“No, Neil. Let them go,” Drek says.
“My prince?” Neil replies, and Laz can hear how much the male suffers to give deference to their leader. “Please, I beg, my prince, do not let a viable female in heat leave with that thing from Below.”
“I have made Blood Oath, Neil, and Lazarus has made Blood Sacrifice. Would you have the moon wreak her vengeance on a Lanarre oathbreaker?”
It’s meant as a rhetorical question, but Laz thinks he can answer that one. He believes Neil would be more than fine to have their leader’s blood pour from every hole of his body. More than fine.
“Of course not, my prince.” To Laz, the reply is as shallow as a mud puddle.
Why the other of the Lanarre do not sense it is a mystery.
But it will remain unsolved by him. He wants what Tessa wants.
An escape.
A place to bed down while he recoups.
Tessa backs up, and Neil comes into full view of Laz’s slitted eyes.
Laz does not like the promise in those revolving silver eyes. The emotion of his gaze says many things.
Not the least of which is the clear message: “We are not through.”
But Laz is very certain that Drek, the prince of the Lanarre, will hold true on his end of the bargain.
A wayward Were with a vengeful agenda does not disturb Laz. The entire pack chasing after them while Dark Master's potential presence lurks about—does.
Drek holds his position, standing with the white bird, and as they back up and out of the circle of misery, Laz gets a flash of understanding.
Before the unconsciousness of healing can steal his wakefulness, a thought flits through his mind.
The bird is Tahlia come to rescue them. Then darkness claims him.
Tessa
Tessa doesn’t have any more tears to cry. Her ducts are completely out of tears.
She couldn’t wipe them because she was carrying Laz. So her face is just one big sticky, snotty mess.
Instead of wiping tears and waiting for the rescue cavalry, she trucked him to a place where there’s a bed.
It’s not much, and because she worried about Tramack, she only returned here every five years. But Tramack’s gone now.
Thank moon.
It’s not a place they can camp out forever, but Tessa is confident that they can be here long enough for Laz to get well and travel somewhere else.
Where that is, who the hell knows?
The tiny cabin sits in dense woods, and Tessa is tired. Being Were and alpha is barely enough. Laz is a huge male, and though his weight isn’t the issue, he’s so damn awkward. All legs and height.
She glances down at his body. And the blood.
Tessa’s been wolfen for a while, and she’s ravenous. All the emotional upheaval of the last day, coupled with the stress of the twenty-five miles or so she’s traveled, make for a hungry hippo.
Finally, she recognizes a few landmarks along the way, and with a shaky exhale of relief, she traverses the last miserable mile.
Just as she reaches the top, she hears a twig snap to her right.
Carefully, she lowers a naked Laz to the ground, takes the nanosecond to determine he’s still breathing, then sights in where her ears told her something living roams.
Moonlight carves a narrow swath of light through the canopy of the trees, and Tessa feels the pull of her mistress.
Heat rises, as it should, for as long as she breathes, she’s still the moon’s slave.
Beyond that, food lies just out of reach. With a last look at Laz, Tessa chooses a quick meal, knowing it might be the thing that allows them to persevere until she can figure out sustainable provisions.
Which is just a fancy way of figuring out stealing again. Tessa’s not proud of it, but she’s never had the luxury of choice.
Leaping, she lands where the noise was, scenting game. Cougar.
Racing after the escaping animal, Tessa knows it’ll only be a minute or two before she overtakes it.
Laz will be okay; he was out cold.
A girl’s gotta eat.
Laz
Laz comes awake because he’s chilled.
To the bone.
He lets his eyes adjust to the dark. Because Laz is demonic, he typically sees better in the dark than in the light of the big bright orb in the realm of Between.
However, a cool silvery light reveals shapes scattered around him, both shadow and illumination over his body.
A backpack lies beside him.
Tessa. He remembers her taking him away from where he was lashed. The blood.
His very last coherent thought was of the Lanarre princess, Tahlia. She returned in bird form—for them, he’s sure of it. She and Tessa formed a bond of sorts, and for reasons unknown, it was enough to compel her to return to the Lanarre den of the Hoh.
Laz sits up, and nausea combined with vertigo assail him. Placing a hand to his head, he parts his lips, and a belch bursts forth. It smells slightly of sulfur.
What he wouldn’t do for a good torture-and-gorge session. Briefly, Laz wonders who’s taken over his position Below.
Tessa might think him cruel if she were to share a few moments inside his head—unless she knew who was on the receiving end of punishments both horrific and just.
Lazarus is demonic. It has always been his unique privilege to torture those who deserved their everlasting stay in Hades. All who reside Below are deserving.
However, under Praile it would become a chore. Those who deserved a lesser punishment would undoubtedly receive more. Of course, Praile had been dealt with, so no more Praile tortures.
Laz is glad to be free of Below. His Redemptive has been found.
He slowly scans his surroundings, sensing Tessa close by. When the scent of hot blood reaches his nostrils a moment later, he smiles. She is hunting.
Excellent.
Looking around once more, he spies the steps of a small structure just paces from where he lies on a mossy patch of forest.
