And Kat remembered what the vampire had said…. You’re his mate. The stuff you’re made of will always give him more strength than anything else.
“My blood,” she whispered.
Byron slowly hugged his side and Kat looked down to see wells of blood rise through his spread fingers. A wave of nausea rolled through her.
“No,” he said, his voice so weak she barely heard it. “Not this time.” “Don’t be stupid,” Kat told him, then tried her best to swallow down her own sickness. “Exactly,” he said, laughing harshly. “I could kill you.” “You won’t,” she told him. “If you were going to kill me, you’d have done so a long time ago.” Byron still hesitated, sitting back on his heels and dropping his head as pain obviously overtook him. Kat saw him dying in front of her and thought of the many alpha werewolves she had killed over the years. They’d died because of her. And now here was the man she was meant to be with, the one her blood called for, and he was dying too. But she’d be damned if it would be her fault this time.
The grown up in Katherine took over and she felt herself go hard inside. “Fine,” she said. Then she took the knife she’d shoved into her boot and, before Byron in his weakened state could figure out what she was going to do with it, she drew it length-wise down her wrist. Deep red blood instantly rose and spilled across her pale flesh.
Katherine was trained well. She knew that the slits most suicidal people made across their wrists were less than efficient. True death came when the cut was made down the arm, along the length of the vein, opening it up past repair.
The nausea was back, this time with the cold, numbing fear of reality. For the second time in as many nights, she’d tried to kill herself. She only hoped she was as unsuccessful now as she had been the first time.
When she turned to look back up at Byron, his eyes were glowing and his fangs were out. She had barely enough time to inhale before he was reaching out and taking her arm in a firm grip. “Do you know what you’ve done?” he asked through his sharp teeth. His body was shaking; she could see that every muscle in his tall form was taut with tension, pain and anger.
“Yes,” she said softly. “This won’t heal on its own, Byron. Save us both.” She swallowed hard and fought a wave of dizziness.
Byron looked into her eyes, and desperation met fear. And then, with blurring speed, he was sinking his fangs into the taut flesh on her wrist on either side of the cut she’d made. She was already in so much pain, the attack felt like nothing to her – but then he began to drink.
*****
He couldn’t give her the pleasure he’d wanted to give her when it came time to turn her. Not now. The bullets the Hunter had emptied into his body were laced with magic. The magic was dark and insidious and it was leaching not only his blood from his veins, but his very essence from the spirit inside of him. He was dying, both inside and out.
Katherine didn’t know this. She was unaware of the damage she’d done and the horrible mistake she’d made. She could, indeed, save him. And he could save her. But it would come at a terrible cost. He would have to turn her into a werewolf, right here and now, or the wound she’d so expertly given herself wouldn’t heal and she would bleed to death.
But the act of turning a dormant required the ultimate intimacy.
He was so weak, so ripped apart, he wouldn’t be able to send her climaxing into oblivion. He couldn’t prepare her for him. Everything he would do to her would hurt her. He wasn’t a small man and this wasn’t a romantic night. There was no foreplay, no wine, no magic.
He had to take her, in every sense of the word, or they would both die.
Hurting her was the last thing he wanted to do. He would rather cease to exist than cause Katherine Dare any further pain. But she had taken that choice away from him, and now he had his fangs in her flesh and her blood was warming his throat.
Heaven, he thought distractedly. She tasted like ambrosia, sweet and warm and charged with her own special kind of magic. His body responded at once, coming alive in every possible way. He felt his wounds healing and his mind clearing. And then he heard Katherine moan and her body swayed.
Without taking his fangs from her wrist, Byron slid an arm around her waist. The softer, more human part of him wanted to stop. He was killing her. He was hurting her. But the wolf in him knew there was no going back and it was the wolf that was in charge.
He pulled her into him and felt the warm softness of her body against his. She smelled faintly of soap and leather, but mostly of dormant, and the scent filled his nostrils as her blood fueled his core.
