Claimed (Bound Mates #2)

Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

A nya

“Come on and get a drink with us, Anya!”

I’ve been in college for about three months, and my roommate, Annette, is trying to get me to come out again. I like her. She’s smart, she’s funny, and she’s cute. She’s got round glasses that are too big for her face, but everyone’s glasses are like that now. She looks innocent, but she really likes to drink, and more besides. Being around her feels like being part of the feral little pack I was part of out in the countryside. We’ve made friends with some of the other guys and girls in the dorms too.

I am trying very, very hard to stay out of trouble, but I’m still reeling from losing my mom. And, if I’m to be honest, I miss Alexei, too. He calls me every now and then, but I think he’s trying to give me my independence without checking in on me too closely. Every time I hear his voice, it’s like a unit of sexual sleeper cells come alive inside me. Drinking is a way to numb the feelings of both those problems, and I always feel a little better when I do it. I’m still not old enough to drink, but it’s not like that matters. Every freshman drinks—except the ones who don’t, but they don’t count.

“Okay, twist my arm,” I say.

We go out up behind the science block, where a herd of cows live in a paddock. I like cows. They’re peaceful creatures, blessed with natural curiosity. They amble over toward us and lick their noses the same way small kids pick theirs while I and a small crowd of kids from the dorms mix up a potluck in a bucket.

Wine, spirits, liqueurs, they all go in, topped with a bottle of lemonade. The concoction gets stirred with a big wooden spoon.

A pack of red Solo cups is passed around. We each get a good dose of what Annette calls our ‘special brew.’ She insists she’s a witch, and she probably is. She’s got big, wide green eyes that always hold an ethereal expression of intensity, and pin-straight black hair.

Nathan, her boyfriend, is a jock, but a nice one. She leads him around by the nose, sometimes literally. They’re cool people, I guess. It’s not the same as being around other shifters, though.

The moon is close to full. I feel it pull through the clouds that go scudding through the sky as the night wind picks up.

I take a sip of my drink swirling in my cup, unnatural colors failing to entirely mix in with one another. It doesn’t taste good. It tastes like what they use to power spacecrafts. I don’t care. I don’t need to drink every bit of it, I just need enough to get a little bit of a buzz and forget about my worries.

I sit back against the science building and make eye contact with one of the cows. She’s a pretty brown Jersey with big, soulful brown eyes. The alcohol is burning down my throat and in the pit of my stomach, making me feel warm.

The others are talking about school, RAs, boyfriend-and-girlfriend drama. I don’t say much. I laugh sometimes, and I smirk and groan when necessary, but I don’t talk about myself that much. There’s not much I can share. I’ve lost my mom, and I’m secretly a werewolf betrothed to a Russian alpha. As much as I like joining in with these silly college activities, I’m not really a part of them.

I’m never going to be normal. Even if I weren’t a wolf, losing my mom was enough to make me feel weirdly separate from the world. It’s not the same without her. I can’t really enjoy anything the same way I used to. It’s like the part of me that used to trust everything would turn out alright has died and isn’t ever coming back.

I drink a little more and feel a little better. The sky is starting to clear. The clouds are heading for the horizon, and the moon is center stage. My eyes go skyward, and for a brief moment, I feel like I see my mother in the big gold glow. The drink must be hitting me harder than I thought.

She smiles down at me, and there’s something in the way the moonlight hits me that makes me feel as though I’m being enveloped in a warm hug. Maybe she’s not as far away as I imagined, but it’s still not the same.

“I miss you, Mom,” I say.

“What?”

“Hm? Sorry, I don’t know. I talk to myself sometimes,” I say, playing it off. I almost forgot the rest of them were here.

They giggle, because they think I’m drunk. Am I drunk? I might be. Doesn’t matter. I look back up at the moon and my mom is gone. That’s all I have now, fleeting flashes of memory that are already starting to fade. I’m going to lose her forever, because I’ve already lost her forever. There’s no way of stopping the forgetting from happening.

I drink a little more. Forget a little more.

The moon starts to feel like a magnet. I’m drawn to it. Can’t help it.

I know I can’t get closer to it by walking up there. Can’t climb into the air, but I can walk toward it. Everybody is distracted as I get up and wander off, locked in intense conversation about one of the lecturers who is apparently sleeping with the students.

I climb the cow fence and walk into the field. The cows move away from me respectfully, letting me pass without drama. I keep walking, following the moon, letting the warmth of the alcohol flow through me.

I told Alexei I wanted to go to college and study, and live the life Mom always wanted for me, but I don’t know if that’s what I really want anymore. Being in college, trying to fit in, trying to care about my studies—it all feels fake and pointless. I was never made for this world. I was made to run in a pack, and every hour of every day I don’t get to do that, I’m wasting time.

I wake up underneath a tree. Sunlight is hitting me right in the eyes. It’s early and I have a headache.

