by Mallory Rush
His laughter was more a low growl. "There's not much sport to be had here. Come with me, Eva, let's go to a special world, a place that's untouched by time."
Unable to resist, she took his hand. A whirling white light surrounded them. It mingled with a clamorous noise, then spinning, spinning, the breath sucked from her lungs and then returned with a whoosh that nearly burst them.
Holding on for dear life to his waist, she waited for the dizziness to pass, certain she must be imagining a place so beyond beautiful that it had to be heaven.
But no, she was steady now and blinking against a pristine sky so blue it was almost blinding. The sound of nature was all around her, singing like the universe in harmony. Her feet were planted on grass, each blade glistening emerald. Nearby, a crystal waterfall cascaded over skyscraper rocks; even the water sang. It joined the humming leaves dancing upon a limitless vista of trees. From waving branches, lush, ripe fruit bobbed in delectable hues.
"Is this Eden?" she whispered.
"Just as beautiful and just wrathful if adulterated. These are hallowed grounds, a honeymoon spot of sorts for my people. It's been a long time since anyone's visited here. We won't be disturbed."
He rubbed sinuously against her. A nip to her bottom lip and he led her to pet his arousal.
One that was ample enough to make running seem wise.
"You, ah, seem to have grown there too." Aware that her touching was increasing his excitement and her apprehension in equal degrees, Eva patted his chest and took a step back.
Urich's advance matched her retreat. His frown held a hint of amusement. "What's this? You're suddenly nervous now that I'm the one who's ready to mate? Maybe I should entice you with a few of those little tortures you were so generous in doling out to me."
Eva gulped dry air. "Maybe you're ready, but I'm not."
"So it seems. But once you're closer to nature, the rest is sure to follow." In a blur of swipes, he had her naked. Stepping back to assess his handiwork, Urich said with approval, "Much better."
Her body responded to the wisp of nirvana air swirling over her, his scent tantalizing her senses. But still.
"A woman likes to be romanced and stripping her in a matter of seconds is not romantic."
"Romance? I'll give you your night in white satin—another time and in another place. But this first time, in this place, we mate my way."
It's sacred and it's savage. Taking in the formidable proportions of him, the simmer of his gaze fixed on the apex of her thighs, Eva wondered just how savage he might get. The haven of her bedroom had provided a sense of security, and she had teased him to chase her there.
But this was his turf and Urich was serious in his intent to have at it in no tame way.
He took a menacing step forward, which she followed with two steps back. "I'm not ready."
"Then do your best to escape the inevitable." Hunkering down, poised to lunge, he was in mid-air when she took off.
Chapter 17
Urich landed neatly on all fours. Watching her streak toward the refuge of untamed woodlands, he chuckled. Maybe Eva was more Deducain than not, her flight for life instinct a most logical reaction.
As for him, he had new appreciation for his heritage. Liberated from the mask of civility, the beast within was a stalking free creature who was one with nature, with himself.
Soon he'd be one with his mate.
But not too soon. He wanted Eva's own civilized veneer gone by the time he caught her. And then he wanted nothing less than a pact forged that stripped them down to their very bones in an act of absolute surrender and raw passion.
How limited humans were in their definition of romance. Eva saw as others did not; she would see there was a stark romance about relinquishing the fetters of restraint.
She would see what binding grace and honesty there was in embracing the animal within them both.
* * *
Heart beating in time to her racing feet, the landscape streaked by in a blur of rampant color. Whether her light-speed was owed to this unearthly Eden, to Urich's bite, or to the adrenaline coursing through her veins, Eva didn't know. Nor did she care.
For now all that mattered was leading him on this cat-and-mouse chase until Urich wore himself out looking for her.
That could be a very long time.
Flying past trees and flowers and lakes, she was aware they possessed a preternatural beauty that echoed Urich's own. She felt like a wood nymph herself, with breasts swinging freely, tickled by the gentle, sweet-fragranced wind; her feet caressed by velvety grass; her thighs lightly brushing as they pumped in exhilarated abandon.
