“I don’t--” I begin before Fury interrupts with a growl, and I feel a firm twitch against my thighs that has me shimmying on him a little.
“Prince Albert and a Jacobs Ladder. Six rungs an inch apart, from the knot up.” As he lifts his hips into me, I jab him sharply in the chest. Natty has his fingers up, spacing them further as his face scrunches as he tries to work that one out.
“Hey! There are guests. No humping in front of the guests.”
Fury takes a deep breath, snarling with blown pupils, eating up the blue of his eyes until only an electric cerulean ring remains, “You’re perfuming, Firecracker, and I want you. My Alpha is going wild knowing that you’re perfuming thinking of my cock.”
“Fury!” My palm lands on his chest with a gentle pat, and I hear Nathaniel’s hearty laughter, wheezing at all the damn horniness on display. “See what you’ve done? Fucking Alphas, honestly, I swear that knot takes all the blood from the thinking brain.”
Oberon, Bex, and Prue hover closer as Natty’s scent rises alongside mine, sweet honeycomb and rum, entwining to have all the Alphas in the vicinity groaning and echoing growls.
One of those fun little things about unbonded Omegas around unbonded Alphas is that one perfuming will trigger the others. Some ancient cry for attention apparently evolved as some sort of competition to try and attract the most Alphas and prevent the other one from breeding or something like that. It had been a mini paragraph on the little information card handed out during Designation Education. The very same Des-Ed classes that brushed over heats, yet named the muscles and blood vessels to knots.
If I sound a little salty over that, it’s because I am.
“Darlin’,” Clay’s accent is syrup thick from over my shoulder, “Sweetheart, we need to get your perfume under control and getyou inside.” There’s a sharp undertone to his voice, something other than the lusty bass that says he wants to fuck me in the garden, something…Worried.My Alphas have all snapped to attention, surrounding us alongside pack Hawksridge, and I can feel the tension like a taut bowstring. Fury has stopped using me to grind against, his attention pinned to the trees, and I can almost see the big furred ears pricked on his head. Something big is moving between the trunks. That looks like… A mass of fur snuffles around, crunching leaves and branches below it. Snatched around the arm, I hold in my yelp as I’m tugged towards the kitchen by Clay, who definitely did not have a shotgun the last time I saw him a moment ago, with Teddy alongside us, handing him shells. My wolf whines through my throat, less human than an Omega whine, a higher pitch that catches the attention of my Alphas… And the bear.
He’s a big bastard. A grizzly, his fur the color of dark chocolate in the fading light. I can’t see the finer features at a hundred meters or so, even with the shifter eyesight, but I can feel the beady black eyes staring back at us, and I hope for just a moment that it'sjusta bear attracted by the smell of food. Then it stands up on its tree-trunk hind legs and bellows. Charging forward, the moment that everyone else takes fur is indiscernible. Fury explodes into a snarling black, tan, and red mass, hackles raised and tail curling up over his back as his fangs face the threat. Atlas holds the line next to him, a colossus of black and gray fur, the pale ticking along his shoulder and spine bright in the darkness and helping me track him as he paces. Nathaniel is alongside them as a sleek lion, pale cream fur luxurious and almost silvery in the cast from the rising moon, and mane ruffled elegantly as he sits unbothered in a way that only cats manage. Guns flash in the hands of the human packmates; paws, claws, and fangs elsewhere, we’re a pack of natural and man-made weaponry,too much for one grizzlyshifter, surely?Unless he’s truly become so desperate that he’d risk his life to try and take me.
Heavy drumbeats of dinner plate paws mark his near-arrival, and my heart leaps for my mates as I wonder if the thick fur will be too much for my wolves and jaguar to get through. And Natty is still an Omega; he could still be barked into submission if the bear has a pack nearby, not to mention he couldn’t defend himself at the best of times, all bluster and noise.
A cry escapes me as I leap from the kitchen door swinging open, but it’s only Beckett strolling in with the most enormous bird I’ve ever seen on his arm, perching it on one of the dining chairs as he joins us, concern on his face.
“Obi hasn’t shifted,” I hiss, watching the grizzly reach the final fence line, ploughing through the wood and barreling onward. What looks like ambling on all those nature documentaries that Clay likes feels like a freight train in reality, as I watch my men's hackles rise and gnash at the air.
Bex shakes his head to the side of me, stroking a finger down the bird's head, “He’s a showy bastard, he’ll wait until—There he goes.”
Streaking through the night, Oberon's massive body charges forward, lunging over the sofa next to the fire before he shifts. His aura erupts alongside his body, a shockwave rippling through us, taking Natty’s legs from under him with a rough grunt and my own buckling. Breathing through my nose as liquorice invades the kitchen, my lungs hitch and my mouth drops as I take in what I’m seeing.
