Hearts Unleashed: A Limited Edition Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Collection

by C. D. Gorri

  He finished, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and set the fork down. Then he picked up a piece of toast and met my gaze.

  “Sure you’re not hungry?”

  My voice seemed to come from far away. “Maybe a little.”

  He beckoned me forward with his free hand.

  I drew closer. He was right. Shifting burned a lot of calories, and I hadn’t eaten anything since the protein bars. As I neared him, he curled an arm around my waist and guided me to his knee in one smooth motion. Then he brought the toast to my lips. It was just the way I liked it, not too burnt and buttered from edge to edge. The first bite was so good, my eyes slid shut.

  Rurik’s soft growl of approval rumbled against my shoulder. He fed me more, and when I finished the first wedge, he fed me another. There was something sensual and almost decadent about letting another person feed me. His chest was solid and warm at my back, and his big arm anchored me securely to his thigh. When I let him give me sips of the cold water, he let out another approving growl.

  Finally, I was too full to eat any more, and I stayed his hand. “Caris is a good cook.”

  “She is, but I made this. The bacon wasn’t ready, so I asked her to bring it up while I checked on you.”

  I jerked my gaze to his. “You cooked all this food?”

  His smile transformed his face, softening the hard edges and making me catch my breath. “You find that so hard to believe?” he asked.

  “I just…” I licked my lips. He actually got up and cracked eggs in a bowl? I pictured him standing over a stove and buttering toast. “It seems like you would have people to do that sort of thing for you.”

  “I do, but it pleases me to look after you.” He traced his thumb over my mouth. “To make sure my woman is fed and properly tended.”

  I tried to sound irritated, but my voice came out low and breathless. “I can take care of myself.”

  “You can,” he said, making another pass over my lips. “You’ve proven yourself a strong lycan. More than a match for an alpha. I would not choose another as my mate.”

  Calling someone strong was the highest compliment a feral could give. It shouldn’t have affected me, but the look in his eyes was doing funny things to my stomach. My breaths grew short. He was much too close. If I leaned forward just the slightest bit, I could press my mouth to his.

  Which can’t happen. I couldn’t remain as his mate. I had a life, a career…

  He sat quietly, his chest rising and falling steadily against my shoulder. His predator’s eyes were steady.

  Patient.

  “We’re not doing this again,” I said. Except my gaze dipped to his mouth. The air thickened.

  He tilted his head. “What is it we’re doing?”

  Oh God, his fangs. My nipples tightened under the sheet. I had to get up. Sitting on his lap was a mistake. I had to get up and put some space between us right away.

  Slowly, he put a single finger under my chin and tipped my head back. He repeated his question, and his voice seemed to drag at my limbs, making them heavier than usual. “What is it we’re doing, hmm?”

  My response was hoarse. “You’re trying to fuck me. This always ends with you taking out your cock.”

  “Ahh.” He sobered. “Maybe we should try something different, then.” He trailed his fingertips down my neck and captured a lock of dark hair. “Something that doesn’t”—he twined the hair around his finger—“involve”—he gave it a gentle tug—“my cock.”

  Through the haze of lust building around me, I heard myself ask, “What did you have in mind?”

  He leaned around me and pushed the breakfast dishes back. As he did, his arm brushed my breasts, sending sparks shooting through me and making me catch my breath. Then I sucked it in as he picked me up and set me on the edge of the desk.

  “Did you get enough to eat?” he asked, his tone almost conversational.

  What? My thoughts stuttered. “Yes, I—”

  “Well, I didn’t.” He put his big hands on my knees and pushed my thighs apart. Two quick tugs, and he opened the sheet, baring me to his gaze. “I think I could eat a little more,” he said, and licked a bold path from my opening to my clit.

  Every nerve ending in my body caught fire. I sagged backwards, catching myself on my palms. “Oh…God.”

