Recker (Skin Walkers Book 17)

by Susan Bliler

  Looking up, James saw Jenny rush Alise. Jenny’s eyes lifted, and she followed Alise’s gaze to where Chief’s eyes were boring into her.

  “Shhhhit!” Jenny hissed.

  Beside James, he heard Monroe mutter to someone, “Not what I expected, but it’ll do.”

  It’ll do? It took all of two seconds for realization to slam home. Stricken! This was the wolf-shifter equivalent of the affliction. Chief was stricken! Alise was Chief’s!

  In the space of a breath, something in James broke. Something cold and hard cracked right down his middle and it felt like he was an iceberg that had just split in two, a huge part of him crumbling off and disappearing into the abyss.

  Alise is Chief’s!

  The realization rocked him so hard, he actually swayed.

  ***

  Alex had been badgering Stoney, making sure she wasn’t upset out being ousted from the board. Stoney assured her everything between them was good. She said she didn’t want to be on the board any longer and was telling Alex, “There’s no point. Monroe pretends to take our advice and then does whatever in the hell he wants in the end.” She shrugged and opened her mouth to continue when Alise screamed.

  The sound scared the shit out of Alex, and she startled hard before whipping around. Stoney was already moving toward Alise, but when Alex went to take a step, Recker was there, grabbing her hand.

  “You okay?”

  “Yes.” She pointed at where Alise was on the ground. “Something’s wrong with Alise!”

  “Shit!” Recker breathed, and Alex followed his gaze across the reception area to where James stood next to Chief, who was on a knee and snarling at Alise.

  “What? What is it? What’s happening?”

  “Stricken,” Recker answered. “It’s like the Walker affliction.”

  Alex gasped, “What?” Her head whipped back and forth between Alise and Chief whose gazes were locked on each other. “But… James…”

  Alex lifted her eyes from where Chief knelt. They landed on James, and her hand involuntarily flew to her mouth.

  The look on James’ face had Alex’s gut-wrenching. Undisguised distress was so fully present on the Walker’s face… No, this wasn’t distress. It was more. This was pure heart-wrenching anguish.

  Alex knew James liked Alise. Like really liked Alise, and Alise had liked him too. Staring at James now, Alex realized that James had just had something extremely profound ripped away from him.

  Without hesitation, Alex pulled her hand from Recker’s and made her way to James. She passed Chief as he shoved up from the ground and staggered past. Turning she watched him shove people away from Alise before dropping and pulling her onto his lap. Alise’s arms slid around Chief’s neck, and she whimpered. The sound that emitted from Alise one of relief as she pressed her body into Chief’s.

  Turning from Alise and Chief, Alex made her way to James. Before she reached him though, he blinked hard and jerked back, tearing his eyes from where Chief held Alise. As he turned, his gaze collided with Alex’s for a moment and held.

  Mouthing, ‘I’m so sorry’, Alex gave him the most sympathetic look she could muster. She felt for him, she really did. He was a really great guy, one of Recker’s best friends, and by association, she’d grown to care for him too. Her feet moved quickly, but not quickly enough. Alex never made it to James in time to offer support because his jaw ticked once before he turned and let a shift rip him apart. A great falcon flapped hard and ascended, beating at the air, before being swallowed up by the night.

  “James,” Alex breathed, tears flooding her eyes.

  Behind Alex, Recker settled his hands on her shoulders, his eyes trained on the sky as he murmured, “He’ll be alright.”

  “Did you see his face?” She had. His expression was one of utter devastation, and Alex wasn’t sure if, or how, James would ever recover from losing Alise to someone else. Spinning, she looked up at Recker. “What do you know about Chief?”

  Recker’s lips thinned into a grim line. “He’s one of the meanest and strongest wolf shifters I’ve ever met.”

  “Mean?” Worry flooded Alex. “What do you mean mean? How mean?”

  “Don’t worry.” Recker cupped her chin and grinned softly down at her. “The wolf shifters being stricken is the equivalent of the Walker affliction. He’d cut out his own heart for Alise. She’s safe, siren.”

