by Mina Carter
Eyes wide, she gave a small nod and he had to restrain the growl of triumph that tried to slip past his lips. Slowly he pulled on the towel, keeping eye contact as the fabric parted. Her lips parted, a small gasp barely audible as her body was uncovered.
Weight on his right arm by her head, he looked down. Her skin was pale with a hint of gold in the tone that hinted at her shifter blood. Then he stopped noticing her skin in favor of the rest of the delights laid out before his eyes.
Her petite body was packed with curves that made his mouth water and his hands itch to stroke. Full, high breasts were large for her frame, fitting perfectly into his hand as though made to be there. Dusky pink nipples firmed and peaked at his touch, a hard nub when he swept his thumb over one. Her waist was narrow, stomach gently curved, set over wide hips he ached to grip from behind as he drove into her wet heat.
He swept his hand down, fingers splayed over her delicate ribcage to caress the curve of her waist. She bit her lip, a soft moan teasing his control. Shit, if she was this responsive when he got inside her, he wouldn’t last long.
Tight curls marked the juncture of her thighs. His hand shook as he smoothed it over her hip, headed for his idea of nirvana. Before he reached those curls though, she rocked her hips and parted her thighs for him.
Fuck. Me.
It was a landing strip. The rest of her pussy was clean-shaven.
This time his growl did slip free. Within a heartbeat, he was between her legs, her thighs pushed wide by the broadness of his shoulders. With gentle fingers he parted her pussy lips and blew gently over her folds. Her small cry was music to his ears.
Bending his head, he licked between her folds. Her essence, musky and primal, exploded on his tongue and his control shattered. With a growl, he gripped her hips, holding them still as he attacked her pussy and clit like a starving man with a banquet laid in front of him.
She gasped, crying out as he found her clit and latched on. He sucked, licked, and flicked the tiny bundle of nerves until her hips rocked and cries rolled off her tongue one after the other. His name, pleas for him to stop, pleas for him to carry on, then just cries of need. He ignored them, moving to spread one large hand over her stomach to hold her in place as he brought the other around.
Locking his lips over her clit, he found her entrance and slid one finger deep into her silken channel. She whimpered and clamped down around him. A rush of liquid heat bathed the digit and she rode his hand. Her breath came in short pants. Speeding up with each pass of his tongue over her clit. Merciless, he didn’t give her time to recover, just drove her higher and higher. Added a second finger to join the first in her tight cunt and twisted to find her G-spot.
He knew the instant he found it. Her back arched and her pussy rippled around his fingers. She gasped, her words garbled as she gripped the sheets either side of her. Reaching up, he cupped her breast. Tweaked her nipple at the same time he drew hard on her clit and stroked her G-spot.
She screamed her pleasure, coming over his hand in a hot rush. With a growl, he snatched his fingers from her silken depths and plunged his tongue deep to collect every drop of her release. More growls ripped from his chest as he fucked her with his tongue, thumb rubbing her clit to stretch out her pleasure. His cock ached and throbbed, desperate to be inside her.
Soon, he promised it. Just as soon as she’d finished coming, he’d move up the bed and—
Crash!
The window shattered inward, showering them with shards and sparks of magic.
“Fuck!”
Snatching her from the bed, he dumped her on the floor beside it, protecting her with his own body. Magic filled the air, so thick that he almost choked on it.
“What’s going on? What’s happening?” she whispered, clinging to his arms as he peeked over the edge of the bed.
The window was gone, the curtains fluttering in the night breeze. The wards he’d put in place to stop her getting out also stopped anything getting in, but now they glowed cherry red in the darkness, indicating they were under attack.
“Get up,” he ordered, pulling her upright and shoving the bag from his car at her. “Put something on. We got company.”
Chapter Four
Hale headed for the window, standing to the side to peer through the curtains into the parking lot outside. As soon as he poked his head into view there was a roar and a heavy thud as what seemed to be fire hit the window again.
