Claimed by the Alphas: Part Five (3 page)

Night came quickly in the wintertime, setting in well before Mila and the rest of the pack awoke for the evening. The air grew colder, and on the nights that it snowed, she and Caim would sleep in her bedroom. He’d had tanned animal hides hung over her window to shelter them from the bad weather, but the cold always managed to find its way in.

During the short days, she would dream of lying between Asch and Caim. She always faced Asch, and when she woke he would be right there, the last vestiges of sunlight illuminating his bronze skin and highlighting his coppery hair. His hazel eyes would stare deeply into hers, and he would give her the slow, lazy smile that always gave her butterflies in her stomach.

And then she would wake to darkness and a sharp pang of sadness. She missed Asch, craved his touch and his affection—affection he’d always given so freely to her. Now that she’d spent so much time with Caim, she realized how much she’d taken that for granted.

Caim definitely seemed to care for her in his own way, but he just lack Asch’s intuitive ability to understand her needs. She had tried several times to talk to him about her concern for Asch, or her fear that she wouldn’t be able to get pregnant. Rather than consoling her, or even just holding her, Caim would just tell her to “stop worrying needlessly”, usually before rolling over and going back to sleep. As if it was just that easy.

Her big caveman was not without his merits though.
He slept by her side every night, and if she so much as twitched from the cold he would gather her up in his muscular arms and tuck her tightly against him, his warm body keeping the cold at bay. Though he couldn’t soothe her sadness when she woke, he did know how to make her feel desired. Under the ministrations of his calloused hands kneading her breasts and the feeling of his straining erection flexing against her backside, she would forget all of her worries, if only for a little while.

On this evening in particular, Mila
woke to the feeling of Caim’s hot breath teasing the hairs on the nape of her neck. His lips brushed against the sensitive skin, the subtle caress sending arrows of pleasure down her spine. Involuntarily, she arched herself into him, nearly moaning at the feeling of him hard and ready for her.

Caim had never been what she would call sensual. He was man who knew what he wanted and took it, with very little in between—or at least he had been.
When he’d seen her injuries the week before, Mila knew that they had genuinely concerned him, and he’d been right to give her a break for a few days, no matter how much it had annoyed her. But she suspected that during the few days that he had to lie beside her, touching and feeling her but being unable to take her, he’d realized how much fun it could be to play.

He was torturing himself as much
as her, and tonight, Mila would make him see this. As his hand moved up to clasp her breast, Mila moved her own hand down, slipping it between her thighs. She gave a quick intake of breath as she began to stroke her soft folds, not surprised that she was already growing wet. Caim’s reaction was immediate.

“What are you doing?” he questioned, his hand stilling on her breast.

“Nothing,” she said softly. She arched herself into him again, letting out a small sigh of pleasure.  “Just keep touching me.”

He sat up, frowning down at her. “You are
touching yourself.”

Well someone has to.

“Sorry, I just really need this right now,” she said offhandedly. Mila shifted, letting some of the heat, as well as the scent of her arousal escape from beneath the blankets. She bit back a smile as his nostrils flared. “Help me?”

Not waiting for a response, she pulled his hand from her breast, and between her legs. Taking his index finger, she gently guided him along the slick seam of her cleft, moaning as his rough skin brushed against her sensitive clit. She thought she felt his hand tremble, and began to understand why he’d been having so much fun teasing
her. This
was
fun.

“We can just do things like this, until you’re ready to start having sex again.”

Sounding affronted, he replied, “I am not the one who is not ready.”

She thought he might have had more to say, but if he did it w
as soon forgotten when she pushed his finger inside of her. She watched him close his eyes and suck in a breath, the rise and fall of his chest quickening as she pulled him out and then slowly pushed him back in again. It felt good to have his thick finger inside of her, but she wasn’t done playing with him. She had days’ worth of pent-up sexual frustration to take out on him, and she wasn’t going to stop until the two of them were mating like animals.

She sat up abrup
tly, placing a hand on his neck. Caim didn’t remove his finger from her, but instead flexed it inside of her, looking disgruntled.

“I’m not being fair,” she told him, trailing her hand down his ripped chest. He grunted as she closed her hand around his swollen cock, so full that she could feel his pulse thrumming within his engorged veins. She licked her lips, his amber eyes following the movement. “Let me take care of you first.”

He gave no protest as she lowered herself between his legs, positioning her head over the crown of his erection. She let out a hot breath, teasing his over-sensitized flesh. Her lips twitched when she felt him strain in her grasp, and she felt her own arousal building with his as she reveled in her newfound power. She was in complete control over his pleasure, and the second he gave in, she would win. The only thing he could do was stop playing and walk away, which she knew he stood no chance at the second she wrapped her lips around his cock.