The grass around me is flat, and there’s fur in it, as if I wasn’t lying here alone last night. There’s a faint scent of wolf and family and home, but it’s being blown away by the morning breeze. Was someone else here? Or did I somehow shift without knowing it in my sleep? Am I getting so horny that my body thinks I’ve already been mated? No. Can’t be that. If it were that, my clothes would be in tatters.

“Mooeeeeh!”

The pretty cow with the brown eyes looks at me with a sort of mournful equanimity.

I get up, brush myself off, and walk back to the dorm with my stomach growling and my heart a very specific kind of empty.

“Where have you been?”

The RA confronts me on my way in. George is only one year older, but he acts like he’s more of an alpha than Alexei. He’s a lanky, nerdy guy who is doing a degree in security. There are rumors he’s been putting up his own cameras all over the place so he can keep tabs on us at all times.

“You were out after curfew. That’s an infraction. You’re at risk of losing your place here, and you know that losing your place here means dropping out, because all freshmen are required to stay on campus.”

His snide, know-it-all tone bothers me to no end.

“You think you own me?”

“I think I enforce the rules.”

“Fine. Sorry. Won’t happen again.”

The words feel like they’re bile rising in my throat. I hate saying them. I choke them out as impulses I shouldn’t have dance in my head. I’m not just some freshman to be threatened.

He looks at me with an annoyed expression. He doesn’t like my attitude, but I don’t owe anyone a good attitude. I go back to my room and get my stuff for a shower.

I expect to be greeted by Annette, but the room is empty. Kind of weird, but I don’t think too much of it. I’m running late, so I throw off the clothes I was wearing last night and put something more appropriate for class on. I’m hungry, but my stomach is also churning so I decide to skip whatever is being served in the dining hall.

The campus has a weird feeling. There’s more security around than usual. I notice that there are ambulances driving around the ring road. They don’t have their lights or sirens on, but there’s a sense of urgency to them that you don’t usually see on campus.

I try to focus on my studies. George the RA has actually succeeded in freaking me out a little. If I get kicked out, Alexei is going to be so mad, and I’m going to lose the one chance I have to make my mom proud.

“Anya Peters?”

My name is called in the middle of class. I startle awake, not realizing I had been napping. When I look in the direction of the voice, I see that there are three officers down at the front of the lecture hall, one inside the door, and two just outside it. There’s a buzz of conversation running through the lecture theater as I gather my things and head down to see what the officers want.

“Can I help you?” I ask the question with my arms wrapped around a stack of books, held protectively in front of my chest.

“You were out drinking last night,” one of the officers says.

I look around the assembled, solemn cops. “They send three cops for that?”

“No. They send three cops for murder.”

My blood runs cold. “Murder?”

“Come with us. We need you to answer some questions.”

I am starting to freak out now. The smell of wolves when I woke up… did I somehow attract a stray male? Did he attack my friends? Wolves don’t usually touch people, unless they’re territorial males looking to rut. Even if that is the answer, it’s not as though I can tell the police that is what has happened.

I am put into the back of a cruiser, and I am driven to the city police station. There’s a small station on campus, but they don’t take me there. They take me to a precinct with real holding cells and real consequences.

My head is spinning. The hangover and the comment about murder have me thoroughly freaked out. I am also suddenly realizing that I have no way of getting in contact with Alexei if I need to. I wonder if he knows what’s happening to me. I don’t know what’s happening to me.

I’m not put in cuffs, but when I get to the station, I am Mirandized by a very stern-looking woman who makes me repeat myself when I stumble a little too much over saying I understand it.

She’s tall, with short silver hair and the kind of skin that makes it apparent she has spent a lot of time in the sun over the years. Her eyes are narrowed and bright blue, inspecting me aggressively. Not like Alexei’s. His eyes are unique. Hers are different. Hers are mean. Hers have seen too much. I feel sorry for her, though I don’t know why.

“Come,” she says as she opens a door into an interrogation room. It’s not quite like in the movies. There’s not a metal table bolted to the floor, or a single bulb above it, or horrible metal chairs. There are horrible plastic chairs and a table that looks like it came out of a cheap office supply store, and a fluorescent light above it.

She takes one of the seats, scraping it across the floor in a way that sets me on edge. I sit down, scared as hell. I wish my mom was here. I wish I had her to call. I wish…

“Last night, you and several students from your dorm snuck out after curfew and went to drink behind the science block,” she snaps at me, my little crimes flying out of her mouth like mini bullets.

“Yes,” I say, feeling incredibly guilty. If I’d had any idea whatsoever that going out last night would lead to this, I would have stayed in and studied.

The officer opens her manila folder and pulls several images from the interior. She slides them across to me one after the other, but having seen the very first one, my mind rebels almost instantly.

I’m seeing my friends, but not as they were when I left them. When I left them, they were alive. They are not alive in these pictures. They are very, very dead, strewn about the grass like rag dolls. Not all of them are entirely intact either. I see glazed eyes, bruised bodies, torn clothes, and blood everywhere.

Someone is screaming. Someone is screaming very, very loudly. So loudly it hurts my ears. I put my hands up to cover them, which helps a little. Then, a moment or two later, I realize that it’s me. I am screaming.

