Chapter 31 - Flint
Flint
My eyes opened slowly to the golden light streaming through the Moonblessed den windows. Sunlight coming from that side told me we’d slept through late afternoon, and I felt certain we weren’t the only ones doing so after the impromptu New Year’s celebrations.
The tangle of limbs around me felt like home — Freya’s silver-white hair spilled across my chest, Zak’s warmth pressed against my side, and somewhere in the pile, Tor’s long arm draped over us both.
I realized I could feel them all because we’d awakened already in the pack mind — not the vast network that had connected all our allies during battle, but the intimate circle of just us. The Howling Echo pack mind.
The clean smell of soap from our earlier showers mingled with the clear, overriding scent of arousal. Every cock in this bed stood at attention, mine included. Desire surged through our connections and my wolf spirit paced beneath my skin, restless and ready.
That dream still clung to my thoughts — starlight and magic, seven bodies moving as one mind. But waking here, surrounded by warm skin and steady breathing, felt even more profound. Anticipation built like heat before a summer storm.
The others were starting to stir again. Bodies shifting, hands reaching, desire building once more despite the satisfaction of our dream.
Heath stretched, his muscular frame shifting against Gage’s side. Back in the dream, when Tor had taken Rowan, a sharp flare of interest had spiked from Gage before he could smother it. Now, half drowsy in the den, Heath’s attention zeroed in on it.
Heath spoke out loud, since we would have heard it anyway. “Did you like what you felt when Torsten took Rowan in the dream?”
Embarrassment flooded us from Gage, hot and quick, but he didn’t pull away. “Maybe.”
Freya stirred at the words, her snow-blue eyes blinking open, her smile pleased and content.
Heath answered Gage without teasing, his words gentler than his usual banter. “I could show you.”
Gage’s arousal eased into something softer, more exposed. “I’m working up to it.”
Pride tightened my chest. As our pack alpha, he’d spent years denying whole parts of himself, never even inching toward what he wanted with his oldest friend. Now, thanks to Freya’s love, he could finally open up to his true desires.
Heath’s affection wrapped around his vulnerability like a warm blanket. “When you’re ready. No audience, no pressure. I can be patient.”
Tight-lipped, Gage nodded. He had always been the one in charge, the one who couldn’t allow himself to falter. Watching him take these small, brave steps made me as proud of him as I’d ever been.
“Take all the time you need,” Heath finished. “We have forever.”
I’d spent so long believing that kind of connection belonged only to Freya — that Odinswolves and hybrids operated under different rules. But then Gage and Heath proved that wrong. And as my wolf spirit had already known for weeks: I would have more than one mate.
Freya, always. My moonbeam, the woman who’d changed everything.
Tor, whose steady presence and ancient wisdom balanced my own connection to old ways.
And now I longed for Zak, whose magic called to something deep in my chest, whose vulnerability made my protective instincts roar to life, whose laugh sent warmth into places I hadn’t known were cold.
An unfinished bond hummed between us.
Across the bed, Tor’s eyes found mine. A slight smile curved his lips.
“Time to turn dreams into flesh.”
Through our fused connections, I tasted Zak’s spike of anticipation mixed with that familiar uncertainty — the part of him that still wondered if he truly belonged.
My wolf spirit rumbled. Ours. Claim him.
Around us, the others began to wake. Rowan’s golden eyes opened, immediately alert.
“Do we need to check on the packs?” Heath yawned.
Zak shifted closer to me, his dark eyes holding mine for a heartbeat before glancing away, teasing the alpha in me.
“We just united the entire region,” Gage said, his hand sliding possessively over Heath’s hip as his gaze found Freya. “I think we can take the day off.”
Freya’s laugh was bright and unguarded. “It is New Year’s, after all.”
My hand found Freya’s, lacing our fingers together and pressing her palm into the bed as I rose to kiss along her forearm. When I reached her shoulder, I could sense her desires, and I let my hand fall away so she could sit up.
The sheet fell away, and my mouth went dry at the sight of her pale skin marked with six different claiming bites and six runes above her perfect collarbones. The sweet scent of her arousal thickened the air.
“Come here,” she said, her gaze sweeping over all of us. “I want to feel all of you.”
The command from our astral made every wolf in the room sit up and pay attention.
We converged without hesitation. Gage reached for her first, his large hands spanning her waist as he pulled her against his chest. Heath moved to her side, his mouth finding her throat, and she gasped as his teeth grazed the sensitive skin.
