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  Necessary Decision

  A.D. Christopher

  Varek and Gable have everything. Everything but their freedom. In the Orion Pride, only free were-panther men can claim a male warrior-mate and commit their lives to each other. At least, that’s the way it’s always been. But now the high council has condoned the pride’s very first three-way mating, and Varek and Gable see a possible chance to gain that precious freedom. They only need a free man to claim them both, and they have just the man in mind.

  Kylar has never believed in love, not until he meets two slave men who show him that love—and sex—can be more intense than anything he’s ever imagined. But when Kylar discovers that Varek and Gable planned his seduction, will he believe that real love can grow from deception, or will he see himself as nothing but a necessary decision?

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing

  www.ellorascave.com

  Necessary Decision

  ISBN 9781419927270

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Necessary Decision Copyright © 2011 A.D. Christopher

  Edited by Briana St. James

  Cover art by Syneca

  Electronic book publication March 2011

  The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

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  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Necessary Decision

  A.D. Christopher

  Dedication

  To my readers. Thank you for your patience.

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to my lovely editor, Briana St. James, for continued excellence.

  Chapter One

  The slave quarters were hot and close, lit only by dim lanterns and packed with freshly showered men working up a very different kind of sweat than the one that had soaked them through on the practice fields. Both the Unfree slaves and the Free were-panther men of the Orion Pride had put in a full day. War with the Canadian Prides seemed imminent and their training exercises had taken on a new urgency. Combined with the stress of the Pride meeting in the glen a few hours ago—where an announcement from the Elders had rocked the very core of the Pride—the impending conflict created perfect conditions for a steamy night that had little to do with the June heat.

  An orgy was in the making and Kylar couldn’t be happier.

  He needed to lose himself here tonight, needed to forget the look on his grandfather’s face when he’d reluctantly announced that the Elders had voted and decided to let the three-way mating of two male warriors and the female, Mercy Howe, stand. A mating of three, not just two. It was unprecedented, against everything their strict Pride law demanded and also…completely, wildly arousing.

  Two men and one woman, three pairs of hands touching and stroking, three mouths sucking and licking. The thought was unbearably hot, despite the fact that Kylar doubted that Kerrick, Caleb and Mercy’s “love” would last the year. Love was hard enough between two people—his father and mother’s contentious relationship and the absolute subjugation of his grandmother to his grandfather had taught him that much.

  Especially in a world like theirs. Were-panther women had always been scarce, but in recent generations the competition for mates had become even fiercer. The Orion Pride had few women, and they were mated to the strongest warriors, men who passed years of rigorous sexual testing performed in front of the entire Pride. The rest of the men remained unmated or took male mates, choosing the strongest warriors they could find in order to bring honor to their family names. In any mating, love was a secondary concern. Whether or not two people even liked each other often didn’t matter.

  There were times when Kylar wondered if the Pride would be better off if they abolished traditional matings and let the women choose who they would mate with each year and the men do as they please. But instead, the Elders had legitimized this three-way nonsense. It was ridiculous.

  But still…all that sweat-slick flesh, all those different places to drive every last aching inch. Not just one body intertwined with his. Not just one set of hands wrapped around his cock, stroking his ass. Not just one mouth on his sac. But two—two eager mates to worship him with their bodies. The thought made it hard to swallow, made his eyes flick hungrily from one corner of the room to another.

  Large, calloused hands roamed over sculpted bodies, men of every color finding a lover—or two or three—and settling in for some much needed stress relief before they turned in for the night. Eager mouths met and parted, breathing faster than they had before. Fists found hair and fingers dug into the muscle of rounded buttocks, demanding more and more, every last bit of power, every last spark of passion.

  The slave cabins were like this almost every night. Kylar’s sensitive nose never failed to detect the heavy scent of sex hanging in the air. Many Pride-born men came here to find the sexual relief and gratification they couldn’t find elsewhere without breaking Pride law. The Orion Pride forbade sexual contact with women before marriage. And so the unmarried men in need of release came to the slave cabins to work off their sexual tension with other men. It was a Pride-approved way to satisfy the hearty were-panther sexual appetite.

  There were so many Unfree eager to satisfy the Pride-born, not just because they enjoyed it but because they all secretly hoped they’d be claimed as mates and allowed to leave the cabins and their slave status behind. Unfree who warrior-mated with a full Pride member became full Pride members themselves, after all, and all the slaves wanted that.

  Slaves like the ones Kylar passed as he walked through the barracks. Slaves with eyes wide with passion and desire as they closed their mouths over already-wet cocks, flicked their tongues over the blunt, leaking heads. It was a gorgeous sight, all those bodies moving, tensing with pleasure, relaxing when spent, ready to go again after a short break.

