Chapter 178: Her Bitch

"Ahhhh!!!!!"

If there was ever a moment Aria could have gone deaf, this would surely be it. Brittney had to be part banshee because that pitch could wake the dead and shatter every window in the room.

"What the hell, Aria?!" she shouted, looking completely beside herself. "You actually took our advice and went beyond our expectations?!"

Then she whirled around in search of Alek, and before the poor girl could even brace herself, Brittney grabbed her and lifted her clean off her feet.

"Brittney Thorne! I swear to God I’ll murder you if you don’t put me down right now!" Alek screamed, clinging to her shoulders for dear life.

Brittney eventually put her down, delirious with laughter and excitement. She simply couldn’t believe it. Two of her roommates were now mated to two fucking wolves. One to an Alpha and the other to his Beta. And as if that wasn’t enough, the men were nephew and uncle. At this point, could their friendship possibly get any closer?

"The saying was right after all," Trisha gave Aria a knowing look. "It’s always the quiet ones who get up to the most trouble." Her eyes narrowed with interest. "So tell us, then. How was the first night?"

"There was no first night!" Aria blurted out, heat rushing straight into her cheeks.

"What?" Brittney and Trisha exclaimed together, their disappointment almost insulting.

Their heads immediately swung toward Alek instead, having decided if Aria failed them, there was still another source of juicy information in the room.

Alek bit down on her lip. "We haven’t done it either."

"Whoa, wait." Brittney stared between them, struggling to make sense of what she was hearing. "Didn’t they say fated mates can barely resist each other? That once they find each other, all they want to do is fuck?"

Trisha nodded as though Brittney had just cited a reliable academic source. "They’re basically rabbits."

Aria and Alek could only stare at them, too dumbfounded by the seriousness of the discussion to even take offense. Obviously, their roommates had spent enough time researching werewolf mating habits to develop expectations, and somehow Aria and Alek were now disappointing them by failing to live up to those expectations.

"So all that talk about werewolf males being ridiculously virile was a lie?" Brittney pouted, looking genuinely betrayed by the discovery. Or at least, what she believed was a discovery.

"Actually..." Alek scratched the side of her head nervously. "I think what you’re talking about is mating fever. It hasn’t hit us yet. Not that Dimitri and I plan on sitting around waiting for some instinct to turn us into horny messes, but he wants our first time to be special."

She paused before adding far too casually, "Probably after Aria and Maverick finally do it."

"Excuse me?" Aria’s head snapped in Alek’s direction so fast she nearly gave herself whiplash.

"What do you mean, after Maverick and I do it? We’re not stopping you from having sex!"

"Well," Alek began, looking slightly uncomfortable now that she actually had to explain it, "Maverick is Dimitri’s Alpha, and Dimitri is his Beta. That bond comes with its own set of problems. Whenever you and Maverick are fighting or things aren’t right between you, Dimitri feels it because Maverick isn’t settled. He becomes restless, keeps worrying about him, and can’t completely focus on anything else."

Her lips twitched. "Including me. So until the two of you stop fighting your mate bond long enough to properly accept each other, I’m apparently sharing my mate with an Alpha who needs constant supervision."

"Ouch," Trisha drawled, her voice sounding far too amused for someone who was supposed to be sympathetic. "I can’t imagine being unable to have sex with my mate because my best friend refuses to let her garden get plowed."

"Fuck you," Aria told her.

"You mean Maverick?" Trisha returned shamelessly.

Aria was rendered speechless. Unfortunately for her, that wasn’t even the end of it.

Brittney came over to her with a wicked smile. "So basically, for Alek to be properly ravished, Aria needs to go to her Alpha..." She deliberately emphasized the title, mimicking the breathy way Aria had bid Maverick goodbye only moments ago.

Then she wrapped her arms around Aria and began grinding against her dramatically.

"Take me, Alpha Professor. Make me yours tonight. Fuck me hard until I see stars, Daddy..." Brittney accompanied the ridiculous performance with increasingly obscene moans, thrusting against her, playing both Aria and Maverick in a reenactment nobody had asked to see.

