Hunting Hearts (Trilogy Bundle) (Werewolf Romance - Paranormal Romance)

by Hart, Melissa F.

  Mads' laugh was more a moan of need, and he bit her again, this time on the curve of her breast. They were light and gentle, and she had the idea that he could have broken skin if he wished, but instead, his bites were just hard enough to make her entire body vibrate with pleasure.

  No one had ever given her sensation that was this intense, and it was like her entire body was lit up with pleasure.

  “Now, now please, I want you,” she whimpered, and she felt a deep shudder wrack his body.

  “I can't wait,” he groaned.

  With a few deft motions, he opened his jeans and pulled out his cock, and Tara whimpered. It was dark and thick, and she wanted it with an animal longing that shocked her to her core.

  He pressed her to the bed again, and this time, she knew that there was nothing in the world that would stop them, nothing that could keep them apart. His weight coming down on her felt like heaven, and when she felt the head of his cock sliding against the damp lips of her sex, her belly twisted with heat.

  “Are you ready?” he whispered in her ear, and she could only nod and hope that it was enough. His bites, his smell, his strength and his passion all conspired to prepare her for him, and still he was careful about it.

  With aching care, he stroked the length of his cock along the lips of her sex, wetting it, and making her body yearn for him.

  Tara's hands trembled as she took his face between her palms, looking him deeply in the eye. She had never felt so close to a lover, so much as if he were a part of her.

  “Don't make me wait,” she said softly, and the sweet plea in her voice made him shake.

  “At this point, I couldn't if I tried,” Mads admitted.

  He pressed the head of his cock into her, but when she whimpered, he hesitated. She shook her head frantically. She was tight, it had been some time, but this was an ache that she craved, one she would bear because she simply could not do without him for another moment.

  Bracing her heels on the bed underneath them, she lifted her hips to his, and that was all it took. He sunk into her, closing against her so tightly that for a moment, she couldn't breathe.

  “Please, please, please,” she heard herself whispering, and it was like she had broken something inside him. He thrust into her hard, pulled out halfway and then pushed in again, pushing her into the bed.

  He was saying something, but she couldn't hear him. All she wanted was more of the sensation that he was giving her. She tightened her legs around his hips to draw him even closer, and then he was moving, each smooth, hard thrust driving her harder and harder.

  She knew that he was going to climax before she did, and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, holding him close.

  “Do it,” she hissed, “I want to feel it...”

  With a loud groan, he spilled inside her, marking her in a way that felt entirely new and completely right.

  She sighed softly, her body still thrumming with desire, and she loosened her arms, planting a soft kiss on his head. She started to say something, but then she yelped when he pulled out and slid a firm hand down her belly.

  “Mads?”

  “Oh, I'm sorry, did you think we were done?” he asked with a sly smile. “We're not.”

  She meant to protest, to tell him that he didn't need to, that it was fine, but then his fingers slid between her legs, and almost before she knew it, she was spread wide for his touch. He was gentle but there was a demand to his motions that made her own climax something inevitable and perfectly real.

  He thumbed her clit harder and harder, and her hips thrashed. She knew that she was going climax, and some part of her fought it. It was too much, it was all too much, and she nearly sobbed with it.

  “Let go,” he whispered in her ear. “Let go, and let me take care of you like this.”

  That was all it took. His fingers and his words drover her over the edge, and her body lit up with fireworks. She clung to him, knowing that she must have left deep scratches in his arm, and she cried out her release, the aftershocks rocking her body.

  When she came back to herself, he was holding her naked body closely, as if afraid that she would disappear.

  “Is... do you want me?” she found herself saying, and cringed. It was needy, it was strange, and she had only known him for a few hours, but he nodded.

  “More than anything in the world,” he said. “Now it is best if you sleep. We have a long journey in front of us.”

  She did as he said, snuggling her head against his chest, but she couldn't help but wonder if there was something else there. Despite everything they had been through together, there was still so much she did not know about this man, and when she slept, her dreams were troubled.

  TO BE CONTINUED IN BOOK TWO: Dreams of a Restless Sleep - Volume 2

  ***

  Dreams of a Restless Sleep

  ***

  Tara awoke from a restless sleep to find Mads dressed and waiting for her. He looked stern, dressed and shod when she was so naked, but at her apprehensive look, his face softened and he leaned down to give her a kiss.

  “Come and rise, love,” he said softly. “We have some ground to cover today, and I would like to be off.”

  She sat up in the bed, and she didn't miss the way that his eyes landed on her body, something wolfishly hungry about it before duty asserted itself and he tore his gaze away.

  “Will you take me back to my home?” Tara asked. “And maybe loan me a sweatshirt and jeans or something? I don't think there's much left of my pajamas.”

  Mads' lips quirked at the reminder of their night together, and for a moment, she was sure that he would simply strip his clothes off and climb back into the bed with her. Then he shook his head, took a cautious step back from the bed and grinned.