“Shit, Scott, what did you spring those on her for?”

The male detective who I didn’t even notice was in the room sweeps the pictures away from me.

“Needed to see her reaction,” Scott says, undeterred.

“I’m sorry, Anya,” the male officer says. He’s also an older man, with graying hair around his temples. He’s got a more relaxed demeanor than the female officer, but I know all about good cop and bad cop and I know that he’s not necessarily on my side.

“What happened?”

“They were killed,” Scott says. “You were somehow completely untouched. We find that suspicious.”

“I wasn’t back there with them the whole night. I was drinking with them to start with, but I wandered off, I think. Into the field. I just got kinda drunk and ended up asleep with the cows. I never heard anything. I don’t know how this happened and I didn’t hear anything…”

“We don’t know how that happened either.”

There’s a note of harsh suspicion in her voice.

“Do you think I did this? Look at me. I’m just… I’m… I could never have…” I stammer a bunch of words.

A sharp rap at the door interrupts my stammered excuses. The door swings open before any of the officers can open it, and a tall woman in a pink suit with long blonde hair strides in.

“My client has representation,” she says. “No further questions, thank you.”

I have no idea who she is, but I feel as though I just met a guardian angel. A sense of relief sweeps through me, some safety replacing the utter fear I felt a moment ago. She places a finely manicured hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “Get up,” she says. “We’re leaving.”

“We’d like to…”

“Are you going to charge my client with something?”

“No, at this time…”

“Then we are leaving,” she says. “Come with me, Anya.”

I get up and go with her, still in a state of profound shock. My friends are gone, and in the worst of ways.

“I don’t…”

“Quiet,” my pink lawyer says. “We won’t discuss this while we’re in the station.”

She leads me out to a pink convertible, and I get into the passenger side.

“I’m Cerise Steel,” she says. “Alexei sent me.”

“Thank you so much. I can’t believe that happened. I don’t know what…”

She starts her car and sends it spinning into traffic without seeming to pay attention to the flow of other traffic. I grip the sides of my seat as we break the speed limit almost immediately.

“Vampires,” she says, as the car pulls away from the curb. She says the word like it’s an obvious explanation, something I myself should have thought of.

“Vampires?”

“They were all but extinct in North America until a couple of years ago,” she says. “They’re not like in the movies. They don’t sparkle and stare. They’re more like animals. Dumb, vicious killers.”

I try to digest that information and fail. Vampires. My friends are dead, and somehow I’ve been spared, because vampires.

“Why didn’t they eat me?”

“Vamps don’t like dog meat,” she says bluntly. I get the impression this woman has seen more shit in her life than I could imagine, and she cares about very little other than doing her job.

“Where are we going?”

“Alexei is flying in. I’m taking you to a secure location, and then he’ll meet you and take custody of you. Don’t worry. We’re going to keep you safe. You’re the alpha’s mate of the Volk Khishtnik pack. You’re one of the most important she-wolves in the world. You should never have been out of his sight, let alone a target for vampires.”

The way she says the word vampires is the tonal equivalent of someone picking up a moldy damp lump of stuff from a gutter. It’s disgust beyond disgust.

“How come people don’t know vampires are real?” I ask the question that way when what I really mean to ask is, why didn’t I know that vampires were real?

“They do,” she says. “They know vampires are real the same way they know aliens, unicorns, and shifters are real. They’re in the collective consciousness.”

“Unicorns are real?”

“Of course. Unicorns are the most logical and sensible of all those creatures. It’s just a horse with a horn. Aliens are pretty obvious too, really, I guess. It’s vampires that are truly aberrations.”

That time it sounded like she was about to be ill at simply having to have formed the word.

I don’t know if I entirely believe this woman. Shifters, sure. I know they’re real. Vampires? I guess they could be. But I’m going to draw the line at a unicorn.

She has an intimidating, slightly manic air about her. She steamrolled the cops without any trouble at all. I like her energy. I wish I had some of it, but I’m quiet and though I tend to wander sometimes and get into some trouble, I don’t have her gravitas or her magnetism.

She drives me to a very nice hotel and escorts me up to a suite.

“Get comfortable,” she says. “Alexei will be here soon. Or, think about taking a shower and getting changed, because I can still smell the booze from last night on you, and I know he won’t like that.”

Shit. He won’t like that.

“Is there a change of clothes here, or…”

“Honey, you’re not going to need a change of clothes once he gets his hands on you. I’m aware of the terms of your deal. It’s safe to say you won’t be going back to school.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re almost certainly going to be charged with something. You’re the only person they can place at the scene of the bloody crime, and you have no real alibi. The evidence is circumstantial, but there are several dead kids, and their parents are going to want someone to go down for it. As far as the law is concerned, you’re an orphan from a poor family. The perfect fall girl, and the fact that you’re cute is only going to make the media frenzy and the prosecutor’s cred even more impressive.”

The way she lays that all out barely without taking a breath is impressive and terrifying. I can see the horrors of a miscarriage of justice unfolding in front of me with absolutely no way of stopping it.

