Chapter 12
EMME
For my entire life I’ve felt my wolf in my soul.
Our essences have always been connected in such a complex way that you could never truly separate one from the other.
Sure, there were years she was no more than a whisper, but from the first moment we shifted together, she was a strong, connected entity inside of me.
Two parts of the same soul.
And only ever us.
When our quintet sealed, those final strands from Talon securing our power in a way that felt unbreakable, a new energy had raced through my veins and shattered everything I had ever known.
It was no longer just us.
The icy bite of magic rushed through the quintet, and instinct told me that it had been there inside me the whole time, hidden behind the majestic strength of my wolf.
The completion of our bond had unlocked my magic, and now it was a wild, untapped source of power inside me. All of my pack was there as well, their individual strengths joining my new power. Dragons, wolves, and a bear ebbed and flowed with the force of the magic in our essence.
It was a current I couldn’t fight against. I had no idea how to control such power, though it had clearly always been contained within me.
As I battled the surges of magic, warmth wrapped around me, warmth filled with mocha, vanilla, cherry, cinnamon and caramel scents.
Our pack had come for us.
As the six of our beasts huddled together, the magical shitstorm started to calm, and we found a new normal within our quintet.
Consciousness returned in slow increments, and with it, my magic continued to settle.
While it was a wild, untamed energy, it also held hints of curiosity as it poked at me and my wolf, finding us a solid team.
The magic didn’t know where it fit, and to be honest, I had no idea myself.
It felt new and out of place—only it wasn’t. It had been with me since birth too, just caged and hidden behind my beast. Constantine was responsible for that, I didn’t even have to ask to know.
Darlin?
The grumbly whisper in the mental connection had my wolf turning toward her bear, who towered over us protectively.
Our bonds shimmered in a beautiful golden-pink shade, and when I stroked the link to the bear, I felt his energy.
Gruff but soft. Finley held a strength that would withstand the ages, as ancient and solid as the earth itself.
Kellan prowled closer, his tan coat glistening with golden strands as I felt his unwavering warmth surround me. Always sunshine in shifter form.
Are you okay, little omega? The hugest of the wolves, black as night, stepped forward and into my circle of power. As was his right as entitled alpha.
I was the center of them and controlled the quintet, but Hunter stood a close second.
I’m okay. I felt strangely at peace in this new normal.
On either side of us two dragon sentinels guarded their treasures, near identical except for a slight variation in color. We stood as a pack in our essence, all of our beasts and bonds visible, and it was the most spectacular thing I’d ever experienced.
Can you feel the magic? I asked, sending the question to all of them. My wolf tilted her head back to nose against the magic, which continued to try to find its place.
There was a rumble from Slade, which would have shaken the ground if this entire conversation wasn’t happening in our minds. We feel it. It is ours, just as you are ours.
My wolf left the magic alone to prance on the spot, preening from his verbal claiming. My magic flared as well, as if every part of me enjoyed those words. It was a lot though.
My wolf slid back toward her protective circle, and the beasts around her stilled.
We controlled the connection. With that thought, I opened my eyes to find myself in a completely different—but no less enjoyable—huddle.
Whiskey eyes, thick dark lashes, and the slightest glimmer of a dimple were my first sights. “Hey there, baby,” Finley murmured softly, his brows furrowing as he took me in. “We lost you for a second there.”
Swallowing against my dry throat, I tried to shake off the weird sensation of magic in the air. There was no scent of sulfur thankfully, but the tingles remained in my limbs. “When we bonded,” I rasped, “my magic exploded.” I attempted to clear my throat.
Not even ten seconds later, a few droplets of water landed on my lips, and my gaze shot up to find Talon beside the bed. He held a glass of water in his hands, and a moment of remembrance passed between us. I didn’t want to linger on the memory of the underground bunker though.
We weren’t the same shifters any longer.
We’d moved beyond that trauma and pain and our reward had been love, strength, and apparently magic.
His chest rumbled and, in my mind, his dragon leaned toward me. “Did you just pick up on my thoughts?” I asked him.
Talon nodded. “Yeah. Occasionally your stronger thoughts drift across to me. Or maybe to whoever you’re thinking about. It’s as if your wolf isn’t quite blocking all the time.”
Great. That was just freaking great.
“I really need to learn how to stop that,” I muttered.
Finley cupped my face. “We want every part of you,” he told me. “Especially your thoughts.”
With a shake of my head, I pushed myself up to find I was still naked, and no doubt covered in all the bodily fluids from Talon and Slade.
Hunter propped himself up on the bed, and Slade was beside him. Kellan’s face appeared on the other side of Finley, his hair tousled as his heated haze dipped to my tits.
Crap. I was far too naked for our current situation. Even if I had dreamed of this moment, albeit under different circumstances.
The smirks on all the alpha’s face indicated that they’d picked up on my dirty little fantasy.
“I hope she never learns to block us out,” Kellan said wistfully, crawling over Finley to plant a kiss on my lips.
My cheeks were hot, which didn’t halt the strong waves of desire flooding through me. Who would have guessed that I’d just had sex with two virgin dragon shifters.
A sentence that had probably never been uttered before.
“I agree,” Hunter said, his smirk going nowhere.
“But now is not the time for us to experiment with whatever pack huddle our mate has in mind.” His eyes were nearly black, with a solid ring of gold around the pupils.
“For now, we have to figure out how to deal with this new magic, return to the pack house to find out why Kellan’s parents are here, and then get you boys to your hockey game. ”
Hockey. Such a normal part of our lives, even if it felt like years since I’d made it to a game. Despite the deadline looming over us, Hunter continued to make our regular lives a priority, as if he had all the confidence we would still have this reality after the next full moon.
