“You won’t touch her. None of you are going to touch her,” Finn said, his voice hoarse as he tried to hold on to his human form. It was pointless, but I admired the strength of will it took. “Whatever this is, it's not Jules. It’s not even her Tirian. I’ve seen her, felt her. Something else is happening here, and we need to find out what.”
“I don’t need to find shit but her dripping hole when I shove my cock into her. You might not like your little human hybrid broadcasting her availability to all of those around her, but this is our fucking chance. She breezes in and out, stinking of sex, making damn sure every bloke here knows she’s up for it, and you want to take that away from us? You can fight me, but you can’t fight all of us. This is happening, you just haven’t realised it yet.”
“You fucking idiots. None of you are strong enough to take her from me.”
Finn shifted into Tirian form with a well-practised twist of his body. It seemed a much more rapid way to shift than I had experienced. A gigantic white wolf stood in front of me, obscuring my view of the crowd.
“Slade, Brandon, anyone. You need to get down to the main office now,” Nerida babbled into the two-way. I let her. More contenders would only add to the experience. Seeing that magnificent body of Hawk’s as he fought for a position by my side would be delicious, as would the chance to put that mouthy little Jack in his place. Then the fighting began.
Finn took the advantage, launching himself at Sonny mid-shift, something the other man struggled to do as efficiently as him. Finn’s jaws were around Sonny’s throat in a second, and it was only his slower shift that stopped the man from taking him out entirely. Sonny rallied quickly, the sounds of his snarls music to my ears. I watched the white and grey beasts battle it out with a smile. When Sonny’s Tirian went sailing through the air, landing on the ground with an awful thud, I noted the bloody fur as my due and then turned to see who the next contender was.
“Fuck this,” the red-headed guy said. “You’ve been pushing your weight around on this since she got here, using her status as ‘your employee’ to make sure she hooks up with you and your crew. She should have had time with all of us. We didn’t even get a chance to petition!”
Finn regarded the other man in beast form silently.
“You’ve got this coming,” the guy said w
ith a shake of his head, then stripped down and shifted. His wolf was a dark charcoal grey, his eyes gleaming bright in comparison. They circled for a moment, then he launched himself at Finn.
Finn paused for a second, his body tightly coiled before he leapt and grabbed the other Tirian by the throat, the two of them thudding to the ground. The grey appeared to be winded, his mouth open as he gasped for breath before Finn was on him. He shook the grey fiercely in his jaws, then tossed him to one side. He looked up at the crowd, his green eyes meeting every single one of theirs, before he howled his challenge. The eerie song made the hairs on my arms lift, made my throat ache to join it.
“Fuck this shit. One on one’s not going to work,” said one guy. “Let’s rush him.”
I laughed and laughed as the men stripped, watched them as they took animal form one by one.
“That’s enough!”
All of our heads whipped around to see Kelly standing just outside the ring of men, arms crossed. My eyes narrowed. I couldn’t argue with her obvious power, she’d stopped every single person with two words and held them with the bright green glow of her eyes.
“What the hell do you think you’re all doing? Change immediately and pull some bloody clothes on!”
She’s a threat to us, I thought. She isn’t a little queen, she’s an actual one.
I watched as the men did as she said, shamed faces replacing the masks of lust they’d worn before.
“I don’t know what the hell is going on, but none of this falls within the boundaries of reasonable behaviour.”
“She wanted it,” Sonny croaked, getting to his feet. Blood covered his throat and chest.
“She wanted it,” Kelly mimicked savagely. “Are we humans now? To play fast and loose with consent? If Julie indeed proved receptive to any of you, is this the way you go about pursuing her?” Heads dropped down at this. “What would your mothers say? Your grandmothers? Get out of here before you find out.” Satisfied when the men started to move away, she turned to us, Finn now standing beside me in human form and wiping blood from his chin.
My eyes slid over his body, taking in every detail. He looked like some kind of savage god, red claw and fang marks raked across his chest, but they seemed to only enhance his beauty. His nostrils flared, and his head jerked down, his eyes meeting mine as he grabbed my arm.
All of it, the cold, bloodthirsty mindset and the fuzzy lustful one, all dropped away. I was me again, and I was aghast at what I’d been a part of. My breath began to race as my eyes flicked around me, taking in the blood and scattered clothes, the retreating crowd. What the actual fuck? I felt like I’d backed away from a precipice that I’d nearly missed stepping off of. The black wolf’s laughter rang in my ears, as it had the whole damn time since I’d left the house. Fuck that guy, fuck him and his opaque shit.
You wanna play games? How about you stop pussying around and tell me what you want, because I’m pretty sure it’s not me getting road rash from having an impromptu gang bang outside of Stores.
You.
Right then, I thought, then looked back at Finn and saw his eyes still burned bright green.
“OK, Finn, you’ve done enough for today,” Kelly said. “Why don’t you get dressed and go inside and wait with Julie as I call Ophelia? Something’s not right. I got a call from—”
“No, mine!” he growled.
I felt the words reverberate through me from head to toe, his eyes burning into mine. They followed my hand when I placed it on his tight abdomen, still breathing hard from what had happened, and his other hand covered it.
“Now, Finn...”