  Kylar walked slowly past two men—one Free, one an Unfree slave—stroking each other’s swelling lengths in a darkened corner, grunting low in their throats as each neared release. At the last moment, the taller man fell to his knees before the shorter, slipping his lover between his lips, sucking him into a groaning, knee-weakening release. Kylar’s own cock thickened inside his boxer briefs. He hadn’t bothered putting on anything else after his shower in the men’s locker room. He knew he’d find himself in the Unfree quarters tonight.

  As an unmated warrior of less than thirty, Kylar often found a sexual outlet in the slave barracks. It was an especially welcome respite after last weeks round of sexual testing. Only Free men, full Pride members, could compete for female mates. To do so they had to pass a series of grueling, public, sexual tests. They had to stand naked and allow an Unfree to fondle them, to stroke them and caress them, without being aroused. To become erect was an invitation to spend a night in the f
orest with the slave who’d caused the erection. Many a Pride-born male had come back to the gathering in the morning to announce sheepishly that he had penetrated the Unfree who tempted him, or allowed himself to be penetrated, and thus could never claim a woman.

  Kylar had yet to complete the tests.

  Until he did, he wouldn’t be allowed near any of the virginal, unmated Pride girls. Thankfully, the Orion Pride had no taboos against men playing with other men and still remaining in the competition for a female mate…as long as the man in question refrained from anal penetration. Penetrating or being penetrated immediately voided any chance for a female mate. A man who had engaged in anal sex was not fit to have a woman, so the rules of the Pride went. At least that had been the rule until today, when two men who had already been warrior-mated for years were allowed to claim one of the Pride’s few females. Kylar couldn’t imagine what those young unmated men who’d had their eye on Mercy Howe were thinking right now. Probably that they’d been fools, and that competition for mates would be even more intense in the future.

  Of course, not every Free man cared about acquiring a female mate.

  “Yes. Fuck yes!” An almond-skinned Unfree with full lips, and eyes squeezed tightly closed, arched his back on a cot a few feet away. He slammed his hips back as the Free man behind him thrust forward. The sound of muscled skin slapping against muscled skin made Kylar’s erection swell even further, until he knew he’d have to find someone willing to drop to their knees in front of him soon.

  The temptation to fuck—to lube up some eager man’s ass and ride him until neither of them could walk the next day—was becoming nearly impossible to resist. Kylar was hardly a virgin—he’d been sucked off by more men than he could remember and given enough hand jobs to earn a morale award, if such a thing existed—but he’d never sunk his aching length between a woman’s thighs or into a man’s tight, slick hole. His family wanted him to win a female mate. Kylar simply wanted to put off any kind of mating as long as possible. A Free Orion man could also choose a male mate from among either the Free or Unfree populations, but Kylar knew better than to imagine that life with a male spouse would be any easier than life with a female one. Love was for fools and kids too naïve to understand that were-panthers weren’t meant to mimic human failures like marriage and the belief in happily ever after.

  Now sex on the other hand…that was another matter entirely.

  “You’re Kylar, right?” A familiar young man with black curls, big brown eyes and a mouth that seemed to smile without the slightest twitch of his lips slid up beside him, a nervous energy in his voice that appealed to Kylar immediately. He liked his lovers on the submissive side.

  The nude slave was slightly shorter than his own six feet, two inches, and narrow, as if he were still growing into his manhood. Still, he was strong, tightly muscled and…gorgeous. Tawny skin dusted with soft, black hair begged to be stroked and the fleshy, dusky cock thickening in the nest of tightly curled black hair between his legs made Kylar’s mouth water.

  Perhaps he’d do some sucking himself tonight.

  “Yes. Kylar,” he said, reaching out to run light fingers down the slave’s ribs to the slight curve of his hip, satisfied when the smaller man shivered with obvious desire. “You’re…Gable?”

  “I am.” He smiled, as if pleased that Kylar knew his name without being told, then reached for Kylar’s cock, fisting it with a quiet assurance that made Kylar rethink his assumption that this boy would be a typical wide-eyed sub. He was submissive, but submissive with a side of sass. “But you can call me Gabe.” He stepped closer, standing on tiptoe to press a kiss to Kylar’s lips as his smooth hand worked a bit of magic on Kylar’s cock.

  Kylar smiled against Gabe’s lips and kissed him back, deciding a little sass was exactly what he needed tonight.

  Varek watched Kylar run eager hands down to Gable’s ass and cup the golden orbs in his hands. Varek’s breath sped with excitement, though he wasn’t sure whether he should be pleased or jealous to see that Gable had won Kylar’s attention so easily. All he knew was that he was as turned-on as he’d been in years. Varek and Gable had both grown up in the slave quarters—prisoners taken by the Orion Pride nearly ten years ago in the New Mexico Pride wars—and always been friends, but they’d only been lovers for a little over a year. Still, they were definitely lovers, not just fuck-buddies. Varek loved Gable with everything in him.

