by Elisa Paige
When he was finally fully seated within me, his chest heaved as if he’d run a brutal race. Holding himself very still, he filled me to the hilt.
“You’re so tight, Sephti. So hot and tight.”
The raw huskiness of his voice touched off a delicious shiver deep within my belly, and my inner muscles clenched on him.
Koda’s head went back and his face, framed by curtains of midnight hair, was taut with raw desire. “I want to make our first time last,” he gritted, his hips moving just a little, as if against his will. “If you do that, I won’t be able to hold off.”
“Good. I want you wild. For once, I want to see what you’re like beneath all that control.” In a fluid move that worked only because it surprised him, I disengaged and rolled to all fours.
His eyes flared black and he was on me in the next instant. Banding his arm around my waist, he pulled me back into him, entering me more easily this time. His hair spilled to either side of my head, obliterating my view of the room and filling my senses with him. His ribbed belly lay hard against my back as he fit my butt into the angle of his groin and held me there. I could feel his harsh breath on my nape as he struggled to keep himself in control.
I wasn’t having any of that, however.
Undulating against him, I grinned at his savage curse, a triumphant thrill coursing through me to have so enflamed the always-disciplined Koda.
“Do you want me?” I whispered, pulling away just a little. When he tried to thrust deeper, I arched my back, thwarting his effort.
He swore, tightening his arm around my hips and tilting them to suit him. Again, he tried to drive into me. Again, I denied him, just enough to provoke.
“Dammit, Sephti,” he growled. “You’re killing me!”
“Say the words, Koda,” I murmured, circling my hips slowly, languorously. “What do you want?”
“You know what I want, woman!”
“Let me hear it,” I crooned, arching away from him again so he was barely within me.
Grabbing my hips with both hands, he tried to angle them more to his liking. “You!” he exploded, “I want you!”
“Then let yourself go.”
A growl ripped from his chest and he drove himself into me. This time, I let him, the dangerous edge of his passion telling me I’d won—Koda’s need and hunger had far exceeded his ability to contain either. As he pumped, his upper body fell onto me and I took our weight on my hands and knees. One of his arms held me hard under my hips, the other wrapped over my shoulder, bracing me against his wild thrusts.
His wordless sighs and the needy noises he was making, the frantic way he clung to me as his body drove into mine fed my own hunger and I bucked back into him, wanting his incredible length and thickness as deep as I could take him. When Koda’s teeth nipped my shoulder, the unexpectedness of it sent me over the edge. I cried out at the mind-blowing erotic explosion, a scream lodging in my throat. Head tossed back, mouth open, the cry and my breath stayed locked inside as wave after wave of pleasure rocketed through me.
Koda roared, his whole body going rigid as he pulled me into his body’s uncontrollable, rhythmic spasms. The ecstasy was an endless, rolling tidal wave that threatened to engulf us, scouring clean all individual thought as it forged us into one creature bent on a single purpose, united by indescribable pleasure.
When I was finally able to draw breath, I collapsed beneath Koda’s weight. He caught me as I fell, rolling to take me against his heaving chest and absorb the impact. We lay a long while like that as our frantic hearts and bellowslike breathing gradually slowed.
He muttered something, his tone rough.
“What did you say?” I asked, surprised that the faint wisp of a voice was mine.
Koda laughed. “I’m not sure it translates.”
Pressing my face against his neck, I breathed him in. “But it’s good?”
“Better than good,” he affirmed, kissing my hair. “Better than great. Right up there with miraculous.”
I opened my mouth to say something saucy when a fist-sized rock shattered the window farthest from us. Still breathing hard, I disengaged from Koda’s arms and snagged my daggers from the floor where they’d been dropped. Even as another projectile sailed through the broken pane and my threat instincts shouldered aside the sensual ones, I was having a hard time shifting gears to battle readiness.
“Relax, Sephti. He has lousy aim.” Koda bent to retrieve our clothes, shaking broken glass free first. As we dressed, he ran an agitated hand through his hair. “He also has lousy timing.”
