The Bears Shared Bride: A Paranormal Menage Romance (8 page)

“I want to taste you. I need to taste you on my tongue.”

“No. No. Gods, Parker I want…” Lavinia’s voice drifted off as Parker moved one large finger, and then two, inside her. She could feel the friction of the digits feeling her out, testing how ready she was for him to fully enter her.

Parker laughed into the very core of her. The reverberations of his voice trembling her insides. “What is it that you want?” Parker moved the fingers buried deep inside her while simultaneously flicking her clit with his thumb, “Do you want this? Or perhaps you want this…” Parker leaned down again and somehow managed to add his tongue to all of the other appendages touching her clit. The sensations had her clawing toward the edge of an orgasm.

“You! I want you! That’s what I want.” Lavinia breathed heavily through the statement and as Parker’s mouth left her, the orgasm retreated slightly.

“That you can have,” he answered gruffly.

Parker removed his hand from her and quickly stripped his own shorts. The view was glorious as Lavinia took in every inch of his golden skin in the late afternoon light. Settling himself back between her legs, he surprised her by entering her in one swift thrust. Again and again he thrust into her and Lavinia met him inch for inch. When she didn’t think she could hold back any longer, she reached behind him and gave his ass a loud smack. The dampness from his sweaty body making that sound satisfyingly loud and sharp. Lavinia could feel his control start to slip so she did it again.

Parker growled at her and Lavinia gave him a smirk and urged him on with a slap one last time. She felt his control snap. Faster and faster he slammed into her and Lavinia’s whole body tightened around him in response. Together they reached the peak of their orgasm and flew off into sheer nirvana.

Rolling off of her, Lavinia and Parker lay on the mat side by side holding hands, waiting for their bodies to come back to them. Eventually, Parker let out a small laugh, “Gods how I’ve missed that.”

“Hmm. Yes, I have the best ideas. I totally won your challenge the instant your ass hit the floor.”

“I guess that means I have the best ideas, then.”

“Let's say for now that we’re evenly matched,” Lavinia allowed as they cooled down.

*

Thearon reread the memo that Security Team B had put together. It wasn’t the information he’d   hoped to receive. He set the memo down, frustrated. In doing all he could to improve security, Thearon had recently renamed the security teams with letters rather than the name of the area of security they worked on.

Thus, no longer was there a Web Security, Personal Security, or Guard Units. Now they were named for random letters—B, X, V, etc. The literature Thearon was reading up on said that random naming helped. Obviously, if given enough time and intel, they were never going to be difficult to crack, but it did give security extra time to plug the leak and rename the teams. It was like changing a password and so far everyone was remembering their new name quite well.

The memo in question was an overview of the threats encountered and avoided over the last week. Thearon never got used to seeing everything in the form of a list. It was pages long each week. Some of the threats he navigated during the week himself. Larger or difficult items were always passed over his desk, but some of the lesser threats or conspiracy theories were trouble-shooted by the individual teams.

Even seeing the little stuff that hadn’t come to fruition was hard, but it wasn’t the problem this week. What bothered Thearon was that Team W hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the Royal Werebears who had attacked Parker and Lavinia. They were still maintaining radio silence. No one could confirm that they’d left New Orleans and his intel across the country hadn’t seen them either. It was as if all six of them had simply disappeared.

Team W’s latest report guessed that, according to the statistical probability, they had left the Big Easy. If they were right about the previous attack in New York on New Year’s being connected, then they weren’t likely to wait this for a second attack as the first time they had failed they had simply moved on.

The team was using this to buoy the idea that the completion of the mission didn’t mean as much as the attempt. They believed it was more about the political statement. Beyond statistics, Team W had also performed a sweep of the city and had come up with nothing. If the Werebears were hiding in New Orleans, they were doing it well. His staff was convinced that they were gone, but something in Thearon’s gut warned him that they were out there somewhere just waiting.

In the middle of brooding over all of the possible threats on his life, Thearon’s assistant of the week knocked on the door.

“Omega, the Alpha is here to see you.”

Thearon looked up from his screen and frowned. Looking back, he pulled up his schedule to confirm. “No, it looks like I have an afternoon session on security concerns. Tell the Alpha I’ll talk to him later.”

“Uhm, Omega, he’s who you’re meeting with to discuss security concerns.”

Thearon hung his head. He was not mentally prepared to have the Alpha nit-pick the security of the palace apart. These meetings were becoming weekly events and it seemed as though the Alpha had caught on to Thearon ignoring requests for meetings with the Alpha as they were now happening under assumed names.

“All right, tell him I need five minutes and then send him in.”

“Actually, I only have twenty minutes for this meeting and I need it to start on time,” Parker, said striding into the room.

Thearon quickly pulled the screen saver on his computer and drew a stack of newspapers over the memos on his desk. However, he wasn’t quick enough for Parker’s sharp eyes.

“So you’ve been unable to locate the Werebeast group. What does the team assigned to them think of the situation?”

Thearon tapped the stacked paper and eyed Parker up, not knowing what to reveal and what to play close to the vest. The entire situation was a house of cards and he wasn’t sure which piece of information would be its downfall.

“They have no new information. The group has yet to surface,” Thearon admitted.

Parker slammed a fist on Thearon’s desk, further disrupting the order. “Damn it, Thearon, you need to be on top of this. This is the primary concern for our Tribe. Our Queen hasn’t left the palace in almost two months and is only just physically recovered. We can’t risk another assassination attempt.”

Thearon finally broke. Jumping to his feet he exclaimed, “I don’t know why, all of a sudden, the assassination attempt became my fault. Weren’t you the one escorting her? Weren’t you the one who called off the guards? This was not a failure of our security, this was fate and this was bravado.”

