The Hunters Series

by Shiloh Walker

  They cared. All three of them. About each other.

  And not one of them gave a flying fuck if anybody knew it, or saw it. Finally Eli pulled away from Declan and said softly, “Thank you.”

  Declan smiled and nodded, holding out his wrist to Kelsey who had come over to bandage it. Once that was done, he sat down behind his wife, pulling her into the curve of his body and Eli dropped down to lay his head on Tori’s thigh, his pale face lined with exhaustion. “I could sleep for a week,” he said, thickly.

  “Then do it,” Tori said quietly, stroking his head with a gentle hand. “We’ll watch over you.” Over his head, she stared at Sarel who had climbed from the bed and stood watching them.

  Sarel squashed down the fear this woman caused. Meeting those wide, deceptively sweet blue eyes, she stared at them unflinchingly as Tori said, “Declan and I will be here when you wake. Nothing will happen, I promise.”

  Nope. Nothing was going to happen. Cuz Sarel was outta here.

  “The girl?” he muttered, his eyes flitting in her direction.

  Kelsey piped up, “She’s not going anywhere.”

  “Shit. So much for that idea,” Sarel thought morosely.

  To back it up, she felt a distant snick—a spell falling into place in the distance. She imagined that if she tried to leave, she’d get maybe a half a mile. And then she’d be stuck and could go no further.

  Tori shifted from one foot to the other.

  She wanted, desperately, to follow Declan to their room, rip his clothes off and tumble him to the floor.

  But she didn’t want to leave Eli alone.

  Declan grinned at her and lifted her chin with his index finger, pressing a soft, easy kiss to her mouth. “I love you, darlin’,” he said, his voice soft and musical with the faint sound of Ireland. “And I know you like I know my own hand. Stay. I do not trust the girl myself.”

  The door closed behind him moments later and Tori curled up in bed after shucking her jeans, wrapping her arm around Eli’s waist, who slept obliviously. She lay so that she could see the door. Outside, she could hear and smell one of the wolves. Declan had posted a guard.

  With a smile, she gave into the urges of her own body and slept.

  Chapter Four

  Eli’s eyes closed in bliss as the hot water pounded over him. Nearly a week’s worth of grime and dirt and blood washed away down the drain as he washed and soaped. Long fingers worked shampoo into his hair three times before he was satisfied.

  When he climbed from the shower, finally clean, he felt almost like himself again.

  He still hadn’t seen the girl.

  Sarel.

  He knew she was there.

  He could smell her, hear her. But he hadn’t seen her.

  That was probably best. Until he could be certain he had his control back he didn’t want to see her.

  The door opened, steam escaping past Tori as she slid inside, her eyes hot and gleaming, her long slim body naked. Eli groaned as she plastered herself against him, her lush breasts straining against his chest as she kissed him hungrily.

  Fangs nipped his lip gently, then she kissed the erotic little pain away as her busy hands closed over his naked ass.

  “You’re wet, naked. Have I ever told you how much I appreciate the body of a wet, naked man?” she murmured as she pulled back to kiss her way down his neck.

  From the doorway, Declan laughed. “Careful, darlin’. You’ll make me jealous. I thought I was the only one you liked wet and naked,” he said.

  Eli’s eyes crossed when Tori closed her hand over his rigid cock, moving in sure, certain strokes as she smiled flirtatiously back at her husband. “You’re my favorite, of course. Come over here,” she ordered, flipping her curls over her shoulder. Once Declan was within reach, she clasped one hand behind his neck and pulled him to her, kissing him greedily, sucking his tongue into her mouth, biting down gently and then laughing when he pulled away and positioned himself behind her, pumping his cock against her naked butt.

  Tori squirmed away and dropped to her knees in front of Eli, watching him from under her lashes as she licked a wet trail up his throbbing cock before taking him in her mouth.

  Eli muttered, “Aw, fuck,” when she took his length almost all the way down her throat, the walls of her throat closing around him, vicing over his invading flesh and driving him insane as she slowly pulled off and then slid back down. Behind her, Declan was stripping out of his unbuttoned shirt and jeans, tossing them aside, and tossing a familiar bottle on the bathroom counter.

