The Second Covenant

When I woke up, I was in an unfamiliar room, in and unfamiliar bed, snuggled up with a very familiar male body. A male body that was awake and watching me. He was up on one elbow, his hand playing through my hair, drawing the curls over my shoulder, one lock at a time. “She’s so young.” I heard Dom sigh, he must have been sitting across the room. I felt a pulsing heat behind me, fur on my back where my shirt had rode up. I inhaled slowly, still mostly asleep, Daire.

Daire was curled up at my back, sandwiching me between his body and Druex’s, warming me. Doing something with their heat to heal whatever had happened inside me to make me so tired and sore. “I am aware of how old she is.” Druex said softly. But there was bite to it. “I’m just saying.” Dom said lightly an then sighed. “She’s powerful too, but she’s still so…” I wanted to smile, waiting for him to say something to nettle Druex. “Sweet.” I heard Druex laugh softly. “She’s very much a Lupa though.” Dom went on. “Very protective of her family.”

There was a quiet silence for a few heartbeats and I heard Dom shift in his chair.
“We open in a half hour. What happens if some human walks in and wants to get rowdy? Cherish said a ward would zap someone dead as a bug if they crossed and meant harm.” I slowly moved my cheek, nuzzling against the smoothness of Druex’s chest and felt his breath hitch. “Harm to you or the pack. Or me.” I said thickly. “Mm, how long did I sleep?”

Daire rubbed his big head over my arm and Druex stroked the rest of my hair back. “Not long, only an hour or so.” I stretched up to kiss him lightly before turning on my side, nuzzling my body back, the curve of my spine, my hips, my bottom, all fitting perfectly into the hollow’s of Druex’s front. I propped my head up on my hand and looked down at Daire. “I feel rude petting you like a dog.” I said and he whuffed, like a dog, and rolled over, belly up to let me scratch him. “Shape shifters like a lot of body contact when we’re nervous, or sad, or hurt.” Dom said to me, he was sitting in a chair he’d pulled from the living room.

We we’re in the apartment over the club, in Druex’s bedroom. “We just like touching for comfort too. All shifters do.” So I petted Daire. “How’d you manage to talk my father into letting me stay here?” I said, rolling my head back to look up at Druex. He smiled slowly, his hand rubbing over my hip. “I didn’t talk him into it. Tristan did. He said your power felt more stable when you were surrounded by us.” I’d have to kiss him later. “I guess watching me wolf out threw them for a ringer.” I said, lowering my head to rub my face against Daire’s fur.

I hated it when people, anyone saw me loose control. It was so embarrassing. “That was our fault.” Dom said from his chair and I rolled my eyes to him. “Why?” He stretched and I heard muscles and bones pop, my ears really were very sensitive right now. “We’ll explain later.” Druex said, kissing the back of my neck gently. My body went lax, like a switch had been flipped, peace filled me, melted my muscles. But as soon as his mouth left me, I lost that happy place. “Right now we’ve got to open the club, and keep people off the second floor.”

The café? Why? “What happened to the café?” I said and Dom glowered. “It looks like some rabid elephant tramped through it. When you sent us all up after Dax, we passed through. Donovan swears up and down there wasn’t anything wrong with it when he left, and we’d have heard that kind of destruction.” I sat up and pulled my hair out from under myself, I really needed to cut some of it off. “I can fix it.” I said and crawled over Daire. “No more magic tonight Cherish.” Druex said firmly, stalking around the bed after me. “Why not?”

He was scowling at me, still wearing no shirt, his own long hair fluttering around his shoulders, his jeans buttoned up except for the first two… “Are you even listening to me?” He demanded and I shook my head. “No not really.” Dom was blocking the doorway and I rolled my eyes at him. “Blocking the door isn’t going to keep me in here.” I told him and he smiled. “Are ya gonna hurt me if I don’t move?” I frowned at him with a blink. “No. Why would I…oh never mind.” I smoked.

In the bedroom one second, the next I was walking out the door and hearing Dom stumbling to try and see where I’d gone. “What the hell was that?” I heard him gape. I padded silently down the stairs, my bare feet soundless on the wood, stopping to gape myself at the damage that had been done to the café.