No wonder he has zero fucks to give.
The grizzly slows in the last ten meters, slamming on the brakes at the mass of white that must outweigh him by half.
I feel like I’ve fallen into the Golden Compass as the fuckingpolar bearin my back yard rises on its hind legs, easily towering ten feet tall and swiping the air with paws that could decapitatea lesser creature. Around his feet, the wolves move like shadows, but they don’t charge. My eyes are locked on the scene so intently that I don’t miss the grizzly searching for me, nose in the air and peering around the guards outside to stare at me through the window, chuffing before turning and fleeing back through the gaps in the fence. The other shifters give chase, Fury nipping at his heels and leaping out of the way when a paw turns to swipe at him. Oberon follows about halfway back before losing interest and turning back, snuffling at the lion spread across the lawn next to the fire, both of them yowling and huffing at each other affectionately, and I can honestly say I never expected the size difference between the two species, but the big bear really is a monster.
With the threat vanquished into the forest, we return to the fire, Beckett carrying the massive eagle too, which I assume is Prue since I haven’t seen her, but the faint scent of raspberries drifts from the bird's feathers, and she coos at Bex as he carries her, rubbing that massive beak into his hair and preening him.
I need to go out, I need to check my mates, and Clay can’t catch me quickly enough as a string of whimpers escapes, and I rush through the back and drop to my knees between the two wolves, running my fingers through their thick fur to feel the soft undercoats. Drool coats my cheek as Atlas laps at me, bowing playfully and yipping, bouncing like a puppy, and I ache to take fur and join him, even when I know the danger is still too close, lurking in our own land between the damn bear and the other neighboring pack. Fury snuffles my hair with a cool, leathery nose, rubbing his cheek against me and scenting me with whiskey and that delicious smoky scent that blends so well with my own. If I ever had any doubts left that this pack is my scent match, the fact that we match beautifully into a perfect perfume would erase that.
So busy reuniting with my mates, I don’t even notice the lumbering mass of bear from the side, until Oberon’s great nose bumps me.
“Holy fuck!” I yelp, stumbling backwards and turning ass over teakettle only to hear several chuckles and chuffs, though I’m staring in wonder as I reach out to touch Obi’s nose, then running my hands through his fur, noting how much rougher it is than the wolves, nowhere near as sleek as Lucas. Still, he has them beat in size by at least a few feet on all fours, “I could ride you like a horse…”
The chuffing all turns to growls from my pack before it's my turn to laugh, shaking my head as Lucas and Natty appear and I end up in a big fur pile, purring comfort as I bury myself beneath them the best I can. Lucas is the first to shift, his dark skin naked against my own as we lie here, followed by my wolves as they help me to my feet. Obi and Natty shift shortly after, and Beckett rushes to cover them, searching the skies for the eagle returning, letting Fury know that Prue is scouting to see if she could see him leave, or find out where he had gone, but from the direction she traveled, Butcher—because who else could it be—is moving towards Brynn’s territory, which adds an extra layer of worry for my pack, if the neighboring pack is working alongside the Omega Auction in Citrine city to abduct shifter Omegas. It is all coming together in a big heap of shit, and we don’t have scoops, let alone shovels. I sigh loudly, tucking myself against my naked Alphas as we turn back to the house. Clay leans on the door frame of the sun room, with Teddy peeking from behind him as we approach.
“I could really use my nest tonight, and all of my pack in it too,” I murmur, and instantly there’s a shift in the sour scent in the air. I have four Alphas and a Beta who are all stinking up the air with their arousal, three of whom are naked, and the effectsof my quiet demand are clear in the shift in blood flow that I snort, “Fucking Alphas, honestly.”
Fury turns to the other pack, unashamed in his nakedness, yet not once do their eyes trail downwards in some unholy self-control. My Omega pouts and nods at the same time, pleased that they’re keeping their eyes off our Alpha but also a little upset that nobody is ogling how gorgeous Fury is. That’s fine, I do it for them, watching his round, tanned ass with the dimples on his lower back, so firm I could bounce a penny off his cheeks if I wanted to. There’s a clearing throat from said perfect ass, and I look up, trying to look completely unabashed and sniffing as I return my gaze to his.
“If you didn’t want me to look, you wouldn’t wave it in my face, Alpha.”
“Careful, Omega, I’ll get Clay to turn yours red if you keep that up.”
It’s at this moment that I notice Nathaniel’s eyes drop, widening comically as he takes in the glimmering ring curling through my Alpha’s glans, and the dotted ribs of the rest of the piercings down the underside of his shaft as it bobs with his movement.
“Fucking hell, Skye, at least when you climb the man tonight, you can use the ladder up and ride the snake down.”
Skye
