The Phoenix Project

by Jacquelyn Frank

  “Come on, Amara,” Mina scoffed at her. “There’s no way you’ll ever keep all that to yourself.” Amara’s friend sniffed at her in disdain. “Why he ever picked you is beyond me.”

  “Because I ride his cock like it’s an Olympic event,” Amara retorted smartly. “Just the feel of my teeth in his skin makes him come as hard and fast as lightning. He knows a good thing when he finds it.”

  “Holy shit,” Nick whispered just behind Amara. She was standing right in front of him, her back brushing his front, so she was immediately aware of his bodily reaction to her words even before his hands clamped onto her waist to cuddle her backside back against his jutting erection.

  “Mmm, perhaps. But maybe he wants a little changeup. Some variety.” Mina’s tongue appeared between her lips to lick them with appetite as her eyes dropped to where Nick’s hips were flush with Amara’s rear. She could smell his arousal and it made her willing to risk the threat Amara might pose. Mina hardly even saw the other female as an obstacle. She’d been a weak, apathetic little thing for the entire time they’d known each other. So Mina doubted she’d put up much of a challenge when push and shove might come into the picture. “What do you say, stud? You seem more than a little ready to have some fun with an energetic woman. The girl is nice in a pinch, I’m sure, but you need something a little more hot-blooded.”

  Mina ignored Amara’s presence and sidled up to Nick’s side, rubbing her eager tits against his arm as she fondled the shape of his muscular shoulder.

  Amara hardly knew what happened next. She could only recall the feel of her mate tensing in response against her back, and then a blinding wall of possessive fury. She literally saw red, that was how hot her temper was as it bolted through her. She was all fangs and fearsome talons in a heartbeat and she tackled her competition with a wild snarl of rage. She did not take their former friendship into consideration for even a second. On the most primitive level of instinct she had, she was realizing that Nick could be stolen away from her. All it would take was a woman who wanted her mate badly enough to be willing to kill her for him. They would all want him, of course. He was the most beautiful male specimen in the entire room. Biological imperative demanded they try to mate with the strongest and most powerful genetics available, and Nick was 100 percent prime DNA real estate.

  Unless she set an example, one that was brutal and definitive, she would find herself fighting challengers to her position all the time. They weren’t playing by human rules any longer and she couldn’t afford to be nice. She would end up dead, and Nick would belong to someone else, if she did.

  It took only two rolls across the floor for her to gain the upper position. She hissed down at the other woman in warning, giving her the opportunity to put up her hands and slink away alive but smacked down in defeat. Mina was all about sex and getting what she wanted. She had been that way even when she’d been human. She wasn’t about to give up her target and she delivered that message with a swipe of deadly claws that raked Amara from her right ear to her jaw and throat.

  It was just enough to really piss Amara off. The blonde reached out and caught Mina’s head between her hands just as she had seen Nick do to the orderly, and with all of her inhuman power, she wrenched it completely around.

  Amara let go of Mina, her face dropping against the floor in grotesque opposition to the faceup position of her body. She ripped wild eyes completely around the room as she surged to her feet. The fight had drawn bloodthirsty attention and she could smell the sexual interest from the women who could see Nick was the point of contention. But the moment Amara barked out a savage warning to all other females nearby, there was an immediate exodus of women stepping back so she wouldn’t mistake their presence as a challenge. In a matter of seconds she had proven herself capable of defending her position as an Alpha mate.

  She turned to look at Nick, furious with him for how he had reacted to the stimulus of another female. Logically, she realized he had little control over his urges and interests at the outset. She also knew that he would never take another woman so long as she was alive. Still, jealousy and hurt made her belly ache as though it were filled with weighty lead. He quickly crossed over to her and took her into his embrace. He held her tight and secure, drawing her up to the powerful body she had inspired to feel amazing pleasure just as she had claimed. With comforting strokes of his hands, he reassured her that there was no other for him. Nick hugged her warmly, her back to his chest, and drew her head aside so he could touch his tongue to the gashes Mina’s claws had left behind. He licked away the blood until the wounds closed and she was relaxed and all but purring her forgiveness in his arms.

