by Sedona Venez
Moaning into his mouth, I surrendered. A growl rumbled in his chest as he clutched my throat possessively. I swore that I was one step away from hoisting my leg up around his hips and grinding shamelessly. Dark, I was dark and sadistic.
He grabbed my face, running his tongue over my lips. I was repulsed and turned on at the same time. I pulled my face and he grabbed my chin painfully.
He looked at me coldly. “Now, since I don’t trust your ability to forget my visit. Let me help you.”
I felt an icy chill slip up my spine. My mind seized, becoming foggy. “Mother fucker!” my eyes widened. “You’re erasing my memory…” My voice slurred before I felt myself slipping into a dark cold place with one name echoing over and over in my head....Maxim! Maxim! Maxim!
CHAPTER THREE
Infinity
She-Were-Wolf
Dread seeped through my bones like a dreary winter day. My eyes snapped open only to find me standing in a field of dreams with nothing but green grass, dark gloomy skies and me wearing my standard sleeping attire of black low riding boy-cut panties and a skin tight crisp white racer-back t-shirt, which was frankly more suited for swinging on a stripper pole than standing here waiting for this dream to end.
Flopping down, I crossed my legs, waiting for the inevitable strange and annoying woman to materialize out of nowhere, then commence to babble about some future event that she wanted me to know or some event happening right now that she thought was oh-so-important that she needed to disrupt my sleep.
A soft breeze laced with the masculine blend of vanilla, wood and cinnamon drifted around me….hmm, this was good, real good…no sulfur, smoke, or ash drifted through the air. This had to be a good dream opposed to the bad ones that literally made me want to piss in my panties, the ones where I watched, paralyzed with fear as monsters, vampires and wolves ripped into each other like animals or worse, rip into humans like they were at an all you can eat buffet. No, this was good, I could stay here for a bit, relax, and wait for the signs that I needed to end this dream.
My head snapped around when I heard the croaking of ravens, my ravens, all nine. I made sure that I accounted for each one, from past experience I knew that everything in my dreams were very important, sometimes clues that would somehow help me when I woke up.
The ravens perched on the limbs of a huge gnarly tree croaked in unison, their croaks were sweet like music to my ears. My body swayed as I began singing in perfect synchronization to their soaring croaks.
“My ravens soar above me
Guiding my heart to the perfect place
Perfect love, perfect peace
You are my light
The beckon to the love that speaks to me
My heart song, chasing the darkness away
Fly my ravens, lead me on
Fly my ravens, to my heart song”
Their croaks abruptly stopped, an unnerving silence filled the air, a sign that something was approaching. The breeze picked-up, briskly whipping my hair around like a big storm was approaching. Thunder clapped in the distance and the air became eerily still. Okay this was it, something was happening. My eyes widened, I held my breath, and my hands clenched in the grass, my heart raced knowing that whatever was coming would be monumental.
I blinked, and just like that, he was standing there looking down at me like some huge menacing Viking. All he needed was an animal pelt, a huge sword and bloody carcass swung over his shoulders and the picture would be complete. My eyes greedily drank in the long plane of his bare lightly tanned chest, roaming giddily over the defined width of his shoulders covered with intricate tribal tattoos. His long black silk draw-string pants molded against the thick muscling of his thighs.
He was angry, menacing, and looked like he was ready to kick some major ass. The yummy, bad boy made me want to run my fingers across the tribal tattoos of snarling werewolves that wrapped around his muscled neck, and trailed down both sides of his torso to wrap around his chest. It looked like sin against his tanned skin.
Okay, this was good. Maybe the strange woman thought it was about time I got some, so she hand-picked me a hottie Viking. I could deal with that. What happened in dreams stayed dreams, now if he would just smile, grab me and plunder me, this dream would be absolutely complete.
His clenched hands unfurled. His grey eyes glowed brightly. Yes! Viking man was relaxing. Then he did the unthinkable. He growled loud like a pissed off animal. Oh shit! Not good. I scrambled back on my ass looking at him in horror as he rubbed his hand across his military-style buzz cut black hair.
