Page 32 of Taken By The Wolves (Blackwood Forest #2)

REED

Scarlet is still locked around Nixon, her body limp and trembling, her breath coming in soft, stunned pants. Her skin is flushed, shining with sweat, and there’s this raw, dazed look in her eyes like she’s been pulled from one world and dropped into another.

Because she has.

I kneel beside her, brushing her hair back from her face. Her cheek leans instinctively into my palm, and the tiny, unthinking gesture makes my throat tighten. The bond is beginning to pulse between us, even if she doesn’t realize it yet.

“You still with us, sweetheart?” I murmur.

She blinks rapidly. “I don’t know where I went.”

I lean to kiss her temple. “You never have to be alone again.”

Nixon’s arms stay tight around her middle, holding her grounded as his knot keeps them joined. His face is pressed against her shoulder, and the tenderness in his expression guts me. I know what that bond is like now. I can feel its softness in the air.

It’s my turn. And Finn’s.

Scarlet’s gaze drifts to mine, soft but filled with new heat. She reaches for me.

“Reed,” The way she says my name is like a key turning in a lock I didn’t know existed.

“I’ve got you,” I say, crawling closer and kissing her gently, trying to give her all the things Nixon couldn’t in that first desperate, primal claiming.

She’s already marked, already filled with his knot and scent.

But I need her, too. I need to be inside her.

I need to connect us, body, mind, and soul.

I trail kisses along her throat, across her collarbone, to her breast. She arches, still so sensitive, and when I take her nipple in my mouth, she moans my name again. The sound is needy and touches me everywhere.

Nixon shifts slightly, groaning as he slides from inside her, releasing a rush of their combined release onto the comforter. I settle between her thighs, and Finn is at her side now, stroking her arm, his eyes on me.

“She’s ready,” he says, and he’s right. Her body is slick, pulsing, and already open for me. I slide into her slowly, watching her face the whole time.

She gasps, eyes wide. “Oh…”

That sound… it floors me.

I start to move slowly and carefully. The stretch is deep but gentle, not like Nixon’s raw brutality. This is different. Tender. Intimate. Every stroke into her carves my name into her existence.

And then it happens.

Her eyes flash. Her fingers clutch my arms, hard. And suddenly, I feel her pleasure like it’s mine. Like I’m inside her mind, not only her body. Her moans vibrate in me. Her ecstasy floods through my bloodstream like wildfire.

Reed… I hear her voice. Not with my ears. With thought. She’s inside me.

“Did you hear that?” I whisper, panting.

“Yeah. She’s opening,” Nixon murmurs. “The bond is anchoring.”

Scarlet’s back arches, and her orgasm builds like a crashing wave. But it’s not just her climax. I’m riding it, too. Her heat and her need floods me so completely that I can barely keep control.

“I can feel you,” she gasps aloud. “All of you.”

“I know,” I choke, voice hoarse. “Me, too.”

Her thighs tremble around me, and I thrust a little harder now, chasing the edge with her.

My release isn’t separate from hers. It’s because of hers.

As she shatters beneath me, sobbing my name into the crook of her arm, my knot flares, and I spill inside her with a groan that’s a lifetime being purged from my soul.

Our foreheads touch.

Her body twitches gently beneath mine.

She’s still gripping me inside, her body clenching in aftershocks around my knot.

Every pulse echoes through my bones. I can’t move.

I don’t want to move. We’re fused in the quiet aftermath of release, given time to kiss and pet each other and dwell in the connection of our bond.

Her thighs quiver, muscles spent and shaking, but she’s not pushing me away. She’s holding me in.

I kiss her temple, then her cheek, then the edge of her lips, and every place I touch, she softens more, melting beneath me like wax warmed by flame.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” I murmur, voice raw. “I didn’t know it could be like this.”

She turns her face toward me, dazed and flushed, eyes soft and liquid. “Like what?”

“Like… you’re sewn into me now. Like I could spend the rest of my life buried inside you and never want more than this.” I kiss her again, slower this time. “I thought I understood what it meant to have a mate. But this… It’s so much more than I imagined.”

A tremor runs through her, her fingers brushing over the back of my neck, anchoring me there.

“I never imagined it could be like this, either,” she whispers. “I didn’t know I could feel this much and not fall apart.”

“You don’t have to hold anything back with us,” I tell her. “Not ever.”

She closes her eyes, and when she opens them again, there’s something else glowing there. Wonder. “I love you.”

My heart pauses then restarts in a wilder rhythm, as love swells inside me, ready to spill out. “I love you, too, Scarlet.”

She turns to Nixon, reaching to cup his cheek. “I love you, Nixon. And you, Finn. I love you all so much.”

In our minds, Nixon rumbles, Mate, you can speak this way now.

She laughs, then closes her eyes. I love you.

We love you, too, mate, we all rumble, creating a hum of emotion and happiness that connects us.

Finn kisses her shoulder, his own arousal thick in the air. She turns her head toward him, dazed but smiling, as if she's already building to what’s next.

“I need you.”

Finn moves with quiet reverence, shedding his pants as my knot releases her. He guides himself between her thighs, which are slick with both Nixon and me, and she welcomes him like he was always meant to fit there.

He enters her slowly, and a soft cry escapes her lips. “Oh… Finn…”

He doesn’t rush. His rhythm is slow and sensual, hands cradling her like she’s spun glass. She moans again, and it’s as though my lungs are breathing her in. Her pleasure isn’t hers anymore. It belongs to all of us.

The bond floods open fully, and I swear I can taste her emotions. All her fear, her wonder, her love spill into my chest.

And the corner of emptiness I’ve lived with my whole life?

It’s gone.

Scarlet comes again, her cries fractured and raw, and Finn follows her, whispering her name over and over like an incantation. The moment he spills inside her, the final piece of the bond slides into place, locking the four of us in a tangle of blood-deep connection.

When he pulls back, she’s boneless between us, radiant and glowing.

Ours.

Her eyes snap open. They’re hazel but flickering with gold. Wolf gold. And fuck, the sight of it nearly undoes me.

We lay with her, our bodies pressed around her like a shield. Her skin is damp, and face is relaxed, oozing contentment.

“Am I still human?” she murmurs sleepily.

“Of course,” I snort, curling my hand around hers. “But you’re something else now, too. Stronger. Tethered to us. Claimed by us. You’re the center of our world.”

And as I press a kiss to her shoulder, I know she was always the missing piece.

And now she’s home.