Chapter 16
The longest night of the year is still ahead of us, but first, there are practicalities to consider. Like the burning of McCaffrey’s body—werewolves never leave bodies behind for anyone to study, and a new dawn isn’t likely to change that—and the application of first aid for those who need it.
There are also new pack dynamics. Ty and I sit there on that high rock as, one by one, each of the packs come before him and pledge themselves to him. Some with more enthusiasm than others. Some through the wounds they’ve sustained. Some with huge grins.
This is how we create the first unified kingdom of North American werewolves in memory.
“You were right,” Ty tells me in a low voice at one point.
“It’s more powerful that I haven’t claimed you yet.
A queen will always follow her king. Even an independent female like you was expected to fall in line eventually.
Everyone expected the claiming would sort you out.
But you made it clear you follow no one unless you want to, and yet here you are at my side. ”
There was a time he would not have said these things with all that admiration in his voice. I remember all of those times, so I bask in it now. I bask pretty hard.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have given me such a hard time,” I suggest. When he swivels his head to look at me, all that arrogant astonishment and high king energy, I shrug. “I’m just saying, in the future, maybe react less and listen more.”
He laughs at that, and I feel that same connection of ours sizzle between us, powerful enough to supercharge the dark. “I’ll remember you said that, babe,” he assures me.
Though really, it’s a threat. One I can’t wait for him to make good on.
Except first there are all of these conversations to get through. These negotiations, because that’s really what they are. The remaining pack leaders acknowledge Ty as their king, but they also give him all of their problems.
Problems that, in some cases, he’s already solved.
Like when he announces that he’s sending my brothers to the various packs their mates came from for a season or two, in defiance of tradition, just to make sure that things run smoothly. Not to mention handle whatever sore feelings might remain.
During a lull, I eye him. “It almost seems like you were planning this all along.”
“I might not have taken the jump to declaring myself king.” He runs a hand through his hair, and I wonder if I’m the only one who can tell he’s tired.
Not that he’ll show it. Not for hours and hours, and not until he’s in private.
“But I was real clear on the fact that I needed my men in other packs. Just to help steer the ship in our direction.”
“Did you really think McCaffrey would accept it? That doesn’t sound like the asshole I knew.”
“Your brother seemed to think that it wouldn’t be a problem.” He looks at me, his mouth twitching. “I think maybe you don’t know how persuasive Liam can be.”
“Maybe I don’t want to,” I retort, and it takes an effort not to look around and find Liam—and Kendra, most likely—out there in the crowd.
The hour gets later. Slowly, the families trickle away, packing up their things and retreating to dens below or their campsites on distant hills. As they do, inevitably, the wildness begins to creep back in.
The bitten girls dance. The males’ laughter gets lower, rougher. The central fire is high—just high enough that it’s easy to make out writhing bodies, wolf and human forms in various combinations of spectacular positions.
Sex is thick in the air, and finally—finally—this long solstice night feels like a celebration.
Up on the rock, Ty pulls me over his lap. I can feel him, hot and hard, that enormous cock already huge between us.
“I don’t believe I’ve sworn my fealty to you yet, my liege,” I whisper, looping my arms around his neck.
“You know you haven’t,” Ty says, in that low rumble that I can feel everywhere. “And until you properly swear yourself to me as all my subjects must do this night? I’m not going to let you come.”
I laugh at that. At him. At us, maybe. I tilt my head back, and he sinks a hand into my hair and wraps the wavy mess of it around his fist so he can keep my throat bared to him.
Then his mouth is there, that terrible heat, a magic fire that rages in all directions.
He moves so he can reach between us, unzipping my jeans and pushing them off my hips. He palms my ass for a moment, then grunts and lifts me off him so he can tear them farther down my legs, cursing a little when they get caught on my boots.
But he’s not particularly fussy. He leaves my twisted jeans like manacles and pulls me back over him, tearing my panties off with a careless tug.
It makes everything in me light up like the stars high above us.
He releases himself from his own jeans and shifts me up and over him. I kneel up and let him guide me as I settle back into that straddle so we can both watch me as I take all of him. That slow, thick slide down the length of him.
