PackRescue (7 page)

Nathaniel was simply too beautiful for her inexperienced
eyes to fully comprehend. His shoulders were almost as big as his brother’s and
his skin from the waist up was dark gold from the sun, shimmering with health
and vitality. It stretched taut and smooth over striated muscles and a six-pack
of abs that looked ready to punch out of his skin when he rolled his torso to
drop his shirt onto the ground. He started to undo the button-fly of his jeans
and she looked away, swallowing the hunger growing inside her that belonged
more to her wolf than herself.

Her eyes turned to Cutler next and she felt them get real
round real fast. Although he was the same height as Nath and had the same
chestnut-brown hair, he was just…bigger. Everywhere. Cutler’s arms were thick
bands of defined muscle, his biceps and triceps huge yet managed to stay in
proportion to that endlessly wide, lightly furred chest of his. Fina bit back
the uncomfortable urge to rub her face all over him. Unlike his brother, Cutler
folded his shirt before setting it on the ground and the movement made his
obscenely wide lats fan out to dimensions that made Fina’s mouth water. She
actually licked her lips before realizing she was staring.

She looked away and hurriedly removed the rest of her
clothing. The fluttering in her belly was deeply unsettling and she needed to
change into her fur as soon as possible to run off the uncomfortable tension
rising in her. She toed off her running shoes, pulled off her jeans and panties
then ran her hands over her bare arms, fidgeting and needing the run to start
soon.

Cutler scented her arousal the second it started emanating
from Fina’s small, nervous body. Just a trace of it. He held off unzipping his
jeans when he realized his cock was starting to fill with blood. This was a
pack run, not a mating run, and he didn’t feel like standing around in his skin
sporting a hard-on in front of his pack. Although with Fina standing beside
him, he figured folks would understand.

One look told him Nath was having the same problem. His baby
brother kept looking at Fina’s naked body and Cutler smelled the lust coming
off him. He dared to take a quick look at her and immediately knew why. It wasn’t
because Fina was physically perfect—she wasn’t. Her hips were too narrow and
although her ass was taut and round like an adolescent’s, both body parts were
still coltish instead of womanly. But he figured they’d fill out after she’d
had a pup or two. Cutler liked a well-rounded, comfortably fleshed out woman in
his bed. He liked the feel of a lush ass cushioning his hips as he drove into
her instead of bony, unforgiving angles. Fina’s waist was tiny but it was her
breasts that drew his eye—and made his mouth open in anticipation of tasting
her. High, firm and big enough to sway and jiggle enticingly when she turned
and looked around the clearing or into the night sky, searching the treetops
for the moon.

Mine. Wait. Soon.

Sensing the rise of the full moon and the freedom that was
coming, his wolf and its voice were stronger than usual. Cutler swallowed hard.
He didn’t know if he could wait. He didn’t know if he had that much self-control
and he saw his hands come up, reaching for Fina, needing to pull her to him.

“Hey, boss!”

Cutler gritted his teeth when that familiar, obscenely
cheerful voice broke through the haze of lust that he just knew was turning his
eyes red.

“
What?
” he snarled with unnecessary venom.

“Tes-ty,” the owner of the voice purred, deliberately
goading him. “You know, if you ate more roughage, you wouldn’t be this
irritable.”

He growled and his upper lip fluttered, exposing his
descending canines. “What do you want, Young?” Cutler’s voice was thick and
gravelly—his wolf was very close to the surface now and the changes in his
cells, the structure of his face and throat, made talking difficult.

“I
want
an introduction,” she stated self-righteously
and flashed a smile at Fina. “Rude-o,” she shot back in his direction.

Cutler exhaled impatiently. “Fina Whitesage, meet Officer
Suzanne Young—my dispatcher.”

Fina held out her hand politely. “Ah…you’re the voice I hear
coming over the radio.” Instinctively, Fina hated the woman on sight. She’d
never felt that way about another woman before. The strength of her reaction
startled her. Despite that, she pressed on, remembering her manners. “I swear
you’re the only one I can understand. All of the men sound like they’ve got a
mouthful of chewing gum. I can’t make out a thing they say.”