He felt her head drop onto his shoulder and heard her soft, ragged breathing in his ear. The wolf in him reared its head. Slowly he pulled his fangs from her injured wrist and turned. Her neck was at his teeth, vulnerable and waiting. The mark he’d given her shimmered in the moonlight, urging him on.
“Byron,” she whispered, and her breath caressed his skin.
Byron bared his fangs and sank them into her throat. Katherine arched against him and went stiff, her entire body shuddering with the pain it no doubt felt. Guilt and anger unraveled within Byron, but they were thin tendrils, wispy and insignificant in the wake of the pleasure that flooded his system. Her blood gushed into him, spreading through his limbs, filling the gaps and spaces and darkness where the bullet’s foul magic had ripped him apart.
One swallow… two… He laid her down beneath him, never breaking contact, never releasing her from his dominant bite. She was enslaved by him, caught in his arms, trapped beneath his body, held ransom by the cruelty of his long, sharp teeth.
Three… four… She moaned again, sobbing once as her life blood deserted her.
And he was whole. He could feel it now, like a clicking into place. His body was uninjured. The deadliness of the magic the Hunters had poured into his system had been negated, miraculously, by the sacrifice of one of their own.
Her blood burned in his veins, setting him on fire. His cock throbbed in his jeans, his head felt light, and sweat broke out along his body. He was alive and he was well and he wanted his mate more than anything he had ever desired.
My turn, he thought viciously, wanting to return the favor Kat had so willingly done for him. At once he reached out for the power he’d possessed for eighty years, wanting to be sure of it before he released her from his bite and kissed her to pour that power into her.
But it felt like grasping at nearly empty air. There was almost nothing there.
The fear was back again, unraveling within him faster now, flooding him with its harsh truth. No, he thought as he delicately pooled in what little power he possessed and hoarded it within himself. No….
Katherine’s blood had healed his wounds and fueled his body. But the Hunter’s borrowed, wicked magic had negated almost all of his power.
Byron couldn’t even wonder whether he would ever regain it. His mind was on Katherine now, and on her alone.
For a split second, he faced his choices. Take away her pain or bring her pleasure. Pain was a strange thing. It came in different colors. The red was un-ignorable, all encompassing, and bordered on evil. Red was agony. Katherine wasn’t there yet. And when pain wasn’t red, it could be molded, melted, and used to taint the edges of pleasure, giving it a sharpness that could cut through just about anything.
He would know. He’d spent many, many years learning this particular lesson.
Which was why he decided against it.
Byron slowly eased his fangs from his mate’s throat and heard her whimper beneath him. His dick ached as he released her, but he sat up then and cupped her beautiful face in his hand. He turned her slightly and trapped her heavy-lidded gaze in his own. And then he kissed her tenderly – gently – and with a simple thought, he willed his power over her. It draped her in its comfort, erasing her pain.
She relaxed beneath him, her lips parting, her gaze coming into sharp focus. Byron broke the kiss to watch her for a second and then chanced
a glance at the wounds on her arm and throat. Blood welled at the openings, but more slowly than before. He listened to her heart beating; fainter, slower.
It was now or never.
Byron braced himself with one strong arm and leaned over her, capturing her full attention. As he did so, he slipped one hand between their bodies and popped the button on her jeans. “Katherine Elizabeth Dare,” he said, “I claim you as my mate.” He unzipped them next. “Do you understand?” he asked. It wasn’t really a question. She didn’t really have a choice. He just wanted her to know that.
But Katherine surprised him by smiling a little. “You wish,” she whispered defiantly.
Byron froze, his eyes widening. All fire, he thought in hard admiration. Even now.
His bewildered thoughts were shattered when she suddenly rose up and wrapped her good hand around his neck. In the next instant, her lips were on his, soft and sweet and delicate. Byron’s body roared to life, humming with something like electricity. He felt sparks set off all along his skin, as if the air over his body were suddenly charged.
