NecessaryDecision

Necessary Decision

A.D. Christopher

Varek and Gable have everything. Everything but their
freedom. In the Orion Pride, only free were-panther men can claim a male
warrior-mate and commit their lives to each other. At least, that’s the way
it’s always been. But now the high council has condoned the pride’s very first
three-way mating, and Varek and Gable see a possible chance to gain that
precious freedom. They only need a free man to claim them both, and they have
just the man in mind.

Kylar has never believed in love, not until he meets two
slave men who show him that love—and sex—can be more intense than anything he’s
ever imagined. But when Kylar discovers that Varek and Gable planned his
seduction, will he believe that real love can grow from deception, or will he
see himself as nothing but a necessary decision?

Chapter One

The slave quarters were hot and close, lit only by dim
lanterns and packed with freshly showered men working up a very different kind
of sweat than the one that had soaked them through on the practice fields. Both
the Unfree slaves and the Free were-panther men of the Orion Pride had put in a
full day. War with the Canadian Prides seemed imminent and their training
exercises had taken on a new urgency. Combined with the stress of the Pride
meeting in the glen a few hours ago—where an announcement from the Elders had
rocked the very core of the Pride—the impending conflict created perfect
conditions for a steamy night that had little to do with the June heat.

An orgy was in the making and Kylar couldn’t be happier.

He needed to lose himself here tonight, needed to forget the
look on his grandfather’s face when he’d reluctantly announced that the Elders
had voted and decided to let the three-way mating of two male warriors and the
female, Mercy Howe, stand. A mating of three, not just two. It was
unprecedented, against everything their strict Pride law demanded and
also…completely, wildly arousing.

Two men and one woman, three pairs of hands touching and
stroking, three mouths sucking and licking. The thought was unbearably hot,
despite the fact that Kylar doubted that Kerrick, Caleb and Mercy’s “love”
would last the year. Love was hard enough between two people—his father and
mother’s contentious relationship and the absolute subjugation of his
grandmother to his grandfather had taught him that much.

Especially in a world like theirs. Were-panther women had
always been scarce, but in recent generations the competition for mates had
become even fiercer. The Orion Pride had few women, and they were mated to the
strongest warriors, men who passed years of rigorous sexual testing performed
in front of the entire Pride. The rest of the men remained unmated or took male
mates, choosing the strongest warriors they could find in order to bring honor
to their family names. In any mating, love was a secondary concern. Whether or
not two people even liked each other often didn’t matter.

There were times when Kylar wondered if the Pride would be
better off if they abolished traditional matings and let the women choose who
they would mate with each year and the men do as they please. But instead, the
Elders had legitimized this three-way nonsense. It was ridiculous.

But still…all that sweat-slick flesh, all those different
places to drive every last aching inch. Not just one body intertwined with his.
Not just one set of hands wrapped around his cock, stroking his ass. Not just
one mouth on his sac. But two—two eager mates to worship him with their bodies.
The thought made it hard to swallow, made his eyes flick hungrily from one corner
of the room to another.

Large, calloused hands roamed over sculpted bodies, men of
every color finding a lover—or two or three—and settling in for some much
needed stress relief before they turned in for the night. Eager mouths met and
parted, breathing faster than they had before. Fists found hair and fingers dug
into the muscle of rounded buttocks, demanding more and more, every last bit of
power, every last spark of passion.

The slave cabins were like this almost every night. Kylar’s
sensitive nose never failed to detect the heavy scent of sex hanging in the
air. Many Pride-born men came here to find the sexual relief and gratification
they couldn’t find elsewhere without breaking Pride law. The Orion Pride
forbade sexual contact with women before marriage. And so the unmarried men in
need of release came to the slave cabins to work off their sexual tension with
other men. It was a Pride-approved way to satisfy the hearty were-panther
sexual appetite.

There were so many Unfree eager to satisfy the Pride-born,
not just because they enjoyed it but because they all secretly hoped they’d be
claimed as mates and allowed to leave the cabins and their slave status behind.
Unfree who warrior-mated with a full Pride member became full Pride members
themselves, after all, and all the slaves wanted that.

Slaves like the ones Kylar passed as he walked through the
barracks. Slaves with eyes wide with passion and desire as they closed their
mouths over already-wet cocks, flicked their tongues over the blunt, leaking
heads. It was a gorgeous sight, all those bodies moving, tensing with pleasure,
relaxing when spent, ready to go again after a short break.

