The History

LORELAI

A stone sunk in my stomach, and my eyes widened at everything he revealed. I opened my mouth to respond, but I had no idea what to say. The silence grew louder, and I fought through the hectic questions parading in my head.

“You have a link with a woman who is promising to fulfill every want and need?” I clarified.

Derik shook his head quickly.

“No, it’s not like that, I swear. There’s nothing sexual about it. It’s more of a life debt that she will pay for the rest of hers. I saved her life with the bite, with magic. It requires a balance. She will protect me with her life; she will defend me with her life. She will be loyal to a fault. And if there is something I need, she will make every attempt to get it,” Derik said, his voice quick as if he were trying to explain everything before I ran away.

I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. My feet were stuck to the floor as if they were made of lead. I didn’t want to go; I wanted to know more about this connection. Ryleigh and Vaughn were together; anyone with eyes could see they loved each other.

So I wasn’t jealous.

I thought I would be, especially knowing he was linked to another woman, but the feeling never hit me. I was grateful, though.

“D, you should have just told me. Why would I be mad about there being another person, a person I trust, and a wolf now, protecting you? I want you protected. I want all of you protected and safe. If there is someone else willing to put their life on the line for you like I would, then how can I be mad about that?” I asked.

Derik’s eyes widened before he took a step back. He frowned at me, then looked at me as if I were crazy.

I raised a brow back at him.

“What?” I asked, folding my arms back across my chest since he wouldn’t stop staring.

“It’s just…not how you’re meant to react.” He kept staring at me with an odd expression as if I were the one being weird.

It was definitely him.

“And how am I meant to react? Like a crazy jealous girlfriend?” I asked, knowing from his smirk that it was exactly what he expected.

“Not even a little jealous?”

I shook my head. “No. I’m not your girlfriend. I’m your mate. Apparently, it makes a difference. Plus, now that you’ve told me what’s going on and actually let me in, I can feel the connection you have. It’s like the one I used to feel with my brother. Before the shadows.” I turned into Derik as he pulled me closer.

He kissed my cheek, then nuzzled in against my neck, his teeth grazing the skin.

“The legends, the lores, everything I thought I knew about our world, beautiful, and you are turning it on its head,” Derik breathed on me, then kissed my flesh. A second later, his teeth dug into my neck. I cried out, the pleasure instantly filling me.

“You were so sure I would freak out?” I moaned.

He pulled his teeth back. “History convinced me that would be the case.”

“History? Since when has that given us anything more than a headache?” I scoffed, my fingers curling around the edge of the desk. His venom settled in my core, and I moaned as pleasure made everything disappear from my head.

Derik was good at distracting me from everything but the intensity that swarmed us when we were together.

Derik’s bite was strong now. Like mating all three of us and becoming more a part of himself, his bite had become more potent. His venom spread with more force, more precision.

Kai always had wild venom that filled with a frenzied passion; Brax had a much more fluid approach. His venom always ran with my blood as if it wanted to take every part of me but in the most natural, easy way so the transition from normal to need was as smooth as possible.

Derik was somewhere in between. His venom was instantly intense, but the ride was smooth. It was euphoric for longer.

Derik licked over the bite he had given me, his tongue stroking my flesh so it healed. Then he was kissing me again.

“You don’t mind that I’m linked to another wolf?” He asked between kisses. I met each one.

“Ryleigh and Vaughn are soulmates. So are we. I’m not worried,” I said. I had barely finished my sentences before Derik picked me up and put me on his desk.

He kissed me harshly, lighting my body up so it was more than ready to take his.

His hands yanked at my clothes, tearing my shirt down.

I wrapped my arms around his neck as Derik undid the strings of his pants. I tugged at them, about to pull them down his legs when a knock came at the door.

Derik broke apart from me as we turned to the sound.

“Anetta?” Derik growled.

She didn’t look ashamed. She looked…worn out.

Red stained her cheeks, her hair was ruffled, and her clothes were askew.

“Alpha Derik. Luna,” she huffed.

“What is it?”

“Any chance the witches are on their way to do this magical transformation with the beast? Because we’re not going to be able to hold him for much longer,” she huffed, pushing a stray, frizzing curl back from her face.

I looked up at Derik, who hung his head. Responsibilities, what a cockblock.

I smiled and stood up in front of him, kissing his pout away.

“We’ll sort out the details now, and then I’ll come visit the beast,” I promised.

She nodded once, then left.

~“Kai. Brax. Meet us at the council room,”~ Derik said in the link. They both said nothing, but I felt their agreement in the link. Normally, Kai wouldn’t shut up in the link, and Brax would wind him up. I missed that.

Derik grabbed my hand and led me two doors over to the council room. It was a stone room decorated in war memorabilia and maps. There was a huge table at the forefront with thick wooden chairs surrounding it.

