Thank you so much for all the love & support throughout the last year. I just wanted to make a quick note (that will appear on all WIP updates, so everyone has the chance to read it) about how I've organized the updates. Aside from Love Like Blood (which I'd finished & completed posting before moving onto the other updates so the story is complete & out of the way), the updates will be posted in the order of furthest back date of 'last update' to most recent.
I know some of you are really anxious for updates on specific fics & would like to ask for your continued patience as I move through this process. Literally every open fic in my story list has an update ready to go, so whatever story you've been waiting for will have a new chapter in the coming days/weeks.
Chapter Seven
There was something deliciously feral in Lucius Malfoy's kiss in that moment.
It hadn't been in the way he'd stopped so very suddenly—out of eyeline, but not nearly out of earshot of Greyback were he to wake—nor the way he'd yanked her to him. Not even in the way his mouth crashed down over hers, his tongue plunging between her lips as his other arm went around her hips, pulling her up against him and holding her crushingly tight, his fingers curled into her flesh like claws.
It was in the taste.
He still had Fenrir Greyback's blood on his lips. On his teeth. On his tongue as she returned his kiss, lapping and caressing with her own.
Just as unexpectedly, he broke the kiss. When she opened her eyes, it was to find his already open and locked on hers, his amber irises glowing gold.
The intensity in that look alone set off a thrilling ache low in her body.
He must've picked up on the sensation that had coursed through her she realized, because a smirk flickered on his mouth for a heartbeat or two before his expression turned lethally serious. "Turn around," he said, the words no more than a growling whisper.
Swallowing hard, aware of her pulse hammering beneath her skin and her entire body zinging suddenly with the memory of what had happened between them before Fenrir had arrived, Hermione lowered her heels to the ground. She turned still in his embrace, delighting in the feel of him so hard behind her.
Oh, wasn't this madness? Hadn't she told herself …. What? What had she told herself? She couldn't remember. There was too much in this moment, the weight of his breath warm against her skin as he lowered his head to bring his lips to her throat, the heated tingles arcing along her skin as she remembered their first time.
As every inch of her just about screamed at her to do it again.
To give herself over to him.
To let him take her however the bloody hell he wanted.
She found herself pressing back against him, eager and impatient for him to ease the sweetly agonizing way her body was clenching.
He raked his teeth along her throat, bringing an ecstatic whimper out of her. Lifting his head just a little, he murmured, his lips moving against her ear, "On your knees."
Another delicious zing through her and she nodded. He unwound his arm from her and backpedaled a single step.
Of her own volition, even as she moved to obey, she undid her jeans and pulled them down. Bending at the waist first—and completely intentionally—she pushed the bunched fabric down around her ankles.
When she was at last on the ground, cognizant yet seeming unable to care that the gritty earth beneath them might tear up her skin, she turned her head to look up at him.
Lucius Malfoy drew in a deep breath as he held her gaze, his chest and shoulders expanding with it. Exhaling slow, he jutted his chin forward.
Again she obeyed, seemingly unable to help herself. That feral voice in her head was in control and was very much in favor of having him inside her again.
She leaned forward, bracing her weight not on her hands, but on her elbows. God, even the mere act of stretching out like this—of presenting herself to him like this—felt good.
He made a gruff animal sound of approval deep in the back of his throat. Wasting no time, he dropped to his knees behind her, his movement frenzied as he parted his robes with one hand and positioned himself with the other.
Moving the hand from his robes to grasp her hip, he drove himself into her fast and hard.
Hermione couldn't stop the scream that erupted from her even as sweet shivers wracked her limbs and she pressed herself back against his harsh, fierce movements. The way he curled the fingers of his other hand into a fist in her hair, the fingers around her hip gripping hard enough to bruise ….
The whispered pleas for more falling from her in ragged, breathy whispers brought a feral grin to his lips as he withdrew and thrust into her again and again, just a little harder and faster each time.
Fenrir felt like he was being dragged to consciousness with the worst hangover of his entire life—and that was saying something, as werewolves didn't get drunk easily. Everything hurt, though he would reflect later that to simply say hurt was a dramatic understatement.
