Page 58 of Rabid
“I’m going to be meeting the pack as the new luna. That’s a big fucking deal. I’ve only been a wolf for like four seconds, and now I have an alpha mate, and I’m a damn luna over an entire pack!” The anxiousness in my tone accompanies a slight nausea that rises in my stomach.
Before I can spiral, Tyran grips my arms and lowers his face to mine. “Hey, don’t do that. Don’t feel like you can’t handle this. You’re a strong ass wolf, the pack saw that last night just as clearly as I did. They’re ready to embrace you as their luna.”
Heat crawls up my neck at the thought of the fight Tyran and I had in front of everyone. I look at him skeptically. “I didn’t freak them out with my threats of pissing on their dead bodies and rolling in their blood?” I question, unconvinced about just how ready they are to embrace me as their luna. I know for sure there has to be a certain strawberry blonde who’s not so psyched about it.
Tyran chuckles and brings my face to his for a quick kiss. When he pulls away, my lips follow him of their own volition, not at all satisfied with the brief taste of him. “They were just as surprised as I was that you’ve had your wolf for such a short amount of time. It took great strength to hold back and show the restraint you did,” he tells me, and I snort, shocked by the compliment.
Leave it to Ruin Falls to think that threatening them all with death and dismemberment last night was a show of restraint.
“I’ve heard quite the earful this morning about the stunt I pulled. Many of them are not at all happy about the way I treated you. Trust me, Vicious, they’re ready for you. You’re one of us now.”
A smile tilts my lips, and an appreciative warmth washes over me at the thought of pack members taking Tyran to task for what happened last night. Aside from my mother, no one has ever stood up for me. I don’t know if this pack can understand what it means to me that they did.
Tyran’s eyes fill with understanding, and his smile grows even warmer. “Go out there and be yourself, get to know the Ruin Falls pack, and everything will be fine. It’s you and me, remember?”
He pulls me in for a fortifying hug and kisses the top of my head, his declaration wrapping around me like a protective shield. His presence reassures and calms me, and when he releases me, I have a big smile on my face. “Okay,” I agree, unsure of what I’ll be facing but ready for it all the same. “If you say so.”
He chuckles and places a kiss against the bite on my shoulder. “I do,” he replies, nipping my skin and making a thrill of heat dip from my mark down to between my thighs. He digs his hand into my still-damp sex hair and gives it a tug. “Just trust yourself. You’ll find your feet in the pack.” His mouth comes down to mine, and he reaches back and squeezes my ass, pressing me in against his semi-hard length.
“Mmm, maybe we should continue this instead,” I say against his lips.
“Later,” he promises with a smirk as he pulls back. “It can be your reward.”
I roll my eyes and try to smack his chest, but he moves away too quickly and walks over to a second dresser I recall being bent over and fucked deliciously hard against last night, and tosses some clothes at me. I yank the too-big shirt on with a sigh. “I think I need to take up sewing,” I say with a frown.
“No, these clothes are good.” He saunters over, deft fingers working the laces at the front of my shirt. He pulls them as tight as they’ll go, until not even a centimeter of cleavage is visible.
“Good?” I ask like he’s crazy. “This is a muumuu for pioneers.”
“Yep, nice and loose on your body, and for once...covered,” he says pointedly.
I grin and then head for the door, but he stops me before I can even grip the handle, shoving more clothes at me. “Pants.”
My brows pull together, and I look down at my legs. “Thisshirtis a dress on me, Tyran. It goes down to the middle of my thighs!”
“Yeah, and the only thing I’ll be able to think about is slowly pulling the hem of that shirt up higher until I can see that sweet, wet, little pussy. Then I’ll have to find the nearest place where I can bury my face in it and then fuck it until you’re squirting all over me,” he says roughly, lips against my ear before he pulls back and levels me with a look. “So put some damn pants on.”
Tantalizing heat pulses between my thighs at his dirty words. “Shit, this mating claim is intense,” I say, fanning my suddenly hot face. I untie the neck of the shirt that was made for a man four times my size, and Tyran eyes it like he wants to pin me down and cinch it back up.
I’m game for the pin me down part, but the clothes have to go. I pull the neck to the side so that one of my claiming bites is on full display, and his eyes heat with approval. Pulling up the pants, I make a plan to find the pack tailor and sort out something that fits and leaves all traces of pirate-pilgrim-muumuus in the past where they should have always stayed.
As soon as I’m settled, Tyran grabs my hand and pulls me from the sanctuary of his room,ourroom, and I suddenly feel like we didn’t spend quite enough time holed up in there. We need more time screaming and moaning, talking and teasing, while we trace every inch of each other over and over again with our tongues.
Tyran stops and shoots me a warning look over his shoulder, but there’s no missing the hunger in it or the fact that he quickly adjusts his pants. “Vicious, you have to cut that out, or we’re going to give the pack a whole other kind of show than what they’re expecting,” he teases, and it coaxes a salacious smile from me.
We march down the stairs, and he slaps my ass hard when we get down to the bottom and head for the front door. I bite back a groan from the yummy sting that moves through me, while Tyrandoesgroan, feeling exactly what I am through our marks.
I’m going to have so much fun with this.
The sun is high as we step out of the alpha house, and I squint against its too bright greeting. I’m guided down the deck as chirping birds and a warm breeze tease my senses. It hits me just how much has changed since the first time I stomped up the wood planks of this pathway. Tyran squeezes my hand and then calls out a greeting to Britton and Harlan, who are both waiting at the bottom of the stairs.
“Seneca, you know Britton is my Second in command, but allow me to formally introduce Harlan, my Third,” he declares, and the warm smile I’m offering Britton is suddenly joined by wide eyes as I turn to the tall, lean female I met earlier with hair and eyes the color of light oak and a massive scar on her throat.
I’m surprised that she’s Tyran’s Third. Not that she doesn’t look formidable, just that most packs are sexist as fuck and don’t have a lot of women in positions of power—unless they’re attached to a powerful mate. Harlan chuckles and gives me a knowing smile before stepping closer to me and pressing her forehead against mine.
Surprise freezes me for a second, but then I relax and close my eyes, realizing that she’s offering a gesture of respect, a greeting meant for the dominant mated pair in a pack. “Well fucking done, Third,” I tell her when we pull apart, proud to be part of a pack that sees both sexes as valuable.
Harlan shoots me a wink before the serious veil she’s always draped in drops back down over her face. She looks around us as though she’s watching for danger even in her own pack, and a sense of safety and confidence fills me.