  Glancing over her shoulder, Alex looked up at the sky. “What…what about James?”

  Recker pulled her chin back to him. “She wasn’t his. No matter how much he wanted her, no matter if she wanted him. It’s done.”

  Foreboding crashed over Alex so damn quickly that she thought she’d drown under the tidal wave.

  That could happen to us. That exact thing could happen to us at any time.

  She tried to disguise her worry by saying, “She doesn’t even know Chief. She doesn’t want this. She doesn’t want him.”

  “She will, siren. She will.” Dropping his hand from her cheek, Recker cupped her neck and lowered his head to stare deeply into her eyes. “Hey…what’s going on?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Don’t lie to me,” he growled. “Tell me what…”

  Before he could even finish the sentence, Alex’s eyes were filled with tears, and she looked down. “That,” she whispered. “That could be us. That could happen to us at any second.” She shook her head and sniffed trying to keep from crying. “That look on James’ face,” she looked up. “That could be me.” When she blinked a tear slipped free, and she watched as understanding dawned on Recker.

  “It won’t,” he promised. “I told you.”

  “Alise didn’t even know him,” she cut in. “I just watched her wrap her arms around some guy she hasn’t even met. She pressed her body against his like she’s known him forever. I mean, will we be dealing with that level of certainty if it should ever happen? You’re gonna feel the way Chief and Alise just felt. Aren’t you?” She was panicking now as she pulled back from Recker and started pacing, talking to herself. “Oh God, we’re already married. What have we done?”

  “Alex!”

  Recker followed after her, but she turned and held up her hands to stop him. “Don’t!”

  “Alex, calm down,” he commanded. “You’re overreacting.”

  “Overreacting?” She sounded hysterical now and was drawing the attention of their guests. “I’m gonna lose you.” Her hands flew up to her temples. “Oh my God! I’m gonna lose you to another woman.” When her head snapped up to his, her eyes crashing into his, they were filled with real fear as tears clogged her throat. “I won’t be able to survive that Recker. I…I can’t….” She backed up a step. “I just…can’t!”

  “Hey!” he stared at her long and hard. “You’re not walking away from me, woman. It ain’t happening, so whatever you’ve got churning in that beautiful head of yours can stop right now. Do you hear me, Alex? Stop!”

  “It’s not up to you,” Alex moaned reaching down and grabbing the ring he’d given her like she was about to take it off. “It’s not up to either of us.” She looked down as she slid his ring off her finger with a whispered, “I knew it was too good to be true.”

  Recker’s hands grabbed her roughly, and when Alex jerked her head up, something happened.

  The second her eyes locked on Recker’s a loud high-pitched noise filled the air and then there was a bright flash like someone was standing in front of her taking her picture, but there was no one there, only Recker. The sound and the flash happened in a blink, and then Recker went down hard. He dropped so suddenly that Alex gasped, certain he’d been shot or something because what else could drop a Skin Walker so quickly. Recker writhed on the ground, one hand clamped to his stomach while the other curled into a tight fist. A massive roar left him as his body bowed violently and Alex dropped to her knees and grabbed him.

  “Recker! Are you okay?”

  Something splattered on his sleeve, and Alex narrowed her eyes at it before lo
oking up. A Walker she remembered only as Remy stood over Recker with a bored look on his face while he shoveled a forkful of what looked like potato salad into his mouth. Speaking around the mouthful of food, Remy remarked casually, “That shit’s painful.”

  What? “Jesus, Remy! Help him!” Alex dropped her eyes to a still writhing Recker. She looked up just in time to see Remy lick his spoon.

  “Can’t.” He stated plainly. “He’s in it now.”

  “In it?” Alex all but shrieked. “In what?”

  A grin lifted Remy’s lips as he looked at her then lowered his spoon to bop her lightly on the nose. “The affliction.”

  Affliction?

  It took a second for Remy’s words to register and when they did, she turned shocked eyes on Recker. “Affliction?”

