Leader of the Pack (67 page)

“Aislinn?” Keith’s voice was a bit bewildered.

She laughed. “Yeah, what do you need?”

Keith laughed with her. “You two didn’t finish the ceremony yet. Since when do you qualify to answer the great and mighty alpha phone,” he teased.

“Cute,” she said offhand as she lay across Cullen’s chest. “I reiterate. What do you need?” Cullen’s hands ran over her butt, sliding his fingers between her thighs and probing into more sensitive areas.

“Oh,” Keith teased. “You’ve been taking lessons on how to talk mean to underlings. Cul can be pretty good at that when he wants. You know, the angry insistent tone, short snippy sentences…”

“Keith,” Aislinn insisted. Her breath hissed out when Cullen pressed his fingers against her clit and began circling the little bud. Her legs spread involuntarily as he slid a finger inside her, and she accidentally knocked her tray off the bed.

Keith laughed whole-heartedly as he heard the tell-tale hiss of breath and then the crash in the background. “I see. That’s pretty much my answer. I just needed to know if and when you two were coming downstairs. But I can tell you’re busy.”

Aislinn bit her lip and glared at Cullen over her shoulder as he played with her. Cullen chuckled and took the phone from her hand, refusing to quit. “We’ll be down in a bit.” Keith always asked the same question when he called. Cullen knew the man too well.

“Fine. Do you want anything specific done with the Tairneach in the mean time? They’re getting antsy. Jenna’s distraught. She keeps asking if she can see her father again. You have any idea what that means?”

Cullen hadn’t gotten around to telling the others how Aislinn had dealt with Jenna. “Yeah, I do.” His hand slowed in his assault on her body, and she looked at him questioningly. “I don’t know if she can do it again. We’ll deal with it when we come down. We needed to talk to her anyway. Fortunately, you’ve given us a bargaining chip. That is unless you can get her to give up the books and notes Rafe left behind without arguing.”

“I’ll see what I can do. I’m pretty bored at the moment. After all the excitement recently, this sudden down time is disconcerting,” Keith said. Cullen heard some knuckles crack on the other end of the line. “I could do with an interrogation,” he said, in mock macho mode.

“Don’t ruin the fact that she seems willing to call an end to the fighting,” Cullen said seriously.

“I’ll behave,” Keith answered like a kid. “Don’t worry. Have fun. Play with Aislinn a bit, and then come down to real life. There are a lot of people waiting down here for you, but they’re all being patient and understanding.”

Cullen and Keith hung up the phone, and Cullen tossed it across the room. With a wicked grin, he grabbed Aislinn and flipped her onto her back, knocking the other tray onto the floor beside the bed. Aislinn squealed and tried to get away as he grabbed for her hips.

“Not so fast,” he growled and caught her before she could get off the bed.

She giggled, as he hiked up her hips, taking a minute to look down at her wet lips before lining himself up and thrusting his ready member into her. Aislinn purred happily and pushed back against him. Cullen took his time. Long slow strokes forced greedy moans from Aislinn. She fisted the sheets on the bed and lifted her hips with each thrust, but he held her hips solidly and tortured her. She wiggled wantonly and he closed his eyes feeling her cunt clamp down on his cock. He brought her to the edge, but wouldn’t let her come.

Aislinn began begging. “Cullen please,” she said desperately. He growled. He couldn’t argue any longer. The fluttering of the walls of her sex against his cock was driving him nuts. Her moaning and begging made it impossible for him to resist. Aislinn whimpered when he pulled out. He flipped her over again, setting her on all fours. Repositioning himself behind her, Cullen gripped her hips hard and began thrusting intense and fast. Aislinn’s breasts swung with each thrust. She moaned and writhed beneath Cullen. He listened to her voice raise in tenor. When he felt her tense beneath him, he doubled his strokes. They groaned, and their bodies jerked in unison as he emptied into her.

Aislinn felt the waves of pleasure flood over her and the heat as he came inside her. She let out one last happy groan before collapsing onto the bed in bliss, as Cullen fell onto the bed next to her. “I don’t know how I survived without you,” she said in a soft serious tone.

