The Last Warrior: Shifters Unbound Book 13

by Ashley Jennifer

  Rhianne made a noise in her throat as Ben’s kiss turned bruising. She melted under his touch, but her surrender was brushed with wild glee.

  Connor had locked them in here to give them privacy for more than arguing, Ben realized. There were the sofas at either end of the room. Wide, long sofas to give comfort to large-bodied Shifters, no matter what they decided to do on them.

  Ben hooked his fingers under Rhianne’s shirt and tugged it off her. Rhianne’s smile of joy took his breath away. Beneath, the white camisole clung to her full breasts.

  Before he could slide that away from her, she grabbed his shirt and nearly tore it from him. Ben chuckled as his flesh was exposed to the room’s cool air.

  “Careful, sweetheart. I need to be in one piece for this.”

  Rhianne answered by yanking open his belt and popping the button of his jeans. She proved she’d become good at zippers by pulling his down and pushing at his jeans until they pooled around his ankles.

  “Now this is getting embarrassing.” Ben had to lean down and untie his boots before he could get them off and not trip on his pants.

  Rhianne’s expression showed she didn’t care. Embarrassment would be for later. For now, this was delight, elation, desire.

  Ben stood up in nothing but his underwear. “Not fair. I can’t be the only one almost bare-assed. Let’s get these off you.”

  He unbuttoned and unzipped as Rhianne had, sliding the jeans down her legs. When she started to take off her shoes, Ben stopped her. “No. Leave those on.”

  Rhianne’s expression told him she didn’t understand why, and her innocence stirred his blood. His cock gave a needy pulse.

  Ben helped her get the pants all the way off, and soon Rhianne faced him in only her underwear and the high-heeled strappy shoes. A moment later the camisole was floating to the floor.

  Ben’s breath caught. “By the Goddess, Rhianne. You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

  She flushed to match her hair. “Why would you lay your eyes …?”

  “Never mind. I bet the couches are comfortable.”

  When Rhianne glanced at one, Ben swept her up and carried her there. She nuzzled his neck, running fingertips along his arms as though amazed at his strength.

  The sofa was wide enough to take them both. Good choice.

  They lay on their sides, face to face. Rhianne ran her foot along Ben’s leg, the heel of her shoe sending all kinds of erotic flashes through his body.

  “We’re still wearing too many clothes,” he said.

  Rhianne’s smile stoked his fires to scalding. “For this kind of arguing, yes.”

  Ben helped her wriggle from her underwear and she did the same for him. He decided not to let her take off the shoes.

  “You are seriously hot,” he said as they snuggled down again.

  Rhianne touched his face. “Your skin too is warm.”

  He bit back laughter. “I mean sexy. Gorgeous. I want to lick you all over.”

  “I could enjoy licking.” She ran her tongue up the side of his neck, right over the spiderweb tatt.

  Ben groaned. “You’re going to kill me, baby. Next time, I’ll tell Connor to leave a bottle of chocolate syrup. Then we’ll never come out of here.”

  Rhianne nibbled where she’d licked and then nipped her way to his chest. “I have always feared being confined. But right now, I rather like it.”

  Because she knew either of them could throw down that door without a problem, Ben with his inhuman strength, she with a word of power. Plus this thing they had going on right now blotted out all other problems.

  Ben bent to her throat and licked and kissed. He took his mouth down to her breasts, spending attention on them while she wound her arms around him and held him to her.

  As wide as the sofa was, lovemaking would be awkward, but that added excitement. Ben finished enjoying her nipples—velvet soft, filling his mouth—and cupped her face to imbibe her beauty.

  Rhianne lay against the couch’s cushioned back. A velour throw beneath them added extra softness. Shifters liked their comfort, and Ben was glad of it.

  He wrapped his hand around Rhianne’s thigh and positioned it over his, bringing his cock straight to her opening.

  Everything stopped. Ben wanted the world to go away until there was nothing but himself and Rhianne, the cushions beneath them, and the mate bond that was trying to infuse his body.

  Ben silently said a few choice words about the Goddess and her need to bind her creations in a thing so beautiful it was painful.

