by Lynn Hagen
The man had no idea just how deep the bond would grow. Rick had no idea either, but he had been told by his parents that it was like nothing he would ever experience again in life. That it ran as deep as the ocean, as far as the imagination could stretch, and was as strong as forged steel.
He was beginning to understand, but Rick knew that this was only the start of things. He curled his hips, pushing Dorian’s legs apart as he watched his cock slip in and out of Dorian’s body, clenching his jaw to stop himself from coming. The sight was breathtaking.
Dorian slid his hands over Rick’s, entwining their fingers together, his head rolling to the side as a low moan escaped his lips. Even if Rick wanted to stop these crazy feelings—which he didn’t—he knew he couldn’t. He was tumbling forward, falling into the unknown, scared, elated, and lost in his mate’s very breath.
Dorian was more dangerous than any creature Rick had ever encountered. The man had the ability to crush the life right out of Rick. And that thought was more terrifying than facing the Death Squad and the Mãos da Morte combined.
Rick pulled in a raged breath and then slipped free of Dorian’s body. “Turn over, gatito.”
Dorian spun over, getting to his hands and knees, raising his ass high in the air for Rick to reenter his body. Rick slid his hardened cock back in, leaned forward, and raked his canines down Dorian’s spine.
“Oh, god.” Dorian moaned as he arched his back, making Rick’s shaft push deeper into the man’s ass. “Do that again.”
Rick placed his lips at his mate’s neck, laying a soft kiss against the man’s flesh, and then trailed the tips of his canines over Dorian’s shoulders, eliciting a shiver from his mate. “You like when I do that?”
Dorian’s head fell forward, exposing his nape, not knowing the trust that he had just given Rick. For any changeling to expose any part of his or her neck meant they were giving you their full trust, virtually placing their life in your hands.
“Yes.”
Rick’s hands skimmed down Dorian’s sides, his fingernails scraping lightly, and he felt the goose bumps rise. His mate was so responsive. His body was telling Rick that he loved what was being done to him.
Rick leaned back, placing his hands on Dorian’s ass and then pulled the cheeks apart, watching in utter amazement as his mate’s body swallowed his cock over and over again. Rick could feel the head of his dick grazing over nerve endings as Dorian whimpered underneath him.
He knew he was going too slowly, but Rick wanted to make the time last. He wanted forever with this man.
As crazy as it sounded, Rick wanted to crawl inside Dorian and stay there for all eternity. His mate made him feel alive. Dorian made Rick want to be a better man, a better person. Dorian made him question every choice, every action he contemplated. The man made Rick hesitate in his decisions, wondering if his mate would see him as cruel or unyielding. He felt all-powerful around Dorian and as weak as a pup in the same breath.
Rick faltered in his thrusts when the realization slammed into him, hard.
He was in love.
Somehow, over the course of being around this human, he had fallen in love with Dorian. There was no other explanation for the way he felt, the insanity that took over at the thought of Dorian being hurt, wounded, or killed.
“Rick?”
Rick picked up his pace once more, thrusting his cock into Dorian’s ass as he stared at Dorian’s smooth back, and then laid kisses on his shoulder. “I’m right here, gatito.”
“I know.” The two words had so much feeling in them, a double entity that Rick read so much into. Dorian knew that not only was Rick behind him, fucking him with such slow, measured, and pleasurable thrusts, but that he would always be behind him, in whatever they encountered, good or bad.
His mate knew. Of this, Rick was certain.
He thrust faster, wanting to feel his body explode inside Dorian, wanting to leave his scent all over his mate. Mark him. Bite him.
As his hips slammed into Dorian’s ass, Rick growled, feeling the impeding orgasm take hold, and then the room shattered into brilliant blinding colors, his body shuddering as he felt Dorian’s body milk him, telling Rick that his mate had found release at the same time.
As he slowed, Rick not only felt his mate’s satiation, but an underlying feeling that took him by surprise.
