Kate Undone

Marie Harte

In the year 2078, Cross Step is home to strange portals called Voids, and species who’ve come through are now a part of everyday society. Humans mistakenly compare Ravagers to werewolves, but Ravagers are so much more than myth. They’re real, and they’re here to stay.

Kate Savage should be the happiest Ravager on the planet. She finally has the two males she’s been lusting after for years. But her mates don’t seem to want her. To make matters worse, she’s in her first heat. But when she wakes up in a hotel room, tied up and confronted with two angry mates who feel wronged and abandoned, things really heat up.

Logan and Jesse are tired of tradition and waiting on Kate. They’ve decided to claim her themselves, and to finally get the stubborn female to see what’s in front of her. Love, lust and danger combine to make Kate’s heat the hottest thing ever. If the three of them have the courage to put their hearts on the line, they’ll have that happily-ever-after yet.

An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

www.ellorascave.com

Kate Undone

ISBN 9781419932106

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Kate Undone Copyright © 2010 Marie Harte

Edited by Grace Bradley

Cover art by Dar Albert

Electronic book publication December 2010

The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

Kate Undone

Marie Harte

Chapter One

Cross Step, Kansas, 2078

Kate Savage glanced around her at the many people sitting at the outdoor café drinking their morning coffee. None of them seemed to care about the worm holes sitting a few hundred—unobstructed—feet away. To Kate’s keen senses, the hum of chaos sounded loud, despite the chatter of passersby and the flow of traffic around the granite island. She stared at the great gaping doorways that had delivered her to Cross Step, Kansas nearly two decades ago.

Twenty feet tall and just as wide, the Voids were surrounded by a fiery blue aureola that seethed with energy. If it weren’t for the fact that going through one of them might mean her certain death, she might have taken her chances and left Earth forever. It wasn’t as if she had much keeping her here anymore.

“I hate it down here around all these…people.” A woman’s whispered disdain from a few tables away caught her attention. “At least in uptown, most of the Voiders pass for human. It’s hard enough to deal with fangs, fire and the freakish psychics.”

Her friend tsked. “Don’t be such a bitch, Nadia. Not all of them are psychic, and only a few handle fire. Just because they came from other worlds doesn’t make them any less. Voiders have brought a lot to the community.”

“Like thievery, murder and rape,” Nadia muttered.

Her friend shook her head. “You have to stop reading the tabloids. Voiders aren’t all bad. They make great healers, and most of them are big into environmental issues. I mean, look at the Ravagers.” Kate caught the husky undertones in the woman’s voice. “I heard that big compound they live in outside of town is gorgeous.” She sighed. “Just like their hunky men.”

Her friend gasped. “Gorgeous? Try brawny, big and bulky.”

“Sexy.”

“They’re animals, Cheryl.” Nadia looked around her, her gaze passing right over Kate, then leaned closer and lowered her voice. “They’re either fornicating or fighting.”

I wish. Kate sipped her coffee, glad she at least blended in with the local populace. Though taller and more muscular than the average woman, she could pass for human with ease.

“I’m down with fornicating,” Cheryl groaned. “I swear, my divorce has turned me into a cliché—the horny divorcee. I’ve never seen a Ravager that didn’t make me think of getting naked with him between the sheets. All that animal sex appeal is so hot.”

Nadia frowned. “How can you think of screwing something with a muzzle?”

“I’m not talking about when they go all werewolf. Besides, I heard it straight from Gina that the sex is incredible. They’re big everywhere. Gina said she could barely walk when he was done putting it to her.”

“You’re so crass.” Nadia made a face, then tittered. “So what else did Gina say?”

Gossip-mongering humans. At least Cheryl had her facts straight. Ravagers were big, liked sex, and when shifted into their guer, resembled what humans thought of as werewolves. Except unlike the fictional beasts, Kate’s kind were reasoning creatures who could talk as easily as kill while in shifted form, and they didn’t depend on a full moon. The women’s conversation continued and Kate wanted to hear more, but shadows looming over her table caught her attention.

“Well, well. I’m surprised the Savages let you out here all by yourself, Kate.”

She glanced up to see trouble in not one but two large, rangy men. Holdovers from the Lawless Clan, who’d recently been integrated into the new Ravager order. “Do I know you?”

“No, but you’re going to soon enough,” the Ravager on the right said.

As one of the few female Ravagers on this world, Kate naturally attracted attention from her kind. Unfortunately, the two males staring down at her like dessert weren’t the Ravagers she wanted. She suppressed the urge to growl and snap at the intrusion into her private, much needed space. The assholes blocking her morning sun had every reason to watch their step around her.

“I’m not good company.”

“We’re not here for the company.” His eyes settled on her breasts and he grinned.

She sneered. “Trying to show some backbone, eh, Lawless? Must be tough walking around with your tail between your legs.”

He sat down at her table and a waft of his scent hit her hard. He stank like yesterday’s trash. His greasy hair, dirty fingernails and noxious breath suggested he’d eaten fresh meat only recently. She didn’t even want to think about what he called breakfast.

“Run that smart mouth while you can,” he said around a toothy grin. “Because soon enough, my tail’s gonna be between your legs, you little bitch. I can smell how much you want it.”

Her stupid heat. It wasn’t going away. And it was all her mates’ fault. If they were here, she’d maul the pair of them. Unfortunately, they couldn’t seem to stand the sight of her. She glanced at the Voids again, wondering how bad the next world might be…

“Besides,” the Ravager on her left spoke up and sat on the other side of her. “We’re Savages now, or hadn’t you heard? The Prime declared the Lawless name no longer exists. Now we’re all just one big, happy fucking family.”

When the Ravagers had initially arrived on Earth over a hundred years ago, they’d formed two clans—the Savage Clan and the Lawless Clan. The Savages tried to adapt to their new life. They took humans as friends and lovers. A few of their kind even worked in town, side by side with the Norms—normal humans—and other Voiders—those who came through the Voids.

The Lawless Clan lived on the fringe between Cross Step’s outskirts and the Boundary that segregated the town from the rest of the Unites States. They spent most of their time in their guer—their animal fighting form. The Lawless Clan only deigned to entertain humans as sport, or worse, dinner.

Ever since Eric had killed Nev Lawless, their clan leader, only one large group of Ravagers remained. Or at least, that was the idea.

The bastards watched her with interest, and with hunger. She had a bad feeling her Monday was about to turn considerably worse.

The Ravager on the left continued. “Everyone knows your claiming didn’t take. We’re here, we’re strong. And we want you. Give us a few days, we’ll plant brats in that belly easily enough.”

She drank more of her coffee, needing the caffeine boost. “Do I look that desperate to you?”

“I told you, Mike. This bitch is too high-handed. Bet she’s frigid. Why else would her packmates ditch her? She’s got no problems in the looks department. And that body is hotter than hell.” His gaze crawled over her like slime.

Mike grinned. “Maybe they’re just too weak to handle her. Pussies, if you ask me. I mean, how the hell do you let a female in heat go without fucking her for this long?”

Kate wanted to know the answer to that question too. “It’s early. I haven’t finished my coffee yet. You two need a bath, and I’m in a rut rage like you wouldn’t believe. Do you really want me to hurt you this early in the morning in front of witnesses?”

The men blinked at her in surprise. Mike actually leaned back in his chair. “Rut rage, huh? Thought that only happened to males.”

Rut rage occurred when a Ravager didn’t get the requisite sex he—or she—needed. Sexual creatures, Ravagers needed the daily release of certain hormones in the body to stay balanced. And Kate hadn’t been laid in nearly two months.

“Fuck it. I figure that cunt has got to be worth—” Before Mike’s friend could finish his thought, Kate cold-cocked him in the face. She heard his cartilage pop and watched as blood exploded from his nose. Several nearby patrons swore and scurried out of the way. But she didn’t care. The violent release felt surprisingly good.

“Thanks. I needed this.”

“Fuck. Leave me alone.” Mike scrambled back in his seat but she was on him in seconds.

She grabbed his crotch. He retaliated by striking out at her. Fists met flesh, but she squeezed until he whimpered.

“What’s wrong, Mike? Rape is okay, but a little rough sex isn’t?”

“Let me go, bitch, or I’ll kill you.” She squeezed harder and he quickly started babbling. “Okay, okay. Stop, please. I’m sorry.” Tears left dirty trails down his cheeks. The spot in her side where he’d struck her started to throb, and she shifted her hold. His flailing subsided at the same time she heard approaching sirens.

“Next time you’ll think twice about inviting yourself to breakfast, hmm?” Kate glared at him and let go. He curled in on himself and gagged at the pain, much to her satisfaction.

A quick glance around her showed a shocked audience staring at the scene in horrified fascination.

Just then, Mike’s friend started to rise. The murmuring of the appalled crowd grew louder. Hell, she’d practically announced her species. And the Salinas, the local cops, were closing in… Kate leaned closer to the male whose nose she’d broken and whispered, “Lawless scum, beaten by a mere female.”

He launched a fist, and she turned to take it on her cheek. Seeing the Salinas in the periphery of her vision, she dramatized the event. “Ow! Officers, help! Help me, please!” She clutched her face and forced a few tears.

A half-dozen human cops quickly converged on the scene and took the Ravager males into custody. Kate they treated like a queen. Never let it be said she didn’t know how to use her breasts or her looks to her advantage.

“It’s okay, honey. We’re here to help.” Like clockwork, her chest attracted attention like a magnet.

“My head hurts, and it’s hard to breathe.” She forced a few shallow breaths and unbuttoned her blouse to show off her cleavage. “Do you see a bruise?”

Two more Salinas joined the ones crowding her, but no one could see any damage. Go figure.

She gave her statement of the attack, promised she’d call one of the many Salinas who’d left their cards for a follow-up, and then left in the ambulance they called for her. While wondering how the hell she planned to get out of this one, she let the EMT take her vitals.

As he worked and made a few notes, she swore she saw a flash of red in his eyes. He must have noticed because the glow winked out as if it had never been. He cleared his throat. “You okay?”

She winked at him and flashed a fang.

“Hell. Ravager, right?” To show she could trust him, he clenched a hand that turned into a ball of fire and waved it at her before extinguishing the flame.

“Yep. So you’re Vulcani?”

“Yeah.” They studied each other for a minute. Though not enemies, both Ravagers and Vulcani tended to keep to their own kind. “So I don’t guess you want a human hospital.”

“I don’t want any hospital.” Kate fastened the buttons of her blouse and used the cold pack he’d handed her on her cheek. “Thanks. Can you drop me off at the next corner?”

He glanced past her out the back window of the van. “We’re in midtown,” he warned. This section of town was much more mainstream than the downtown area. Here, Norms and a few Conduits, humans affected by the Voids, coexisted in peaceful denial that Voiders actually existed.

“I just want out. I never did get to finish my coffee.”

“No problem.” He called over his shoulder for the driver to stop at the corner. Then he turned back to her. “You sure you’re okay? Your cheek is turning blue and your breathing is off.”

“Good ears.” She could hear the faint wheeze that would heal with a good rest, but she was surprised he could. Vulcani commanded fire. She didn’t know anything about them possessing healing talents.

“Yeah. That’s why they pay me the big bucks,” he drawled. The ambulance stopped and he scooted past her to open the doors.

He smelled pleasant, even had a handsome face. But he didn’t make her heart race. Only two Ravagers did that anymore, and neither one was worth the effort it took to even think of them. Or so she kept reminding herself.

She sighed and hopped out of the van. “Thanks.”

He nodded and closed the door, and the ambulance sped away.

Needing a clear head and a break from her life, Kate walked to the nearest hotel. Work could keep for the next few days. Her clients were happy, and she’d been ahead of schedule anyway. Working for herself paid off when she needed time to breathe.

Like now. After paying for a room with her credit card, she locked herself in, stripped and headed for a bath to soak her wounds, both physical and emotional. She didn’t know how much longer she could keep up this charade. Kate couldn’t eat. She couldn’t sleep, and she hungered for the touch of two males who were in lust with someone else.

“And I still haven’t finished my coffee. What a shitty start to a shitty week.”

* * * * *

Jesse glared at Logan and shoved the rest of his clothes in a bag. “Fuck you. I’m tired of waiting.”

“So am I, but this is how it’s done.” Logan glared right back at him and shoved a hank of dark brown hair out of his face. His bright amber eyes glowed with resentment. “You think I like waiting on her to claim me? Fuck, Jesse. I want Kate as much as you do, but she won’t come to me.”

“Why?” Jesse had to know. He’d been taken with the stubborn female since the day she’d been brought into Eric’s pack. At first he’d cared for her like a big brother. But as they’d both matured, he’d sensed the possibility that she’d make a fine mate. Problem was, a Ravager female ruled her family unit—her pack. As much as he wanted her, he couldn’t claim a revered female.

He’d thought his dreams had finally come true when Kate publicly announced their claim in front of the clan. But for some reason she wouldn’t make the first move to seal their mating bond.

Logan sighed. “I wish I knew why she won’t accept us. At first I thought it was because she didn’t like us together, you know.” He and Jesse fucked daily. Ravagers needed sex, and Jesse and Logan shared a bond that went beyond clanmates or even packmates. They fit with each other. Deeply, truly, but there was still a hole only Kate could fill.

“Then I thought it might be Vicki. Kate doesn’t seem to like her, and well, we did help Eric mark her.”

Jesse remembered the occasion with fondness, when he and Logan had helped mark the prime’s new queen, folding her into Eric’s pack. “I don’t see where she’d have cause for concern. Hell, she helped Diana mark Sean, and I’m okay with it.”

Kate had fucked Sean, and he wasn’t okay with it. But Ravagers didn’t do jealousy. As sexual as they were, sharing partners, even sometimes among mates, happened.

Logan frowned. “I don’t like thinking about her with anyone else.”

Surprised Logan experienced the same pangs of envy Jesse did, he felt better about the odd feelings he refused to admit. “Your idea to give her space isn’t working.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” Logan huffed and dropped into the thick chair by Jesse’s bed. “Seriously, what’s with the packing?” He nodded to Jesse’s bag.

“I’m done waiting. I don’t care about mating tradition. Isn’t it Prime’s idea that we try to fit in better with the Norms? The men around here take what they want. I’m taking Kate.”

Logan sat up. “What?”

“You heard me. I’m tired, I’m horny and I miss her.”

“How do you think I feel?”

“Who the hell knows?” Jesse considered his best friend. Logan still laughed and teased. The lighthearted member of their little family never let anything keep him down.

“I fucking miss her as much as you do, asshole. Just because I try to keep a positive attitude about things doesn’t mean I don’t care. One of us has to be upbeat.”

“What does that mean?”

“You walk around all day moping and pining. Yeah, I said pining.” At Jesse’s look, Logan shrugged. “Vicki’s word, not mine. But it still fits. You’re a brooding pain in my ass, and I can only take so much of your negativity.”

That hurt, but Jesse wasn’t going to stick around to defend himself. He wanted Kate back, and by damn, he was going to get her. “I’m outta here.”

Logan shot out of the chair and knocked Jesse to the ground. The minute his friend brushed against him, his cock hardened like stone. Logan tried to force him into submission, but Jesse didn’t like to be topped. Instead, he grappled with the idiot until he pinned Logan under him.

Logan’s eyes flashed with heat. “That bulge in your pants is hard to miss.”

“Back at you,” Jesse panted. He licked his lips, aching for release. “I thought we agreed we’d wait until we had her with us.”

Logan groaned when Jesse shifted his weight. “We’re waiting. No sex. But dammit, you keep moving like that and I’ll come in my pants. Stop,” he barked when Jesse intentionally rocked against him.

“Tsk, tsk. Have some control, pup.”

“You’re a shithead, you know that?” Logan groaned when Jesse leaned up on his elbows and ground his pelvis against him. “Fuck. I said stop,” he rasped even as he arched up, increasing the friction.

Jesse could take pain. His early years had been nothing but fighting, holding on to survive amidst the chaos and ferocity of Ravager life in their homeworld. But Logan hadn’t known the savagery of the slums. He’d been raised in a caring pack before escaping sure death into the Voids. He knew a gentler way of life, though he hated being reminded of it. And though he’d never admit it, Logan needed sex more than most Ravagers. Going without was hurting him needlessly. No reason Logan should suffer just because Kate was being so stubborn.

Jesse sat up and straddled Logan’s thighs. He unbuttoned Logan’s jeans and slowly pulled down his zipper.

“Jesse, man, we agreed not to—”

“Shut up.” Jesse watched Logan’s cock spring up the moment the fabric parted. His ruddy cock head leaked at the tip, and the darkened shaft blushed with arousal. Scooting back so he could lower those jeans, Jesse pulled them down and made sure to free Logan’s heavy sac.

Logan groaned. “Oh man, I’m so fucking hard.”

Jesse salivated at the sight and scent of his packmate. Kate’s pack, he reminded himself. And in her absence, he’d take care of their mate as he saw fit. “She should be doing this.”

Before Logan could agree, Jesse lowered his head and took Logan deep, all the way to the back of his throat. His mate bucked and cried out, then grasped Jesse’s hair as he jerked and tried to move deeper.

“Need you so bad,” Logan panted and ground against Jesse’s lips. Two more short pumps and he came hard, jetting down Jesse’s throat.

Logan’s throaty cries made it hard to resist his own orgasm, but Jesse deserved the painful frustration. If he’d taken care of Kate the way he’d wanted to, they could have avoided this mess. But no, he’d tried to respect Kate’s wishes. Hell, he’d gone so far as to take Logan’s advice. And he knew better.

“Oh my God. Jesse,” Logan breathed. “Man, that was so fucking good. Thanks.”

Jesse pulled away, kissed Logan’s still semi-hard cock and tucked him back into his jeans. “You needed that.” He stood stiffly and adjusted himself.

“Looks like you need it too.”

“I’ll wait.”

Logan’s eyes narrowed. “Then what the hell was this all about? Still trying to protect me, the weakest member of the pack? That’s bullshit and you know it. You may be an inch taller, but I can outrun you any day of the week.”

“Whatever, Logan.”

