Page 20 of Tamed Wolf (Rejected Mates of the Shelter #4)

Beckett, Now

Blake and I managed to stay awake until Brooks got home, his eyes tight with worry as he walked in the room to make sure Lark was exactly where she was meant to be. He just stood in the doorway, took in the scene, and then started stripping down to his boxers before making his intentions clear that he was about to climb into bed with us.

Since I have alpha privileges, and because Blake already got some quality time with her, he reluctantly scooted over to the edge of the bed so that Brooks could get what he needed from our potential new mate.

Even thinking those words is a shock to my system; I did my best to ignore my own, saw that my brother was able to produce a knot for her, but part of me still wants to challenge the notion that she could truly be our mate. Not just one we chose , but one that's blessed and sanctioned by the goddess. I’d be trying for a shot with her regardless, but knowing she’s meant for us is incredible.

That was about six hours ago, and now I'm the first to wake up to a mewling, needy mate. I spent way too long thinking I'd never get this connection, but here we are.

“I've got you Lark, I'm here. I told you we were gonna take care of you,” I remind her.

She leans into my touch, turning towards me and wrapping her leg around my hip. I don't have time to think poetically about how great it feels to be sought out by her because I can tell that the heat has its full control over her. “I just need to get a condom, sweetness.”

“No, no, no, no, please don't do that,” she begs, voice desperate. “I need you inside of me, Beckett. I thought you said you were going to take care of me.”

“I don't want you to get pregnant, Lark.”

She's clawing against my chest, rubbing herself against me, coating me in slick. My underwear is instantly soaked from her, and I can feel my knot swelling rapidly and this time I plan on testing it out. Fuck, it’s hot to think of her pregnant.

“You're probably right, I'm not good enough for that privilege, am I right?” And then she starts crying, big wracking sobs that wake up my other brothers.

Brooks is alert in a flash, wrapping an arm around her and rubbing his cheek along her shoulders and neck as if to leave his scent on her. “What's wrong, sweetness? What can we do for you? How can we help?”

“I'm not good enough,” she starts to wail, shaking and withdrawing, but we clamp down on her hips, keeping her between us.

“If you're hearing a voice inside your head tell you that, who does that voice sound like? I know it's not yours, baby,” Brooks tried to reason with her, “because the woman I'm holding knows her worth.”

“Then why won't you touch me without a condom? They feel wrong against my skin.”

“It's because we know your worth, that we want to protect you,” he explains. “If we take you bare and you get pregnant, that's just another expectation on you. If that's something you want, we can talk about it—”

“And wait ‘til my next heat? After everything has already been taken away from me? I never got to enjoy Camden’s babyhood; I was always looking over my shoulder waiting for him to get taken away. It's probably just as good; I can't raise another baby in that shelter. I'm going to... to get myself under control. I am.”

While she's been distracted, I’ve managed to slip a condom on, and I tease her inner thighs with my fingers, to see if she's open to touch right now. She reacts beautifully, widening her legs and throwing her head back, wiggling like she wants me to touch precisely where it's aching.

“It hurts. I need…”

I slide inside of her, and she exhales in a rush, but her face never gets completely relaxed. “I’d give anything to feel you bare,” I whisper in her ear. “I just don't want to do wrong by you. I'm terrified of doing something in the moment that feels good and messing this up by making things worse for you, Lark. We only want to mean good things for you.”

She's pressing against my groin, trying to get me to move faster, and I know that this position is not gonna cut it. “Need you on your knees for me, baby.” She scrambles away from me and complies quickly, pressing her face into the mattress and raising her ass high up in the air for me. “Such a good wolf,” I praise her, knowing she reacted well to it last time. I don't make her wait this time; I slip inside her gorgeous body with ease, getting lost in the way her entire body moves every time I plunge inside of her.

“That's it, Lark, let me fix this for you.”

She's scorching. I want to brand every minute detail about the way she feels as she takes me into my memory, but I'm too caught up in making sure she's getting relief.

As male wolves, we are made to learn exactly how painful a heat can be for our mates so that we know the gravity of the situation when we're in the throes of it. It's not a fleeting discomfort, it's not an ache, it's deep-rooted pain that was described to us as tongues of flame grabbing at the internal organs and pulling.

I was hoping we'd be able to soothe her enough with the condoms on, and that wasn't even counting on the fact that we'd be able to knot her because I wasn’t sure, but you can't reason with biology. The thin barrier between us is preventing Lark from getting true relief.

She's been made to feel like she's not worthy of so damn much, and I can tell even now that though she's enjoying this, it's not what she needs. What she needs is to be flooded with our cum, because it's the compounds in that that are going to truly satisfy the heat.

There's not a lot of birth controls that really work on our species, at least not reliably. Wolves have an innate desire to procreate, so every time advancements get made in that field, the method seems to become less and less effective every year. It's like the shifter species is actively evolving, outsmarting every scientist's ability to make reliable birth control for our species. What can I say? Wolves fucking love to make babies.

