No Remorse (20 page)

The black ring around her eyes made the yellow flecks shimmer; he felt his pupils dilate and knew his eyes were glowing too. Blake watched the waves of pleasure wash over her. He pounded, slamming into her slender muscular body, her tight wetness taking all of him. Amber held on tightly when he surged up to meet her, they buried their faces, shouting and screaming their release in each other necks, their teeth piercing skin, hearts pounding in unison.

Blake wrapped his arms around her and held her to him when her body fell limp against his chest. They were still joined, neither could move. Blake smiled, turning his head to lazily kiss her forehead; Amber stared happily into his eyes. Moaning, she slid her arms to his chest and slowly pushed herself up and looked down at their bodies still melded together. She felt him twitch inside her causing her sheath to spasm around him. They moaned in unison then laughed. Lifting her leg, she slid to sit on the couch.

“Bathroom’s over there.” Blake pointed to the door next to the exit. “Wake me when you’re done.”

Amber rewarded him with another elbow to the side, “This is more your mess than it is mine,” she huffed and got up from the couch, the only thing she wore was the white thongs. Other than that, she was naked when she walked across the study, his slickness evident on the inside and backsides of her thighs.

Blake watched her rear sway with each step she walked towards the bathroom. Without looking back at him, she closed the door. Blake smiled because he could feel her practically radiating in his mind. Glancing sideways at the couch beside him, he saw remnants of their lovemaking and was thankful that leather cleaned easily. Then the thought hit him that they had been pretty loud and he sighed.

Their lovemaking would have been broadcast to the group, nothing he could do about it now. He wondered how Amber was going to react when she realized that everyone had probably heard. A smirk slid across his lips and he headed towards the bathroom to join her in getting cleaned up. It was time to take care of pack business; he had allowed her to distract him long enough. Not that she still wouldn’t distract him, just being around her was a distraction.

CHAPTER TWENTY

E
xactly forty minutes later, Blake and Amber emerged from the study hand in hand. The occupants of the house had continued going about their day and had left them to theirs. Now they were back to reality and what they needed to do next.

Amber's face grew hot seeing the knowing looks that were being sent their way. She realized the noises coming from the study would not have required werewolf hearing.

Emerging by her side, Blake was smiling from ear to ear. When the men approached, he raised his hand to the first man he came to, who happened to be Adam. Amber stopped him in his tracks.
You high five just one person for getting laid, you will never touch me again!

Her mental connection had grown in the short time they had been together, allowing her to hear the men who were waiting to slap their leader on the back or give him a high five
.
The smile on Blake’s face froze; he stared down at Amber with questioning eyes, browns knit together in a frown. His hand slowly lowered, so did Adam’s.

“Busted!” Adam told Blake with a hearty laugh.

The men wore a matching puzzled frown
s
,
they wondered
how the hell Amber had tapped into their mental connection without the blood ritual.

You can hear them?

Yeah, so?
Amber responded automatically.

It doesn’t make sense. You shouldn’t be able to hear them without the blood ritual. We did an informal ritual between the two of us, connecting us, not them.
Blake wasn’t concerned, but he was curious as to how this was happening.

I don’t understand. What do you mean by rituals? Explain.
Amber stood with her hands on her hips and stared up at Blake.

Noticing her stance, Adam got Blake’s attention and pointed towards the hallway, Blake lifted his head in acknowledgement while the group walked away talking amongst themselves.

Blake rubbed his forehead. He wished he had the time to give her a complete lesson on being in a werewolf pack, but that could take days, so he gave her a quick explanation. “The blood ritual is a ceremony that werewolf packs perform when accepting a member who was not born to one of its members. The ritual allows the new pack member to bond through shared blood from only one of its members.”

“So us sharing blood allowed me to hear all of them?”

“No, normally it doesn’t work that way. Normally it should have taken you time to connect with the pack members. With others, this process has taken years to complete the connection as they interacted with one another. I have not known members who have mated outside their pack so this is a little new to me too.”

“So let’s say you’re not lovers and don’t bite each other. Then what do you do to accept another member?” Amber was curious.

“I know of two different ways, by lacerating and artery, each person clasps wrists, mingling their blood, creating a bond. Another way I have seen it happen is for the new member to drink from a chalice where each member has deposited a single drop of blood. Ingesting the blood ties the new member to the pack and allows them to communicate. Doing this allows the member to bond, but it is a lot slower if the other members don’t taste the new member’s blood as well.”

The thought of sharing blood with the fifty or sixty people Amber saw roaming around the property was a little overwhelming. She was so used to being alone, she didn’t know if she could have that many people in her head all at once. It was enough to have Blake there.

At her thought Blake laughed. “Once the connections are made, we learn to interact with each other one at a time like we are doing, or I can reach out to several people at one time, or I can call to the entire pack.”

Amber shook her head and blew out a long breath. “So what happens if a pack member decides to leave? Are they ever really free? My mother left but was still connected.” That got her to thinking. “I have never been able to connect with anyone other than you. Like I told you before, my mother and I never even connected. She never told me any of this stuff.” Amber grew frustrated at the thought of her never making any type of connection, why she had always felt so alone and she felt her eyes begin to swirl but calmed quickly when Blake ran his hands up and down her arms. Bending forward, his hand grabbed her chin and his eyes caught hers.

“It’s ok baby. You don’t have to worry about that anymore.” Blake leaned forward and kissed her lips softly, then pulled her into his arms.

