The Hunters Series

by Shiloh Walker

  Kit pounded her fist against her chest. “I know how I feel, Byron. I look at you and I feel my heart. My other half. My soul mate.”

  He cupped her face but she knocked his hand away. Sighing, he prayed for patience. “This is only for a while, Kit. To make sure you know this is what you want.”

  She curled her lip at him, a derisive look on her face. “So I guess I’m to go out and fuck as many men as I need, party through all hours of the day, experience life or whatever bizarre idea you have in mind to make sure this is what suits me.”

  Byron shoved down the insidious anger. She was trying to piss him off. He didn’t have to let her know it was working.

  “It’s for a short while, Kit. And I’ve made up my mind,” he said firmly.

  She smiled sweetly. “And I’ve made up mine,” she replied. She turned her back and started to walk away but Byron grabbed her. Snarling, he said, “You told me I could have tonight. “

  “Go fuck yourself,” she snapped, squirming.

  “Why? You’re here, and you’re mine, and you’re what I want,” he said, reaching down and cupping her. She was wet from him still. He started to pump his fingers inside, laughing when she stiffened against him before helplessly starting to ride his hand. He pushed her down to her hands and knees and drove inside. She wailed and twisted against him, clamping down around him.

  Byron focused on the sweet keening wails that fell from her lips as he hunkered low over her body and fucked her slowly, wetting his finger again and sliding it inside the snug fit of her ass. She rocked back against him and he laughed. “Still want me to go fuck myself?” he asked, slapping her ass.

  She jumped and cried out, startled. He did it again, and she clamped down on his thick cock and came, quick and hard. She started pushing back on him hungrily, looking for another spank, another climax. “See?” he teased. “It’s more fun to fuck you.” He shoved her to the floor and wrapped her hair around his free hand, baring her neck before he struck. His fangs sank through the fragile skin, through the marks he had made earlier, and he fed again, groaning in rapture against her sweet skin.

  She cried out and arched up, pushing her ass against him, and he gripped her hip, riding her hard until they both came.

  They argued again.

  They fucked again.

  They showered again.

  They ended up in her room, where Byron went through the sex toys she had bought and he had decided he would use them on her until she saw reason.

  Kit had already seen reason. And she wasn’t giving in to him just because he was a big, sexy vampire who was used to getting his way.

  “For crying out loud, I’m not sending you away!” he shouted. “It’s just for a while. It doesn’t even have to be two years. A year. Okay? One fucking year. And if you’re still so fucking sure after it’s over, then so be it.”

  He had to be sure, damn it. If she grew tired of this, decided this wasn't what she wanted…he'd go insane if she left him later on. If she was going to walk, she had to do it now. Before he lost himself to her any more than he already had.

  Her eyes were cool, flat as she stared back at him. “If you send me away, I won’t come back.” Point blank.

  Byron froze. “Don’t say that.”

  She lifted her chin and repeated herself. “I mean it. I’m sure the Council can find something for me. If I leave here, that’s it. I’m gone for good. I'm sure I'll have plenty of chances to experience life while I'm out there. You won't have to worry about me anymore.”

  He snarled at her and pinned her to the bed, taking her hands high over her head and tying them tight. Even an Inherent needed to be able to have leverage in order to take advantage of her strength, and he had just taken that away. Taking one of the vibrators, he spread her legs wide and pushed it inside.

  Kit glared at him even as her mouth parted in a surprised “Oh.”

  “Say it again,” he rasped. “Tell me you won’t come back to me.”

  “I won’t—”

  Flicking it on, he pressed it deeper inside and lowered his head to the sensitive flesh at her thigh, nicking it with his fangs. “Tell me you'll come back, Kit. Damn it, say it.”

  “Not if you make me leave,” she gasped.

  Lifting his head from her thigh, he stared at her. “Wrong answer,” he whispered. Flipping her over on to her hands and knees, he spread the cheeks of her ass and licked her there, listening to her embarrassed little shriek. He used his legs to pin her in place while he picked up another toy, this one a slender wand-shaped dildo with a flared base that was designed for anal use.

