by Kym Grosso
“Fuck,” he hissed at her intrusion and cuffed her right wrist.
She moaned again in protest.
“Not yet, ma chère. Don’t move, just feel. Concentrate on what Logan’s doing to you.”
“I need more,” Logan grunted as he moved onto his knees, putting her legs over his shoulders. “I can’t wait to taste you.”
She reached for her breast and squeezed it, but Tristan took that hand as well and pulled her arms over her head, gripping her wrists firmly.
“No, no, no,” he scolded. “No touching yourself, either. Hmm, we might have to spank her lovely little ass tonight. She’s not listening.” Tristan knew just the thought of it would push her over the edge; she loved being smacked on the bottom while he made love to her from behind.
“Stop teasing me. I can’t take it. Oh my God!” she screamed, as Logan trailed the tip of his tongue between her inner lips.
Tristan reached down with his other hand and pushed her apart, allowing Logan better access. Mira raised her hips upward, seeking relief. The pressure of her orgasm was built. She was almost ready to come, but she needed just a little more.
“She tastes so good,” Logan groaned as he pressed his fingers deep inside her. Mira began to shake; she was falling over. Logan’s lips took her sweet pearl, sucking gently as he pumped into her. She screamed in pleasure as she flew apart into orgasm.
Aroused and ready, the spell broke for Tristan as his cell phone buzzed in his pocket. Releasing Mira’s wrists, he immediately reached for his phone to read the text, ‘She’s awake’. Tristan’s thoughts slammed back to the woman upstairs in his bed.
“Sorry guys, party’s over…well, at least for me. But please keep having fun, okay?” Tristan kissed Mira’s head as she smiled up at him, sated for the moment. He gently moved away, straightened his clothes and walked toward the door.
“You need me?” Logan prayed he didn’t.
“No, I’ve got this. I’ll call ya later.”
Logan scooped Mira up into his arms as if she weighed nothing. “Okay then…I guess your loss is my gain,” he declared, smiling as he carried Mira away to his bedroom. He knew better than to ask twice.
“Bye, Tris!” Mira waved giggling as she disappeared into the hallway.
Tristan’s mind raced; he couldn’t wait to interrogate the suspect. There was something about the whole situation that didn’t make sense. And Kalli was the key to getting the answer.
Chapter Five
Warm water pulsed around her body as the fragrant smell of lilacs danced in her mind. She felt warm and safe. Then images of Alexandra flashed. Blood. Vampires. An Alpha. Screaming, her eyes flew open, scanning her surroundings. Panic coursed throughout every cell in her body in a flight or fight response.
“Hey, you’re safe. You’re okay,” a comforting female voice advised her. She looked over to see a young woman with long brown hair kneeling at her side by the tub. A tub? Her heart raced, realizing she was stark naked in a bath full of steaming bubbles and jets pulsating around her bruised flesh.
The woman regarded the tub as if she knew what Kalli was thinking. “It’s just a warm bath to get you cleaned up, hun. Nothing happened. I’m a nurse. Really, see?” She leaned over and pulled a stethoscope out of her black bag.
Kalli said nothing as she surveyed her surroundings. She was in a large whirlpool Jacuzzi; warm heat lamps shone overhead. The bathroom felt dark and rich with its umber painted walls and fawn-stained crown molding. The flicker of a single candle danced across the black speckled granite countertop of a chestnut vanity. Although she could think of worse places to find one’s self, waking up in strange places was really getting old.
She struggled to find her voice, aware that her throat was raw from screaming. “Where am I?”
“You are at the home of Mr. Tristan Livingston, Alpha of Lyceum Wolves,” Julie answered cheerfully. “You’re safe, but a bit scratched up from your run-in with that dreadful vampire. Don’t worry, though. Your vitals are good. We just need to get you some rest and something to eat. You should be good in a few days.”
“A few days? I really need to get home and…” her voice trailed off as Julie held up a hand, silencing her.
