Page 2 of Alpha Varsity (Wolf Ridge High #5)

Chapter Two

L otta

The hairs at my nape stand on end. My fingers tremble around the stem of my paintbrush, making my lines jagged and rough.

The jade wolf eyes on the six-foot canvas stare back at me with accusation.

Wolf Ridge High is dark except for my art room–the only place I have right now with enough space to paint on such a large canvas. I prefer to paint in daylight, but with the new teaching job, that’s impossible. Temporary job, I keep reminding myself to stay sane.

I attempt a few more strokes, but the trembling keeps messing up my lines.

Fuck it. Creative genius isn’t happening tonight. I drop my brush into the glass jar of paint thinner.

The yips and howls of the pack out on their full moon run carry down the mountain and through the cracked window, sending goosebumps racing up my arms.

Why ?

Am I supposed to join them? My stomach knots into a fist.

I haven’t been on a full moon run in over four years. I don’t know if the fist-feeling is my wolf, angry for not letting her out, or my gut telling me not to do it. That if I indulge in my true nature, I will lose all my dreams.

Wolf Ridge will become my permanent reality. The four colorful years of art study in Chicago will wash out into nothingness like the paint on my brush. I swish the brush in the jar, watching the blue swirl before the entire jar’s contents turn to gray.

That’s how my life is beginning to look since I returned. My plans muddied and stained. Tainted with the pains of the past.

The howls grow closer. The pack shouldn’t be off the mountain, but it sounds like they’re coming this way. Probably Wolf Ridge High students, eager to mark their territory on campus.

My legs start to shake. I look out the window.

Don’t do it , artist-me growls.

She’s fierce. More fierce, even, than my wolf.

It took me nine months to master keeping my wolf in while living among humans in a big city, but I did it. My hair grew dull, and my complexion sallow. I lost ten pounds, which I didn’t have to lose in the first place. My parents begged me to come home, but I refused. Not even for the summers. Because once I had my wolf suppressed, I couldn’t chance her getting a taste of freedom again. I’d have to go through withdrawal all over again in the Fall. It wasn’t worth it.

Now, though, I’m getting hot and feverish. The need to get out there and join my pack has my feet dragging me to the door .

I feel like crying and puking at the same time.

“I can’t,” I moan out loud, catching the doorframe to stop myself from leaving the studio.

It’s no use. I sense the change coming over me. If I don’t strip out of my clothes, I will rip them. It’s like being a teenager again.

I strip off my clothes in the dark hallway, shedding them piece by piece as I run for the back doors.

I barely make it there before I shift. My two front paws hit the door handle, and the door swings open. I burst out into the cool fall air. The urge to run has never struck me this strong. I race down the football field, staying on the shadowy side in case any humans are driving by. Dirt flings from under my paws as I round the turn that leads out of the schoolyard.

I race up the hill, keeping to alleyways and back streets until I hit pack land. My wolf led me straight to the pack. Without any conscious thought of my own, I fall into position at the rear. I don’t recognize any wolves, but it’s been a while. Even as a teenager, I didn’t let my wolf out often.

We run up and around the mountain, climbing higher. After a stretch of no-thought, one appears in my head.

It’s pleasure.

Deep, deep pleasure. It feels incredible to run this way. To be my wolf-self. To feel the rocks under my paws. The bionic strength in my legs. The breeze across my muzzle.

And that makes me want to weep. Like I’ve betrayed artist-me.

But I quickly forget because a male wolf shoulders me, shoving me off to the side.

I turn and snarl at him. He’s a huge black wolf with a white patch of fur on his chest and around his face. His green eyes are strikingly beautiful. His scent is unfamiliar to me, but it tickles my nose, intriguing me.

He shoulder-butts me again, shoving me off to the side, away from the pack. I bare my teeth. He nips my hindquarters, showing his dominance.

My body instantly responds, not with submission but with heat.

Everywhere. It tingles and pools in my belly. Floods down my inner thighs.

He nips me again, and my core contracts. I’m suddenly aware that I wouldn’t be able to resist if he tried to overpower me.

When he tries. My belly flips as I suddenly realize what this is.

Courtship.

Wolf-style.

The excitement, the heat I feel, is my body’s response to him. My wolf wants this. She wants to be overpowered by him. Not to submit easily but for him to work to win her submission. She’s thrilled by the idea.

This must be why human females love BDSM. The zing of danger amplifies the sexual excitement. I don’t know this male at all. He’s huge. Powerful. And he’s chosen me. He could do anything he wanted with me, with or without my permission.

He nips me again, driving me away from the pack and cornering me against an outcropping of boulders.

I start to turn to show my teeth, but he strikes fast, tackling me to the ground.