Kylar walked slowly past two men—one Free, one an Unfree
slave—stroking each other’s swelling lengths in a darkened corner, grunting low
in their throats as each neared release. At the last moment, the taller man
fell to his knees before the shorter, slipping his lover between his lips,
sucking him into a groaning, knee-weakening release. Kylar’s own cock thickened
inside his boxer briefs. He hadn’t bothered putting on anything else after his
shower in the men’s locker room. He knew he’d find himself in the Unfree
quarters tonight.

As an unmated warrior of less than thirty, Kylar often found
a sexual outlet in the slave barracks. It was an especially welcome respite
after last weeks round of sexual testing. Only Free men, full Pride members,
could compete for female mates. To do so they had to pass a series of grueling,
public, sexual tests. They had to stand naked and allow an Unfree to fondle
them, to stroke them and caress them, without being aroused. To become erect
was an invitation to spend a night in the forest with the slave who’d caused
the erection. Many a Pride-born male had come back to the gathering in the morning
to announce sheepishly that he had penetrated the Unfree who tempted him, or
allowed himself to be penetrated, and thus could never claim a woman.

Kylar had yet to complete the tests.

Until he did, he wouldn’t be allowed near any of the
virginal, unmated Pride girls. Thankfully, the Orion Pride had no taboos
against men playing with other men and still remaining in the competition for a
female mate…as long as the man in question refrained from anal penetration.
Penetrating or being penetrated immediately voided any chance for a female
mate. A man who had engaged in anal sex was not fit to have a woman, so the
rules of the Pride went. At least that had been the rule until today, when two
men who had already been warrior-mated for years were allowed to claim one of
the Pride’s few females. Kylar couldn’t imagine what those young unmated men
who’d had their eye on Mercy Howe were thinking right now. Probably that they’d
been fools, and that competition for mates would be even more intense in the
future.

Of course, not every Free man cared about acquiring a female
mate.

“Yes. Fuck yes!” An almond-skinned Unfree with full lips,
and eyes squeezed tightly closed, arched his back on a cot a few feet away. He
slammed his hips back as the Free man behind him thrust forward. The sound of
muscled skin slapping against muscled skin made Kylar’s erection swell even
further, until he knew he’d have to find someone willing to drop to their knees
in front of him soon.

The temptation to fuck—to lube up some eager man’s ass and
ride him until neither of them could walk the next day—was becoming nearly
impossible to resist. Kylar was hardly a virgin—he’d been sucked off by more
men than he could remember and given enough hand jobs to earn a morale award,
if such a thing existed—but he’d never sunk his aching length between a woman’s
thighs or into a man’s tight, slick hole. His family wanted him to win a female
mate. Kylar simply wanted to put off any kind of mating as long as possible. A
Free Orion man could also choose a male mate from among either the Free or
Unfree populations, but Kylar knew better than to imagine that life with a male
spouse would be any easier than life with a female one. Love was for fools and
kids too naïve to understand that were-panthers weren’t meant to mimic human
failures like marriage and the belief in happily ever after.

Now sex on the other hand…that was another matter entirely.

“You’re Kylar, right?” A familiar young man with black
curls, big brown eyes and a mouth that seemed to smile without the slightest
twitch of his lips slid up beside him, a nervous energy in his voice that
appealed to Kylar immediately. He liked his lovers on the submissive side.

The nude slave was slightly shorter than his own six feet,
two inches, and narrow, as if he were still growing into his manhood. Still, he
was strong, tightly muscled and…gorgeous. Tawny skin dusted with soft, black
hair begged to be stroked and the fleshy, dusky cock thickening in the nest of
tightly curled black hair between his legs made Kylar’s mouth water.

Perhaps he’d do some sucking himself tonight.

“Yes. Kylar,” he said, reaching out to run light fingers
down the slave’s ribs to the slight curve of his hip, satisfied when the
smaller man shivered with obvious desire. “You’re…Gable?”

