Howl (Lost Moon: Unravelling Monsters Universe #2)

Chapter 21

21

brONTE

I feel a strange sense of hollowness, stepping back through my final portal. We’ve already said our goodbyes to Sam and Logan, leaving both men at the pack’s redwoods property. Now we’re in the living room of our mansion, my portal shrinking behind our backs.

West places my packed bags on the ground cautiously, and I do the same. Logan had flung the few he was carrying on the ground, and I’m embarrassed at the way I’d snapped at him for it, but he’d been so careless when I’d specifically said I had items of value in there. Glass jars filled with herbs, precious stones, my grimoire… My entire life, packed away into as much as we could carry through a single portal jump.

And now we’re here.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes,” I lie. I turn my head away, my chin wobbling. I’m so happy to be with West, but I’m so devastated that my grandmother cast me out the way she did, even though I had a feeling that it was coming. I was fierce in the moment, but now I just feel deflated. “No,” I say quietly.

West’s arms come around me, and I cry into his shirt, trusting that my mate will hold me in all my sadness.

He does.

I wake to a bedroom bathed in sunlight, humming contentedly at the softness of the pillow under my head and the warmth of the blankets covering me. Like everything in this house, they smell like West, and I could spend all day lounging in this bed.

That West is equally affected by my scent is never a question — especially now. There’s a man-shaped lump buried near the foot of the huge bed, and I sigh, my legs falling open at the swipe of a tongue through my sex. I’m pretty sure that’s what woke me up.

“Fucking love your taste,” he growls, his voice slightly muffled from the blankets. He licks again, slow and languid, and I can’t quite tell if he’s doing this for my pleasure, or for his. Regardless of his purpose, it feels amazing.

“Are you alright down there?” I ask.

West mutters something. I catch the words fucking perfect , his fingers sliding into my cunt, and figure that he’s more than fine where he is.

Mate, my wolf says, restless within me as my husband teases me with his hands and tongue, bringing me closer and closer to the edge. I pull the blankets away from us both so I can watch him, his eyes on mine as he licks my clit.

Tonight the full moon will rise, and we both know what that means.

This evening it will be time to bite .

I sink down on West’s cock with a groan, leaning forward until his mouth latches around one of my nipples. He sucks hard, thrusting up into me at the same time, a growl in his throat, his hand squeezing my ass hard enough to bruise. “Yes,” I say in a choked voice as he bites at my other breast, before pulling me down, kissing me roughly. I growl into his mouth, our tongues intertwined, grunting as his cock hammers into me, hard and fast. “Fuck me,” I hiss, and he rolls us, continuing at his unrelenting pace, rutting into me until I press my hands to his chest. I hook my ankles over his shoulders as he leans back, fucking me slowly, his gold eyes intense as he watches me.

“This is my favourite sight in the world,” I tell him, loving the way his cock feels, the slow backwards drag of it before each hard thrust an agonising tease. “Look at you, you god of a man.”

It’s true. He’s beautiful in the most masculine of ways, all hard muscle and pretty gold eyes rimmed by long dark lashes, his full lips slightly swollen from all our kisses.

For a man that’s so confident in himself, he’s terrible at taking compliments. He leans forward once more, kissing me passionately in response to my words. I bury my hands in his hair, stroke them down his broad back, squeeze his ass, worshipping every inch of him that I can get my hands on. I lose all sense of time, caught up in West — his scent, his taste, his touch, his knot, his cum.

I love it.

It feels so good to be able to indulge, to spend all day in bed fucking, to have endless orgasms and be filled by his knot again and again. It’s the moon, driving us mad with need; lust is always heightened at this time of the month, but having a fated mate to share this with makes it so much better.

“I don’t know how humans can partner with wolves,” I say at one point as West fucks me slowly from behind, pressing down between my shoulder blades until my head is on the mattress and my ass is high in the air, his big hands gripping my hips. “I don’t know how a human could ever survive, let alone keep up with a wolf on the day of a full moon.”

“With great delicacy on the wolf’s part,” he says, and it’s a reminder that he has slept with human women before. I snarl, pushing back against him, impaling myself on more of his cock.

“I don’t need you to be delicate,” I growl over my shoulder.