  “I would like to keep you like this all the time, but it would likely be a bad choice on the highway. As to your clothes, it's not safe back at your house, not yet, but there are clothes in the cabinet there. This is a safe house for my people, and we keep supplies here.”

  She made a face, but went to the cabinet to inspect her options. There were women's clothes as well as men's, but it seemed that the women of Mads' kind were not as tall as she was. After trying two pairs of jeans that didn't fit, she settled on a soft lilac skirt that looked as if it had wandered in by accident, and a thick black sweater that threatened to engulf her. The black army boots and oatmeal socks were a better fit, and she was once again grateful that she was slight enough that she didn't absolutely need a bra.

  She presented herself to Mads nervously in her borrowed clothing, but he only kissed her cheek as if they had been lovers for years.

  “Prettiest thing in the world, even if I'd prefer you naked,” he declared, and he led her out.

  The world outside the cabin already felt harsh and bright, and when she climbed into Mads' truck she felt like she wanted to curl up and sleep again. As they pulled onto the highway, however, she found that she couldn't drift off. The events of the past twenty-four hours played through her mind, and she shivered again, thinking of the winged monster that had broken down her door.

  “Are they really angels?” she asked softly. “I mean, are they really the angels from the Bible?'

  Mads glanced at her, a hint of sorrow on his face, and she couldn't help but think of the tattoos on his chest, one for each pack mate he couldn't save.

  “If they're truly angels, then God has a great deal to answer for, as far as I am concerned. We call them angels, and that that is what they call themselves as well. Some of the elders of my pack think that they are fallen angels, and that Fenrisulfir refused to hunt for them when he realized this. They are no messengers for anything good, I know that much, and I know that they will kill my kind where they find them.”

  The thing she had seen in her home was monstrous. There was a flurry of powerful black wings, but the form that they bore up was scarred and monstrous, as if from a fire... or from a fall.

  “I didn't expect my summer break to
be like this,” she said, half-smiling. “At least I got all of my grading done before.”

  “I'm sorry I can't offer a more restful vacation,” Mads said with a grin. “At least I can offer you an interesting one?”

  She laughed, because she couldn't think of a vacation that was more interesting than finding herself embroiled in a war between werewolves and possibly fallen angels, and then she found that she could sleep after all.

  ***

  She woke briefly when Mads stopped for gas and, disoriented, she looked around.

  “Where are we?” she asked, hopping down from the truck, and he glanced at her, amused.

  “We're in Illinois,” he said. “You've been asleep for some time.”

  “Illinois? What are we doing in Illinois?”

  “There's a woman here, one who can help us. She can put us on the road to find Fenrisulfir.”

  There was a strangeness to his tone, and Tara took a closer look at him.

  “You're hiding something from me again,” she decided, and Mads had the grace to look abashed.

  “It's only that she is the only person who can send us on our way. If she refuses us, she does, and there is nothing that we can do about it.”

  Tara wondered at the power of a woman who could make a powerful werewolf like Mads take a refusal, and she pushed the thought away.

  “You need to stop that,” she said softly. “You need to stop hiding things from me. You are not going to get anywhere by hiding things from me, not even a little, and... and, Mads, I hate it.”

  Mads hesitated, and then he nodded. “Forgive me,” he said. “I... well, truth telling isn't always what is required from me, and it is a poor thing to lie to someone who wants to help me. I'll be better.”

  She nodded, but while she realized she did trust this man, another part of her wondered how successful he could be. She went into the rest stop to use the bathroom, and when she came out, she found Mads buying them food and drinks.

  Sliding back into the truck, she took his water bottle and a wrapped sandwich that was frankly a little disgusting, but she was so hungry that she hardly cared.

  “You can sleep more if you want,” he said. “We won't get to where we're going until dark anyway, and then we'll likely be up until dawn.”

  Tara shook her head. She wondered about the being up until dawn part, but now she knew she was too restless to sleep.

  “I want to look at the book again,” she decided. “If I'm going to help you, I should know more about it.”

  Mads nodded, and when he handed her the small leather bound volume, everything else faded as she started to read.

  The cipher used by the Sybelline Brotherhood was one that she had studied for years, but even for her, it took some struggling. The book itself was a series of incantations on the opening of doors and the freeing of bound things, but alongside the insectile text, there were also pictures, tiny beautiful illustrations in brilliant reds, greens and golds. It reminded Tara of the illuminations of medieval books, and she looked closer at them.

  There were men with horns, and women with hair long enough to trail down the edge of one page and across the bottom of the page opposite. There were eerie plants that sprouted eyes and a toad with a scroll issuing from its mouth. On the scroll was written a brief prayer for mercy and for strong alcohol, which made Tara smile. She wondered at the bored artist who had placed the frog in the book, but then she turned the page and gasped.

  On one margin, there was an angel, but even in the tiny picture, she could see that it was hideously scarred. Two blue eyes peered from its ruined head, and in its hands, it held a sword. It looked enough like the thing that had attacked her that she felt a surge of fear.

