Ridden by Darkness

by Michelle, Christine

  “What’s up? Tell me you just needed some alone time with your favorite woman?” I asked while teasingly tugging at his shirt.

  “Now that you mention it, Moonbeam, I do need a bit of alone time to truly appreciate you. Unfortunately, that will have to wait a little bit longer,” he stated, with a fake pout that I’m sure matched the one on my own face. “Actually, I need to talk to you about your sisters. I want you to enjoy this week with them, but I do need to make you aware of the potential for things to go south at the end of their stay with us. Raven is coming to fetch the girls. Shocking, I know, since he typically likes to send others to do his bidding for him. I’m not sure how many others from the council are coming with him, but we are preparing for trouble.”

  “I know he’s a piece of shit, but do you really think he’s going to come in here guns blazing? Why would he? The girls are going to go back with him willingly. Both of them,” I mentioned as a tinge of sadness broke into my voice. I hated thinking about the fact that they were going to leave, but there wasn’t much I could really do about it. Gray reached up and brushed his fingers against my cheek, his familiar scent of spice, citrus, and leather enveloping me and instantly making me feel more relaxed.

  “I know, but you’re the one he actually wanted. I could be wrong, but I don’t think he’s going to let his supposed claim on you go that easily. In fact, he’s said, on more than one occasion, that he thinks he can supersede our bond if need be. I’m not going to start a fight with him unnecessarily, but I will do whatever it takes to protect you and your sisters if it comes down to it, and I think it will.”

  I sure as shit hoped it wasn’t going to come to blows. The idea that someone I loved could get caught in the crosshairs of what was essentially a fight over me was abhorrent. I could feel how much Gray believed that what he was saying was true, and I could no longer deny the feeling in my gut that he was right.

  “What can I do?” I asked.

  “What do you mean? You’ll do absolutely nothing that doesn’t involve you enjoying yourself this week. You’ll leave this to me and my brothers to figure out because I will not have you hurt in any of this. I only told you so that it didn’t blindside you entirely, and because I wanted you to be alert when he arrives later this week.” Gray must’ve seen that I was about to argue with him because he added on, “Please. Raven’s actions have already brought harm to you, I won’t let him do it again.” I sighed deeply and leaned my head into the crook of his shoulder, where he immediately started working his hand through my hair in order to rub my head.

  “I love you, Gray, and I love the way you love me.”

  “I love you too, Moonbeam. Always.”

  22

  Two more fucking days.

  Raven would be coming to get the girls in two days, and I was getting more antsy by the minute. I was finding it harder and harder to distract myself from the upcoming battle that felt as inevitable as death. I’d never felt this level of anxious anticipation before. Something about having the love of my life in the middle of it all meant there was more at stake. Fuck!

  I felt Chantal stir beside me for a moment before she rolled over in our bed, and wrapped her arm around me, before opening her eyes slowly. After blinking the sleep out of her eyes, her gaze met mine, and she smiled, melting my heart and dissolving my worries, even if only for a brief second.

  “Your nervousness is coming off of you in waves, Gray. Everything is going to be okay, one way or another.” She traced her hand along my jawline as she spoke, and I could feel her trying to calm me using the soul connection that comes from a proper bond.

  “I know it is. Part of me just wants to go to the council myself and take him out before he can even taint your life with his presence again. That way, there wouldn’t even be the smallest of chances that he could ever hurt you again.

  “Except then the whole council, and possibly entire leaps, claws, and prides of feline shifters will be after you for his death. They won’t know you killed him because he was a threat to me. What happened was six months ago, and he placed all the blame for it on his little panther minion and the claw he came from. We have to let him come to us, and if he starts something, you’ll be here to end it. I believe in you with my whole heart and soul.

  “How in the hell did I get so lucky?”

  “I claimed you. Even while in distress, I could feel that you would be my savior. Make no mistake, Gray, the luck was all mine.”