He slaps my ass hard. “I know. ” I shiver in anticipation as he bends over me, so that my back is flush with his chest, his hands on either side of mine. My big wolf. “I was just savouring the view, sweetheart,” he murmurs, his arm wrapping across my middle in a tight grip. “But if you need me to fuck you hard, all you have to do is say so.”

I lose all track of how many times we’ve been tied, but as the sun begins to dip lower, entering the last quarter of the sky, something changes in the air between us.

The moon is coming.

Soon I’ll be a wolf. It’s time.

“Show me your teeth,” I demand. Mine ache more than they ever have before. I hook my legs around West’s waist, drawing him deeper inside of me, until his knot kisses my cunt. We’re back to the tried and true missionary position on the bed, and I don’t give a fuck what people say, there’s a reason why it’s so popular. Sometimes I just want West’s big body on top of me.

“You want my bite,” he growls in my ear, and there’s something threatening in that tone, his voice deliciously deep. He doesn’t lift his head to show me, but when he drags his teeth down the column of my neck I can feel that they’ve shifted.

So have mine.

“ West, ” I say, a warning growl in my voice.

“You want it?”

“Yes.”

He smiles at me, his teeth dangerously sharp, and I grin back.

“You’re beautiful,” he says. “My fierce she-wolf.”

His hands are around my back, and suddenly he’s lifting me, until he’s on his knees, fucking into me, all raw power. I cling to him as he hits just the right spot repeatedly, growling “Come for me, sweetheart,” in my ear in exactly the right tone that it sets me off, coming around his cock. He growls again, thrusting harder, his knot popping into place. “Bite me!” he demands, coming.

“Yes!” my wolf crows within me. “Claim him!” I don’t hesitate, biting down on the meat of his shoulder, cutting through layers of flesh, listening to him grunt, his hot blood coating my tongue. West is groaning in pleasure, and I can feel it, our bond blooming, a wonderfully beautiful, vulnerable thing, though it’s currently lopsided.

“Do it!” I cry.

Still knotted, West lowers us to the bed, his teeth trailing down my neck, stopping to press a kiss to the spot where I know his bite will be. When he does bite down I cry out, the sharp flash of pain quickly subsiding into the most euphoric joy I’ve ever felt in my life.

West is in my head and my soul, love, love, love bouncing between us, and I know I’ll never be lonely again.

“It’s almost moonrise,” I say as West’s cock slips free, his knot finally deflated enough for him to climb off of me. I reach down, placing my hand over the mound of my pussy.

“Are you healing your cunt?” he asks, and it’s not just his scandalised face at the sight of my glowing magic that makes me laugh, but the utter shock I feel from him through our new bond. We’ll learn how to control it more in time, but for now there’s no hiding from each other.

“Look, you can choose not to shift, but I’ve got no say in how I spend the next eleven hours; I’ll be a werewolf. I want to be in top condition for that, and she’s had a lot of use today. Don’t hassle me for giving her a little extra maintenance.”

He snorts. When he bends his head, kissing my upper thigh while murmuring “ I’m sorry I hurt you,” to my pussy, I lose it, breaking into uncontrollable laughter until tears are leaking from my eyes and my belly aches from it. Eventually, I’m calm enough to get up off the bed.

“Are you going to heal our bites, too?” West asks.

I shake my head. “Not yet. We need them to scar. That’s the point, after all.” The permanent bite is far more significant than any wedding ring, at least to us.

We walk naked through the house, hand-in-hand as we make our way down the stairs and out onto the courtyard by the pool. I’m just in time, my hands already beginning to change into claws, my wolf rejoicing as she is freed. The change is always a strangely satisfying sensation, growing and stretching, finding this deeper part of myself.

My mate shifts, stepping beside me, his tail wagging just as much as mine.

“I’ll race you,” I say. “A loop of the property. First one back gets a foot rub tomorrow.”

He barks and takes off, leaving me sprinting after him. “Hey!” I yell, “You cheat!”

His absolute joy pulses through our bond.

I know the feeling; I’m bonded to my mate, and I’ve never been happier in my life.

At sunrise West carries me inside. I’m too exhausted to even lift my head.

“How did you normally get yourself home post-change?” he asks. I can sense his mild horror, a good reminder that he’s always worrying about me being physically vulnerable. He’s probably going to worry more now that I’m pregnant.

“With great effort. We all drag ourselves to bed, then pass out.”