“I am.” He smiled, as if pleased that Kylar knew his name
without being told, then reached for Kylar’s cock, fisting it with a quiet
assurance that made Kylar rethink his assumption that this boy would be a
typical wide-eyed sub. He was submissive, but submissive with a side of sass.
“But you can call me Gabe.” He stepped closer, standing on tiptoe to press a
kiss to Kylar’s lips as his smooth hand worked a bit of magic on Kylar’s cock.

Kylar smiled against Gabe’s lips and kissed him back,
deciding a little sass was exactly what he needed tonight.

Varek watched Kylar run eager hands down to Gable’s ass and
cup the golden orbs in his hands. Varek’s breath sped with excitement, though
he wasn’t sure whether he should be pleased or jealous to see that Gable had
won Kylar’s attention so easily. All he knew was that he was as turned-on as
he’d been in years. Varek and Gable had both grown up in the slave
quarters—prisoners taken by the Orion Pride nearly ten years ago in the New
Mexico Pride wars—and always been friends, but they’d only been lovers for a
little over a year. Still, they were definitely
lovers
, not just
fuck-buddies. Varek loved Gable with everything in him.

He loved Gable’s soft touch, his fearless passion and his
unexpected sense of humor. He loved the way Gable smiled at him in the morning
and pressed kisses down his stomach, he loved running through the woods in
their panther forms, marveling at the sleek beauty of the nimble black cat
Gable became. Gable was the only thing that kept him sane as the Orion Pride
drove them to train harder and harder, preparing for a war that wasn’t theirs
to fight.

Why should he be eager to help the Orion Pride triumph over
the united Prides of Western Canada? Why should he help the smug assholes of
this Pride win even more slaves and women for their Free men? While he and
Gable, as slaves and former members of a defeated Pride, would get nothing but
more slavery?

Valor in battle wouldn’t free them. Money wouldn’t free
them. The only thing that would ever free them and allow them to lose their
status as Unfree was to be claimed as a mate by a Pride-born male.

Which was just as difficult as it sounded.

But maybe things are going to change. Maybe tonight is
the sign we’ve been waiting for.

Varek swallowed, trying not to hope too much as he watched
Gable and Kylar fall to an empty cot, strong legs entwined. If the Elders had
allowed a warrior-mated couple to share a woman, why not allow a Free man to
share two men? Neither he nor Gable had ever dared to seduce a Free warrior before
tonight. They’d been too afraid of being separated, of losing the freedom to
love each other whenever they wished, to fall asleep in each other’s arms,
cocks softening in well-used holes.

But now, with the announcement that Caleb, Kerrick and Mercy
would be allowed to stay together…

He and Gable had barely been out of earshot of the glen and
the shocked murmurs of the Free members of the Orion Pride when they’d fallen
all over each other’s words, eager to share their eerily similar thoughts. It
was why they were perfect for each other, and why they’d hopefully settled on
the perfect man to claim them both. If a Free member of the Pride took them as
his warrior mates they’d become full-fledged members of the Pride and move out
of the slave barracks once and for all.

They both wanted that freedom more than anything. More than
almost anything, at least. Varek would rather stay a slave than lose Gable and
he knew his love felt the same way. But if they could be a tri-mated team…they
could have their freedom, each other and hopefully another man to love, who
would love them back.

Both of them had thought of Kylar Grossman immediately.
They’d had a running joke for months that Kylar’s name was “grossly”
inaccurate. The tall, powerful warrior with the long, silky brown hair he wore
knotted at the base of his neck and the electric blue eyes was anything but a
gross man. He was gorgeous, a brilliant warrior and sexy as hell.

Varek would be a liar if he said a part of him didn’t envy
his love right now. Watching Kylar’s big hands cupping Gable’s tight, swollen
balls, seeing Kylar’s lips part as he sucked Gable’s cock inside his mouth—it
made him want to explode.

His hand moved almost subconsciously to his cock, jerking
himself in time to the rhythm Kylar had established, letting the pressure build
and build before he allowed himself near the edge, telling himself this was for
the best.

Kylar was a dominant man and liked slighter, softer men.
Varek, at six five and nearly three hundred pounds, was anything but slight. He
might be a gentle giant, but he was still a giant with enough muscle to take
out just about any member of the Pride and a cock Gable joked was “obscene”. It
was nearly thirteen inches long and as big around as Gable’s wrist, but still,
Gable relished taking Varek inside him, didn’t mind being the smaller man in
every way.