Dr. Pepper
IRIS
“Baby, what is all of this?” Elliot asks, thumbing through a stack of pictures.
“Oh. I printed some photos out so your new room won’t look like a serial killer sleeps there,” I say, taking the little pile from him.
I leaf through them, showing him the enchanted images of Dame, Kitty, Elsie, and me over the last four years. There are a few from first-year, but I kept those to a minimum on account of how innocent we all look. That wore off quickly.
Most of them are from second year. A few concerts we went to, some random nights at the pack house, and way too many blurry shots of us post Fright Night.
Dred’s in a couple of them, too, but I figure Elliot will get sick of looking at his stupid face in a couple of days, so I decided not to exacerbate it by also plastering it all over the walls.
“I figured you might start to miss us,” I say, passing him the stack.
Elliot’s brow lifts.
“Are you going somewhere?” he asks.
“No. But you’re leaving Crescent House, so you won’t see them as much. And this is further from Whitehall than before.”
“You’re a fifteen-minute ride away,” he reminds me.
I shrug.
“Feels far.”
Elliot shakes his head, smiling as I pass back the photos to finish sorting the box in front of me.
Considering how barren his room was at Crescent House, I was surprised to see so many boxes. But I’m pretty sure most of them are books.
He must have had another stash under the bed or something because there’s way more than I remember.
Good thing Dred’s apartment is huge.
“Alright!” Tysin, a sweet sun nymph, and one of Dred’s other two roommates, comes bouncing into the room dressed head to toe in black.
“I cleared a couple of shelves in the bathroom so you don’t have to fight Dred and Ethan for space.
But make sure you claim it quickly or Dred will assume it’s for him. ”
Tysin smiles broadly, practically glittering under the kitchen lights, while Elliot and I merely roll our eyes.
It’s a funny dichotomy watching Tysin. The bright, bubbly personality cloaked in a dark exterior. I would say it’s odd, but it seems like no one in this house has ever heard of a color other than black. I’m surprised they even let me in with my hot pink sweatpants.
“Thanks, Ty,” Elliot says.
“Her name is Tysin to you!” Dred shouts from his room.
Elliot chuckles as he goads Dred once again.
“Gods, does he hear everything?” I ask.
“Everyone hears everything in this house,” a soft voice murmurs from a dark corner of the living room.
Ethan, the dark-haired boy I’d seen at Beta a couple of weeks ago, is sitting on the sofa, thumbing through a book. He doesn’t look up as he speaks.
“Better get used to it,” he says.
“Can’t be any worse than ninety wolves listening in all the time,” Elliot says.
“Just ignore him,” Ty adds.
“That’s what we do,” Ethan finishes. “I recommend earplugs.”
I have yet to figure out what kind of creature Ethan is. He has no markings of any kind, and no one will tell me, so I’m assuming he must be something truly dreadful, a night creature of some kind. I’ve avoided saying his name over the past weeks until I can be certain it holds no power.
“Ethan’s just grouchy because he shares a wall with Dred,” Tysin clarifies.
“Bloodsucker can’t feed outside the house?” Ethan mutters, flipping the page with a little more fervor than before. “I’m tired of hearing them whine all night.”
Tysin’s face blanches, or perhaps it blushes. It’s hard to tell with her brown coloring and the sunlight peeking through from under her skin.
I see why Dred is obsessed with her. She’s absolutely stunning and one of the nicest creatures I’ve ever met. She’s also the only woman who can stand to listen to Dred for longer than thirty seconds. If I were him, I’d be obsessed too.
“Let me know if you can’t find anything,” she adds. “Oh, and don’t eat the sun-flour in the fridge. Unless you feel like shitting rainbows for a week.”
Elliot and I look at each other, more than a little confused, but Tysin is already halfway out of the room, so we don’t get a chance to ask. And Ethan is still grumbling something about listening to women scream Dred’s name all night.
His long, black hair sweeps over his shoulder as he continues muttering under his breath.
I think he and Elliot will get along great. He isn’t one for chatting, and he doesn’t linger unnecessarily. He follows Tysin out of the room shortly after she disappears, and Elliot and I excuse ourselves to his room before Dred can come wandering in.
The room is still in a state. Boxes in every corner, most of them filled with books, and the mattress undressed. It’s not as big as his previous quarters at Crescent House, so I have to squeeze past the unopened boxes before I can make it to the bed.
Elliot’s phone rings, but he groans as he glances at the screen.
“Is that Vanessa?” I ask.
He nods, pocketing the phone without answering.
“You know you have to talk to her eventually,” I say.
