The Stalker Next Door: 46. The Queen and Her Wolves

The cabin smelled of smoke, sweat, and skin. Ash still clung to the air, faint and bitter, from the firewood that had burned down to glowing embers.

Mara lay tangled between them, one arm curled across the First’s chest, her thigh draped over the Second’s hip. They hadn’t let her move far, not even in sleep. One clung to her from behind, the other from the front, as though both feared that if they let go, she would vanish into air.

Her eyes opened slowly. Dawn bled pale light through the shutters. Their bodies were heavy against her, each heartbeat thunderous in her ear.

For a long, quiet moment, Mara just breathed. It was amazing, this feeling that filled her. 

She had done it. Not only survived, but claimed. Bent them into submission, forced them to kneel, and then took them both inside her fire until there was nothing left but need and surrender.

Yet lying there between them, with their breath hot on her skin, Mara understood something else.