  He loved Gable’s soft touch, his fearless passion and his unexpected sense of humor. He loved the way Gable smiled at him in the morning and pressed kisses down his stomach, he loved running through the woods in their panther forms, marveling at the sleek beauty of the nimble black cat Gable became. Gable was the only thing that kept him sane as the Orion Pride drove them to train harder and harder, preparing for a war that wasn’t theirs to fight.

  Why should he be eager to help the Orion Pride triumph over the united Prides of Western Canada? Why should he help the smug assholes of this Pride win even more slaves and women for their Free men? While he and Gable, as slaves and former members of a defeated Pride, would get nothing but more slavery?

  Valor in battle wouldn’t free them. Money wouldn’t free them. The only thing that would ever free them and allow them to lose their status as Unfree was to be claimed as a mate by a Pride-born male.

  Which was just as difficult as it sounded.

  But maybe things are going to change. Maybe tonight is the sign we’ve been waiting for.

  Varek swallowed, trying not to hope too much as he watched Gable and Kylar fall to an empty cot, strong legs entwined. If the Elders had allowed a warrior-mated couple to share a woman, why not allow a Free man to share two men? Neither he nor Gable had ever dared to seduce a Free warrior before tonight. They’d been too afraid of being separated, of losing the freedom to love each other whenever they wished, to fall asleep in each other’s arms, cocks softening in well-used holes.

  But now, with the announcement that Caleb, Kerrick and Mercy would be allowed to stay together…

  He and Gable had barely been out of earshot of the glen and the shocked murmurs of the Free members of the Orion Pride when they’d fallen all over each other’s words, eager to share their eerily similar thoughts. It was why they were perfect for each other, and why they’d hopefully settled on the perfect man to claim them both. If a Free member of the Pride took them as his warrior mates they’d become full-fledged members of the Pride and move out of the slave barracks once and for all.

  They both wanted that freedom more than anything. More than almost anything, at least. Varek would rather stay a slave than lose Gable and he knew his love felt the same way. But if they could be a tri-mated team…they could have their freedom, each other and hopefully another man to love, who would love them back.

  Both of them had thought of Kylar Grossman immediately. They’d had a running joke for months that Kylar’s name was “grossly” inaccurate. The tall, powerful warrior with the long, silky brown hair he wore knotted at the base of his neck and the electric blue eyes was anything but a gross man. He was gorgeous, a brilliant warrior and sexy as hell.

  Varek would be a liar if he said a part of him didn’t envy his love right now. Watching Kylar’s big hands cupping Gable’s tight, swollen balls, seeing Kylar’s lips part as he sucked Gable’s cock inside his mouth—it made him want to explode.

  His hand moved almost subconsciously to his cock, jerking himself in time to the rhythm Kylar had established, letting the pressure build and build before he allowed himself near the edge, telling himself this was for the best.

  Kylar was a dominant man and liked slighter, softer men. Varek, at six five and nearly three hundred pounds, was anything but slight. He might be a gentle giant, but he was still a giant with enough muscle to take out just about any member of the Pride and a cock Gable joked was “obscene”. It was nearly thirteen inches long and as big around as Gable’s wrist, but still, Gable relished taking Varek inside him, didn’t mind being the sm
aller man in every way.

  Kylar, on the other hand, pushed himself to be the strongest, toughest, baddest were-panther on the battlefield. It made Varek worry…what if Kylar wouldn’t give him a chance? What if he couldn’t imagine how good it could be between three men such as themselves?

  Still, Varek felt that Kylar would be the perfect man for him and Gable to share. Kylar obviously enjoyed a variety of lovers and Varek and Gable weren’t averse to inviting other men into their bed from time to time. Kylar also possessed a certain hunger that was rare in free-born men. He might not realize it, but Varek and Gable both saw that he was ready for a change. He was ready to move out of his elder grandfather’s long shadow and establish a family of his own.

  Varek and Gable could be that family…if only he’d claim them as his mates, if only he’d give them both a chance…

  “Yes! Yes!” Gable cried out and thrust his hips, driving his cock deeper into Kylar’s mouth. Varek watched his lover come, all thoughts and worries vanishing in the vicarious bliss of seeing Gable shoot his seed between Kylar’s lips. Varek came with a groan a second later, comforting himself with the thought that soon it would be his turn. Soon Kylar would leave the slave quarters for his expensive home and Varek would be the one coming into Gable’s hand or mouth or ass while the both of them dreamed of the freedom they hoped lay in their future.

  Gable was lost, blinded by pleasure, coming so hard he wasn’t sure there would be anything left in his balls by the time Kylar was done sucking him. Kylar swallowed his seed with strong pulls while his thumb drove into Gable’s ass, penetrating him with just the perfect amount of force and aggressive thrusts that spoke of the barely contained violence simmering beneath Kylar’s cool exterior.