  Chapter 9

  When Nick looked up from his maintenance of his mate’s wounds, he met a half dozen aggressive gazes. The six males reeked of challenge and, most important, sexual desire. A sweeping glance told him each and every one had a massive erection and a yen for his woman. They had watched her dispatch her competition in a matter of heartbeats, her viciousness and strength arousing their interest in her…as well as their cocks. Nick felt the way their eyes fastened onto her ripe breasts, the rigid nipples he knew were so easily seen through her snug tee. They sniffed for her pussy, seeking her scent as they edged closer. The pack had no loyalty to one another, but they would use the others to weaken him so they might gain advantage and the victory prize.

  They all could smell how close to season she was. She was almost ready to be bred and they all wanted to mate with a female who could fight with such dominance.

  Nick realized then that the challenges weren’t likely to ever stop. He could discourage them, but others would always want Amara. She was a worthy and breathtaking mate. He had known it from the very start. She would whelp amazing children of strength and equal beauty. She would fight for all that was hers to her very last breath. If she had ever been apathetic, it had been forever discarded. It was no longer in her makeup.

  Nick gave her scratches one last lap, savoring the flavor of her blood. That, too, had attracted them. Her blood-scent. He knew because it attracted him. He was rock-hard with need just from watching her defend her place and desperate to be inside of her now that her flavor washed against his tongue.

  But first things first.

  Nick ran a proprietary hand over Amara’s breast, palming the full weight of her and even catching her nipple in teasing pinches between his fingers. She had borne his bite there, her orgasms and his own quite arousing. His touch certainly aroused her. He could smell the tangy change in her scent as her pussy went wet in anticipation of him. Soft growls of challenge began to erupt from the other males as they began to crave her just as he did.

  Good. Let them. Let them build themselves into a fever of need for what they would never have. The frustration would make them stupid and sloppy. His own need was empowering. It made him steady and quite clear on what was his to protect if he wanted to find himself back inside her sweet heat once again. He slid his hand down his bitch’s belly, his fingers gathering up fabric until he touched the bare skin of her tummy. All the while, he remained alert, his eyes trained on the restless six watching what he was doing. His hand glided under the waistband of her sweats and his fingertips combed through tight curls he knew were the color of fine golden filament. He sought for and found her clit quite easily. It was moist and a little swollen already, anticipating the pleasures of the cock pressed to the crease between her bottom cheeks.

  Nick’s fangs slid into place, his claws curving and pricking her until she gasped and moaned in response.

  All hell broke loose.

  Nick spun Amara back behind him as the first two males lunged at him. Natural weaponry aside, before he’d been forced to become a Morphate, Nick had been a federal agent trained in the deadly art of hand-to-hand combat. Facing down such powerful odds simply didn’t faze him. He never once worried about the fact that these were Morphates, not men; that any one of them could have the power to defeat him alone. He never believed it.
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br />   Luckily for Nick, he really was the most powerful male there. The others had been slack and lazy with defeat for months. Nick had still been powerful and fit with rebellion at the time of his transformation. His strength and skill combined to make him a deadly force of nature—even if that nature in and of itself had been forced.

  He mimicked his mate’s kill with his first, snapping the Morphate’s neck like a twig and already attacking the next before the first hit the ground. This one he took out with a strike across the bridge of his nose. He went down howling, blood spraying everywhere. The third and fourth were the first to actually lay hands on him. Or rather, claws. They shredded through his shirt in front and back, flaying his skin in deep furrows he didn’t even bother to feel. The idea that Amara would heal him with the stroke of her erotic little tongue was all he needed to swing him swiftly around, hooking the third male by the throat with his arm and ripping him off his feet with his momentum until he sent him slamming into the fourth. They landed in a tangled sprawl of arms and legs and at least one of them was still alive. Nick didn’t much care.

