Chapter 1 #4
“Yes, you can,” Thorn says, a note of excitement in his tone.
I make an impatient gesture at him. The last thing she needs is encouragement.
This girl is almost entirely out of control.
To make matters worse, she could not have said anything more incendiary if she tried.
Not only has she flaunted magic, she now dares to threaten me with it?
The trick was impressive, but that is what it is.
A trick of the light. There is more to surviving than being able to call down light.
If the vampire had been a little faster, or if there had been another in the shadows, or if some other predator had emerged, she would be consumed as surely as we are standing here now.
She is putting herself at risk and she is threatening me. None of this will go unpunished.
“Little girl, if you dare to try any of your workings on me, I promise you I will thrash you past the point of your ability to bear it. I will break you over my knee.”
Her stormy expression deepens, then turns into a pout. “That’s not fair.”
I do not dignify that complaint with a response.
“Bring her,” I instruct Thorn and Skor. “We have to deal with this tonight.”
Tabby
I knew they’d come for me. My scent is strong and they are hunters.
Some small part of me hoped they’d just let me go. I am terrified of each of them, though I would never admit it. What would be the point of telling them of my fear? My experience in the pack teaches me that expressing weakness is a good way to be hurt.
The big man with the notes of gray in his beard is angry at me.
Krall. He looks like his name, like he came out of some far northern cave.
He wears the most scars out of any of his brothers.
I bet he thinks that means he’s the strongest and the eldest, so he gets more say in things.
I’m going to teach him otherwise. Tonight he’s going to learn that being old and battle-worn means nothing when you’re far from home and fighting enemies that don’t play by material rules.
My father is only a little older than he is.
I try not to think about that. Feels wrong to be attracted to someone who could literally be my father.
Oh, no. I’m blushing again. I’m glad for the night hiding my reactions.
The way his eyes flashed when I reminded him that he could be subject to my magic as well is still making my knees feel a bit like jelly.
They pick up their clothes on the way back, but not before I have seen them all naked.
They are all very muscular and very attractive.
I am starting to feel a certain warmth low in my belly when I look at the way their cocks swing weightily between their thighs.
Wolves are always casual with nudity. It is unavoidable when you shift so regularly.
But this is different. So very, very different.
I don’t know where to look, but everywhere there is something to see. A thick, muscular ass. A set of broad, powerful shoulders. The long, strong legs of a warrior. All of these men are my mates. Just thinking that makes me feel lightheaded.
I am marched off back to their camp, which they must have set up before they came to my father’s den.
As camps go, it is not bad. It is not good either.
They have fortified it with fire and a few sharp pointed stakes hammered into the ground, but it is still simply a tent with a bit of heat.
It’s not going to do anything to keep us safe if someone competent isn’t holding watch—and there’s nobody competent to keep watch besides me.
I could tell them the charms and sigils they need to use to keep the camp safe, or I could let the dark crawlers in the night sneak in and simply take them.
That’s what’s supposed to happen. That’s what they deserve to happen.
They don’t understand that they are the sacrifice for the pack.
The dark things will feed on them, and they’ll be sated for a few more months.
“That was amazing,” Thorn says to me, his tone low so the other two don’t hear him, or can at least pretend not to hear him. “How did you learn how to do that?”
“My mother taught me to read before she died, and it was all in her books,” I say. “She would perform little charms from time to time and I followed what she did.”
“Where we come from, those arts are viciously suppressed,” he says. “Witches are…”
“Burned?” I finish the sentence for him. “I’m not a witch. I’m a wolf.”
“Never seen one burned,” he says with a little smile. “Never seen one at all. You’re my first one.”
He’s sweet. It’s a pity he’s not going to survive much longer. Tomorrow the scavengers will be picking at his bones.
But I still need to worry about tonight.
They will all want to mate me. Every single one of them. All three will push themselves inside me and leave their seed behind when they are gone. I will return to my father’s den and give birth.
I read in one of my mother’s books that a female shifter’s ovulation can be triggered by mating.
