The Nine

by C. M. Stunich

  "If we fuck, it'll heal the rest of this?" I asked, pointing at my leg and wondering about the poison he'd just mentioned. Komodos were notorious in the assassins’ guild for being able to do the job and do it quick, but they were all stationed way above my pay grade. They were so goddamn deadly, I'd never met one in person. Even if I had, I wouldn't have recognized the thing that'd leapt off the wall at me.

  "Yes," he said, grinning and shoving his wrist against my mouth. I took it in both hands and sucked greedily, feeling this strange rumbling inside of me, like my molecules were being rearranged. Thus, the power of alpha blood was the reason that I was healing so quickly, right? "Why? You're seriously considering it? I've always hated kitsune, but you intrigue me. A quick, bloody fuck would do us both some good, don't you think?"

  Bennett pulled his wrist away from my mouth, and I shoved my arm across it to clean away some of the viscous red. He tasted as good as smelled, fresh and wild, organic and of the earth. Frustrating, considering how twisted he was inside the head. But he was also tall, muscular, and attractive, and I'd been trying to get laid for weeks, unsuccessfully I might add.

  Plus, I had a lot of emotions inside that I just wanted gone.

  I was a mess in that moment, though I guess I can't really shirk responsibility for what happened next, now can I?

  "Let's fuck then," I said, and Bennett threw back his head in wild laughter, like some sort of ancient viking or something. He looked like he was ready for fucking Ragnarok.

  "Well put. Glad to see you're vociferous and well-spoken."

  Bennett moved so that he was sitting between my legs instead of on top of them.

  When our eyes met, I could tell this was going to be a simple, wild mating, that's it.

  Thank the Fox Goddess and her harem.

  Not sure if I could handle anymore emotions right now. I had heaps of them inside of me, and I'd been fielding heaps more from the men (and woman) around me. Gross.

  "I guess we don't need a condom, considering you've just drenched me in your blood," I said with a long sigh. As far as pregnancy was concerned, I had that taken care of. One magic tonic a year from one of Inari Okami's miko (a miko is a shrine maiden) and I was infertile for the next twelve months.

  "Interesting observation," he said with this wicked little expression on his face. When he grabbed my knees and pushed my legs up, I let out a small gasp of surprise that was amplified even further when he dropped down and put his mouth to the nearly-healed line of ragged flesh that made up my leg wound. His tongue lapped against the blood staining my pale skin, and I groaned. I had not pegged the alpha male for an oral fanatic, but there he went, licking and sucking at the blood leaking from my femoral artery. As he worked his mouth against me, the injury actually began to close right in front of my fucking eyes.

  He literally had a magic tongue.

  Holy shit.

  Bennett also must be a fairly truthful man, because he seemed to like blood as much as he said he did. He sucked it off my skin, leaving me clean and pale when he raised his face and hooked a grin. His rough palms pressing against either one of my thighs and spread me wide. I didn't bother to resist or argue, just relaxed into the pillows and let him switch his attention from my leg to my cunt.

  With my gaze focused on the vaulted ceiling and the dancing shadows from the fire, I let the blissful pleasure from below wash over me, crashing into the tsunami of anger and rage and pain from last night. It was the perfect counterbalance, tipping those feelings on their head the same way I'd flipped Bennett over my back last night.

  He worked my folds with his tongue, teased my opening, paid extra special attention to my clit ... and then he turned his head to the side and bit me. Fucking hard, too. Hard enough that I let out a scream.

  "What the hell are you doing?!" I snapped, but Bennett was already sitting up and dragging me down the pillows, putting the head of his thick, wide shaft to my core and giving me a look. I tensed up a little because, really, he was one of the biggest men I'd ever seen. But I'd be damned if I was going to tell him that.

  "I had to bite you, to seal the magic," he said with a loose shrug of his massive shoulders. His hands were so big, and I was so small, they enveloped my fucking pelvis. I had to wonder if he tried, could he put his hands around my waist? And not just because I was naturally thin and athletic, but because his fingers were so long, his hands so big. "In our community, you know how important a binding or a seal can be, don't you?"

