“You are so wet,” he moaned as the pads of his fingers slid down to rub against her pussy.
“Put your cock in me and find how wet I am,” she answered, pulling her head back to smirk at him.
He gave a throaty chuckle. “Not yet. I’ve waited too long to feel you.”
To prove his point, he pushed two fingers into the folds of her cunt. A loud groan escaped her as he worked deeper, forced her open but not as far as she wanted. Such a pleasant kind of agony, to have her pussy only a little full when she wanted his thick staff of a cock instead. The denim of her jeans bound her legs too much; she wanted room to move.
In and out, his fingers worked. Her tongue lapped at his nipple in time, roughing the flesh to a tighter peak. The length of his fingers slid against her clit with each thrust, built her toward release. But he was too much of a bastard to let her fall over the edge.
When he withdrew his fingers, she wanted to growl. Need, tight, edgy desire, thrummed through her, a caged predator in search of freedom. The thought of him on her, his skin on hers, cock deep in her sex, brought a fresh rush of moisture to coat her folds.
He lunged suddenly, and even with her heightened reflexes, she had no time to react. She found herself on her back over the arm of the couch, ass propped up, legs spread open, the signature Noah Ambush that had always made her laugh. In no time he had her jeans off, and his, too. “I can smell the heat of your pussy,” he growled, eyes golden in the darkness.
Deliberately, he licked the taste of her from his fingers, one at a time. The sight of it, a dominant, possessive gesture, brought the wolf within to life.
“Yeah?” she said, voice husky.
“It’s driving me insane. You know what it smells like?” His face lowered to hover just over her pussy, breath warm on the wet folds.
“What?”
His tongue flickered out, brushed her clit. “My mate.”
Then his mouth descended to take the sensitive kernel of flesh inside, tongue rasping over her swollen clitoris. Her hair scattered over the cushions as she thrashed her head, back arched, and she gave a loud, shameless moan. After what he’d seen, he still called her his mate, and the primal core of her responded.
His tongue plunged inside, out again. She threw one leg over his shoulder to coax him in again, but he sucked one of her swollen folds into his mouth instead. Spikes of heat drove through her, and she clutched the upholstery almost hard enough for it to tear. Each suckle, every tug, flashed across her nerves.
Alive with need, she pushed herself to him. “Noah,” she groaned. “Fuck me. Please, fuck me.”
“Not until you come for me,” he said against her. “I want to hear you scream.”
Warmth closed over her clit again, and his tongue lapped harder, faster. The climax roared through her, and she did scream, her body wracked with violent shudders. He didn’t stop his furious strokes until he’d pulled the last spasm from her, until her screams turned to almost pained cries.
“Mine.” He gave her pussy a final lick.
“You may want to rethink that.” She didn’t want him to. The way his mouth claimed her, the way his voice sounded when he called her his mate, still resonated with the deepest part of her. Dark magic couldn’t touch her love for him, the way she had to have him with her.
But he didn’t know what had happened, or what she had to do. She struggled to accept herself. When he knew, he would leave. His plans with the pack would force him to, even if his own opinions didn’t.
He stood, leaned over her even as he kept her leg over his shoulder. It left her pussy open, vulnerable, as his cock nudged against it. “Why would I want to do that?”
It was hard to remember the reasons as the length of his shaft slid against her tingling folds. “I’m not what I used to be. I can’t ever be just a wolf again.”
His cock rubbed over her clit, and his balls brushed against her pussy. “You were never just a wolf.”
“You know what I mean. I’m tainted, warped. A fashion victim. I wear my sunglasses at night.”
“So you can see the light that’s right before your eyes.” He leaned closer, bent her leg further so he could slide his length along her damp sex. The head nudged against her clit then past just as she hoped it would push inside.
The emptiness inside her drove her to distraction. She wanted him to impale her on that thick cock, fill her until she begged him to stop. “You aren’t paying attention.”
