by Maia Dylan
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Mani spat right in her ear as he pulled her back against him, wrapping his other hand around her waist. Lucy fought to get free, trying to get her foot up and back to kick him, but he had shoved his leg between hers and stopped her. Thrashing wildly and twisting to get away from him she knew he wasn’t expecting her to be as strong as she was.
“Keep fighting Lucy, it makes it all the more enjoyable for me,” Mani spoke harshly in her ear. Then he bit her earlobe—hard.
She shouted at the pain and tried to cringe away. When he released her, she felt a thick, warm wetness slide down her throat. The crazy bastard had bitten her. And ewww, he was aroused! She could feel his hard-on pressing into her bottom.
The growling on the link turned to snarling, and she knew that one or both her men had obviously shifted. God, she hoped Cody hadn’t been driving at the time. Ignoring the sounds coming from the bond, she kept it open so they could know what was happening but turned her concentration on Mani.
Someone spoke from behind her. “Jefe!”
Of course he would bring his henchmen! Mani spun so that he was looking back at the car. Both his bodyguards and another smaller man were all standing by the car. None looked shocked at all by the fact that their boss was manhandling and biting an innocent woman just in front of them. They actually looked bored! Lucy saw red.
“We need to get her in the car. It will be easier for you to control her in the cabin,” Thug Number One said, swirling his sunglasses in his hand like he hadn’t a trouble in the world.
Lucy caught sight of a holstered gun under his jacket. She hoped her guys weren’t too far gone not to have received the image she sent them. Then she was being dragged into the car kicking and screaming the entire way. Mani picked her up and threw her into the trunk. She yelped when her side contacted the hard floor.
“Christ, Lucy, if I had known you had this much fight in you, I wouldn’t have taken so long to come for you.” Mani gave her a smile that turned her blood cold. Then he slammed the trunk.
As soon as it was closed, Lucy pulled her hands up in front of her and started to use her teeth to get free. The rope was fairly tight, and her wrists were chaffed and close to bleeding. The car started up again, and she braced her legs against the sides of the trunk and kept on trying to get the rope free. Her anger spiked at the feeling of being so helpless, which triggered something wolfy in her, because her canines dropped and she felt a wave of strength flow through her entire body until she was shaking from it.
Her teeth made quick work of the rope in that state, and she spun around until she was able to place her sneakered feet against the trunk and waited. After a few minutes, the car came to a halt and she heard voices outside. Two of the men were heading inside to get the room set up, which sounded dreadfully like it was being set up for her. One came round to open the trunk while Mani took his play bag out of the back of the car.
Now, Lucy didn’t know what he had in that play bag, but she had the feeling it was definitely not something she wanted to have anything to do with. The trunk lock clicked open and Lucy pushed up with all the enhanced strength in her legs. The lid caught the guy under the chin and she was gratified to watch him fall to the ground, hard, blood pouring from his mouth. Leaping out of the trunk with a speed and agility she hadn’t known she had, she caught Mani just as he had dropped his bag, and was making his way in her direction.
Channeling her inner Jackie Chan, with a move she had only seen on his movies, she spun and kicked out with her foot. Unbelievably she caught him in the side of the jaw and he dropped to the ground. “Holy shit, I did that?” she squeaked as she stood there, hands fisted, heart pounding and breathing heavily.
Footsteps had her turning her head in the direction of the cabin. The two henchmen were running back in her direction, pulling their guns as they went.
“Run!” came down her link.
It was both of them, and they didn’t have to tell her twice! She took off into the forest to the left. Wolfy speed made her faster than she had ever been before in life! Not that she had ever been a sprinter, or an endurance runner or hell even a jogger, but she made it into the forest faster than she thought possible. She heard shots from behind her, but nothing stung or hurt so she didn’t slow down.
“Kitten, Cody and I are in the forest making our way to you. We aren’t far away. Run back toward the road. We’ll find you,” Brendan said, and she got a very wolfy vibe from him so assumed they were shifted.
