Half Truths (A Helheim Wolf Pack Tale) (40 page)

‘When my phone
rang. Do you remember when you said there was an echo. I was in the bath having
a wet dream about you.’ Her cheeks flushed with colour. Vaile ran his
fingertips lightly across her cheekbone. She’d been thinking about him while
she was in the bath. He didn’t know what was a bigger turn on; the fact that
she’d been thinking about him while she was naked, or that she admitted it to
him. He loved a woman unafraid to talk about her sexuality.

With a growl, he
lifted her thighs onto his shoulders before putting his mouth on her. Her fragrance
clung to his tongue, stuck in his nostrils. She tasted like rosewater. Her
flesh was slick and pink, ripe with life.

‘Vaile!’ she
gasped, her fingers digging into his skin. Yeah, he’d found his rhythm, and he
was going to make her ride it until she couldn’t take it anymore. His tongue
alternated between long flat strokes to just the tip darting in and out of her
core. More than once he brought her to breaking point, but he always drew her
back in again.

‘Vaile, please,’
she begged. He liked hearing her beg for release. His teeth found her clit.
Biting down gently, he worked her core with his tongue and he could feel her
shudder. Just as she came, he picked her up and plunged himself into her. Her
muscles clamped down onto him, causing his own orgasm to rush up and over him.

For two minutes,
her orgasm set off another one for him and vice-versa. They were stuck in a
never-ending cycle of orgasmic bliss, and he never wanted to leave. Eventually,
they made it out of the bathroom and collapsed onto the bed, falling to sleep
wrapped in each other’s arms.

*

Rhett pushed open the door to his
bedroom with Brax following closely behind him. B collapsed onto the floor at
the foot of the bed, exhausted. Rhett padded towards the bed, peering at Indi
under the blankets. Her heart still sounded like it was beating strongly, and
her cheeks were pink from the heating. He sniffed at her arm, sending the hair
around her face flying. She stirred and opened her eyes.

‘Hi,’ she
smiled. ‘Where have you been?’ Her eyes widened, slowly being swallowed by her
pupils. The cut on his forehead had stopped bleeding, but was still bloody. He
whined and backed away from the bed. She licked her lips, eyes fixed on the
spot above his eye. He turned into his bathroom and called on The Change.

A few minutes
later, he emerged with a towel wrapped around his waist. Indi was sitting up
now, watching the door like a predator. He realised that she must have been
using all her self-restraint if she was still sitting there.

‘Are you
hungry?’ he asked her, sitting down at the end of the bed. She licked her lips
and nodded, frowned. ‘What is it?’

‘Is that wrong?
Should I be eating as much as I have been?’

‘I think you’re
probably catching up with all the lack of feeding.’ Rhett looked down at the
end of the bed to find Brax staring up at him. He turned back to Indi. ‘Would
you like to feed?’ She nodded. Rhett blew out a breath. ‘Okay. But not from me,
alright?’

‘From who?’

He gritted his
teeth. ‘My best friend, Brax.’

Indi looked
around the room. ‘Where is he?’

Rhett looked at
Brax, jerking his head at him. Brax rose onto all fours and padded towards her.
‘Shift, B,’ he told him. Brax disappeared into the bathroom, and Rhett took
advantage of the momentary privacy. ‘Indi?’

‘Yeah?’

He took her
hands in his. ‘This is going to be really hard on me.’

‘What is?’

‘Watching you
feed from him. I know how good it feels, and to know that you’re giving B the
same feelings, well … it’s going to drive me a little crazy.’

‘What kind of
feelings do you get?’

He groaned. ‘I
want to fuck you when you feed from me, and I don’t want B to touch you, so
I’ll be wound a little tight while he’s offering you a vein.’ Rhett heard a
grunt from the bathroom and the
swish
of a towel being pulled from the
pile on the corner of the bath. He turned back to her. ‘I don’t share well with
things that belong to me. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?’

She looked down
at the sheets then back up at him. ‘I think so.’

Brax strolled
out from the bathroom in nothing but a towel. ‘Put some fucking clothes on,’
Rhett growled. B smiled playfully and made a quick turn towards the chest of drawers
along one wall. He slid into a pair of Rhett’s old sweats and pulled on a tee
from his top drawer. Rhett was a little broader through the shoulders than B,
so the shirt bagged a little.

‘Better?’ he
asked, mischief glinting in his eyes.

