Gryffin Strain: His Female
Page 9
It was vital that some of them live.
Chapter Nineteen
Jarrk sagged to his knees beside the small form slumped on the ground. He regarded the little human tenderly.
“Stop that,” he said.
He pulled Chiarra into his arms and nuzzled his face into her neck.
“Stop laughing,” he scolded.
Chiarra snuffed at a giggle. “How many Gryffins does it take to screw a human woman?”
“You tell me,” he advised her, his tone threatening.
Her fingers lifted to trail over the jutting curves of his mouth. “In this case, one will do nicely, thank you.”
“How’s your head?”
“Ringing! Did you have to hit me so hard?”
He winced as he scooped her up and stood. “Sorry,” he grunted, “but I had to convince the Yellow Guard you were dead, so they could take the news of your death home with them.”
“Take it from me, you were very convincing.” She rubbed her jaw. “You know, you had me going there for awhile.”
“That was the plan.” His expression sobered. “Grat died. Died well—in the end. Did you see any of it?”
“A bit. You’re very sexy when you’re angry.”
He grinned down at her. “You think so?”
She nodded—several times—then continued to nod at him.
He laughed. “I’m glad you think so, because as it turns out, I’m feeling a little more than sexy at the moment.” He headed into the trees. “Glad you built up a resistance?”
“To your poison, yes. Now, if I could just build up a resistance to you…” she sighed as she stared at his chest. “Your women love you, Jarrk.”
He frowned then swept the regret from his eyes. “I can’t help that, Chiarra. And I can’t help the fact that I don’t love them. I haven’t mated any of them in months, other than Shani and Akela. Shani’s waiting for a younger Gryffin to come of age. I took her in to spare her from Grat’s pit. The rest of them can move into other folds as they find males they’re happy with.”
“And Akela?”
“Akela’s a problem,” he muttered.
“I think we should keep her.”
He smiled and shook his head.
He carried her through the door of the lodge and was relieved when Akela shooed his females out the door then followed them. Laying Chiarra on her side in the center of the pit, he snuggled up close behind her, pulling her wrap open. “Tar, you look good for a dead woman.”
She stretched into him. “Mmmm,” she murmured, “I don’t feel dead.”
“Yeah? Tell that to the Yellow Guard. The human Chiarra is dead.” He pulled her knee up to her chest and dragged his hand slowly down the inside of her thigh, stroked his hand—tantalizingly—alongside her sex and through her crease before returning to fill his hand with the warm, sexy lips that pouted into his palm—pulsed into his palm. Leaning over her upper body, he watched his hand as each of his four fingers nudged their way into her warm, wet pussy. She gasped when one of those fingers slid into her cunt and another pressed tight against the puckered little kiss beyond her vagina. Two fingers teased at the nub of her clitoris, teased at her slowly, until the finger in her cunt was coated with her wet heat. Dragging his wet fingers up through her channeled folds then down into her crease, he placed two fingers at each of her openings.
“You can forget about your past life as a human, Chiarra. You’re my female now,” he rumbled against her ear. “You’re going to love being my female. And you’re going to love what comes next.”
She gasped as he entered her with all four fingers. “I’ve got a feeling I’m what comes next,” she moaned, “But Jarrk…”
“Mmmm?”
“Will you do that thing…with your barbs…for me? As I come?”
Jarrk groaned as his dick thickened unreasonably. “You want me to stripe you?”
“Just a little. If it wouldn’t be too much to ask. I’ll never ask for anything again. Consider it my last request.”
“I’ll consider your last request, Chiarra…if you’ll agree to be my last-picked. The very last, for the rest of my life.”
Epilogue
Akela took a final look at Jarrk’s lodge. Hitching her satchel on her shoulder, she headed for the clearing. There, she stopped only long enough to select one of the crossbows left behind by the humans. Slinging it up onto her shoulder, she continued east through the forest. She ignored the crushing vise that clamped around her heart.
If it hadn’t been for Jarrk, she told herself, she’d have struck out years ago.
It was only a little lie. She was long overdue for an adventure. And that was the truth.
A shadow separated itself from the edge of the clearing—a tall shadow with coppery highlights—and followed.
* * * * *
“That’s what I like about you, Chiarra.”
“What’s that Jarrk?” she said, digging for the compliment.
“Everything, my love.”
Jarrk stood in a moonlit clearing, silver light on his shoulders as he turned toward her. The moonlight on the pool was silver leaves, floating on the water’s surface. He smiled at her as he pulled the string on his pants and let them slide down his legs.
“Of all my visions, I think this is my favorite.”
“You saw this coming, then.”
She nodded.
He grunted. “As if it would take a visionary to predict my hard-on. And what else do you see in our future?”
“Our future?”
“Our future,” he said firmly. “You may be able to see things I can’t see, my little human, but I know things you don’t know.” He gave her a supercilious smile. “You see, Chiarra, only certain females have hallucinations when they take a male’s venom. Only one female that tastes of mine can see the future. The female that is meant to be mine. The female to whom I give my heart, my soul. The female that returns that gift with the same.”
She gave him a stunned look of wonder.
“To paraphrase, darling…it was basically love at first sight…and the feeling was mutual.” He grabbed her and kissed her. “So what do you see next?”
She squealed as his hands tightened around her waist. “What do you think?” she threw back at him.
He closed his eyes and she used the opportunity to run her fingers into his ruff. He rumbled his appreciation. “I see two beautiful daughters with their mother’s long dark hair,” he intoned with dramatic mummery.
She laughed. “Look again, Jarrk, because those are your sons.”
“Hmph,” he grunted and opened his eyes. “In that case, they need haircuts.”
About the author:
I slung the heavy battery pack around my hips and cinched it tight—or tried to.
“Damn.” Brian grabbed an awl. Leaning over me, he forged a new hole in the too-big belt.
“Any advice?” I asked him as I pulled the belt tight.
“Yeah. Don’t reach for the ore cart until it starts moving, then jump on the back and immediately duck your head. The voltage in the overhead cable won’t just kill you. It’ll blow you apart.”
That was my first day on my first job. Employed as an engineer, I’ve worked in an underground mine that went up—inside a mountain. I’ve swung over the Ohio River in a tiny cage suspended from a crane in the middle of an electrical storm. I’ve hung over the Hudson River at midnight in an aluminum boat—30 foot in the air—suspended from a floating barge at the height of a blizzard, while snowplows on the bridge overhead rained slush and salt down on my shoulders. You can’t do this sort of work without developing a sense of humor, and a sense of adventure.
New to publishing, I read my first romance two years ago and started writing. Both my reading and writing habits are subject to mood and I usually have several stories going at once. When I need a really good idea for a story, I clean toilets. Now there’s an activity that engenders escapism.
I was surveying when I met my husband. He
was my ‘rod man’. While I was trying to get my crosshairs on his stadia rod, he dropped his pants and mooned me. Next thing I know, I’ve got the backside of paradise in my viewfinder. So I grabbed the walkie-talkie. “That’s real nice,” I told him, “but would you please turn around? I’d rather see the other side.”
…it was love at first sight.
Madison welcomes mail from readers. You can write to her c/o Ellora’s Cave Publishing at P.O. Box 787, Hudson, Ohio 44236-0787.
Also available from Madison Hayes
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