“No, not whatever. Look, I need sex and touch. So do you. We’re fucking Ravagers. And even though you’d rather be tortured than admit it, you need affection just as much. Wanting to belong doesn’t make me weak, and denying it doesn’t make you strong.”

“Hell no. We’re not getting into this now. Not when we have Kate to save. You want her? Then get your ass in gear. It’s past time to claim Kate for our own.”

“Don’t think we won’t talk about this later.” Logan stood on shaky legs and straightened his clothes. He pulled his shoulder-length hair free of his shirt and readjusted a few buttons. “Shit. You mean it about going after Kate?” Cautious excitement replaced Logan’s annoyance. “What about Prime?”

“What about him? Eric has the clan to worry about. Besides, he’s busy with Vicki, Dom and Malcolm. Kate’s ours, Logan. It’s time we showed her that, once and for all.”

Chapter Two

A few hours after she’d checked in, Kate shifted again in her bed, restless and still unable to sleep, her body on fire. She’d been suffering for weeks, but lately her needs had begun to actually hurt. Flashes of Logan’s laughing eyes and Jesse’s sober smile called to her guer, demanding she cement the bonds that had started last month, when Eric had declared her new pack status and she’d acknowledged Jesse and Logan as mates. Mates she hadn’t yet mated, because she wanted something from them they were incapable of giving.

She rolled to her feet and ignored the throbbing in her clit and nipples. The heavy air conditioner made her internal temperature somewhat bearable, but her needs never quite died. Masturbation didn’t work. It only made her womb spasm harder, cramping in denial. Time to hit the shower.

As she entered the smaller room, she considered her pathetic circumstances. She should have been basking in her new pack. Two males to call her own, the autonomy of being the sole female in her own family. But nothing about her mating had gone according to tradition. Prime had more or less ordered her to take Logan and Jesse. She couldn’t stop wondering if they’d said yes to obey Eric or because they wanted her. And that really hurt.

Kate knew she was foolish to believe in love and happily ever after. Human concepts that failed time and time again in this world, as evidenced by the divorce statistics growing daily. But Kate wasn’t human. Ravagers lived by a different standard, where sex shouldn’t necessitate affection, but fulfilled a biological need. So why couldn’t she just accept Jesse and Logan as hers? Why should she care that they craved the prime’s female? The constant flirting, the affectionate glances, the praise they practically heaped on the woman, all of it drove her insane. She couldn’t be around them without wanting to scream why. Why couldn’t they feel that way about her?

Ripping the shower curtain from the bar in a rage, she growled and tossed it aside, then turned the water to cold and stepped in the tub. As the freezing drops pelted her sensitive skin, she absorbed the tiny pings of pain, hoping to drown out her anguish. By the Voids, what she wouldn’t give for some peace from this heat and her fucked-up emotions.

She stood under the shower for close to an hour, just letting the water wash away her cares. When Kate could move without thoughts of Jesse and Logan shadowing her every step, she left the shower, dried off and padded through her room to the bed. The curtains remained closed, sheltering her from the light of her current reality, and she fell into an exhausted slumber the second her head hit the pillow.

Awakening to the subtle sounds of movement in her room, Kate couldn’t tell how much time had passed in the dark. She felt much better, both physically and mentally. Until she tried to roll out of bed.

Kate tugged at her wrists and ankles, spread out like a human X, unable to move. She blinked up at darkness—into a blindfold. Sounds rustled from two different directions. More than one trespasser and she couldn’t move.

Fear crept over her, a fogging lassitude that made it hard to think. Kate prized control, and the feel of ties around her wrists and ankles scared the shit out of her. Even worse, in her confusion, she couldn’t smell more than a hint of the wildness proclaiming them Ravagers. Had Mike and his asshole friend returned to finish what they’d started this morning?

Before she could speak, strong hands lifted her head and muted her with a ball gag.

Garbled behind the ball, “I’ll kill you, you pieces of shit! Cowards, too afraid to fight a female,” came out much less threatening than intended.

One of the men groaned, and she heard something familiar in his voice. Then he spoke and she wanted to gut him from stem to sternum. “That has got to be the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. Kate Savage tied up, blindfolded and gagged.” Logan sighed, and suddenly his scent filled the area.

To her irritation, her pussy flooded, anticipation making her nearly dizzy with desire. If Logan was here, then Jesse had to be close by. She shouldn’t want them, shouldn’t care that they’d tracked her down and tied her up. Taking advantage of her while she’d been asleep was a cowardly act, yet also a strangely provocative one.

Thick fingers traced the inside of her leg from her calf to her thigh. They crept higher, and she shivered as those calloused digits grazed the wet folds of her sex.

“This is ours,” Jesse stated, his voice low, gravelly and sexy as hell. “Hear that, Kate?”

Logan added, “We gave you time. Hell, I tried to be nice for your sake, Kate. But really, enough is enough.”

Nice? She’d give them nice. She swore at them behind the gag and twisted and turned. Her claws came out but couldn’t do any damage to the ties binding her tight. When she made a move to use her guer, to change into the physical manifestation of her warrior’s spirit, she got her second huge shock of the night. Her energy had been blocked somehow.

“Now, Kate, that’s just cheating. We’ve stayed human, you should too.” Jesse’s finger slid between her folds and pushed deep. “But if you want to put up a fight, you know we won’t stop you. Nothing a Ravager likes more than a challenge.”

The feel of him inside her was incredible, and she couldn’t stop her body from clamping down to hold him tight.

“Christ, Logan. Feel this.” Jesse removed his finger so Logan could.

The two men felt completely different. Logan, with a light, sensual touch, seduced her. Jesse was darker, harder, more forceful. The combination of the two suited everything she might want in lifelong partners. If she’d still wanted them, she told herself. Remember, they don’t care about you that way—

She arched up when Logan added another finger and shoved it deep.

Then a hot mouth covered her clit and she came with a muffled scream.

“Oh fuck. Let me taste her before I come in my pants,” Logan rasped.

Fingers and mouth withdrew, but then another mouth covered her swollen nub. Logan teased her with his tongue and nipped with his teeth, shooting her into another, more intense climax.

“I want that mouth,” Jesse muttered. “I want to come inside it. You need to drown in my cum for being such a bad, bad girl, Kate.”

“Hmm,” Logan agreed and licked her cream. He lifted from her pussy and slid his fingers through her slit and lower, skating around the sensitive rim of her anus. “I wonder how much play she’s had here.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Jesse answered in a thick voice. “Because after we’re done with her, there won’t be one part of her body not covered in thick, sweet cum.”

Kate tried to wrap her mind around everything. Jesse as a dominant? Logan toying with her ass? This close, she could smell their combined arousal mingling with hers, and even her guer sat up and took notice. It was all she could do not to purr with satisfaction.

God, please don’t let me be dreaming. Then again, this was better than any dream she’d ever had of the two men. Female Ravagers claimed their males. They ruled the roost, despite the fact their males were physically stronger. Ravagers respected females, almost to the point of worship. Kate didn’t do nice. And she didn’t know how to respond when others treated her with such care.

For the past four weeks, she’d been wallowing in self-pity. Her mates had tiptoed around her every word, waiting for her final acceptance while they watched their new queen with welcome and pride. They wanted Vicki—a soft human female they could no longer have. Vicki’s not soft or frail at all, her conscience tried to assert, but Kate ignored it.

“Cat got your tongue, Kate?” Logan chuckled. He leaned up over her, brushing across the tips of her breasts. With her sight gone, her other senses magnified. Into her ear, Logan whispered, “Imagine how good I’ll feel when I’m rammed up that tight hole and Jesse’s stuffing your pussy. Just think how good I’ll taste when I fill your mouth, when you’re swallowing my hot cum down your throat.” He shoved his tongue in her ear and she moaned in lust all over again before he pulled away once more.

Ravager hormones were potent, and a female in heat could go for days without cease.

“Oh yeah.” Jesse groaned, and she felt something hot and creamy spatter over her chest. “Yes, oh fuck.” The scent of his cum filled her nose and she quivered, wanting nothing more than to take Jesse down her throat while she rode Logan into another climax.

“About time you came,” Logan chided him while one of them rubbed it into her skin. “I don’t know how you lasted so long.” He kissed Kate’s ear and bit her earlobe. “Jesse forced an orgasm on me this morning. But he hasn’t had sex since we mated you, Kate. Or should I say, since Eric announced our bond. I guess we aren’t mated since you never out and out claimed us, did you?”

Hard fingers twisted her nipple and she gasped at the pain, astounded by the wave of heat that traveled from the small hurt to the pleasure center of her brain.

It wasn’t Logan who spoke, but Jesse. “Oh yeah. You’re going to ride the pain like a fucking champ. Look how tight her nipples are, Logan. And smell her. Our Kate likes the sting. Makes her so wet. I can smell you, baby. So sweet, that Ravager pussy.”

Logan hummed. “Damn. This might just be the best night of my life.”

Kate panted embarrassingly loud, but with the damn ball in her mouth, she had a hard time breathing past her excitement. Never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined Jesse to be so masterful. And Logan, what a tease. The love she’d been holding inside threatened to burst free. But she reminded herself not to forget that this was just physical, a meeting of bodies, not emotions, not guers.

“You’re done running, Kate.” Jesse removed her blindfold, allowing her to see him.

She blinked and looked at the handsome male, his chocolate eyes glowing with passion. His thick brown hair draped over his shoulder and shielded half his face, but she spotted fangs teasing his lower lip. He still held his thick cock in hand, the slit pearling with milky-white cum. He’d unbuttoned his jeans only enough to showcase his erection, and the sight of him still dressed made the situation all the more arousing.

A glance to her right showed Logan stripping off his clothes. Broad shoulders, washboard abs and long, muscular legs. His arms were corded with muscle, his strength apparent in the graceful way he moved. Once naked, he winked at her and said, “I’d remove the gag, but we don’t want you yelling for help. This is your own fault, Kate. If you’d claimed us like you should have, none of this would have been necessary.”

“Don’t apologize, Logan.” Jesse nodded down at his cock, and Kate stared, surprised to see it thick and hard, as if he hadn’t just come on her. “Why don’t you lead by example? Show her how a good mate pleases those he cares about.”

Logan grinned, too sexy for his own good. More handsome than Jesse but less intense, he had a talent for lightening the mood. But the way he looked at Jesse and her did nothing but add to her rebuilding lust.

Logan joined her on the bed again and leaned over her, pressing skin to skin. He reached Jesse and ran the tip of his tongue over Jesse’s slit, wiping away the moisture. Then he teased, pressing his lips over the head of Jesse’s shaft before taking all of him in, until his nose hit Jesse’s belly.

“That’s it.” Jesse pushed Logan’s hair behind his ear and cupped his chin, but his eyes remained on Kate. In a gravelly voice he said, “You see, baby? You just follow my orders and we’ll all get along just fine.” He closed his eyes. “Logan, not too much. I don’t want to come so fast again.”

Logan pulled his mouth away, leaving Jesse’s cock a glistening blush. “Your balls are hard, Jesse.” Logan rubbed them before turning his attention to Kate’s breasts. “Round and just as soft as Kate’s tits. Look at her nipples. She needs a mouth sucking her hard. Maybe some teeth too.”

Kate wanted so badly to kiss one of them, to touch them and taste them. Shaking her head back and forth, she yelled for them to remove her gag. But of course they didn’t understand.

“Still fighting it, eh?” Jesse smiled, a dark expression she’d never before seen directed her way. “Good thing I brought a few toys. Discipline is going to be your new best friend, Kate.”

She shuddered and Logan nodded. “Oh yeah, best fucking night of my life.”

Jesse couldn’t believe how good he felt. Even knowing Kate still fought this—them—he couldn’t refuse his guer. Everything about the woman called to him, the way Logan did. How had he denied himself this for so long? She’d been of age for years, but Eric had shielded her by keeping her in his pack. Sure, Kate had taken her share of lovers; logically he knew he shouldn’t begrudge her that. But some territorial part of him wished she’d come to him first, the way Logan had.

Despite their slight age difference, Jesse had always felt like Logan’s guide and master, and he knew his lover felt the same. A natural flow of energy, an exchange of certain needs they shared only with each other had cemented their ties. When they’d been part of Eric’s pack, they’d both submitted to their prime and his guard with pleasure. But the two of them alone, together, always felt better.

And it wasn’t that Jesse had to be in charge all the time. He didn’t mind taking an occasional ass reaming from Logan, and he loved sucking Logan off. But he preferred to be dominant. Kate’s feminine energy practically begged his guer to master her, but would she take to being more submissive? She was a strong female, but she’d already shown that she liked to be tied up, and she liked a bite of pain.

Fuck, she looked so hot all wet and flushed. Her eyes burned as she stared at Logan, then at him with more than lust, but with feral possession.

Jesse removed his clothing and watched Logan play with her. Caressing her, kissing her, stroking her with all the affection he had inside. Fucked up as it was, Jesse had a feeling Logan had fallen in love with their female. Such a soft, useless emotion.

Love didn’t put food in one’s belly or provide safety from the enemy. Wars had been fought over females, and jealousies had long ago ripped his birth pack apart. His mother and fathers had fought like the savages he was now named for. Yet here, in this place, more and more of his kind succumbed to emotional encumbrance. First his prime, and now Logan. Jesse shook his head and focused on what mattered.

Claiming Kate.

After setting his clothing aside, he removed a set of nipple clamps from his bag and returned to the bed. Kate made quite a picture—a strong, lean female with full breasts, toned, supple thighs and a slick pussy currently being petted by Logan as he alternately licked and fingered her with leisurely patience.

Kate growled and yanked at her restraints.

Jesse liked her frustrated, the way he’d been feeling for four goddamn weeks. Hell, make that the last seven years. “Move over, Logan. Time to give our female what she needs.”

Kate looked up at Jesse with thanks until she noticed the clamps in his hand. She stared at them with question but no fear. Not his Kate.

Jesse’s desire surged. Since being in this room he’d felt like one giant mass of sensation, and all of it centered in his cock. He straddled Kate’s lean waist, eager to teach her a few things about what life would mean with him. Logan’s warm breath fanned his arm, and he corrected, with them.

“You’re pretty hard, Jesse.” Logan licked his lips as he stared at Jesse’s cock.

“Go ahead.” He knew that look on Logan’s face, and he wanted Kate to see them. He knew she’d spied on him and Logan at home. Ravagers didn’t care so much about gender when it came to sex. Not like the humans, who had to label everything as pure or perverted. To a Ravager, sex was sex, a necessity that could be a lot of fun in the doing. And now Kate could watch them up close.

He could smell the scent of her heat intensify as she watched Logan masturbate him. Logan had the technique down pat. The bastard knew exactly how to please Jesse, and he liked to draw out the sensual torture.

With a firm hand he stroked Jesse up and down, massaging his glans with his thumb. He used Jesse’s pre-cum to smooth over the head, lessening his grip when Jesse grew too excited.

Logan leaned down to kiss Kate’s breast while he worked Jesse. Once he’d gotten her nipples hard, he leaned back with satisfaction. He squeezed Jesse once more before letting him go. “Put them on her. I want to watch.”

Kate’s eyes were slumberous as she stared down at Jesse’s erection. She mewled around the small ball stuffed in her mouth, and he had a sudden urge to replace the ball with his cock, to see how she’d react if he came all over those ripe lips.

He focused on her reaction as he set one clamp over a stiff nipple. She jerked under him, her eyes wide with surprise, and he put the other one on her. A thin gold chain connected the clamps, and after he checked to make sure they were firmly attached, he tugged on the chain.

She moaned, a throaty sound that made his balls tighten, and closed her eyes. Despite coming twice already, she smelled needy. Jesse leaned down to kiss her chin, her cheeks, and her eyelids. Every part of her was so soft. Underneath her smooth flesh, the muscle was tough, but he couldn’t see it now, when her femininity yielded to his touch.

“I wish we could take off that gag. I want to kiss her,” Logan murmured and stroked Jesse’s back.

“Go ahead and kiss her.” He looked down at the V of her spread legs. “Show her how much you want her.” Jesse moved to lie beside her on the bed and watched as Logan ate her pussy again. He licked and sucked until both he and Kate were at the very edge. Watching the pair near climax was like a dream come true, and Jesse didn’t want it to end.

A funny feeling struck him in the chest, a sense of completeness he’d always wanted but had never quite managed. This was what he’d been missing for so long.

Kate blinked her eyes open and turned to look at Jesse. The kernel of vulnerability in her gaze struck him, and he kissed her cheek again and stroked her hair tenderly, showing her what he couldn’t quite say.

He had to clear his voice before he could speak. “Now fuck her, Logan. Show her how good it feels when her mate gives her what she needs.”

“Oh yeah,” Logan said, breathless, before sucking her clit harder.

Kate bowed off the bed in a muffled yell and climaxed. Between one heartbeat and the next, Logan climbed on top of her and thrust home, ramming in and out of her with force. He grunted as he pounded into her, his eyes partially changed, his fangs visible and his fingernails as sharp as daggers as he ripped apart the sheets on either side of her body. He fucked Kate good and hard, but Jesse knew he needed a little bit more.

Jesse sucked on his finger and then slid it inside Logan’s ass in one hard push.

Logan cried out as he exploded inside Kate. His orgasm lasted much longer than it normally did, and Jesse watched with amazement as his friend continued to come, even after he pulled out of her.

Small drops of seed hit her belly, and he rubbed it in, the way Logan had rubbed Jesse’s cum into her skin earlier. The sight of Kate’s pleasure, the feel of his mate’s seed under his hands, over Kate’s skin, snapped Jesse’s control.

He could think of nothing better than Kate sucking him to orgasm and licking him clean. Logan’s cum in her cunt, his in her mouth.

He straddled her neck and undid the binding holding the ball gag in place. Then without giving her a chance to speak, he replaced the gag with his cock.

“Swallow me, honey. All of me.” Lost in lust, Jesse watched as Kate lifted her head from her pillow to take him in. The sight of her plump, rosy lips hugging his shaft nearly made him come. He’d been dreaming about this moment for years. And she hadn’t argued or denied him. Kate sucked him hard. “Fuck, yeah. That’s it, baby. So good.”

