by Jeff Hale
The feel of her fingers on my skin was an almost agonizing pleasure, making me tremble uncontrollably and I had to bury my face against her collarbone, a groan escaping me. My hands fisted in the pillow on either side of her head as I tried to regain control.
She pressed her mouth against my ear, running her tongue around the edge, before whispering, “Let it go, Alex, you can’t hurt me.”
I froze, my heart beating madly in my chest. I hadn’t been with a shifter in so long, had spent most of these moments with fragile human women, that I had almost forgotten what it was like to lose myself, to not have to hold back. A shudder ran down the length of my body.
“Then you had better get out of those clothes if you want to save them,” I told her, my voice rough, almost a snarl. Now that she had reminded me, had told me that I didn’t have to rein myself in, the control was quickly disappearing.
She pulled away from me and I felt the loss of her touch as something painful, but she slipped out of her clothes as quickly as she could, dropping them to the floor. The moment she turned back to me and I could see her naked flesh, knew that it was there for me to touch, what was left of my control evaporated.
My mouth against hers was savage, my lips bruising hers, tongue fighting with hers. But her Aspect roared to life and she met me full on, just as wild in her desire, just as out of control. One of her hands twined in my hair, holding me to her with a strength I had almost never thought I would feel again, while the fingertips of her other hand dug into the flesh of my back. She wrapped her legs around my waist again, pressing herself against me, small sounds coming from her throat.
I tore my lips from hers, nuzzling the side of her neck, one hand playing down her side, across the swell of her breast, feeling the softness of her skin under my hand. Her belly quivered under my touch, her breath coming in small gasps as my hands explored her body.
She writhed against me, a noise of frustration coming from her as I tormented her, and I sank my teeth into the side of her neck, just this side of drawing blood, feeling and tasting the warmth of flesh in my mouth. She screamed, fingernails raking down my back, gouging the skin, and a howl broke from my throat. I pulled back and looked down at her. Her eyes were so dark they were almost black and I could see the bite on her neck slowly healing before my eyes.
“Alex, please!” she panted.
I didn’t make her ask again, shimmying out of my jeans and then finally claiming what I had wanted for so long with a roughness that would leave bruises on a human woman. She cried out in pleasure, her fingernails leaving more bloody trails along my body as her hands did their own exploring. Together we found a rhythm that was savage and primal and as we came to its end, she sank her own teeth into the meaty flesh above my shoulder, sucking as though she were a vampire.
Sex hadn’t been this good in years, and I wrapped my arms around her, stroking her back as we both calmed to some semblance of normalcy, not wanting to feel her skin pull away from mine. Her mouth drew back from my shoulder with a wet pop and she lifted her head to look at me, my blood staining her lips. I kissed her, tasting the blood, licking it from her mouth. When I pulled back she was still staring at me dazedly, her eyes gradually growing lighter until she finally gave her head a quick shake. She made as though to move away from me, but I held her tight.
“What’s wrong, Katie?”
She looked up at me, smiling shyly, finally finding her voice. “That was… intense.” She smiled again.
I laughed softly. “You’ve never had sex with another shifter before.” It was a statement.
She tilted her head. “No, I haven’t. I haven’t been with anyone except Aerick. And it was intense with him as well, but in a totally different way. I couldn’t, well...” She glanced at my shoulder, which was already healing over. “Sorry about that, didn’t mean to draw blood.”
I hugged her to me. “Don’t be sorry. I’m not sorry, it certainly felt good, at least to me.” I rubbed the side of her neck. “You?”
She sighed in contentment. “Oh, yeah. I didn’t know…. I mean, I could get rough with Aerick, he’s not a normal human after all, but it just didn’t do for him what it did for me.”
“So you held back.” I laid us both down, spooning against her back and drawing the covers over us.
“Yeah.” She looked at me over her shoulder, that little smile still there. “I thought maybe there was something else wrong with me, because of how I changed the first time, because of the thrall.”
