The harsh ring of his cell phone replaced all pleasurable sounds in the circular workout room. He ignored it, letting it ring and ring as he sucked on her nipple. She grunted and moaned, shoving at his shoulders while simultaneously grinding her core against his hard cock. She was wild.
The phone rang again and again. It wasn’t going to shut off. He grunted and rolled off her with one last lick. “Do not move.”
The command was pointless as the mood had been destroyed the second he rolled off her, giving her mind time to reboot and raise her defenses. Kerrick answered the phone, watching her rise off the floor and tug her shirt back into place, cursing whoever spoke on the other line.
“Sir,” the clipped and familiar voice echoed through the speaker.
“Rhiannon, this had better be important,” Kerrick growled.
“Five Weres were found at the edge of the property, Alphar. They were…” she said with hesitation, unable to find the words.
“What?” All thoughts of sex flew from his mind as he heard his cousin’s distress.
“Mara left their dissected bodies in baskets at the edge of the property. They were drained—” Rhiannon stopped. There was disgust and pain in the hitch in her voice.
“You’re sure it was Mara?” he asked, gentling his tone all the while trying not to glare at the blank and uncaring look on Cymbeline’s face. With a shifter’s sharp hearing, he knew she could hear what was happening on the other end of the line, even without putting it on speakerphone.
“Yes, there was a message carved into their heads.”
“Tell me. Now.”
“Each head had a word carved into their foreheads.” He could hear the rage in Rhiannon’s voice as she repeated the words, “This land belongs to Vrykolakas.”
“Have the Weres been identified?” A fury so deeply ingrained into his protective nature threatened to expose itself.
“Yes, sir.”
“What does Carter have to say about this?” he asked, retrieving his shoes and shirt. “He must have known what she was planning.”
“Carter couldn’t have been complicit in this act, sir. I’ll vouch for him. He disagrees with Mara on every issue regarding this dispute. He says she’s as crazy as Riddan was in his final days.”
“I’ll take your word on that. If we discover otherwise, I will send the Incendiary after him.”
He hung up. Such a waste of life for the worst of reasons. Cymbeline was standing a few feet away, an imperceptible look on her face.
“I have to take care of this,” he said quietly, his anger seething inside him mixed with the grief for his lost people twisting his soul into knots. He would be going to war with the Vryk bitch, it was unavoidable now. Kerrick would kill her himself.
“You wish me to hunt a Vrykolakas?” she asked emotionless, like the robot she had seemed so afraid of becoming just an hour ago. “I am not trained to hunt Vrykolakas, but I will do this for you.”
Not wanting to examine that offer any closer he opened the door that would lead back towards his room the fastest. “We don’t know if he is innocent or not yet. Come, I’m taking you back to the room.”
She stared at him imperceptibly for a second before walking through the door. He shut the lights and followed. The deaths of his people a pounding ache in his soul. The need to destroy and shed blood a temptation so strong he could lose himself in it. When they reached the door to his room after a tense walk in silence, she turned to him.
“I am sorry for your loss.”
The words were so mechanical and empty he wanted to laugh. He was not very happy with his Beast’s choice of mate at the moment. He needed comfort and reassurance; hope that a war with the Vryks was the right course of action. A woman with strength and enough passion to want vengeance was what he needed—something this automaton would never know how to give.
“You may leave the room at any time with those cuffs on. You can go anywhere in The Mansion but you can’t leave the grounds,” he reiterated.
“You cannot keep me prisoner here, Kerrick. I am not your enemy. Use me to hunt down your true enemies, if not I will find a way to leave. No magic cuffs will be able to stop me.”
“This is not the day to test my patience, Incendiary. Do not try to escape.”
He kissed her forehead quickly before walking away, needing some sort of tactile connection with her before facing what could be a long and hard war. It wasn’t until he reached his office, Aaron and Rhiannon waiting for him with a full report, that he realized she’d called him by his name.
Cymbeline watched Kerrick walk away with an uncomfortable knot in her heart she had not felt since adolescence. Her hand rested on her chest as she turned to enter the room, massaging the skin over the organ. It hurt. It felt like he…hurt her feelings?
She needed something to take her mind off the past few hours. Walking with him and listening to the cadence of his voice explaining the operations of The Mansion had soothed her Wolf in a way she had never felt before, almost as if the constant wariness her Wolf kept awake at the back of her mind had settled. She could relax in his presence; her Wolf knew he would protect them. He made them feel safe.
Then they had sparred and oh, holy hell the man could move. Rhiannon was wrong in her assumption. Cymbeline was very much not a virgin. In fact, sex was the most humane and normal thing she did on a regular basis. Her trainers had instructed her of places she could go to quench that need after she came of age. Weres were tactile creatures, and while she was comfortable living in solitude, the need for sex would build fairly quickly for her. Her trainers noticed her concentration waning often when she hit puberty and deduced what the problem was. Cymbeline’s sex drive was off the charts, a side effect of what made her an Incendiary apparently.