He drew back and rubbed his cock along her cunt again, the other way now, so the flared tip teased at the puckered hole of her ass. She groaned. Later, she could take him there. Now, she wanted him driving, hard and fast, into her pussy.
“I beg to differ. I know exactly what’s going on.”
“I mean what I’m saying.”
“I don’t care what else you are, Kayla.” His still golden eyes met hers. “You’re the woman I love, no matter what happened, or happens. And I belong right here.”
He drove his cock into her. Suddenly, she was spread wide, stretched around the girth of him. She cried out, pushed down onto him until his balls rested against her.
“You’ll feel different tomorrow.”
He pulled out of her. “Bet me.”
Again, he thrust inside, cored her with his shaft. As long as he stayed inside her, stretched her cunt time after time, filled her with his hot seed, she didn’t care about tomorrow. Now mattered. Coming repeatedly, until the sun came up and drove her into hiding. That was all that mattered.
His eyes didn’t close as he drove slowly into her. Golden eyes watched her as she writhed and ground her clit against his pelvis. She had no shame; it heightened the charge of each thrust to see his pleasure echoed in his eyes. As his lunges sped up, the hunger behind his gaze turned less thoughtful, more untamed.
The wolf had gotten loose. And she wanted more of it.
Long thrusts turned shorter, faster. His cock stayed deep as he stroked into her, the hand on her thigh clenched tight. Grunts came through gritted teeth, and their eyes locked. The wave built, rose, washed higher each time he drove in. She’d almost forgotten how well he fit in her, how his hips snapped as he got close to orgasm.
Wailing, head back, her eyes rolled back into her head as the climax broke from her core. His own shouts joined hers as his cock jerked, then emptied, flooding her with molten heat. Once, twice, he drove in again, then held himself buried as the final bursts eased.
Spent for now, she slithered fully onto the couch to recline on her side. He joined her after he’d regained his balance, his thigh a warm, familiar pillow under her head.
“I missed you,” he said quietly.
“I missed you, too.” She couldn’t lie to him. Not now. And she didn’t want to lie to herself.
“Tell me what happened.” His strong hand stroked her hair. The pads of his fingers brushed her cheek.
He loved her. Through it all, he hadn’t forgotten her, hadn’t shunned her when she came back a twisted version of her previous self. For this and so many other things, he deserved some explanation.
“There were vampires in the forest that night,” she said. “You knew that.”
“Regina told us. They attacked her.”
How much should she say? By his own admission, he’d turned into a fighter, someone who went after those who had wronged him or those he cared about. If she told him about the other wolves, about his best friend, what would he do? Go to Peter? Worse, go to Todd himself?
She couldn’t take the chance. Not yet. “They’d been kidnapping werewolves. Seven of us. I didn’t know five of the others, but the sixth was Derek Anderson.”
Beneath her, his muscles tensed. “Derek? We thought he ran off.”
“They had him. We couldn’t have known.” She wondered what had happened to Derek. The transformation had nearly broken the last of his sanity.
“What did they want you for?”
The deep breath did little to ease the tightness in her chest. “A ritual
. The vampires wanted their own breed of lycanthrope. Shadow wolves, they called us. Ones who are loyal to the biter cause, whether they want to be or not. What they did changed us. Tainted us.”
Noah snarled. “And we made a deal with Pirelli?”
“That’s the thing. Pirelli doesn’t know. These vampires work outside the hierarchy.”
“Pirelli didn’t know?”
She glanced up at him. “I’m pretty sure Vincenzo Pirelli wants them gone as much as we do. They’re a threat. Their plan isn’t a bad one. Pit barkers and biters against each other. Let them do the work for you. Then all the rogue vampire crew has to do is come along to sweep up the pieces.”
“So they want the city.”
“Kiplinger has always wanted the city. Except this time, he’s positioned himself to take down both sides. Once the worst of the fighting is done, he can install his own people in power. Vampires will rule, and werewolves won’t be able to do a damn thing about it. Not with the shadow wolves here.” Kayla ignored the churn of her guts. “Kiplinger has made a whole new strain of lycanthropy that he controls. One that can challenge normal werewolves in a way vampires can’t. With a small pack of them, he’ll be tough to root out of here.”
