The Hunt: Complete Edition

by Anne Marsh

  He snarls—snarls—at me, a low, dark rumble at the back of his throat that should scare the living daylights out of me. It definitely shouldn’t excite me, but my heart pounds too loudly, my breath coming in small, hard pants.

  And not due to fear.

  “Mine,” Jafar says. “Every inch of you is mine now. I’ve earned the privilege and I’ve probably lost a good friend over you. Convince me you’re worth it.” The spicy scent of his pheromones surrounds me. Makes my pussy weep for the pleasure he showed me earlier. “The only choice you’ve got now is where and, if you’re very good”—his mouth curls—“how. One thing I can guarantee: I’m going to lick me a path from here”—his fingers swirl a teasing pattern against the tender skin at the base of my neck—“all the way down to the sweet bits.” His finger traces a blunt path down the curve of my spine, pressing me into his hard, hot flesh.

  He slowly thrusts one blade into its sheath at his waist in a strangely sexual gesture. One large hand strokes gently over the sharp edge, drawing a bead of blood from his forefinger. He raises the injured digit to his mouth and licks the blood from it.

  “So, run, my femi. But I’m going to be right behind you, every step of the way.”

  I run. I forget all about should and shouldn’t. Instead, I dart away from him and down the corridor he indicates, while his graphic description of what he wants to do—what he’s going to do—replays itself over and over in my head.

  The corridors are dark. Empty. Even my moon senses are useless in the Stygian blackness surrounding me. Finally, spotting what appears to be a room with a door, I duck inside, holding my breath as I wait, aware of the male following me almost soundlessly. Oh, he’s good.

  Or very, very bad.

  Behind me, the door opens and closes with deliberate finality. Jafar makes no attempt to hide his approach. The raw sensuality of the man striding toward me has cream slicking my pussy; his satisfied masculine chuckle makes me wetter. He knows he has me trapped—and also that I’m exactly where I want to be.

  “Alone at last.”

  The sound of his voice makes my pussy swell with anticipation, remembering the masterful touch of his fingers, petting, stroking me until I curled into his touch. I’ve had other lovers, but none who make me feel this achy desperation for more. None I would allow to make me feel this way.

  My eyes adjust to the blackness, the outlines of the stone chamber coming slowly into focus. Somewhere far above us, the roof has fallen in, allowing light to penetrate. This is no ordinary underground room. It’s a kind of cenote, a naturally occurring hollow where water collects. Most of the chamber is nothing but a deep pool. Jafar stands by its edge. The hard planes of his bare chest ripple as his hands go to the waistband of his linen wrap and pull the material down over his lean hips. His scar gleams in the dim light of our hideaway, but my gaze goes straight to the large erection he sports. The thick length grows as I watch, the broad tip of him ripe with color and need. A clear drop of liquid escapes and I groan. The knowledge that he wants me as much as I do him arouses me more than I’d thought possible.

  “Tossed virgin sacrifices in there, the Valley dwellers did, once upon a time.”

  “How very pagan.” He’s glorious in his nudity, worthy of pagan worship himself. “Are you considering doing the same?”

  “Do you qualify?”

  He knows I don’t. His large hands skim lightly over the rocks around him, finding a natural depression that forms a sort of chair. He strokes the smooth rock indentation and my mouth goes dry, even as other parts of me grow damper.

  “Come here,” he says. And then, “Place your leg here,” as calmly as if he’s offering me a cup of tea. “Hesitate,” he adds pleasantly, “and I will assume that our bargain is off. The Cats will be delighted.”

  Mastered. The sensation makes me feel both vulnerable and aroused. He’s saved my life and given me what I crave—but for a price. I answer to him. Sitting gingerly where he indicates, I swing my leg up and over the arm of the chair. The exposure both overwhelms and titillates. In this position, my legs fell apart, but the worst part is that I want to show myself to him. He hasn’t asked me to do anything I don’t secretly want. He examines my pussy as he would an early-summer plum hanging from the branches of a fruit tree in a forcing house. It’s as juicy now as any plum could be. My lips part with a slippery tingle as I place my leg as Jafar orders.