  He knows I don't have my magic, I reminded myself, but then he was sliding inside of me, inch by careful inch. I'd figured him for a single thrust asshole, but he seemed to like the expression on my face and sat there, savoring every moment of it. At first, I held my breath because I was certain he might be too big for me. But as he moved, as my muscles clamped down and actually found something to hold onto, I let out a long sigh of relief.

  "Never fucked a fox before," he growled, grabbing the bunch of my tails. The white fur was wet with blood, but so was the rest of the bed. It was fucking everywhere; we were both covered in it. "Hope you like hate-sex because that's what you're going to get."

  "Fine with me," I said, as he thrust his hips and filled me completely.

  My head fell back as a sigh of pure ecstasy escaped my throat, my eyes fluttering shut from the waves of pleasure and, unsurprisingly, the violent relief that flooded through me. I needed this, more than I'd even realized. Food, water, air ... sex. I was missing a crucial component for life.

  Bennett leaned down and breathed along the side of my neck, pausing his thrusting for a moment to lick my pulse.

  "I could kill you now if I wanted," he whispered. It was all a goddamn game to him. Had to be or else he could've raped and killed me anytime he'd wanted in the past few hours. He wasn't interested in that, no. He was just wanted to play.

  I could feel his natural magic bubbling between us, heady and wild. It flowed through me as he bit the side of my throat, right over the bite wound that Mikhail had left. Bennett was marking me, and I didn't give two wild fucks.

  Instead, I relaxed into him, let my body go limp and pliant as he pinned my wrists over my head. When I spread my legs wider and wrapped them around his sweaty, muscular body, there was no more wound there. My thigh was pale and whole. Not only that, but I felt like a million bucks, better than I had since I'd lost my magic. It was almost like I was sharing it with Bennett in that moment, and pulling that lunar-lupine mix of power through my body was intoxicating. It lit me up inside, lightning in a dark sky.

  When Bennett grasped my small breast in his huge hand, I groaned and clamped down hard around him, making him growl. He grabbed my long hair with his other hand and tugged, sending a painful but intriguing sensation through my scalp.

  "Not too hard or fast. I want to enjoy this." He crushed his mouth to mine, searing me with his lips, thrusting his tongue into my throat. And I fucking loved it.

  "More," I breathed, and Bennett snarled, pinching my nipple, biting my lower lip. He drove into me with hard, merciless thrusts, filling up all those empty places inside of me. I sneaked a hand down between us and went for my clit, loving the feel of his hard abs rubbing against me, beads of his sweat dripping onto my skin.

  The fox side of me was both terrified and thrilled to know that I was letting a predator fuck me like this. My human side was intrigued and honestly, goddamn grateful that I'd finally given in to my instincts.

  "I have half a mind to make you my mate," Bennett said, but he could be as cruel or mean or weird as he wanted to. I didn't care. I just laughed and squeezed him between my thighs. He covered my mouth with his again, cutting off my laughter, kissing me like he had some sort of claim.

  The fingers of my left hand fisted into his dark hair, holding him close to me as he rode hard and fast, all the way through the tightening of my muscles and into a wild, violent orgasm that had me screaming and clawing at the sheets. Bennett didn't stop though, slamming my blood-covered body into the wet sheets an
d bringing me to orgasm a second time, just before he had one of his own. He grasped my ass in his hands, threw his head back with a snarl, and spilled his hot cum into me.

  I wasn't much of a cum girl, but I had to say, there was something satisfying about that, knowing that I'd finished him off, taken his seed, mastered him.

  Bennett rolled off me with a grunt, one knee popped up as he folded his arms together behind his head. His gold eyes were half-closed, his lids heavy with satisfaction. And that look of smug, male triumph on his face ... well, I knew he was an asshole from the start, so it didn't bother me.

  "You're all healed up," Bennett growled after a moment, his eyes fully closed now. "Get the fuck out of my house and go home."

  Without a word, I stood up, opened one of his dresser drawers without asking and stole a t-shirt.

  Second time that week I'd be stealing an asshole's clothes, but at least this time, I'd actually gotten fucked first.