Amber felt his chest rise against her cheek as he inhaled. He always seemed so calm. He was solid and she leaned into him while he contin
ued. “If a member decides to
leave the pack, they are never really free. They are still bonded by blood and have their mental connections. We learn from a young age to build mental walls to keep their thoughts from being sent out to the pack. If someone leaves the pack, they build a strong mental barrier to block their connection to and from the pack. Once they have been gone a while and made no contact, the connection are weakened and fade away, but they are never truly severed.”

“So they
will always have that connection.” Amber stated. “And I take it they can be a part of more than one pack?”

“Yes,
there are members that are part of more than one pack. If they are mentally strong enough, they can openly communicate and allow other packs to connect with each other using their connection as a conduit. I know it’s a lot to take in and yes, the council requires that all pack leaders bond with them. There is a lot to all of this and I promise to tell you more, but later, for now, we have people waiting for us.” Blake saw Amber nod her head in agreement as they walked towards Adam and the group waiting for them in the other room. Blake couldn’t help but wonder just how special she really was. They had performed the informal blood ritual, which connected them. She should not have been able to hear Adam connecting with him in the Jeep, or hear the group’s thoughts.

At their approach, Amber heard the group asking Blake how she had connected with them.
I’m not your typical female werewolf,
she informed them, hiding her smug smile while she walked on past. The men stared at her and then back to Blake.

Amber stopped when she didn't hear movement behind her. Turning back, she kept her face devoid of emotions other than a slightly arched brow. “So, are we going to do this or am I on my own?”

Blake heard the soft laughter she projected into his mind while her chocolate brown eyes searched his face.

“Let’s do this,” he replied, sharing her lau
ghter through their connection, and started forward. The group didn’t need much encouragement and sent up a whoop and followed their leader and his mate.
 

∞∞∞

Blake held his fist rigidly to the side when Amber’s clear form surrounded him. He fought his o
wn emotions when she enveloped Adam and Marcello in the warm essence that was her. His wolf ranted and raved that another man was feeling the soft caressing touch when she surrounded them. In his mind, he felt her brush of tenderness.

I cannot concentrate if your wolf continues to rage. He is raising my wolf and I don’t want to lose control. I have not done this enough to know what will happen if my wolf were to emerge when I am like this;
Amber soothed as she continued to flow around him.

His heart swelled with the purity of her essence, his emotions almost overwhelming him. Blake looked at the faces of his pack members, saw and felt the emotions that ran through them at the feel of Amber surrounding them. His wolf growled, a deep menacing sound, when he sensed the physical and mental reactions his mate was causing his close friends to feel for her. She was not controlling her thoughts and was projecting her feelings onto them all.

You have to control your emotions, as well Amber. Everyone is feeling what you feel.
Amber heard his agitated response. She had thought momentarily of the lovemaking earlier and realized that he was right. They could sense and feel everything she did while she surrounded them. A little embarrassed for letting her mind wander, she concentrated and closed the mental pathway to Adam and Marcello, leaving only her connection to Blake.

Adam and Marcello both stared at Blake with a frown when her mind left theirs. They were enjoying the peep show they had seen in her mind. Everyone’s emotions were raw and on edge. When Blake glared at them, they fought to get them under control with an apologetic look.

Amber slipped back into her true form beside Blake, her hand immediately going to his face. In her clear form she affected everyone around her. She felt their emotions as her thoughts and feelings absorbed into them. She stared up into his yes, lifted herself up on her toes, and kissed his lips. He stared in agitated wonder down into her face.

For a moment longer, Blake and Amber continued to feel the waves of emotions from the two men. Intentionally, Amber kept Blake’s attention on her face, so he would not react to the rush of physical attraction the men clearly showed for her.

Adam and Marcello stepped quickly away from Amber, visibly shaking from the effort it took to rid them of the effects that her momentary lack of control had caused them.

After a minute, Adam spoke, his voice held rigidly under control. “I’m glad we tested this before we went in,” he said, shuffling his feet, looking down at his boots. His body still hummed with excitement and he gave himself a mental shake. This was his best friend’s woman, for God’s sake!

Marcello kept quiet, standing stiffly with his back to them. His eyes stared hard out into the woods, his face a hard grim mask, refusing to turn around and face the crowd of men that gathered closely around. He was irritated with himself for enjoying that way too much. He had spent enough time in the military that he was not one to lose control, especially not with his leader’s mate! He admonished himself for allowing her to affect him that way. He was adamant that he would not lose his tight control again.

The small group had been connected and had felt the waves of emotions and physical reactions from each other when they had disappeared.

“No offense, ma’am, but can I have some of that?” Jonathan asked from within the circle. The men laughed, but quickly became silent when they saw Blake whip his head around, his swirling caramel eyes reflecting the turmoil he was under trying to control his still raging wolf.

Amber walked away from the group of men. She ran her hand through her long black hair in frustration.
Blake today was the first time I ever surrounded anyone like that. I'm finding it’s hard for me to control the emotions when I do that. I'm sorry I lost control, but I can't hold on if I'm being bombarded with everyone’s emotions too. You're all three strong and I just can't handle it from all of you.

I know, babe. I just didn’t expect that kind of reaction from my men. When you surrounded me in the study it was less intense than it was this time. What made it different?

The first time Amber had held the wall in place that hid the sensations she had felt when she had surrounded Blake. The first time had been before she had lost herself in the mind-blowing lovemaking they had had on the couch. She realized the more she was around him the more she felt his strong pull on her being, the more she wanted to be with him, around him, him inside her. Amber closed the connection between them, but felt Blake’s mind nudging hers, searching.