Mercy: Queen’s Birds of Prey: Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance (Queen's Birds of Prey Book 1)

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Mercy: Queen’s Birds of Prey: Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance (Queen's Birds of Prey Book 1) Page 9

by Kathi S. Barton


  “Why would you...? Oh, yes, that’s the right place. I’m not upset about that. I’m glad you did it. You’re making me so weak with this that I might have to spend the night here.” He laughed softly, his hands and fingers never stopping their treatment to her body. “What time? And I have the perfect dress picked out already. It’s nearly— Holy shit, that’s where it aches.”

  He massaged that area until she cried out that she was finished. It felt so good that she told him that it had been about as good as sex. Joel pulled her head up and looked at her. She could see it there—she’d just laid down a challenge to him.

  When he lifted her up, Mercy thought that he was going to set her aside. But when he brought her down over his cock, his hand sliding over her pussy as he held himself for her, she cried out. He was harder than she’d thought he’d be just for touching her skin.

  “You make me hard by just breathing in my direction, love. You mean everything to me, and I want you every day.” She moved, sliding forward and back as he played with her breasts. “I love the way your breasts feel in my hands. How they fill my palms up, spill over my fingers. And the tightness of your nipples makes me want to beg you to let me suckle them.”

  He did that, taking just the tips of her breasts into his mouth one at a time and nibbling on them until she was begging him to take her. To make her come. But he was relentless in making her suffer. She rode him faster, harder, but he never once gave her what she wanted most of all—to scream out her release in a way that made her throat sore for several hours afterwards.

  Joel teased her, played with her body until she was ready to scream for an entirely different reason. She was tense, then relaxed. Her body like a live wire, then soft and relaxed. Mercy begged him, pleaded with him, and at one point even threatened him. All he did was laugh softly, telling her to wait. She no longer wanted to wait. Mercy needed him now.

  “You want to come?” She cried, no longer able to say anything, her need was so high. “Come for me, baby, and I’ll fuck you hard again.”

  She screamed, her body no longer able to hold back when he pinched her clit. As soon as her body hit the peak he pressed against her again, and her body bowed back as the next and then the next climax took her under. Joel bit into her breast and Mercy came again, her body coming apart and slamming back together so many times that she didn’t know if she’d survive it all.

  Weak with her releases, she nearly begged him again, this time to let her go, when he picked her up with his cock still buried in her body and laid her over the decking around the tub. He fucked her this way, her body spread out before him as he pounded her hard. And even though she thought she was finished, that she couldn’t take anymore, she came again when he released his hot cum into her.

  Stars danced behind her eyelids. Mercy saw her life, all of it, flash before her eyes. And when she thought she was dead, her body simply no longer able to sustain itself, she came again.

  Mercy woke, not even realizing that she’d fainted, in their bed. Joel was beside her, talking softly to her. It took her a moment to realize that he was telling her how much he loved her, how he would never be able to show her just how much. Mercy turned to him, and he smiled.

  “You fainted.” She nodded, curling her body around his. “I thought for sure that I’d killed you. I mean, you might be immortal, but that was intense.”

  “No kidding. I don’t think I will survive if you have a mind to do that too often.” He laughed with her. Mercy looked up at him. “I love you so much, Joel. I never would have believed that after all these years, I’d be able to find someone that could make me want to be in love. You have surpassed everything that I could have hoped for in looking for a mate.”

  “And tomorrow, I make you my wife. After all this time for me, I only thought that I’d be with Miley, her being my rock, my foundation. I never knew until I fell in love with you that a person could love two people so much.” He put his hand on her flat belly. “And now, I have another person that not only do I love, but as much as I can love anyone.”

  She rested her head on his chest and listened to his heart beating. It was like a ticking clock, strong and solid. Closing her eyes, Mercy smiled. It had been a very long time since she’d felt this way—in love, loved, and happy.

  The dream was one that she’d never had before. It was where the castle had been, the walls of it still standing tall, the people surrounding it working their fields and hanging out the wash. As she drew closer to the scene, not sure why she’d dream such a dream, she saw a woman. It took her several moments to realize that it was Dante, her queen.

  Landing on the fence post, only then realizing that she was a bird, she watched as a woman in the yard was handed a bundle by Dante. The queen looked right at Mercy but didn’t seem to know who or what she was to her.

  It hit her in that moment that she’d never met her. The queen hadn’t used her magic, hadn’t changed her into what she would later need. And the bundle was a child, small and not yet cleaned of his birth.

  “You will care for him for me?” The woman, young and with a child of her own in the basket at her feet, nodded. “I will care for you and him forever, Mary. But you must never tell a soul who he is. For it will mean his death should the bad king die.”

  “I will care for him like my own. The coin you give me, it will help all of us in ways that you will not know.” Dante told her that she would know and was happy for the help. “Nay, my lady. I know what this means to you. And you have given me a great honor. I will care for him for you. Keep him safe as well.”

  Dante moved away after thanking the woman. Mary. Mercy remembered a woman named Mary who had been one of the first to be moved, her and her two children. Mercy remembered the face too. She was young and well cared for, and she was an immortal. Mercy knew that she was to find the child, because the child of her queen would be her king.