I settled near her legs, my hands sliding up her calves in a slow caress.
Rowan mirrored me on her other side, his lips pressing kisses along her inner thigh that made her shiver.
Tor positioned himself where he could reach everyone, and Zak knelt beside Freya and opposite Heath, his fingers threading through her hair.
Just mouths and hands at first. Bodies warming, relearning each other’s rhythms in the waking world.
When I wanted to stroke higher on Freya’s leg, Rowan repositioned his hands before I’d finished the thought. When Heath’s mouth moved from her throat to her shoulder, Zak was already there to take his place. We moved like water, flowing around and through each other with effortless coordination.
Gage’s fingers traced his claiming bite on Freya’s shoulder. She arched with a sharp cry, and the sensation ricocheted through all of us — mate bond recognition singing in our blood.
“More,” Freya breathed, her eyes half-lidded with pleasure.
Heath grinned wickedly. “Greedy little wolf.”
He found his own mark on her breast, his thumb circling the raised scar before his mouth descended. Freya’s moan vibrated through our connections, and I had to grip her calf to steady myself against the echo of her pleasure.
My attention kept drifting to Zak. To the reverent way he touched Freya, yes, but also the way his gaze kept finding mine. Through our shared awareness, I tasted his desire — not just for her, but for me. For the final connection that would make him irrevocably mine.
Zak smiled a slow, tentative smile at me as his voice echoed in my mind, “We’re all Bonded. We’re already each other’s mates, claimed or not.”
There was no such thing as real privacy now that Freya had fused all our bonds together into the pack mind, so we knew each other’s minds inside and out.
So, bonded or not, I knew he’d reserved space for me in his heart, space I hadn’t yet claimed.
Freya caught the emotional current between us. Her hand left Gage’s shoulder to brush over my forearm, then reached for Zak’s wrist, connecting us through her touch.
Her eyes blazed with certainty as they met mine, then Zak’s.
“You two,” she murmured, her voice still rough with sleep. “I’ve been dying to watch you claim each other.”
My wolf spirit surged forward, eager and demanding. But underneath that primal need, my own nervousness flickered. With Torsten, we’d all bitten him at once to claim him, but we’d all been finding our way, figuring out how we complemented one another.
Of course, I’d experimented with Heath before — touching, tasting — but never… this. Never taking a man the way I was about to take Zak.
The thought both thrilled and unsettled me.
Zak’s breath hitched, his hand tightening on Freya’s hip. “Flint—”
I moved before he could finish, catching his face between my palms and claiming his mouth. He tasted like magic and need, and when his lips parted for me, I deepened the kiss until we were both breathing hard.
“I’ve wanted this since I told you about Freya being an Odinswolf and you naturally accepted your place among her mates,” I said against his mouth.
“You’ve been very patient, then,” Zak flirted, his voice shaking slightly. “And now?”
“My wolf spirit knows it’s time.” I pulled back enough to meet his eyes. “You’re mine, Zak. You’ve been mine since the moment you walked into our lives. Like you said before, we’re just making it visible.”
Understanding dawned in his expression, followed by something that looked like relief. Like he’d been holding his breath for weeks, waiting for permission to want this.
“Then take me,” he whispered. “Make me yours.”
Freya pulled me down for a fierce kiss before she released me with a heated look in her eyes.
“Proud of you both,” she said.
“Our perfect Odinswolf mate,” Gage said, pulling her back against his chest as Rowan parted her legs and Heath dove in for the feast.
“Just as we are destined to unite packs,” Tor ran his hands reverently over Freya’s rune marks, “So, too, are we destined to bring together our mates.”
The rightness of his words settled over all of us.
That’s why everything felt so natural between us.
Why the four of us alphas had never felt the need to keep Freya away from the others.
And Freya’s existing claims on Zak and Tor took the edge off our alpha need to claim our new beta hybrid and Odinswolf mates, leaving us all feeling so comfortable when the time came.
And the time was now. We rearranged ourselves with the fluid coordination that came from our pack mind.
I drew Zak toward the center of the massive bed, the others making space. My hands found his shoulders, turning him gently until he faced Freya on his hands and knees.
“Like this,” I murmured against his ear. “So you can see her. So she can watch us.”
Zak shuddered, his cock already hard and leaking. Those piercings caught the light, and I made a mental note to explore every single one of them later.