If we were like humans and had to wait for a few days every month, it would be almost impossible for us to reproduce.
That means once these brutal warriors start taking me, my body will begin to release eggs for them to fertilize.
“Come and stand by the fire,” Krall says. “I want to look at you.”
It’s starting.
I go to where he wants me to be, and look at him with defiance.
“You’re old,” I say.
He looks at me with hard eyes, his scarred features made more stark in the firelight.
I can see his kills in the depths of his pupils.
Shadows of horrors dance inside him. He is harsh with me because he is harsh with everyone, because there can be little softness when a creature dedicates itself to death as thoroughly as he has.
“And you’re an impudent brat. Strip her, Skor.”
The tall, dark man with the burning eyes reaches for my dress. I draw back, crossing my arms over my chest to protect myself.
“If you rip this, I will kill you,” I say, meaning every word. “This was my mother’s.”
“Then take it off,” he says, stopping.
“I don’t want to.”
He smirks slightly.
I am starting to realize they all actually have slightly different features.
At first they all seemed to look like one another, but I think that was because my frightened eyes made them seem to blend together.
Krall has pronounced, craggy, rough features.
Like he was carved out of a rock and then hit in the face several times with an axe.
Skor has a longer, angular nose, thick but cruel lips, and a way about him that makes something inside me crackle with recognition.
He has the gift inside him. Does he know that?
I can’t be sure, but I know I can feel it.
Thorn has softer, younger features, a more square jaw, and he has no facial hair.
He is handsome in an obvious, vital way.
I can see a familial resemblance in them all, though. A sameness in the way they look at me, in their mannerisms, in the way they speak. Their voices are quite similar, even though different tonally.
Skor reaches for me. I pull back. Something sparks between us, two unseen forces dueling for control.
I wonder if he feels it. Right now he has no magical intent whatsoever.
He is trying to do as his older brother bids him because every man here wants to see me undressed.
There is lust in their hearts and filth on their minds, and I am at their mercy.
Thorn moves forward into the firelight. “I can help you take it off,” he says. “If you’ll let me.” He speaks more softly, and he asks instead of ordering me. I feel my breath come a little slower when I focus on him.
Maybe I’ll save him when the other two are being eaten. I know it will only be a brief reprieve, the mountains take everyone sooner or later, but perhaps he will live to see one more sunrise.
I nod, allowing him to do what must be inevitable.
He crouches down to my feet and lifts the dress up from the hem, lifting it slowly up over my hips and then to my chest and then over my head.
I am not wearing anything under it. It is not our custom to indulge in undergarments.
You shift and rip through two or three pairs of panties that took weeks to reach the mountains through the valley passes and you stop bothering.
“Beautiful,” he breathes, folding my dress and putting it to the side.
There is silence as the three rough wolves take me in.
Then I hear a clatter of steel as Krall and Skor shed their weapon belts.
Each of my mates strips, as if they have all made a simultaneous decision.
There’s something strangely focused about their bearing, as if they have to get themselves inside me in order to complete a mission.
It’s hardly romantic. But it is incredibly lustful.
“Hot little piece,” Skor mutters under his breath. “Look at that red…” He trails off, but his eyes drop down to the apex of my thighs, where curls of red hair attempt to hide my sex modestly.
I feel my heart skip a beat as I look back at him. He is large, and his cock is frankly monstrous. He has a thick pelt of hair across his chest and down the middle of his belly and his erection rises from that dark forest like a monolith. Surely such a thing could not fit inside me.
I feel a trickle of anxiety and excitement at the same time. They’re going to fuck me. All of them are going to mate me.
Thorn, I think will be okay. He’s friendly, at least. If I have to sleep with someone, a handsome, cheerful, muscular young mate works for me.
Skor is dark and mysterious. When he looks at me, I feel like something deep inside my soul is being tickled. There’s a connection between us, a kind of draw that makes me feel curious and excited all at the same time.
Krall can fuck off.