There was some noise in the distance, but he couldn't focus on it yet, not with the way his head ached and his eyes burned.
He pulled himself up painfully, experimentally, just sitting for a few moments. With a wince, he rolled his shoulders. His arms moved easily at his sides.
The charm the witch had used to bind his wrists had been dispelled. Either she'd dispelled it herself, which he doubted given how intent they had been on keeping him captive. Or the caster had died—he didn't think he'd been out long enough for anything of the kind to have happened—which he also doubted on account of how anyone who tried to harm her would have her mate to answer to, and an enraged Apex-Wolf Lucius Malfoy had officially bumped Lord Voldemort for the number one spot on Fenrir's Shit That Scares Even Me list.
Hell, the Dark Lord hadn't even slipped to number two, no, that spot was now firmly held by the wolf-witch Lucius would be rending limbs from torsos over.
That was when the sounds he was hearing began to ring clear. Began to make sense.
She was moaning … begging … and what sounded like grating out her mate's name from between clenched teeth.
The sudden flash of possessiveness and anger that washed through Fenrir at the realization was almost overpowering. Almost.
Fenrir lowered his chin to his chest, breathing deep and closing his eyes. Focusing. Reminding himself what a very, very terrible idea it would be to stomp over there right now and tear Lucius Malfoy off of her.
Hermione stilled, sweet tremors shaking through her limbs as Lucius let out a ferocious sound of triumph. He half-collapsed forward over her, holding her tight to him as he spent himself.
Folding her arms beneath her head, she merely rested there as they caught their breath. There was something strangely serene in the aftermath of their … huh, well, she couldn't call it lovemaking, that was for bloody well sure. Simply calling it fucking was definitely more spot-on, but somehow didn't seem to quite fit either.
Mating? Yes, that seemed more correct. There was something strangely serene in the aftermath of their mating, just as there had been the first time. When they'd conversed and teased each other and laughed.
Her and Lucius Malfoy, laughing together.
Becoming an Apex-Wolf was beginning to feel like it wasn't the oddest thing that had happened to her the last two days of her life. Oh, dear Lord, how had so much happened in just two days?!
Yet there she rested still, feeling peaceful and languid as he held her, as his lips lingered at the back of her neck and his breath warmed her skin.
"You're thinking how strange this all is again, aren't you?"
A breathy, exhausted laugh bubbled out of her at his question. "That's precisely what I'm thinking. So I can only imagine we're in agreement on the matter."
"That we are, Miss Granger." He snickered. "That, and I can't believe we let this happen again."
"Oh, that thought's in there, too, that's for certain." She began stretching and he obligingly relinquished his hold on her, withdrawing from her by happenstance as he sat back on his knees. "And I'm pretty sure it happened both times because this … change compromises our control over ourselves."
They moved slowly to right their clothing—she found it a bit strangely endearing that when she stood, he assisted her in pulling her jeans back up and redoing the button and zipper. Then he climbed to his feet as well, accepting her return of the gesture as she reached out to close and straighten his robes.
"You know I had to listen to all that, right?"
Hermione's brows shot up as she winced at Fenrir Greyback's bellow echoing through the cavern.
Lucius gave a dignified sniffle, their dalliance just now having cleared his head a bit—at least enough that he was no longer consumed with a desire to tear Greyback's head from his neck. "Well, experiment successful, I suppose?"
Pursing her lips, Hermione shook her head as she met his gaze. "Admit it, you were sort of hoping he'd die?"
He only stared back at her in silence. When that silence stretched on for a bit too long, she once again shook her head and started back for the main chamber of the cave where they'd left the other werewolf.
"All right," Lucius conceded as he turned to follow her. "Maybe a little."
Fenrir ignored the smug air Lucius Malfoy emitted as the pair reappeared. Oh, sure, sure, she was his mate, he understood that perfectly. However, what Lucius didn't understand was that if she decided herself in the mood for something different, there wasn't going to be much he could do to stop her.
"I know your change has addled your mind a bit, but we're going to need back the human Lucius Malfoy's mental workings for a moment right now."
Lucius frowned darkly as he lowered himself to sit in front of Greyback. He didn't even seem to notice the way he reached out, the movement automatic, to catch Hermione around the waist and pull her down to sit in his lap.