  Chapter 7

  Saul had been released just that morning and made his way to the hotel where he had been staying. It was old and abandoned, and it stank, but he had a roof over his head for the most part and running water. It was cold, sure, but it wasn’t too bad.

  He’d have to find himself something before winter. If he didn’t, someone would come out and find him a popsicle one day. Laughing at his own joke, he found that his clothing was still there, but it had a smell to it, like some animal had pissed all over it.

  “Fucking wild animals.”

  His mind went to the woman, Mercy, and he shivered. She was one of them fucking shifter things. Not that he was afraid of her. She was a bird, by God, and he knew all he’d need to do to take her out was to kill her. A little bird or a big one, it would die by his hand soon.

  After taking his clothing to the sink, he washed them up with the little bars of soap that he’d found when rummaging around. There had been cases of the soap, shampoo, and toilet paper. With the running water, the toilets could be flushed with a bucket, so Saul considered himself lucky on that. He was able to take a good shit and wash it all away.

  The bed was lumpy. Even with several of the mattresses that he’d gathered up, he would still wake with a spring in his ass—or in other soft places on his body. Once, he’d had a spring cut him in the belly. But the people at the jail, they’d fixed it up for him. Didn’t want him to die on their watch, they’d told him. Another fucking bunch, Saul thought.

  Just as he’d been leaving, Allen came to tell him that his parents, both of them, had been exhumed. He wasn’t really worried about that too much. He had bigger fish to fry, so to speak. By the time they figured out he’d killed Dad, and then found the poison in Mom—if there were any traces of it left—he’d have himself some cash and be hidden away for good.

  He’d thought there was money. Saul had seen his parents with all sorts of new things. Then there was the big motor home. They’d never camped a day in their life as far as he knew, but they were getting the big rig all filled up to go on a trip. Christ, had he only known then that th
ey’d gotten it really cheap, he could have killed them both at the same time. The thing might well have blown up on them. Had a blow out on a tire or something like that. Instead, he’d had to kill off one of them to get the other to talk. And there was nothing.

  They’d lost the house; his mom had told him in her grief. Lost it all because they’d not been able to keep up with the payments. The motor home, a thirty-year-old sucker, had had more wrong with it than was fixed, but they were excited to have something to live in when the house was taken by the bank.

  “We tried and tried to get some money to pay the payments, but we didn’t have the things we thought we had to sell off.” His mom had looked at him; all signs of being grief stricken over Dad were gone. “You took them, didn’t you, Saul? Whatever you did with them, I do hope you got a fair price for them. Because of you, we were going to be homeless. Those were our nest egg, and you stole them from us.”

  Apparently, his parents had been hording antiques, coins, and old smelly baskets to sell off when they’d gotten older. Yes, he had stolen them. And after finding out what some of the pieces were worth, he was going to find the man he’d sold them to and kill him. The dealer had given him nothing compared to what he should have gotten.

  Mom cried for a bit more, and he told her to drink her tea. It was laced with poison, much more than he should have given her all at once, but he’d been pissed off and wanted her to pay. Fucking bullshit. No money? He wished he could dig her up and kill her all over again, and his father.

  His dad had been hard to kill off. Saul had been feeding him the poison in the candy that he loved—an entire four-pound box of chocolates just for him. But after eating only a couple of them, his dad had tossed them out, saying they were tainted. Dad had known what Saul had been up to. So he’d gone outside with him when he’d been gathering wood for the fireplace, and hit him in the head with the axe. No more waiting for him to die off.

  Mom had blamed him for Dad’s death immediately after finding his cold body. Saul had only stuck around to see the reaction on Mom’s face when she found Dad. But she’d looked right up at him and pointed her finger at him to blame it all on him. There wasn’t any way that he could convince her that she was insane for thinking that. She’d even told the police that she thought he’d done it.

  “There isn’t any way that my husband fell on that axe, Officer. He was very good at putting it back with the blade protector on it. He paid thirty dollars for that thing, and he made sure it was used every single time after cutting wood.” The officer glanced at Saul and told Mom that perhaps he’d forgotten. “No, he was always good at it, as I said. He never wanted any of the kids, ours included, to be able to fall on it or take it for whatever reason. My son here did it to him. For whatever reason, Saul killed him off. And now I’m worried that he could be coming after me next.”

  The officer had taken him aside. “If I find out that you killed your father, Saul, I’ll come after you myself. That was a good man there, and if you ended his life for no reason other than you could, then you’ll regret it. I promise you.”

  Saul had learned to have a face that no one could read. It had served him very well over the years before that day, and since. All he did was stare at the man, looked at him straight in the eye as if he had nothing at all to fear from him. And he didn’t. No one frightened him.

  Mercy did. She scared the shit out of him. And he knew better than to try and take her as someone that he’d hold for ransom. Nor would he take Joel. He’d be hell bent to stay with Mercy, and she might well come after Saul just for him taking Joel.