She could see for miles, hear every bird, every rustle of a leaf, smell the plentitude of nature, the richness of soil and dew kissed air.
She felt as free and untamed as the refuge that beckoned.
A sly smile sparked her lips. She'd doubled back; returned to the waterfall's haven she'd earlier spied.
Her feet were sure as she leaped from rock to rock at the bottom, took the path that led to a hidden cave. Cascading water draped its entry and though she knew she should hide in the yawning darkness, the temptation to linger won.
A fine, cool spray drizzled over her and she gave into the luxury of its sensual caress. The rainbow mist soothed her flushed face, sifted over her neck. Arms raised, water trickled down them and sheened her breasts. Cupping them, she lifted them closer to the spray which tantalized her nipples.
She was the rainbow, the song springing from the mist. Never had she felt so heavenly hedonistic, so at one with nature and with herself. Eva swung her head in sweeping, uninhibited arcs until her hair streamed in wild disarray.
She slid her fingertips over her belly and the curves of her hips, rounded her breasts, ripe and luscious as the fruit dripping from leafy branches. Tracing the two small crescents on her neck, she considered the magnitude of their meaning.
The kiss of the beast was the equivalent of a wedding ring. But while rings and the vows they signified could be discarded, Urich had made it clear only death could break them apart. Eva indulged a smirk.
He had to learn this was one mate who bowed to no man's rule and she didn't come on call, in bed or out.
Wolf he might be, but she had outwitted him. Still gloating, she turned. And stopped in mid-step.
"In all worthy matches, a pitting of wiles and wills is necessary to discover who's the stronger and ultimately leads." His voice echoed from wall-to-wall, snaked through her head in a seductive whisper.
A gust of air assaulted her with his seductive scent, sapping her will to escape the magnificent beast who loomed in the shadows.
"It's not fair," she protested, even as she gravitated to his hulking presence. "Luring me isn't fair."
"All's fair in love and war, as your people say." He stepped from the shadows and into the aurora light. "My people make love and war at once with their mates. War with me. Either war with me or give yourself to me as I'll have you anyway in the end."
Closing the distance in a single leap, he grabbed her, turned her around and bent her over. Eva jerked free and bared her teeth, raised her hand in a clawing threat. His toying swat away of her dubious weapon and his indulgent laughter, infuriated her.
Urich wanted a war? She'd give him Armageddon!
A swipe and her nails streaked across his chest. His growl of delight maddened her, excited her, and she hurled herself at him with such force that his back hit the cave's smooth stone floor. Rising atop him, she knew a moment's victory and crowed in primal triumph.
With a roar, he tossed her off. They circled each other like two jungle cats sizing each other up, both of them determined to lead the pack.
She feinted a knee to his groin which he fast covered. Seizing the advantage, Eva swept a foot behind his. Down he went—only to latch onto her ankle and yank her to the ground before she could retreat.
They grappled and wrestled and rolled, each fighting for supremacy over the other. A part of her kn
ew he was infinitely stronger, that he could have finished their struggle quickly. But this seemed to be an alien sort of foreplay; his enjoyment of it evident in his light pawing of her breasts, his legs slipping and sliding around hers, his arousal brushing her amidst their tussle.
She was aroused. Eva was ready to mount him herself when he put a sudden end to their wrestling. He caught her flailing fists, raised them high above her head.
The flush of his passion was as dark as it was deep.
So too was his demand: "Submit. Submit to me."
She wanted his possession, and yet she was still flush with the fight in this battle of wills. "No."
"Then I'll just have to persuade you." One vibrating touch to her cleft left her gasping, ready to agree to anything, everything, but she couldn't draw breath to say so.
His own breath was moving from her neck to her breasts, then hot and moist on her belly. And then it was between her thighs, joined with the sweep of his tongue. He bathed her with languorous licks that moved ever closer to his massaging fingertip. And then, then his tongue was there, lapping and making her writhe as he whispered against her, "Sweet, so sweet and delicious. I can't get enough."
