by Arya Karin
I slinked to the door when someone banged on it.
“You okay in there?”
Shit, was he going to come in here after me? My heart thumped hard against my chest and my tongue was suddenly glued to the roof of my mouth. “Fine, I'm okay.”
Weirded out that I'd been kidnapped or saved or had he only helped me to eat me later? Would have been easier if he wanted to mate with me like all the other shifters. I splashed water on my face in the sink. The faucet sputtered and gushed out water all over me in the force of a fire hydrant. I waved my arms to block the onslaught. Turning the knob had no effect.
“What's that noise?” Caine booked outside the door.
I leaped to the side to get out of the water but the growing puddle beneath me made the floor slick. My feet slipped out from under me and I skidded on my backside and banged into the stall. “Fuck!”
A crash sounded. Caine stood in the doorway, his nostrils flaring. “What the shit did you do?”
“Nothing. I washed my hands and face that's it.”
In three strides, he was at the sink and reached down, turning the water valve off. His clothes clung to him and his brown hair was spiked up on one side from the water blast.
I shook my arms out as water fell down my face. My white blouse now drenched and showed my cleavage and lacy bra like I wore nothing. Great.
“Than—” my voice broke at seeing his eyes.
He'd taken off his sunglasses to wipe them down. His eyes were glowing...an emerald color that hitched my breath. And he was staring right at me, then his gaze lowered to my boobs. I swore steam rose off my skin from the heat of knowing he was looking at me.
“Are you hurt?” his husky voice asked.
The sound of his words wrapped around me like a siren's call, and I stared back at the outline of his chiseled muscles beneath his soaking black T-shirt.
Pain hit me deep inside. Not from the fall but from a hunger. A sexual need that overruled the danger I was in. Lust and wanting to touch him, taste him, have him fill me deep inside. And his kiss, goddess my lips were still seared from where I’d kissed him at the council meeting. Like I’d been marked, no branded but in a good way and I wanted to feel that way as far deep inside he could go.
Caine was too close but I wanted him on top of me, caressing me and me touching him back. No way could I walk away from this much less restrain myself. My breaths shortened to pants. And despite being drenched, I was so hot. At this moment, all I could think about was sex and how it felt like I’d implode if I didn’t get relief. My nipples tightened under his stare and my breasts felt heavy.
“Karen, are you injured?” He strode toward me not slipping on the wet tile at all.
Uncontrollably, I rose and stepped toward him. Between my legs, my sex throbbed. I grasped his shirt and yanked him closer and taking his mouth with mine. All thoughts fled as his thumb stroked the underside of my breast, making them ache more. Everything in me wanted to pounce on him. He was right here, underneath my fingers, his chest pressed against mine. I slid my hands down the front of his pants, feeling his bulge beneath my fingertips. It would be so simple to undo his jeans. Even bound in his underwear and pants, it felt huge.
I kissed him harder, pouring in all my lust and desire and sexual aches. His tongue dancing with mine was almost orgasmic and I moaned against his mouth. I tugged at the button on his jeans. When he broke our kiss, I mewled…a needy sound as my mouth was devoid of his for the moment. He yanked off my shirt then lowered his head to my breasts.
With both hands, he eased them out, my nipples perking for him. He massaged one while he suckled the other. I arched my back while he caressed me. My entire body was on fire. Even my sex spasmed harder and harder with each of his touches. If he didn’t hurry up and fuck me, I was shoving him down in the water to jump onto him.
He shifted and hoisted me onto his lap. I nearly came as his thigh pressed against my sex, and I ground my sex against him while the pressure inside of me continued to build. When he moved his wet, hot mouth to my other breast, I rolled my hips across him harder. My hands searching out for his cock. We didn’t know each other…shit, I didn’t even know his last name…but I had to quench this hunger inside me or die trying.
For a moment, he pulled away and a shadow of regret pinched his brows. My heart clutched, but I couldn’t stop. I braced my weight and took off my jeans, I couldn’t stand not to touch him or him.
