Page 22

Billie

ONCE UPON A time, millennia ago, there was a truck that backed up over my head. That truck had the courtesy to beep, alerting me to the pain it was about to bestow. Many say the importance of good manners has been lost on my generation, leading me to assume that the truck currently backing over my head, sending splinters of mind-numbing pain through my skull, must be a newer model. Because I got no warning. One moment, I was blissfully asleep, floating in an unconsciousness so far away that even dreams could not reach me. The next moment, my head felt the roll of the tire, the press of the pavement, the squeezing of my skull, and the pressure behind my eyes as they practically popped out of their sockets.

Any thoughts quickly burn to ash under the flames of agony searing through every crevice in my brain. I gasp, and flashes of bright light paired with white-hot pain eclipse the darkness behind my eyelids, sending a wave of nausea through my stomach, which feels miles away.

“Shh,” someone all but yells, his lips hammering kisses along my sweat-coated forehead and over my throbbing temple. I want to tell him to shut up, to stop touching me, but I am so consumed by the excruciating feeling of my brain boiling into a liquid, I can’t do anything but silently lie here under his assault.

“X, she’s awake!” he calls out, his voice like a screech owl’s shriek, piercing my eardrums, and I swear I feel warm blood pooling inside my ears. A whimpering cry passes through my lips—lips I couldn’t even feel until now. I try to connect to my body, but that sends another bolt of hot pain through my head. I back off. It doesn’t really matter if I have a body or not. If I do, I don’t need to know the condition of it, not now at least. The state of or lack of my body is something for future me.

There’s stomping and crashing, and I wonder if I’m experiencing an earthquake that’s shaking the entire world. “Wilhelmina!” a man screams, the sound reverberating through my head like an orchestra made of just cymbals clashing all at once.

Then a hand is pressed against my battered head, my flimsy skull feeling as if it’s being depressed under the weight. The raging pool of lava that is my brain begins to sizzle as cool energy spreads out from under his hand. He sends wave after wave into me, and the fiery pain recedes like magma being drowned out by arctic waters, causing hot chills to erupt over my scalp, down my face and neck, and continuing on down—down the body of one whose existence seemed questionable only moments ago.

“Turn off the headlights,” says he who yelled first, who I can now identify as Jax. The hand on my head stays while another hand presses against my chest, gently guiding me to lie back onto what feels like a damp, spongy material, while he sends another tidal wave of cool energy into me.

Only then do I feel her. Little Fox, coming out from the raging hot energy she was submerged in. She’s gasping and choking and coughing as she drags herself to the cool-blue energy pooling near her. Soon, she’s rolling in it, undulating, purring, and licking it up with absolute voraciousness while puffs of steam release into the air around her. I watch the energy change from blue to green, and soon her, um, enthusiastic hunger spreads to me.

As if I’ve been unconsciously held under that boiling water with her and have just surfaced from its depths, my mouth stretches open with a gasping gulp of air. Every guzzle of life-saving oxygen is accompanied by tidbits of terrifying realizations. I’m remembering all the energy Little Fox used; the grit and determination she displayed, as she kept those wolves not just under her power but connected to her on a deeper level I don’t wholly understand; the distressing rise in her body temperature and the near delirium that threatened our consciousness as she forced her body to stay hot, to do what needed to be done so the energy she employed wouldn’t waver; and the internal sirens that were blaring and flashing in emergency, warning her to stop, to pull back and cool off. She ignored those alarms—alarms I alerted her to—only to receive a scoffing snarl and the lid on the soundproof box she put me in slammed shut. She blocked me out, silenced me, similar to what I’ve done to her, though I never did so in such a dangerous situation.

From what I can tell, we didn’t just burn out. We set ourselves on fire, and we’re still blazing. My need for Xander’s healing energy becomes more than a cool compress—it becomes life. Still unable to open my eyes, my arms thrash about, trying to snatch onto that source. Unfortunately, all I end up doing is backhanding him across the face and throwing a quick jab into his chest.

His hands dislodge from their position, and with their absence, the cauldron of simmering heat soon spills over like a poisonous potion. Hot iron stakes pierce my brain, scorching my nerve endings and summoning black, swirling circles around my already-darkened vision. A lump in my throat heats and swells like a boiling tomato, making it hard for me to breathe. Without thought, only need—need for relief—I lunge forward, seeking out the cool liquid of those healing hands. I ram myself against a body.

“Wilhelmina,” Xander grunts while his arms quickly band around my convulsing form, pinning my wild limbs down. “Mate, breathe. Just breathe,” he says in a concerned yet demanding voice. Pressing my open mouth against his flesh, I try to gulp down his scented air, only to get half of the breath into me, while coughing and choking on the rest. But it’s enough to taste him, his flavor, and it has me lurching forward again. Wild and unhinged, unable to act with logic or care, I feel my elbow hit something sharp and hard while my knees drive into another part of him. “Jax, Ethan,” Xander hisses out. “Help me hold her down.”

