by Fran Lee
Panic lent her strength as she fought the shift, forcing it back until it became only a tingling in her gums and nail beds. Breathing deeply and calming herself, Jessie realized with a rush of sudden elation that she had just controlled her own body and her Lykos nature. It was an incredible feeling. She felt suddenly powerful. She felt moisture slide from her core and she touched her inner thigh, lifting her wet fingers to the dim moonlight.
The female cat would never have her mate! Jessie wanted him. And she wanted him now.
Gar and Cal stood beneath the verandah of the Halleran house. Cal knew Gar had heard his conversation with Hallie and had followed him home, but his sibling did not seem upset that he had gone to speak to her. Cal drew a deep breath and lifted his eyes to his sibling’s face to see the concerned look in Gar’s eyes.
“You bonded with the Lykos,” Gar said quietly, his deep voice flat.
“We bonded with each other.” Cal’s voice was deceptively soft. “She wanted it as much as I did.”
“The Lykos will know she chose you. There will be hell to pay with the wolf pack—you do realize that?”
Cal drew a deep breath. “I can live with that.”
“You left her alone immediately after your bonding. How does she feel about that?”
“I will explain that I went to make my peace with Hallie. She should feel relieved to know that I have forsaken my vow to Hallie. She may not even know that I am gone.”
Gar frowned and Cal knew his words before he spoke. “I know that Hallie appreciated your concern tonight, brother, but your mate is alone and I can sense her pain. No matter what we Seronta believe, Lykos have one mate for life. This is not going to rest easy on her mind. If you love her—if she truly is your soul mate—you must be with her only. Will your Lykos survive thinking she is second in your life? Because right now that is exactly what she’s thinking.”
Cal stared at his brother. “You can sense my mate’s thoughts?” A slow trickle of jealousy stiffened his spine and he tensed.
Gar shifted his weight slightly, a sign that he was ready to take a sudden attack, and Cal inhaled deeply, realizing that of all the creatures on the earth, this was the only one he trusted with his life. Gar’s eyes narrowed slightly as he waited to see what would happen in the next few seconds. Cal sighed wearily and said, “Sorry. You’re right. I need to get back to her. Who knows…maybe she will need more than I can give. If so, expect a call.”
Gar slapped him firmly on the back and gave a grunt. “Not likely. Go in. She’s awake and she’s not happy.”
Gar dissolved into the dark trees beside the drive and Cal sniffed the stiffening breeze that blew from the trees beyond the old house. Nothing but an owl. He made a quick leap from the unkempt lawn to the top of the porch roof, then one more to the gable he had exited through, before shifting back to climb through the window. He could smell his mate’s need, and her pain, and he instantly felt guilty for deserting her at such a crucial moment.
She had awoken. He called out to her mentally. She didn’t respond. But he could sense her irritation and he winced a little at the thought of how she would receive his apology. If she received his apology. She might attack him and maul him instead of accepting it. He shook his head.
You are angry with me. How can I make this up to you?
No response.
I will do whatever you want. Will you come to me, Jessie?
The soft voice that entered his mind set his pulse afire. You come to me. You come and beg, and maybe I will forgive you.
This was no omega Lykos. This was his mate. The command in her voice told him that she was, indeed, eager to punish him, but he was ready and willing to take whatever she dished out. In fact his cock had risen to stiff attention and he smiled. Would she render the punishment he craved?
He stalked through the attic to the stairway leading down and found her standing at the bottom of the steps to the second-floor hallway, her naked body oddly less gaunt and thin than it had been earlier in the day. Her silver eyes were in shadow but he knew that they were fastened to his rampant hard-on as he moved slowly down the stairs to stop on the one just above her. “Will begging get me back inside you, little wolf?”
Slim but strong hands slid around the girth of his shaft and he groaned as she pressed her breasts against his abdomen and licked one copper nipple. “You mean to torture me, wolf?” His voice was rough.
