The Midnight Hunt

by L. L. Raand

  Jody tightened her grip on Lara’s jaw. “You will do as I say.”

  “I need more,” Lara snarled. Her thick chestnut hair was damp with perspiration, her pale bronze skin stretched tight over knife-edged bones. The muscles in her torso rippled and a faint dusting of brown pelt exploded down the divide between her stark abdominals. Her nipples tightened into small hard stones. Lara growled. Aggression in Weres was always accompanied by sexual arousal, and she was doubly dangerous with all her drives demanding satisfaction. “I want her.”

  “She’s given enough.” Jody held Lara in place with the force of her gaze. “We’re going hunting tonight. We’ll find you another host.”

  “Now.” Lara lunged for Jody’s throat and Jody tossed her across the room. Lara crashed into the wall and fell onto her back.

  Before she could leap up, Jody was on top of her. Driving her thigh between Lara’s legs, she simultaneously grabbed Lara’s wrists and pinned them to the rough wood floor with one hand. Lara thrashed, her incisors gleaming, her eyes blind pools of fire. Jody grasped Lara’s jaw and pressed her mouth to Lara’s ear.

  “Don’t make me kill you,” Jody warned, the weight of her body magnified a dozen times by her inherent power.

  Lara whimpered, the agony of endless hunger and the searing sexual need pushing her to the brink of insanity. Wrapping one leg around Jody’s thigh, she ground her swollen sex into Jody. “Help me. Please. Please.”

  “I will.” Jody relinquished her grip on Lara’s jaw and pushed the flat of her hand between their bodies, skating over the stone plains of Lara’s abdomen to clasp her sex. She palmed the swollen clitoris and pressed down, milking the tense glands buried deep beneath.

  She brushed her mouth over Lara’s and commanded, “Come in my hand. Let me feel you spend, Wolf.”

  Lara arched like a bowstring drawn taut, only her head and heels touching the floor. Her abdomen contracted, her pelvis jerked, and she released in a howling fury of pleasure and pain. Jody held her down until the spasms stopped, her own body wracked with need. Lara was still Were enough to excite her bloodlust, but not Were enough to satisfy her. If she tried to feed from her, she would likely kill Lara and poison herself.

  When Lara quieted, Jody rolled away, panting as she struggled to contain her hunger. Even had it been safe to feed from Lara, she didn’t think she would have. It wasn’t Lara’s face she’d seen when the bloodlust rode her, but a human female she had no intention of ever tasting.

  Pushing herself to her knees, Jody buttoned her shirt with trembling hands and tucked it into her pants. Lara lay curled on her side, her knees drawn up, her hips and thighs slowly flexing as her orgasm waned. Jody leaned over and skimmed her fingers through Lara’s hair.

  “Get dressed. We’re leaving.”

  Jody didn’t wait for an answer, but proceeded to cover Marissa with a sheet and lift the semiconscious woman into her arms. The bites in Marissa’s neck were already fading, but she was hovering on the brink of serious blood loss. Marissa always did push the envelope when she hosted.

  “Did I hurt her?” Lara whispered, standing now, her whiskey eyes hollow with torment and lingering hunger. She’d pulled jeans and a shirt from the closet and dressed mechanically.

  “Dr. Sanchez will be fine after a night’s rest and some nutritional supplements,” Jody said. “Don’t forget she volunteered. She wanted the pleasure of feeding you.”

  “The pain won’t go away.”

  “Your body is seriously oxygen deprived.” Jody opened the door and gestured for Lara to precede her down the hall to the main lobby of the infirmary. “What you’re experiencing is severe lactic acid poisoning. You need to replenish the ferrous carrier compounds frequently or the pain will become debilitating. If you don’t, your cells will break down and your muscles and organs will disintegrate. You’ll become paralyzed, lose consciousness, and die within hours.”

  “Aren’t I dead already,” Lara said bitterly. She’d launched herself in front of the Alpha when the gunfire had started, taking the silver bullets into her own body to save Sylvan. She had done her duty and would do it again. When she would have died, when even the Alpha with all her power could not save her, this Vampire had prevented her death. But at what cost?

  “No, you’re not dead. You’re pre-animate—a living Vampire.”

  “I am a wolf Were!” For an instant, Lara’s wolf surged again and her eyes shifted to amber gold. The bones in her angular face sharpened. A deep rumble of warning resonated in her chest.

  Jody slowed, untroubled by Marissa’s weight. Although others frequently misinterpreted her tall, slender form and pale complexion as delicate, she was stronger than any human and even some Alpha Weres. Her lineage was ancient, and when she rose after death, if she rose, she would be among the most powerful Vampires in the world. At any other time she would not have tolerated Lara’s display of dominance, but she didn’t want to subdue her again. Lara was still too unstable, her system in chaos, fluctuating wildly between her Were and Vampire urges. Most Weres who were turned, and who survived the turning, were more Vampire than anything else. Many could never shift form again. Lara was not just any Were—she was one of the strongest Weres ever turned. Where she would fall on the spectrum, the eventual extent of her power, was unknown. She was likely to be one of a kind.

  “You should thank me, Wolf, not challenge me.” Jody captured Lara’s gaze in her thrall. “We don’t have time for this rebellion tonight.”

  Lara shuddered, unable to break free. Her face was luminous with pain and still she managed to speak. “When will it stop?”

  “When you’ve fed enough.”

  About the Author

  L.L. Raand writing as Radclyffe has published over thirty-five romance and romantic intrigue novels, dozens of short stories, and edited numerous romance and erotica anthologies. She is a seven-time Lambda Literary Award finalist and winner in both romance (Distant Shores, Silent Thunder) and erotica (Erotic Interludes 2: Stolen Moments edited with Stacia Seaman and In Deep Waters 2: Cruising the Strip written with Karin Kallmaker). She is a member of the Saints and Sinners Literary Hall of Fame, an Alice B. Readers’ award winner, a Benjamin Franklin Award finalist (The Lonely Hearts Club), and a ForeWord Review Book of the Year Finalist (Night Call).

  This is the first Midnight Hunters novel. Blood Hunt is coming in Winter 2010.

  Visit her websites at www.llraand.com and www.radfic.com.

  Books Available From Bold Strokes Books

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