  That was it. Everything else, her sisters, breakfast, the club, it could all wait. We hadn’t been able to come together last night because she was exhausted by entertaining the girls all day and I didn’t get in until late, dealing with club business. We had our hands in a supply line for Super-K, the ultimate in Ketamine, with enough kick to take down an adult shifter for hours. We thought it might be the same thing the panther claw had been using on the females, and wanted to be sure. We also had a mind to keep some in stock just in case what my mate worried over came to pass and we had to go head to head with the council and everyone who would inevitably back them.

  All of that was a worry for later though. Nothing was worth my time when the lips of a goddamn angel were plastered to mine. Their sweetness managed to draw me in and hypnotized me. I flipped my woman over and tossed her where I wanted her on the bed. She landed on her hands and knees, hips up, legs spread, and damn but she was a sight to see. I could smell her need, feel her excitement quivering through the air like a tangible thing. “Mine,” I growled just before pouncing into action. Grabbing those perfect hips of hers, I drew her closer to me and bit down on one plum cheek, then the other. Her ass was succulent. “Fucking all mine!” I growled as I smacked her ass and then quickly shifted, hilting myself inside her in one rough motion.

  “Gray!” My name was hissed from between her beautiful lips for one brief moment before I withdrew and then hammered into her harder. A solid grunt was all she could manage that time as her fists closed in around the sheets on the bed as she attempted to find purchase there.

  “Better hold on tighter than that, Moonbeam. I’m about to take you for a different kind of ride.”

  I swear, she managed to giggle and moan at the same time as I slammed home once again, drilling my point right into her body.

  “You’re such a cheeseball sometimes,” she managed to get out in a breathy whisper.

  I stopped, mid-thrust. “Cheeseball? This is what you call your mate as he’s throwing you the fuck of a lifetime?”

  She shrugged her shoulders up, as if indifferent, but her lower half couldn’t lie to me. Every time I retreated the tiniest bit, her hips thrust back, seeking me out. “What was that?” I asked as I moved back again, this time leaving only the head of my cock inside of her.

  “Gray!” She whined to me while trying to seat my length back inside.

  “Uh-uh,” I commanded before smacking her ass, hard.”

  “Gray!” This time it was a shriek as the quick slice of pain ripped through her.

  “Moonbeam,” I teased while wiggling my hips so she caught just a tiny bit of friction before I stilled once more.

  “Please,” she begged.

  “Please, what?” I asked in return, still not giving in her demands, no matter how much I wanted to. My mate was about to learn a lesson.

  “Gray, I love you,” was her next attempt. That one made me laugh. “W-what? Why are you laughing about me saying I love you?”

  “Chantal, I know you love me, but that was a ploy to get more dick.” I smacked her ass again, this time gentler than before. “Maybe, you shouldn’t stop a solid fucking to laugh and call your man a cheeseball, hmmm?”

  A knock at the door to our room caused both of us still and as we held our collective breaths. Neither of us was in the mood for interruptions, despite what our playful little game suggested.

  “Chantal?” One of her sisters called out before knocking again.

  “Charisma,” my mate whispered, letting me know which. She said there was s
omething about their voices that made them distinguishable to her. I couldn’t tell the difference. I knew Chantal’s because she was my mate and the bond allow me to mistake her for anyone else.

  “Chantal!” Her sister called, more impatience lacing her tone.

  “It better be important if you’re interrupting our mating,” I called out in a rougher tone than I intended.

  “Well, we’re only here for two more days, and you’ll have forever with her, so I guess that’s important enough,” the crazy bitch volleyed back at me.

  “Oh no, you did not just speak to my mate that way!” Chantal cried out. “You, sister dear, can wait just a little bit longer for me to come spend all day with you again. Especially since you’ve already been told you’re free to stay here permanently, if you wish.”

  “And I told you that I don’t want that. I belong with the council.” Her haughty tone was pissing me off.