Jessie lost her will to be angry when he came slowly down the stairs, his marvelous swollen cock bobbing before him. She inhaled deeply and when he stopped and spoke she could not resist the need to touch him. The tremor that went through that powerful body gave her a shot of the most incredible lust imaginable…and the thought of her mate making love to her again drove the image of him riding Hallie from her mind.
The taste of his damp skin set her afire and without another word she launched herself onto him. He sank backward onto the dust-covered bare wood of the stairs, a deep growl of satisfaction rumbling from his throat.
Straddling his hips, she wedged his thick cock head into her wet opening, and with a cry of pure delight she impaled herself on the unyielding shaft, listening to the rumbling purr of pleasure that came from his hard chest as he lifted his torso and latched on to her breast with a voracious mouth.
I was not with Hallie tonight, little one…
Why did you leave me?
I was stupid. I thought to tell them that I had found my soul mate. I should have stayed here, with you.
She had not been betrayed? He was her soul mate? This was worth all the long, painfully lonely and desolate years of her life since they had taken her from her family. This aching, throbbing need to be filled…to be loved…to be pleasured. As he helped her to ride his stiffly erect cock, she heard his voice in her head once again.
You are delectable. You are marvelous. You take my breath away and I am yours alone.
Her mouth sought his and as her tongue mimicked what he did with his cock, she felt the first trembling rise of her orgasm explode from her breasts to her sex and race through her arching body like a runaway freight train.
He didn’t join her in climax but lifted her from the hard ridges of the stairs, wrapping her legs around his hips as he moved from the final step and carried her slowly into the bedroom they had shared earlier in the night. He sucked her tongue deep and whispered into her fuzzy brain, If this is meant to be punishment, my love, you picked a poor method. It seems far more pleasure than pain. But who am I to question your decision? Fucking is my favorite kind of punishment.
Fucking? Yes. That was the word he used for what they were doing. And the sound of the word sent another orgasmic thrill through her body. Strange word. It caused pleasure.
I could fuck this tight, hot pussy of yours all night, little wolf.
Pussy? He was calling her sex a small cat? A pet name that the cats gave a female’s sex organs? She giggled against his lips and he laughed into her mouth as he lifted and lowered her over his shaft without slowing. She couldn’t keep her moan back.
You like my cock in your pussy?
Pulling away from his mouth and gasping for air, Jessie laughed. “You cats have so many odd names for things! But yes—I love your cock in my pussy, oh great golden one.”
Cal blinked down at her feral smile as he felt her channel clench around his cock like a trembling, eager orgasmic fist. His little mate was indulging in…humor? She was certainly not acting like the pitiful little female Lykos he had found in the glade. She was eager. She was marvelous. She was insatiable. And as he gave a roar of pleasure and exploded deep inside her hot, tight body, she lifted her head and voiced a spine-tingling howl that raised the hairs at his nape.
He continued to slam his hips against her, pleasure driving him as her nails dug furrows in his back and he growled against her throat, “Gods, but I need your blood again.”
In answer she sank her fangs into the muscle of his shoulder and he instantly took that as a yes, gently biting in
to the soft flesh at the base of her throat. He continued to spurt as his orgasm went on and on, and the lush taste of her blood filled his mouth as she convulsed in another orgasm, her mouth still pressed to his skin.
When their mingled cries and growls grew less boisterous, he sank onto the bed and rolled her astride him, savoring the rhythmic sway of her body on his. The pleasure was like a deep ache that filled every cell of his body. He panted to calm his heart rate, his eyes on the gently bouncing breasts above his face.
“I want your mouth on them.”
Her whispered demand ended in a high-pitched gasp as he obeyed without hesitation, drawing deep on the first, then switching to the second. Her fingers twined through his perspiration-damp hair and he cradled her breasts in his palms, giving each delicious morsel equal attention.
“Yesss…”
He felt her clench around him again and marveled at her ability to keep him as hard as a rock inside her for so long. Sooner or later his cock was going to have to come up for air. As he felt her squeezing with her internal muscles, he decided that later would be good.
