by Anna Craig
“Yes,” she whispered back, the word tumbling through the heated air with a power she didn't quite understand but realized was fully, entirely her own. “Yes. Claim me.”
Trevor's face changed from hard and still, waiting for her, to a suddenly wanton expression of limitless craving. Dark need poured from him in a groan that was half growl. Without waiting another breath, he pulled her face to his and claimed her mouth.
Cassie vaguely heard sounds from behind her, jagged slivers of words and noise, some of which seemed caustic and some approving, but in a nanosecond she didn't care anymore. Couldn't care, because Trevor was kissing and even lightly biting her, his tongue tracing her lips, then demanding entrance to her mouth. Electric sparks seemed to crackle between them as she pushed herself into him, feeling his arms still wound hard around her, keeping her close to him.
He was so big compared to her, so strong—he could literally crush her to death. Rip out her throat. End her life with a mere flex of his hand at her neck, snapping it. She sensed all the strength, all the power, he had in his big, obscenely well-shaped body.
She also sensed how he held himself back to keep from hurting her. How he let her know he was stronger, but that he wouldn't use it against her. He was careful with her.
The claiming kiss slammed its way through Cassie, down to her toes and back up, wrenching another moan out of her that was muffled by Trevor's mouth still lashed over hers. The length of his cock against her hip was harder than granite, stirring a maelstrom of desires even with just that bare touch through the slender piece of her dress separating them.
As if he could read her mind—oh, right. Yes, he could—Trevor pulled his head back and stepped away from her.
“No!” Cassie cried out, the undiluted longing making her voice sensuous with need. She sounded like a wanton hooker.
He liked it. The eyes she could spend eternity sinking into darkened to the color of a storm cloud-tossed sky. Cassie trembled with shivering desire, afraid her knees would buckle and she'd fall to the ground again.
Something utterly feral shifted in Trevor's face as soon as she thought that. “Yes,” he said, his own voice thick with hunger. “Down on the earth, so that I may claim you fully. Turn around,” he ordered.
Oh, god. Heart racing, head thrumming, body pulsating with her own crazy, savage needs, Cassie obeyed him. She turned away from Trevor—and no one else stood behind her any longer. The entire council as well as Tamsin had disappeared, their leave-taking so hushed Cassie hadn't heard it.
Her alpha, her mate, had told her the truth. They had stayed to witness the claiming kiss, and then they had left. The tiny, nervous little knot still hidden deep inside her somewhere loosened another smidge. Before she could contemplate what that meant, Trevor's large hand was on her back, pressing her forward in gentle impatience. With his other hand, he reached in front of her to slide it over her chest, taking the opportunity to skim his fingers over her nipples.
Cassie sucked in a sharp breath at the incredible feel. Yet she couldn't revel in it long.
“Down,” her alpha growled behind her. The word slammed wild need throughout her body.
Using his hands as both anchor and lever, Trevor gently yet inexorably maneuvered her to the ground until once again she was on her hands and knees. The soft, grassy floor of the meadow cradled her knees and palms. A cluster of purple wildflowers bobbed near her nose, the sweet smell of them mingling with the musk of the man behind her. The one about to take her. Fuck her.
Claim her.
Cassie felt the little dress flipped up over her ass. She wore nothing beneath it, because finding female undergarments also kept in the alpha's chambers was a little much. Sunlight caressed her flesh. Her very exposed flesh, open to her alpha's pleasure.
To her own awaiting pleasure. Half to her horror, half in what felt a completely natural motion, Cassie's hips began to move. Roaring fire built within her, demanding he quench it somehow.
“You like this.” His simple statement of fact teased her skin, rippling new goosebumps across it.
“Yes,” she breathed, curling her fingers into the rich earth holding the grasses and flowers and her. “Oh god, yes.”
“You do not need this dress.”
Nope. Not at all. She tried to reach down to somehow tug it off, but he beat her to it by simply ripping it from her body. Destroyed clothing again, she thought, this time not caring in the slightest. Warming sunshine kissed over her body, heating her from the outside as the thought of what was about to happen warmed her from the inside.
A hush fell down before Trevor's voice warned, “There is only myself now, Cassandra. Me, claiming you and your body. I shall see if you are prepared for me,” he added in one of his announcements, making Cassie giggle a little at the funny way he talked sometimes.
Then he touched her, slipping a finger inside her pussy. She cried out, arching her back and shamelessly pushing her hips into him. Hot and practically dripping wet, her pussy eagerly welcomed the large finger. Another followed it, eliciting a half-gasp, half-scream from her. He swirled them around, as if churning her from the inside to an ever higher point of no return.
“Ah!” Cassie's voice warbled into the air at the dizzying, glorious assault. The fire already gathered low in her belly arced and flamed hot and fierce throughout her body as his fingers did amazing things to her.
“You like this?”
Sight unfocused, aware of nothing but the sun washing over her and the blazing touch of the alpha shifter who was her mate, Cassie nodded. She'd lost her words for the moment. Who needed words, silly things—
“And what of this?” His voice sketched a dark path by her ear as a third finger reached into her, stretching her wider as they pushed in to his first knuckles, then slowly but unstoppably to the second knuckles.
