She cried out and he thrust his fingers deeper, ripping a second moan from her lips. She clutched the covers, her claws tearing into the material as she rocked against his face, too lost now to control herself. Release came upon her in a brutal wave, battering her and sweeping her away, sending white-hot shivers blazing down her legs and up her torso as she convulsed against Owen’s wicked mouth and cried his name.
His movements slowed, fingers pumping at a leisurely pace as he kissed her between her thighs, bringing her down from her high but not releasing her. She was too sated to move, her bones liquid beneath her skin. She lay at his mercy, hazy and high.
Arousal began another slow build within her as the haze of her first climax subsided, Owen’s fingers working their magic as he coaxed her and teased her. Each sweep of his lips across her sensitive nub had her shivering with aftershocks of pleasure. Each one had her steadily soaring towards her next release.
When she gave in to the urge to rock on his fingers again, he withdrew them from her and placed one last kiss to her mound before rising over her. The wicked hunger in his dark green gaze stole her breath away and she had to fight for air as he claimed her hips and pulled her closer to him, dragging her across the bed.
She twined her fingers in her black hair, keeping her gaze locked on his, her legs spread and welcoming him. She wanted him inside her now, his long length filling her, bringing her to another shattering release.
His eyes darkened further and he dropped them to her body, running them down the length of her to her hips. She moaned when he fisted his cock, stroking it hard, revealing the moisture-tipped crown. She reached for him, wanting to run her hand down his length and brush her fingers through his dark curls to cup his balls.
Owen met her hand with his, pressed the tips of their fingers together, and then slid his between hers, closing them over the back of her hand. He locked their hands together and leaned forwards, coming to pin her hand beside her shoulder and bringing his face above hers.
He stared down at her, the intensity in his gaze thrilling her, stirring her need for him to dazzling heights.
He took hold of her free hand and she thought he meant to pin that too, but he surprised her by bringing it down between them and settling it around his shaft. He curled his hand over hers and moved it on him, giving the act of stroking him a new highly arousing state. She liked how he guided her, gripping her hand tightly, making her touch him.
“Cait,” he breathed, his eyes fluttering closed, and she knew what he needed.
She eased him downwards and he did as she instructed, shifting his hips back and down, bringing them closer. She ran the head of his length between her wet folds and he groaned, the husky sound of it eliciting one of her own. She would never tire of hearing Owen’s pleasure as they came together.
He released her hand and planted his onto the mattress beside her hip, holding himself off her as she guided him downwards. The head of him nudged into her sheath and he swallowed hard, opened his eyes and stared down into hers as she took her hand away. He eased into her, slowly and steadily, drawing out the union. When he was fully sheathed, he clutched her hand and pinned it in the same way as her other one, and began moving inside her.
Each long slow withdraw and deep unhurried thrust had her clutching his hands, pressing her black claws into the backs of them. He claimed her lips with a soft kiss that left her feeling he was stealing more than her breath from her.
He was stealing her heart.
She had expected hot and fierce, as they had been during their first time. This slow, passionate moment building between them was too much for her, stripping away all of her defences and leaving her bare. She kissed him back, mirroring his softness and tenderness, lost in how good it felt to have him slowly filling her, reaching every part of her and leaving all of her touched by this moment with him.
She moaned in time with him as he began to quicken the pace, his hips flexing and driving him deeper. The feel of his powerful body against hers tore another moan from her lips, making her want to run her hands over him and feel how each muscle bunched and flexed as he made love with her.
His kiss grew heated, his tongue demanding entrance that she granted. She eagerly tackled it with her own, stroking the length of his tongue and eliciting a groan from him. He moved deeper and harder, his tempo increasing as the heat within her built back towards a crescendo, each long drive of his cock sending her soaring higher.
“Owen,” she murmured against his lips and he grunted, released one of her hands and gave her what she desired, as if he could sense it inside her, knew her so well already that he could read her needs.
He clutched her hip and thrust harder, and she drifted her hand over his shoulder, moaning as she kissed him and felt his muscles shifting beneath her palm, each powerful flex of his body thrilling her.
“Cait,” he whispered and grunted as he pressed his forehead against hers and then shifted to one side.
His breath was hot on her throat as he rocked into her, his skin slick with sweat beneath her hand. She moaned and he tightened his grip on her other hand, digging his fingertips into her. His other hand held her hip, pinning her in place as he moved inside her, each powerful thrust rocking her.
She opened her eyes and pressed the side of her head against his, moaning as he dropped his mouth to her throat and kissed it.
Need blazed through her, hot and fierce, burning away everything and leaving only instinct behind.
That powerful need beat in her blood and drummed in her heart, pounding in her head until she was a slave to it, unable to deny it any longer even when a tiny sliver of her knew that she had to stop herself.
She couldn’t.
As Owen plunged deep into her, his lips devouring her throat, she surrendered to that dark and consuming need.
She plunged her fangs into the left curve of his neck.