  On the other side of a page was a wolf, large and with a snarl on its face. It was drawn more realistically than the rest of the pictures in the book, and she absently noticed that the markings of dark gray on its back and light gray on its belly were more than a little similar to what she had seen of Mads' markings in his own wolf form.

  There was a line of scrolling script along the wolf's back, and it was even smaller than the text of the rest of the book. In the dying light of the day, Tara squinted to read the text.

  “Etto, maal.... sinistrum...”

  “What?” Mads glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, and she smiled hastily at him. She didn't like liars, but she couldn't imagine the benefit or the harm of keeping the words from him.

  And the wolves of the earth came, and their evil polluted the land as their lying tongues rolled.

  She tried to put her unease behind her, skimming through the rest of the book. The fact that all of the spells of the books were true, that the Sybelline Brotherhood had stumbled upon some kind of sacred knowledge frightened her. If it was true, all true, then the power held between the leather covers of the book in her hands was immense. It could make her terrifying to governments, to law enforcement. She could walk out of prisons, open doors that had never been opened.

  Tara clapped the book closed, breathing hard, and Mads reached over to clasp her hand gently.

  “It's a great deal to take in, isn't it?” he asked sympathetically. “This was a world that you never asked for. I'm sorry you have to think of it now.”

  “I'm not,” she said, surprising herself. “This is... this is incredible. This is knowledge that was once collected by people who knew how the world works. If their work is true, if they truly knew how to change the world, they were amazingly restrained.”

  Mads raised an eyebrow. “How do you mean?”

  “With the power here, they could have ruled the world. Mads, they could have been gods on earth, and yet... yet no one knows about them. They're forgotten, except by me and a handful of other academics scattered across the planet. They chose to keep the knowledge to themselves.”

  “Power and they didn't use it? They sound like fools to me,” Mads snorted.

  “I don't think so,” Tara said quietly. “I think they were wise. Wise enough to be content with what they had, to survive, to archive and to protect.”

  They drove in silence as the long spring evening waned and the sky darkened. When there was just a sliver of light left on the wide horizon of the plowed cornfields, Mads pulled off the main highway, following the country roads until the area went dark.

  “Spooky,” Tara noted, and he nodded. There was a tension in his frame that hadn't been there before, and he felt her inquisitive eyes on him.

  “I'd rather fight a dozen angels than do what I am about do now,” he muttered, and now it was Tara's turn to squeeze his hand.

  “What are you about to do now?” she asked.

  “Stake everything that I have fought for on a single meeting.”

  In the middle of a stand of scrubby trees, far away from the main road, they finally pulled up to a small ramshackle trailer. There was a light in the window, and when Tara and Mads came down from the truck, there was a woman standing on the porch to greet them.

  Tara had been expecting a wizened crone, an old woman in a dark robe and warts who spoke in cryptic prophecy. Instead, this woman was nearly as tall as Mads, and almost as broad as well. Her hair was cut short, and she wore jeans tucked into practical boots. As Tara and Mads approached, her face widened into a friendly smile.

  “Been expecting you,” she said. “Come on in, food’s waiting.”

  Tara felt comfortable with this woman at once, but when she glanced back at Mads, there was still that tension in his eyes. He walked into her trailer as if he was walking into the very jaws of hell, and when the door shut behind him, she saw him flinch ever so slightly.

  “Lady, we've come to seek a favor...” he started, but she cut him off with an easy wave.

  “It can wait until after you eat,” the woman said firmly. “Come on.”

  “You're not what I was expecting,” Tara said nervously as the woman directed them to sit down, and she got a mischievous smile in response.

  “Well, you shouldn't b
elieve everything you hear, honey. You can call me Millie.”

  “Not... Three in One?” she asked, and the woman's smile turned a little darker.

  “Eat up, plenty of time to talk about it later,” she said, and that was that.

  The food was simple but delicious. There was a roast chicken on the table with a potato soup and for dessert there was a homemade apple pie fresh out of the oven. Tara, who had been eating nothing but gas station donuts for the past twenty-four hours, wolfed down her first plate and started on the second. Despite Mads' glower, he consumed a massive amount of food himself, only growling a little when Millie called him a hungry pup.

  Millie herself ate with a single-minded determination that was impressive, and when the food was done and cleared away, she lit a cheroot, filling the air with the sharp and pleasant smell of tobacco.

  “Bad news is better taken on a full stomach,” she said finally. “I'm not going to help you.”

  Mads shoved himself to his feet, and Tara could see the rage vibrating through his body. “You've not heard us out, you've not even heard who we are.”

  Millie seemed singularly unimpressed by his temper, and as Tara watched, she seemed to change. Suddenly, the affable woman who had greeted them was gone, and it seemed like something much older, and much crueler was living behind those pale eyes.

  “I know everything that I need to, pup,” she said, and now her voice was a nearly serpentine hiss with just the hint of a foreign accent to it.

  “I know you,” she continued. “You're Mads Magnussen, leader of the Cairns Rock pack, oldest living son of Magnus and Barda. You've lost people, nearly as many as you will lose in time to come, you are mourning, and you are desperate.”