I don’t recall my brain giving the order to shift, but suddenly, I’m in human form, pressed to my belly on the soft dirt, with a massive man at my back. Did he command the shift ?

I turn to see him–I need to know who I’m about to have sex with–but he catches my hair in his fist and holds my head in place. “Uh uh. Face to the ground, little wolf.” His voice is hard. As cruel as the grip on my hair.

Moisture leaks between my legs.

I’ve never been so turned on in my life. I hardly know what to make of it. Is this my wolf’s doing? But no, I’m in human form, still turned on.

Desperately aroused.

I would do anything this man told me to do right now for the satisfaction of his touch. His dominance. I feel the nudge of his hardened cock draping between my thighs, and I part my legs for it.

“You want that, little wolf?” I hear a note of satisfaction in his deep growl. He’s still holding my hair tight, pulling on my scalp.

“Yes,” I pant.

“Yes?”

Does he sound surprised?

“Yes, you want me to fuck you?” he clarifies. I’m in love with his deep voice.

He’s asking for consent. He may have chased me and tackled me to the ground; he may be pinning me in place and not allowing me to see his identity, but I do have a say in the matter.

He’s not going to take without my permission.

Is this what I want? I must be crazy. This is exactly the scenario I vowed to avoid when I agreed to return to Wolf Ridge for the rest of the semester.

But only one small part of me wants to say no–that voice warning me that this is how I get trapped in Wolf Ridge. I’m doing exactly what my parents wanted me to do, and once I settle into the pack ways, I’ll never leave again .

But at this moment, I don’t care.

All I care about is knowing what it feels like to be penetrated by the virile male behind me. Receiving the full experience of lust. Of hot, full-moon sex. Of whatever this male wants to do with me.

“Yes.”

Asher

I can hardly believe my ears. Carlotta James wants to have sex with me.

It’s all I can do not to slam immediately in and ride her rough until I explode. I have years of pent-up lust packed into this moment. That’s separate from the years of anger and resentment over her betrayal. Add in the fact that the moment I caught her scent at school, I realized the undeniable truth: that she’s mine, and it’s a recipe for total combustion.

Yep. Fate fucked me again.

She paired me with the one female I never wanted to see again.

So my blinding need to drive into the delectable body beneath mine is as much from rage as it is lust. This is going to be a hate-fuck.

But that doesn’t mean I won’t make it good. I keep my grip on her hair and shift my knees inside her legs.

I already know she’s ready for me. Even if she hadn’t just parted those sweet thighs and lifted her ass, the scent of her nectar would’ve told me.

“Up on your knees,” I order.

I’m as shocked when she obeys as I was when she said yes . Then again, her body must know its master. She recognizes the scent of her fated mate.

I just have to keep her from seeing my face.

Carlotta rises to her hands and knees, arching her lower back to present her gorgeous ass to me. I smack it hard. Under the silvery moonlight, I see my handprint bloom on her pale skin.

“Ah.” Her cry sounds like a mixture of protest and desire. Her dark waves spill across her back.

I stroke her ass, smoothing away the sting. Then I smack her again, harder. The position of power I’m in right now has my dick as hard as granite. I never in a million years dreamed this moment would come. Me, behind the girl of my former dreams. Her, in complete submission to me, trembling for it.

I don’t even have to hold my dick to guide in. It’s like it knows its way home.

Carlotta is tight, but she’s also sopping wet, the petals of her sex opening to receive me. One thrust, and I breach her entrance. Another, and I’m to the hilt. She cries out with the second thrust, my length no doubt stretching her slender channel.

Carlotta has always been petite, and she seems even thinner since she returned. I weigh twice as much as she does, easily, and my cock is… well, let’s just say he’s more than eager to be inside her.

I stay in close, my loins pressed against her soft ass, and give her tiny thrusts to get her used to my size. “Yeah?” I growl, pushing her head down instead of pulling it back to give her neck muscles a break. I keep hold of her hair, though, so she won’t turn to see my face. “Is this what you needed, little wolf?”

She only whimpers in reply, telling me it’s still too much .

I slow down even more, keeping my hips glued to hers, only rocking them to slide a few centimeters in and out. With my free hand, I reach around and find her clit.

I barely brush it, and her knees come off the ground, her hips pressing back against mine to take me deeper. The tight walls of her core contract around my dick, drawing a short groan from my lips.

“Did you just come?” My voice sounds more ragged than I want it to. The shocking pleasure of giving her satisfaction so easily is still ripping through my body. I regain my control. “I didn’t say you could come. Who said you could come before I do?” I pull out and start smacking her ass fast and hard. “You don’t come before me. Not unless I permit you. Understand?”

