Deciding Her Faete (Beyond the Veil Book 2) (8 page)

And then he plunged inside of her to the hilt. April gasped at the sensation of being completely filled by him.

“You okay?” he asked, his voice straining.

“Yes … oh please, don’t stop. You feel so fucking good.”

Donovan looked pleased with her declaration and pulled almost all the way out and then slammed back into her. April fisted the pillow tighter and moaned successively as he plunged in and out of her. He lowered himself completely flush on top of her and entwined his hands with hers as he continued to rock into her. She wrapped her legs around his hips to feel him even deeper, and then she lifted her head up slightly so that she could kiss his lips. Soft kisses turned into fervent ones as their tongues entwined. Donovan growled low in the back of his throat when she gently bit down on his lip.

“Oh God,” she moaned when he did the same to her. She felt her muscles spasm and contract, making him feel snugger inside her.

“Fuck, baby,” he roared in reaction.

“Agh! What…” Not only was she on the precipice of coming again, but she felt that familiar tingling in her gums like the night she and Jason were at the diner. “I need…” Her incisors lowered, and she felt a strong urge to sink them into Donovan’s neck.

“Don’t be afraid,” she heard Jason say next to her.

“Do it, angel,” Donovan uttered, his voice unsteady. She knew he was close, too.

Losing any semblance of control she didn’t even know why she held onto, April let her baser instincts take over. She sank her teeth into Donovan’s neck and swallowed the salty coppery taste of his blood, surprisingly enjoying the flavor. She felt Donovan’s sharp teeth sink into the soft fleshy part of her neck where it met the shoulder. She unclamped her teeth from Donovan and screamed out her release just as he roared his. Her body continued to spasm for what felt like an eternity. He held onto her tightly, their hands and bodies entwined, until the last remnants of her orgasm were wrung out.

Finally, when she was able to breathe normally again, Donovan delivered several soft kisses to her lips. She had no words for what she had just experienced. She felt even more connected to him now than before, and the emotion of it nearly choked her.

“It’s okay,” Donovan whispered, wiping away a tear that had just escaped her. He then buried his head in her neck and gave her one final squeeze before pulling out of her and shifting over to her other side.

“Jason,” she whispered, turning to look at him. “I need you, too. Please.”

He hesitated for a moment, confusing her. When he sat up and then removed his shirt, she understood the reason for his hesitation.

“Oh my God, Jason.” April reached out to touch the scars that should have healed by now, making him flinch. “I don’t understand.”

“Kheelan used some kind of poisoned tipped knife on me. Erica tried, but…” Jason looked away from her, as if ashamed, but April was having none of it.

She sat up in front of him and touched his scars again. He still would not look at her, and she watched him grit his teeth as her hands roamed over the several slashes on his stomach. She channeled her abilities now that she knew how and focused. After a few seconds, she gasped. She found the poison, could touch it with her mind, but when she tried to grab onto to it to remove it, she discovered something shocking.

“You’re holding onto them as a reminder. Why, Jason?”

He finally looked at her, confusion evident on his face. Donovan had sat up as well, probably wanting an explanation, too.

“I don’t … I didn’t realize.” He lowered his head. “I failed to keep you safe, baby. I deserve these scars.”

“Fuck that!” April spat, mimicking Jason’s own words from earlier. “Look at me,” she snapped when he continued to look down at the bed. When he finally lifted his head, she took Jason’s hand and placed it against her heart. “You didn’t deserve any of it. You and Donovan fought for me, and I know you always will. Please let your guilt go. For me.”

With his free hand, Jason wiped away her tears. “I knew you’d turn out to be a little firecracker.” He pulled her close to him and kissed her softly, and April took advantage of his openness by finding the darkness lurking deep inside of him and blasting it out of existence.

When they pulled apart from their kiss, Jason’s scars were gone.

Chapter Twelve

Jason was shocked as April ran her fingers over his now smooth skin. He had to finally admit to himself that he had indeed been punishing himself by holding onto the scars as a reminder of his failure, whether consciously or not. It had been a blow to his pride how utterly he’d failed April when they’d first met, but if she had forgiven him, then the least he could do was spend the rest of his life proving to her that he could and would do better as her mate.

“Hey,” April pulled his face around so she could look into his eyes, “why so serious? I want to celebrate being with my mates at last. We can’t change the past, Jason, but we can move forward.”