  Eli muttered absently, “Carry that everywhere you go, Irish?”

  “With Tori as my mate, how much choice have I got?” he replied easily, dropping to his knees and then turning to lie on his back, squirming down and under until he had his face between Tori’s thighs. “She’s always so ready for a three-way any time we are in your territory.”

  His voice was muffled now and Eli groaned as Declan put his mouth on his wife’s pussy, which caused her mouth to tighten to the point of pain on Eli’s cock. Eli pulled his cock reluctantly from her mouth as she arched back, crying out.

  “Lucky bastard, he is,” Eli muttered, glancing down to see Declan’s head between Tori’s thighs. He tumbled her down, dislodging her from Declan’s hold. Declan growled at him, but Eli only settled himself at her breasts, catching one nipple in his mouth and suckling hungrily so Declan again lay between her thighs, lifting her ass in his hands and burying his face against her.

  The sweet scent of her arousal perfumed the air. Eli felt his cock harden even more as she arched up and screamed in climax moments later. “Gimme,” he demanded, nudging Declan aside. He shrugged and grinned, rolling to his back.

  Eli spread her folds apart with two fingers and drew his tongue up her wet slit in one long, slow stroke, gathering her taste with a greedy groan before thrusting his tongue inside her wet passage. Declan was moving around beside him and Eli rolled his eyes upward and watched as Declan took his place at Tori’s breasts, kissing and nipping at the plump mounds, biting the peaked nipples, before moving up to eat greedily at her mouth.

  Tori whimpered against Declan’s mouth when Eli wetted a finger and then pressed it against her anus, thrusting against the resistance there and sliding past it, before taking up a fast, hard rhythm that had her rocking against him. He held her hips still with his free hand, and growled a warning against her swollen flesh before he caught her clit between his teeth and gave a gentle tug.

  Her sweet, sweet taste….it drove him mad. He pulled away and tugged her up, holding her body against him, stroking her quivering back as Declan moved up behind her, his face tight and hungry, his beautiful green eyes glowing and swirling and shifting with shades of green.

  Tori groaned as Declan started to prepare her, rubbing her hole with the lubricant as Eli lowered his head to catch one hard, peaked nipple in his mouth. The thick, flared head of Declan’s cock nudged her anus as Eli bit down on her nipple, bringing a gasp to Tori’s throat. Her head fell back against Declan’s shoulder and he angled his head around to take her mouth roughly, driving his tongue in past her teeth and the emerging fangs to tangle with her tongue as he gripped her hips with hard, steely hands and drove his cock completely inside her ass.

  Eli started to work his cock inside her narrowed passage, groaning as her swollen tissues resisted him. She was crying and gasping and mewling against him by the time he was all the way inside her, her wet, tight walls gripping him so snugly that Eli thought he would come if she so much as breathed.

  Declan pulled out and pushed back in. Eli echoed his movement, the sensation sending delirious pleasure racing through his body. Tori screamed and squirmed helplessly. “Please,” she gasped, her head thrashing back and forth.

  “Please what?” Declan growled against her ear, digging his cock inside her with short hard thrusts, shuddering as he felt Eli doing the same through the thin membrane that separated them.

  “Please,” she repeated helplessly,
reaching behind her and twining her fingers in his hair, holding him tightly against her.

  “Please what?” Eli asked, echoing Declan as he lowered his mouth her long, pretty neck. The blood vessel there throbbed enticingly and he licked the fragile skin covering it. Her free hand came up to press against his nape, urging him closer.

  On a shaking breath, she said to Eli, “Feed. And fuck me, hard. Both of you.”

  Tori’s scream echoed off the walls as they pressed her tightly between them and drove ruthlessly into her body—Eli into her slick, swollen vagina, Declan driving between the tender cheeks of her ass into the narrow little hole that held him so tight and snug.