“Hun, I know you’ve had a rough time of it and all, and I’m not going to judge, but the Alpha wants to talk to you.” She went about her business, readying up a warm towel. Throwing it over her shoulder, she bent down and slid her hand behind Kalli’s back and under her arm.
“Come on now, I want to see if you can stand. Lean on me, and I’ll wrap this towel around you. That’s it.”
Kalli let her weight fall back on the strange woman as she tried to stand. The Alpha wanted to talk to her? Oh God. She knew she shouldn’t have gone in to get that snake. He was going to ask about the fire and what she’d seen. She didn’t want to be involved. She could not let them find out she was alive.
Finding her legs, she pushed upright until she was standing. She sighed as the warmth of the towel engulfed her.
“That’s it. Look at you, standing all on your own. God, Alexandra’s such a viper. I can’t believe she did this to you. Can you step out of the tub? Just hold onto me as you move, okay?”
“Alexandra?” Kalli did as instructed as if in a daze. She let Julie dry her, trying to focus on staying stable on her feet. Weakness was not something she was used to feeling and she disliked having to rely on someone to help her, but at this point, she had no choice.
“Yeah, you know, the bloodsucker who drained you?”
“I…I didn’t get her name. I shouldn’t have gone out to the parking garage alone. I should have…” Kalli’s soft voice trailed off as a small tear ran down her cheek. She should have known that someone would have seen her at the club. Embarrassment washed over her, knowing that she had let this happen. But there was another emotion that racked her mind. Anger? Yes, she was mad all right. But most of all, at the moment, she felt violated. Was there no place on this earth she could be safe from the violence?
“Hey there, I know what you’re thinking. Just stop it right now. The vamps. They can even get to us wolves, you know. A human woman is just no match for them. There’s nothing you did to cause this to happen to you,” Julie told her. A somber expression flashed across her face.
If you only knew, Kalli thought silently.
“Now, come on, let’s get you dressed and in bed.”
“I don’t have anything to wear,” Kalli began to say and stopped when she saw Julie hold up a large man’s t-shirt with a black wolf insignia on it that read: ‘Harley-Davidson’.
“This will do. Wait ’til the Alpha finds out I was digging around in his skivvies,” she joked. “Ah, the thrill of it all.”
Kalli had a hard time trying not to smile back at the lovely nurse. She gratefully allowed Julie to pull the shirt over her head. It was better than being dirty and infinitely better than being covered in her own blood and body odor.
“Now, for the pièce de résistance.” Julie held up a black pair of man’s boxer briefs. “You’ll probably swim in these, but I found a new package in his room, and well, it’s better than no undies. I’ll leave it up to you.”
“Thanks, I’ll, um. I’ll take them. They’ll be okay until they stretch out.” Then they’d probably fall right off of her, but there was no way in hell she planned on staying in a wolf’s den with no underwear. She had to figure out a way to escape the hell she’d gotten herself into. Glancing over to the door, she considered making a break for it. Dizziness racked her brain as she started to wobble.
Julie grabbed onto Kalli’s arms as she wavered, almost falling onto the floor. She eased her into a sitting position and rubbed her back. “Okay, I’d say that’s enough exercise for today. Just take a second and breathe. That’s it. You’re sitting well. Better now?” Kalli nodded as Julie ran a towel over Kalli’s long raven hair. After patting it dry, she dropped the towel on the floor, pulled out a comb and began to tease out the knots.
�
�Oh and hun, don’t even think about leavin’ this room right now. Yes, I saw you eyeing the door,” she said, continuing her work.
Busted, Kalli groaned inwardly. Who was she kidding? She was barely well enough to stand, let alone walk.
Julie finished up and set the comb on the nightstand. “I probably failed to mention that you are on the forty-fifth floor of a city skyscraper, so there’s just one exit out of here and my friend, Simeon, is keeping watch on that one. Besides, I’m telling you that you’re safe, okay? Nothin’ is gonna happen to you up here. I promise. And besides, you’re in no condition to leave, anyway.”
A skyscraper? Shit. There was no way she was getting out of here. Kalli liked a nice view of the city as much as the next person, but was terrified of heights. Resigned to the fact that she’d have to face the Alpha, she let Julie tuck her into the feather-soft bed.
