Primal Bounty_Pendragon Gargoyles
Page 32
Titania nodded, a tear slipping down her cheek. She brushed it away, pride beaming from her face as she looked at Elena. “I suppose we should talk.”
Elena’s father, who was the last to join them, took in the giant and then glanced at Vaughn. “Are you always naked?”
***
“You know, my father was right,” Elena said to Vaughn a few days later. “You are always naked.”
“Not sure this is the best time to bring up your dad, Ivy.”
“Don’t.” Elena warned, backtracking away from him. “I know that look.”
“And what look is that?” Vaughn asked innocently, tracking her movements.
They’d been in his home for two days and already she’d figured out the fastest exit path from just about every room.
Except this one.
“Your sneaky wolf look.” Her eyes darted around the room, returning to him. More precisely the door directly behind him. It was the only way out of the small room that was empty except for the two of them.
There wasn’t even a window for her to make use of, and he’d discovered his mate was damn good at slipping out windows.
“There are things we still need to talk about,” she said, trying to reason with him.
There hadn’t been any reasoning with him since they got home, and he didn’t see that changing anytime soon.
Once Titania had finally set his mind at rest about Piper, promising she’d be home soon, he’d allowed himself to focus entirely on his mate.
Soon enough they would have to deal with the fallout of all the secrets everyone had been keeping and try to find some kind of new normal.
But today was not that today. It wasn’t yesterday either. And probably not tomorrow.
He had a lot to make up for, and without the threat of losing the people closest to him hanging over his head, he intended to make every second count. Even the seconds when his mate playfully bolted away from him. Especially those ones. She knew exactly how much the wolf liked to chase, how much the man like to catch her.
And he knew how much she loved being caught.
“Your mouth is saying you want to talk, but your body is saying something entirely different.”
“Okay Barkley, I’ll bite. What is my body saying?”
He took another step into the room, felt the shiver of anticipation that went through his mate.
He’d felt their bond strongly before, but whatever the hell happened when she’d touched him and the Iron Queen at the same time had magnified everything. Their physical connection, their emotional one, and every sensation in between had become heightened.
“Your pulse is picking up speed.” He advanced.
“Maybe I don’t like to be hunted.”
“I know. You love it.”
A tiny smile that she tried to hide ghosted across her lips. She came up against the wall. “That all you got?”
“Your eyes never leave mine.”
“It’s not a good idea to take your eyes off your opponent.”
He caught her hand, drawing her palm to his mouth. “Your fingers keep tightening and relaxing as if they’re already wrapped around me.”
Her lips parted.
“And you’re already wet for me, aren’t you?” He slipped his hands under the shirt of his she’d dragged on earlier, and cupped her ass.
He knew she hadn’t gotten around to putting on panties, but finding her bare under the material fired his own pulse.
Hell, watching her smile from across the room fired his pulse. Along with the sound of her laughter, the line that appeared between her brows when she was thinking hard, and the wild rain drenched blueberries and vanilla scent that drove him crazy.
She parted her legs, and he dragged his hand up the inside of her thigh.
Every time he thought he got the worst of his need for her out of his system, it blindsided him all over again.
Elena came up on her toes, twining her arms around his neck. He pressed her hard into the wall, but she didn’t seem to mind. Probably because she was too busy destroying his mouth with one agonizingly slow stroke of her tongue after another.
She nipped his jaw, then pushed her mouth harder against his, lingered longer, and he suddenly wasn’t sure if he was even in control anymore.
He knew he should try to get her back to his room where there was a real bed, but there wasn’t a force on earth that would make him let go of her enough to make that happen.
And then Elena slipped a hand between them and it was a done deal. He tucked his face against her throat, his breath hissing out as he rocked against her, soft and slow.
Fuck.
He scooped her up, pinning her to the wall as she wrapped her legs around him, drawing him right where he wanted to be.
Holding her gaze, watching every flicker of blue lightning that flashed in her eyes, he pushed up inside her.
They both moaned, the sound lost between their lips. He opened his mouth again and again, tasting his mate, catching every breathless sigh as he sank into her over and over.
The heat of her taking him deeper, the soft, wet walls clenching him tighter, drove him to the edge.
It had only been hours since the last time he’d been inside her, and he couldn’t get enough. Would never get enough. Each time he pushed up inside her was like coming home. Home to the smartest, sexiest, bravest female he’d ever met.