  Recker was looking at her now, eyes locked on hers to intently that she stopped moving. Hell, she stopped breathing. She didn’t even recoil when Recker reached up and ripped his halo from around his neck, the skin there sizzling with the heat of the brand that would forever mar his skin. In the space of a breath, he thrust his halo forward with a snarled, “Mine!”

  When the halo locked in place around Alex’s throat, a startled gasp left her seconds before her eyes fluttered closed and everything went black.

  Chapter 33

  Recker didn’t take Alex to his suite in the main estate house. They didn’t go to Alex’s assigned suite either. Nope, it was time to introduce her to their new home, his cabin hidden behind the hedgerow at the rear of the main estate house.

  He’d just made it up the steps of their cabin when Alex finally stirred. Looking around in confusion, she told him to put her down, she offered to walk, but fuck that. The next time his hands left her, it was going to be to strip her bare and claim her fully.

  In his arms, Alex sniffled. Women. He shook his head with a beaming grin because he knew the source of her tears. She was getting choked up about how the affliction had hit. She should. It had been fortuitous. No, it’d been more than that. He wasn’t some sap that believed in fairy shit like magic, but being afflicted when he was, just as Alex was freaking out and about to leave him, well it hadn’t felt like coincidence. Nope, it felt like for the first time in his shit life, the planets had aligned in his favor. It had felt like more than just chance. It felt like actual fucking magic.

  In their cabin, Recker used a foot to kick the door closed and stomped through the space to the back bedroom. He saw Alex looking around curiously, but the tour would have to wait. If he wasn’t buried between his Angel’s thighs in the next few minutes, someone was going to die.

  Stepping into their room, he set her on her feet and started stripping. The whole time he ripped off his vest and shirt and then shucked his shoes before unzipping and shoving his slacks down, his eyes stayed on Alex. She looked so damn virginal in that white wedding gown staring at him in awe with her lips slightly parted. He was gonna fuck that mouth tonight. His eyes took a tour down her body. He was going to fuck her everywhere tonight.

  When he was naked, Recker rose to his full height and paced toward Alex with a lethal grace that spoke of his Walker ancestry. Alex didn’t even flinch. Instead, she lifted her hand, palm out, but stopped suddenly just inches from touching his skin. Her tiny hand fisted and she looked up at him like she was afraid to touch him.

  “Go on,” he encouraged. “I want your hands on me, siren.”

  Her lips lifted in a tiny grin and she un-fisted her hand before holding it out tentatively, just a breath away from touching him.

  So fast that he made Alex gasp, Recker gripped her wrist. Her eyes shot to his, and he didn’t even blink as he pressed her palm to the smooth plane of his chest.

  By the Gods, her hands on him felt so damn right. Nostrils flaring, Recker couldn’t stop from snarling in a gruff tone, “You smell like fucking heaven.”

  To keep from devouring her, Recker let his head fall back. He could feel the muscles in his throat stretching, and he swallowed hard, his tongue peeking out from between his lips in a pitiful attempt at just tasting the same air that smelled so fully of Alex’s arousal.

  One second Recker was fighting for control, and in the next second, it snapped because Alex leaned forward and sucked on the skin at his neck.

  A growl rattled his chest, and he didn’t even bother attempting to tamp it down as wicked incisors punched through his gums and flooded his mouth with copper.

  Alex let go of his skin with a popping sound and spoke with her lips still pressed against him, “Get me outta this dress, husband.”

  He felt the front of his boxers dampen as pre-cum squirted from the tip of him at her use of the word husband. Goddamn. Just thinking it had possessive juices flowing through him in a tidal wave, rivaled only by fierce pride in the realization that she was actually his.

  “I’m gonna fuck you so hard,” he growled, unable to give her pretty words when his inner beasts were so close to the surface.

  “Not while I’m clothed, you’re not.”

  Alex pulled back and smiled teasingly up at him as his gaze flicked down to her dress.

  Recker hated clothes. In that second he decided clothes were the dumbest invention of all time. Worse, wedding dresses were instruments of pure torture. Alex turned and presented him with her back.

  “Be careful,” she warned like she knew his hands were itching to rip the damn material from her body.

  “I borrowed it. It needs to get back to Cindy in one piece.”

