Claimed by the Alphas (Shifters of Appalachia Book 1) Read online

  Not taking his eyes off her, he moved his hand down to slip it between her thighs. Her breathing hitched as his fingers slipped under her panties and found her warm, wet cleft. The pad of his thumb found the stiff bud of her clit and deftly stroked her, the pleasure intensified by his heated gaze.

  Huskily, he told her, “You are ready for me. I am going to mount you now. You will grow accustomed to my size.”

  Mila didn’t protest as Caim flipped her over onto her stomach. She let him slide her panties down, exposing her generous rear. He made an appreciative noise, and she felt his hands close around her cheeks, squeezing and kneading.

  Try as she might, she couldn’t recapture her earlier fear of him. She knew sleeping with him was probably a bad idea, but she was prepared to deal with the consequences later. Right now, she ached for him, and the idea of the alpha stretching and filling her seemed wildly appealing.

  She felt him position himself behind her, rubbing the blunt tip of his cock along her drenched opening. She groaned, trying to push against him, but he stayed her with a hand on her ass.

  “You’re so tight,” he said, his breathing harsh. It turned her on so much to think that the wolf who claimed he wouldn’t be able to get aroused by her just a short time ago, was now kneeling behind her, rigid and panting.

  “Are you going to take me, or not?” she goaded, clenching the muscles of her sex around his cockhead.

  With an inhuman growl, Caim slammed into her, burying himself to the hilt. Mila let out a strangled cry. He hadn’t been exaggerating when he said he was big. The alpha stretched her past the barriers of her comfort, taking her into a hazy, gray area where pleasure danced with pain.

  He grasped her by the hips, keeping them pressed tightly together but not moving. She sensed he was waiting for her to be ready, and she wiggled against him encouragingly. The small gesture was all he needed, and then he was rocking into her, slowly at first, but steadily picking up speed. It took a few seconds for the initial sting to subside, but once it did, Mila quickly lost herself in the rhythm of his hips.

  “So tight,” he repeated, pumping into her faster. “It feels like you’re squeezing my cock.”

  She groaned in response, matching his new pace. The pain was gone now, and she reveled in the feel of the alpha wolf completely filling her slick passage.

  He increased his pace, but his thrusts were shallow. She could tell that he was holding back and the thought frustrated her. She should be the one to decide when it was too much, not him.

  “Deeper. Take me harder,” she demanded. She heard him growl as he ploughed into her in a powerful thrust. She let out a loud, approving moan, loving her newfound power.

  Caim was still growling behind her, hammering his cock into her with fierce need. She felt her pleasure escalating, each thrust sending jolts of sensation straight to her core.

  She cried out as her orgasm hit her.

  Waves of pleasure crested over her, amplified by Caim’s hard thrusts. She felt herself spasm around him. He must have felt it too, because the alpha let out a fierce, guttural sound as he slammed into her sheath one final time, emptying himself inside her.

  Mila collapsed onto the pelts, her body still trembling from the force of her orgasm. Caim followed her, scooping her up around the waist and turning her to lie against him on her side, his softening shaft still inside her. She wasn’t sure what to make of the fact that Caim was spooning with her, but she yielded, finding the tender gesture to be just what she needed after mind-blowing sex.

  Once the post-coital haze lifted, though, she began to have serious doubts about her sanity.

  She had left her entire human existence behind to start a new life as the mate of a charming alpha wolf. In less than a day, she had fallen to her knees for his best friend, all under the pretense that sleeping with him would make it easier for them to ultimately share her. Clearly, she was out of her mind.

  “Caim?” she implored, hoping the male could offer her some reassurance.

  “Hn?” he grunted, sounding as if he was already falling asleep.

  “What does this mean?”

  Caim didn’t reply. He maneuvered his head over her shoulder, clamping his teeth down on her throat. She tried swatting at him, but he kept her body pinned against him with one strong arm.

