“When has that ever worked?” I growled back.
Another rough laugh. He shifted me in his grip, and slowly, so slowly I cried out, he lowered me onto his cock. Pleasure burned away every intelligent thought I had. Everything became a hot, hard-edged pleasure as he drove into me, over and over and over.
One final thrust finished me, and I couldn’t even gasp, or breathe, or do anything except rasp his name. I shuddered on his body, dripping wetness along him, flinching with the pain/pleasure of his touch. He sank deep one last time and rasped a tearing groan as a quake wracked his spine from end to end.
I panted. I would have collapsed if he hadn’t been holding me.
He shifted, lowering both of us to the ground, still joined, and tumbled me onto the floor amid all the books.
My hand lazily felt the outline of a book. Hard cover, thin pages. I pulled it within my field of view. Some dry treatise on government.
“Such a mess, buttercup.” Gabel kissed my shoulder. “Pulling my books everywhere.”
I looked up at the shelves. “Not all of them.”
The hardwood floor was not very comfortable, but I didn’t yet feel like moving. Gabel’s kisses moved down my arm, to the tender spot on the inside of my elbow. I shivered, and he moved lower to my wrist and my palm.
He released my hand with a final nip, then got to his feet. He extended his hand to me.
I kissed him, enjoying his naked skin against mine.
“Buttercup, did you miss me?” He cupped my jaw in his hand, bit my lower lip very gently.
“I just wanted some attention.” I dodged the question.
Gabel smiled. “Maybe you should say what you mean.”
“You understood, didn’t you?”
“Oracle, perhaps some enjoy your riddles, but I would prefer to hear that my Luna,” he lowered his lips to my ear, “wants my body inside hers, and my lips upon her flesh, and that she is clawing her desire into my skin, hmm? Or is that too obtuse? Perhaps my Luna wants me to—”
I blushed and skittered backward at his choice of words.
“Ah, there is that maidenly affront again.” Gabel smirked as I bumped into the book shelves.
I blushed a furious red.
“Your brain protests, but your body... I didn’t know a male could sense his mate’s mood that way.” Gabel approached me. “I know when you are unhappy, I know when you are angry, when you are pleased, and I most certainly know when you,” he slipped his hand over my thigh, across the front, sliding upward. I gasped, and his expression was so smug, “You need... attention. But I suppose that before anything else makes sense. Tell me, buttercup, do females in human form go into heat?”
“No.” I swallowed, breathing hard, ignoring his fingers teasing the tender parts of me. “No. Only if I stay in... wolf form... long enough...”
“So you need to stay in one form for us to have pups.”
“Um... I think so...” I couldn’t think straight. I tried to squirm away. My body was so raw and sensitive that his touch was pleasure/pain, and I whimpered. The Bond squirmed. Shouldn’t Gabel know humans didn’t go into heat? What a strange question. “Stop it, Gabel.”
“Why?”
How could there be something I wanted so much, it was painful? My body was so raw, even if the spirit was more than willing and the Bond goaded me. “Later.”
“Hmmm, making me wait? I’d rather not, but I enjoy the game.” He watched me as his fingers teased and moved, in no hurry to free me. I squirmed, the Bond rushed in my ears, and Gabel leaned closer, smug and fascinated by what he could invoke.
Beast.
Then he backed away, freeing me, and I stood there panting as he picked up the books as if nothing had just happened.
I picked my clothing up off the floor as he put the books back on the shelf, smoothed my hair and, on somewhat trembling legs, went down to the main floor of the office, all the time aware of Gabel (still naked) smirking at me, gloating over everything.
“You know,” he informed me, “I win either way. You act the shy maiden, I corrupt you. You act the frosty bitch, I melt you. You act the passionate mate, and well... that should be obvious.”
“I will let you have your victory, Gabel,” I told him.
He laughed.
My ears burned. I had spent so long fighting him, I wasn’t sure how to deal with wanting him.
