Jinx grinned, throwing him a salute as he turned to walk away.
“Get me near her, Jinx.”
Jinx raised a hand, then took off at a jog through the forest of trees in the back of Angel’s property.
“You sure about this?”
Bane turned back to look out over the horizon, nodding slowly. He wondered if it was telling that his gaze kept going to the southeast. Was his mate in that direction? Hopefully, he would find out soon. “Yeah, I’m sure.” If it was the only way to find Amber, he didn’t have a choice.
11
Rikki stood in the shower, letting the water cascade over her as tears ran down her cheeks. Her emotions were in an upheaval, and there didn’t seem to be a damn thing she could do about it. She couldn’t blame it on her wolf this time, though. No, this time it was all her. The female who didn’t want to send her male back into hell, knowing he may not come out again. She had agreed that Jeremiah needed to go to Virginia, had even encouraged it, but her heart was breaking at the thought of what could happen when he got there. Even knowing she and the team would be right outside the facility, waiting for his command to infiltrate, didn’t make it better. Anything could happen. She could lose her mate before she even had a chance to claim him.
“Baby, you have to stop. Your tears are killing me.”
Rikki was aware of the shower curtain being pulled back, and then the water was shut off. A large towel was wrapped around her, and then she was being lifted very gently into a pair of strong arms. Jeremiah’s arms. Laying her head against his thick chest, she inhaled deeply, taking his scent deep inside her.
“I won’t go,” he muttered, rubbing his cheek against hers as he walked into the bedroom at Angel’s farm that she was using for now. “We’ll find another way.”
“There is no other way,” she whispered, her tears falling on his skin. “We both know that.”
“There’s always another way. We just have to find it.”
Raising her head, she looked into his dark eyes. Eyes full of compassion, and something else that made her breath catch. For her. Laying a hand on his cheek, she forced herself to give him a small smile. “It will be too late for Jasmine by then, and you know it. This is the only way to get in quickly enough to free her and the others. She has a mate, a child. I can’t let myself be selfish, no matter how much I may want to.”
Jeremiah’s deep brown eyes darkened even more, and he slowly lowered her to her feet. “My Rikki,” he said, as he began to gently run the towel over her body. “Always worried about others, never putting herself first.” The towel glided over her chest, and then his mouth was following behind it. Rikki cried out at the sensations rushing through her as he licked over the curve of her breast, and then around her nipple, teasing it lightly before sucking it into the hot recesses of his mouth.
“Jeremiah!”
“My sweet mate,” he rasped, moving the towel around to slide it over her back while his lips whispered across her skin to her other breast.
Rikki felt a small laugh slip free. “I don’t think anyone has ever called me sweet before.”
“Then, they don’t know you very well.” Jeremiah knelt in front of her, and she shuddered when she felt the rasp of the towel over her buttocks. Gently, he kissed around the cut on her side that was already healing. “I should have hurt him, just a little.”
“It’s just a scratch,” she breathed, her body trembling as he moved lower.
“Should have gutted him.”
“You can’t gut the alpha.”
“Watch me.” Rikki’s laughter turned into a moan when his tongue swirled around her navel. “So sweet,” he groaned, as he moved lower. “And all mine.”
When his tongue stroked over her clit, Rikki cried out, pleasure swamping her. No one had ever touched her like this, kissed her the way he was. Jeremiah growled, sliding his tongue lower, over her wet folds, and she moaned his name as the sound vibrated through her. Sliding her hands into his thick hair, she fought to stay on her feet as her thighs began to shake uncontrollably. “Jeremiah! I don’t know what to do,” she admitted, moaning again when his tongue entered her. “It feels so good!”
Pulling back, he looked up at her, his eyes glowing bright as he licked his lips. “You taste so fucking good, baby.”
Tightening her hands in his hair, she gasped when she felt him slide a finger deep inside her. “Jeremiah! I…” She didn’t know what to say. Sensations were running wild within her, her body taut and alive, waiting for something.
