Pawn Among Wolves Ch. 10

His mate came for a second time, the erratic, violent spasming of her pussy around his cock making his eyes glaze over and his rhythm falter, before he splintered into frantic, furious thrusts, forcing himself as deeply inside her as he could while the prickles of pleasure down his spine spiked higher, wilder. She moaned, arching, her passage clamping again, massaging along his tingling member, forcing him even higher, faster, deeper. Further in. Further. More -- oh. Mac's eyes blacked out as the unbearable explosion of pleasure suddenly stopped his heart, his surging seed shooting deep into his mate, twisting his spine in ecstasy. Then he was panting hoarsely, forced to shattered stillness, grinding his still pumping cock within her belly as he shuddered in deep, deep, sensual delight. His heart was hammering painfully while slowly the spurts slowly subsided.

After a long, still pause, Mac sighed gently and half-opened his eyes to admire the soft, full curves of his little mate bent backwards under him. Her breath was still rapid, the rise and fall sending ripples of light over the sweat coating her soft belly, and playing across the dusky valley between her rounded breasts. He bent and gently kissed over her pulse, his mark, smiling against her flushed skin.

His mate.

After a night of solid, delicious exercise, the pull of her muscles under her skin as she gently ran felt good, easing the deep ache left from them clamping in pleasure over and over again. Despite the lack of sleep, Gemma was feeling more alert than she had ever been in her life, delighted with the whole world. The sun was warm, the breeze gentle, and her new wolf senses were entwining her in the joy of the life bustling around her.

She was richly aware of the powdery feel of the bare earth under her paws as she gently ran along the tilled furrow at the field edge. Her nose was twitching to the wind in her face, enjoying the scents of warm, rich soil, dusty straw and grain. The faint, sour scent of the green fronds of weeds growing along the edge blended with an enticing variety of meaty smells: stale, fresh, tangy, musty, and hearty. A woven tracing of the small and larger creatures who had passed either long ago, or scurried swiftly away at their approach. The scents were fascinating.

Best of all was the deep, sensual tang to the musk of her mate, loping gently beside her.

She had thought he'd had to restrain himself to a mere three fucks a day when she had still been human. Wow. Wowwee. Oh oh oh oh. Yes. She had been oh so right.

Next time I come into rut - mmm. If this is what he's like when I'm not on heat...

A tingle of guilt shivered up her spine. Gemma could feel the urgency Mac was suppressing as he loped easily through the stubble field. So she speeded up. Instantly, one of her front paws tangled in one of her back ones, and she stumbled, toppling to her knees and tumbling in an ungainly roll onto her flank in the moist earth furrow to the left of the harvested grain field.

For the hundredth time.

Coughing the dusty earth out of her nose and mouth, Gemma snarled in anger at her own ineptness, and grumbled internally as she lay in a grumpy hump, considering moving again.

She hated being a wolf.

Mac nudged her urgently, sighing, and she snapped at him. His nose moved out of her reach effortlessly, the tawny lycan shimmering into the place of the large white wolf.

"Get up. Come on," he barked brusquely, a large hand clamping into the loose skin at the scruff of her neck to haul her to her feet. He wasn't being much of the lover this morning. His body was quivering with the urgent stream of messages in his head, his eyes slightly unfocussed. Mackeld Range was under attack. Grey had alerted the Tzo Alpha about the scanty number of Aster fighters remaining at the Range, and the Chinese warlord had pressed his advantage, attacking at dawn while the majority of the Aster were down in Medway. The skeleton group of defenders were struggling desperately to hold on until reinforcements could arrive.

"You go," panted Gemma. "I'm only holding you up. I'll go home. I'll be fine."

In seconds, the powerful white wolf was towering over her, and she felt the weight of a searing order pounding in her head.

Get on my back.

Gemma found that she'd turned human and crept astride the shoulders of the crouching wolf even while she searched for the pithy argument reverberating somewhere deep inside her skull. She was sure it did, somewhere.

Her fingers barely had time to twine into the rich fur before the ground dropped away beneath her stomach, and she flattened herself instinctively to his back to keep out of the wind.