“You’re right, babe.” A slow, sexy smile replaced the frown on his lips. “And I really
do
want to move forward.”

April’s laugh, as he waggled his eyebrows in a suggestive manner, was exactly what he was aiming for. Now should be a time of celebration, and he wanted to celebrate with his mate over and over again until all three of them could no longer move. He stood and removed his pants, then crawled onto the bed in front of April. Jason loved how her breathing grew choppy and her eyes clouded in desire when she saw his hard cock weeping to be inside of her.

“Are you ready for me, love?” Jason moved closer until he was on his knees in front of her.

He groaned when she bit her lip and nodded at him. She then reached out to touch him once again. Jason sat back on his heels and pulled her in close to him, urging her to wrap her legs around his hips until she was perched straddling his lap. Goddess, he could feel the heat of her pussy where it now rested over his cock. He moved her hips back and forth ever so slightly, loving how wet she was for him.

“I want to watch your face for every second of this, April,” he said looking straight into her eyes. “I want to see into your very soul when I’m inside of you.”

“Please, Jason … I need you.”

He took her mouth in a slow and thorough kiss, pouring into it every emotion he’d had since the night he’d met her in the bar. Excitement, hope, lust, fear, grief, it was all there, and he wanted her to feel how much he needed her. How much
they
needed her to complete their lives.

Jason moved one hand around to delve between the lush and swollen lips between her legs, and he couldn’t stop the moan that came from deep within him as her honey soaked his fingers. He felt Donovan move up behind her, and April gasped into his mouth as his brothers’ hands came around and covered her breasts.

“Oh God, yes,” she moaned, her hips bucking in his grip when his thumb found her swollen clit and tapped it a few times before he slid two fingers deep inside of her.

Jason pulled back from his assault on her mouth and looked at her, their perfect mate, her head leaning back, eyes closed in rapture as Donovan nipped and sucked at her neck and shoulder.

“Open your eyes, baby. Look at me.”

April opened her beautiful green eyes and smiled at him. She was seduction personified, her lips flushed and swollen from their kisses, her pale skin a contrast against their tanned arms. Her long red hair was loose, falling around her shoulders, making her look like the fairy seductress from folk tales who would lead any man to his ruin.

Jason was still astonished that the Goddess saw fit to give them a mate so extraordinary as April, and he said a silent prayer to her in thanks as he smiled back at April. When he moved his aching cock to notch at her entrance and slowly moved forward, he was thankful for his enhanced sight so he could take in everything about her as he pushed inside of her for the first time. How her eyes dilated wider with the pleasure, how her breath caught in her chest, and when she bit her bottom lip once again, he couldn’t hold out any longer. He thrust into her until he was completely surrounded by her decadent heat.

“Goddess, you feel amazing, love.” He panted as he tried to control his thrusts. “No one has ever felt as right as you do.”

“Jason, please,” she answered as Donovan continued to caress her breasts and kiss her neck and shoulders. “I need to come so badly.”

“Donovan, why don’t we give our mate a taste of what she really needs?” Jason looked over at his brother and smiled. When one of Donovan’s hands moved from her breast he quickly replaced it with his own. Jason knew the exact second that his brother’s finger breached April’s ass because he could feel her spasm around his cock and he saw her eyes grow wide in surprise.

“Soon, baby, you will feel what it’s like to have us both in you at the same time. I promise you’re going to love it.”

“Oh yes,” she moaned as her hips began to thrash and buck. “Harder … please!”

He released the last of his control and began to thrust into her with everything he had. Jason knew he wouldn’t last much longer, so when he pinched her clit between his fingers and felt her tense as her orgasm flooded throughout her entire body, he let himself come as well. He leaned forward to sink his teeth into the most beautiful woman in the world.

He felt her sharp teeth pierce his own skin, and for the first time in what seemed like forever, Jason felt whole as the mate bond cemented into place among all three of them.

He was still panting, holding April close to him when he noticed that Donovan had gotten up and gone to the bathroom, returning with a warm washcloth to see to their mate. April’s sleepy smile as Jason pulled back the covers and tucked her under the sheets, had his wolf almost more content than when he’d claimed her. They were meant to take care of this lovely creature. This was what they’d been born to do.

“Come here, you two. I want to feel you against me as I bask in the after bliss,” she teased, pulling them down on each side of her to cuddle against her. “That was amazing by the way.”

“It will only get better, angel,” Donovan whispered in her ear as he pulled the covers up over her.