Especially since Gabel was determined to watch me squirm like a salted slug until I stopped squirming. Now this was his new game, and either way, he was going to win.
Dammit. Still playing games.
It was very dark outside, and dinner would be in about an hour. I was already hungry, having missed lunch. So now I was hungry, my lady-bits were tender, and Gabel swirled around me like a smug cloud, gloating on the game. But I had brought back the vet, and as I sat down in the chair at his desk, I gloated a bit myself.
“That’s my chair,” Gabel told me.
“And I’m sitting in it,” I replied.
“Territorial.”
“You told me that we had something serious to discuss.”
“Buttercup, we’re having a lovely evening.” He went over to his map, touched one of the spots, and traced a line between it and a more southern spot.
I suppose we were. There was a list of names scrawled on a notepad. I had never given it much thought before, but Gabel’s handwriting was atrocious. His scratched letters looked more like runes than letters, but they were letters... sort of. Could anyone read this? Even doctors would win better penmanship prizes than Gabel. There was bad, really bad, Doctor, and then there was Gabel.
It was a list of names.
“The basement wolf started to talk today.”
That was a mood killer. I dropped the notepad.
“They were supposed to kidnap you.” Gabel tapped a push pin into the map to mark something.
“For Aaron?” I asked.
“Perhaps,” Gabel said. “For the wolves we banished back in autumn. For the two I let run. The two that went to IceMaw but were seemingly chased out.”
“That doesn’t make sense. What would they do with me? Kill me? Ransom me? Try to sell me to someone?”
“Exactly,” Gabel agreed. “I’ll start on the second one tomorrow and see if he is anymore forthcoming.”
I shuddered.
“I find it strange,” Gabel cocked his head and looked at me out of the corner of his eyes. “That they refuse to answer questions. They know I will kill them eventually. They know telling me what I want to know will end their suffering sooner. Who are they more afraid of than me?”
There was a challenge waiting for him somewhere, and he wanted to find it and test himself against it. He hungered for it in a dark, terrifying, and yet enthralling way that made my soul shiver with delight.
My Lord-Alpha, my four-form wolf, who had dared to test himself against the Moon.
She had swatted him for his conceit, but what was the swat of a goddess? It was flattery She found him worth punishing.
“Does that bother you?” I goaded him anyway, just because his rising ire enticed me so much.
Gabel grinned at me, feral and a little wild, smoldering with the thrill of a challenging hunt, and my undeniable approval of it.
“They also might just be idiots who don’t realize who they should really be afraid of,” I prodded even more.
“That would be so disappointing. You have already denied me a second round of pleasure, buttercup. Don’t deny me entertaining this thought.”
The dark sensations coiled up within me from him, and made me laugh.
“My theory is those runner wolves are just middlemen for a chain that ultimately will lead me to Aaron or Magnes. Anders was a distraction, but he’s someone’s pawn—I’m not sure he’s realized it yet, though,” Gabel mused, once again entertaining the thought of Aaron as a previously underestimated but now fascinating challenge. “Both have a vested interest in seeing you torn away from me, although I am inclined t
o believe Aaron is behind this. Perhaps today’s little encounter will lead us close.”
“Maybe it wasn’t about getting me to IceMaw. Maybe it had been about using me to get you out of the south.” The attack had come while Gabel had been dealing with the missing SaltPaw. I shifted in his chair and walked my fingers along the arm.
“Aaron arranges for the SaltPaw to disappear, so I won’t be entangled in a fight, hoping to divert me back to the north to rescue you?” Gabel clicked his tongue. “But what would he hope to accomplish?”
My Mark squirmed for a moment. I gulped and thought about what Gabel would do. “Proving to himself he can manipulate your actions?”
It was flimsy, but I could see Aaron jerking Gabel’s chain just like Gabel jerked everyone else’s chain. Proving to Gabel he could play that game too.
