“Hey, Mom! Check this out.”

Eight-year-old Knox waited until his mother had stopped gathering mushrooms and lifted her face. Once he knew he’d captured her full attention, he grinned and charged naked through the woods as fast as his short legs could carry him.

Ten paces into his dash, he leapt off the ground. While he was still airborne, he shifted into his wolf form and did a somersault. By the time he landed, he’d shifted again, this time into his stag.

Raising his long snout high with pride, he pranced back to his mother, clopping his hooves against the ground, before he shifted back into a naked human boy.

“Did you see that?” he asked, vibrating with excitement. He’d been practicing all morning to impress her. It’d been nearly impossible to turn wolf while flipping, and his wolf was his natural shape. But to end up in his stag was something he bet even a grown wolf-stag shapeshifter couldn’t accomplish.

Not that he knew any other wolf-stag shifters beside his mother. Still. He just knew she’d applaud his aptitude.

But instead of lighting up, her face grew dark. “Knox, what did I tell you about turning stag?”

Her harsh tone made him hunker his shoulders. Bowing his head, he mumbled, “You say it’s dangerous. But, Mom, no one saw.”

Grasping his chin hard, she jerked his face up. “How can you be certain no one saw?”

Since she continued to hold his chin immobile and he couldn’t glance around him, he slid his gaze toward the trees cocooning them in the mushroom patch. They were definitely the only two shifters around.

“I can’t smell anyone else for half a mile,” he argued. Given that both wolves and deer had an amazing sense of smell, he knew he’d immediately catch a whiff of someone else approaching.

His mother’s fingers dug deeper into his jaw. “I don’t care what you think you can smell, Knox. Shifters can mask their scent if they’re so inclined. We can’t trust anything. It’s safer to keep your stag hidden. Okay?”

He wanted to jerk his chin away and argue. He didn’t see anything so wrong with the stag part of him; he personally thought it was totally cool to be duo-animagus. But for as long as he could remember, his mother had warned him to keep his deer-side hidden.

Stag shifters were extremely rare, a dying breed. And a half-stag, half-wolf was completely unheard of since wolves tended to hunt and eat more deer than they fucked and procreated with. But that’s exactly what his mother was, half-wolf and half-stag.

When his grandma had been a young doe and fell into her first mating heat, his grandpa had sniffed her out and mated with her. Grandpa, a full-blooded wolf shifter, had abandoned his pack, and Grandma had left her herd so the two of them could be together. They traveled off deep into the forest to live happily ever after, where they raised their one baby, Clarissa—Knox’s mom. But his grandparents had died early, so Clarissa had been forced to wander the forest alone until she’d stumbled across a wolf pack. His dad, a high-ranking beta in the pack, had taken one look at her and claimed her as his. She’d been able to mask her doe scent, and since Knox was three-fourths wolf, it was easy to hide his stag as well.

But his mother continued to worry. Too much, in his opinion.

Personally, he liked to shift into his stag. Since it was a minor form and harder to maintain, he found shifting into it more often helped control his abilities. He learned something new he could do every time he changed.

It hurt that his mother wasn’t as pleased as he was.

“I understand,” he mumbled, only really understanding he’d have to hide his stag practice from her now too.

She smiled and kissed his brow before letting go of his jaw to smooth his unruly hair out of his face. “Thank you, Knox. I need you to know how important this is.”

Nodding gravely, he said, “I do.” Though really, he had no idea.

Her eyes glittered with pride. Smacking his cheek with another kiss, she said, “Good. Now, put your clothes back on, dear, I’m almost done. It’s about time to head back to the pack.”

Whenever she said that, Knox knew he had a good five minutes left to play. Nodding for her benefit, he dashed off. After rounding a tree where she couldn’t see him, he shifted back into his stag.

Immediately, his head tingled and prickled where two nubs sprouted.

“Mom, how long will it be before my antlers grow big?”

