The Jackal

by J. R. Ward

  It was coming, though.

  Especially as one of his big hands went to that bulge of his and re-arranged the erection that was pushing at the front of his pants.

  “Turn around for me,” he said. “I need to see all of you.”

  Raising her arms over her head, she went up on her tiptoes and did a slow pivot for him. She had no idea where the brazenness was coming from, but she didn’t waste any time trying to figure it out.

  “Come here, female.” He held his arms out. “Let me be where I need to be?”

  Nyx was nodding as she went back to him. Putting one foot on either side of his legs, she walked her way up the length of him and then knelt down.

  He kissed her again, his tongue penetrating into her, his hands gentle even though she could tell by the twitching in his shoulders and the way he started to pant that he was starved for her. And then he dropped his arms and undid the laces at his fly. She had a quick impression of something very long and very thick, but then he was touching her between her thighs.

  “You’re so ready,” he groaned as he stroked at her. “Dearest Virgin Scribe…”

  She rode against his touch, her breasts tingling as her bare nipples rubbed against his rough shirt. How this all felt so natural she had no idea, but like her newfound confidence in her body, she just accepted the way it was. Accepted it… and needed things to go further.

  As if he read her mind, his fingertips, now slick from her, disappeared and she felt something blunt and hot probing the hypersensitive flesh he had been stroking. She was the one who lowered herself down, and they both gasped as he slid inside, the friction, the stretching, the depth he went to lighting up all the receptors in her body.

  Her head fell back again and she would have cried out if she’d been sure they were safe. She knew they weren’t, though.

  And that was what made this all so much more urgent.

  She started to move, her thighs doing the work of lifting her off him and impaling herself once again. And up… and back down… the penetration making her grind her teeth. Wrapping her arms around the back of his neck, she held on as he tightened his hold on her backside.

  Nyx cried out as her release came fast, and he did not last long, either. As his hips jerked and then he locked her down on his erection, her eyes flew open wide and she focused on the rock ceiling above as he ejaculated, filling her up. Beneath her nails, his shirt wadded up, and she had to bite her lip to keep from making any more sounds other than desperate gasping.

  “Female,” he said into her throat. “You undo me…”

  And then they started moving again.

  * * *

  She was everything he had hoped.

  As the Jackal came so hard that he had to close his eyes or risk things popping out of his skull, he breathed through clenched teeth and relished the fact that he was inside Nyx’s sex, buried deep and ejaculating some more.

  He was leaving his scent behind, marking her, so that all would know she was his—

  Stop it, he told himself. There was no room for that.

  Forcing his eyes open, he angled his head back and looked at her. Her cheeks were flushed and her mouth, that incredible mouth, was open. The tips of her fangs, white and sharp, were just barely showing, and he wanted them in his vein. He wanted her drinking of him as he fucked her.

  Or the other way around, him drinking and her doing the fucking.

  To choose this. To feel this. To be here… doing this… it was what he had needed, the bargain they had struck fulfilled on his side. And yet he found himself not wanting this to be the only time.

  Moving his hands to her waist, he eased her up off his cock and back down, and up again, and back down. She was right there with him, falling into the rhythm. Looking between them, he watched as he penetrated her and came out glossy and thick. The sight of her thighs splayed wide and the sex happening kicked off another orgasm, and he fought to keep his lids open. He didn’t want to miss a thing, especially not about her body. Her breasts, full and pink tipped, swayed, and her head was thrown back, and her beautiful torso was so naked, so powerful, arched against his hands.

  In the back of his mind, he thought… Fates, she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

  This was what he had been searching for from her.

  This was exactly what he had needed.

  She joined him in the next release, and he felt the rhythmic contractions all along his shaft. He just kept going. He never wanted to stop. She was the pleasure that cleansed him in a way the pool never could, the first time in so long when he could choose someone, and be with them honestly and purely.

  Yet eventually, it had to end.

  When he finally stilled, her eyes opened, and meeting her stare, he wished he could paint her, though he had no hand at all with a brush. He wanted to remember this for the rest of his life, though—and he would. Still, like all memories, she would fade after she left him behind down here, and that was why it all should be more permanent.

  This was going to have to last way after she was gone. Forever, after she was gone.

  And now, especially with this gift she had given him, he was going to have to make sure she made it out of here alive. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself otherwise.

  How in the hell was he going to keep her safe.

  How in the hell was he going to let her go.

  “It’s all right,” she whispered.

  A thousand deflections went through his mind. His reply was honest, however.

  “No,” he croaked. “It’s not.”

  The compassion in her face ruined him in ways he couldn’t have begun to guess at. And for one treacherous moment, he considered unburdening the whole truth to her. But no. That would just put her at risk.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, don’t be.”

  “I should…”

  Pull out, he finished in his head. Except in spite of all the chaos that suddenly sprang back into his mind—or maybe because of the chaos—he found that he did not want to remove himself from her. Meanwhile, Nyx smoothed his hair, the stroking easing him under his skin. And as she continued to meet his eyes, he had the sense that she expected nothing from him. Neither explanation nor more of the sex. She just… accepted him.