Naked woman spotted riding white wolf in Bromwich County. She could just see the headline now. She wished they'd had time to find her some clothes, at least. That coat had been a little mangled by morning. Shredded. And sticky.

The prickling of gathering heat between her thighs pulled her thoughts away from the memories of the past night. To the very, very tangible here-and-now.

This was similar to being back on the monster bike.

Except that this engine, between her legs now, was oh so much more exciting. Much much much much more. Tasty, delicious, mouth-watering. Nose-watering. Cunt-watering.

Would you stop distracting me? The exasperated, amused rebuke shot across her mind, and Gemma tried to rein back her rising lust. But he'd been feeding it sweet treats all night. It was feeling hyperactive.

Between her thighs, she could feel the constant, streamlined extension and pulling of his powerful hips, the effortless, edible expenditure of energy causing his spine to rise and fall in a rhythmic ripple against her pussy. His fur was brushing rhythmically against her skin and aching nipples, teasing them erect, burning, so that they were straining towards him. The delicate, gentle skimming of his fur against the soft skin of her inner thighs with each bound was making her bite her lip against the moan of pleasure.

Oh god he was powerful, it was so evident as she clung to him up here. Bewitching. The muscles under his skin circling in their ceaseless, smooth, effortless rhythm. Her stomach was tightening in burning, rising want.

Your thickening scent is driving me crazy. Mac's conveyed words were smouldering against a backdrop of frustration and lust.

Well hurry up and let me get off. I can't help it that you're so damn arousing.

Wow. The acceleration he put on blurred the edges of her vision, the wind pulling a stream of tears from her half-shut eyes. And the speed with which the ground was passing, inches below her bare toes, pulled her mind away from lust. She wound nervous fingers more securely into his fur and tucked her feet higher up on his flanks to safety, trying to clutch the long hair with her toes.

Abruptly, they curved around a small bank, weaving at whiplash speed through a thick stand of trees, and Gemma barely had time to register the two skinny adolescent wolf guards stepping back out of the way as Mac sprinted past them. They shot on a rising curve through the open gates of a large, fenced grass compound, sheltered within the trees and hidden to the West by a long hill. To their left, a cramped jostle of small, light aircraft looked as though they had been pushed untidily and swiftly to one side of a shorn stretch of smooth turf. The only other indication that this was an airstrip was an orange blob - she thought it was a windsock - blowing gently in the breeze from a tall pole at the far end of the break in the trees. The wide swathe of beaten, short grass stretched far into the distance to the orange speck, so that Gemma had to crinkle her eyes to see, but she barely had time to register the splash of colour before the loud buzzing of a light aircraft overtook them, the tiny vehicle accelerating away toward the orange dot.

Mac put on an impossible burst of yet more speed, flattening into a full, belly-to-the-ground sprint after it. Gemma's heart leapt into her mouth when she noticed the open door in the side of the aircraft, and recognised their bullet-like trajectory towards it.

"Mac!" her squeak was muffled by the wind. She could feel her mate concentrating on pouring every ounce of effort, every last atom of concentration into smoothly, steadily notching up the speed, judging the pace, while they slowly overhauled the accelerating plane, nearing the gaping doorway.

She could see those huge black tyres spinning in front of Mac's nose, the whirring blur of the deadly engine blades just above her head coming closer, closer. Gemma shut her eyes and buried her face in Mac's fur. There was a powerful heave under her when he leapt, and for a moment she was squashed under his heavy bulk while they tumbled across the floor of the rear of the plane, amid the multitude of wolf-scented human legs which leapt easily over them.

Despite the fact that she hadn't been the one sprinting, Gemma lay poleaxed on the floor, heart stuttering, blood pounding in her veins. Mac, on the other hand, rolled instantly to his feet as a human (clothed - huh! - but barefoot), while one of the other wolves sardined into the back of the plane slammed and locked the door in a practiced manner. Mac clapped a pleased hand onto the shoulder of the tall, lean man sitting in the pilot seat wearing a headset, who was easing back on the controls to lift them off the ground.

The pilot grinned, and one of the wolves standing behind him silently handed Mac a bright, long blue-and-green swirl of cloth.

