Maisie

It was strange.

The only moments of clarity I had were when I finally slept. When the screaming heat and endless lust released their claws, my mind drifted into dreams so vivid they felt like memories playing in reverse.

I watched my entire life unfold from somewhere outside my body, like a detached observer cataloguing every moment, searching for something I couldn’t name.

Ah, yes. A name.

I sifted through faces, voices, and feelings like a girl standing in front of a closet full of prom dresses. None of them felt right. Giving away my virginity—no, gifting it—in this state felt strangely sacred and profane at the same time. Like handing over a piece of myself I would never get back.

Lyon’s face floated to the front of my mind.

He would’ve been the safest, easiest choice. Kind. Gentle. Always nice to me without expecting anything in return. But I wasn’t stupid. If I gave his name, Soren’s "honorable" act would shatter in seconds. I’d wake up to find Lyon in a body bag, and I’d have another death on my conscience.

Besides... Lyon didn’t deserve to be used as a spiteful shield and discarded the moment the heat broke. That wasn’t who I was.

I mentally crossed his name out.

Jericho came next. It was an uninvited thought, but it was insistent. If I was being brutally honest with myself, he would’ve been the smartest choice. He was grounded. Steady. Controlled. He would’ve been gentle. A cushion. The one who could absorb my rage and hatred for them and make the whole humiliating experience... softer.

That was exactly why I couldn’t choose him.

I didn’t want to wake up from this fever and find myself emotionally attached to any of them. Sex I could justify as a transaction. A biological necessity to keep me alive through the transition. Something primal that would lose meaning once the heat subsided. I could walk away from it without losing myself again. My heart.

I had already been burned by them once. I wasn’t stupid enough to hand them the match a second time.

The same logic applied to Quinlan. Choosing him would risk making me feel cared for. And seen.

No. I couldn’t risk that either.

The heat still licked at the edges of my dream like flames trying to break through a door as consciousness began flitting towards me.

Mercer. There was no way I could escape being consumed by that fire that burned in him. I hated him just as much as I hated Soren, and I was drawn to him just as badly.

The lines blurred to that effect with Mercer.

In the end, my safest option, the one where I walked out of this transition still as Maisie Adams, and not a foolish woman who had given both her body and senses away to these men was still him.

Soren.

The one I hated the most.

Hating him was familiar. Reliable. The deepest connection I had with any of them was pure, burning hatred. At least with him, I knew I wouldn’t accidentally catch feelings. Sex with Soren would stay exactly what it was. A necessary evil. Nothing more.

But the mind works in the funniest ways.

For some reason, the moment my eyes popped open and I found myself thrust straight into hell again, the first word I said was something entirely different.

"Jericho."

****

Jericho

You could call it cheating.

I simply called it insurance.

We all knew she was going to choose Soren.

The bastard had marked her first and was now playing the noble, self-sacrificing martyr card like he deserved a fucking medal for it. But none of us were willing to roll over and let him claim that first deep bond.

Because this wasn’t about whose dick got to wear her virgin blood like a trophy. This was deeper. More primal. More territorial.

Whoever took her first during the transition would carve their name into the very core of her. Emotionally, instinctively, irreversibly. Every Lycan female ended up with one mate who sat just a little deeper in her soul than the rest. And we were all animals fighting to make sure that spot belonged to us.

So while Soren was playing the role of selfless martyr, the rest of us had been conducting our own little campaigns.

I sat on the roof like a gargoyle, chin resting on my fist, watching the circus unfold below with great amusement.

First came Quinlan.

Quinlan was the least likely of us to do something impulsive. He was simply very quiet about his certainties until they became unavoidable. So, I was indeed, surprised when the idiot snuck into her bedroom at 2 a.m., despite his claims of being ’content’ with whatever her decision was, and crouched by her bed like a lovesick fool.

He caught a lock of her hair between his fingers and though it was irrational, I felt an instant burn of violent jealousy in my chest as I wondered how soft it might’ve felt against his fingertips.

"There is a preconceived notion that I am the best of the bunch." He threaded his fingers in her hair. "That is not true, Cherie. I can be anything you want me to be. The devil. An angel. The gods, if you will. So long as I am yours."

He leaned in and said in his multilayered Lycan tone, "Quinlan. Remember it."

Maisie sighed into his hand, nuzzling his palm, and he kissed her forehead before leaving.

A sardonic breath slipped out of me. Interesting.

Mercer came in thirty-five minutes later. He stared at Maisie’s sleeping form for five minutes. Mercer had never been good with words. His mouth was always full of shit, so it was really no surprise that he didn’t know what to say to her to help his case, and continued pace the room like a caged animal.

He finally halted above her. Opened his mouth. Growled viciously. And began pacing again.

You know, I always did think Mercer was one meltdown away from an asylum.

Finally, he leaned over her. "I have no grand declarations or speeches, wildcat. I’m well fucking aware you hate me. And I’m okay with that because it means I’m already in so deep, when you think of me it burns as much as when I think of you. I marked your pussy first. It’s mine. Don’t give it to someone else or I’ll punish you for it when I get my turn."