  The Jackal put his lips back to hers—

  The instant the contact was made, he felt as though he had kissed her for years, and more than that, his hunger resurged. He welcomed the mating instinct. Embraced it. Held on to it as if it were precious.

  Because it was.

  Instinctively, he closed his eyes—

  And immediately reopened them. The darkness behind his lids took him back into the dream—or threatened to—and he wasn’t risking that kind of confusion.

  Looking into Nyx’s face was the cure. He had to stop kissing her to do that, but as he rolled his hips and penetrated her core, the way she gasped… the way her head kicked back once more… the way one of her long canines locked down on her lower lip… gave him plenty to make up for the relative loss of contact.

  He watched her orgasm. Felt it again, too, down below, in that part of his body that he had become separated from. She brought him back together, though, reuniting his soul with what had once been a necessary and defining part of him, but which had become nothing more than a vestigial appendage.

  The alchemy she created should not have surprised him. From the moment their paths had crossed, her presence had stirred him unexpectedly. But he had never seen this deeper level coming.

  He had never anticipated she would… heal him.

  And that made her dangerous.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Are you sure I can’t get you something to eat?”

  As Jack asked the question, Nyx looked over at him. They were both standing—fully clothed.

  Okay, he had always been fully clothed, except where it really counted. She was the on
e who’d had to get dressed again.

  It was almost like the sex they’d shared had never happened. Well, provided she didn’t move. Whenever she did, the internal ache reminded her of what they’d done together. Not that she needed the refresher. She remembered every kiss. Every arch. Every gasp, each grab, and all the orgasms in between. When they’d finally stopped, she had continued to lie on his chest, and that period of holding him close had struck her as risky. Then came the awkward questions about rebathing, and she’d ended up back in the pool.

  After he’d given her a bar of harsh prison soap, he’d walked off down one of the tunnels.

  As she’d washed her hair properly, the subtle scent of tobacco had wafted down to her, cutting into the spruce-tinted spice of the lye. Had he been smoking? Who else could it have been.

  Immediately after he’d left, she’d waited for him to return and maybe join her in the warm, churning water. But after a while, she’d gotten the sense that he was waiting for her to step out and get clothed, so she had. As soon as she was back in her pants and her tops, he’d emerged from the shadows as if he’d been watching her.

  And then he’d resettled on the far side of the pool once again, propped up with his legs straight out. Like maybe, in his mind, none of what had happened between them… had happened.

  As she’d followed his lead and returned to where she’d started, she’d been of a mind to demand they talk it out. But that was a relationship move, and hello, she’d known him for less than twenty-four hours. In a hostile environment.

  At least it was time to head out now. She was tired of worrying about what had been done to him and what he’d been dreaming of.

  And what the hell had happened to end him up here.

  “Nyx? Would you like food?”

  Refocusing, she shook her head. “I’m fine. Do you want to go and get something for yourself?”

  “I’m not leaving you—”

  Both of them turned at the same time in the same direction, toward the tunnel on the left. Going by the scents, four males were approaching, but damned if she could hear anything over the falling water.

  As she went for the gun she had tucked in her waistband, Jack said sharply, “It’s just Kane and the others.”

  “Others? Plural?”

  From out of the shadows, the males came one by one. She relaxed as she recognized Kane, the aristocrat, and Lucan, the one with the yellow eyes.

  The next male was taller than the others, with a body that was slightly leaner, but no less hard. He had white hair that was streaked with black, although not because he was in the latter part of his life, and the stuff had been pulled back and braided as seemed to be the custom. What was odd about him, though, was that his irises had the same lack of color that that braid had. As a result, his pupils were pits that were somehow unreadable. Sure, he was smiling—nice surprise, there. But there were depths there that she couldn’t guess at, and that meant he was unnerving.

  “Hello!” he announced to Nyx as he jumped into some kind of surfing position. Moving his hands back and forth between them, he said, “It’s you. It’s me. We’re here together!”

  Then he threw his arms around her, wrapping her in a hug that was surprisingly un-creepy: There was nothing sexual in the contact, he smelled good, and he didn’t hold on for more than a split second. As he leaped back and clapped his hands, like it was game time and he was more than ready to face the opposing team, he revealed a set of fangs that had already descended.

  “Let’s get on with this, motherfuckers.”

  As Nyx glanced at Jack, Jack rolled his eyes. “We do what we can with him—which is not much.”

  “Oh, shit, sorry—Mayhem.” The male shoved his hand forward. “Sorry, I shoulda introduced myself before I hugged you.”

  Nyx clasped what was offered. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Nyx, I know.” As he smiled widely, she was once again struck by the fact that she had absolutely no clue what was behind that expression. “Great name, by the way.”

  “Has anyone ever told you you remind them of a yellow Lab?” she asked. At least on the surface.

  “I get that all the time.”

  “You haven’t gotten that even once,” Jack muttered.

  Mayhem leaned to the side and dropped his voice. “I’m trying to make her feel more comfortable. I read it in a self-help book.”