  He leans forward from his perch beside me. “Very good,” he praises. “You are wet. Put your fingers on your pussy and hold your lips apart for me.”

  Part of me still wants to protest. “You might master me here,” I gasp, letting my fingers fall to my waist. “But only here—”

  His eyes hold mine. “Lower. I want to see.”

  Shuddering, I obediently move my fingers lower. Jafar’s eyes darken. Whether he knows it or not, my Guardian isn’t as in control as he thinks he is. He wants me. I love his reactions, the blazing light in his eyes, the almost imperceptible tightening of his muscles as he holds himself back from pouncing on me. My folds swell more, growing damper, wetter. Slicker. In another minute, my cream will slip from my pussy and onto the unforgiving stone. Deliberately, I ease myself open, watching his face.

  “Have you displayed yourself like this before?” Polite curiosity colors his voice, but his eyes are that hot, molten gold I love so much. Blazing with heat.

  He slips the tip of one finger inside me and my pussy squeezes greedily around the digit.

  His thumb gently strokes the side of my channel, driving all thought from my head. A bolt of pleasure streaks through me. Those knowing fingers drive me crazy and an urge to push down on the invading finger almost overwhelms me. “Imagine how those Cats in the gallery would have taken you if you had not agreed to our bargain. They toy with their prey before killing, you know.” He looks down, examining my slick flesh with a heated gaze, and the pleasure increases. “I’ll be large, more than you can take, but they would have had you, one after another. They would have crammed all that cock into your pussy until you howled.”

  Holding my gaze, he slides two fingers into my clenching pussy. “Would you howl from the pleasure or the pain of their possession?”

  “Put your fingers on your clit,” he orders. “Obedience. That was our bargain.”

  Greedily, I do as he orders. My fingers pull and tease the turgid bit of flesh. The orgasm boils up inside me and then the spasms seize my flesh, milking my Cat’s fingers.

  He stares down at my wet, clenching sex and smiles slowly. “Every day,” he promises. “I’m going to make you come every single day.”

  In the semi dark, I can’t see where he’s been keeping the bells. All I know is that the feel of the metal moving over me is a cool shock, the bells warming rapidly as they slide over my skin, along the curve of my throat and down to circle both breasts and my nipples.

  “Sweet,” he says, pausing to explore the soft indent of my belly button. His hands skim lightly down my thighs with a soft chime. His hands fasten something—the chain—around my waist and the cool hard-sweet touch of the metal follows as fingers delve with shocking bluntness between my thighs, stroking my stiff clit and pushing the bells inside me.

  “Where,” I pant, “do you Cats usually place them?” The male in the catacombs left too quickly. I feel Jafar’s hard mouth stretch in a smile against the taut skin of my belly.

  “Wherever brings our partners the greatest pleasure. Some like to wear the bells for all to see; those choose the curve of an ear, the throat, or wrist. Others are naughtier.”

  I believe him.

  “We can find out where you like them best.” He tugs gently and pleasure explodes within me, a liquid burning rushing through me where he’s placed the bells. As if every nerve ending in my body is now intimately, directly connected to Jafar. I can feel his heart pounding and the loud rush of his blood, followed by an incredible pulling sensation toward him. Sound roars in my ears, my entire body thrumming with tension. Desire. Unbea
rable heat.

  Dark words, poetic and brutal, pour from Jafar’s lips. “To you, my Huntress, I offer my soul. In you I trust and in your keeping place my soul. Your enemies are my enemies. Your lair is my lair. I defend you at all costs and none shall reach you but through me. You are the pride of my heart, hidden in the shadow of my arms from those who hunt us. You are my Huntress, the light of my life and always by my side. Call on me and I come eternally.”

  With each word, his fingers rub wickedly against the bells he’s placed inside me. Fiery darts of pleasure ripple through me as I sense the mating bond snap into place between us. I can hear the blood rushing through his veins and the frantic pounding of his heart. When he reaches out a hand toward me, I feel the smooth glide of muscles and—his Cat. I know Jafar’s werebeast is close to breaking free, that he’s fighting not to change in my arms.