Closing his eyes, Laz lets the unique senses he has branch outward, tendrils of his innate power reaching for information. Through these unique senses, he ascertains the Lanarre den is perhaps thirty miles from their current position and a feline of some kind is currently dying while his female feeds.
The small house behind him smells of her somehow. Finally, he understands that Tessa would not have left him had she not been desperate and also felt as though they were safe. At least for a time.
Testing his strength, Laz rolls over to his hands and knees then takes a moment or two before shoving off.
Standing, he staggers to the nearest tree and hangs on until his immediate environment stops spinning like a top.
After a full two minutes, he’s ready.
Following his nose and excellent hearing, he walks about five minutes inside the canopy of dense woods, gliding silently between thick trunks that barely accommodate his size, and reaches a wondrous sight.
His Redemptive is on her knees, tearing into the organs of the feline. He vaguely recognizes the species but cannot remember it.
Laz deals in human subjects. The animals of this plane are unimportant in his grand scheme.
Tessa turns, somehow sensing him, though Laz knows he is scentless.
“Laz,” she says, and a small piece of dangling meat falls from her mouth, plopping to the ground beside the dead animal.
Clearly embarrassed, she tries to cover her mouth.
“No. Do not be ashamed.”
Laz scents the blood and becomes ravenously hungry. Yet he is weak.
Tessa stands, fully nude and in her between form. Not wolf, but neither human.
“Laz!” she calls out as he sways.
He puts up a palm, giving her the universal signal to pause. “I am well.”
“That’s a bunch of bullshit,” she says, and as he watches, she melts back into the first form of females of the Were. Tessa calls it quarter-change.
Laz calls it beautiful.
With careful steps, he manages to come to her side. His eyes rove to the carcass of the feline.
Mountain lion, his tired mind supplies him. Ah yes.
Taking his Redemptive’s hand, he gazes into her eyes and says simply, “Let us feast.”
Her grin is shy.
They drop to their knees and do what supernaturals do when they’re starving.
Dine well.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Jenni
“Wait!” the Were directly in front of her bellows. No way in hell. Jenni slams the door behind her, and shattered glass rains down, chattering like musical crystal. Dimly, she’s aware that Ella’s screaming.
The men charge. Then they flare wide, one coming head-on and the other two flanking the main guy.
“Come closer, and I’ll fillet your balls,” Jenni promises, whipping her talon-tipped nails to her sides, at once shocked and fiercely happy about her choice of words.
Their eyes shift to each other as they inch closer.
Jenni smiles. She could get really, really used to being a tough chick.
They approach her like she’s crazy, and they might be half right. Because at this moment—on a handful of hours of sleep, with what she’s lived in the last three days—Jenni feels a little insane.
Or more than a little.
The guy in the center holds up his palms, but since his are tipped by the same kind of talons hers are, she’s not relieved.
He flicks his eyes to his talons, and they slide back into the beds of his fingertips. The blood from their eruption slows, then a thin covering of skin begins to cover the sealing wound.
Wow, Jenni thinks, that’s incredible.
“We’re not here to hurt you.”
Right. Because Bray and crew had been so accommodating, along with those horrible Lanarre who tried to breed Adi.
Jenni decides to err on the side of caution, thank you very much.
His hair is a brilliant red. In fact, it’s burnt orange. But his eyes are like two pieces of coal in his head. Large and dark, they are steady on hers.
Mesmerizing.
Jenni shakes her head a little, trying to clear it. She feels fuzzy. Are his eyes spinning? she wonders.
The other two close in at her sides.
She scents them a second before they make a grab for her. She whips out those talons like a deck of cards and slices them.
“Fuck!” one bellows at her left.
Score.
The other grabs both her arms, and she drives her knee into his balls.
“Hey!” Devin screams.
Jenni makes a fatal mistake, turning at the sound of Devin’s voice.
Then the red-headed man is on her, flattening her against the car.
He steals her breath, her thoughts, slapping her arms tight to the sides of the car. She can’t move.
Jenni’s so mad at herself, she could kick her own ass.
She looks up into those unreadable dark eyes. Frustrated tears sprouting like weeds in her eyes, she says lamely, “Don’t hurt us.”
He presses tighter. “Oh don’t worry, we aren’t here to hurt you.”
Jenni’s eyes widen.
Because she’s suddenly aware that there’s a huge erection between the two of them.
In the next moment, her wonderful strong wolf-girl body starts to melt back to human, and the next thing she notices is how small she is.
And how big he is.
Bray
“That fucker!” Bray bellows, picking his ass up off the sticky Denny’s floor.
“Bray,” Earl moans, rolling over and clutching his shattered wrist.
“What the fuck?” Billy says, holding his head, where a terrific, triangle-shaped dent is beginning to fill in nicely.
Un-fucking-believable. Bray feels like he belongs to a really bad Three Stooges trio.
And every dickhead in the world is inside the Denny’s, staring, as the three of them groan and grapple on the floor.
Enough of this shit. Bray stands, checks out the slices that fucking Were made all over him, and sees they are already healing. He scans his immediate surroundings, totally getting that he’ll need more food.
Bray would do just about anything for a bump about now. Just one teeny, tiny hit of coke would be mighty fine.
