He was holding her, the woman he’d been sent to kill, by the throat. His desire for her was strong. It went beyond sex. He wanted her in a way he never wanted anyone. He fought it; she killed his mother and stole him from his father. She deserved to die, but he couldn’t do it. His nature overtook him and he claimed her.
The other man, she called Devon, spoke to his soul. He’d been with men before, but there was a connection there he’d never known. His mind whirled with confusion. He slipped out of bed and dressed. The sun was coming up, and he knew she wouldn’t wake.
Looking at them again, his brow furrowed. He brushed a single lock of hair out of her beautifully pale face. Shaking his head, unable to make sense of anything, he stepped back and left them to sleep.
He moved silently through the house and outside. The sunrise was red that morning. A bad omen of the day to come. He was hired to capture and take her to Jacob so he could take her head and end their long battle.
Micha reached his jeep and sat thinking. He knew there was only one way for it to end. He grabbed his cell phone and punched in a number. He spoke quietly for a few minutes before clicking off and dial another number. This time the conversation was only two words. “It’s time.” Hitting end, he tossed the phone on the passenger seat and grabbed his bag. He headed back to the house.
The sun was fully up. Micha sat on the chaise waiting. He watched as Devon stirred first. He knew Vivian had to sleep during the day to recover.
Devon sat up, but the chains made it difficult. “What in the hell?”
“Don’t fight; you won’t be able to break them.”
Micha watched him look over at Vivian. His eyes widened at seeing her in chains too. “There was no other choice.” His voice was flat, defeated.
Devon turned his glare on Micha. “You bastard! You betrayed her.”
“I’m doing what I have to.”
He shook his head, “Liar. You could have walked away from the contract.” Before he said more, his head whipped to the door.
Micha heard the footsteps as well. He stood when the door opened.
Jacob stepped into the room, looking around as he did. “So where is the little bitch?”
Micha motioned with his head towards the bed. “The wolf is a bonus.”
Jacob snorted with laughter. He walked over to where Vivian lay chained and still resting. His finger traced the length of her long leg, teasing close to her inner thigh. “This is going to be a fun afternoon.”
“Leave her alone!” Devon strained at his bonds.
Micha knew even his great werewolf strength couldn’t break them. He had them specially made, and they were well-tested.
Jacob and the other men with him laughed. “My dogs will enjoy tearing you to shreds in the pit.”
Devon continued to glare at him, but he stopped straining.
Micha moved over, tossed a blanket over them both. He couldn’t risk dressing them before, but there was no need to force humiliation.
Jacob snorted, “Soft spot for the vampire? Careful, you’ll lose your reputation for being cold blooded.”
Micha’s eyes narrowed. This is my father? He snorted softly as he stepped back again.
Jacob looked at the two men standing near the door. “Take the wolf downstairs.”
They moved over, and Devon resisted. “I’ll kill every one of you!” He continued to strain at the bonds. Micha could see the metal edge cutting into his wrists. That didn’t stop him fighting them. He pushed at one, throwing him backward into the nearby wall.
Jacob bellowed, “Stop! You both are worthless.” His eyes glanced from Devon to Vivian. A sneer crossed his lips, “I have a better idea. The little wolf seems to be in love with the vampire. Then he should enjoy this.” Motioning to the chaise. “Drag him over there. He can watch.”
The two attempted to get him again, but Devon was stronger than they were. Micha shook his head, stepped over to the tussle, pushed one man back, and then punched Devon hard enough to knock him out. “I think you can handle him now.” He moved back to the fireplace, leaning against the wall again.
Jacob waited for Devon to start coming round. He stepped over, patted his cheek. “Wakey, wakey.”
Devon pulled back. His anger blanketed his face and eyes.
“I didn’t want you to miss anything.” He smiled before heading back over to Vivian. He long since tossed the blanket covering her aside, leaving her exposed to everyone in the room. Jacob trailed his fingers along her calf again. “You shouldn’t have fought me in Paris.” He unbuttoned his pants, lowered the zipper. “Before you die, I will have what I wanted.”
Micha looked at him, “Why do you want her dead so badly?”
Jacob turned; his expression dark. “She killed my son.”
“That must have been horrific to find.”
“She didn’t leave a body.”
“How do you know she killed him?”
Jacob moved over to Micha, inches from his face. “I say she did.” He growled.
“Fine. Then kill her and get it over with. Why the need to rape her?”
“Because I get what I want.”
Internally Micha snorted. Selfish bastard.
“If you can’t stomach it, you can leave.”
“Have your fun.” He smiled, lounging back against the wall again.
Devon screamed Micha, “I’ll kill you for this!”
Jacob ignored him and went back to Vivian. He climbed onto the bed and started on her neck and shoulder with his mouth. His kisses weren’t soft and gentle, they were cruel and demanding. He grabbed and mauled at her breasts, trying to bring her out of her deep rest. “Maybe this will wake you up.” He shifted to lie between her legs. Reaching his hand down to release himself and thrust into her, he suddenly stopped.
