by L. L. Raand
Lara’s canines dropped and her pelt line flared. She slid between Niki and Raina and rumbled a warning. “She has information for the Alpha.”
“So she says. How do you know it isn’t a trap?”
“Look at her. What kind of trap could she spring?”
“How do you know she’s who she says she is?” Niki snorted. “An Alpha would never let herself be bested—of course, this one is a cat, but still.” Niki prodded Raina with her boot. “Who are you, bitch?”
“Niki,” Lara whispered, “she’s my captive.”
“You’re on Pack land,” Niki said, pushing into Lara’s space, her tone issuing a warning. “You have no rights here, Vampire.”
Lara fought her fury. Niki was the Alpha’s second, and if she decided Raina was a threat, she had the power to order her execution. She understood Niki’s instinct to protect the Pack, but Lara was no longer bound by Pack law—she was Warlord to the Night Hunters first. Their long friendship, the times they’d tangled—both desperate for release and some semblance of connection—meant nothing now. This was a war zone, and they were soldiers. “We don’t know what information she may have, but I stand for Liege Jody Gates, sworn ally to your Alpha, and under the terms of our alliance, I claim jurisdiction over this prisoner.”
“You can’t—”
“Niki,” a soft female voice said, “no one is going to fight over her now. Move out of the way so I can attend to her.”
Lara glanced at the golden-haired medic. “I thought Elena was coming.”
“She was,” Sophia said, “until Niki decided she had to be the one to assess the situation.” Sophia pressed a delicate palm to Niki’s chest and pushed. “Give me some room here, Imperator.”
Niki rumbled but stepped aside, glaring at Lara.
“What have you got there?” Sophia gestured toward the cubs, who squirmed against Lara’s chest.
“Hers.”
“At least let me throw them in the river,” Niki muttered.
Raina roared and pushed up, trying to get her legs under her. Niki leapt and buried her claws in Raina’s shoulder, pinning her back to the ground.
Instantly in a rage, Lara looped an arm around Niki’s neck and dragged her off, crushing Niki’s throat with her forearm. “Stand down! She’s mine!”
Niki coughed and raked Lara’s arms with her claws, twisting to get loose.
“That’s enough!” Sophia crouched over Raina and glared at the struggling dominant wolves. “She’s mine now, and both of you need to get back. Lara—take those cubs to the Rover. Niki—you stand guard while I examine her if you’re worried, but don’t touch her.”
Lara drew a deep breath and her vision cleared. Sophia was Omega, neither dominant nor submissive, and her empathic powers calmed even the most aggressive wolf. She was also Niki’s mate, and Niki’s instinct was to please her. Lara eased her hold when she felt the tension diminish in Niki’s shoulders. The cubs she’d clamped against her side protested her tight grip with indignant cries.
Raina struggled weakly, blood trickling from the claw marks Niki had put on her chest. “Are they hurt?”
“I have them,” Lara snapped. “Sophia, she’s bleeding and she’s lost a lot of blood already. She probably has internal injuries. She can’t shift.”
“I’ll take care of her.” Sophia opened the med kit she’d carried from the Rover. “Take the young to the vehicle and wrap them in a blanket. They should be kept warm. There are clothes for you in there too.”
Lara gave no thought to her nakedness. She only cared about protecting her captive. She held out the young to Sophia. “You take them.”
Sophia shook her head. “I need to see to her. Go on, the cat will be safe until you return.”
Lara glanced at Niki. She didn’t trust Niki with Raina, but Sophia, like all medics, was ferociously protective of her patients. “Don’t touch her.”
Niki lifted a lip, her eyes flashing as she stared at Raina. Raina struggled to push herself up onto her elbows, her lips drawing back in a snarl. She was badly hurt, but she was an Alpha and would not back down from a challenge.
“Stop it.” Sophia held Raina down with a hand on her shoulder. “You don’t have the strength for this.”
“You don’t know me,” Raina growled, her attention fixed on Niki.
“No,” Sophia murmured, pressing her fingers to the pulse in Raina’s throat. “But I know dominant Weres and just exactly how stubborn they can be. Now hush and let me see to you. You have cubs who need you.”
Raina shuddered, too weak to hold herself up, and fell back, her gaze traveling to Lara.
