The Community Series, Books 1-3

by Tappan, Tracy

  She continued to stare at the clock. Shh-flip … another number.

  The bathroom door opened, releasing a cloud of steam. Arc padded over, fiddled with his alarm clock, then climbed under the covers on his side of the bed.

  Two warriors out on the street exchanged quiet greetings as they changed the watch.

  Shh-flip ….

  Her husband edged over and slipped his arm around her waist, pulling her close against his hips.

  “Arc!” She jabbed an elbow into his abdomen. “Quit it!”

  Laughing softly, he nuzzled her neck. “You are awake. I knew it.” The hard length of him prodded her rump.

  “Yes, but not in the mood.”

  “Hmm, no? Well, why don’t we see about getting you in the mood.” Setting a hand on her hip, he rolled her onto her back and smiled that smile of his which always turned her belly to sugar. Oh, God, why did he have to be so handsome?

  Moonlight – well, really specialized stadium lighting – was leaking in through a crack in the curtains, cutting across the hard contours of his bare chest and turning his blond hair silvery white. His body heat wrapped around her like a cocoon of intimacy and his scent washed over her. Freshly showered male. Was there anything sexier?

  He trailed a hand under her nightie, skimming over her belly toward her –

  She slapped his hand away and lurched to a sitting position, clutching the afghan to her breasts to hide nipples that had gone erect with laughable speed. “Honest to Pete, Arc, stop it, would you? I’ve had a rotten day.”

  “Tell me about it, baby.” His fingers danced over her knee. “Your clothing order arrive messed up or something?”

  She scooted away, giving him her best glare. Not a very good one, since glaring wasn’t one of her specialties. He just widened his smile, not taking her seriously at all. “The five of us Dragons met with Toni today, Arc, and it was awful.”

  Arc levered himself up on an elbow, discreetly inching back toward her. “It’s always tough at first, but things eventually smooth out.”

  “This time they won’t. I’m warning you, Arc.”

  His eyes glimmered out of the shadows. “Sassiness. Now I’m really getting turned on.” He wrapped a brawny forearm around her waist and hauled her back over to him.

  She shoved away again.

  He sighed. “You have two wonderful children, a rewarding career, a community that adores and supports you, no financial concerns, and a husband who’s absolutely crazy in love with you. What’s the complaint here, Beth?”

  “This community takes women against their will, Arc. I’d think that’d be sort of a big duh of an answer.”

  His lids hooded.

  She bit her bottom lip. “The Dragons are really upset that you’ve taken another woman, Arc.” She didn’t want to betray the secret meeting, but maybe if she just talked to Arc and got him to understand the Dragons’ position, then life could return to being peaceful. “There was a big hullabaloo about it at Toni’s tea today. They want to …. It’s time to … take a stand about it.” She flung a hand out, and the afghan sagged away from one of her breasts.

  Arc’s gaze latched onto the sight like a beacon. “Um … yes ….” He crept forward and kissed her shoulder. “Take a stand ….”

  She fumbled with the afghan. “You’re not listening to me, Arc –”

  He slid closer still, his hand coming to rest on her belly.

  “There’s going to be trouble.”

  “Right, right.” With the hand on her stomach, he urged her down onto the mattress.

  “Hannah and Kimberly got really nasty with each other, and –”

  Her husband tugged on her panties.

  “Arc!” she gasped. She wriggled against his efforts to strip her, but he just laughed low in his throat and before she knew what had happened, he had her panties and nightie off.

  With a ragged groan, he rolled on top of her and settled between her thighs.

  “Stop it, Arc, you pain in the butt!” She slammed her palms against his shoulders to push him off.

  “I’ll talk to Roth,” he panted, “first thing in the morning, okay.” His shaft throbbed against her thigh.

  She froze, a kernel of hope sparking to life in her chest. “Really?”

  “Absolutely.” He slanted his lips over hers, his kiss open and devouring, his tongue sliding inside her mouth like sweet fire.