  Eli’s fangs slid down and he struck, breaking the skin and the membrane of the artery, her sweet, intoxicating blood flooding into his mouth as he drove his cock inside her, feeling her walls gripping tightly as she moved closer to climax. It broke over her hard and fast and when she convulsed around him he lost control and spilled his semen inside her wet, waiting depths, his cock pulsing and throbbing as he pumped into her, letting her drain him completely.

  Behind her, Declan growled, low and harshly, as he drove deep and held still, locked tightly inside her as his climax rolled through him.

  Moments later, Eli asked roughly, “Is this like a get well soon card?”

  Sarel’s breath came raggedly. Her face was hot. With disgust and horror, she insisted.

  They were fucking. All three of them.

  Kelsey and the others were moving around as though this were nothing, as though it was no big deal.

  But the three of them were in the room over their heads, fucking and moaning—the bitch whimpering, crying out, the men moaning raggedly.

  It’s not that the people in the room with her where undisturbed. Hell, they were hot. The woman sitting next to her was squirming in her seat, her nipples pressed against her silk shirt, her eyes glazed and blind. Finally, she got up and left the room, and shortly one of the men followed her.

  Sarel left as well when her sharp hearing caught the words, “Feed. And fuck me.” She stomped out onto the porch into the cool night air, hoping it would cool her hot face and bring reason to her suddenly clouded mind. She knew what lust looked like. And for a few brief moments, while Eli had fed from her, she had known what it felt like.

  But that had been only his vampire powers, him seducing her with his own form of magic. She knew that vampires needed emotions almost as much as blood—and the emotions from good hard sex were second to none. Not that she would have given it.

  Of course, it rather stung that he hadn’t even tried to take it. Not that she would have ever admitted that.

  The door opened and she didn’t need to look to know it was the other witch. “I wouldn’t judge them, if I were you, Sarel.”

  “She’s fucking two men. Crawford’s fucking another man’s wife. The man is letting it happen. What’s to judge?” she sneered.

  “Exactly,” Kelsey replied sharply. “They are all consenting. And all three care. But, more so, this is something they need, and it is something that doesn’t concern you. If you hadn’t let your hatred and your guilt cloud your vision you wouldn’t be here, and you wouldn’t have heard any of that. So if it bothers you, it’s on your own head.”

  “When can I leave?”

  “When Eli is ready to let you,” Kelsey answered. “Why don’t you run upstairs and ask him?”

  And see him? Hot and sweaty and wrapped around that slim, lovely brunette that he watched with adoring eyes?

  Not.

  If anybody had dared to suggest to Sarel that she was jealous, she would have leveled them with a bolt, and be damned the consequences.

  “Does she really have to have both of them?” Sarel asked reluctantly, her eyes drawn upstairs.

  “No,” Kelsey replied with a small smile. “She doesn’t have to have anybody beyond Declan. But Eli, from time to time, needs her. He is lonely. She knows that. They…forged a bond, unwittingly, trying to save her life a few years ago. They did save her, but it bound the three of them very close together. Tori and Declan could easily carry on without Eli—after all, they have each other, but he would suffer. And why should he? He saved her.”

  Lonely, my ass, Sarel thought bitterly. In all the months she had spent watching Elijah Crawford, the beautiful man was never alone. Never without companionship. Never without a woman unless he wanted it that way.

  Kelsey sighed, shaking her head. “You can be surrounded by people, Sarel, and still be alone. I’m surprised an intelligent woman like you hasn’t figured that out yet,” she said, then she walked back inside.

  Eli stared across the room at the woman who had tried to kill him.

  Kelsey had told him why.

  He had to admire the girl’s courage.

  Witch or no, she was just a girl. Untrained, she was alone, and all of twenty-four. You had to admire somebody who would go after a vampire armed with nothing but psychic talent, magic and wits.

  And she had damned near killed him.

  If it hadn’t been for the bond he shared with Tori and Declan, he would have died. They had known what had happened and gotten there within hours. It bought him the time they needed while they waited for Kelsey, and Declan had taken this willful little bitch down and brought her to him.

  Kelsey.

  Still a little spitfire, he thought with a fond smile. She had been that way when he had pulled her out of hell forty years ago, kicking and clawing, certain he would try to hurt her as well. After all, everybody else in her young life had.

