Wolf and Punishment (The Alaska Princesses Trilogy, Book 1) (21 page)

Every part of him seemed to be holding down every part of her. Janelle had never felt anything so invasive in her entire life, yet she could feel her wolf responding. Having him inside of her like this wasn’t an intrusion, it was a relief, one that made hot tears spring to her eyes. She didn’t fully realize until that moment how she had been waiting to be mated like this, to be claimed as his she-wolf.

At that moment, her entire world became Mag Lonewolf. And though she dimly realized there was some kind of drama unfolding between Alisha and Rafe, all she could hear for minutes on end was the sound of she and Mag’s bodies slapping together. He pistoned into her hard, his thrusts getting wilder and faster with every shove of his cock.

This thing building up inside her—it was like an unstable nuclear reactor, and Janelle didn’t think she was going to survive it. It would kill her. She was certain of it. And she didn’t care. She needed this, needed Mag, in the same way she used to need air and food and water to survive.

And then he sank his teeth into her shoulder, and suddenly her voice escaped from the heat smell’s chokehold. She let out a long scream as the orgasm blasted through her. Blasted through them both. His sex swelled, and knotted at the base, as she convulsed around him, and she felt him seize up on top her, his teeth sinking even further into her shoulder, right before he shot his seed into her.

“Mine. Fucking mine. You’re mine
,” she heard his voice in her head as he released into her so hard and so long, she didn’t know whether it was her or him streaming down her thighs.

Their mating didn’t kill her, but it completely wiped her out. She didn’t have the energy or the words to answer him back through their newly established telepathic connection. And without the need to be mated providing her with the extra strength she needed to take his weight, she did collapse, her entire body turned into jelly beneath his, even as her sex continued to violently milk him, clenching and unclenching on top of his knot.

They were locked together now in the most primal of involuntary actions. And she wouldn’t release him until he was fully spent, even if his big body smothered her to death.

But it didn’t come to that. He moved, taking her hips with him so they lay on their sides, her leg over his, so when she dared to look down her body, she could see herself, clenching and unclenching around his shaft.

Then he covered the clenching lips of her sex with his large hand and growled into her mind,
“Mine.”

He began rubbing his hand over her mound… and oh, God, her sensitive clit fired up under the ball of his hand, and despite the world-destroying orgasm she’d just had, she felt another one building within her. Was this even possible? From what she’d been given to understand, heat sex was primal by nature. The only reason a she-wolf went into heat was for the purpose of impregnation. And once a male wolf had knotted inside her, that was supposed to be that until the next wave of heat came over her, making it so she needed to mate again and again, as long as it took until she was impregnated.

But here she was on the edge of coming again, even as she involuntarily milked Mag’s manhood of the seed she’d already claimed for her womb.

“Mine,”
he said inside her head again, rubbing the ball of his hand over her most sensitive nub.
“I want to hear you say who this pussy belongs to. I want the first word from your mind to my mind to be ‘you.’”

“You,”
she pushed into his mind, because she was delirious with the smell of her heat and their new mating scent and the feel of his hand on her exposed womanhood. And also because it was true. “
This pussy belongs to you. I belong to you now.”

“Oh, fuck, Janelle.”
To her surprise, even though it was she who’d been on the verge of orgasm, he suddenly seized up behind her again, and his other arm came up across her body, squeezing her breast tight as he unloaded inside her.

And he never stopped rubbing. Soon she fell over the edge of that cliff, too, pleasure slicing her apart. The sleep that overtook her afterwards felt more like a body shutdown than a choice on her part. Something enforced by nature for her own protection. Her body’s and her mind’s.

This should have been a game changer for her. Mag couldn’t enforce the virginity clause now they were mated. Also, he’d have to abide by the pledge agreement, so the Alaska crown and her father’s life would be secure no matter what came to pass between Alisha and Rafe. She should have been happy.

But as Janelle gave in to sleep with her new mate’s hand still on top of her sex, cupping her in a way that felt both like a warning and a decree, all Janelle could do was worry. While it was true Mag’s plan for revenge was no longer viable, it was also true she belonged to him now, his scent bonded to hers in a way that couldn’t be erased with showers or even an entire case of Summer’s Eve.