He carries me up to one of the guest bedrooms near our own. I can smell the scent of sex from down the hall, so it’s a good call — I’m pretty sure the bed will be soaked through, and while the primal part of me loves our combined scents, I have no desire to sleep in cold, wet bedding.

“Stay with me,” I say, and he nods, tucking us both under the blankets, cuddling me close. I’m almost asleep when I start falling, feeling West’s jolt of panic as —

— I’m back on Lykia, swaying on my feet slightly from the shock of it, catching myself before anyone notices because I am very much not alone right now. There’s a huge crowd behind me, guards around me, and a very long procession in front, filing into the huge arched entrance of the Great Hall to the beat of drums. It takes me a moment to realise that I’m the last one in line, alone, and suddenly the odd weight on my head makes sense, my hand lifting to tentatively check that yes , I’m wearing the diadem of the High Witch. I glance down, finding exactly what I expected based on everything else: the coronation dress.

Fuck.

West senses my panic through the bond, sending back the same reassurance he did when I was last in this outfit. I don’t know where he is, and I have no choice but to follow inside after the others, into my own coronation ceremony, past row upon row of people standing on either side of the aisle, plus the crowd in the upper gallery.

Everyone is staring, because of course they are. I’m the star of the show, after all.

The scents of a thousand bodies is near overwhelming, despite the large, open space. It’s not just werewolves here today; there’s a surprising amount of shifters present, and smaller numbers representing almost every species in the First. Even fae.

And they’re all watching me.

West. The moment I pick up on his scent is one of immense relief, and he feels it through the bond. He pushes more reassurance and love at me, followed by a hefty dose of pride.

Our children are here, too, their scents noticeable over the rest. My four babies , my wolf coos reverently.

Four!?

I don’t understand the bittersweet joy that I get from her in response, and I don’t have time to examine it. I spot West standing near the empty throne, tall and broad-shouldered, silver haired with smile lines, looking deliciously sexy in the same fitted suit as he wore in my last vision, and I sigh in relief. He mouths “ Hello sweetheart,” at me, and I can’t help but grin. He knows I’m here from the past, and I trust him to not let me make a fool of myself.

My eldest son — a small extra detail my wolf supplies — stands on the opposite side of the throne. Just as tall as his father, he’s West’s twin in so many ways, his gold eyes serious, his stance strong and unyielding. He wears the traditional clothes reserved for men who directly serve the High Witch, all black tailored fabric, complete with a cape and ornate gold detailing, but it’s the image stitched over his entire front that I focus on. It’s a bastardisation of the sigil of House Maheras, the snarling werewolf head under the full moon now accompanied by a cousin: the head of a shifter wolf.

That’s one hell of a statement to make.

I hear more than one whispered comment as I approach the throne. “Never thought I’d see the day,” and, “This is the beginning of the end,” but then I take another step and someone else says, “It’s about time something like this happened.”

This, thankfully, seems to be one of those hybrid visions, where I feel very present, but the future me is still an active participant, moving my body, making sure I perform the tasks I’m supposed to.

I ascend the steps to the throne, turning and standing before the crowd as the drums reach a crescendo, the coven, now standing in a group behind the throne, all beginning to sing an ancient song, an ode to the Moon Goddess. I cast my eyes over the front rows, not really seeing anyone, though my gaze snags on a pair of blossom-covered antlers near the front. They belong to a pale man with bright blue eyes, ice blonde hair, and long pointed ears. Theodore , my wolf supplies, as if that name is significant. His fae magic rolls off of him in waves, the feel of it so different to the magic that runs through me.

The presence I find most surprising is Anita. She sits in a seat reserved for the most honoured of guests, right at the front, the closest seat to the throne. She looks almost exactly the same as how I know her in my time. Part of me wants to look around, but I find that I can’t turn my head. I’m not in control of my body right now. I’m just another witness here.

The music ends abruptly, and the Great Hall falls silent. I remain standing, my mouth opening, and I’m shocked by the words that come out, my tone just as loud and commanding as my grandmother’s ever was.

“I welcome you all here. Today signifies the formalisation of a change in direction for us all. One that was already begun many years ago, but is now necessary more than ever before. The Unseelie threat is upon us. They have forced our hands. They have stolen our children! We will not stand for it any longer. I welcome you all here as witnesses, as House Maheras formally extends its hand in partnership with the Alliance of Shifters. This is the dawning of a new era. This is the Unification of Wolves.”