by Alison Aimes
“Who is the pack male out looking for you?” He gave her no more warning. His legs widened beneath her, spreading her own.
The cool air caressed her slick center.
She bit back a moan.
His pupils shrank to pinpricks, making her need flame higher.
He liked touching her. Maybe almost as much as she liked his hands on her. For someone who had always been despised and ostracized, it was a heady sensation.
She wondered if he felt as empty as she did when he pulled his touch away?
Her skin flushed pinkish gold at the thought of another commonality between them.
“Tell me his name.”
She expected his demand to be followed by the slide of his rough hand against her skin. Instead, he stroked her hair. His thick fingers gliding through the strands, caretaking, grooming.
The tenderness of the gesture was so shocking, she spoke without thinking. “Ramm. His name is Ramm.”
“Why were you surprised he would be looking for you?”
Her heart slammed harder against her ribs. How had he picked up on that?
But the slow, gentle stroke of his palm against her scalp soothed her once more, each slight tug of his fingers through her hair sending a sizzle of wonder humming down her spine.
She knew he did it on purpose. She knew he sensed her weakness and used it against her. It didn’t matter. Unable to help herself, she leaned into his touch.
She felt pampered. Hunters groomed their pets, but she had never seen one do such things for a mate. They should. It was wonderful.
Pleasure shimmered from her scalp down to her fingertips. “N-none from pack supposed to be this deep in Other territory.”
“Except you.” His fingers were featherlight, his thumb circling her scalp slowly, as if he had all the time in the universe. Her breasts grew heavy. Her nipples hard. A low moan rose in her throat.
He hadn’t even touched her anywhere but her hair, and yet the fire was back again.
It was another revelation. His dark magic more potent and all-encompassing than she had ever imagined.
She had no way to guard against it. Ancients help her, but she wanted it to go on forever.
“Is that related to why you have no name and are untouched?” He never ceased his slow strokes.
“Y-yes.” She fought not to lift her hips. “I tell you before. I Gazi.”
“Explain.” The hand that had been pinning her wrists to her belly snaked behind her neck, gripping her easily. But instead of using it to force her mouth to his shaft, he simply pressed his strong fingers into the tendons and worked the tense muscles between this thumb and finger.
She let out a soft sigh, her body melting deeper into his hands.
Her captor let out a low groan, as if he was the one being touched. “Nayla…yes, open to me. Just like that. Dragath hells, you’re so damn beautiful. Your surrender so damn sweet.”
The white-hot pleasure inside her flared higher. Beautiful. No one had ever called her that before.
“Tell me, Nayla.” His demands were as relentless as his touches. “Tell me why you’re Gazi.”
Her neck lolled forward under the force of his soothing touch. “My father like you. An Other.”
“He was one of my kind?”
“Mmmm.” The pleasure of his touches kept growing, as addictive as his attention. “That…that is why I am Gazi. I not pure pack. That why my fangs tiny. Why ears small, my ridges slight, my skin strange color. I not like my people or yours. I defect—”
His grip on her neck tightened. “Don’t even finish that sentence.” His hold loosened, his fingers dancing across her neck and shoulders once more, kneading the muscles. “You may be a mix, but it doesn’t make you defective. It makes you…extraordinary.”
Her heart fluttered.
He allowed her no quarter. “So, because you’re a mix, you get treated differently than the others in your pack?”
“Y-yes. I alone sent into Other territory. Rest of pack too important to risk.”
A low growl ran through him. She wasn’t sure why.
“Is this Ramm someone special?” His tone was deceptively casual, though his hand never stopped its slow, rhythmic assault.
“To pack?” She hadn’t expected his line of questioning to go this route. Still, it was true that Ramm was one of the most revered hunters after Talg.
“No, not to pack,” he rasped. “To you? Does he have a claim on you?”
She shook her head, the hunger and heat stealing her thoughts.
“Words, Nayla.” He squeezed the back of her neck again.
She swallowed a moan, that forceful rebuke only adding to the fire slowly winding its way through her veins. “No. No claim. He is to be mated to Deshi.”
To have her captor ask such a thing about Ramm showed how little he knew. Such a thing was forbidden. A warrior like Ramm could never pollute his line with a Gazi. Even if…sometimes it had almost looked like longing in Ramm’s gaze when he looked at her, but she suspected she’d just confused pity with her own secret wishes. “He no interest in me.”
For once, she didn’t care. Because traitorous, dangerous thoughts were creeping into her brain. Like how, because of Talg’s rules, Ramm would never dare to hold her like this. How no hunter from her pack would ever give her a name or show her what her body could feel.
She tried to staunch the disloyalty, but like the fire beneath her skin, the alarming thoughts spread.
“I can read body language, Nayla, and you’re wrong. He wants you back, bad.” Her captor’s hold tightened. “It doesn’t matter. He won’t find you. You’re mine.”
Surprise exploded through her. “I not yours. Or his. I Gazi. Cursed.” A shred of reason returned, slicing through the slow haze of pleasure. He was confusing her. Trying to make her believe she could belong to someone and have them belong to her.
