The musky scent of her desire mingled with the aroma of pine and earth. The sound of his fingers plunging into her body and his mouth licking, sucking, nibbling at her clit filled Nat’s ears. She wanted to scream, yell, vocalize in some way how good he felt. Instead, she grabbed his ears with her hands and held on tight. When he slipped a third finger inside, she shuddered hard, orgasm a heartbeat away.
Stas moved his mouth from her clit to lap up the juices flowing from her pussy. He felt her body tighten, knew she was close. The flavor of her lust made him hungrier than ever. He attacked her cunt, teeth and fingers and lips eating at her until her hips rolled with every touch and his palm grew slippery with her need.
At the last moment, when every muscle in her body was rigid, he leaned away from her. Nat jerked, her eyes flying open. He smiled at her frustration, before sliding his skin against hers, rubbing himself along her body as he rose over her.
“I want you to come on my cock.”
Her eyes fluttered closed and she raised her hips to him. Stas slid his palms beneath her ass and rubbed his cock along her slit. She moaned and pressed harder to him. With a sigh, he eased the head of his cock into her cunt. She rippled around him, her body clenching and releasing as he fused his body with hers.
She was hotter than before, her excitement burning him. With slow, deliberate strokes, Stas filled her. He pulled all the way out before moving deep again, watching her face contort with pleasure. Nat grabbed the back of his neck, her nails digging in. He hissed and flexed his cock. She moaned and bucked beneath him.
“Stanislov.”
“I’m with you, Natalya.”
The profundity of being in each other’s skin, of experiencing every drop of pleasure they wrung from one another, left both Nat and Stas shuddery, shaking masses. As they neared the end, his thrusts were unskilled and savage and her hands tore at his back and shoulders.
Nat’s mouth opened on a soundless scream when she came and he buried his face in her throat to muffle his groan of release. His arms crushed her to him and she held him in a death grip.
His cock didn’t soften and her body continued to cream. When the first rush of orgasm passed, he leaned down to take her breast into his mouth. Nat threw her head back, scraping her nails down his arms, shifting her legs to give her leverage to thrust herself at him.
Stas bit her nipple hard, grunting when her pussy clenched, her come matting the hair of their groins. She was full of his seed, and the erotic scent of their sex roused his beasts. Nat curled her nails into his flesh when he bit the tight bud in his mouth again, and he fought hard not to howl. His hands spanned her waist so he could increase the pace.
Nat felt the nubs rise on his cock and moaned softly. The pleasure of each bump sliding over her G-spot, and then her clit when he pulled out, was beyond amazing. She tightened her body around him, undulating the muscles, drawing a bestial cough from him. Suddenly, he jerked them upright again, his hands digging into her hips so he could make her body move as he needed. Faster and harder, Stas slammed her down onto his cock. All she could do was hold on.
Nat released his shoulder with one hand, trailing her fingers to the tiny, erect bud of one masculine nipple. Her breasts ached to be sucked, bit, teased and she wondered if his did, too. Carefully, she scored a nipple, biting her lip to hold back a cry when he shuddered hard and took his rhythm to a punishing pace. In and out, he hammered into her, letting go of her waist with one hand to lay her on her back again. She whimpered her need, unable to hold back anymore.
Stas pulled Nat’s legs from around him, kneeling between her legs and spreading them wide. His tiger’s eyes watched as his cock fucked her, the scent of her cream making his head spin. Her sex was swollen and open, the dark pink of her clit standing out against the muted hue of her labia. Stas licked his forefinger before circling the tiny knot of flesh. She convulsed beneath him, but he didn’t let up.
He carefully pinched the sensitive nub, rolled it beneath the pad of his finger, pressed it hard. She writhed, her body opening more, each contraction of her muscles pulling him deeper, taking him closer to another cataclysmic orgasm. When she reached beneath her body to dig her nails into his thighs, lightning lashed down his spine and his balls drew taut. He hammered deep into her, then froze, the force of ejaculation stilling all movement. He came so hard his lips went numb, and Natalie was right there with him. Nat’s body spasmed erratically around Stas, his name on her lips.