Then he pressed his mouth to her ear and bit her earlobe until her eyelids fluttered, her blue eyes glazed over and unfocused with sleep as they trained on him briefly. "Mercer," he grunted sharply, equally using his Lycan command. "Don’t forget it."

Phenomenal.

Soren came in next. Really, who was he kidding? Soren was no martyr, and no Lycan male would willingly give up his right to bed his female first.

Our ancestors often made it their goal to find the man or men who had been with their ladies before them and torment the shit out of them.

Innately, we were all the same.

Soren’s thumb ran along her chin and my Lycan growled with distaste, even if he knew we ought to share. "I do not think I can follow through with doing the right thing, Adams," he said.

His fingers ran down her temple and Maisie turned, moaning softly at his touch. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

My dick jumped in my pants.

"I know you’ll choose me. And I know why you’ll do it. But I’m not nearly selfless or honourable enough to refuse it. Shame on me, I suppose," he whispered, before etching his name into her ear with a command.

He straightened. Tilted his head in my direction like he knew I was there all along, and his violet gaze twinkled as he smiled like a cat who’d swallowed the canary.

"There’s nothing wrong with being second, Jer," his voice floated down the bond, dripping with arrogance. "I’d even let you watch if you ask nicely."

That did it.

The moment he left, I dropped silently through the window like a shadow.

Fuck playing fair.

Maisie lay tangled in white sheets, moonlight carving her silhouette into something ethereal and entirely too innocent for the thoughts clawing through my skull.

Her hair fanned across the pillow, rich and lush. One bare leg had escaped the covers, pale and smooth, bent at the knee in invitation she didn’t even know she’d extended.

My mouth watered. Actually fucking watered.

I had no words to command into her subconscious, to convince her to choose me. What I had planned was far from that.

I stripped the sheet off her fevered body with one tug. She was glistening, flushed, and dripping even in sleep. The scent of her called to the beast pacing relentlessly in my chest.

She was perfect. Her pussy was perfect. I’d imagined it a thousand times. During classes, while sparring, in the shower with my hand wrapped around my shaft and her name on my lips. The reality put every fantasy to shame.

I settled between her thighs, kneeling, fingers curled with restraint.

Lifting her right foot, I kissed her instep, and she shivered. I watched her nipples perk and her slight brow furrow slightly as I hooked her leg over my shoulder.

A small sound escaped her when I kissed a trail up her left leg and her head turned to the pillow, her chest rising and falling rapidly.

I dipped my head between her legs and traced the first syllable of my name to her outer lips.

Her fingers twitched against the sheets.

I spelled the E next, dragging my tongue in elegant loops across her heated flesh. Her thighs trembled.

"J-E-R-I-C-H-O," I whispered again, vibrations traveling straight to her core.

The R made her breath catch. The I had her head tossing as her fingers found and tangled in my hair. The C, I traced right over her clit, circling it lazily before dragging downward through her slick folds.

Her flavor exploded across my tongue. Sweet and musky and so fucking Maisie that I nearly lost my composure right there. My hands gripped her thighs, pinning them open as I worked, spelling my name again and again into her flesh like a brand.

Jericho. Jericho. Jericho.

I fucked her with my tongue through the O, curling deep inside, tasting her walls as they clenched and released around me. Wet. So fucking wet. Her arousal coated my chin, dripped down my jaw.

I staked my claim in the most primal way possible by making her body remember me even when her mind couldn’t.

Her body responded to me with an instinct that transcended consciousness, her hips rolling against my face as I licked into her.

"Please," she moaned.

"My name, malyshka," I grunted.

"Jericho," she sighed, and I almost came in my pants like a fucking teenager.

My tongue fucked into her properly now, no longer spelling but claiming. Staking. I ate at her out like a man starved, flicking against the swollen pearl of her clit before sucking it between my lips.

Her thighs trembled around my head. Her fingers tightened in my hair, pulling me closer, deeper, more.

I gave her more.

I slipped two fingers inside her dripping channel, curling them to find that spot and her walls clenched around me, hot and slick and so fucking tight that my dick throbbed in envy.

"You’re going to come for me, malyshka," I breathed against her, the command layering with my Lycan tone. "Right now. On my tongue. And you’re going to remember my fucking name."

She cried out, shuddering.

Her release flooded my mouth, her body arching off the bed as waves of pleasure crashed through her.

I didn’t stop—couldn’t stop—drinking every drop she gave me like it was the finest wine I’d ever tasted. My fingers pumped through her orgasm, extending it, dragging it out until she lay boneless and panting beneath me.

Only then did I pull back.

Her eyes remained closed, her breathing gradually steadying. But her fingers stayed in my hair, holding me in place as if her body refused to let me go.

"Jericho," she whispered one final time, and I grinned against her thigh.

Fucking. Perfect.