Deep River Shifters 4 Book Box Set

by Lisa Daniels

  Roughly, his teeth bared, he seized a portion of her hair and forced himself inside her, sliding into her impossible wetness, groaning as she accepted him fully. He closed his eyes, nostrils flaring, as he began thrusting in her. His hands moved around her neck and squeezed, before raking along her back, and clutching hard at her rear as he pounded inside her, taking her with delicious roughness. He claimed her as his, sought to keep her close and grunted his desire, his need and longing for her, pounding deeper and harder, hitting her g-spot perfectly each time.

  Ordri dissolved under his relentless movement, whimpering as he dove into her again and again, bringing her to climax. This wasn't enough for him, however. He turned her around, even as she shivered through her first climax, and now fell on top of her naked body, staring into her face with intense eyes, groaning as he thrust in her, his hips colliding with hers again and again.

  “Bron...” she hissed, reaching up to kiss his lips, taste the salt on them, feel the stubble on his cheek and the closeness of his heat against hers.

  “Mine,” he growled, thrusting harder into her, sweat accumulating on his face, dripping over his eyes like tears as he lost himself in her body, consumed himself in her softness.

  With a jolt of surprise, she felt herself come again, but he still wasn't done. It took him another minute to come, and a third orgasm rippled out of Ordri like a small wave, numbing her lips in shock from the fact that she had not only come once, but three times.

  Holy shit. She didn't even think her body was capable of that. At all.

  She lay on the covers, boneless from his efforts. She watched the strong, muscular werewolf disengage from her and position himself on her left side, breath heaving fast. They stared into each other's faces for quite some time without words. Words. They seemed rather meaningless right now, with everything that had happened.

  The war might be won. Not without cost. Never without cost. And as long as there were werewolves, conflict existed a stone's throw away.

  Werewolves were never meant to sit quietly and live without stirring the waters, without announcing their presence somewhere. They fought, killed, murdered and loved the same as any human. Perhaps more so, since their emotions could be rather concentrated, making them boiling cesspits of passion.

  Ordri shivered as she examined her mate, still torn between the conflict of whether he happened to be the best thing that had ever happened in her life, or the worst.

  She did know, somewhere down the line, that losing him might hurt more than expected. Certainly more than when her former husband had his throat torn out.

  Just when she thought she didn't know how to feel, that she was callous and lacked something fundamental that everyone else possessed – Bron showed her otherwise. He taught her that she did feel. She did love.

  There might have been a strong sense of relief with the act as well.

  Everyone had survived the conflict of the old Vladomir house, though the worse wounded needed several weeks to heal from the vanadium bullets that poisoned their systems. Sebastian and Kostya fought side by side, and went down together, kicking and yelling. Filip bore one extra scar in his impressive collection. Yanus had one shattered leg, and Elinor two broken ribs. Ordri suffered the least injuries, aside from bruises that healed within a day.

  The hold out from Yanus and Elinor did massive psychological damage to the invaders, though they might have succeeded once the bullets ran out, just by piling with better organization into the tunnel. The tight confines still gave beasts like Bron leeway to scrap, but the numbers would push him back.

  Bron. What a magnificent hunk of werewolf specimen he was. Any woman would feel secure under his protection, once you got past the whole confusion and misunderstandings.

  He wanted a home, and Ordri wanted to be loved. He wanted a name, and Ordri could give him hers. Of course, maybe celebrations might have to hold off until the threat was removed from the Bulgarian mountains once and for all – but Elinor Spirova felt positive, enlightened by the idea that the Vladomir house had inflicted fatal damage to the Russian movement.

  “We lost a total of zero people,” Elinor had said. “Zero, and they lost twenty-one. That's one hell of a humiliating defeat. I'd be hanging my tail in shame. They can't have much left to their invasion force.”

  “Lucky we had that secret passage, really,” Ordri said. “I doubt we would have been as lucky in the open confines of the house.”