He could feel the same emotions coming from his mate as Rick felt, and knew that Dorian, too, was in love.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Something woke Dorian. His eyes remained closed, but he could feel a presence in the room that shouldn’t have been there. Rick was spooned behind him, holding Dorian close to his chest.
For a moment, Dorian wondered if maybe he wasn’t still asleep. He’d never been this aware in his sleep before, but there was a first time for everything.
He felt Rick’s hand tighten on his side and knew the man was awake. So Dorian wasn’t the only one who felt like they had company. Rick felt it, too.
In the blink of an eye, Dorian was thrown clear of the bed, hitting the wall hard. He was stunned, his vision a little blurred, but he could make out two figures, and they didn’t belong to Rick.
A howl erupted, breaking the silence of the night as Rick began to change. His body sprouted hair, his nails lengthened, his jaw elongated, and his height increased by at least two inches.
The man had shifted into a werewolf.
This had to be bad.
As his vision cleared, Dorian saw two pale men on the other side of the bed, circling Rick, their long talons up, ready to tear skin from bone. In a heartbeat of a second, Dorian knew he was staring at two Mãos da Morte.
That fucking prick-ass master vampire had sent them. Dorian had thought they had an understanding, but apparently the man didn’t know what an unspoken agreement was. Luckily, Dorian had brought the gun inside and had shoved it into his bag.
Hey, he was human. He had to use what he could to defend himself. He hadn’t known if Ross was friend or foe, and wasn’t going to chance his and Rick’s life.
Dorian scrambled across the floor, feeling stupid as hell for fighting naked, but there was nothing he could do about it. He reached his bag, unzipped it, and pulled the gun free. The door burst open, and two more werewolves entered the room, howling and snarling.
Miguel and Benito.
They were much smaller than Rick, but still an impressive size. Dorian held the gun up, aiming it at one of the vampires. He wasn’t sure if he should shoot it, though. It was three werewolves against two vampires.
He might have thought that was pretty fair odds, but he remembered what Rick had told him about Mãos da Morte. Three changelings might not be enough.
He wasn’t even sure a gun would dissuade the boogeymen of the nonhuman world from attacking.
One Mãos da Morte had his dark hair pulled back into a thong, his clothes reminding Dorian of worn leather, the kind that was worn in the medieval days. The pants clung to him like second skin, the shirt open at the collar, laced up the front with a leather binding. He even wore brown leather boots that looked like they had seen better days.
The man truly looked like he had lived in the era of kings and knights, King Arthur and the Round Table.
The other man was dressed almost identically, except his hair was too short to pull back and he had a jagged scar that ran down the side of his face, stopping at his jaw. They both were baring their fangs, and they looked sharp as hell in the pale moon light spilling into the room.
Before Dorian could make a decision whether to shoot one of the bastards, one of the smaller werewolves jumped on a vampire’s back. He wasn’t sure if it was Miguel or Benito, but whichever one it was sank his teeth into the vampire’s shoulder.
Dorian gave a long blink when the vampire just freaking disappeared. How in the hell could he do that? In the blink of an eye, the vampire was back, but standing behind his attacker. The vampire sliced the werewolf on his side, making whoever the werewolf was not only howl in
pain, but bleed.
He aimed the gun and fired.
The bullet hit the vampire in his back, but instead of stopping, or even slowing the creature down, the creature was in front of Dorian so fast that Dorian hadn’t seen him move. His fingers were curled around Dorian’s neck, lifting him off the floor and into the air, choking the life out of him.
His vision quickly began to fade around the edges, and Dorian knew he had very little time before the vampire killed him. His feet were dangling in midair, and damn it, he was not going to die naked!
Dorian shoved the gun into the vampire’s gut and fired, fired again, and kept firing until he was dropped, hitting the floor with a loud thud, his elbow exploding with pain. He wasn’t fully healed in the shoulder, and that wound seemed to want to make itself known as Dorian gritted his teeth and pushed to his feet, gasping for air from his bruised windpipe.
