by Moira Rogers
Savage Need
Moira Rogers
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2009 Moira Rogers
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ISBN: 978-1-60521-241-8
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Editor: Sheri Ross Fogarty
Cover Artist: Sahara Kelly
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Savage Need
Moira Rogers
Zahra has devoted her life to serving Luna. The savage needs of the werewolf warriors can take their toll, and she serves as a healer, treating not only her fellow priestesses but anyone in need. Still, she’s never seen anyone so wounded as Jarek, an old friend who’s been through hell — and who doesn’t seem to remember her.
Jarek was always considered the most civilized wolf in his unit, a rare healer trained in werewolf magic as well as the medicine of their human enemies. When an injury shatters his self-control, the beast inside him takes over, leaving only the wolf. A wolf who remembers the scent of the mate he always needed… and is determined to claim her at any cost.
Chapter One
He doesn’t remember his name.
He remembers blood, and the men who spilled it. Dozens, hundreds, a river of life flowing into death. He remembers the screams, hardened men with mangled limbs and the sure knowledge of their own mortality in their voices. He remembers guns and bombs and the ways men kill, cold metal tearing through flesh and machines crushing their bones.
He remembers pain. He remembers death. But he doesn’t remember his name.
He doesn’t remember her name, either. Words are jumbles of sounds that hurt his throat anyway, but her name… Her name would taste like peace. Would feel as good on his tongue as the pleasure that heats his body every time he catches her scent. Soft. Female. Familiar.
Mine.
———
Even if Balthasar hadn’t been standing guard by the wall, Zahra would have known better than to go near the man in the corner. His eyes were more animal than anything else, and she shivered, remembering the intelligence that had once shone from their ice-blue depths. “Hello, Jarek.”
He didn’t speak, but his gaze stayed fixed on her face as a flash of something flickered across his features.
“It’s been a long time.” She moved slowly to sit in the chair in the center of the room. “That research elective, yes? With Dr. Bautista?”
His lips parted. When he spoke, the words were hoarse. Gravelly. “I’m a medic.”
“Yes, Jarek.” She leaned forward a little. “We went to school together. Do you remember me? My name is Zahra.”
He lunged so fast the stool he’d been seated on crashed against the far wall at the same time his hands curled around the back of her chair. Strong arms formed a cage, trapping her within a circle of masculine power and heat. She choked back the shriek that welled in her throat and steeled herself for an attack.
But none came. He inhaled deeply, drawing in her scent. In a mere moment, Balthasar dragged him away. Then Jarek grew violent, twisting to attack with an angry snarl and a blow strong enough to send the guard reeling. He turned and backed toward her, putting his body squarely between her and the guard. “Mine.”
Hot, possessive magic filled the space between them. He might not have remembered her, but something about her was familiar enough to draw him close, and she could use that to reach him.
Zahra signaled to Balthasar to stand down, and eased up beside Jarek. Magic flared again, chafing her nerve endings and heating her skin. “Do you need me?” she asked quietly.
She was the King’s cousin. It was the guard’s duty to keep her safe, and he knew it. “Out of the question. He’s feral, Zahra. If he needs relief, he needs a senior priestess.”
Jarek growled and edged to the side, placing his body in front of hers again. “Stay away.”
“He doesn’t need a senior priestess.” She raised one hand to his face. “You need a healer, don’t you, Jarek?”
He turned his head and caught the tip of one finger between his teeth, a gesture of dominance and claiming. On the other side of the room, Balthasar hissed out a curse and reached for the com unit clipped to his belt. “I’m calling the high priestess. Your uncle will snap my neck if I let you do this.”
“Call her,” Zahra urged. “Will you wait, Jarek, if I promise to return soon?”
“I don’t want another woman.” Jarek turned to face her, one hand coming up to trap her fingers against his cheek. There was no hint of recognition in those frozen eyes, nothing of the brilliant, civilized healer she’d known. He was as wild as any warrior and twice as hungry.
And all his attention, all his magic, was focused on her. He’d take her, sate that wild hunger in the depths of her body. Zahra could barely breathe, and her cunt tingled in reaction. “No other woman,” she swore, ignoring the guard’s incoherent protest. “You have my vow as a priestess of Luna.”
“Priestess.” He seemed to be testing the word. He shook his head. “What’s your name?”
“Zahra.” Doubt almost made her falter. She couldn’t lie to herself and think that he knew her deep down, under the trauma that had left his psyche in jagged shards. He didn’t know her. “My name is Zahra.”
His hand came up and his fingers touched her lips, traced their shape as if trying to memorize it. “You’ll come back.”
“Yes. Balthasar will take you to my room. Please go with him and wait for me there. Can you do that for me?”
Balthasar protested again. “Zahra, I can’t —”
Fury seized her. “I am a royal daughter, and you will do as I say!” She fixed him with a glare and took a deep breath. “I know my duties and my place. Do you know yours?”