When the last shivery remnants passed, Stas rolled them to the side. He pulled a blanket over them and held her close. Natalie shivered, partly from cold, partly from magic. Even now, if she closed her eyes, she’d see the power tying them together.
Igborski didn’t stand a chance.
Chapter 14
Nat and Stas had watched Karl Igborski leave the lab in the early hours of the morning. His signature long, hooded cloak, which hid him from the world, was easy to identify even from their distance. Nat had felt Stas’s disappointment, but rescuing the scientists was the main objective.
“The scientists are all here, in this area.” Nat circled the place on the map where her recon had shown the humans to be.
“That’s the genetics lab.” Stas looked at his watch. “We don’t have much time. The informant said Igborski’s trip to Novokuznetsk is a short one. He’ll be back in a few hours. I want to get in and out before he returns.”
“If he shows up, it’ll make this op a huge success.”
“We aren’t waiting around for him.”
A frown creased her brow. “He’s still part of the objective.”
“I won’t put you --”
“Hey, I’m a big girl. Look, we won’t wait for him, but if he shows, we have to take him out, Stas.” She searched his face, feeling an emotion she’d rarely felt from him. Terror. “Is there something I should know?”
He glanced at her, not looking fully into her eyes. “He’s a whacko, but a powerful one. I don’t want him getting his hands on you.” He was hiding something, but they didn’t have time…
“Then we’ll have to make sure we get in and get out.” Nat pulled black leather gloves onto her hands and stood.
The Corps’s special tactical assault ensemble covered them from head to toe. The suits combined the best in human bulletproof protection with essential shielding spells and morphing technology. They were deceptively lightweight, considering the defensive arsenal each carried.
Stas looked down at his control cuff. He pressed two buttons and disappeared from her sight.
“Nice.” Nat didn’t see his smile, but she felt it. Following his lead, she cloaked herself. The only way the guards would see them was if they had infrared capabilities. Unlikely since they weren’t viper shifters.
Without fear of discovery, they moved as one from the encampment to the perimeter of the electromagnetic detection field. Her skin tingled as he called the tiger, his suit shifting with him. Then she watched, impressed, as one by one each guard fell to the invisible Stas. The first two collapsed within moments of each other, their human necks broken in absolute silence.
The third managed a bark before Stas could take him down. Natalie watched, heart in throat, fighting to control her magic, as the fourth guard took on wolf-man form. He couldn’t see Stas, but he could sense him. The scene was surreal, watching the wolf fight an unseen adversary.
The guard seemed to have gained the upper hand. She sensed Stas was hurt, bad. When the wolf pulled his arm up, razor sharp talons glinting in the moonlight, Nat shouted a warning, breaking her cover. “Look out!”
The wolf turned at the sound of her voice and Stas attacked, ending the battle with a savage wrench of his clawed hand into the belly of the guard. As soon as the sentry hit the ground, Nat bolted around the sensors to Stas’s side.
“How bad is it?” She found his control cuff by feel and Stas appeared before her, bloody and wounded.
“Shut off the alarm, then heal me.” Nat cursed under her breath, but obe
yed. She dashed to the vehicle the sentries had hidden beneath a camouflage tarp. Once inside, it was disgustingly simple to disarm the perimeter. She charged back to Stas.
“Open the suit so I can get at the wounds.” He groaned in pain as he unzipped the suit. The fourth sentry had busted several ribs, one of them puncturing his lung.
“Damn suits are worthless against shifters.”
“Better than nothing. Anyway, they offer solid protection against magic and man. You fuckers are just too damned strong.”
He tried to scowl at her remark, but it came out as a wince.
Once she’d assessed the damage, Nat focused her energy inward. Stas’s body had already begun to heal the smaller wounds, but it would take too long for him to regenerate naturally. She needed to speed things up.
She closed her eyes as a punch of heat filled her belly. She concentrated on building the healing fire and fixing him. Nat placed her hands on Stas’s abdomen and plunged her magic into him. With her inner eye, she quickly repaired the broken bones and lung, mending blood vessels along the way.
