Page 32 of Wrestling With Werewolves

She gives me a saucy look. “Put your arm on my leg please, Alpha.”

The crowd hoots and shouts. Rowan stands to my right, also still naked. Shifters aren’t fussed by nudity. We’ve all seen each other naked a million times; it’s no different than being shifted. But when I lift my arm, placing it across Lola’s jean-clad legs, my cock twitches against my thigh. I straighten and shift to the edge of the chair, ostensibly to get more space. But the reality is I need my dick to dangle down and not wave around like a damn homing beacon.

Despite the moving, cheering crowd around us, my eyes drift to Lola. She hands the box to Connall, who opens it so she can retrieve the tattoo gun from inside. It’s imbued with magic. Every challenge—its participants and outcome—will be automatically recorded in a book at Hearth HQ the moment Lola tattoos my skin. It’s a tradition begun when the haven system was created to ensure that all challenges get recorded and not lost to poor record-keeping. Winning records then get copied into a tome in Marco’s office, designed to keep the king apprised of up-and-coming competitors.

Lola clicks the gun on like it’s every day she tattoos someone, and turns to me with her painted black lips split into a teasing smile. “You ready, Alpha?”

Big Daddy flashes green through my eyes, and when I speak, his rougher tones echo through. “Mark me up, sweetheart. You promised.”

The crowd cheers and stomps and screams, the noise reverberating off the ceiling and echoing back down. But somehow it feels like the only two people in this room are her and me. At my words, Lola’s scent flares in intensity. Her eyes flick to mine and hold the stare, her wolf’s amber flashing through her black irises.

“There you are,” I murmur. I can’t even stop myself. “Mark me, Lola,” I command again. I’m dancing on the edge of something here, something momentous, something instinctual, something as old as our goddess herself.

Luna, Big Daddy practically moans. Touch us.

Lola’s beautiful wide eyes drop to my arm. She wraps her left hand around my wrist, and my dick jerks at the possessive touch. A sudden vision of being tied down in my bed while she rides me hits me so hard, I grit my jaw to avoid panting and pulling her into my lap. All wolves are intensely sexual—pack alphas more so. Ironic that I’m not mated, because I should be fucking a pretty mate five times a day to keep my head on straight.

But I never found anyone I cared about enough to bring her into my life like that, much less someone fated to be mine.

You’re lookin’ at her, Alpha, Big Daddy breaks through my thoughts. She knows it, you know it, and I know it. All that matters.

I’m on the verge of denying it when I realize I can’t, a wash of heady need flowing over me as she runs her right hand over the tick-mark tattoos covering my entire left forearm.

“So many wins,” she murmurs, smiling up at me. “And now you’ve got one more.”

My lips split into a grin as Big Daddy preens behind my bones. Lola finds a set of lines where there are just four, meaning a fifth would split across them and complete the set of five. She leans over my arm and positions the whirring tattoo gun while the crowd goes even wilder.

A glass breaks somewhere, liquid splashing the floor as Bad Axe creaks in reprimand. Someone’s behind the bar slinging drinks and doing a bad job. But all of that dissipates at the sight of Lola’s head bent low over my arm. She’s so close. I want to bury my nose in her hair and scent every inch of her, to toss her against the wall and command her not to move while I touch her skin, learn where every freckle is, taste, lick.

The first pinch of the tattoo gun refocuses me. She presses hard but steady, moving the gun in a clean line. When her fingers tighten around my wrist, her scent blooming, I resist the urge to howl.

This is turning her on. She’s dripping pheromones like a leaky faucet and it’s all I can do not to drop to my knees and worship her.

Told you, Big Daddy snarks. Do something about this tension, for the love of our goddess.

“Good job,” I murmur to the stunning woman by my side.

Her scent explodes into my senses, nearly knocking me back in the chair with its strength. My nostrils flare, eyes narrowing as I watch my prey. She cocks her head to the side, concentrating on the tattoo but giving me the perfect view of her neck. There’s a spot within reach where I’d sink my fangs so deep, mark her permanently like she’s marking me.

She’s perfuming for us, Big Daddy howls.

And she is, beautifully. It’s her body making its desires clear—she’s attracted to me. There’s nothing wrong with that. As nonplussed as shifters are about sex and nudity, pheromones are the same. They can’t be controlled, and so they can be ignored when necessary. Scents are the undercurrent of shifter society. We know when to comment on them and when to shut the fuck up.

But to perfume like this, so strong, and for me? It’s a target, and I desperately, desperately want to be the arrow in the center of the bullseye.

That’s the worst analogy I’ve ever heard. Admit you wanna sink deep into that sweet princess pussy and filthy lick her from bottom to top.

I shove down the groan that builds in my throat, masking it as a cough as Lola finishes a perfectly straight tick-mark line.

She sits upright with a big, fake smile. She knows she’s perfuming, and we’re in front of everyone. “Done, Alpha. Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” I murmur as the crowd goes absolutely wild. Jewelry clangs, hooves stomp, drinks get thrown back. It’s a rising cacophony of noises.

Someone starts chanting “pack run” at high volume, and the rest of the residents take up the battle cry. I laugh and look between Lola and Connall. “Pack run? We had planned to do this tomorrow, but moving it up a day works.”

“I’m always down,” Connall agrees, taking the tattoo gun from Lola when she offers it back to him. He’s gracious, ignoring her scent as he tucks the gun back inside its ceremonial carved box. Goddess, he’s gonna want to talk about this tomorrow when we do rounds.

Lola looks around at the screaming crowd. “There’s no way to say no at this point.”

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