Her voice was muffled as she no doubt bent to snatch the remaining mushrooms. “Darling, you’re still only a button buck. You won’t even see tines on your rack until you’re at least twelve.”

“Twelve!” he echoed in dismay. But that was years away.

“Not that you’ll see them anyway,” his mom intoned. “Because you won’t be shifting into that dreaded form again. Right?”

“Right,” he said, tilting his head down to rub the itchy spot against the side of a tree.

When a burst of energy seized him, he dove backward, once again leaping into the air. In the middle of his back flip, he changed into his wolf and landed as a human. Glowing with self-accomplishment, he pounded his arms into the air, only to spot two glowing eyes watching him from some underbrush not ten yards away.

Gasping, he jerked his arms down and rushed back a step, running into the trunk of a tree. Petrified, he hovered against the bark as one of his father’s pack mates stepped into the clearing.

“Well, well, well,” the male said, shifting from wolf into a naked human so he could stroll ominously closer to Knox. “What do we have here?”

Suddenly, his mother appeared at his side, grasping his hand and tugging him comfortingly close. Knox clutched her arm and hung onto her skirt for dear life.

“Mathis,” she rasped the wolf’s name, sounding winded as if she’d sprinted a mile instead of a couple feet. “Wha-what’re you doing out here?”

His eyes flickered knowingly to her. “Uncovering a surprising little mystery, it seems.” Tisking, he shook his head. “I always knew there were secrets in your eyes, Clarissa. But I had no idea you’d been out fucking a stag, only to pass the brat off as Greydon’s.”

“She did not!” Knox snarled, ready to defend his mother’s honor. “Greydon is so my father. Look.” Since he hadn’t put his clothes on yet, it was easy to lift his bare arm and show off the birthmark just under his armpit. “I carry the family brand.”

Mathis arched a brow as he studied the spot. “So I see.” Voice trailing off, he turned to eye Clarissa with a gloating smirk. “Then I guess that means…you’re half-stag too, aren’t you, precious.”

Knox suddenly wished he’d kept his mouth shut, because the temperature in the forest dropped about twenty degrees. A strong odor rose from Mathis. He didn’t like it; it was similar to the same scent his dad exuded right before he ordered Knox to go play outside as he kept Mother in.

“Don’t tell Greydon,” Clarissa pleaded. Her hand clasping Knox began to tremble. “Please, Mathis. He’d kick us out of the pack.”

“Yes, he most definitely would,” Mathis agreed. “If not outright have you and your little brat slaughtered.”

Ice froze Knox’s veins. Slaughtered? Just for being part stag? That made no sense to him. He knew his wolf kindred hated stag shifters. But murder? By wolves he’d always considered family? Suddenly, he understood why it’d been so important to hide his stag side. He hated himself for disobeying his mother’s orders.

“So, you won’t tell him?” his mother begged.

Mathis merely grinned.

Clarissa’s grip on Knox grew painful. “Please.” Her voice went hoarse with terror. “I’ll do—”

“Anything?” Mathis finished with an evil glitter in his eyes.

A moment of silence followed. The smell of his mother’s fear clogged Knox’s nostrils. He wanted to ram himself headfirst into ugly Mathis’s big gut with his tiny antler nubs. But the adult male could crush him down with one swipe. Pathetic and afraid, he simply cowered next to his mother.

“Knox,” his mother said with a quiver in her voice. “Go deeper into the woods, sweetheart, far enough away that you can’t see us, and stay there until I come for you.”

“But—”

“Now!” she growled, digging her fingers into his wrist before letting go.

Knox glared at the adult male, but Mathis merely smirked. He reached down to his swollen penis and fisted his hand around the length, slowly beginning to pump his dick in and out of his grip. “Listen to your mama, kid. Get lost.”

With one last glare, Knox turned and slunk away.

* * * * *

Clarissa held her shoulders stiff as her body tensed. “You don’t have to do this. Greydon will know. He’ll smell you on me.”

