes looking anywhere but at me as I stood over him snarling, teeth bared.
Finish him.
Kill him.
Make him bleed.
The voices filtered through my mind, coming from the wolves surrounding me. They jumped back and forth, using the utmost restraint.
Take his heart.
Consume his power.
I leaned forward, saliva dripping from my teeth and onto the wolf beneath me. Closing his eyes, the wolf resigned himself to death. Taking one large breath and slowing his pants.
Good bye, Clark . The voice was small, quiet, but it stood out to me, maybe because my voice was normally a whisper in the wind, so it was easier for my mind to pick it out.
Without moving my head, keeping the black wolf pinned beneath me with nothing but the threat of my teeth, I peeked up where I thought the voice came from. On top of a hill, by the base of a tree, stood a smaller red and black wolf.
She was his family.
I raised my head as I watched the whole pack become worked up over the oncoming death…but they were all family.
“Enough,” I said. When they continued, I snarled and snapped. “Enough!” Silence descended among the pack, their attention falling to me. “This is how you treat your own pack? How quickly you turn on a member of your own?”
“He is not worthy!” some wolf shouted.
“Consume him!” another said.
His heart power. That’s what they wanted me to take. Pieces were starting to fall into place now as my mind made connections.
“I will not be consuming his heart.” Lips pulled back, displaying my teeth, I continued. “I do not need to take the power of another, the life of another, to feel powerful myself. And anyone who wants to challenge me on that is welcome to.” I gnashed my teeth.
Three wolves came forward, hackles raised and ready for a fight. I stepped over the limp body of the black wolf, now in a protecting stance.
I caught Weylin out of the corner of my eye, coming towards me. “Stay back,” I ordered him. He growled his displeasure but didn’t come any closer.
The fight with the three before me was more intense than it had been with the black wolf, but I was different. I had someone to protect now. Clark.
I had no training, but I knew my wolf well, and I fell into her to take over. The wolves went for Clark at first, but once they figured out I wasn’t letting anyone near him, they went for me. Fur flying, blood staining my white fur, I held on strong and refused to allow them to get close to him.
I pushed past the pain, I pushed past my own injuries. My whole life, I’d hoped for the day my family would come for me. I’d hoped for the day they would tell me they were looking for me, that they’d tried to protect me, because that’s what family did. But they hadn’t. I could be like them and abandon Clark for my own comforts, but I refused to continue the cycle. This pack was his family, and I was so damn tired of those who were supposed to be there abandoning us.
The power was in the pack. Greed was what weakened us. The power came from standing strong, not turning on one another.
All three of the wolves before me attacked at once, each biting into me. I tried to shake them, but when one pulled one way, the other pulled the other way.
Then a mass of black fur and white feet launched itself at them, knocking two of the attacking wolves off me. I grabbed the remaining wolf by the foot and shook until I felt a snap. He let go, falling to the ground with a yelp.
“The power is in the pack,” Clark said as he stood next to me, wounded but tall, echoing the words I swore I hadn’t said aloud.
Something happened then. The frenzy of yips and cries were silenced, and the back circled around the three attackers, all of them in line with me. I couldn’t help but get the feeling they were waiting for me, waiting for my command.
I stepped forward, towards the three in question as they stood, looking around. Holding my head high, staying proud and sure in myself, in my own power, I stared at them.
There was a beat of silence, and in unison, the three wolves lowered their heads, bowing to me and exposing their necks.
My wolf took control. I raised my muzzle to the ceiling, and the most animalistic howl I had ever felt ripped through the arena. Every wolf in that area joined in, throwing their heads back and letting loose the sound of a pack. The sound of family.
And then they ran.
They ran through the arena as a pack. They ran for no other reason than comradery. In and out of trees, moving in and out of positions. Some nips here and there, but all of them together.
Exhausted and sore, I began walking back to the lockers. Weylin came running back to me.
“My mate.” He dipped his head down and began licking at the wounds. His warm, smooth tongue was soothing.
“I can hear you. I could hear them,” I said.
“Of course. You have been accepted into the pack.” He shifted back into human form, his fingers running through my fur as he checked for injuries. “Stop it,” he said when I huffed. “You are not fine, and I will take care of you. I need to. Let me do this.”