His lips drew back to reveal long fangs. “Why have you summoned me here witch?” He asked in a gravelly voice.
I swallowed a curse as he stalked toward me, driving me even further backward until I scrambled to my feet with my hands out defensively. I cleared my throat before responding, “Calm down, Viking man. I’m not a witch and I did not summon you here. I’m an unwilling participant of this dream just like you are.”
He leaned in, sniffing. His eyes widening as his nostrils flared. His hands clenched into fists at his sides. “What are you?” His voice was so deep and low that I had to strain to hear it.
What am I? I thought that was obvious. Okay, Viking man is not exactly a genius, that’s two strikes against him. “Human” I rasped, licking my lips not wanting to offend Viking man. “And you are?”
He looked at me like I was stupid. “Wolf-shifter.”
Which was a nice, safe way to say he’s a ‘Monster’ which under other circumstances would have me running away waving my hands in the air screaming like a hysterical banshee ‘The Viking werewolf is here. Run for your life’, which would have him running me down like the animal that he was.
He prowled around me, looking at me warily, sniffing me intermittently. My eyes trailed him to ensure that any sudden movements would be caught immediately.
“You’re not human. My nose tells me that. And you do smell…strange.”
I looked at him with outraged eyes, “Wait, are you saying that I stink?”
He stared down at me with an unreadable expression, his nostrils still flaring. “You’re scent is she-wolf mixed with something else that I can’t quite put my finger on.”
“Whoa, let’s get one thing straight, I am not a monster,” I spat.
His eyes narrowed menacingly at the word monster as he surrounded me.
Oh shit, I insulted the wolf. I better fix this fast before he eats me and not in the pleasurable way either.
I continued with an apologetic smile. “I mean, I’m not a she-wolf. I’m human.” I took a deep breath, calming my frayed nerves. “Now if I were you, I would just shut up and wait for the strange woman to come along.” I looked around frantically, “Which should be any minute now. She’ll straighten all this shit out and then we can both wake up from this horrible nightmare never to see each other again.”
He stilled in mid-prowl, looking at me arrogantly. “Listen she-wolf.”
I flinched like he physically slapped me.
His mouth curled displaying long fangs. “I don’t think any strange woman is coming to straighten this out. It’s just you and me standing out here in the middle of a field until we figure out why she wants us here.”
His words sent a chill of apprehension shivering through my body. Damn, I knew it was true. The woman brought both of us together for a reason and until we figured it out, we would be standing here forever. And forever out here with him would be like finger nails on a chalk board, grating and annoying.
“Name?” He barked.
I felt my jaw drop, my eyes widening with shock. “Oh hell to the no! You are not barking at me like that.”
“Name?” he barked again, leaning down over me, the difference in our height becoming instantly evident by the way my head was forced back.
I backed away, stepping sideways, not wanting to be trapped by the likes of him. “Look Viking, I don’t like to be bullied or ordered around. So if that’s your approach to
this madness then it’s going to be a very long dream, believe me.”
His breath came out in a hiss, “Do you think that this is some kind of fucking game? We’re standing out here in the middle of a field with no way out, and you want to fucking argue about some shit like my attitude?” He looked around staring at the ravens. “This is unbelievable.” His gaze snapped back to me as he pointed at me. “And you will tell me your name.”
“No, I will not,” I snapped, fisting my hands on my hips.
He was pissing me off big time by going all Neanderthal on me. I widened my stance. At only five-eight, I was nowhere near as tall as his over six-five frame, but I intended to make a firm stance. I’ve had these dreams long enough to know that our names had nothing to do with getting out of this dream. That would be too simple. Nothing about the strange woman was simple….no....she wanted something else from us before she released us from this hell of a nightmare.
His eyes glinted dangerously, “Yes you will.”
My eyes widened with shock when he untied the string from his silk drawstring pajama pants, pulling it off with a jerk causing the elastic along his waist to ride low on his hips exposing the light trail of dark hair that disappeared under the waistband.
