A lesser creature might have been threatened by the animal intensity of Henry’s feral growls, coming as they did less than an inch from his nose.
“You want to stake Maddox? Or you want to impale me?”
Henry snarled, reached out, and grasped Lorien’s hair with both hands. Lorien found himself dragged into a rough kiss, the taste of man and wolf and beer and dominance invading his pristine vampire mouth. It had been a very, very long time since Lorien had kissed, or rather, been kissed. Especially with this level of intensity. This was a kiss that not only sought to dominate but to possess. Lorien let himself flow with it. He had no interest in resisting Henry. He wanted to drink this wolf in, to feel his essence deep inside.
When Henry let him go, he was panting. “You need to get out of here.”
“I do not,” Lorien disagreed.
“You do. I’m not just going to fuck you. I’m going to…” His words trailed off into a growling snarl.
Lorien understood perfectly. He was going to become the whipping boy for Maddox and for Will, both of whom deserved lashings for various reasons, both of whom had avoided them for other various reasons.
“Use me,” Lorien said softly. “Do what you must.”
Ordinarily, Lorien loathed and destroyed those who sought to treat him like a lesser thing. But Henry did not think of him that way. Henry was trying to save him from the degradation that was surely coming at his hands. It was different with this man for reasons Lorien didn’t understand right now and was too in the midst of the glorious dynamic to stop and tease all the reasons out.
“What are we doing?”
“Taking a nap,” Maddox said, pulling Will down onto the bed with him in a tumble of vampire and wolf until they came to a halt among the blankets. Will was thrilled to be wrapped in his master’s arms after what felt like an eternity of petty separations and caged encounters. He felt like himself for the first time in a long time.
“Really? We’re just going to cuddle?”
“I need you, boy. I have missed you. There has been too much chaos. Too much mess. Too many unintended, messy consequences.”
“You weren’t expecting Henry to be a problem. You thought he’d be a solution.”
Maddox looked at Will with a dark, inscrutable gaze.
“I’m no longer certain that I believe in solutions. Each and every time I attempt to fix something, fate toys with me. The ones I seek to aid inevitably refuse my help and usually force me to hurt them.”
Will laid his head on Maddox’s chest. “That’s because you hurt so good.”
Maddox’s fingers stroked at Will’s thick hair, the tips scratching lightly against his scalp. “I am sorry I have dragged you into this world. Your life was easier without me.”
“I was in prison. For life. Remember?”
“True,” Maddox admitted.
“You would have to go a very long way to make my life worse than it was. You’ve given me a life, and you’ve given me a family. Something to give a fuck about.”
“Thank you for the pep talk, boy, but the fact remains you have been caged and beaten more here than…”
“Oh, shut up,” Will sighed.
“Excuse me, boy?”
“When I get beaten in prison, it’s by someone who might kill me. If it happens here, it's usually because you’re worried I’m going to die. It’s not the same thing. Who has been talking to you?”
“Henry said I needed to choose between discipline and our relationship.”
“Well, that’s stupid.”
“I thought so too," Maddox agreed. “But your rebellion has not only been against your wolf side. It has been against me. Prior to being threatened with moonsilver you would take your wolf form and you make yourself near impossible to control. You are not choosing me. You are fighting me. It is your right, but there is a limit to the dissent I will tolerate within these walls.”
Will let out a long breath. “Well, now I feel bad.”
“You do?”
“At the time, you were whipping my ass in front of men who wanted to kill my father. They didn’t respect my wishes; they didn’t think I mattered. And you made me even smaller.”
“Because you were acting like a small brat.”
“Okay. Maybe. But that’s why. You brought four wolves here. Four. And you told one of them he had the right to…” Will gritted his teeth. “If I’m not going to submit to you, I won’t submit to anyone. I don’t care what Henry says. Even if he is a wolf. I care about you. I’m your boy. Not anybody else's.”
Maddox captured Will’s mouth in a possessive kiss. It was the kind of kiss that not only made everything better, but made things disappear. With roaming hands, their clothing was gone in a matter of seconds, replaced with hot flesh and hard, cool muscularity.