He moaned and cupped her head to take the pressure from her neck. But not getting deep enough, Jesse changed the angle of his thrusts. And then he was fucking her mouth, plunging deeper between her hot, wet lips.

“Take her, Jesse. Oh fuck, come down her throat. I want to watch you come.” Logan was suddenly behind him and sank his teeth into Jesse’s shoulder while at the same time he gripped Jesse’s balls in a punishing squeeze, just the way Jesse liked it.

Jesse saw stars. “Kate, Logan, yes, yes.” He shoved himself to the back of her throat and jetted, unloading the desire that had been building for this woman for so long.

Logan withdrew his fangs and his hold on Jesse’s sac. “Fuck, that’s hot.”

Jesse finished, withdrew and knelt next to Kate on the bed. He turned and kissed Logan, then he kissed Kate. A part of him realized, then and there, that his life would never be the same again. Not after tonight.

As he lay on his side, he waited for the inevitable. Kate no longer wore a gag. She might be sexually satisfied, but no way would she blithely accept how he and Logan had overpowered her. Hell, they’d effectively claimed her, the way a female was supposed to claim her males. The only thing missing from the process had been their guers linking as one, which only the female could initiate. Talk about turning traditional mating on its head.

She opened her mouth, and he inwardly cringed, waiting for the worst. Would she deny them? Demand they set her free? Would she insist instead that they ease her heat then keep their distance, the way many Ravager females used to?

Instead, Kate, who never cried, burst into tears.

Logan looked panicked.

Jesse felt the same. Oh shit. “Kate, honey, I’m so sorry—”

“What took you so long?”

Chapter Three

Will Lawless stared at the lifeless curs before him with bitter frustration. Mike and Toby lay broken and bloodied after confessing just what they’d done to earn a night in jail. Ravagers at the mercy of the fucking Salinas. How could any Ravager hold his head high when he let human enforcement lock him up like a dog?

Will scoffed and turned away from them, preening in the mirror. His room sat two floors below Kate’s. He’d booked it for the next few days, content to wait her out while he formulated his best plan of attack. None of the Savages had detected his presence, he was sure, or he’d now be dead.

He credited his new appearance as the reason for his success in staying hidden. Will had cut his dark brown hair and cleaned it thoroughly. No more remaining in his guer for hours on end. He made sure to bathe daily, despite his distaste for human cleanliness. And he applied several layers of deodorant and cologne, masking his natural scent with some citrusy smell the humans preferred. He couldn’t do much about his claws that refused to retract since his battle with the Savages a few weeks prior. Since that skirmish that had ended the Lawless prime’s life, Will had been working on plans for his new future. One that included Kate.

Under Nev Lawless’ reign, he’d been forced to wait until his prime took a mate before finding one of his own. Nev had been a leader without equal, or so Will had thought. Strong in guer, aggressive, dominant and true to his roots. Yet he’d been bested by Eric Savage, and now the Lawless Clan, as a whole, had been ordered disbanded, the name dead.

Fuck that. Will hadn’t spent the past three decades kissing Nev’s ass just so he could bow to the asshole who’d mated a human, polluting their bloodlines. No, Will intended to make his race proud again. With Kate by his side, he’d sire strong young. He’d thought for a time that her older sister Diana might suit him better, but the bitch had claimed a human. Soft, unworthy and not too intelligent if she’d chosen a male without guer instead of her own kind.

Kate had fire. The female had bested two of his men. He had a feeling she’d taken Savages’ castoffs, Logan and Jesse, as mates to please her prime, because she’d discarded them at the first opportunity. He remembered how fierce she’d been a few weeks ago when he’d nearly had the prime’s new queen under his thumb. The taste of Vicki Fox’s blood had been sweet, but Kate’s would be sweeter.

According to Mike and Toby, she was in heat, and so enticing they’d lost their minds and confronted her in a public coffee house, of all places. For their stupidity, they’d earned just punishment. But for their loyalty, he’d given them quick deaths.

Will shifted on the balls of his feet, uncomfortable with his raging hungers in his man’s form. His cock was too smooth and too small. He much preferred rubbing his furry shaft inside a male’s slick anus or a female’s soft, unforgiving pussy. Nothing beat raping a smaller, softer lover. Reaming a virgin hole, smelling a mixture of blood and his semen, never failed to get him off. Even now he grew hard just thinking about it.

Taming Kate’s aggression would be fun, arousing and rewarding. She’d make a fine breedmate and an even finer queen. Because once he had her by his side, he planned on taking Eric Savage out of the clan for good. Ravagers bowed to the strongest, the best. And Will wouldn’t back down until all of the prime’s pack met their unfortunate ends.

He ran a hand over his short hair, not pleased at its softness. Between the shampoo and his new cut, he’d lost the coarseness his once untamable pelt had afforded. A knock at the door interrupted his perusal, and he glanced away from his hard abs and erect shaft aching for release.

Will moved to the door and peered out at a slight female wheeling a tray laden with something that smelled delicious. The rare steak he’d ordered. He hadn’t anticipated he’d get his dessert included.

Will stepped back and behind the door as he opened it. “Come on in.” After she entered, he quickly closed the door, grabbed the waitress and slammed her head against the wall, knocking her dizzy. He tossed her on the bed and threw the locks, then grabbed a cloth napkin and stuffed it in her mouth. With one hand he held her immobile, his weight effectively dismissing her attempts to go free.

The blood on her temple beckoned, and he licked it, quivering with excitement to taste her fear, the smell of it like a ripe perfume in the air. “Your timing is impeccable.” Will smiled and ground his erection into her belly, cherishing her whimpers. “But you’re going to have to work hard to earn your tip.”

* * * * *

Kate blinked away her stupid tears, embarrassed and aggravated by her weakness when it came to Jesse and Logan. She felt so grateful that they’d come after her, so damn joyful at the pleasure they’d given her that her body still sang with undisguised satisfaction. How could she have, even for a minute, forgotten why she’d been miserable in the first place?

To them she said, “I’m not okay. I’m in heat, assholes. What do you think I’ve been doing with myself while you two idiots have been fucking each other senseless?” Like hell they’d been celibate. One of the best things in her life, until today, had been watching them love each other. Seeing strong Ravagers take one another with affection and care was so sexy, even more so when they turned savage, lost in animalistic desire.

Jesse and Logan exchanged a glance, then turned as one, entered the bathroom together and shut the door.

What the hell?

She heard a toilet flush, water running and lowered voices, but she couldn’t make out what they said.

They returned smelling of soap and raw male. God, she wanted to eat them up. Both a head taller than her with broad shoulders, trim hips and the lean, corded muscle of true predators, her mates looked enough alike to be siblings. Like most Ravager males, they possessed brown hair and brown eyes. But there their similarities ended. As she’d already seen, Jesse had a darker side to him, one she couldn’t wait to experience again. From the look on his face, she didn’t figure she had much time to wait.

Logan and he stood next to the bed as they studied her. Jesse’s furrowed brow was so dear and familiar she wanted to smooth it out and kiss him there. No, not kiss him there, kick him there, she reminded herself. He’d rather Vicki kiss him than you, don’t forget.

“It’s okay, honey. I know it hurts.” Jesse tugged the chain between her breasts and she gasped in pleasured pain. “You still need it. Some hot cock in that pussy.”

“And that mouth, apparently,” Logan added with a leer. But on Logan, the look just made him sexier. “I bet more cum would tame that coarse language. Really, Kate. Aren’t Ravager females supposed to settle down once they take their mates? Why don’t you finish claiming us so we can take care of you?”

She snorted, trying to ignore the tingles of awareness spearing her clit as Jesse toyed with the chain. His eyes were so dark they looked black. She hissed out her pleasure and glared at him. “Let’s just be honest with each other.”

“Oh let’s,” Jesse agreed in a soft voice that sent shivers down her spine.

Logan gave him a sharp look but said nothing.

Don’t say it, Kate. You’ll look like a jealous moron. Jesse tugged on the chain again, his lips quirked in an arrogant twist, and the bitterness that had been growing inside her for weeks—for years—suddenly boiled free. “You two have had a hard-on for Vicki ever since you laid eyes on her. You never really wanted me. I don’t know if you just didn’t want to disappoint Eric, or if you thought it would elevate your status in the clan to get a female. But we all know you accepted me for the wrong reasons.”

On one of the most important days of her life, Kate had stood before the crowd of Ravagers and listened as Eric acknowledged her separation from his pack, as well as the creation of her new pack. Then he’d said the words she’d waited forever to hear, that Logan and Jesse would be joining her.

All her years of not being good enough, of simply existing in her sister’s shadow, of being the unwanted, annoying little sister, had suddenly been unimportant. The two males she wanted more than anything belonged to her and her alone.

She’d been so happy, so briefly. Because seconds later Eric announced he’d taken Vicki, a human, as not only mate but to be his queen.

Logan and Jesse had sworn, looking heartbroken, and she’d left behind her mates and her dreams of a new life where she mattered as more than a breedmate.

“I wish I knew what the hell was going on in that thing you call a brain,” Jesse rumbled. “How the fuck you could think we still want Vicki when we’ve been waiting years for you to get your head out of your ass is beyond me.”

“My—what?”

Logan glared at her, no longer the happy-go-lucky seducer. “Are you kidding me? Do you really think I give a shit about clan status?” To her shock, his guer flared, taunting her to claim him. Normally she could sense Logan, but she’d never felt him so intimately before. Their spirits were nearly touching, and she could almost feel his pain.

“Well—”

Jesse cut her off. “I dreamed of a day when you’d claim me. When I’d finally have a female of my own. Not just any female, Kate. You. But you walked away from me. From us.” Anger pulsed from him in palpable waves of energy. His guer snarled at hers, poking, prodding, when normally her guer couldn’t feel his at all. “You kept pushing and pushing, Kate. Always waving that pretty little ass, just daring me to take you the way I wanted to. But out of respect for you, I resisted. Fuck the clan. Fuck the prime. It’s you we want, Kate. And then you turn away from us like we’re nothing but shit beneath your feet?”

She wanted so badly to believe him. But she knew what she’d seen. “You were practically crying when Vicki became queen.”

He and Logan looked at each other then back at her in bewilderment. “Crying?” Logan asked. “I had no idea a human could become queen, but I was thrilled. Eric finally had a real pack, and the clan finally had a queen. A queen means more young, children I’d hoped to someday have with you.”

Jesse nodded. “Logan and I never really belonged with Eric, and we knew it. But we were with you in the pack, so it didn’t matter.” He frowned. “Until we were finally given a chance to make you see us as more than Eric’s fuck toys.”

“I never thought that.” She flushed. In some of her more annoyed moments, she had thought that very thing.

“Yeah,” Jesse sneered. “You did. I knew it and Logan knew it. But we thought we still had a chance, because you liked to watch us fuck. We knew you were there, Kate. Oh not at first, but after. And we didn’t care. We wanted your attention. But we only had it for a split second, just long enough for you to twist the knife when you walked away from us at the claiming ceremony.”

Logan nodded, his mouth in a tight, unhappy line.

Kate hadn’t thought about anything but her own pain that night. “I didn’t think you’d miss me,” she said bluntly. “And how the hell would I know anything about what you felt, since you never told me any of this? After the ceremony, you left me alone.” She blinked back her tears at the reminder. “I need mates who wanted me enough to do whatever it took to have me. Males who were strong enough to hold onto me and show me how much they cared. No matter what.”

Jesse scowled and tugged on her chain again. He reiterated through his teeth, “We left you alone as a sign we cared for and respected you. Ravager tradition is about the female choosing worthy mates, not the other way around. You know that. You chose us then walked away,” his voice rose. Jesse never yelled, never screamed.

She stared up at him in astonishment.

“How could you walk away from us?” Logan asked, suppressed anger and pain vibrating in his voice. “I’ve always known you were mine. But you were too young, and you weren’t ready. So I buried my feelings. Ravagers aren’t supposed to love, are we?” He shot Jesse a side glance that the other male ignored. Then he turned back to her with his fists clenched. “So I bided my time, never knowing Jesse felt the same until we figured out we both wanted you as more than a friend, as more than a female to respect,” he choked on the word. “I love you, Kate. I’ve always loved you, and I’ve been waiting for you to grow the hell up and see me. But instead you threw us away. You didn’t even ask what we thought or felt. You didn’t care. Hell, maybe we’re just too late.”

To her shock, Logan grabbed his clothes, threw them on and left the room.

Kate didn’t know what to say. Love? Logan loved her, not Vicki?

“That Ravager has never gone a few days without sex since he matured. Not in all the time I’ve known him,” Jesse said quietly, the burn of rage in his dark eyes. “But for you we waited. For an entire month we went without, until I forced it on him. His guer suffered for you, Kate. And you couldn’t give a shit.”

Tears blurred her vision. “That’s not true. I wanted him. Him and you, but I thought…I was scared that you…”

Jesse removed the restraints from her wrists and ankles. He rubbed her skin until the feeling came back, treasuring her, treating her like a cherished mate. The way he always had. But he didn’t speak.

“Jesse?” she whispered, confused, ashamed and overjoyed all at once. God, if what they’d said was true…

Jesse rolled onto her, levering his weight on his forearms. She felt his hard cock against her belly and shivered under his intense stare. “You hurt him, Kate.”

She didn’t like feeling this way. Lonely was bad enough, but that she’d made Logan hurt pained her guer. To her astonishment, she again felt the tentative reach of his animal energy and tried to pull him to her. But he shied away, and she was left grasping nothing. Jesse, as usual, remained closed to her.

“Go get him,” she said. “Please. I didn’t understand. I thought you both wanted Vicki. And I was—I was jealous.” She swallowed hard.

“Logan needs time to cool off. He gets overemotional. Besides, all that feeling bullshit gives me a rash.” Jesse’s eyes narrowed and cruel amusement lingered around his mouth. “So you’ve been treating us like trash because of Vicki.”

“Not exactly.” God, out loud like that, she sounded petty and immature. “There was a lot more to it.” Her insecurities played out, but that just made her sound self-involved.

“She’s our queen, Kate. Not our mate, our ‘love’ or the future mother of our young.” Jesse removed the clamps from her breasts and tossed them to the floor.

The rush of blood back to her nipples hurt, and she exhaled on a moan. Jesse sucked a hard bud into his mouth. The pleasure nearly made her come.

“I’d never do this to Vicki.” Jesse sucked the other nipple before nipping it with a slight sting. “She’s not my responsibility.”

“Y-you slept with her.”

“Technically, no, I didn’t. I helped initiate her into the pack.”

“Using sex,” Kate spat, totally losing her perspective at thoughts of her mate with another woman. The thought of Jesse or Logan with any other female made her want to kill.

“Kate, we’re Ravager. Nearly everything we do involves fucking.” Jesse shook his head. “Hell, you want the details? I came down her throat, once. Happy now?”

She wasn’t, but the fact he hadn’t planted his seed inside the woman somewhat soothed the animal inside her.

“My guer grabbed onto hers, the same way Logan’s did, and we held her for Eric. For our prime,” he emphasized and gripped her wrists tight. “Have Logan or I given you a hard time about having sex with Diana’s mate? Have we punished you for giving a human what clearly belongs to us?” he growled.

She panted, scenting the violence and raw need riding Jesse hard. “Wh-what?”

He ground against her, his body hot and unforgiving. Like living steel caging her to the bed. She couldn’t move under him, and her inability to maneuver him made her wet and wild, wanting more.

Jesse grinned at her with wicked intent. “You’re a lot more like Vicki than you think, sweet,” he said, twisting the knife, and he knew it. “So human, wanting love, wanting your mates to claim you.” Even as he insulted her, he nuzzled her cheek, kissing and whispering words of praise…at first. “So strong, so beautiful. So incredibly stupid.”

“What?”

“How hard would it have been to ask us what we wanted instead of assuming?” Jesse roughly kneed her thighs wider.

She obeyed without thinking.

“Why couldn’t you have told your mates what you needed? Why leave us floundering to find out on our own, after you ditched us?”

She writhed, caught in a voracious hunger. It didn’t help matters when Jesse’s nails scored her wrists, the scent of her blood and his skin a potent combination. “What’s wrong?” she taunted, unable to acquiesce too easily. “Can’t handle the clan thinking you’re weak? That you can’t satisfy your mate?”

Kate knew how much Ravagers respected strength, how much they relished the challenge, because she felt the same. One thing she could say about her mates. They weren’t easy, not in any way, shape or form. And even though some part of her wanted to submit to Jesse and Logan, the warrior inside her couldn’t. Her submission had to be taken, earned.

When Jesse bared fangs and his irises swallowed the slimming band of his pupil, his guer staring out at her through dark brown eyes, she knew she’d scored a direct hit. “You little bitch.”

Normally, Kate would have sliced off the balls of any man who talked to her like that, but on Jesse’s lips, bitch came out as a compliment.

His eyes glittered with barely suppressed excitement. His thick cock was wet with arousal. “You want satisfaction? Let this satisfy you,” he growled and plunged inside her. He slid through her easily, but his girth made it a tight fit all the same.

He took her brutally, and she loved it. Because with each push, he pressed deeper inside her. Working her, owning her. Jesse mastered her body and her responses, claiming her the way she’d dreamed of being claimed. Yet even through his rough taking, Kate saw the care he tried to hide in his fathomless gaze. She could almost feel the love he held inside, though she knew he’d be the first to deny himself capable of such soft emotion.

“No, not like this,” he rasped and withdrew, leaving her on the verge of begging for more.

She wanted to cry, being denied his ultimate possession. Until he flipped her onto her hands and knees and took her from behind. “Like this, mate. You’re mine now.” Jesse buried himself balls-deep in her pussy. He withdrew and slammed inside her again, hitting that spot that made her see stars.

As his strokes pummeled her, he knocked her flat onto the bed and grabbed her by the hair, drilling her with pure animal intensity.

“So good, oh yes, yes,” she cried as he dragged her orgasm from her in a huge wail. The cathartic release eased the last wall inside her preventing her from taking what belonged to her—what had always belonged to her.