  Never trust what a man says when he’s focused on putting his schlong into your cookie, dear. Her mother’s oft-stated warning, with her one-of-a-kind genitalia descriptions, clanged through Beth’s ears, then flew straight out of her head at the feel of her husband’s powerful body on top of her, his well-defined chest warming her breasts. A thrill skipped through her body, sending embers of feeling lighting off along every inch of her skin. She entangled her tongue with Arc’s, sifting her fingers into the back of his silky hair to hold him in place. God, he was such a great kisser, never a hard-thrusting, gagging-tongue type.

  His fingertips trailed up the side of her ribcage, all the while his mouth teasing and tasting, then he cupped her breast. She squirmed eagerly beneath him as he grazed his thumb across her nipple, caressing the rosy bud into an even harder point, then tugging gently on it with his fingers. She bowed off the mattress, moisture surging into her core.

  Arc tore his mouth from hers with a harsh sound, his nostrils flaring. No hiding the scent of lust from a Vârcolac.

  She spread her legs wider and bent her knees, making room for his large body, inviting him inside.

  “Oh, yeah,” he moaned, grabbing his length in his fist and positioning himself at her entrance. He pushed inside her body, a smooth easy thrust, always so careful of her. A growl wrenched from his lips.

  She gripped his shoulders as he began to move inside her, tension steadily building in her womb, tightening, growing. He never skimped on penetration, each surge of his hips burying his shaft deep inside her. Exquisite ripples of ecstasy tumbled through her body.

  “Arc,” she gasped in helpless pleasure.

  “Come on, baby.” He increased his tempo as he bent his head to her neck, latching his lips onto her skin and sucking. The sharp tip of an elongated fang grazed her, and she pressed her head back into the pillow, stretching her throat out to him. His lips continued only to suckle her, though, his breath puffing in quick, hot bursts against her skin. He wouldn’t feed on her tonight.

  No matter. She preferred a Fiinţă-backed orgasm, but didn’t need it. She flexed her legs tightly around Arc’s pumping flanks and dug her fingers into the valley that bisected his back, the scales of his dragon tattoo cool beneath her touch. Heat spiraled to the boiling point, her privates aching with the need for release. She gritted her teeth. Only … a few more … strokes, and … oh! She flung her head back and cried out as her sex squeezed and squeezed and squeezed. A shout rose in her throat that surely would’ve woken the kids had she not locked it behind her teeth. Oh! God!

  A guttural noise erupted from Arc’s chest as the tight, rhythmic pulsing of her sheath sent him racing toward his own release. The muscles in his body stiffened … and then he was clutching her to him with impossible strength, a deep animal noise rumbling out of him that no human could’ve ever made. His sex pulsed inside her as he came within her body, and he hugged her even tighter.

  This part of his orgasm had been so strange to her the first few times they’d made love, this fierce, almost desperate embrace he gave her. The men she’d had sex with before had reared off her in the final throes of their ecstasy, body braced on straight arms, head craned back as they made all of their oh-this-feels-so-great noises. But not Arc. In the last intense moments of his climax, he held her to him as if he feared she might disappear back into a dream if he didn’t keep a firm grip on her. And it was … the most romantic thing ever.

  His climax spent, Arc slackened on top of her, gasping for breath, his heart hammering against her breasts. She kept her arms wrapped loosely around him while they both cal
med their breathing and let their heart rates settle. His member throbbed with the occasional aftershock inside her, his fangs gradually pulling back into his upper jaw. Contentment enveloped her. In the ensuing quiet she heard the clock flap its number over, shh-flip.

  Her husband nuzzled her throat, rose up and kissed her lightly on the nose, then withdrew himself and gently covered her naked body with the afghan.

  She sighed quietly. Sweet and gorgeous. How was she supposed to resist him, really? “I’m such a pushover,” she murmured.

  “Hmm, baby?” His voice sounded drowsy. He was already flopped onto his back, his jaw loosening with sleep.

  She pushed up on an elbow and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “I love you is all. Go to sleep.”

  With his eyes closed, he smiled lazily. “Love you, too, beautiful wife.”

  She swung her legs over the side of the mattress and got out of bed, towing her afghan with her as she headed into the bathroom.

