by Jade Allen
Cade turned on the light in the entryway and Vivian drew in a terrified breath. Papers, broken pottery, and shattered glass littered the marble floor.
"Sara?" Vivian yelled into the silence of the ransacked house.
When there was no response, she broke away from Cade and ran up the stairs toward Sara's bedroom.
"Vivian, stop!" Cade yelled after her, but Vivian kept running, looking into every room she passed.
The devastation only seemed to worsen as she got further into the house. When she reached Sara's bedroom she saw her sitting in the middle of the bed, her hands bound behind her back and a black blindfold over her eyes.
"Oh my god," Vivian said, rushing to the side of the bed.
She had just grabbed onto the ropes on her wrists when she felt someone grab her roughly around the waist. Vivian screamed and thrashed against the strong grip, trying to push away from whoever held her. Her body slammed into the bed and she rolled over to see a huge man hovering over her. Sara was making sobbing, whimpering sounds and the man suddenly cracked the back of his hand across her cheekbone.
Sara fell backwards onto the bed and Vivian tried to scramble away from the man, but he descended on her, grabbing her by her shoulders and pulling her up toward him.
"Put her down," Cade said from the doorway.
His voice was low and calm, the control making it even more frightening than if he had shouted. The man turned to him and Vivian used the temporary loosening of his grip to push away from him and run across the room to Cade. He led her gently into the doorway and stepped further into the room.
"You're who they sent?" the man scoffed, "We were hoping the creature Aurora ran off with would at least come back to gloat, but instead they sent Aurora's little friend and her boyfriend to deal with the aftermath. This shouldn't been too much of a challenge, do you think?"
Two other men stepped into the bedroom from the adjoining sitting room and Vivian wrapped her hand around the doorframe, the fear making it difficult to breath. She could hear her own breath in her ears and terror was making her shake. Cade, however, seemed completely calm as he took two long steps toward the dresser on the wall and drew a cigarette out of the open pack laying on the top.
Vivian watched Cade turn the cigarette around backwards and put the tip in his mouth. He puffed once and drew the cigarette from his mouth, revealing a glowing end. A shiver of excitement rippled through her despite the fear and she saw the three men visibly stiffened. An instant later furniture skidded out of the way as Cade shifted and his massive form filled the space. One of the men pulled out a long dagger, but before he could even raise it, Cade lifted one claw and slashed it across the man's chest.
The smell of blood filled the room and Vivian turned her head away from the man bleeding on the floor. Footsteps pounded as the other two men ran from the room through the side door. Cade's human form swept Vivian into his arms and rested a kiss to the top of her head.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
Vivian nodded and kissed his chest. This was reality now. She was irretrievably part of this, but as long as she held onto Cade, she felt like she could get through it.
An hour later they stepped out of the house and into a night that was suddenly chilly. Fall was coming quickly and the shift in seasons seemed to underscore what was happening around them. Vivian could hear the voices of the trusted members of the operative inside the house, trying to make sense of the situation and decide what to do next. It was clear now that any talks of peace were only for show. The war was here and Vivian was a part of it.
"What do you want to do now?" Cade asked, tucking an arm around her hips and drawing her close to him.
Vivian breathed in the smell of sage and the hint of sweat from his skin. His arm felt safe and powerful around her, and her body responded to her primal need for him.
"Bring me home," she whispered.
Cade's hands were at her shirt pulling it off over her head even before the front door to Vivian's house closed behind them. She kicked off her shoes as she walked backwards across the living room, kissing him hungrily and working the buttons along the front of his shirt open. Her hands slid over the smooth, rounded muscles of his shoulders as she pushed the shirt away and let it fall to the carpet.
As soon as they made it into the bedroom, Cade released her bra and tossed it away, bringing his mouth down to suckle the breasts he had kissed so patiently earlier. Vivian arched against his mouth and at the same time felt in front of her for his belt so she could unfasten it. The button and zipper fell away under her hands and he stepped out of the pants. Cade lowered himself to his knees, easing her pants and panties down over her hips and thighs so that she stood in front of him with nothing separating them.
Vivian cried out as his tongue slipped into her core, tasting her and readying her even more for him. The sound tore from her chest like a release from the tension, the fear, and the uncertainty of the day behind them. As it left her lips, she surrendered herself to Cade, focusing only on that moment and the touch of his body near hers.
She was quickly spiraling out of control when Cade got to his feet and scooped her up so that her legs wrapped around his waist and the heat of her core cradled the swell of his erection through the thin fabric of his trunks. He carried her to the bed and lowered her onto the mattress, pausing only long enough to step out of the trunks before rising over her and pushing into her in one hard thrust.
Vivian wrapped her legs around his waist again as he pounded into her, each thrust accompanied by a deep, guttural sound. Suddenly he withdrew from her and she felt his hand tuck under her hip so that he flipped her over onto her stomach. Sliding one leg up so that her knee bent up toward her shoulder, Cade entered her again. She lifted her head as a moan poured from her lips and felt Cade bite down into her shoulder with enough intensity that a shock of delectable, pleasurable pain rolled through her body, bringing her right to the edge of her climax.