“Just feel, Rikki,” he said, as he added another finger, stretching her.
“Oh, God!”
“That’s it,” he growled, lowering his head and finding her clit again with his tongue. “All you need to do is feel.”
The flick of his tongue against the small ball of nerves had her going crazy. Clutching at his head, she arched into him, screaming his name when it felt as if something exploded inside of her. It rushed through her, tearing down her defenses, leaving her weak against the onslaught of emotion surrounding her. The anger she held against him for staying away so long, the fear she felt that he wouldn’t make it out of Virginia alive, the desire that consumed her when he touched her, the love she’d tried to hold back for so long. It all slammed into her as she exploded on his tongue, and she couldn’t stop what happened next.
Her vision changed, and Rikki knew she was seeing through the eyes of her wolf. Her fangs dropped, and a deep growl emerged. “Mine,” she snarled. Her hands dropped to Jeremiah’s shoulders, her claws digging in deep.
“Rikki,” he groaned, lifting his head to look at her. “Oh, fuck.”
His eyes widened slightly, and then she was looking at his bear. His own fangs emerged, his breathing becoming labored as he rose quickly, sweeping her up into his arms and depositing her on the bed.
“Mine,” she snarled again, watching as he slid out of the jogging pants he had on. Then he was on the bed with her, lying between her legs, his mouth on hers. Arching her hips up to meet his, she moaned when she felt the hardness of his cock between her thighs.
“Baby, are you sure? I don’t think I can stop my bear from taking you. It’s been so long. Too long.”
Rikki felt the tension strumming through his body, which was covered in a thin layer of sweat. Low growls emitted from deep in his chest as he struggled to hold himself back. His forearms shook with the effort to hold himself above her. His fangs were large and long, and his eyes were glued to her shoulder, where she knew he wanted to leave his mark. Was she sure? She had wanted him for so long. She’d been angry at him for not claiming her long ago. For leaving her when she needed him most. For not being there when she woke up after the terror of being locked in darkness for months. But through it all, there was one thing she’d always known. He was hers, as she was his. That wasn’t going to change no matter what else happened.
Slipping a hand down between them, she wrapped her fingers around his cock, reveling in the velvety soft skin that covered the rock hardness of him.
“Rikki.”
Her name was a deep growl, and she could tell he was at the end of his control. Good, so was she. Guiding him to her entrance, she wrapped her legs around him, arching into him, pushing his cock inside. He was big, so long and thick, she had to take him slowly. Soon, he was filling her, snarling above her as he held himself in check. She didn’t want him in control. She wanted him wild. She wanted so much.
Baring her teeth, she snarled, “Mine,” once more before raising up and sinking her fangs deep into his shoulder. He was hers, dammit. Now and always. They would live together and die together. She was never letting him go again.
“Rikki!” She felt the moment when Jeremiah’s control snapped. One second he had a tight reign over it, and then it was just gone. Grasping one of her hips tightly, he shoved deep inside her, withdrew, and slammed in again. “Tell me I’m not hurting you,” he groaned, his hips pistoning as he thrust deep inside her again and again. “Please, ba
by, I can’t stop.”
She growled against his shoulder, lifting her hips to meet him, thrust for thrust. He would never hurt her. “More!” she snarled, raking her claws down his back.
“Fuck!”
Jeremiah paused, lifting one of her legs to reposition them, and then began to move again. He was getting even deeper now, moving even faster, and she loved it. Letting go of his shoulder, she threw her head back and gave herself over to just feeling. It was like nothing she’d ever experienced before. The sensations running through her, the way her body hummed with excitement, it all swamped her, and soon she was going over the edge again, coming around his cock.
His eyes glowing brighter, Jeremiah bared his fangs. “Mine,” he growled, his eyes locked to her shoulder.
“Do it,” she snarled, arching her neck back. “Fucking do it!”