Cullen didn’t know why what she said reached into him like it did. Maybe it was the way she said it or the way she felt in the back of his mind when she said it. He wrapped her in his arms and held her tightly, as they lay cockeyed on the bed. He kissed her shoulder and nibbled lightly at the scared mark he left there. “I love you too,” he said softly in return.

* * * *

They showered quickly, forcing themselves to behave, although Cullen couldn’t resist a little extra soap on the areas of her body that he liked best. By the time they got downstairs, pretty much everyone was in the great room talking about what had happened the night before. Sarah was still laid up, so Keith had helped Cadifor deal with the majority of the questions. In the end, Cullen only had to smile, nod, and apologize for having invited everyone to a battle instead of a mating, and play the role of diplomatic host again.

An oddly good mood persisted, even in the face of everything that had happened the night before. Lycans in general didn’t mind a good fight as long as they won, and since there were relatively few casualties, thanks to the druids, the losses weren’t bringing down the atmosphere. The druids and the lycans mingled and talked. The druids wanted as much information about lycan culture as could be absorbed in an afternoon, and no one begrudged them answers after all the lives they’d saved the night before.

Cadifor smiled widely. The entire affair had gone better than he ever dreamed it could. Cullen stood next to him and watched all the different alphas and the druids talking in friendly tones.

“Nothing unites people like a common enemy,” Cullen said flatly. “Will it continue to be this pleasant once the excitement has died down?”

“Don’t be so pessimistic,” Cadifor scolded. “A good start is better than what we had, however the start may have occurred.”

Cullen nodded and scanned the room for Aislinn. He spotted her near the large fireplace at the far end of the room, flirting with Makeda. “Those two have certainly taken to each other,” he said with a hint of jealousy. Aislinn looked up from her conversation and met his gaze. He felt her amusement in the back of his mind. She winked at him and blew a kiss, before returning to her conversation with Makeda.

“Makeda tends to have that effect on people. I should know. I must say she has taken to Aislinn more than I would have expected.” Cadifor grinned. “They do put on a good show. You’d best keep an eye on that one. Someone’s liable to try and grab her from you.” Cadifor’s eyes never left the two women.

“She’s already claimed,” Cullen reminded him in low tones.

“So she is,” he said, clapping Cullen on the shoulder. “I intend to be here for the actual finish of what you started last night. I’ll not miss a chance to taste her when you’re willing to share.”

Cullen nodded, feeling increasingly more possessive by the minute. A quiet voice eased into his mind.
You’ve nothing to be concerned about,
Aislinn said to him.
Cadifor smells like wet hound dog.

Cullen burst out laughing, and Cadifor eyed him with curiosity. “Private joke,” Cullen responded to Cadifor’s quizzical stare.

After a reasonable amount of time and mingling, the four of them excused themselves from the gathering and left to take care of business. A hall in the west wing had been cleared and transformed into a makeshift prison. Betas stood guard at each door in the hall. Cullen knew that if he walked outside he would find a similar lineup of betas by the windows as well. Since the rooms ended up being used as prisons, the omegas who would have been in this hall were sharing rooms in a different wing. It was incredibly inconvenient to keep the Tairneach, considering the number of extra guests they already housed and the fact that they had to have guards. Unfortunately, the feds didn’t show up this time, and there were enough high ranking lycans to watch them. So it worked out, if not well.

Cullen leaned confidentially toward Cadifor. “I just thought of something. Did you call the feds off?”

“What?”

Cullen flashed Aislinn a concerned look, and Aislinn sighed in frustration as she understood what he was implying. He could feel the ‘I told you so’ emanating from her. Even so, she didn’t say it.

“I usually get a call from Stevens when there’s any commotion,” Cullen explained. “This is the first time in years that I haven’t heard from him when there was some kind of uproar. When you consider the reports they received after the last fight here and that the Council was involved, it’s just strange that another fight between the same two packs wouldn’t draw excessive attention from the government watch dogs.”

Cadifor growled under his breath in agreement. “I’ll look into it.”