Renae screamed as flames licked around the frame, reaching greedy fingers into the room. The magic Hale had cast over the window flared, throbbing like a heartbeat.
“Crap.” Hale risked another quick look out and his breath hissed between his teeth. “They have a fucking dragon!”
“They? Who’s they?” she asked, grabbing the first shirt and pants she could find in the bag. They were loose, cargo style sweatpants with a drawstring. She yanked and tied them quickly, securing the pants so they wouldn’t fall before bending to turn them up. Still no shoes but that wasn’t an issue. The soles of her feet were hard as leather thanks to her habit of walking outside barefoot.
“Looks like a load of pixies, at least one warlock, and the dragon,” he replied, peeking out the window between fireballs. “Who the hell are they?”
She snorted, stuffing the dirty clothes into the bag and zipping it shut. “Get real, Hale. You think Lance would only have sent you? Believe me, the guy doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘overkill.’ He’d send a dragon to toast a marshmallow. The marshmallow in question being an inconvenient ex-wife who wouldn’t be a party to her own murder.”
“Fucker is an asshole with more money than sense.”
The angry note in his voice made her shrug. “It is what it is, he won’t ever stop. Not until I’m dead. You should give me up, save yourself.”
She watched as he walked across the room toward her. He was so graceful, the predator in every movement, she wondered why she hadn’t seen it before.
“Not. A. Fucking. Chance.” Anger turned his eyes golden as he grabbed her upper arms and shook her gently. “You’re mine. End of story.”
Utter possessiveness filled his voice and expression, something that on her ex had filled her with dread, but with Hale was totally different. For one, his grip on her wasn’t hard or cruel. It was firm, but also gentle, his thumbs stroking across her skin and leaving tingles in their wake. Tingles that reminded her that her body still hummed from the release he’d brought her to, even though she couldn’t savor it at the moment.
More fireballs hit the window and started on the door. He flicked a glance over his shoulder as though assessing the color of the magic net over both.
“We need to get out of here.” He turned her around, ushering her through the door to the bathroom in front of him. Confusion rolled through her when he pulled open the door to the shower and pushed her inside, cramming in behind her.
What the hell…
“You know, I appreciate cleanliness just as much as the next woman, but in case you missed it, there are people trying to kill us!”
He chuckled, a sound she felt more than heard given they were crammed into the cubicle closer than sardines in a can. She craned her neck when he made gestures behind her, trying to see what he was doing. The shimmer of magic surrounded them, growing stronger when he started to chant strange words she couldn’t quite catch or make sense of.
“Hold on,” he warned as the world began to spin around them. “This takes a bit of getting used to.”
Her head swam and she closed her eyes. There was a sudden lurch sideways and she fell against the cold tile wall. Opening her eyes she found they were still in the shower cubicle. The dull whump whump whump of fireballs hitting the window and door in the other room reached her ears.
“Shit,” she breathed. “It didn’t work.”
Panic set in. That dragon was going to burst through the bathroom door at any moment and roast them where they stood. A tiled shower cubicle with a glass door? Add heat and it be
came an oven.
She shoved at Hale to get him behind her and protect him with her own body. She was a shifter, she could take a shitload of damage before… yeah, she didn’t want to think about that. Without an active animal though, Hale was little more than human. Maybe. Kind of. She wasn’t really sure how it worked with werelocks. All the stories said they were pretty much invulnerable and immortal.
What would happen if one mated a shifter— She dismissed the thought instantly. Although she knew shifters could mate with other types of shifter and even humans, she’d never heard of one mating a magic user. Although, there had been something she’d overheard in the Dark Moon about a psychic and a cougar…
“It worked. Look…” He nodded toward the vanity.
Products were lined up neatly next to the sink. Bottles and jars of all kinds. Feminine pinks, purples, and blues on one side jostled with more masculine yellows and reds on the other. She blinked. Since she hadn’t brought anything with her and hadn’t unpacked his bag, those were not theirs. Which meant they were not in the same room…
“Where are we?”