Her guer probed but found Jesse’s protective shields still in place. Her Jesse, such a cautious warrior. But when he came a few seconds later, she took the opportunity and stabbed between his inner walls. Grabbing onto his guer and fusing it with her own, she sealed the bond between them.

“Oh fuck, shit.” He swore and ground into her, coming so hard she felt her thighs slick with it. “Yes, baby. So good.”

It took Kate a minute to understand the sheer bliss she felt wasn’t hers alone, but Jesse’s as well. The echo of pride, satisfaction and joy arced through her with a masculine feel she recognized.

“Fuck, Kate. Why the hell have you been holding out so long?” He rotated his shaft inside her and groaned, pumping a few more times before he finally pulled out.

She had a hard time catching her breath. The minute Jesse parted from her body, she felt his guer try to withdraw and held tight until the wild animal relaxed, recognizing her.

A glance beside her showed him frowning.

“What’s wrong?” she asked softly.

“I feel weird.”

She snorted, too worn out to do more than relax into his warmth as he pulled her closer. “You feel me.”

He blinked in surprise. “So you finally claimed me, huh?”

For all his bluster before about her leaving him behind, he didn’t sound happy that she’d given him what he’d been asking for. “Jesse?”

“You’re a mess.” He sniffed and relaxed next to her, pulling her into his warmth. “You smell like sex. Like me.”

She knew she needed to clean up, but he wouldn’t let her.

“Uh-uh. I like you this way. Soft, sexy and messy.”

Kate yawned. “We really should find Logan.”

“So you can apologize?” His arms tightened around her.

“Jesse—yes, okay? So I can apologize. Asshole,” she muttered.

He chuckled. “Always knew you’d be a handful. Don’t worry about Logan. He’ll be fine. Ravager needs to stop thinking like a woman and act like a man.”

“Oh?”

He held her against his chest, ignoring the claws she dug into his biceps. “Scratch me up, baby. Yeah, I like that,” he rumbled. “I like a bit of pain, just like you. Logan likes everything to feel good, so we’ll have to be gentle with him.”

As they lay together, her mind drifted to the three of them in her own happily-ever-after. After a while, she said, “Do you think he’ll forgive me? I never meant to hurt him. Or you.”

Jesse sighed. “The man is in love, Kate. Of course he’ll forgive you. Though it wouldn’t hurt if you groveled a bit. We’ve had more than a few fantasies of you on your knees, begging to make it up to us.”

“Jerk.”

“Bitch.”

“Yeah, but I’m your bitch.”

“You sure the hell are. Now go to sleep.”

She wanted to argue, but pushed past her limit, she promptly fell asleep.

Chapter Four

Logan kicked a plastic bottle out of his way and swore under his breath as he walked the halls of this shitty human hotel. A woman walking back to her room at this late hour stared at him with wide eyes, her fear ripe in the air.

“I’m not going to eat you,” he snapped and continued down the hall, not pleased at her shriek as she scurried away.

The only woman he wanted to eat thought him a social climber. Christ, how the hell could she think he’d want anything to do with clan hierarchy? He’d gratefully left the prime’s pack just so he could be with her. Her rejection hurt more than it should have, and not for the first time did he consider Jesse might have the right of it.

Love didn’t fit the Ravager lifestyle.

Ravagers needed sex like they needed to breathe. Jealousy had no part in their lives. Yet the thought of Kate with anyone but Jesse or him bugged the shit out of Logan. He still wanted to pound Sean Morely into the ground. The man was now happily mated to Kate’s sister, yet Logan couldn’t forget the fact that Sean had fucked Kate. The woman who’d rejected Logan had taken a human for a plaything.

How fucked up was that?

He growled and muttered to himself as he stalked past another stupefied couple and made his way to the stairs. Descending a few flights, he wondered again why Kate had chosen this hotel in midtown. Not all the humans in Cross Step liked the Voiders who’d invaded their world. Rumors swirled that a group of them had formed to exterminate any Voiders unlucky enough to be caught alone and unaware. Just what he needed, to find himself abducted by Voider-haters in the middle of midtown.

Annoyed with his own paranoia, Logan pushed open the door to the fourth floor. He walked down the hall, wondering about his new pack and when, if ever, he’d finally think of them as a family.

Jesse could be a pain in the ass, but he was solid. Though the Ravager might never admit it, he loved Logan as much as he loved Kate. Jesse didn’t do softness and feeling. His youth had been a warzone. Tender emotion wasn’t the Ravager way, at least not in the homeworld. But here they didn’t have to scavenge for every scrap of food or affection.

In Cross Step, a male didn’t have to hide his female for fear she’d be taken from him, raped and killed if she failed to reproduce. Ravagers could afford to feel something other than pride in a mate. Hell, look how strong the prime’s pack was. All four of them loved the hell out of each other.

Logan wanted that for himself, for Jesse and Kate. The stubborn woman needed them. Jesse would temper her wildness, and Logan would encourage her humor and her need to be free.

In retrospect, he knew it wasn’t fair to blame their distance solely on Kate. Jesse was a hardcase, but Logan could have talked to her. He could have tried to reason with her, to get her to see how much he cared. But he’d been afraid she might not want him. Not wanting an answer he wasn’t ready for, he’d left Kate alone, hoping she’d eventually come to them.

But she hadn’t. It had taken Jesse and his fuck-the-world attitude to claim their mate.

Logan took a few deep breaths as he paced the empty hallway. The darkness outside told him it was still too early for most humans to be up and moving about. And much too late to undo what had already been done.

He needed to fix things, and feeling sorry for himself at three or four in the morning in a crappy hotel in midtown wasn’t solving anything.

He turned to make his way back to the stairs when the familiar scent of blood hit him. Human blood. His guer perked up, and he followed the scent to one of the rooms. Staring at the closed door, Logan had second thoughts about intruding. But the idea of someone in trouble forced him to intervene.

He banged on the door. “Hello? Anyone in there?”

He listened close but didn’t hear anything. Then the doorknob turned and he stepped back, prepared for the worst. The pungent scent of blood and entrails hit him hard, awakening his need to shift into his guer. Past the room’s short hallway, he could see the lit bedroom. Dark red handprints covered the white duvet of the bed. A small hand reached out to him, hanging off the edge, the body smothering in pillows and rolled in a thick blanket.

“What the hell?” He took two steps into the room when the door slammed shut behind him and the sense of danger overwhelmed. Logan would know that fucked-up scent anywhere. “Will Lawless,” he hissed. But before he could do anything about it, something solid slammed into his head and he saw nothing more.

* * * * *

Jesse sat up, breathing hard. His heart pounded and he felt as if he’d just wakened from a nightmare. He looked beside him at the clock and noted the hour. It was nearing eleven in the morning. He and Kate had slept the night and the morning away. Little wonder after their marathon sexcapade.

He glanced around him in concern. Where the hell was Logan?

Jesse left Kate still sleeping soundly and showered and dressed. When he rejoined her in the bedroom again, he saw her stirring.

“Morning.” She looked so cute, sleepy-eyed as she yawned and sat up. Then the covers slid off her, exposing her beautiful body, and cute became sexy.

“Good morning,” he murmured, wishing he hadn’t dressed yet. He was hard from just the sight of her. A feminine hum sounded deep inside him, and he shifted, uncomfortable. Especially when his hard-on throbbed. He did his best to mute the connection.

“That’s me making you nervous,” Kate offered and stood, not at all modest about her nudity. Another plus to having a Ravager mate. They had no problems with their bodies.

“Not nervous, hard.” He cupped his erection, pleased when her gaze narrowed on it and she smiled. “I’m always hard around you, Kate.”

“Good.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“Ah, no it’s not. Remember who’s in heat?”

“Oh, right.” He coughed to distract himself. Because the thought of her heat turned his thoughts from Logan to impregnating Kate. And the last thing he wanted in his life right now was a kid. Thank God she wouldn’t be fertile during this first heat. “I want you again, believe me,” he said with feeling. “But Logan’s not back. Something’s not right.”

“Let me get dressed.”

“Hurry.” He waited while she took a quick shower and dressed in a rumpled shirt and jeans.

“Don’t worry about the room. I rented it for a few days.”

He frowned.

She huffed. “Give me a break, Jesse. I was horny, hurt and not happy that two dickheads ruined my Monday morning.”

“We didn’t run into you until last night.”

She blinked then choked on laughter. “Um, I wasn’t calling you and Logan dickheads. I meant the two Ravagers I ran into near the Voids.”

He tensed. “What?”

“Nothing. It’s not important.”

He grabbed her by the arm and halted her in her place. “It’s not nothing. What the hell are you talking about?” The urge to hunt down and kill anyone who’d threatened Kate shadowed his need to find Logan.

Before she could answer, they both heard a scream from several floors below. Jesse and Kate shared a glance then raced for the door. They cleared the hallway and stairwell in under a minute, then exited on the fourth floor, where Jesse could scent faint traces of blood and Logan.

His senses flared, his hearing, sight and sense of smell on overdrive as he sought his missing mate.

Instead of Logan, he ran into a crowd milling around a dozen Salinas near the open door of a room down the hall. At the edge of the crowd, he and Kate stopped. He kept his hand on her, not willing to chance her running or being pulled from him, not with Logan already absent.

“Do you see anything?” she asked.

He shook his head. Taller than most of the people around him, he could only see the backs of several Salinas. A few paramedics suddenly left the room rolling a gurney. He blanched seeing the bloody sheet covering a body being wheeled away.

“It’s not him. Too small,” he whispered to Kate, almost weak with relief. But their worries weren’t over, because he scented Logan on that sheet, and that couldn’t be good.

One of the Salinas met his stare and nodded to his friends. “You, there. Come here.”

Shit. Jesse couldn’t ignore him. Everyone turned to look at him, suspicion, fear and tension thick in the suddenly quiet atmosphere. He turned to Kate and ordered in a low voice, “Go back to our room and stay there.”

“Hell no. I’m not leaving you.”

Proud she wanted to stand by him, he was torn between wanting to keep her by his side, where he could keep an eye on her, and wanting her far away from this mess. Then the choice was taken out of his hands.

“Jesse and Kate Savage?”

“Yeah?” Jesse put himself between the Salinas and Kate.

“Come with us.”

They didn’t say he was under arrest, but the way they surrounded him and Kate spoke volumes.

“Come on.”

Jesse held Kate’s hand and pulled her protectively into his side while they walked quickly from the crowd for the elevator.

He turned to one of the Salinas and asked, “What the hell’s going on?”

No one answered. They rode the elevator to the first floor in silence. Jesse growled when one of the men stepped too close to Kate. At the sound, the cop took a healthy step back and put his hand on the butt of his weapon. Smart guy.

Still, no one spoke. Not even when they exited the back of the hotel and neared one of several squad cars.

“We’ll take them with us for questioning. Keep the crowd quiet,” one of the older cops told the group.

“What the fuck is going on?” Jesse demanded to know.

A younger cop with attitude answered in a cold voice, “A Ravager tore apart a young woman who had the bad luck to be working the night shift on the hotel’s wait staff. Her throat was ripped out, her guts tossed around the room like a fucking salad and blood thrown everywhere. And what do you know, the only three Ravagers on the premises are you, her and our suspect, Logan Savage.”

“Suspect?” Kate’s voice was strong despite the shock he could feel in her guer.

Their new tie gave him insights into his mate that might prove invaluable to their future after all. He asked the cop, “What does Logan have to do with this?”

The older Salina with them sighed. “We found him in the room, covered in her blood.”

“The hell you did. He was with us last night.” Until he’d left, angry and hurt. But Logan would never hurt an innocent. It just wasn’t in his make-up.

“Which is why you two are coming with us to the station for questioning.” The older cop held open the back door to his vehicle.

Jesse glanced at Kate. They could easily escape with their speed and strength, but Jesse wanted to see what the Salinas were talking about. And he needed to talk to Logan.

She nodded and they entered the vehicle.

Two Salinas jumped in the front seat and they hurried away.

But Jesse noticed the direction they took didn’t head anywhere near the station. He knocked on the flame-retardant partition between the backseat and the front. “Where the hell are we going?”

Officer Attitude sat in the front passenger seat. He turned and answered. “Mr. Chen wants a word.”

Jesse didn’t understand. “Mr. Chen? Are you talking about Tommy Chen?”

The only Chen he knew of ran Cross Step’s underground—a criminal network made up of Voiders and those unlucky enough to cross Chen’s path. The rumors that Chen had his fingers deep in the Salinas’ pockets were apparently true.

“What the hell does Chen have to do with this?”

Kate gripped his hand tight, looking as confused as he felt.

“Just sit back and shut up. We’ll be there soon enough. And before you even think about making a run for it, we’re taking you to your buddy. You want to see Logan Savage, sit tight.”

Jesse swallowed what he wanted to say and sat back with Kate.

“Jesse, what is going on?”

He kissed her forehead. “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”

He hugged her tight, not surprised when they eventually turned into an abandoned section of town. They called it the Tombs. Emptied warehouses, ravaged graveyards and derelict lots were interspersed with the slums of the poor and neglected.

“Nice.” Kate wrinkled her nose. “Chen has quite the empire.”

“You’ll keep your pretty mouth shut if you want to make it out of here alive,” one of the Salinas warned. “Mr. Chen is pretty particular about manners.”

Kate snorted. “By all means, let’s not offend Mr. Chen.” She squirmed, and Jesse caught the delicious scent of sexual need. Shit. That’s all they didn’t need. Kate’s heat returning full force.

“Try to keep a lid on it, baby,” he whispered. “This is going to be hard enough to handle without…that.”

“Like I have any control over this.” She sighed. “I’ll do my best.”

He could see the outline of her nipples under her thin shirt, and he wanted nothing more than to suck her through the material. Hell, he had to keep his own hormones in check.

Jesse glanced away from Kate at the area around them. They drove through what looked like mostly empty buildings, except he kept seeing flashes of movement and color all around him. Ravagers were attuned to the hunt, and he felt his blood stirring to track down those who would hide from him.

“Easy.” Kate stroked his forearm, soothing the tight muscle, surprising him that he hadn’t felt himself clench his fists, readying for attack.

“I just want to find Logan and get the hell out of here. We have unfinished business.”

“Trust me, I know,” she said in a thick voice.

“Right.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

The car came to a halt just inside a large industrial building. But this one showed more movement in it. They exited the car and Jesse took a swift, hard look around.

Broken windows and doors dotted a landscape of steel scaffolding and mostly empty space. A storage warehouse with a central office, as well as a few extra rooms up the steps to his left. Two flights above the office had sections of steel flooring around the perimeter of the warehouse, leaving the middle wide open. Broken-down cranes and pulleys lingered above them, bound by steel wires and bolted to an X-brace just under the roof.

The Salinas nodded to the open metal stairway leading to a half-dozen armed guards on the second floor.

Jesse counted two Ravagers, what looked like three or four humans, and a Valk. The pointed ears, sharp nails and almost fey-beauty gave him away. Jesse made a note to watch him closely. Valks did most of their damage with their powerful voices. Jesse had no intention of letting some pointy-eared asshole shatter his eardrums.

None of Chen’s muscle talked. They didn’t need to. Their muscles, weapons and ready stances spoke for them. Unfortunately, Kate shifted beside him, and the Ravagers locked onto her like a piece of meat.

“Hell.”

He tucked her next to him and they walked together to the second landing. Behind them, the Salinas left in their car.

Before Jesse could warn the interested Ravagers back, Kate took charge.

“You two don’t back off, I’ll geld you before you can even think of getting it up.”

The males looked to him and he shrugged. “She’s in heat. I wouldn’t push it.”

The males wisely stepped back, letting the Valk lead the procession toward the office. Jesse nudged Kate in front of him while they walked, conscious of the Ravagers and humans at his back.

The Valk stopped before a steel door with a tiny window at eye level. “In there.”

Jesse peered through the window at a large man sitting behind a desk, his feet propped on it, his hands behind his head as he rocked back in his chair. On his forearms distinctive black tattoos shimmered with glints of color when the light hit them just so.

Had to be Tommy Chen.

Then another man paced in front of him.

“Logan.” Jesse yanked open the door and dragged Kate with him. “Where the hell have you been? What happened to you?”

“Finally.” Logan sighed with relief. “I was getting worried.”

Kate launched herself at Logan and kissed him before Logan could say any more. The door closed behind them and Jesse kept his back against it, prepared for anything while Logan lost his mind in Kate’s embrace. Not that he could blame him, but Logan had picked the mother of all times for sex.

To make matters worse, Kate’s heat tugged at his own, their guers uncomfortably connected. If he didn’t work hard at it, Jesse could sense everything she did. Disconcerting, not to mention a bit awkward walking around with a hard-on all the time. Kate had sex on the brain in a big way, and he had trouble remembering his own name when she turned her smile on him.

Chen dropped his feet to the floor. “Wow. Potent pheromones.”

Logan broke the kiss, panting, and draped his arm around Kate, hugging her tight. “I told you. No way I left my mates to maul some poor girl.”

Chen argued, “Yet you were wandering the hotel at three a.m. Alone.”

“I pissed him off,” Kate said, defensive. Her eyes shot sparks at Chen. “He’s mine.”

“Kate.” Jesse shook his head. They had enough to worry about without aggravating a murderous crime boss. “Would someone please explain what the fuck is going on?”

Chen sighed. “As much as I’d love to stay and watch, I really do have work to do. Logan, tell Vicki this squares my debt. And congratulations on the claiming. Finally,” he added with a sly wink and stood. “You’ve got four hours, as requested. Make the most of it.”

Then the most dangerous Voider in Cross Step bowed to Kate, nodded to Jesse and Logan, and left the room. The door snicked closed behind them.

Logan wouldn’t let go of Kate, and she liked it. Jesse could feel her enthusiasm for her mate. Then she turned her attention to him and smiled.

His cock rose in seconds. Damn, the woman was lethal, and she knew it.

Logan sighed. “Man, I needed that. Now before you two start on me about what’s been going on, let’s go into the other room and I’ll explain.”