The leather shirt on the vampire was riddled with holes, the creature hissing, coming back toward Dorian for seconds until Rick grabbed the vampire from behind and tossed him across the room.
The vampire vanished, reappearing behind Rick.
“Behind you!”
Rick spun around, his head so massive, his body so thick that it reminded Dorian of a tree trunk, slamming into the vampire as Rick bit down into the vampire’s throat.
The other two werewolves looked like they were having a very difficult time fighting their opponent. They weren’t winning. Dorian ran around Rick, heading over to Miguel and Benito. He couldn’t just stand by and watch them get their asses handed to them, although Dorian was impressed as hell at how well the two were fighting.
If the two vampires weren’t Mãos da Morte, Dorian would have bet money that Miguel and Benito would have wiped the floor with the creature they were fighting.
Dorian prayed to whoever was listening that he didn’t shoot either werewolf. He hadn’t been trained to use a gun, and he was only going off of what he had seen on television, and the last two times he had used it.
Closeness would have ensured that his target was hit, but Dorian didn’t want to get anywhere near the two werewolves and the vampire. They were fighting a battle that would kill him if he got in between them.
So he dropped to his knee, closed one eye, and focused the gun on the vampire’s side. Dorian said a prayer before squeezing the trigger. The bullet was dead accurate, but it didn’t seem to put a dent in the creature.
He fired again, and again.
Miguel and Benito moved back.
Smart men.
He fired until there were no more bullets in the gun.
Shit.
As soon as he stopped firing, the two werewolves attacked again. They tore into the vampire, one of them clamping down on a pale throat. Dorian glanced over at Rick, seeing that the vampire he was fighting had disappeared. He waited, but the vampire didn’t appear again.
The other one that Miguel and Benito were attacking suddenly was gone.
“Is it over?” Dorian asked, his hands shaking as he fell onto his ass. His nerves were on edge, which made him jump when Rick spoke.
“I’m not sure. I’ve never dealt with a Mãos da Morte before.”
“I think they left to regroup.” The voice was familiar, and Dorian knew it was Miguel talking.
Now he knew the two werewolves apart. Miguel stood an inch taller than Benito, his fur a deeper brown coloring than Benito’s.
“Then they will be back.” Rick growled the words in a raspy voice. “Fucking Kraven. I knew he was low-down, but I didn’t think he would really send Mãos da Morte. I swear, if I get ahold of him, I’m going to rip his damn throat out.”
“What happened for them to come after you?” Benito asked.
Dorian was tempted to ask them to change back into their human forms, but he knew from the last time Rick went all furry that if they did, they would still be naked. Seeing the two without clothes was pretty damn uncomfortable.
He was starting to get pissed that Rick was standing there naked, even if he was covered in fur. No one should see the man’s—Dorian hurried over to the bed and grabbed the sheet, setting the gun down so he could wrap it around his waist. How had he forgotten that his bits and pieces were hanging out?
A rough sandpapery laugh sounded behind him.
“He is embarrassed of his nudity,” Miguel said.
“Leave him be,” Rick warned. “I’m not too keen on you two seeing him in the buff.”
“But we’re changelings,” Benito argued. “We are used to seeing others naked. It doesn’t bother me.” To prove his point, he shifted back to his human form. Dorian looked away.
“We just got attacked by two wannabe Robin Hoods, and you are arguing over my modesty?” Dorian asked incredulously, but still kept his eyes averted.
It bothered him. Big deal. He wasn’t a prude, but he wasn’t comfortable looking at naked men he wasn’t intimate with. They may have grown up in that kind of environment, but Dorian hadn’t. He would have beaten the snot out of Ian if his brother had pranced around naked.
Gross.
“He’s funny.” Benito snickered.
“Get out!” Dorian shouted. “At least until we are all dressed.”
The two walked out, grumbling the whole time. When he shut the door and turned around, Dorian saw that Rick was back to his human form, a lopsided grin on his face. “What’s so funny?”
“You know you aren’t going to win with them. They both are determined to get you accustomed to pack life.”