  “Will you cut it out?” she whined, already feeling the familiar numbness spreading over her limbs. She sighed as her muscles slacked and she lay supplicant in his hold.

  Mila was very drowsy by the time he finally released her. Through heavy-lidded eyes, she watched him reach over and grab a cozy pelt, wrapping it around their nude bodies.

  There was still so much she would have to figure out. She wasn’t sure how she was going to approach Asch, especially now, and she definitely didn’t know what she was going to do with the Neanderthal beside her. For now, though, she wouldn’t worry about it. She curled into Caim, fitting her softness against his hard form, and drifted to sleep.

  Part Two

  During the long days of the first week, before I learned to slumber in the light, I lay awake, listening to the sounds of the pack as they dozed. Loneliness was a vise around my soul and isolation my bedfellow. Invariably, I wept myself to sleep just past noontime.

  In my dreams, I was always lost. Not merely in the Cordilleras, but in the shallow existence of my human life. I would rally against the darkness, returning to the world as I did in birth—naked and wailing.

  Je suis perdue! I am lost!

  And invariably, he was there, waiting to find me.

  Marie du Luponte, 1931

  An excerpt from Wolves of the Cordilleras

  1

  Caim wanted her again.

  He had wanted her again as soon as he came, but he had held back, telling himself that the strange impulse would pass.

  It had not.

  He found himself in a baffling position. He was stiff and he wanted to rut, but the human was asleep.

  As soft as she was when she was awake, she became completely malleable in her sleep. Flesh like heated satin melded to his own rough exterior as she curled into him.

  It had been at least an hour since she had turned to burrow into his chest. His human form was very hard, and he did not understand the appeal. He held her close all the same, turning his nose into her hair to breathe in her scent.

  The sugary and floral fragrances of her world were already fading. She had absorbed everything around her: the autumn air, the supple doe pelt she slept beneath, and him. Beneath the smell of his seed and the musk of their sweat mingling, Caim smelled his imprint within her flesh.

  It drove his wolf insane.

  The baffling position he found himself in was not that he could not rut. Any other time, there would have been an easy solution to that. Lotus and Sable, his favorites, were away from the den, but he could have settled for any female while in need of a quick release.

  It was his right as their alpha. That was not to say that he simply took his pleasures when he pleased. They were always more than willing to accommodate him, even the ones who—for whatever reason—favored Asch.

  Many wolves did not live in packs. They scraped out meager existences on the boundaries of pack territories, either alone or in pairs. Those with more self-control, such as Asch’s father, would sometimes try to live among humans, though that always ended badly.

  The wolves that chose to live in packs were the most sensible to him. Like most packs, Caim’s was nearly entirely female. The females chose to join his pack because he was powerful and capable. He could defend their hunting grounds and their den. In return for this security, they submitted to him in all things. That was the natural order of it.

  And so, while it was his right to take any one of the females in his pack, and while he could take them as hard and as savagely as suited him, he did not want to.

  He wanted the human again.

  He wanted to be inside her again more than he had wanted to be inside her the first time.
He would have woken her up, but he knew she would be sore and would likely not enjoy it. He wanted her to enjoy it when he took her. He liked the sounds she made for him and the way she bucked her hips against him.

  The thought of another male giving her pleasure, even Asch, made him see red. Caim was perfectly capable of providing for a human all on his own. He would protect her and any pups that she bore him, and in time, she would come to see that he was all that she needed.

  * * *

  Mila woke up feeling like she’d been hit by a truck. Her head was pounding, her back ached, and her entire pelvic region felt like it would be out of commission for at least a month.

  She sat up on the pallet of pelts, fully prepared to give Caim a piece of her mind, but he was gone and the space beside her was cold. She wasn’t going to let that disappoint her. Either that, or she’d do a very good job of pretending that it didn’t.

  Pushing the fur blanket aside, she moved to stand up—and immediately fell back down.

  “Shit,” she cursed. Her legs felt like gelatin. She looked down to examine them, squinting to see in the moonlit chamber. Dark bruises had taken shape all over her hips. Fingerprints.

