STORY EXCERPT

“Cal Simmons, you’re accused of various thefts, including collaborating with others to raid the village stores. Any last words?” 

This one, his bear told him with absolute certainty that flooded Dimitri. Fuck, he wouldn’t be able to erase the image of those blazing blue eyes in his head. Not ever. From the prisoners to the villagers, every denizen of Thorne Village looked like the living dead. Oh, their hearts beat all right, but the way they walked, dragging their feet with their shoulders slumped, they amounted to walking dead men and women. 

This thief, however, had plenty of fight in him.

Cal, Dimitri reminded himself. 

Cal turned to the waiting crowd and seemed to be searching for someone in particular. For a moment, their gazes crossed. Cal’s face registered surprise then confusion before he moved on, finally looking right at Keys.

“I regret nothing. It’s the responsibility of the village leaders to feed its people, not hoard everything for themselves,” Cal said in a strong, loud voice.

“Hang that half-breed!” Keys yelled.

Half-breed. A term used for those with shifter or paranormal blood in them. One of their parents was human, but they fell on the gray area, never truly belonging on the humans nor the side of the paranormals. 

The executioner placed the noose around Cal’s scrawny neck. Rage filled his vision. Dimitri let out roar that made those near him jump. Letting Cal die was unacceptable. This half-breed was essential to his bear. Dimitri strode forward, and the crowd parted for him. The platform underneath Cal dropped. Dimitri raced forward, not caring who he ran into. 

Saving Cal was his top priority. 

* * * *

Cal sucked in a breath, forcing himself not to panic as the coarse rope touched the skin of his neck. He clenched his fists by his side, telling himself not to struggle. Everyone watched him, including Keys, and he refused to give that smug bastard the satisfaction of seeing him fearful, scared.

When the executioner read out his crimes, Cal expected someone, anyone to come to his defense. His crew, maybe, or some of the villagers he helped. Cal should have expected no one to speak on his behalf. As a half-breed, he’d never truly fit in. He grew up isolated from both the shifter and human children with his mother. When she died, he never felt so alone. Cal thought he found a new family with his crew of misfits, but in the end, when Keys’s village guards caught him, they fled.

He spent most of his life feeling isolated, lonely. Cal guessed his miserable existence would end the same way. 

“Any last words?” the executioner asked.

Cal nodded, looked past the crowd, and sought out Keys, the man responsible for making his mother’s life miserable, for creating him. On her deathbed, his mother finally told him about the bastard who fathered him. Hard to believe the very same blood that ran in the mayor’s veins was also in his body. 

For a second, he froze as he spotted a huge monster of a man dressed in leather armor. Even this far away from the armed group, he could feel the strange, aggressive, dominating energy from that single man. Outsiders. Not only that. The village guards in the prison were panicked that morning. He overheard them saying that Savage’s replacement, the new Apex Alpha of the bears, decided to pay the village a surprise visit. 

None of his business but why did this man’s golden gaze seem to both terrify him and set his heart beating fast at the same time?

Cal couldn’t waste his last few moments on earth on this stranger. Finally, he looked at Keys and said his last words, to which Keys replied, “Hang that half-breed!” 

The executioner must have pulled the lever that would drop the platform underneath his feet. Cal gasped, hands flying to the rope tightening around his neck. He swore he’d go in peace, but damn. His throat burned. He desperately kicked at nothing but air. Endure it, Cal silently told himself, but fuck, it hurt.

In the distance, he heard the loud roar of an animal, a ferocious beast. Maybe he was imagining things, but all he could focus on was the fire in his neck, his entire body. The pressure suddenly lessened. Cal was falling. 

Maybe this was death, except he landed on something hard. The arms of someone. He looked up, confused, seeing nothing but blazing eyes of gold set in a rough, scarred face. A warrior, maybe some kind of savage god. 

Lips touched the shell of his ear, the tender act making him freeze up. 

“Don’t worry. I’ll keep you safe.”

Cal’s body began to shut down on him at those words, as if they were a trigger. Go to sleep, you don’t need to be scared. He’s finally here, a voice in his head said. Who was he, though? A hundred other questions raced in his head, but his vision started to dance. Cal saw dark spots, the face of his savior becoming blurry. 

He didn’t know why he reached out, desperate to know if this was all real. Hard leather bunched in his hand.

“Will you be here when I wake up?” he found himself asking.

“I’ll never let you out of my sight.”

With those words, Cal let consciousness take him. If this was the afterlife, then he didn’t mind it at all one bit.

ADULT EXCERPT

“Please, Alpha,” Cal began. “I want.”