  I popped into the bathroom, took a quick piss, and cleaned up again. Throwing the huge t-shirt over my head, I snatched my weapons from a chair near the alpha wolf's bedroom door, and I left.

  I walked back to my car in human form. Took a while longer, but I felt so fucking alive. The wind kissed my bare skin, the moonlight shimmered on the ebony waves of my hair. In the distance, I could just see the sun coming up over the horizon, but I wasn't tired. In fact, I felt like I was running on my own magic again, and it was thrilling.

  Of course, I knew it was Bennett's power that I was borrowing and that it wouldn't last, but while I had it, I was damn well going to enjoy it. Once it faded, I knew I'd have to start feeling all those emotions I was trying so hard to avoid.

  So while I walked, I hummed to myself and let the trees and foliage, the random pockets of snow, the decaying leaves, soothe my spirit. Out here in the woods, it was like I was walking beside Inari Okami herself.

  I needed that.

  I'd really need that to get through the next week, I was sure.

  "Have a good time?" Mikhail asked as I stepped out of the cover of the trees and found him leaning against the side of my car. His eyes flashed down to my bare legs, to the bit of blood still caked to my skin, before they whipped up with lightning speed to my face.

  "Are you talking about the sex or the fight?" I asked. Mikhail turned and punched out the passenger side window of my car. My lips pursed and hot, wild anger surged through me but I didn't move. I knew better than that. An angry, frustrated vampire—especially one Mik's age—was not something to be played with.

  "You deliberately disobeyed me," Mik whispered, picking pieces of glass out of his hand. "Thea, I trusted you not to be here tonight. I trusted you to make the right choice."

  "I had a job to do," I said, but my words sounded weak. As I stood there watching my boss bleed, I felt Bennett's magic drain out of me like a tap had been turned, bleeding it into the soil. I wasn't on pack land anymore; I'd lost my buzz.

  "You almost died," he breathed, his words carried away on the cool morning wind.

  "But I didn't," I retorted, unable to hold my damn tongue.

  Mikhail stormed over to me, his dark pupils obliterating his sapphire eyes.

  "And you paid a price for that." He reached out and grabbed the side of my face, forcing me to turn my head so he could look at my neck. "He bound you, Thea."

  "You mean like you did," I said as Mikhail dragged his fingers down the side of my neck. The touch of his nails ignited every nerve ending in my body, from my scalp down to my toes. I found myself curling them into the frosty forest dirt.

  "He shouldn't have been able to do this, not with my mark present." Mikhail was talking, but he wasn't talking to me. He stepped back as rage poured through me.

  "I never asked to be bound by either of you," I snarled back as Mikhail turned away and started heading for his Thunderbird, like he was disgusted by me or something. "But at least Bennett was saving my goddamn life; I would've died if he hadn't done it, so whatever the consequences are, I'll deal with them. What you did—"

  "What I did was an accident," Mik hissed, opening the door of his car and standing there like he was trying to figure out what to do next. "I didn't mean to bind you. If I could take it back, I would." He lifted his eyes to mine. "I can only turn one person in my entire life. One. And I gave that magic to you."

  "To me?" I choked out, feeling this wild panic race through me. "I don't want to be a vampire, Mik." Vampires and kitsune ... like oil and water, right? My people were of the earth, as natural as the ground beneath my feet; his people were dead but walking. No, when I passed away, I wanted to go into the ground where I belonged.

  "I fucking know that," he growled out. "It happened, and I can't take it back. I would never force you to spend eternity with me, but remember, I've lost my chance of finding someone to do that with." He slid into the driver's seat as I latched onto the door. I needed more information. I needed to tell him what'd gone down in the cave, about the teenagers, about the Komodo shifter.

  And yet, when he looked up at me, I couldn't find the words.

  "By the way, you're suspended indefinitely. Don't go to the training facility or the offices, and don't think that you're getting paid for tonight's hit either." My mouth gaped open and I began to protest. "You'll be lucky if you don't get fired, Thea."

  At that, my mouth went completely dry.

  Fired in our world ... did not mean a severance check or unemployment.

  It meant death.

  "Mik," I started, but when he paused again and waited for me to speak, I didn't know what to say.