With the crunch and snaps of my limbs, I morphed back into human form. “I’m fine. I heal fast.”
He cupped my face and took my lips with his. The kiss was deep, filled with worry and pain and the need to get impossibly closer. I wrapped my arms around his neck, my breath leaving me when he pulled back. “Any injury you receive will never heal in my heart.” Weylin scooped my naked body into his arms and carried me back to the lockers.
The only time Weylin’s lips left my skin was when he would rub his nose into the crook of my neck and take deep breaths, the scent of my skin sending shivers through his body.
The locker room was cold, but when Weylin took me into the shower, the hot water was instant. He let my legs down so he could drive his fingers through my hair, cradling my head and capturing my lips. I didn’t hesitate to kiss this man, this wolf, back. The heat of our mate bond consumed me so completely that I swore my heart was on fire, and it was so fucking perfect.
Weylin’s hand moved down my shoulder to a cut and I winced. He pulled away, inspecting the laceration, but already, I could see it was healing. He said nothing as he grabbed a bottle of soap, lathering his hands, then running them over my body, washing off the dried blood. Every time he came to another wound, a puncture, bite, or cut, he would kiss it, leaving his lips there while my shifter abilities healed the wounds. He would press one last kiss to the skin, then move on to the next, and then the next, until not only was I healed and clean, but I was covered in his kisses.
Kneeling before me, the spray of the hot water at my back, Weylin caught me off guard as he buried his face between my legs, inhaling the scent of my pussy. I felt the grin of his lips against my most sensitive skin.
“A wolf sure gets hungry watching you be badass all day,” he said. “Baby, lean back. You deserve some praise.”
“I feel like I’ve been getting praise this whole time,” I said, running my fingers through his hair.
He grunted, his eyes fluttering, and I smiled. He enjoyed my fingers in his hair. “That was just a little care. This is to show you what a good girl you’ve been.” He reached up, his large, calloused hand splayed along my stomach, and pressed lightly, encouraging me to lean back.
I did as I was told, leaning against the tile, the coolness welcoming against my feverish body.
Weylin slipped his hand down my body and between my thighs, lifting them over his broad shoulders, exposing my lips to his.
He was right about one thing—he was a hungry wolf. The skill he demonstrated with his tongue caused my head to fall back in pure ecstasy. My hands gripped and released his hair as I rode his face, completely lost in the bliss he was driving through me.
Panting and on the edge, I didn’t think anything could ever feel as mind-blowing as this moment…and then he added two fingers. I gasped, my thighs trembling while he sucked and flicked my clit as I rode his fingers. He played me until my legs were Jell-O, and with a twist and flick, he led me to my release.
Removing his fingers from me, Weylin buried his face, his one hand on my lower back, supporting me, and his other forearm pressed along my hips, holding me in place for him to lap up every drop of my orgasm.
My hands dropped from his hair. I was exhausted and more tired than I had ever felt. Never in my life had I experienced anything like that. My heart was content, everything in my soul just felt right. I’d always talked about not feeling in my skin, or right in my human form, but after going through that with Weylin, my whole body just felt perfect.
He supported me as he stood, pulling me into his arms and kissing the top of my head. “You are so fucking delicious,” he said, filling his lungs with my scent again.
His hard cock pressed into my belly, angry with need. I reached down, running my fingers over the tip. That’s all I was able to touch before Weylin pulled away.
“We should be heading back out. I have some meetings to attend today.” He pressed a quick kiss to my lips before turning off the shower. Weylin disappeared, and with him, all the heat from my body.
He came back shortly after with a towel around his waist and another in his hand. He wrapped it around me. “Are you okay?” I asked him.
He grinned, but it wasn’t his usual grin; he was forcing it. “Fucking feeling the high.”
“That was amazing and all, but should I…help you?” I asked. “I don’t want this to be a one-sided thing. I really like you.” I did. I more than liked him. My heart sang with every touch he gave me.
Weylin brushed the wet hair from my face and leaned forward. “I want nothing more than to bury my cock so deep inside you that I bottom out. But, baby…I can’t.”
I frowned, the air around me so cold that it chilled my heart.
“If I do, I’ll end up claiming you, and we both know I can’t do that.”