Suzanne threw back her head and laughed delightedly. Fina
hated her even more. Suzanne was a sex goddess. Her laughter was silvery and
musical, her teeth white and perfectly straight. She was maybe five or six
years older than Fina and next to this vivacious, confident woman, Fina felt
like a child. Suzanne was taller than her, with long shapely legs that rose up
to womanly hips and a waist that defied physics. It was just too small to hold
up the rest of her—and the rest of her made Fina want to slouch, cover her own
chest and skulk away into the darkness. Suzanne’s breasts were round, large and
flawless. Fina bit back a growl of envy when they swayed with the woman’s
laughter, displaying all too clearly that every perfect, naked inch of them was
real. Her nipples were so perky and pink that Fina wanted to slap the woman
across the mouth. But it was her face that
really
ticked Fina off. It
was the most radiant, beautiful oval Fina had ever seen, capped with a long,
silky, lustrous fall of pale blonde hair.

Fina promised herself that next time she took Ryan shopping
for a new toy, she’d snap every damn Barbie in the store in half.

Despite all that, Fina froze her pathetic, warm smile in
place.

“That’s because I make an effort,” Suzanne laughed. “It’s
called enunciation, boss.” She slapped her Alpha’s belly lightly with the backs
of her long, slender fingers. “You should try it some time.” She turned back to
Fina. “I like this woman already.” Suzanne smiled and it made her impossibly
beautiful. “I feel like I
know
you already. He talks about you all the
time.”

Fina didn’t know what to make of that but with her
conflicting and uncharitable feelings, she wasn’t about to explore it—not now.

“You got what you came for,” Cutler snapped at Suzanne and
the tall blonde paled visibly. She let out a quiet yelp then a whine—a nervous
sound of distress then, tentatively and slowly, moved closer to her Alpha.

He didn’t refuse her when she hesitantly lowered her head to
his chest. She moved slowly, in small increments, sniffing the air around him
and glancing up at him again and again, gauging his anger and wary of it. She
trembled lightly when she laid her cheek over his heart.

Fina actually backed away from Cutler when the busty blonde
started rubbing her face against his chest. With long, deliberate, gentle
strokes Suzanne caressed his heavy pectorals with her cheeks, nose and chin,
nuzzling him and whining so quietly Fina barely heard her. Her breasts pressed
into his ribs but with boobs that big there was no way it could be avoided.
Fina was surprised the woman didn’t just fall flat on her face from the weight
of them…only she’d probably bounce right back up again.

Fina felt like booting her in the ass to test her theory.

Fina jumped a little when Cutler’s strong hand wrapped
around her wrist, pulling her back to his side. She tried to resist—tried to
pull away from him—but he held her tight and refused to let go.

Cutler knew why Suzanne was nuzzling him. He’d been angry
with her—really angry—and she needed reassurance her Alpha’s reprimand was
over, needed comforting and needed to reaffirm the bonds of Alpha and pack
member between them. Cutler swore at himself mentally and held himself still.
He had no right to go off on Suzanne like that. That was the second time she’d
interrupted him with his mate. It wasn’t her fault her timing sucked. She didn’t
deserve to be reprimanded for what amounted to his lack of self-control. He
held back his impatience, held himself still and waited for her anxiety to
recede. When the scent of it faded, Cutler sighed quietly. “Go on, Suzanne,” he
said with uncharacteristic gentleness. He tipped his head toward the huddle of
six unmated males standing nearby, raptly watching his dispatcher’s every move.
“Before your admirers have a stroke.”

Grinning self-consciously, Suzanne lifted her head from him,
glanced up at him once then lowered her eyes and walked back the way she’d
come.

When she left, Cutler filled his lungs slowly then exhaled.
Suzanne’s scent was fresh on him, light, healthy, fertile and undeniably
female—but hers wasn’t the scent he wanted. His wolf snapped its jaws angrily
and prowled through his head, trying to get away from the scent of this
interloper and locate the smell of its mate again. Cutler tightened his grip on
Fina’s wrist and drew her closer.

“Mark me,” he growled, dipping his face and rubbing his
rough cheek across the side of her face. He slid his free hand around her waist
and pulled her into him, overpowering her strength easily, holding her small,
warm body against his. “I want your scent on me. I need it,” he snarled. Cutler
let go of her wrist, wrapped his hand around the back of her head, stood up to
his full height and drew her face to him.

He threw back his head and let his wolf’s growl reverberate
through his still-human larynx. It was a frightening sound—part man and part
animal—and the cry was picked up by other male werewolves throughout the
clearing. The wolves inside them trumpeted their strength and vigor in
anticipation of the rising moon.

