Rogue Heart

by Samantha Wolfe

  I orgasm once more, this time my insides clamping down so hard that I drag Ronan right along with me. He roars as a violent shudder wracks his body, his cock pulsing and jerking as his seed bathes my insides with its near scalding heat. Raw and animalistic noises fall from both our lips as our mutual ecstasy coalesces into one bright point of bliss that strips away everything else around us. Nothing else matters in this moment but us and the bond between us. When it's over in what feels like an eternity later, we collapse onto the floor in a quivering and gasping heap of sweaty bodies and tangled limbs.

  "Holy shit," I say when I can finally manage speech again, my voice coming out hoarse from all the screaming. "Is sex always like that?"

  Ronan curls his arms more tightly around me, his smug satisfaction at my sentiment rolling into me as his lips pull into a grin against the back my neck. "No, sugar," he answers with a quiet laugh, his gruff voice filled with warmth and humor. "Not even close." He nuzzles into my neck. "That was beyond incredible."

  I manage a slight nod in agreement as I savor my wonderfully sore and exhausted body. "I'm so wrecked that I don't think I can move again for a week."

  "A week?" he asks, his voice playful. "I don't think so." He thrusts his hips against me, and I can feel his cock already growing rock hard again where it's cradled between my ass cheeks. "I'm just getting started, sugar," he adds in a low sensual tone that has heated desire shivering impossibly through me once more as he laves his tongue against my skin. His lust rises up again to coil around inside me. Though I didn't think it was possible after what he just did to me a few moments ago, it tugs mine right along with it, and our ascent into bliss starts all over again.

  18

  LYRIC

  Ronan's slow and steady heartbeat thrums steadily beneath my ear as I lie sprawled across his nude body with my head on his warm muscular chest. His wild earthy aroma mixed with the musk of sex envelopes me, as do his arms and his sleepy contentment that I feel through our bond. The rise and fall of his rumbling breaths keep me lulling somewhere between wakefulness and sleep with my eyes closed and a small smile gracing my kiss-swollen lips. My body is delightfully sore in all the right places from the workout it endured at Ronan's hands all afternoon and into the early evening.

  I'm hardly experienced, but I think I've gotten a fairly thorough education about sexual positions today. Ronan took me from every angle I could think of and then some that had never even occurred to my naive mind before. I'm pretty sure we christened every surface a body could be fucked on in this place too, except for the bed upstairs, because...ew...I'm not having sex in some dead guy's bed.

  Currently, we're occupying the sofa for yet another nap between rounds of sex, and I can't wait to do it again...and again...and again. If I was in heat, I bet I'd probably be pregnant already, no matter how hard it is for two trueborn to conceive. Our females only ovulate once or twice a year, and getting pregnant is fairly rare, unlike my mother, who is a wild blood human. Not only can wild bloods ovulate monthly and get pregnant as easily as any human, but every child they have with a trueborn will be one as well, hence me and my four werewolf siblings.

  I grin at the thought of carrying Ronan's babies and snuggle against him, wondering how much my thoughts would freak him out. He hums contentedly and murmurs my name in his sleep as he tightens his arms around me. I lift my head to look at his face, my excellent night vision allowing me to admire him easily in the darkened room.

  He really is gorgeous with his strong virile features, those full lips and chiseled cheekbones, and the scruff on his cheeks that scraped so wondrously against my face and between my legs earlier. I drop my head and place a kiss on his warm skin, considering sliding down his body and attempting the first blow job of my life when I hear a noise outside. I freeze and strain to hear it again so I can identify it, but don't hear anything else out of the ordinary. It's probably nothing, but regardless, I have the sudden and uncanny feeling that something is wrong.

  I'm just about to say Ronan's name to wake him, when I feel alarm suddenly surge to life inside him. His eyes flash open just as the sound of the small window next to the front door shattering breaks the silence. It's followed by the tinkling of broken glass flying everywhere and the thump of something hitting the floor. I look over to see a small metal canister rolling to a stop in the middle of the room with a sickly gray cloud of gas already hissing out of it. A noxious and cloying floral scent finds my nose a second later that has instant nausea roiling up in my stomach. What the hell is with all these people tossing things in through windows at us?