  Hands trembling, Recker fumbled with the tiny-ass buttons on the back of the dress. It felt like he was on a first date because his damn palms were sweating and he was having trouble maneuvering the little tiny pearls through the holes. Alex’s shoulders shook as she laughed and he knew she was laughing at him because his needy growl now sounded frustrated. He managed to get three buttons free and looked down at the dozen more that led down to Alex’s ass.

  “I’ll give Cindy a thousand dollars if I can just shred this thing.”

  “No!” Alex gasped. “It’s important to her. Just go slow and steady.”

  And that was the problem. He was barely in control right now, so slow and steady was a monumental effort.

  What felt like nine-hundred hours later, Recker eased the material off Alex’s shoulders and shuddered at what met him. Beneath the dress, her back was bare. Just knowing her breasts had been free all day made him impossibly harder.

  Alex stepped out of the delicate pale material, her dark skin on glorious display in only a tiny white thong that delved between her perfect ass cheeks. His eyes didn’t leave her ass as he shoved his boxers down and kicked them aside.

  Turning, Alex smiled up at him before stepping over the dress.

  The second she was free of the material, he pounced. Mouth crashing onto hers, he carried her blindly to the bed where they fell onto it as his mouth ate hers. Before he was even done kissing her, her panties were ripped off and tossed carelessly on the floor. Unable to control himself, Recker slid his hand between her legs and growled loudly when his fingers slid into her warm slit. Her juices coated his fingers, but he wanted those juices elsewhere.

  Hands skimming down her body as he lowered, he kissed his way to the apex of her thighs, placing a final kiss on the mound of black curls before going lowering and plunging his tongue inside of her.

  Alex cried out, her body arching up off the bed and that was all the encouragement Recker needed to devour her. And devour he did. He ate Alex like she was his last fucking meal. Her hands fisted his hair, and her body shook before she exploded and bathed his tongue in her essence. Recker purred against her sex, drawing out every last aftershock before planting one last kiss to her pussy lips and then gliding up her body.

  His cock was harder than it’d ever been, and it was pointing straight at Alex like it was declaring to them both, “Her! I choose her!”

  Alex’s eyes fluttered open, and when they landed on his, she lifted a hand and curled her finger, beckoning him to her.
As if that weren’t invitation enough, she bent her legs and parted them, and one word flashed through Recker’s mind so violently that it rocked him where he knelt on the bed between Alex’s legs.

  Home!

  All his life he’d never had a family, never had a place to belong. Alex really didn’t either, but that all changed right here and now. They had each other! Finally, after years of secretly hoping--and what he’d thought had been foolishly praying--his prayers had been answered. Alex was his home, and by the Gods, he’d be hers. He’d spend the rest of his fucking days proving to her that she’d chosen right. He’d show Alex that he could be all she deserved.

  A determined smile took his lips as he lowered to his mate, her warm, soft hips cradling his own as he slid inside of her in one leisurely push. Her body was tight, but she accepted him, just like his siren always did. She was always accepting pieces of him that no one else seemed to want.

  Mine! his inner beasts snarled, and he wholeheartedly agreed. Biting back the feral need to pound into Alex, he took her like she’d asked, slow and steady, and damn if it didn’t take every ounce of his control, but she was worth it. She was worth that and so much more. She was worth everything because she was his everything.

  Recker Rhodes was finally home.

  Available NOW

  by

  Susan Bliler

  Terr4tory

  “I appreciate Evander sending you,” Willa forged on. “But we’ll figure this out on our own.”

  Shoving off the wall, Barron stepped toward her. The predatory grace with which he moved was fluid yet lethal, and all male. It had Willa itching to back down. She didn’t.

  “So, let me get this straight.” He started circling her. “Your Alpha is dead. You’re in charge. You aren’t mated. There are no men in your pack.” He stopped behind her, and when he leaned in his breath whispered over the nape of her neck. “And the wolves are at your door.”

  Whether the shiver that coursed through her was the result of his nearness or his words, she didn’t know, but she didn’t dare step away from him. It’d be a show of fear…submission.