“Seriously, I can barely form words. If it gets better than that, I may lose consciousness.”

“Don’t worry, love, we’ll still make sure you enjoy it.” Jason winked at her before he nuzzled into her shoulder after he laid his head on the pillow next to hers.

Suddenly April gasped. Jason opened his eyes to see a peculiar look on her face.

“April? What’s wrong?” Donovan asked, sounding as panicked as Jason felt.

She sat up, pushed the covers away, moved to the end of the bed, and held her arms out in front of her, indicating they should give her some space.

“I don’t … know. Something feels odd inside of me.” She rubbed her hands along her arms. “It’s like a million tiny needles on the inside of my skin. Not painful … exactly, but …oh my God!”

Jason panicked when she scrambled off the bed, dragging the comforter with her, and landed with a loud thump on the floor. He and Donovan swiftly moved toward the foot of the bed, ignoring her pleas not to look at her.

“Please, please, just give me a minute,” she cried out desperately.

They both sat back, looking at each other in confusion. Jason tried not to panic, thinking perhaps it could be a female thing, but when he heard her moan and it abruptly turned into a high pitched whimper, Jason and Donovan dove off the bed. Jason’s eyes widened at the sight before him amongst the now tattered comforter.

An astonishingly beautiful wolf with reddish fur sat shaking where their mate had just been.

Chapter Thirteen

“Holy fuck! You shifted into a wolf,” Jason shouted, pointing at where April’s wolf cowered on the bedroom floor. He then lifted his gaze to Donovan’s, the shock clear on his face. “She shifted into a wolf!”

“I can see that, Captain Obvious, thank you!” Donovan snapped back before turning his worried gaze to their mate. Moving as slowly as he could, Donovan crouched low on the floor, making sure to give her as much room as possible, not wanting to add to her fear and anxiety.

“April.” He let all the awe he felt for his mate show in his tone. “Your wolf is so damn beautiful. Apparently your wolf genes aren’t so latent after all.”

She lifted her muzzle from the floor a couple of inches until she could meet Donovan’s eyes, her gaze seemingly assessing his reaction.

Keeping his expression as open as he could, he reached out toward her. “You’re a red wolf, baby, which is not surprising considering all those red curls of yours. Your fur,” he added, gently sweeping his hand into her fur, loving the texture of it between his fingers, “is a beautiful mixture of red, with subtle hints brown and gold.”

Donovan smiled as he ran his eyes over the wolf that looked quizzically up at him. “You have this dark black tipped tail that is so damn cute.”

Her eyes narrowed, and a growl burst forth only to be cut off short. Her eyes widened in shock.

“Yeah, beautiful,” Jason murmured as he joined them both on the floor, stroking a hand down April’s flank. “That’s your wolf telling Donovan she’s not cute. She is badass, which totally makes sense considering who you are.” Jason nudged her gently, and April moved around so that she was sitting on her hindquarters in front of them, and Donovan shifted to mirror Jason’s position, sitting with his back against the bed.

“I have no idea what the hell is going on,” Donovan admitted. “I have no idea why we couldn’t scent your wolf, but there is something that we need to do, love. We have claimed you as men, and tonight has been the best fucking night of my life.”

“Mine too,” Jason agreed.

“Can our wolves meet yours, angel?” Donovan sensed her apprehension and rushed to reassure her. “She is already theirs. Our mating has cemented that. Search within her, and she will tell you that she wants to meet her wolves just as much as you wanted to be with your men. Please.”

Donovan’s wolf paced within him, impatience in every step and twitch of his tail. He could scent his mate, and he wanted out. After a moment’s of hesitation, the red wolf nodded slowly, and Donovan released the breath he had been holding. He shared a quick glance with his brother, a look he hoped said “take this slow or I’ll kill you”, and let his wolf take over.

Within a moment, he and Jason had shifted. He now welcomed the slight pain it took to bring forth his wolf and knew that April would learn to do the same. He and Jason were dominant wolves.  Perhaps he should have warned her that there would be an immediate urge to submit to them. April’s wolf whined in confusion before she finally stopped fighting and submitted to him.

It shouldn’t have been such a surprise that their mate’s animal half was so strong. Her human personality was not used to submitting to those around her, but her wolf would show her the way. The knowledge that this beautiful, strong woman and wolf was his had him filling with pride. He stepped forward and buried his nose into April’s neck, rumbling low in his chest as her scent filled his lungs. She carried the wild, earthy scent of her wolf and the citrusy deliciousness of their April. Very gently, he opened his jaws and bit her on the back of her neck. The wolf beneath him froze.

