Song of the Guardians (10 page)

It felt odd having wolves in the house again. It was suddenly too crowded and empty all at once. I longed for the bodies that were absent, from the humans the guardians hadn’t been able to imprint upon, to Zarrius and Ika. Still, with the rest of the pack always under Emma’s feet, there were times I wanted to wish them all away.

It was common for the pack to do everything together, but spending time with Emma wasn’t something I wanted to share with anyone else. She belonged to me, just as much as I belonged to her, but ever since she’d taken her place as alpha, she’d been distracted.

You should’ve taken the offer when you had the chance.
I bit back a growl and glanced out the back window. At least then, I would’ve been able to send the rest of the pack away. As it was, they only ever left the house in pairs to hunt. And since I couldn’t hunt on a bad leg, they brought enough back for the rest of us.

Looking at Emma, I knew she belonged here. Even though she was human, it was clear to see she'd always been part of our pack. I'm not sure when it had happened, but I couldn't deny her place as alpha or the events that had happened to get her there.

For now, the crisis of the world was on standby. The pack was still together, minus one, and that was enough for me. The idea of a human alpha was absurd, but somehow Emma managed to pull it off. She didn’t bark orders or glare at the other wolves until they cowered. She listened. Not just to me, but all of us. In a pack where none of the guardians wanted to take Zarrius’s place, Emma had swooped in and done it for us.

Her bond with the pack caused me to have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I was with my family again, which I'd been with for over a century. On the other, it meant sharing Emma with them when all I wanted to do was claim her as my own.

I set my mug on the counter and turned back to face them. Emma's robe was positioned in such a way it showed off her curves perfectly. Heat prickled all over my body, and I blushed when the other pack members looked in my direction.

Emma whispered something to them, set her notebook on her chair and joined me in the kitchen. When she melted in my arms, my heart stopped beating.

"How’s your ankle?" Emma asked, sitting me down in one of the chairs around the kitchen table. She unwrapped the bandage and grimaced at my torn up leg before covering it with clean dressings. "Think you can stand on it?"

I shrugged and closed my eyes, sniffing the air for Emma’s unique scent among the pine, fur, and dog. I moaned, and she cupped her hands around mine.

"I made tea," I said, nodding to her mug, which was still full.

She ignored the drink and tugged at my arms, urging me to stand. I stood with her help, one hand holding on to the counter for support as I tested my weight. It wasn’t nearly as painful as it had been a few days ago, or as bad as I’d expected it to feel when I stepped on it. Emma positioned herself under one of my arms, and I let go of the counter. I took a step with her help, followed by many more.

When we reached the living room, the pack stood up, their heads bowed in submission.

"Stay here," Emma said, hooking an arm around my waist. "My mate needs attention." She flashed a smile in my direction, and for a second, I wondered how long she’d planned to make me wait. "What?" Emma asked when I stopped at the bottom of the steps. "You wanted me to lie down so you could take me with your busted leg?" She shook her head. "I’m not that cruel, you know."

I smiled at that, scaling the stairs with her help. Once we reached our room, I closed the door but left it unlocked. If Emma told the pack to wait, that was exactly what they’d do.

Emma clutched the collar of my shirt, pulling me in close. I moaned when her body rubbed up against mine, and she muffled my whimper with a kiss. I stiffened, and she stopped, waiting for the tension to leave my body before continuing. It was strange, not being the one who made the moves, but she did make a good point. I couldn’t exactly sweep her off her feet, or do anything quite as passionate, without tripping or wincing at the pain in my leg.

She wasn’t in control because she was alpha, or because she wanted power over me. She did it because I couldn’t do it myself.

I exhaled, willing my heart to slow until she kissed me again. Harder this time. As she pressed me between herself and the door, Emma let her hands wander, working on the buckle around my waist. Without breaking the kiss, I leaned against the door to keep the pressure off my leg, freeing Emma’s hand in the process.

The warmth around my middle released, and she slowly slid my pants down to my knees. I screwed my eyes tight and pressed both palms against the door behind me.

"Are you strong enough?" Emma asked, her voice trailing off as she knelt in front of me.