He struck, his fangs digging deep into her shoulder, and a loud roar filled the room as he came inside her. His body went taut, and he snarled and growled around his teeth.
“Yes!” Rikki cried out as she came again, pulsing around his cock. She felt the bond snap into place, one that could never be broken, not even in death. She was his, as he was hers. Their souls merged together. It was like nothing she’d ever felt before.
It was several minutes later before Jeremiah finally slid his teeth from Rikki’s shoulder, licking at the mark as he slipped from inside her. Raising his head, he looked down at her, love shining from his eyes. “I think it’s time we talked, little one.”
Rikki raised her head and captured his mouth with hers before pulling back to whisper, “Yes, it is.”
12
“You put your gloves back on,” Jeremiah said quietly, tracing over her fingers lightly where they lay on his chest.
“I have to wear them. If I don’t, I get too much energy off of everything I touch,” Rikki explained, rubbing her cheek against his bare chest. She loved the way the hair on it tickled her skin.
“I don’t understand.”
Of course, he didn’t. She knew he was aware of some of their gifts, but not all of them. RARE kept that information as tightly under wraps as possible. If it got out, it would be dangerous to all of them.
“When I touch things — mostly objects — I get images. Visions. It could be of the past, present, or future. Sometimes, it’s hard to figure out which one it is.” She waited for him to say something, but when he didn’t, she went on, “When I was young, it was hard to control. In one of the foster homes I was in when I was about eight, I touched a beer bottle my foster dad wanted me to throw in the trash. I got this flash of him using his fists on one of the children there. I told the social worker when she came a couple of days later, but he denied it and so did the boy. The next day, I was removed from the home.”
“The boy?”
“Killed a year later by that same man.”
“You checked on him at that age?”
Rikki shook her head. “No, but I looked into all of them when I was around sixteen.”
“All of them?”
Glancing up at him, seeing his frown of confusion, Rikki whispered, “That wasn’t the first time something like that happened, and it wasn’t the last.”
Jeremiah swore softly, running a hand gently down her hair. “How many?”
Rikki bit her lip, her eyes misting over with tears as the pain of the past engulfed her. “Fifteen. I tried to help them, but it was as if they didn’t want to be helped. Except for one.”
“The last one?”
“Yes,” she whispered, laying her head back on his chest. “How did you know?”
“There had to be a good reason you chose to live on the streets at such a young age instead of living in a home where you were being fed and clothed.”
He was right. She’d left the foster care system at the age of fifteen, running from all of the pain and betrayal associated with it. Pain she suffered through knowing what was happening to several of the kids who wouldn’t speak up. Betrayal from the social workers who wouldn’t look into anything further, taking the foster parent’s word, along with the child’s who was too terrified to come forward with the truth.
“What happened?”
Rikki’s breath caught in her throat as she remembered the reason she’d decided it was better to live on the streets in the bitter cold one winter than stay in the home she’d called her own at the time. “Every time I was moved to a new home, I prayed things would be different. That whoever my foster parent was, they would have a kind soul this time, instead of a dark one. And every single time, I was disappointed. Until the last one.”
Jeremiah pulled her up his body until she was lying across him and her face was buried in his neck. Stroking a hand gently over her back, he muttered, “Why do I feel like I’m gonna want to kill someone?”
Rikki slid her arms up and over his shoulders, slipping her fingers into his hair. Running her tongue slowly up the side of his neck, she bit down gently on his earlobe before snuggling close. She smiled when she heard the hiss of breath that passed his lips, loving how she made him feel.