He held still for a moment and then stepped back, allowing Jason’s wolf the opportunity to step forward and complete the ritual as well. After Jason’s wolf bit April’s, he stepped back and waited, watching her for a moment. April stepped forward hesitantly, burying her nose in Jason’s neck as if familiarizing herself with his scent, before mimicking their moves of moments before and sinking her teeth into him.

When she turned her eyes on Donovan, his wolf tensed. His wolf was more dominant than Jason’s, and most wolves in general, which was why he was Beta. He held himself still as she stepped forward and pressed her nose to his neck. His wolf growled low, and April tensed. But by the Gods, he was hers.

With a wolfy chuff, one that Donovan could only describe as glee, April stepped forward and bit down gently on Donovan’s neck. A wave of emotions swept over him, nearly overwhelming all of his senses.

Donovan urgently needed to feel her in his arms. This moment was more than he had ever dreamed, more than he could ever have imagined, but right now he needed to hold his mate. He pushed forward, driving his grumbling wolf to the background as he embraced his human side. Jason followed suit, and the two of them knelt on the floor in their human forms.

April looked between him and Jason. Donovan could see panic start to settle in her eyes.

“Do you want to change back, baby?” When she nodded enthusiastically he smiled gently. “All you have to do is think about your human self. Close your eyes and let your wolf go. She won’t be gone for good. She’ll simply drop back within you. There will be some discomfort in the shift that you need to prepare for, but soon it will be quick and natural for you to let her out.”

The beautiful wolf before him closed her eyes. After a shimmer of energy, which Donovan had never before truly appreciated, April was back in her human form, and staring at them with her startling green eyes.

“Am I okay?” she whispered, a tremble in her voice that had Donovan’s chest aching for her.

“More than just okay,” he whispered back, reaching out and pulling her onto his lap.

Jason pulled her legs up to lay them across his thighs. “You are fucking amazing. You are a Fae healer, rare and exquisite, and just as astounding, you’re a wolf shifter as well.”

“How can this be? I can actually feel her inside me now, but I have never sensed her before. Do you think that this has anything to do with what Kheelan did to me?” April sounded panicked, her voice catching on the last word. Donovan squeezed her against his chest.

If she cried, he might just put his own head back and howl, too. “I don’t know, baby, but we’ll find out. I don’t think it’s possible to create a wolf shifter and you do have wolf genes, but we can go to Corrine and Erica and ask them if they know why you never felt yours before.”

“And if they don’t know,” Jason continued, “then we will go back across the Veil and track some fucker down who does know. That might actually be Kheelan, and I owe him a beating and a view of his own beating heart, so I am okay with that scenario.”

April laughed softly, sniffing delicately, and Donovan knew she had been closer to tears than he realized. “You know, I am okay with that, too. But let’s start with this Corrine person and Erica first, huh?”

April was quiet for a moment, and Donovan was happy to simply hold her. After a moment, she shifted on his lap so she could look into his eyes.

“In all the excitement, I never did ask you how you two found me.”

Donovan lifted a hand to sweep a lock of her beautiful red hair from her forehead. “Ten years ago, I had this dream. This woman with blonde hair and blue eyes held her finger above the skin on my arm and drew an image. She never actually touched me, but to me, it felt like she was literally carving it into my arm. I had never felt pain in a dream before, but in that moment, it burned like a son of a bitch. She uttered some words, that to this day I have no idea what language she used, but it sounded like a chant or something like that. When she was finished, the image shone brightly on my skin. She looked me in the eye and told me that I had to get the image tattooed exactly as she drew it and in the same spot. The dream was so damn vivid that as soon as I awoke, I sketched the image and took it to someone who could do it justice. She never told me why it was so important. She simply told me that it must be done and that one day it would show me my reason for living.”

Donovan laughed as those words suddenly made sense. “And it did. That tattoo led us straight to you. Erica touched my arm at her coronation, and as soon as she did, I got this clear image of where you were being held. Maybe she activated it somehow without realizing.”

April sighed and snuggled closer. “That’s cool.”

He and Jason both chuckled at their mate’s easy acceptance of something that would normally register quite high on someone’s weird shit-o-meter.