Speaking of smell, the scent of Mathis’s arousal clouded her nostrils. It was male, thick and heady, with the potent cologne of cum pooling in his testicles.

“Well, now that’s your decision to make, Clarissa. Do you want him to think you’re a cheating whore or know you’re a worthless doe?”

Her hands fisted at her side, but she didn’t answer. “Have it your way, then,” she hissed. “Go ahead and fuck me if that’s all you want.”

“Oh, I will,” Mathis assured in a silken voice. “I’m going to fuck you every way imaginable. I’ve wanted inside you from the first moment I saw you. If Greydon hadn’t claimed you first, you’d be mine right now.”

Lifting her chin an inch, Clarissa stared straight ahead. “I highly doubt that. I wouldn’t have accepted you if you were the last wolf on earth.”

He chuckled. “You can act all high and mighty, but I know what you are, doe. And unless you want me to tell everyone else in the pack, you’ll strip. Right now.”

To her own shock, she did. Still refusing to look at Mathis, she moved mechanically, shrugging off the light summer dress that had been draping her body. Underneath, she stood naked.

No one but Greydon had seen her naked before. It felt wrong. Forbidden. Exciting. Her nipples tightened; she blamed it on the chilly breeze shifting across her bare chest.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” Mathis cooed, stroking himself a little faster. God, she loved watching a man’s hand on his cock. Shit, wait. No, she didn’t.

“On your hands and knees now.”

Without resisting, she bit her lip and obeyed, kneeling onto the ground and then putting down her hands, so her ass pointed directly at the wolf. Her favorite position. She could live through this, she decided. She’d just think about Knox and how this was going to keep him safe.

Knox.

Growling low in his throat, Mathis knelt behind her, aligning his hard cock at the crack between her butt cheeks. Then, without further ado, he thrust forward, impaling her fully. Dry and unprepared, she arched her neck back, squeezing her eyes tight and sinking her teeth deeper into her bottom lip. He felt huge as he invaded her, stroking the inner muscles of her vagina. He seemed to like it dirty and hard, which always made her the horniest whenever Greydon took her.

But this wasn’t her mate, and the differences stood out vividly, making her all too aware of everything about him—from his delicious scent to the texture of his thick cock, teasing her pussy, working in and out, making her mouth water.

“Fuck, yeah,” Mathis grunted, slapping his body into hers, gripping her hips with both hands to force her ass backward whenever he rammed forward. “Give it to me. Give it to me hard, baby.”

His words made her wet. Jesus, she loved dirty sex-talk, dirty sex period, and dirty wolves treating her like a sexual equal and not some piece of delicate china they needed to go easy with. A smell wafted off her, damp and womanly, and way too strong to mask.

Sweet mercy, he knew how to move. Clarissa’s skin prickled and her stomach churned. She wished she could vomit, show him she didn’t want this. She needed to demonstrate some kind of resistance because it didn’t hurt like she thought it would. In fact, it didn’t hurt at all. Oh, God. It felt so good. The rougher he became, the more her body grew alive.

“Could you hurry it up?” she croaked. “I don’t know how long Knox will stay away.” He was never one for following orders.

Knox. Think of Knox.

“Oh, we won’t be rushing. I’m not coming until you do, sweetheart.”

She groaned as he thrust even deeper inside her. “Then you won’t be coming,” she gritted out, hoping she wasn’t making an empty promise because, shit, her pussy was already tightening and loosening, then contracting again like it was preparing for the orgasm of all orgasms. It made her want—

He laughed as if he could read her mind. Leaning down, he tongued her back, lapping his way up her spine. She arched her belly in, trying to evade the wet stroke. But he only chuckled some more, reaching around to grab one of her tits. He kneaded her skin without mercy, shooting electric zaps of intense pleasure through her nervous system.

Licking her own lips and wishing she could taste him, she flickered her eyelids open so she could glance down and watch him cup and stroke her. She became fascinated, studying his fingers as they pinched her nipple and rolled the hard bud between his thumb and index finger. Her second erect nipple throbbed, wanting the same attention. Oh, God, if he didn’t pinch the ignored nipple soon, she might have to do it herself.