Cade thrust into her harder until he impaled her a final time and roared with a release that made him throb within her, pushing her over the edge into another dizzying orgasm. She lifted her hips slightly as she milked him, wanting to be as close to him as her body would allow. As their tremors slowed, Cade lowered himself down onto her so that his body enveloped hers in warm, comforting weight. He slid his arms up over hers and intertwined their fingers, touching a kiss onto the back of her shoulder before resting his head onto her back.
Vivian could feel his heartbeat on her back and his slowly relaxing hardness still inside her. She let the feeling soothe her and ease her toward sleep. Tomorrow would come soon enough and she would return to Killington with him to face whatever awaited the dragons. For now she was satisfied to rest beneath him, lost in the scent of sage and the thought of the colors in his eyes. Her loyalties had changed and she knew that no matter what her memories held, this was the beginning of forever.
THE END
Alpha's Howling Desire
"Son of a bitch!”
Forgetting that she was in public, Ariel quickly sank down in her seat, pulling the large book she held in front of her face, cringing. She heard giggling beside her and reached out to smack Daniel on the leg to stop him from laughing at her. She could feel the eyes of everyone in the library staring at her and she had the sudden fear that a skeletal librarian would come in and toss her out by the back of her shirt for defiling the sanctity of the public library reading room.
"Tell me again why I'm sitting here with you," she hissed toward Daniel, still holding the book up in front of her even though she had just finished reading it.
"I need moral support," Daniel replied.
"Moral support to get through your history final?"
"Yes."
"Do you know how much longer I'm going to need to be supportive because all of these people are still staring at me and I'm fairly certain that those ones over there in the corner are planning to kill me."
"We can go as long as you bring me b
ack to your place and give me some of the good stuff."
Daniel lifted his eyebrows at her and Ariel smiled back, nodding as she helped him gather up his papers and books and carry them toward the circulation desk.
Twenty minutes later, Ariel walked into her living room carrying two bowls of ice cream. Daniel was sitting on the floor with his back against the couch and she placed one of the bowls in his lap. She settled onto the couch behind him and grabbed a jar she had tucked under her arm. Twisting off the metal top, she dipped a spoon down inside and reached around Daniel to drizzle a long golden stream of homemade caramel sauce over his ice cream.
"Oh, yeah. That's the stuff," he murmured.
"I know how you like it," she said, digging the spoon down into his ice cream so that his first bite would be mostly rich, buttery caramel.
"I'd totally marry you if we didn't have sex, I could see other people on the side, and you made me caramel every day."
"I'll keep that in mind."
Ariel curled into the corner of the couch and spooned some of the caramel over her own ice cream.
"So do you want to tell me why you decided to shout obscenities in the presence of old ladies and innocent library books?"
Ariel dropped her head back against the couch with grunt of frustration. She swallowed her mouthful of ice cream as she reached for the book on the edge of the coffee table.
"The stupid cliffhanger at the end of this book," she said, holding the book so close in front of Daniel's face he had to lean back away from it.
"Don't all of those books end with a cliffhanger? I thought that was the whole point of having a series. You hang, then they scoop you back up, then you hang, then they scoop you back up," he turned his attention back to the bowl in his hands and took another bite of ice cream, "It's all really exhausting, honestly."
"You don't understand. This was like…" she groaned with exasperation, unable to come up with exactly the right words to explain why she was so angry at the book, "The books have been leading up to a war between the two rival tribes of wolves. There was a standoff with the Alphas of each of the packs and this book ended right as Lazar leapt into the air and shifted while the other was shooting a crossbow at him."
Daniel looked back at her with a dumbfounded expression on his face.
"Lazar?"
"Yes. He's the good Alpha who has been trying to get a bloodthirsty pack away from his pack's lands."
"Lazar?" Daniel repeated.
"Yes," Ariel said emphatically.
"And he's a wolf?"
"When he shifts, yes."
"So he's Lazar…the wolf."
Ariel chose to ignore the comment and turned the book over in her hands, staring down at the picture of the author on the back of the cover as Daniel sang "To Life" under his breath.
"He's so beautiful," she murmured.
"The wolf?" Daniel asked after a resounding L'chaim to finish out his song.
"The author," she said, tilting the book to Daniel so that he could look at the black and white picture on the cover.
Ariel had stared at that picture more times than she could count. Max Grimsley's dark eyes burned into her from the covers of more than a dozen books tucked on the bookshelf in her bedroom, and, though she wouldn't admit it, she often turned whatever book she was currently reading over on her nightstand so that she could look at his picture before going to sleep.
"Well, pretty soon you will be able to look at the real thing," Daniel said, a hint of teasing in his voice.
Ariel sighed, part of her hating how it made her feel to have a moony-eyed crush at her age while the other part loved the tingle through her body each time she read his name or saw his picture.
"I know. I can't wait."
She indulged the moony-eyed side by letting out an excited squeal. It had seemed like the months leading up to the convention were multiplying and sliding by with all the vim and vigor of a pot of day-old grits, but it was finally only a few days away. Max Grimsley would be there, signing copies of his books and giving a panel on fiction writing.