Donovan was about to suggest that they climb right back into the bed because his dick was starting to get ideas with her soft ass pressed against it so deliciously, but he was interrupted by the familiar opening of Metallica’s “Master of Puppets”.

“Shit!” he groaned as he laid his head back against the bed. He cast a quick glance at his brother, who looked a little sick himself. Their Alpha was calling. Donovan had picked that song for his ringtone because he considered it to be fairly apt for Gabe.

“Master of Puppets?” April asked looking over her shoulder at his phone vibrating atop the bedside table.

Donovan’s jaw dropped as his mate amazed him yet again. It was just his luck that he found the perfect woman who could kick ass, heal an injury, fight for everything she believed in, and to top it all off, knew the opening strains of one of the best guitar riffs of any song in the world as far as he was concerned, on the day his Alpha finally killed him.

Karma really was a bitch.

****

“Gabe, he’s bleeding on the carpet! How many times have I told you to try to keep the boys in the ring?”

Corrine’s voice rang through the downstairs gym in Gabe’s house, and Donovan groaned as he turned his head to look towards her. She was standing on the bottom stair, opposite side of the gym to where he lay, with both hands on her hips, glaring at the man who had just thrown him over the ropes of the boxing ring and into the wall. He struggled to draw breath as he lay on the aforementioned carpet. And he was most definitely bleeding. Donovan took it as a good sign that he was actually conscious, because, for all intents and purposes, he shouldn’t be.

“Don’t blame me,” Gabe grunted from where he stood in the ring, hands on his own hips, his eyes still blazing with anger. “He should have gotten up quicker.”

“Oh, my God!” April shrieked from behind Corrine and scampered over toward Donovan.

Donovan groaned again at the fact that his mate was seeing him like this. He had hoped that she would have stayed upstairs, safe and unaware of this beating, but he should have known better. When they had first arrived, he and Jason had both kissed her with a type of desperation before they left her with Corrine. Not because they thought that Gabe would actually kill them—well, Donovan was fairly certain he wouldn’t, maybe—but because they didn’t think they would be able to kiss her without pain after the meeting Gabe had insisted they have. And by a meeting he meant ass-kicking in the boxing ring downstairs in the gym.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” April growled at Gabe as she pulled Donovan’s head onto her lap. Donovan figured while he was there, Gabe couldn’t beat on him for not calling and letting him know what was going on anymore. Win-win as far as he was concerned.

“Damn, Gabe,” Jason moaned in a pain-filled voice as he stood up from the other side of the ring, blood dripping profusely from his nose, his arm wrapped around his ribs that no doubt hurt as much as Donovan’s did. “You hit with the force of a fucking freight train.”

April gasped as she looked up over at Jason, and Donovan felt her tense beneath his head. A low continuous growl erupted from her chest, and from the change in her scent, Donovan knew her wolf was about to put in an appearance. When their mate had shifted back to her skin at their house, the scent of her wolf had faded away to nothing, but now, with her wolf riding close to the surface, her scent changed. Before he could issue a warning, April’s wolf burst from her with a snarl. Corrine’s gasp could be heard from where she remained by the stairs.

“What the ever-loving fuck is going on here?” Gabe asked, shock clearing his face of all the anger that had filled it just moments before. “I thought she was Fae?”

Donovan pushed himself up to a seated position, pressing a hand against his ribs that moved underneath his touch, alerting him to the fact that they were broken and not just cracked. “That’s what I wanted to tell you at the beginning, but you wouldn’t let me get a fucking word in edgewise.”

April’s wolf, still snarling and growling, was edging its way toward the boxing ring and more importantly, toward her prey … Gabe. Biting back a groan of pain, Donovan got to his feet, desperately trying to think of a way to stop what was about to happen.

April’s wolf leaped nimbly into the ring, and Gabe grinned, his wolf clear in his eyes as he stared the approaching wolf down. “You’re an aggressive little thing, aren’t you? But there is something little wolves like you need to learn really fucking fast. There is always a bigger, badder, and meaner wolf in the woods than you, but there is no wolf bigger, badder, and meaner than me.”

Gabe’s wolf burst from him in a shift so fast it occurred in the blink of an eye. His pure black wolf, more than twice the size of April’s, had more dominance in him than anything Donovan had ever encountered. Gabe snarled back at April, and his dominance filled the room, dropping him and Jason to their knees and April onto her belly with a pained whimper.