“Want what?” Dimitri teased back, aware Cal eyed his prick again. 

“Your dick,” Cal murmured.

Dimitri rose to his feet. “Show me.”

Cal fell on his knees in front of him, and Dimitri speared his fingers through Cal’s hair, bringing the other man close, until Cal’s lips touched his cockhead. Cal flicked out his tongue, swiping the pre-cum gathered at the head of his shaft, before sneaking a look back at him.

“Go on,” Dimitri said, smiling.

Cal licked him from tip to base, seemingly intent on exploring every inch of him.

“Take my balls in your hands, give them a squeeze. Yes, just like that,” he said, letting Cal hear the approval in his voice. 

Dimitri didn’t care about Cal’s past, whether Cal had lovers before him. It would be a clean slate between them. Either way, after this moment, there would be no other man in Cal’s life but him. Possessiveness flared inside of Dimitri. Any other man who so much as looked at his mate wrong, they better be prepared to face the wrath of an enraged and territorial Alpha bear.

He tightened his grip on Cal’s hair. “Take me in your mouth.”

Cal gagged on the first few inches of his dick but that didn’t seem to deter him. Cal hallowed out his cheeks, tried again, getting further this time. A few more times and the tip of his cock finally hit the back of Cal’s throat. 

“I’m taking over,” Dimitri ordered. “Hold your mouth open.”

Cal did as he asked as he pushed in and out of Cal. Dimitri’s dick felt like a steel pipe between his legs, close to bursting, but he wanted to finish in Cal’s ass. He pulled his prick away as Cal licked at the pre-cum left on his bottom lip. 

“On all fours,” Dimitri commanded. He strode past Cal and pulled a couple of leaves from the tree nearby. His mate got into position without protest.

“What’s that?” Cal asked, glancing at him from over one shoulder.

“Natural lubricant.” Dimitri crushed the leaves, letting the liquid cover his fingers, before positioning himself behind Cal. “Tell me, Cal. Are you ready for this? Once we set on this path, there’s no turning back.”

* * * *

“No. Yes,” Cal answered, heart racing so fast he was pretty certain Dimitri could hear it. Now that he was a shifter himself, his evolved sense of smell, sight, and hearing overwhelmed him at first, but slowly, he was getting used to the change.

Dimitri laughed, a deep and sexy sound. “Which is it?”

A less patient man wouldn’t even bother asking Cal that question, would just take what he wanted, yet Dimitri wasn’t that. All the rumors he heard about the Apex Alpha in the village weren’t true. Maybe Dimitri was ruthless to his enemies, but Cal had seen the way Dimitri’s clan mates addressed him with familiarity. They weren’t terrified of him.

Cal could also be dead a thousand times over if it weren’t for Dimitri’s intervention, but he wasn’t just doing this out of gratefulness. His heart lay on the line, and damn it, he understood the implications of Dimitri’s words. If this, whatever it was between them, failed, he wouldn’t know how to recover.

The Alpha didn’t know it yet, but he already owned Cal’s heart before his body. That scared him shitless. For the longest time, Cal had been alone. Trusting didn’t come easy to him, and yet his inner bear knew without a shred of doubt that Dimitri would never betray or hurt him.

“Cal.” Dimitri calling his name with that commanding voice made him shudder.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted. “Yes. I want this. I want you. I’ve never encountered anyone like you.”

God, did that sound lame? Dimitri then reached between his legs and ran his hand up and down his cock. Cal groaned as Dimitri kept stroking him while using his other hand to spread his ass cheeks open. He felt Dimitri’s slick finger inside his hole a moment later. 

He groaned, incapable of speech as Dimitri used his fingers to spread him open and prep him for access. Needing something to hold onto, Cal gripped the grass in front of him. As Dimitri added a third finger inside his hole, he moaned, wanting something so much bigger in him.

“What was that?” Dimitri asked. The cocky bastard sounded too amused for his liking, but it didn’t matter. His body no longer felt like it belonged to him.

“Please.”

“Please what?”

“Alpha, I need your dick inside me.”

Dimitri stopped his hand job and patted his ass. The Alpha took his digits out and replaced them with his dick. He groaned as Dimitri smeared his pre-cum all over his entrance, teasing him, not yet pushing in.

“Dimitri!”

Dimitri pushed in. It burned at first, given the Alpha was massive. Once Dimitri pushed his cock past the thick ring of muscles, it went easier. Dimitri sunk all the way in, until his balls brushed against Cal’s ass. He breathed in and out, marveling at how huge Dimitri’s dick felt inside him, stretching him completely.

“Alpha.”

“Shh. My turn to make you scream.”