And she was his.
“Vaughn,” she murmured, catching his face in her hands, pleasure pinkening her cheeks, her lips parting as she cried out.
Sweet Avalon he was so insanely in love with her. Had been long before he even realized it.
And knowing that, feeling it wrench him all the way down to his soul, sent his own release curling up his backbone.
He lifted her higher, sank deeper, thrust harder, riding the pleasure until deep, satisfying shudders wracked his body.
He planted a hand against the wall to keep from crushing her.
“Bed. Now,” she demanded, tucking her face against his neck, her body softening in his arms.
“Now who’s giving the orders?” Laughing, he carried her down the hall.
“Don’t—”
She was two seconds too late.
He tossed her on the bed, and followed her down, landing hard enough on the mattress to make her bounce. He roped an arm around her waist, drawing her against his chest before she could squirm away to punish him for throwing her.
“Not cool.” She sighed dramatically and snuggled closer.
They lay together staring into the darkness until he caught her rubbing her chest.
She’d promised him she was fine, and the wolf certainly didn’t perceive any threats, but Vaughn hadn’t made up his mind.
He rose up on one elbow, hovering over her. She’d gone back to masking her tracings, but didn’t hide the new Fae glyph, although she told him she could.
“So she’s really in there?” Vaughn circled the gray heart of the glyph. “Can she hear us?”
“I don’t think so. She said she was going to sleep. She’s…” she trailed off, that sexy line appearing between her brows.
Sweet Avalon, she needed to stop doing that if she wanted him to ever let her out of bed.
“Trust and slumber,” she said, adorably oblivious to the direction his thoughts were taking. Again. She glanced at him, but he still wasn’t following.
“That’s what the blonde—Kel’s mate—said in Alrick’s dungeon.”
The mere mention of the other immortal made the wolf bristle. Elena had left the other sorcerer’s fate to her father with the stipulation that he not suffer and have time to grieve fully for his daughter’s loss.
While Elena said she knew that Morgana had ultimately caused the young sorceress’ death, she would carry it with her always.
Vaughn understood that all too well. There were some moments, some choices, that could never be undone.
“That’s what she said,” Elena continued. “Trust and slumber
. Maybe that’s what I was supposed to do all along, trust that Lacie’s magic wouldn’t corrupt me, and she would sleep.” She peered up at him. “Do you think Kel’s mate is an Oracle?”
“I hope for Kel’s sake that she’s not.” Clairvoyant immortals were rare and usually went mad from their visions.
Elena rolled to her side and faced him. “We still have to talk about Rutger. Or Titania. Or whatever we’re supposed to call her now. Do we keep her secret? Let the rest of the world believe Rutger is no more than a gargoyle—”
“No more than a gargoyle?” he echoed, dragging her beneath him. It was easier to give his mate a hard time than it was to decide something that could impact more than just the rebellion.
Titania had her secrets, and ultimately her own agenda, but everything she’d done so far had been to protect all of Avalon from those who coveted power at the cost of others.
“Oh no!” Elena shoved at his shoulders without any real effort. “We have to go—”
“You’re right. We should go.” He vaulted off the bed.
“What?” She sat up looking as wrecked as he felt. Damn it was a good feeling. “Go where?”
“Vegas.”
“Now?”
“What? Have you decided to keep a schedule now that you have a dead queen in residence?”
She threw a pillow at him. “She’s not dead exactly.”
Titania hadn’t been all that clear on that detail either, but that was a conversation for another day, too. Because they needed to get packed.
The more he thought about it, the better it sounded. “Haul ass, Ivy. We’ve got a date with a Blackjack table. Mac will have lifted my ban on entering his casino by now.”
“He banned you? And you want to go back?” She groaned and flopped back on the bed. “Glutton for punishment.”
He opened his mouth to reply, stopped short by banging on his front door.
Although muffled, the visitor’s voice reached them. “Vaughn?”
Piper?
He tore out of the room and down the stairs, jumping down the last few steps to reach the landing. He ripped the front door open, fear, love and bone-deep relief constricting his lungs. “You’re here.”
Piper took one look at him and fell apart. She threw herself into his arms. “He left me.” Sobs wracked her body.
He glanced helplessly at Elena, who’d followed him down the stairs.
Piper hugged him tighter. “That bastard left without even saying goodbye.”
Well shit.
***
“Is this really necessary?”