I wonder if Kerrick would appreciate that tidbit of information, she thought with a self-satisfied smile, knowing it would, without a doubt, drive him up the wall.
But he’d probably be horrified to learn that a female trainer, someone her guardians thought she would be comfortable with, had taught her various ways to masturbate when Cymbeline was just a teen. It was all very clinical and Cymbeline had even taken notes on the various sex toys and methods. Lust wasn’t anything Cymbeline was unfamiliar with. The first time she had taken her hand to her sex, she had exploded, the sensation nothing like she had ever felt before not dissimilar from the emotions rolling around her heart now. Although, she noted, the masturbation was far more pleasurable than the current ache in her chest.
Once she realized orgasms helped her concentration, she waited only until she was seventeen and requested her trainers find someone to take her virginity so she could further improve her focus. Sex. Masturbation. Lust. It was all for the completion of her purpose in life. At least that is what she told herself. A way to tame the monster her trainers always warned her about, a monster she possessed as a human, before her Turn into a Wolf.
Today, on that mat with Kerrick, watching the sweat drip down his hard body and feeling his tongue on her breast, there was no way to lie to herself and make up an excuse for her reaction. She had not stopped him because she did not want him to stop. He was magnificent. His body was sheer power and hers was a ball of fiery lust, ignited by his proximity alone. It was deplorable. It was sexy as hell.
And then she heard what that Vryk had done…Mara. She was familiar with the Vryk Mara. She’d even met and spoken with her on a few occasions after or during her dealings with Carter whenever she was on the West Coast, a fact she thought best to keep from Kerrick. Mara had seemed innocuous enough at the time, a bit eccentric but she was over a thousand years old, eccentricities were to be expected. This atrocity she committed was beyond eccentricity, it was a declaration of war, and Kerrick could not leave it unanswered.
Cymbeline had been confused after he had cut off the surge of lust so quickly to answer the phone. She had not known h
ow to react and Kerrick had looked at her so strangely while he was speaking with Rhiannon as though he was angry with her. And then she heard him call her the Incendiary. Said he would use her to hunt someone. Up until that point he’d never asked what she could do for him as the Incendiary, he’d only treated her as a normal shifter and not as a weapon.
Yes. That was what had upset her. He had treated her as she had been demanding to be treated since her arrival. He treated her like the tool she was supposed to be. Not like his potential mate. There was an obvious reason why that would upset her but she refused to examine it at that particular moment.
“Enough,” she mumbled to herself, looking around the room for a distraction. She hated watching TV but saw a bookcase in the corner. It was very well organized and about two shelves at the base were dedicated to what looked like comic books. She grabbed one at random. It was wrapped in plastic so she put that one back, thinking if Kerrick had not yet opened it, he would probably want to be the first to do so.
She pulled another, one that appeared worn from use. It was an anime. She had never heard the name before but decided if Kerrick could enjoy comics, she probably could too. She settled on the floor, leaning back against the wall closest to the bookcase and began to read, trying with all her might to forget the feelings Kerrick stirred within her.
Countless issues later, she looked up to see that some hours had passed and the sun had long since set. Cymbeline decided to go for a short walk since sleep did not seem like something on the schedule that night, her mind continuously replaying images of the past couple of days.
Leaving the room, she noticed an open patio area through some French doors at the end of the hall. Cymbeline took a deep breath as she stepped onto a balcony overlooking the front lawn, her Wolf enjoying the warm evening breeze. She placed her hands on the concrete railing and looked over the serene property. It truly was a beautiful place. The thought of something happening to this quiet haven during the coming conflict with the Vryks disturbed her, left her curiously unsettled and worried. She wanted to do something to help but nobody here trusted her. Maybe playing with those guards when she arrived had been a bit hasty.
She took another deep breath and a familiar scent dropped her heart like a bomb from her chest into her stomach. Within a second of scenting him, Kerrick swung onto the balcony. He must have jumped from the lawn—a twenty-foot jump—and he looked positively wild. His Beast was in full control.
He crouched on the stone balcony like some great muscle-bound gargoyle. His spine curved as he positioned his bare-chested body for a pounce, his muscles tensing. Cimby balanced her stance and hooked her fingers into claws, preparing to fight him for all she was worth if that was what he was here for. The intensity of his gaze increased, but he didn’t pounce. He stood, his black hair flying in the wind, his body silhouetted against the light from the moon, and jumped from the ledge onto the stone patio.
The Alphar stared her down silently, his eyes glowing as they had the previous night. Cymbeline wasn’t cowed by his grandstanding, she stared right back, unwilling to back down. With each passing moment his power and strength reached out and beckoned her to him, aligning with her own power. Her Wolf felt the call of his Beast, their spirits joining in the song of a mating that promised her the world.
It pissed her off.
It was a false promise that could never happen. She was a necessary evil when it came to the Were societal structure, and mating, something that was based purely on need and love, emotions, would interfere with her ability to do that job.
“It’s not happening,” she whispered, fighting her need for him with every ounce of willpower her Wolf had not yet conquered. He moved closer, stalking her.