I stroked her shoulder, felt her cuddle in against me. “No. Shifters have a tendency to run on the violent side as it is, so sex between them tends to be more primal. As for the thrall, well, you might be a little rougher when it comes down to it, but another shifter should be able to handle it just fine.” I could hear her breathing slowing as she began to drift into sleep. “Is this okay, Katie, me sleeping here?”
For an answer she turned and snuggled into my chest, her breath warm on my skin, and wrapped her arm around my waist.
I wasn’t going anywhere.
THREE
KATELYN
I woke, feeling decidedly more relaxed and serene than I had in quite some time, although my memory of what had happened at the party was somewhat hazy. I sighed, relishing the warmth of the body at my back, the hand resting on my waist, the light brush of air along my neck, and then my eyes went wide.
I had had sex with Alex.
I wasn’t panicked over what had had happened, just very surprised. It wasn’t that Alex and I hadn’t ever… well, we had made out once. But I had kind of forced the issue, hitting him with the lust aura that seemed to come part and parcel with cat shifters, something that I didn’t really have under my control at the time.
I had wanted to see if I could feel desire for someone other than Darien, who tended to peg my lust meter just by breathing around me, even when I was mad at him. And I had felt desire for Alex and couldn’t have been sure how far it would have gone if Darien hadn’t interrupted us.
Fuck.
Darien was going to kill Alex over this.
If he ever found out.
Which meant I would make sure he never did.
But how did I feel about what had happened? Was I upset? No, not really. After all, I had always found Alex desirable, just Darien had been more so and there was a draw to Darien that I just couldn’t figure out. I had been planning on having sex last night anyway, with whoever took my fancy, so it might as well have been with someone I trusted my life to.
Did that make me feel a bit of a slut? Yes and no. I was a cat shifter after all; we tended to be a little bit looser with our morals since our desires, the desires of our Aspect spirit, were harder to fight. But I still felt, in a small way, like I had cheated on Aerick.
From what I understood, monogamy among cat shifters was a rare thing indeed. The fact that I had been celibate for almost a year in my vow to not cheat on Aerick was really a testament to my willpower. Once I had officially reconciled with myself that the relationship with Aerick was over, all bets were off, and the cat inside me was bound and determined to play.
So what did this mean for me and Alex? I wasn’t sure. I loved him, but not necessarily in a significant other kind of way. Obviously not in a brotherly kind of way either, so I was a bit confused. I wasn’t sure how he felt about me either, but I was starting to think it might be more than was safe for him.
Darien had claimed me for his mate, my unwillingness to commit to that permanent a relationship notwithstanding, and Darien was Alex’s Alpha. You just didn’t fuck your Alpha’s woman and expect to walk away from it unscathed.
I closed my eyes, pulling power from my Aspect, and willed myself into liquidity. I didn’t really turn into a liquid, but I was utilizing an ability that cats seem to have to move unnoticed, like housecats do when they show up on their owners’ laps and the person doesn’t even realize it. I slithered over the edge of the bed and to the floor, just about screeching when I dropped through the
amorphous black wolf that was lying on the floor next to the bed.
“Hey, watch where you land!” Talon’s voice sounded in my head, his glowing blue eyes turning to stare at me as I rolled away.
There was no way I was going to answer him, wanting to escape out to the kitchen for some caffeine and cereal before Alex woke.
I stood and moved to where my bathrobe was lying on the windowseat, pulling it on while the smoky wolf stood there with his tongue hanging out, little bits of ghostly drool dropping to the floor.
It occurred to me that if I could hear him in my head, then maybe I could talk back to him the same way. I tried it, thinking my words at him. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Did you have to put the robe on? The view was much better without it,” he complained, giving me puppy dog eyes. “And who’s the lucky guy in the bed? I’m half tempted to go give Aerick a good bite if he left what I just saw so he could go hang out with a wrinkled old man. Sheesh. What was he thinking?”