If only I had my bowls, I might have been able to catch a glimpse of something! I had no idea if I could scry for Gabel, but Hix or someone else could ask a question. Questions that shared a common interest weren’t forbidden. If the Moon decided I was too entwined, She just would close Her Eye.
Gabel’s gaze reminded me of the tourmaline. “You’re thinking, buttercup. I can sense the shifting.”
“Have you considered MarchMoon?” I ventured with care, knowing I was dangerously close to betraying the petitioner wolf’s question.
“That is too obvious, buttercup.”
“Just reminding you.”
“I didn’t need the reminder. I hope you enjoyed your outing today, buttercup. Because it is the last one you will have for a while. First the SableFur want to come between us, and now one abduction attempt too many, Aaron making a public bid for you, and a possible traitor in our den.” Gabel shoved a final pin into his map. “You are in too much danger to leave the safety of IronMoon’s heart.”
The safety of IronMoon.
Oh, the irony.
Belly of the Moon
Ana got a proper werewolf greeting at dinner, although with more applause and less howling since she was human. Still, the addition of another doctor (even if human) was a huge upgrade for IronMoon, and the present warriors preened and clapped each other on the back. To them it was a sign the pack’s status was increasing. They didn’t care about the details, just that the pack had enough prestige to add a second doctor-type to the group. And a female to boot.
Even Hix was moderately pleased with this.
“Going to tell me she will make fine pups?” I asked him.
“She is human,” Hix said, unamused at the suggestion. Interbreeding was highly frowned upon, and human-werewolf pairings usually produced questionably sane humans, not werewolves. It was one of those ill-advised risks, with the most likely outcome being a child who didn’t fit in with humans (and was probably violently unstable) and wouldn’t find a place within a pack. They would be driven to compete for status while physically inferior to a purebred.
Gabel, however, got the joke, and curled his lips in a grin.
“I meant it as a compliment when I said it, Lady Gianna,” Hix stated. “Would you prefer me to say you would produce weak pups?”
“I would prefer you not to talk like I was a baby factory, and my only value is as a garden for Gabel’s seed.”
A few of the wolfs coughed on my choice of words. Gabel looked sidewise at his Beta, highly entertained.
Hix, however, remained nonplussed. “But that’s not all that I said. Simply because I say one thing does not mean I would not say other things.”
This was a losing battle. I suppressed a sigh and tried one last time. “But it’s the first thing you said. Oh, after ‘a fine choice.’”
“But you are a fine choice,” Hix stated. “I do not understand your offense. Just as I don’t understand why you object to being in a gilded room being fed ambrosia from a spoon.”
“What is this about?” Gabel asked me, “Gilded room? Ambrosia?”
Hix straightened just a degree, realizing he had said something that might not come off well.
“The First Beta and I had an argument over how I was allowed too much freedom,” I said, choosing my words with care. “I told him if he had his way, he’d lock me in a gilded cage and spoon-feed me ambrosia, as if I were a bird and not a wolf.”
“You would chew your way out of that cage, buttercup.” Gabel grinned.
Hix glared. “A treasure should be guarded as one, no matter how much she chews.”
I rolled my eyes, Gabel chuckled, and the matter was dropped in favor of conversation about the wolves who had broken into Ana’s office. Ana had already gotten a phone call from her landlord, and the police were crawling over it looking for fingerprints. It was a matter for the humans and the hunters now.
After dinner I saw her hold up three crumpled dollar bills and flick them at Eroth. “After today these better be in a fancy bow by the time you’re done with them.”
“What the hell is that about?” Gabel murmured to me as Eroth trotted after her like an eager puppy, clutching his three dollars.
“I don’t think I could explain it even if I tried. But if you need Eroth tonight, I know where he’ll be...”
Gabel raised his brows. “I see she wasted no time moving on to the next piece of prey. She will do well here with such predatory instincts.”
He was as bad as Hix...
I cradled the lump of tourmaline in my hands.
The blue stone still fascinated me. I refused to believe it had no use.