  "Move!" Ronan barks out, already sitting up and taking me with him.

  He grabs my waist as he stands and lifts me up as he skirts the canister and the glass on the floor and hurries me along into the kitchen. He sets me down and snatches up his shoulder holster off the table and presses it into my hands, then grabs his sword and draws the wickedly sharp blade free from its scabbard with a metallic shing.

  "Back door, now!" he shouts as he grabs my wrist and pulls me along forcefully.

  I don't argue since the room is already turning hazy with the sickly gray gas, and my face and lips are starting to tingle. That can't be good. Panic rises up inside me, but I can feel Ronan's fierce determination despite his own tightly hedged fear, and it helps me manage my threatening hysteria. We're both still naked, but that can't be helped, and besides, if we need to shift, we can do it faster without have to strip out of our clothes first.

  "What is that stuff?" I ask as I hurry after him toward the cabin's back door.

  "Wolfsbane gas," he calls back over his shoulder.

  Wolfsbane? Holy shit. I've never encountered it before. I didn't know a lot about it either, but I knew enough from my father to know that the flowering plant is dangerous for our kind and potentially deadly if a sufficiently massive dose gets into your system. He never mentioned it being in gas form, and God only knew what that could do to us.

  Ronan lets me go by the door and pauses to look back at me with his eyes deadly serious and flashing cobalt fire. He glances down at the shoulder holster still in my hands and reaches out to pull the gun free from it with his left hand.

  "Take the knife, then open the door and stay right behind me," he commands, his demeanor stern and all business, and I find it comforting.

  I nod and unsheathe the wicked looking blade, then grip it tight in my fist as I toss the holster on the floor. The weapon feels odd yet comforting in my hand. I've never had cause to use one before, but I trust Ronan to know that I'll need it. I grab the door knob and look expectantly at him.

  "Now!" he says, then I whip the door open and swiftly follow right on his heels into the chilly night air.

  As soon as we breach the doorway something whizzes past Ronan's head and thunks into the wooden door frame next to me. I gasp and gawk incredulously at what I know from my run-ins with sport hunters is a crossbow bolt. The noxious scent that I now recognize as wolfsbane suddenly grows stronger and sharper, and I realize it's coming from the bolt embedded in the door jam. My eyes widen. Holy shit, are they dipped in the stuff?

  "Down!" Ronan shouts as a faint clicking noise comes from the woods ahead of us.

  I instantly drop like a stone just as another bolt flies through the air above me and thwacks loudly into something inside the cabin. Another bolt zips in from the trees and this time I look up to see Ronan rising to bat it out of the air with his sword. The lightening fast arc of the blade stops it mere feet before it hits him in the chest, sending wooden splinters from the ruined bolt raining down around his bare legs and feet. He aims the pistol in his left hand toward the trees and fires off several rapid shots in the direction the crossbow bolts came from. I hear a cracking noise followed by a woman's voice cursing viciously somewhere hidden past the tree line.

  Ronan steps off the porch, and I leap up to scurry after him. He strides across the grass with his sword at the ready and the gun still pointed unwaveringly into the trees, and stops
in the middle of the moonlit clearing. I come up just behind his right shoulder and stare off into the forest with him.

  "Come out, bitch!" His dark expression is a mask of raw and vicious fury with his eyes glowing cobalt fire. "I know you're there, so there's no fucking point in hiding anymore!"

  A feminine peal of laughter floats out from the trees a moment before a figure steps into view. It's a woman clad in some kind of black leather tactical outfit with the hilt of a sword peeking out above one shoulder and a midnight black crossbow hanging lax in her hand. Her skin is an oddly pale shade of olive, her thick dark hair cut into a short asymmetrical bob with a curtain of bangs partially obscuring one of her big almond-shaped green eyes. Her strikingly beautiful face is heart-shaped with thick eyebrows, sharp angular cheekbones, and blood-red lips that are full and sensual. She's a few inches shorter than me and looks to be in her thirties, curvy and fit, and carries herself with a deadly grace and confidence that makes me instantly wary.