I looked up at Koda in confusion. He sounded irritated, not alarmed to have come under attack. Again.
“Bohpoli loves to play jokes on people, especially on the Choctaw and on travelers. We could ignore him, but he’ll just keep throwing bigger and bigger rocks until we go out and see what he wants.” A hail of missiles struck the roof, punctuating Koda’s words.
Slamming my daggers back into their sheaths, I groused, “I’m gonna throw something sharper than rocks.”
Sweeping me into his arms, he kissed me soundly. At my dazed expression, he laughed. “You were amazing,” he murmured, nuzzling his face against my throat. “After we deal with Bohpoli, I want to learn more about bittern protocol.”
Breathless, I murmured, “Oh, if you insist.”
We’d just gotten through the front door when a two-foot tall man stepped out from behind a tree. He dropped the dinner plate-sized rock he’d been holding and waved, grinning broadly. Then, without a word about why he’d bothered us, he turned and ran off into the woods.
“What was that about?” I groused.
That’s when the sense of someone running fast in our direction brought both of us spinning around to face the easternmost line of thick trees, just on the other side of the sandy pad where the truck was parked.
Koda let out a relieved breath, his gentle touch stilling my reach toward my daggers. “It’s okay.”
A tall creature leaped clear of the woods, his graceful jump bringing him within a few feet of us. I’d never seen anything like him before. With the head of a stag, his antlers reaching another three feet overhead, he had the body of a slender, well-built man. The gentle brown eyes regarded us solemnly, his chest heaving from having run hard and fast.
“Kashehotapalo,” Koda said, both in greeting to the creature and in explanation to me.
The man-animal dipped his head gracefully. Even standing still, he gave the impression of being in motion, as his need to run translated itself to my senses.
Keeping my hand on my daggers’ hilts, I carefully watched the thing while he just as carefully watched me. Those enormous antlers looked wickedly sharp; no way was I dropping my guard with him so close.
He blew a gust of air through his delicate nostrils, although I couldn’t tell if he was laughing or if he felt threatened.
“It’s all right, Sephti.” Koda said something to the creature in a language that seemed to consist of soft, modulated sounds, like a bird singing baritone.
Kashehotapalo inclined his head and responded, flicking an ear back the way he’d come. Koda’s eyes widened and he spoke again, grimacing at the creature’s lengthy answer. They went back and forth a few more times, then Kashehotapalo turned and disappeared into the heavy woods, just as silently as he’d arrived.
A grim-faced Koda grabbed my hand and towed me toward the pickup.
I dug my heels in, barely slowing him down. Geez, when the guy got moving, it would take a tank to stop him. “I’m guessing antler-boy had some disturbing news.”
Koda’s mouth didn’t even twitch with amusement. “We’re leaving. Now. I’ll explain in the truck.”
“I need my backpack!” Wrenching my hand free, I shot into the cabin, grabbed my bag and was back before he’d even finished cursing. Hopping into the pickup, I asked when he got in the driver’s seat, “What about Onas and Târre?”
“Screw them. They’re why we have to leave.”
&n
bsp; Koda threw the truck in gear and floored it, spewing a rooster plume of dirt and rocks behind the big tires before they found traction.
“What’re you talking about?” I gasped, bracing a hand against the dashboard as we bounced over the rough dirt track.
“Use your head!” he snapped, twisting the wheel to slide the truck through a sharp turn.
Biting back a bitchy response, I got my seatbelt fastened and glared at his profile. “Why don’t you just tell me what your buddy said?”
Shooting me a hard look, he focused on keeping us from plowing into the trees growing by the dirt road’s edge. “Antler-boy, as you called him, runs ahead of hunters and warns their prey of the approaching threat. In case you missed the obvious, we’re the prey in this scenario.” Koda’s hands were white-knuckled on the steering wheel and his words came rapid-fire and furious. “Kashehotapalo said a fae war party shifted into the bayou twenty miles from the cabin. Given his description, one of the males was Cian and he was flanked by your bittern buddies.”
So much for my hope they could be saved.