  “Get away from my door before you hear a little more than you bargained for this morning,” I warned her. Then I grabbed Chantal by the throat and shoulder, lifting her back to my chest while thrusting deeper to keep us connected. Quieter, so only she could hear me, I whispered into her ear, “I know you’ll miss them, but I’ll be glad when that one is gone from here for a while.”

  Chantal’s sigh - the one that told me she was disappointed, but understood, quickly turned to a moan as I the hand on my shoulder slid down to tweak her nipple. I leaned in further, scenting her cheek, then licking down her neck to that sweet spot where it met her shoulder. Then, I bit down to hold her in place as I thrust wildly into her. We didn’t have time for any of our bedroom games today. This was going to have to be a quickie. The same hand that was just taunting her nipple slid lower, down to make sure she got hers before I blew. I swirled my fingers around where my dick was thrusting furiously in and out of her dripping pussy, and let the moisture gather before slipping back up to run sweet little circles around her clit. I knew what she liked. A barely there, fluid touch, just a tease of pleasure at first. Then as my thrusts grew wilder, my fingers moved deftly against her, firmer, coaxing that orgasm from her before she even realized what was happening. Her whole body stilled, tightened, and then shook with the power of her climax. Her body’s reaction took me over the edge and I spilled inside of my woman just as another annoying knock sounded on the door.

  Someone was going to die today, and I honestly didn’t even care if it was one of the triplets. It wouldn’t be my mate or Charlotte, but the other one… yeah, I was just about fucking done with her. Not that I could really express that to my woman without offending her. The knocking stopped abruptly as I heard Knox’s voice.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Obviously, he knew what was going on in here. “You might not be mated, but you sure as fuck aren’t stupid either. You don’t interrupt a mated pair.” He didn’t say ‘while they’re fucking’ which was probably more thoughtful of him than I would have been. We both listened as whoever had been outside the door was scooted away. Then, we succumbed to sleep, in one another’s arms, because we were both missing the closeness we had grown used to before our visitors arrived.

  When we were finally ready to crawl out of bed, it was close to noon, and both of our stomachs were making involuntarily animalistic noises, despite being in our human form.

  “Shall we go get some food, before the both of us wither away?” Chantal asked cheekily. I pretended not to hear her and wrapped her up in my arms, as if I was going to love on her only to unleash a storm of tickles. She erupted in a fit of laughter with the occasional snort sprinkled in here and there. Jesus Christ, she was adorable.

  After a few more minutes of procrastinating in bed together, we made our way to the kitchen, where we were enthusiastically greeted by Chantal’s sisters, and their friend Betina.

  “Chantal, you’ll never guess what our dearest sister Risma asked me this morning,” Charlotte sing-songed. I’d been really trying to get a read on Charisma, but she ditched out on the other girls if they did nearly anything fun, and I didn’t want to raise any suspicions by hanging behind with the odd sister out. I’d spent more time than I’d like to admit lately pretending not to be listening in on her private conversations, and still, I knew next to nothing. At most, I was able to confirm what we already knew. She planned to go back to the council and she wouldn’t talk about her past.

  Curiously though, she did not appreciate anyone talking negatively about Raven, or the rest of the council for that matter. It was part of what led to my distrust of her, but the attitude she had shown earlier when Chantal and I were getting in some alone time was another reason too. At some point during their stay, she even tried to convince Chantal to come back with them to the council. Ha! Over my dead body. Something about her didn’t feel right, but I could tell without broaching the subject at all, that Chantal didn’t necessarily feel the same way. She definitely realized that Charisma was a bit more reserved and firm than Charlotte, but she assumed it was just personality differences. I had my suspicions that it was something more.

  “She wants to go for a run! Like, a real run, fur and everything! Can you believe it?” Charlotte was nearly shouting as she bounced up and down on the balls of her feet and looked excitedly between Charisma, who was rolling her eyes, and Chantal, whose jaw had since hit the floor.