Balthasar’s face closed off as brittle resentment filled the room. But he nodded. “Yes, priestess.”
The tension in Jarek’s body eased a tiny bit. His fingers ghosted over her cheek, over her hair and the line of her throat. “Zahra.” From his lips, her name sounded like a benediction, a prayer.
“Yes.” She backed away slowly, keeping her gaze on his. “I won’t be long.”
———
Zahra.
It echoes inside him, a whisper like silk over skin too used to rough pain. Maybe he remembers it, maybe it’s a dream. But it suits her beauty, the softness of her skin and her scent.
In the quiet of her room he rolls it over his tongue and lets his mouth give it form. His voice is scratchy and raw, too ugly for a word that makes his heart pound and his cock ache. But it doesn’t stop him from saying it again and again, as if it’s a spell that can ward off the madness licking at the shattered edges of his mind.
He wants to lick her. Shape her body with his mouth and hands until she cries his name, and if she
does it enough times maybe he’ll remember what it is. Maybe he’ll remember the way her pale green eyes look when she comes, the way her full lips look parted on a gasp, the way her dusky skin flushes with pleasure.
Zahra. He’s surrounded by her scent and it isn’t enough, isn’t nearly enough because the beast is hungry for her ecstasy and nothing else will satisfy the craving.
Zahra.
———
Zahra paced in front of the plush chair where the high priestess was seated. “He’s a brilliant doctor, Celine. And he’s always been intense, but something — something broke him. Now, I know what the rules are, but I got through to him. I won’t abandon him.”
Celine drummed her fingers against the arm of her chair. “And your solution is to take a feral wolf to your bed? A man so wild no one who hasn’t earned her silver robes could hope to handle him?”
If she told Celine the truth about their history, the priestess would most certainly bar Jarek from Zahra’s bed. “He knows me. It isn’t about rutting. He needs more than that, and that is something I’m trained for.”
“It doesn’t matter if he knows you, my dear. He may not be a warrior, but right now he’s reacting like one. One who won’t get on his knees and obey your every command based on the strength of your royal connections.”
Zahra groaned. “I don’t think I’m indestructible, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“I’m not implying anything.” Celine leaned forward suddenly, her green eyes hard. “I’m telling you flat out that if you try to control a feral wolf you could end up dead.”
“I understand that.” She would not shiver. Zahra clenched her hands into fists. “I promised him I would be back, and that he’d have no woman but me. I made a vow, Celine.”
“If you’re determined to do this…” The high priestess pointed to a chair. “Sit.”
She held her head high as she followed the instruction.
Celine nodded and crossed her legs. “Tell me what you know of the most important rules for dealing with a feral wolf.”
There was only one, as far as she knew. “Submission. I have to be ready and willing to submit to him, one hundred percent. If I struggle, his instinct will be to use force to dominate.”
“He won’t be able to help himself even if he wants to. Not everyone can earn a silver robe, Zahra. It’s not about skill or experience or even patience. Those who submit because they have no choice will never get one. You need strength to deal with the wildest men. I know you’re strong, but you’re also used to being in control of your own domain.”
She’d never aspired to the silver robes, had always known her first and greatest value to Luna was as a healer. “I don’t plan on making a habit of this, but it’s a special case, Celine. I’ve known Jarek for years. If I have any hope at all of helping him, I have to try.”
The high priestess nodded. “All right. But you’ll do it with a guard standing outside your door with a tranq gun or not at all. Your modesty is less important to me than your life, and I will have to answer to your cousin for the care I’ve taken with his blood relative.”
Zahra wasted no time in rising. “Agreed. Thank you, Celine.”
“Don’t thank me. I’m doing this against my better judgment, Zahra. You promise me you’ll take care, and that you’ll call for help if you need it.”
“Of course.” So many promises for one day. She only hoped she could keep them all.
———
The interior of her room was dim compared to the sunlit main hall, and Zahra shut the door behind her and blinked as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. “Jarek?”
He sat perched on the edge of her bed, his shoulders tense and his gaze fixed on the wall ahead of him. “You came back.”
“I told you I would.” She hesitated by the door and unfastened her outer robe. It dropped away, leaving her clad in only the sheer white robe she wore next to her skin and the jeweled leather cuffs around her wrists and ankles. “I wanted to come back.”
“I tried to remember you.” His voice sounded rusty with disuse, but he seemed more willing to speak now that they were alone. “I tried to remember why you feel like you’re mine. I can’t.”
Zahra knelt at his feet, her hands clenched to hide their shaking. “You kissed me once. At a party, the last time I saw you.”
The memory was vivid, clearer than it should have been. A classmate of theirs had thrown a graduation party, and she’d sought refuge from the noisy festivities in a deserted room. Only instead of solitude, she’d found Jarek. A conversation and too much wine had led to a single long kiss. Zahra remembered their tongues mingling, heat and pleasure and need.