Always too big. Always just right. Always a moment of too much that quickly turns itself over into all of that glorious heat.
I love every single part of it.
“I’ll need that pledge now,” he tells me when he’s seated almost all the way inside me, impaling me, his mouth on my neck. “I need to be entirely certain of you, baby. After all, only a fool trusts faith.”
But he’s laughing while he says this.
“Trust, but verify,” I manage to get out as I finally take that last, impossible inch. My head droops forward with the effort but he pulls it back again, that hand in my hair its own directive.
“You get me.” His voice is a velvet order. His cock is like steel. His free hand is on my hip and he grips me, harder. “I need you moving. I want to see you work. And I need the words.”
I don’t dare disobey him, and anyway, there’s not one part of me that wants to.
“Yes, my liege,” I murmur. “My king.”
It takes a wild effort to open my eyes and look at him. To hold that intense, dark gaze of his.
It takes more effort still to shift my hips and then start rocking myself against him.
Creating that friction. Lifting myself up and then sliding back down.
Feeling that stretch, that mad fire, that connection that pours into every part of me.
My nipples ache. My ears feel flushed. I can feel that cock of his in my toes.
I do this over and over and over.
“I pledge myself to you, Ty Ceridwen,” I tell him. I punctuate these words by lifting myself up and then letting myself fall again. “Once Rix of the Western Wolves, now Ty of North America, high king of the werewolf packs. I’m yours.”
I prove it by creating the push and the pull, and he’s letting me. Insisting upon it, even.
I brace one of my hands against his chest, all that ridged, hot glory in a black T-shirt. This helps. It helps me rise higher and slam myself down harder.
“I swear to you my loyalty,” I pant at him as I move. “King of all kings, king of my heart, king of the wolves, and king of me, I give to you everything I am and anything you desire.”
“So prettily said,” he says against my mouth, nipping me. “I wouldn’t have thought that vows could come so easily to a woman who’s avoided them for most of her life.”
I bite his jaw and he laughs. “I gave myself to you a long time ago, Ty,” I remind him. “You’re the one who wanted to fight about how.”
“Baby.” He shifts beneath me, wrapping his arms around me and that easily, that smoothly, taking complete control.
So that now it’s like he’s the one using my body to fuck himself.
So hard and deep and hot that I can feel the orgasm barreling toward me.
“We’re always going to fight. And we’re always going to win. ”
Then neither one of us speaks for a long while. He plays with me, almost taking me there and then backing off, repeating this irritating pattern until I’m writhing against him, out of my mind.
“Ty,” I whisper. “Please.”
He laughs, his beard in the crook of my neck, then he growls out an order. “Come,” he finally grits out. “Now.”
When I do, I throw my head back and I scream loud enough to be heard all over this valley, and truly, I hope that everyone, everywhere, hears it.
If that’s not fealty, I don’t know what is.
Ty lets me buck and shake all over him, but he’s not finished. He leans back, shifting the angle, and he keeps rocking into me so I brace myself above him for more.
I let the storm take us both.
Down below us, all around that fire, I can hear the rest of our people celebrating in the way we do, earthy and gritty.
Dirty. I realize that this is the first time I’ve taken part in this so directly.
Normally, Ty takes me off somewhere, because it’s tradition to treat the queen differently.
To keep her hidden, even though there is no other female in the pack who doesn’t enjoy the freedom she finds on these fires at least once in her life.
None of us are hiding any longer.
I start coming again, harder this time, because he’s given me this, too. Without even discussing it, he’s making it clear that I’m more free with him than without him. And when he finally releases deep inside of me, I can feel the heat of him everywhere.
I can hear the laughter from below. I can hear the fire crackle and dance. I tip my head back up, kiss him on his beautiful face, and smile.
“I hope the grand high king isn’t too tired,” I say. “Because I think I may have to do that again.”
“Your wish is my command,” he tells me.
Then he shows me, again and again.
Ty and I spend the whole night up on the hilltop.
Not always on the ledge, though I think that I’ll remember our time there for the rest of my life.
We sit and drink a few beers here and there.
We talk with the other wolves, tell stories and share laughter, and as the longest night takes its sweet time heading toward daylight, we work together to build connections.