“Kare—” he stopped when I straddled him again and my sex pressed against his hard-on through his jeans.
“Please, Caine, oh, god, please.” I rubbed back and forth against his erection but it wasn’t enough.
He unbuttoned his jeans, and I nearly screamed a hell yes. My body shook as I lowered down on him. Only our underwear between us. His mouth was on mine again with a furious hunger that both frightened and enticed me. I was about to fuck a dragon and the thrill of it ran up my spine.
His hands hefted up my breasts, kneading and squeezing them as I rolled my hips back and forth, rubbing my throbbing sex against his. He was bigger and thicker than I’d first thought and I couldn’t wait to have him buried deep inside me. A climax formed in me that rippled through my body. As soon as he would thrust into me, I was going to cum. I was so close already. I met his hunger with my own, our tongues merging and sucking on each other’s.
Outside a car alarm went off and he tensed.
No, no, no. When he pulled back, I moved to his neck not wanting to stop. Not wanting to end this heat until we were both quenched. But he pushed me away gently and stood.
“No!” My anguished voice echoed through the bathroom.
He strode to the door and peered out. His fists clenched and through my sexual haze, a trickle of fear wiggled through.
“Fuck, they found us.”
My body turned cold suddenly, and I couldn’t stop shaking. “W-who?” I whispered as my teeth chattered. I scrambled to snatch up my soaking pants and shirt. They were much too wet from the faucet to put back on.
“A few of the other shifters.” He swore.
“C-can’t you get rid of them?” I clutched my clothes to me, trembling from the sudden cold of not trying to bone him and having his warmth wrapped around me. “You’re the big b-bad dragon, just turn your f-f-flamethrowers on them or s-something.”
He shook his head and retrieved his glasses. “It’s not that simple.”
“S-sure it is.” I strode forward. “Tell them to go away and we’ll get the council to assign someone else to mate with the twelve.” Yet even now, having the idea of so many guys want me made my sex tighten again in anticipation.
“Stop that.” He pinched his brow.
“What?” Did he want me to have a dozen lovers? Was he not into me at all and it was the timing had been right and me so desperate that we nearly screwed? Maybe I should march out there and let whoever had chased us down have their way with me and he could get his thrills and watch. “Was this all a tease? I might as well go face them.”
When I steamed past him to the exit, he snatched my arm. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“No? I know what I want and what I need.” My sex was throbbing so bad it hurt. My skin was burning again. Even my breasts felt like boulders strapped to my chest and yearned to be touched. I needed relief. I had to have sex. It was burning a hole inside me that only a guy could fill—and I’d mistakenly thought he could meet that need. I’d had a taste of him and still wanted more. I wanted to be stuffed with him…every last inch. And I he didn’t want to fuck me, there were plenty more outside who did.
Most guys with a half-naked woman wanting to be fucked would be happy to oblige. Yet, here I was stuck with a dragon who had honor or didn’t care what I was going through. Whatever.
He blocked the door, and I glared up at him.
“Move.” My lust made me pant, and I dropped my jeans and shirt on the wet floor.
“Karen, you can’t go out there.” He licked his lips, looking o
ver his shoulder then back at me. “The shifters will be here any moment and they won’t let you chose.”
I frowned as his words sunk in. “What do you mean?”
“Once you mate with one of us, then you can’t go back to how your life was before and be single and not attached to anyone.” He lowered his voice. Growls sounded behind him and too damn close for my liking. “If you have sex, then you’re mated to that shifter for life. There’s no going back. No changing your mind. It doesn’t stop there either, you have to have twelve lovers. And all of us single guys are wanting to fuck you at the same time.”
He had kissed me. Twice. Did that mean he wanted to be my mate? “Why is this happening to me?” I waved a hand out. “I mean besides the council and astrology mumbo-jumbo.”
“You really don’t know, do you?”
Before I could answer, he snatched my hand and dragged me out of the bathroom.
“My clothes!”