The only other thing she remembered was that it had ended too soon.
His gaze dropped from the wall to her face, then lower. A look of possessive need filled his face as he lifted both hands to cup her cheeks, heartbreakingly gentle in spite of the violence raging just beneath the surface. “Are you scared of me?”
She was scared of what had happened to age him, to harden the intense blue eyes she remembered so well. She was scared that she might not be strong enough to drag him back from the edge. “I’m scared of a lot of things, Jarek, but not of you.”
“Zahra.” He whispered her name as his fingers tunneled into the long strands of her hair. “I want to taste you. Your mouth.”
Yes. She rose on her knees and eased between his legs. Her hands slid up his thighs, and she marveled at the heat and hardness of his muscles through the thin ceremonial pants he wore. “Taste me.”
Long fingers curved around the vulnerable back of her neck, the grip just tight enough to show strength. To show dominance. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears as he licked her lower lip and growled softly. “Open.”
Zahra opened her mouth on a gasp, surprised by the way the simple brush of his tongue stoked the fire inside her. His kiss was slow and demanding, claiming her mouth with every hard thrust of his tongue, every rough scrape of his teeth.
He didn’t stop, not until her head was spinning and her hands were clenched on his legs. “Jarek.” It was too soon for her skin to feel too tight, for her to shiver at the slightest touch.
Too soon for her to be so ready.
He bit her lip hard and growled into her mouth, his fingers fisting in her hair. “Do you want me to stop?”
The thought almost hurt. “No, don’t stop. Please.”
His hand urged her head back until her throat was bared to him. He nuzzled the edge of her chin and inhaled. “I’m in Luna’s Temple. I remember that. But you don’t feel like a priestess.”
“I’m a healer as well as a priestess, Jarek.” Zahra moved her hands to his chest, barely touching him. “A doctor, like you.”
Jarek snarled and caught one wrist, his fingers closing over the thin leather cuff so hard the jewels surely bruised his hand. “Doctors can’t heal me. Sedated the body, confused the mind. I don’t need a doctor.”
Her wrist ached, but she didn’t move. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
“I know.” The fingers in her hair gentled as he licked a hot path up her throat. “You want me. I can smell it.”
“Not just that.” She squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated on the fierce confusion inside him — desire and pain and even fear. “I need you.”
“I want to taste you.” His teeth closed over her pulse for one heart-stopping moment, just hard enough to draw a whimper from her throat. “Not your mouth. Your cunt.”
Lust made her dizzy, and she had to remind herself not to move too suddenly as she rose. “I can lie on the bed. You can lift my robe, or I can take it off.” She stood and looked down at him. “You can take it off.”
A noise rumbled out of him, something so broken it took her a moment to recognize it as laughter. “I’m crazy, not twelve.” Large, strong hands found her hips and smoothed over the flimsy fabric, rubbing it against her skin. “Some things are instinct, little healer.”
“I know you’re
not twelve,” she retorted, her cheeks heating. “You’re not crazy, either. Don’t say that.”
“Then don’t tell me how to pleasure you.” His hands fisted without warning, gathering up the fabric on either side of her body in a punishing grip. One jerk and the thin robe tore, the sound eclipsed by his snarl of satisfaction as he ripped it free of her body.
Zahra’s arms jerked up reflexively to cover herself, and she froze when he caught her wrists and tugged them back down.
She’d been prideful, assuming the best way to help Jarek was to be everything at once. But if she tried to play two roles with him, the healer and the seductress, neither would be enough. Right now, they were in a bedroom, not the healing rooms, and he needed one thing above all else. She could gentle his beast first. Then, with his physical hunger sated, she could help heal the man.
Zahra relaxed in his grip. “I like your tongue when you kiss my mouth.” She rubbed her thighs together, trying to quell the ache between them. “Will you do the same things with it when you kiss my cunt?”
“Maybe.” He released her wrists and moved his hands to her hips again. “Don’t try to hide your body from me again.”
“All right.” She left her hands by her sides and bent her head back, baring her throat to him along with the long line of her naked torso. “Here it is. Do you like it?”
Jarek smoothed his hands over her abdomen and up until his fingers molded her breasts. “Perfect. Step closer.”
Zahra took a single small step. The action pressed her breasts more fully into his hands, and his palms chafed her taut nipples. Pleasure arced through her, and she bit her lip.
His low, masculine chuckle was pure male wolf. He lowered his mouth and caught her nipple between his lips before flicking his tongue over it.
Her head swam with desperate desire, and Zahra lifted her hands to his head, holding his mouth to her skin. Another teasing swipe of his tongue drove the air from her lungs, and she gasped his name. “Jarek…”
He growled and bit her — not hard enough to hurt, but enough to make her knees go weak. Only sheer force of will had been keeping her upright anyway, and she sagged against him. “Oh —”