  She steps closer, and I finally catch her scent on the shifting night breeze. It's a strange and unfamiliar amalgam of dry freshly turned earth tinged with the metallic tang of blood. She stops a few yards in front of Ronan and negligently tosses the crossbow onto the ground in the space between them. I glance at the discarded weapon and see that it's broken. One of the limbs of the bow has been blown apart, rendering the thing useless. Holy shit, Ronan must have hit it with a bullet that he aimed by sound alone.

  "Nice shot," she says, her voice smooth and edged with an exotic accent I can't quite place. Her expression is placid and unperturbed, but I suspect it's only a mask to hide the coldblooded killer underneath.

  "Thanks," Ronan replies. "Who hired you?"

  Hired her? Oh my God, she must be an assassin like Ronan.

  The woman smiles devilishly, ignoring his question as her gaze slides down Ronan's nude body with an open appreciation that has me and my wolf instantly bristling with possessiveness. I unconsciously growl under my breath at her. She turns her attention to me, looking me over from head to toe and drinking in my naked body now with obvious avarice and hunger. She tilts her head and takes in a slow breath through her nose as her lips twist in wry amusement.

  "Mmm..." Her eyes rise to meet Ronan's again. "Seems like I missed all the fun." Her tone is low and brimming with carnal heat and something much much darker. "It's too bad I'm here on business because I'd love to join you." Suddenly, inky blackness engulfs her eyes, irises and all. "You two look and smell good enough to eat," she adds with a wide grin, and I can plainly see two sharp fangs peeking out from beneath her voluptuous lips now.

  I gasp, then still in sudden recognition. I've never actually seen one, but those black eyes and fangs are unmistakable, thanks to my father's thorough description, in case I ever encountered one. She's a vampire. She glances my way and actually winks at me. The deep and visceral hunger I see in her black gaze sends a shuddering chill running through my entire body.

  Ronan ignores her attempt to goad him. "Who hired you?"

  "Aw, Nash," she replies with a pouty expression. "Straight to the point, huh? Don't you even want to know who I am?"

  "I know who you are, Khaalida, and I'm not impressed." He takes a menacing step forward, raising the gun to aim it at her head. "Now how about you extend me some professional courtesy and tell me who put a hit on me, and how you found me here, before I put a silver bullet in your fucking skull."

  "You know full well I won't tell you who hired me," she replies, unruffled by the fact that Ronan's gun is pointed at her face. "I will say there are a lot of weak and susceptible minds working the night shift at that store in Harrisville who will do whatever I want." She grins smugly. "Including planting a GPS tracker on that gorgeous blue Mustang you've been parking there during the day." The irises of her eyes begin to glow with an eerie red light amid the gleaming blackness. "And I just adore weak and susceptible minds," she adds as she turns those creepy red eyes on me.

  Suddenly, I find myself staring right back, unable to pull my gaze from the vampire's eyes as time seems to stand still and everything else around me falls away. I feel a dark and oppressive force push heavily at my mind. Sharp jabbing tendrils of vile psychic energy start worming their way inside me. I hear a tiny and totally reasonable voice start telling me that I'm in danger and to take the knife in my hand and stab Ronan with it before he has a chance to hurt me. My hand starts to lift the blade, believing those insidious words, but my wolf abruptly snarls up inside me rising to my defense. She knows our mate isn't a threat in any way, and pushes the dark energy away. It reacts defensively and pushes back even harder. I can feel the knife wavering in my hand as I tremble with the effort of battling the compulsion, and I don't know if I'm strong enough to win. My wolf feels somehow weaker than normal, and I don't know why. A tiny whimper of hopelessness escapes my lips as my mental strength wavers.