  “Lucky,” Elinor agreed, wincing as she clutched her sides, where the ribs healed and itched. “Still could have gone fucking wrong.” She groaned. “Can't wait til I get back to my husband. He's sick out of his mind with constant worry that one of my excursions will be my last.”

  Ordri smiled, thinking of Elinor's crippled, wheelchair-bound husband, who quietly managed affairs at the Spirova fortress.

  She thought of how things had been. The five of them, Markus, Danniven, Arina, Luelle and her, friends with the humans in the mountains. Their friendship had been one catalyst towards the overthrowing of the flesh eaters, the clans who insisted on the ancient ways. The death of Arina's family and her escape eventually led to Ricten's death years later, and a new world for them to go to in North Dakota.

  Then there were the Russians who ran that hotel in Sapareva Banya, Frey and Evo, who between them managed to turn their little hotel into a moot point of resistance, taking in the wounded and helping to bring one major victory against the invaders – who came because of Luelle's escape.

  Strange, to see how things wrapped together, and worked out in the end. Strange to think how much their world had changed in the past thirty years.

  Strange to see the white wanderer turn up at their gate, to help them cinch one more victory in the face of potential destruction. His presence might have dragged them into the face of danger, isolating the leaders in unexpected circumstances – a bad oversight by their side, really.

  Yet, it had actually turned out to be the one thing that might have solidified their advantage, bolstered their defense.

  I still don't know who you are, really, Bron, Ordri thought, staring at his slumbering form, which looked peaceful and happy. And I feel like we might have a long way to go yet. Because you're hella awkward at times.

  He was, she thought in amusement, her white knight.

  “I know you're staring at me,” he said then, directly referring back to his creepy staring a few weeks back.

  “Shh. Let me examine your pretty face for a moment longer without any interruptions. I was just on that freckle behind your ear.”

  “Hmpf.” Bron opened dark pink eyes to give her a fond, languid smile. Again, the stark contrast of his features almost took her breath away. And to think, this person really had dropped out of nowhere and chosen her to be his mate?

  We shall have strong and beautiful children, Ordri contemplated, imagining the sentence tolled out in her head in a serious tone. She held a straight face for a moment, before the absurdity of her thought made her laugh.

  “What did I do wrong, now?” Bron said, confused, his brows knitting together as he tried to work out what his next fault was.

  “Nothing. Nothing at all.” Ordri Gregorovitch stroked her new mate's rough cheek, imagining the future panning ahead of them, and all the possibilities it offered.

  To think she would have stagnated here, too afraid to take the next step, to admit that change needed to happen.

  Sometimes, change came and bitch-slapped you in the face, whether you expected it or not.

  A change in life, in love, and attitude. “I think I can grow to love you,” she said to him at last, and his eyes widened.

  “You 'think'? Ordri, I already love you. You're playing catch up at this point,” he said, with a playful grin.

  Oh. Wow.

  That was slightly unexpected.

  “It's not so fast and easy for me, Bron. I just need time. To accept that this happiness is real, you know. That it's not gonna run away.”

  “I underst
and,” he said, his pale lips spreading and curving upwards. “I'm still coming to terms with things as well. And being proven wrong at every turn, apparently.”

  “Your fault, for trying to steal a Gregorovitch woman.”

  “Uh, 'trying’? I succeeded. Unless the person lying next to me in bed is just a figment of my imagination.”

  “Unfortunately, I'm not,” she said, which prompted Bron to tackle her in bed, mock indignation upon his features.

  There was definitely no figment of imagination bullshit going on here. This was real.

  Her heart beat, and remembered how to love again. Her body reacted to his touch like a swimmer breaking the surface of water, taking in a great lungful of air, glad to be alive.

  On top of all this, it seemed the Bulgarian clans would finally be at peace.

  No more shitty conflict, at least for a good few years. Ordri intended to take full advantage of that peacetime.