I bit back a moan. He was freaking gorgeous, and under different circumstances, him and I working out our differences in my bed would have been totally hot.
My eyes glazed over just thinking about all of the hot possibilities when he grasped the wide band of silk at both ends snapping it warningly, snapping me completely out of my lust euphoria.
He continued with a low growl. “Or I will tie your hands and punish you until you submit, she-wolf. And believe me…I will take pleasure in your submission.”
Punish me until I submit? And like waving a red flag in front of a bull, I felt the blood rushing to my head, pushing my adrenalin to the boiling point. I was angrier than I had ever been in my life, and lost all sense of self-preservation by launching myself on him with teeth bared and fists swinging.
He caught me easily in his powerful hands, pinning both of mine to prevent my well-aimed swings from connecting.
“Hey, calm down.” He growled giving me an intimidating glare as he shook me like a rag doll which did nothing but rile me up even more.
I tried to sweep my leg around him but he widened the stance of his tree trunk legs. I don’t know what snapped, but I felt it immediately when it happened. Transforming me from riled woman to blind rage woman on the verge of transforming into something untamed and animalistic….a thought that scared the shit out of me. My gums started to itch as something within me demanded release now.
I heard him curse, his eyes widening as if he could sense the something that was about to happen. “Shit! Calm down she-wolf.” He bellowed, which made me struggle even harder. All I could think of was inflicting bodily damage, ripping him to shreds and leaving nothing in my wake but blood and carnage.
He twisted my body, throwing us onto the grass where he pinned me with his body weight. “Listen to me. You’ve got to calm down before you shift.” His grey eyes burned intensely down at me.
Shift? Shift into what? I was so angry that I couldn’t breathe as I bucked like a wild animal, screeching, while whatever was happening was pushing forward, whether I was ready or not. I felt him wedge his muscled legs between mine, spreading them wide. He leaned in, seizing my lips with a hard, dominant stroke of his tongue.
I froze, not able to process the mental switch from savage anger to pure heated desire. I stopped fighting, wiggling my body closer to him. He growled when I took it a step further by wrapping my legs around his hips, pulling tight against him. That’s exactly when the mental switch flipped firmly over to the ‘I want him now’ position.
I sighed as his tongue swept across my bottom lip, then the top. His tongue slid between my teeth, rubbing the roof my mouth. His tongue sensually curled around mine, enticing, daring me to join in. I knew that I should pull away, but I wanted him and took his challenge despite the fact that never in my life had I been so turned on. I moaned into his mouth, enjoying the rich, fiery taste of him that was so addicting.
He tore his lips away, his eyes focused on me like a predator, daring me to move. His fingers loosened my wrists, sliding down my body and under my ass, grasping my cheeks with both hands and squeezing roughly.
I moaned with pleasure, twisting to rub my breasts against him. I needed more, a lot more. His glowing grey eyes narrowed as he released me, lifting a hand that transformed into claws. I didn’t blink because I knew that he wouldn’t hurt me, I could tell by his firm erection that he wanted me just as bad.
With one controlled movement, he swiped down the center of my t-shirt exposing my breasts before swooping down to capture one chocolate nipple between his lips. My eyes almost rolled to the back of my head as my arms curled around his head pressing him against me. He growled a low rumble in his chest that vibrated against me deliciously.
Releasing my nipple with a resounding pop, his head snapped up to look at me with a hunger that skated over my flesh sensuously like a second skin. His hand reached out, slid across my jaw, and settled on my cheek, his thumb dragging across my bottom lip.
My eyes slid closed, his grip tightened on my jaw. Damn, this felt so good that it had to be wrong. No man should be this addictive. I had to stop this; he had to let me go.
My voice shook as I stared into his eyes. “Who are you?”
His lips curved into a sexy grin, responding in a deep, gravelly voice. “Your Warrior Wolf. Your true mate. And I claim you forever as mine, Valkyrie she-wolf.”