“It gets better. Kashehotapolo said Cian knelt before another male who wore a golden circlet of hawthorn leaves.”
The blood drained from my face. I struggled for words, but nothing came.
“I’m guessing the asshole would kneel only to Reiden, right?” Koda asked.
I nodded, still speechless.
He slammed a fist into the dashboard. “Shit!” Breathing in and out, he pushed the truck even harder. “Cian betrayed you. Bad enough if it’d been only to the other kith lords, but I bet it’s a guaranteed death sentence since it was Reiden.”
Swallowing hard, I nodded again, struggling to figure out how Cian found us. The answer was there all along, if only I’d used my brain. “Onas and Târre. Churrashme! All bittern bear a tattoo that serves as a beacon to fae hunters. The entire time, Cian had to have known where we were. The entire time!”
Koda’s jaw tightened, but he remained silent.
“I was so focused on killing the lords that I didn’t even consider the possibility that Cian had his own agenda.” I couldn’t believe my own blindness and how breathtakingly dangerous a situation we were now in. “Amontay úst barshte nalai toyenasén!” I cursed a blue streak in Fae.
“Enough with the recriminations,” Koda snapped. “Does he have any way to track you?”
“No.” My voice was hard and tight. “I burned off my tattoo with an iron blade the day I escaped. That’s the big square scar on my left shoulder.”
His jaw looked like it was made of granite. “Why iron?”
“It’s toxic to fae and their magic.”
“Not bitterns?”
I shook my head. “We’re impervious to iron and steel. But everything has a price. In exchange for immunity, we lost the ability to shift from place to place. Shading is a vestigial talent related to shifting.” I wasn’t really focused on what I was saying. My mind was still reeling. Reiden had come. He’d left his keep and come. After me.
“What does it mean that Reiden is here?”
It took me several tries to get the words out. “It means the full force of the Dark Fae, including the remaining kith lords and their standing armies, are involved.”
“Involved.” Koda looked at me sharply. “You mean they’re actively hunting you.”
Mute, I nodded.
He whipped the truck through two more hairpin turns, then the tires bumped up onto asphalt and he gunned the big engine. The acceleration shoved me back in my seat…and I’d thought we were already going fast.
“Would your own lady turn on you?” he growled.
I yelped a laugh. “In a heartbeat. But she’s undoubtedly dead, killed for plotting against the lords. If any of the Fire Kith have been allowed to live, her eldest son is now lord. He’ll want to save his own neck and prove his loyalty to Reiden by hunting me with the greatest enthusiasm.” Staring out the window, I muttered, “Pull over, Koda.”
“The hell I will.”
“Let me out. I can draw them after me. If they find us together, Reiden will use your presence as an excuse to go after your people.” When Koda didn’t respond, I swore. “Dammit, I won’t have that on my conscience!”
“Do me a favor and stop being so fucking noble!” he snarled, the vehemence of his response bringing my head around to stare at him. “I’ve had enough of your trying to think for me. Trying to decide what’s best for me. Don’t you dare try that crap about my people too!”
“I just—”
“You’re so used to taking on the world, you’ve never stopped once to consider the fact that you’re no longer alone.”
I gaped at him, speechless.
“I’m right here, Sephti! Right here! And I don’t know whether to strangle you for your damned nobility or kiss you for your selflessness.” He hit the dashboard. “Right now, maybe both.”
My lungs burned and my heart thudded riotously in my chest. I had no idea what to say but was afraid to remain mute, afraid he might have misunderstood. “I am sorry for hav…having…” English failed me and I had to concentrate. “For having upsetted you.”
He shot a sideways glance at me. “I’m not upset. I’m pissed. Big difference.”
“Oh.” I thought furiously, trying to understand Koda’s anger. “You are a strong male. A worthy fighter. A pow…powerful mate. I knowed that you are—”
“It’s not my ego I’m pissed about,” he interrupted, shooting another look at me. “How do you see me, Sephti? Am I just the driver? Someone to keep you company? To procure food for you when you’re too banged up to do it yourself?”