His fangs once more ached in his gums and his vision shifted into predatory grays. His eyes were glowing; he could feel them hot in his head.
He growled low and kissed her back; the animal within him was taking over. When one of his fangs pricked her bottom lip and he again tasted her blood in his mouth, he hesitated, at once violently torn between wanting to rip her clothes from her body and savage her – and wanting to back off so that he didn’t hurt her any more.
But the indecision was gone as quickly as it came and Byron’s wolf was once more in charge. He pried Katherine’s teeth apart and tempted her tongue with his own. There was a hunger in her kiss, in the way she pressed against him with what little strength she had left, that Byron instantly recognized. It was there in the way she trembled and gasped against his lips and in the way her fingers fisted in his raven locks. It was a hunger that spoke of deciding moments, last chances and finaly’s. And it was a hunger that nearly matched his own.
Byron’s claws gripped Katherine’s jeans, digging holes into the material. He broke their kiss long enough to sit back and pulled them swiftly off of her. He moved with blinding speed, taking her boots and socks with them.
The scent of her uncovered body washed over him, warm and willing, and Byron rushed her, claiming her lips in another kiss, this one harder and more demanding than the first. She gasped into his mouth when he shoved his hand under her shirt and wrapped his fingers around the edge of her bra. He felt himself growl, gave a quick tug, and his razor-sharp claws sliced the fabric in two.
He reluctantly pulled away once more, rose up, and yanked the garment over her head. She let it go without a fight, revealing herself to him in all of her perfect, naked glory.
It was nearly his undoing. He so badly wanted to stand up and take a step back just so that he could see all of her, take her all in. Her skin glowed white and smooth beneath the moonlight. She was every man’s dream, a fairy princess from her white-blonde waterfall of hair to the enticing curve of her shoulders to the rise of her small and perfect breasts with their hard little nubs, tightened so beautifully in the cool night air.
Her waist was narrow and the curve of her hips beckoned. He saw the blood on her wrist and the bite marks on her neck and he heard the fluttering of her heart – and he knew he was wasting precious time. But she was so beautiful.
He couldn’t help but watch as she laid back and closed her eyes. And then she did something he never would have expected. Slowly, sensuously, Katherine bent her long, lean legs – and opened them to him. His breath caught in his chest as she arched her back and reached for him with her uninjured hand. “Byron,” she whispered. “Please.”
Byron’s stark, glowing gaze sharpened, his strong body responded painfully, and a kind of madness overcame him as he caught the scent of her sex. In one smooth, fluid movement, he was gliding over her once more and reclaiming the lips he never wanted to stop kissing. He tasted the blood when his fangs pierced her lips, but he couldn’t stop.
She moaned in what Byron knew was a mixture of anticipation and frustration when his hand moved up her waist and chest to palm the tender curve of her breast. She gave a soft cry as his thumb gently brushed the hardness of her deep, red nipple. He did it again and she shuddered against him, gritting her teeth.
He propped himself on his elbow as his other hand explored the tempting rise of her hip bone, the valley of creamy flesh beneath it and then brushed through the silken curls to the core of her. Here, the feel of her flesh, slick with need, was driving him insane.
She gasped as he circled like a shark, his kiss deepening, drinking her in with tremendous greed. And then he was parting her nether lips and pressing inward. She made a deep, delicious sound against his mouth as his fingers were squeezed with her wet tightness.
He swore softly under his breath, his mind delirious. She was so small, so hungry for him. The thought of her wrapped around his cock was nearly unimaginable in the bliss it promised. He was throbbing now, his manhood screaming for release.
And then he was bracing himself on the ground again, removing his fingers from her folds, and ripping open the front of his own jeans.
Katherine tensed and her lust-filled eyes widened as Byron moved over her to press the tip of his engorged cock to her opening. She could feel how big he was; her eyes flashed with indecision, her head turning as if she could hide her fear from him. Byron took her chin in his hand and held her beneath him, trapping her gaze in his. There was no going back now.