  He lubricated it and slid it inside her, listening to her hungry cries as she tried to muffle them in the bed. He steadily slid it in even when she tried to squirm away. “Stop moving—you’re making it worse, Kit,” he told her impassively. Once it was lodged inside her ass, he moved her onto her back and pushed the vibrator back inside, teasing her, toying her, waiting until orgasm was just a breath away. And then he'd back off, deliberately holding the release from her. “Tell me that you’ll come back.”

  Finally, she sobbed out, “Damn it, I don’t want to leave! But your sending me away will kill me. If I leave, I am not coming back.”

  He moved up on her, taking the toy out and driving his cock inside. She whimpered in pain, in pleasure, in need, taking him deep inside. “Say you’ll come back to me,” he ordered roughly.

  She sobbed out his name and screamed as the climax rolled through her before he was even halfway inside her. Byron shuddered and worked his cock completely in, pulled out and burrowed back in. She wouldn’t truly stay away, not Kit, he thought as he rode her, her sweet wet pussy hugging him tightly as he slid back inside.

  She belonged to him. She belonged here.

  Then why are you sending her away?

  Byron drove desperately into her, as the sunrise came ever closer. Kit’s bedroom was full of windows and he could sense the lightening in the sky outside. Her silky cleft was swollen from being ridden all night, but she still lifted for him, still clung to him eagerly. Byron buried his face in her neck and groaned as his climax raged over him, building at his spine and burning through his balls and his cock.

  Chapter Five

  Byron gathered a slumberous Kit into his arms and carried her back to his room. A niggling little doubt was in the back of his mind as Kit nestled into his bed next to him. He clamped both arms tightly around her waist and asked, “Stay here?”

  “Can’t,” she evaded. “Hungry. Need another bath.”

  A vampire’s sleep wasn’t one that could be fought off until he had several centuries behind him. Byron only had one and a handful of years. “You're staying here, damn it,” he said, kissing her roughly. “ I love you.”

  “I love you,” she said quietly, stroking one hand down his arm.

  Byron listened to her steady heartbeat as sleep caught and held him. He should have made the others watch her. If he ordered them to make sure she stayed—he woke up remembering that was a foolish thought. She had agreed to come back.

  Then he froze as he climbed from bed.

  No.

  She hadn’t.

  Of course, he hadn’t told her when she would be going. And now he was thinking he really didn’t want her to go at all.

  So the sensible thing to do was—

  “The sensible thing? Now? When my bebè is gone he wants to do the sensible thing?”The voice that rolled through the room was one he had not heard in over two decades. Kristof was gone. Dead and gone. Of course, it was unmistakable, the odd blend of Russia and France. “That is much sense you make now. The sensible thing.”

  And the voice that followed was also one that belonged to somebody dead. All French elegance and fancy French sex. Byron turned slowly and saw the two very solid, if somewhat, well, ghostly, forms hovering by the door.

  “Shit.”

  Kris laughed, his head falling back, that familiar joyful laugh that he had passed on to his daughter. “So el
oquent, my friend. You have stepped into shit, you have. She say what she mean, my Kit. She will not come back to you.”

  “I didn’t send her away!” Byron shouted.

  Bella smiled sympathetically.”That is how Katrine sees it, Byron. And if you want her back, then you will have to go to her and bring her back. Now.”

  “She needs some time to—”

  “Bah,” Kris spat. “Time? For what? To be lonely and miss you? Is that what you would have my bebè do for two years? Is this how you take care? By letting her be lonely? She is your mate. Bella tells me this, long before I died. I try to tell you, when I died. And I tell you now. Go to her now, or you lose her.”

  It was then that Byron remembered something he had forgotten. “My Bella is telling me…da, you had best remember that. Kit will want what she wants.”

  Kit will want what she wants.