  "What about the sex?" he asked me quietly. "If we'd slept together, would you have fucked the alpha wolf?"

  Still, I said nothing.

  Mik yanked his door from my fingers, slamming and locking it before he started the engine.

  Suddenly numb inside, I stepped back and watched him drive away.

  My high was gone, dead, and now I was going to have to go home alone.

  Well, not completely alone; I had Ziff.

  But as much as I loved Ziff, he wasn't what I needed right now.

  Thoughts of Riot and Fin sprung to mind, cuddled up on either side of me, keeping me warm and happy and content.

  With a shake of my head, I unlocked Lola's door, made sure the broken glass from the window wasn’t on my seat, and took off into the morning light.

  Revel Jones was waiting for me when I got home.

  I was not surprised to see that she rode a goddamn motorcycle, a Harley, too.

  "What do you want?" I sniffled as I climbed out of Lola and stabbed some buttons on my gate remote. Mikhail's new security system sucked, and I was far too gone to bother trying to figure it out properly.

  "Whoa, what happened to you?" Revel asked, her nostrils flaring as she took in the dried blood on my knees and calves, my borrowed t-shirt, my red-rimmed eyes. She snatched the remote from my hand and within seconds, had it sliding open. "Are you okay?"

  "I shot a teenage girl in the face last night," I said dryly. "My boss is turning me into a vampire. Oh, and I fucked a man I don't know or like last night." Revel cringed as I climbed back into the car and slammed the door. She followed me in with her motorcycle and then closed the gate for me and unlocked the front door of my house, none of which I felt capable of doing in that moment.

  "I came to talk to you," she said as I made my way up the steps and started stripping right there in the foyer. My katanas went on a sideboard along with my guns. Maybe I should've been more careful and kept a weapon on me, just in case. After all, I knew little to nothing about Revel Jones; she could very well be here to kill me.

  I almost hoped she was. Would save me a hell of a lot of trouble dealing with the mess of my life.

  "Talk as I walk," I said as I went into the kitchen, opened the massive commercial-sized fridge and grabbed a soda. Next, I ripped a piece of brownie off a plate and shoved it in my mouth. These weren't just any brownies, but ...

  "Special b
rownies?" Revel asked and I shrugged, trying not to notice how beautiful she looked in tight skinny jeans, a leather motorcycle jacket, and a fucking crop top that showed off the perfect lines of abs in her belly. "Thank fuck. I could use a break from my own neurosis, you know?"

  Before I headed upstairs, I fed Ziff a bit of plum and a few seeds, then went straight for the shower. Revel followed along, examining my naked body in a manner that was not unlike Bennett's or Mikhail's observations.

  She thought I was hot, didn't she?

  "Not just any special brownies," I said as we headed up the steps and into the master bedroom. "Those are made with my special pot butter." I kicked open the door to the bathroom and turned the shower on, popping the top on my soda, and grabbing a gulp.

  Revel's green eyes shimmered as I stood there with my long dark hair silhouetting my pale body. As soon as she noticed that I was allowing it, she really started taking me in.

  "It's a sativa," I said dryly, still talking about the pot, "an upper. I call it Foxy Colorado Sunbeams and Bullshit."

  "That's a long name for a marijuana strain, cupcake," Revel said as I set my soda aside, climbed into the shower, and closed the glass door, leaning my head against the tile wall and closing my eyes. Hot water streamed over me, but as it drained away, I found that it wasn't taking my stress away like it usually did. This time, it felt like it was melting away my shield.

  "Not my strain," I said as I cleaned the blood from my skin, the cum from my thighs, Bennett's sweat from my forehead and chest and breasts. Ugh. The sex was great, fucking awesome really, but now ... I was starting to regret it. First off, I felt like an asshole now that Revel was standing here. Second, Mik had scared the pants off me with his bonding bullshit. And third, well, the alpha male of the Vail Valley Pack was fucking insane. "My friend, Chris, grows it. He's the weed-nerd, not me." I turned off the shower and stepped out.

  Revel, a virtual goddamn stranger, moved aside as I grabbed a towel and started to dry off. Should weird me out that she was here, but I was just too ... something to care about it.