  "No!" Ronan roars, the sound dull as it registers distantly in my mind. It's followed immediately by the sudden and startlingly noise of a gun firing at close range. The vampire pulls her gaze from mine, and the dark energy trying to wrest my freewill away evaporates in the next instant as time and place snap back into place around me. I drop the knife in horror before my knees give out on me, and I end up sitting on my ass on the ground.

  Dazed, I realize only a mere moment has passed as I look up to see that the vampire has already ducked the bullet meant for her with inhuman speed. She leaps away from Ronan with a hissing snarl and fangs bared, then circles around him. He tracks her movement with the gun, sidestepping around me to keep himself between her and me as he fires off round after round at her. But she's too fast. Every single bullet misses her by inches as she moves in a blur of black leather and glittering obsidian eyes around us.

  Within moments, the gun clicks empty, and Ronan tosses it aside with a frustrated expletive. The vampire instantly pivots toward him and draws the sword on her back. The weapon has a long curving blade that gives it a middle eastern appearance. She charges Ronan at lightening speed, but he's just as fast and surges forward to meet her attack with a vicious snarl, his own sword gripped in both hands and already raised in a defensive position.

  They meet in a flurry of deadly motion, the sound of steel striking steel ringing out through the moonlit night as they engage. Ronan is glorious, his blade catching every attack the vampire throws at him with unbelievable skill and speed. It quickly becomes apparent that he's the better swordsman, and the vampire is out of her depth. Soon she's fighting him with pure defense, desperately blocking and dodging Ronan's swinging sword as he drives her backward around the clearing. I decide to stay right where I am and let Ronan do what he so obviously does best. Kill.

  When Ronan's blade finally breaks through her defense and makes contact with her skin for the first time, I hear a hissing sound and see actual steam rise from the wound on her arm. Whoa, Ronan's sword must be coated in silver for that to happen. The vampire screeches in pain and rage, and responds with a desperate whirlwind attack that has Ronan back pedaling to keep up as he blocks each swing of her sword in quick succession.

  Within seconds, Ronan turns the fight around so he's back on the offensive, once more dominating the fight as he drives her farther away from me. I'm sure it's purposeful on his part, to protect me. He tags her again on the other arm, and once more on her upper thigh, each with the same hissing and steaming effect. I find myself grinning with pride and eagerness as I anticipate his sure and eventual victory, until the unthinkable happens.

  One of Ronan's legs buckles beneath him, and I gasp as he nearly goes down, but catches himself and manages to stay upright as he barely blocks the sword swinging for his head. I glance at Ronan to see that the fiery cobalt of his wolf's eyes is faltering, and his face looks pale. A sick feeling sweeps over me, curdling my stomach with terror for my mate. Something is seriously wrong with Ronan.

  The vampire sees her opportunity and presses forward with sword flying, and now Ronan is on the defensi
ve. He's forced to backpedal, desperately parrying her strokes as he fights what I fear will be a losing battle for his life. I have to do something and instinctively reach for my she-wolf. If I can dart in close enough as the wolf to hamstring her, maybe Ronan can take her out before it's too late. Strangely, it feels like I'm reaching through thick goo to get to her, and to my shock, nothing happens, not even an inkling of the shift. Fuck. I close my eyes and try again with the same results. Shit. Is this the vampire's doing?

  I open my eyes to see the vampire raining furious blows down on Ronan, who looks even weaker as he continues blocking her. The cobalt fire is long gone from his eyes now, and I can see several bleeding wounds on his arms and torso where she managed to get past his blade and tag him. I see actual fear in his expression now as he realizes he's going to lose. A deep and protective fury ignites inside me. No. Fuck no. I won't let that happen.

  Without a thought, I snatch up the knife still lying in the grass next to me. I fight past the lingering remnants of the vampire's effect on my mind and lurch to my feet just as Ronan stumbles. I surge forward as he goes down on one knee and flings his sword out in a feeble and desperate attempt to protect himself. The vampire laughs gleefully, so focused on Ronan that she doesn't notice me coming up behind her as she raises her sword to finish him off. I lash out with the knife, and the sharp blade slices a long hissing gash across her back.