STORY EXCERPT

“Are you really going to spend the rest of the trip home not talking to me?”

Cerberus walked in his lion shape, staring at the back of Basil’s head.

His little wolf shifter mate, the man who couldn’t even shift without a full moon to help him, was currently keeping three steps ahead of him, his arms crossed and head down.

He was the very image of “leave me alone.”

Cerberus frowned, his claws digging into the earth as he walked, his tail twitching behind him.

“Will you stop that?”

Basil did stop, but he didn’t turn and didn’t say a word.

Cerberus walked up next to his mate. Even in his lion form, he was almost tall enough that he didn’t have to look up at the other male, but he was still wider at the shoulders, and his mane of hair almost made him just as tall.

Basil cringed a little, looking away.

Cerberus couldn’t believe it. “Are you pouting?”

“Of course not!”

He most certainly was.

When was Elias going to get back here? The other male was so much better at the emotional portion of their mating.

But, no, Cerberus threw out that idea immediately.

He was the damned leader of his pack, the strongest warrior here, and if his mate was angry with him, then Cerberus was damn well going to handle it.

He puffed himself up a little. The rest of the pride was nearby, but out of sight.

As though they realized there was a fight coming after the fifteenth time Cerberus had called for his mate, and they wanted to get the hell out of there before shit could go down.

Which was as good. Much as Cerberus needed to get Basil to see reason, he didn’t think he was going to earn any points by yelling at his mate in public.

“Tell me what’s going on right now. If this has something to do with the battle—”

“Of course it does!” Basil snapped.

Cerberus jerked back. He’d never heard his little mate make a sound like that.

Sometimes he forgot that even an omega could bite, and the other man glared at him like he really meant it.

Cerberus didn’t understand. He didn’t know what it was he did or why his mate had to be this way with him.

“Because of one fight? One fight and you don’t want anything to do with me? Honestly?”

“Yes! Honestly!” Basil yelled, then he rolled his eyes and pushed his hands through his red-brown hair. He gripped it tightly, and for a moment, Cerberus worried his mate would try ripping it out.

Lions had a pride for their own hair, and Cerberus had developed a sense of pride for his mate’s hair in turn.

He was strange like that.

“I mean, I don’t want nothing to do with you. Not that. I’m just really fucking angry with you right now.”

“Yes, I can see that,” and it was enough to keep Cerberus’s tail whipping around behind him, trying to figure out what was bringing this one.

“It wasn’t as though I fought with William.”

“No, but you wanted to. Why did you have to challenge the other male at all? What if he beat you? You know what happens to werewolves who beat lions in fights.”

“He wouldn’t have beat me in that fight,” Cerberus said.

“How do you know?” Basil snapped. “How do you know he wasn’t holding back and trying to keep himself from getting killed by letting you have it?”

Now Cerberus was really starting to get pissed off. He took a step forward, and Basil stepped back. “Do you really think that I would have fallen to him? You really have that little faith in me?”

Basil was obviously embarrassed by the question. He seemed to be trying to look at anything in the woods aside from Cerberus.

As if he could get away from the fact that he’d just made an accusation like that.

“That wasn’t what I meant.”

“I think it was.”

Cerberus didn’t take his feelings into account for much of anything. He didn’t take anyone’s feelings into account for anything either.

A person’s feelings didn’t get the hunting done, and it didn’t put food on the table.

But when it came to Basil, that was where Cerberus was more than willing to make a few exceptions.

Except for now. Not when his mate was basically saying he didn’t have any faith that Cerberus could have won that fight.

 

ADULT EXCERPT

 

“Get out of those shorts, honey,” Cerberus said, still holding Elias’s hips, thrusting his cock against the crease of his ass. “I want you to give him something to taste.”

“You’re the boss,” Basil said quickly, shucking his shorts, pushing them down his knees and kicking them away as though they were filth.

He wished he could shift. That he could control it the way his two mates could, then he would walk around naked whenever he wanted for no reason instead of having to wear clothes that got in his way all the time.