As they reached Jenna’s door, Keith was coming out. He shook his head. “She’s not really in a talking mood. I was nice about it,” he said in answer to Cullen’s raised eyebrows. Keith’s usually mirthful voice was somber. “That’s not the same Jenna.” He looked at Aislinn. “Whatever happened with you two really hit her hard. She’s a real downer at the moment. She won’t talk to me at all. She either asks about Aislinn or sits crying.” Keith stretched. “Now that you’re all here acting nice and concerned I can go back to me. I don’t like the serious bit. It just doesn’t feel right.”

When Cadifor looked at Aislinn questioningly, she shrugged, trying to make the situation seem less dramatic. “Jenna finally really talked to her father. I don’t think she expected what she heard.”

Cullen snorted. “If Brennus came to his sense and stopped coddling her, then I can only imagine.”

Cadifor and the others looked confused. “Brennus is dead,” he said harshly.

Just tell them,
Cullen said in the back of her mind.

Aislinn took a deep breath. “It seems that one of my talents involves--” She paused while she thought about how to say it, then she decided that blunt was best. “I can call the dead,” she said, feeling a tug at her soul, as she remembered the night before. “I took Jenna into the stone circle and called her father’s soul to her. I didn’t really know if it would work or that I could definitely do it. Lately, there have been enough situations where I had an idea, and it just worked out. So I tried it, and there he was. Brennus Tairneach. Something tells me though there was more to it than just me. Don’t ask me to explain, because I really don’t have the answers. Sometimes I just understand, without knowing why.”

A new light shone in Makeda’s eyes. “Talking to the dead can be a very powerful skill. When added to your other apparent talents, woman, one has to wonder exactly how powerful you truly are.”

Aislinn shifted uncomfortably as they all stared at her. “You’re not the only ones wondering that,” she said and turned to knock on Jenna’s door. She wanted out of this conversation. There was no answer, so rethinking it wouldn’t do any good.

Without waiting for Jenna to respond to the knock, Aislinn opened the door and stepped in. They others decided to wait in the hall, but Cullen left the door open so that he could keep an eye on things. Jenna was sitting on the bed, staring at the window with her knees drawn up to her chest and tear streaks on her cheeks. The red ruby ring in her hands, she was twisting it round and round with a lost look on her face as she stared out the window.

“Jenna,” Aislinn said softly.

Jenna turned her head to see if it really was Aislinn. She had been hoping to see her again. She had known that the probability was slim. After everything that had happened, there was the distinct possibility that Aislinn wouldn’t be willing to speak with her. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

Aislinn shrugged. “Keith said that you wanted to talk to me about your father.”

Jenna’s eyes lit up when she realized there might be a chance that Aislinn would let her talk to him again. Still, Jenna was cautious. If their positions had been reversed there was a very good chance that Jenna would just torment Aislinn with what she wanted and then leave. It was either that, or Aislinn wanted something. Since the mighty Arnauk prided themselves on being the good guys, Jenna figured it was the later. She felt a bit of hope when she realized that she still had one bargaining chip. Keith tried to get the books out of her. Jenna was willing to bet that was what Aislinn was here about as well. After all, she was the druid, not Keith. “Will you take me to him again?”

“Jenna,” Aislinn said uncertainly and honestly. “Last night was desperation and a wild guess. I suppose I can try to do it again, but I’m not positive I can.”

Jenna assumed that Aislinn was messing with her. She wasn’t inclined to trust Aislinn in anything. “So what do I have to do? I mean I stopped the attack. There’s no way the Council will let me keep the alpha position in the Tairneach.” Her voice lowered. “I suppose my father didn’t want that anyway.” Jenna’s voice cracked, and tears overflowed her red eyes. “I have something I need to ask him. Can’t you just pity me and take me to talk to him? Or maybe one of the other druids can do it if you won’t.”

The annoyed superior tone Jenna used was making it hard for Aislinn to feel bad for her. The woman’s actions had nearly killed Cullen, and now she wanted favors.
Remember,
Aislinn thought,
get the books. Hate her later.
“I told you that I’ll try,” she said the kind of calm voice that a person uses with a whining child. “I don’t know what the others are capable of. If I can’t manage, we can look into whether or not the others can. Jenna, I’m curious why you think you can ask for anything in your position. How many people did you intend to kill in your little quest for godhood?”