Thoughts chased through his eyes. “Kiplinger’s in on this?”
“It’s his game. He got the ritual together for it. How, I don’t know. Vampires shouldn’t be able to do magic. And yet, seven wolves on the blue moon, some kind of canopic jars, the hearts of innocents, his loyalists feeding him power while he directed it...” She let the thought trail off.
His hand trembled on her hair. “There are seven of you?”
“Possibly eight. I know that one’s bitten someone, but I don’t know if the new wolf survived his first moon. It was an experiment I didn’t stick around to see the result of.”
“Why didn’t you come back sooner?”
Magic cuffs, nights of starvation, days in the painful light. She shoved all those back down. “They kept us with them. Four went over to their side, either immediately or after some— After some convincing. Three of us escaped.”
He sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know where you were. I should have looked harder.”
“Don’t start down that road.” She gave her voice an edge, unwilling to let him blame himself. “They had us well hidden. You couldn’t have done more than you did. I know you.”
“But I should have.” Before she could say more, though, he continued past it. “It doesn’t matter now. You’re back.”
Yes, he’d changed. She found that she loved the new Noah even more. “Kiplinger and the others have to be stopped.”
“Revenge?”
“Not just that. They’re a threat to me, to the pack, to humans. He believes that the humans are his cattle, sort of a walking buffet for his taking.” In her home, with him to protect her, she should have felt safe. But Kiplinger’s words would never leave her.
In all other things, we remain the cream in a vat of milk, if you like the analogy. Many of us have forgotten that. Pirelli’s very short-sighted loyals, for example. Others of us have not. And it is high time that all of us remember.
“Maybe we should go to the pack, Kayla. This is a lot bigger than we are.”
She locked eyes with him. “No. They can’t know that I’m back. I don’t want to hear that Peter’s dealt this away. You don’t trust him, do you? You want his position.”
The words hit home. “I don’t want it. But he’s weak. He’s gotten soft.”
“He can’t be soft on this.” Not with Regina’s hand around his balls and Todd’s submissive lies to create discord. They’re already pulling the pack apart. “I’m going after the people who did this to me. Afterward, we can think about involving others. But Noah, please... I need this.”
Brow furrowed, he stared down at her. Then he nodded. “All right. Who’s first?”
Relief washed through her. She didn’t know what she would have done if he hadn’t cooperated, but she didn’t like to ponder it. “DJ Specter was first. He drew too much attention to stay hidden for long, and he was a good link to the rest. Miles and Mason Bristol are next. Specter told me where they like to party. We can go tomorrow night.”
Deep lines remained on his forehead as he watched her. One soft fingertip smoothed away a loose hair then traced her eyebrow and followed up the curve of her cheekbone. He was looking at her eyes, she knew, not into them. “What did the ritual do to you?”
“Don’t ask,” she said, a heartfelt answer, not a dismissal. “Not yet. I’m not ready to talk about it. Someday, I promise, you’ll know all the truth.”
After a moment he looked away, and his hand returned to comforting strokes on her hair. She didn’t say that she feared the time when that truth came to light. It would break his heart to hear that his best friend had betrayed him.
What will you do when you find out that he watched and did nothing? That he’s had your answers all this time? No friendship should survive that blow. Yet the Noah she’d fallen in love with had a soft heart, and a desire to see the best in people. Would he try to justify what Todd had done? Explain it away? Perhaps not, but she couldn’t take the chance Noah would try to sweep this under the rug with desperate denial and excuses about how Todd must have been a victim of Regina’s manipulation, too. She only hoped Noah would forgive her for keeping the secret until it was too late for him to stop her.
Six
Noah opened his eyes, and Kayla was still there. He couldn’t help but smile. When they’d crawled into bed as the first rays of dawn streaked through the sky, he’d wondered if he’d wake up and find her gone.