“Aren’t they going to think I’m trying to run from the law?”

“You’re a Russian citizen, Anya. You’re not under any obligation to go to jail in the USA for a crime you didn’t commit. Leave that to the American citizens.”

She’s so caustic.

Ding!

The elevator announces its presence outside the door. It’s faint, but I hear it. My senses must be more sensitive than ever. I must be freaking out. Hell, I am freaking out. My thoughts are a jumble of dead people I care about, the prospect of being put in prison for the rest of my life, and the realization I’m dropping out again, even though I don’t want to.

Suddenly, I am no longer alone. The doors slide open, and Alexei strides in.

I haven’t seen him for months. I thought I remembered him. I did remember him. But I didn’t remember his presence. When he walks in, it feels as though the rest of the world dims slightly. All the light is on him. I can’t see anything beside him. Call it tunnel vision.

I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I can’t do anything other than stare at him.

He is beyond handsome. It’s odd, how the first time I saw him I thought he was just some old guy and now he’s the most incredible creature I’ve ever seen.

He comes to me in swift strides, cups my face, and kisses me deeply. I melt into his arms and I let him pick me up like a stray kitten, cradling me in his lap.

I expect him to lecture me for my foolishness, for drinking, for being out at night, for passing out next to a massacre, for getting arrested. I expect to be in trouble, but he does not say so much as a word about any of it. He kisses me and he picks me up and hugs me very, very tight, wrapping me in an embrace that gives me a sense of immediate safety.

I snuggle into him, bury my face in his shoulder, and regret ever having tried to live a normal life. I’m not normal. I belong with him.

“I missed you,” I whimper.

“I missed you too,” he says, squeezing me closer.

“And I’m sorry.”

“I know you are.”

He doesn’t tell me it’s not my fault, because we both know it is, but he doesn’t start in on me, blaming me, lecturing. He just holds me.

“I would suggest a fairly swift departure,” the lawyer says. “They weren’t ready to arrest at the time, but they’ll no doubt have warrants and such soon enough, and it could be more complex to…”

She need say no more. Alexei sweeps me up into his arms and carries me off back to the elevator. I bury my head in his neck and submit to being rescued.

We go to a car. And then we go to the airport. And then we get on the kind of plane I never thought I’d get on in my life. A private jet with the kind of interior that looks like a fancy lounge. It’s really impressive.

Being with Alexei again is filling my body with a whole host of hormones that makes the trauma of the day fade. Not into insignificance, I’m not insane, but it’s more like my mind can only hold so many kinds of feeling at once. His presence is a balm, soothing me, making me feel safe, turning me on…

We settle into a large chair. Well, he sits in the chair, and I sit on his lap. He wraps an arm around me and snugs me up against his body. If this were a commercial flight, I’d have to have my tray table upright and my seatbelt fastened, but on a private flight, I’m free to be flung around the cabin like a rag doll if anything goes wrong and that feels like luxury.

I bury my face in his neck again, breathe in his scent, and let the awful events of the day be just that, awful events of the day. I am so tired of inexplicably terrible things happening to those I care about.

I wonder if he is blaming me for this. I know I made some dubious decisions. I know I didn’t follow the rules.

“Are you mad at me?” I ask the question in a soft voice.

He lifts a brow at me. “Mad?”

“For getting into… all of this mess.”

“You were a bad girl, but do not worry. Being bad is in the blood for us wolves.”

His hand rests on the back of my neck, fingers lightly squeezing.

He is a stranger, but my soul knows him.

I can’t be near him this way without reacting to him. My arousal has been simmering since he first made physical contact with me. Every bit of sexual need that felt as though it had abandoned me comes rushing back at once with an intensity that makes me nearly buckle at my knees.

Once the plane door closes, it only gets worse. The small space seems to intensify everything. Our pheromones are just being recirculated. I breathe him in over and over again. I can practically feel him inside me already, though we are still clothed and separate.

His hands clamp down on my hips. “Stay still,” he says in a deep voice.

I had no idea I was grinding so much until I can’t move anymore.

“Sorry,” I whimper.

“I know it’s hard, but you have to resist the urge for just a little longer,” he says. “When we land, you will be mine. It is just a matter of hours.”

Hours seem like lifetimes right now.

“This is the only thing that might feel good. I need it. Please. I need you.”

“Begging in that sweet little voice won’t make me do what you want.”

I think it might, though. There’s a strain in his tone that makes me feel as though he’s fighting his desires as well. There’s also something pressed into my hip that tells me for certain he is.

“Please?”

We’re practically alone on the plane. It’s sort of a private little cabin back here, with sliding doors that have been pulled across to give us our space. We could do it, right here, right now. We could finally give into what we’ve been trying to avoid. The universe won’t let us avoid it, anyway. No matter how many times we have tried to do the right thing, make the sensible choice, put my education first… but fate won’t leave us alone.

“We keep doing everything properly, but it doesn’t help. I want to be improper.”