Caim threw his head back, hissing as she took him into
her mouth. She lowered her head, testing to see how much of him she could fit. She had gone down on Asch a few times and had figured out the things that he liked. Caim was completely new territory for her, and she would take the time to learn the things that pleased him, just not tonight. Tonight was not about pleasure, at least not yet.

She cupped his balls, rolling the large globes in her palm while she sucked Caim, languidly moving her head up and down at what she hoped was an excruciating pace. She let her upper teeth scrap
e against his rigid shaft, while her tongue lightly flicked over the underside of his cock.

Not used to being unable to set the pace, Caim fisted his hands in the blanket, his knuckles going white with strain.
A drop of salty fluid escaped the slit of his cock, and Mila whisked her tongue over, giving him a hard suck as she drank him in.

Caim lost it. He
made a guttural sound, his hands going to her head. He twisted her hair around his fingers, pulling her back from his cock. She got one look at his wild face before he pushed her down onto the ground. A jolt of anticipation shot through her as Caim lifted her hips. Back to his usual, impatient self, he wasted no time with teasing her, burying himself inside of her in one, hard thrust.

Letting out a ragged moan, she met him blow for blow as he took her with a frenzied need, pistoning in and out of her from behind. Her climax began almost at once, burgeoning up after only a few thrusts. She tried to fight it, but her efforts only served to prolong her peak until she was convulsing beneath him, her body being wracked with waves of pleasure.

Caim
leaned down to wrap his arms around her torso, holding her close as he emptied himself inside of her in hot spurts. They remained still for a few moments, both panting and sweating. His mouth found the crook of her neck, and he nuzzled her, his bristly face tickling the tender skin.

“Stop it,” she said, giggling. She reached up to try and
push him back, but he batted her hand away and gave her neck a hard nip. “
Ow
, cut it out!”

In a silken voice, he said, “It is not your place to order me around, mate.”

Mila laughed and clenched her inner muscles around him. She felt his softening length begin to harden again, and turned her head into the furs to hide her smile.

A long time later, after they’d both had their fill of one another again, Mila got up from the bed and searched her shelves for something relatively clean to wear. While she dressed, Caim pulled back the hides from the window, flooding the room with moonlight. When she was done she joined him, looping her arms around his waist.

Already knowing the answer, but unable to stop herself, she asked, “Do I smell any different today?”

Caim placed a hand over hers. “Not yet.”
 

The cat’s carcass had been taken down, three gutted wolves hung in its place. A chill wind swept over the mountainside, making the branches creak as they swung back and forth. Caim surveyed the grim scene with a mixture of annoyance and admiration at the cat tribe’s boldness.

They were not his
wolves, they were beasts, simple creatures of the forest. Some of his kind claimed to feel a sort of bond with such animals, he however, had never shared the sentiment. Much like humans, he could hardly feel a kinship towards a creature that he was vastly superior to. Still, the message was not lost on him, and the intended offense was enough to rouse his ire.

It was early morning, just before dawn.
He and the females had been preparing to retire to the den when they caught the scent of decay on the wind. The wolves had been strung up for at least a day, their bodies already having festered in the sun. The trees around the oak had been marked, their trunks scratched raw in a brass display of disrespect. They were marking their territory.

“They will attack us,” Lotus said. She stood stiffly beside him, watching his face from the corner of her eyes. He was not sure which reaction she was anticipating, but he had no doubt she would be disappointed.

“Then they will die,” he replied mildly.

There was no show of bravado in his words. On their own, a single cat could have bested one of his wolves. As a tribe though, the cats were fewer
in numbers and lacked the cohesion of a wolf pack. Even with Asch and several of the betas gone, they would never succeed in taking the den.

“And how many wolves will they take with them?” Lotus asked, arching a brow. “As a leader, you must think of these things.”

Caim opened his mouth to give her a scathing reply, but Sable beat him to it. “Then they will do us the favor of culling the weak.”

He couldn’t have agreed more.

“If they attack, we will fight,” Caim said, folding his arms across his chest. “If they do not, we will wait for Asch to return, and then we will hunt them.”

Lotus gave him an impatient look, one which was becoming all too familiar to him.
“And if they were to harm your mate?”

Unbidden, a growl rose from his chest, effectively silencing Lotus. She took a step back from him, her posture slumping in submission. The involuntary reaction disturbed him, almost as much as seeing Lotus cower from him. He reached out, placing a hand on the side of her neck.

Once he was confident that he could keep his tone even, he said, “What is done is done. All we can do now is be prepared.”