Something slipped inside her and swirled, moving up and up until she felt a tingling flick at the tip of her womb.
Amidst her mindless cries of delirious pleasure, she realized it was his tongue laving her inner walls. And she could hear him sipping, feel him drinking her dry. Only, she seemed to be a well of racking release that was as limitless as his thirst.
"I can't stand anymore!" she finally shrieked, gripping him by his hair and pulling, tearing at it until he had no choice but to stop or lose his mane to her frenzied hands.
"So wet," he murmured, brushing his lips to hers. "Soft and clutching. Nectar to the tongue." This he said with a piety reserved for communion wine.
Her bones like ice cream on the melt, Eva was stunned to feel their swift resurging, renewed with a vigorous energy.
"I'd never take anything from you without wanting to give it back tenfold." His smile was a tender thing she traced as her body was infused with the power he gave tenfold indeed.
"Submit to me, Eva." Then as if sharing a secret that would bind them, he whispered, "Submit to me and become the stronger; make me weak with the strength of your submission."
More an entreaty than a command, she had no will or want to resist. She offered her throat to him, arching her neck in glad defeat. He bit it softly until she moaned for more.
"Then take more," he murmured. From that sumptuous cloak emerged a rigid sleekness which he glided between her legs. Like a moist tongue in texture, but it was unmistakably a penis testing her entry with a smooth, easy rhythm.
"The mating dance of nature, Eva," he roughly crooned. "Come dance with me and meet my strength."
She let him turn her over, guide her palms to the floor, arms braced. He roamed her belly, lifted her hips with a cinching hold. Stepping with her knees, spreading them apart, she enticed him with the swish of her buttocks to his groin.
His thighs came over hers and rocked. Back and forth he rocked until she was impatient with his slow, sustained pace.
"You're teasing me," she panted, wanting more than a minuet and gyrating her hips in rumba fashion.
"I'm making you want the ride." Thighs strapping tighter over hers, he rendered her still while his nails streaked lightly over her back. Up and down, rivulets of prickling sensation following their path and making her buck like a mare against the saddle of his stern hold.
"Ride me!" she cried.
He met her demand with a small, initial breach that left her gasping. Then smooth and seemingly endless was his glide until she was sure he had trespassed her womb. Her inner walls clenched and she felt him expanding against them with a magnitude that left no room for even the slightest friction.
His breath hot and searingly near, he sighed out, "we're locked. This is how we stay until your release releases me. Now I submit to serving your ultimate pleasure." His teeth clamped through her hair and pinched her nape.
The paralysis. It was the same inability to move, to speak, to do anything but breathe that had taken her over on the terrace. But she had been alone then and now she was being taken with a silent ferocity.
An eloquent ravishing: She could feel the brush of mink slapping against her buttocks as he moved against her. But inside, they were locked as surely as one entity of flesh.
They pulsed in a singular, meltingly warm ache. In her mind she saw him on her, the two of them like animals in heat, and she was thrilling to his dominion while holding him enslaved to the release she struggled to deny herself, wanting their imprisonment to this ecstasy without end.
The prison was too savagely sweet, stunning in the spiral of sensation it created. Her release ripped through her with a convulsive ferocity. She shattered. Within and without, she shattered and sprawled to the floor. His teeth left her nape. Freed from his pinioning hold, she shrieked a keening wail and thrashed wildly beneath him.
With an urgent jerk, he lifted her hips. And then he was moving in and out of her with a sleek friction that took her on wave upon wave of a rapacious coming and coming again.
His breath, a sequence of labored grunts, ended with a final, jolting plunge. Liquid heat flooded her, filled her womb and streamed between her legs.
Urich collapsed. Just when Eva was certain that what was left of her would be crushed under his weight, she heard the retreating beat of a war drum. His heart was the sound of that drum, slowing, fading, she could feel it against her back. Feel his chest flinching as muscle and flesh dilated, easing the massive pressure. His thighs quivered over her trembling own. A low howl accompanied the shift of his body's structure in a reverse transformation.