Dragging her thoughts back to the darkness of her past, she sighed. “I was put in a home with a single woman and three other foster children. Eric was seventeen, Jimmy fourteen, and little Annie just turned twelve.” Rikki smiled, remembering those days. “It was so nice, at first. Perfect. Mama Kenna was the real deal. Wonderful to all of us, treating us as if we really were her own. She helped us with our homework, encouraged us to go out for extracurricular activities, and came to every single thing we were in. Eric was a track star. I’ve never seen anyone so fast. Well, any human, anyway.” She chuckled. “Jimmy was a true nerd. Chess club and all. Mama Kenna never missed a chess match of his. Annie loved to dance. I remember, she had a solo in her dance recital that year. I was never really any good at anything, because I was so afraid to touch something; terrified I would get a vision. Especially then. I didn’t want to see something bad that would ruin the happy life I finally had. I did fumble my way through choir for a year. I couldn’t carry a tune to save my life, but Mama Kenna was always there, clapping for me, her face full of pride.” Rikki’s voice broke, and she whispered, “I should have known it was too good to be true. Should have known it would all come crashing down around me at some point.”
“What happened?”
It was a low, protective growl and Rikki smiled, tilting her head up to kiss him softly on the hard curve of his jaw. This was what she’d wanted for so long. What she craved. Jeremiah. Protective, giving a damn about what happened to her, wanting to kill anyone who hurt her. She felt loved, cherished, finally. “Mama Kenna’s son moved back home after being away for four years in college. She had raised him on her own after her husband died and was so proud of him. Marty graduated top of his class in high school, earning a full ride to college with a football scholarship. He got a business degree, and had a job waiting for him when he got back. What Mama Kenna didn’t know about was the darkness he hid deep down inside.”
“But you knew.”
Rikki nodded, her hold on him tightening. “Yes, I knew. I felt it when I met him. Something was telling me to stay far away from him. But Annie didn’t feel the same. She was drawn in by his good looks and charm.”
“She was twelve,” Jeremiah growled, his body stiffening as if he knew what was coming next.
“Yes, she was,” Rikki agreed quietly. “So young and innocent. Until he went to her room one night.” A tear slipped free as she whispered, “She never told a soul. Just withdrew into herself; the pain and humiliation too much to bear.”
“I want that bastard’s name,” Jeremiah demanded. “I don’t care how long ago this was, he won’t get away with what he’s done.”
Her heart filled with love for her big, gruff mate. Rikki ran a hand gently over his chest, trying to calm him. “It’s too late,” she whispered. “He’s already in hell, where he belongs.”
Jeremiah’s hand slid into her hair, and he tilted her hea
d up. “Tell me.”
Her heart constricting, Rikki whispered, “I touched Annie’s backpack one day. I saw it all. It was horrible, vile. Something that never should have happened to someone so sweet and innocent.” Her eyes filling with tears, she went on, “I confronted her about it, and at first, she refused to admit it to me. Finally, a few days later, she did, and I convinced her to come forward. To tell Mama Kenna and the social worker who was assigned to her at the time.”
“They didn’t believe her,” he guessed.
“No.” Rikki’s jaw tightened at the memory, angry at the injustice of it all. “The social worker thought she was seeking attention, and Mama Kenna couldn’t admit to herself that her perfect baby boy may not be so perfect after all.”
“They didn’t even take her to the fucking doctor to have her looked at?” Jeremiah exploded, mad as hell.
Rikki shook her head, a tear slipping free. “No. Poor little Annie slipped through the cracks. Three days later, she cut her wrists in the bathroom. I was the one who found her.”
“Ah, baby, I’m so sorry.”
More tears streamed down her face as she whispered, “That was when I knew I couldn’t stay in foster care anymore. The system was too flawed. I didn’t trust it. Didn’t trust anyone. So, I left. I lived on the streets for a few years. It was cold and lonely, but still better than what I’d been through before. When I was eighteen, I got my GED and then enlisted in the army. I served two years, and when I got out, I went back to the place where little Annie took her own life. To that place of misery and suffering.” Holding Jeremiah’s gaze, she admitted something she had never told anyone before. “I went hunting. That bastard ate one of my bullets, and I don’t regret it at all. I would do it again in a heartbeat.”
“Good,” he growled, pressing a hard kiss on her mouth. “Good.”
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