Stas felt a little queasy, like he did every time he’d needed a healer. “Damn, I never get used to that.” Stas groaned when she pulled back from him, his skin unmarred, his body healed. He stood and once more disappeared.
“It’s weird from my end, too. Come on, let’s go before someone notices the big bad wolves haven’t checked in.”
Stas made short work of the reinforced steel door at the entrance. A little creative hot wiring of the code panel and a solid kick was all it took. Once inside, he punched another button on the cuff, activating the infrared visor.
Nat switched her infrared visor on and scanned the area. With the visor active, she could see him clearly beside her, in tones of red, white, and blue. She gave him a thumbs up and he responded in kind.
Silent and efficient, they slipped down corridor after corridor, stopping briefly to check the map. It took less than ten minutes to shut down the perimeter and gain entry. It took nearly thirty to wind their way through the maze of Igborski’s lab. When they reached the door to the lab, Stas held his hand up. “I’m calling Black. There’s no way we can get the seven of them back out undetected. Get ready for a breach.”
Nat called magic, drawing it from deep beneath the earth, from the air far above them, from the water she sensed flowing just under their feet. She drew it into herself, holding it, building it.
Stas watched Nat prepare herself before punching in the code that would bring reinforcements. When the affirmative response lit up on his cuff, he looked at Nat again. “Ready?”
She pursed her lips at him.
Stas overrode the security panel. Two partially shifted tigers stood guard at the door with AK-47s at the ready. Thankfully, she and Stas were cloaked. Talk about overkill. Nat grabbed the shifter closest to her. Letting loose some of her power, she jolted him with enough electricity to fry an elephant. The beast fell to the ground with convulsive shudders. When he stopped twitching, smoke curled from his ears and hair, the smell of charcoaled flesh overpowering.
While she’d been electrocuting one, Stas deftly handled number two. They split off from each other, making their way through the lab, verifying that no other surprises awaited them.
“Here,” Nat softly called to Stas.
The scientists were huddled together inside a tiny, level four bio-containment cell. The thick plastic walls glinted with black magic. Nat opened her sight, getting a clear look at the spells encasing the cell. “Bullet and shifter proof. Damn, someone needs to get a piece of this back to HQ.” Stas nodded.
Natalie did her best to check the scientists from outside their chamber. Two of them were lying on the floor, looking lifeless and cold, blue tingeing their mouths. The rest of them had bruises and looked half starved, but otherwise they seemed all right. Nat turned off her visor.
“Move back.” The scientists gasped and one screamed when Stas uncloaked. From around his neck he produced a keycard. The cell door opened, and the spells withdrew from the opening. Nat shoved past him, revealing herself as she moved, to get at the downed scientists.
“We’re here to help, so please just get out of the way and let her work.” Stas did his best to give them reassuring looks and sounds, but most of them appeared seriously shell shocked. An older man moved from the back of the group.
“I’m Dr. Anderson. I don’t know who you are, but thank you.”
“Don’t worry, Doctor, backup’s on its way. We’ll have you out of here in no time. What happened to them?”
“I… I don’t know. They refused to cooperate and Igborski injected them with something. They’ve been having convulsions, terribly high fevers, and vomiting ever since. And until this morning, every moment they were awake they screamed, horrible, awful screams of agony.” The doctor covered his mouth with shaking hands.
A soft beep sounded from Stas’s cuff. “They’ve made entry, but it looks like we’ve been detected. They have company.”
Natalie sat back on her heels. “I’ve done what I can to stabilize them, but I need more time to heal them fully. Whatever he did, it’s genetic.” Stas didn’t react to her words, but dread jolted his system.
Natalie looked at him hard and for the first time, Stas suspected she knew what he felt. Helluva time to realize she’s empathic, bub. He tried to crush his emotions. Nat frowned and shook her head before rising.