“I know, I’m just not ready to deal with her screaming.”
“Maybe she’ll understand. You don’t know until you talk to her.”
Elliot shakes his head.
“Yes, I do. Because I know my sister.”
The phone rings again, and this time he hits decline rather than just letting it ring through.
I don’t argue with him as he sets the phone face down on the dresser. He’ll answer eventually. I just hope it won’t be too late.
He shuts the door and drops down on the bed beside me with a groan.
“You okay?” I ask, digging through the box on the floor by my feet. This one is full of random stuff, haphazardly set inside until it couldn’t fit anything more. Definitely one that I packed.
“Yeah,” he says. “I’m just a little surprised. I thought I’d miss the pack more.”
“We can head over to Crescent House for a bit, if you want.”
I’ve been weaning him off of Kitty and Dame. Or rather, I’ve been weaning Kitty and Dame off of him.
They call every day just to be sure he’s alright, and they’ve visited at least five times since we slowly started moving Elliot’s things over.
I know it’s only because they miss him. I imagine that after seeing someone every day for twenty-two years, it can be difficult to go even an hour without them.
But I made them promise they’d give him a few days after we got everything moved in. But if Elliot needs to see them, I won’t stop him.
“Nah,” he mutters, looping an arm around my hip. “I have everything I need in this room.”
He smiles at me, and I reach down our bond, soothing his wolf’s energy, and watch as his eyes close and he leans against the doorway, sighing.
“I like when you do that,” he says, eyes shut.
“Yeah?”
He nods, power reaching back.
It hums in my chest, cradling my heart before moving south, and his eyes peek open as he finds my hunger lying dormant at the bottom.
“Princess…” he scolds.
He doesn’t have to say anything more. I already know what he’s going to say.
Elliot doesn’t like it when I delay feeding. With the mate bond, he can feel my power depleting, and he says the wolf doesn’t like it. Makes him anxious.
“It’s all the moving,” I say, unwrapping a bookend and setting it aside. “It takes it out of you.”
“We always have time for a snack,” he says. “We should probably break the bed in anyway.”
He pats my thigh before lying back to throw his hands behind his head.
“I can think of a couple things we should break in,” I say, pulling my favorite item from the box.
I hold it up, smirking, but Elliot’s already shaking his head as he sits up.
“No,” he says, reaching for the replica. “Absolutely not.”
I stand and hold it beyond his reach.
“What? Why not?”
“Baby, you can’t have my knot and the toy at the same time. I’d rip you in half.”
I shrug.
“Then don’t knot me.”
Elliot’s green eyes roll.
“You clearly don’t know what you look like underneath me. If you did, you’d know I have no choice.”
His dramatics make me laugh. But he’s not exaggerating. Thank goodness for preventative potions, because the wolf knows what he likes.
“I think you should have more faith in me,” I say, stepping between his knees.
His hands rest on my hips as his tail thumps against the mattress, excited by my proximity even as he denies me.
“And I think you should be more careful,” he says, slipping his hands beneath my skirt.
His fingers trail over the backs of my thighs, inching up toward my ass and wandering beneath my panty line.
“You don’t want to know how it feels?” I ask, already reaching for his shirt.
He doesn’t fight me as I pull it over his head, but I can tell the effort it’s taking to resist as I do the same.
I tug my top over my head and wedge my thumbs in the waistband of my skirt, watching Elliot’s dick stiffen as I slide the fabric over my hips.
He bares his teeth and sucks in a breath, stilling my hands as I reach for my bra.
“Let me…” he says.
I don’t argue as he works the clasp, and my breasts fall free.
His wolf rises at the sight of me, stretching just beneath the surface until I can feel it reaching out to me. Elliot hums deep in his throat, leaning forward to give it what it wants.
He draws my nipple into his mouth, tonguing the hard nub as he pulls my underwear down my legs and tugs me forward.
My knees hit the bed as he squeezes my ass, and I straddle him as his arms come around me.
“Are you sure?” I ask, drawing his attention to my face.
His eyes are heavy with lust as he looks at me, but he shakes his head.
“Your succubus tricks aren’t going to work this time,” he says, a whisper of a smile on his dark lips. “I can tell you no now. I’ve been practicing.”
I reach a hand between us, and he leans back to watch me unbutton his jeans.
“Oh yeah? How’s that going?” I ask, trailing the base of his dick with my nails.
His eyes roll back as he groans.
“It works perfectly,” he says through clenched teeth. “As long as I don’t look at you.”
As he speaks, his claws begin to protrude, digging into my hips where there is now a collection of scars, all similarly placed and identical in shape, slowly fading.