  Then the world surged forward again, time starting. Ben ceased worrying about his future and thrust inside the beautiful woman in his arms.

  The scratch of her heel on his thigh made him wild. Ben groaned as they rocked together. In this position, they couldn’t move much, but he was deep inside her, she surrounding him completely, which was enough.

  Rhianne whispered his name, ending in a little sigh that became a moan of pleasure.

  In the next heartbeat, Ben realized she’d said his true name, not the truncated Ben humans and Shifters called him because they couldn’t wrap their mouths around the many syllables his parents had bestowed on him.

  Rhianne had said the full thing, Gilbenarteoighiamh, never stumbling, the entire name flowing out sweetly.

  The sound fanned his desire into high flame. He managed to roll her under him, coming up on his fists to drive hard into her. Rhianne’s face softened as she arched to him, her eyes starry.

  No passive lover, Rhianne clung to him and met his thrusts, her hair, loosened from its braid, wrapping around Ben as it had in his fantasies. The silken touch of it warm on his skin sent him into spirals of madness.

  He pumped faster, she crying out as she welcomed him inside her. Ben pounded one fist on the sofa, his hand sinking into the cushion.

  “Need you,” he growled. “Need you, want you, lov— Oh, fuck.”

  This coming was intense, Ben closing his eyes and drowning in her. Rhianne’s shouts met his, her silvery voice mingling with his grating one, fusing into a soothing harmony.

  Ben and Rhianne continued to move together, the couch cradling them. Ben vaguely wondered if the noise they were making disturbed anyone inside the house then immediately ceased to care. They must be used to it. Shifters lived to mate.

  After a long time, their rhythm slowed into something calm, a languid back and forth as Ben and Rhianne basked in each other. Eventually, they stilled, Ben kissing Rhianne in relaxed afterglow.

  She traced his lip with a gentle finger. “Need you too, Ben.”

  Ben thought of the L- word that had nearly slipped out. He’d swallowed it in a blaze of passion and also to keep from confusing her.

  But she knew. Rhianne gazed up at him in serenity, understanding.

  Ben licked her finger, then bowed his head into her shoulder, wondering what would become of him.

  * * *

  Rhianne watched Ben as they slid on their clothes a while later. His T-shirt was torn, and Rhianne flushed as she remembered how fervently she’d wanted it off him.

  To cover her embarrassment, she focused on settling her own clothes. “Tiger’s cub, the young woman. What is her name?”

  Ben shrugged. “No one knows. Not even her.” He smoothed the T-shirt, spreading the torn part and then dropping it in resignation. “They’re calling her Tiger-girl for now. She’ll choose her own name, so says Connor.”

  “Is sparring really what those two are doing in here?” Rhianne asked in amusement. “The couches are quite convenient.”

  Ben nodded, serious. “They are. Tiger-girl is going through her Transition, which is the Shifter coming of age. Shifters remain cubs a long time, until the late twenties as humans calculate years. Before the Transition, sex is the noisy and annoying activity adults are too fond of. During and right after the Transition, however, it’s nothing but crazed mating frenzy.”

  “Then Tiger-girl is going through that?”

  “Sh
e is, but Connor isn’t. Yet. He’s still technically a cub. During the Transition fighting—anything, anyone, anytime—helps a Shifter deal with the raging hormones. Thus, sparring. Tiger-girl will be horny as hell soon though, if she isn’t already. She’ll have to look to another Shifter then, as Connor’s not ready.”

  “I don’t know.” Rhianne gathered her hair in an awkward attempt to braid it. “She seems quite taken with Connor. Not letting him far out of her sight. She certainly warned off that other Shifter girl.”

  “Connor was there when Tiger and Carly found her locked in an underground compound out in Arizona. Shifter Bureau had her and didn’t know what to do with her. Poor kid. Carly says she didn’t calm down until Connor talked to her.”

  “Uh huh.” Rhianne fumbled with the braid. “Being rescued from a cell is a pretty powerful stimulus. A girl doesn’t forget that.”

  “Is that so?” Ben came to her and turned her around, taking her hair in competent hands. “If you’re Shifter, you must have gone through a Transition. Even half Shifters do.”

