by Roxy Mews
My breath left me when my blood rushed into his mouth. I don’t know if it was lack of oxygen or an overdose of “hell yeah”, but I went weak. My bones melted, and in that state as I throbbed around him, I felt his pleasure. I felt his need. His cock was straining against my leg, and his body was the tightest wound coil.
Before my flutters could stop, he thrust into me with such force the rail beneath me cracked and began to give way. I screamed with the impact, and fought for more breath before he took it away from me again. My hungry cunt gripped him, and he growled around the meal he was making of my blood.
He picked me up and off the rail before it gave way. I heard the bits of the wood hit the forest floor. One swift roll, and he lay beneath me. He released my neck, and there was no greater turn-on than watching him lick the drops of red from his swollen lips. I rode him with all I had.
When I leaned back, his cock went so deep that he hit that magic spot inside of me, and I was panting with the need to come again. A driving need to mark him began to work its way into my brain. Women don’t mark the men, but there was something inside me that wanted to cover him in my scent. He was mine. He needed to come, and I needed to satisfy him.
“I want you to come for me, Jake. Can you do that? Come for me.” I rotated my hips and squeezed my muscles. I could feel him jerk inside me, and the power I held was intoxicating.
“I’m not coming yet, baby. You first. I want to watch the next orgasm make your body shake.” He reached up and pinched my nipples. He rolled the tips between his thumb and forefinger while his pinkies traced a ring of fire around the hard points. One hand trailed lower, and his nails scored my skin. I gasped and gripped his pecs so hard he hissed.
His thumb found my clit in the next second and began a superhuman vibration that threw me over the edge again. I know I lost the rhythm, but I couldn’t help it. My body was exploding from the inside out. He milked every last shudder from me and then pushed hard against my swollen nub until I began to wiggle against him again. He could have whatever he wanted of me. I gave him everything. I was an endless orgasmic playground for him and I knew in that moment that my body would never get enough of his. I could do this forever.
“Now I get mine.” He flipped us. I was on my hands and knees; the wood floor beneath us was threatening to give way with the speed and force of the impact we made. He was back inside me in an instant. His hands on my hips, he pulled me onto him. He dominated me, and I loved it. “I always get mine, Amber, and you are mine. You belong to me. I will take everything.”
“And I’ll give it.”
He released a roar. It echoed through the woods, but I had no time to wrap my mind around getting caught. He bit me again. This time he didn’t draw blood, he just held my matemark between his teeth. If I didn’t have the hearing I did, I would have missed his words as he released inside me with the last forceful thrust.
“I love you.”
That was from both his vampire half and his wolf. I had all of my mate now. My heart swelled with a different magic. Love was so much more powerful than any change.
Chapter Sixteen
Sure we were on the run, and we had probably scared all the animals out of the woods for a good hundred-yard radius, but a girl gets at least five minutes of cuddle time. I was lying across his chest. My head was tucked beneath his chin, and he stroked my back. Even if I weren’t part wolf, I would have loved this petting.
“So…do you have a plan, or did you just want to go out in an epic fashion?”
“If we are going to die, this is definitely the way I want to go, but no, I don’t plan on letting them slice your brain open to get at the miasma. We are heading to my Pack.”
“My Family will come for me. Do you want to bring them there? We could be starting the war that we were trying to avoid.”
Yeah. I never said my plan was without flaws. Part of me felt like I was running home to Daddy, but I wasn’t going looking for protection. I had a plan. As asinine as it was, I was going to ask for Doc’s help to change me. If there was anyone who could figure this crap out with me, or comfort me if it went horribly wrong, it was Doc. I told Jake about my idea. He wasn’t jumping up and down with joy at my brilliance.
“Turning you was to help you join my Family. If you remember, my father seemed to prefer you dead and skinned alive. ”
“All this talk about using me for a wolf-skin rug is the signal I was looking for to get dressed.” I found our duffle and tossed on some clothes. Jake followed my lead.
“We’ll walk from here. It’s not far. What I have planned is not ideal, but it just might work.”
My mate happened to be a silent walker. This was good. My brain was jumping neural pathways like a jackrabbit on speed. I knew that we were no Romeo and Juliet, but it looked like we were going to have just as epic an amount of bloodshed. I didn’t understand why the feud would continue with our mating. If anything, something as sacred as the mating call should have brought us all together.
I’m no expert on the practice of starting a new Pack, but the Matheo should have been congratulating us, not calling for my head. Yes, we had a rough history, but my father had his retribution, and no other deaths or fights had occurred since. Why the animosity?
Vampires were steeped in tradition too. I didn’t know much about their specifics, but every supernatural sect had some pretty strict law enforcement. Eye for an eye didn’t even begin to cover it. No matter the infraction, once both sides agreed to a suitable punishment or payment, they let it go. Day-to-day life is deadly at times, but it’s not like we can turn to the human police force for times like this.
“Is there a reason besides the treaty that my father-in-law wants my ass?”
Jake was trying not to smile.
Right. My ass. Hornball.
