by Dana Archer
Chin raised, I face the shifter who has turned this game on me. Satisfaction shows with the small smile playing at his lips as if he’s fighting a laugh or a shit-eating grin.
“You know there are men on these streets like me, don’t you?” Uri repeats his question in an almost calm, soothing voice, compelling me to answer.
A slow nod is all I manage when my mouth is dry and anticipation leaves me quavering, hovering between excitement and fear.
“And out of all the males in this town who are like me, who would you say is the most powerful? The most feared?” Uri leans forward, and the grin he’s been fighting spreads over his face, giving him a wicked and primitive edge. “Not counting me, of course.”
“Bryon.” My answer is out of my mouth before I can decide if playing into Uri’s leading questions is smart or not.
Uri inclines his head. “And males like me will sometimes look out for those weaker than them, especially if those weaker than them have triggered their instincts. That’s what’s happened in your case. Something about you compelled Bryon to claim you.”
“Claim me?” I grip the edge of the pool table to stop myself from backing up. The shifter who hurt me tonight said something similar. I still don’t understand what it means. Bryon and I aren’t together. We’ve never been together romantically. That other shifter gave it a different spin, however, and it’s not one that sits well with me. “What do you mean, claim me? Like a piece of property?”
“Essentially, yes.” Uri presses his lips in a tight line and tilts his head, studying me with a pitying expression. “And even though his attempt at protecting you has been half-assed, it’s been enough to keep those lesser than him away from you. Until now.”
“Until now?” Repeating Uri’s statements makes me sound as silly as he called me not long ago. I can’t help it. He’s not making sense.
“Yes. Until now.” Uri nods.
“What’s changed?” My voice sounds small, weak…afraid. Exactly like a prey animal.
Uri straightens and rounds the far corner of the pool table. His fingers skim along the cushioned ledge of the table. My pulse races, and my breaths come quicker. His slow approach triggers my instincts to run. Even recognizing the response as something Uri is trying to intentionally spur, I can’t stop the primal demands I escape him. Except, I’m not sure why I would need to run from Uri. Getting his hands on me again has been my goal since he kissed me. I should not be afraid of him.
But I am.
I lick my lips and hold on to the table for dear life. “What’s changed, Uriel?”
Uri stops. Thick, pointed nails slide from the ends of Uri’s fingers and merge with his fingernails, the display a powerful reminder that in many ways, Uri is superior to me. Not in all ways, though. I refuse to believe that.
Even if it is true.
Shoulders back, I release my death grip on the table and turn slightly to him. I pointedly glance from Uri’s claw-tipped fingers to his face. Still no glow to his eyes. He’s got to be wearing contacts. Or he’s got good control over his primal side. If that’s the case, I need to break it. “Well, Uriel? What’s changed?”
“Uri. I told you to call me Uri.”
The slur to his words hints that his claws aren’t the only shifter trait he’s allowed to show, but it’s too dark to see his fangs. The swash of light only offers me a glimpse of him. Energy dances down my spine in the face of his focused determination.
“What’s changed?” I repeat my question but I can’t bring myself to use Uri’s name. With the way he’s looking at me, I’m afraid to do so, as if saying the name he extends to those important to him will seal my fate.
Dammit. I’m a hypocrite. Minutes ago, I wanted to explore this connection between us. Now…
Blocking out Uri’s image, I shake my head, but I can’t clear the conflicting emotions or stop the urges demanding I run. I’m a hot mess. It’s Uri’s fault too. He’s flipped our roles, and I’m about to lose. I don’t know how to stop it.
In a quick move I can’t counter, my body is turned, my bottom once again pressing into the edge of the pool table. Firm fingers grasp my chin and lift my head. Uri’s features fill my vision. There’s no hiding from this. No hiding from him.
No escaping my fate.
On a slow exhale, his lips part, giving me a close-up view of his distended fangs. Not the tips I’d noticed several times before, but full, dangerous feline fangs that could rip my throat out in an instant. He swipes his tongue along them, coating the tips of his fangs in blood.