  He hooked his arms around my thighs and went at me like I was feast, nuzzling between my folds and flicking at my clit with his tongue. In between licks, he murmured in a low voice that sent vibrations shivering straight into my sex. “Open up for me a little more. That’s it. My obedient mate, following my orders.” He rimmed my entrance, circling a hot path that made my hips buck.

  He lapped at my core, alternating between soothing murmurs and deep growls, telling me how much he loved how wet I got for him. How soft I felt on his tongue. How pleased he was with my “eager little clit.”

  The table rocked, and the dishes behind me rattled. He made a seal around my clit with his mouth and sucked, pulling the hard bud taut with suction.

  I panted as I looked down my body, my gaze skidding over my heaving breasts and trembling belly to his dark head buried between my splayed thighs. His arms were tan against my paler skin, his muscles flexing as he struggled to contain my squirming. His shoulders bunched under his T-shirt, and the erotic contrast between his clothed state and my nudity ratcheted my lust even higher. His cheeks hollowed, and his mouth made wet smacking sounds as he devoured my sex, his hot mouth searing my delicate folds.

  “Please, keep going,” I gasped. I braced myself on one palm and tangled my other hand in his hair. I held his face against my sex, my hips swiveling of their own accord. Damp surged between my legs, heat flooding me.

  He gave a throaty growl and sucked harder, his tongue working my clit over and over. Just as my orgasm shimmered into being, he lifted his head.

  “No!” I cried out, the sharp crest of my orgasm slipping away.

  He shushed me, softening the rebuke with a kiss right over my opening. Then he pinched my swollen lips apart with his fingers and spread my entrance impossibly wide. Cool air touched my heated folds and throbbing clit. He leaned back and met my gaze, his lips shiny with my juices.

  The expression on his face made my heart skip a beat. His beast looked out from his eyes, staring me down with deadly possession. His voice dropped below human range, the vibration rattling the dishes.

  “You’ll have no secrets from me.” In a slow, deliberate movement, he dipped his head to my sex and lapped a mouthful of cream from my core. His eyes went heavy-lidded. “Do you know how delicious you taste? Like the sweetest honey on my tongue. The scent beckons me, driving me mad.”

  I shivered, ensnared in his gaze, my legs wide and my pussy aching for him. My heart raced so fast I felt lightheaded.

  Mouth inches from my sex, he shook me a little. “This belongs to me. I’ll rip apart any male who touches it.” Before I could draw breath, he plunged two fingers inside me and sucked my clit hard into his mouth.

  I shattered apart. My head went back and my fangs distended. My pussy clenched around his fingers in a violent spasm as wave after wave of pleasure pounded over me. My vision dimmed. He fucked me with his fingers, pumping them fast and deep even as he tongued my clit. Twisting, seething, unbearable release. It went on forever, until the pleasure became too much, and I went under the waves.

  When I came to, I was naked on his lap, my body shivering with aftershocks. His arms encircled me, holding me close.

  I burst into tears.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Rurik went rigid. “What’s wrong?” He turned me in his arms and cupped my face, his eyes dismayed. “I hurt you? Tell me where.”

  “I’m f-fine.” More tears streamed down my face. God, how embarrassing. I shoved at his chest until he released me. The sheet lay crumpled on the floor, and I grabbed it and paced away far enough to wrap it around me.

  He rose and prowled to me, but I took a quick step back.

  “Please,
don’t.” I swiped at the tears. “I just need a minute.”

  His brows drew together. “I was too rough. You’re sore from our couplings.” He clenched one hand into a fist at his side. “This won’t happen again, I give you my word.”

  Anger burst through my despair. “Yes, it will!” I flung a hand toward the table. “This will just keep happening. You mated me, and now you won’t let me go. Every time I voice an opinion or try to talk, you sting me with an order or lure me into sex!”

  His brow darkened. “I enforce my commands when it’s necessary, Eden. When a delay puts you or others in danger. You’ve lived your whole life behind walls, and you’ve seen only the barest glimpse of the Alterlands. A few seconds can be the difference between living and dying. You don’t truly understand the danger.”