He had no choice but to stop. Vivian’s right hand was firmly on Jacob’s throat; her dark eyes burning. The shackle that was previously on her wrist dangled off the bed. She didn’t let go as she sat up, forcing him to bend unnaturally backward. “You think to have your revenge? Revenge for my denying you?” She hissed at him. She continued to push him back, until both were standing beside the bed. “What a small man you are, to murder someone because you heard the word ‘no.’”
Jacob’s bodyguards moved to attack. One was caught by Devon’s large hands, tossed easily into the wall. He landed in a twisted heap. Micha attacked the other, snapping his neck.
Vivian watched, then looked at Jacob again. “You should know, I never killed your son. He grew up with parents who treated him as he should have been. Didn’t you know his scent?”
“You lie.” He gasped as her fingers closed more, nails digging into his neck.
“You hired him to kill me, yet he chose otherwise.”
Jacob’s eyes widened. His expression of confusion and disbelief turned to shock.
“This has gone on long enough.” Her hand closed, crushing his throat, killing him instantly.
Later that evening, the bodies cleared away, the house came alive again. Vivian stood watching both men sleep, and smiled. The future that was once so certain, and filled with revenge, was now free. Years had passed since she last looked forward to the future. Turning, she headed to the balcony to enjoy the night.
Between Two Shifters
Bisexual Ménage Paranormal Romance
Chapter 1
Emma was in no mood for the meeting, she had worked closely with the Maynards for just under three years now and though they were the only shifters who had sense enough to take all their money and build a legacy of their own, she was just not up to the oversized egos they had grown along the way. The luxury vehicles, sprawling houses, bubble-headed tight skirt women should have been enough but no, the three brothers had to keep trying to outdo each other and today was allotted to the annoying art of stroking those said oversized egos.
“Sorry I am late,” she said as she walked into the small room off the library, with a face that said business was the order of the
day. The two brothers muttered a response to her greeting along with everybody else in the room, while the third stood up from his seat and behaved like the gentleman he was.
“Good morning Miss Raynor,” Luke said and waited for her to take her place before he too sat down. As Gavin, the eldest began his presentation, drawing the attention of all the other members present. Later the youngest brother Mikol presented accounts and as much as Emma knew her attention should be focused there she could not ignore Luke’s eyes that never seemed to leave her face.
There was a mystery surrounding him, and the whole town knew it. His carnal desires had no preference. Men and woman alike had fallen prey to his mysterious charms and by the stories told they each enjoyed every moment of it.
He was a mysterious one. Made even more so by the fact that he also had chosen a mate. A male, whom no one seemed to know or had ever seen, but behind his left ear was the sign that spoke of the fact that he had.
Emma wondered what that relationship must be like, but she dared not ask.
Luke, the only true gentleman of the Maynard trio, was the middle child. She had assumed growing up under the egoistic behavior of his older brother and having to deal with the immaturity of the younger one, had taught him how to get a balance in his own life. Where the two spent time and money impressing the world, Luke preferred to slip away into the shadows of their lives.
He kept a close eye on the business from locations no one knew and though he was now in his first month of taking over the management of all the businesses, she did not see his routine change. His modus operandi remained the same.
“What do you think Miss Raynor?” Gavin was asking for her input and rightly so. She was after all severing in the capacity that demanded she give an input in these meetings.
She knew he was simply asking her opinion so he could stroke his ego, but she had to answer anyway. She gave him the yes sure response she knew he was looking for and the self-centered smile that flashed across his face made her want to smack him into oblivion where he would hopefully learn some humility.
She glanced at her watch, only three minutes had passed. Turning her head to the window she gazed at the city skyline while trying to resist the urge to jump out the window. She would rather commit suicide than stay in the meeting, but stupidity was not her strong suit so she instead turned to look back at Luke who was pretending to be interested in the documents Gavin had passed down the table.
He must have felt her eyes on him, because he chose that moment to look at her and the feral red his eyes took on was enough to let her know he was a bit preoccupied with her too.
Minutes slowly turned into hours and as soon as the baby brother of the lot had finished his ego trip, Luke called for a break. She was the first out the door. Emma wasn’t so sure if she was trying to get away from the brothers or just Luke’s intense stares, but she knew she wanted to be out of that room.
“Running away already?” his voice asked from outside the building as she stepped out into the cool mid-afternoon air.
She turned in shock to look where the voice came from, almost sure it could not have been who she thought it was. Yet it was. Luke’s milky brown face, belying his mixed ethnicity stared back at her – expressionless except for the lifting of a brow to accompany his unanswered question.
“How did you get...” she let the question die on her lips as it would not be answered, and it was sure to be a self-explanatory one.
She instead chose to focus on the hunger and walked to the hot dog cart parked in front of the building as she answered. “Any woman who uses the good senses the universe has given her would be wise to get out of the same room your brothers are in as soon as she can.”
“That bad huh?” he asked her with a chuckle as a strong wind lifted the scarf from around her neck. With the quick snap of a hand he caught it before it blew away and stepped up to her to wrap it securely around her neck.