He cradled my neck, wrapping his fingers through the strands of my hair, tugging gently. His eyes turning pure white before his lips brushed against my skin. Instinctively I tilted my head, giving him more access. His teeth scrapped against my skin.
He whispered one damning word before sinking his fangs deliciously into me. “Mine.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Infinity
The Sound of Battle
Valkyrie she-wolf? I awoke with sweat dripping between my breasts and my heart in my damn throat. The lust started to die as I wiggled uncomfortably in my wet panties. Was I some sort of monster?
Oh, hell to the no! There’s no way. It had to be some analogy to something that I was missing, like maybe the fact that the Collective were monsters trying to kill me. Which was true. They were a Corporation of monsters bleeding society dry and they did want desperately to get rid of me for causing too much noise.
Whatever, I made it through last night with nothing the strange woman said happening, no life, death experience, no one trying to kill me and my reward, sweet dreams of a Viking wolf. Yeah, baby! Now if I could keep up my lucky streak, and get through the concerts, I’ll be able to go back to my life, and my family and friends will be safe and all will be happy.
Now, talking of happy...I moaned deliciously, rolling around like a well fed cat, inhaling the strong sensual, masculine blend of vanilla, wood, and cinnamon, his scent. I mewed as my nipples pebbled. Shit, I could do this all day and be a happy, satisfied woman, and if I could just reach down in my panties…I could finish the job he most definitely started...with none of my pleasure toys required.
I was turned on and on a mission when a loud and annoying clearing of a throat destroyed it like a cold blast of water.
“Shit! Am I interrupting something?”
Damn! Mr. International cock blocker himself—Mason. Annoyed, and definitely frustrated, I burrowed further under my blanket hoping he would take the hint and poof...disappear.
No such luck, he tugged the blanket as I clutched it to my chest like a dog with a bone. He pulled again, loosening my grip.
“You were moaning like a porn star.” His voice was low and husky.
“Yes, you were interrupting,” leveling him with an irritated glare before continuing, “loud porn moan equals good dream, and screaming with terror at the top of my lungs equals monster nightmare.
Please understand the difference. Now go away, Mason.” I pulled the comforter closer, trying to catch the fading scent of Viking man before it completely disappeared.
He abruptly sniffed the air, his eyes narrowing angrily.
“Yes?” I halted, wondering if he could smell the delicious lingering scent.
He smiled tightly, “No, I just thought…never mind.”
I guess not. “Mason, why are you here? Better yet, why are you here so early?” I yawned loudly, taking in the irritated gold eyes, and freshly washed blond hair of the traitor as his lean muscular body lounged in my favorite crème wingback chair like he owned my room.
“Early? It’s four PM. You’re going to miss sound check. A sound check that you demanded.”
I rolled over to peek at the clock. Damn, I overslept. “That still doesn’t answer my question. Why. Are. You. Here. Mason?” Sitting up, I rubbed my eyes, impatiently pulling my jet-black tangled hair from my face. “Trying to take over my bedroom suite in addition to my life?”
He looked at me silently. “What the hell is that supposed to mean, Ice Princess?”
Ice Princess? I pinched back the urge to punch him in the face; he knew how much I hated that nickname, and said it to get under my skin. “Oh, don’t give me that fake clueless look, its freaking annoying. And what’s up with not responding to any of my texts?”
“I was busy. The world doesn’t revolve around you, Infinity.”
“The hell it doesn’t, not when I’m paying you as my manager, a position that will be filled with someone else real soon.”
He scowled, “I don’t have time for your paranoia or your tantrums.”
I pumped my breaks realizing that this was the game he wanted to play. The game of manipulate Infinity by throwing her into an angry rage. Well, not today. I had a new strategy to catch him in his web of deceit. “Okay Mason, let’s talk business. Last time I checked, my name was on your paycheck, not the other way around. So you do not go behind my back changing instructions that I give my employees and you damn sure don’t have permission to talk to my attorneys, or snoop through my bank accounts. I’m in charge of this Infinity train and any time you’re ready to hop off just say the word...brother.”