Raven's Revenge: Paranormal Prison Romance (Paranormal Prison Series Book 2)

by Naomi Martin

  I take a step back, reluctantly pulling myself out of her mouth. She looks up at me, licking her lips suggestively, and although it’s tempting to let her finish me off, the urge to be inside of her is overwhelming. I crave her with every fiber of my being.

  Instead, I reach down and pull Raven to her feet, spinning her around. She yelps as I push her down over the log roughly, and she quickly turns and looks at me over her shoulder. I step forward and bury myself inside of her without preamble. We gasp at the same time, the pleasure I feel at sinking deep into her warm, molten core so overpowering, I almost lose myself in that moment.

  Raven is biting down on her bottom lip, her eyes wide and filled with the same lust and desire that holds me in an iron grip. She pushes herself back, taking me deeper into her. I feel her clamping her inner muscles around my shaft, gripping me even tighter, and I have to fight to keep from bursting. I groan as I grab hold of her hips and start to thrust myself into her.

  “Oh God, yes,” she moans. “Yes, baby. Just like that.”

  I reach up and grip her shoulder, pulling her back toward me while I pound myself into her again and again. She’s incredibly tight and as I move within her, I feel like my body is on fire. Our cries meld together, so loud I think they can probably hear us all the way in Canada. I don’t care, though. The sensations rocking my body are driving me insane and it’s all I can focus on.

  I feel the pressure building up within me and I grit my teeth, trying to stave off the inevitable end. I want to enjoy her, if only for a little while longer. Perhaps sensing that I’m on the verge, Raven pushes me back and stands up. She turns around and sits down on her sweatshirt on the log, crooking her finger at me.

  “Come here, baby,” she purrs.

  A grin upon my lips, I obey her command and take a step forward. She parts her thighs, beckoning me into her warm, wet inner sanctum. I ease myself back into her, my body vibrating with pleasure as I slide along her inner walls, driving myself to the hilt within her. Our mouths crash together as I start to move, our tongues meeting as I fill her up. She clings to me, her nails digging into my back, and I plunge myself into her again and again.

  I shudder, my arousal building to a fever pitch. Raven throws her head back, a loud, lusty scream echoing into the dark. Leaning forward, I kiss her neck, nipping at her flesh as I continue to thrust deep inside of her. Raven’s body seizes up—her every muscle feels like it’s locked—and then, with a loud cry, she starts to writhe wildly.

  She clings tightly to me, burying her face in my chest as she comes. Her breathing is ragged and shallow, and when she looks up at me, she’s got a crazed light in her eye. I keep thrusting myself into her, though, the feeling of her pulsing around my shaft sending bolts of electricity through me that sear my every nerve ending.

  It’s not long before I find myself once again at the peak of my arousal, and when she grips my cock with her inner muscles one last time, making herself incredibly tight around me, I lose control. With a loud groan, I feel myself pulsing, and then I erupt. She gasps as I fill her with my seed in a warm gush. I press my forehead to hers, both of us riding the currents of bliss together.

  Slowly, our breathing returns to normal, though my heart is still thundering. We sink back down to the blanket and she wraps herself around me. With her head resting on my chest, she drags her fingernail along the skin of my stomach, sending a delightful shudder through me. I lean down and kiss the top of her head.

  “Why do you like coming up here with me if it’s not just for the sex?” she asks.

  “You don’t know?”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t.”

  I chuckle softly. “I just like being with you, Raven,” I say quietly. “I value the alone time we have. It means the world to me.”

  She doesn’t look up at me, but I can tell she’s smiling. “That’s a good answer.”

  Raven falls silent for a long moment and the only sound around us is the popping of the logs on the fire.

  “I love you, Elliot,” she says. “I’m sorry I haven’t done a good job of showing that lately.”

  “You have nothing to be sorry for,” I reply. “And I love you, too. More than I can possibly make you understand.”

  She finally looks up at me and the tears in her eyes sparkle in the firelight. She gives me a smile.

