AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Charlie.” Johnny’s voice was hesitant.
“I turned my uncle,” I said, my eyes still on the trees as he drove us down the pot-holed service road.
“Turned him into what?”
I shifted to look at Johnny, tearing my gaze away from the forest and the trees.
“A subject.” My queen. “I think… I think I just made myself an alpha.” I wanted to cry, to scream, but mostly I wanted to pound my chest and take ownership over what I’d done.
Johnny nodded like he already knew. He swallowed it whole, accepting that I’d claimed a pack as my own, then he grinned.
“I need to talk to Levi,” I said, dread slipping into the awe.
* * * *
We were all in the library, Levi, Kane and Johnny watching me like hawks as I sorted through the parchments, moved the photos around, put them in order and saw them with new understanding. They told a different story than the one we’d assumed before.
“These wolves are her soldiers. We got that right.” I pointed to the battle. I noted the streaks on their flesh, markings that spread from throats across chests, like the threads were reaching for the beast’s hearts.
Levi shifted closer, inspecting the prints. “She marks them.”
“The mark of the beast.” Just like what I gave Gareth went unsaid. The heaviness of the room told me that everyone was thinking the same thing. I’d made him my soldier by biting him while I’d been in my werebeast form.
I pulled the series of prints out that showcased the orgy. “These are her mates.”
Levi froze.
Kane moved closer.
Johnny stayed where he was, idlily scoping out a parchment on the other side of the table, one eyebrow now cocked.
“She gives the mating bite?” Kane reached for the print in my hand. I let him take it. Study it. Try to deny what I was now seeing so clearly. “With every intention comes a mark. With every mark comes a bond. With every bond comes a commitment,” he read. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“I think we figured out why I was so against taking your bites.” My beast wanted to build an army and a harem. Her agitation was unfulfilled instinct to strengthen her standing and her power.
Levi looked up, meeting my eyes, awe clearly etched on his face. “It’s you who has to do the bonding. You select your mates. You create the link.”
“My mating bite, in theory, would create the starburst pattern.” I pointed to the markings on the men closest to the werebeast in the print. “Different from the soldiers.” The ones closest to the queen had two puncture dimples the width of a beast’s fangs then what looked like lightening streaks of white scar tissue unfurling around them. It was beautiful—and also terrifying.
Kane didn’t tear his eyes away, but his chest was moving like he was taking some deep controlling breaths.
This was the moment of moments. Not only would Kane have to hand over his leadership, but he’d have to give me power over the mating bond if he truly wanted me to be queen. I didn’t know what that would mean to him, but I guessed it wasn’t all sunshine and roses in his brain right now. I didn’t know what it would do, either. Gareth and his former pack were in my head—quiet now, thanks to my new-found control—but there all the same. It was a presence that comforted my beast, one that I was slowly getting used to…kind of.
It was definitely an emasculating prospect, considering how it’d always been done…with the male in control and doing the biting and claiming.
“And would you?” Johnny moved in next to me, close enough that his body heat came in waves to envelop me. He leaned his lips to my hair, his breath moving the strands when he spoke. “Would you bite each of us?” His words were sultry and soft, caressing my jaw, my throat. I froze, but not because I didn’t want what he was offering.
Kane snapped his eyes to Levi’s, then to Johnny’s, then to mine. His expression was barely contained panic.
The air was ripe, palpable, so many emotions swirling…uncertainty shone in Kane’s eyes like a pulse. I sucked in a breath, wobbled a little, suddenly off balance. I couldn’t look at him and see vulnerability. It was too raw.
“Would it be too much still?” Levi asked, his usual all business tone gone, replaced by hope, desire, need. It slipped its way into my heart and made my brain fuzzy. “Would you rather choose one of us to form that kind of connection with? Or would you want us all?”
If there were ever a time for bated breath, it was now. It seemed like all three men were hanging on to my next words.
I don’t know. I ran my fingers through my hair and put some distance between me and Johnny, pacing a short circuit.
“This is a lot.” I wanted to sit down. I wanted to run.
