by Nalini Singh
Her mate already carried her scent on him, but she was determined to stamp it into his skin even harder and deeper. Yes, she was a possessive beast. Good thing he didn’t seem to mind. Having reached the ridged lines of his abdomen, she licked and kissed, one hand on his hip and his erection an iron poker against her breasts.
Chapter 23
Lover mine
Kiss me
Murder me
A ruin in our bed
Pleasure in my veins
—“Pleasure” by Adina Mercant, poet (b. 1832, d. 1901)
ETHAN PULLED AT her hair, sharp enough that it stung a little, adding spice to the pleasure. “Selenka.” It was a pained sound, his beautiful voice fragmenting. “I can’t—”
She’d thought to show him heaven with her mouth, but realized now he didn’t have the capacity to deal with the overload of sensation. But her hand didn’t feel right, not for this, their first intimacy. Rising to straddle him once again, she ran her fingers over his lips, so lush in the bristled roughness of his unshaven face. “Will you let me lead this dance?”
Only after he’d jerked a nod, his hands gripping her hips, did she close her fingers around the base of his erection and begin to slide herself down on him. Quivers quaked through her, control threatening to slip from her grasp. Wrenching it back with gritted teeth because Ethan didn’t need to be handling a wild wolf this first time, she focused on her beautiful, dangerous mate.
His head had fallen back, his neck arched and his fingers digging into her hips.
Along the mating bond, the jagged night that was Ethan shuddered with huge waves of light. And inside her, he was a thick heat that pushed at the walls of her core and claimed her even as she claimed him. She sank home with a shudder, her fingers clawed on his chest, and her inner muscles spasming.
Ethan’s body jerked up without warning, a sudden wet heat inside her that made her muscles clench again as she watched Ethan’s body get impossibly more taut, his shoulders so hard they could’ve been carved out of stone. Her wolf growled, her body moving rhythmically on his.
A small sound wrenched from his throat, his fingers clenching even tighter on her as the wet pulses inside her intensified. Just when she worried he might break from the strain he was putting on his body, he slumped to the bed, the obsidian eyes that met hers dazed, and his skin filmed with a fine layer of perspiration.
Squeezing him inside her because he was still hard despite the violence of his orgasm, she leaned in to lick at his throat before claiming a kiss, both of them breathless. “There,” she said even as her heart beat like a drum, “that’s taken the edge off.” A small nip of his lower lip. “Shall we play now?”
Ethan raised his hand to her breast, cupping it with care. His hand made her moan, lean into the touch.
He parted his lips. “I feel . . .” A harsh exhale, a rough inhale.
“Me, too,” she said, moving on him with sinuous fluidity because she couldn’t stop. “You feel so good inside me.” Already, she could feel him swelling to renewed readiness inside her. Her lover had a lot of pent-up sexual energy within.
“Show me what to do.”
Selenka rose up with her hands braced on his chest. “Move with me.”
He was an Arrow and a telekinetic, physical dexterity in his blood. He picked up the rhythm in a matter of seconds, and they rocked slow and deep together. Then she took his hand and showed him just how to touch her to make her break with pleasure as he’d broken—it was only fair.
Her moan a minute later had him repeating the circular motion he’d just tried. His skin dented under the tips of her claws, but when she sliced them back in, he gripped her wrist and said, “Don’t hold back.” Lifting her hand, he sucked one finger into his mouth, echoing the rhythmic sucking with the circles he was making over her clit.
“Manual?” she gasped.
Releasing her finger, he said, “No, I just wanted to do that.” He flicked the nub of her clitoris. “That was in the manual.”
Selenka barely heard him, the shock waves of molten heat rolling over her body. She came all over and around him, and when she looked at him in the aftermath, her hands braced on his chest, the look on his face was one of pure satisfaction. She couldn’t help it; she leaned down and kissed him.
Arms wrapped around her, he kissed her deep and long and increasingly wild. “Can I do this between your legs?” he asked afterward.