They walked through a side door into a surprisingly clean bedroom. A large bed in simple white sheets sat in the middle of a cement floor. A few chairs occupied the corner around a scarred wooden table. A television had been mounted to one wall, and a soft light lit the space with warmth. There were no windows, only the door through which they’d come and another that led to a small lavatory.

“Chen’s home away from home,” Logan quipped. He dragged Kate with him to the bed and sat.

“Okay, we’re here. Now talk.” Jesse leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest, waiting.

“In a nutshell, I left you two after Kate pissed me off.”

“Sorry,” she said in a quiet voice.

“You should be.” Logan’s lips quirked, and Jesse knew he’d since forgiven her. “I moped for a bit, scared a few humans and wandered down a few floors distracted by my new mate. Then I caught the overpowering stench of blood and followed the trail. Got myself whacked upside the head by none other than Will Lawless.”

“Lawless?” Jesse didn’t know how his world had gone to hell so quickly. From trying to secure their mate to dealing with not one but two powerful adversaries in the span of a few hours. First Will Lawless, outcast and rogue Ravager, then Tommy Chen, leader of Cross Step’s underground.

Logan nodded. “Chen and I had a nice long chat while I’ve been waiting for you two. What do you think the odds are that Will Lawless is booked in Kate’s hotel, just a few floors underneath hers, for the same duration Kate reserved? He used a false name too.”

Jesse and Logan shared a glance then turned to Kate.

“Hey, I didn’t invite him, don’t look at me.”

“What’s really interesting is that Chen found the bodies of two Ravagers with their throats slit a few hours ago.” Logan stared hard at Kate, who shifted uneasily next to him. “And guess what, Jesse? Those same two assaulted Kate yesterday morning.”

“Assaulted her?” Jesse’s temper surged at the thought of anyone harming his female. “Kate? Start talking.” When she looked like she might balk, he added, “Now,” and snapped his guer tight.

Chapter Five

Kate swallowed, nervous. “Look, none of this is my fault.” The rage on Jesse’s face was bad enough, but the simmering anger she could see on Logan’s normally even-tempered features added to her guilt and worry. “I started to tell you earlier, Jesse. I was drinking my coffee yesterday morning, in a public place.” Where she should have been safe. Logan and Jesse seemed to relax a fraction, though she could still feel Jesse’s protective anger through their connection. “Two Lawless Ravagers approached me. They smelled me. Ah, my…I mean, they wanted to…”

“They scented your heat, knew you’d claimed two losers you couldn’t stand, and thought they’d scratch your itch,” Logan said sarcastically. So much for being forgiven.

“Well, yeah. I mean, no, you’re not losers. Oh hell, you know what I’m trying to say. I quickly told them to kiss off. They didn’t like that, we fought, and I kicked their asses.”

Jesse’s eyes gleamed. “Good girl.”

“You shouldn’t have had to kick anyone‘s ass. If you’d claimed us like you should have, we’d still be at home at the compound fucking like rabbits.” Logan shifted on the bed, and she saw the outline of his erection clearly though his pants.

Jesse raised a brow at him. “She took care of me earlier, while you were off in the hotel pining for her. Lost in all your negativity.”

Logan scowled. But as he concentrated on Jesse, he lost his annoyance. Wonder replaced the look on his face, and his hopeful expression tugged at her heartstrings. The Ravager really did love her. She could feel it pulsing in his guer, reaching out to her once more. Unlike Jesse, Logan opened himself fully to her. The warmth and welcome in his soul called her home.

“We’ll get to that soon, Kate. First, finish your explanation,” Jesse said gently.

“So it’s true, you can feel what she feels,” Logan murmured. “Amazing.”

He gripped Kate’s hand in his own, then placed it over the bulge between his legs. Kate’s desire flared, the flames of need licking at her and growing. She cleared her throat. “That’s all there is to it. The Salinas didn’t know what had actually happened. I pretended to be hurt so I could get away without more questions. They took me off in an ambulance, but one of the EMTs was a Vulcani, and he let me out in midtown. That’s the only reason I was in that hotel. It was close and I needed a break. I was hot.” For you two.

Logan’s breathing increased and he ran a finger down her neck to her collarbone. He traced the bone, then dragged his finger down her chest and ended at her nipple. “I’m hot too.”

“Logan,” Jesse warned, but Kate wanted this. Right here, right now. She had to claim Logan as hers.

“Look, I convinced Chen to give us a few uninterrupted hours. Let’s not waste it, Jesse.”

“Right.” Jesse’s deep voice made her shiver.

Logan sighed when she tightened her hand over him. “Chen’s not a bad guy once you get to know him.”

“Are you shitting me?” Jesse’s shock was blotted out by the sheer wave of lust Kate felt when Logan cupped her breast.

“You marked him,” Logan said to her. “Tied the stubborn bastard to you. Now it’s my turn.” He pinched her nipple. “Payback’s a bitch, Kate.”

“I hope so.”

He laughed and lay back on the bed, pulling her on top of him.

“Damn, Kate. I need you. All of you.” Logan lifted her shirt over her head and tossed it aside. Her bra soon followed. “I need to touch you. Oh fuck, I love your breasts. Those tight, plump nipples. Yeah,” he breathed before he pulled her over him and took her nipple in his mouth.

The sensation raced through her body and dampened her panties.

Jesse tugged her shoes and socks from her body. He pulled her jeans and underwear off slowly, feathering kisses over the small of her back and down her legs, then back up to her ass.

“So tight,” he groaned and palmed it. “I can’t wait to take you here.” He gave her a soft pat and pulled away just as Logan clamped his mouth around her other nipple.

“Claim me, Kate. Make me yours,” Logan whispered against her flesh, his guer straining for acceptance.

Kate could no more deny him than she could herself. She craved him, wanted him to complete the mating they all deserved.

“I love you,” he said and dropped everything shielding himself from her. Her guer merged with his and brought her, Jesse and Logan together in a way she’d never thought possible. One guer, one powerful warrior spirit for three very different individuals. It was beauty, unadulterated love in its purest form.

“Fuck yes,” Logan moaned. “Let me come inside you, Kate. Let me fill you.”

“You do, you already do,” she gasped and ripped at his clothes. How she managed to get him naked she’d never know because she couldn’t think of anything but getting him inside her. Nothing else mattered.

He gripped her hips and had her straddling him as he shoved his thick cock inside her. The hurried stretch by his flesh brought a sharp, welcome pain and she pushed his hands away as she slammed hard over him.

“Oh yeah,” he groaned and lay back.

Jesse rounded the bed, now naked as well, and held Logan’s hands over his head, pinning him to the bed. The sight of one of her strong lovers unable to move under the other’s powerful hold turned her on even more.

“Ride me, Kate. I’m yours,” Logan said, his voice thick. His eyes shone, and she could feel his love like a loud, clear broadcast that even Jesse couldn’t miss. Because Logan’s love encompassed their stubborn mate too. She realized she’d said that out loud when Jesse smiled.

“Stubborn, huh?” Jesse glanced down at Logan with lust and affection. “Just let him come and put this pathetic Ravager out of his misery.”

“Ass.” Logan bucked and groaned when she sank farther over him. “Kate, you feel so hot. So wet.”

“I love you too, Logan.” She kissed him, putting her all into it. She licked his lips, thrusting her tongue inside his mouth as she fucked him, taking the control even as she lost herself to his desire. The feel of herself surrounding him echoed within her pleasure at being filled. Logan warmed her from the inside out, so free with his feelings and needs. His love.

She wanted this to be perfect for him and said so.

“It is,” he said. “You are. Both of you.”

He surged up again, straining and moaning.

Kate continued to ride him and trailed her kisses down his face to his neck, where she nipped him, drawing blood.

Logan shuddered.

“So Logan likes a little pain too,” Jesse said with satisfaction, his rumble one of frustrated desire.

She glanced up and saw him hard, aroused and ready to come.

“Oh I’m gonna come, baby. Right after loverboy shoots.”

Jesse knew how much she wanted to make up for the hurt she’d caused Logan. She wanted to heal him, to breach old wounds with new pleasure. Leaning down, she kissed Logan’s nipple then bit it just as she swirled her hips, teasing his cock.

“Yeah, Kate. That’s good. Give it to him,” Jesse growled, his eyes nearly black.

Logan bucked again, trying to get deeper inside her. She could feel him fighting Jesse, his need to grab her and hold on to her an instinctive need to claim her right back.

“It’s okay, Logan. She’s yours, mate. Let her show you.”

Logan’s pupils dilated. His fangs and claws grew, and he drew Jesse’s blood as he struggled to be in charge.

Kate thought it the sexiest thing ever. She bit her lip and sat up on him, slamming down over his thick cock. “I need it,” she moaned and gripped her breasts.

Logan stilled, his gaze fastened to her hands. “More.”

“Yes. I need you, Logan. I claim you as my own. As our own,” she corrected, including Jesse, who stared at her like a starving man. She twisted her pelvis, grinding onto Logan, who felt so hard and thick inside her she never wanted to be apart from him again.

She pinched her nipples and her pussy tightened around Logan, excitement and danger and lust roiling over the love tying her and her mates together. She forced him to feel it all as she pushed it through his guer.

“Kate, I’m coming, baby. Oh yeah, oh yes,” Logan shouted as he came, emptying himself inside her.

Jesse finally let his hands go and circled around to Kate. He knelt behind her and reached around to thumb her clit. She felt his hard cock pressed against her back. She smelled Logan’s arousal mixed with her own, and then Jesse rubbed himself against her with a greedy moan just as he pushed his thumb against her swollen clit. The pressure stimulated her already aroused body into a hard orgasm, and she tightened around Logan, stimulating him into another, harder climax.

“Oh fuck.” Logan’s entire body tensed as he locked up in carnal ecstasy.

She held herself there, clenching Logan within her body, and could actually feel him surging inside her. His seed, his guer, his love. Like a key that fit a lock, his guer snapped into place inside her, next to their other mate.

“That was incredible,” Jesse said, breaking the silence. “So damned right. It’s what we’ve been waiting for, Kate.” He hugged her tight, and she knew they had one more mate to satisfy before they could do this all over again, together.

Logan met her gaze with a naughty one of his own. “Kate, that was beautiful. And long past due.”

“No kidding.” Jesse snorted.

“But I’m not done.”

Jesse groaned. “Hey, man, I’m hurting here.” But he let go of her and stepped back, seeing to Logan the way he’d seen to Kate.

Jesse would always be a protector, putting others’ needs before his own. Just as Logan saw to the pack’s emotional health, Jesse normally worked hard at making sure his fellow Ravagers were safe, physically.

Logan caught her eye, and she knew he’d sensed what she’d just thought. Now, feeling him within her, she could see how very closed Jesse still was to her, by comparison.

Logan winked, understanding and so full of joy she wondered that Jesse didn’t feel it as well. Or maybe he did and he didn’t want to express it. Though still tied to him, now that she had Logan, Jesse seemed to think it was all right to distance himself once more.

And that was intolerable.

Kate slowly lifted herself off Logan, uncaring of the mess he’d made, and lay down beside him.

“I like seeing my cum on you,” he murmured as he rose and smoothed a few drops onto her thigh.

“That’s sexy as hell,” Jesse said in a hoarse voice. “Rub it all over her.”

Logan continued to touch her, caressing her while Jesse stood to the side, watching, his cock hard, his face flushed with need. His claws and fangs were out, like Logan’s, and Kate knew they wouldn’t go away until he’d been fully satisfied.

“Jesse, come here.” Logan parted her thighs wide and shoved two fingers inside her. Jesse joined him, and they stared down at her pussy, watching as Logan finger fucked her. “I’m still hurting, Jess.”

“Take her then.”

Logan shook his head, and she could see what he had in mind. Clever Ravager.

She leaned up on her elbows, pushing her breasts out. As expected, Jesse’s gaze caught on her nipples and stayed there. He was so hard, but he didn’t make a move to relieve himself, not since Logan had made it clear he was still in need.

God, Jesse. I love you too, so much. She caught Logan’s eye and gave a subtle nod.

In seconds, Logan knocked him to the bed and he and Kate pinned Jesse down. Though surprised, he didn’t fight back. He was too busy thrusting up against her belly.

“I’m really hungry, Jess. And I bet Kate is too. Aren’t you, mate?”

Kate nodded and scooted off Jesse. She and Logan knelt on either side of him, focused on the long, fat cock straining for satisfaction.

“Shit. Stop playing and do it already,” Jesse rasped.

Logan shook his head. “You can’t order our mate around. I’m sorry for his temper, Kate.” He turned back to Jesse. “Maybe a firm tongue-lashing would teach you some respect.”

Kate grinned at the wicked look in Logan’s eyes.

She couldn’t believe she’d mated them. Claimed them. Her lovers. Her pack. Reading the excitement on Logan’s face, she met him for a kiss around Jesse’s cock.

Jesse swore as her lips and Logan’s met around his solid flesh. She licked and stroked him with her tongue, doing whatever Logan did, until she could see and hear Jesse moaning and straining for relief.

“That is one huge hard-on, Jess,” Logan said to Jesse as he licked his way up the side of Jesse’s cock to his crown. “That slit is pearly white with cum.”

“Let me.” Kate trailed her tongue to his cock head and licked his slit.

“Oh fuck. Get me off. Come on,” Jesse rumbled, his claws shredding the white bedding.

“So bossy.” Kate took the head of his cock in her mouth and sucked.

“That’s sexy.” Logan rubbed Jesse’s balls and a spurt of cum hit her tongue. “Now let me, Kate.”

She released Jesse from her mouth, captivated by the sight of Logan blowing their mate. She’s always loved watching two strong Ravagers fuck. But the beauty in Logan and Jesse left her breathless. So powerful, so muscular and hard, yet they handled each other with a softness so at odds with their frames.

Logan let Jesse go and licked him again. “Your turn.”

Kate took over where Logan had stopped. They teased Jesse by alternately sucking him and touching him. Licks and bites, and a slight squeeze around his sac, until Kate was sure he was close to coming. Before, the shields around his guer had eased when he climaxed, and she wanted to feel him again, in all his animalistic glory.

“Yeah, time to swallow,” Logan murmured.

“Past time,” Jesse moaned. “Fuck. I need this. I need you.” Both of you, she heard his guer tremble with the truth. “You two, get on your knees on the ground, now.”

Kate had lost control of the situation, but she didn’t care. Jesse had opened himself completely to her, and she loved it. His guer purred with the need to belong to her and Logan.

Kate didn’t need any urging. She knelt on the ground next to Logan while Jesse stood between them. She licked one side of Jesse’s shaft while Logan licked the other. She met Logan’s lips, and they tongued his slit together while kissing each other.

“Oh God, yeah. So good.” A glance at Jesse showed his face drawn in sensual need as he watched them sucking him to bliss.

“Hmm,” Logan murmured and nudged her out of the way to suck Jesse’s cock head into his mouth. He let him go and licked the length of his shaft. “You have to suck hard to get the treat, Kate.” He winked at her and planted kisses along Jesse’s groin and hip. “And if you want to see him really explode, you stick something in his ass while something else pulls from his dick.”

“Logan, stop fucking teasing and blow me,” Jesse growled, his cock shiny with seed and saliva. “I’m so close.”

“Easy, mate,” Kate taunted. “Where’s that discipline you like bragging about?”

He speared her with a glare and grabbed her by the hair. The grip felt incredible, possessive and firm. And she throbbed between her legs, wanting him to come on her, inside her.

“Open your mouths,” Jesse rasped. “Logan, get your hand away from my ass.”

Logan chuckled. “So testy.” He kissed Kate and linked his fingers with hers. Their hands joined, they grazed Jesse’s sac. “He’s tight. Getting ready to blow.”

“I want to see.” Kate couldn’t get that image out of her head. Jesse coming into her open mouth, then into Logan’s.

“He tastes good.” Logan kissed her again then moved back to Jesse’s cock.

“Open,” Jesse ordered and gripped his shaft. “Here it comes,” he warned as he came into Kate’s open mouth on a groan.

White jets landed on her tongue before he turned to Logan and shot into his mouth. Still coming, he pulled out and let the rest of his seed hit Kate’s chest. “To mark you as mine,” he rasped.

And because she’d wanted him to. She could clearly feel in both of them that satisfying her meant everything.

Jesse sagged to his knees and wiped his cum into her skin. He kissed her then kissed Logan. “I can’t believe how good that was. Holy shit.”

The three of them left the cold, cement floor and cleaned up in the lavatory before joining each other on the small bed. It was just big enough for Logan and Jesse to fit next to each other with Kate lying on top of them.

“I like this.” Logan smiled and cupped her ass, while Jesse leaned closer to kiss her breasts.

“Me too.” He took her nipple in his mouth and gently nipped. “How much time you think we have left?”

Logan laughed. “Not enough for the fantasies Kate’s having.”

“Oh?” Jesse frowned. “How do you know what she wants?”

“I can feel her. I’m open to her all the time. She’ll feel me now, because she claimed me. But you’re so fucking tight it’s hard to read you unless you’re coming.”

Jesse flushed. “Are you serious?”

Kate nodded and toyed with his hair. “I guess I’ll have to keep you on the verge of constant orgasm so I know what’s going on in that pretty little head of yours.”

“Kate.”

She grinned. “You’re so fun to tease. Logan’s right, though. We don’t have enough time for what I have in mind.”

“And what is that?” Jesse asked. He twined a hand in her hair and brought her close for a kiss. So much tenderness, so much emotion in that meeting of mouths. But the blasted Ravager refused to admit what was in his heart.

Logan sighed, understanding. For years the pair had been together, yet in all that time Kate knew Jesse had never told Logan how much he mattered. She understood Logan’s frustration. Especially when she tried to read Jesse’s guer and found it blocked again.

“Hmm.”

“What?” Jesse looked guarded.

When she didn’t answer, just stared at him thoughtfully, he squirmed on the bed, clearly uncomfortable.

Logan coughed to cover up his laughter.

“You know, Logan never did tell us how he went from the hotel to this place,” Jesse said to change the subject.