  The End

  Anya’s Freedom

  Found by the Dragon – Book 1

  by Lisa Daniels

  Chapter One

  Anya wiped sweat from her brow, struggling to stay upright. Her arms ached. Her hands were raw from holding the scythe, which she craved to turn upon her masters.

  She hated working on the plantations. She hated every single cotton plant she saw, and the wheat fields the scythe needed to swipe through. Every human hated this place, if they had any sense in their bodies. But it wasn't like humans had much of a choice, being slaves and all.

  The only thing everyone hated more than the bone-breaking work, the relentless sun beating on them from above, and the muddy ditches for when the rains fell – were their overlords.

  In this world, stuck in the prison of a plantation, being a human meant a life sentence. You worked and sweated until you dropped dead, or when one of the masters got bored and decided they required some sport. An overseer passed the group of humans working now, an apathetic look on his face, steely yellow eyes scouring for signs of slacking. Anya saw his hand twitch slightly to the whip belted at his side. He didn't own any other weapons. He didn't need to. Inside his human exterior lay a monster. A great, fanged and wingless serpent which looked down on all humans it enslaved. A wyrm. All wyrms had the same ominous yellow eyes, and the cruel slant to their faces, as if merely looking at a human triggered the well of hate sealed within.

  They saw humans as stupid, lazy, and disposable, and Anya couldn’t remember a time when the wyrms hadn’t been in power. It seemed to her like the wyrms had ruled the world forever, hurt the humans forever. Her grandpa spoke of his grandma talking about the cruel treatment of their masters. They spoke of how one step out of line might get you beaten to death – and skies forbid that you were an attractive woman.

  If a wyrm decided to take a woman, no one ever saw them again. Anya's mother explained why. She said that the wyrms weren't allowed to have children with women, so the moment one became pregnant, they got executed. Anything to stop their blood mixing with the humans. But not enough to stop them from committing their atrocities in the first place.

  Why can't they just leave us alone? Hideous creatures. Anya swiped harder at the wheat in front of her, grunting as she did so. Others did the same thing on either side of her. Each were careful not to get ahead of one another, in case it prompted their overseer to decide upon defining a new speed. And if someone lagged behind too much... then they risked getting beaten, which would put them behind more. Which might then get them killed.

  Anya bared her teeth, simmering in resentment. Thoughts boiled in her head of the idea of vengeance, of taking up arms, of storming through the wyrm mansions and stabbing them to death as they slept. Of course, those rotten beasts transformed into giant lizards, making it significantly harder to stab anything through them – but if you caught one by surprise...

  She vented out her frustration instead on the wheat. Always careful to not get ahead. Careful, sometimes, to slow down a fraction of a pace if she suspected someone getting too tired. She or someone else would use a special downward stroke signal to tell the others within eyeshot to do the same. The wyrms hadn't figured out the system yet. And the humans did what they could to survive. To keep each other alive for as long as possible.

  Anya also did everything in her power to look ugly, along with the other women in her plantation. The foolish and vain ones got taken first, tossed about in the lordling’s quarters like a doll.

  In a way this helped the humans, since it meant their future generations would be too ugly to be of any aesthetic use to the wyrms. Except some might just choose to fuck with you anyway, because they could. You could never quite prevent everything. Just reduce the chances as much as possible.

  Everything Anya did had been passed to her by her mother and her grandpa. They knew all the tricks, all the ways to make their miserable lives that little bit easier. Anya smeared mud on her face, kept her bucket washes to a minimum, let her hair grow untidy and unkempt, and always slouched and hooded her eyes. She also pulled peculiar expressions whenever a wyrm addressed her, though sometimes it got her whipped. Under the advice of her mother as well as most other women, she bound her breasts, which had started inconveniently erupting out of her chest at the age of thirteen.