Derik closed the door behind us, going over to the open window. He closed them, then turned to me with a smirk.

I grinned back at him as he sauntered forward. I knew what he was doing before he got there and met him halfway, kissing him with urgent moves of our mouths.

He lifted me onto the council table, kissing me with a feverish passion that didn’t stop when the door clicked open.

I reached for his still undone pants, and he delved his tongue deep inside my mouth.

Strong hands lifted me from the table, but they weren’t Derik’s. They were Brax’s.

He lifted me from behind and put me on his lap as he became the table I sat on while still kissing Derik.

Brax kissed over my neck, reaching around to tug down my shirt. My eyes were closed, but I peered one open to look over at Kai.

He was leaning against the wall, his eyes heated and watching as the other two claimed me.

It made it even hotter.

I sighed as Brax found the nerve behind my ear and exploited it, turning the embers in my body into a blaze. But Anetta was right; we couldn’t hold off much longer.

“Neither can I,” Brax murmured against my skin. I smirked, still moving my mouth against Derik.

Brax’s cock was against my backside, hard and waiting. Derik’s was in front of me, pressing against my stomach as he held my face to his.

As much as I wanted to keep going so I could pretend the outside world didn’t exist, I couldn’t.

I had to do what needed to be done so that what happened to me and Kai with the vampires didn’t happen to anyone else.

Resisting my mates was the hardest thing to do, especially when they were all going through something in their heads. Things they wanted an escape from. I wanted to be that escape for them.

But I also had to be the one to have a clear head. They sure as hell weren’t going to be the ones to stop.

“We have to figure out how to do this transformation thing,” I breathed as Brax left grazes over my neck and Derik interrupted every word with his mouth.

Kai strode over. “You absorb the magic from Adrenna and then remove the curse from the beast, easy.” He shrugged.

It was not that easy.

“I don’t know what I’m doing with my magic when it comes to that. I need the witches to be here to take the curse away. How do we get them here?” I asked.

Derik broke away from me and slowly started peeling my clothes off, ones he had already torn.

Brax helped, lifting me off his waist as he leaned against the table. Derik stripped me of my pants.

“Derik sent them a formal invite. We’re waiting to hear whether they accept or decline,” Brax said, his teeth nipping at my ear, his arm around my waist, holding me on him.

Derik dropped in front of me, untying my boots and taking them off me.

“We should hear within the next couple of days. Then we’ll have to prepare the city,” Derik said, kissing up my now bare legs, stopping at the apex of my thighs, his hot breath against my pussy making me shudder.

Brax’s hand moved to the swell of my breast, cupping it as he kissed my neck again.

They were so distracting—in the best fucking way.

Every touch, every breath, every kiss that landed on me made my skin raise, the fire in me roar.

Pleasure pooled in my core, leaking between my legs.

Derik sniffed the air, his eyes closed before he let out the breath, growling as he did. His eyes fluttered open and he eyed me.

“I love the smell of what we do to you, beautiful.” He smirked before his mouth was between my legs. His tongue stroked me and I cried out, gripping Brax.

Brax held me steady as Derik devoured me. Then Kai joined in, closing his mouth over mine.

It was an overwhelming, intoxicating warmth to have them take me at the same time, but it was also the only time I felt truly whole.

Brax teased my nipples into tight peaks as I moaned against Kai’s mouth. Derik held one thigh over his shoulder as he tasted my leaking pussy, groaning against it. The vibrations had me moaning louder.

I moved my hips against his mouth, desperate for more of the pleasure he was giving me.

Each stroke of his tongue on my clit was like an electrocution to my core—one that had me writhing against Brax’s lap.

He kneaded my breasts beneath his strong hands as Kai made sure every breath I tried to take had the taste of him on it.

Brax’s mouth was on my neck, and I knew I would have marks there, but I welcomed them. I craved their marks on my skin, just like they did mine.

I gave it to them.

I tore from Kai’s lips as Derik pushed me higher into oblivion.

My body was so hot and tight; I couldn’t escape it.

I didn’t want to.

I gripped Kai’s face and turned it to the side, my fangs dropping. I bit him fiercely and possessively.

He growled beneath my marking as my venom leaked into him. I felt every part of it inside him and moaned against his flesh.

It sent me even higher.

And all it took to make me fall was the thrust of Derik’s tongue inside me with his teeth grazing my clit at the same time Brax tugged on my nipples.

I cried out, pulling my teeth from Kai’s neck, my head falling back as I tried to collapse. The pleasure was too much; it swarmed my blood like buzzards, trying to attack every nerve with a potency I couldn’t handle.

Brax held me up, holding my pussy on Derik’s mouth as Kai kissed me again.

