“No, come on and listen to me,” Marcus demanded, waving his hands in the air like he was holding court in the midst of some fascinating conversation.

“No, you need to listen to us,” Anton snarled in his direction, and I could see that this was only going to end in another fight, so I stepped in between them and looked up at Anton. His face softened as soon as he looked down at me, and he closed his eyes for a moment. I knew he was struggling with this, more than he would have cared to admit. I knew all of us were. Having to work around a new group of people, take their demands into account at the same time as we tried to figure out what we wanted to do, was a new one on all of us and I wasn’t sure that it suited any of them very well.

“Can we just catch a breath here?” I asked, turning to Marcus and offering him up a big smile. He seemed to respond well to me so I figured I should be the one to act as a stepping stone between the two groups of men. Joel, Killian, and Joseph were reclined on the bed, all of them looked bored, as though they just wanted this to be over. Anton, Ethan, and Luke were clustered behind me defensively, ready to lash out and attack as soon as I gave them the signal. But it was never going to come. No, I needed these guys to work together if we were going to get anything done, and there was no way in hell I was going to indulge their silly little egos in the process.

“You guys need to figure out what the hell we’re going to do next.” I looked between them. “Marcus, what would be your suggestion in this kind of case? What would you do first?”

“Why ask him? They’re hired muscle.” Anton snorted. “We’re the ones with an actual stake in this-”

“As soon as she handed over the money it became our job, too,” Marcus snapped at Anton. “I’m not about to risk our reputation by letting this thing fail.”

The two of them had clashed the hardest, no doubt thanks to their mutual statuses as the highest-up of the highest-ups in their respective packs. It was odd, because I thought they would both be happy to have someone to share that burden with, but they seemed intent on grappling for dominance instead.

I shot a look up at Anton and touched his chest lightly, a reminder that no matter what happened, my heart still belonged to all of them and that we needed to stay focused. Marcus’s flirting wasn’t helping any and, despite that I was pretty sure he was doing it to get under Anton’s skin rather than out of any true attraction, it was working.

“What exactly do you want from us?” I turned back to Marcus, hoping that my attempts to broker peace between the two of them would be enough to get this to stick. Marcus looked over my shoulder, directly at Anton, and then slowly returned his gaze to me.

“We need to take a look at the compound,” he responded at last. “Get an idea of what we’re dealing with. Find some crack in the defenses that we could exploit.”

“Have you ever done anything like this before?” Ethan asked, and I could hear the doubt in his voice.

“Yeah, we have,” Killian snapped back in his direction. “Few months ago. We broke someone out of prison at a compound out of state.”

“Did they deserve to be there?” Ethan asked, and Killian shrugged, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth.

“I don’t think we bothered to ask that question,” he remarked, looking up at Ethan as though challenging him, daring him to dive in and say something more. Ethan narrowed his eyes and turned away, apparently the only one of my men who seemed to understand that fighting with these guys wasn’t going to get us anywhere.

“How far from here to the compound?” Marcus turned to Anton, addressing him directly and without a hint of sarcasm in his voice. That was a first.

“A few hours’ run,” Anton replied. “Not far.”

“We’ll need a guide,” Marcus replied. “Someone who knows the way.”

“I’ll go with you.” Anton nodded.

“Me, too,” Luke jumped in, and it was clear that there was no way in hell he was going to let his brother run off with a bunch of shifters he barely knew, not with everything that was going on right now. I couldn’t say I blamed him. The thought of Luke and Anton, even together, being lost to me for a few hours was enough to make me feel a little ill.

“Fine.” Marcus shot a look at Luke, his eyes narrowed, that I couldn’t get a read on. “We’ll be back later this evening, though, right?”

“Right,” Luke nodded. “Soon as we can.”

Luke glanced over in my direction and his jaw tightened slightly, the way it did when I knew he was agreeing to something that he wasn’t sure about. Ethan seemed to notice it, too, and stepped in to help out.

“I’ll take care of her back here.” He spoke directly to his brother, and positioned himself in between Marcus, the rest of that group, and me, in a way that was so obviously far from an accident. “You guys go out and do what you have to do. We’ll keep her safe.”

“Tell me, what are you keeping her safe from?” Marcus asked, eyeing Ethan curiously. “No one knows you’re up here, do they?”

“Nobody,” Ethan confirmed, shaking his head. “But she’s still-”

“I’m still Arianna Kellum,” I finished up with a long sigh. Marcus stared at me for a moment, as though trying to put the pieces together in his head.

“Then why don’t you get the Kellums to help with this?” he wondered aloud. “Why do you need us?”

