Sharkbait Down Under

“Take her inside and run a cool bath for her,” Leo said. Ian helped her to her feet and led her to our bathroom.

“We should get some sleep while we can,” Adrienne said. “Ian will be up all night with her, and she should have an Alpha around when it gets bad. You two take the first watch; we’ll wake up at two and take over.”

“We should get some sleep as well,” Brent said. “Wake us up if you need more help.”

“I will,” I told them. Nicholas helped me clean up outside, and then we checked in on Dorothy.

“How is she doing,” I asked my father-in-law as we went into the fancy bathroom.

“Fever peaked at thirty-eight point five and is now thirty-eight.”

I popped up my conversion table on my phone and saw that she was now at one-hundred-point-four Fahrenheit, barely qualifying as a fever. “I’ll get you a robe. Nicholas, get your Mom something to drink.” I grabbed a fluffy robe out of a cabinet and held it out as Ian dried her off. She was a good-looking woman for her age, and her active life kept her in shape.

I helped her put on the robe, and we went back outside. The evening breeze off the water would do her good; I was comfortable in my jeans and a sweater I’d pulled on. We all knew the fever would come in waves, so she had to recover in between bouts until the fevers took over completely. None of us said anything as we looked out at the moonlit waters, which meant we all heard it.

Thump. Thump. Thump. “Oh yeah, baby, that’s so GOOD!”

I blushed, burying my hands in my face in embarrassment as I heard Olivia’s passionate talk with my Dad from the open window in their bedroom. “Harder, love! Pound me good!”

“Should I tell them,” I asked Nicholas?

“Let them have their fun. What did you expect when you gave your parents a romantic room over the water? Just ignore it.”

“Brent adopted me. That means I can pretend my parents never have sex,” I replied.

Nicholas laughed and pulled me into his lap so I could rest my head against his chest. His heartbeat helped cover up the sounds, but it didn’t stop them. “I think she’s almost as loud as you during sex.”

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did. Another female voice started moaning in pleasure, this time mixed with the sloshing of water. Yep, my Aunt Adrienne was getting some action in the soaking tub. I now had my former Alphas screwing vigorously just a few yards away from us. I just shook my head as I listened to my Mom and my Aunt having hot sex. Ian and Dorothy either didn’t hear it, unlikely for Ian, or they ignored it. “What should we do?”

“Well, you could bend over the rail again, and I could issue a challenge the old guys to see who can make their mate cum the most times. Who knows, maybe I can make your Mom jealous?”

“NICHOLAS!”

“What? Your mom is still smoking hot, and Adrienne’s a redhead! I don’t blame them for tapping dat ass every chance they get.” I sat there, mouth open, as my Mom screamed out her release. “I know I’ll never tire of this. We’ll be a hundred years old, sitting on the porch swing watching our great-grandchildren play, and I’ll still be copping a feel,” he said as he ran his hand up my side to cup my boob. I could feel his love over the bond, and I was getting excited. Nicholas’s eyes darkened as he scented my lust, and Ian could probably smell it now too.

“You two go inside and have some fun,” Dorothy said. “We’ll be fine out here for a while.”

“Sounds good,” Nicholas said as he picked me up in his arms.

“We’re not going to…” I started.

“Give us grandchildren unless you get busy,” Ian finished. “Go have fun, newlyweds. Enjoy your honeymoon, and don’t worry about making noise. Nobody else is.”

At least in the bedroom with the doors and windows closed, I couldn’t hear our neighbors. I was pretty sure they heard ME the three times I came hard before Nicholas finished. Dorothy wasn’t the only one flushed and sweaty when we came back out. “Tub time?”

“Yes,” Ian replied. Dorothy’s fever got up to a hundred and three this time despite the ice we added to the cold water. That was the pattern until two in the morning when I turned over to Leo and Adrienne. “We’ll move her over to Leo’s room,” Ian said.

“I’m sure you two want to get some ‘sleep’ tonight,” Leo said with air quotes.

“As much as you got,” I teased back. We took a quick shower, and we did sleep, at least until seven-thirty when Mom woke me up.

“Leo needs you in his room,” Olivia told me after I opened the door. “It’s not going well.”

I quickly dressed and went next door. Ian was dumping another bag of ice into the tub as Adrienne checked her temperature. “She’s at a hundred and six,” Adrienne said. “If we can’t get this fever down soon….”

She didn’t have to finish; we all knew what would happen if the fever didn’t break. “We need to pull her wolf forward, guys. With four Alphas in the room, we might have more success.”

I looked inward to my wolf, letting her reach out to the wolf inside Dorothy that was trying to come out. I could sense her; she was weak and tired. “We need you to be strong for your family, Dorothy,” I whispered into her ear. She was delirious and probably wouldn’t understand me, but that didn’t matter. “Nicholas needs you to hold our children and tell them stories.” I kept talking as Ian held her hand, telling her about the big family we were going to have and how much we needed her here with us.

Ten minutes later, her temperature had dropped by two tenths. The boys put ice in as fast as it melted, and we all let out a sigh of relief when the fever finally broke. “Ian?”

“You made it through the fevers, my love. We’re going to take you outside so you can shift.”

“I can hear my wolf talking to me,” she said. “We did it.”

I knew it wasn’t over yet, and there would be a lot of pain associated with her first shift. Ian picked her up and carried her outside to where Olivia had laid a blanket down. Hidden by the building and the hills, no one would see or hear the change.

Olivia went inside to prepare some raw meat. “I can’t watch,” she told me as she walked off. The memories of her first shift were still fresh after all these years. Mom didn’t have the willing turn of a mate, but the forced turn after rival wolves ran our car off the road and tried to kill us. It all worked out when she found out Brent was her mate, but it was hard for her.

Leo sent Brent out in the ATV to make sure no hikers or trespassers were around, knowing her wolf would need to run after it emerged. Dad came back thirty minutes and reported we were all clear.

The pops of bones and the screams of pain accelerated as the change pushed to completion, finally leaving a small grey wolf with black socks and a black right ear tip on the blanket. “You’re beautiful,” Ian said as he stroked her fur. We all shifted to greet our new Pack member, licking her face in greeting before Leo brought her into the Pack.

“You did great, Mom,” Nicholas said as he plopped his big body down in front of her. Nicholas was twice her size, with Leo a little bigger still. Olivia was the only one not shifted yet; she was feeding Dorothy pieces of meat, which her wolf gobbled up. Once she’d caught her wind, we encouraged Dorothy to stand. Her head came up to my shoulders; as Alpha Females, Adrienne and I were much larger in wolf form. Dorothy was an Omega wolf by her size and lack of dominance. Omegas were the norm for human turns, joining the unranked who formed the majority of most Packs.

Once we got her used to standing and moving around, she was eager to run in her new form. Leo let out a yip and headed for the canyon leading away from the coast, urging them to follow. We started at a slow trot, with Nicholas and I surrounding Ian and Dorothy and Mom and Dad behind us. Once she was moving smoothly, Leo picked up the pace.

It was during the run I sensed something wasn’t going right. Ian wanted to run close to Dorothy, but she growled and snapped at him when he did. “What is going on, Dorothy?”

“He’s not my mate,” she sent back over the Pack link. “LEAVE ME ALONE!”