Still speechless with her rising bliss, feeling deliciously, hugely stretched, Cassie again nodded. She spread her knees apart and sank her head to the earth, turning so one side of her face nestled down on the warm, soft blades of grass.
“Cassandra.” Trevor's voice was so rough and tight, her name sounded like it was being dragged over gritty sandpaper. “I am ready to claim you now,” he warned, the words ragged, as if tumbled over rocky shores pounded by salt waves. “It will hurt.”
Cassie trembled, remembering the multiple explosions of ecstasy that had shot her into the stratosphere last night.
“I don't care,” she managed to get out, her voice strangling on itself. “I want you to claim me. Now, Trevor. Now! Please,” she ended on a begging note.
In answer, Trevor abruptly withdrew his fingers and grabbed her hips in his huge hands.
Chapter 8
The tone of Cassandra's voice pushed Trevor over the edge. Her sumptuous body kneeled before him, exposing her gorgeous ass and the beautiful curves of flesh for him to hold onto, to sink into, was too much to resist any longer. He'd tried to be slow. He'd tried to take her softly to pleasure, urging it higher in a gradually rising spiral.
The claiming kiss, however, proved too much for his control. That and being in his wolf form earlier, during very tense moments, kept his primal side front and center and now let his purely carnal longings explode forth. Ready to take what was his. What had willingly been given to him, as said in her sweet, breathlessly excited voice. He had to be careful he didn't go too far—she was human, he truly could harm her without meaning to—but go, he would.
“Yes,” he said, voice coming out in a snarl. His cock was hard as the mountain granite, almost painfully erect. Every part of his body sought release in the softness of the woman moaning beneath him, wiggling her hips in such a beautifully wanton display it ceased his rational thoughts.
His woman. His claim. His mate.
“Now, Cassandra,” he said. “Now.”
He guided the tip of his cock to her slick entrance, taking the barest moment to slide one finger slowly over her other, tighter entrance. She jumped at that, then moaned aga
in. Ah, yes. Soon, she would be ready for that as well. But for now, he nestled his cock right at the entrance of her delicious little crease, beyond ready to slam into her and brand her as his.
Cassandra chanted a string of encouraging sounds, backing her hips into him, inviting his thrust into her. Keeping one hand on her hip, he reached around with the other to hold her in position before him. Without more warning, he drove his cock without mercy hard and fast into her waiting depths.
She screamed, but the sound was of rapture with only a small ripple of pain at its edges at the force of his entry, even though he did hold back what he was fully capable of doing to her. She was so wet, so ready for him, he slid in all the way to the base of his cock, his balls slamming into her backside as he completely sheathed himself in his lovely Cassandra.
A cry tore out of his own throat, guttural and fully male. A reddish-white haze descended over his vision, blanketing it only with the need to please her, to take his release in her, to claim this luscious, stunning woman as his.
Pulling back out, still grasping her tightly, he then slammed back into her again, reveling at the sound of her cry as she arched into him, meeting him stroke for stroke. Again, again, again.
“Harder, Trevor. Harder!” she demanded, rolling her hips in a motion that shivered over his cock inside her, pulling him yet closer to exploding and filling her with his essence.
The frenzied desire spun over him in a sublime euphoria as all reason was stripped away by pure sensation. To his savage satisfaction, he could tell Cassandra's passion rose with each thrust into her, judging by the strength of her slick walls as they sought to hold him inside her, by the sighing whimpers and cries tearing from her throat as her hands clutched hard at the earth. The blonde curtain of hair had obscured her face when he first entered her, but he wanted to watch her when she orgasmed. He wanted to see her expression as she experienced transcendent pleasure from his body claiming hers.
Reaching down, he shoved her hair away from her beautiful eyes, some sweaty strands left clinging to her cheek. The flush of her skin, her small white teeth clamping down on her lower lip, the equally wild, primitive look in her crystalline eyes as she met his gaze served to shove Trevor off the cliff.
“Now!” he roared, feeling his cock swell to a seemingly impossible girth as he pounded back into her.
~~~
Cassie swore she felt the earth shaking beneath them as Trevor pumped back into her, so hard and fast she felt deliriously faint from it. He was so huge, he filled her so immensely full, she thought she might break, even as she demanded more in a voice she hardly recognized as her own. His hand wedged itself around her thigh, his fingers finding her drenched pussy, then the hard little nub just above the place where his unyielding length punched into her with stunning, gorgeous abandon. He rolled his fingers over her clit, rolling and lightly pinching it as he fucked her once again into a fever of pure sensation.
Every single part of her wanted this. Wanted him.
When he cried out in fathomless ecstasy as his hips bucked uncontrollably against hers, his eyes so dark with lust they looked almost black, she felt her own orgasm blast over her in the most explosive, head-splitting, star-shooting climax she'd had yet. It burst out from her as shrieking cry after cry fell from her lips, the earth grinding into her cheek from the force of Trevor's welcome assault and her screaming release. The gigantic tremors barreled up from deep inside her as she spasmed all over his cock locked deep within her, their eyes holding one another's in savage, insatiable intimacy.