  He never would have imagined the waifish little eight year old he had taken from a rather stately old home in Memphis, Tennessee would grow to be such a fine young woman, never imagined she would turn out to be a witch, or serve on the Council. And a damn fine witch, a powerful one, not even reaching her peak yet.

  “Well, are you just going to stare at me all night?” she finally snapped, her bravado starting to shatter.

  He shrugged negligently, clasping his hands together as he continued to stare at her. “It is no hardship. You are rather easy on the eyes, even if you did try to kill me.”

  She flushed a faint, lovely shade of pink from the low neckline of her scoop-necked black tee all the way to her hair line. Eli wondered absently just how far down that flush would spread. He laughed silently at her…at her, at himself. “You are not the first to try to kill me you know, Sarel. But you are definitely the first to blush over it,” he mocked her lightly.

  “Am I supposed to say I’m sorry?” She glared at him. “I thought you killed my baby sister. I now know you didn’t. I was wrong. I am sorry.”

  Eli smiled lazily. “I know.”

  “Then what am I doing here?”

  Eli shrugged again with that slow, lackadaisical motion that he knew was making her grit her teeth in frustration. Damn it, but she was adorable. And sexy. And hot. She was making him burn. Her hair was an unusual deep shade of reddish gold, thick and straight, falling nearly to what he thought had to be the most perfect ass he’d ever seen. She had strong, slender shoulders, high, firm breasts, a flat belly, and long, muscled legs he wanted to feel wrapped around his waist.

  Conceding to himself that he wanted to see her naked, wanted to see those lovely tits, taste her nipples and her blood and her sex, he wanted to see if her passions burned as hot when she was aroused as they did when she was angry.

  She had just tried to kill him—not even two weeks ago—and now he was nearly ready to die just to fuck her.

  And he imagined if he told her that, she would find another way to try to kill him.

  “You need to be trained,” he finally said, drawing one leg up in the chair, casually, hiding the arousal just looking at her brought on. She was nervous enough and the last thing he needed was a nervous witch. Especially since he had made Kelsey release the bonds she had been keeping on Sarel’s magic. “You’ve enough raw power to level this house, and that’s dangerous.”

  “I d
on’t need training.”

  Eli smiled, his head falling back to rest on the cushions. Through the veil of his lowered lashes, he studied her. “I figured you would say that,” he mused. A cool, calculating smile settled on his lips and chilled his eyes. “Tell me, don’t you think you owe me more than an apology for nearly killing me? For saving the life of your sister? And not just saving her, but caring for her these last five years? I did not just take her and leave her in the hands of a foster home, or an orphanage. She’s in the finest of schools, being loved and cared for. Do you owe me for that?”

  Guilt, the best of motivators. Eli laughed silently as her eyes flashed, and her mouth fell open in shock, then snapped closed. “I, uh, well. Fuck.”

  Eli purred, “Darling, I’d love to, but that is not what I had planned.”

  Blushing furiously, she whirled on her heel and stomped to the window. “What do you want from me?” she whispered.

  “The next five years of your life. After that your debt to me is satisfied. You’ll go to the school and learn to control your magic, which will take the entire five years. Then you are free.”

  “Five years?” she repeated, incredulous. Sarel wanted Lori, to finally find her, hold her close, reassure herself she was safe, but—she owed him. For nearly taking his life, and more. “Five fucking years.”

  “You will not be spending the five years fucking,” Eli assured her, just to see that lovely blush again. He wasn’t disappointed.

  The flush spread upward and those proud, lovely shoulders slumped. “All right.”

  Damn it, she was adorable, though she’d hate to hear that, he was certain. There was something about her that drew him. It was almost like she had a call of her own. Staring at the dejected slump of her shoulders, he took pity.

  Eli had spent more than three centuries on this earth and he had never been a stupid man. He was well aware of what she had been planning to do, whom she had been planning to seek out. “Get packed. You’ll be leaving with Kelsey. She’ll be one of your teachers most likely. She leaves in an hour.”