What was in her retracted, slipped out easy as a snake shedding its skin.
"No, no," she whimpered. Reaching for what she was loathe to give up, her palm wrapped around his sheath. Just as luxurious, just as tempting to wallow in.
He was flaccid beneath.
His hand came over hers and she felt licks, loving wet licks to her back. "Beauty, you conquered the beast. Brought him to heel with your acceptance, mastered him with a strength beyond his own."
"I wish him back already," Eva said, her sense of loss making her voice catch. "I really do adore my Beast."
"That's good to hear since he definitely adores you." His laughter rich, Urich pulled her into his arms, stroked her hair while she nuzzled against his chest. "I'm sure you could induce him to make an encore. He's not a sore loser."
Draping a leg over his, Eva winced. She was sore, marvelously so, and so wondrously replete on this cave floor misted with a rainbow spray, that she decided, "Maybe he should take a rest. As for me, I could die happy just like this. I've never felt so at peace and that's a little amazing to me. So savage, but I feel so whole. How can that be?"
"Look within," he coaxed. "Your answer lies there."
Look she did and what Eva saw was a very simple truth, one that Urich had shared before but only now did she grasp.
"There is an animal in all of us. You weren't the only beast I accepted; I accepted the one in myself."
"Yes."
And then she realized something else and that something was a little scary. "We could tear each other apart, Urich."
"With our wiles and wills, we could easily do just that. But we're smart animals, Eva, smart enough to respect the worthiness of our match." With a lusty growl, he concluded, "And what a match you are. I'll have to choose my wars with you carefully or chance losing them every time."
It wasn't the stuff of sweet murmurings and proclamations of love in the aftermath of passion spent. But she thought Urich's blunt appraisal of their uncivil bond an expression of intimacy that was honest, rare. And very romantic.
"Know what?" she purred. "Cary Grant could take lessons from you."
Chapter 18
"Kiss me?" Eva asked in the midst of their lazy bath.<
br />
Treading the waterfall pool, Urich eagerly bent to take more than a turn at rubbing rose petals in her hair.
Water rushed up into his face and Eva giggled as she made a hasty retreat. She was a better swimmer than he and gained land before he could do more than sputter, "Come back!"
Laughing gaily, she took off for the woods, taunting, "Catch me if you can!"
By the time he did, she gave him a kiss to make up for the trap of her other. Reveling in their natural states and each other, they romped and strolled and laughed and shared easy silences in this timeless place.
How he longed to stay here forever, never to return to the reality which awaited. Even to think it was to taint this ethereal moment they shared as Eva held a persimmon to his lips. But just as he started to take a bite, reality reared its serpent head, stealing their time even here.
"We have to go," he said, anxiety sharpening his command. "Now, Eva. Now. Hold tight to me."
"But—"
He seized her to him and could only pray his sense of direction steered them home. His mind was where he had left it: Behind. With Zar.
Thankfully, they arrived where they'd left—Eva's bedroom. Her room where time had stood still and it was edging midnight; all was the same but nothing was the same at all. Not them, not his rude jolt of near discovery and the severe consequences it would have wrought. From here to eternity and back, how greatly things had changed.
"Why did we have to leave?" she asked, still breathless from their swift departure and almost immediate return.
Tell her, he silently ordered himself. She has to know why you marked her with such haste, what the result could be for it. Just tell her the whole, ugly truth.
"An intruder was coming," he replied stiffly. "I was wrong about us not being disturbed."
Eva flinched and he released her from his harsh grip. He couldn't look at her and hide his rage, his distress. Urich went to her closet and tossed her a robe.
"What's the matter?" she demanded. "One minute we're lovers in Nirvana and the next we're here and you won't say why, except that we were about to be disturbed. I'm disturbed. Something's wrong and I want to know what it is."