She’s so skittish. He reached up to brush his fingers over her hair. Driven and flighty, like a shadow in the light.
Which, he thought, described just what she was.
Even now, she curled deep into the bed, back to the dim sunshine that found its way around the bedroom curtains. His gentle strokes didn’t rouse her. She didn’t move, she barely breathed, and he realized, with his heart in his throat, that she didn’t look unlike a sleeping vampire he’d once seen.
What have they done to you?
It made him sick to think about. She’d told him very little, but the very loud, unspoken details gnawed at him. What he didn’t know, he had to make up. A fertile imagination gave him dark, awful pictures to see in his mind. Did they even come close to what had actually happened? That thought was the worst; for all the horror he could dream up, it might not touch the reality.
How can I help you if I don’t understand? He gently touched fingertips to the skin of her shoulder. How can I understand if you don’t let me in?
Though reluctant to leave her, he pulled himself out of the bed. No matter how nice it felt to spoon against her and pretend he could protect her, it did no good at all. If she wouldn’t tell him, he’d have to find out another way.
She’d seen Moira last night. He’d start there.
Kayla had always looked on Moira like a second mother or a wise, favored aunt. When the wolf had come howling up to turn Kayla’s life upside down, her father had done little to explain it. He’d married a werewolf but had hoped his daughter wouldn’t inherit the “problem”, and moved to Tacoma after his wife’s lycanthropy had gotten the best of her. Not everyone could keep the beast at bay, and instead of teaching Kayla how to avoid the same trouble, her father had stuck his head in the sand.
As if a firm denial of the trouble would prevent the wolf from manifesting in Kayla. When denial didn’t work, her father had given her a brief, uncomfortable chat on the virtues of a solid-core door and a deep basement every full moon.
So she’d taken the bus to Moon Blessings on the chance she could find a book to read. Instead, she’d found Moira, then the pack. And Noah. It had taken them until Kayla’s return from college to appreciate each other. After that, they’d become inseparable until last year. They owed a lot to Moira.
Quietly, he pulled clothes out of the dresser. The rattle
of the drawer didn’t disturb Kayla, which was unusual. Before, she’d been a light sleeper, and he’d awakened her hundreds of times in the past. For a moment, he watched her to make certain she still breathed. He couldn’t help it.
He dressed in the living room. While he was out, he’d buy a blackout curtain to put over the window. Light hurt her eyes, she’d said, and he wanted to make her comfortable. Maybe then, she’d sleep less like the dead.
It took him a moment to locate his cell phone. He’d left it in his jeans last night, which still hid against the wall where he’d thrown them. A red light blinked on the front, a silent accusation that someone had called and he’d slept late.
“Noah? It’s Todd. Hey, buddy, where are you? We’re all here. Don’t stand us up. Call me. Or better yet, show up.”
Once Moira had called, he’d forgotten the get-together.
“Noah? Come on, answer your phone. It’s okay if you didn’t feel like coming out. We can do it next time. Just give me a call, all right?” Todd again. Noah grabbed his keys and headed out the door while he listened.
“Hey, it’s Todd. Look, I’m worried. I’m here at your place. Your truck’s not here, you’re not answering the door or the phone, and your light’s on in the living room. You’re somewhere, but it wasn’t with us. Just call, all right?” His best friend worried way too much. Todd had kept close tabs on him since the shit hit the fan, afraid he’d do something stupid.
“Ben just called me. There was a garbage bin fire over in a really shitty part of town. Blowing piece of burning paper caught an awning on fire. Unknown accelerants. That where you were tonight? Barbecued biters? Come on, man, you’re not supposed to do that anymore. Call me.”
Ben was a firefighter. And a tattletale of a lower echelon wolf.
As usual, the bell chimed when he opened the door of Moon Blessings. A wall of burned sage stench hit him in the face as he walked in. He almost choked at the thickness of the smell. What the shit? Did she set a whole sage bush on fire?
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