The Border

LORELAI

This time heading to Tabby and Cain’s was different. I knew that at any point, my father could technically wander in.

Kai had been sure that wouldn’t happen since Tabby still had her rules, but it still put me on edge.

My brother was a wild card too; he could turn up, of course, but then, I hadn’t heard from him in a while.

I’d sent him a letter, asking if he knew what was going on with the humans, if Father had mentioned anything, if he still cared what happened to the humans, but I was still waiting on a reply.

That had been a few days ago.

I had wanted to go straightaway, but Kai had been hard to convince and Cain had been “busy” with his new mate that he refused to tell anyone about.

But he had finally checked with his mom and given us the all clear to make the trip. It was past Brax’s Lake apparently, which was human territory at the moment.

“This is the last time we’ll be able to make this trip, beautiful. The farther we are away from the wolves, the tighter the pack link is. It can make things worse,” Derik explained, and I nodded, licking my lips.

His heart was so big for everything. It made mine swell, and I sank onto his lap, my green dress puffing around us.

I leaned in, finding his mouth with mine, claiming a kiss for myself just because I couldn’t help it.

His hands went to my hair, burying in it as he deepened the kiss, his tongue moving against mine. I gasped, heat climbing in my body as I shifted on his lap.

He groaned and his lips moved down my neck, his arms holding me against him with a tightness that made me feel so fucking safe.

“There’s not enough time for all of us, Derik,” Kai growled, and Derik chuckled.

“Then enjoy the show,” he teased, and I smiled, looking over my shoulder at Kai as he watched us, his cock hard as he shifted it in his pants.

“Greedy little alpha,” I teased, knowing that would get to him.

He raised a brow and leaned forward. ‘“Little’?”

I nodded, smirking, as Derik chuckled against my neck.

“Baiting the beast, beautiful, very dangerous game.”

I knew that. But I liked the punishment for losing when I was playing against my alphas, and I loved the winning part even more.

“One she is very good at.” Brax grinned, side-eyeing me as I smirked.

My breathy chuckle turned into a moan as Derik teased my flesh with the edge of his teeth and the stroke of his tongue. His hard cock ground against me, and I dug my nails into his arms.

He grabbed my face, pinching my chin as he pushed his fingers between my lips. I opened them obediently, staring into his eyes, the heat in them matching mine.

My core clenched deliciously as I sucked on his fingers, moistening them before he dipped them beneath my skirts, finding my pussy like it was a beacon to him.

His fingers sank inside me in the next second, and I went to cry out but Kai yanked my head back, his hand cupping under my chin, his fingers teasing my throat as his mouth claimed mine.

My moan dissolved against his tongue as ours locked together, sliding, tasting.

Derik’s fingers pumped in and out of me. I ground down on his hand, my pussy walls clenching on him as he worked my body into a desperate frenzy of need and heat within seconds.

Kai’s mouth moved over mine in time with Derik’s thrusts, and I was a mess.

I wanted to fall, I wanted his fingers to hit that tight spot at the top of my core that made me explode, I wanted Kai’s mouth to deepen, I wanted Brax to put his hands on me too.

I broke from Kai and looked over at Brax. He was smirking, his eyes watching me with the other two. But he made no move to get involved.

“Brax,” I sighed, but he shook his head.

“I’m keeping the link strong, Spitfire,” he said, and guilt filled me. With the other two distracted, was it harder for the pack? Was it harder for the link? Was that my fault?

I hesitated, but Derik curled his fingers against my walls, flicking at the spot inside me that he knew would bring me back to him.

I sucked in a breath, pleasure suffocating my nerves and worries. I moved my hips against his fingers as Kai played with my breasts, finding my mouth and kissing me again.

“This is for you, Little Human,” Kai breathed, and I trembled against them.

I wished that I wasn’t giving in, for Brax’s sake, but it felt too good to say no and my willpower with them was nonexistent.

So, I fell into it, heart and soul giving in to the pleasure, letting it take me away from every negative thing happening.

Derik’s fingers stroked inside me. My back arched as my core wound tighter, my pussy got wetter, and everything inside my head turned to a storm of pleasure and desire that I couldn’t escape.

I kissed Kai, his palm cupping my throat, tilting my head back, his other hand toying with my breasts that were bound in a corset, his fingers pushing over my cleavage to get to my nipple.

I gasped and moaned, fucking Derik’s fingers and Kai’s mouth until I couldn’t take it anymore. I let go, the pleasure pouring from my core, filling my body up with sparks and heat.