That could not be. Even if Talg’s prediction that touching her would lead to a horrific death had proven untrue, it did not change her tainted origins. “My ending always the same. To die alone.”
“Bullshit.” Her captor’s hand tangled in her hair, but this time it wasn’t gentle. He dragged her face upward until their noses nearly touched. “You’re not dying.”
Her emotions shot from lust to anger. Did he think her a fool? “I know my ending.” Her chin lifted. “Either you or pack kill me. Outcome same. I protect pack anyway. I prove my worth.” Her gaze dropped to the big hand now pressed to her thigh. “No matter what you do to me. You can’t save me. I already doomed.”
His nostrils flared. He didn’t like her answer. Too bad.
“Enough.” His single word was a low, menacing growl. “This session’s over.”
Rising abruptly, he came to his feet with her cradled in his arms, as if her weight were nothing. He stalked across the cave.
Heart slamming hard against her ribs, her body still on fire from his earlier touches, she could do no more than stare up at him.
She didn’t understand him or his strange Other behavior. He asked for the truth, but her honesty angered him more.
Her feet landed on the blanket.
“I’ll get you some more food. I expect you to eat every bit.” He crouched, snapping a single manacle around her ankle before standing up and turning away—only to whirl back around, his hands gripping her upper arms. “You have worth, Nayla. You shouldn’t have to trade in other people to prove it. Or to gain a damn name. You’re extraordinary just as you are.”
Shocked, she could only stare as he disappeared down a side corridor she hadn’t noticed before.
No one had ever said anything like that to her before.
Ancients help her, but, false or not, she was coming to crave her enemy’s words as much as his touch.
14
The instant Grif made it into the second cavern, he pulled his dick from beneath his covering and leaned back against the rocky wall.
So fucking much for business as usual. Rough or gentl
e, touching Nayla was pure heaven and sheer hells. The way she responded to him was like nothing he’d ever experienced before, and everything he secretly craved.
Sweat pooled at his back. The steam from the natural springs that made this such a perfect bathing area made it less than ideal for overheated skin. He didn’t give two fucks.
Hand wrapped around his cock, he squeezed tight, his strokes jerky and rough, spreading the sweet, wild scent of Nayla’s arousal onto the length of his shaft.
Making it as slippery and wet as her needy cunt. Making it easier for her hungry little honey-colored pussy to take.
Just the image sent pre-cum spurting onto his fist.
He’d been determined to bring things to a close and use her need against her. Instead, she’d landed on his lap, all sweet smells and soft skin, squirming and panting beneath his touch and all he could think of was that this was new to her. All he could think of was showing her just how good it could be. All he could think of was that fanged fucker Ramm holding her just like he was.
Then, she’d suggested the pack wouldn’t care what happened to her and shoved his attempt to make her into a victim back in his face.
He didn’t do well with blurred lines. Or the weight on his chest that seemed to only get heavier with everything he learned about her.
Where was his usual control? Dragath hells. It was supposed to be her who ended up flayed wide, but he was the one getting twisted up inside.
She said he couldn’t save her. That she was doomed. A few rotations past, he would have cheerfully agreed and helped to further the process along. Not anymore.
His skull clocked the wall behind him, his cock swelling as his eyes closed and he saw her. Her body ripe and ready, those firm, slender thighs still smeared with flecks of golden paint that made her silken skin glow. That naked look of need in her iridescent gaze. The adorable ears twitching. Her purposeful defiance. The way she melted into his touch, as if she could never get enough.
Hells, he’d wanted to cuddle her like that forever.
He worked his hand faster.
Fully human or not, there was something about Nayla that slipped beneath his wall. That found the cracks he hadn’t even known were there, and made him feel. The honesty of her body’s responses addictive and irresistible.
The unexpected flashes of awe playing across her face when he touched her almost cut him off at his knees. When he laid his hands on her she looked…surprised. Amazed. As if the way he touched her was not just a torment, but a revelation.
As if, together, they could fix whatever the hells was broken inside them both.
His hand pumped faster. His jaw clenched. His body bowed. His balls cinched up tight. Seed spurted in thick white ropey waves from his dick as brutal pleasure slammed through him.
The back of his head smacked the wall once more. He barely noticed.
He fought to catch his breath, his hand slowing as his death grip loosened and his dick finally softened to half-mast.
Reason returned as his cum washed away, carried off in the trickling stream that snaked through the cavern floor.
If only he could wipe away his fucked-up reactions so easily.
Crouching down, he wiped himself clean in the spring. He splashed his chest and neck, too, because despite the jerk session and the water, he was already semihard again at the thought of returning to her. If things kept on like this, he’d be jacking off until his dick was raw and chapped.
He splashed more water on himself and conjured up the faces of his worried teammates, Melody’s and Hope’s anguished eyes, the commander’s stern visage.
Then, though he didn’t do it often because it hurt too fucking much, he allowed himself to see the image of bright green eyes so close to his own, a potent reminder of the first female he’d been unable to save.