He growls, and I am briefly reminded that he is pretty much a stranger in so many ways. I feel myself responding to that realization with another rush of arousal because now I know that this is wrong. Truly, deeply wrong in every way something can be wrong.

That just makes me want it more.

I need him.

Something inside me has flipped, an internal switch that controlled a set of hormones, desires, and thoughts I have never experienced with this intensity before.

I need to be fucked. I need it so badly there is no part of me that is not entirely consumed with desire.

“Stop looking at me like that,” he growls. “Control yourself.”

“What if I can’t?” I breathe the question, though it’s not really a question. I have never had much in the way of self-control, and I have even less now. “What if I need you to control me?”

He lets out another one of those soft snarls, and I watch his handsome, masculine face take on the expression of a pure predator. He is fighting his urges just as much as I am, if not more. His hands tighten on my hips, and I feel the thick rod of his cock hard against my thigh as I squirm to look at him.

“Don’t you want me?” I whimper the question. “Are you taking me to Russia just to ignore me?”

“You’re not ignorable in any sense at all,” he says. “But it’s not safe to do this here. We cannot do it on the plane.”

It has to be on the plane. It has to be now. I am so wet I can barely stand it.

I sit back, slightly away from him, pouting. I never thought of myself as being spoiled, but I know that I need to get what I want this fucking instant.

“What are we going to do once we get there?”

“I am going to take you as my mate,” he says, running his hand along the length of my thigh. His touch does nothing to settle my desire. If anything it ignites my desires all the more. “Because you are mine, and have been mine from the moment I laid eyes on you. You are my mate, decided by fate, so be patient, because there will come a time when you wish I would fuck you less.”

“Never,” I say. “That would never happen.”

My arousal is so intense for this Russian alpha who was fated to be my mate from long before I was born. The egg that made me was inside my mother when they knew one another all those years ago. That’s weird to think about. Weird enough that it keeps me from trying to fuck him for another two minutes at least. A hundred and twenty seconds of reprieve, and then I slide my hand down my leg and brush my hand over the thick head of his cock. It is safely ensconced in his pants, but his erection is prominent enough that I know exactly what I am touching.

I’ve never been this forward before in my life, but I know I need his dick in a way I’ve never needed anything. He’s like oxygen for me, something I absolutely have to have.

He lets out a growl of barely contained desire.

“Please,” I whimper as he swats my hand away. The back of my hand is tingling, but I don’t even yelp. I just go back to reaching again. Alexei grabs both my hands and pulls them behind my back, holding me by the wrists. The motion thrusts my chest out, makes my breasts very prominent as I once more wriggle on his lap.

Alexei

She won’t stop this until I mate her. I know she can’t help herself right now. I can barely contain my own impulses. I have waited for years to find her. At times, I thought I might never find my mate, and now I have her in my arms. Well, as much as I can have her in my arms while restraining her from getting herself fucked and rutted like an animal on this plane.

I have a bedroom laid out for her at my palace in Russia. There is a bed covered in white rose petals, white satin sheets ready for her deflowering. I want her first time to be magical—and I want it to be contained. I want the pack to be around us, though at a respectful distance. I want her first transformation to be something joined in by the pack. She should run with those who will give their lives for her if necessary the first time she becomes her true self.

“Please, please,” she whimpers, rubbing herself against me like a feral cat in heat. Well, maybe not like one, maybe precisely the same as one. She is an animal in heat. I can smell her from here, the sweet scent of female arousal absolutely suffusing the cabin.

“Can we turn the air filtering up?” I call out to the hostess.

Anya loses patience and bites my neck, hard. Hard enough to spark pain and irritation. Hard enough to make me grab her in turn and sink my teeth into her neck too. I am not as uncontrolled. I am much more deliberate and careful. I nibble and I lick and I let her writhe her neat little ass in my lap.

She’s half my age, sweet, nubile, and absolutely desperate for my dick.

I feel my resolve sliding away. I am also in a state of almost uncontrollable lust. My desire for her is even stronger than hers for me; that is simply the biology of the matter. The fact that we have been able to hold off for this long is a testament to our self-control, but we have both run out of every drop of it.

The moment I give in is divine madness.

I push her skirt up, pull her panties to the side, and free my cock. There is a brief moment in which I run my fingers over the soaked length of her pussy, but this is not a time for foreplay. We are both so far beyond needing to be warmed up.

I kiss her deeply and thoroughly, pick her up so she is facing me, her legs on either side of mine, and pull her down on my dick in one smooth motion. There is a moment of virginal resistance, but it quickly passes as I take her the way she has begged to be taken. She is hot, she is wet, and her hips dance on my lap as she lets out the most carnal and intense sound of satisfaction.

I cup her ass and use it to draw her up and down my cock, taking her sweet virgin pussy all for my own. There is little fairytale romance in this moment. This is a sweet young woman being ravaged on a plane, being given the good, hard fucking she very much deserves.

We are both entirely out of control, Anya riding me with gasps and moans, pushing her sweet pussy down on my cock again and again, helping me fuck her. She wants to be used. She wants to be claimed. She needs more.