Her eyes flicked up to his before closing. In a subtle movement, she leaned into his touch
. For a moment, the backdrop faded away. The dead wolves, the desecration of his territory, and Sable were gone, and it was he and Lotus, as it always had been. He knew every dip and curve of her body, and he had never tired of her. He knew her so well that he could almost always anticipate what she was thinking, and yet he had still enjoyed her company.

He missed the easiness that
had once existed between them, and hoped that they would have it again someday. But he doubted that time would come soon. He pulled his hand back, giving both of the females a perfunctory nod.

“Go alert the others of the situation, and make certain that my mate does not leave the den.”

~~~

Mila scooped up the pile of pebbles, adding them to the growing pile on her lap. She heard Rosie huff, and glanced up to see her eyeing the rocks with derision.

“You lied,” she accused. “You specifically said that you did not have any clovers.” She looked to Gem and the others for support. “She lied.”

“For one, they’re clubs, not clovers,” Mila said patiently. “And for two, part of the game is being able to tell when people are lying.”

She stifled at grin at Rosie’s outrage. The other women were less merciful. Kallie and Trina were both snickering, and Gem covered her face with her arm as she let out high-pitched peals of laughter.

The deck of cards belonged to Gem, and it had been her idea to teach the women how to play poker. Mila suspected the whole thing was mostly for her benefit though, as Gem had spent the past few days rather unsuccessfully trying to cheer Mila up. The cards were a welcome distraction, but they were just that, a distraction. Never in a million years could she have imagined that her happiness would hinge on finding out that she was pregnant.

One of the things that Mila had always prided herself in was that she had broken the family curse. It was a curse that had dictated that every Foster woman would have her first child before the age of twenty. Every Foster woman for the past four generations had fallen prey to the curse, even her mother, who had generally been considered to be the only sensible Foster woman.

Mila had never
been superstitious, and to prove just how skeptical she was, she had been flagrantly promiscuous throughout her first two years of college. When she’d turned twenty, Mila had given herself a pat on the back for having at least in one thing, been better than her mother. But as of today, it had been two full weeks since the mating thrall, and with no change in her scent, Mila was seriously starting to consider that the curse was real, and it was enacting some sort of vengeance on her for evading it.

She knew that not all women got pregnant the first time they tried, but it was little consolation to her. Maybe if she was back in the real world, in a normal relationship, it wouldn’t have bothered her as much. But instead, she was sitting in a cave, trying to teach werewolves to play poker with playing cards and stones
, and wondering how long it would be before their leaders kicked her to the curb.

“I do not like this game, Mila,” Rosie declared.

“Alright,” she replied, patting Rosie’s leg affectionately. “We can play something else.” She gathered up the cards from the center of the circle and handed them to Gem. “Know how to play go fish?”

Gem sobered from her laughing fit. “Sure, I’ll explain the rules.”

Mila leaned back, letting Gem collect the cards and deal a new hand. Kallie and Trina listened intently as she explained the rules of the new game. Both women were fairly new additions to her group, and Mila hoped that they wouldn’t be the last. As a whole, the pack seemed to be warming up to her, and she was finally starting to feel like more than just an intruder.

The arrival of Lotus and Sable had all of the women turning their head
s to the entrance of the den. More than their beauty, Mila envied their ability to effortlessly command the attention of everyone around them.

Their expressions were somber, and with a measure of concern, Mila noted that Caim wasn’t with them. They bypassed the ramp that led up to the dais, their usual morning rest area, and headed for the area near the fire pit, where Mila and her friends had congregated.

Mila stood as they approached, forgetting that she still had the pebbles in her lap. They fell, clattering onto the stone floor. Ignoring the stones, she locked eyes with Lotus.

“What’s wrong, where’s Caim?”

The two women came to a stop. Lotus glanced at Mila, blinking, before turning her gaze to the others. She spoke firmly, her voice carrying throughout the cavern. “As you know, the cat tribe entered the valley earlier this month. We now have reason to believe that they mean to stage an attack.”

The others stood, all looking displeased by the news, but not overly concerned. Taking her cue from them, Mila willed herself not to become frightened.

“We will discuss this further when Caim returns,” Lotus continued. She nodded in the direction of Gem and Rosie. “Take Mila to her room.”

Mila straightened her spine, folding her arms under her breasts. Forcing herself to be cordial, she said, “If it’s alright with you, I think I’ll stay for the discussion.”

Lotus looked at her then, regarding her with what had to be forced impassivity. Coolly, she said, “I do not think your input will be needed.”