Incongruously, all of the burly human-form wolves standing sandwiched, holding straps in the back of the small aircraft were barefoot, wearing loose shirts or t-shirts and baggy, soft trousers. Each was also wearing a huge pair of heavyweight ear defenders.

Gemma winced as the rising scream of the engines began to drill into her head.

Mac bent and lifted his shivering, naked mate to her feet, pulling a cotton-weave dress over her head. The cloth his packmate had handed him.

Gemma eyes were still wide in shock, heart pounding, but she managed to curve the corners of her mouth up at him when her head emerged from the neckline, and the soft fabric dropped to just above her knees. She threaded her arms into the holes - there was something about the comfort of being clothed. And of her mate thinking to tell someone to bring a dress for her, among all else that was demanding his attention. He grinned and bent to press a hard kiss to her lips, before lifting her, turning and slipping between the pack of his wolves into the co-pilot seat. He settled her on his lap, then pulled a blessed headset over her painfully pounding ears, followed by a second set for himself.

Four days later, Gemma was standing at one side of a dappled forest glade in the Mackeld range, gazing along the path of the stream through the trees. She was shrugging and twisting her shoulders and right hand, trying to ease some of the tension out of the aching muscles. That was the way towards the fighting. Toward Mac. Behind her, across the wide clearing, was the large Aster hospital tent, the food gazebo, and dozens of convalescing wolf warriors sitting or lying on the soft grass in wolf, human or lycan forms, recovering from surgery or antidotes.

Gemma shuddered. They set her teeth on edge.

Probably because they made it so evident that she set their teeth on edge.

Rebecca and Will were the only ones who seemed truly relaxed around her.

Mac had disappeared as soon as they'd landed at the Manor. The plane wheels had barely touched the ground at the foot of the hill below the complex of buildings, before he and his warriors had been sprinting loup-form off into the trees toward the fighting, the order for her to go with Chris echoing in her head. Her anger at his abrupt dismissal had been wild, but he'd already been focused elsewhere, not listening.

And then a sarcastic voice at her elbow had drawled, "Poor ickle were-i-poohs. Did the nasty wolf put the battle ahead of kissing you bye-byes?"

No, "Hello, my name is Chris" from the caustic old warrior who was guarding the airstrip.

He had provoked her on purpose, she'd realised after her eyes and brain swam back into focus from the black fog of rage, and she'd found her lycan-self immobilised, her face buried against the turf underneath the inflexible hold of the humming old warrior.

"I always believe that actions speak louder than words," Chris had said, getting off her. "Now you know you can't land a scratch on me, so stop pouting and get moving, little were. The A wants me to deliver you to the physes, and I have to get back here ASAP to keep directing the pilots, with the whole of Aster flying back as quick as they left yesterday."

The way he'd spoken, it was like she weighted up the chances of success before attacking. Gemma had felt her lips twitch. Didn't know diddly squat about werewolves, did he?

But she'd loped easily enough after him into the trees. There was something about his abrasive, stinging scent that was reassuring. There was no lust in it.

Unlike most of the other males, however hard they tried to smother it.

They'd halted abruptly at the edge of the hospital clearing, transfixed by the sight of a medium-height sjeste, in human form, carefully kneeling on the massive form of a softly yowling male lycan, trying to hold him down as she reached into her kit bag. The female wolf had impatiently brushed blood-coated hair out of her tired eyes with a blood-coated hand. The male had had deep, embedded wooden spears broken off in his flesh, shards poking out where blood had sealed around them and the flesh was healing. The female had barely introduced herself as Mac's sister Rebecca before Gemma had found herself sitting on the male's legs, picking splintered pieces of a tree branch out of them while the physician had injected something into his stomach, and begun to cut and yank shards out of his flesh.

That had been the beginning of the race, with just the two of them against the tide of wounded. All of the other medics had been over at the front, and Rebecca had only arrived back at the hospital with her wounded packmate seconds before Chris and Gemma.

The pair of them had had to work at an astonishing pace. More wounded had staggered in or been carried into the clearing minute by minute. Gemma had barely been aware of the constant sound of planes landing and taking off in the distance, or of the stream of wolves sprinting deeper into the forest past them from the airstrip, while she'd worked frantically to try to clean each wounded new arrival before he or she healed over.

