Pendant of Fortune (53 page)

“
Yes, my Lord,” Forrin said. He mounted the stairs and knocked, then stepped inside, and a moment later he emerged nodding his head. Volle and Streak walked forward.

Volle remembered the last time he’d climbed a flight of stairs to do his ancestral duty—or rather, he remembered that he’d done it. He didn’t remember much about the actual stairs. Or about the actual mating. He mostly remembered waking up that night with a hangover.

The old weasel bowed to them as they came in, and was speechless when Streak handed her the basket of food. “This is for you and your boarder,” he said, and she wrung her paws and then disappeared with the basket into what Volle assumed was the kitchen.

He and Streak looked at each other, and the wolf shrugged. “Should we, um…” He nodded toward the stairs.

“
I suppose.” Volle took a step. He didn’t feel very aroused, but he trusted Streak would take care of that. He tried imagining the wolf’s paws on him while he climbed the stairs, then grinned at himself—in a moment he would be feeling the real thing.

The scent of vixen in season was much more overwhelming than it had been the previous day. He glanced back at Streak and saw the wolf wrinkle his nose. The scent wasn’t unpleasant to Volle; in fact, it was slightly alluring, but not really arousing. He wondered if Dewanne had sent his wife to pick up Ilyana, or if he’d come himself, and if he’d come himself, whether he’d managed to keep from mounting her in the carriage on the way over.

Those thoughts set his fur to bristling, so he set them aside. Ilyana hadn’t betrayed him, and she was here now and needed him. He heard her before he got to the curtain.

“
Volle?” Her voice was not as rough as it had been the previous day, but it had a guttural quality to it. “I can smell you…get in here.”

“
Just a minute,” he said. He started unfastening his pants. Streak was standing still, ears back.

“
No. Now!” She swept the curtain aside and stared at them both with hungry eyes. It took a moment for her to notice Streak. “Who’s that? What’s he doing here?”

“
I never liked Mom when she was like this,” Streak whispered.

“
He’s here to help. Just wait.” Volle pulled Streak down to kneel with him, and whispered, “Don’t think of your mother.”

“
I don’t want to wait!” She lunged off the bed, and Streak scrambled around behind Volle, who backed up as much as he could.

Streak pressed against him. “I can’t go back any more,” he said. His voice held a note of trepidation. For a fleeting moment, Volle regretted bringing him.

“
It’ll be okay,” Volle whispered, trying to keep Ilyana from ripping his pants as she clawed at him. “Hey, careful, that’s—”

He managed to get the fasteners away from Ilyana and undone without much damage. She pulled down the front of his pants and pressed herself up against him, growling in frustration at his limp state. “Sorry,” he mumbled. Her scent was stronger now, but the aggressive thrusting against him was definitely not arousing. She was aroused, though; he could feel the dampness on his sheath as she pressed her lips against it. He had to admit it was a little disconcerting to see her like this. Was this how mating always was for normal couples?

“
Maybe I should help.” Streak seemed to have recovered some confidence now that Ilyana was occupied with trying to press Volle’s retracted member into her. The wolf slid down the back of Volle’s pants and cupped his rump, then slid a paw underneath to tease his sac.

Volle shivered at the touch and turned his head to get more of Streak’s scent. That helped the arousal more than anything else. He held Ilyana’s squirming body against him and focused on the touch from behind, the strong male smell in his nostrils. It was difficult to distract himself from Ilyana, especially since she kept moaning, “Mate me!” into his ear. It wasn’t until Streak pressed a paw under his muzzle and Volle drew in the thick scent of his musk—he must have been rubbing his own sheath with it—that he felt a strong surge of arousal.

Then he felt more like a participant than a sex toy; then the rubbing against his sheath became more pleasurable, adding to his arousal instead of diminishing it. He felt a pressure under his tail and lifted his rump enough to let Streak’s paw rub there. It was slick, but he didn’t know with what, and he didn’t much care. It was working. He abandoned himself to the sensations and grinned at the thought that he was doing Fox’s and Canis’s work, building a pack for his mate—both his mates.

Ilyana’s growls changed from frustration to pleasure as his sheath hardened against her. Volle could feel the warmth of her arousal, and when he got hard enough to slide out of his sheath, the slickness made him tremble. He hadn’t thought her musk could get any stronger, but it did; he had to turn his head again to smell Streak.

Her muzzle was on top of his, pressing his nose into her neck fur when he turned around again. She was squirming wildly, gasping and moaning even though he hadn’t quite entered her yet. But he was close, halfway out of his sheath, and if she weren’t pressed so close to him, he would have.

It took a lot of effort for him to keep still for Streak, until the wolf pressed up behind him and held his thighs down, slipping his paws under Ilyana’s constantly shifting legs. Volle gasped as he felt a pressure under his tail and pressed back, clutching tightly at Ilyana as he felt Streak’s erect member slide into him.

“
Ohh!” He shuddered, moaning through the vixen’s fur, and then shivered again as his movement created enough space between him and Ilyana for his now-hard member to drop between her lips. Warmth surrounded it, slick and tight, and she matched his moan as she felt him in her. She struggled to push harder against him, and for a moment he felt himself overbalance and was afraid they would all go tumbling down the stairs. But Streak pushed back confidently, his arms holding Volle as his wolfhood slid all the way in, and Volle wanted to cry out, the warmth and pressure and stretching and movement through his tail hole all making his legs go weak. If he hadn’t been kneeling before, he would have been by now. It felt as though it had been months since he’d made love, not just days. His body was afire with the pressures and scents, and he couldn’t stop moaning his pleasure, though he did manage to keep his moans quiet.

