Chapter 15

Sun blistered the floorboards and burned away the ache in every inch of her. Elena twisted under the tangled sheet, breathing in sweat, wolf scent, and the ripe, unrepentant perfume of their mingled sex. The triplets flanked her—Donovan and Damon shoulder-to-shoulder at her back, Devin sprawled across her chest like a beloved cat, his cheek pressed to her sternum, his arm thrown proprietarily over her belly.

They’d never had a day like this before. No duties, no training, no looming threat of an enemy on the ridgeline: only hunger and sunlight and bodies slicked together, rutting and resting, licking and lazing until the day blurred at all its edges.

Elena stretched, extending an arm and running her hand down Devin’s muscled back, counting the ridges of his spine. His ass flexed reflexively into her touch, making her snort. Damon, awake and pretending not to be, snaked a hand between her thighs and cupped her there, thumb stroking lazy circles over the bruised seam of her, which even now throbbed with memory and anticipation.

She snorted. “Are we ever going to leave this bed?”

Damon’s eyes flickered open, a wicked gleam. “Is that a challenge or a wager?”

“Neither,” Donovan said, voice rough from sleep and overuse, “it’s a threat.” His arms caged her, and she loved the contrast between his roughness and the wicked patience in his touch. “You have to get ready.”

“Ready for what?” she asked, nestling back into the nest of heat and muscle, half hoping to be told not to move again until the next full moon.

None of them answered at first.

Then Devin, shyest but easiest to fluster—his voice trembled in her hair. “For your Luna ceremony.”

She blinked, brain melting slightly. “Isn’t that months from—”

“We moved it up,” Damon said, nipping at her shoulder. “Pack can’t wait.” His hand still played between her legs, and she tried not to whimper at the way her body responded, ready to betray her at a glance.

She rolled over, pinning Damon beneath her, straddling his hips and grinding herself down against the thick, velvet shaft that was already rising to meet her. “And this is the part where we plan the seating charts?”

Donovan grunted. “You think you’re joking. Come the day, the elders will carve up our guest list and send half of it to the shit heap out of spite.” But even as he said it, he reached for her, hands sweeping her hair off her shoulders and twisting it up, gathering all the strands in his fists as if practicing for later.

Elena let herself ride Damon, sliding dampness along his length but never letting him in; the teasing was mutual, and her hips remembered every lesson of the night before. “What do Lunas wear to their ceremonies?” she asked, feigning seriousness, but curious. “Do I get a crown?”

Devin brightened. “Flower crown,” he said decisively, and tugged her down so he could whisper more ideas in her ear. “Briar and wild rose. It’s tradition.”

“Is that your way of asking if I want to be your Luna, or telling me I don’t have a choice?” she taunted, turning so she could see each brother’s reaction in turn.

“Both,” said Donovan, but Damon was first to roll her over, locking her wrists above her head and sliding into her with a satisfied hiss.

“We’ll make the rules up as we go,” Damon said, thrusting up to the root, “but you’re the center of the pack, so you decide.” He started fucking her slow, deep enough to make her vision swim. “What do you want?”

She could hardly think, but the need to answer was as sharp as the pressure building at the base of her spine. “Red and gold. Not white. And the feast—” Her thoughts scattered as Damon pistoned harder, shaking the bed, the headboard slamming in rhythm against the wall. “Fuck, just—poppyseed cakes—”

Donovan reached down to pinch her nipple, hard, while Devin nipped her jaw and lapped up all the noises spilling out of her. Her world had shrunk to this bed—no, this body, this every inch claimed and devoured and made holy.

“Keep going,” Donovan commanded, voice right at her ear.

She did, but her coherence eroded by the second. “There has to be…honey wine. And everyone howls. All night. And—and you, all three—” Damon’s knot was already forming, battering at her entrance, his teeth sunk in the curve of her neck. “You have to fight for me.”

The three of them froze—then burst out laughing, wild and exultant. Devin licked the tears off her cheeks, kiss after kiss. “We already do, little queen. Every night.”

She loved that about them—the way cruelty and adoration were woven together, every wound a kind of worship. She came, again, before she could stop it, writhing under their hands and teeth and cocks, and when Damon knotted her and filled her, she howled, not caring that anyone in a mile radius could hear it.

When she came to herself, there were three spoons around her, packing her tight, her hole gaping and pulsing around Damon’s knot, her body marked up like a territory map.

“So flowers,” Devin murmured, planting a line of kisses up her spine. “We’ll gather them ourselves.”

Damon, not to be outdone, bit her earlobe. “And the feast. Any other requests?”

She grinned, certain now. “Mating marks. Permanent, this time.”

She felt Donovan smile against her shoulder, satisfaction thrumming out of him like a song. “Then you’ll have them,” he promised.

They spent the rest of the day plotting decorations and bloodlines and how to best outsmart the elders, pausing only to fuck her through another handful of orgasms, each time branding her deeper, each time more certain that she’d chosen right.

And when night fell, the moon climbed high and wild outside, they made good on every promise. Every inch of her, the triplets’ and only theirs; every plan for the future, inked in her blood and theirs, sealed with sweat and the animal certainty that this—it would never break, not for as long as they drew breath.

She let herself finally sleep, knowing she would wake to the same hands, hungry and gentle, and a world where she was queen, mate, and more than enough.