Yes! Lie on top of me! Lie below me! Sandwich me between my mates! I enthusiastically try to help, blindly reaching and rolling for them, only to come in contact with more hard things, eliciting groans of pain and muttered curses.

“Stay still,” Xander—no, my alpha—commands, the directive shooting down my spine, causing my body to stiffen and my arms to slap against my sides. “There we go,” he praises, his voice like silk slithering around my neck and down my chest.

Two bodies quickly work on taking hold of me. One pulls me onto their lap, their hands cuffing my wrists and crossing my arms over my chest like a mummy. The other sits their bum down on my thighs their long fingers wrapping around my ankles, keeping my legs down. Campfire and cinnamon mix with sandalwood and leather, soon joined by pine and cloves. “We’ve got you, B,” Jax assures me, his mouth trailing kisses up and down the side of my neck. My body temperature is so high that his normally hot mouth feels cool on my skin.

“Just let us give you want you need,” Ethan says, his voice seeming distant. Sweat drips down my face over my brows, wetting my lashes, and I wish I was brave enough to open my eyes, but the fire still burning behind them keeps me reluctant. “All you need to do is breathe and we’ll give ourselves to you,” he promises, settling his weight more firmly on me. And the comfort of being in their arms has the tension in my body seeping away. I’m trusting them to make it stop.

Xander returns his hands to my head and chest. That bubbling boil of molten liquid that was searing my consciousness out of existence dampens with his icy energy. Little Fox arches herself up to bathe in the waterfall of his energy like the exotic dancer in Flashdance , and it takes all I have to stay still, to not get on that stage with her. After several agonizing minutes, her show comes to a slow end, and she shakes her head a few times, her eyes blinking open as if she, too, was lost in the literal heat of her performance.

“So... sor... sorry,” I stutter on a dry cough and croak. “Don’t... don’t know what happened.” I manage to peel my eyelids back, but my eyeballs sting, and everything is still really blurry. I let them close again while squirming my very sweaty bum from side to side against Jax’s naked form, thereby sliding my equally slick thighs under Ethan’s bare behind.

Xander’s cooling energy slowly retreats as he slides his hands to cradle either side of my face. His thumbs softly brush over my cheeks, sending trickles of his energy behind my eyes. The burning and stinging slowly begin to dissolve. After a few moments, I’m finally able to blink without pain, and when I open my eyes, nothing is blurry. I look around, trying to get a sense of what’s going on, but all I can see is Xander. His normally gorgeous face is drawn and pale. His glowing eyes are sunken, and there are lines of concern pulling at the corners of his mouth and creasing between his brows. We stare at each other for several long seconds. “Better?” he asks in a hoarse voice.

Licking my dry lips, I mutter, “Better... and—” I try to swallow but my throat still feels thick. I wince. “Sorry.”

His eyelids shutter, and his forehead slumps to rest against mine, our temperatures now close to the same. He exhales. “As long as you’re okay, that’s all that matters.” He inhales and says, “But we need to move.” He gifts me with a brief kiss before pulling back and standing up. “Let’s see how well you can stand.”

Ethan smoothly changes positions, rising up and spinning around to offer me his palms. Jax releases my wrists and secures his grip around my ribs. Taking hold of Ethan’s hands, I let him pull me while Jax guides me from behind until we’re all standing.

A wave of dizziness has my feet tripping over themselves, causing me to stumble into Ethan’s solid frame. His arms secure me to his body, which only now do I note is not just smeared with blood—some wounds are still bleeding. “Just breathe, love,” he assures me, guiding my head to a blood-free part of his chest, while his other hand is firm on my lower back.

After a few deep breaths, the spinning subsides, and I can feel the cool squishiness of moss under my feet. “I’m good,” I say, pushing back from his hold and moving my feet with more surety to come to lean against his side, facing both Xander and Jax, who were huddled behind me.

The sounds of voices and movement in the background pull at my now-less-cloudy attention, and I slowly spin my head around, realizing that we’re standing just inside the trees beyond the small area at the back of the pack house, where several vehicles are parked. Scrubbing a hand down my sweaty face, I shamefully ask, “Shit, how long was I out? And, like, when did I shift?”

“Little Fox passed out again on the way down from the roof,” Jax explains, his naked body also covered in blood. Xander sets his gaze on Jax, and his eyes glow. I see the twist of his lips and hear him growl low before he steps behind Jax and places his hands on his back. Xander’s eyes glow brighter, and Jax lets out a long moan, his head lolling to one side. Yeah, that healing energy feels damn good. Licking his lips, he stutters, “Don’t... don’t know exactly what happened, but her temperature skyrocketed to where it had been when I first found her. Elder Ralph told me to place her on some moss, hoping the coolness would help, and when I did, she shifted into human form.”