It was safe to say Alek was grateful that Brittney’s attention had shifted entirely to Aria because she would have melted into the floor if even half of that teasing had been directed at her. Instead, Aria stared at Brittney in absolute horror for all of two seconds before shoving her away.

"Get the fuck off me!"

Brittney stumbled backward, howling with laughter, and that only made the heat burning across Aria’s face worse. She couldn’t even look at Alek because this entire conversation had gone from discussing mating fever to placing the responsibility for Alek’s sex life directly between her legs.

"I’m done," she announced, throwing both hands into the air. "I’m actually done with all of you."

"Aria—" Brittney tried between laughs.

"No! Don’t Aria me. Not long ago, you were screaming because I had a mate. Now I have to fuck him as some sort of public service so Alek can get laid too?"

That sent Brittney into another fit of laughter, while even Trisha lost whatever composure she had left.

Aria pointed accusingly at Alek. "And you! Tell your mate to learn how to manage his Alpha issues without involving my vagina."

Alek’s mouth fell open. "Why are you shouting at me? I didn’t make the rules!"

"I don’t care who made them!" Aria snapped, already retreating toward her bedroom. Her face was so hot she was certain she could fry an egg on it.

"Nobody says another word about me, Maverick, sex, gardens, plowing, mating fever, or anything else involving what I do with my body for the rest of the day."

Brittney’s laughter followed her across the room. "What about Daddy?"

Aria stopped and turned around very slowly. Brittney should have taken the warning for what it was, but the daredevilish gleam in her eyes said she had every intention of pushing her luck.

"Why don’t you let Daddy Maverick take that precious virginity tonight?"

And that did it.

Aria charged at her, and perhaps it was the murderous look on her face that finally convinced Brittney she had pushed things a little too far.

With a shriek, Brittney took off, suddenly running for her life. Unfortunately, the living room wasn’t exactly a field, so she did the only thing she could think of and darted behind Trisha, grabbing her by the shoulders and using her as a human shield.

"No, no..." Trisha immediately protested, trying to wrench herself free. "Leave me out of this!" But there was no escaping it now. Aria was already coming for them.

"Aria..." Alek called worriedly, beginning to suspect that things might actually have gotten out of hand as she reached for her.

Trisha reached for Alek at the same moment, hoping to save herself while Brittney continued clinging to her from behind. It was a terrible decision.

Aria crashed into Trisha, Trisha dragged Alek down with her, Brittney refused to let go, and within seconds all four of them went tumbling to the floor in a tangled heap of limbs and shrieks.

Aria immediately went searching for Brittney through the mess, and when she finally found her, everyone seemed to expect violence. Instead, Aria attacked the one place she knew would cause considerably more suffering and dug her fingers mercilessly into Brittney’s sides.

"Oh, no! No, not the tickling!" Brittney screamed, already twisting helplessly beneath her. But Aria showed absolutely no mercy, following every attempt to escape until Brittney was laughing so hysterically she could barely breathe.

"Fine! I’m sorry!" Brittney finally gasped, tears streaming from her eyes from the overstimulation. "You win. You don’t have to fuck Maverick yet. Go at your own pace. Dimitri can suffer a little longer while Alek keeps her precious V-card."

Hearing that, Aria could only stare at her. Brittney had just been tickled to the point of tears and somehow still hadn’t learned a damn thing.

But that was Brittney. She wasn’t putting on an act or trying to be outrageous for attention. She was simply brazen through and through, and suddenly Aria couldn’t even remember why she’d gotten so worked up in the first place.

She collapsed onto her back, and before she knew it, a laugh escaped her. Another followed, and Brittney joined in almost immediately. Then Trisha started laughing, followed by Alek, until whatever remained of the argument disappeared beneath the sound.

The four of them lay tangled across the floor, laughing so hard and for so long that eventually none of them seemed to remember what was so funny anymore.

"God, my stomach hurts," Brittney complained when they finally began to calm down, rolling onto her side to meet Aria’s eyes.

"That’s what you get for being a shameless bitch."

"But I’m your bitch, girl." Brittney smiled at her.

Aria smiled back. Yes, she was her bitch.