  “You have to reduce all signs you’re a fertile, pretty woman,” Kendra would say, perhaps while stuffing wild, repugnant-smelling garlic inside her daughter’s mouth. “Can’t be taking any risks. Don’t want you being taken like my last one.”

  Last one. Humans tried to have as many children as possible because they knew most of them would die. Anya’s oldest sister got taken when she was eleven and never returned. One of her younger brothers died of the illness that ravaged the serf village just outside the plantation, which made the gracious Lord Osmer whip his serfs even harder to get the harvest produce he required. Now Anya’s family – five children, including her – worked extra hard to help provide for their single remaining grandfather. The youngest of course couldn’t work, but the eight- and ten-year-olds could. If the wyrms decided to focus any of their ire upon Grandpa Horace, because he no longer could physically do the work in the fields, he'd die.

  Horace managed to survive in other ways, though. He helped look after some of the youngest children while their parents went out to work. He helped cook in the village. So, although he didn't work on the plantations, they saw him still being marginally useful.

  Anya didn't want to think about the day when her grandpa could no longer hold a stirring ladle properly, or keep a child under control. It might be two months, it might be two years. But everyone broke down in the end.

  She considered now her family. Anya never knew her father. Humans often didn’t form proper relationships, unless they were determined to risk loss for the sake of love. Her mother didn’t mind. It was their way, the way of many men and women here. The ones who did stick together were treated with grudging respect. The ones who lost, however, broke down the hardest. You saw enough people grinding their knuckles into the dust, their eyes bloated from tears, to know the costs. Not all prices were worth paying.

  Their masters, of course, encouraged large families, so they could have more serfs without needing to buy from auctions. It also gave the wyrms something to kill every now and then for entertainment, as the humans struggled to accommodate and feed themselves.

  Everything boiled down to those blasted wyrms in the end. If they weren't around, if they didn't do all of this shit, humans would be free. Humans could live in cities without fear of persecution, feed their families, live beautiful lives and relationships. All Anya did was dream and dream of escape, to find a way out of this terrible scenario, before it ground her into nothing.

  She considered fleeing to one of the cities. Although she’d still be a second-class citizen, at least she’d have more nooks and crannies to hide in, or could set up business as a respectable merchant in the slums. She’d only visited the city once, helping to carry things for her lord, and saw the
streets and the stalls and the rickety houses. Better than her current life, working on the fields, shivering in little huts.

  City dwellers didn't know how good they got it. They didn't have the whip cracking at their backs, and the fear of death burnt into their souls.

  The wyrm watching them now decided that the humans were working too slowly. He cracked his whip menacingly. “Work faster, the crops won’t harvest themselves! You get food and homes, you should repay the kindness of your lord by producing more!” Again, he flicked that accursed whip. Anya knew what it felt like to have such a thing lash across her skin, leaving welts and sometimes blood across her muscles, and deep bruises that stayed for days afterwards. Unlike the serfs, dressed in rags and cobbled-together clothes, the overseer wore finely tailored garments, from a linen blouse to a red waistcoat, along with black breeches, white socks and shoes. His angular face lingered on Anya for a moment, who had momentarily slowed in her work. Then he sneered.

  “Filthy animal.” He slashed the whip over her back, and she cringed, before speeding up her work, dreaming of swinging the scythe at him and cleaving his entitled behind in two.

  If only she was stronger. If only she had some kind of magic that could help her take them down with ease. If fucking only. Barring that, Anya wanted to whisk her entire family away, run out of the plantations, and find some isolated place in the middle of nowhere. Maybe then nothing would interfere, and they could live there for the rest of their days.

  The desire fuelled her dreams at night, kept driving her through the day. Her heart was young – it desired a better life. It believed in a better world, unlike the adults who had been beaten down into submission. Her mother warned her of that spirit eventually leaking out of her, with more years pressed upon her skin, bones and soul. A depressing thought, really. What was the point in living at all, if nothing mattered? If they just lived to the whims of their masters, and died in squalor and misery?