Ilyana had no such restraint. She managed to hook one of her legs over Streak’s arms, putting most of her weight on Volle’s hips and driving him even further into her, and she let out a loud moan when she felt that, throwing her head back. He was trying his best to thrust in and out, but it was difficult to time his thursts with Streak’s, especially when his body wanted to go in both directions at once. He pressed himself back into Streak, feeling the wolf’s growing knot under his tail and remembering dimly that for some reason it wasn’t a good idea to take the wolf all into him, but his body was nearly beyond the control of his mind now. And then he pressed forward, and the fact that the lithe body rubbing against him was female mattered a bit less as she took his length into her, punctuating their collective gasps with yelps and clinging to his shoulders, her smooth labia stroking him up and down.

He couldn’t get into any sort of rhythm, but it didn’t matter; the more she thrust herself onto his trembling foxhood, the harder he wanted to press back and the more wolf he wanted inside him. His head was swimming from the musk in the air, his nerves thrummed with delight, and he could feel a knot of tension growing at the base of his erection, pressing harder to get into the vixen in his lap—but it was the wolf behind him that excited him more.

Behind him, Streak’s hind paws were scrabbling at the floor. He seemed to be trying to pull back from Volle’s thrusts, but Volle wanted to feel the knot inside him, to feel the wolf he loved close to him. In this odd configuration, when he could barely think coherently for the flood of sensations, he wanted to be close to Streak, and the wolf stopped fighting it and gave in.

The knot sliding into him grew larger and larger with each thrust, and Volle could hear Streak’s whimpers behind him, the paws on his thighs curling and gripping the fur. He felt his own legs slipping, toes curling at the shivers coursing down his legs and back, and his paws slid down further, pressing on the small of Ilyana’s back and pulling her toward him. He was all the way inside her now, his knot so tight it was almost painful, and as she pulled back and couldn’t disengage, he realized that they were already tied, and that the sensations were very close for him now.

For her, too: she let out a low, guttural moan, followed by a series of short, bark-like “Ah!” noises. Volle held her tightly against him and felt her body shudder as her barks became more urgent and higher in pitch. He himself was on the edge until her convulsions squeezed at his knot, rubbing and stroking it, and then he felt the rush of release starting and taking over his body, forcing a moan out of his throat as it tightened all his muscles.

He squeezed Ilyana, the long moan and the moment of tension seeming to go on and on, Streak’s long wolfhood sliding in and out of him in ever more quick and hard strokes, and finally he felt the tension uncoil explosively in his groin, contracting all his muscles and sending his seed into Ilyana in a rush of pleasure. The convulsions pressed him back hard against Streak, and the wolf’s knot, just as full as his by now, pressed through him and then settled inside him, sending new shivers of excitement through him. He wouldn’t have thought his second spurt could be better than the first, but oh it was. “Oh—ahhhh!” he yelped, and Ilyana yelped with him.

The knot inside him kept moving, and Streak’s paws gripped him more tightly. Ilyana was relaxing against him while he was still shuddering in the last throes of his climax, and before he’d quite finished, Streak growled and then howled behind him, pressing hard into him and shaking all three of them with the force of his orgasm.

They did topple over then, but forward rather than back. Volle cushioned Ilyana with his paws so she didn’t hit the floor too hard, and then tried to brace his arms so she didn’t take Streak’s weight. He wasn’t quite in time.

“
Oof!” Her breath whooshed past his ears as he landed on her, and Streak on him. Her legs were still up at his sides, her feet brushing Streak’s shoulders. Slightly worried, Volle squirmed around to look at her muzzle, but she wore a blissful smile and her ears were relaxed, flat against the floor.

“
Ilyana?” She turned her head slightly and looked at him. “Are you okay?”

“
Mm. You have no idea…thank you, Volle.” She closed her eyes.

Streak lifted his weight slightly off Volle, then tried to pull backwards gently. Volle yelped softly as Streak’s knot tugged on his rear, and tried to move back. “Careful,” he said with a giggle. “I’m caught here.”

“
Sorry.” Streak slipped his arms around Volle and hugged him. “Are you okay?”

“
I’m fine. I feel good. That was really good.” He curled his tail against Streak as much as he could. He felt sleepy too, but not overwhelmingly so. Mostly he felt warm, and the ties around his shaft and inside him gave him a warm sense of belonging. “Thanks for being part of it.”

Streak’s paws rubbed gently through his fur. “Glad I could help.”

“
Are you okay?”

“
Yeah. It feels a little weird.” He nuzzled Volle, and Volle sensed rather than saw him looking down at Ilyana, who was already most of the way to unconsciousness. “Did it…work?”

“
I think so. It usually only takes once.” He chuckled. “Thank Fox.”

“
And Canis.”

“
Him too.” Volle turned his muzzle to lick Streak’s. “And thank you, my wolf.”

“
You said that already.” But Streak said it playfully, licking back.

“
I really mean it.” He pressed one of Streak’s paws over his own. “I couldn’t have done this without you. Well, maybe I could. But it would have taken a lot longer and I think she’d have clawed one of my eyes out.”

Streak giggled softly. “Is she going to sleep for long?”

“
I don’t know. Last time I did this, I passed out too.” Volle reached down and brushed a paw along Ilyana’s muzzle and down her chest. She stirred and turned her head, but didn’t wake.

“
The weasel heard us.”

“
I’m sure she did.”

“
No, I mean, I know she did. I heard her footsteps on the stairs, then she went back down quickly.”

“
She had to know Ilyana was in season. Do you think it would be a surprise?”

“
I don’t know.” Streak nuzzled him. “She hasn’t come back with anyone, so I guess it’s okay.”

They sat quietly for a little longer. Volle thought about the cub that would be born, and then about raising Volyan at the palace by himself. And that led him to wondering whether Streak had made a decision. Finally he had to ask.

“
Wolf?”