It overwhelmed me, and I fell forward against Derik, burying my damp face into his neck as he thrust his fingers into me slower and slower, letting my orgasm finish just as the carriage came to a stop.

I breathed in, his woodsy cedar scent making me sigh, curling myself into his warmth. My eyelids fluttered closed, and he pulled his fingers out from under my dress.

He kissed my cheek and I turned my face, meeting his lips. He gave me a soft kiss back, then I climbed off his waist and Kai spun me to him.

“We’re only getting information. We’re not deciding anything while we’re here,” he warned, and I shrugged.

“Unless she says that my magic won’t work on the border and will harm me or the baby, then I am making a decision, Kai. I’m choosing us,” I said, holding his face, hating the fear that trickled down the link.

Especially from Brax. We were going to his least favorite place to ask for information from his least favorite sources.

I turned to him and went over, ignoring the fact that we had already arrived. I sat on his lap, and he curled me into his chest, kissing the top of my head, his shadows finding mine instantly, lightly caressing them inside me.

I reassured him through the link and cupped his face, hoping he could see how badly we needed this to happen. We needed something to go right.

If the humans had really said this and it was going to cause all these issues for everyone then I had to be able to do something.

Even if it was supplying the border with enough magic to stay working. It was something we had to try because it was the only thing left.

“I know we have to. I know that we’re only asking questions at the moment, but I don’t want to risk using her information and it being bad.

“If you do this, I don’t want any maybes or half-truths,” he whispered against me, and I nodded, kissing him softly.

His hands snaked through my already tousled hair, and his kiss turned fierce, holding me to him until we were breathless and the desire inside me had built again.

“If it’s safe, we’ll do this, Brax, but not before we find out everything we can. I might not even be able to do anything.

“But I just think if I supposedly have all this power in me and in my shadows, why not use it for something like this?

“I don’t know how, and I haven’t done much with my powers yet, but maybe I could learn.” I shrugged, my voice quiet, like this moment was just for us.

He nodded, kissing me again before Kai opened the door of the carriage. He climbed out, and Brax held on to me.

I waited until Kai popped his head in to let us know it was all clear. Derik stepped out and lifted me from the carriage. He didn’t put me down until we were on the deck of Tabby’s house.

I wanted to be all independent and demand to be put down, but Ruby the alligator still kind of terrified me, so until my courage reached the point when that was no longer true, I was going to stay firmly in one of my alpha’s arms.

Kai chuckled, probably in my head again, like he always was.

“Ruby won’t hurt you, Little Human. If she does, I might just let Brax turn her into a belt and boots like he’s been swearing to do his entire life,” Kai smirked, eyeing Ruby, who eyed him right back, almost looking like she was smirking too.

I shook my head and walked toward Tabby’s, knocking on the door.

“Come in,” she sang, and I went in, raising a brow at the change in her home.

It seemed bigger. I’m not sure how, but it was. There was a large circular wooden table to the right, with ten chairs around it.

The kitchen was still the hub as she bustled about putting her tea together.

To the left was her magic area, where she had brewed my potion. It still held the little couch, rocking chair, and coffee table, but there were more seats.

“Your place is…bigger. Different,” I murmured, looking around, nervous for what it meant.

She sighed and put the tea down on the table, going back for cups. I helped her take the other couple to the table as the alphas came in and sat down where she had placed the cups.

They said nothing about the change in Tabby’s place.

“Yes, well, apparently now I have three races to allow in my home and must make them equally comfortable,” she muttered, seeming just as annoyed by the new situation.

“Yeah, that’s kind of why we’re here.”

“I assumed,” she said, finally settling into her seat at the table just as Cain came in, brushing his hair back from his face.

He was a little flushed, and I raised a brow at him as he grinned.

“Sorry, Mom. I’m late, I know,” he said, giving her a kiss on the cheek, then standing behind her like he always did.

She waved him off and nodded to the teacup set on the bench for him.

“I must say, I was worried for you with the mate the fates had chosen for you, but I do enjoy seeing that smile on your face when you come to visit,” she said, her mouth spreading into a proud grin.

He smirked and nodded. “She’s something special. Anyway, the business we’re meant to be discussing?” he prompted, looking toward Derik, who leaned forward from his seat next to me.

“Yes. We’re here to ask about the border.”