She nipped him sharply on the lower lip. “Are you trying to kill me?”
No curve of his lips, but she could swear she felt a sunburst inside her. “Yes,” she said, “you can kiss me anywhere you like.” Squeezing his cock with her internal muscles, she sat back up.
The cords of his neck standing out in stark relief, and his hands at her waist, he rose up using nothing but the power of his abs—oh, how she liked that—and locked his mouth over her nipple. He didn’t only suck; he tongued her as he might her mouth, taking the kissing lessons and putting them to good use.
“Bozhe moi.” She leaned into him, tumbling him to his back with her over him.
Unfazed, Ethan switched to her other breast.
The man was going to leave her limp and melted if he got that mouth anywhere between her legs. Moaning at the thought, Selenka pulled at his hair. He looked up . . . after one final suck. Oh, her mate was definitely going to be trouble in bed now that he was finding his feet.
Smile primal, she bit at his lower lip again and moved on him because she couldn’t stay still. He sucked in a breath . . . then flipped them, so he was on top, all without disconnecting their intimately linked bodies. Hair falling over his forehead and eyes black ink, he braced himself on his arms above her.
“Is this acceptable?” A rough question.
Selenka scraped her claws over his shoulders. “Yes.” She wasn’t the type of alpha who had to be on top always—what was the fun in that? Especially since her mate was a dominant, too.
The thought hitched, caught, felt wrong.
Then Ethan ran his hand down to her hip, squeezed and tried out a stroke, and the thought was torn in two by shocks of erotic pleasure. Raising her arms up above her head, she stretched luxuriantly as she wrapped her legs around his hips. His hands came down over her open palms, his fingers weaving with hers.
His first two strokes were experimental, his third one more confident. By the fourth, she was arching up her body to meet his, their bodies coming together in a soft clash of flesh, the liquid sound of her readiness, and his harsh breathing as he speeded up.
At one point, he tried to slow but she broke their handclasp to scratch her claws down his back and said, “Give me everything, Ethan,” and he kissed her while never stopping his motions. It was fast and messy and they lost the rhythm at the end and she came so hard she saw stars—as she felt him pulse inside her again and again and again, his shoulders slick under her palms.
Chapter 24
Status on capture of Operative C: eighty percent certainty the individual will be conclusively identified and within our grasp in the next four hours.
—Abbot Storm, Strike Team Epsilon, to Aden Kai
OPERATIVE CRAY ATTEMPTED to contact Ethan Night multiple times and failed. The Arrow had his shields locked so tight that nothing was getting in or out. That could simply mean he was involved in an action that required concentration, or it could be problematic. Cray needed contact with him to figure out the answer, but he was leaning toward problematic.
Despite what he’d told the Architect, Ethan Night was a wild card.
Deciding to attempt contact again in another ten hours, Cray considered his ace in the hole and decided to set up that option. This contact had to be done via the comm and it was successful at first attempt, though the screen remained blank.
Cray had connected with the anonymous individual who called themselves Wolf Killer via a d
ark web chat room dedicated to Cray’s business as an arms dealer. Their conversations had been about explosives and guns for a long time, until Wolf Killer indicated a base in Moscow. Taking a risk based on the other person’s user name, Cray had decided to make a soft approach. And found fertile ground.
“Have you had any success in causing suspicion between the StoneWater bears and the BlackEdge wolves?” An old gambit that had failed in other quarters but was worth pursuing here at least once, given the two packs’ history of aggression toward one another.
“I had a plan in place, but it was compromised by the precipitous actions of others.” The voice was robotic, fed through a cheap anonymizer that nonetheless did the task.
“We did, however, take advantage of an unexpected opportunity to kill one of Selenka Durev’s lieutenants,” the contact said. “I propose eliminating them all one by one. A weak BlackEdge won’t be able to hold its territory and the entire area will destabilize as others attempt to move in, or the bears start flexing their muscle. You’ll get what you want—just another way.”