Trembling from head to toe, Fina rubbed her face over Cutler’s
chest, not shying away from the scratchiness of his hair. She drank in the heat
of his body until the beating of his heart had to overwhelm her hearing. She
opened her mouth, dragged her lips over him, moving faster now. Pleasure so
great it was foreign coursed through him. She gripped his biceps, dug her
fingers into him, stretched up onto her toes so she could reach more of him and
flipped her head back and forth to paint him with her scent.

Cutler held himself absolutely still except for his head. It
lolled back and his eyes gazed unseeing at the stars. He willed his skin to
drink her in and let his arms fall helplessly to his sides as his mate touched
him.

She snarled and stiffened when another werewolf pressed into
her back but her anger fizzled. It was Nathaniel. He lifted her hair and began
rubbing his temple against the back of her neck, her shoulders and
spine—rubbing his scent over her like she was rubbing hers over Cutler.

When her scent had completely erased Suzanne’s, Fina turned,
grabbed Nath’s biceps and began to rub her face over his torso.

Cutler blinked then grinned like he was drunk. He growled
but it was a drugged, glutted sound. He leaned down, wrapped his arms around
Fina’s waist and began sliding his cheeks over her shoulder blades, marking
parts of her his brother hadn’t.

The three of them clung to each other in a sated huddle
until Cutler’s deepest instinct lifted his head. With unerring accuracy, his
eyes turned to the white nebula just visible over the treetops, heralding the
approach of the full moon. He held his breath for the span of a heartbeat, then
two, then threw back his head and howled. “Let the run begin,” he bellowed in a
voice that was half-human, half-wolf.

All around him naked human bodies shrank in height but
expanded in mass. Rising, multiplying howls sang out through the clearing as
his pack shifted into the form of the wolf. He kept his chest pressed to Fina’s
back but clawed at his zipper, yanked down his jeans and kicked them aside. He
could hear his brother panting and growling as he too shed the last of his
clothing.

Bracketing Fina, pressing into her, the two of them stood
tall and powerful.

Fina trembled but for the first time in weeks it wasn’t with
fear. It was desire—raw and foreign. She growled, a low, continuous sound she’d
never made before. Hadn’t even known she was capable of. It was a song of
possession, intent and need and a rational part of her wondered why this
formidable Alpha didn’t just simply throw her body away from his. Raise his
hand to her and cuff her for her insolence. She looked at the two powerful
males, smelled the heat and need pouring off them, saw the fully erect and
formidable penises rising from the dark thatches on their groins. Her wolf
howled with all the power it possessed and she felt her bones splinter. Her
spine shifted, drawing her head back and pulling her mouth open. Her gums
ached, then her jaw as her teeth shifted, grew and moved back to fill her
elongating mouth. The ache flashed into pain then disappeared entirely. The
sound of her howl changed. It was fully animal now, strong and primitive and
gloriously free. Her skin broke loose from the thin layer of womanly,
insulating fat beneath it, slithered over her freely then fastened on to
violently expanding muscle. Hairs formed beneath her skin and slid out through
tight follicles. She dropped down onto all fours and howled again, only this
time the tremendous sound of it joined hundreds of other wolves crying out with
unfettered joy. Her ankles shattered, stretched without impediment then knit
themselves up almost immediately. Her nails thickened into sharp, formidable
daggers that promised death to anyone foolish enough to challenge her.

Fina’s snout snapped shut and her fully wolf eyes gazed over
the clearing, seeing everything. Her tipped, perked ears swiveled and she heard
everything. She smelled everything. A red squirrel popped its head out from a
crotch in a cedar tree and chattered down at them aggressively then seemed to
sense the combined power of the new animals crowding its territory. Its tiny
claws dug into the soft bark and it spun, raced up the trunk and disappeared
into a tiny crevice. Fina knew it wouldn’t come out until after sunrise. She
heard a leaf tremble in the breeze, heard a blade of grass bend as the rough
pad of a paw passed over it, smelled the quick, frightened release of an elk’s
urine from over a thousand feet away just before it flipped its tail up and
ran, causing its small herd to stampede away in its wake. The muzzle of the
wolf that was Fina pulled back from sharp, solid teeth in a parody of a human
smile. They were the most powerful creatures on the face of this land this
night and the most powerful had the luxury of play.