  “Your body is small and frail. It is not built for the type of aggressive rutting I enjoy.”

  She sighed. It wasn’t as if Caim hadn’t warned her. What the hell had she been thinking? Well, that was easy—she hadn’t been thinking. Caim had gone from pokerfaced to vulnerable to swelteringly sexy in a matter of minutes. He was kryptonite to her biggest flaw: the complete inability to resist temptation.

  Still, of all the bad decisions she had made, Caim was definitely in the category of Would-Do-Again. The guy was so sexy she couldn’t look at him without her hormones going haywire. And the way he had gone from claiming not to be attracted to her to being hard and aching for her had been the single biggest turn-on of her existence.

  On the third attempt, she was able to stand. She snatched her dress from the floor. It was the same black cocktail dress she’d left Tye County in. After two days of travelling on foot through mountain wilderness and one night with a careless wolf, it was pretty much a lost cause. Still, she wasn’t about to let it all hang loose around her new pack. So, she’d have to make do for now. With any luck, the rest of her things would arrive soon.

  In return for her joining the pack, several wolves had gone to Tye County to establish a perimeter. They would mark the edges of the county, leaving it as a warning that Tye was under the protection of the Lazarus pack. Before they’d left, Asch had ordered them to bring back her luggage. She could only hope they had listened to their alpha.

  She made her way out of Caim’s chamber and into the stygian passageway, not really sure which way she should go. The network of caves that made up the den was still a mystery to her and it was the first time she’d navigated them alone. Putting her hands on the limestone wall, she followed a light breeze that guided her down a wide tunnel.

  After a few minutes of fumbling around, she saw a faint, flickering light in the distance. It was likely the central cavern where all of the wolves seemed to congregate with one another. At the thought of entering the cavern, Mila paused and let out a heavy sigh. It occurred to her that she was about to do the walk of shame in front of the pack.

  It couldn’t have been more than a few hours ago that Caim had dragged her back to his chamber. It had been her intention to simply have a discussion with him. There were a lot of important things they needed to talk about, namely: the next time she ovulated, whenever that was, Caim and his friend Asch were going to rip each other’s throats out for the right to impregnate her.

  Mila gagged a little at the thought, wondering again what the hell she had been thinking.

  She had been with the Lazarus pack for less than a day and she’d already slept naked with one alpha, had sex with the other, and hatched a plot to drag them both into some crazy three-way. Oh, if mom could see her now.

  Shoulders slumped, she continued down the tunnel until she heard the wolves. They sounded different than they had earlier. Last night, their noises had been a discordant jumble of yelps, growls, and cries. Tonight, they were high-pitched barks.

  When she drew closer to the outlet of the tunnel, Mila heard a harsh snarl that made the fine hairs on the back of her neck rise. Briefly, she contemplated turning around to spend the night in Caim’s room. Curiosity got the better of her, though, and she peeked her head around the corner of the cavern wall.

  The wolves had gathered in the center of the domed room. There were at least two dozen, and from the looks of it, they all hailed from different packs. They were golden brown, charcoal and ash, mottled black and yellow, and fawn. The average-sized omegas were threaded between hulking betas, looking stunted by comparison. Brae’s tall, snowy form stood out among the crowd, though she was in the far corner of the room. None of the wolves noticed Mila’s intrusion. They were all focused on the fight.

  In the center of the ring, Caim squared off against a coppery wolf that could only be Asch. In his wolf form, Caim was a sight to behold. He stood taller than a man. His powerfully muscled limbs were encased in a lustrous midnight coat. His face was contorted in a snarl, mouth pulled back to reveal two rows of razor-sharp teeth.

  If it were possible, Asch looked even angrier than Caim. Drawn to his full height, he was nearly the same size as the other alpha, though his muscles were more sinuous than bulky. He matched Caim’s snarl, a sustained growl emanating from his chest.