Whatever. At least he had an abundance of clothing he was able to get off quickly, and no sooner was he exposed than Elias took his cock in hand, his mouth coming down and around the head as though he’d been starving for it.

Basil immediately surged up, his spine stiffening as his mouth dropped open.

“O-okay,” he said, gasping for breath as Elias went to town on him.

It wasn’t just that the other man was good at what he did, even though Elias constantly complained about his lack of talent.

No.

It was that the guy went from zero to a hundred in less than a second, and already it felt as though he was trying to suck the orgasm clean out of Basil’s body.

He was frozen, the pleasure, the spine-tingling sweetness of it was taking him over, and his toes curled as he pushed his fingers through dark hair just so he could have something to hang on to.

In the back of his awareness, Basil could hear Cerberus chuckling at him.

His mate said something that might have been a joke with the way he chuckled about it, but Basil couldn’t focus on anything other than the pleasure of it, and he didn’t care about anything else other than pushing his cock deeper between those perfect lips, and making Elias swallow down every drop.

When Elias moaned around his mouthful, that was when Basil was able to blink his way back into awareness, to look up and see what Cerberus was doing.

Where the hell the man managed to find something to slick Elias’s hole with when they were in the middle of the gym, and he was naked and couldn’t bring anything inside, was beyond Basil. Maybe he found a lotion bottle on the floor? People dropped things and left them behind on the bleachers all the time.

But then he definitely didn’t care as, when Cerberus pressed his cock head to Elias’s pucker, Basil was able to enjoy the effects of his touch as Elias tightened his lips, hollowing his cheeks as he tried to hold back his moan.

“That’s it,” Basil said, gripping Elias’ hair a little tighter. “Fuck him. Stretch him wide open. For me.”

Cerberus grinned and actually winked at him, as though more than happy to give Basil everything he wanted.

Basil wouldn’t go so far as to say that he felt everything that was happening to Elias, but it was kind of like that. In a roundabout way. As Cerberus pushed inside the other man, and as Elias’s mouth responded to every movement, no matter how soft, Basil could almost keep track of everything Cerberus did.

How deep he pushed his cock. How tight his hands were on Elias’s waist, and even the extent of Elias’s pleasure.

Because it was all over the man’s face, even when he squeezed his eyes shut and moaned a muffled noise around his cock.

Elias seemed to forget all about what he was supposed to be doing as he let his mouth stay firmly around Basil’s cock, but he seemed to stop moving otherwise.

That was fine. While he moaned and groaned as Cerberus made him see stars, Basil was more than happy to cant his hips back and forth.

He didn’t move too quickly, knowing how much Elias didn’t like that.

Not all the time, anyway.

Either way, Basil was going to be nice. He was going to give his mate a chance to breathe while he got some of the work done.

The problem was how uncomfortable Basil soon found out that grinding his ass back and forth on the wooden bleachers was.

Damn, if it weren’t for how good this felt, he might have stopped by now, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not yet. Not when it was this damned good.

“You’re close,” Cerberus said.

Basil snapped open his eyes, looking at the other man instead of down at Elias.

Cerberus looked at him with those glowing eyes, but there was still that control there.

He was glad for that. It allowed him to relax, to keep going.

“Y-yeah,” he said.

Damn, he really was on the edge. He couldn’t believe how much this was getting to him. How in the hell was he supposed to last when even the touch of Elias’s hands stroking Basil’s thighs was enough to make him shiver?

“Good,” Cerberus growled. “Because I’ve been thinking about this ever since we left the pride.”

He reached for Basil, grabbing him by the back of his head, yanking his head forward and kissing him hard on the mouth.

Basil moaned, shocked from the kiss itself, and then he was melting into it.

There was no fighting it. Only submission as his mate took what he wanted, and Basil could only fight to keep up with him.

He no longer felt the discomfort of thrusting so awkwardly into Elias’s mouth. There was only the pleasure. The wet heat of Cerberus’s lips and tongue, the soft slickness of Elias as he suddenly remembered that he was supposed to be bobbing his head back and forth.

Basil moaned into Cerberus’s mouth.