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“Oh – oh – oh,” she murmured breathily. “Ohhh.” Accompanied by theslap-slap-slapof flesh, and the squelch of her sex, already painted by Leif’s release. Her back was arched, her arms trembling as she fought to keep upright against the onslaught. Her breasts swung faster now, like pendulums, pink, spit-slick nipples flashing him on each forward thrust.

But it was Ragnar his gaze strayed to, again and again. The tooth necklace slapping against his chest. The gleaming flex of lean muscle in his stomach as his hips worked, strong and relentless. The bunch of his biceps, as he adjusted his grip. And the awful, teeth-baring grin, the glazed look in his blue eyes as he chased his pleasure. His hair lay in tangles over his shoulders, the gold rings on his biceps denting the flesh there each time his arms moved. And he was growling, low and pleased and lupine.

Leif wondered if he knew he was doing it.

Wondered at the misfortune of finding him savagely beautiful in that moment.

He tightened his hand on his own cock, stroking harder as Ragnar shifted his hips, changed the angle, thrust hard, and made the girl scream.

Ragnar put a hand between her shoulders and pushed her face down to the mattress as she came, muffling her cries, enjoying the throb and clench of her sex around his cock if his hiss was anything to go by.

“Yeeeah,” he groaned. “There you go, sweetheart. Take it. Take all of it.” His thrusts turned sloppy, and his stomach hollowed out. He tipped his head back, tendons standing stark in his throat, as he ground against her and found his own release. “Fuck,” he said, like a man laying eyes on the gods. “Fuck me, that’s good.” The words tapered off into growls, and his hands, resting on her hips, threatened to shift, his nails going long and sharp.

Panic spiked in Leif’s gut a moment – the thought of him shifting while he was inside this girl, revealing what they were – but then faded just as fast. The torq gleamed around Ragnar’s throat, jerking as he growled, and swallowed, and cursed his way through orgasm. He couldn’t shift. Not like this.

The thrill of the idea, though, only made him harder. He hastened his strokes, watching as the girl collapsed down onto her side with a wounded sound.

She pushed her hair off her face, her eyes closed, panting for breath. Limp and used and half-asleep already.

Ragnar clucked. “Poor thing.” He patted her hip, and she didn’t react, hand falling limp to the mattress in front of her face, eyes still shut. “We wore her out.”

His gaze wandered over her a moment, appreciative but impersonal, before his head cocked, and his eyes slid up the mattress to land on Leif, where they pinned him back against the headboard.

Leif’s hand stilled. His vision sharpened, as his pupils contracted; if he looked in the mirror, now, he’d see wolf eyes peering from a man’s face. His scent changed, too, he could tell, piqued with interest. An interest he couldn’t control.

An interest Ragnar could smell. His smile bloomed slow, like a poisonous flower, his canines too long and sharp, another glimpse of his body wanting to shift, but not being able to. His laugh rolled out dark and low.

“Shut up,” Leif barked, his own voice gone rough.

Ragnar chuckled again. “But I haven’t said anything.” He studied Leif, a frank and detail-cataloguing assessment, but not sexually-charged or mocking. It was remarkable to watch him transition between Ragnar the wolf, and Ragnar the smarmy lech. He’d always been the sort of man who teased relentlessly, never serious, always eager to poke at a person’s figurative sore places.

But this removed, analytical side had been a part of him, too, carefully hidden away. The wolf hadn’t created it, merely brought it more often to the forefront.

At least in front of the pack. In front of Leif.

His gaze moved now down Leif’s naked body, over the goosebumps forming as the sweat dried, to his still-hard cock, gripped in a loose fist. He glanced then at the girl, snoring now.

“She’s not up for anything else at the moment, I’m afraid,” he said. He looked back at Leif, kneeling on the bed, hands resting on his thighs, his cock half-hard and glistening. He scratched at the hair above it absently, chest lifting as he inhaled. He was still getting his breath back when he said, “Do you need to go again?”

Leif pushed air through his nose, an unhappy huff, and forced both his hands flat to the mattress on either side of his hips. “I don’tneedanything,” he said.

His cock, the traitor, twitched, hungry for more attention.

Ragnar tsked. “You can tuck yourself away, yes. But what shape will you be in tomorrow morning? Tomorrow afternoon, on the road? With everyone looking to their alpha, wanting to know what to do about the lion screaming off in the trees?”

Leif shot him a glare.

His glares didn’t have the same impact they had at first. Or, a more disturbing thought, Leif had stopped putting the full heft of his authority behind them. Less and less did he feel the need to act the alpha; his growls were more conversation than order or warning. He could feel that part of himself still within reach, knew he could have put Ragnar face-down on the floor, now, and held him there until he was mewling like a cub.

But he didn’twantto. The rest of the pack ducked their heads and deferred to him at every turn. If he was honest with himself, he rather enjoyed Ragnar’s insubordinate spirit; enjoyed having someone to talk to. He’d never had a proper conversation with any of the others, and couldn’t bring himself to feel bad about it. They were his pack, his followers, his wolves.

Ragnar was something else entirely.

He took a breath and held it a moment, released it slowly, willing himself to calm. “What, then? Am I to be some lusty beast from now on? Forced to fuck or lose my wits? A slave to my base urges?”

Ragnar snorted, and smirked. “You make it sound like men aren’t that way already. No,” he said, rolling his eyes before Leif could say anything else. “No, you won’t be a slave. But it’s still early days for you – you’re still getting the hang of it. And…” He hesitated, chewing at his lip.

“What?”