  It would have to be the child. First of all, she’d cause him no trouble. Lifting her out of that chair might be hard; she could be heavy from just sitting on her ass all the time. Saul was sure that he’d be able to manage it. And after he killed her—and he would, no matter what—what would she need with the wheelchair anyway? She wouldn’t.

  He’d been holding onto the newspapers that he’d found all over the place here. They were outdated, of course, but he really wasn’t going for anything to read. He wanted them to wrap her body in. The shower curtains had all been stolen away, he’d seen, so Saul had to improvise.

  The previous owners had even done him a solid by not filling in the holes from when the gasoline tanks had been taken out. Even the big earth mover was sitting there ready to use. Saul hadn’t ever driven one before, wasn’t even sure this one worked, but it would go a long way in making sure the kid didn’t have animals dragging her body off when he was done with her. If it didn’t—oh well, she’d just be part of something’s dinner.

  Saul didn’t have a plan. He’d never been one to work things out before he did them. He was more of a wing-it sort of person. Sometimes it even worked in his favor for not having anything set in stone. Most of the time, especially of late, he would have to wing-it all the way to the end. Which, he surmised, had served him well too. No one knew the plan any better than he did, so he didn’t have to worry about someone fucking him over.

  Laughing, he decided that he needed something to eat other than candy bars. The day before he’d been arrested, Saul had found a vending machine and had busted it open. Everything in it had been expired, and it wasn’t until he’d eaten two of the candy bars that he noticed that some rat, the four-legged kind, had gotten to them.

  Cutting off the chewed-up part had become tedious, so he started biting around their bite marks. He’d forget to look where he was biting sometimes, but all in all, it had filled his belly. But it was making him slightly ill, the sugary diet, and he thought about walking into town to get a meal.

  Saul wasn’t sure how he was going to get his meal—he only had about four cents on him. At the police station he’d tried to claim that they’d taken the ten he had in his wallet, but that hadn’t panned out. They had a digital recording of what they’d taken from him, including taking a picture of the contents of his wallet.

  “People are so distrusting nowadays.”

  Laughing at his own little joke, he walked along the highway towards town. It wasn’t that far, hardly a mile, but he hated walking all the same. He was just about to leap off the road to avoid an oncoming car when he saw who it was. His brother was coming toward him in a brand new car. Flagging him down, he was surprised when Joel didn’t run him down.

  “You out looking for me?”

  Joel didn’t say anything, just handed him a grocery bag full of food. Then when he got the second one from his brother, Joel just drove on. After turning around in the parking lot where he was staying, Saul watched him just drive away. Like they were just a couple of people sharing the same road.

  Going back to the hotel, he looked over what he had. Saul wasn’t sure if he’d poison him or not, so he took extra care in looking things over. Everything was sealed up, but that didn’t mean shit when it came to the availability of syringes nowadays. Saul even shook up the water bottles, making sure they didn’t have a leak in them, before he sat them aside.

  “Water just isn’t going to cut it, Joel. You should know that a man like me would need something stronger.” Laughing, he set the cans of food on the table as he wondered how Joel thought he was going to cook the stuff. It wasn’t until he was at the bottom of the second sack that he realized that he’d sent him some canned heat. “Well, if that don’t beat all. Didn’t even know they made sterno cans anymore.”

  With the can opener he’d unearthed too, Saul sat about making himself a nice dinner. There was a can of meat too, some sort of stew stuff, and lots of vegetables. While he normally wouldn’t have touched the things, he was hungry enough to eat them too.

  After stuffing himself on all the contents of both bags, he looked around for a note from Joel. Surely, he’d let him know that he was on his side in this. Or at the very least, let him know when he was coming back with more food. Nothing. Not even a phone number he could call him on.

  “What is this world coming to? A man can’t even call his own brother up and ask him when’s
a good time to kidnap his daughter?” Laughing harder, he laid back down on the bed. He really had worn himself out, walking that little bit of a way, and realized that he’d have to start taking better care of himself.

  The girl was going to be his biggest payday yet. He hadn’t any idea how much to ask for, but it was going to be at the very least a million bucks. It might be more, then he’d come down if they said they didn’t have it. But at least that much, and he would be happy with his work.

  Not satisfied. Never that. He liked money and the things that he could buy with it. And how it made him feel when he could flash it around like he had it all. It was seldom that Saul was with a lot of cash. Usually he just had a twenty or a fifty when he was really lucky. Then he’d wrap it around a bunch of ones. Or sometimes when he was really strapped, he’d just have it around a bunch of paper. Usually didn’t work well, but he could fool a few chumps.

  Closing his eyes, all that Saul could think about was coming into his money. One way or another, he was going to get a piece of the pie. Hell, he thought with a laugh, he might just take the whole fucking thing. Turning over, the springs caught him just as he was moving and tore a long scratch in his back. Damn it all to hell, he was going to make the girl pay for this.

  ~*~

  Mercy knew what was going to happen. At least she had a good idea what was going to go down. Saul was going to try and take Miley, and Mercy decided that she might just let him. Justified homicide would make her feel pretty good about killing the bastard. Mercy looked up when Piper entered her office.

 

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