There. With her arse firmly seated over his cock, he could think. Or at least so he hoped, or this conversation was going to get very strained very quickly.
"My mind is not presently compromised, Greyback," Lucius said almost calmly, though it wasn't the lazy uppercrust drawl either of the other wolves were used to hearing from him.
Hermione, holding perfectly still so as not to be a reason for Lucius' thinking to become compromised again, offered, "I'd really wish you wouldn't play dumb, Fenrir. You know why that just happened. And you know you didn't exactly help matters."
"Oh, sweetness," Greyback said with a wink, "that was your thinking got him all wound up, not mine."
Already a growl was rumbling in the back of Lucius' throat and Hermione held up her hands. "All right, let's all just focus, please!"
At the witch's insistent whisper, Lucius drew in a deep breath and let it out slow, forcing a calm—he absolutely did not feel and did not want—over himself. "Fine," he finally managed, his voice again steady.
Greyback nodded. Yes, this was not the time. They were all likely to be stuck together for some time and he and Hermione Granger could certainly revisit this discussion somewhere down the road. Preferably when Lucius wasn't within earshot.
"What's your plan?" he asked. "For retrieving your boy."
"There isn't a plan," Lucius explained, raking his fingers through the spill of his pale hair, his other arm wound loosely about Hermione's hips. "I am trying, but when I think of the goal, when I think of Draco being trapped in the dungeon …."
Hermione didn't hear the rumble beginning again, but she could detect it. Her back against his chest, she felt the vibrations of it just beginning.
Slipping her hand around the wrist at her hip, she kneaded the skin over his pulse with gentle fingertips. "Breathe, Lucius."
They both gave a small start at how strange it felt to hear her use his first name like that. Why had none of them noticed, then, the familiarity of it when she'd addressed the other male as Fenrir instead of Greyback just a few heartbeats earlier?
Determined to keep their focus, she turned her attention to Greyback. "You have a plan, I take it?"
Fenrir nodded back. Look at her, being such a good, doting little mate. Oh, Lucius Malfoy did not deserve her.
"We wait 'til night fall. Wolves are nocturnal hunters, we'll have the advantage."
"Except for the werewolf army," Hermione pointed out, but Fenrir caught her gaze with an eloquent look. Her jaw fell. "You mean for us to encounter your army."
Fenrir's head tipped to one side, his amber eyes sparking toward gold just now. Even if only half of the wolves he'd turned survived … "I mean for us to bite our way through my army."
Though she wouldn't say it, the witch felt troubled by this plan. It was hardly as though she doubted they could pull it off—between their magic and their new abilities, the three of them alone were more terrifying and lethal than a forest full of normal werewolves—no, there was something else. The feral voice in the back of her head, the one that was occasional co-conspirator, occasional entire driving force behind her actions now was pointing out that with this plan, their numbers should expand. If Fenrir's theory was to be believed, then that should mean the pressure on her and Lucius Malfoy to mate would ease.
That their bodies could rest. That they wouldn't need to ... to mindlessly and helplessly fuck each other's brains out at the slightest provocation.
Oh, well, wasn't that a relief? Yet, even as she thought those words, she couldn't will her body to believe it.
Instead, in the wake of having just shagged the man—twice in as many hours, no less—she felt the muscles between her thighs tightening, her body clenching sweetly in an attempt to remind her how much she might not want that particular burden eased.
Her eyes had drifted shut and she pressed her mouth closed, holding in an irritated whine at herself. She had to get a hold of herself. This was a serious matter, and they had senses better than werewolves. If they caught the scent of what her body was making her feel just now—of what it was longing for all over again ...
Aware quite suddenly that the conversation had died, that the lack of audible breaths, that the lack of Lucius' chest pressing to her back as he inhaled, meant the males before and beneath her were each holding themselves very, very still in wait, Hermione realized it was already too late to hope they hadn't noticed. Too late to simply ignore her own body and simply hop back into their planning.
Opening her eyes, she found each of them staring at her, their forms tense and rigid and their skin flushed as their eyes blazed, glowing gold.