Owen lifted his head and cried out, his body shuddering against hers as she sank her fangs deeper. Her entire body quaked as the first drops of his blood hit her tongue and she came alive as she swallowed the coppery potent liquid flowing into her mouth. Fire and lightning blazed through her veins and she gave a muffled cry as Owen grunted, thrust deep into her and came, her own release chasing his as he spilled inside her, his length throbbing and his body trembling violently.
Heat shimmered through her and bliss rode in its wake, a heady and intoxicating high that left her shaking all over.
Owen sagged against her.
The heat inside her turned as cold as ice and her ecstasy became agony as what she had done dawned on her.
She wrenched her fangs from his throat and quickly licked the twin puncture marks, a ridiculous part of her believing that it would somehow fix the mess she had made.
It wouldn’t.
What had she done?
He would never forgive her.
He would never love her.
He would hate her.
Because she had just sentenced him to an agonising death.
CHAPTER 10
Cait rolled Owen off her, grasped his shoulders and looked down at him. Unconscious. Gods help her. She shook him, silently begging him to wake up and make this nightmare go away. Crimson trailed down from the twin puncture wounds on the left side of his throat, taunting her with reality.
She had bitten him.
“Owen.” She shook him harder, tears burning the backs of her eyes as she willed him to respond.
He didn’t.
She smoothed her hand across his brow, grimacing as she felt how hot he was already, burning up because of her.
Tears lined her lashes and her eyebrows furrowed as she stroked his paling cheek, fear filling her heart and regret tearing her to pieces inside.
“Please, Owen,” she murmured but he still didn’t move.
What had she done?
She should have fought harder for control. She should have remained aware of just how dangerous her bite was.
Hellcats w
ere one of a handful of shifter species who could transmit their abilities to another via blood. Mortals bitten by her kind rarely survived the transition.
A single bite had doomed Owen to death.
She screwed her eyes shut and refused to believe that, unwilling to throw in the towel without a fight. She had done this and she would help him through it somehow, although she wasn’t sure how he would react if she did manage to bring him to a point where he regained consciousness.
There was no way of reversing what she had done.
If he survived the assault on his body, the stress of the monumental changes he was about to go through, he would become a hellcat like her.
He had thought her beautiful in her hellcat form, but that hardly meant he had any desire to be one himself.
She pressed her hand against his brow again. It was damp and hot beneath her palm. She needed to get his temperature down somehow.
She shoved off the bed and rushed to the closed door in the wall to the left of the door that led to the living room. She pushed it open and scanned the small bathroom, spotted a hand towel near the white basin, and hurried to wet it under the cold tap. When it was soaked, she wrung it out and raced back to Owen.
Cait kneeled on the bed beside him, rolled the white towel up and placed it across his brow.
She sat back and stared down at him, unsure what else she could do. She had no experience of looking after others and she wasn’t sure it would even help. If she was going to save Owen’s life, then she needed to find out how other mortals had survived the transition.
She needed help.
Owen suddenly writhed on the bed, kicking at the covers and groaning. She pinned his shoulders to the bed to stop him and silently apologised again when he fought her. Sweat dotted his bare chest and his face. His breathing turned ragged, too fast and shallow for her liking.
She had to do something.
The sound of the front door opening had her rapidly tugging the covers over Owen’s lower half and springing from the bed. She rushed to the bedroom door to find his cousin standing in the living room.
“The coast is clear again so you can move about. I brought you some clothes.” Julianna turned to face her, raising a plastic bag at the same time. Her arm fell when she set eyes on Cait. “What happened?”
Was it that obvious that something had gone terribly wrong?
Cait touched her lips, realising with dread that it was because she hadn’t cleaned her face. Owen’s blood still coloured her lips.
And fear coloured her expression.
Cait clutched the doorframe as her knees threatened to give out. “It’s Owen.”
“What happened to Owen?” The brunette’s rich brown eyes flashed dangerously and she stormed towards Cait.
“I bit him… I didn’t mean to… maybe I did… it happened so quickly. I couldn’t stop myself.” Cait stepped aside as Julianna reached her and the witch’s eyes landed on Owen and widened as she paled.
When Julianna looked back at her, those same eyes narrowed and darkened, and Cait could feel her power rising, charging the air with an electric current.
“What’s it doing to him?”
Cait looked across at Owen. “Turning him like me.”
“What are you?”
She glanced at Julianna. “A hellcat.”
The petite woman looked as if she wasn’t sure what to make of that, or what to say, but Cait could sense the anger in her and could see it in her eyes too.
“I never meant to hurt Owen,” Cait whispered and looked back at him, her heart aching as he writhed on the bed, moaning in agony that ripped her apart. “I have to help him somehow.”
“How?” Julianna snapped. “Haven’t you done enough damage?”
“You don’t understand. If I don’t help him… he’ll die.”
Julianna paled again and Cait waited for her to lash out, taking out all of her anger on Cait. She deserved it for what she had done, thoughtlessly condemning Owen to either death or life as a shifter.
The tears on her lashes spilled down her cheeks and she took a wobbly step towards Owen, her eyes locked on him.