“Maybe the larger form and absence of fur helped bring her internal temperature down,” Ethan muses just as Xander finishes healing Jax and approaches Ethan with the same assessing gaze, fixing on the open cuts and bites on his chest and the large gash on his hip. Jax reaches out for me, and I move to him so our alpha can heal our pack-mate.

“Maybe.” Jax shrugs, tucking me against his side, my arm loosely wrapping around his back. “You hadn’t been in human form more than five minutes or so before Xander and Ethan came running. Elders Ralph and Allan left to help get everything sorted out and give us some privacy.”

“Pull some from me,” Ethan murmurs, his voice all rough and sexy, his arms draped around Xander, with his hands resting on his lower back. Xander lifts his gaze from the wound he just closed up on Ethan’s hip. Ethan quirks a brow. “I’ve got plenty, X. You’ve healed all of us.” His hands stroke Xander’s midback and down over the globes of his ass. I watch with fervent eyes as he gives Xander a little tug closer and smirks, “Let us help you.”

Xander’s hands glide up Ethan’s chest and over his shoulders, making the hold they have on each other seem far more intimate than needed. Without thinking, or blinking for that matter, I find myself snuggling deeper into Jax, letting the apex of my thighs spread over his upper leg while brushing my hardening nipples along the ridges of his ribs. Jax slides his hand down my hip and around to clutch my backside, pressing my core—my wet core—even closer.

Xander takes one small step toward Ethan, and like the moon landing, it may be one small step for man, but it is one giant leap for our relationship, as it brings their cocks together—and I do mean firmly together. They both moan, and I see the moment Xander lets Ethan’s energy enter him with the arching of his spine and the rocking of his hips... and the rubbing of their dicks. Oh, fuck, the rubbing of their dicks. Ethan’s hands on Xander’s ass go from lightly caressing to gripping, and his head falls back, giving Xander an opening—an opening he takes as his lips press against Ethan’s neck, trailing upward, and soon Xander’s tongue is licking his sensitive skin, lapping up his flavor. My lips have found Jax’s chest, and my hands have decided to explore his hard body while my pussy paints her slick all over his thigh. Jax’s other hand kneads up and down my arm, while his lips speckle kisses on the top of my head.

Xander licks his way up Ethan’s jawline, where his licks turn to nips. A low growl vibrates from Ethan’s chest, and he snaps his head back to neutral. Xander silences Ethan’s growls by brushing his lips over his and murmuring, “Thank you.” When he slowly steps away, their eyes hold each other’s until Xander comes to stand at his side, facing Jax and me. The four of us are all close enough to touch. And we do, huddling as close as we can. My eyes can’t help but trail southward, noting all three of my mates are just as hard as I am wet, and that bit of need triples with the sight.

“Not now,” Xander states, reading my thoughts and probably my body language. My lower lip pulls down in a pout, and I blow out a huff of annoyance.

Jax grunts a laugh, while Xander gives my hip a squeeze and groans. “We’ve got to get everything settled first. I need to make sure none of the wolves that came here tonight have escaped and that those we were scheduled to meet are either accounted for here or detained elsewhere.” He nuzzles his face against the top of my head and sniffs several times. Little Fox stirs as his wolf’s energy swirls around her, assessing her. Xander pulls back, and I lift my chin up to face him. His eyes glow, and his lips purse. “And you need fuel... food. Badly, mate.” Shaking his head, he expels a breath. “Whatever method Little Fox employed, used a significant amount of your energy. Not just shifter energy but your bodily energy. You need to replenish yourself.” He arches a demanding brow. “And we’ll be going over what she did later.”

“In great detail,” Ethan adds with a tilt of his head to the side.

“Fine,” I relent, too tired to argue. “I’d like to dress first if possible, and”—my cheeks heat— “it may be helpful if you three dress as well…. Distractions and all,” I add while my thighs rub together, supporting that admission.

“You distracted by our hotness, B?” Jax teases, giving my bum a few pats.

“Yeah,” I scoff with a roll of my eyes before gazing around at the three of them—well, at their cocks. “And I don’t think I’m the only one getting distracted.”

Ethan unabashedly drops his gaze to Xander’s dick and then to Jax’s before settling on his. “Evidence supports that observation.”

“Hard evidence,” Jax affirms with a saucy smile.

I snort a short laugh that feels way too good to silence. Instead, I let it grow while bobbing my head “Hard evidence indeed.”

“Which we’ll examine later,” Xander assures, flicking a heated gaze at Ethan. “In great detail.”

“Details are important,” Ethan agrees with a little hum and a tug of his lip ring.