I blinked at him, not sure what to make of a ghostly wolf who got a cheap thrill out of seeing me nude. I’d have to make sure I never walked around naked anymore. Would make showers interesting.
“What are you doing here?” I repeated the thought at him.
“Just checking in on you, seeing what you were up to.” He turned to gaze at Alex asleep in the bed. “Although that’s fairly apparent.” He took an experimental sniff of the air near the bed. “He’s not human.”
Great.
“No, he’s not, he’s a shifter like I am. Did Aerick send you?”
“Nope, sweet cheeks, I’m on my own time now. I still see him occasionally, but me being here has nothing to do with it. You want I should tell him you’ve, uh, moved on finally?”
“What would be the point in that? It’s not like I want him to be upset or anything, I understood his reasoning for breaking things off after all.”
He padded closer to me, until he was standing at my feet. “Not to make him jealous, to make him feel better, that you’re not still pining away for him. It’s not like he felt good that you were still waiting around. Oh, his ego might have liked it, but he didn’t want you depressed and hurt.”
I sighed. In Aerick’s position I might have felt the same way. “Do whatever you think is best, just don’t give him any names, okay?”
“Gotcha, no names.” Talon cocked his head to the side, ears upright. “So, how have you been doing? You haven’t accidentally electrocuted that furry demon you call a cat, have you?”
I headed to the door of my room, not wanting to take any more chances that I might wake Alex. Talon followed me out to the living room, was greeted by a growl from the cat in question as we made our way to the kitchen.
“Obviously not,” he commented, ignoring Angel. She followed him, keeping a safe distance, but close enough to keep a wary eye on him.
“If you’re asking if I’ve manifested any more powers, then no,” I told Talon as I poured myself a bowl of Cocoa Pebbles. I leaned against the counter to eat, not bothering to go out to the small dinette area.
“So, just what all can you do?” he asked, curiosity evident in his tone.
“None of this gets back to Aerick?” I looked at him suspiciously.
“My muzzle is zipped, nothing back to Aerick, although I don’t know why you don’t want him to know.”
“I have my reasons.” I took another bite of cereal, swallowed it. “I can’t do much, just these little electrical zaps, like really strong static shock. And I can make the air currents move, nothing big, but enough to close doors, shift papers, that kind of thing.”
“Baby stuff.” Talon nodded to himself, the motion looking almost comical. “You might figure out a bit more, but without a teacher—”
“And I managed to turn into a drake somehow.”
He blinked his big blues eyes at me, his tongue flopping out of his mouth to just hang for a moment before he sucked it back in. “Sweet titties at Christmas, you did what?!”
“Turned into a drake. You know, a little dragon? I’ve been told it’s not a normal shifter thing.”
“How the hell did you manage that?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Promise it doesn’t get back to Aerick.”
He lifted a paw and made a cross-your-heart motion. “Promise.”
“Another shifter was trying to kill me, would have succeeded if I hadn’t turned into that damned dragon. All I remember was that I was trying so hard to shift and I couldn’t. Alphas have a way of suppressing shifter abilities in their own territories, I guess… and I was dying and scared, and then, poof, I was a yellow dragon.”
“Was this before Aerick left?”
I ducked my head. “Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you tell him?” Talon seemed genuinely concerned.
“What do you think he would have done if I had?” I gave him a knowing look.
“Probably hunted that shifter down and killed him.” Talon was silent a moment. “I see your point. Although, if this person tried to kill you, why not let Aerick take them out?”
I sighed. “Too much damned violence, that’s why. And besides, it’s a pack thing, a shifter thing. Darien took care of it.”
Talon looked back in the direction of my bedroom. “Your man in there?”
“I told you, no names.”
“All right, all right, don’t get your bra in a bind.” He looked thoughtful. “So you haven’t been able to turn into a drake again?”
“Nope. Although I haven’t really tried. Freaked me out the first time, and the apartment is a little small for it if I should happen to succeed.”