  “WHAT? You’ll go for a run with us? Gray and I can pack everyone some spare clothes and a whole picnic for when we get to the river. This will be great, and-” Chantal was rambling before she was interrupted by Charisma.

  “Yes,” she stated matter of factly. “I’ll go on a run, but I really want it to be just us girls. We haven’t had any time without a bunch of big, burly, biker men hanging over us, and the last time all of us were together, we were kids. We need some girl time.” Her eyes narrowed as they landed on me. “Alone!” The tone said that it was a demand, and I was not fucking happy with it one bit.

  I stiffened at the idea of the girls going off alone. “That’s a negative, Risma,” I said using the nickname I’d heard Charlotte use earlier, because unlike my mate, I’d seen Charisma’s reaction to it and she hadn’t liked it one bit. “Your whole reason for not wanting to go for a run earlier this week is because you knew it wasn’t safe. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you all run off alone, two of you being unmated, and the third having attracted a full-blown stalker who happens to be a member of the council.” This bitch was absolutely insane.

  “Well, no worries then. I didn’t want to go that badly anyway. You all can go though.” With that, she turned to leave, but Chantal grabbed her shoulder, looking at me with a pleading expression in her eyes.

  “Hold on, Risma. Let me talk to Gray really quick, okay?”

  “You can talk to Gray all you want, but his answer is not gonna change, sweetheart,” I said, hopeful that representing myself in third person would drive my point home even further. Chantal shot me a glare that killed a part of my soul to receive. I grabbed her wrist and pulled her to the side, which was really just a formality, because if anyone wanted to listen in, they could all hear us without any effort.

  “I’m going,” she said defiantly. “If you want to lurk behind us like a stalker, you can do that, but my sister actually wants to go for a run with us, and this is something we may never get to do again. We don’t know what the future holds for us, and this is something I need to do before they leave.”

  “What about Raven, hmm? Is he just suddenly not a problem because you want to go on a run with your sisters? Plus, there’s the matter of them not being mated still.”

  “I get where you’re coming from, I really do, but we’re on MC property. No one bothers you guys here, and we have a standing appointment with Raven that won’t be here for another two days. He has stayed true to his word to give us a full week so far, and we have no reason to believe he’d show up here two days early, unannounced. Please don’t be difficult about this, Gray.

  I leaned in so that I could whi
sper into her ear to lessen the chances of being overheard. “Don’t you think it’s a bit strange that Charisma specifically requested that the men don’t come along?”

  She snapped her head away from me and the look on her face was unmistakably full of disgust, and it was directly completely at me. I wished more than anything that I could erase the stab to the soul that look cost me. “I trust my sister, Gray. She just wants us to have some alone time, and I think that’s perfectly reasonable. No one can just have a conversation out in the open here without someone overhearing and getting all up in their business. We’re sisters, and we have every right to spend time together. Alone. Without you. That doesn’t mean that you and I have to be fighting, that much is up to you.” She was standing her ground on this one, and as much as I was used to being the guy in charge, she was hot as hell when she decided to be assertive. Plus, the more I thought about it, she was right. We hadn’t seen any activity on our property in a very long time, and everything was locked down tight. We were ready for Raven, but we also wouldn’t be seeing him for another two days. I broke eye contact with Chantal to look at Bomber, who was listening from across the room. He nodded once, indicating that we should let her go. I sighed loudly.

  “Okay. But you have to be back by sunset, and you have to remain on this side of the river. If you can’t do that, I guess I’ll have to stick close behind you like a stalker…” I left my sentence hanging, but that was all Chantal needed to hear.

  “I’m so glad you opted not to fight me on this,” she said, seeming proud that she managed to get her way.

  “Oh, I’m definitely going to fight you on this, but that’ll happen when you all get back from your run. I’ll have to teach you a lesson or two about that attitude.” I winked at her, and Charlotte produced a fake gagging sound in the background to tease us for being gross.