Many questions remained to be answered: what did he plan to do with her now that he had her? And, perhaps even more worrisome, now that his revenge plan had been foiled, did that mean her punishment for what she’d done to him three years ago was over? Or had it only just begun?

21

M
AG woke up the next morning on top of the Alaska kingdom house’s dining table, his arms wrapped tight around Janelle, his hands on her sex and breast, as if he were trying to warn off any other wolves who might think of claiming his she-wolf for themselves.

“Darn, you’re fertile. Can’t say I’m not impressed,” came a voice from out of nowhere.

As soon as he heard the voice, Mag leapt to his hands and feet, crouching back into a wolf’s fighting stance even though he was in human form, and would remain that way until three months after Janelle gave birth to their pup, nature’s way of assuring a she-wolf had human protection for the year of her life that she wouldn’t be able to turn into a wolf herself. However, it didn’t matter what form he was currently in. If whoever was in the room with them posed any threat to Janelle, Mag was ready to take him out, with his bare hands if necessary.

“And your protection instinct’s already gone off. Good gravy you move fast.”

Mag’s eyes adjusted to the gray morning light filtering in through the double hung windows. King Tikaani was once again seated at the head of the table. However, his suit had been changed out for a pair of pajamas and a plush blue robe with a Seattle Seahawks logo on the chest.

Mag relaxed out of his fighter’s stance. He probably would have realized it was Tikaani sooner if not for the now stale heat smell hanging over the room. That and a new smell, but it couldn’t be… he sniffed the air above Janelle and realized yes, yes, it was true.

“Took me seven days to put Janelle in Wilma. Only took you one.” Tikaani said at the head of the table. “Trust me, that’s going to be a story we’ll be telling at this year’s Christmas party.”

Mag tried to wrap his mind around what his nose and King Tikaani were telling him. No, it couldn’t be! But it was true. He could smell the new presence inside of her, its smell mixing in with hers, just as his own had after their mating. No wonder he’d been set to kill whoever had invaded their space. He was now officially mated with a pup on the way. A she-wolf stayed in heat until she was impregnated, so her heat session usually lasted anywhere from three to fourteen days. But they’d done in it in one night.

Mag looked down at Janelle, who was still sleeping in the same position. Curled up on her side, seemingly oblivious to the fact that her father was in the room.

“Can I have your robe?” Mag said to the king. “I want to cover her up.”

Tikaani stood and took off his robe, his eyes staying on Mag as he placed the plush robe over Janelle’s prone body. “So this is happening with you and my daughter now, right? Heard a lot of talk about Bad Wolf, but last I checked, you were still all wolves. You mate for life—no deadbeat dads. I wouldn’t want my sweet girl abandoned by the wolf who claimed her… just because of politics.”

Mag looked up from Janelle, back to the king. “I’m sure you know there’s more than one way to be a deadbeat dad. Or maybe you don’t, and that’s how your ‘sweet girl’ ended up with a guy from Bad Wolf.” Mag let that insult sink in for a few seconds before saying, “But if you’re asking about how Freedom Town wolves do it, you don’t need to worry about that. We mate for life, yeah? And we don’t let politics keep us from taking care of our pups.”

All Tikaani seemed to hear were the parts about him mating with Janelle for life and taking care of their pup.

“Good to hear, good to hear, son.” He clapped his hands together. “I know in Wyoming and Colorado, mates wait a few months until they officially get married. They like to do it up big. But here in Alaska, we do a traditional ceremony and cub blessing as soon as possible, then we have a big party after. Don’t know how they do it in Freedom Town.”

“We don’t wait in Freedom Town, either,” Mag answered.

“Good, good, we’re in agreement then. You two will be married as soon as Janelle wakes up.”

Things moved fast after that. Tikaani hustled Mag out of the dining room, saying, “Wilma and Tu are chomping at the bit to get Janelle ready for the big day. I wouldn’t put it past them to not let her sleep in, even though she’s fresh mated. Poor kid.”

Mag frowned. “How about Alisha? She won’t be taking part in the wedding?”