Kate decided to give him a reprieve for now. After giving her so many climaxes, he’d earned it. “Mr. Defensive has a point, Logan.” She ignored Jesse’s frown. “Tell us the rest of what happened with Chen. And make it fast.” She glanced at a bedside clock. “We don’t have much more time before we’ll be back with the clan.”

Chapter Six

Logan grinned. “Sure, Kate. Whatever you want, baby. It’s yours. And can I just say I’m loving this heat. I mean, I wanted you before. But now it’s like my cock is on permanent hard mode.”

“It usually is,” Jesse muttered, and Kate laughed.

Beneath the laughter, Logan could feel her frustration. Logan wanted to smack Jesse for being so stubborn, but his persistence was part of what made him so attractive. Assured, dependable, Jesse was like a rock. Hard to budge, but always there when you needed him. Logan still held out hope that someday, some way, Jesse would admit he loved him.

With a sigh, he let his guer stroke Kate’s in comfort and continued his tale. “Well, I told you Lawless knocked me out. Problem is, when I woke up, I was lying half on top of that poor dead woman. I had a fist around her intestines.”

“Ew.” Kate grimaced.

“Yeah.” Logan shook his head. “I was covered in her blood and then surrounded by hotel security. Will must have reported me and set me up to take the fall, the bastard. My bet is he’d have taken on Jesse next. He’s always had a thing for you, Kate. He wants us out of the way so he can claim you.”

She didn’t look pleased at the thought, and Logan felt her guer bristle at the notion of Will Lawless trying to tie to her.

Jesse squeezed her hip in support.

Logan kissed her. “No way Lawless is ever getting close to you again. Not alive, anyway.”

“Yeah.” Jesse kissed her on the cheek. “You got that right.”

“Anyway, after Will hit me, the next thing I know, I’m being hosed off and bundled into a car outside the hotel. Four friggin’ huge Voiders dragged me into this place and I met Tommy Chen. The man has an incredible network around the city. He sees all and hears all if it has to do with Voiders. I explained to him what happened. I’m not sure why, but he believed me.”

Jesse frowned. “He said something about a debt to Vicki.”

For the first time in forever, Kate didn’t flinch at her queen’s name. Logan breathed an inaudible sigh of relief. One hurdle crossed, at least.

She glanced back at Jesse. “A debt? For what, exactly?” she asked.

Logan wasn’t sure. “I don’t know. But I remember Vicki did a job that involved him before we brought her into the pack. Maybe Chen’s obligation has something to do with that. In any case, he agreed to bring you two to me, and even to give me some time before he called in the clan.” Logan still felt the flush of embarrassment that Chen knew about their failed claiming. “He felt sorry for me. Even out here news traveled that some hot Ravager chick had denied two asshole Ravagers not worthy of her.”

Kate blushed. “Oh man. I never meant to make you two the butt of any jokes.”

Jesse raised his brow.

“Really,” she tried to convince him. “We had a lot of problems between us even before Vicki,” she admitted. “I’ve been in love with you two since I was old enough to know what love was. It’s a human emotion, but I couldn’t help feeling it for you. Except both of you ignored me. You treated me like a bothersome pest most of the time. And when I’d finally gotten old enough to do something about how I felt, you two were so busy with Eric and fucking anyone but me, I felt invisible.”

Logan stroked her hair. “Kate. Sweetheart. You were never invisible. Trust me. I felt connected to you a long time ago, but you were so young to even be thinking about a possible mating. As you got older, I knew, deep inside, that you belonged with me. With us,” he said, nodding to Jesse. “But by then we were pack, and Prime didn’t want anyone sniffing around you unless you wanted it, and you never wanted me.”

“Or me,” Jesse added.

“You kept putting yourself in danger. It was driving me nuts.” He glanced away from Kate to Jesse. “Jesse and I knew we needed to do something. When I realized he wanted you as much as I did, it all made sense.”

Jesse cleared his throat. “We petitioned Eric to make you take your own pack.”

She blinked. “You did?”

“We wanted you, but you were hiding behind Prime. And his head was so far up his own ass about his mates, he couldn’t see how much trouble you were getting into.”

“Well—”

“Kate, Will nearly captured you when he tried to kidnap Vicki. And what about all your unsafe trips into the woods to spy on us?”

“You two fuck like clockwork,” she said.

Logan could feel her amusement at his discomfort. It made no sense, but around Kate, he’d always felt a little bashful about admitting to her what he and Jesse did. No wonder Jesse made so much fun of him. Even for a Ravager, Logan’s weird feelings were, well, weird.

Jesse turned on his side and positioned Kate closer to him, making her straddle Logan so he could look up at her. He nodded to Logan. “We have to fuck a lot. He needs it.”

“I do not,” Logan argued. “I just like sex.”

“Yeah, and you need it.” To Kate he said, “If our mate doesn’t get it regularly, he’s not right at all. It seriously messed with his guer when we went without for so long, waiting on you. Shut up, Logan. It’s true.”

Logan tried to rise but Kate wouldn’t let him. She clamped those strong thighs around his waist and held tight.

“Kate, it’s not true.”

“It is,” Jesse said firmly. “It’s not a weakness, it’s who you are. Deal with it.”

Kate kissed Logan’s chest. “Don’t be angry, Logan. I like any excuse to make love to you.”

“Make love?” His eyes searched hers. Though he felt it, and she’d said it, he wanted proof he wasn’t just an obligation. A weakness that had to be coddled or protected. It pissed him the hell off when Jesse made such a big deal about his raging libido. All Ravagers needed to fuck. So what, Logan did too. But when Kate said make love, he could feel that she literally meant the love part.

“Have sex?”Kate offered.

“Make love.” His wide grin made her smile. “I like that. Now if we can get Jesse to use those exact words, we’ll have made a miracle.”

Jesse flipped him off. “Fuck you.”

“That’s next on my list.” Kate licked her lips. “I’ve lain awake at nights, unable to sleep, fantasizing about watching you two up close, directing you. I want to push Jesse’s cock up your ass, Logan. I want to watch Logan lick you all over, Jesse. Everything I say, you do.”

“Yeah?” Jesse’s erection brushed Logan’s hip. And he was the one always needing sex? “So what do we get if we make all your fantasies come true, Kate?”

Logan felt her anticipation, and he groaned when she rocked that warm pussy over his arousal.

“You make my dreams come true, and I’ll do the same for you.” She leaned down and put her wet pussy in direct contact with his dick. Logan couldn’t help himself and shoved up inside her. “Yeah, that’s good, Logan.”

But she didn’t move.

“Fuck, Kate.”

“Oh we will. But I know what you two really want. You want to take me together. All of us joined.”

“Yeah.” Jesse held himself in a tight grip.

“Then I guess it’ll be one huge orgy when we get home, hmm?” She purred as she took Logan to bliss, then did the same to Jesse. For as much as they’d come inside her, Logan knew they might have started new life inside his mate. Though most females wouldn’t conceive during a first heat, the new queen’s hormones had been having a strange effect on the females in the clan. Women were popping up pregnant all over the place, and Logan could almost smell Kate’s ripeness. The thought of her carrying his or Jesse’s young thrilled him to no end. And that made him even more determined to keep Will Lawless far away from Kate.

Jesse reached for his hand and pressed a kiss to his palm, for once leaving his guer wide open. “We’ll take care of her, Logan. Ours, finally. And we’re not letting her go.”

Logan nodded, in lust, in love and in danger of losing his mind should anything happen to Kate or Jesse. Now more than ever, he would be strong. He refused to be the weak link anymore. And in their new pack, he didn’t have to bow to anyone. Not the Prime, his guard, or their queen.

He’d rip Lawless apart one inch at a time if the male looked the wrong way at Kate. Voids love him if he didn’t.

* * * * *

Will Lawless waited for his contact at the police department to show. He’d been searching for a press release for hours, but for some reason the Salinas were keeping quiet about the woman’s death at the hotel.

An average-looking man rounded the corner and nodded. “Evening.”

“Well?”

The man glanced over his shoulder then around him. “Word had it Chen interrupted everything.”

Will didn’t know what to say. This was one angle he hadn’t anticipated. “Chen? What the hell would a crime boss want with three insignificant Ravagers?”

The cop shrugged. “No one knows. The girl’s death has been swept under the rug as a random attack. They’re playing it like a druggie gone crazy. No hint of Voider involvement, though as soon as it hits the tabloids that’s all they’ll be talking about.”

Will swore and nodded at the cop to leave.

“Same time and place?” the cop asked.

“Yes, yes.”

The man practically ran from the alley, overjoyed he’d receive payment soon enough. The bastard got off on pain, and it took little for Will to hurt him. Frail humans. So undeserving. For a simple ass fuck and a few scratches, the human would sell out his fellow officers and do anything Will needed.

Had the humans been less concerned about presenting a good face to one and all, the cop could have found the freedom to live in the open about his wants and needs, like most Ravagers. Eric Savage might be a complete shit, and a stupid one at that, but at least he’d had the balls to take a human as mate out in the open.

Though Will hated his guts, he also respected the male for his grit. Savage was wrong, but had conviction.

But none of that mattered, now that Will’s prey had gone to ground. He’d need to get with some of his older contacts to flush Kate from wherever it was Chen had hidden her. The sooner he had her away from the other Ravagers, the better. He didn’t much care if one of them happened to get her pregnant. He’d rid her of the pup easily enough, but some females could be fierce about their young. And if he was forced to abort her fetus, he’d have to work that much harder to earn her loyalty.

He didn’t want to invest that much time in a breedmate. Not unless he absolutely had to. Will had other plans. Other hungers to assuage. He headed for the Tombs, knowing he’d find what he sought there. And if he were lucky, he might just find Kate as well. There’d be time enough to kill Logan and Jesse Savage later. And then the rest of the cards would start falling into place. He was sure of it.

* * * * *

They spent the remainder of their short time together fucking, laughing and finally getting clean. Of course, the small shower dared them to be at their most creative. Logan had banged his head and scraped his knees, but he’d had Kate begging for mercy before he’d fucked her good and hard.

A few blowjobs for Jesse and his mate was in a mellow, sated frame of mind.

They all dressed and lay together on the bed. Kate stroked Logan and Jesse wherever she could reach, giving them the soothing contact they needed. Ravagers loved touch, but being handled by his sexy mate made everything right. Logan loved Jesse like nothing else, but Jesse wasn’t soft. He rarely did gentle or tender. Rough, domineering, sexy and hard. The man could be brutal, a stone-cold killer if need be. But he was always there for Logan, no matter what. So Logan could wait on that “I love you”.

Through his guer Logan shared with Kate his concerns, and she understood. They’d both somehow been corrupted by sentimental humans. Logan’s parents had cared for one another, but they hadn’t loved. Not like the people did here. Not like he did Jesse and Kate.

Life in the homeworld had been filled with fun and play. Carefree affection that had gotten them all but killed when the Dekken arrived to slaughter everything in their city.

Through blind chance he’d found one of the Voids deep in the Ravager forest. He’d landed in Cross Step just a few years after Jesse, just in time for Eric to make him pack. Their years together had only strengthened their bond. In the serious-minded male, Logan had found someone to share with, confide in and care for.

Someone who needed him.

They hadn’t talked much about Jesse’s past, but Logan knew it hadn’t been anything like his. Logan had a feeling Jesse’s pack had been brutal. One of the traditionalist savages living out in the wild, away from civilization. For all that the people on earth called Ravagers animals, the homeworld had been filled with an advanced social structure.

Yet some, like Jesse’s family, tried to live as the animals in their guer. Too much human or too much animal could make a Ravager weak. Just like too little sex could craze the mind.

Logan studied his companions with a sigh, wishing he wasn’t always the one needing help. But from the beginning, he’d needed more attention, wanted for sexual care. Otherwise, he had trouble focusing. His guer simply needed to exercise that very physical part of him. And the Voids knew he’d been quite popular finding his way. Until Jesse had taken him under his wing.

Though they’d shared their sexuality with other males, namely the prime and his second, Jesse was always there to watch or take part. A protective lover, a determined friend.

“Relax, Logan. It’s okay,” Kate said as she petted his arm.

Jesse gave him a sharp glance.

“I’m fine, just eager to get back and make all your dreams come true,” he teased her.

She shivered, and the concern on Jesse’s face turned into lust. That quickly, arousal returned.

The scrape of metal outside the bedroom shattered the sense of intimacy, if not the mood. Someone banged on the door.

“Yeah?” Jesse called out and stood protectively between them and whoever was behind the door.

Logan sighed, wondering just when Jesse would start to see him as more than someone to protect, but to stand beside.

Kate glared. “Hey, I can defend myself you know. Why all the caution? Logan, I thought you said Chen was a great guy?”

Logan smiled at her, amused that Jesse’s defense annoyed her too. “I honestly liked him, but he’s still Tommy Chen. Relax, Kate. We know you can handle yourself.” He shot Jesse a look to behave. “But it makes us feel big and manly to protect you.” Logan joined Jesse, adding another body between Kate and the door.

She huffed. “Whatever. Just try not to get blood all over me if you need to get rough.”

“I like rough,” Jesse muttered and tore off his shirt. He shifted into his guer in seconds. In this form, his muscles grew, his bones elongated, and he sprouted fur, fangs and claws. His eyes were midnight black that shone in the dark. Logan felt a huge wave of lust crash over him all over again.

“Wow, is he sexy or what?” She gripped Jesse’s ass and his cock rose.

He chuckled and swore. “Damn, girl. It’s going to be hard to look threatening when my dick is leading the way.”

Logan glanced down to see his own erection bulging in his jeans. “True, but maybe you can disarm the enemy by taunting them with that huge cock.” Logan stayed in his human form with Kate, ready to deal with Chen if he needed to. He’d always found a sharp mind almost, if not more, important than sharp claws.

The door opened and the familiar scent of home wafted through. Dominic Savage, the prime’s mate and second in command, stood with a few of their clan at his back. Dom took a deep breath and smiled. Logan knew what that grin could do to his libido, and he glanced quickly at Kate to see how she reacted.

But his mate only stepped closer behind him and scratched his back with comforting, sharp nails. Her guer settled his but not Jesse’s apparently, because Jesse hadn’t turned back into his human skin.

Kate patted his back and Jesse growled a warning for the others to keep away and slowly shifted back.

“Claimed them both, eh, Kate?” Dom’s smile was genuine.

“Yes, I did.”

“Good.” Dom strode forward and took Jesse in a huge hug that lifted him off the ground. Seeing that, the rest of the small party entered and gave congratulations. Yet they kept their respectful distance from Kate.

Pleased, Logan returned the slaps and handshakes and hugs.

“Damn. Guess this means you’re off limits now?” one of them asked Logan. “Kate doesn’t look like the type to share.”

“I’m not,” she snapped, and the Ravager grinned at her with a good-natured leer.

Jesse stepped back, keeping her behind him. “Settle down, Kate. Terry’s just teasing.” He focused on Dom. “So you know what’s going on then?”

Dom nodded. “I’m up to speed. Now let’s get you three back home where you belong.” As they walked, Logan noted the empty warehouse. Dom shook his head at him. “Logan, I’m just warning you. Eric is beyond upset you were implicated in a human murder. It’s taken Vicki and Malcolm nearly sitting on his ass to keep him from hunting Will down and ripping his head off.”

The other Ravagers behind them muttered their approval of the idea.

“Why doesn’t he?” Kate asked.

Jesse answered, “Because that’s my job.”

Logan blew out a loud breath. “Our job.”

“Right. Sorry. Our job,” Jesse agreed and shocked Logan into missing a step. “As your mates, it’s up to us to seek retribution. You’re used to the old pack, when Eric led. But this is your pack, Kate. We’re your protectors now, so it’s on us to make this thing with Lawless end the right way.”

“What right way? Just rip his guts out and be done with it,” Kate barked.

“Now that’s a real Ravager female,” Terry said with approval.

Logan didn’t like his tone and shoved an elbow in his gut.

Terry coughed. “Easy, Logan. Damn, I’m not touching. Just admiring.”

“From a fucking distance,” Jesse growled.

Kate grinned.

Dom groaned. “Save me from the idiocy of the newly mated.”

“Um, Dom? Didn’t you just get tied to Prime, the queen and Malcolm a month ago?” Terry asked.

“Yeah, so I know what the hell I’m talking about.” Dom glared at Terry, who quickly slid to the rear of the group. “Now let’s get home. Being in this dump sets my teeth on edge.”

“Now is that any way to talk about the man who saved your kin?” Tommy Chen stepped out of the shadows. A dozen of his men stood behind him, armed to the teeth.

Dom didn’t break stride. He walked right up into Chen’s space. “Problem?”

“Not at all. I just found myself ending a meeting earlier than expected and thought I’d send my well-wishes to your happy little group.”

Chen’s men snickered.

Damn if the lot of them didn’t project “mean” like a marked scent. Logan moved closer to Kate, ready to tear into anyone who so much as breathed wrong in her direction.

Chen stood with his arms crossed, a smirk on his face. His dark eyes had a weird shine, an iridescent green that appeared and disappeared at random in his pupils. The guy was as big as any Ravager in human form, and he had muscles on top of muscles. Logan had found him a surprisingly pleasant and intelligent host.

“Logan, good luck. Jesse, Kate.” Chen nodded to each of them as if Dom and the rest of their clan weren’t there. “And Logan, make sure to tell Vicki we’re done. But if she even thinks about working for her ex-client again, I’m not going to be as forgiving.”

Logan knew Vicki had a history with Chen. The first time they’d met her, she’d been on the run from the crime lord. Apparently she’d stolen something from the guy on behalf of a client, and Chen was a less than forgiving Voider. Couple that with his warning against Vicki—not just their queen, but Dom’s mate as well—and Logan expected trouble.

He wasn’t surprised when Dom started to shift into his guer. The prime’s personal guard, Dom was a formidable male, the only blond in the entire clan, and a Ravager with psychic gifts that protected his prime and his mates like no other could. Chen threatening Vicki wasn’t a smart move.

“Not a wise thing to say just now.” Logan was aware his fangs were showing. He didn’t like anyone threatening their queen either.

Chen, the bastard, smiled and stepped right into Dom’s space. “Easy, Dominic. I meant no disrespect, only a reminder to stay clear of my business unless you want real problems.”