My girl is whimpering underneath me, but she's not giving me what I want either; she's not thrashing. It’s not fine that she's trying to take what she thinks she’s allowed to have. That won't do.

“Start like we mean to go on,” I mumble to myself and to my brothers. I meet their eyes in the dark, reading their expressions, because we all knew this was a possibility. There's nothing for it.

I pull out of Lark’s body and flip her yet again, laying her out on her back while I press kisses up and down her throat. I nibble on her skin until she relaxes more, until she's pliant in my arms beneath me.

Then I reach down and pull off the condom and toss it on the floor somewhere, watching her eyes tear up at the show of trust. Going at this bare is about as big of a commitment a shifter can make, because it's telling your mate that you want her to have your pups.

By ditching protection, we’re telling her we know what the consequences of continuing are and saying we're going to do it anyways. “You're mine — ours to have, ours to hold from this day forward. You're the second chance we never thought we'd get, you're our literal dream come true. I know your brain is foggy right now from the heat, but I don't want you thinking for one minute that we don't want everything with you.

“Whatever the goddess chooses to bless us with, we'll navigate together. If we get through your heat and nothing happens, we can try again if that's what you want.”

“You already have a baby though, and I have no business having another at my age,” she whispers. “I know Rowan is your priority, I can't jeopardize that by taking your attention from him.”

I kiss her, partly to get her to stop that line of thinking, and partly because she needs to know how I feel about her right in this moment. “Lark, it is entirely possible to have more than one priority. Rowan is the joy of our life, but it doesn't have to be the only one. It's asking a lot of you to be with us knowing we already have a baby—"

“He's not a hardship,” she immediately tells me. “Not a deal breaker. If anything, I'd say it works in your favor.” I can tell that the fog has receded from her just a bit from the physical touch we've given her, enabling us to have a short conversation.

“Let's just take care of you right now and we'll figure out the rest when and if it happens, okay?”

“Okay,” she whispers.

I keep my eyes on her as I work myself into her body slowly, bare skin against bare skin a million times more potent. “Godsdamn I can feel every ridge inside of you, Lark.” This seems to please her, and with the next thrust I pick up speed, then I finally get what I've been looking for. She gives in to the heat, face relaxing, reaching up to massage her own breasts, getting her body higher as she loses herself in our joining.

It doesn't take long for my brothers to replace her hands with their own, and it doesn't take long after that for her to start silently demanding I knot her.

I've only done this once before; it's terrifying and exhilarating at the same time trying to wedge myself inside a space that shouldn't actually fit what I'm trying to give it. My knot is so damn sensitive, and every press against her body has me nearly biting my tongue off in pleasure-pain.

“Please make it,” she starts to beg, “I need it. Need you filling me up. I need to feel you stuck inside my body…”

I'm trying to take it easy, but she wants no part of that. Before she gets too frustrated, I wedge myself inside of her fully, with no small effort on my part, and she's squeezing me so damn tight, rocking into me, coming apart.

It's absolutely stunning, knowing I'm responsible for the way her body's feeling right now, getting to use the knot the goddess gave me to take care of my mate.

“Oh g ods .” She's whimpering now, and I keep trying to thrust into her, making sure I prolong her release as long as possible. With the way she's squeezing me, I lose the fight pretty quickly. I cry out as I start emptying myself inside of her, getting high off the fact that my cum is making its way deep inside her body and satiating her at last.

She's been in a pseudo heat for days, denied relief and only offered mediocre options, so the fact that she wants us is a huge honor.

“There you go, Lark,” I say through gritted teeth.

She clings to me as I fall next to her, refusing to let go while her body trembles against me. I think she's crying again, but I'm pretty sure this time it's because she's overwhelmed with everything happening and not because she's upset.

By the time I'm able to pull out of her body, a gush of fluid escapes, but we can't have that. She wants my cum inside of her, she's damn well gonna get my cum inside of her. “This belongs in here,” I tell her as I push it back in, using my fingers to get the mess back where it should be.

Since I'm basically just fingering her now, she starts getting needy again.

My beautiful second chance mate fires right back up, immediately thrashing, needing so much more than just a few hungry fingers.

So, Brooks takes over, calmly and reverently climbing between her legs while he looks down at her, trying to memorize her like I've been attempting. He's pretty much already worthless as he slips inside of her, bare as well, fitting his knot inside of her easily now that she's already been taken once.

She's different with him than she was with me, different still than she was with Blake. She's starting to understand our personalities and figure out what we can each give her and reacting accordingly.

Blake was a little rougher, I was a little more cautious, and Brooks is bringing nothing but heart to the table.

I almost feel uncomfortable being on the bed next to them while he takes her, because it seems as if they're establishing exactly what they want to be to each other.