  “She'll want what she wants,” he whispered. Looking back at Kris, he went to speak.

  But they were gone.

  The room was empty.

  Dropping to sit on the bed, he sat there, staring at his big rough hands.

  Shit.

  It would have been nice if Kit’s parents had bothered to tell him where their daughter had gone.

  He hadn't told her where she was going, when. So it was unlikely she knew about the flight plan. He was still setting that up and hell, it was his plane she'd be flying on, so it wasn't like she could do that on her own.

  Rising, he snagged a pair of jeans. Maybe she wasn't gone. Maybe…

  But he was fooling himself. Her absence was already an ache inside.

  A search of the house revealed she was indeed gone. She hadn’t taken the car he had given her when she had come home from college, or anything else he had given her.

  All she'd taken were the clothes she'd bought for herself. Her anger. A few personal items. That was it.

  The house felt empty with her. Although he caught her scent everywhere. The scent of her anger. The scent of the soap she used. The simple, lovely scent of her. She was everywhere.

  And nowhere.

  It was driving him crazy. Ben eyed him warily as he ordered the other wolf to do a websearch for her. She hadn't been using her credit cards, Byron already knew that. Made it that much harder to track apparently.

  Damn it, where was she?

  She wouldn’t go to France, Byron suspected. She would know he’d come for her eventually and she would not be where she could easily be found or brought back. So she’d either go to ground or go someplace where she would be protected.

  And then he felt like pounding the wall with his fist.

  She’d already told him where she was going.

  The fucking Council.

  Chapter Six

  Byron stared at Agnes and fought the urge to blush. She had a way of making him feel like a recalcitrant school boy and today was no exception.

  She looked like she was his great-great-grandmother. She was an amazing witch, and one of the most respected members of the Council, but she was also downright mischievous.

  “Don’t tell me she isn’t here,” he warned, trying hard to keep his tone respectful. “I can hear her breathing and I can smell her. I won’t leave.”

  Agnes smiled and took her long cloak from the peg beside the door. “I’m thinking I’ll be going into town. For a day or two. The inner rooms are safe from sunlight . Come on inside…no reason to just stand there, is there?” After a quick wink, she threw the cloak over her shoulders and moved away, much quicker than a woman of her age should have been able to move.

  Byron crossed the threshold and moved inside. He was tired, he was fucking hungry and he was pissed. The Council hadn’t told him a damned thing and he had been reduced to asking individuals.

  Fortunately, the first one he had asked had known him, vaguely, but known him all the same. Malachi had looked at him, narrowed his ancient eyes. “You’re a friend of Eli’s.”

  “Yes.” He hadn't been interested in chatting about old acquaintances. He just wanted to know where Kit was. That was all he wanted, damn it.

  And something of that must have shown in his eyes, because Malachi's smile took on a decidedly devious slant.

  “Fucked up, did you?” he'd asked. “Go ask Agnes. She has a woman at her place. A wolf, if my sense of smell serves me. And I’d say it does. I’m smelling the same woman all over you.”

  Byron had dashed out without even hearing Malachi’s soft, “Good luck. Lucky bastard.”

  Now he was searching for her. Her scent filled the large house, it was everywhere. And she was nowhere.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He turned and saw her staring at him, wearing a big man’s shirt. Narrowing his eyes, he realized it was his shirt. He moved and had her around the waist without even realizing it, kissing her hungrily, greedily, his hands sliding up the shirt to find her naked little body warm and soft.

  “You left me,” he accused, pulling away to glare at her.

  “You sent me away,” she snapped, her eyes hot with indignation. “And get off of me before I hit you again.”

  “You weren’t supposed to leave yet, and I’d changed my fucking mind,” he snarled back, catching the hands she was shoving against his chest and pinning them behind her back. “I hadn’t told you to leave yet, had I? Stubborn little brat. Have you forgotten yourself? Forgotten me?”