“Let’s see, so, soup is next on the agenda. I sent for some plain broth and crackers. It should be here about now. So is there anything else I can get you?”
“No, thanks for helping me,” Kalli managed, wringing her hands nervously.
“No worries. You just rest, and I’ll be right back.”
Kalli let her head fall on the pillow and stared up at the intricate light fixture, which was made out of tiny royal blue, glass butterflies. The pretty winged creatures exquisitely complemented the shades of brown and tan of her warm and inviting gilded cage. She breathed deeply and blew out a breath, relaxing into the bed. Unable to deny how serene amenities helped to calm her nerves, she curled into her comforter, willing herself to heal. Closing her eyes, her thoughts drifted to the Alpha who’d rescued her.
In her mind’s eye, she remembered how the handsome stranger had saved her from the vampire dressed in the ridiculous harlequin vest. A tall, muscular man with dark blonde hair, he looked like a sexy James Bond in the tuxedo. Struggling to picture his face, his piercing amber eyes came into focus. Like yellow-orange supernovas, they’d been striking and memorable. Did his eyes change when he went wolf? What color was his fur? His power rolled off him like a tidal wave in the car. Authoritative and deadly, an Alpha who took what he wanted.
Kalli thought back to her days in the pack she’d escaped; her stomach tightened. She’d been hybrid. Her mother, a human, had died when Kalli was only fourteen, leaving her to survive on her own within the brutal pack. Three years later, her father, a mean son-of-a-bitch, had fought to be Alpha and lost. The reigning Alpha had sent for her soon after, attacked her and explained how she’d be servicing his men for the rest of her life. Tired of the never ending violence, she’d made a decision to leave.
She knew that even though she was considered lower than omega because of her human genes, they’d never let her leave their ranks. They’d use her up and spit her out. Death was the only way out of the pack, an option she’d have willingly chosen, if necessary. So one late summer’s afternoon, she’d taken her father’s fishing boat out into the Atlantic off the coast of South Carolina, and jumped off into the cold dark water. Of course, her body was never found, but the small vessel was recovered two days later. The weather had forecast a small squall, so no one had questioned her disappearance; just another soul lost to the sea. With nothing but a backpack and some cash she’d saved over the years, she took off to New York City.
Upon arrival, she’d picked up a waitressing job and saved her money. It was easier than she’d thought it would be to find someone to change her name. With a few Benjamins, Kalli Anastas became Kalli Williams. Afterward, she’d continued working to put herself through college. By her sophomore year, however, she could no longer prevent the wolf from emerging. As a teen she’d starved herself, preventing the shift. But once on her own, she’d gained weight, and shifting into wolf became inevitable. For weeks she’d suffered nightmares, always with the animal scratching to come out and have its due. She’d remembered the tales the other pack girls had told, describing the symptoms of their first time. That was how she looked at it; an illness to be cured. Kalli knew it would come on the full moon, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Scared and alone, she’d managed to get out of the city and into the mountains in preparation. She’d rented an isolated cabin in the Catskills, and waited. The excruciating pain of the shift took her by surprise even though she’d known it was coming. After running and killing throughout the night, she’d woken up naked, curled into a hole of a rotted-out tree. Covered in blood and dirt, she’d cried hysterically, believing she was cursed for life. For years she’d repeated the ghastly process, month after month, until she became a doctor and discovered ‘the cure’.
After graduation, she’d earned an assistantship, which paid for her grad school. The residency opportunity in Philadelphia had led to a permanent position at UVH. She was able to practice, utilizing state of the art medicine, while continuing to blend into society. And it was there she’d found salvation from the beast.