“What’s changed, Uri?” Uri strokes his thumb over my chin as he carefully enunciates his words. “Ask your question exactly that way.”
“What’s changed, Uri?” My words are barely audible, but Uri grins.
“There’s a newcomer in town. You told me that, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” I answer, playing right into this line of conversation Uri’s orchestrating. With his commanding, hungry gaze on me, I can’t fight it. Or him.
“And Bryon’s halfhearted claim on you isn’t enough to deter this other shifter. That puts you in a vulnerable place.”
“It does?”
“Yes.” Uri slips his hand inside my jacket and under my shirt to settle his palm at the base of my spine. “It makes you incredibly intriguing—a predator’s toy left lying out in the open for anyone to steal.”
The brief conversation I had with the shifter who chased me replays in my mind and reinforces Uri’s revelation, especially considering this other shifter knows about my past. Knows how close I came to being a shifter’s pet.
“You belong to Uri.”
Ezra’s words blend with those of the shifter who threatened me not long ago. I swallow hard, but I can’t dislodge the lump in my throat or stop my inner muscles from clenching on nothingness. After what Sam went through, I should not find the idea of being Uri’s possession arousing. But I do.
With slow and deliberate motions, Uri unbuttons my jacket. His nostrils flare on an angry snarl, no doubt at the sight of my bloody, ripped shirt. “The way I see it, there’s only three options for you, Lyla.”
The way Uri says my name adds to the primitiveness of this thing between us, as if he reserves that tone just for me. Maybe he does. I haven’t heard him talk to anyone else this way, as if he knows his voice alone can make a woman wet and eager. Then again, I haven’t heard Uri talk to any other girl. Except Ella. And she’s taken. Or at least that’s the rumor I’ve heard.
“Do you want to know what your choices are?” Uri’s tone takes on a lulling cadence that enhances the sensation of being controlled and leaves my skin tingling. “Or shall I just pick for you? Decide. My patience is not endless.”
“What are my options?”
“Either you become a victim to those who are killing the shifter homeless in this city. Bryon stops being a pathetic excuse of a male and claims you in a way these other shifters won’t question.” Uri draws me closer, and the long line of his arousal presses into my stomach. “Or another male makes it clear you’re not a toy up for grabs.”
A shaky exhale leaves me trembling in Uri’s arms. I’ve lost control of this situation, and Uri’s led me into the real reason he brought me back here alone. “You haven’t given me choices. You’ve given me your justification for doing whatever it is you’ve planned all along.”
“Not all along. Just since I hunted you down here tonight and found you in another dangerous situation.” Uri bends his head to mine and skims his parted lips along my jaw to my ear. “Now I have no choice, especially after you so eloquently used air quotes to point out my failings as your mentor.”
“So you’re going to claim me as your…your toy?”
“Possession sounds better, don’t you think?”
“Not really.” Both leave a heaviness low in my belly.
“Hmm…” Uri turns my head and brushes his lips to the base of my throat. “Then how does…”
Uri doesn’t finish his words. He
slides his palm up my spine and bends over me. I arch into him and tip my head back, giving myself to him. That’s what it feels like, anyway. I’m surrendering. This game, my body, my heart—I’m not sure what I’m giving up. I only know I can’t resist this man.
“How does my property sound? Better than possession?” Uri’s voice takes on a wicked edge. “Or do you like the idea of being a toy, something to be brought out and played with, then locked away until I have a need for you again?”
I press my lips together to stifle my moan, but I can’t stop a small squeak from escaping. Uri’s lips curve into a smile. I want to be annoyed by the fact he finds my arousal amusing, but I can’t. I want him to touch me…to play with me.
With his fingers curled around the neckline of my shirt, Uri turns his attention on me with an intensity that makes me crazed with need. “Well, baby? What’s it going to be?”
“I…” No other words come out. At the moment, I want to be all those things to Uri. It doesn’t matter what he calls me. I simply want to be… “Yours. Whatever term you use. I don’t care, but I want it. I want you.”