"So which are you more excited about, having him sign your book, or getting the opportunity to yell at him for dangling you so precariously over his literary cliff?"
She had told people she was going primarily for the workshops that she hoped would further her own burgeoning writing career, but she knew she was going for him. The ache inside her when she looked at his picture was intense and she couldn't wait to be near him, even if it was only long enough for him to scrawl his name across the cover page of her book and flash her an obligatory smile. Even that may satiate her.
"We'll have to see how I feel in the moment," she said, taking another bite of her ice cream and letting the slowly melting vanilla ice cream and rich caramel swirl across her tongue.
****
"Where are we?" Daniel asked, scanning the already bustling auditorium.
"It's general seating. We’ll sit wherever we can get a seat," Ariel told him, gripping the hem at the back of his shirt to make sure she didn't lose him in the relative chaos of the convention’s opening day.
"So run like hell is what you're telling me?"
"Yes."
Daniel took off running down the aisle, shoving past other attendees, and Ariel scurried after him, still holding onto his hem and sending up a prayer that Max Grimsley was not in the room at the time to see her completely undignified display of seat snagging.
"That felt vaguely unethical," Daniel panted as he dropped into one of the two remaining seats in the front row.
"But we got amazing seats."
"You are such a nerd," he muttered.
"I don't want to hear it, medieval history major."
Ariel shifted impatiently in her seat for the next half an hour waiting while others filtered in and filled the rest of the seats around them. There was an excited, electrified buzz through the room as people whispered and flipped through the books, brochures, and other swag tucked in their welcome bags. Daniel stared directly ahead at the empty stage and Ariel felt a wave of thankfulness roll over her. He would not be one to identify as part of the fandom, but he had come along with her so she wouldn't have to attend alone.
Silence moved through the room like a wave, settling people from the back forward and Ariel turned to the stage to see a silver-haired man approach the podium. There were a few scattered applause and Ariel knew most of the people didn't know who this man was, but she recognized him as Max Grimsley's agent. He smiled out at the crowd, watching them silently as if reveling in their anticipation. Finally he started speaking.
"It's good to see so many fans out here today," he said, scanning the full seats. There were a few more claps and he chuckled, obviously accustomed to being the lackluster lead-in that few had any excitement to see, "I guess it's still a little early in the morning for enthusiasm."
"It's 9:30," Daniel whispered and Ariel shushed him.
"He's trying to break the ice."
"Consider me still frozen."
Ariel shushed him again and Daniel complied, sitting back sullenly and looking up at the speaker with an expression on his face that dared him to become charming and entertaining.
"I know that all of you are excited to get the convention underway and we are all just as excited to introduce our keynote speaker, who is also one of the panelists and will be signing books at this evening's literacy gala." Out of the corner of her eye Ariel could see Daniel cover his face with his hands and shake his head, but her heart was beating too hard from the nervousness rolling through her to pay attention to him, "How many of you have read his most recent book?"
There were shouts and cheers from the crowd and the agent looked pleased to have finally gotten a bit of a rise out of them. He grinned wider.
"Excellent. Well, there isn't really anything else for me to say other than let's welcome Max Grimsley."
He stepped aside and held out a hand dramatically. The green velvet curtains fluttered and a darkly clad f
orm strode out onto the stage. Max stepped behind the podium and looked out over the crowd. His eyes swept the rows and then fell on Ariel, meeting her gaze and holding it intensely. There was a moment of strange, suspended stillness. Though the audience around her erupted in screams and applause, it was as though Ariel couldn't register the sound.
She didn't know how long they had been staring at each other when Max broke the connection, leaving her feeling slightly breathless and gripping the arms of her seats so hard her knuckles hurt. Daniel squeezed her thigh and she looked over at him. He lifted his eyebrows and she nodded, trying to smile but so taken aback by Max that she couldn't seem to control her expressions.
Max spoke with the reserved confidence and calm she had expected from him, never glancing down at his notes. Instead, he looked out over the audience and spoke as if he was just having a conversation. Every few moments his eyes fell back to Ariel and held her. Each time, his voice dropped slightly and he seemed to lean subtly forward. It made her breath catch in her throat and she wondered if she was just imagining the connection, if every woman in the audience was envisioning the same looks and cues.
The picture that had fueled countless fantasies had in no way done him justice. She had avoided looking up other pictures of him, contented by the sexy black and white picture that graced every book, his website, and the advertisements for every appearance he made. Now as he looked at her, his lips soft and full as he spoke, she wished she had put forth a little more effort.
His hair looked thick and silky as it fell just to his collar and the eyes she had expected to be dark were actually the color of her caramel sauce. She licked her lips when he glanced away from her, feeling her body respond exactly how she had anticipated it would. It was never a good idea to tempt a curvy girl with caramel.
****
"What exactly is a literary gala?" Daniel asked later as he walked beside Ariel down the distressingly cold hallway toward the elevator, pulling at his tie.