  Number five was smart. After seeing how quickly he had dispatched the others, he abruptly threw up his hands and backed off at a speedy pace. Number six…well, now, there had to be at least one real challenger. Number six was definitely it. He was a big, blond bastard, but in a ponderous way. He was like a tank.

  “Keep that snatch warm, baby,” he called crudely to Nick’s Amara. “I’m going to want it just as soon as he’s dead.”

  Nick saw Amara flip him off, and it was the only thing that kept him from going totally ape-shit on the guy for daring to speak to his mate in such a way. Just that single flash of humorous defiance helped him keep his head and probably his neck.

  The two titanic males clashed and tables and chairs were crushed or sent flying in their wake. Morphates and humans alike plastered themselves to the walls to keep out of their way. Once Nick threw off the other man, his eyes sought Amara to make sure no others were coming near her. She was leaning back so casually against the wall she nearly looked bored. Then Nick realized it was because she had no doubts he would prevail and she was impatient for him to finish what his teasing touches had started. Her matter-of-fact attitude inspired the same in him. Suddenly he saw exactly how to dive past those meaty, hammering fists and he took his shot, using his claws to rend through the cotton crotch of his opponent’s sweats and the flesh of his scrotum and penis as he tore up and away.

  Had Nick still been human, it would have been considered a low, dirty tactic. As a Morphate protecting his rights to his mate, it was poetic justice. The man fell in a screaming, writhing mess of blood and agony. Nick stood there catching his breath for a minute, his glare challenging the room to incite him further; warning that he could do much, much worse. All eyes turned away or down submissively, whether they were human or Morphate.

  And, without ever meaning to, Nick and Amara became the Alpha Morphates of the room. They didn’t realize it just then, but it would change everything for them all over again.

  Nick flung the blood of his enemy off of his claws with a sharp snap of his hand, then he turned to look at his woman. He lifted his chin, his nose seeking her aroma through the heavy rusted stench of spilled blood. Still, he found it easily and in an instant. Sweet ambrosia and eagerly awaiting him, it called him back to her in rapid-fire strides. He grabbed hold of her as she crashed her chest against his, her arms wrapping around his neck and her legs climbing up around his waist as their mouths melded and dueled in hot, wild kisses of need and victory.

  He couldn’t wait.

  The knowledge pounded through him with an animalistic roar. He had to reclaim her, right now, right there.

  “I have to take you,” he gasped into her mouth as her back hit the cold cinderblock wall. “Right now!”

  “Yes. Yes, yes, yes!”

  “Watch my back, babe,” he said roughly. It was the only thought he gave to the rest of the room. He grabbed the waistband of her sweats and pulled them off her bottom. He bared her just far enough and then withdrew his aching cock from his sweats. Nick was aiming and thrusting in the very same movement, his instincts for fucking her like second nature now. They both understood this was a reclaiming. It would be hard and fast and as crude as could be, but it would stain them with each other all over again and everyone would know she was his. He was hers.

  He enjoyed the hard counterforce of the wall, the immovable object allowing him to thrust deepest, hardest, and fastest. She oozed juicy and slick around him, her walls burning hot as his aggressiveness and dominance excited her beyond reason. She stopped watching behind him when her head fell back so she could eject lusty moans in cadence with his every thrust. He struck her pleasure spot with ease, his huge cock and the erotic circumstances speeding her swiftly beyond her tolerances. She began to come, squeezing around him so tightly it was like plunging up through a clutching fist.

  “Bite me,” he hissed at her as his body burned violently for release. He wished he could lose himself in her, in the moment, but there was too much danger around them. Still, in spite of that threat, he could no more have resisted taking her than he could have talked reason into the Morphates who had wanted to take her from him. Like so many things now, it was a demand he couldn’t ignore.