“Well, I say, keep trying, you never know when something like that might come in handy again. Anyway, time to run, sugar buns, I’ll pop in on you sometime in the future. Maybe while you’re in the shower. You are so much easier on the eyes than Aerick.”
I rolled my eyes as he winked out of sight, putting my empty cereal bowl in the dishwasher and rooting in the fridge for a can of Pepsi. Caffeine didn’t really have a physical effect on me, but I needed the psychological one.
“Morning, sunshine,” Kris said from behind me, yawning.
“Oh, god, you scared me.” My heart was racing and I had just about dropped my can of soda on my foot.
“Well, I’ve actually been out for a while, watching you commune with the kitchen, I guess?” She waved a hand and I realized she must have seen me talking to Talon, although since I hadn’t been talking out loud and she couldn’t see him, it must have looked really strange to her.
“That ghost wolf was back again, Talon. I figured out how to talk to him silently.”
“Ah.” She got a bowl out herself, poured out some Cocoa Pebbles and moved over to the table to sit and eat. “I was thinking maybe you’d gone a little daft was all.”
I gave her a confused look. She gave me a knowing look and inclined her head toward my bedroom door. I felt my cheeks flame, but tried for nonchalance. “What?”
She pointed her spoon at me. “Don’t give me ‘what’. I checked in on you when I got home to make sure you were okay. I did not expect to see the two of you all snugly.”
“Alex and I have been snugly before, you know that,” I said, thinking back to the night Darien had taken a load of silver buckshot for me and Alex and I had had to lend our energies to him to help him heal. That was the same night that I had officially started on my path as a shifter instead of just having the dormant genetics passed on to me from my father.
She waved the spoon. “There’s snugly, and then there’s snugly, Kat. I didn’t realize he was in there with you until I was right next to the bed. I wanted to make sure he’d found that damned little bracelet of yours and gotten it off you, only to discover he’d gotten way more off of you than that.” She gave me an impish grin.
I blushed again. “Do you have a problem with it?”
“Hell, no, just more surprised than anything. I didn’t think you and Alex, well, felt that way abo
ut each other.”
I shrugged, once again wondering exactly what had been going on in my head last night, in Alex’s. “I’m still not sure we do. It was just sex, Kris.”
She nodded, mouth turned up in a half smile at me. “With Alex.”
“Yeah.”
My bedroom door opened at that point and the aforementioned person peeked his head out, then walked into the living room and toward the dinette area. His hair was disheveled around his face, his pale blue jeans rumpled. He was shirtless and barefoot. My heart did a little weird thump in my chest at the sight of him.
“Good morning, Kris, Katie,” he said, smiling softly, giving Kris an almost sheepish look.
Kris looked him up and down, her eyes warming. He looked good, like the Aussie surfer boy he had once been: skin of his chest smooth and tanned, denim riding low to show hipbone hollows, his blonde hair a soft muss about his adorable boy-next-door face, hazel eyes still half closed from sleep. She mouthed the word ‘yummy’ to me, knowing full well Alex could see her, and winked.
I wanted to drop through the floor.
“I don’t reckon I could con you two out of a bit to drink or eat?” He looked at Kris’s almost empty bowl of cereal, then back between the two of us, trying to look pathetic. His cheeks were a little pink and I thought he was trying to ignore Kris’s silent comment.
I went back into the kitchen and got him a bowl of cereal and a can of soda, putting both on the little dinette so he could sit down. I was unsure what to do with myself, so settled on sitting in one of the extra chairs.
“So, Alex, what brings you to town?” Kris asked, voicing my own thoughts. “I mean, we haven’t seen you in almost a year.”
He took a couple big bites of cereal, popped the can of soda open and downed most of it, before answering, “I’m sorry I was gone for so long, I shouldn’t have been.” He frowned, staring at the cereal bowl. “I mean, I don’t know why—I should have been here, for you, Katie, to help you, I’m sorry.”