Parker stilled and Thearon realized he’d finally said it out loud. For the first time since the Queen had been shot, Thearon had acknowledged that Parker had played a part in the shooting.

Slowly sitting, Thearon began, “Parker, I…”

“No. I will not stand here and be dragged into a fight that lays on your shoulders. I’m only holding these weekly meetings because I thought it was pushing you to do more with security. By now I expected to see reform and change, but all I see are a few extra men milling about the grounds and a constant black-clad annoyance in my blind spot. I’ve learned my lesson. I’m not turning away the manpower and I’m making an effort to help Lavinia heal her wounds, both physical and mental. Speaking of which, when was the last time you saw your wife, Thearon?”

When she was fucking you
, Thearon thought. He had walked in on them one day after the physical therapist had stopped coming. He’d planned to rearrange his schedule so that they could all work out at the same time. Thearon had thought it would help them reconnect as a couple, but he’d stopped short when he saw them on the mat together.

Their bodies had been glistening with sweat, Lavinia on top, riding Parker as his big hands bit into her hips. Thearon had watched Lavinia’s head drop back, her beautiful hair falling from its bun and skimming Parker’s thighs. They had looked so uninhibited—so intertwined—Thearon had drawn back, feeling awkward for being turned on, for wanting to join them... for feeling left out... that he’d simply turned around and headed out to the gardens for a run.

Since that day, Thearon had avoided being intimate with either of them and seeing Lavinia as much as possible. “I see her each morning and evening at meals, Parker, you know that.” Thearon wasn’t about to admit what he’d seen to Parker. Not after slipping and placing blame for the assassination attempt.

“According to her therapist, that’s not enough. Lavinia needs more interaction and she needs to leave this palace. We need a security update that gives us more information than ‘nothing more yet.’” Parker ran a hand through his hair in frustration.

Thearon considered, he had done so little for Lavinia… But did he trust the team more than his gut? Perhaps Parker was right, maybe it was time for a change in security procedure; it was time for him to place his trust in those who worked for him. Security had failed when Parker had gone over the security guard’s head and called the man off. Was Thearon any better if he ignored the advice of his team?

“Actually, this last report calculated the statistical probability that the Werebeast group was still in New Orleans, as low. Not only have we not physically seen them, there has been no activity on known aliases or known credit cards. The team figures that they’ve either magically disappeared or that they’ve left the town.”

Parker’s eyes narrowed, “Do you believe them?”

Thearon ignored the clenching feeling in his gut, “They are security experts. I agree with their assessment as they’ve presented it. After the New Year’s incident, there was no follow-up with the Werehorse Tribe. I think after another failed attempt, they are most likely licking their wounds somewhere far away.”

Parker’s hands came together with a loud clap, “Why didn’t you lead with news like that? Why draw me into another fight?” Parker came around and gave Thearon a man hug involving a fair amount of backslapping. “Now, I want you to work on your relationship with Lavinia. We all need to put this behind us.”

There was a beep and Parker checked his phone. Frowning, he tapped his screen and then looked up and said he had to leave. One more round of congratulations was thrown around and Thearon tried his hardest to ignore the voice inside of him that wanted to rage against the advice.

*

Octavius looked around Café Du Monde. The chicory coffee and beignets covered in powdered sugar were nothing like what he was used to during a New Orleans visit. Normally he would have gone to Sweet Maria’s and enjoyed the calm rush of locals on their way to work. It wasn’t that the coffee or food was bad at Café Du Monde, it was that Octavius had to endure the excitement of the tourists.

“Oh my god honey, take a picture, take a picture! Jonas is absolutely
covered
in sugar. Look, look, look!”

Octavius sneered at the Midwestern mother’s words and his companion George, a Werehorse from a California tribe, raised an eyebrow.

“I can’t stand that we have to stick to places like this,” Octavius growled.

“You know it’s safest in crowds and where we aren’t expected to be. Renting the house in the suburbs, eating at tourist traps, paying in cash, they’re the way we are able to stay off the LeKing Tribe’s grid.”

Octavius grunted in response, his eyes roaming the packed crowd full of strollers and fanny packs.

“Octavius, you must stay focused on our end goal. We want a successful Werebeast takeover of society.”

“What I’m focused on at the moment is not fucking up again. The failed assassination attempt in New York followed by another failed assassination attempt in New Orleans...We don’t look like a group that inspires confidence.”

George raised an eyebrow.
The man has such expressive features for a Werehorse
, Octavius thought.

“Then our next attack must be successful—I have intel from inside the palace, hold on.”

George brought out his tablet.  “So, we were able to infiltrate a selection of emails from the private server. Some are the memos they’ve been sending back and forth. Though, the Tribe has begun to use a rotating code and our team is “still working on cracking it back at the house. What’s most telling, however, is a schedule change in the Alpha and Omega’s calendars.”

“I’m sure whatever code system they’ve come up with isn’t too sophisticated for Wilson. Now, tell me more about the calendars though, are they public?”

“Not exactly ‘public,’ but they are easy to infiltrate since a lot of different people have access. The Omega has a new assistant every other week, which makes getting in a little easier. It’s not my place to offer advice, but the man really needs to work on his interpersonal skills.”

Octavius stared back blankly and, clearing his throat, George continued, “Since the attack, they’ve had at least one extra weekly meeting in the Omega’s office. In the beginning it was simply marked with their names—Alpha and Omega—but a few weeks back it was changed to things like ‘Security Concerns’ or ‘Update on Security,’ literally spelling out what they were meeting about. I have no idea why they switched from such an incongruous title to something so utterly informative, but I thank them for it.”

“I’m sorry,” Octavius said playing with the powdered sugar left on his plate, “But I still don’t follow how this is helpful. We knew they would be looking at altering their security. It’s one of the reasons why we didn’t attack again right away—to gather intel on the changes.”