  The wolf pack barked excitedly around them as the two alphas circled each other with their teeth bared. Each readied himself to strike at any second, and Mila knew it was all her fault. If she had just kept her legs closed and her bra on, maybe this wouldn’t be happening. She had known sleeping with Caim was a bad idea, but bad ideas … they were kind of her M.O.

  Rather than accepting a full scholarship to Fordham when she had graduated high school, Mila had decided to pursue her dream of being an event coordinator. That had lasted all of two months, and then she had been inspired to become a photographer, at least for a week or two. The list went on and on: cosmetologist, massage therapist, teacher’s aide, even a court stenographer.

  After a year of failures, she had finally caved under the weight of her parents’ disapproval and gone to college. There, she had changed her major almost as often as her diet. Then, just when she was finally about to get her bachelor’s degree in business administration, she had decided to spend the night before final exams drinking and partying.

  To be fair, most of the time she did something stupid, Mila genuinely believed that maybe, just this one time, things wouldn’t turn out so bad.

  Maybe her new business venture would be a success and her parents would be proud of her. Maybe she would like a career as an engineer. Maybe she could have just one margarita before she went home to study. Maybe she could just feel Caim’s bare hands, stroking and kneading her breasts. Maybe she could just run through a pack of frenzied wolves, superimpose herself between two alpha wolves, and give a heartfelt speech that would remind them that they were friends, and then they would stop fighting.

  Mila didn’t quite make it that far.

  As she was trying to push her way past the wolves, Asch lunged at Caim, claws spread wide. The two clashed on their hindquarters, but with his momentum, Asch had the advantage. He knocked the larger wolf over, pinning him to the ground. He moved to bite Caim’s neck, but the black wolf kicked up with his back legs, sending Asch flying into the crowd.

  Mila’s eyes bulged as Asch went hurtling by, narrowly missing her. She knew werewolves were strong, but Asch had to weigh several hundred pounds, and Caim had just tossed him with ease. Preternaturally fast, both alphas were back on their feet in seconds, neither succumbing to defeat.

  This time, Caim attacked first. The wolves had the good sense to clear a path, but Mila had barely ascertained what was happening before the two enormous wolves lunged at her. There was no time to react. He was midair in
one instant, and in the next, he was bearing down on her.

  She felt herself hit the stone floor. Pain lanced her skull and black spots multiplied before her eyes. She tried to blink them away, but they were stubborn. She couldn’t help but wonder if she had just made the worst decision of her life.

  2

  A gloriously naked man stood over her, looking like an avenging angel. He seemed terribly concerned about her, which made perfect sense. After all, this was her fantasy.

  Oh, wait, that was Brae.

  “Mila! Mila! Mila!” she repeated, waving a frantic hand in front of Mila’s face.

  At once, Mila became aware of a splitting pain in her forehead. No, this was definitely not a fantasy.

  “Don’t worry, it’s just a scratch,” Brae assured her.

  Brae wrapped an arm around Mila’s back, trying to pull her up. The pain intensified, pulsating over her skull. Mila let out a sharp cry, pushing against the female. Startled, Brae reflexively dropped her back on the ground. The pain was so bad that Mila thought she might pass out again.

  “Get the fuck out of the way,” a harsh, unfamiliar male voice said.

  “I’m sorry!”

  Mila looked up to see Brae shrinking back from Asch. At least, it looked like Asch. She recognized his coppery hair and golden bronze skin, but his head was all wrong. Thick veins in his neck protruded from muscles that strained against his skin. His eyes were livid and his nostrils flared with his rapid breathing.

  None of the rage left his face when he leaned down to scoop her off the floor. She couldn’t help but wonder if he was mad at her. It was certainly plausible, considering she’d slept with his best friend and rival.

  He brought her up to a sitting position, cradling her against his broad chest. She noticed that the wolves had scattered. Brae was squatting a good distance away, her body stiff. Caim stood several feet from her, legs spread apart and arms folded across his chest. She tried to make eye contact with him, but he avoided her gaze.