I sucked in a breath of air as she curled her fingertips along the waistband of my boxers. My cock pulsed under the fabric. I tried to think of something else.

Her scent was sweet, matching the shampoo she’d used ever since we'd gotten here. She pulled my boxers down to join my jeans. Gods. Something brushed against the head of my cock. I gulped and locked my knees.

I didn’t open my eyes. I couldn’t have looked at Emma even if I'd tried. Every touch. Every breath pushed me further away from this place in time. A spark ran through me when she wrapped her fingers around my shaft, her thumb tracing the vein underneath.

And in that instant, she pulled away. Ice rushed through my veins. Did I do something wrong? Perhaps she was having second thoughts. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she was. She'd only done this once before.

"Emma, we don’t ha—"

She pressed a finger to my lips, and my entire body shook. She left me for a single moment, her hands soft against my legs as she removed my pants. I could feel her positioning herself under my arm, and I opened my eyes.

Without saying a word, she led me over to the bed. The mattress squealed when I scrambled onto it with her help, and I rolled onto my back. Her hair was an absolute mess from helping me up the steps, but it looked perfect on her. A few wisps of hair cascaded around her ears while the rest remained tied back in a ponytail. The robe was also out of place, one pink nipple showing outside the fabric. Gods, I wanted her now more than ever, but with a busted leg, there wasn’t much I could do but go at her pace.

If she was smart, she’d make me wait, just like I’d done to her. And she did, but only long enough to fish a condom from one of the drawers.

The mattress compressed under our joined weight as she crawled onto the bed. Hoisting the robe up over her hips, she straddled my legs before leaning over to kiss my brow. "I see how it is," she teased, her eyes playful as ever. "An alpha has to do everything herself."

I tossed her a helpless look, biting my bottom lip when she accidentally brushed my ankle.

Emma winced. "I should really put pillows around that." She started to dismount.

I placed a hand on either of her hips. "Stay."

Emma inclined her head, passing the condom to me. "I'm sure you can manage a little bit of foil."

I smiled and followed her direction, tearing the condom wrapper with fingers that refused to work. After a handful of tries, I got it out of its packaging and rolled it on.

With Emma's hands on either of my shoulders, she started to grind up and down my length. I swallowed around the breath that had mysteriously gotten caught in my throat. Her breath came out in long, soft pants, her body shuddering anytime she pulled away from me. Using my grip on her hips, I got comfortable with her rhythm, pressing down when I needed her to go down and holding her steady when I thought we were going too fast.

Emma lifted her body away from me, a smirk splayed across her face. "Are you ready?"

How could I not? Using hands that were way too clumsy for my liking, I untied the belt around her robe, fumbling with the knot until it came undone. Emma relaxed her arms and let the fabric fall to the bed, most of which covered my legs. We sat there for a moment, Emma taking in a breath of air and me trying to memorize every one of her curves.

I moved my hands from her hips to the dip under her ribs. I followed the contour of her body up to her breasts, pulling at them until her nipples kissed my hands. Emma positioned herself, her thighs hugging around my hips. She balanced on her knees, using her hand to direct my shaft inside her.

I hissed as she took me in bit by bit, piercing herself with my cock. She thrust down toward the bed, her cheeks glowing red when I pinched one of her nipples between my fingertips. Her body shuddered, her muscles rippling all around me as she took all of me in.

Emma widened her stance, sitting upright as her body adjusted. Her body pulled at me, and I thrust upward. Emma gasped and dug her nails into the skin along my shoulder blades. The pain was temporary, replaced by an even more intense sensation when Emma pulled away from me, thrusting back down moments later.

She did this a few more times, pacing herself while decreasing the pause between thrusts. I swallowed around the lump in my throat and repositioned myself. Using my thumb and index finger, I drew tight circles around her clit, arching my back anytime she thrust toward the bed.

"Don’t worry about me," Emma said, her grip on me tightening.