  JAFAR

  Miu is liquid fire in my arms, deliciously sensitive to my touch. As the chain of bells locks into place and the words of the mating ritual pour from me, pulled out of me by an unseen force, the mating bond activates. Binds us together with shooting tendrils of sensation that connect her body to mine and mine to hers in ways I couldn’t have imagined. Each luscious stroke of my fingers against her sex plucks at my own sensitized nerve endings. Sends the pleasure I give her straight back to me. I fight to control myself, to keep the werebeast locked away. Away from her.

  If I feel what she feels, would I feel her pain as well?

  It is almost as if this new connection between us will not end when I slip free of her body. That we are truly bound together, forever. Just mating with Miu has made me more vulnerable than I’d ever dreamed possible.

  Her hot, wet sex clenches around me in a sensuous demand. “More,” she orders. “Give me more, Jafar.” Just who has mastered whom?

  “Yes,” I growl. I’ll give her more. I have to give her more. “Open up,” I whisper harshly into her ear. Placing my hands on her thighs, I move them firmly apart. She hesitates, gasping as her sex slowly parts again, the lips separating like well-oiled petals in a smooth rush that I feel in every inch of my own cock.

  Oh, gods above. Pink and glistening, she is spread open before me like the haururu flower that blooms in the abovelands. I catch the same rich, exotic scent as I inhale deeply. Moisture runs from her sex, the small opening already fluttering in tiny spasms. Beautiful. She is so beautiful. I stroke a finger around her hole, rubbing the bells against a particularly sensitive spot, and she moans, her flesh clinging to me in a way she would never do outside of our bed. She likes to stand alone, my Miu.

  My cock twitches wildly, alive with the pleasure of the same stroke. Mirroring hers. Each touch I give her comes back to me a hundredfold through the mating bond, my cock swelling to the same rhythm as her clenching pussy.

  Leaving the tip of my finger hooked in her hot sex, I bend my lips to the stiff clit that begs for my attention. Moaning softly, she presses her legs wider—no reluctance, no fear of the Guardian between her thighs. Satisfaction and something stronger throbs through me.

  “Pleasure now,” I promise, need making my voice harsh.

  She pants beneath me and, for the first time since I was ruthlessly inducted into the ranks of the Guardians, I feel something new.

  “Pleasure for my femi.” My voice is a harsh whisper of need. Pinioning her hands behind her back with one of mine, I use my shoulders to spread her thighs and her sex wider, and then I eat her. My tongue licks roughly, demandingly at the hard kernel of her clit. I suckle her without mercy, withdrawing each time she nears the edge, withholding the orgasm from her.

  “You will not come,” I promise. “Not until I am inside you.”

  “Wanna bet?” She stares up at me, dazed with her arousal. Oh, gods, I love the sight of her. But her words? Oh, that is a challenge she will lose. I have spent a lifetime learning sexual restraint, sexual discipline. It is time I teach her, too.

  Moving my lips slowly back up her body, I finally claim her mouth. I stand her up in the water then, ignoring her protest as I turn her around, bend her over the large stone where she sat. I grab both her hands, anchoring them on the rock with one of my own. I am in control. She does not come until I allow it.

  I nudge her legs wide with my thighs, notching my cock at her entrance. This time, when I hold her swollen, wet lips apart, I remove the bells, placing myself inside her instead.

  She shudders with the pleasure. My mouth has teased and tormented her, denying her the relief that hovers so near now.

  This is better.

  Thicker, fuller, sliding in and out with a sensuous rhythm that makes her try to squirm beneath the heavy weight of my body pressing her down.

  And yet I hold her still, preventing her from grinding back against me to take for herself the orgasm that she needs so badly. In. Out.

  The water of the cenote is warm, lapping teasingly at her pussy as I force her legs wider still.

  She doesn’t care. All she wants is that orgasm I’ve held so tantalizingly out of her reach—and that I am strong enough to give her. I’ll make her come for hours.

  I thrust in a faster, deeper rhythm, surging inside her with powerful strokes that claim her, marked her as mine.

  “Now,” I promise, sliding the hot, thick length of cock deep inside her aching sex. “Now you will come. With me.”

  I ride her with deep, fast, rough strokes, slipping my hand around her body to find her aching clit.

  She keens with pleasure in response. My fingers stroke and flick her clit, massaging in deep circles around the pulsing point.