  “I think I understand it well enough,” I said, my tears drying hot on my face. “In less than forty-eight hours, I’ve lost everything. My career. My freedom. My purpose in life.”

  He shoved a hand through his hair—the most human gesture I’d seen him make. “You accuse me of holding you prisoner, yet you consented to my claim. What do you expect me to do, let you wander the Plains so you can be captured and mounted by any passing male?”

  “I expect you to let me make my own choices!” I shouted. “I’m not some estrogen-driven feral woman looking to latch onto the strongest man I can find. I’m a physician. The whole reason for me leaving the city in the first place was to save a life. But even that’s screwed up. I’m sure my patient is dead by now.” My throat tightened, and more tears slipped down my cheeks.

  He studied me, silence stretching between us. I used the edge of the sheet to wipe my face.

  Into the quiet, he said, “That would make you happy? Doctoring again?”

  I lowered the sheet, frowning. “What?”

  “If you could treat patients. Save lives. That would please you?”

  “Of course. I mean I—”

  He crossed the room and knelt in front of a chest I hadn’t noticed before. The hinges squealed, and he withdrew various pieces of clothing—pants, a shirt, a pair of socks. He flung all this on the bed and pointed to it.

  “Get dressed and meet me outside.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “You need a purpose. I’m giving you one.” He went to the door and opened it. “Your boots are under the bed,” he said, then he was gone before I could say anything else.

  Chapter Fourteen

  As promised, Rurik waited for me in a long, narrow hallway. Like his room, it was made of stone blocks. Instead of windows, however, it had a line of lit torches mounted along the walls. If his goal was a medieval castle look, he succeeded.

  “Do you have a dungeon in this place?” I asked him, looking around.

  He took my hand and led me down the hall. “I don’t need one. When lycans battle, only one survives.”

  I suppressed a shiver. Forget I asked.

  The hall ended in a steep set of stairs bordered by another row of torches. In the cities, engineers harnessed lightning to power homes and businesses. It wasn’t a perfect system, and there were blackouts a few times a month, but it was better than living with candles.

  We descended the stairs and entered a huge stone room with long wooden tables. As in Rurik’s room, there were windows cut high on the soaring walls. We were in a tower—an honest-to-goodness castle in the middle of the Plains. It was nothing as solid or graceful as the structures inside St. Louis, but it was a far cry from the hovels in the stories norm parents told their children to keep them from wandering beyond the walls.

  A few ferals moved about, carrying food and what looked like bundles of laundry. One male slowed when he caught sight of me. Rurik’s chest vibrated with a warning growl, and the male dropped his gaze and hurried off.

  “He’s just curious,” I said, struggling to keep up as Rurik walked faster. He hustled us forward like we were late for something.

  His jaw clenched. “Which is the only reason he’s still breathing.”

  I didn’t get a chance to reply, because he pushed open a massive set of double doors, and a world of noises and colors bombarded me.

  We stood atop another set of stairs, but these led to a vast courtyard full of activity. There were ferals everywhere. Women hung clothes on washing lines. A shirtless man in a leather apron fed wood into a roaring fire while another held a long, slender pipe and blew into it. As he did, a blob of molten glass expanded from the end. Farther away, a group of young men grappled while others looked on, cheering and calling out what sounded like encouragement.

  And there were children—more than I’d ever seen in one place. They ran among the adults, playing and laughing. A few older boys watched the wrestling match with avid expressions, and a group of little girls jumped rope near the glass blowers.

  “There are so many of them,” I breathed. I looked at Rurik. “How?”

  “We don’t have the population decline common among norms.”

  I let my eyes wander over the throng of people. “Do the governors know that?”

  “I assume so, given their habit of luring lycan women to the cities.”

  That made me jerk my head back to him. “What do you mean?”

  He studied me a moment. “You’ve never wondered why lycan men don’t make it through your gates?” A bitter smile twisted his lips. “The cities promise our women shelter and opportunities in exchange for renting space in their wombs. Except your precious governors neglect to tell them the terms of the agreement are non-negotiable, or that most of the children they carry are their biological offspring.”