  Kit refused to struggle once she realized she wasn’t getting away. His big, heavy body had her effectively pinned against the wall at this point, his cock cuddled against the softness of her belly, one hand holding her wrists behind her back. Staring at his chest, refusing to look at his face, she said, “I wasn’t going to be thrown out on my ass. I’ve got more pride than that.”

  “Damn you,” Byron snarled as he released her wrists and caught her face in his hands, tangling them in her dark hair, kissing her roughly. “I wouldn’t have thrown you out. You would have been put in a fucking limo, driven to the fucking airport, and flown to fucking France on my fucking plane. And you fucking know it! Why are you doing this?”

  She tore her eyes away from his chest and made herself meet his furious eyes. They were hot, wild and gleaming. His fangs had slid down and were flashing in his anger. The air in the room felt thick with it. Her own anger had burned out on the flight here, but staring at him now was causing a different kind of heat. “Why?” she asked softly. “You want to know why ?”

  “Yes. I want to know why,” he growled, lowering his face until they were mouth to mouth. “I did not want to take you into my service. You were my ward, and I did not want you to have to serve and obey any Master, even one who would indulge you. But you chose to enter our world and now you are openly and flagrantly violating our laws. You left me without my consent. You could very easily be punished by the Council, whether I will it or no, so, yes, I want to know why.”

  “You had already made the choice to send me away, Byron. The fact that the act wasn’t yet complete doesn’t mean that much. You didn’t want me anymore,” she stated simply. “I couldn’t stay there anymore.”

  “After the night we spent together, you can actually think I don’t want you?” he rasped, his fingers tightening in her hair to the point of pain.

  She smiled sadly. “Not enough to keep me.”

  Byron felt his heart break as a tear rolled down her cheek. “Damn it, Kit,” he rasped, bending down and catching it in his mouth. “You’re coming back. You’re mine.” He grabbed the edges of the shirt and jerked it off of her, exposing her body.

  “I won’t come back if you think you can just send me away for a year. Two years. Even two fucking weeks,” she swore, folding her arms over her breasts and glaring at him.

  “You haven’t heard a thing I’ve said, have you, Kit?” he muttered, taking her wrists and forcing them down to her sides. He knelt in front of her small, sweetly scented body and caught one rosy nipple in his mouth, raking her flesh with a sharp fang and groaning when a drop of bl
ood appeared. He licked it away and suckled on the tiny wound until no more flowed. Then he pulled away and stared up into her eyes. “I changed my mind. You’re coming back with me. You belong with me, to me. As much I belong to you.”

  He released her wrists, grabbed her hips and pulled her to the floor, feasting on the taste of her, catching her clit in his mouth and suckling it until she was moaning and crying his name. He stroked downward from her cleft, using the natural lubrication from her body to probe her rosette and he shuddered when she opened for him, when she started to rock helplessly against him as he drove his tongue inside her pussy while he screwed his finger in and out of her ass, then added a second.

  He worked her close to orgasm before he turned her onto her knees and shredded his clothes. A hot musky power seemed to be filling the room, pouring from him, and Kit shuddered with it as it washed over her. She knew too much about vampires not to realize what it was. Byron was coming into more of his power, and his call was increasing. She just hadn’t realized how very susceptible she would be to it.

  Her body was too hot, too tight, too hungry for him and she was certain she would die if she didn’t get him inside her. When she felt him probing the entrance to her bottom, she quivered and tried to shift, force him inside her pussy, where she needed him. He snarled at her and she felt his dominance roll over her, just like his call and she stilled, her head falling forward, her torso dropping to rest on the floor while he continued to draw the moisture from her cleft to her anus.

  Byron hadn’t ever felt anything like what was breaking loose inside him—he couldn’t fight it, couldn’t question it. He had to be inside her, had to do it this way, had to do it now. The shuddering, creeping power inside him was almost as arousing as the sight of her slick, wet folds and the scent of her arousal and sex as he prepared her ass for his invasion. It rolled from him, like waves from the ocean, and it affected Kit almost as much as it affected him.