The Edge

by Annie Windsor

  “Not a bull, chére.” Chant stepped forward and teased her clit with the tip of his powerful weapon. “Panthera. I am—we are—léopard in spirit and in day form.”

  “Damn, yes.” Ezri rocked as much as she could, coaxing the hard flesh down toward her aching entrance. Then remembering, she added, “Master.”

  “When I take you, I’ll have no mercy—and neither will you. The bloodfever will claim us both. Do you understand?”

  Ezri’s whole body shook with anticipation. “Yes, Master.”

  For a few long seconds, they stood locked together, gaze to gaze. He held her wrists again, and the tip of his cock rested between her swollen labia.

  “You are mine,” Chant said. “Now and always.”

  “I have always been yours,” Ezri answered, from the past and the present.

  Before she had a chance to think about it, Chant stepped closer, gripped her hips, and entered her with a thrust so hard it slammed her back against the fur-lined rock walls.

  Ezri’s own scream nearly deafened her. She realized it had a decidedly feline edge, more a howl than a fully human sound.

  Chant felt like smooth burning stone inside her, stretching her as wide as she would stretch and filling her core as deep as she went.

  She couldn’t move. The bracelets held her fast, and she knew she was completely at his mercy.

  Rage mingled with joy mingled with excitement bordering on insanity.

  Bloodfever.

  Ezri’s red-tinted vision deepened, and Chant’s veins seemed to glow beneath his skin as he pumped into her once, then twice.

  She leaned her head against the wall and howled again. This was perfect. He was perfect.

  “Fuck me!” she shouted in a nearly otherworldly voice. “Please, Master!”

  And Chant complied, plunging yet deeper and harder.

  Ezri felt torn in half and put back together again. She had never known such pleasure. Never dreamed of such heat.

  Thirsty. Damn. So thirsty!

  Her shoulders and arms and ass scrubbed the wall as Chant’s cock sank in and out of her, anchoring her to the floor with his iron-firm grip. The bracelets held her tighter, it seemed, keeping her slit wide open to him, for him. And she wished she could open further. His chest rubbed hard on her sore nipples, ripping new gasps from her throat with each thrust.

  Climax built in her depths, body and soul, and as it did, she couldn’t break her focus off Chant’s neck. She wanted to bite him, eat him whole.

  “Do it,” he commanded, turning his head and offering her the best vein. He hammered her with his cock, insisting, drawing her head forward as orgasm shook Ezri’s body. Her fresh, untried fangs sank deep into Chant’s living force, and his rich essence flowed down her waiting throat.

  Chant growled and doubled the speed and force of his strokes.

  Ezri didn’t think she could stand the exquisite blend of pleasure and pain, but she couldn’t stop drinking. Metal ground on rock, and suddenly, her hands and feet were free. She wrapped her arms around her lover’s shoulders, wrapped her legs around his thighs, and leaned into him as he thrust to her very center and spilled his burning seed.

  On instinct, Ezri released her bite and bared her own neck.

  Chant’s feral leopard roar filled her ears, just before he took her gift with savage, welcome power.

  Blood…flowing…mingling…changed…

  Dizziness claimed Ezri’s forward consciousness, and her world shook even as Chant grew hard anew in her slit.

  All night, ma boo, he whispered as he greedily swallowed her offering and began his slow, maddening thrusts again. I will fuck you all night, and the next, and the next. You are mine, forever. Made by me.

  Yes, Master. Ezri’s body submitted even as she handed over her love, her control, her trust. And you are mine, made by me.

  Epilogue

  July 17, 1863

  14 Rue de Soleil

  Paris, France

  Sun at last crested over the French horizon.

  Alain did a quick mental check for stray passersby and, finding none, eased from the shadowed courtyard corner to the private cobblestone walkway near his door. Fully bathed in light, he shifted to human form. Already his hunger surged beyond reckoning, as did his temper.

  If that Montre bastard Méchant thinks he can keep me off the Redevence bitch forever, then—

  “Well, well,” came a silky feminine voice from behind him, “I dreamed it, but could not believe it.”

  Teasing. Intriguing.

  Turning fast, Alain beheld the most exotic woman he had ever seen. Hair darker than the nights he hated, eyes just as dark and infinitely deep, and her lips. Redder than blood. Alain’s cock hardened, and his thirst escalated. He clenched his fists to keep from grabbing this impudent intruder and biting her slowly, just for the sheer pleasure of the act.

  She wasn’t French, no. Egyptian, perhaps. Or maybe—

  “A mixture,” she offered in her light, mysterious accent. “Rom, actually. Ah, sorry. Romani. But you would call me Bohémien. My name is Sashi, and I am not afraid of you, or your many powers.”

  Alain stiffened. A telepath.

  Damnation. And she had heard everything. Seen everything.

  “What does a gypsy want with me?” he growled, still more leopard than he chose to be at this early hour. The scent of her inner rivers, of her light perfume of honey and spice, drove him near to bloodfever.

  “That might surprise you.” Sashi’s eyes flashed, and in a movement too quick for even Alain to realize, she stepped forward and took hold of his throbbing erection. “Two days ago, the world changed in ways deeper than you yet understand.” She stroked his cock slowly through his breeches as she brought her delicate lips only a whisper from his. “We have a common purpose, you and I.”

  * * * * *

  July 17, 1863

  Atchafalya Basin, Louisiana

  Somewhere near Cane Island

  Chant’s heart pounded as he stood shoulder to shoulder with Ezri in their leopard forms, staring at the impossible.

  Ruli … Ezri’s mind-whisper of her daughter’s name conveyed her shock.

  Exhausted and sore from a night’s rough mating, they had come to this room with but one concern as day broke over the bayou.

  Protect the child. Save the legacy of the Redevence. But, how could two beings relegated to leopard form during daylight hours care for a human infant? Let alone a human child, a human teenager…but, apparently, that would not be a problem after all.

  “How did this happen?” Ezri asked, gazing down at the beautiful leopard cub in Chant’s makeshift bassinette of blankets, sheets, and pillows.

  Chant dropped his head and nuzzled the sleeping cub. She stirred, then batted at his nose, turned over, and went straightaway back to sleep. “I have no idea,” he murmured at last. “Except that she was still attached to you, tissue and blood, when I was forced to save you.”

  “And now she is hybrid, like me. Part Montre, part Redevence.” Ezri sounded conflicted, yet excited. “At least…at least it will be easier this way.”

  She, too, nosed the tiny cub.

  This time, Ruli woke with some annoyance. When she opened her eyes, they had a glow Chant instantly recognized.

  “Step back, Boo,” he ordered, but too late.

  The cub switched her tail and let out a tiny roar.

  The ground shook violently, and the walls of Maison de Lune rattled. In a noise louder than thunder, the great house heaved around them, then fell apart into so many piles of rocks and splinters.

  Not a piece of the debris touched Chant or Ezri. They were left standing on the edge of a single patch of intact flooring, which thank the fates had not been located over the secret basement.

  Right on the edge.

  “The old soul, the part that left you—” Chant began, but Ezri cut him off with a nod.

  “How will we—” he began again, but it was then Chant saw the answering glow in Ezri’s eyes.
She growled softly, bent low over the cub, and went nose to nose with her daughter.

  “You have some manners to learn, little one,” she said in the firm, confident voice of a woman accustomed to living on the edge. “And much to remember, mais oui.”