  “That’s an even better answer,” she says.

  Raven lays her head back down on my chest and even though she hasn’t said anything about it, I can tell she’s going to take Dora’s assignment. Something about the way she made love to me just felt… final. It was as if she didn’t know she would be coming back from her mission and wanted the memory to carry her through.

  The thought fills me with dread and even though I want to tell her I don’t want her to go, Raven is her own woman. She’s fiercely independent and does things her own way—has since I’ve known her and, I suspect, always will. It’s one hell of a double-edged sword, though. It’s one of the things I love most about her, but in this moment, it’s a trait I absolutely abhor.

  Knowing there’s nothing I can do about it, I vow to simply enjoy the time I have left with her until she goes. Every last minute. Just in case. She’s tougher than anybody I know, and I have every reason to believe she’ll be back, having successfully completed her mission. But the thought of her out there, alone, scares me to death.

  “I love you, Raven,” I say again.

  She plants a soft kiss on my stomach. “I know, baby. I know.”

  Chapter Seven

  Villa

  “Pleased to meet you, Senator,” I say, extending my hand.

  “The pleasure’s mine, Colonel.”

  Alton Cook is a tall, robust man. He’s got wide shoulders and he’s wearing a well-tailored suit that perfectly highlights his brawny form. He still seems to be as fit as he was as a Marine some twenty years ago. His eyes are dark, as is his hair, though it’s shot through with gray. The cut is still military short, and he’s sporting a neatly trimmed mustache and beard.

  He has a presence about him that can’t be denied. A certain gravitas. He’s the sort of man who, when he speaks, you listen. He’s got an air of authority and commands a room like few others I’ve known. It’s impressive. I’m sure that’s also how he’s been re-elected to the Senate twice already.

  “Thank you for coming out,” I say.

  “No need for thanks,” he replies. “If we’re going to be working together, I’d like to know what it is I’m working with.”

  I nod. His inspection of the facility was expected and not entirely unwelcome. I wanted to get the measure of the man I’ll be working with—or, as I was told, would be answering to. As the incoming chair of the Homeland Defense Committee, Cook is going to have control of my operational budget, equipment supply chains—basically everything. The Cleansers can be shut down completely with nothing but a word and a pen stroke from this man.

  Which means it behooves me to befriend him. Personally, I hate the goddamn politicking that goes on. I fucking hate having to play kiss-ass to anybody. The people in this country—many within our own government—don’t seem to understand the existential threat these freaks pose to the nation. To the world.

  All I can say is, I’m glad they haven’t figured out how to truly use the power they wield. Oh, there’s a resistance—these Breakers. But if they ever actually unified and formed one cohesive fighting force, we’d all be in deep shit. They could burn it all down and we’d be powerless to stop it.

  My hope is that Cook actually grasps the threat we’re facing. More than that, though, I hope he’s willing to do what is necessary to combat it, rather than just pay lip service to the issue like so many of the spineless politicians sitting on Capitol Hill.

  I’m sick of dealing with them. Most of them want to treat the freaks with kid gloves and not make the hard decisions that need to be made. Most of them are worried about the optics of gunning supers down in the street. I like to think we’re a bit mo
re discreet than that, but these spineless simps are more worried about how eliminating these threats will impact their chances of re-election than they are about securing this country from a very clear and present danger.

  “Is there anything in particular you’d like to see first?”

  He shook his head. “I want to see it all while I’m here, so just start wherever you deem appropriate.”

  I nod. “Very good, sir.”

  I begin the tour in the prisoner’s cells. After that little bitch Raven and her friends broke out of the Pit, we reclaimed it. Rebuilt and fortified it. And then I changed how we go about our business here. Given the events that occurred here, I realized we’d been too lenient with the freaks. Allowing them to wander about the housing quarters, free to scheme and plot… it had been a mistake.

  Since then, I’ve instituted harsher restrictions. The freaks are kept in their cells. Period. No time out. No time to congregate. Nothing but twenty-four-hour-a-day lockdown.