* * * * *
The big, scarred alpha listened to the mating howl of his escaped omega, and he curled his lip in disgust for the male who lowered himself to take the worthless half-human. He had hated the bitch since old Petrov had stolen and changed her. But Petrov had been punished. The dark Seronta had killed her foolish protector. The demented old fool had taken her for a future mate. A changeling would never be an alpha mate in this pack. He would have killed her too, but his mate had wanted the whining bitch for a servant.
Now the bitch was offering herself to a cat? With a snarl of revulsion, Jock gazed narrowly at the old house where she committed her atrocity and remembered the difficulty he’d had the last time he had made an attempt against the big cats. But one big cat was far easier to deal with than two infuriated males, like the last time. He would have his vengeance and he would destroy them all. And this time he would tear out the little bitch’s throat.
He whirled and moved swiftly back into the trees, running for half a mile before shifting to make better time. He would have his pack tear the lone cat apart. He would devise a ruse to keep the alpha cat out of the way. And afterward, Jock would deal with the bitch. She wouldn’t escape his wrath again.
Chapter Nine
Hallie came awake with a start and sat up quickly, her thoughts a jumble of confusion and fear. Gar lifted onto one elbow and ran a reassuring hand over her naked hip. “What is it, love?”
She shook her head, unable to voice the horror that she had felt. It had receded as swiftly as it had come, but she slipped from the bed and hurriedly dragged on a soft robe, racing out of their room to the boys’ room down the hall. Gar was on her heels as she shoved the door open and scanned the room. The boys were soundly asleep. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. But her eyes went to the French windows, where a breeze ruffled the lace curtains, and Gar was moving before she could speak. He leaped over the beds and sought the intruder.
The open window was terrifying evidence that someone had breached the security of the house without setting off the alarm system. Gar checked the balcony, then shifted and leaped to the lawn below while she checked the window lock. It had been jimmied with a thin metal strip, which lay on the carpet at her feet. But breaking the contact should have set off the alarm.
With a shiver, she checked both sleeping boys, making sure they were unharmed. She stepped onto the balcony and scanned the upper portion of the house—roof, gables and verandah roof—before she carefully re-latched the French windows and woke the children, herding them quickly into the bedroom she shared with Gar and tucking them gently into the king-sized bed with anger boiling beneath the surface of her forced calm. The Lykos had gone too far this time. There would be no safe place for the pack after this. If Gar and Cal didn’t find and kill them, she would do it herself.
She locked the hallway door and settled in to wait for Gar’s return.
The trail Gar followed through the trees was one lone dog…but when that track intersected with several more, he tensed and called out to his brother.
Lykos are approaching the house. Get your female out now. Follow the street…the woods are full of them. I will meet you on the way.
He waited only until he felt Cal’s answer in his mind before he whirled and raced for the paved road half a mile from where the large grouping of tracks congregated. Gar had no doubt that his younger sibling could take on the pack and survive if he were not hampered by the need to protect his little mate. But alone in an unprotected house with only the Lykos omega for help, Cal would be easy prey for the whole pack, since he would be preoccupied with protecting her instead of himself. And he had no desire to see another he loved die.
The pack had been whittled down to five adult males and four females. One of those females was now Cal’s mate. But the remaining eight would be formidable in a single-minded attack. He hated the thought of killing females, but if they threatened his family…
Jessie came awake with a muffled gasp as her mate pressed a calloused hand to her mouth and breathed beside her ear, “No noise. Your pack is coming. No time. We need to run—now! If they catch us in the open the males will come after me. You must shift. You will have the strength to fight off the other females if they attack. I doubt that they will. Gar is heading this way. We need to go quickly.”
She struggled up from the bed and followed him without question, her mind a whirl of confusion. Her mate shifted in a single heartbeat and leaped out the door and down the rickety stairs to the front entrance. Shift? He wants me to shift? Why? Was he going to send her back to them, after all? Didn’t she have a say in the matter?
