You could start off with both before you had to go inside her pussy, because if you didn’t?

The knot would appear, and it didn’t take too kindly to not being able to burrow into the female. I knew Austin didn’t feel like spending the rest of his birthday with an ice pack on his dick.

“What happens?” Sabina asked, and I felt my balls crawl into my body.

How much she could hear of our thoughts wasn’t something any of us had figured out yet. But it was disconcerting to say the least.

“I can hear plenty,” she mumbled. “But I give you privacy. Just not so easy when my brain is mush.”

“What are you talking about?” Austin questioned softly, and I felt him roll onto his side as he spoke.

I cleared my throat. “I was thinking about… Well, remember old Bill Levers?”

Austin snorted. “Levers is famous, bro. How could I forget?”

“Yeah, well, tell Sabina the tale.”

Another snort escaped him. “You were thinking about knots?”

“I was thinking about knots,” I confirmed.

Austin laughed. “When Levers got older, he said he couldn’t get it up as much so he took some Viagra.”

“That works on shifters?” she queried, her voice drowsy.

“You’d be surprised what works and what doesn’t,” I said dryly. “Viagra does to a point, but we’re not supposed to take it.”

“For reasons which I will explain,” Austin interjected, and I was glad because I didn’t have the energy to say shit, never mind tell a story, but then Austin was damn good at sharing stories.

I could remember being a kid when he’d talk me to sleep some nights, speaking about this and that.

The memory was a pleasant one, and it had me smiling into Sabina’s hair.

“So, Levers took some without telling his mate, and he kept having random erections throughout the day. He kept her so fucking exhausted that neither of them realized the knot wasn’t functioning like normal.”

She gasped. “You’re kidding?”

“No. Levers said they were like jackrabbits—”

“He talked about this with people?” she demanded, outraged.

“Well, it was funny,” I mumbled. “Plus, he was warning us not to take Viagra. This was when it had just been released,” I tacked on with a little laugh.

“Anyway,” Austin rumbled, tapping her on the butt. “If I can continue…”

“Sorry,” she muttered, but I heard her smile.

“They were so tired they forgot about the knot, so when Levers got another hard-on, and his mate was too tired and sore to take him anymore, she clambered down the bed and sucked him off.”

“Oh God, what’s going to go wrong here?”

“The knot fused to her cheek.”

I started snickering, just remembering how Levers told the story, and how his mate, for months, hadn’t let him near her again.

He’d been a cautionary tale for a lot of men back then.

“To her cheek?” Sabina shrieked, jerking in my arms in response.

“Yeah. It was like a misfire. It wouldn’t normally do it.”

“It wouldn’t?”

“No. But because he’d fucked up his system, jacking it with Viagra, he made a clusterfuck of things.” Austin snickered. “So, his mate was tied to his dick like that for nearly thirty minutes—”

“Thank God it was only a half-hour! Your knots can take all night to let go of me.”

I hummed. “Sign of the strength of our bond, plus how strong we are as wolves. It’ll lessen with time, and with how often we mate.”

She rolled her eyes at that, muttering, “You get plenty,” before she carried on with, “Levers wasn’t an alpha?”

“No. If he was, his mate would have probably gnawed off his cock after the eighth hour,” Austin said, amused.

“That isn’t funny,” Sabina argued.

“It was at the time, primarily because Maggie May was the one who told most people about what happened, and Levers had to get up during a council meeting, explain everything, and tell us not to use Viagra.”

“Was this when Eli was alpha or his dad?” she questioned.

“His dad.” Austin snickered. “That was more hysterical than anything else. That old fucker was such a goddamn stickler.”

“He was the only one who wasn’t snickering that night.”

“Poor Maggie May.”

“Poor Levers,” I retorted. “One mistake, and he was denied access to his mate for over six months.”

“He deserved it,” she replied with a sniff, which made me roll my eyes.

“We can agree to disagree,” Austin countered with a snort. “Mates can’t be apart for that long.”

“Well, no,” she agreed softly, and I could tell she was thinking about being without us for that length of time. “But she was traumatized!”

“Hardly. A freight train through the living room wall wouldn’t faze Maggie May.” My lips twitched at Austin’s tone. “We need you to meet her properly. You’ll probably like her. She was the woman who spoke out at the pack meeting.”

“I remember her.” She cleared her throat. “Conrad attacked her, didn’t he?”

Was I surprised she’d learned about that? Not exactly. Still, I’d have preferred her not to know.

“We can take you to the diner tomorrow,” I concurred, changing the subject as I accepted that Sabina would like Maggie May’s inherent bluntness.

Sabina had to get to know the pack, and Maggie was a good way to start.

Though she and Levers weren’t high ranked, they worked the diner, and that meant their place was an unofficial meeting ground. Everyone knew them, and it was why, though poorly ranked, people tended to listen to them.

You never ignored the people who made your dinner. Especially not when their chicken pot pies were the best this side of the Columbia River.

I hummed. “You’ll like her, and I bet you’ll like her BLTs.”

She laughed. “If there are BLTs involved, then can we take Daniel too?”

“Of course. Kid needs to eat more,” Austin said.

Since she’d wheedled Eli into taking the boy in, we’d been tasked with getting him to eat more, because he was too bony. His metabolism was working extra time right now, and we all knew he’d be shifting soon so he needed all the calories.

I figured his circumstances were why Eli had agreed to Sabina’s request, even though it was damn awkward in the midst of all the pack turmoil with the council.

Bringing in another alpha’s spawn, an alpha who was unpopular to boot, who’d lost a challenge, could never happen at a great time. But with the shit with the council too? Couldn’t be much worse. Still, I got it.

Eli, more than anyone, knew what it was like to shift at such a young age, and Daniel needed all the help and support he could get.

That was why he was staying with us. I wasn’t sure if it was permanent or temporary, but knowing Sabina, it would be permanent.

Surprisingly, having the kid around didn’t irritate me. He was good and quiet, but just ate like a…you guessed it…wolf.