by L. L. Raand
With Zora tracking her every move, she stepped into the pants, pulled them up, and zipped the fly halfway, leaving the top open over her belly. She held the shirt in her fist and, registering the invitation in Zora’s appraisal, climbed up the rocks to stand next to the Alpha. Zora’s eyes dropped to Trent’s breasts, and a low rumble percolated in her chest.
The growl sent a jolt to Trent’s sex—swift and sharp. A spasm twitched down her thighs and coiled in the heated space between her legs.
Zora scraped a blunt claw down the center of Trent’s bare abdomen. “Your wolf needs a leash.”
Trent sucked in a breath, the muscles in her abdomen tightening and a thin line of pelt streaking down the muscular divide beneath her navel and into the open V of her pants. Zora’s claws lightly scratched lower on her belly, and Trent closed her eyes. Her glands pulsed, full and ready. So soon. So ready. “Not usually. You rile me up.”
“Put your shirt on,” Zora murmured.
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
Trent quivered. Zora’s command had not been that of an Alpha, but of another dominant Were, toying with her. Testing her. Would she yield? Would she submit? Would she let Zora command her?
“And if I refuse?”
Zora pressed her claws deep enough to draw pinpricks of blood on Trent’s belly. Putting her canines against the beating pulse in Trent’s neck, she pressed almost hard enough to break skin. Almost. “You won’t.”
Trent’s skin ran with sex-sheen, hot and slick. Zora licked her neck.
“I need…” Trent gasped.
“I know,” Zora said with satisfaction and stepped back. “Put your shirt on.”
This time, the command came from the Alpha, and Trent jerked, opening her eyes. Zora regarded her with calm, utter control, as if she’d never touched her. As if Trent wasn’t on the verge of exploding. Fury warred with lust. “Why?”
“Because I said so.”
Trent bared her teeth. “What is it you want, Alpha?”
“I want you to learn your place, Lieutenant.”
“And what would that be?”
“You are a guest in Snowcrest territory. By order of your Alpha, your duty is to assist my imperator and the captain of my guard in training our soldiers for war.”
Trent snarled. “I’ve been doing that.”
“My captain informed me that you consider my soldiers unworthy for battle.” Zora’s canines flashed. “You insulted my Pack, and you threatened me.”
“That was not my intention.” Trent dipped her chin, ever so slightly. Zora was Pack Alpha. Zora had won her place, and Trent yielded to her dominance. “My apologies, Alpha Constantine.”
“I don’t want your apology. I want your obedience. You could have forced my Weres to issue challenge if they’d heard you. Loris has never been happy to have so many Timberwolves within our borders, and you would have given him all the justification he needed to evict. You’re arrogant and reckless, and you overstep.”
Trent growled and made a show of stepping forward until her body touched Zora’s along every surface. Her bare breasts pressed into the tight cotton shirt where Zora’s nipples stood out like small, hard stones. She swept her fingers through the dark waves of Zora’s hair, her mouth a fraction from Zora’s. “Do I?”
Zora’s power burst from every pore, bombarding Trent as if a thousand fists struck her at once. Her knees buckled, and she would have fallen were it not for the arm that came around her waist. Zora spun her around and down until her back landed on the hard rock. Trent barely noticed the jolt of pain coursing through her tense muscles, a swift shock just as quickly gone. All she felt was the desperate need for more. More of Zora everywhere.
Zora poised above her, thighs on either side of Trent’s hips, canines glinting just above Trent’s face. “Foolish and arrogant.”
“Don’t forget reckless,” Trent taunted, pumping her hips hard enough to tease Zora’s clitoris through her cotton pants.
“I haven’t forgotten.” Zora’s kiss struck like a lightning bolt exploding between Trent’s thighs.
Trent’s back bowed off the rock, and she drove her pelvis into Zora’s. The pressure-pain and pleasure blended into one massive burst of excitement, scorching her nerve endings and leaving her blind. Blind with lust and need and the brilliantly clear desire in Zora’s gold-rimmed eyes. Grasping Zora’s shoulders, Trent opened for her kiss, pulling her deep and drenching her with pheromones.