Every part of them was a part of me, and claiming them, getting pleasure by them was something out of this world. It was definitely something I thought would have dulled over time, but it hadn’t. Instead, the connection grew with every stolen moment from our stresses.

I gripped Brax’s thigh as I leaned into him, ran my other hand down Kai’s arm. I ran it right down to Derik’s head, fisting his hair in my hands as he lapped up my orgasm.

I trembled between them before he pulled away and wiped his lips with his thumb.

Then he pressed my juices into Kai’s mouth. Kai sucked his thumb, and my stomach panged again, need polluting me all over again.

They were so fucking hot. I was never going to get enough of them.

I narrowed my eyes on the way Kai sucked my want from Derik’s thumb. “On second thought, maybe we can discuss things after?” I grinned.

Derik chuckled as Kai smirked. Brax’s hand roamed down my stomach, running his fingers between my legs, his face in my neck.

“We can play later, Spitfire. We’ve got a love story to fix and witches to appease,” Brax said. I pouted as Derik lowered himself again, this time to put my pants back on.

Every part of me wanted to kick them back away, turn in Brax’s hold, climb on his waist, and sink onto his hard cock.

But I had to be a luna as well as a mate. I didn’t want to in that moment, but it looked like my mates weren’t giving me the choice.

“How do we prepare the city?” I asked, taking over from Derik and pulling my pants back up.

“The witches’ coming is dangerous. They’re volatile. One wrong word or move and we make an enemy of them. Our magic is connected to them, which is connected to the realm. They can take away as much as they can give. So, when they come down to the city, we have to make it acknowledged in grand ways that we appreciate everything they give us,” Derik explained.

I frowned at that. I thought they were connected to my magic now. I didn’t like the idea that they were connected to witches who were willing to take it away on a whim.

“So we have a dinner or something?”

Brax grabbed my hand and led me to one of the chairs at the table. He sunk into it, then pulled me down onto his lap. Kai sat at the end of the table as Derik sat opposite me and Brax.

“No. We give them offerings. Fruit, crops, handmade crafts. We’ll hold a market, give the witches free choice over the items our wolves have. We’ll put on a duel for them, to show them how the wolves’ training has been going. Then we’ll all shift, and the magic from doing so as a pack will be given to the witches. Then they will hear our plea. We make our case. We have dinner, they deliberate. Then they give us a verdict. Either they say yes or no to helping make Adrenna human with her beast,” Derik laid it out for me.

It was a lot. I hadn’t realized just how much it took to keep the witches happy.

“You have to do this every time they come down from the mountain?”

“They only come on invite, which has only ever needed to happen a couple of times before. Once before the war with our parents. They were the reason the packs joined. It was the price they had to pay to get the magic from the witches to put up the border. Then one time in the generation before that. Our grandparents, Dorian Achlis, Atticus Trux, and Zachariah Ferus fell in love with a siren and had to face the witches over it. Ever since then, we’ve had to appease them. At least that’s what we were told to do to win their favor through the times,” Nikolai said, leaning back in his chair, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Wait, your grandfathers fell in love with the same woman?”

“Siren. Yeah. She’s the reason the packs were open to becoming one when the war hit. The packs never worked together well before her. She changed it all.”

My mind spun with the history lesson. There was so much more to it than I had thought. The last alphas were harsh, weren’t a fan of humans, and put the wolves on a pedestal for saving the realm. But how had that stemmed from a history that brought them together?

“So you are related?” I said in realization.

They nodded. “Distantly. They ruled a long time ago. Centuries ago. Our parents took over younger than most. Our grandparents stopped shifting to age with their siren, our grandmother. They had three sons, each mated to wolves of different packs and became alphas. It meant our parents were thrown in the deep end and had to do whatever they could to survive. It changed the packs, but then the war came and they had to come together again,” Brax explained.

I chewed on my lip, trying to take it all in. But I was human; I aged. Well, I used to. Now I was like them, immortal. I hoped. Unless we stopped shifting, we would rule the packs for as long as forever. It was an inconceivable notion to my human brain.

“So if this is all happening over centuries, how old does that make you three?” I wondered. I had never wondered about it before. They had seemed older than me but not by much. I was almost nineteen; they were maybe in their late twenties. Brax was younger than the other two for sure.

Derik cleared his throat, and I swore there was a blush there. “I’m 194 years old. Nikolai is 183. Brax is 141.”

My jaw dropped, my eyes wide.

I was in love—mated—to wolves older than the century I had been born in.

Shocked didn’t even cover it.

Before I had any more time to contemplate the insane age gap between me and my alphas, Anetta came barging in. She was even more flushed than before, but her eyes were wide, not tired.

She stepped forward into the room. “The witches. They accepted the invite.”