‘Yeah,’ Rhett
replied sourly. B settled down onto the bed on the other side of Indi.
Thrusting his hand out to her, he said, ‘Hi, I’m Brax, and I’ll be your food
source for this evening.’ He smiled widely at her, revealing perfectly straight
teeth and dimples that most women couldn’t resist. Rhett was glad to see that
they seemed to have no effect on Indi. Instead she brought his arm to her
mouth, running her nose along the inside of his wrist. Brax shivered. Rhett
watched her fangs grow from her upper jaw. She licked B’s skin before sinking
her teeth in.

‘Oh …
fuuuuuccckkk,’ B moaned, throwing his head back; his eyes rolling back in his
skull. Rhett stood up and moved to the other side of the room. Distance seemed
to help, but there was no way that he was leaving the room. Indi looked at Rhett;
her eyes glowing violet as she fed from B’s vein. She never took her eyes off
him the entire time, putting Rhett and his wolf at ease. Brax began thrusting
his hips slowly, his erection pounding underneath the sweats. Rhett growled low
and fast, blinking his wolf away from his eyes.

Indi disengaged
her fangs at the sound of his wolf, licked the entry wounds once and sat back
against the pillows, ignoring Brax all together.

‘How are you
feeling?’ Rhett asked, gritting his teeth, striding back across the room.

‘A-fucking-mazing!’
B said, collapsing back against the pillows beside her.

‘Not you!’ he
snapped, sinking down onto the bottom of the bed. ‘Indi, how are you feeling?’

‘Great,’ she
replied, licking her lips. ‘He tastes different to you though.’

Rhett nodded.
‘Different sires. Why don’t you get some rest? We have to go to a meet—’

There was a
knock on his door.

Rhett got up to
see who it was. His uncle stared back at him; his eyes red-rimmed.

‘Uncle, what is
it?’ he asked.

‘Nothing, Rhett.
It’s nothing. I’m just so happy my Eaton is back. I just came round to tell you
to rest. We’ll meet in the morning.’ He turned, making his way to Vaile’s room.

‘Who was that?’
Indi asked.

‘My uncle. The
meeting’s been cancelled, so we can get some sleep for a few hours if we want?’

‘Sleep sounds
good,’ she replied, yawning. ‘I don’t know why, but I’ve been so tired
recently.’

‘I think your
body is just repairing itself.’ Rhett glanced over at B, passed out on his side
of the bed. Frowning, he said, ‘I’m going to take a shower then we can go to
sleep.’

Ten minutes
later, Rhett emerged from the bathroom with towel-dried hair and a pair of
sweats on. B was still snoring lightly from his side of the bed. Indi inched
over to the very edge of her side so Rhett could slide in between them. It
wasn’t uncommon for wolves to share a bed, and he’d done it a few times with B
when there was a girl in between them, but it was different this time. Indi was
his, and he wasn’t willing to share.

‘Good night, Rhett,’
Indi said, snuggling deeper into his side. He tightened his arm around her and
kissed her hair.

‘Good night,
Ind.’

Rhett nudged B with his fist to
wake him the next morning. Somehow they’d ended up all bunched together on
Indi’s side of the bed; Brax spooning him from the back. When B didn’t move, he
shoved him with his foot.

‘Get up you lazy
fuck,’ he growled. B’s eyes cracked open and he smiled.

‘That was some
fucking high. Do you want to fuck when she feeds from you, too?’ he asked with
a massive grin plastered on his face.

Rhett’s mood
darkened. ‘Get out of my fucking bed.’ B rolled off the bed and staggered to
the bathroom. The sound of water running started after a minute. Rhett rolled
back over to Indi.

‘Are you awake?’
he asked, kissing her neck. She made a noncommittal noise. ‘Come on, we have to
get to that meeting.’

Indi dressed
quickly while Rhett changed into a fresh pair of jeans and a tee. He left B in
the shower, taking Indi by the hand and leading her down to Antain’s office. He
knocked and waited. After a minute, Vaile answered the door. His eyes slipped
colours when he saw Indi.

‘Where’s your
sidekick?’ he asked Rhett.

‘Taking a
shower. He’ll be down soon.’ Rhett ushered Indi into the office. Only Vaile had
made it down so far. His beta went back to the sideboard where a filter coffee
maker had been set up with an assortment of mismatched mugs, and he poured
himself a cup.

Rhett led Indi
to the sofa before making himself a cup of coffee as well. He was only running
on a few hours of sleep, and there was no way in hell that he could keep going
without a little caffeine injection. Just as he sank down onto the sofa beside
Indi, the door to the study opened and his alpha stepped in still dressed in
his bathrobe. Rhett stood up and Vaile straightened from his post against the
wall.