“I have no idea why the treaty is still active. We follow agreements of this type much as you werewolves. The fact that the treaty was formed between species should make no difference.” It was scary how close Jake was to my own train of thought. His eyes dipped to my cleavage. The sexy part of the connection worked for me though.
“Well, that brings me to my next point. I have our way out.”
His eyes met mine at that. “I’m listening.”
“We form our own Pack…er…Family…well, whatever they call a group of hybrids. Is there a word for that?”
“Not really, but how does that change my role as Protector? I am still bound by my duties. Forming a new—damn, we do need a name—forming a new group would not change my role or my need to return the miasma that my Family entrusted me with.”
“Doesn’t it? With your wolfy side out of the shifter closet, you have to acknowledge that you are damn Alpha. Do you really think your wolf will let you serve under someone else? If you truly are accepting your heritage, you have the duty as an Alpha to defect and start your own Pack. If we start a Pack-Family-combo thing, wouldn’t we get miasma, too?”
I was getting to know Jake’s quirks. Whenever I really shocked him or gave him something to process that he hadn’t considered before, he just stopped everything. His body became a statue again. I wanted to keep moving toward our compound, but I really didn’t feel like carrying my mate, and he had to let his brain wrap around that one.
“I do not know if that’s how it works. I may still be heading for a lobotomy.”
“Well, we’re also working under the assumption that I can turn and not die. If we’re both right about these transitions, we’ll be good.”
I didn’t say “If we’re wrong”. I didn’t say what we were risking, but there were more and more hybrids popping up lately. Mostly illegitimate children, come to think of it. There had been a lot of female wolves who were passing through asking for Doc’s help. They never named the fathers. Most didn’t know them. Hmm. Considering most she-wolves would cut off their baby-daddy’s nads rather than let him forget about his pups, to say it was unusual didn’t cut it.
What Jake and I had was a bit
like interracial dating. Vamps and weres are longer-lived than humans, but they are slow to change. This cross-mating was considered an extreme taboo. For a long time, it was believed it wasn’t possible to inter-mate. Then it was proven possible. Then we were all told it wasn’t right—that our traditions would be lost. The few hybrids I knew of had all joined either vampire Families or werewolf Packs. And since my all-knowing, miasma-filled mate didn’t even know what to call us, it led me to believe that we would be the first to try this.
I was never one to face issues until I was forced to, but for the first time, I had something worth going after. I smiled at the twitch in Jake’s jaw as he chewed over what we were going through. I wanted this. Maybe it was the mating, or maybe it was the fact that something that happened so long ago was trying to take away the first man who I wanted to be with for more than a night—whatever it was, a sense of calm held me. I knew what was coming, and I was ready to deal with the consequences.
Whatever was ahead, I was where I was supposed to be. I just knew whatever happened next would be for a reason.
At least I thought I knew what was going on, until I heard “Hungry Like the Wolf” start playing from the duffle bag.
I found my phone, and Mary’s face stared back at me. I was going to miss Mary. No matter what way we looked at it, I wasn’t going to get to go back to my normal life here. I would be one of those college girls on a poster in the local police station. Daddy would have to report me missing, because if he didn’t Mary would.
“That is not your ring tone.”
I smiled at Jake and let my canines extend. “Fitting don’t you think?”
I let the call go to voicemail and said a silent good-bye to one of the best friends I had acquired in a long time. I like to think Mary and I would have been friends when I was a human, too.
I had the phone halfway in my pocket when Duran Duran started singing for me again. I ignored the call. Eighties music erupted ten seconds later. Ignored again. My notification tone blared, and a text popped up.
Bitch! I know you did not just ignore my call. I don’t care if you and Jake Meyers are fucking each other six ways to Sunday. Tell him to whack it and answer my call!
I really should have just tossed the phone, but I found myself sliding the tab and cutting off one of my favorite songs to let Mary screech in my ear.
“Where are you?”
“Relax, Mary, I’m fine. What did I need to tell Jake to masturbate for?” I had to smile as my mate shook his head at me. He really needed to loosen up. My choice in music and vulgar language were the least of our problems. Vampire juju would never erase who I was. He was going to have to put up with all the awesome that was me for a very long time.
“You’re leaving. And you weren’t going to tell me. And where you’re going is someplace you can’t come back from. And you are going to fucking drag me with you. I have actually been passing my classes this year. Amber, I don’t want to move to Chicago!”
My bestie was obviously high. “Put away the pot and go to bed. You are having an episode. You didn’t lick any stamps at a party did you?”
“I’m not going into how I know, but something bad is going on, and whatever it is, is going to kill you tonight.”
“Mary, sweetie, you just said I was taking you to Chicago. How am I going to do that if I’m dead?”
Jake and I were in the parking lot of my Pack’s apartments. This was not a conversation I wanted to hold inside the house with superhuman hearing.
“My dreams have never been wrong. I know it doesn’t make any sense. Hell, Amber, I never talk about this stuff, but there is some scary shit going down, and it has to do with you. I would say come stay at my house, but I know you can’t, so tell me where I need to go.”
“What do you mean dreams?”
There was a string of curses that I could tell Mary was not aiming at the phone. I could hear her feet stomping to punctuate each vulgar syllable. “Look, I know it sounds crazy, but I have weird dreams. When they have all the foggy swirls they are different. They come true.”