“Leave them. I have to get you somewhere safe before they attack.” In one motion, he tucked me to his chest, with an arm around my legs and one supporting my back, and bolted from the gas station and into the woods. Branches snatched at my cheeks and hair. He ran faster than any human could run but behind us the yips and howls grew closer.
Chapter Five
Caine's muscles rippled beneath my hands as we tore across the forest floor with horny shifters chasing us. In his arms, I felt protected…well, as much as I could be with sex-crazed shifters chasing after us. The fact that Caine didn't transform into his dragon form and roast them said either he was in worse shape than I thought or he had a conscious and wouldn't attack unless he had to.
Before I had a chance to ask him, we reached a clearing, and he set me on my feet. “Ready to fly?”
Behind us, howls and growls echoed.
“Hurry.”
His skin changed to a bright green and he fell onto his hands and knees. His skin erupting into scales. He shook his head as a spiked tail emerged. This was taking too long. Most shifters only took a minute to completely become their animal. I glanced around expecting the other shifters any moment and bit my lip.
Was this why he raced us ahead…so he’d have some distance to change? His body shivered as though in pain as his head elongated into a dragon-shape. Around us, the sounds of the other shifters drifted closer and the knot in my stomach ached. Would they reach us before he fully transformed? His body grew until he was a twelve foot dragon and I stood gaping up at him like a fool.
His tail brushed the edge of the trees and his wings stirred up the air around us.
“Hop on,” Caine's voice rang in my head like it had back at the elder meeting except this time it was strained as though shifting had taken a lot out of him. Which I understood now seeing how it was several minutes of pain from muscles and bones twisting and reforming.
I balked at the idea of taking a ride with him. Yes, I’d known he was a dragon when we ran from the gas station, but seeing him in his full dragon form was something else entirely. Everything in me screamed danger at the dragon before me. That the guy who had helped me might be more dangerous than those we’ve been running from. Would I truly be safe with him or should I try my luck with the other shifters? Ones who didn't eat her kind for sport.
A tree crashed near me and my gaze met the eyes of a gorilla shifter. His eyes were bloodshot and full of rage-induced lust. That was the only way I could describe it.
It smiled showing its fangs and another movement to my right had me jumping back. Stalking toward me was a black panther with sleek fur and amber-slanted eyes.
I froze.
Somehow I doubted either of them would care if they fucked me in their animal form or if they'd rip me to shreds in doing so. And I wasn't into bestiality. Both crept closer, and my heart pounded in my chest. Three howls answered one another yards away.
Holy shit! They would all be there in seconds.
The silverback thumped his chest and charged straight at me.
“Get on!” Caine yelled in my mind and thumped the ground with his tail.
I raced to his flank and scrambled onto his back. The gorilla pounced on his tail and Caine roared. He thrashed his tail around, but the gorilla held firm.
With me clutching one of his neck spikes, Caine flapped his wings, sending the panther tumbling back. But the gorilla held on while we lifted straight up into the air. It climbed up slowly and I clutched on tighter. I nodded before I realized Caine couldn’t see me do the gesture.
“Hold on,” he mind-spoke to me, his spikes shifting to that they squeezing painfully on my legs as I rode astride him near his head. Then he rolled so fast I was immediately dizzy and nauseous.
Blinking, I forced my gaze to focus. The damn gorilla latched onto Caine’s freaking tail was madness. The ape’s eyes that made me swallow the lump that pressed in my throat. Horny was one thing, but this dude looked to be sex-driven insane. I had to get him off us. Before he decided to yank me from Caine in the clouds and we both fell to our deaths. The thought of him maiming Caine so that he couldn’t fly made my gut clench and my blood ice over.
I shook out my charm bracelet and shoved my hair whipping around my face. My magic wouldn’t work on Caine but it damn sure would affect a silverback. A pentacle star would create a bubble around the shifter and the air current would blow him off Caine and safely to the ground.
I clipped off the silver charm and shouted the incantation, “Zemire Omxly Truvian.”
The wind snatched the star from my fingers, hoisting it down below us.