  “You did not. You can’t read, and there are no volumes like that here. And speaking of which, she’s in a prison. How much more comfortable do you expect her to be?”

  “For one, my eyes are bad, okay. It’s not like I’m illiterate. Two, there could, theoretically, be self-help books somewhere around here. And three, I concede your second point, as I believe her comfort is your territory, if ya know what I mean. Wink, wink.”

  Nyx started to smile as Jack looked like he was going to pound the male into a throw rug.

  “Relax, Jack, he’s good,” she said. “It’s all good,”

  “Oh, nicknames.” Mayhem elbowed Jack. “Moving fast. We’re into nicknames.”

  “I swear to Fate, I will kill you with my bare hands.”

  “Jack,” she cut in. “Seriously, it’s fine—”

  Her voice dried up as the fourth presence registered. Whoever it was had stayed in the shadows, outside of the glow of the candles around the pool, but she had a sense of the bulk of him. The evil, too.

  Menace rolled out of the darkness, curling across the rock floor as tangible as a black magic fog that threatened to crawl up a person’s legs and body and choke them with ghostly hands. Nyx took an involuntary step back—and had the thought that unlike the others, where she wondered how they’d found themselves in this hellish place, she knew exactly why that one was here.

  Not the particular details, no. But he was a killer because he liked it.

  “That’s Apex,” Jack said softly. “Don’t mind him.”

  Yeah, right. That was like suggesting she ignore a predator who’d gotten out of a zoo cage before lunch. And she was tempted to ask if they could leave him behind, but she had a gun, and no matter how fierce he was, he wasn’t going to beat a bullet shot into his brain.

  “It’s time.” Jack went over to a stack of folded prison garb. “I’m going to ask you to put this on over your backpack.”

  “Good idea.” She strapped her things on and then pulled the loose, grungy-colored shirt over her head. “Which way are we headed?”

  “Into the main concourse. You’re going to be in the middle of all of us. Keep your head down—”

  “And don’t make eye contact. You’ve told me the drill. But what’s the plan? What do I do—”

  “You stay in the middle of all of us. We’ll take care of everything else—”

  “Which is what, exactly.”

  “Keeping you alive.”

  Frowning, she stepped up to him and leveled a hard stare. “FYI, I’m in on that job.”

  Lucan spoke up. “It’s true. I’ve been there with her.”

  When Jack didn’t respond, she thought he was going to blow her off. Or stomp away. But then he rubbed his eyes.

  “We’re going to walk you through to the Hive, and we’re timing it so that we get there when the guard shift happens. The Command has private quarters and that’s where the Wall is. These males will help you and me get in there, and once we’re inside, we’ll have only a matter of minutes, so you’ll have to keep up.”

  “That’s not going to be a problem,” she said dryly.

  As he turned away, she grabbed for his hand. When he pivoted back to her and broke the contact, he had a stern expression on his face, like he didn’t want her getting too personal in front of the others. Or maybe it was more of an “at all” situation.

  Whatever. She wasn’t wasting time with lovey-dovey girlfriend crap in this situation.

  “Here.” She put the guard’s gun in his palm. “You take this. I’ve got another.”

  * * *

  As they departed the poo
l, the Jackal instructed Kane to take the front position in the lineup because of all of them, he was the least controversial, the least likely to be noticed by the guards. Mayhem was on the left flank. Lucan on the right.

  Nyx was in between the two of them.

  The Jackal was right behind her. With the weapon she’d given him in his hand.

  Finally, in the wake of their little squadron, quite a bit in the rear, the caboose to their train was Apex. The male would lag at quite a distance, something that was a tactical advantage as well as the kind of thing he would have done anyway. He didn’t get close to anybody, and one might have assumed that that loner habit would have been incompatible with this kind of concerted effort. But Apex loved killing guards. It was his favorite pastime. He wasn’t here for Nyx, or even the Jackal, who he did owe a debt to.

  No, he was looking forward to drawing blood—and he often did. If a guard disappeared and no body was found? Chances were Apex had done the deed, and then cooked up the remains and ate them to cut down on the conversation. His success and privacy around these clandestine murders were assured by the prisoner’s code. As vicious and self-serving as most of the people incarcerated were, they never stepped across the aisle to share information like that—plus there was the re-ality that they were more scared of Apex than the Command’s henchmales. And as for the Command? Had it noticed that it had missing guards? Given the complex schedule, it must have, but it hadn’t retaliated against Apex. Not yet, at any rate.

  Including that male in their plan was a gamble. The last thing the Jackal needed was a rogue aggressor on their team. In the end, though, he’d decided that the value the violent fighter brought in a knock-down/drag-out was worth the risk, and in any event, it was too late to change things up now. Apex was already on the hunt.

  As they cautiously emerged out of the hidden passage, and walked in a loose configuration deeper into the prison, they came upon a few prisoners shuffling along. And soon, many others. There was always a flow of people going in and out of the Hive. Then again, that was where the black market trading took place. Where many of the hookups started—and some actually occurred. Where people connected for whatever reason, whether it was arguing, fighting, even laughing and card-playing. Or all that sex.