“Four rooms down. Can’t teleport far without a good visual or a location hex like the one in my car. Shower cubicles are pretty much the same the world over, so call it a magical hack.” His deep voice rumbled in her ear and she became aware of his big body behind her. His big, solidly-muscled, warm, very male body. “If you keep wriggling like that you’ll get more than a good visual, sweetheart. But hold that thought, we’ll get back to it.”
He reached around her and pushed open the door so they could step out. “Come on, sweet stuff. Let’s go. Time’s a-wasting and we have a dragon to kill.”
Kill. A. Dragon.
He was freaking nuts.
Grabbing his arm before he could open the door to the bedroom, she made him look her in the eye. “This isn’t your fight, Hale. They want me, not you. Let me go out alone.”
Anger flashed through his eyes and before she realized, he yanked her hard against him. His hand drove into her hair, his lips crashing over hers. Before he’d been gentle but this time he wasn’t. His kiss was hard and demanding. Dominating. She could taste his anger as well as her own essence on his lips.
Her knees weakened as his tongue swept into her mouth and tangled with hers. Her body went pliant, her cat purring and ready to roll over to present her belly to him… their mate.
No. Not mate, she told it firmly. He didn’t have an animal for them to forge that mating link with, but then she’d never been able to form it with Lance either, even though he’d said his animal knew she was his mate.
Pathetic female, your creature is so weak you can’t even form a proper mating bond. I don’t know why I bother with you… She shoved Lance’s voice to the back of her mind and ignored it. He had no place here. Not when she was in another man’s arms.
She was breathless when Hale pulled away. He looked down at her, pinning her with a blazing look. “You’re mine, and I keep what’s mine. Dragon or no dragon. Understood?”
His voice rang with such anger and determination that she just nodded, the concept of someone looking after her such a novel one, she didn’t know what to say. So she nodded, and followed him into the darkened bedroom.
Hand in his, she’d never felt safer in her life, even though there were a horde of pixies and a dragon outside itching for the chance to kill her. And it was all to do with the man beside her. Faced with the same odds Lance would have given her up in a heartbeat.
Hale wouldn’t. Ever. She was as sure as she needed her next breath.
At the light from the opened bathroom door the occupants in the bed stirred.
“Who the hell are you?” a male voice demanded, groggy at first but increasingly alert and sharp.
“No one.” Hale’s voice was deep and calm, the tone strangely hypnotic as he waved his hand. Magic shimmered in the air. Something twinged in Renae’s stomach and she frowned, rubbing it. She must have pulled it during her mad flight from the house earlier.
“Sleep,” Hale commanded. “It’s just a dream. Go back to sleep.”
“Just a dream, right. Sleep.”
Obediently, the couple in the bed lay down and within seconds the sound of soft snores filled the room.
“Neat trick.”
“You should see what I can do with seventeen chickens and a virgin,” he quipped, crouching by the window and parting the curtains a little so they could both see out.
“I really don’t want to know.”
There was a crowd outside in the parking lot. Leather-clad bikers with brightly colored hair, multiple piercings and strange tribal-like tattoos down their arms. She sucked in a hard breath, all amusement fleeing her body. Although she’d never seen a pixie in the flesh, she recognized what they were instantly. Like werebears and werelocks, they featured in a lot of warnings to kids, but unlike the other two, no one mistook pixies for anything other than a very real threat.
It was the creature behind them though that made her eyes widen. A sixty-foot dragon stomped around the parking lot, crushing cars beneath its massive clawed feet and firing long gouts of flame at the room she’d occupied. The façade was on fire, paint bubbling and peeling from the steel of the canopy that ran the length of the single story building.
“Shit… that is unreal.”
Next to her, Hale nodded. “They’re scary Mofos, that’s for sure. Bastards are difficult as hell to take down in a fight.”
She turned to him and gawked. “You’ve fought a dragon?”