“Wild and fearless,” Zora gasped, yanking Trent’s zipper the rest of the way down and thrusting a hand between her legs.
Trent shredded Zora’s T-shirt, baring her torso, and slid her hand over the rigid planes of Zora’s abdomen to cup the fullness of her breast. Zora’s nipple hardened against her palm, and Trent flicked it with a claw.
Zora threw her head back, a rumble of pleasure slipping between her gritted teeth. She was holding back a torrent of need. Pheromones thick with sex chemicals and Zora’s unique scent misted Trent’s skin. Zora was frenzied, and so very, very controlled.
Trent hungered to crush that control, yearned to bring the Alpha to her knees the way she had been. She wanted, needed, ached to claim Zora as she had been claimed. Lust turned to imperative—she had to bite her. Mating frenzy clouded her mind, driving her beyond caution.
Zora was wiry and quick, but Trent was more heavily muscled, and Zora hadn’t anticipated Trent’s quickly shifting her weight and twisting Zora under her. Zora stared up in shock when she landed on her back, no longer in control.
“You’ve never been beneath anyone, have you?” Trent growled and wedged her hips between Zora’s thighs. Her clitoris pulsed against Zora’s, hot and hard, despite the layers of clothing separating them. Trent palmed Zora’s breast beneath the tattered shirt and rubbed a claw over her nipple.
“Arrogant and dangerous.” Zora raked her fingers down Trent’s shoulder, leaving faint tracks that made Trent’s clitoris pound faster. “And careless with your life. You’re toying with death right now.”
“I don’t see your guards anywhere.”
Zora growled. “You know they are not here.”
Trent grinned and dragged her canines down Zora’s throat. “Tell me to get off you.”
“Would you heed my command?” Zora’s eyes held more than that question.
Was she asking Trent to submit? To acknowledge her as Alpha? Or something else?
“I want you.” Trent gave Zora an instant to protest, to remind her she had no right to touch her, to want her, to take her. But Zora met her gaze and said nothing.
Desperate to immerse herself in Zora’s essence, to drown in her scent, Trent took Zora’s nipple into her mouth and taunted it with her teeth. Zora bucked beneath her, claws scraping down her back. Trent straddled Zora’s thigh and worked her center up and down the hard muscle, her cotton pants a thin barrier between her rigid clitoris and Zora’s. Aggravated, frustrated, she pushed her pants down to midthigh.
“This time,” Trent gasped, “I won’t release alone.”
Licking, biting, teasing her way down the middle of Zora’s torso, she traced the soft pelt line with her tongue until it disappeared under Zora’s pants. She didn’t bother with the zipper but hooked her claws on either side and tore the fabric open. Zora’s scent, wild and rich and bright as sunlight, enveloped her. Her glands throbbed and victus coated her thighs and Zora. She dipped lower and licked Zora’s clitoris.
Zora gripped Trent’s shoulders and heaved her upward with strength she hadn’t anticipated.
“No.”
Staring directly into the Snowcrest Alpha’s eyes, Trent snarled, “Why not?”
Zora’s pupils were huge, ringed in gold, her wolf straining to ascend. “You know why not.”
Trent pushed up on both arms, her clitoris throbbing against Zora’s belly. “Why do you call me then?”
Zora gripped Trent’s hips and drew her up and down over the tight muscles of her belly. The downy softness o
f her faintly pelted skin caressed the sensitive undersurface of Trent’s clitoris, edging her to the brink of emission. Zora dug claws into Trent’s ass and her glands swelled against Zora’s middle. “This is why—you ready for me.”
Trent gritted her teeth, still locked to Zora’s gaze. The pounding in her loins spread through her belly to her spine. Her vision dimmed until there was nothing but Zora, and she exploded. Coating Zora’s abdomen with her essence, Trent whimpered with pleasure and need. Zora growled, her canines pressed to Trent’s breast. But she did not bite.
“Please,” Trent begged. “Please.”
“No,” Zora said, her mouth against the bounding pulse in Trent’s throat. “This is the last time this will happen. Remove your warriors from my Compound—”
“Zora—”
“Alpha,” Zora snarled.