Elena adjusted the buckle between them, trying not to grin at the waver in Vaughn’s voice. “Absolutely.”
“I’m not sure we should have left Piper.”
“Nessa is keeping an eye on her.”
“Again, I’m not sure we should have left Piper.”
A smile curved her lips, the kind that started out as a sizzling warmth in her chest and burst across her face.
She’d been smiling like that a lot in the last few days and looked forward to a lifetime of them. Once they got a few kinks worked out.
She yanked on the strap.
“Is it supposed to be that tight?”
“I don’t know about you, but I think it’s better if we don’t land head-first in the ravine.”
He leaned to the right and gazed past the edge of the bridge where she’d already secured their bungee cord.
He visibly paled, and it only made her grin wider.
“This is not funny. I feel light-headed.” He grabbed her hand and put it on his forehead. “Do I feel clammy to you?”
“You feel like a Shadow who’s about to conquer his fear of heights.”
“I’m not…afraid. Just taking a little time to figure out who will look after my sister if I do land head-first in the ravine.”
“Dare has it under control.” At least he did as long as he bought the right ice cream for a broken-hearted female and stopped asking Nessa if he could play with her sword.
Piper hadn’t said much about her abduction and even less about whatever went on between her and the wraith.
Erec had given up on targeting Elena without them knowing why he’d gone after her in the first place. Titania hadn’t known either, or so she claimed. The one and only time Elena had asked Vaughn’s sister about it, the younger gargoyle had shut down.
“I still think—”
She grabbed a fistful of Vaughn’s shirt and yanked him forward until their mouths met. He wrapped his arms around her, dragging her all the way against his body.
It would be so easy to let the charge of heat that raced across her skin sweep her away. She could have him back in the car in less than a minute, have half their clothes off in two.
But as much as she loved climbing into the backseat with him and steaming up every freaking window, she wasn’t letting anything postpone their mission.
“You sure you’re not under the Iron Queen’s influence because this feels—”
She bit his bottom lip. “The wolf is on board. I can see it in your eyes.”
“He’s a traitor,” Vaughn growled, pulling her back for another scorching kiss. “It’s a damn good thing I love you.”
She melted against him, letting the light inside burn so hot she felt both man and wolf grip her tighter.
“Ivy,” he murmured, sounding like he was moments from dragging her to the car.
She forced herself to let go. “You’re going to thank me when it’s over. And then beg me to do it again.”
“Are you sure we’re not talking about this morning? Because you were amazing.”
She punched him in the arm, and he laughed.
She backed him into position, and he exhaled nervously.
“Okay, Superman. Time to fly.” She grabbed her mate and stepped off the edge.
THE END
THANK YOU!
Thanks so much for reading Primal Bounty! I hope you enjoyed it, and I would be so grateful if you’d consider posting a review. Reviews really help new readers discover my books, and anything you can manage (long or short, I won’t judge *g*) is truly appreciated.
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The other books in the series are, Primal Instinct, Primal Hunger, Primal Attraction, Primal Pleasureand Primal Temptation
BOOKS BY SYDNEY
Pendragon Gargoyles
Primal Instinct
Primal Hunger
Primal Attraction
Primal Pleasure
Primal Temptation
Primal Bounty
Spellbound
Say You’re Mine
Don’t Let Go
Whatever It Takes
Must Be Magic
Shadow Destroyers
Unbreakable
Stripped Away
Storm Warning
Dark Obsession
Single Titles
From Tonight Until Forever Trilogy
Busted
Call Me Cupid
By the Light of the Moon
Trust Me
Enslaved
Waitin’ on a Hero
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A born and raised Maritimer, Sydney Somers fell in love with writing when she finished her first story, Jenny and the Glowing Green Mittens. Thirty novels and novellas later, Sydney is thrilled to spend her days slaying demons, running with shape-shifter packs and making the people in her head fall wildly in love.
When she’s not writing or curled up with a good book, Sydney can be found chasing after her herd of kids, talking her way into a gourmet meal, exterminating rogue dust bunnies or joking about the pending zombie apocalypse. She loves hearing from readers and invites them to contact her anytime.
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Primal Bounty Copyright 2018 by Sydney Somers
All Rights Reserved
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at sydney@sydneysomers.com.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
PRIMAL BOUNTY
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THANK YOU!
BOOKS BY SYDNEY
ABOUT THE AUTHOR