“I can feel your Wolf crying out for me. Why do you deny yourself? Why do you deny me?” He growled on some sort of sub-vocal level that she knew only she could hear. It was enticing, she wanted to roll around in the sound while wrapping her legs around his waist, hold him to her core.
“It can’t happen.” Cymbeline shook her head, standing her ground. She refused to be brought to her knees by this man, no matter if he was the Alphar. To her dismay, the sheer power of her attraction for him seemed to win out as he took away her choices for the moment.
The Alphar grabbed her ass and lifted so her groin was rubbing against him, the fantasy of wrapping her legs around his waist becoming reality. She would not fight him as he probably thought she would. She would wait with well-honed patience for the perfect moment to strike instead.
He backed her up against the wall and ground his hard cock into that magical spot between her legs. She would not moan. She would not. Do not moan. Don’t— “Ah,” she cried out, somewhere between a moan and a growl as he bent his lips to her neck and began to nibble and lick up to her jaw, his tongue trailing the ragged scar on her neck.
She combed her fingers through his silky black hair and gripped. Hard. He grunted, grinding against her core with even more force. His large hands squeezed her ass, bringing them closer.
At that moment she didn’t care that she was supposed to be fighting the mating, that it didn’t fit with who she was, with what she was. Everything inside that had been confused and twisted washed away with the fresh and pungent scent of their combined lust, mingling together to create something new and exciting. It was pure and full of passion. She wanted more of it. She needed more of it.
“I want you, Cymbeline Kendall. You need to know that. I don’t care that I’m the Alphar and you’re the Incendiary,” he said, trailing his lips across her cheek and down towards her mouth. He skimmed her lips softly, looking her in the eye. “I want nothing more than for you to accept me.” He kissed her again, their lips barely touching. She just wanted him to do it and fuck her already. Enough of this coiled tension and waiting.
“Fuck me,” she moaned, biting his lip and making him growl.
“I will.” He pulled back, nuzzling the delicate spot beneath her ear. “But not tonight.” He bit the shell of her ear then pulled away, lowering her to the floor. She could barely suck in enough air to breathe.
“What?” she hissed, fisting her hands at her sides, wanting to punch the bastard. He stopped at the French doors. She could clearly see the outline of his hard cock in his pants. Why would he not just sate it?
“I am here, damn it, saying yes. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“You want me to fuck you and trust me, baby, I want to do that. But I’m not just gonna fuck my mate when I take her for the first time. I’m going to make love to her. In order to do that, I need her to want to make love to me as well. I need her to love me.” He shook his head, looking as confounded as she felt. “And once you love me, I’ll fuck you so hard you’ll be screaming my name before I even get inside you. But not a second before that, even if it fucking kills me.” He pulled the door open and left her, aching and alone without a second glance back.
“Arrogant shit. I’ll kill him before he gets the chance.”
Chapter Eight
“Alphar.” Kerrick paused, seeing Jeremiah walking in his direction.
“Yes?” Kerrick asked impatiently. He had a videoconference scheduled with the local pack alphas, the ones closest in distance to Mara’s clan. It was imperative they keep up to date on the situation and alert of unknown Vryks around their territories. Kerrick also planned to coordinate a strike to weaken Mara in retaliation for the crimes committed against his people. The alphas of the dead shifters needed justice; their families and packs needed resolution.
And as if he didn’t have enough on his mind, his sexual frustration from his spontaneous encounter with Cymbeline the previous evening was derailing any sense of concentration he required to focus on the current state of affairs. He’d smelled her sweet scent the moment she opened that patio door and he couldn’t hold his Beast back. The tension they’d spun on the sparring mat, followed by the anger and grief learning
of his slain shifters had warped together into a crazed energy with no outlet. His Beast had taken aim and found its target, she’d just happened to be the unsuspecting victim of his maelstrom of emotions.
But he was an unquantifiable ass for treating her the way he did, then leaving her to flounder in her own stoked-up lust. If his goal was to make his mate hate him, then he was doing a damn fine job at accomplishing that task. He had just known on an intuitive level so deep, that taking her for the first time out there, against the wall…it would have convinced her to go. It would have had no staying power. He wanted her to want to stay, to want him.
“I’m going to sit out of this meeting. Aaron will update me afterwards.”
“Why?” Kerrick needed Jeremiah, his most seasoned soldier, to give his own perspective on Mara’s tactics.
“I’ve begun training the new recruits and the first few days are critical in helping them adjust to their new surroundings. However, I had an idea for today that I wanted to run by you. I would like to see how exactly the Incendiary took out the gate guards. It would give the soldiers a sense of what they may have to face as a soldier. May I ask her assistance in a short sparring session? She is a well-trained assassin, after all, sir, and she may have a few lessons to teach before they’re through.”
Kerrick didn’t like the thought of his mate surrounded by a bunch of sweaty soldiers, even if half those soldiers were female. He also didn’t think Cymbeline would be in a mood to hold back and keep her sparring on a nonlethal level. “Jeremiah.”
To Mate an Assassin: The Lost Alphars Series, Book 1 Page 11