“I’ll secure them,” Lara said gruffly. With a last warning growl to Niki she loped to the SUV and jumped into the back. After emptying one of the equipment drawers, she lined it with a blanket and put the cubs in. Kneeling, she said, “Stay here.”
The tiny golden cubs pressed close together in one corner, their eyes wide, their soft coats stiff. High-pitched growls reverberated in their chests. They were frightened, but they were ready to fight, both of them. Lara smiled. “Your mother would be proud.” She lowered her face and snarled, teaching them who was in charge. Their ears flattened and they crouched farther back in the corner. “Don’t move.”
A sound behind her had her spinning around, ready to fight. Misha stood in the open door, watching her. “Do you think they understand you?”
Lara pulled a pair of black BDUs from a pile on the floor and stepped into them. The wounds Raina’s claws had made in her sides were healed. “I don’t know. They understand who’s in charge. Some pups that young are sentient. The Alpha’s pups usually are, and Raina is an Alpha.”
“Yeah, but she’s a cat. They’re not as strong as us.”
Lara thought of Raina’s ferocity and power, despite her weakened state, and wondered how well the wolves really knew the cats. “What are you doing out here alone?”
“When the labs were attacked, Callan doubled the patrols. Most of us are out here.” She climbed in and knelt by the cubs. “What if they shift to skin? Will they be okay?”
“I don’t think they will until their mother calls them to shift. Our pups don’t even shift to pelt until they’re older and stronger. I suspect Raina wanted them in pelt because they’ve been outside so long.”
“What is she doing here?”
“I don’t know.” Lara glanced over to where Sophia was injecting Raina with something from her med kit. “But whatever she’s running from, it must be deadly if she risked coming here.”
“If I’d seen her first, I would have shot her.”
“As you should have.”
“They would’ve died.” Misha stared at the tiny cubs who watched her warily. She held out a finger and one swatted at it. She laughed. “A pup would have tried to bite.”
“Cats fight with their claws first—we fight with our teeth.” Lara regarded the cubs and refused to think of Raina outside, bleeding, entrusting them to her. “They don’t belong here. This is Timberwolf territory. She violated Pack borders. Your orders are just.”
“Yes, cent…Warlord.” Misha straightened. “What’s going to happen to her now?”
“I don’t know. She shouldn’t be here, but she is. We are at war with humans. And I…” Lara shook her head. “Nothing is as it was before. The Alpha will need to interrogate her.”
Lara jumped out of the Rover and headed for Raina. She wasn’t letting her out of her sight. No matter what the Alpha decided, Raina was hers.
Chapter Six
Dr. Veronica Standish regarded her bodyguard with a resurgence of desire as the Vampire drove the Town Car toward Nocturne along the industrial highway adjacent to the Hudson. Luce’s chiseled profile was perfection, like that of every other Vampire she had ever known. Luce’s beauty—coal-black hair, iridescent blue eyes, sculpted features—would have been disconcerting if Veronica was the least bit intimidated by anyone under any circumstance or less than supremely confident in her own beauty
and ability. Vampires were beautiful and clever—even, in some cases, intelligent—but at the core, they were still predators, controlled by primal urges. Uncontrollable urges were weaknesses and, once understood, susceptible to manipulation. The very things that made Vampires so very interesting—their sexual power and seductive lure—also proved very useful tools for those who knew how to take advantage of them. Like her.
They’d only just left her bed. Luce had appeared at her door, hungry from the day’s sleep and radiating such sexual compulsion Veronica had skyrocketed to the brink of orgasm without a single touch. She’d come the instant Luce’s incisors pierced her neck and hadn’t stopped until Luce released her. When in the thrall of Luce’s bloodlust, she was forced to cede control, and those moments of excruciating pleasure were all the more addicting for that wholly unfamiliar experience. But she didn’t intend to let Luce or anyone else believe they held true power over her.
“You don’t approve of this little visit, do you?” Veronica asked. Nothing of what Luce was thinking about their impromptu trip to the Vampire blood club showed on her face, and that supreme control both fascinated and annoyed. Veronica leaned over and slipped her hand between Luce’s thighs, letting her palm rest high on the inside of Luce’s leg. She lightly scraped her fingernails over the black silk trousers and was rewarded with the barest flicker of muscles beneath her fingertips. She smiled to herself. Not so imperturbable after all.
