Part 1
Chapter 1
The first time they’d left her, she’d gone wandering.
Jude had, ironically enough, always liked the full moon. The serene silence and icy white stillness of the neighborhood was a far cry from the anxious frenzy that seemed to take hold of the pack in the days leading up to the change — culminating when the moon hung heavy in the black sky and the rest of them took to the woods, to run as wolves — to feel the wind in their ears and the earth moving under four-legged feet, leaving her upright, to walk alone.
The moon made them wild, but by contrast, even though it didn’t make much sense, the full moon had always brought her a measure of peace.
It had been hard, growing up different. She’d never fit in with her peers, not truly. Children had short memories and it hadn’t mattered when she was very small, but as she grew older, the whispers had increased. Catty, snide comments from girls her age, and rude, crude jokes from the boys, every month when she stayed behind. Even the teachers at her school looked at herdifferently, mumbled and chuckled together, swallowing their mirth if she was near.
She wasstilla wolf, still had a wolf’s anger and aggression and pride, she’d wanted to scream. Just because she had never physically turned did not mean her wolf was not present, was not there, living beneath her skin.
When she was a teenager she would practically burst a blood vessel trying to connect with her inner wolf. She would scrunch up her eyes and ball her fists, trying desperately to squeeze herself into being something she simply wasn’t, would scream at the moon in an effort to rouse what lay dormant within her, to little avail. It had been a hard collection of years, but she was past all that. She was past being upset with herself for things beyond her control, past disliking herself for what she was. She would never run as a wolf.
Instead, she walked.
Jude liked to think it was her inner wolf who enjoyed the clarity and quiet of the full moon. While others of her kind sought a change, Jude became more herself. She was able to hear herself think. She was able toperceiveherself, to hear her blood moving through the delicate spider web of veins throughout her circulatory system and each ventricle of her heart, chugging along, doing its job. She became especially aware of the rhythm of her heart on those lonely, lovely, moonlit nights — a solid thump that she felt in her ears, her eyes, the back of her tongue, and in the pads of each of her long, slender, completely human-looking fingers. She never felt more like herself than she did during the full moon, and Jude was certain that probably only made her seem even more odd.
Her quiet walk that month beneath the full moon was the first time since her arrival at the new pack that she could clear her head and think. Think through how she’d allowed herself to beentangled in this mess; think through how in fuck she might ever manage to get herself out of it.
They’d all been excited and welcoming when she arrived, Vin most of all. A deal with another pack, her father had explained, as her mother sat silently on the other side of the kitchen table, puffing away on a menthol slim. Too many males, not enough females to go around, and not another pack close enough for them to adequately mix bloodlines.
Her father had always been a shit gambler. Football, Ketterling, sports from every species, it never mattered much — he would bet, and he would lose. He’d pissed away every cent they’d ever had until his debts were the only thing left too numerous to count, and now she was being sold as a broodmare, furious tears leaking from the corners of her eyes as they’d told her, but she hadn’t yet known the depth of her father’s lies. He was more concerned with saving his own ass, leaving her ass behind, twisting in the wind.
The pack, as they described it to her over antipasto, was everything she expected them to claim — tight knit, one big family.
Jude had ignored the way those words made her stomach tighten, pushing down the knowledge that packs who purported to beone big, happy familyhad no problem pushing out those who didn’t conform with the family way. She didn’t know how to process the fact that she was being traded away to settle her father’s debts, unable to reconcile the fact that she was beingsoldin this modern age, but Vin’s warm smile and bright eyes had made up for it, silencing her inner doubts at the time.
“Only my mother calls me Vincenzo,” he’d whispered after those first introductions were made, several months earlier at a respectable family restaurant. He’d slid into a rounded booth beside her, sandwiched against her as their fathers negotiated and the betas bullshitted across the table, and as the subtle,expensive smell of his aftershave toyed at her nose, she thought if she were going to be sold away, there were worse buyers they could have found.
Several bottles of red wine and a family-style pasta dinner later, his hand had slid up her thigh, fingers teasing at the front of her panties beneath her skirt. She’d sucked in a breath through her teeth when one of his thick fingers slid under the edge of the thin fabric, wasting no time before sinking into her. The digit slid through her moon-slick folds, coating itself in her wetness before pulling it out. She’d watched as he grinned at whatever his family’s beta had just said, laughing at the apparent joke before putting his finger in his mouth and sucking it clean.