  “I’d heard there was a breakout,” Cook says and makes a sweeping gesture. “And that this place was destroyed.”

  I nod. “Some damage was done to the Pit,” I confirm. “But it wasn’t as bad as we originally thought. Took some doing, but we got it back up and running. Made some improvements to the place.”

  He looks around, nodding his approval. We pass by one of the cells and see a girl sitting on the edge of her bunk, her expression one of intense concentration. We stop and Cook stares in at her.

  “What’s she doing?” he asks.

  “Testing the collar.”

  Every freak who is taken into our custody is outfitted with a collar. Again, after Raven did what she did, the security of the collars had to be improved. The new collars have been strengthened and the flaws in the original design has been corrected. If any of the freaks—be they vamps, shifters, or Elementals—tries to tap their powers, they’ll get a shock worse than they got from the collars we had before—a shock that’s practically debilitating for a period of time.

  “You’re looking at Kylie Roth, sir. Age sixteen. Air Elemental,” I say, recalling her intake papers. “She was taken outside St. Paul, Minneapolis about a week ago. We just got her into the Pit yesterday.”

  “Your recall is impressive.”

  I nod but don’t say anything. Precision recall is critical to my job and I’m not interested in platitudes. We stand there, watching as the slender blonde tries to tap into her power. She’s no doubt trying to disable the collar the way Raven did, reminding me that word of her exploits had spread far and wide after she broke all of the freaks out. It only fuels my hatred for the girl.

  Admittedly, I hold a grudging respect for all she’s done since busting out of here, but I absolutely hate her. She’s made my job a lot harder than it needs to be. Of course, if I take a take a glass half-full approach to it, Raven did show me some weaknesses in our program. Showed me defective areas, and because of her, we realized we needed to develop better facilities. Better weapons. There are undoubtedly more like her out there, and Raven thankfully alerted me to the problem before we ran into a band of them, thus giving us time to prepare.

  When I was a student at West Point, our instructors ingrained the belief that we learn the most from our failures, which most often came at the hands of the enemy. And failure, more often than not, provided the keys to redemption—and, ultimately, to success. Raven has certainly proved those old lessons correct. So, for those reasons, I suppose I should also give her a word of thanks.

  “Watch this,” I say.

  Through the window in the door, we see the girl channel a thin thread of her power in the palm of her hand. It snakes up toward the collar, rising like a tendril of smoke on a gentle breeze. Her eyes are clamped shut, her teeth gritted. She knows the penalty that awaits her, but she’s determined to try anyway.

  I can feel Cook tensing up beside me as he watches. His face is etched with grim fascination as he watches the events unfolding on the arena floor. There’s an almost perverse glee sparkling in his eyes as he waits for the inevitable outcome. He enjoys seeing this, watching these freaks get punished.

  It’s in that moment I know, for certain, he and I are going to get along. If his excitement as he watches this girl getting ready to get popped is any indication, we share the same distaste for the freaks.

  The seconds tick by and I watch as the thread of her Elemental power finally makes contact with the collar. There’s an audible pop and a bright flash of energy. The girl twitches violently and falls to the floor, her entire body spasming as if she’s having a seizure.

  Cook watches, utterly fascinated, as she writhes on the floor of her cell. Slowly, the tremors start to fade and after a couple of minutes, she lays completely still. The small smile on his face grows a bit wider.

  “Is she—”

  I shake my head. “No, she’s fine,” I assure him, chuckling. “Or she will be, anyway. Our new and improved collars are designed to deliver a much more powerful shock as a deterrent against trying to use their abilities.”

  “I can see that,” Cook says with a laugh.

  “She’ll be down for the count for a few hours. And she’s not going to like how she feels when she wakes up,” I add. “But she’ll be fine. The damage isn’t permanent.”

  Cook nods and I think I see a ripple of disappointment flash across his face. Yeah, he and I are going to get along just fine.