Luce cut her gaze from the highway to Veronica, her blue eyes alight with fire. Flames that telegraphed her need. “Does it matter what I think?”
Veronica laughed. “I’m curious.”
“Nocturne is not a safe place to sightsee.”
“Don’t you fear for your job? That if you annoy me I might have you replaced?”
Luce glanced back at the highway, her shoulder lifting in an insolent shrug. “I can think of a dozen reasons you might have me replaced. I thought you would prefer honesty.”
“What I prefer,” Veronica murmured, cupping Luce lightly, “is keeping you in my bed and by my side.”
Luce hissed softly. “When I woke, I wanted you. The taste of you was all I could think of.”
“And did you think of me while you were sating your hunger those first few minutes?”
“I didn’t,” Luce murmured. “I took enough from a blood slave whose name I don’t even know to keep my sanity. Then I came for you.”
“I love when you come to me hungry.” Ordinarily she would have been irritated if a lover took satisfaction elsewhere. She did not share her possessions and wanted her lovers focused on her, and her alone. The reverse was not true, of course—she never allowed anyone to make a claim on her. But the idea of Luce feeding out of desperation while wanting her made her instantly wet. “I love when you bury yourself in me.”
Luce smiled, slid one hand from the wheel, and covered Veronica’s. Her skin was cool, smooth, and when she pressed Veronica’s fingers to the cleft between her thighs, heat blossomed beneath Veronica’s fingertips.
“Do you?” Luce murmured.
Suddenly Veronica was back in her bedroom, spread-eagled naked on her bed, arms extended and wrists tethered with silken ropes, thighs splayed around Luce’s shoulders. Luce’s mouth was on her, bright points of pleasure piercing her clitoris, tethering her as Luce fed and she came and came. Harder, longer, so intensely that every thought was wiped clean from the surface of her mind.
Veronica gasped, feeling as if she was unmoored, in danger of being dragged out to sea. Jerking upright, she looked around. Luce was just pulling into the parking lot of a building she would have passed without notice had she not known their destination. A single-story, flat-roofed, windowless building, painted matte black—some kind of abandoned warehouse, most likely. The enormous parking lot, despite being crowded with vehicles, was completely dark. No lighting, no valets, no visible security. No indication of any kind that this was the most popular Vampire club in the state. She was sitting in her seat, her hands in her lap. Her clitoris tingled, and she wondered if her orgasm had been remembered or real. She’d never experienced the Vampire thrall quite so blatantly, and if she hadn’t been so excited by it, she might be angry. Luce took dangerous advantage, something she would have to deal with when the time was right. Veronica took a steadying breath.
“Do you feed here?”
“Sometimes.” Luce stopped the car, turned off the engine, and swiveled on the seat. Scarlet completely eclipsed her brilliant blue irises. “But right now, all I want is you.”
“Again?” Veronica purred, certain of herself once more. Luce might have momentarily enthralled her, but Luce was the prisoner of their passion, not she. She didn’t need to feed to live. Her very existence wasn’t tied to sex. Oh, she enjoyed sex—sex was very often the ultimate power, and never more true than when dealing with Vampires—but she could walk away. Any time she chose. But Luce, Luce would literally die without the blood exchange that was an integral part of Vampire sex. “Take me inside, and if you’re hungry again, I might even feed you.”
Luce ran her long, supple fingers through Veronica’s hair, twisting one of the soft dark waves around her fingers. “You’ll have many to choose from.”
Veronica’s nipples tightened. “Will I?”
“You’re very beautiful.” Luce leaned closer and kissed her, the tips of her incisors pressing into Veronica’s lip.
Veronica’s clitoris jumped and she opened her mouth to deepen the kiss. She heard a moan, realized it was hers, and steeled her mind to avoid losing herself completely to Luce’s powers again. She pushed away with a hand on Luce’s chest. She broke the kiss, but she couldn’t escape the haunting vibration of Luce’s heartbeat slowly drumming under her fingertips. Life—her blood had given Luce that. Her head swam with a rush of power so thrilling she almost cried out.
“I can taste your desire,” Luce whispered against Veronica’s mouth.