“Beloved human.” Uri tugs my shirt down, stretching the collar as far as it’ll go and licking the cuts on my upper chest—sealing them as if I’d never been sliced open—before jerking my jacket off and my shirt over my head. “That’s the politically correct term, but it doesn’t come close to reflecting what you are to me.”
“What does?”
Uri gives me a wicked smile, but doesn’t respond. He drops to a crouch in front of me and licks the long scratch in the valley between my breasts before moving lower and turning his attention to healing the rest of the scratches over my stomach.
With his flattened tongue at the edge of my waistband, Uri closes his eyes and breathes deeply as if trying to get himself under control. That’s what this has been to him too—an encounter Uri has controlled from the moment we left the main barroom. I never had a chance.
“What term reflects what I am to you, Uri?”
Instead of answering, he unbuttons my pants and tugs them down, along with my underwear. Blood soaks the crotch of my panties, and the memory of that other shifter’s claws dragging over my flesh returns. No fear accompanies the memory. No recollection of pain either, even though I know it hurt at the time. Relief settles over me. Uri will make everything better. From the lingering discomfort to the worry this other shifter will hurt me again.
“Did he…” The deep, ominous growl to Uri’s voice echoes within me. “Did he hurt you? More than these cuts? Did he take from you something you didn’t want to give?”
“No.” I grab Uri’s shoulders, digging my fingers into his muscles hard enough to jerk his enraged gaze to me. “Nobody has ever taken anything from me I didn’t want to give, including you.”
“But he touched you.” Uri slides his hand over me, and leans closer, his lips inches from mine. “Touched you in a way only a lover should.”
“No.” My breathless voice is for Uri, not because of what happened to me. He needs to understand this. “He wanted to scare me off. I’m almost positive of it. He wanted me afraid, and he wanted me to run. There’s no other explanation. He had me alone. There was nothing stopping him from raping me or killing me. He didn’t do either. He only made it clear he would. Next time. That’s what tonight was about. He wanted me to understand what would happen to me if I crossed paths with him again.”
“You won’t cross paths with him again.”
“Agents can’t make any guarantee their life won’t ever be in danger. It’s part of the job. And I signed up for it knowing full well the risks I’m taking.”
“You’re not a field agent, Lyla. You’re the coroner assigned to this office, and coroners should not be in the field alone. No one should be in the field alone. That’s why we have partners. You do not have one. Therefore, you don’t get to be in the field. You get to stay safe and sound in your lab or cubicle.”
“You don’t get to make that decision.” I breathe the words against his lips.
“I do now, baby.”
“No, you don’t. You—”
Uri’s tongue in my mouth stops my argument. There’s nothing tender about his kiss. He commands me, dueling his tongue with mine. It’s brutal. Harsh. I can’t ease away from him. I can’t match his deep strokes with ones of my own either. He doesn’t give me the chance to kiss him back. He takes from me.
Giving myself up to this kiss—to this man—I moan, the sound muffled by Uri’s mouth on mine. He pulls me closer, holding me tightly against him as if he can’t stand even a hairbreadth of space between us, and rocks gently against me. The press of his hips into my stomach is slight. It’s almost as if he doesn’t mean to turn this kiss into foreplay but can’t help it.
But I can turn this into a preview of sex. Maybe even the full-blown thing. With a bar full of people, including Uri’s twin, feet away. They might even hear us.
The punch of lust is sharp. I hook my arms around the back of Uri’s head, bending them and clutching his loose hair, no beanie to get in the way. With my nails pressed into his scalp, I hold Uri tight and maneuver my legs free of the tangle of my pants. One dress shoe slips off in the process. I don’t bother kicking off the other. My legs are free. That’s all I need to wrap my thighs around Uri’s hips.
Uri groans and rocks harder into me, but the press of his zipper against my groin tears a squeak from my throat and has me yanking the section of hair I’m holding. Tears sting at the reminder of my injury.
On a curse, Uri lurches back, forcing me to release him and stand on my own, then looks between our bodies, his attention on my groin. “I have to lick you there. It’ll be more painful to suck on my fingers and rub them over your cuts. I’d have to do so multiple times before I can coat your injury with enough saliva to numb you and heal you.”