I sucked in a breath, horrified that he might see things that way. “Nisla! No!”
“Then what?” His eyes narrowed as he glared into the rearview mirror. “Shit. You will answer me, Sephti, but it’ll have to wait. This is going to be bad.”
The sudden sense of swift pursuit set my instincts shrieking, but far too late to be of any use. That Koda noticed our being surrounded by fae hunters before I had told me just how distracted I’d been. No way the bastards should’ve gotten this close, not without my knowing it. Then the sun’s light faded, as if a cloud had covered it.
A cloud or a helluvalot of…
Arrows slammed into the truck from front bumper to back. Koda and I ducked low in our seats as gleaming ehrlindriel tips punctured the roof, the pickup’s iron and steel slowing the fae metal. This not only saved us from an instant grisly death, it kept the engine from being destroyed under the barrage. Shooting a look over my shoulder, I cursed to see my new bike, where it rode still in the pickup’s bed, was a total loss.
I turned to face forward again, which was when I saw the blood-stained fabric affixed to one of the many arrows bristling from the truck’s hood. “Oh no.”
“What is it?”
I swallowed convulsively. “The cops. In Chicago. The shorter one had on a tie just like that. Damn! How long have they been tracking me?” Rubbing my forehead in a vain attempt to get my mind working past the shock, I smacked the visor. “At least it wasn’t Siska or Nic.”
“She’s not exactly helpless and he’d eviscerate anyone who tried to get near her.” Koda shot me a look, his eyes flaring. “Or is it Siska you’re more worried about?”
“Excuse me all to hell!” I snapped, clinging to the door handle as the pickup tore around a curve, its heavy-duty tires shrieking. “He’s my friend!”
“He’s my friend too!” Koda fired back.
I yelled, “Meaning you’re glad that’s not his blood-soaked tie?”
“Yeah!”
“So why are we arguing?”
“I don’t know!” Koda laughed weakly, the fire leaving his eyes. “I don’t know.”
The garish tie flapped loose of its arrow and sailed over the truck’s roof, swirling colorfully as it disappeared behind us. How the hell did the fae trail me before Onas and Târre with their damned marks were foisted on us? How?
I
hadn’t slipped up. Not once. Dammit, I was an assassin—not only trained for stealthy infiltration, but genetically spliced together for it. I was too damn good to have been tracked, especially without my awareness of it.
“Jack and Kate.” I ground out the words. “What if the fae followed me to them?”
Koda growled, “Then we wouldn’t have a shitload of the bastards trying to kill us now. Never underestimate the power or bloodlust of a predatory male, especially when his mate is vulnerable.”
I eyed Koda’s profile, sensing there was more to his words than just reassurance about the tormented couple. His jaw tightened, but he didn’t take his eyes off the road.
Returning to the puzzle, I dug through memories of my journey, but continued to come up blank. Other than forgetting the bitterns’ damned tracking tattoos, I hadn’t screwed up. I hadn’t. Yet…somehow, I must have.
If hunters were already on my trail, why had Cian left the bitterns with us? Was it a form of mental torture since Cian would’ve known I’d have to use fae tactics—his tactics—to control them? Cursing under my breath, I rubbed my temples as my head began to throb. Then the dull ache led to another thought. Had Cian also sensed the changes in me that Koda’d noticed? Had the bastard figured I’d ultimately lose control of the bitterns? And that the best form of vengeance for him would be for my own people to kill me?
Grinding my teeth as my brain spun, I hoped Koda was right, that the supernaturals I’d met on my trip could take care of themselves. Worry about the humans whose paths I’d crossed kicked up an entirely new set of questions. Would fae hunters have bothered with the service-station attendant who’d admired my bike? Would they care about the waitress who’d told me about her new granddaughter, born just that morning? Or the little kid who’d waved from his family’s minivan window as I popped a wheelie for him?
How many humans had I unknowingly put in peril? How many deaths might I have caused for no better reason than my motorcycle needed a fill-up or I was hungry or feeling uncharacteristically playful?