  Amara didn’t argue. She didn’t even hesitate. She tore aside his shredded tee and latched onto his neck with a primal little growl of ownership. Nick felt his blood bursting into her mouth and his cock simultaneously bursting inside her core. He roared out in pleasure, in warning, in ultimate domination. He came as hard and fast as lightning, just as she had claimed, the electric charge of it scrambling his brain until it was fried with ecstasy. Amara was struggling to drink even as orgasm after orgasm rolled through her writhing body. Nick shuddered with his sense of ultimate privilege, content in knowing that this time he had not just been given her at random. This time, he had earned her. He had fought for her, defended her, and earned his entitlement inside of her.

  He was catching his breath and trying to coordinate the strength in his legs as she licked his wounds closed. She dropped off of him and he straightened their clothing.

  Now that all Morphate urges had been satisfied, Nick turned around and was suddenly struck with the very human understanding of what he had just done. The entire room was staring at them, having watched his every thrust into her, heard every cry he’d wrenched out of her. The intimacy between them that had no privacy as it was, had just been displayed in public with the heedlessness of two dogs fucking without a care of who watched or who was embarrassed by it. He had behaved utterly like an animal from the moment he’d first caught Mina’s open and admittedly provocative scent. He wouldn’t have touched her, but he’d still been stirred by her, the beast inside reacting purely by instinct. But it was also instinct that cleaved him to Amara alone. Mina would only have pissed him off eventually if Amara hadn’t intervened. When he had responded to the scent of an available female, it had been Amara’s body that he’d craved to be his only solace. His only relief.

  Now everyone in the room knew it.

  Nick backed up against Amara’s warm, lush body, pressing her between his back and the wall he’d so artfully used to wring deep pleasure from her.

  “God, I can’t believe I just did that to you,” he said in a voice strangled with a confusion of human emotion and satisfied Morphate instinct. “In front of everyone. Like some kind of savage.”

  His heart was racing so hard and his chest hurt with shame for his behavior and anxiety for Amara’s sensibilities. Fucked-up DNA or not, they had been raised with a lifetime of humanity. She had to care. She had to care that he had just taken her like a common street whore against the nearest convenient wall. Remembering the type of woman her mother had been and how hard she had struggled to avoid that fate, he felt lower than dirt.

  Nick felt her hands slide around his waist, hugging him with possessive warmth. Her cheek pressed against his back as
one palm crept up to lay flat over his thundering heart.

  “It isn’t the same world anymore,” she reminded him with a whisper. “None of the old rules apply. I know you already understand that, but I want you to know I understand it, too. Nick…I’d fuck you like that in Times Square if you asked me to.”

  “I think this is as far as my public displays will go,” he said grimly. “I will not share you with the rest of the world, damn it. Not if I can help it! I just…I couldn’t stop,” he said quietly, his tone dropping in defeat.

  “I know. Be easy on yourself. We’ve only been altered for a few days. It’s clearly going to take time to gain control. Look at them all. Every last one is responding like animals. Just as we are.”

  Nick did as she asked, looking at the others in the room. Only, it wasn’t the submissive turn of gaze after gaze as they tried to keep from accidentally challenging him that caught his attention.

  No.

  It was movement.

  From the dead woman Amara had killed. Only she wasn’t entirely dead. She should have been, considering the vicious twist in her neck, but she moaned and stirred and he felt Amara stiffen at his back, so he knew he wasn’t imagining it.

  “I’ll kill the bitch again!” she hissed, suddenly surging to move around him. But he reached out to grab hold of her, drawing her back to his side and pressing a soft, shushing kiss to her temple.

  “Easy, baby,” he soothed her. “Let’s just see what happens. I don’t think she’s a threat to you.”

  “Said the man who got a hard-on when she walked up to him,” she scoffed.

  “Hey, what happened to realizing it was going to take time to control this?” he demanded with irritability even though he knew she was right and, if the tables had been turned, he would have likely blown a gasket. But she hadn’t responded to the aggressive approach of the other males in the least. Not that he’d given them the opportunity to get that close to her. That and he’d been touching her for himself and wouldn’t have known otherwise if she had. “I’m sorry. I want to promise it won’t happen again,” he said with soft regret, “but I don’t know what I am anymore.”