Nat couldn’t believe Stas was trying to hide his feelings from her now. For all the good it would do him. She opened her arms, closed her eyes, and linked herself with the earth. The ground shook as she called upon the most destructive element to swallow up this place of obscenity.
“We’ve got about fifteen minutes before the earth tears this place apart.”
Stas lifted the damaged scientists to his shoulders while Nat ushered the other five out of the cell. Joshua Black was waiting for them at the lab door, five Guardians at his back.
The earth trembled harder, sending huge chunks of plaster and steel crashing down around them. Roots, vines, and stone burst through the floor and ceiling.
“Your work?” He jerked his head at Nat.
She smiled. “Who else? These two need to be medevaced. They should live until we get them to the base in Moscow, but you better call in some healers. Their DNA’s fucked.”
Joshua grimaced. He motioned two of his men to take Stas’s burdens. The facility shook again, harder this time, sending Nat to her knees.
“Go! Get the hell out of here!” Joshua and his team took off and Stas helped Nat to her feet. “Jesus, next time, no earthquakes.” She started to laugh, but the sight of a clawed hand coming around Stas’s neck turned the sound to a scream.
“Behind you!”
It was too late. Natalie couldn’t see who or what had a hold of Stas, but she didn’t miss the syringe that plunged into his neck.
“Stanislov!”
Chapter 15
Stas released Natalie and threw himself back at his attacker. She screamed an instant before blistering pain engulfed his body. He tried to ignore the pain, but it contracted every muscle in his body. He collapsed to the floor, unable to unbend himself, his mind whirling, trying to understand what was happening, while his body tried to rend itself apart.
“Get away from him!”
The building shook and lightning arced through the room. Through his torment, Stas tried to tell Nat to run, to leave him behind. But he was helpless, caught in the throes of inhuman suffering. Something was inside of him, something foreign.
“So, my grandson found himself a mage. I can work with that.”
Natalie stumbled when she got a good look at the bearer of the gravelly, bass voice. It had been a man once. Patches of fur and scales covered the thing’s head and upper body, showing at least five completely unrelated species.
The whole of the figure was ill formed. One arm hung longer than the other, both legs bowed severely and a long tail reminiscent of a bird’s swished through
the air. Its face was revolting. One eye was large and spherical, the other small and football-shaped. The mouth hung open, the jaw misaligned due to the two tusks and massive teeth bursting from every direction.
“Igborski?” Nat hesitated, holding back her magic. If this was the lunatic, the things he’d done to himself… She felt nauseated. She had to be sure. If this was one of his experiments, Nat didn’t know if she could kill a victim.
“Who else?” Stanislov bellowed in rage and Natalie turned her head to look at him. She shouldn’t have taken her eyes from Igborski.
Malformed or not, Karl Igborski had preternatural speed. He grabbed Natalie by the throat, lifting her off the floor. She lashed out at him, a tree root whipping through the air and slamming into his back, but he hardly noticed.
“The only way to stop a mage is to kill them. Too bad.” He tightened his clawed fist around her windpipe. Nat lashed out with her feet and hands, tearing at his face. One thumb plunged into his eye, the sickening pop and gush of fluid preceding a malevolent roar. “Bitch!”
Natalie couldn’t stop it. He hurtled her through the air, just as part of the ceiling collapsed with another powerful tremor. She hit the wall, felt ribs break, screamed in pain when she slammed to the floor only to be crushed beneath the weight of falling debris. Blood filled her lungs, and Nat’s vision blurred.
The earth stopped moving.
* * *
Stanislov watched in horror as Natalie plummeted to the ground. When part of the ceiling fell onto her motionless body, his soul shattered. Oh, God! The pain ripping through him paralyzed him, incapacitating him. When the earth stilled sharply, Stanislov knew he’d lost her.
NO! The silent scream ripped through his mind, but his body was useless to him. Every limb knotted, the muscles twisted as he tried to adjust to the demon his grandfather unleashed upon him. Inside of Stas, a war raged. The wolf and the tiger were fighting with everything they had to subdue the enemy Igborski’s syringe held: a Kodiak.
Pret Ops: Familiar Page 7