When his hand found its way beneath the table and in between her legs again, all pretenses of teasing were done. He’d plunged his whole hand down the front of her panties, cupping her pussy and using three fingers to roll over her clit, big circles that had her knees dropping open. When two of his thick fingers sunk into her, all the way to his top knuckles, her breath had hitched, her poker face slipping. She’d wondered if the other men around the half-empty pasta bowls had known what was happening as he began to thrust into her, finger fucking her at the table as the tiramisu was brought out.
It was the week of the full moon and she was horny, horny enough that she shifted her hips to grind against the palm of his hand, his thumb moving over her clit steadily as wrist thumped, fucking into her. He was as well, obviously, for once he’d fingered her to orgasm, right there at the table, her mouth hidden in her napkin as her core clenched around his meaty digits, he casually mentioned the view from the balcony off the dining room. His family’s beta had grumbled when he’d been forced to leave the rounded banquette so they could exit, and she hadn’t been able to ignore the way his fingers glistened as he put an arm over her shoulders.
She’d discovered there was no balcony, at least not one that was accessible to customers. A short service staircase that led to an exit door, the door leading to the roof of the back of the building. It was clear that the staff used it as their smoking spot, several overflowing sand-filled ashtrays littering the space, and she’d been glad that none of them had been present just then.
The door had barely clicked shut behind them when he was yanking open his belt, unzipping his fly and pulling his stiffened cock out before her, rock hard and bobbing in the light from the security sign above the doorway. Jude had never been the sort that went in for exhibitionism of any kind, but it was the full moon and they were both horny, her clit still tingling from the shallow orgasm he’d given her at the table, and so she’d sunk to her knees before him, licking a broad stripe up his curved shaft. He’d gripped the back of her head, sliding his cock over her tongue until her nose brushed the thatch of dark hair at its base, gasping for breath when he pulled back.
She’d thought that would’ve been it. Fingers pushed through her hair, cupping the back of her skull as his hips pumped against her mouth, short grunts coming from his throat as she sucked. She thought he would finish in her mouth and they would go back to the table as if nothing had happened, but instead he’d pulled her to her feet, a line of drool connecting her mouth to his streaming cock head, nearly stumbling on her wedge heels as he turned her.
They weren’t terribly far up, she realized as he pushed her upper body over the edge of the balustrade, maybe forty, fifty feet off the ground. He’d pushed her skirt up over her hips, not even bothering to pull her panties down as he kicked her feet apart, his hand rubbing circles against her for a brief moment. He used the same hand to give his cock a few good tugs before pulling her panties to the side, sinking into her in one thrust. Hewasn’t particularly long, but his shaft had a thickness that felt amazing as it pushed in, opening her up and stretching her walls.
She’d only just met him, Jude had reflected, not forty-five minutes ago, and here he was, fucking her over the side of the building. The sight of the traffic in the street just beyond was exhilarating, and she wondered if any of the passengers were to look up at that moment, might they see her — the way she leaned over the concrete ledge, the man behind her gripping her hips and thrusting rhythmically in a way that could give no other explanation for what they were doing. She liked the thought, she’d decided; liked the notion of being watched.
His cock felt good and she was desperate from her heat, the first one she’d had in several years, and when his arm came around her, fingers seeking her clit to rub her to another orgasm, she couldn’t find it in herself to care about the deal taking place at the table.
“Does that feel good, baby? You like the way I fill your pussy? The way I rub your clit?”
Jude was unable to form a coherent answer by then, her breath leaving her in short wheezing pants, her fingers curled over the edge of the concrete.
“I’m going to fuck you like this every day, you understand? I’m going to fuck a son into you with this fat cock.”
His hand tangled in her hair, pulling her head back. She could feel the way crowded against her, felt the nudge of his swollen knot at the base of his cock, pressing against her lips, but if she’d thought to protest, the way his fingers rolled over her clit would have prevented it. Her thighs began to shake, the dual pleasure of being fingered and being fucked, the exhilaration of doing so in such a public setting, it was all too much.
“Are you going to come for me, baby? Come around my cock. I want to feel your pussy squeeze me before you take my knot.”