“She’s ah… already gone back to Juneau. But Rafe’s still here. You’ll probably want him to stand with you, right? And if you can get that brother of yours on the phone, we can maybe hold off on the ceremony until he can fly in.”

Mag considered the date. The Freedom Town pack would be all the way in the far north-west of Alaska by this time of year, hunting caribou. Even if they were somewhere Mag could fly Kang out of easily, it might take his brother a day or two to get here. Also… he didn’t want his brother here. Not yet. Not after what had gone down last night. And definitely not when the urge to go back to Janelle, to stand over her and make sure no harm came to her, was thrumming through him.

“No, we can do it without him,” he answered Tikaani.

“Good, good!” Tikaani boomed. “The quicker, the better.”

Mag had been a little inexact when he told the king about how Freedom Town handled weddings. While it was true they didn’t wait, that was because they didn’t have them. Once two wolves were mated, they were considered married. Period. No ceremony needed. Just as most Inuit wolves had done it before Christianity came to their culture.

But the kingdom town wolves had praised the Christian God for nearly three generations, and the Alaska queen was a Baptist born. A backyard ceremony was set up in under three hours, and the whole town came out.

The tailor they’d sent to the kingdom house with a tux for Mag barely had time to make the necessary alterations to accommodate his heavily muscled body before Rafe was at the guestroom door, saying it was time to get down to the dock.

Seeing how easily the whole ceremony had come together, he shouldn’t have been surprised when Janelle came down the aisle in a white wedding dress with the same kind of heart-shaped neckline as the dresses she’d worn for their pledge dance and at the dinner party the night before. He got the feeling this dress had been chosen long ago as part of the final act in Janelle’s mating story. Maybe even before they’d ever met. More a calculation than a symbol of their forthcoming union.

Yet, his breath caught at the sight of her coming out of the house and down the recently made aisle on her father’s arm, her long hair lying over her shoulder in a thick fishtail braid. There was some stuff between her father and the kingdom town pastor about who was giving her away. Then Janelle let go of her father’s arm and placed her hand into his, with more regal grace in her five fingers than he had in his entire body. She looked not like a princess now, but a queen. His queen.

And that made everything inside of Mag curdle.

He turned with Janelle toward the pastor, and mumbled his way through the ceremony. But as soon as it was over, he excused himself.

“I gotta use the bathroom,” he told Janelle.

“Of course,” she answered softly, her eyes still cast down. She hadn’t looked at him for the entire length of the ceremony and though she appeared the very picture of a happy bride as they made their way back into the house, he could tell she was back on auto-princess mode.

He went all the way to the bathroom on the third floor. The one furthest from the gigantic front room where the reception would be taking place. It was almost too far for him to make it. The angry roar started in his chest before the door was even fully closed behind him, ripping out of him like a runaway train as he punched the wall. He wished like hell it was plaster so he could put a hole in it. But it was brick, double layered, in order to keep the bathroom insulated and warm against the Alaska cold. His hand came back with bloody knuckles, not broken, but throbbing like a motherfucker.

Mag was grateful for it, though. It steadied him. Yanked him back from the edge of crazy town before he could rip the toilet off the wall, which he’d been thinking about doing next. Instead, he cradled his not-quite-broken hand against his chest, and used his non-dominant hand to pull his phone out of his breast pocket.

Sofia picked up on the first ring. “Hello?” she said.

Her voice rushed through him like a dose of antibiotics injected straight into the bloodstream. “Sofia?” he whispered.

“Mag? I didn’t think you’d call after our last conversation. Are you all right?”

“No.”

“Mag, please tell me you didn’t go to Alaska.”

“I can’t tell you that.”

On the other side of the line, he heard Sofia sigh. And though he couldn’t see her, he could practically feel her disappointment radiating over the line.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Believe me, I’m more than sorry I came up here. But I need to see you, Sofia. Not over the phone. Face-to-face. If I buy you a ticket how soon can you get to Wyoming?”

22

J
ANELLE was now the Queen of Wyoming. Not in theory or in a someday sort of proposal on a pledge agreement. No, she was the real Queen of Wyoming, with the heartbeat of the king’s firstborn now gestating inside her womb.