I pick her up with her still on my cock, and I drop her over the arm of the airplane seat. These padded chairs are perfect for positioning the hot little ass of my mate at the right height.

I grab her hair and slide my cock back into her not so virginal pussy again. This treatment will be rough, and she will take every bit of it, because she demanded it. She wound me up. She demanded to be fucked. And now she is being absolutely ravaged.

Anya

His thick cock stretches me open time and time again, his hips slapping my ass as he fucks me. I waited so long to find out what sex would be like, and it is far more intense than I ever imagined. Every time I feel his strength and his desire, I feel my pussy drench itself all over again. He is so incredibly dominant, so completely commanding. He has not said a word, but the way he picks me up, turns me over, pushes me right into the position he wants me to be in, tells me I am completely in his control.

He bites the back of my neck and arches inside me, his cock stretching me every time he slides deep into me, the head finding the depths of my pussy. I had no idea that I could feel like this, trembling and squirming and begging both for more and for mercy.

“You are going to be sore when this is done,” he growls into my ear. “You are going to feel this fucking for days. Your tight little hole is going to ache for me, but you’re going to keep taking me, aren’t you, Anya? Because you’re my mate to breed, aren’t you?”

“Yes… yess… yes!” I can’t stop myself from agreeing with him as he ruts me deeply. I know my pussy is swollen and sensitive and on the verge of sore, but I don’t want him to stop. I want him to keep fucking me until I reach the climax I know is getting closer and closer.

He slides his hand around my waist and rubs my pussy with those powerful fingers, grinding against my clit with the pads of his fingertips.

“That’s right. You’re a good girl, aren’t you,” he growls. “You’re a good little bitch taking her first fucking from her mate. This pussy is going to be mine forever, Anya. You’re going to take this cock whenever I decide your holes need to be bred. You’re going to take my cum inside you, and you are going to thank me for it.”

He sounds so ferociously dominant and more than a little scary, but those words only get me closer and closer to coming all over his big cock. He smacks my ass, sending a jolt of hot pain through me that only serves to make me damn near come right away.

“Fuck, Alexei! Fuck me, please, sir, fuck me…”

I start begging for my orgasm, knowing that he is the one who will decide whether I come or not. He pulls me up from the chair, slaps my pussy, and ruts me from behind, his big hand rubbing down the length of my belly, cupping my sex and giving me something to grind against as I take his dick.

“I’m gonna come… I’m gonna come…”

I start whimpering the words as I get closer and closer to an orgasm that is going to obliterate the memories of all other climaxes I’ve ever attempted to have.

Alexei

I feel her pussy gripping me with those contractions that tell me she is already starting to come. She’s so damn tight, and so ready to go off, all it takes is a series of swift slaps to her pussy as I plow her deep and hard.

She’s coming hard, she’s writhing and wailing, she’s pushing back against me, and she’s crying out at the top of her lungs, forgetting that we’re not alone on the plane. There’s no such thing as modesty when an alpha female is being mated.

My cock is deep inside her tight little hole. This mating is finally happening, and there’s no way to stop it. I am going to come inside her. I am going to give her my seed, and she is going to orgasm for me so damn hard she loses herself as she has never lost herself before.

“Fuck! Alexei!” She screams my name as she sets me off, my cock swelling to several times its size at the base, forming the knot designed to ensure that the mating is successful. She is trapped on my cock right now, or would be, if not for the fact that she is also undergoing an incredible transformation of her own.

I grab her and I slide her down to the floor. Coming to my senses, I remember why I didn’t want to do this here or now, why it was such a terrible idea.

She-wolves of our kind don’t experience their first shift until they are mated by their fated mates. But this means she is turning here and now. Right in the cabin. Her body is breaking in ways that are transformative and terrible. There is nothing nice about the first time a wolf shifts. There is pain—agony. Bones are snapping. Her cells are rapidly dying and multiplying in different ways. She’s losing herself, and she’s finding a new self.

It’s not a pleasant experience. It is painful and it is frightening, and normally there would be preparation and discussions and a safe place to do it… and if I had just resisted our mutual needs then that would all have happened. Instead, she is undergoing an emergency of self hundreds of thousands of feet in the air.

I have never seen this process before. Shifting, yes, but I grew up knowing how to shift. Some males are born as whelps. For others, the onset of shifting starts at puberty. For it to happen as an adult is a terrible, terrible thing.

She is begging me for help, though she cannot form words in this moment. Her mouth is moving from human to animal. Her vocal cords are failing her. She is losing the ability to speak. Her cries pierce my ears as I do the only thing I can do… take my wolf form and attempt to comfort her, animal to animal.

I have never shifted in a plane before. My wolf form is much larger than my human form, and the same is true of hers. That means there is not much room left in our section of the cabin with the both of us shifted between the chairs.

I lick her face in an attempt to calm her down, soothing her with grooming as the change starts to slow a little. She’s a very beautiful wolf, small and elegant with wild-flecked fur and blue eyes. Her wolf scent is intoxicating and satisfying. It tells me that she is mine.