And he wanted to look into her eyes as he took her.
Katherine’s fingers fluttered against his still-clothed chest as he breached her defenses and slowly slipped into her tight, slick sheath. Her warmth infused him like magic, gripping him as tightly in its innocence as he was gripping her now in need.
“I claim you as my mate,” he told her, his voice no more than a growl. He leaned in to nip threateningly at her lips and then he whispered across them, “That means you’re mine.”
She cried out against his mouth as he slanted over her in a hungry kiss and shoved himself into her to the hilt. He felt her arms come around him and smiled when her nails dug into his flesh through the thin cloth of his shirt. He pulled out enough to make her moan beneath him and then drove into her again, pushing harder than before, wanting to go deeper though she nearly squeezed the life from him.
His vision was starring, his fingers were going numb and the only sensation in the world he could give notice to was the feel of her wrapped around him. He pulled out and drove forward. Again. And again.
Each time he took her, she arched to meet his thrust, the softest, sweetest sounds coming from deep within her and pouring across his tongue. Every gasp made him more of an animal, every moan drove him further over the edge.
A change was coming; Byron felt the heat boiling up within him and knew it for what it was. This was the moment every alpha lived for – when he would take a piece of himself and give it to his dormant, a gift of magic and power unlike any other. It swelled within him as he pulled back and gazed down at his mate. She was covered in sweat, her lips swollen and red and parted, her eyes glazed, her movements now more frantic and demanding.
She was entering that wonderful, selfish place where women went when they felt themselves draw near. He saw it riding her and it fueled the fire already roaring within him. She wanted the release – would have done anything for it.
So he gave it to her. With a hard strength and a nearly cruel resolve, Byron slipped one hand between them and found the spot he knew would make her scream. Katherine arched her back, her cry splitting the night as he drove into her one final time, impaling his mate so deeply, so fully, he felt he would split her in two.
He felt the ring of her muscles squeeze him in her climax and the world flashed out of sight, his body was shifted onto a plane of pure pleasure, and he came so hard it hurt. Byron threw back h
is head and cried out harshly as a bliss he’d never known racked over him, wringing him out again and again.
It took forever for the world to come back into focus. Byron slowly lowered his head, his eyes hot in his face, and looked at Katherine through a white glowing gaze.
In reverence, the forest was silent but for the sounds of their breathing. A beat passed. Ten. And then, “Christ,” he said breathlessly. “You’re stunning.” She took his breath away; not that he had much to begin with.
Her white blonde hair was spilled out across the leaves and clothes beneath her and it shimmered in the starlight. Her skin glowed more intensely than before, covered in a thin sheen of perspiration and magic. And her eyes…. Her gorgeous indigo eyes were no longer the eyes of a human, or even a dormant.
A light shone from somewhere deep within them, illuminating them from the inside out. She looked at him through glowing pools of promise, so deep and mysterious he honestly felt himself getting lost in them then and there.
When she raised her arm and ran her fingers through his hair, Byron noticed that the cut on her arm was gone. He glanced at her neck. Those marks, as well, had been erased. She was whole and very much alive.
She was also a wolf.
“Took you long enough,” she told him softly, the corners of her plump red lips turning up in a secret smile. “You men from the fifties have far too many manners.”
Byron was still too stunned to speak. He could only laugh softly and shake his head. Once more, Katherine surprised him. He would never get used to the fire inside of her. At least, he hoped he never would.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“The Trail”
It’s about time….
Kat felt as if she were floating. There was no pain in her body – not anywhere. It was a significant thing to notice; at any given moment, most people walk around with at least something aching them in some way. Headaches, mosquito bites, irritable bowel syndrome, period cramps, ingrown nails, shaving burn, cavities, cold sores…. The human condition was a painful one, all in all, and people simply tried to exist through it.
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