He stepped in close enough so she could smell the lingering, yet subtle smell of his aftershave, but far enough away for there to be respectful distance. She was frozen to the spot, helpless to do anything but let him wrap her in a scarf. She had never been this close to him before, but that intriguing sway he held over her was heightened by the moment.
“There you go,” he said and stepped back. The hot dog vendor stretched a hot dog towards her and as she accepted it and reached her jacket pocket for the money to pay him, Luke handed the man a fifty dollar bill, stuck his hands in his pockets and walked off.
“I love the way your dress sits on you by the way,” he threw over his shoulder as if he had simply been telling her that it was about to rain.
Oh the weather is nice, and you are sexy! No, nothing strange about that!
She was happy he could appreciate the curves she had grown to love, but she was so not going down that road with him.
“He’s an odd one,” the hotdog man she called France, said.
“Tell me about it,” she agreed, distracted by the way his slightly bowed and long legs were topped by the kind of masculine ass that just made a woman want to drop her drawers. The baby blue suit he wore topped by the pink tie that flapped to the side as he walked against the wind, was enough to tell her that this man did not need meetings to boost his ego. He had enough swag to feed a million man army made of up Maynard clones.
“You gonna fuck him?” France asked her watching the way her eyes were gobbling up the body that had just been inches away from hers.
She glared at the man who had been the one friend she had really made since moving to New York.
“What?” he chuckled back at her expression. “If you don’t, I sure as hell will.”
She slapped him on the arm and turned to watch Luke enter the revolving doors of the building. He looked back and from that distance away she could see the red flash in his eyes again. She averted her gazed to his black shirt beneath which she was sure covered the abs to complement his ass. And the thought brought the warmth of her ember eyes out.
“Whoa Kitty!” France shouted and took a tentative step back from his cart at the sight of her eyes. “I was just kidding he is all yours.”
Emma hadn’t even realized her eyes had been changing until France’s outburst and she mentally admonished herself. He had reason to be scared, he had been there the first night she had activated her tiger gene and he had seen the death that had followed her inability to control herself. It had been over three years ago, but the memory was still fresh and she still felt she had the blood of innocents on her hands. It was the search for others like herself that had brought her to New York. She had run into other shifters here, but it was the night the wolves, who were trying hard to overthrow the vice grip the tigers had on the city, had cornered her that she had met another tiger.
His name had been Kyle- the shifter who had saved her. He had swooped in just as the wolves were about to rip into her for being on their turf. Her presence had nearly started a war but Kyle had held them off. She had fallen for the emotionally scared and somewhat misunderstood knight in shining armor. But it was a tryst that had been sexless and short lived. He had disappeared without a trace a year later.
In the short space of time they had shared a somewhat dysfunctional relationship he had disappeared several times, but this time had been the longest and her worry is what had set her on the same path as the Maynards. She had also needed a job, and when one had presented itself, she did not turn down the opportunity to work for the Tigers who ran the town.
“I gotta go.” She said to France glancing at her watch minutes later. “See you for drinks later.” With that she headed back to the conference room- this time Luke was nowhere to be seen.
***
From his perch on the roof of a building fifty-two stories up and two blocks away, Luke Maynard laid on the edge ignoring the mess he was making to his suit, and dared the wind to throw him over the edge. It ignored him. It’s not like he would have died anyway, he had been landing softly on his fe
et for years.
But his mission at the moment was not the need to explore if there was life after death, but a primal desire to stalk a mate that had stroked his inner fires all morning.
One Emma Raynor. The woman who was bold enough to express her displeasure at the Kings of the town, but smart enough to know that sometimes stroking their egos would go a long way. He changed the form of his eyes to tap into the enhanced abilities of his tiger form and narrowed in on the boardroom two blocks away.
There she was, looking like she wanted to do nothing more than tell Mikol to shut his pie hole, but there was her smarts saving her buxom, yet sexy derriere one more time. He let his eyes freely roam her features for just a tad bit longer. This time he had the cloak of distance to do so without her knowing. Her curly hair hung over her eyes and her elegant fingers would brush them away every time she lifted an annoyed gaze to where Mikol stood in his black suit.
He could not help but smile. He had been alive for almost three hundred and twenty years, and across the ages only one other woman had shown the kind of fire Emma had. He felt reluctantly bewitched, but knew whether it be reluctance or fate, he had to stay away from her. If he didn’t she would become another prize to be won in the Maynard household, because his brothers felt that any woman he desired was up for grabs.
Gavin, the alpha by default and because he wanted her, would seek to proclaim her as his before Luke could even finish her name.
It was the natural order of things, and had he not loved and cherished his brothers, he would have separated himself from their arrogance and follies a long time ago.
He watched as Emma uncurled her long legs, with calves elegantly highlighted by the gladiator wedge she wore. His eyes traveled up to where he could see the powerful muscles of her thigh outlined by the black dress she wore. She had looked like an inviting glass of death and danger when he had seen her on the outside. And her perfume, strong enough to be noticed but feminine enough to simply intoxicate him, still clung to his palms from where they had clutched her scarf earlier.
Hang Em' Up: A Bad Boy Sports Pregnancy Romance Page 36