Page 65 of Through Battle and Blades (The Wolf Queen 2)

“Which you do, brother.” Gael’s voice sounded rusty now, little more than a guttural grunt.

At the sound of Gael’s voice I shifted towards him, which provoked a flurry of pleas from Weyland.

“No, lass, more, please. I need more—”

“We all need more, pretty boy,” Axe rumbled and so I found myself drawn to him. The massive expanse of his body was a completely undiscovered country for me. His eyes shone when he saw he had my attention and then he smiled. It faltered the moment I put my hand on his waist, all of those great slabs of muscles tensing, quivering like a horse about to race.

“But I need—” Weyland said.

“More than Axe?” Gael snapped. “You took my mate from me last night to claim her and I didn’t quibble.”

Their voices rose, their squabbles becoming more and more heated, and that’s when I sat back on my heels and stared past them at Dane. He smiled then, in recognition of the harsh lesson I was learning, the one he’d probably wanted me to discern from the start. He’d put me in a position of power between his brothers, presented plainly their need for me and instructed me to stoke it higher, but to what aim? Each one of them dealt with the sweet pain of longing in different ways. Weyland, demanding and cajoling, Gael, attempting to bear it and do the best for everyone involved, and Axe, not feeling like he had a right to say anything at all.

I’d thought this was a bed game, what Dane had planned, but instead I saw it was a much deeper one. He made clear the tensions within our relationship and he put me square in the middle of them, making me the one who needed to find a way to resolve them. He kept telling me I was a queen and he expected me to see to the needs of the first of my subjects as a form of training. I rose up then, naked, my skin prickling with the cold and then said one word.

“Stop.”

It shouldn’t have cut through the conversations, but it did.

“Each one of you wants me, needs me.”

There was no response, because one wasn’t needed. I was stating a fact. I reached out then and gripped Weyland’s cock, swivelling my hand up and down his length until his head fell back, lost in the sensation, then I snatched it away. I did the same to Gael, and his reaction was entirely different, totally focussed on me, only the small jump of the muscles in his face betraying what he felt.

“But there’s only one of me and four of you.” Dane shifted in his chair then, his eyes widening. “I don’t know how Strelan women manage things when they’re mated to a pack.” Weyland went to open his mouth and say something, but I shook my head. “I’ll need to find my own way with it.” And so I shuffled around until I faced Axe, my untouched mate.

I hadn’t learned him, not like I had begun to with Weyland and Gael, but I would start to now. I smoothed my hands up his thighs, struck by the way they dwarfed my palms, making me feel so tiny. I deliberately didn’t look up, not until the wiry hair of his legs gave away to the much smoother skin of his hips. I rubbed my hands up and down, feeling the jut of his hipbones before I confronted the reality.

He’d told me he was bigger than the others, and that was true. I hadn’t been able to visualise how much more so. I glanced up to see that he was watching me like a hawk, waiting for a reaction to betray me. He was so much thicker and longer that I could scare believe it would fit. But being afraid wouldn’t help me, so I reached out and touched.

“Lass…” One little word escaped in a desperate burst as I closed both hands around his throbbing length, then swivelled them down, as if remaking his body anew. “Gods, yes… That feels better than anything has a right to. Oh, fuck!” One hand slid over his massive knot, trying valiantly to cup it with my palm and failing. I gave it an experimental squeeze and he let out a helpless sounding groan as a result.

Gael broke the game first.

A hand landed on my shoulder blades, heavy and hot.

“You do that too much and you’ll end up with a blast to the face,” he told me in a low voice, a chuckle coming from Weyland. “Axe is not known for his self-control.”

“Always got a hair trigger,” Weyland snarked. “On the battlefield as well as in the bedroom, or that’s what the ladies tell me.”

“If you ladies could shut the hell up,” Axe ground out. “I’ve been dreaming of this moment for so long and, I have to admit, you two weren’t in it, at least not like this.”

“How did you imagine it?” I asked, staring up at him.

“I…” Axe’s hand slid down slowly, so I could stop him if I wanted, then his fingers touched mine as they wrapped around his cock. He angled it down, into the space between us, so the head almost grazed my lips. “I don’t carry scenarios around in my head, not like Dane. I’d just get snippets. Little moments where you were with me and I was with you.”

“And what did I do, Axe?” I asked, shifting closer.

Axe watched my lips falling open, his eyes burning brighter as my tongue skated over my bottom lip.

“I don’t have pretty words for it, not like the others.”

“What did I do?”

He shook his head then, his jaw muscle flexing before his focus returned to me. “You rode my face, drowning me in your slick, and I did my damnedest to suck down every drop.”

“It’s sweet, brother,” Weyland said and then I felt his fingers slide through my folds, the brief touch making me shiver all over. A noisy slurp made clear what he did with his fingers after.

“And then you turned around, grinding your cunt into my beard as you opened your mouth and swallowed me down.”

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