Whoever coined the phrase a picture is worth a thousand words has never been mixed up with triplet alphas, because the looks they're giving each other right now as they work together to find completion are worth about twenty million.

Wiping her down and keeping her as cool as possible, working as a pack to make sure every need is met before she even has to ask, makes me feel like the pack we should have been all along. It feels good to be on the path we've always wanted, to have the affection of a good woman and hope for a future together.

We don't complain when we're only able to nap two more hours before she needs us again, and we give her everything we have once again with no complaint. We drain ourselves into her over and over again, letting her dictate who she wants and when and giving her the freedom to explore us in any way she feels called to.

We try to ensure that she always feels safe and cared for, and not just lusted after. This is important to us, and the foundation of the type of pack we want to build with her.

By the time her heat has finally burned itself out, I'm sure it's been days and I've never been so excited to see a shower before. I've never been more grateful for building ours so big, because we're all able to get in there with her, to massage her and wash her hair and make sure she doesn't have to lift a finger to do anything for herself after what her body just went through.

Heats completely deplete female wolves, and so even though we tried to feed her when we could, it’s only after her heat is fully over that she's finally willing and able to sit upright and eat a full meal and then some.

She's humming contentedly to herself while she picks at her food, choosing what she wants to eat first and tapping her foot as if she's listening to a song no one else can hear. Her hair is shiny and tangle free thanks to me and my brothers’ comb work, and she's wearing my shirt, Blake’s boxers, and Brooks’ tube socks that go halfway up her calves. In short, she's happy but I can also tell she’s antsy.

It takes her a few minutes to realize we're all standing here like creeps, watching her enjoy the food we gave her.

“You're pretty fucking cute, you know that?”

She waves me off. “I'm much older than you. I don't think that's something you can say.”

It's risky to bring up her past so soon after her heat, but I have questions I'm dying to know and I’m not sure I’ll get another chance like this.

Maybe if we offer some of our own truths, she’ll feel like she can share part of her story, too. “Our late mate was a bit older than us as well; I guess the goddess just knows we prefer older women.”

She takes a sip of her coffee and another bite of toast before daintily wiping her mouth and leaning back against the back of the chair. “You don't say.”

I grab her hand in mine, palm to palm, and run my other hand over the top off hers, making invisible patterns. “She was in an arranged/transactional mating when we first met her. We thought she was beautiful of course. And she was.”

“What happened? Am I allowed to ask that?”

I nod and continue my patterns, giving myself something to focus on. “We were young, and her pack was wealthy. She had a good setup. She made it seem like she’d be ready to start something with us when we got a bit older, but now we know she was just brushing us off.”

I know my brothers hate telling this story, but they also know this is part of bringing Lark’s world into ours.

“She never really wanted us,” Blake says, tone laced with venom. “She didn't appreciate the humble life we live here, didn't like the home we were able to provide, didn't want the lifestyle of being in service to the pack. She wanted money and prestige, things she already had with her chosen pack.

“Her arrangement with them was supposed to end once her or her pack found their fated, and most of this information we only found out after everything blew over, but…” Blake is right back in those moments when we were lost and desperate to form a connection with a woman who couldn't get far enough away from us to appease her.

Brooks jumps in and tells the next part of the story. “When we met Arabella, we started working so damn hard to ready ourselves to take care of her. We thought, like schmucks, that we were simply biding our time before she felt ready to be with us.

“And then one day, kind of out of the blue, she showed up, in heat and in our doorstep, begging for us to help ease her through it.”

Brooks is starting to get teary eyed, so I tag myself back in to the storytelling. “So naturally we dropped everything and were thrilled because we thought it was finally our time. It wasn't easy being patient for Arabella because we knew exactly how to get ahold of her, and we were too na?ve to even think that she was playing games with us.

“So we got her through her heat, expecting her to move in right after so we could make everything official. She never let us bite her, but we wanted to go at her pace.

“After the heat, she basically told us she had no further need for us, and we didn't hear from her again until other shit started going down.”

“Turns out her heat was manufactured because she wanted to trick the pack she was desperately trying to cling to. Her plan was to trap them into a real mating by making them think they were the ones that got her pregnant through some miracle of the goddess; they never even knew about us, of course she didn't tell them she found her mates. That was a real slap in the face,” I admit, sick to my stomach over past me’s mistakes.

“They had found their mate as well, but Arabella was interfering there too; she was basically some sort of evil genius, developing what she called ‘cure-alls’ to relieve shifters of unwanted bonds. She completely fucked up countless lives in her games, and very nearly cost her pack their fated mate and child they didn't know about.

“For her role in everything, and because raids revealed how truly horrific her experiments were, she was sentenced to death once our baby was born. So, we became single fathers, which has been exhausting, but also sort of the best thing that's ever happened to us.”