Obsidian was volcanic glass. It began as magma in the darkness of the earth. Tourmaline, if it was like the ocean, always saw sunlight, and it always saw the night.
I needed to know something about the tourmaline, so I’d decided to mediate over it. That was relatively safe, although I threw in balance and the little bag holding the RedWater fangs for good measure. They’d been with me in other visions. Perhaps they’d help reveal something useful about the strange stone.
Tension slipped from me, and I focused on the stone, the rune, and the little pouch in my cupped hands. This I understood, this was familiar, this I knew. The quiet, the stillness—
* * *
~*~ Through The Tides ~*~
* * *
Water rushed past me, tossing me around and sucking me down through illuminated blue-green darkness.
I pawed at the currents to reach the surface as the sucking water pulled me deeper and deeper.
I couldn’t scream.
I couldn’t scream.
The pressure built on my ribcage, trying to squeeze all the air out of me and replace it with the Tides. My ribs creaked. Every joint stretched and popped.
The air in my lungs was all I had. I would not let go.
I was drowning in the Tides.
I could not scream.
The sky was farther away, I was going farther away, I don’t know where, everything was blue-green froth and light, but I was moving, the current dragging me.
Gabel.
The Bond. If I held onto it, I could pull myself out of the Tides.
Something yanked the Bond out of my grasp and slammed me deeper.
What have I done, Moon? What have I—
I woke up face first on a beach that was more rocks than sand. I sputtered and pawed pebbles from my face, spit them from my mouth. My lips were torn and bleeding, my skin bloody and raw, and my ribs... every breath was punishment.
But I was...
somewhere?
I crawled to my knees, holding my right ribs. Blood dripped out of my torn lower lip onto the grey-white pebbles below. In front of me was a lush green meadow, and beyond that, an evergreen forest. There seemed to be no sun, but it was not night, and there seemed to be no moon, but it was not day. The sky was fully obscured by silver-bellied clouds, and although the tops of the trees and grasses ruffled like a storm was coming, I felt no breeze.
Behind me was an ocean, perfectly still and perfectly blue-green, seeming to shine with its own mild light.
Like the tourmaline.
This was no vision.
I was... somewhere.
And Gabel was very, very far away.
I was alone. So very, very alone.
And no one knew I was here.
I hugged myself, although it wasn’t cold (nor was it hot). I took stock of myself. I was battered and torn, and my ribs ached from the pressure the Tides had exerted. Pieces of my skin had been stripped off my forearms, my lips were split and cracked from the salt. My feet had been battered to bloody ribbons on the rocks, but I could still walk.
I grimaced and reached under my breast. In the fold where my breast joined my chest was a hard oval item.
The balance rune.
Despite my injuries, I didn’t limp, even though I hurt.
The rocky sand gave way to soft green grass.
A sound. A growl, a bark.
To my left a small, perfectly round pond had appeared, incredibly dark, but the still water seemed to have a silver sheen. I crept closer and saw that the pond was not a pond at all, but a massive obsidian scrying bowl implanted into the dirt.
Slow-creeping panic started to slide up my spine like insidious tentacles, daring me to look, daring me to contemplate.
I heard a grunting sound again.
Beyond the pond, perhaps twenty feet in the distance were two wolves: one a dark grey, clearly of very high prestige, the other a tawny silver-brown. The grey courted her with barks and tenderness, she resisted him, unenthused and unwilling, but his forceful nagging eventually eroded her resistance. She capitulated. He clamored atop and mated with her.
I watched, bewildered by the scene and distracted by the silvery pool and balance burning in my palm, almost vibrating and humming like a little bird.
The male finished his business and cavorted away, while the tawny sat down and waited for him to return. He did return after a time, but he danced around her as if mocking her, as if to say did you really think it was anything but fun? It was nothing more than a tryst, silly female.
She snarled and barked at him. She spun around, and on her right shoulder was the rune for Seer.
The Alpha's Oracle Page 36