“How do you feel about him?” Julianna whispered, capturing Cait’s focus and bringing her gaze back to her.
How did she feel about Owen?
Cait had the feeling that if she didn’t answer that question honestly, she would be the one not making it out of this small house alive. Julianna looked ready to put an end to her.
She closed her eyes, heaved a sigh, and then lifted her head and forced herself to look at Owen. She allowed every one of her feelings for him to surface, needing to understand them herself, holding none of them back as she sought the answer.
“I think what’s happening between us is deeper than just a mutual attraction.” Her voice seemed quieter than normal, a bare whisper that didn’t sound as if it belonged to her. She felt as if another was speaking and perhaps something else was. Not another person, but another part of her, one she had always guarded. Her heart. “I suspect the reason I bit him is because I couldn’t deny a deep primal need that coursed through me… one I’m still vaguely aware of whenever I look at him.”
Cait looked across at his cousin, meeting her gaze.
“I think Owen might be my mate… but I’ll never find out if that’s a possibility unless I save him.”
Julianna nodded. “I’ll mix up some healing spells to help him… but how are you going to save him?”
Cait didn’t know the answer to that question, but she hoped someone in this fae town did.
“There is a female hellcat here… in the shifter quarter. I will ask her.” It was dangerous to approach the female but Cait had no choice. She would fight her urge to battle the female for her territory and could only hope that the female would do the same.
“Take the clothes in the bag.” Julianna held it out to her and Cait thanked her with an unsteady smile before she looked back at Owen. His cousin touched her arm. “I’ll take care of him.”
Cait nodded and dragged herself away. Lingering wouldn’t help him. Time was of the essence and she wouldn’t waste a second.
She pulled on a pair of black jeans that were a little too large for her and a black t-shirt, and fled the house. She sprinted down the alley, tracking Owen’s scent through the streets, using his earthy masculine smell of fire and spice to guide her back to the main thoroughfare. Once she hit it, she sped up, calling on all of her strength and pushing herself to her limit. The cobbles bit into her bare feet but she didn’t care this time.
All that mattered was Owen.
She had to reach the shifters and gain an audience with the female hellcat.
It wasn’t going to be easy. The two male lions didn’t like her and she felt certain that the panther, Niko, felt the same. He would want to protect his female. He would try to stop Cait from reaching the woman.
Cait couldn’t let that happen.
The colourful canopies of the witches’ district gave way to plain white buildings. Cait moved through the streets with ease, the lower number of people telling her that it was late. Most of the stores she had passed had been closed.
Ahead of her, to the left of the cavern, a three storey black building was bustling with life, a thick gathering of people milling around outside it. A tavern. She spotted several demons among the crowd and ducked down an alley to her right, weaving her way through the narrow streets to avoid being spotted.
The buildings around her were low enough that she could see the looming structures of the shifters’ district built into the end of the cavern ahead of her. She scowled at the haphazard blue building that bore the banner of a tiger shifter pride and looked at the one to the left of it. Inside that towering cream building was her only hope of saving Owen.
Cait pushed harder, racing to reach the building, afraid of wasting a single second in case that tiny span of time meant the difference between saving Owen’s life and losing him forever.
She broke out on
to the broad cobbled street that curved around the end of the cavern, between the lower structures that formed the centre of the town and the tall multi-storey buildings built into the rock around the outside. She didn’t slow until she was in front of the arched wooden door of the cream building and banging it down with her fists.
“Open up!” She thumped her hands against the door, rattling it, and a window opened above her to her right.
Cait leaped back and looked there, meeting the gaze of a big tawny-haired male with bright golden eyes. Niko.
“Please… I have to speak with your female.” She moved to beneath the male shifter, her heart racing as she stared up at him where he leaned with his elbows on the sill of the window in the second floor, his hands dangling over the edge.
“My female?” His eyebrows crinkled and she silently cursed him for playing dumb.
Her temper frayed, the threads of it snapping as she fought for calm. She was a danger as she was now and this male probably knew it. If she didn’t get control of herself, she was liable to give in to the deep instincts blasting through her, commanding her to break into the building and fight the female hellcat.
Cait clenched her fists at her sides and reined in that overwhelming desire.
“I know you have a hellcat in there.” She searched his eyes but he gave nothing away.
“Nope. None of your kind here.” He held her gaze, unflinching as he spoke that lie.
“I sensed her.” She ran her gaze over the cream building, her senses stretching around her and confirming that she had been right and there was a female inside.
Niko’s female.
The male was going to lead her in circles in order to protect that female and Cait was wasting precious time.
“Look, I’m not here to fight… I’m here because of Owen. Please…” Cait twisted her hands together and raised her voice, going against all of her better instincts that warned she would be exposing herself if she shouted. It was the only way to get through to this male and possibly his female, and she couldn’t hold back her anger any longer. Fear made her reckless. She shouted, “Owen’s life is hanging in the balance and I need to find a way to help him through the transition.”
Bitten by a Hellcat Page 9