Turning right she kept running, hoping she was heading in the right direction. She had never had the best sense of direction. She could hear Mani screaming for her men to “get that stupid cunt,” which she assumed was her.
Slowing down to try to get a better idea of where she should head, she heard footsteps running through the bush behind her. Frantically looking around, she saw a tree that had fallen, and it had a hollowed area at the bottom where it the wood had rotted away. Running over to it, and praying that there were no animals or God forbid spiders in her potential hidey-hole. Sliding in she wriggled in as far back as she could go then froze. Ignoring the smell of rotting wood, she listened.
Mani’s men ran into the area just in front of the tree and stopped, as if unsure of where to go next. They started speaking in rapid-fire Spanish, which was way too fast for her to catch. Then they headed off, leaving her alone in her spot. She waited in silence to make sure they weren’t coming back, and then she carefully eased out of her tree trunk. Shuddering when a large spider ran down her arm, she leapt to her feet and did her patented there’s-a-spider-on-me, pat-down dance. Just as she was about to take off again, she heard the click of a gun being cocked.
“Turn around, puta, or I will just forget about the money I could earn from you and just shoot you,” Mani said quietly from behind her.
She turned, her hands raised.
“Why the fuck did you run, Lucy? Surely staying with me in the city would be preferable to being out here in butt-fuck nowhere!”
Mani shook the gun in her direction and Lucy saw a crazed gleam in his eye. Lucy tried to stall for time. “Mani, you shot Seth in front of me. You told me you were selling me to other men. What the heck did you expect me to do?”
“I expected you to—”
Screams from the forest behind Lucy suddenly filled the air. Along with the growling and snarling of two very pissed-off wolfs. Her men had come for her.
“What the fuck is that? Juan! Ricky! What’s going on?” Mani screamed for his men, but they were too busy, well, being used as chew toys to respond.
The snarling, growling, and furious barking was suddenly the only sound coming out of the forest. All sounds the two men had been making stopped completely.
Then it was silent. All Lucy could hear was Mani’s harsh breathing. He swung the gun right and left as if looking for a target. “What the hell kind of animals do you think were making that noise?”
Lucy couldn’t help the grin she shot Mani, as she lowered her hands and looked at him, suddenly calmer than she had been since she had woken up in that trunk. “Wolves, Mani. They’re wolves. And they’re mine.” She turned her head to the left slightly. Some sixth sense alerting her to Cody walking toward her in wolf form. He was gorgeous! He had more black in his fur than Brendan did.
Cody’s arctic blue eyes never left Mani, teeth bared and a low continuous growl rumbling from his chest. Mani froze and terror filled his eyes. Yeah, her man was impressive in any form, but as a wolf, blood coating the fur around his muzzle, in full on protection mode, he was breathtaking. Cody walked right to her side, and stood beside her gently nudging her back a little so he stood slightly in front of her. He was so huge his head reached her at chest height. She stroked her fingers through his soft pelt, tilting her head at Mani, wanting to keep his attention on her, because she knew Brendan was out there somewhere working his way toward him.
“What’s wrong, Mani? You’ve gone quite green?” Lucy inquir
ed as polite as can be.
Mani’s hand shook and he lowered the gun toward Cody, who seemed to swell and grow even bigger, his whole body tensed as if to spring forward. “Lucy, call off your dog. Call him off and come to me now, or I’ll shoot him!” Mani’s voice shook with fear and Lucy was scared he would shoot accidentally he was shaking so much.
“It wouldn’t matter if I was to call Cody off. He won’t leave me. And even if the world suddenly turned upside down and he did leave my side, it still wouldn’t save you from the reckoning that is coming your way.”
“What the fuck are you talking about, you crazy bitch?” Spittle flew out of his mouth and he turned an interesting shade of red.
“I’m talking about the fact that I don’t have just one wolf, Mani. I have two.”
As if on cue, Brendan flew out of the woods, teeth bared, and hit Mani hard from the side. Cody suddenly reared up on two legs and Lucy fell back on her butt. A gunshot echoed through the forest, and then nothing but snarling and screaming again. Lucy closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. Knowing it was over, she was suddenly very tired. She lay on the forest floor and stared up at the morning sky.