  She took more time than she’d originally planned, deciding to take a quick shower to clean up the wetness between her legs. She brushed her teeth again for good measure and finally plopped down on the toilet. Out of habit, she grabbed an ovulation stick from the nearby cup. It was probably a waste of an O-stick – not that there weren’t millions around the community – seeing as she wasn’t due to ovulate for another couple of –

  What the heck? She squinted down at the stick. Good God, there were three hash marks on it. Not just one or two as a warning of impending fertility.

  “Oh, no,” she breathed, glancing anxiously at the bathroom door. What was she going to do now? On the other side of that door lay a bonded male Vârcolac who’d take one whiff of his mate in her fertile time and instantly turn into an instinct-driven machine. His sole objective would be to impregnate her and he wouldn’t stop having sex with her until he’d achieved that end.

  She grimaced. The two times she’d gone through it to get pregnant with Lysha and then Brynt had completely worn out her vagina. Plus, her neck got really sore because Arc kept sampling her blood for the telltale taste of the pregnancy hormone. Only when he tasted that would a neuron get triggered in his brain that signaled Mission Accomplished and he’d collapse into a three-day hibernation state, and finally free her from his incessant attentions.

  Frankly, after the rough day she’d had, she wasn’t particularly psyched up for that.

  Somehow she had to get out of here. She tiptoed over to the bathroom door and lifted her robe off the hook, shrugging it on, then stepped into her slippers. She was just going to have to make a run for it and get herself into lockdown. A funny thing to call the female-only secured rooms in Roth’s mansion, considering that the suites were outfitted with every imaginable luxury, and barring herself in one of the rooms for the two or three days of her fertile time was like a mini-vacation from life’s responsibilities. But, anyway, one of the Dragon women, probably Kimberly, had coined the term and it’d stuck.

  Placing her hand on the doorknob, she drew a fortifying breath and prayed for speed, then …. She didn’t move. Her eyes drifted closed as she imagined carrying one of Arc’s babies beneath her heart again, her chest aching with longing. No. Stop this. She had plans to expand her store this year. She wanted to start carrying a grunge line for the Stânga Town kids, among other things. Some jewelry maybe.

  All right, then. She quickly twisted the knob, jerked open the door, and dashed into the –

  She yelped as her husband jackknifed out of a sound sleep and growled at her. She ran like the dickens, her slippers flapping as she raced for the bedroom door. Lord, this was going to be close! It wasn’t even close. Her athletic god of a husband came at her like a nuclear-powered freight train, tackling her to the floor before she’d barely made it into the hall.

  “Arc,” she squeaked as she found herself squashed beneath her husband’s unrelenting body.

  He powered to his feet and stood over her, his legs spread wide and his hands curled into loose fists at his sides, an enormous erection jutting out from his body. His nostrils were flaring rhythmically with the inhalations of her fertility he was drawing into his lungs, his eyes rapidly glazing over. Yikes, Elvis has pretty much left the building. She had about two seconds, maybe less, to issue him a firm no-command and get away before he was lost completely to the primal state of a Vârcolac male in full procreation mode.

  With a feral grunt, Arc bent over and grabbed her ankle, turning and dragging her back into the bedroom. Her robe bunched around her waist, her hair trailing out behind her. She opened her mouth to stop him and then….

  Didn’t.

  Chapter Eleven

  Toni propped a shoulder against the sliding glass door of her third-story bedroom balcony and gazed through the prison bars at the town of Ţărână, home to 429 “followers”: 229 males and 200 females – married, single, young, and old. She was so damned sick of the view. Same-old-same-old every day for the last week. She curled her lip at it. Such a cheery scene down there, the whole setup made to look like Main Street in Anytown, USA. But, it wasn’t, was it? No, that down there was the freaking Batcave or Count Chocula’s ’hood or … or if a woman was going to buy Dr. Jess’s explanation, then she was looking at one of the many undiscovered spurs of tunnels naturally created by movement of tectonic plates in the San Andreas fault.