“The answer is yes, Derik. I know you are hoping for the other one, but I must give you the truth: the winter born magic will support the border.

“A simple touch will keep it alive, and with the heat coming up again, that will give it a nice little magical boost too, I daresay.” Tabby smirked over the rim of her teacup, and Kai tensed.

“Is it safe?”

“She is in a city full of werewolves, sweetie, werewolves with a lack of control and magical instability. I believe your concern for her safety is somewhat misplaced.” She sighed and put her cup down as Brax growled.

She eyed him and shook her head. “You have the power to keep the border working just fine, winter born,” she said to me, but there was something else behind it.

“But…?”

She looked at me with serious eyes that told me I was going to have to be a big girl if I wanted the answer. I held back my emotions and made sure I could handle whatever she told me.

“The child will feed on the border magic. It will act in the same way as the toxin, filtering through your blood to your child. Now that could be a good thing, or it could go very bad.”

I frowned at that and pulled back as my alphas’ tension tugged at the link.

Their thoughts were haywire and I couldn’t get anything direct from them, but I could feel the curses they were trying not to utter.

“I thought I wasn’t even allowed to use my shadows or anything while I was pregnant?

“I would’ve gotten myself out of my father’s captivity if I had known I could,” I bit, annoyed that the rules of this stupid magic stuff just didn’t make sense to me.

She shook her head, pointing to my stomach. “Your shadows are your own. They are keeping him alive inside your human body. That is their job at the moment; give them another one and you’ll both die for it.

“The border is another thing entirely. It is a magic that runs from all the sacrifices and souls it protects. Before that was just the wolves, who then drew on the humans’ souls to feed the border.

“Now the humans have muttered that godforsaken word and destroyed all that. The border will take from their souls directly.

“You’re human ~and~ wolf. It will accept your magic as a unity, like it did before,” she explained, and I nodded, trying to wrap my head around it.

“So it is safe for me, and a maybe for our baby?” I tried to clarify, but then she went and shook her head again, and I couldn’t help but huff in exasperation.

“What my darling mother is trying to say in her own witchy way,” Cain interrupted, stepping closer, “is that the magic could turn bad in the baby just as the shadows can inside a winter born, but we won’t know until later.

“For now, it would work. It would not kill either of you.”

That was easier to understand but harder to swallow.

How was I meant to make that decision? My parents never had to worry about the decision, I was just born, but now I had to make one that could mean I was sentencing my child to the same fate as my brother.

Or Elias.

“We won’t let that happen. He will be loved,” Derik tried.

“So was I. My mother gave me love, so much.”

“And you were good. Your brother and your father did things wrong. We won’t.”

“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” Brax murmured, and I was in the same boat as him.

Maybe it was a shadow thing. But then again, those things were happy. They didn’t spark up at the idea, give me any indication that it was the wrong decision, and I did trust them.

They were keeping my baby alive inside me, after all.

“What happens with the magic once the child has been born?” Kai asked, and I smiled at him, glad he’d asked because I hadn’t even thought about it.

“It will be in the child,” Tabitha answered before sighing. “And some residue, like the toxin, will remain.”

“Which means what for Lorelai?” Kai demanded, his heated question making Tabitha scold him with her look.

He softened his features, but his eyes still said that same thing in the same way.

“She will be a powerful luna.” Tabitha shrugged, and I smiled.

That was a good answer. Finally. I wanted to be powerful, I wanted to stand by my alphas’ sides as an equal.

“You won’t be equal, you’ll be more,” Derik murmured, a frown crossing his face.

I picked up on the tension in the room. I almost didn’t want to ask what I had missed in the statement. I didn’t want an answer that might ruin the last one for me.

“She will be our alpha,” Brax realized, letting me in on the secret, and I frowned, looking at them and their somber faces with a chuckle.

“I mean, so what? Nothing will change. You’re all still mine, I’m yours.

“My title won’t change how we are together, and it won’t make me go all alpha on you. Unless we’re in bed, then I might.” I grinned, and the change in our link, in the atmosphere, was tangible.

Kai barked out a laugh as Cain snorted in his tea. Tabby smirked over her cup, and Derik just raised a brow.

Brax grabbed my hand under the table. “Still our Spitfire, huh?” He grinned, and I nodded.

“Always,” I reassured him.

I don’t know if that was the confirmation everyone needed to go through with what we were doing, but I could already feel it through the link.

My alphas and I were in agreement. We were keeping the border up, and we were using my magic to do it.