Chapter 3 Jax
Jax
Before San Francisco, I’d never had to help anyone through their first transformation before. Our pack back in Idaho had been insular. We didn’t bite people, not out of any special care for humanity, but because we’d never trusted outsiders.
Then, in San Francisco, when things had opened up for us, if somebody cared enough to bite somebody, they also cared enough to show them the ropes.
As the alpha, of course I was there. Available.
But transforming for the first time in front of somebody you wanted to bare your neck to—it had to be intimidating, so I tried not to pressure anybody and waited for them to ask for help if they needed it.
Needless to say, I’d never been the point person for somebody’s first shift, and I wasn’t sure I knew what I was doing.
But I did know how to do the thing. Transform.
And Dakota was the smartest person I’d ever met—don’t tell Jill—so I figured giving him a chance to work it out himself was at least a good place to start.
When I fell to four legs, I stared up at Dakota—okay, just slightly up—and that was an odd angle to see him.
Normally, I towered over him. I liked it that way, but this—this was good too.
Looking up at him made the fur down my spine stand on end.
I had the strangest urge to whine until he scratched my ears and called me a good boy . . .
So that was something we’d have to explore later. For the time being, he was staring at me with—
It wasn’t fear in his eyes, and I thought it might even be admiration. I still had the prickle of doubt that it couldn’t possibly be that. He was a mage—and he was nothing like any other mage I’d met.
It wasn’t fair for me to hold him to the shitty expectations I’d built around mages, any more than it was fair for them to hold me to their expectations of us. With Dakota—never, not for one second, had he turned his nose up at our pack.
Not even once.
Mostly, he’d been wide eyed and overwhelmed when I told him what I was.
I knew better than to think Dakota was the sort of person who carried around that kind of prejudice. It was just a momentary prickle of worry before he took off his clothes and I realized—
No, it was definitely admiration, maybe laced with the barest hint of anxiety. I recognized the light in his eyes carried the same feeling I had when he shifted. He didn’t look anything like what I’d expected, and somehow, exactly perfect at the same time.
He was a svelte, white streak next to my red-brown bulk. As soon as we were outside, he threw back his head and howled toward the sky. My blood sang with the sound.
The surge of joy I felt rushing through my chest was mine and his both. He’d done it. He was mate and pack and mine.
He took off running through the sugi trees so fast it startled me. I had to bound to catch up to him, even with my longer stride.
He darted between tree trunks and every time I lost sight of him, I could feel him in my head, urging me to find him. Catch him.
And in the end, he caught me.
I saw the white flash from the corner of my vision, and then he shifted, right there in midair, like he’d been born to do this.
I rushed to shift too, to catch him in arms that could manage it, and we tumbled to the ground, over and over. Before I could worry that he’d hurt himself—shouldn’t have worried at all, now that he was one of us—he’d flipped himself on top of me and was grinding his hips against mine.
“That was amazing,” he rasped.
All I could do was nod while I sucked down deep gulps of air. He looked magnificent mussed from the wind and trees, and something magical gripped me there, holding the leash taut as Dakota decided what he wanted to do with me.
He reached behind himself to steady my cock, though he hardly needed to. One look from him, biting his bottom lip and looking downright delectable, was enough to have me hard as marble and standing straight as a flagpole.
He didn’t sink down, so much as he thrust himself onto me. His ass swallowed the full length of my dick in one swift move, and he cried out, squeezing around me at the sudden intrusion. Maybe I should’ve been worried, but—well, I’d been inside him that morning, and my baby knew his limits.
If he wanted me right now, no holds barred, that’s what he was getting.
I stared at the space between his spread legs, where my cock disappeared between the pretty swell of ass grinding down on my hips. He rocked on top of me like he wanted nothing more than to work me even deeper, and the sound I made was broken.
I reached for him to drag him closer, to get some leverage to meet his thrusts with my own, but as soon as I grabbed him, he snatched my hands and shoved them on the ground beside me.
“Let me ride you,” he insisted, panting as he craned over me. “I need this.”
A growl rumbled in my chest. Right then, despite my seemingly human skin, I was as more wolf than man, and I was entirely his—his to do whatever he wanted with.
I let him pin me, and I wasn’t too proud to say my eyes rolled back at the feel of him bouncing on my cock, the slide of it, the incessant need that had him gripping my hands hard enough it was a wonder he didn’t break them.
The way he leaned over me, his balls dragged against my lower stomach. His dick bobbed, slapping against my skin and leaving sticky drips behind.
“Touch you,” I gasped. “Please.”
Dakota smiled at me like I was the sweetest thing in the world, and he let my hands go.
When he sat a little straighter, his hands explored my chest, his fingers curled to drag new claws across my skin. It wasn’t enough to break it, but it caused the hottest tingle to ripple across my sensitized body, pebbling my nipples and making me throw my head back against the ground.
“Dakota,” I ground out. My heels pressed into the ground so I could raise my hips. I gripped his cock, streaking my curled fist fast against him.
“Need it,” I managed to get out between clenched teeth. His cheeks were pink. His lips had gone swollen, and he parted them on a cry before his dick jerked in my hand and he came, stripe after stripe of his release shooting up my chest.
I shouted as I slammed up, burying deep in him, pumping him full of every last drop I had to give.
Mate.
A satisfied feeling curled in my gut. This was how it was meant to be—all that mattered. My mate and the moon and our bodies joined and the smell of sex and dirt.
I didn’t often miss Idaho, but being out in the wilds? It was perfect.