After a few minutes of being comforted, she starts to perk up a little. I know she is still in pain, but following the first shift there’s a flood of endorphins and dopamine that make a wolf feel very, very good. The agony of the breaking of one form and the becoming of another has to have some kind of upside.

She gets up cautiously, finding herself unsteady on four paws, but a moment later she’s bounding around, knocking glasses over, slamming into the chairs, and breaking absolutely anything breakable in the process. This is significantly worse than the problems we had before. Before, I was worried about her suffering. Now I am worried about the plane staying intact.

She manages to crack the interior window by slamming into it like a wild thing. Even as a beast, she should have some sense, but apparently she has absolutely none. She is acting like a panicked animal—and that is because she is a panicked animal.

It’s not just her first shift affecting her. It’s the fact that she’s deeply upset after all that has happened. The loss of her mother, and now the loss of her friends are two sets of serious traumas. The animal side of her knows that in a way that her human mind probably refuses to acknowledge. Shifters cannot keep their emotions pent up for long. They get expressed in these wild animal moments.

I’ve got to make her settle before she brings the plane down.

I leap after her and bring her down, fastening my jaws in the loose fur at the back of her neck. I feel her soften immediately beneath me as that primal grip does what it is designed to do and calms her down.

She was only loose for a matter of moments, but a wolf can do a lot of damage in a very short period of time. Once I have her pinned, I look up to see how much damage has been done.

The cabin is in disarray. The chairs have been ripped open in several places by her sharp claws, every bit of decor is either on the floor or broken, and there’s all sorts of things spilled everywhere. None of that matters, however. All that matters is that she is safe and contained beneath my own much larger, masculine form.

This first shift is so brutal, but fortunately it also does not last long. The body doesn’t have the energy reserves to sustain it. Blood sugars tank pretty quickly, and from there the human form reasserts itself.

I know this, and that makes it easy to hold her down even as she whines and squirms, wearing herself out faster and faster. She’s trying to fight me, which amuses me. She should be submitting, but she is Lilly’s daughter, and that makes her a force to be reckoned with. Most wolves simply roll over and submit when they feel an alpha’s jaws.

I intend to give her absolutely no choice but to submit. I can pin her down quite easily, and that is precisely what I do. With my teeth on her neck, I keep her in place until she passes out and slowly sinks back into her human shape.

She is so helpless in this form. This soft, naked, human female body of hers draws me to her. Makes me want to protect her. She is mine, all mine now. Perhaps we are not legally married yet, but we are as bonded as we will ever be.

I scoop her up into my arms and sit down in one of the seats that hasn’t been gutted by the shenanigans of a newly shifted she- wolf. I pull her up against my naked body and keep her pressed up against me for my body heat.

With Anya in my arms, the light scent of wolf still on her, I feel complete. For over forty years I have roamed this planet, and for over forty years, I have felt a certain sense of something missing. I have watched my pack mates up and produce their babies. I have seen lives be made and lived, and I have stayed in control of it all.

Now it is my turn to immerse myself in love. My chance to feel the joy of having a mate for the rest of my life. We’re going to live happily ever after. I know that because it is what we both deserve.

A light tap at the door indicates someone wanting to come in. One of my advisors, no doubt.

“Come in,” I call out softly. “But do it quietly.”

The door slides open slowly and Elena, one of my pack’s advisors, comes in with a blanket, which she hands to me with a knowing smile. Elena is a few years older than I am, and an absolutely outstanding academic. She has dark hair with silver streaks running through it, tied up behind her head. She is wearing her usual attire, houndstooth jacket and skirt suit. Formality is Elena’s watchword, formality with a touch of gothic flair. I’m not supposed to notice such details, but cat’s-eye liner and nearly black lipstick are difficult to ignore.

“She looks tired,” she says. “Understandable. That first shift is unforgettable and absolutely brutal.”

“Yes,” I agree, settling the blanket over the pair of us, but ensuring Anya is entirely covered. She’s already started to shiver. If she were awake, we would be making sure she was getting plenty of sugar, protein, and fat, but for the moment I’ll hold her shivering body against mine.

“Is there something else, Elena?”

Elena gives me an excited smile that I am sure is not limited to the fact that I have finally claimed my mate. This is a momentous day in the pack’s world. We have known for several months that Anya is the female I will be claiming, and there is much general celebration. When we arrive in Russia, my sweet little mate is going to be greeted with a great excitement.

But Elena is looking at me with an intensity that is not limited to Anya’s first shift. She wants to talk about her pet subject. I brought her with me, because she knows more than anybody about the creatures that attacked Anya’s friends.

Vampires.

“I have gathered much information in the time we were in America,” she says. “Would you like me to brief you now, sir?”

I want to say no , because I want to enjoy my mate’s nudity, but this is an important matter.

“Yes. Tell me.”

“It has been a very long time since any vampire felt comfortable making such a bold attack,” Elena says. “I’d say a good two, maybe three centuries. There was a time the things used to hunt with impunity, but with the advent of modern technology, most of the population has been dormant. There are theories that vampires went to sleep around the time the first cellphone was developed, and have no intention of waking up until after the fall of the current civilization.”