  The orgasm, when it comes, rips through us both.

  MIU

  What do I say to the male who gave me an erotic education that has upended my world?

  Thanks for the most erotic night of my life? True, but the sentiment tips my hand a wee bit.

  Do it again?

  Yeah, I like that one.

  Let me go?

  Fortunately, I don’t have to choose.

  I wake up alone.

  Jafar has apparently carried me off to his private chambers and left me there, mistakenly believing sex resolves matters between us once and for all. A small smile curves my lips. Poor kitty. He’s in for a shock if he thinks I’ll settle in to being a compliant little mate after one night of sex, no matter how mind-blowing or satisfying.

  Snap out of it. No time for mooning after the male. So what if he’s the hottest thing I’ve ever run across? The mark on my forearm twinges, reminding me that I have four days left to retrieve the necklace and take it to Lierr. My hired guard Ebo is patiently waiting just outside the Valley, but the travel from there to Shympolsk alone will take a week, so my time has run out.

  I can’t afford to be sidetracked by the bargain I made with Jafar. So what if last night was the best, most intense sex of my life? Just recalling Jafar’s feral intensity makes my pussy cream. Licking and biting. The sexy growl that erupts from his throat as he thrusts deep inside me. He had me clenching and moaning, seeing red when I closed my eyes. He’s that good. All right, so I’ve fallen in with one sexy kitty—but I still have my priorities straight. Get the necklace. Leave the Valley. Exchange the necklace for my sister. See? Crystal clear.

  Except I’ve acquired a different piece of jewelry altogether: Jafar’s bells. I can feel the damn things whenever I move: first the soft press of the chain, and then the luscious slickness where the bells stroke my pussy. The metal brushes against my labia, arousal building in a slow burn. Before I can stop myself, I stretch luxuriously beneath the thin fabric of the sheet, drawing the teasing metal caress up and down sensitive skin.

  Stop, I scold myself. There’s no time for self-indulgence. No more time to think about the Cat who tried to master me.

  I’ve kept my end of the bargain. I’ve mated with Jafar. Now I need to be on my way.

  A god-awful racket coming from outside the room has me wrapping the sheet around myself and striding to the wide arch of a window.
The opening looks out onto an interior courtyard currently being used for weapons practice.

  Tracing the noise to its source, I’m reminded of just why it’s wise to fear the Guardians. The warriors spar. Hard bodies collide, filling the air with male grunts and a musky, alluring scent. Counting quickly, I spot more than thirty males down there. How am I to get past that many shifters to go looking for the necklace again? They dominate the open space, prowling about with lazy, lethal grace.

  Amun Ra has an army.

  Behind me, the door opens. Closes. The cinnamon-rich smell of bread fills the air. Good. Apparently, kitty isn’t planning on starving me. When my stomach rumbles, he laughs.

  “Catch.”

  A cloth-wrapped bundle flies toward me and I pluck it unerringly out of the air. Breakfast. Unwrapping a flaky pastry and sinking my teeth into its sugary glaze, I perch on the windowsill and stare out.

  “I’m curious,” he says, his eyes going to my mouth as I lick sugar off my lips. “How’d you get involved?”

  “With what?” I reach for a fresh pastry; letting perfectly good food go to waste would be the true crime.

  “With Lierr.”

  “You’ve been to Shympolsk?”

  “Once or twice.” When I raise an eyebrow, he smiles. “We don’t have to remain in the Valley, love. We have been known to travel a bit.”

  “Well, there weren’t that many options in Shympolsk for my sort of girl. I was the mixed sort,” I explain, watching his face. Some people find my daemon blood offensive. A shifter should be all right with that sort of a birthright, but you never know. “Human mother. Daemon father. Most of the city residents dislike the daemonkind.” And that’s an understatement. I’ve seen daemons torn limb from limb when a crowd gets angry. “So I was fortunate to get a job at the tea gardens.” When I was small, I fetched and carried, made myself useful in a dozen small ways. When I started developing, however, the garden’s proprietor was less sure what to do with me. Most of his girls danced and poured tea, some of them doing a lucrative sideline in whoring, but I was a hands-off kind of girl.