  “That’s fascinating,” he says as we move on. “I’ve never actually seen one of them use their powers before.”

  “It’s an impressive sight,” I tell him. “Until you realize how devastating those abilities can be if they are turned against us.”

  He nods, his face suddenly growing sober. “I’ve seen the aftermath of some attacks by groups of these thugs. It’s frightening to think what they could do if they organized themselves.”

  “I’ve had the same thought more than once,” I respond. “It keeps me up at night sometimes, if I’m being honest.”

  “As it should.”

  I take him through the other facilities within the Pit. He takes a keen interest in the Research and Development wing, so I have the staff give him a demonstration of the projects they’re working on. He seems impressed. I don’t think he quite grasps the implications of what we’re doing on that front, though. But that’s fine. He doesn’t need to know all of the fine details; I just need him to keep cutting the checks to keep our operations funded.

  At the end of the tour, I take him to the cafeteria and we sit at a table in the corner. Lucy, who runs the cafeteria, comes out as instructed, and pours out a couple glasses of scotch for us. She sets the bottle down and walks away without a word. Normally half-filled this time of day, I’d made sure everybody knew the café was off-limits today in preparation for Cook’s visit.

  “I took the liberty of having lunch made for us,” I say. “I figured you would have questions.”

  Cook picks up his glass and looks at the amber liquid appreciatively. “Bowmore 25-year-old scotch,” he says admiringly. “You know my tastes.”

  “I’ve done some research.”

  He chuckles and takes a sip of the liquor. A smile touches his lips and he nods as he savors the swallow.

  “One of the finest glasses of liquor you’ll ever find,” he says. “I appreciate you taking the initiative.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ve done my homework on you, too, you know,” he says.

  “I imagine you did,” I respond. “You’re a man as cautious as I am.”

  “Exactly right,” he tells me. “I like to know who I’m getting into bed with before the lights go out.”

  I chuckle then take a sip of my drink. Lucy comes out with salads for us, sets them down, and gives me a curt nod, her face cold and expressionless. I’m not sure if it’s the job she doesn’t like, or if it’s me. Either way, it doesn’t matter. I couldn’t care less about the opinions of my lessers. And if she can’t do the job satisfactorily, I�
�ll replace her. Simple as that.

  I take a bite of my salad and can see that he’s lost in thought. He looks impressed. Perhaps even close to something bordering on happy. Worryingly, though, I see the wheels in his head spinning and assume he’s trying to find some way to use this facility—and the others like it—to his own best advantage. That’s not going to work for me. These are my facilities, and this is my program. Cook is just the money man. Which means I need to disabuse him of certain notions now.

  “I have to say, Colonel, I’m impressed,” he says. “You’re doing some very good things here.”

  I nod. “I’ve got some good men, and we’ve built some programs that are very effective at neutralizing the enemy.”

  He takes a swallow of his drink then frowns. As Cook takes a moment to consider his next words, I can already tell I’m not going to like them.

  “I respect you, Colonel. I respect all you’re doing out here,” he starts. “You’re keeping the country safe from one of the biggest, deadliest threats we’ve ever faced.”

  “We’re doing our best, Senator,” I say. “Forgive me for being so blunt, but I can’t help hearing a ‘but’ in that sentence.”

  He chuckles softly. “You’re direct. I respect that,” he states. “I would rather be direct than dance around things.”

  “As would I.”

  He nods. “Then let us begin anew,” he proposes as he raises his glass. “Let us be nothing but blunt and direct with one another. After all, we’re on the same side and need to learn to trust one another.”

  I raise my glass and tap it against his. “I agree, sir. And, frankly, I would appreciate the direct approach.”

  “It’s settled, then,” he says, then takes a swallow of his drink. “In that spirit, I have to be honest and tell you I have concerns.”

  “Such as?”

  “The girl who led the breakout,” he states bluntly. “Who and where is she?”

  “Her name is Raven McCabe,” I reply. “As for her whereabouts… they are unknown at this time.”