“It’s a long story,” I replied, with a wan smile. “I’ll tell you all about it sometime.”

“Right now, we don’t have time to sit around and talk,” Luke snapped, his voice buzzing with energy. “We need to get out of here and check that place out. Come on.”

“Careful,” Joel remarked as he got to his feet, glancing up at Luke. “You’re not the one in charge here.”

“Last time I checked, neither were you,” Luke shot back, and the two of them briefly squared up to each other.

“Hey, hey, alright.” I held my hands up. “Can you guys do this dick-measuring thing later? Because I’m pretty sure Rafe needs us right now.”

“She’s right,” Anton reminded Luke, who stepped away from Joel as though it was the last thing he wanted to do in the world. Well, when this was all over, they could lay the fuck into each other as much as they liked to prove their manhood. For the time being, I needed all of them at least making the pretense of playing nice with each other.

“Let’s get out of here.” Anton pulled his shirt off, and before I knew it, all of them except Ethan had stripped down to nothing; I averted my gaze, playing at polite, but I couldn’t keep the smile off my face as they headed for the door in a flurry of fur and noise and then left the two of us alone in silence.

“You okay?” Ethan stepped towards me, and I saw the worry etched on his face and was reminded in a rush just what the hell all of us were doing here. I sighed and reached out for him, letting my head fall against his chest and inhaling his scent as deeply as I could.

I felt Ethan’s hand on my chin and he tipped my head up to face him – that morning, back in the inn, I remembered with a rush the way he had touched me and the way it had made me feel. He leaned down to plant his mouth on mine, just softly, and I felt myself begin to melt against him at once. As though the divide between our bodies was becoming less palpable, less noticeable. He slipped his arms around me, pulling me close, and I did the same, and before I knew it, the two of us were standing there in that cabin making out like we hadn’t touched each other in days.

He scooped me up in his arms, taking me by surprise, cradling me against his chest as he carried me through to the bed and laid me down carefully on top of it. The covers were scratchy against my skin but I didn’t care. Ethan was offering me a chance to escape, a chance to get away from everything that felt as though it had been chasing me this entire time, and there was no way I was going to pass up that chance.

I reached for him in the dim light of the room, letting my fingers trace over his cheek and through his hair and across his lips, just briefly – he caught my hand and drew my finger into his mouth, flicking his tongue over the pad lightly, his eyes flickering with need. Then, he leaned down to kiss me once more and my brain settled and silenced, soothed by his touch. His fingers were warm, despite the cold, and they traced their way beneath my shirt, his fingers finding my breasts. He moved his hands over them with a firmness, not pulling his mouth from mine for a moment.

“I need to feel you inside me.” I pulled Ethan’s head back and spoke the words clearly, so there could be no doubt. Melting into him for a while was the only thing that would soothe my frantic thoughts.

He leaned down to kiss me once more, pulling down my pants and taking his cock in his hands and pressing it against me. I remembered, suddenly, Luke and I doing the same thing in the same position in this very cabin just a few days before, like an echo. It was so different with all of them but there were these moments where it felt so very much the same, too, and I was addicted to the space between the similarities and differences.

He thrust into me roughly, taking me by surprise. I often thought of Ethan as the softer and gentler one amongst them but he had consistently proved me wrong on that when it came to what we shared in bed. I let out a squeak against his mouth, and he went slower, adapting to what I needed in the moment. But the depth of that first thrust left me wanting more, craving more, and I reached up to clasp his head to my chest with one hand and let the other fall on the spot over his heart. I could feel it beating as he moved into me, going faster and faster. I lifted my hips and took him deeper and felt his heartbeat pick up in time with it, with us. There was something so intimate about this, about cradling his head to my chest, knowing that our heartbeats were coming in time with one another.

We were moving in perfect harmony, our bodies connected in ways they had never been before, and the intensity of it, the intimacy of it, was pushing me closer and closer to the edge. I wasn’t sure what it was about being with these guys, but all my hang-ups and worries about my body seemed to drop away as soon as they touched me, leaving room for nothing but my pleasure to take over. And take over it surely did.

“Ah…” I groaned, burying my face in his hair as I came, clenching my thighs around him and feeling my pussy pulse around his cock. He continued to move into me, his breath hot on my skin, and then, finally, I felt him pulse and come within me, letting out this long, low growl that seemed to bubble up from somewhere impossibly primal.

“Fuck,” he gasped as he rolled off of me, pulling the covers up and over the two of us.

“That was so good,” I murmured as he reached over and wrapped his arms around me, nuzzling my neck gently.

“So good,” he mumbled against my skin.