Page 222 of Settle Down, Princess

I stared into his eyes, the effort dragging tears from mine, because I could see it happening on repeat. The death of the stag, so many stags. It felt like Khean was soaked in blood, but what if…?

What if we chose life rather than death?

“No, this is the way it was, Arik.” His eyes jerked down to meet mine. “Killing the stag caused this problem in the first place. Don’t keep repeating the mistakes of the past.”

Mistakes he didn’t realise went back to the first of his bloodline that got it in his head to tear apart a sacred creature.

“Rather than death.” Roan’s voice caught in his throat, his eyes darting from the stag to us and back again. “Gods, Arik, there’s been so much fucking death and more to come with this war. Can’t we just stop?”

“How do we succeed without shedding blood?” Silas seemed almost confused by the notion, but that made sense due to his upbringing.

“So what do we choose instead?”

“Life,” Creed and his wolf rumbled, both staring at me through his yellow green eyes, the fur receding as the man pushed forward. He strode forward, collecting me up into his arms, smiling as my legs locked around his waist. “We choose life.”

Chapter 122

Creed

The first time I kissed Jessalyn felt like fate. The first time I made love to her, but especially when my fangs dug into her shoulder, marking her as mine, that only deepened that feeling, but none more than now. I spun her around, presenting my mate to my pack and then dropped my mouth to my claiming bite. The wolf’s tongue found it, licking a stripe across it just to make her shudder, then my fangs found each indent I’d left in her skin.

I’d been hard, desperate, out of my mind with longing when I first saw Jessalyn again. Part of me was sure she would reject the bond still, despite the army I’d brought together for her, but then in her moment of surrender? I’d been forced to hold something back.

Not now.

Fur prickled across my face, the wolf threatening to take over. Fuck, bite, claim, that was what he needed and while we’d done two of them, there was one last thing he needed. Our claw slid down her body, and the man in me feared her response to such an alien touch. To my delight, her body rippled under my touch, leaning into my caress. Emboldened, my other claw tilted her head sideways.

Would she look upon me with such heat if I was in my wolfman form? Would she draw his head down as she did mine, pressing a kiss to his muzzle as she did my mouth? The human reluctance when it came to things like this had been drilled into us from a young age. They could not accept this other side of us fully, not like another wolf shifter could. But as her eyes shone in the moonlight, a secret smile curving her lips, I wondered perhaps if in the future she might. The man had her now though, so he pressed forward, taking her mouth with his.

Gods, I would never get used to kissing Jessalyn. Was it merely because I was so unused to such acts? I didn’t know, but her lips felt like they seared mine, branding me just as my fangs had her. That little moan, the way she was forced to suck in air through her nose rather than pull away, it had me tugging her hard against me. Jessalyn was bare under that shirt, and so was I. Arik’s stuttered recount of what had happened didn’t allow time for me to get dressed. Right now I couldn’t bear a scrap of clothing between us, so I jerked Roan’s shirt off her. She gasped and looked down as the fabric tore clear off and then was left to flutter to the ground.

“We choose life,” I reiterated. “We choose Jessalyn, because that’s what I’m about to do now.” I scooped her up and laid her down on the ground, finding a soft patch of moss before dropping down on top of her. I repeated that with every kiss I dotted along her body, until her hips lifted and the sweet smell of her permeated the air.

The wolf needed her. She was ripe, fertile, he told me in a sibilant whisper inside my head. She was ours. If we mated her now, we’d have cubs, babies in the winter. We’d den down in our palace, and I’d wreathe her in furs to keep her warm as her stomach swelled. We needed to mate her. But she would get no child from me, not without my knot being forced inside her. My mouth dropped down, down, until I heard someone approach.

“Life sounds a hell of a lot better than fighting on yet another fucking battlefield,” Roan said, kneeling down and lifting Jessalyn’s hand so it landed on his lap. “It feels, looks, smells a lot nicer too.” He nodded to me. “Better start licking, brother, or I’ll be forced to take over.”

Jessalyn shifted at that, not to stiffen, but to rise and fall like a wave. Every movement of her body was hypnotic. It always had been, but it was only now I could allow myself to fall completely beneath her spell. Her taste on my tongue, the wolf wanted that more than the moon, the grass, the air. He needed the sweet, salty explosion on his tongue. The wolf was so close to the surface that he thrust inside her, filling her up.

“Oh!”

“You always sound so surprised.” Silas came to kneel by her side. “As if each moment of pleasure was unexpected. We need to change that, don’t we, brother?” He stared up at Arik, who stood as still as a statue, somehow still staring at the stag, not our mate. I couldn’t understand why, my nose nudging her pearl with every thrust of my tongue, she glowed far more fiercely. Brighter and brighter, she rivalled the moon as her hips rocked against my face. The wolf knew I needed to please her, open her up, ready her for my knot. That protuberance ached fiercely at the base of my cock. But the man? He was lost in her, in all of her soft, wet femaleness, feeling her flex around his tongue, her cries filling the air.

I knew she was about to reach her peak by the sounds she was making. Harsh, guttural, she sounded like the same cry of alarm deer made when they noted predators. We eyed the deer beyond us, but the stag hadn’t moved an inch. He felt no need to attack, just to protect what was his. I felt a strange moment of kinship with the beast right then. As I felt her channel flex and cling to me, I pulled away as the last wave wracked through her, then moved up.

Wolf to man, wolf to man, I kept shifting in ways I hadn’t since I was a lad, but that was what she did to me. Shredded all control until I was slapping one claw down beside her head, then another. One retreated, sliding down my body and her legs parted, her arms going around my neck, her fingers delving into my fur then my hair as she nodded, but before I could do what I must, my alpha intervened.

“The wolf is close to the surface.” He said this as coolly as others might describe the weather, waiting until Jessalyn’s eyes held his to continue. “Creed is not a man, not a wolf, but both. You want to choose life? You need to choose him, all of him.”

I watched her every response with hungry eyes, choking back a howl of triumph when she nodded.

“You know what that means…?” Silas asked, his voice trailing away as she nodded again before his focus shifted to Roan. “We need to open her up, so this doesn’t hurt.”

“I’m better equipped to do that than you.”

His rakish grin had something of the wolf in it, which reassured mine.

They were pack. Silas was meant to pick up my almost drowsy mate and set her straddling Roan. I was meant to come behind them, pressing against her as Roan pushed in. Any fears of hurting her disappeared as she moaned, sinking down on his cock.

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