“You’ll have to wait,” Veronica said, keeping her voice even with effort. If she hadn’t learned at an early age to contain her emotions with ironclad control, she could easily find herself completely helpless with Luce. But she’d had plenty of practice maintaining the upper hand with all kinds of adversaries—first her father, who had been so easy to manipulate once she’d gleaned his barely contained and quite unpaternal obsession with her, then the men and women she’d seduced and discarded as she’d climbed the professional ladder, and now those gullible ones, like Nicholas Gregory, whose egos prevented them from seeing she only allowed them to believe they were in charge. Vampires might be seductive and strong, but in the end they were still vulnerable to their needs. Unlike her. “I have business with your mistress first.”
“Whatever you say.” Luce settled into her seat.
“Be sure you remember that, my dear Luce.” Veronica slid a hand behind Luce’s head and tugged her closer, unwilling to let Luce dismiss her. She brushed her thumb over Luce’s mouth, slowing to press the fleshy pad against Luce’s incisor. Luce growled and Veronica laughed. “Now take me inside and let me see who I might want to play with tonight.”
*
Raina slowly tested the straps holding her to the stretcher as the vehicle bounced and rocked over the wild terrain, gauging the strength of the leather bindings. Her cubs were nearby—their heartbeats a constant refrain in the undercurrent of her awareness—but she couldn’t see them. They didn’t seem frightened, only wary, as she had taught them. But they were defenseless as long as she was a prisoner. The restraints across her bare chest and thighs were five inches wide and at least an inch thick. Even in her weakened state, she could snap them if she flexed her muscles hard enough, but the vehicle was filled with wolves, and the one watching her from a few feet away clearly wanted to kill her. She might not be able to immobilize all of them before they overpowered her, and this time there would be no second chance.
She knew the redhead, the one who’d threatened her cubs, by reputation—the Alpha’s second, Niki Kroff. The
Pack imperator was reportedly as fierce as the Alpha, and she lived for the kill. Raina looked forward to killing her for the threat she’d made to her cubs, but she’d need to choose her time carefully. She couldn’t risk their lives by attempting an escape. Not yet.
Then there was the other one—the one she’d fought, the one not quite wolf but something else, something even more powerful—who knelt beside her, one hand steadying the stretcher. Lara, they called her. Lara didn’t look at her with the same flat, deadly stare as Niki, but Raina wasn’t foolish enough to trust her, either. Any of them would kill her and her cubs without a second’s regret if they thought she had nothing of value to offer.
If she couldn’t escape, she might have to sacrifice everything she had left, but before that happened, she would fight. She hadn’t ruled three hundred half-feral cats for over a decade by being lenient or afraid to risk her life. She ruled by cunning and might. But she hadn’t had her cubs to think of, those times she’d defended her rule by tooth and claw. And because of them, for the first time in her life, she knew fear.
One thing a cat was born with was patience. She could lie motionless on a tree branch all day, waiting for a deer to amble into range, or hunker down in the grass and watch a flock of geese for hours, picking out the slowest. She’d wait to make her move, and in the meantime, she’d assess her enemy. Every enemy had a weakness.
And she was growing stronger by the second. Her wounds were healing—slowly, but more rapidly than they would have ordinarily without a shift. Something had broken inside her when Lara had dragged her down—she’d felt the blood filling her belly, known she was dying. Now the pain had receded, the pressure in her relenting. Lara had done something to her, something she’d never experienced before. When Lara had taken her throat, she should have died, but she’d dreamed of being free instead. She’d been fevered, like she’d been in heat, but she’d never burned like that before. She’d coupled when her body overruled all thought and reason, when the fire burning in her loins drove her to accept any available cat until the insanity released her. She hadn’t taken a mate—she’d submit to no male, and none would submit to her. The females she might have wanted submitted too easily, and after a coupling or two, her interest disappeared along with the challenge. Coupling was a biological imperative, and pleasurable enough, but none of her Pride had ever ignited her the way Lara had. She wanted to ask what Lara had done to her, but not with the others around. Whatever had happened, it was something unusual, something she might be able to use to gain her freedom. She needed an ally, and she’d use anything at her disposal to gain one. She drew a breath and relaxed beneath the restraints.