Before Dom could rip Chen’s head from his neck, Chen latched onto Dom’s upraised wrist, and Dom’s transformation stopped mid-form. Chen’s tattoos began swirling around his forearms, the ink almost alive. Dom stared as if hypnotized.

“Time for the Savages to go,” Kate said in a loud voice, and the scent of her need broke through the thick tension in the room.

Chen blinked, released Dom and stepped back.

Logan didn’t understand what the fuck was happening, but his guer didn’t like it. Chen felt wrong, powerful, dangerous. He seconded Kate’s idea. Time to go. “We’ll give Vicki the message.”

Dom stumbled. Logan and the clan gathered around him for support, keeping Kate safely in their midst.

To Logan’s surprise, he saw that Chen’s men continued to remain in the background. Not one of them had stepped forward to interfere.

“Nice guards you have there,” Jesse said wryly.

Chen smiled as if nothing odd had just happened, and his tattoos stopped…hissing? “They do what they’re told.” He cleared his throat. “I apologize, Dominic. Sometimes I can’t help my aggression. And the power in you is strong. Give my best to your queen and the twins.”

Logan blinked. “How do you know what she’s having?”

Chen shrugged. “Good news is hard to hide. Do yourselves a favor and go home. And watch out for Lawless. I have a feeling he won’t stop until he’s put down.”

“Thanks for your help.” He shouldered Dom’s weight on one side while Terry caught him on the other. Between them, they walked Dom toward the exit, letting in a burst of light.

“No problem. And good luck with your pack, Logan.” Chen waved. He and his crew watched them depart the warehouse.

The clan headed toward a pair of dark SUVs.

“Shit. What the fuck did he do to me?” Dom asked in a daze.

“Whatever it was,” Jesse answered, “it wasn’t good. My guer didn’t like it.”

“Mine neither,” Terry muttered.

“Freak,” one of the Ravagers agreed.

“Fucking spawn,” said another.

Logan wondered. “But his guer was strong. Even for a non-Ravager, he radiated warrior.”

“You know what? I don’t care.” Kate huffed her annoyance. “I’m in heat, I have two males needing my attention, and we’re just sitting around waiting for what, exactly?”

Everyone stopped, drawn by the sweet scent of a female in need, and then Jesse and Logan hustled Kate away from the others into the lead vehicle.

Dom grinned. “Good idea. We’ll see you at home.”

Logan could hear Terry whining as they got in the SUV. “But Dom, there are seven of us. We’re not going to fit.”

“You want to tell that to Kate and her mates?”

A pregnant pause. “Never mind.”

“I didn’t think so.”

Logan smiled. Time to head back home and make all of Kate’s dreams come true.

Chapter Seven

Three long days later, after being interrogated ad nauseum by the prime and his annoying though well-meaning pack, to include Vicki, of all people, after going through more traditional dinners, ceremonies and sharing her vows of love and devotion for her males in front of the entire clan, Kate’s patience would soon be rewarded.

“I still don’t see why I had to go through all that nonsense. You didn’t,” Kate said to Vicki.

The human queen snorted. “I’m not a Ravager. And thank God. If I’d had to wait even two minutes before my guys could take me, I’d have gone friggin’ nuts. Have to hand it to you, Kate. You’re a lot more patient than I’d thought.”

“Gee, thanks.” The animosity Kate normally felt when in Vicki’s presence no longer existed.

“Well, it wasn’t like you were burning up the sheets after you claimed them in the forest. We were worried about you.”

The proverbial “we”. Vicki and her pack. “Well don’t be.”

“Yeah, yeah. Not my business. You know, real human queens are a lot more managing. Seems like all I get to do is spread pregnancy like a disease.” Vicki glared down at her rounded stomach but patted it with tenderness. “At least I don’t have to wait the whole nine months. Puppies are going to be a huge pain in the ass, I just know it.”

“Like their fathers,” Kate said wryly, and Vicki grinned. “Well, don’t worry about me having a litter. A female’s first heat is rarely fertile.”

“Yeah, and there’s never been a Ravager queen who wasn’t Ravager. Last I heard, there are four females now pregnant.”

Kate swallowed. “Four?”

The smile Vicki shot her looked evil. “Oh yeah. Maybe five after today, hmm, Kate?”

Her mates saved her from smacking their queen upside the head.

“My queen.” Logan nodded but didn’t look away from Kate, his gaze hungry.

“Vicki.” Jesse raised a brow at Kate. “Well? We’re ready.”

She ignored Vicki, who held up a hand, spread her fingers wide and mouthed five.

Jesse frowned. “What?”

“Never mind.” Buzzing with happiness and caught in an affectionate lust that made it hard to think of anything but loving her mates, Kate took them both by the hand and pulled them behind the mansion—their home. As the new head of her pack, Kate could have moved them all away, but she had no intention of living in the city, as some of the other Ravagers did. She planned to live here at the compound, and hopefully raise her young surrounded by pack and clan.

“You sure you want to finish this in the woods? No bed?” Jesse asked.

Though a bed right now was much closer, and it had been three long, excruciating days apart from her mates, Kate wanted this to be special. No interruptions, no rush. Just the three of them loving together. Really together. “Let’s shift and run to your favorite meeting spot.”

Already taking off his clothes and folding them in a neat pile on the porch steps, Logan smiled. “Let’s get wild and freaky Kate’s way. This is her fantasy.”

“Yeah? Well I’ve got a few of my own. And they involve a lash, some ropes and bed posts. For both of you.” Jesse flashed a wolfish grin.

Kate sucked in a breath as a wave of desire made her skin pebble with goosebumps. Though the fall weather didn’t bother her, the need for her mates did.

“I felt that all the way to my balls. Shit. Let’s go.” Logan quickly shifted, standing heads above her in his guer. His sharp teeth snapped and he howled as he sniffed the air, catching her scent on the breeze.

Jesse joined him, now naked and shifted as well. The pair of them looked so much alike when furry that most of the clan couldn’t tell them apart. But Kate could. Jesse watched her with possessive eyes, looking so handsome, so sexy. A real werewolf come to life. She wondered what those simple humans at the coffee shop would think if they could see him now.

She removed her clothing and let the power of her guer overwhelm her. The subtle shifting of her bones, the stretch of growing muscle and the feel of energy building increased her sudden need for blood. She wanted to bite someone, to rake her claws through flesh until she found a warrior strong enough to tame her.

“Oh yeah.” Jesse licked his lips, and she saw his erection grow as she stared at it. “Better run, Kate. ’Cause when I find you, I’m gonna fuck the fight right out of you.”

Snarling at his challenge, she raced away, feeling Logan’s excitement inside her, spurring her on. But she didn’t feel Jesse as much, and that bothered her. Time to set that to rights.

She raced through the acres of woods beyond their house, awash in the scents and sounds of the earth that filled her. Birds chirped, squirrels chattered. The light press of insects over the ground, of the occasional bug flying through the air. All of it registered, but none of it mattered as much as finally joining with her mates and taking down the last barriers between them.

She knew Jesse would be the hardest to overcome. Logan had already admitted his love, and he breathed it in his heart and guer. She felt him inside her all the time, but not Jesse. She growled low at Jesse’s stubborn attitude. Time to break him of that. And with Logan’s help, she knew just the way to do it. Fuck the fight out of her? She didn’t think so.

With a grin, she leaped over fallen trees, dodged branches and avoided the scent of distracting prey. Kate had better things to do than stalk deer. She had a Ravager to break in.

Once at their meeting spot, Jesse blinked at Kate as he shifted back to full human. “So you want to watch me and Logan get it on?”

The crafty gleam in her eyes warned him to beware. Of what, he wasn’t sure, exactly. “That’s right. I want to watch you fuck Logan.” She and Logan exchanged a glance and shifted into their human forms as well.

Her heat swelled, enveloping the three of them in their own little world out in the forest. A flowing creek bordered their grassy bed on one side, while a group of large boulders protected them from the winds that blew through the trees, knocking the leaves all around.

Kate’s scent, and the sight of her wearing nothing but skin, had him hard in a heartbeat. And he wasn’t the only one. To Jesse’s dismay, he could feel Logan’s arousal echoing through his guer. Shit, it was back. By claiming them, Kate had truly joined them all together. He didn’t know how he felt about that.

On the one hand, being a part of Logan and Kate was like breathing. Natural, right and necessary. But on the other hand, he wasn’t sure he could handle it. His parents had been mated, and they’d fought more with one another than with other packs or clans. The only thing that had saved them from outright killing each other, ironically enough, had been the arrival of the Dekken. The parasitic aliens had invaded the Ravager homeworld and sent them careening through the Voids as a last-ditch effort for survival. He’d been the only one to make it here to Cross Step.

Jesse remembered enough about the past to be wary of the future. Rationally, he knew Cross Step was different. The Savage Clan respected mates and families. Prime’s pack seemed to get along. The few other packs he’d seen in town and at the compound coexisted peacefully. Mostly. But there were still instances of fights and rages that grew out of control, mostly within breeding packs.

Pregnant females totally changed pack dynamics. A male’s protective instincts flared, his guer in a constant state of aggression to defend his vulnerable female. Then again, when dealing with Ravagers, control was usually the first thing to go during a fight.

Fortunately, he and Logan had an understanding. Logan was his and had been for years. The smart-ass Ravager could make him laugh with little effort. And though they both liked to play around, Jesse knew he could count on Logan. He felt comfortable with their relationship. But Kate was a whole new ballgame. A female. A breedmate.

The thought of his own young made his palms sweat. Fuck. He wasn’t ready for that, not yet.

“Jesse?”

Logan and Kate were looking at him with concern.

“What?”

“Kate wants to watch me fuck you,” Logan said quickly.

Shake it off, dipshit. You’re killing the mood. Besides, it’s Kate’s first heat. No way she’ll conceive yet. “What?”

“Kate wants you to show her how to submit.” The twinkle in Logan’s eyes warned him not to take Logan seriously.

“Bullshit. She needs to watch me fucking you, that way she can see how it’ll be when she takes it up the ass.”

Logan chuckled. “You’re such a charmer, Jesse. ‘Takes it up the ass’? How romantic.”

Kate laughed. She looked between the two of them, her smile so heartfelt Jesse couldn’t help smiling back at her. “I never knew you two were into the D/s thing. Kinky.” She rubbed her hands over her body then over theirs, registering their arousal. “I like it.”

Jesse growled. “You’ll love it when I do to you what I’m going to do to him.”

“Jesse,” Logan warned, but Jesse knew Logan got off on submitting.

“You want to know what it’s like, Kate?” Jesse pulled her closer for a kiss that made her even wetter. He could smell it. “Then come here, right next to me. And watch.”

Kate obeyed without question, enthralled. And that easily, he was hers, wrapped around her little finger.

“You know I don’t need lube with Logan. If he’s as aroused as he looks, he’ll be wet for me.” Built for sex, male Ravagers secreted a natural lubrication through the anus when aroused. “Logan, come here, on your knees and get me ready.”

As if he needed help. But he wanted Kate to see it all, to know what he liked, what he wanted to see her do.

Logan crawled to him and knelt between Jesse’s spread legs. Then he opened his mouth wide, ready for Jesse’s cock.

“Put me in him, Kate.”

Jesse’s heart raced as Kate grabbed his cock and squeezed him.

“I love how hot you feel. You’re thick, Jesse.”

“For you two,” he said on a breath and tried to find his famous control. “Push me between his lips.”

Kate guided him to Logan’s mouth and watched as he entered.

Logan immediately started sucking, and she released him as Jesse pushed the rest of the way in.

“So sexy,” she whispered.

“Touch yourself. Play with your clit,” he ordered. “Watch while I fuck his mouth. See how hard he is?”

And Logan was hard. His dick was swollen, needing respite. Three long days had made Jesse twitchy, and he knew Logan had felt the same because his mate bitched about it from the time they’d dropped Kate off with Prime until this morning.

Jesse gently thrust into Logan’s mouth, holding him by the hair as he tunneled his cock between soft lips. Then Logan added his tongue, making Jesse’s balls ache.

“That’s good, Logan. Real good.” He glanced at Kate. Her shuttered eyes and breathy moans really turned him on. “Don’t come yet. Save it for us.”

“O-kay.”

“Logan, ease off. Turn around on your hands and knees.”

Jesse knelt behind his mate, pleased when Kate knelt with him.

“He’s so hard.” Kate reached a hand under Logan and made him groan. “His slit is wet.”

“He’s easy,” Jesse teased.

“Fuck you,” Logan breathed.

“No, baby, first I fuck you.”

“I like that. Call him baby while you do him. I want to watch you slide that fat cock inside him.”

Hell, Kate was taking to this a little too well. Her arousal flooded his own. “Put your finger here.” He grabbed Kate’s hand and placed her fingers on Logan’s rim. “Push inside. Feel how wet and hot he is.”

She inched her finger inside him and Logan moaned.

“He’s wet. Like me.” Kate sounded surprised.

“You haven’t touched a male like this before?”

She blushed. “No. The few I was with mostly wanted inside me. And some of the humans I played with weren’t into anal.”

A feral need to wipe the memories of those males from her mind had him growling. “Add another finger.”

Kate eagerly complied, and Jesse watched as she pumped her fingers inside Logan, getting a feel for what he liked as their mate moaned his approval.

“Now move back and watch Logan get pounded.” Jesse waited for her to step back then aligned his cock with Logan’s hole. He was thick and hungry, and he had no intention of being gentle. “First I like to tease him. Let the head just sit there.”

“Bastard,” Logan growled and tried to shove himself back over Jesse.

“See how frustrated he gets?” Jesse gripped Logan’s hips and stopped his movements. “I like to play, to wait.” He pushed another inch in, content when Logan shifted and sweat broke out over his back. “Then more.”

Without warning, he shoved himself balls-deep into Logan’s ass.

Kate gasped and Logan swore. But Jesse had only just begun.

“Don’t stop touching yourself, Kate. Let’s see those ripe tits. Pinch them.”

Her lust tasted sweet on the air, and he rocked into Logan in time with her pulsing desire. The hot grip Logan had on his cock pushed him to drive harder.

“You’re so fucking hard,” Logan groaned. “I’m gonna come.”

“No, hold it.” Jesse slapped Logan’s ass and stilled, though it went against every thought in his head to stop. Kate’s and Logan’s protests came from within him, and he felt Kate’s guer pushing at him. “Kate…”

“Don’t stop, Jesse. Show me what to feel, what to do when you’re the one fucking me. When you’re the one coming inside my ass.”

He thrust again, unable to stop himself. She needed him. Logan was frantic to feel him sliding deeper. He loved the slap of Jesse’s balls against his ass and the feel of his cum sliding down Logan’s thigh. Kate loved his taste, the salty-sweet cream that pulsed from his shaft. And she wanted to see him coming inside Logan.

“Stop it. Get out of my head,” he snarled as he took Logan harder. Ramming inside that fine ass, needing to unload his worries, his cum, his desire.

“More,” Logan ground back, meeting Jesse thrust for thrust.

Then Kate knelt behind Jesse and wrapped her arms around him. He felt her breasts against his back, her pussy against his ass. Her hands around the base of his cock as she held him while he pushed inside Logan.

“Oh fuck.” He couldn’t stop the huge climax that burst over him from his balls to his brain. The pleasure resonated within all three of them, and Jesse had never felt freer, or more scared, than he did right now.

“It’s okay.” Kate kissed his shoulders, his back, and trailed her lips back up to his neck. “My mate. My Ravager.” She caressed Logan’s thigh. “And my lover, who wants nothing more than to take me the same way, hmm, Logan?”

Shit. Jesse had a hard time catching his breath. But he could feel Logan’s need like his own. “Do it,” he said thickly. “Ream her.”

“I’m not going to last, but I’ll try to go easy on you,” Logan managed to say as he rose to his knees and pulled Kate forward. “Bend over.”

His low growl seduced with passion. And Jesse took Kate’s place, watching and helping as Logan readied to take her ass.

“First, get wet in her pussy,” Jesse murmured.

“Oh yeah.” Logan groaned as he sank inside Kate in one swift push.

“Oh!” Kate moaned. “That feels so good.”

Jesse couldn’t wait until they took her at the same time. Her ass and pussy, fucking her while fucking each other through her, the perfect solution.

“Yeah, now. I want it now,” Kate said, looking straight at him.

“Use the stream,” Logan hissed at him as he fucked Kate. “And hurry the hell up.”

Jesse quickly rinsed himself off in the stream, not at all surprised that he was ready to go again. Kate did something to him, made him need in a way only a Ravager female could. She didn’t lessen his desire for Logan, but she made him crave more than mere physical gratification. She made him want to love and be loved. Crazy thoughts, nonsense. Yet there they were, and they weren’t going away.

He rejoined them and lay down next to them. “Get on.” He held his cock for Kate.

Logan pulled out of her. “Ride him. Do it.” The authority in his voice turned Kate on, and Jesse felt it arouse him as well. Normally easygoing, when Logan turned mean, he aroused the hell out of Jesse.

Kate straddled Jesse and settled her hot pussy over him.

“Fuck, Kate. That’s good.” He pulled her close and kissed her, drinking in her scent as well as Logan’s. She felt so slick and greedy around him, drawing him tighter, making him want to give her everything.

“Yes,” she breathed and kissed her way to his ear. “I want everything, Jesse. Everything due your mate. Your cum, your control.” She nipped his ear. “Your love.”

Logan joined them. “Lean over him, baby. And feel me inside you again. It’s going to be tight.”

Logan brushed against his legs and positioned himself over Kate, who lay very still. Jesse could feel Logan’s entry, the thin barrier of Kate’s flesh between them not much to prevent the fullness from impacting him as well. As a Ravager, she could take pain and adjusted to anything sexual with ease, but Logan wasn’t small. And the thought of them both taking her made everything finally right.

“Oh yeah. This is perfect,” he rasped and kissed Kate with everything he had inside him.

Then Logan started to move, and he lost it completely.

Kate’s full tits scraped against his chest like twin streaks of pleasure. Logan drove them, shoving into Kate with less than gentle rocking, but with a powerful jolt that had to burn. And Jesse knew she loved the small pain.