Cray could see the logic. “Wolves aren’t easy to kill—you’ve done well.” There was only one issue. “You called the alpha by her name. You’re making this personal. It is not personal—it is about power.”
“You’re right—the recent failure got to me. But I’ll focus on the success. BlackEdge will soon be broken.” A hardness to Wolf Killer’s tone that came through even the anonymizer. “Remember our deal—I get power in this area after I crush the wolves. The Consortium supports me; it doesn’t interfere.”
“The Consortium will have no reason to interfere with a loyal collaborator who does not get in our way.” Cray signed off . . . and saw a motion out of the corner of his eye, on the balcony directly outside his apartment.
He hadn’t closed the curtains.
And now it was too late. The teleporter who’d appeared there had seen him. Blue eyed and black haired, the male was in the room with Cray before Cray could send out a telepathic alert to warn the Architect that he’d been discovered.
The Arrow shot him point-blank in the chest.
Chapter 25
Capture complete. Target is stunned and in my custody.
—Abbot Storm, Strike Team Epsilon, to Aden Kai
SELENKA WAS ALMOST asleep on top of her mate when she stirred herself. “We have to sleep clothed today.” Just in case a packmate needed her.
And if she knew her people, someone would’ve already left a box of clothes for Ethan. Taken from their stores, it’d be nothing fancy, probably sweatpants and a tee, maybe a pair of jeans, new underwear.
Yawning, she lifted her head and took in his face. “You’re not bleeding. Good.”
Fingers weaving into her hair, hesitant, then sure when she laid her head back down instead of pulling away. “Even if I bled, I wouldn’t miss this.” A whisper of air against her temples. “If I’m to burn out before I get to live in the light, I would know you. I would go out with your wildness and loyalty and courage emblazoned on every neuron in my brain.”
Claws slicing out, Selenka held him to her. Held this fascinating and complex man with the beautiful voice and the broken, jagged edges within. Edges that scraped her raw and made her wolf snarl. The animal kept insisting those edges shouldn’t be there. But in those edges lived Ethan and so it accepted them without ever budging from its stance that there was something inside him that shouldn’t exist.
Heart tight and angry, she kissed him long and hard before rising off him to pull on her robe, then checked outside the door. She found a small box to the left of the doorway. The corridor was otherwise empty, the lighting dimmed for the late hour—or the very early hour, depending on your viewpoint.
Pulling the box inside, she put it on the desk at which she sometimes worked. It wasn’t used much—she might not be as openly nosy as Margo, but she had a full measure of the pack gene. She liked being around her packmates, liked their interruptions and their gossip, and the way the pups would drop by simply to see her or show her their secret treasures.
Selenka’s inability to open her heart might’ve made her a bad bet as a lover until Ethan slammed into her, but she was a good alpha and all those interruptions to her day were a welcome comment on that.
“Sweatpants.” Pulling out the well-washed gray pair, she threw them at Ethan—who looked good enough to eat lying passion-wrecked in their bed.
Selenka was used to male bodies; changelings weren’t prudes about nudity. They all came out of a shift naked, so it was pointless to get strange about it. Bodies were bodies. She was even used to extremely well-defined male bodies, with muscles carved as if into marble.
Her pack was full of dangerous, honed predators. A six-pack—even an eight-pack—wasn’t an unusual sight. Neither were ripped biceps or taut thighs. But no one else was put together like Ethan. He was a cool drink of water, all sleek and strong and deadly. Not an ounce of anything else on him, just pure muscle and strength.
Frowning as he rose to pull on the sweatpants, she took her eyes off his body to go to the comm. Her intent had been to input a food order with the kitchen, but she saw she had a message waiting from Nodira and Maviya.