It did indeed look like a rabid elephant had tore it up. The chairs were nothing but twisted metal, piled up in a corner where the wolves had stacked them. There were holes in the four walls where glass and knives and spoons and forks had been embedded in the plaster. Like shrapnel out of a cannon. The deli case was shattered, the glass swept into a pile in front of it, garbage bags ready to put stuff into. “Cherish, damnit I thought I said no more magic.” I was going to walk across to stand in the café, but Druex caught me up around the waist before I could take a half a step. “There’s glass all over the floor still, would you just please, not do anything?”

I rolled my eyes at him. “No. Look, the spirit thing did this. Which means it has enough power to pull a poltergeist. I felt how satisfied it was, it was pleased to have done this much damage and still have enough power to manifest things to me.” Dom came down the stairs behind Druex with a pair of shoes, my shoes in his hand. I took them with a small smile of thanks and slipped them on. “This is my fault and I’ll clean it up.” Before Druex could even protest, I called up my power.

One lift of my fingers and the glass magically replaced itself into the frame of the deli case. Every last grain of it. I moved my palm flat through the air and the holes in the walls reformed. The scorch marks on the floor from…something, disappeared and the tile was smooth again. The chairs re-shaped and flew back to their original positions, the round, glass table tops fitted back together and slid over their metal frames. I repaired everything, down to the last broken toothpick. And smiled. “There. Much better.”
“Wow. Could you do that to my room? It looks like a bomb went off in it.” Declan said from the opposite doorway.
I gave him a seriously concerned face, even batted my eyelashes at him. “Oh, did the spirit get in there too?” He was blinking around the café with wide eyes just like everyone else. “No, I was the bomb.” I snorted. “Then you’re on your own. I’m not a housewife.”

A bit later, and much growling from Druex, I was sitting at his kitchen counter eating some really, really good potato leek and cheese soup that Donovan had made. I was making sound of delight with every spoonful and Druex kept licking his lips when I did. “So,” He said when I was just about to dip a bit of soft, deliciously fluffy bread into the soup. “You’ve got some things you need to tell me.” I blinked a few times, all innocence and licked the bread crumbs off my fingers. “Like what?”

He leaned his elbows on the bar across from me, his eyes narrow with intent to get all the secrets out of me. “Like what happened in your closet last night when I pushed you up against the wall.” Oh. That. There went my appetite. And I couldn’t lie, he’d smell it. Drat. “And what it was you did to that asshole I threatened to snap in half at the Pharmacy.”

I drank from my soda and mish mashed around a good way to not make him crazy angry. The guy was dead though, so he was safe. Sort of. “I told you he raped seven of my classmates.” I said and he blinked slowly. “You’d better not tell me you were one of them.” His voice was deadly serious and I shook my head. “Almost.” His lip twitched at the corner and a soft growl followed. “He tried.” Druex said, his voice huskier with the effect of his need to shift and kill. I nodded. “He couldn’t get it up because I wouldn’t scream.”

Druex shoved away from the counter and started pacing off his fury. “He’s damn lucky he’s dead already. Damn fucking lucky!” I found that the telling was far easier a third time. Maybe because Taylor really was dead now, suffering, paying for his crimes eternally burning in hell. “It makes me uncomfortable to be pushed up against something where I can’t get away.” I said and Druex really did growl, snarl actually. God it was sexy as hell to hear him do that. Even angry, my wolf liked the sound of our mate. I had this mental picture of my tail flicking back and forth in a come hither fashion.

“Is that what he did? Pushed you up against a wall?” I nodded and drank more soda to try and soothe my dry mouth. “Showers in the locker room after a swim meet.” He threw his glass across the room with a very graphic string of swear words. I sighed and flicked my fingers at the shards and the glass flew right back to the spot at his hand. “You can keep throwing that. I can put it back together when you’re done.”

He gave the glass a look, like ‘how dare you let her put you back together.’ And then a glare at me before the fury bled out of him on a heavy sigh. “I‘m sorry, I didn‘t mean to loose my temper.” he said, coming around the counter to take me in his arms. He pressed his lips to my hair and held me tightly. I nuzzled up under his chin and smiled. “It’s okay. I’ve seen worse. Do you want to hear about how Taylor ended up in jail or have you had enough?” He sighed and hooked his hands under my thighs, lifting me up like a pillow. I wanted to purr as I wrapped my legs around him, my fingers laced together behind his neck. “Just get it out and then I won‘t be itching with curiosity.”

