Page 49 of Tamed Wolf

Blake and I managed to stay awake until Brooks got home, his eyes tight with worry as he walked in the room to make sure Lark was exactly where she was meant to be. He just stood in the doorway, took in the scene, and then started stripping down to his boxers before making his intentions clear that he was about to climb into bed with us.

Since I have alpha privileges, and because Blake already got some quality time with her, he reluctantly scooted over to the edge of the bed so that Brooks could get what he needed from our potential new mate.

Eventhinkingthose words is a shock to my system; I did my best to ignore my own, saw that my brother was able to produce a knot for her, but part of me still wants to challenge the notion that she could truly be our mate. Not just one wechose, but one that's blessed and sanctioned by the goddess. I’d be trying for a shot with her regardless, but knowing she’s meant for us is incredible.

That was about six hours ago, and now I'm the first to wake up to a mewling, needy mate. I spent way too long thinking I'd never get this connection, but here we are.

“I've got you Lark, I'm here. I told you we were gonna take care of you,” I remind her.

She leans into my touch, turning towards me and wrapping her leg around my hip. I don't have time to think poetically about how great it feels to be sought out by her because I can tell that the heat has its full control over her. “I just need to get a condom, sweetness.”

“No, no, no, no,pleasedon't do that,” she begs, voice desperate. “I need you inside of me, Beckett. I thought you said you were going to take care of me.”

“I don't want you to get pregnant, Lark.”

She's clawing against my chest, rubbing herself against me, coating me in slick. My underwear is instantly soaked from her, and I can feel my knot swelling rapidly and this time I plan on testing it out. Fuck, it’s hot to think of her pregnant.

“You're probably right, I'm not good enough for that privilege, am I right?” And then she starts crying, big wracking sobs that wake up my other brothers.

Brooks is alert in a flash, wrapping an arm around her and rubbing his cheek along her shoulders and neck as if to leave his scent on her. “What's wrong, sweetness? What can we do for you? How can we help?”

“I'm not good enough,” she starts to wail, shaking and withdrawing, but we clamp down on her hips, keeping her between us.

“If you're hearing a voice inside your head tell you that, who does that voice sound like? I know it's not yours, baby,” Brooks tried to reason with her, “because the woman I'm holding knows her worth.”

“Then why won't you touch me without a condom? They feel wrong against my skin.”

“It's becauseweknow your worth, that we want to protect you,” he explains. “If we take you bare and you get pregnant, that's just another expectation on you. If that's something you want, we can talk about it—”

“And wait ‘til my next heat? After everything has already been taken away from me? I never got to enjoy Camden’s babyhood; I was always looking over my shoulder waiting for him to get taken away. It's probably just as good; I can't raise another baby in that shelter. I'm going to... to get myself under control. I am.”

While she's been distracted, I’ve managed to slip a condom on, and I tease her inner thighs with my fingers, to see if she's open to touch right now. She reacts beautifully, widening her legs and throwing her head back, wiggling like she wants me to touch precisely where it's aching.

“It hurts. I need…”

I slide inside of her, and she exhales in a rush, but her face never gets completely relaxed. “I’d give anything to feel you bare,” I whisper in her ear. “I just don't want to do wrong by you. I'm terrified of doing something in the moment that feels good and messing this up by making things worse for you, Lark. We only want to mean good things for you.”

She's pressing against my groin, trying to get me to move faster, and I know that this position is not gonna cut it. “Need you on your knees for me, baby.” She scrambles away from me and complies quickly, pressing her face into the mattress and raising her ass high up in the air for me. “Such a good wolf,” I praise her, knowing she reacted well to it last time. I don't make her wait this time; I slip inside her gorgeous body with ease, getting lost in the way her entire body moves every time I plunge inside of her.

“That's it, Lark, let me fix this for you.”

She's scorching. I want to brand every minute detail about the way she feels as she takes me into my memory, but I'm too caught up in making sure she's getting relief.

As male wolves, we are made to learnexactlyhow painful a heat can be for our mates so that we know the gravity of the situation when we're in the throes of it. It's not a fleeting discomfort, it's not an ache, it's deep-rooted pain that was described to us as tongues of flame grabbing at the internal organs and pulling.

I was hoping we'd be able to soothe her enough with the condoms on, and that wasn't even counting on the fact that we'd be able to knot her because I wasn’t sure, but you can't reason with biology. The thin barrier between us is preventing Lark from getting true relief.

She's been made to feel like she's not worthy of so damn much, and I can tell even now that though she's enjoying this, it's not what she needs. What she needs is to be flooded with our cum, because it's the compounds in that that are going to truly satisfy the heat.

There's not a lot of birth controls that really work on our species, at least not reliably. Wolves have an innate desire to procreate, so every time advancements get made in that field, the method seems to become less and less effective every year. It's like the shifter species is actively evolving, outsmarting every scientist's ability to make reliable birth control for our species. What can I say? Wolves fucking love to make babies.

My girl is whimpering underneath me, but she's not giving me what I want either; she's not thrashing. It’s not fine that she's trying to take what she thinks she’sallowedto have. That won't do.

“Start like we mean to go on,” I mumble to myself and to my brothers. I meet their eyes in the dark, reading their expressions, because we all knew this was a possibility. There's nothing for it.

I pull out of Lark’s body and flip her yet again, laying her out on her back while I press kisses up and down her throat. I nibble on her skin until she relaxes more, until she's pliant in my arms beneath me.

Then I reach down and pull off the condom and toss it on the floor somewhere, watching her eyes tear up at the show of trust. Going at this bare is about as big of a commitment a shifter can make, because it's telling your mate that you want her to have your pups.