“Lucy, pet, are you okay?”
Cody appeared, looking concerned. He was back in human form, and Lucy stared at his blood-streaked chest. She sat up suddenly remembering the gunshot.
“Are you okay? Were you hit?”
She ran her hands over his chest and abdomen searching for bullet holes.
“Pet, that’s going to have a completely different effect on me than the one you’re after.” He groaned as he helped her to her feet.
Satisfied that he wasn’t hurt, Lucy hesitated a moment, then turned around to check on her other mate. Brendan was still standing over Mani’s prone body, guarding the kill like wolves in the wild. Lucy stepped in his direction then stopped when Brendan bared his teeth at her.
Lucy gasped, “Brendan? Did you just snarl at me?” Cody stepped forward to place a hand on her arm, but she pulled away from him and stepped closer.
Brendan tilted his head and looked at her. “Lucy, my love, I think it would be best if you stepped back and away from Brendan at the moment. He’s a little more wolf than man.”
Cody again attempted to grab her arm and pull her back behind him. But Lucy snapped! She had been punched, kidnapped, thrown into the trunk of a car, beaten on, forced into hiding with the hugest spider ever, and then held at gunpoint. No way in hell was Brendan going to get away with snarling at her.
Wrenching her arm away from Cody, she marched up to Brendan and whapped him on the nose with her knuckles. “No! Bad wolf, man, mate, or whoever it is you are more of than the others right now.” Lucy put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “You don’t ever get to snarl or growl at me when you’re all wolfy. Do you hear me? Now, you need to get over whatever shit is going on in your head and come back to me. I have reached for you down our link and all I get is growly wolf here snapping at me and I will not have it!”
She whapped him on the nose again, and his wolf whimpered a little. “You hear me? Now, this is what is going to happen. You are going to shift back to your usual stunning manly self, and then you are going to let me check you for injuries so I know that you are okay. You are then going to hug the shit out of me because I have had a really, really craptastic day! Then I want a burger, a shot of whiskey, a beer, and some really hot sex, not necessarily in that order!” Lucy knew that she sounded hysterical, but she’d really had a bad day.
“Kitten, I need some time.” Brendan’s voice came to her down their link, raspy and deeper than usual. “My wolf needs to feel the forest for a while. Go with Cody. I’ll make my own way back to the house.”
Before she could utter the objection that hovered in her mind, he threw up a mental barrier across the link between them all and turned to go into the forest. Lucy wrapped her arms around herself, heart aching for her wolf. He must have sensed her upset, because just before he edged into the forest, he turned back and looked at her.
* * * *
“So, pet, we have ticked off the hug and whiskey from your list. Why don’t you jump into the bath and relax for a while, and I’ll rustle up some burgers for us?” Cody cajoled his unusually quiet mate. They had gone back to the cabin and discovered Ty clearing all signs of the car and men from the area. Ty told him that he had called up a team to come in and clear the forest. They would make sure that there would be nothing to find of the men they had killed out there today and nothing that pointed to them ever having been here. Cody sat with his mate on his lap, the fear of losing her still too close to the surface for him to risk not having her in his arms.
“AJ and Sam?” he asked his alphas down their link.
“Both in surgery. We’ll know more in a couple of hours,” Trent sent back.
As soon as they were dropped off, Cody had set Lucy down and given her a large whiskey, which, not surprisingly, she chugged. He then cleaned up her wounds, grateful for the enhanced healing their mating had given her. He gently pushed her in the direction of their bathroom and moved to leave when her hand reached out to hold his arm to stop him. He looked down, moved by how small her hand was against his arm.
“There was something else on that list that I find myself more in need of, Cody.”
He looked up at her, expecting to see sadness, or maybe a blank bleakness, in her eyes. He found none of that. What he did find had his cock standing to attention and driving his arousal from zero to one hundred in two seconds flat. His baby wanted the hard-sex portion of their evening—now. Who was he to not to give his mate everything she wanted.