“Wait, Kellan’s parents are here?” I asked, leaning forward to grasp Kellan’s hand. “Your parents are in Golden Claw?”
From the stories he’d told me, Kellan’s parents were incredible shifters, and the sort of family we all wished we’d been born into.
I’d wanted to meet them for ages, but the timing wasn’t the best with everything happening.
Not only were we dealing with new pack bonds, magic, and the fact that my father had popped up in our lives, there was a curse about to destroy the very fabric of the shifter world.
Actually, now might be the best time after all.
Who knew what tomorrow would bring.
“Well, I’m guessing I should probably shower,” I said with a low laugh, trying to act nonchalant while sitting naked, covered in a lot of dried bodily fluids.
To my surprise, Slade lifted me from the bed and hugged me tight against his broad chest. Talon was the only alpha who didn’t react to his casual touch. Hunter and Finley and Kellen all wore shocked expressions.
“I’ll get our mate cleaned up,” Slade said shortly, ignoring everyone as he strode into the bathroom and closed the door behind us.
“I’ll be able to do that too, right?” I said, and for the first time I wasn’t filled with dread at the thought of having magic in my veins. “Manipulate the world around me without needing to touch it.”
His chest lifted as he rumbled, and it was an amused sound. “I get the sense there’s very little you can’t do if you set your mind to it, Snow.”
I pressed my face against his chest to breathe in his sweet and smoky scent. “I’ve missed you.”
Slade paused by the shower, the water turning on with a few touches of the control panel.
“I’m sorry I pulled away from you when Talon first arrived,” he said, and I was relieved he didn’t pretend not to understand what I meant.
“I was fighting a battle against my guilt and fear. Guilt that it was my family who stole and hurt you, and fear that it was only the beginning of what being involved with us would do to you. But understand this, mate.” He lifted me off his chest so I could drown in his brilliant green gaze.
“There hasn’t been a moment, from almost the first second I laid eyes on you, that I wasn’t completely obsessed.
I claimed you long before we sealed our bond, and there was nothing on this Earth that could have come between us.
I would have destroyed it before it even tried. ”
“You watch me,” I stated.
“Every second of every fucking day.”
“And the photos on the wall?”
His stare remained unflinching. “I needed all of you. Even the moments I wasn’t there for, including your younger years. I procured every surveillance photo I could find, and then I deleted them all from the web, so no one else could ever have them. They’re mine, just like you are.”
I knew he included the rest of our pack in his ownership, but that was where it ended. There was possessive, and then there was Slade possessive. They were not the same thing.
“There’s no other shifter for me,” I assured him. “Just our pack. Now and always.”
The satisfaction in his gaze had me wanting to wrap myself around him.
Slade was far too sexy, and this slightly tousled, just-dragged-himself-from-bed look, had me struggling to keep my hands, and lips, to myself.
Now that I knew what being with my dragons felt like, there was no putting that desire back in its box.
It had taken on a life of its own, and I was thoroughly addicted.
“I don’t think you quite understand how addicted I am,” Slade said, answering my thoughts. Get it together, wolf. Her blocking was worse than ever. “In fact, you’re about to get fucked again. Right now, sweetheart. You have one chance to use your safe word, and then all bets are off.”
My scent exploded, and I swore I heard Kellan’s groan from the bedroom, but I was too far gone to care how close the rest of our pack were. “Yes, sir,” I breathed.
His dragon flashed in his gaze, and we were under the stream of heated water so fast that I was dizzy. He pressed me back against the tiles, and when I attempted to lift my legs around his waist, he used his weight to keep me still.
He buried his face against my throat and snarled, “Mine.”
I choked on my moan as he bit into his claiming mark once more, the jolt of pleasure and pain strong enough to throb in my core. “Are you going to do that every time we’re together? Bite me over and over?”
My desperation to arch against him had me gasping, but he was too heavy to move.
As his corded muscles held me in place, leaving me helpless under his strength, I realized the importance of the safe word. Not that I could ever imagine a situation where I’d use it, but it was good to know.
“Every fucking time,” he promised, and the rumble of those words almost sent me tumbling into Orgasm Land. Goddess, he hadn’t even really touched me yet, but apparently all it took was a deep, guttural promise.
Slade’s laughter, always so unexpected, sent vibrations over my sensitive skin. Slowly, ever so fucking slowly, he lifted me higher. The scent of my arousal was thick in the air, and my breaths were harsh in the quiet bathroom.
His first thrust was unhurried, just a parting of my thighs. I didn’t get a chance to adjust before he thrust again and again, until every decadent inch filled me. The heat of his shaft, and the brush of those metal piercings against my sensitive walls, had sparks darting through my veins.
This was like magic, and my essence filled with all the energy.
My low, husky groans followed each thrust, and all words turned to gibberish, as my ability to speak diminished. It was a surprise I could still breathe with this intense pleasure-pain drowning my senses.
“I’d have waited a thousand years just to touch you once,” Slade said, the serious undertones of his words breaking through the pleasure fog. “You’re the reason I exist, Emmeline Anders. You are my fucking reason.”
“Slade,” I moaned. “You’re my reason too—goddess!”
“There’s no goddess here,” Slade whispered, and he was absolutely right as he pulled all the way out and slammed back into me, hard and fast. As his powerful body filled me it took seconds, fucking seconds, for me to come screaming.
Throughout my climax, I was left with only one thought: I’d endure a fate far worse than death for this pack. I’d endure anything.