Trent shuddered. “Alpha—please. Your soldiers need further training—”
“You will set up your base at the outpost beyond this ridge and conduct your maneuvers from there.”
Trent gasped, hollowed out and still so hungry. “As you command, Alpha Constantine.”
Zora pushed Trent aside and stood. Stripping off the remnants of her tattered clothing, she shifted. Her wolf, powerful and untouched, shook her thick black pelt and launched from the rocks into the clearing below. With a howl that drew answering howls in the distance, she broke into a run and disappeared into the forest.
Drained, Trent sat up and lowered her head to her bent knees, her breath ragged, her soul in tatters. Jace had told her to stay away from Zora, from Alpha Constantine, and she hadn’t listened. She couldn’t. She couldn’t take a breath without wanting her. She couldn’t fight the raging fury of her wolf to mate.
Zora was right to tell her to go.
Chapter Seven
Timberwolf Compound
War council gathering
Jody Gates, the Vampire Liege and heir to the Northeastern US Vampire seethe, shook her head. “Bad idea.”
Sylvan snorted. “Eloquent as always, Liege Gates.”
Jody’s dark eyes, slashed now with the crimson marker of the most powerful Risen, blazed for an instant with humor rarely seen. Beside her, her consort, Becca Land, stroked her arm.
“Really, darling,” Becca said with her customary calm, “you’re usually far more succinct.”
Jody, her pale face made paler in the flickering firelight, smiled, another rare occurrence and something she apparently only reserved for her consort. Cloaked in shimmering black leather pants and a midnight silk shirt open down the center of her torso, her slenderness belied the strength that matched even Sylvan’s. She sighed. “Cecilia is known for subtlety, and this is anything but—or so she would want you to believe. She wants you to think she is desperate, that you have the upper hand in any negotiations. But that’s the lie. Her appearance of vulnerability is just another of her manipulations. It’s a trap. Once you cross over into Faerie, she can cloak you from your allies. We won’t be able to follow.”
“You forget,” Torren de Brinna pointed out, “I will be with Sylvan. Cecilia cannot keep me from any path in Faerie I wish to travel. I choose to remain earthbound for the sake of peace.”
What Torren, an ancient royal Fae, did not need to say was that she remained earthbound to prevent a power struggle that would reignite ancient Fae rivalries and drag her mate, one of Sylvan’s Weres, and all the Praetern nations into a war.
Misha, draped across Torren’s lap in her customary seductively possessive position, one hand beneath Torren’s silken shirt, shook her head. “Both you and the Alpha will be in danger.” At Torren’s smirk, Misha snarled. “Oh, I know you believe you’re invincible, but Cecilia will have all of Faerie at her command.”
Torren raised a midnight brow, the air around her glimmering for an instant, as if shattered with rainbows. She murmured something in Misha’s ear.
Misha growled low in her chest and her canines gleamed.
With a self-satisfied shrug, Torren said, “I have all the reason I need to return to your realm. In Faerie I am at my full power, and Cecilia knows it.”
“We all know nothing will keep the Lord Torren from returning,” Drake said, her eyes on Sylvan. “Nor you either. But Jody is right. A handful of you, no matter how powerful, will be no match for Cecilia and all her forces.”
“Cecilia will not risk open war against the combined strength of the Weres and Vampires,” Sylvan said. “She’s too smart for that.”
Max, the highest ranking among her centuri and married to a human, added, “Our allies among the humans increase every day. While they are frail, their numbers are mighty, and they will come to our aid if needed.”
Sylvan scanned the gathering. “I appreciate your counsel. All of you may be affected by the outcome of this journey, especially if war ensues. But as Alpha, as the leader of all Weres in the northern continent, I have a responsibility to ensure their safety. If Cecilia is planning war, I…we…need to know. If something is threatening Cecilia to the point that she wants a parlay, I need to know that as well. I have no choice.”
“And Cecilia knows that,” Drake said quietly.
“Cecilia made an overt invitation,” Sylvan said. “If she wanted war, she would not announce it. She knows if she breaches the rules of parlay and threatens us, she will have war. That makes no sense.”