  My blood ran cold, the memory of the women huddled under the watchtower springing into my mind. The governors of the cities used feral women as broodmares? I shook my head. “That can’t be true. I’m a doctor. I would have heard about it.”

  Rurik’s eyes lightened, the irises gleaming. “You’ve spent your life subduing your senses. How can you hear the truth when you’re willfully deaf to it?”

  I stared, speechless and trapped in his gaze. He had to be mistaken.

  Or lying. He disliked norms. Had shown nothing but disdain for the cities. Was this just another ploy to convince me to accept my status as his mate?

  “Come,” he said. “I have something to show you.”

  He led me across the courtyard toward the pit where the men sparred. As we passed, one of the fighters backhanded his opponent across the mouth, making him spin and stagger back. Once he regained his footing, he spat a bloodied tooth on the ground. Then he lifted his head and glared at the other male.

  “You dick! You knocked out my molar.”

  One of the young males on the sidelines cupped his hands around his mouth. “Don’t worry, Alec, you were already ugly!” His companions roared with laughter.

  Beside me, Rurik chuckled.

  I looked up at him. “Are they trying to maim each other?”

  He shrugged. “Better a tooth than an eye.”

  Good grief.

  We drew attention as we walked, but Rurik moved us along so quickly no one stopped or attempted to speak to us. People nodded or dipped their heads, according him a casual deference he seemed to accept as his due. I am alpha, he’d told me, but I hadn’t really understood what it meant. There was a difference between knowing he possessed that power and seeing how others reacted to it.

  “Where are Soren and Cain?” I asked.

  The question seemed to surprise him. “They returned to their territories.”

  “You mean they don’t live here? I thought they were your”—I groped for a word—“lieutenants or something.”

  A ghost of a smile touched his mouth. “I’ll tell them you said that the next time I see them. Cain and Soren are alphas in their own right. They control territories adjacent to mine. But there is strength in numbers, and we’ve found it’s better for our people if we ally ourselves.”

  I took a minute to absorb this new information. “It sounds like the
Alliance of Cities.” I made my voice light. “Are you trying to raise an army to challenge it?”

  He stopped us in front of a small stone building and regarded me without an ounce of levity in his eyes. “I protect what is mine. No one will take it from me.”

  My throat went dry. There was no question I fell under his definition of “mine.” He said it as a fact—the same way the sky was blue or people needed oxygen to breathe. And, somehow, his calm statement was even more threatening than the possessive declarations he’d made during sex. Those happened in the throes of passion. This was cold, collected Rurik. The alpha who issued commands and expected to be obeyed.

  He pulled open the door and gestured me inside. “The sick are in here.”

  At the word “sick” I managed to break his gaze, curiosity making me slip past him and into the building. I stopped on the threshold, my eyes widening at the sight before me.

  The room was sectioned into cubicles made from curtains hung from the ceiling. In each square was a bed, and most were occupied. Two feral women in white aprons moved around the room with the brisk efficiency common to nurses everywhere.

  I jerked my gaze to Rurik’s. “You set up a hospital?”

  “It’s crude at the moment, but I hope to expand it.” He hesitated, his expression shuttered. Faint color touched his cheekbones, and he seemed uncertain. Almost…shy. He cleared his throat. “Lycans prize strength. When someone falls ill, the territory becomes that much more vulnerable. Many say sickness exists to cull weakness from the pack. That it’s best to eliminate vulnerability.”

  My breath caught. “You put them to death?”

  “No,” he said quickly. “You misunderstand me.” He glanced down the line of crisp curtains. “Lycans have always distrusted medicine. I think it comes from rejecting serum and anything related to norms. Unfortunately, that distrust has led to a lot of unnecessary death and, frankly, some pretty stupid ideas about looking after the sick. Other alphas won’t like what I’m doing.”