She doesn’t answer–not that I give her much of a chance. I keep on spanking her. “If you want your pleasure, you wait until I give it.” I stopped spanking and grip her flesh roughly. I give it a shake. “This ass belongs to me. It’s mine to do with what I want. And if I want to spank it until it’s red and sore before I fuck you, that’s what I’m going to do.”

My words are more genuine dominance than dirty talk. They spring from almost five years of anguish at what Carlotta did to me. From my frustration and having my world torn apart and my life ruined by her only to find out she’s the female fate chose for me.

“Okay.” She sounds breathless. Her arousal drips onto the soft dirt between her knees.

“Mmm.” I rub the slick flash between her legs. “Did your spanking turn you on?”

She doesn’t answer.

“Next time, I’ll let you touch yourself while I spank you, and if you’re a good girl, I’ll let you come. ”

I don’t know why I’m promising a next time. I don’t know how long I can keep Carlotta from realizing who I am. As soon as she does, it’s over. There’s absolutely no chance for us.

Not that I want a chance.

I push into her once more. This time, it’s even easier. Her body is more welcoming. Wet. I’ve already plowed the way open, and now she needs me as much as I need her.

Spanking her settled me. Released a little of the aggression I was afraid I would bring to sex. Now I’m able to close my eyes and savor the sensation of being deep inside her.

Now I’m able to move slowly in and out, measuring her ability to take more.

I build a rhythm, ramping up the speed, plowing deeper. Putting an accent on my in-strokes. A snap to my thrusts. All the while, I hold her in place with the fist in her hair.

“Okay,” she pants again. “Okay.”

I slow down. “ Okay , what? Okay, I need to come ? Or do you want me to stop?”

“I need to come!”

Fuck.

For some reason, that knowledge undoes me. My nostrils flare. I buck against her gorgeous ass, losing the leash on my control. I know I’m going too hard. It’s too much. Her knees lift off the ground, and she braces all her weight in her arms to take me.

I don’t care. I’m taking what’s mine now.

The moon goddess seems to circle us like she’s celebrating bringing us back together after tearing us apart.

I’m lost in a hurricane of pleasure and deep satisfaction. That sense that this is where I belong, that everything in my life has been focused on coming to this one pinpoint of a moment. Like this is the apex of my entire life’s journey.

I want it to last forever. I know it can’t. This fleeting high will be the unattainable measure I claw and scrape to hit again every day for the rest of my life.

My balls draw up tight and start to pump. Almost too late, I remember to pull out.

“No!” Carlotta sounds almost offended. Like she, too, was on the brink of ecstasy. I fist my dick and give it two tugs before I come all over her ass.

“No,” she sobs.

“I know.” My voice is rough and guttural. “You didn’t get to come.” I reach around and stroke her clit. It’s swollen, the little nub standing out from the hood. Even though I’m still catching my breath, I force my shaking digit to be gentle. I take a slow gander around her clit.

Her exhale is another sob.

One more circle.

She starts to buck her hips.

Halfway around the third, she comes. I shove two fingers inside her, so she has something to squeeze around. Her orgasm continues, muscles squeezing, her hips undulating and jerking. It’s magnificent.

She collapses in a limp heap when it’s over.

That’s when I mentally freak. Because my instinct is to cover her body with my own. To wrap my arms around her and kiss that sweet-smelling, slender neck.

But I can’t. I won’t.

I release her all at once, shoving backward at the same time I shift, praying she doesn’t catch sight of my human form.

My brain tells me to leave her. To run fast and catch up with the pack. Or better yet, disappear, so there’s no awkward moment back at the pack hall with her trying to figure out who I am.

My wolf won’t let me. It would be ungentlemanly to screw my mate and then leave her while she’s still on her knees. I nudge her with my snout to get her up and moving. I don’t mean to be affectionate. It’s the last thing I want to be with her, but I end up licking her ear.

Then I get a grip on myself. I nudge her again, and when she still doesn’t move, I give her thigh a tiny nip.

That sends her into action. She shifts into her wolf form–a sleek white wolf with jade green eyes. I can’t help but notice how our wolves complement each other. My large black a match to her small white. Both of us with green eyes. Her wolf is slender, but elegant. She stands for a moment, her head swiveling in the direction the wolf pack left, then back toward the way she came.

To my relief, she veers away in the direction she came.

I watch her trot away. She moves slowly at first, as if her legs don’t remember how to work. Then she gains her stride, and soon she’s bounding down the mountain as fast as she was running when she arrived.

Good. She’s not interested in knowing who I am.

In that case, there may be a next time.

The idea of stalking her late at night, fucking her hard from behind, and never letting her see my face is not just deeply satisfying–

It might be the only way I survive the rest of this year.