‘How is she?’
Rhett blurted. Antain’s brown eyes studied him for a minute before waving them
at ease again. Rhett sat back down again.

‘She’s resting,
but fine. They gave her a very high dose of tranquiliser. Laithe gave her
something to reverse the effects of the drug, and that seems to have helped.
She’s underweight though. She needs to eat a lot of calories to catch up
again.’

‘She’s
underweight in a week?’ Indi asked Rhett quietly.

‘Lycanthropes
need to eat a lot regularly. Our metabolisms are very fast,’ he whispered back,
giving her an encouraging smile.

There was a
knock on the door, opening a few seconds later. Sabel and Colton walked in,
taking up positions on the couch beside Rhett. Antain looked at everyone very
carefully from his chair.

‘Where’s Brax?’

‘I’m here,’ he
replied, pushing open the door and sitting on the floor at Rhett’s feet.

Antain nodded.
‘I want to thank each and every one of you for risking your lives to get Eaton
back last night,’ he said. ‘What injuries were sustained?’ Antain directed this
question at Vaile who cleared his throat.

‘Scrapes, cuts
and bites only, Alpha.’

He nodded. ‘And
what of Leona? I expected her to be with you when you returned last night.’

Vaile glanced
over at Rhett and the others before settling his gaze on Antain again. ‘She
didn’t make it. Marcus knew what she was planning, and Connall caught her
before she could kill him. We intervened, and she took a silver bullet to the
heart meant for me. She saved my life.’

Antain sat back
in his chair, steepling his fingers underneath his chin. ‘She died in battle.
That was how she would have wanted it to be. What of her body?’

They all looked
at each other. ‘Left behind,’ Vaile said.

‘I want you to
retrieve it. She brought Eaton back to us. She is pack, and she should be
buried on pack land.’

‘Yes, Alpha,’
they all answered in unison. They sat in silence for a long time before Antain
spoke again. ‘How many Dragos, Fenrir and Vanaheim wolves died by our hand?’

‘Nine,’ Vaile
replied, ‘not including Leona.’

Vaile sighed.
‘We had better ready ourselves for retribution then. Killing nine wolves is a
grave crime.’

They all nodded,
drifting back into silence.

Antain’s eyes
fixed on Indi. ‘And you are looking well. What’s changed?’

Rhett could feel
Indi’s eyes on him. He cleared his throat. ‘I have a theory, Uncle.’

Antain’s
eyebrows rose slightly. ‘Oh?’

Rhett swallowed,
took a deep breath in through his nose and released it. Was he really going to
do this? He looked at his alpha. ‘Indi’s feeding properly now.’

He frowned. ‘But
how? The last time she fed from the vein, she collapsed.’

‘We had it wrong.
It wasn’t because it was bagged blood, or from the source.’ Rhett licked his
lips, his mouth suddenly dry. He took a sip from his mug. ‘It’s the species,’
he finished.

‘What do you
mean, the species?’ Sabel asked.

Rhett looked at
him, but turned back to Antain. ‘Remember when I saved her life, how much she
drank then?’ Antain nodded, but it was a stiff movement. ‘Well, I thought about
it. What if … what if
I
started the transformation for her? What if it
was
my
blood that began it all? Hasn’t it always been said that the
first drink the half blood takes will be the source she survives on? Well,’ he
hurried on when his pack mates glared at him, ‘I think she can only drink
lycanthrope blood.’

‘But that’s
against our laws!’ Sabel roared, standing up. ‘What about the addiction?’

‘Sit down,’
Antain rumbled, motioning him with his hand. ‘Have you fed her since
discovering this, son?’ It was Rhett’s turn to nod this time. ‘When?’

‘Monday.’

‘And that’s all
she’s had?’

‘No. Brax has
fed her too.’

Sabel stood up
again, Colton following suit. ‘Now you’ve dragged another one of our wolves
into it? What the fuck are you trying to do to our pack, Rhett? Destroy it?’

‘Sit down!’
Antain boomed. Reluctantly Sabel and Colton sat back down again.

‘I figured the
more sources she has, the less chance she’ll become addicted to just one. We
could all feed her, like on a rotation or something,’ Rhett suggested warily.
He could feel sweat forming on his brow. This had never been done before. Indi
squeezed his hand. Antain was studying him, as was Vaile. It was only the
chartreuse glare from Sabel and Colton’s silver stare that prickled the hair at
the back of his neck. Sabel was just begging to punish him for feeding Indi
again. He could feel it in his cold glare.