He’s not asking permission, though. He’s telling me. The lust twines through me, heating my skin and settling warmth low.
“Then do it.” My voice is breathy, not exactly husky but more like I’ve run a marathon. Uri’s lips on mine speed my pulse the same way, and stopping to talk is not conducive to getting Uri inside me.
The tips of Uri’s fangs slip free, just poking past the line of his straight teeth. He drags his tongue across them, slicing a line over his tongue. The tips recede, pulling back effortlessly, but Uri’s barely leashed primal side reminds me the predator hasn’t retreated. He’s focused. On me.
I swallow hard, and Uri glances from my throat to my chest. He bends closer and the wet swipe of his tongue spreads a tingling sensation in his wake. He’s healing me, numbing my skin and taking my discomfort away just as he said he would.
The desire slipping into his expression has nothing to do with tending to my cuts, however. He exhales a shuddering breath and flicks the tip of his tongue out, a slight touch, there and gone. His fingers press into my flesh, not painfully but a sense of being owned slips through me anyway. He’s the one controlling this moment.
“Uri.” I say his name as he kneels before me, but I can’t manage more. I don’t want him to stop, but I don’t want to beg either. I want him to take from me, anything he wants.
Uri glances up the length of my body and catches my gaze before dragging his flattened tongue over my skin. I suck in a breath and press my lips together. Uri smiles, and the pleased response warms me in a way that has nothing to do with the lust gripping me. I don’t understand it but I want Uri to look at me this way more often. Actually, I crave the satisfaction in his expression as if my pleasure does it for Uri, and that thought arouses me.
His lashes lower, leaving crescent moons against his skin, as he continues to tend to my cuts, licking me in places where only a lover would know, then makes a raw sound, almost a groan. It’s not a noise I’ve ever heard a man make before. He eases back and licks his lips, first the bottom then the top. His hunger becomes mine. That’s what it feels like anyway. And I like it. I like everything about how this man make
s me feel, including the knowledge I’m his possession in this moment.
“Here.” I point to another scratch as he leans away from me. “I’m cut here too.”
“I see that.” The gravelly edge to his speech spreads excitement through me. “Bring yourself closer to me.”
Because he’s not moving his head. I turn my body slightly, stretching to reach his mouth. The tip of his tongue traces a path over my skin, tending the long cut.
He eases his tongue from me, then drops his hand and stands. “There. All better.”
Uri’s not going to pleasure me more. He’s done with me. He’s dismissing me.
Not if I can help it.
I rise on my tiptoes, offering myself to him. He opens his mouth slightly for me. His gaze meets mine, then holds it. There’s a challenge in the way he’s watching me. Over what, I’m not sure, but I ignore it, purposely focusing on my goal. The wetness of his mouth feels good. So does his heated exhales on my flesh. That’s my challenge. I want more.
I tempt him. Lure him. After a moment, Uri whispers my name before sliding an arm around my waist, then nibbles on my collarbone, his teeth teasing me and making me squirm against him.
Slow licks and sharp nips mark his progress over my body. I’m panting by the time his mouth brushes mine. He traces my lips with his tongue before nibbling on the lower one. Again, a bite of pain jerks my body, but the sucking of his mouth eases the sting. Realization dawns. He’s purposely bleeding me, then healing me. Why, I don’t know, but the deep pulls of his mouth on my body leave me weakened and eager for more.
“Uri, I need you.” I hiccup on a sob. “Please love me. Make me come.”
He freezes. I can almost feel the change in him from lover to something else. I’m not sure what, but the awareness settling over me has nothing to do with pleasure.
“That’s not my intent.”
“But I need—”
He pushes away from me and makes quick work of tugging up my underwear and pants. Uri slips my lost dress shoe onto my foot, then wipes his chin against his sleeve before focusing on my exposed chest, studying my heavy flesh with the scrutiny of a scientist conducting an experiment, not a man who shattered every notion I had about oral sex.