It wasn’t just about the second-in-command position. Losing control, blurring lines, altering course, could endanger everything he’d fought and clawed to become since his sister’s death. He was ruthless because he got the job done. Because someone needed to be the damn monster who understood the dark and the ugly and was willing to do whatever it took to save the innocents, even if it stained him beyond repair.
He could not desert them now just because one female was confusing the hells out of him.
He cracked his neck one way, then the other. Calmer now. His dick no longer a thick rod against his thigh.
He had to bring those missing females home no matter the cost. To Nayla, or to himself.
It was time to take the next step.
15
“Where we go?” Nayla’s breath came in pants.
Grif had come back, his expression as hard and lethal as when he’d first captured her. None of the earlier gentleness visible anymore.
Without a word, he’d drawn her to standing by her bound wrists, slipped a lead rope around them, unsnapped her ankle restraints, and led her deeper into the tunnel, his long strides forcing her to hurry to keep up.
Was this the end? Had he finally understood that he would get no useful information out of her and now he intended to send her to the Void?
It should not come as a surprise, but it did. Especially since their last exchange had been so…extraordinary. She’d been turning his shocking words over in her mind. The way they made her stomach flutter as taboo and exhilarating as the heat between her thighs.
Now she felt like a fool.
“Where you take me?” With every step, the dark tunnel grew hotter and more humid, water droplets forming on her skin and rolling down her back.
“Anywhere I want.” He sounded so cold and angry. She didn’t understand the change or why the sharpness of the words cut into her chest as if they were actual knives.
They rounded the next bend in the tunnel and their destination appeared.
A natural spring. The source of the churning water she’d heard before. The pinkish color bubbled and swirled, suggesting the water was safe, clean, and hot. Under any other circumstances, she would have rushed in. But not like this. Not with her hands bound.
“N-no.”
Grif raised an eyebrow. “Yes. We both need this before your next session. We need to get clean.”
You need to be cleansed. The memories hit hard.
Rearing back, she dug in her heels. “No.”
His gaze narrowed. “I’m tired of hearing those words from that pretty mouth. If you don’t know how to swim, I’ll hold you.”
You will be held down. She would not go through that terrifying sensation again.
She screamed, a primal sound of pain and rage and betrayal. She flew at him, shoving him over the edge of the pool.
She expected him to let the rope go. Instead, he held on tight, their gazes locked as he toppled, her flare of triumph vanishing as her eyes went wide.
He crashed into the pool.
Dragged by the rope, she followed, wrists first, then her head.
Panic shot through her, the past and present colliding as water bubbles erupted everywhere. She’d failed and now he would hold her down until she passed out.
His nice words meant nothing. In the end, the outcome was the same.
She thrashed. Flailed. Her bound wrists made gaining leverage impossible. The squeezing in her lungs as terrifying as she remembered.
An arm banded around her waist and pulled her upward.
She gasped, wheezing hard as her head broke the surface, water sluicing down her cheeks, flattening her hair to her temples.
“Shh, wild thing. I’ve got you. It’s okay.”
But it wasn’t. He would send her back under. Keep her down. The cleansings were always her worst punishment.
“In and out. Slow and easy.” Warm heat seared into her back as she was lifted and slammed against a wide chest.
Without thought, she followed his command, breathing in time with the steady rise of the muscled chest at her back.
“Good girl. Just like that.” He shifted her in his hold, the wat
er lapping at her neck as he held her closer.
Another long breath. Her heart calmed. She knew it couldn’t last, but she did her best to sear the sensation into her soul.
“Better?” His low baritone rumbled in her ear.
Reluctantly, she nodded. She would endure this, too. She always did.
“Good.” He let out a slow breath. “You scared the shit out of me.”
Panic gone, she took full stock of her current situation, especially the thick, veiny forearm curled beneath her breastbone that could crush her with one strike, and the rock-hard male part jabbing into the curve of her bottom.
She attempted to shift away. Talg was always roughest inside her right before he punished her.
Her captor only held her tighter. “Stay still.”
“W-what happen now?” Her voice quivered more than she wanted. She was glad she couldn’t see his face. “How long I under for cleansing?”
He didn’t say anything.
Icey dread pooled in the pit of her belly. “P-please tell.”
He flipped her around so that they were face-to-face, her legs straddling his hips.
“What did you think was going to happen here?” The water had darkened his hair to near black, droplets beading on his long, spiky lashes, making his green eyes even more intense. “Did you think I was going to hold you under?”
She tried to understand what he was up to.
“What happened to you, Nayla?” His tone was even harder than before.
She stiffened. “W-what you mean?”
“Did someone hold you under the water? Ramm or Talg?”
She didn’t want to think about the past. All she wanted was to know what was coming so she could brace herself for the pain. “What you going to do?”
She’d threatened him. Resisted. Fought back. If she’d done that to Talg, she’d already be dead. Or worse.
“Answer my question.” Another droplet rolled down the straight blade of his nose, over the dip between his lips. He was so fierce. The hard press of his man part nestling into the V of her legs, as insistent and huge as the man himself. “Did one of them hurt you? Is that why you’re afraid of the water?”