Seeing the satiny golden coat with its shadowy-dark paw-print patches moving through the night ahead of her, she focused all her thoughts on making the shift so that she could keep up with his amazing strides. She struggled to force the change but nothing happened. She bit back a frustrated cry and ran after him on her bare human feet, wincing with pain as sticks and rocks cut her flesh.
Soon he was out of sight.
Shift, Jessie! His words reverberated inside her skull as she panicked.
She heard them before she saw them. The big hunting males of the pack tore past her, hot on the tracks of her mate. Jock streaked past her, his shoulder striking her solidly to knock her to the ground as he snarled at her to stay where she was or suffer an even worse punishment for her treason. She obeyed out of habit rather than desire, watching the entire pack race after Cal, except for the thin dark-gray female who stayed to guard her. The female bared her yellow fangs and laid her ears back, and Jessie moved her eyes over the crouching creature. They had left the most cowardly of the pack to guard her? She knew Gia had been only one step above her in the pack. And now they assumed that their old omega was willing to sit around and let this skinny bitch boss her?
“Gia! So you are the omega now that I left?” she said tauntingly as she rose slowly from the damp earth.
Having had a blessed respite from her beaten-down status, Jessie found the courage and spirit to torment her former tormentor. She was no longer their omega. She was Cal’s blood mate. And the terror that she had experienced at Jock’s command melted as her own rage surfaced.
Gia’s lips lifted warningly. A whining growl emerged from her throat, and Jessie laughed. “You want to take me on, you flea-bitten piece of cat bait? You really think I will stand here and let you bully me? You’ve never killed more than a mouse in your life. I fought Jock and lived. I will give you exactly three seconds to turn around and take your ugly, stinky carcass out of my sight before I tear your head off and eat your brains.”
Rage felt good. Her anger poured out over the charcoal-gray Lykos, and she began counting. “One…”
The Lykos growled halfheartedly, held for the count of “two”, then whirled and raced after the rest of the pack, not looking back. Jessie sank down with a gasp of shaky relief onto the leafy gr
ound and covered her face with her grimy hands. She stared off after Cal and the pack. She felt worthless once more. What use was she to her strong and courageous mate? She couldn’t even shift to protect herself! The weakness that she’d shown was unforgivable. He deserved better than a stupid, weak Lykos who couldn’t even manage to follow his simplest command. He deserved…Hallie.
Jessie winced at the comparison. She let her eyes slip downward over her dirty, pale skin and she gave a shudder of revulsion. Why would he want something like her? Especially after she had failed him. She drew a shuddery breath and climbed to her feet again. She heard the scream of the huge black alpha cat and the sounds of battle came to her ears. Trying desperately to shift, she wavered for several seconds, then with a muffled cry of anguish she fled naked and barefoot into the woods, wanting to get as far away from Cal and Jock and Gina and all of them as possible and cry herself into oblivion.
She ran headlong through the low growth of the woods, ignoring the stinging scratches of branches and twigs on her naked skin and ignoring the pain in her soft human feet. She knew that Cal would not have left her if he had thought she was too weak to shift. He had commanded her to do just one thing…and she couldn’t even manage to do that simple thing for him. Fear had caused her to hesitate and falter. She wasn’t worthy of his love. She wasn’t strong enough for Cal. Anguish filled her and she stumbled over a knotted root and tumbled face-first onto the damp earth. I should just dig a hole and crawl in.
Gar reached the paved road just as Cal burst from the trees…alone. The pack was on him, and Gar’s shriek of challenge made one of them falter and peel off, racing back into the trees. The other seven tried valiantly to bring his sibling down before the leopard could reach safety, but the sight of the huge black devil charging them sent another couple skittering off into the darkness, leaving only five to face the two infuriated cats. Cal rolled and took one lanky male out with his hind claws, gutting him and snapping his neck. The other four latched on to the younger shifter and dragged him down for a few seconds, before Gar reached the dog-pile and crushed the spine of a larger female in his jaws as he dragged her off his brother.