My lips kicked up and the naughty Cherish spoke. “Is that all you’re itching with?” His nostrils flared and his eyes turned darker. “No, but…” I kissed him, shut him up because I didn’t want him to tell me I wasn’t ready. I knew I wasn‘t. But I didn’t want to hear it. His hands tightened on my bottom and I tugged gently at his bottom lip with my teeth. I felt the shudder that rolled up his body and took pity on him. I gave him one last lingering kiss and backed off the heat. “I want to know something before I tell you about how I was a bad girl.”

He swallowed thickly and started walking to the bedroom. “That depends on what you want to know and how bad of a girl you were.” I grinned at him and he groaned as he rolled us down into his bed. “I was a really, really bad girl. And I want to know what you did to me in my mother’s kitchen.” He gulped and as I was lying across his chest, straddling his hips, I could feel how very badly he wanted me. “You first.” He rasped and I rolled my eyes. I told him a very clipped version of what the guys and I had done for our Halloween prank.
“It was almost wicked to feel so…happy about his terror. But it was nice to see him screaming for a change.” I said and Druex was grinning at me. “So when Peyton told you, you should have dropped him, he meant Taylor?” I nodded and sighed. “Yeah, but it would have made such a mess. And over to quickly. We scared him into taking the drugged girl to the police and confess.” I poked him in the chest and sat up. “Your turn. What did you do in the kitchen?”

He grinned slowly and put his arms up behind his head, biceps a-bulging. Sigh. “Did you like it?” I lifted my brow at him archly. “I almost had an orgasm in my mother’s kitchen with nine other people present.” He didn’t stop grinning. “But you liked it.” I gave an exasperated sigh. “Yes, I did. Is it some lycanthrope thing?” He shook his head. “Only a true Lupa could have responded to my Ulfric that way. I rolled my beast through you but I hadn’t intended on making you respond quite so…deliciously. I only wanted to warm you up.”

I leaned down, bracing my hands above his head, our faces close, a sharp breath could have brought our mouths together. “Do it again.” I said softly, smiling when he swallowed audibly. His voice dropped to a husky rasp, his eyes flickering with his inhuman power. “Yeah?” I held his eyes while I traced my tongue along his bottom lip. “Please?”
“Shit.” He muttered and closed the small space to hungrily kiss me.

His hands were still behind his head, not touching me at all except for his mouth on mine. I felt his power like a breath of thunder and second before it smashed into me. I had one moment of panic, wondering if his beast and mine would claw me apart, but then his power rubbed through me like a velvet glove. “I’d never hurt you Cherish, not like this.” he whispered and I shuddered, feeling the echo of his voice through my whole body, inside and out. He pushed his beast through me and I could feel it, impossibly huge, the brush of fur so deep inside me I cried out. A sound of shocked pleasure. I could feel that fur, velvet soft, but hard and muscled, stroking, caressing things from the inside.

It swirled through every bit of me like mist, making me shudder, tremble until I felt like something was swelling inside me, to big for my body to contain. Like a cup with scalding hot liquid being poured into it, into me, filling me up until I thought I couldn’t hold anymore. But I did, I held on and held on, until the liquid burst over me, through me, out of me on a roar of power that turned the world into something golden and glowing. It speared pleasure straight up my spine, made me shudder, made my womb coil so tightly I felt like it would snap under the crushing rapture.

My body spilled apart and re-made itself, draped over Druex. For a few seconds, I thought he’d actually made me shift shape, made me slip my skin for real. But it wasn’t that, I was just so relaxed now, almost like being drugged. I couldn’t have formed a coherent string of words to save my life right then. I felt Druex shift a little, roll so I was beneath him, looking up at his hazy shape, just floating on a liquid flow of pleasure. His hand came up to cradle the side of my face and it helped to bring him into focus. “Are you alright?” he rasped and I laughed. Low and lazy. “Ask me in an hour.”
“Why and hour?” I slid my hands up above me and stretched languidly. “Take at least that long to find my brain cells. Am I ready yet?” He settled down beside me with a laugh. “No, not yet. Sleep now.”
“She sounds ready!” Dax called from the other room. “Get out Dax, or you’ll be sorry.” I shouted and he laughed. “Uh hu. Night, night kids.” No respect. None. Ha! “Take this with you!” I yelled and shot a spell through the door at him, heard him yelp and sighed happily, snuggling against Druex. “Night.”