“Fuck no,” he snorted. “Do I look like a George to you?”
She gave him a blank look.
“George and the dragon? No?” He sighed. “Never mind. English legend anyway. The trick is to get in there before they shift, lock them down with a non-transformation spell. Means you only have to deal with their human forms. They can still breathe fire but you don’t have to contend with all that…” he nodded toward the dragon.
On cue, it lashed out with its tail, sending a small sedan crashing into a wall, crushing a pixie. The tall man didn’t even get a chance to scream, a large red spray in all directions evidence of how hard the car hit the wall. Flesh and blood didn’t stand a chance with those kinds of forces. The rest didn’t even bat an eyelid, all their attention on the room Hale and Renae had been in.
“They… he¬—” she started.
He shrugged. “Survival of the fittest. He wasn’t fast enough so he wasn’t the fittest, was he?”
“How the hell are we going to get past it then? They’re going to figure out we’re not in there soon.”
He winked at her, his teeth white in the semi-darkness as he flashed a grin. “Watch this.”
Waving a hand, magic shimmered in the air for a second and the door to their room swung open. The pixies at the front gave excited cries and crowded forward. The dragon roasted them with one quick puff of flame.
“Ack! That’s disgusting, doesn’t it even care?” She covered her nose and her mouth with her hand as the acrid smell of burning leather and pixie wafted to them.
“Nope, but don’t waste your pity on them. They’d have gutted you without a second thought.”
He didn’t look at her as he spoke, all his attention on the dragon. It stomped forward, eyes trained on the small doorway in front of it. She slid a glance sideways to see Hale’s lips moving in a chant. Again she felt the tugging just under her breastbone. Her world stuttered for a second. Was his magic causing that feeling? Was she somehow connected to him and his magic… was that even possible?
Common sense kept her silent as he cast whatever spell he was chanting. She didn’t have to wait long to find out what it did. The dragon lifted a foot, bringing it crashing down on Hale’s car as it lined itself up to torch the inside of the room.
“Down!” Hale hissed, pushing her aside and covering her with his own body. She had a split-second image of the car as it began to glow then she was buried under two hundred pounds of solid male.
>
The soundless explosion in the lot lit up the room and rattled the windows and doors in their frames. She felt it through the wall and the floor like she’d been physically hit.
“What the hell…” She couldn’t help whispering as Hale lifted his head, concern on his face as he looked down at her, as though checking her over to make sure she was okay. “What was that?”
“That’s what happens when you blow up a dragon. The magical equivalent of a nuclear blast. Let’s just say I put this place on the map, lighting it up for all magic users within a couple hundred miles.”
He heaved himself to his feet and held out a hand to help her up. “We need to move. If your ex can afford a dragon, then he’ll have more teams out. We need to go to ground and fast.”
Events after that happened too fast for her to process properly. Hale rushed her out the room and through the parking lot. His car was totalled, incinerated in the blast. There was ash and… bits everywhere. She tried hard not to think about what some of the larger, charcoal-looking lumps were. It made her queasy stomach feel even worse.
They stole one of the pixies motorcycles to hightail it out of Dodge, or wherever the hell they were. Considering it was probably stolen in the first place though, were they committing a crime or aiding and abetting? She didn’t know and was too tired to care. Leaning against Hale’s broad back, she wrapped her arms around his waist and closed her eyes.
Even though it was summer, the nights were cold and the air that whipped around her as the bike roared down the road at dizzying speeds was even colder, so she was grateful for the little pull under her breastbone that told her Hale had called magic. A few seconds later warmth wrapped around her like a blanket and she fell into a comfortable doze.
She only woke again as they pulled up outside her rental property in Deal’s Gap. Blinking in confusion, she got off the back of the bike and watched as Hale chanted, his voice low in the darkness. Magic shimmered and surrounded the motorcycle in a fine net of golden light. A second later it tightened with a pop. The bike disappeared as though it had never been there.