“If I was facing you, I’d lick and nibble on your breasts right now, Clarissa. I’d suck your ripe little berries into my mouth so hard and deep you’d beg me to do it forever. I’d bury my face between your lovely tits and breathe in your heavenly scent.”

“Shut up,” she moaned, even as she pushed her breast deeper into his palm.

“That’s it, sweetheart. Just stay nice and wet for me.” Grinning, Mathis slowed the movement of his dick. He pulled almost all the way out of her before easily stroking back in. His cock glistened with moisture, coated with her damp, musky aroma.

As she began to pant, Clarissa’s body quivered. “Stop,” she rasped, panicked and desperate. “Please.” She was supposed to hate this. She was supposed to hate him for blackmailing her.

“Why?” Mathis goaded, only to glide effortlessly and slowly right back into her. “Because you like the feel of me inside you? Because you want more?”

Clarissa groaned and bucked back, her body demanding just that. “No,” she bit out from between gritted teeth. But neither of them believed her. “Oh, God. Oh, God. Mathis.”

When he stopped rutting, stopped moving entirely, she growled and pushed back against him, repeatedly grinding her ass against his lap so she was the one forcing his cock to vanish into her cunt, rubbing him against every ignited nerve ending inside her. She closed her eyes, complete rapture filling her, and arched her head up to keen out a sound of intense pleasure, all the while slapping her hips backward before coming hard and fast. Her orgasm sprouted, grew, and took over her entire frame, shaking her to her core.

She panted as her body settled, but Marcus wasn’t finished yet.

Laughing, he abandoned her breast to shift his hand down her stomach. “Damn, you’re responsive.” He buried his fingers in the nest of hair between her thighs, and her body lit up again.

She cried out as he massaged her, swirling his finger through her pubes and making her grind her ass back into his lap with a renewed fury, bucking and hissing, her pussy swallowing his cock with a speed and rhythm that had her gritting her teeth and digging her fingers deep into the ground.

“Do you like that, Clarissa?” he demanded. “Tell me you like that.” Suddenly, he moved again, thrusting into her hard just as she slammed backward.

“Yes,” she hissed. “I love it. Oh, God. Don’t stop, please don’t stop. Rub my pussy. Rub it. Faster.”

He stroked her clit, pounded into her cunt, and she demanded more. “Harder,” she cried. “Fuck me. Deeper, deeper. I need more.”

Mathis gave it. He wedged himself inside her, sweat and determination coating his brow as his hips jack-hammered and his dick repeatedly disappeared between her soaking wet, swollen folds.

Carissa writhed, moaning and crying out all sorts of things that shocked herself. But, dear Lord, she meant every word. Her soul rattled out of her mouth as she told Mathis he was the best she’d ever had. She loved the feel of his huge cock, never wanted it out of her. She kept begging him to fuck her harder, longer, rougher.

“Greydon can’t do it like this,” she gasped. “I can’t… Omigod, you feel so good. Fuck me harder, harder. I want you deep inside me until I can taste your cum.”

When she came, she screamed out his name—the only name she ever wanted to scream again. Greydon forgotten, Knox forgotten, there was only Mathis.

Roaring, Mathis grabbed a handful of her hair, yanked her head back, and rammed into her once more time before he followed, shouting out his own release. When their orgasms finished, they both collapsed into the dirt, Mathis flopping on top of her and crushing her body beneath his.

She loved that too.

They panted in unison, curled together like the lovers they’d just become. Mates. He stroked her hip before lifting his face to smooth her hair down her back. She hummed in satisfaction and closed her eyes, a slight smile curving her lips.

“We’ll do this again,” Mathis said. “Whenever I want it, you’ll come to me, and then you’ll come when I’m inside you. For as long as I want you.”

Clarissa nodded. “Yes.” Anything he wanted, he could have. She was his now.