  That first night after her meeting with Roth, Dr. Jess had puttered about in her room, preparing her a tidy cocktail of medications: Motrin for a headache she’d had the size of Jupiter, big surprise; vitamin D, a regular supplement for those of them who needed real sunlight down here; and a sleeping pill to help her adjust to Ţărână’s automated light-dark cycle, which ran opposite to the real one topside. And as Jess had puttered, he’d chatted all about her new “home.”

  Apparently, oxygen flowed into the community through a honeycomb of wormholes formed by the same process of plate shifting that had created the tunnels themselves; the town’s closer position to the earth’s core maintained a constant temperature of 68 degrees Fahrenheit – they were a surprising one-half mile deep; water was piped in from topside, and TV and Internet came into the town through a secret network of cables; electricity was self-generated; the rocky earth was mined for diamonds and other precious minerals to provide the community with financial resources, which were obviously substantial; food and other supplies were transported in by non-reproducing, non-“dragon” human females called Travelers. These were the women who’d been brought in nearly twenty years ago for the first failed repopulation experiment between Vârcolac and “regular” humans.

  All in all, it was quite the well-oiled machine of efficiency and production, a system well worth admiring had it not been a haven for a bunch of wackos who could stand with a bit of screw-tightening. She had to give credit where credit was due, though. Even during her psych rotation in med school, she’d never encountered a more complexly constructed fantasy world than this one. Or a group of people who were so deeply committed to adhering to said fantasy world, all the while appearing and sounding reasonably intelligent and rational, especially the so-called “dragons” she’d met at the tea.

  Case in point was the day each Vârcolac breed demonstrated his extraordinary ability. The special effects they’d used to uphold their illusion of vampirism had been extremely impressive, some of the best she’d seen. She knew every trick in the book from her brother’s horror filmmaking stage back in high school. Dev could’ve put drops of something called Fluorescein into his eyes to make them glow. Although, yes, a black light was generally required for activation. There were also Scleral contact lenses. Thomal could’ve used any number of unique glues to affix the scales of his dragon tattoo onto his back in order for them to look so real. Hell, he could’ve gone so far as to have had them surgically attached. And when Thomal ran so fast that he’d disappeared before her eyes, he could’ve … well, um …. She’d decided to blame her concussed brain for that one.

  Truthfully, the scientist i
n her might have been fascinated, had these people not been so completely screwing up her life.

  The latest outrage was that these freaks had broken into her topside house and packed up her stuff. Stuff, as in all of her clothes and most of her personal items: photos, jewelry, books, bathroom products. Then they’d brought it all down here for her, the idea being to make her feel more at home. Yes, thank you so much, she felt so much cozier now. Behind that generosity was the scarier idea that they obviously planned to keep her here for quite some time.

  On top of that, some goober named Cleeve was answering emails in her name; her hospital had been informed that she was on emergency personal leave, and her mother and brother were being fed some crock about Toni being out of town at a hematology seminar. So no one even knew she was missing. No one was searching for her. The Cavalry wasn’t going to charge to her rescue any minute. She truly was on her own if she intended to escape this lunatic asylum.

  If that meant she had to employ the help of a group of “dragon” women who thought they were married to “vampires,” then so be it.

  The warriors live in the mansion on the same floor as you do, so you might be able to get access to a key card. Give it a try.

  Here they came now, in fact. Toni heard the first group of warriors returning from their mid-morning training session.

  Pushing away from her balcony, she crossed her bedroom and listened at the door.

  “ … should’ve seen the dump I just took, man. It came out like a small, greased-down squirrel, I kid you ….”

  “ … just have to drain the main vein, then we’ll grab the football and ….”

  “Dude, you’re an idiot. The length of a woman’s legs doesn’t determine the size of her ….”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, do you have to check with your wife before you can scratch your balls, too?”

  As the warriors’ voices faded and the last of their bedroom doors closed, Toni cracked open her own door. All clear? She poked her head out. Yes. She slipped into the hallway and took a deep breath, forcing herself to remain calm. If anybody asked, she was just out for a stroll. She had been given free run of the mansion, after all; a big bonus that had turned into a little bonus as soon as she’d discovered that any room worth entering was kept locked, including the warriors’ bedrooms. Because of that whole pesky locked door situation, she was going to have to search for a key card while one of the men was actually in his room.