“Yes, yes,” she cried, filling him with feminine need. She was finally full, stuffed with her mates, and she fought the ending, not wanting to come yet.

He held their weight with ease, attuned to his lovers and wanting the ultimate thrill of coming together in Kate.

“Give it to me,” he and Logan said as one, feeling the same, knowing the same. A moment of clarity and joy, when Kate finally clenched tight around them and blew apart, moaning their names.

She squeezed the orgasm out of him, and Jesse swore as he jetted into her, his balls drawn tight, the ache of pleasured pain oh so good.

“That’s it. Yes.” Logan thrust again and stilled, his head thrown back, his eyes closed, as he spilled inside her. “Fuck, yes.”

The awkward positioning soon had Logan withdrawing to lie beside them. Kate draped over Jesse, and Logan rolled closer to them, hugging them into his warmth.

“No more shielding yourself,” Kate slurred. “You hear me, Jesse?”

“Whatever you want, mate.” He sighed, truly content for the first time in his life. With Kate and Logan by his side, he had nothing else he needed in life.

“I want to know how you feel.”

He blinked up into her dark brown eyes, bewitched and bewildered by her sudden anger. A glance next to him showed Logan fighting a smile.

“Just tell her what she wants to hear so I can get that blowjob I’m still aching for,” Logan prodded.

“What, Kate?”

“I love you and Logan. Logan loves me and you. But you apparently only want us for sex.”

“You’re kidding, right?” he growled. “If all I wanted was sex, I could have Logan, Terry or half the males in the compound.”

“Hey.” Logan’s smile faded.

“You’re both major pains in my ass. Logan doesn’t like me protecting him. You want me to spill over into tears, an emotional wreck. Have you seen what an idiot Eric’s become since loving Vicki? The damn woman has him getting her weird food at all hours of the night at the snap of her finger.”

Logan’s chuckle turned into a cough when Kate glared at him. “Sorry. She’s breeding, Jesse. He’s just showing her he cares. You’re telling me you won’t give Kate whatever she wants when she’s carrying?”

“Hell, I’ll give her whatever she wants now. No need for kids for that.”

Kate seemed mollified by the comment, but not completely satisfied. “Then why not just tell me you love me?”

“They’re just words.”

“So lie and make me happy.”

He ground his teeth. “But I don’t want to lie to you.”

Her lips quivered. “You don’t love me?”

“No. I don’t believe in love, period. It’s a human emotion. It’s enough I want to be pack with you, considering the hell I came from. Family is new to me, this belonging.”

“But we were pack before.” Kate didn’t understand, but he thought Logan did.

“We were in Eric’s pack, but we weren’t his. Eric never claimed me, or you or Logan. It was a safe place to grow up, but not to actually belong. Trust me, I know what a pack is. A place where my fathers were always trying to kill one another when not fucking my mother. You think I want that?”

Logan huffed. “Come on, Jesse. How much of that have you seen here?”

“How many Ravager females are in the clan? Most of the mated ones live in the city, and the few that are in the compound are kind of wild. I don’t know. But I still want to spend the rest of my life with you. Both of you. I’d give my life to make you safe and happy. There’s an instinctive need I have to keep you, forever. What the fuck more do you want from me?”

Logan shared a glance with Kate and turned back to Jesse with a smirk. “That’s love, dumb ass. Human emotion or not. We’re Kate’s now.”

“Hmm, he won’t say it, but he feels it.” Kate smiled. “Good enough for me.”

“But not good enough for me,” Will Lawless interrupted with a snarl.

They jumped to their feet and shifted into their guer, but Jesse saw they were clearly outnumbered. “How many did you need to bring with you to feel safe, you piece of shit?” He counted a dozen outcasts. Probably all that remained of the once-threatening Lawless Clan.

“Enough to take back my female and get rid of you once and for all.”

But before Jesse could take on Will and his buddies, a new threat developed. Masked humans appeared on either side of them in the woods carrying weapons. At least two dozen of them.

“Will Lawless, just who we were looking for,” a masked male with a deep voice announced.

To one side Jesse and his mates had the river, to the other a stretch of large rocks. Yet somehow the humans had advanced on them, and they didn’t carry a scent or make enough warning noise to alert the Lawlesses of their presence. Jesse had a bad feeling he’d just verified the existence of that rumored human group, the Watchers. They hated Voiders, and they seemed particularly interested in Will.

And then all hell broke loose.

Chapter Eight

“What the fuck is this?” Will shrieked and fisted his clawed hands. He’d finally rounded up the men he needed to take back his prize. And what a prize it was. Three horny Ravagers, one fertile female, and they’d been so consumed with their own orgasms they hadn’t sensed him approach. Then again, after the threats their Prime had made about trespassers, it took a certain kind of crazy to violate clan orders.

Will didn’t claim to be that sane at the best of times, but this band of humans surrounding them had to be out of their fucking minds.

He turned from the Savages, unwillingly impressed by how quickly the males had shifted to protect their supposed mate, and how fast Kate had assumed her fighting form, a ferocious female willing to battle.

“You’ve killed one too many of us,” one of the humans decreed and gripped his automatic weapon tight.

Will glared at it. The thing could kill him if he took too many rounds. But he’d rip that gun away before the feeble human could do too much damage. He just had to watch out for the other weapons pointed in his direction.

“You don’t belong here,” Jesse Savage growled at the human. “This is Savage Clan territory. You’re going to start a war you really don’t want, trust me.”

The one who’d spoken nodded. “This is regrettable, but Will Lawless belongs to me.”

“Bullshit,” Logan cursed. “The fucker tried to sell my ass to the Salinas for a murder I didn’t commit. He’s trying to take my mate. Our mate,” he corrected, nodding at Jesse. “And Ravager business doesn’t concern you.”

“Get out of here.” Even Kate threw in her two cents.

Will was surprised by the warmth that filled him. No matter that he and the Savages had never gotten along. For all their differences, Ravagers stood together against a common threat. It bothered him that he’d forgotten that important fact.

His brethren growled, their hackles raised, and banded closer. The Savages took a step closer to joining them.

“We’re here for Will Lawless and any remaining members of the Lawless Clan. The rest of you need to back away,” the human said softly. “This is between us and the monsters killing innocent women. My sister.” He motioned to another man. “His mother. Her cousin. His best friend.” He pointed out the individuals as he mentioned their losses.

Will couldn’t believe the humans actually thought they could win this little skirmish. “You want a real fight? Drop your masks and your guns and engage.” He held up his clawed fingers, the promise of a lingering death for those who thought to challenge him.

“He killed your sister?” Jesse asked.

The human nodded. “And my brother and his wife as well. Took a bunch of us out at a family picnic. Hell of a thing to come home to after a long day’s work and find half your friends and family wiped out because a Ravager wanted a meal.”

“And a fuck, don’t forget that,” Will added with a sneer. His men laughed and made several obscene gestures.

But the leader didn’t laugh. His entire body tensed and he raised his weapon.

The Savages parted from Will and his men, seeming to align with the humans instead of their own kind.

Will scowled, annoyed as much with their defection as he was with his own disappointment—that he’d wanted them to join him. “Figures we couldn’t count on Savages. Jesse, why don’t you and your pussy boyfriend stay back while the real Ravagers fight your battle. No wonder your prime rejected you and your female refused to claim you. You aren’t worth the sweat it would take to defeat you.”

Jesse and Logan showed their teeth but otherwise didn’t respond. Kate held their arms, more in a show of support than to restrain them, and Will didn’t like that one bit. The bitch looked way too attached for his peace of mind.

“Who said I didn’t claim them? I wanted strength, not some coward who only strikes at those less vulnerable. Where’s the challenge in that?” Kate turned her attention to the human who’d spoken. “Take them. But you’d better never show up on Savage soil again. My prime isn’t going to like knowing humans have invaded our Territory.”

At least Kate wasn’t backing down in the face of danger.

The leader nodded. “So long as Savages refrain from killing humans, you aren’t our problem.”

“Oh, but us killing other Voiders is just fine with you?” Logan asked sarcastically.

A female next to the leader answered, “One less Voider is one less monster we have to watch out for.”

Kate grinned at her. “Well, this monster will skin you alive before you can blink if you fuck with a Savage. Bank on it.”

The leader swore. “Stow this shit. We don’t have time for this. For all we know, the Savages are on their way.”

“En masse,” another of them said. “ETA, ten minutes.” At that moment, a loud howl raised the hairs on Will’s back.

The leader didn’t waste any more time, and neither did Will.

He launched himself at them, taking down two men before the first shot struck his thigh. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jesse and Logan shove Kate to the ground as bullets flew. But none of them were aimed at the Savages.

One by one his Lawless kin dropped, the scent of blood and death saturating the air. Two more rounds hit his back and arm. Then a burst of pain exploded in his gut.

He dropped to the ground and rolled to his side, trying to regain his feet. But the world wouldn’t stop spinning.

Then he noticed the silence.

He blinked into the barrel of a hot automatic.

“This is for Michelle, Brad and Carly.” The leader lowered the gun and shot his dick off. The pain was agonizing. “Have fun in hell.”

Another pop, and then Will Lawless knew no more.

* * * * *

Kate still couldn’t understand how so many humans could make so little noise as they left. Nor could she smell anything but the scent of gunfire and Ravager blood. And that worried her.

“Kate, baby, you okay?” Logan asked as he rolled off her and they all got to their feet.

When the firing had started, he and Jesse had thrown her to the ground and covered her with their large, furry bodies. To her shock, it seemed none of them had been hit.

“Eric is going to kill someone for this,” Jesse murmured. “We don’t have to worry about the Lawless Clan anymore, but I think the Watchers are more than a myth.”

“Great. Humans who think they can police Voiders. Monsters my ass.”

Logan pulled her into his arms and hugged her tight. “I love you so much. I was worried one of those dicks might hit you with a stray bullet.”

Jesse shook his head and knelt to study the carnage around them. “Nope. Precise shots. No scent, light treads. A quick and easy retrograde. These fuckers have been here before.”

“Hell.” Kate felt a hint of sadness hit her. “Our special place isn’t so special anymore.”

Jesse stood and rounded on her with lightning speed. “It’s ours. And it’ll be ours after this is gone. We’re pack, Kate. Your pack. And nothing’s ever going to change that.”

His ferocity startled her then soothed her. “Oh Jesse.” She accepted his kiss and sat in their group hug until Eric and the others arrived.

Her prime had brought at least fifty Ravagers with him, all shifted into their guer and frothing at the mouth for war.

“What the fuck happened here?” Eric growled as he sniffed the air. “And what do I smell that’s missing?”

Jesse snapped his fingers. “That’s what’s been bothering me. The humans have covered their scent with emptiness. It’s weird, but if we know what to look for, it’s detectable.”

Malcolm, Prime’s packmate and the head of security in the compound, roared his displeasure. “Humans in Clan woods? Jesse, Logan, Kate, one of you needs to tell us what happened. Now.”

* * * * *

The next day, Kate sat at home with her mates, uneasy about what had occurred the day before. She felt off, as if something wasn’t right inside her, and she didn’t know whether to worry her mates or just ignore it.

Logan hugged her from behind and sat them both on the porch swing overlooking the back woods. More sentries stood watch, now armed with weapons. Claws and fangs didn’t work as well against long-range targets. And now that the humans felt they could stop by at any time, the compound was in an uproar to provide their prime and queen safety.

“Don’t worry, Kate. I overheard Malcolm and Dom talking about Eric’s meeting with Chen. Apparently this threat isn’t just to us, but to all Voiders. We’re going to stop it before it really gets started.”

“Good Lord. If we’re making friends with Tommy Chen, the shit really has hit the fan.”

Logan chuckled. “Well, the good thing is that it’s brought all of us closer together. Jesse’s in charge of building onto the compound. With the arrival of over a hundred city Ravagers moving in, we’re going to get stronger and tighter before long.”

She didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing. Ravagers tended to keep to themselves anyway, but some had found a place among the humans and Voiders in Cross Step. Would this segregation make them stronger, or put them in more harm from those who would see them as an even bigger threat?

She sighed.

“What’s wrong? I can feel you, and you’re guer isn’t right.”

Jesse pushed through the backdoor to join them, looking frantic.

“Jesse?” Logan tried to stand but Jesse shoved him back on his ass. “Hey!”

“Tell me it’s not true.” Jesse stared down at Kate looking wild around the eyes. He closed his eyes, inhaled and stunned them all by sinking to the ground in horror. “Shit, Kate. I’m not ready for this.”

“What’s wrong, Jesse?” She knelt by his side, seriously worried. “Logan and I are fine.”

“But you won’t be in six months,” he growled.

She didn’t know what that meant at first, until Logan howled with joy.

“Are you shitting me? That’s why I’ve been so confused by her scent?”

“What’s wrong with the way I smell?” She still didn’t understand. Jesse was on the verge of passing out, and Logan seemed ready to burst.

“Nothing at all.” Logan laughed and joined them both on the ground. He kissed Jesse hard, ignoring his groan. “We’re going to be proud parents in a few more months, Kate.” His eyes shone. “Thank you so much, baby. Man, I love you!”

Kate felt weak. “Wait—what? Baby?” She placed her hand over her belly and felt the tug at her guer.

“This is all Vicki’s fault,” Jesse grumbled.

“You don’t want the baby?” Kate asked, still unable to wrap her mind around it all.

“I do, but it’s going to tear us apart. And I can’t handle that.” Jesse covered his eyes with his forearm.

Logan looked at him with compassion. He reached for Kate’s hand and rested their palms on Jesse’s chest. “We aren’t the same as your birth pack, Jesse. Kate’s not psycho. I’m not a killer. Remember, man, I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

Jesse’s lips quirked. A good sign.

Kate frowned. “I know your upbringing wasn’t the best. But I can tell you right now, no one is fucking with my young,” she rumbled. “He’ll be loved and cherished.”

“Yes, he will,” Logan said tenderly and stroked her cheek.

“And protected,” Jesse added on a long, drawn-out sigh. “I must love you, Kate, because I haven’t bolted yet. And I’ve sensed your change ever since we joined yesterday. It happened at our special place.”

Astonishingly, his dark brown eyes shone with the glint of tears.

Kate leaned down to kiss him. “It’ll be all right, Jesse. As long as I have you and Logan by my side.”

“Um, about that.”

They both looked up to see Logan looking a bit uncomfortable.

“I don’t think Jesse can handle too many more surprises,” Kate said, amused and nervous at what he might have to say.

“Well, you know how Diana promised to add another Ravager to her pack since she took Sean, a human, as mate?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, Jesse and I are two, Kate. You’re gonna eventually take another mate, maybe even two, right?”

Kate blinked. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

“I don’t know if I can do this,” Jesse moaned.

“Stop being such a pussy,” Logan barked.

Kate and Jesse stared at him in surprise.

The easygoing Ravager wasn’t joking. He looked seriously annoyed with Jesse. “You trust her and you trust me. Now it’s time to start trusting yourself. I’ve known you for more than half my life. You’re solid, Jesse.” Logan gripped Jesse’s hand hard. “You’re not abusive, cruel or rough—unless we’re asking for it.”

Kate couldn’t help a grin.

“And this kid is going to need you as much he’s going to need me and Kate. You know what a pack entails. Two males for one female isn’t going to cut it.” Logan considered Kate for a moment. “With her appetite, and mine, I’m thinking we’ll probably need at least two more before we’re finally complete.”

“Fuck.” Jesse grimaced. “You think they’re all going to want to talk about love and all this emotional garbage? If we have to, maybe we could find a couple who act like real men.”

“Dickhead.” Logan socked him in the gut, and Jesse coughed. “What he’s trying to say, Kate, is that we’re both here for you. No matter what.”

Jesse sighed. “What he said.”

Kate glared down at him, aware he was putting effort into not smiling. “You done freaking out now?”

He sat up. “I’m a little weirded out about the whole breeding thing, but I’ll adjust. And as far as more mates, maybe we could wait a bit for us to really gel, you know?”

Logan gave him a disgruntled smack. “I wasn’t talking about grabbing new ones tomorrow, asshole. I just meant our future is always going to be changing. So you need to learn how to deal now. And you act like I’m the one needing protection.”

Kate glanced between them, aware of their guers so finely in tune with one another that they started to feel like one Ravager. And then that love turned her way, and she felt so close to them she knew she’d never forget the beauty of the moment.

Not Jesse’s panic attack. Not the dirty porch floor on which they sat, or the threat of Watchers in what should have been Savage Clan woods. But the sense that with her mates by her side, they would always conquer the obstacles life had to offer.

Jesse and Logan smiled at her and placed their hands on her belly. She covered their hands with hers and held on tight. She might have claimed them, but they’d claimed her right back. The perfect beginning for her brand new life.

“Now get your candy asses up off the ground and satisfy my needs,” she demanded, laughing when Logan yanked her to her feet and hugged her.

“Demanding thing, aren’t you?” Jesse said with a smirk. “Time to try out a few of my fantasies.”

Kate clearly recalled his mention of a flogger and restraints. “I feel like I’ve already lived through that once.”

Jesse wiggled his brows and Logan laughed.

Kate grinned. “Fine, but this time, you get the clamps, and Logan wears the gag.”

Logan’s smile turned into a frown. “Now wait just a minute—”

Jesse pulled her away from Logan and leered at him. “I can handle that. I like the way you think, mate.” He kissed Kate with love. “I really, really do.”

About the Author

Marie Harte is a professed bibliophile with an addiction to romance. She’s fond of things that go bump in the night, especially if they happen to be tall, dark and handsome. Life has given her some interesting insights into the male mind. After majoring in English, she spent several years in the Marine Corps, followed by stints in information technology, logistics and the transportation fields. And yes, herding cats is easier then trying to manage truck drivers.

Now a wife, writer and crazy woman with children, she spends most of her time bugging her kids to do their homework while typing with a mad zeal to make deadlines. She’s a multi-published and bestselling author of erotic romance who’s obsessed with email, so feel free to drop her a line.

Marie welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email address on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.

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