Mila suddenly realized why she’d never before been in an actual fight with another woman. Never in her life had she wanted to
punch someone so much. Her hand curled into a fist as she struggled to not make a fool of herself.

“As a member of the pack, I would be interested in hearing what—”

It was Sable who took a step forward, breaching Mila’s personal space. With only a few inches separating them, Mila had to crane her neck up to meet Sable’s angry obsidian gaze.

“You are not a member of this pack,” Sable said, enunciating each word as if she were speaking to a child, or an idiot. “You are an asset, or at least you would be, were you fulfilling your purpose.”
She spoke quickly, every sentence like a knife in Mila’s insecurities. “Asch is gone, along with five of our best fighters, and I doubt that fact has gone unnoticed by the cats. Your indiscretion put Caim in a position where he had to retaliate, and now they will likely try to attack us while we are weak.”

To her eternal humiliation, Mila flinched and took a step back. Her eyes moved from side to side as she tried to find a response, but Sable wasn’t finished. “You have no place in our discussions. It is our lives that will be put in jeopardy if they attack, not yours. If any of us die
—if Caim dies—it will be your fault, though I doubt you will be overly concerned. Asch will be back any day to warm your bed in his place.”

Mila’s hand shot out, in a movement that was faster than what she’d known herself to be capable of. Sable, however, was quicker. She caught Mila’s hand mid-slap, her hand tightening around Mila’s small wrist. The anger left Sable’s expression, being replaced with an amusement that Mila found to be even more infuriating.

“You cannot strike me any more than you can—”

She cut Sable off with a hard kick to her shin. Sable let out a howl of pain, her grip on Mila’s wrist tightening painfully. She gave Mila a hard jerk
, her other hand wrapping around Mila’s neck. In turn, Mila grasped Sable’s wrist, clenching it as hard as she could. She could hear the blood pounding in her ears as she dug her nails into Sable’s flesh, breaking the skin.

Their fight was short-lived, immediately being broken up by Lotus and Rosie, each pulling their respective friend back. Lotus roughly grasped Sable’s ear, yanking her back like a
savage animal. Rosie gingerly looped her arms around Mila’s waist, drawing Mila into her arms from behind.

“
You have both lost your minds,” Lotus barked out, still holding on to Sable’s ear. “Get her out of here,” she ordered Rosie.

Mila ground her feet in as Rosie tried to pull her away. “Not necessary,” she snapped, shaking free of Rosie’s hold. “I’m out of here.”

She stormed out of the cavern in a red fury, pissed at Lotus, pissed at Sable, and most of all, pissed at herself.

Nearly everything Sable had said was true. She wasn’t a part of the pack, not really. She didn’t contribute anything, and had pretty much one job, to get pregnant, and she couldn’t even manage that. Now
, she had apparently caused some sort of pack war. Could she be any more of a disaster?

Rosie and Gem followed Mila to her bedroom. She could hear the shuffle of their footsteps behind her as she made her way down the dark passageway. Thankfully they kept their distance, because she was in no mood to discuss what had just happened.

Unfortunately their tactfulness could only last for so long. No sooner did Mila fall down on her bed, did the two females flop down on either side of her, each of them tossing a limb over her body. It reminded her of being between Asch and Caim, and she couldn’t stay angry.

“Sorry, you two,” she said into her pillow. She bitterly added, “I’m probably just
PMSing.”

“Don’t say that,” Gem said, scooting closer to her. “You were right to stand up for yourself. I bet Sable will think twice before insulting you again.”

Mila snorted. She highly doubted that her lame attempt at fighting had done much more than make her look ridiculous. She didn’t have the will to debate this though.

“You should not trouble yourself with either of them,” Rosie advised while petting Mila’s hair.
Absently, she added, “They are just mad because Caim no longer favors them.”

Mila’s head popped up. “What do you mean?” she asked her.

Rosie gave a casual shrug. “Well, everyone knows that Caim has not coupled with them since you joined the pack. They are obviously jealous of you.”

She
dropped her head back down to the pillow, this time hiding her grin. It had always been in the back of her mind as a possibility. There was a part of her that had felt too guilty to confront him on the matter, seeing as how she was also sleeping with Asch, and so she had kept quiet, letting the question fester.
Am I enough for him?

Obviously just the fact that he hadn’t slept with anyone else yet wasn’t a real answer, but for now it didn’t matter. It was a start.

Once she’d sorted through her thoughts, Mila asked her friends about the cats and Caim’s alleged retaliation against them. Neither woman seemed to be ‘in the know’ though, both being unsure what Lotus had been referring to.

As the sun rose in the sky, the room warmed a little, and they all began to grow tired. Unabashedly, Mila undressed and then crawled back in between them
. Within seconds she was lost in a tangle of limbs. A month ago, the prospect of being sandwiched between two naked women would have probably been at the very least undesirable. Now, she felt warm and safe.