Dorian narrowed his eyes at Rick. It didn’t bother him that the two cousins wanted him in their pack. “I’m trying my best with the whole reassurance thing. I haven’t bitten Benito’s head off. But I’ll be damned if they are going to walk around me naked, and they are not going to be gawking at my groin.”
The smile slid from Rick’s face. “To look at a naked changeling with lust is forbidden in our pack. It is the same as walking up and slapping a person. If Miguel or Benito ever stared at your cock, they would, in essence, be challenging me.”
Dorian frowned. He didn’t think he would ever get used to the changeling world. Their set of rules was vastly different from a human’s way of thinking. If Dorian walked into a house of friends or relatives naked, they would try and commit him on the spot.
“I’m not going to give them a chance for that to happen. I stay clothed around them, and any other changeling, and they stay clothed around me.”
Rick chuckled. “Prude.”
“I am not.”
“Not that I want you flaunting what belongs to me. On the contrary, I don’t. But yes, you are a prude.”
“Whatever,” Dorian grumbled. “Do you want to talk about the Mãos da Morte, or are we going to keep focusing on naked people?”
Rick moved to stand next to him so that he had to crane his neck to look up at the man. Rick’s eyes darkened and his jaw flexed as he stared down at Dorian. “I am going to have a little talk with Kraven. What he did was uncalled for. We are already in a heated battle with the Death Squad. We don’t need added shit to our already full plates.”
Dorian swallowed hard, biting his bottom lip as he nodded. Having Rick so close and so damn deliciously naked was causing havoc to his body. He was sore, and knew he couldn’t go another round—but hell if he didn’t want to.
Rick leaned down and placed a chaste kiss on Dorian’s lips. “Me, too, gatito.” It took Dorian a second to realize that Rick was just as hard. Contradictory to what he had just said, the man moved away. “But I have a phone call to make.”
“We are already ass deep in alligators and you send Mãos da Morte after us?” Rick growled the words into the phone. “What kind of bullshit is that?”
“Your human comes into my territory and tries to kill my second-in-command and you expect me to let that slide? The insult could not be overlooked, Enrique. Be lucky, they only came after you as a warning. The next time your human, or any of your werewolves for that matter, insults me or my cove
n, the Mãos da Morte will not stop until your entire pack is dead. The human should be grateful he is still breathing!”
Rick wanted to reach through the phone and punch the shit out of Kraven. The man only thought of himself. He had always been that way. He took any slight as an insult, dispensing justice whether it was earned or not. The man was a total asshole that Rick wouldn’t mind eradicating from this planet.
“Have you decided to join the fight?” Rick switched subjects. He was not about to stand here and have a moral debate with the dead bastard.
“It is not my fight. This Death Squad has not come after any vampires, so we will not get involved. They are after changelings, which is none of my concern.”
Rick gritted his teeth. Was the man serious? “They are eradicating all nonhumans. If you stepped down off of your throne long enough, you would realize that includes your kind.”
Kraven scoffed. “Not yet it hasn’t. Until we are attacked, I am staying out of this. Good night, Enrique.” Kraven hung up.
It goaded him that Kraven had left off his alpha title. It was a slap in the face, plain and simple. The master vampire was telling Rick that he thought very little of him and his place in his pack.
One of these days, Rick was going to show Kraven why he had earned the title alpha. But until that day, Rick had more pressing problems to worry about. He was relieved the Mãos da Morte weren’t coming back. He knew for a fact that defeating them wasn’t going to be easy. He hadn’t been winning the fight tonight. They were too damn quick. Even though Rick possessed great speed, it wasn’t anywhere near as impressive as the Mãos da Morte.
Tossing the phone aside, Rick went to go check on Benito. The man had been clawed by one of the vampires. Rick knew it to be a simple flesh wound—nothing more than a scratch. Although he would heal, Rick still wanted to make sure Benito was all right.
He was alpha. It was his job to protect and care for his pack. He just wondered if he could continue to do so with the way the winds were shifting. He still hadn’t forgotten about the massacre.