No! Shit! I squeezed my eyes shut as dizziness pressed into my skull from watching my talisman tumble among the trees we flew past.
Caine’s body shook, and I cringed. The gorilla was charging slowly forward up his back. In a few more seconds he’d be at Caine’s leathery wings and would be able to serious damage if he wanted. I couldn’t let that happen.
Okay, I had more charms. None that it would help Gorilla guy get back on the ground without becoming splatter, but I had to do something.
I grasped another talisman. This one a bow and arrow. It would shoot a bolt of energy at him and loosen him from Caine. Possibly knock him out too. I jerked off the charm and my fingers slipped, but I caught it before it fell like the other one. Whispering a prayer to the goddess, I focused my energy, allowing the object to absorb my magic and the blessed silver to increase it.
“Muwjerm Unitomer!” I threw the charm at the silverback’s head, aiming for his forehead to ensure my spell did double duty of making him unconscious and blasting him off Caine. But the wind gathered the piece up and the edge of it hit the gorilla on its shoulder.
It bellowed in pain, but didn’t loosen its hold.
Fuck!
“Any time you want to use some of your magic to help us out, I’d appreciate it,” Caine gritted out in my mind.
“Shut up,” I said. “I’m trying. Don’t you have magic too?” Some witches even collected dragon teeth and scales, if they could find them, saying they were powerful totems and could be used in all kinds of spells.
“Only fire, sweetheart. And I don’t think you want me to fry anyone when the wind is against us.”
“Give me a minute.” My hands were sweaty, but I squeezed my thighs tight around Caine, then rubbed my palms on my jeans and jerked them back on Caine’s spikes in order not to fall off. I zipped through the charms, looking for one that would help. A skull and crossbones, but I pushed it aside. That was a death totem and I wouldn’t use it unless I had to. There was still time.
With a roar, the gorilla leaped forward, snatching onto Caine’s wing. We tumbled head over feet and the wind strangled my scream.
Chapter Six
I flew off Caine’s back, the wind stealing my breath. Flaying mid-air, I screamed, catching a glimpse of Caine tucking his wing tight against his body, shuddering from obvious pain. My heart hammered in my throat as I fell. Alongside me, the gorilla plummeted faster, the trees, breaking branches
on his way.
I spread my arms and legs to try and slow my descent but the ground was speeding up to meet me. My heart hammered in my throat. Caine stretched out his wings, but one refused to open. He clawed at the air to reach me, his gaze full of regret.
I wasn't done yet. My charms banged against my wrist, and I yanked off the bird one. This time, clenching my fingers tight so I wouldn't drop the talisman. I focused the magic to myself and Caine's dragon form but he was heavier than me and fell faster, disappearing in the forest below.
“Arevva Mometu!” I screamed as the tops of pine trees grazed my side.
An invisible force jerked me up, hovering six feet above the ground. Slowly, the air pressure lessened, and I was lowered down. My legs buckled from relief. But where was Caine? Was he alive?
“Caine!” I yelled, rising to my feet. My side burned and I pressed a hand to my injury. Blood stuck to my shirt. Freaking great. If the predators couldn't track me well enough before, then I'd just painted a bright red signpost that would lead them straight to me. My right thigh stung as I limped forward. Images of Caine impaled flashed through my mind, choked me. Twice he'd saved my life when he could've easily left me to a pack of sex-starved shifters. Had I repaid him by catching his fall a second too late? A lancing pain burned across my chest with the thought of him dying because he'd been trying to protect me.
I tripped over a tree root and cursed. “Caine,” I lowered my voice. Was he alive? I couldn’t allow myself to think that, it burned a hole in my gut when I did.
And what about the gorilla? Even though I didn't think the silverback survived the fall, and I refused to let his death weigh on my conscience, I didn't want to risk him locating me sooner. Who was I kidding? If gorilla shifter was dead, his death would be a boulder in my stomach for the rest of my life. Didn't matter that it was his fault we'd crashed, I should've been able to save him. If I'd had more time…