  Rhianne thought back through her life, dredging up memories from the dust of her past.

  “There was a time,” she said slowly. “I suddenly couldn’t stand being in my mother’s house, puttering in the garden, waiting for the cook to make his next fantastic meal. I wanted to be out, roaming the mountains and the ocean’s shores. Being home drove me crazy. I didn’t know why, because I’d always loved puttering in the garden and pestering the cook.”

  She remembered how her skin had burned, how she’d been peevish and snarling with everyone.

  “My mother and I had been so fond of each other,” Rhianne went on. “We took care of each other once she threw my father out. But I suddenly couldn’t stand the sight of her. She understood, I think. She gave me my head and sent me off.”

  “Sounds Transition-y to me.” Ben finished the braid, secured it with a strand of her hair, and turned her around. “What happened after you left home?”

  “I had a blast hiking through the mountains and down to the coast on my own. I could run or walk as far as I wanted every day. I’d brought my telescope with me, and I’d set it up in the evening, spending the whole night gazing at the stars. People fed me and gave me a place to nap along the way—sometimes they were other Tuil Erdannan, or hoch alfar, sometimes dokk alfar if I stumbled across them. They were all hospitable to me.”

  “Of course they were. They figured Lady Aisling would blast them into dust if they refused you shelter. Or you would.”

  She shook her head. “Tuil Erdannan believe everyone gives them awe and reverence, but I think the others are simply terrified. I did have the urge to fight anyone who crossed me, but I made myself leave them alone. I’d witnessed the damage my father did to those who opposed them, and I vowed not to be like him. I wasn’t always successful. There was one incident …”

  Rhianne trailed off. She’d tried to forget it, but every once in a while it rose to haunt her.

  “Tell me,” Ben said, his tone gentle but firm.

  Rhianne swallowed. “A hoch alfar tried to seduce me, in exchange for his assistance. He’d allowed me his tent—he was a soldier out on a training exercise. I asked for a meal, which he gave me, and a place to sleep. Then he came at me, telling me exactly what he wanted to do to me. I broke most of his bones. He screamed. A lot.”

  “I can’t say I have a ton of sympathy for the guy.” Ben scowled. “One of the bones I’d have broken was his neck. Did you kill him?”

  “No.” Rhianne cringed inwardly at the memory. “But it scared me how strong I was. How I could have done that to another living being. I was so afraid it was my father in me. I ran off, but I told another group of hoch alfar that their colleague had been hurt and they needed to tend him. I never learned his fate.”

  “Hmm.” Ben put soothing hands on her shoulders. “I think the lady Shifter in you was to blame, rather than the Tuil Erdannan. Men mess with female Shifters at their peril.”

  “Is there a difference?”

  “Hell, yes. Your dad—let’s call him your stepdad—breaks people for the fun of it, or to teach them obedience to him. A female Shifter fights in self-defense. You didn’t want this hoch alfar’s slimy hands on you, and in your Transition state, you didn’t have a lot of control. So you struck.” A smile flickered over his mouth. “Damn, I wish I’d seen that.”

  “No, you don’t. It was horrible.”

  “Is this why you didn’t reduce Walther’s thugs to dust when they groped at you? Scared you’d go all bone-crusher again?”

  Rhianne hadn’t thought it through consciously, but now she nodded. “Ever since that night, I fought my temper and my own strength. I didn’t want to become like my father.”

  Tears pricked her eyes, and she blinked them away. She was finished with crying.

  “Good news.” Ben rubbed her arms. “You don’t have to worry about being like Ivor the Terrible anymore. You have to worry about being like your true father, I guess, but if he’s anything like you, he’s a real peach.”

  “Peach?” Human expressions were so strange.

  “A good dude. Awesome Shifter. He’d be someone I’d want at my side.”

  “The question remains—who is he?” Rhianne’s anger seeped in. “And why did my mother hide him from me all these years?”

  “I have the feeling she didn’t so much hide him from you as from your stepfather. What would Ivor have done if he’d known you weren’t his? What would he have done with the Shifter who’d had a liaison with your mom?”