Unfortunately, their prime weasel for stash had been dumped like trash when Bray went to meet with him, as dead as dead could be. Not a baggie of the powder in sight.
Pissed Bray clean off.
Then he got a whiff of Were pussy, and his entire mood turned around.
He and his little troupe had tried a little sex of the gang-bang variety before, and Bray had gotten a taste for it.
That was how they got nailed and became fucking werewolves in the first place.
There was this little bitch from Bray’s high school who hadn’t ever put out. MacKenzie Fletcher. Hot as fuck. She knew it too.
Didn’t amount to dick, though. She hadn’t gone on to be the next great anything after all. She was working a cafe job in the middle of the oldest section of Port Townsend with all the other hippie dredge.
Bray had seen her a few times. Got an idea.
Phoned his buddies and told them there was a chick who would do all five of them. Of course, as he knew they would be, they were all on board with that plan.
When Little Miss Priss left the cafe and started walking home, she didn’t look around. Not worried about nothinʼ. Chicks like MacKenzie don’t have anything to worry about.
They just spread their whore legs, and along comes some dumb sap who’ll fall between them.
Not Bray.
He remembers their conversation from that fateful day exactly.
Bray gave the signal for his dudes to hang back, saying some shit like she’s shy at first. He watched her round little ass stride to her hipster apartment only a few blocks away from the dive she works at.
She’ll be late getting home, he’d thought with a smirk.
Suddenly, he was beside her, and she startled.
Right away, stuck-up MacKenzie knew who he was. “Hi, Bray,” she said hesitantly.
She remembered him not because of high school, because God knows MacKenzie Fletcher would never have looked at Bray back then.
She knew him because he was a regular customer at her dumpy cafe, where MacKenzie had to serve him. Bray enjoyed that shit a lot. He always stared her down.
Made her uncomfortable as fuck, which pleased him even more.
“Was thinking I could walk you home,” Bray said, feeling a manic impulse to giggle. He shoved it down ruthlessly.
It’s so fun to play with the defenseless.
“Thanks,” she said, pushing a strand of naturally platinum-blond hair behind her ear, “I’m okay.”
She started walking faster. And at six feet two, Bray wagered he was nearly a foot taller.
Even if she ran, he would be able to catch her.
Then she did.
Hot damn. Inserting his fingers in the sides of his mouth, he blew a shrill whistle.
He and the boys were on her in seconds, Bray lifting Sweet Britches right off her feet.
She went to scream, and Bray covered her mouth with a palm. “Bite me, and I kill you,” he said soft and low against her temple.
MacKenzie gave a tiny shake of her head.
Bray steered her into an alley. Plowing her against the nearest brick wall, he dropped his hands and started palming her breasts.
“Please,” she said, looking at the four other sets of eyes then back to his own, “I haven’t done anything to you.”
“No, but we're gonna do things to you,” Bray promised.
They closed in.
Hands and mouths were everywhere. They stripped MacKenzie while she got tears and snot all over everything.
Earl backed up. “Hey, I thought you said she was int
o it.”
“I’m not into...” the bitch began to speak. Wrong move.
Bray backhanded her, and she tumbled to the cement, her jeans at her knees.
“I don’t think she got the memo, Bray,” Earl said, looking uneasily from the half-naked MacKenzie to him.
Bray jerked his jaw back, eyebrows hiked. “What are you? Some kind of fag?”
Earl’s face twisted into indecision. And it was simple to see the direction the small wheels of his brain were turning because Bray called his manhood into question.
Billy didn’t have the same reservation, dropping to his knees behind MacKenzie. She tried to crawl away, her progress impeded by the jeans that are still half on. Gripping her hips, he yanked off the panties, tearing the fragile material.
“No!” she screamed.
“This is so fucking wrong, Bray,” Earl said, backing away while Billy lines up his dick to impale Miss Priss.
Fuck that. I’m first to get on that pony. “Doesn’t feel wrong to me!” Bray said, turning and kicking Billy and his throbbing hard-on out of the way.
He landed on his side hard, hollering, “You crushed my dick, you fucker!”
But Bray was busy homing in on the prize.
He walked around to where MacKenzie was still trying to crawl away, her open pussy flashing the world.
And damn if his mouth didn’t begin to salivate.
Sinking to his knees, he latched onto MacKenzie’s hips, then realizing his pants are still latched, he cursed.
Tearing apart the snap and zip, he jerked them down past his ass. Bray was a commando dude out of sheer practicality.
He aimed his prick at the bull’s-eye and—
Hands like flesh vises latched on to his shoulders and heaved him maybe half the length of the alley.
Bray landed hard, the back of his skull cracking against the pavement. Damn, that thing about seeing stars—it’s all true.
Then the screaming started.
Hey, Bray’s muddled brain managed, don’t start without me! He tried to move but couldn’t.
Then it occurred to him that the screaming wasn’t feminine, but masculine.
Men were screaming.
Bray managed to finally roll over and screamed himself. A bunch of his ribs were broken, judging by his inability to gather a fucking breath. He bit his lip, getting to his hands and knees, and did a laborious spin.
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