Fourteen and twelve, one with doll-like eyes and silky hair, the other leggy and with curls that wouldn’t stay put. Both deeply attached to Selenka, their big sister who lived so far from them—but who would cut her veins to protect their fragile lives. Perhaps they would’ve had a different relationship had the girls been born while Selenka had still been an angry, abandoned teen, but she’d been eighteen at Nodira’s birth, her response to the new arrival a storm of protective love.
After making a mental note to respond to the two tomorrow, she sent the order. She pretty much never used that privilege unless she was doing so for a packmate who needed an alpha’s care. But her wolf needed to feed Ethan.
A return message popped up almost at once: Selya, I already put something aside for you. I’ll send it with one of my runners.
Selenka should’ve known. Oksana might be only twenty-nine, but she mothered everyone, even her alpha: Thank you. I know you must be tired.
I’m baking the most enormous batch of cookies. Added some from the first lot to your tray.
Selenka smiled sadly. They all grieved—and cared for others—in different ways. Spasibo, Sana.
Ethan had put on his sweatpants and picked up her used towel by the time she turned around. As she watched, he went to the bathroom, returned without the towel. “You’re neat,” she drawled, finding intense pleasure in having him here, in her space.
“I just put the towel away.”
“I like to drop them on the floor.”
It was a running joke in a Wild Woman column she read regularly: stories of otherwise competent changelings who drove their lovers crazy because of their towel habits, and the cunning ways said lovers came up with to get revenge.
“Neatness was part of my training.” No smile on Ethan’s face, no teasing comeback about the makeup she’d left strewn on her vanity table, including her collection of vivid lipsticks.
A knock on the door.
Closer to it than Ethan, she opened it to see the round face of one of the sweetest juveniles in her pack. “Hello, Manya.” The sixteen-year-old’s blond hair was combed neatly, his shirt and pants equally precise in their tidiness, and his smile guileless.
“Hi.” Manuil ducked his head shyly as he held out her tray. “Sana said this is for you.”
“Thank you.” She passed the tray back to Ethan, who’d come to her side the instant she opened the door. Then she took Manuil’s face into her hands and pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead. “You did a great job.”
Blushing, the boy looked over her shoulder with open curiosity. “Hi.”
“Hello,” Ethan responded. “Thank you for the food.”
Manuil’s eyes
widened, his mouth falling open for a second. “Your voice is so pretty.” A buzz had him glancing at his beloved sparkly purple wrist unit, which had been a combined gift from his year group on his sixteenth birthday. “I have to go. Sana needs me to do another job.” He straightened his shoulders. “Sana says she can’t do without me.”
“She can’t.” Selenka released him with another kiss. “Off you go.”
Ethan waited until she’d moved the box off her desk, then placed the tray there. “His brain is damaged?”
Selenka didn’t like using that word to describe Manuil, who was so much more. But she knew, to Ethan, it wasn’t pejorative. He’d used the same word to describe himself. “He was born that way. No one knows why and it didn’t become apparent until he was a toddler, but mentally, he’s about half his biological age.”
“Your pack accepts him.”
“Why wouldn’t we?” Scowling at him, she suddenly thought about who had made that statement. “I’ve never seen a Psy child like Manya.” Statistically, that was impossible. Even with all the medical advances in the world, nature occasionally took an unexpected turn, or a child had an accident or was harmed by someone evil and survived with lifelong injuries. No race was perfect. Except for the Psy.
“Genetic perfection,” Ethan said, “was the gold standard under Silence.”
Selenka’s hand fisted at her side. “Children who were injured later in life or whose lack of ‘perfection’ became apparent after birth?”
“Since escaping, I’ve spent a lot of time just listening to the world.” Ethan pulled a T-shirt from the box and tugged it over his head. It was white and just a touch too small, hugging his biceps. “I’ve heard rumors that some families protect their less-than-perfect members in secret enclaves, but aside from those who were forcibly brainwiped and institutionalized under the old regime, the only such person I’ve ever seen is an Arrow. Alejandro was damaged by an overdose of the drug Jax—Aden somehow managed to protect him while Ming was in charge.”