  Rhianne shuddered. “Taken him apart. And probably me too.” She let out a breath. “I wonder if he did find out. Recently, I mean. It would explain why he was willing to let his own daughter be captured and forced into a marriage with a hoch alfar lord. If I’m not his offspring, why should he care what happens to me? Why not use me for his own purpose?”

  “Makes sense.” Ben massaged her shoulders once more and released her. “The question is, does he know that you’re part Shifter, or only that you’re not his?”

  “He doubtless knows now if he is holding my mother hostage.”

  “Not necessarily. Your mother is a redoubtable woman. She threw him out before, remember?”

  “That must have been hard for her,” Rhianne said with sudden compassion. “I know she loved him once.”

  “She’d have to have been madly in love with him to be blind to his true nature,” Ben said. “Love does make us stupid.”

  Rhianne met his gaze. “I agree.”

  Ben flushed. “It makes me a complete idiot who will do completely idiotic things. Goddess help us.”

  Rhianne curled her fingers at her sides. She’d heard him begin to say Love you, and then stop himself abruptly. Why? Would he ever say it again?

  “What do we do now?” Rhianne asked softly.

  “You and me? I don’t know. I liked what we were doing on the sofa. Maybe some more of that while we work through all these emotions?”

  Rhianne had to smile. “I meant about going to Faerie and rescuing my mother. She is my mother, and you can’t stop me going home and kicking my stepdad’s ass.”

  “If we share the mate bond, that means I’m your mate, and in Shifter terms, yes I can.” Ben’s grin was victorious as he closed on her. “Females in the past were sequestered so they’d be safe to have cubs away from other males with designs on them.”

  “Sequestered.” Rhianne’s brows went up, and the Tuil Erdannan side of her reemerged. “You would try that?”

  “Nope.” Ben chuckled. “Shifters don’t do it anymore either, but the males still believe they can order their mates to do what they want.”

  Rhianne thought of Jaycee and her scorn whenever Dimitri tried to exert his dominance. “Do the Shifter females obey?”

  “Nope.” More laughter. “You’re catching on.”

  Rhianne also recalled how Dimitri hadn’t really expected Jaycee to obey him, betraying his pleasure when she defied him. They knew
each other well.

  The padlock clicked, and a moment later, Connor swung open the door. He had his eyes closed. Tiger-girl stood behind him, but she stared at them in avid curiosity.

  “Are you decent?” Connor asked.

  “We’re dressed,” Ben answered. “We wrecked the couch a little, though.”

  Connor’s eyes popped open, but he didn’t appear to be at all embarrassed. “No worries. Uncle Liam and Aunt Kim wreck it plenty. Liam sent me to fetch you. There’s a woman here, and she has a couple of weird-looking guys with her. Says her name is Millie.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Ben was out the door, past a startled Tiger-girl, and sprinting to the house as soon as Connor finished the sentence. He heard Rhianne right behind him and realized he could sense her too. The bond tugged at him.

  How Millie had found him here, and what she would do, Ben couldn’t say, but alarm pulsed through him. Goblins weren’t the cute, harmless things they pretended to be.

  “Where is she?” Ben charged through the house, following the sound of voices to the front porch. He banged out of the screen door just as Millie, white-haired and plump-cheeked, leaned over Carly, who had Seth in her arms.

  “No!” he yelled.

  Carly blinked up at him. Seth, who was learning to talk with amazing rapidity, said, “What wrong, Ben?”

  “She’s dangerous.” Ben paused to catch his breath. “Dangerous like me.”

  Millie beamed a smile, peering at Ben through her thick lenses. “Nonsense. I am here to make sure all is well with you.” She gazed down at Seth. “This one. He’s—”

  She broke off and swung around as Tiger materialized behind her. For something so big, Tiger could move with amazing stealth.

  “He’s my son.” Menace and pride blended in the growl.

  “Oh, my.” Millie took a step back. “And you are the strangest being I’ve ever seen.”

  “He’s fine the way he is,” Carly said at once. She always sprang to Tiger’s defense.

  “I mean strange in a good way.” Millie adjusted her spectacles, taking in Tiger’s tall form, his intense eyes, his orange-and-black striped hair. “Are you Ben’s friend? Or foe?”