“Grim.”

“Vampires are long-term planners. Their leadership, anyway. There are some who have been walking the world since before recorded history. At any rate, it is obvious that there is a stirring in the United States that could very well spread across the world. These things tend to be trends, if you will. The fact that they attacked a campus suggests they’re becoming emboldened in their hunting.”

“So you think it was completely random? Something that Anya simply happened to be present for?”

“Well, that depends on your view of things,” Elena says, glancing between me and Anya. “According to the guards, she had been drinking a great deal. You are no doubt aware of the fact.”

If I were not so deeply Russian, I might care about the fact that Anya was drinking, but I am not a puritanical American to be scandalized by alcohol. It is common for people of all ages to drink in Russia, and the fact that my mate indulged is not, in itself, a problem.

“Is there any indication they were looking for her?”

“The guards kept her safe, so it is hard to say. According to them, it was a roaming band of relatively young ferals, recently awoken from the 1980s. They’re used to simpler times. There are some indications that they’re continuing to target shifter whelps, those who are yet to make the change.

Our juveniles are at risk from these monsters. It’s very possible that they followed her scent, but couldn’t take her because of the guards, and so took the human young in her stead, redirecting their aggression and hunger.”

“Did you ask the guards what they saw?”

“Very little, sir. They were focused on protecting your mate, and the vampires moved swiftly and silently. Not a scream was heard. They did scent blood once the wind changed, but that was all.”

“Then no real harm was done.”

She frowns slightly. Elena has been trying to raise the alarm about what she calls the vampire problem for years now. She monitors them incessantly: population growth, movements, actions, everything. In my forefathers’ time we used to worry about them more, but vampires have been essentially obliterated as a threat to wolves.

I don’t operate in areas of theory or paranoia. Life in Russia is dangerous, and life as an alpha is also perilous. I do not startle at shadows, or concern myself with threats that do not yet exist. A man in my position, and a wolf of my stature, must keep himself grounded.

“She could have died, sir,” Elena says, realizing that she is losing me.

“The guards would never have allowed it.”

Elena’s lips thin slightly. “The guards also reported that she attempted to evade their guardianship. She was sneaking out. She could have been killed, sir. You could have lost your mate before you claimed her.”

“What point are you trying to make, Elena?”

“She is the alpha female she-wolf of the Volk Khishtnik pack, and she could have been killed through her recklessness before a single heir could be produced. She is reckless, and you do not seem to mind. She needs to be disciplined.”

I look down at the sweet, sleeping girl in my arms, the one who just gave me everything of herself, who surrendered her virginity to me like the gift it is, and whose scent I am absolutely covered in. I cannot imagine disciplining her. I have in the past, of course, but she is quite literally changed now. She has assumed her full female form.

“Don’t soften now, Alexei. You’re one of the most ruthless alphas ever to rule this pack. You don’t have to do it publicly, but she needs to know she can’t disobey you.”

I respect Elena greatly. She is one of my most trusted advisors, and there is a possibility she is right about the vampire situation, but there are limits to how freely she should speak to me, and she just stepped over that line.

My eyes flash, and my voice drops into a growl.

“I don’t need to be told how to handle my mate, Elena.”

“Of course not,” she says, immediately submitting. “My apologies. I did not mean to presume to tell you what to do. I will leave you to your flight.”

She withdraws quickly and respectfully. I let her go.

Anya wakes up about an hour before the flight lands. She stretches and snuggles in deeper as she wakes, nuzzling against my neck. My heart melts in these moments of vulnerable tenderness.

“How are you feeling?”

“Good,” she lies, even as a little tremor of pain runs through her. The first shift is the most painful. I know every bone in her body is aching right now.

I reach for the cup of extra strength pain relief Elena brought in the interim.

“Take this,” I say. “For the pain.”

“I don’t need any painkillers,” she says. I see her wince even as she says the words, denying her pain, trying to hide what she thinks is weakness.

I sit her up on my lap, wrap my arm lovingly around her, pinch her nose and tip the dose down her throat. She swallows obediently, which is fortunate because if she were to spit it back at me, I might have to reconsider my position on discipline.

The look she gives me afterward is slightly resentful and slightly appreciative. I look back steadily. I will not apologize for looking after her, ever. The grace period I allowed her to grieve Lilly’s death is over—though I know the grief has not left her yet. It never really will.

“Rude,” she says.

“I will be as rude as I like when it comes to looking after you, shchenok ,” I say.

“What does that mean?” She tries to wrap her mouth around the word.

“Puppy,” I translate for her.

She blushes and hides her face in my chest. “You shouldn’t call me that. It makes me feel small.”

“But you are small,” I say, running my fingers through her hair. “You are just a delicate little she-wolf, and I have you all to myself forever.”

“Stop it,” she mutters, but in such a way that indicates she does not want me to stop it at all. She snuggles closer and I hold her tight as the plane begins to circle our private runway.