He shook his head. “I’m all set in there, Anax, unless you want me to…I don’t know. Clean or something?”
“No,” I said firmly. “Right now, you’re a guest. If you want some work to do, I’m sure Chloe can find something for you when she gets here, but I’d like to see you just take it easy for a while. Didn’t Wilbur tell you to rest for the day?”
“Resting isn’t easy when you aren’t used to it.” He smiled again and looked at the guards. “Yeah, just let me know if you need me to do something. Otherwise, I’ll be in the den.”
“Kyle and I will come hang out with you in a little while. I just need to talk to him privately first.” Talking was absolutely not what I had in mind, but that information was between Kyle and me. “If you want anything to eat or drink, help yourself in the kitchen. Don’t worry about whether it’s food for the gathering. I want you to be comfortable.”
His expression brightened. “Thank you, Tobias.”
Kyle and I headed up to our suite. In the bedroom, with the door closed, he yanked me into his arms and nuzzled my neck. “About time we got to be alone. I was beginning to think you’d forget what I looked like.”
“As if.” I moaned softly as his lips touched just the right spot. “I wanted to come home to you last night and have you fuck the hell out of me, but it just didn’t work out that way.”
“No worries.” He let go of me and pushed me toward the bed. “Lay your ass down and let me hold you. If more happens, so much the better, but right now I just want to wrap up in you and be here together before hell descends.”
“I hope it won’t be hell.” Unsure whether to undress or stay as I was, I didn’t move for a second. Undressing sounded like the better choice, so I could feel Kyle’s skin against mine. Right now, that would soothe me, and I needed to be soothed. I took off the T-shirt and shorts I’d put on that morning and lay in the center of the bed, arms extended. “Here I am.”
“Took you long enough.” With a grin, he shed his clothes and joined me, lying on his side against me so I could put my arms around him. “The calm before the storm.”
“Not a hundred percent calm, but this helps.” I turned onto my side so I was facing him. My cock brushed against his and I shivered with the need that rose along with the beginning rising of my dick. “Oh, damn. How long has it been?”
“Since I touched you like this?” He reached between us and fingered my shaft, which made me shiver again. “A few days too long. You’ve had things on your mind.”
“And you didn’t call me out on ignoring you?” With a faint sigh, I moved against him. “I’m sorry.”
“You weren’t ignoring me. You were preparing for the Grand Poobah Alpha-con.” He kissed my shoulder. “I was planning to make up for it on our wedding night. You’d better start preparing yourself for that, my love, because I will use your body like a goddamn rag doll until we’re both too fucked out to think.”
I laughed. “There’s something not quite right with that imagery, but I get the gist. As much as I would love to make up for lost time right now, I don’t want to stay shut in here too long. The guards will understand, but Chloe and her assistant will be here soon, and I’m still a little concerned about Ren.”
“You’re always concerned about other people.” He pecked my lips. “Let’s just be here, and tonight when we go to bed, I’ll suck your dick until you want to scream. And then I’ll probably make you do the same thing to me. Deal?”
Oh, fuck, the heat and craving that rushed through me at his words almost made me change my mind. I was the Anax. I was in charge, which meant I could decide to spend the entire rest of the day naked in bed with my mate if I wanted. No one could argue. No one could complain.
But I wouldn’t do that, because being the Anax meant having responsibilities. And in bed, Iwasn’tin charge. The first time Kyle and I had sex, he’d taken control, not realizing that a low-ranked wolf wasn’t supposed to do that with their Alpha. And I’d been grateful as hell for it, because he was the first partner I’d had who didn’t expect me to be as dominant in bed as I was out of it. Sometimes even a dominant wolf needed to let go and let someone else run things for a while.
He pulled me closer and touched his lips to my shoulder again. “Be here with me, Tobias. Things are going to ramp up over the next day or so. Then we’ve got Alpha-con, and I know we won’t be able to have much time like this when all the arkhons and alphas are here. So for the next few minutes, try to stop thinking, at least a little, and just be here with me.”
“Yeah.” I moaned softly as he kissed that perfect spot on my neck again, but then I settled and just lay against him, trying, as he’d asked, to stop thinking.
I wasn’t particularly successful. But I tried.
After a little while, I started feeling too restless to stay there, so I got up and dressed while Kyle watched. He enjoyed seeing me take off my clothes more than he liked having me put them on, but sometimes he just liked to watch whatever I did.
By the time we got back downstairs, Mandeep had arrived with Chloe and Solana. The latter was a short, black-haired young woman who chatted with Mandeep and tried to joke around with Seth, who wasn’t much for joking. She seemed to immediately put Ren more at ease. That was good. Of course Ren, coming from the streets and shelter system and then being attacked by the pack who should have taken care of him, would be uncomfortable and out of his element here. The more people treated him like he was just one of the group, the better.
After supper, I briefed everyone on the plans for the following day. We would have to make sure all of the bedrooms were ready for guests. All two hundred and fifty bedrooms, counting the ones in the largest guest house. Some were miniscule like the one I’d given Ren. Others were large enough to house three or four werewolves. That was the only way I’d been able to create enough space for everyone who would attend the gathering without making the house look ridiculous and giving the town planner, architect, and builders all migraines.
In addition to the bedrooms, we had to bring in enough supplies to feed everyone. That would be a frightening undertaking given how hungry werewolves could get, especially on full moon day and night, and how many of us there would be, but Chloe and Solana seemed to think that along with the other humans I’d hired as temporary cooks, they would be able to handle it. As Chloe kept reminding me, she’d done this at least a dozen times before while working for my predecessor, and with less assistance than I was providing for her. Rather than hiring multiple household staff members like Zane Wolfskin and other arkhons I knew, Hezekiah Wheelwright, as Anax, had focused on building the number of his guards and had hired only two humans to tend to the house and cooking. Even when he hosted the national gatherings.
So far, that was all I’d done too, aside from our temp workers. I needed to change that. Later. After I survived the gathering.
Once I’d gone over all the plans and answered questions, the night guards went off to do their guarding. Ren asked if he could help Chloe and Solana, who had decided to get a start on food prep with what we had in the house so far, and they quickly agreed. With no one else to take my attention, I brought Kyle back upstairs.
As soon as we were in our room with the door closed, Kyle growled, “Get naked. Immediately.”
“You’re so turned on you’re using multisyllable words?” With a smirk, I started taking off my clothes.
He snarled. “Don’t be a wiseass.”