He lifted her against him, and she wrapped her legs around his hips. He twisted his hand into her hair, tilted her head to the angle he wanted, then devoured her mouth. He poured all his fear, all his worry that something might happen to her into that kiss. She opened her mouth and surrendered to him. He thrust his tongue into her mouth and laid claim to what was his. She melted against him, just softened and let him take what he needed.
But he needed more! He strode into the bathroom and started the shower. He pressed against her legs to encourage her to drop them, which she did, sliding down his front, purposefully grinding against his erection making both of them groan.
“Fuck, Lucy, that feels amazing, but it’s going to feel even better when we’re both naked.”
His hands became claws that neatly sliced through her clothes, he figured the fact that she didn’t voice a single complaint meant she was okay with never wearing them again. He shed the shorts Ty had given him, wrapped his arms around his mate, and walked her backward into the large walk in shower, her breasts pillowed against his chest, nipples hardening. Cody dropped his mouth to hers again, swallowing her moan of delight.
Moving around until the hot water from one of the dual showerheads beat against his shoulders he swallowed her moan of pleasure. The steam rose through the shower stall, bringing with it the heady aroma of her arousal. He took her hands, drew them up to the side away from her body, and pressed them against the back and sidewall of the shower, slightly back from her shoulders so that her breasts thrust out toward him. He pressed against them to show her that he wanted her to keep them there. From her quick nod, he knew she understood.
Sliding his mouth from hers, he blazed a trail down her neck to the mating mark he had given her. Opening his mouth against her skin, he sucked against the mark, moaning when it caused her to roll her hips against him, seeking enough friction to ease the ache that was no doubt forming.
Needing to cool things down a bit in fear he would cum before he had even had the chance to get inside her, he reached behind her for the peach-scented body wash that drove him wild and her body sponge. Taking his mouth from her was difficult, but necessary, and he was gratified to see that she pouted a little at the loss. He shot her a wicked grin, then slowly dragged the soap-filled sponge up over her shoulder and down to her breasts.
Her beautifully expressive vi
olet eyes darkened with desire, and her head fell back a little. Dragging the sponge over her breasts, he paid special attention to the pink tips that hardened immediately. He plumped her right breast up with his hand, then dropped his head to pull it firmly into his mouth. Her cry of pleasure shot straight to his groin, and he reached down for his balls and gave a sharp tug. Jesus this woman could have him coming quicker than anything.
He continued to slide the sponge down over her torso, loving the fact that if he lightened his stroke a little she would giggle and give him a mock glare. He placed the sponge back on the shelf and poured some of her body wash into his hands. Then he knelt down before her, worshipping her like the Goddess that she was. He picked up one of her feet and slowly slid his arms up over her calf and knee, slowing as he reached her toned thighs, stopping altogether before he got to her pussy. Her groan of frustration making him chuckle.
“Not funny, Cody! I need you.” His mate pouted, looking adorable.
“I need you, too, baby, but just imagine how fucking good it will feel once I’ve stoked this fire a little, and I finally sink into you balls deep and pound against your clit and you go off like a fucking rocket!” Cody promised as he leaned forward to press a hot open mouthed kiss against her lower belly. Lucy moaned his name and rolled her hips into him again. He was so tempted just to stand up and pound straight into her, but fuck it! The scenario he had just outlined sounded too fucking perfect to ignore.
Shaking his head to clear it a little, he rubbed up and over her other leg, again stopping just before he reached her pussy.
“Are you wet for me, Lucy?” he asked never taking his eyes off her bare pussy.
“So wet, Cody! Always, please!” Lucy’s plea came on a breathy voice that trembled with need.
Cody lifted one of her legs and placed it over his shoulder. Gripping her hips, he turned her slightly so that she could brace her shoulders against the shower wall. He looked up into her lust-filled eyes and shot her a grin filled with wicked intentions and confidence. “You’d better hold on, baby. I’m not stopping until you scream for me.” He enjoyed her eyes widening for a brief second before he dove into her pussy.