I locked my jaw, stifling a cry as she exploded around me, her body grabbing at my cock from within. In an instant, Emma got up, her eyes searching mine as she positioned herself between my legs. I went to stop her when she removed the condom, but my confusion lifted as she rubbed at the base of my shaft. My eyes slipped shut, and I almost lost all the control I had left when she took me in her mouth.

She lapped at the head, slowly trailing up and down its length. After hooking her arms under my legs, she went down on me again, her slow, deep strokes causing my body to shake as I held back.

"Emma..." I gasped for breath.

She moaned a reply, the reverberations of her voice shaking me to the core. I was going to come, and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it. My mind struggled to stay afloat, to remember she was new at this, that she hadn’t gone down on someone before.

I tested my voice. "Emma." My lips were dry. "I’m going to—"

Gods, the way she stroked me with her tongue! She may have been inexperienced, but damned if I could tell. Emma squeezed one of my hands, her touch just as gentle as before.

"Go," her voice was barely audible, but the word struck home when she deep-throated me.

I thrust once, twice...

I opened my mouth to speak, to cry, to growl. Nothing. Complete silence. My body shook, and Emma swallowed.

Blinking at the haze around my vision, I looked down at her. Emma’s lips found mine moments later. The lower half of my body tingled, and I opened my palms, my hands shaking as I wrapped them around her middle.

Emma wiped the sweat from my brow, smoothing back my hair as she leaned over me. "Feel better?"

I rested my hands on the small of her back and kissed her on the cheek. "Very." I breathed around the pounding in my ears. "I thought you were going to make me wait." I bit the side of her neck, smiling when she tensed.

Emma pushed off me to lie on the other side of the bed. "Only until you were ready."

"You sure you haven’t done this before?"

Emma grinned and shook her head. And as I drifted to sleep, the pack downstairs sang their praise to the alpha and her mate.
There is no privacy in the pack.

E
mma

When Tucker and the other wolves went out on a hunt, Luna and I stayed home. The house had gotten rather crowded over the last week or so, but the more I learned about the guardians, the more I wanted them to stay.

Aside from Luna, the other guardians had been within the pack for the same amount of time as Tucker. Luna was much older, even though she seemed younger to me. Truthfully, she was over two centuries old, and she’d told me as much as she could about the wolves, the children and their songs.

Most of what she told me mimicked what Zarrius had shown me when we were linked together. The pack had always been made up of eight members, and with Zarrius’s passing, the pack would have to find another to fill the ranks. One thing Luna did say that Zarrius had not was the possibility of the entire pack singing together, instead of the song belonging to just Tucker or myself.

It hadn’t ever been done before, but the pack had never had a human as their alpha, either. The idea of singing with the entire pack was intriguing. Ever since Zarrius’s break-in, I hadn’t been able to come up with any more words for my song. In fact, the more time I spent with the pack, the less sense my previous verse made.

I wasn’t only bound to Tucker anymore. There was a fondness, the same love I had for Tucker, but for the pack as a whole. And when I was alone with Tucker or Luna, that feeling grew even more.

One night, while Luna and I were sitting in the living room, Luna padded over to me, licking at my hand as she usually did. I put down the book I was reading and patted my lap, inviting her to sit with me.

Luna climbed up and did whatever she could to fit on my lap. I couldn’t help laughing, not at how she struggled, but at how badly she wanted to fit. I scooched over so we could share the space. Once Luna was comfortable, I picked up my book and started to read it again.

Luna nudged my hand. "You love the pack, don’t you?"

I glanced down at her. The she-wolf’s green eyes were sincere. "I think I do, yes."

"Think?" Luna’s words sounded more hurt than I’d expected.

I scratched behind her ears. "I don’t mean it like that. I do love the pack, but I don’t know if it’s the right kind of love. I don’t think it’s the same love I feel for Tucker."

"I think it is," Luna mused aloud, resting her muzzle on my leg. "Do you love me?"

The question was so sudden, I dropped my book on the floor. I’d spent so much time with her since the pack arrived , I thought of her as a sister. Possibly more than that.

When I didn’t reply, Luna continued. "I know I love you." Her ears lowered, and I could feel her cowering beside me. "The pack wouldn’t understand, but—"