“And what if Cecilia is not the only enemy within Faerie?” Jody said. “If Cecilia’s rule is threatened, you may be facing other enemies who will not care about the etiquette of parlay.”
Drake said, “We already know there are other dangers in Faerie. Whatever…whoever…is behind the assaults on the Snowcrest Weres came from Faerie. How do we know Cecilia did not send them?”
Torren shook her head. “No, those are not Cecilia’s creations. If they were, she would not be seeking an audience with Sylvan. Those creatures were ensorcelled. Cecilia, like most Fae, has no love for Mages.”
“Cecilia does not need to love something…or someone…to use them,” Drake pointed out. “Forgive me, Lord Torren, but Cecilia is Fae, and all Fae play a long game.”
Torren nodded, the tilt of her head and the faint smile regal. “That’s true. We have little else to do with endless time.” She glanced to Misha and stroked a hand along the angle of her jaw. Misha’s eyes flared, and her wolf, called by her mate’s power, strained to emerge. Torren smiled. “That is, unless we find something better than games.”
“Niki,” Sylvan said, turning to her imperator, “your opinion?”
Niki stood with legs spread and her arms crossed over her chest between Sylvan and Torren, her small tight body tense, a muscle bunched along the angle of her jaw. “I agree with Liege Gates that this smells like a trap. And the Prima makes a good argument regarding Cecilia’s motives.” She took a slow breath. “But I support your decision to accept the parlay, under one condition.”
Sylvan’s brow rose, and she growled a warning. She was Alpha, and no one set conditions. “What condition do you presume to make, Imperator?”
Niki shuddered under the Alpha’s hard gaze, but to her credit she held her eyes just below Sylvan’s. “That I be allowed to lead your guard.”
“You are my second,” Sylvan said. “We cannot leave the Pack undefended.”
“I am also your general.” Niki glanced at Drake. “The Prima does not need me here. Max is your third and can stand in my place.”
Max squared his shoulders. “The imperator is correct. I know what must be done to secure our borders in your absence, Alpha.”
Sylvan didn’t like it. She wanted her most powerful Weres to remain behind with her Prima, her young, and the vulnerable members of the Pack. But she wasn’t reckless. She trusted Max and, more than that, trusted her mate. Drake would see that no harm came to their Pack. She also appreciated that a show of power was essential within the walls of Faerie. She would arrive with her general, the Master of the Hunt, and the strongest members of her guard.
; “Very well,” Sylvan said.
“If you’re set on this,” Jody said, “then you will also take a member of my guard to remind Cecilia that she deals not only with the Timberwolves, but the Vampires.”
“Agreed.” Sylvan glanced at Drake. She would never show what some would consider weakness by consulting her mate except in front of those in this room. But these were her most trusted allies, her most valuable friends, and Drake was her Prima. She was proud of all they shared. “Agreed?”
“As your mate, no,” Drake said softly, but loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. “But as your Prima, I agree.” She leaned across the distance between them, gripped Sylvan by the shoulder, and pulled her forward. She kissed her, the low growl in her throat a show of ownership.
Sylvan’s wolf silently howled in delight. Nothing excited her more than being claimed by her mate. Sylvan’s power surged, encompassing everyone in the room. Max and Niki shuddered, their wolves instantly alerting. Misha whined softly and shivered into Torren’s lap. Laughing, Torren threaded an arm around her waist and kissed her. Becca gripped Jody’s hand, lifted it to her lips, and kissed her fingers.
Crimson eclipsed the endless black of Jody’s irises. “We shall leave soon, my love.”
“Hurry then,” Becca whispered.
Sylvan stood, pulling Drake with her. She clasped her nape and held her close. “We are decided then.”
“How will you get a message to Cecilia?” Jody asked, straightening the sleeves on her suit jacket that was without a single wrinkle to begin with.
Torren spoke up. “We won’t.” For an instant, another burst of power rolled through the air, this jolt carrying the sensuous edge of the Otherworld. “We’ll arrived unannounced, as did her guards.”
Laughing, Sylvan dragged Drake toward the door and called over her shoulder, “At dawn, then.”
“At dawn.” Torren lifted Misha into her arms and kissed her before disappearing in a shower of crystal light.