In reality, her drug didn’t cure her of her wolf. But it kept her at bay, caged and unable to shift. Relentlessly, Kalli had worked; she’d rarely eaten or slept, determined to develop a drug to stop the transformation. On the twenty-second trial, it had worked; Canis Lupis Inhibitor (CLI) kept her from shifting, even on a full moon. Side effects, aside from preventing shifting, included chills and aches, but they only occurred if she missed a daily dose. Enhanced hearing and smell were slightly suppressed but not entirely gone. The discovery allowed Kalli to go months without shifting, and she reveled in finally being human. Best of all, no wolf or vampire could detect her wolf, as far as she could tell, anyway. Of course a simple blood test would reveal her true nature, but other than that, she appeared wholly human.
After she began taking CLI, she kept refining the drug, seeking other useful purposes for it. She experimented, theorizing the drug could help aggressive animals in the canis genus to reduce anxiety. Since they were not supernatural, she envisioned a one dose treatment that would positively affect their emotions. She hadn’t come too far with that side of her research, but initial projections looked promising. Still, she kept all of her work under lock and key in an effort to hide her identity.
Truth be told, Kalli avoided purposeful contact with supernaturals. She’d only done one full-fledged test of the formula to see if she could or could not be detected as wolf. By all accounts, the exercise had been a success, yet that one experiment had proved to be her most critical mistake. Last month, she and a co-worker had gone to Eden. Well aware that it was run by a wolf and frequented by vampires, her curiosity had got the better of her.
Kalli had danced all night, hoping her pheromones would attract a vampire or wolf. Yet every man who approached was human. She’d even approached female wolves and vampires, engaging them in casual conversation, and not one had identified her as wolf. Rather, she was called out as a human by more than one supernatural. She’d left the club in triumph, celebrating the success of her drug.
But in her efforts to do research, she’d also noticed the fifteen foot yellow boa slithering around behind the bar. A spectacular and healthy specimen; it was like having a private viewing at a reptile exhibit at the zoo. While she didn’t specialize in reptiles, she held an appreciation for a species that had survived through the ages.
The vivarium, extraordinarily large, with its heated rocks, trees and flowing water, was an excellent example of how a large snake could be kept safely in captivity. Personally, she did not advocate anyone owning or raising a wild animal, but boa constrictors were routinely sold these days in pet stores. It was refreshing to see how a pet owner would go to such great lengths to care for it, as opposed to what many careless owners did when the snake got too large; releasing it into the wild to fend for itself where it could procreate or die. Florida had a serious issue with the large serpents these days.
So that fateful day, she’d known that she had to save the snake. It had been her lunch break, and she’d been out taking a walk, clearing her head. As she rounded the corner, s
he smelled smoke and watched as two wolves ran out of the building. They were in human form, but she could tell that they’d been about to shift, noticing the claws extending on their hands. She’d ducked into an alley, waiting for them to pass. Wondering where the fire department was, she’d waited. But then when no one came, she ran into the club on instinct, to make sure everyone was out of the building. Noticing no one, she smashed the glass enclosure and pulled out the slithering animal. Unfortunately in the process, she’d cut her hand. But she’d still managed to carry the poor animal out of the building. As the fire engines raced toward the inferno, she’d made a rash decision to take the snake back to UVH to have it evaluated.
When she’d later pondered over the fact that the snake belonged to a supernatural, she’d decided to have a nurse call Eden and leave a message for the manager. But before she’d had a chance to issue the order, she’d been attacked in the parking lot. She wasn’t supposed to have been working that day; having been called in for an emergency consult, she’d rushed into the hospital with only her ID and keys, locking her purse in her car.
After she’d finished, she’d returned to her car. Instantly, her skin had pricked in awareness as she saw two strange men approach her. Trying to run had proved futile, as they’d snatched her up with preternatural speed. Vehemently protesting, she’d kneed the first of her attackers in the groin. And even though he’d released her, the other vamp had quickly grabbed her by the shoulders, slamming her head against the concrete. By the time she’d woken with a splitting headache, Alexandra was at her neck.
As the history of what had happened to her racked her brain, she felt sick. Opening her eyes, unable to rest, she wished she was like one of the butterflies so beautifully reproduced in the lamp above, able to fly away from her troubles. At least she was clean, in a warm bed and about to be fed, she reasoned. She’d been upgraded from the house of horrors and was no longer a blood bag.