She had been aware when Will retreated from the fighting to join them, because of the sense of calm he had brought with him. She'd realised then that Rebecca had the same projection of - ease, friendliness, care, but with the pair of them together it more than doubled, soothing more than the physical hurts of the injured wolves scattered around the clearing. They were a team, this pair, you could sense the deep, easy, wordless bond between them.

For nearly all waking hours since, she had been picking shrapnel out of wounds. And she zonked out, exhausted from the constant tension, as soon as she had stuffed herself with food and crawled onto to her small pallet at one side of the newly erected hospital shelter. Thank god some of the food was cooked. She needed the strength. The work was relentless.

But sometimes, sometimes, there was a brief respite, such as now.

Gemma flexed her aching fingers, sensing one of the males she'd tended approaching behind her as she stared down the stream toward where she knew the fighting was. Mac. The constant blood, constant wounded were unnerving her, worrying her. She knew her mate was the best, but couldn't entirely block out the what-ifs which sneaked into her head.

Whenever he could, Mac checked in on her, during a pause in the offensives. She might have been worried by his brusqueness then too, had she not been simultaneously aware of the mesh of other minds constantly reporting in from all directions to her wolf while he focused his main attention to her. Indistinct thoughts echoed from his head, wolves constantly calling for aid, clutching in agony or grief, requesting guidance, or just reporting in or out. It was as though he was a switchboard operator at the centre of an incredibly busy airport, mind awash with messages from all sides. And he didn't just have to pass them on; he had to deal with each of them himself. She didn't know how he could bear it, how he was able to even string a sentence together for her amidst the tumult.

And now he had to make time to deal with her too, reassure her.

Damn.

Damn damn damn.

She was so useless to him.

"Just a distraction," she sighed.

I'll say, murmured an unknown male voice in her head, and suddenly she was swamped in his lust. Male rut doft: powerful, eager, demanding, pulling at her, pulling her tired mind adrift, sinking her in a whirl of heat.

An image of herself seen from behind burned into her brain; herself crouched in her four-legged form, head bent submissively, backside to him. She trembled as she fell to all fours, mind battering, missing something, lost in the lust of the heated images pouring over her. She felt the tingling burn of herself shifting.

Gemma whined uneasily as a second image scorched through her, of her tail lifting to the eager male behind her, unveiling her wet passage.

A second, heated order pounded into her skull, this time words, lift your tail. She could feel him quivering eagerly behind her, snorting in great breaths of her doft.

No no no. She didn't want.

Lift your tail.

The words rolled echoing around her skull, obliterating all else except the urge to obey. As her tail lifted and she felt the heavy paws of the wolf land on her shoulders, the wordless plea burned in anguish out from her heart. Mac.

Gemma felt her astonished, enraged mate come alert suddenly in her head, felt the supernova blast of furious conveyance roaring past her, the yelp of the wolf tumbling off her back lost under the echo of the fury beating through her head.

Her heart jolted at his anger. Mac. Apoplectic. And awash with power.

The male behind her was writhing on the ground in agony, his scent sour with urine, anguish and terror, while Gemma shuddered at the touch of the battle focus centred in Mac's mind. It was as though his pack was clutching him in panic, trying to pull him apart, thoughts and emotions yanking at him from all directions, unbearable, painful, tearing at the mind - eugh. Her mate was firmly holding the power together, focussing that colossal force of anger for an instant on the writhing wolf, fury drilling into him.

She couldn't bear this.

Stay close to Will or Rebecca.

Then she was cut loose again, but with a gentle brush of reassurance and love over her thoughts as he retreated, a small bubble of private communication. She was a wereem. She couldn't say no. But she had called to him for help, and he damn well could. Mac was proud of her.

Chill, cold knowledge began to shiver through her as soon as he'd departed.

She wasn't exactly proud of herself. It was true. She really couldn't say no.

Eugh.

Wretchedly, Gemma began to slink on her four unsteady feet towards the large marquee which held the physicians and their charges. Two angry, half-healed wolves stalked past her and yanked her would-be lover to his feet, growling impatiently as he cried out his pain from the backlash of Mac's fury cramping his limbs, muscles spasming in agony.