Jake was close enough to hear both sides of the conversation. “How do you not know a thing about other supernatural factions, but randomly end up with a witch for a friend?”
“What did he just call me?”
“Uhhh…” Whoa. Suddenly my brain started putting two and two together. There were a lot of things that Mary did that were a little abnormal. She could see ahead of time when people were going to get into a fight or make out. She could tell when bad things were going to happen, and either consciously or subconsciously, she always seemed to get us to leave a situation before it got hairy. We had never been to a party that was busted, and I realized she was always drawn to people who were not of the human persuasion. She had sought me out from the first day I was on campus.
“Sweetie, is there anything you want to tell me?”
Jake pulled the phone down and covered the mic. “I don’t think she knows. At least not really. She doesn’t know what you are. Is she adopted?”
She was. “Dammit. This is not what we need right now.”
“I’m on my way to your apartment, Amber. Tell your man that he will get what’s coming to him for calling me a bitch. He loses major hot points for that one. Unless he’s really masturbating. Then he has a right to call me that. Just take pictures. See you in a bit.”
“Mary, wait! You can’t come ov—” But I was talking to a dial tone.
There were always people hanging around on the ground floor of our building. We had converted apartment 1A into a lounge. Since Daddy owned the building, and we only “rented” to our Pack, it was a real communal property. I walked in without knocking. Three guys were playing darts. I found the perfect man for the job that needed done. Luckily he wasn’t working at the campus library tonight.
Chapter Seventeen
I wasn’t looking for any available wolf. I needed the best. Mary was small, but she was determined, and I needed someone just as stubborn to intercept her. The fact that the man I had in mind was also ogle-worthy as far as my bestie was concerned made him the perfect choice.
Craig Matthews was your average werewolf in many ways. He had a foul mouth, a raunchy sense of humor and liked to get into a knock-down, drag-out fight whenever possible. But he was also a bit of a genius. Most wolves were smart by default. You don’t live for centuries and not retain a little knowledge. I know some that haven’t, but they’re the exception to the rule.
Craig was a born were. He didn’t talk much about his former Pack, but he really seemed grateful to be a part of ours. He managed our stock portfolio and insurance. And he worked at the library to help us access a lot of information easily and for free. It also let him feed that crazy-big brain of his.
In any other circumstance, I would have enjoyed giving him something that would challenge him, but my friend’s safety was not one of those things that I wanted to take chances with. I knew from the goo-goo eyes I had caught between him and Mary that I could count on him more than anyone else.
“Craig! Man, I need your help.”
The guy was a house. I think he bench-pressed the bookshelves when he wasn’t stocking them. He had on an old AC/DC shirt that clung to him like a second skin, highlighting his abs and stretching over his expansive shoulders. He finished off the look with long, blond hair, dark blue jeans and cowboy boots. He told me the cowboy boots were to blend in. I tried to tell him that Indiana was corn and Texas was cattle. He always gave me that smile that let me know he wasn’t going to listen.
“You need help with a test, sister? I told you Calc is not your strong suit.” The smile in his voice died when he saw the look on my face. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Mary.” I suddenly had his full attention.
Part of me wanted to tease him about the obvious attraction. Under the circumstances, I just laid it on the line. Mary was coming, and there was some bad shit about to go down. Mary couldn’t be here.
“I j
ust need you to keep her out of here for a while. She’s either going to get her ass caught in the crossfire or get a horribly abrupt education about alternate beings. I don’t think I can deal with either of those right now.”
Craig was so focused on the mission and Mary that it took him awhile to listen to his nose. The two wolves he was playing darts with had started eyeballing Jake the moment he walked in the door.
“Why do you smell like that?”
“You sure know how to sweet talk a girl, Craig. Try something else when chatting up Mary. Where are Daddy and Doc?” They were all still staring.
Never one to waste time—unless it involved naked fun time with my mate—I put it out there. “Guys, this is my mate, Jake Meyers. Yes, of the Meyers vampires. He’s a hybrid. We’re kind of on the run from his Family who want to chop the miasma from his skull since he didn’t want to kill me, so can you do me a solid and let me know where Daddy and Doc are?”
“Smooth, Amber.” Jake cocked his head. He was getting more wolf mannerisms every day. I wondered if, when he got more used to his mixed heritage, he would start taking advantage of some of our fun as well. I couldn’t wait to discover him as he discovered himself. If we made it to tomorrow that is.
“They’re upstairs. Alpha’s meeting room. Guess I know why now.” Craig sounded really put out by that. We all have problems, buddy.
“Craig—she’s on her way. I need you to keep Mary safe. Promise me that you will take care of her no matter what.”
He nodded and started for the door, but stopped in the frame and turned back to leave me with something else to think about. “I want her safe too, Amber. You’re not the only one who’s noticed how special she is. I’m on it. Just remember she needs you too. Do what you need to, but come back from it.” Then he turned to Jake.
“You’re an Alpha, Meyers. Your lack of a heartbeat isn’t the only reason these goons stood at attention. You’ll have to lead. Are you ready for that?”