Cassie felt something essential in her leap up and meet him, binding them together just as their bodies climaxed together. Claimed. The word flipped around her head again in beautiful ringing echoes as her orgasm peaked with Trevor's, making her head rock with exploding little bursts of light.
Very, very slowly, the physical feelings ebbed away in convulsive little jerks, finally leaving her sated and feeling boneless. Breathing so hard she wondered if he would hyperventilate, eyes still glossed almost black from his pleasure, Trevor carefully, gently lowered himself onto her, staying inside her as he lay atop her, then rolled them slightly sideways so he wouldn't crush her. He held her close enough to him she could feel his heart pounding against her back, matching the beats of her own.
Long moments later, Trevor's voice said very softly but firmly, “Mine.”
Smiling, feeling floaty and safe, Cassie nodded against his chest.
The sky sheltered them in the small meadow as they lay twined together. Slowly, the air cooled as the sheen of sweat dried on Cassie's skin. She felt Trevor's lips at the nape of her hair, nuzzling and placing small kisses, but delicious exhaustion claimed her as well, and she let it pull her into sweet, delicious sleep as she lay safely in the circle of his arms.
~~~
The surface shimmered above her, calling to her with its weak promise of light. Disoriented, Cassie struggled to reach it. Sucking tentacles of fuzzy pain and blissful dark tried to keep her down, but the closer she got to the wavering light, the more she craved it. She forced her way past the grayish edges, suddenly bursting into consciousness.
Oh, shit, her head was killing her. It throbbed like a heavy metal dance party was happening in her brain, all clashing cymbals and smashing drumbeats and hideous, painful noise. As she opened her eyes, she realized nothing around her was particularly bright. No sunlight kissed her, no wolf shifter mate curled around her, warm and protective and sexier than hell. Instead, a dim light cast huge, flickering shadows on the walls of the cave.
Cave? She was in a fucking cave?
Cassie groaned, then tried to touch her head. Her fingers brushed over a good-sized egg growing out of the top of her forehead, and she cried out at the explosion of white-hot pain. Oh, that hurt.
Gingerly searching her memories, which kept skittering off in stubborn refusal to become clear, she vaguely recalled briefly waking in the meadow with Trevor murmuring something in her ear about needing to go to the council for some additional reason. Oh, yes.... She'd been officially claimed, and apparently he'd had to officially tell someone.
Scrunching her forehead to think, then immediately relaxing it when that brought on another hard smack of pain, she slowly remembered lazily asking if she could just stay and cat nap in the wonderful sunshine until he came back to her. Her sexy alpha mate had smiled the sort of smile that promised deliciously wicked things upon his return, before he strode off to the house.
She must have fallen asleep after that.
Despite her best efforts, nothing else came to her except blackness. But apparently she'd been somehow transported to a cave. A cold cave. With no Trevor. What the hell had happened?
Dark laughter skittered around her, splitting the poorly lit space. Cassie froze.
“Awake now, are you?” Silk edged by malice. “You certainly are a spitfire, human. I can rather see why the alpha craves you.”
Oh, my god.
Cassie turned toward the direction of the elegant yet deadly voice, wincing as another stab of pain whipped through her head at the movement. Blinking, she managed to make out the rough features of a man standing about ten feet away, obscured because the flickering light was behind him. But she didn't need to see his face to recognize his voice.
“Thayne,” she whispered, struggling to sit up from what felt like the very cold, weirdly spiky ground. Hot sizzles of unpleasant fire stabbed at her head as she did so, but she forced herself to sit upright. Some sort of rough covering slid off her shoulders, and she instinctively grabbed at it, pulling it close. It felt like a scratchy cloak. “Why does my head hurt so much? Where am I?” Her voice croaked oddly as she spoke.
Thayne chuckled again, stepping to the side and making a grand gesture with one hand. “We are inside the mountain, of course. Lava caves abound in this region. Dormant volcanos tend to have them.”
Cassie frowned. She knew that. She was an educated woman. Right?
Oh, god, her head really hurt. She
had to clear it. Something deep inside urged her to flee. This was a dangerous situation. Dangerous. God, she must have been whacked hard.
“Don't fret,” Thayne's voice drawled in a polished growl. Despite being a really unfriendly guy, he definitely was a refined one. Like Trevor, but way more awful. “You shan't be found in time.” He sounded positively chipper at that thought, smiling a sharp smile that also revealed gleaming canines that dropped down over his lips, razor sharp. Cassie swallowed, abruptly shivering with more than just the cold.
“In time for what?” She looked around carefully, aware of her head. It ached just a little less, but her thinking was still muddled.
The shifter's smile was deadly. “In time to save your life.”
Cassie's growing fear turned into something closer to dread as nervous sweat skimmed over her body despite the chill of the cave. “I—but I'm claimed by the pack now. Aren't I?” Her thoughts stumbled over themselves like a wobbly drunk. She blinked rapidly, several times, trying to force away the cobwebs in her brain.
Thayne's smile was really scary.
Slowly, she realized the alpha's brother must have hit her, then taken her here. To a lava tube buried deep within Wicked Mountain. Knocked her upside the head, dragged her through the woods, and now calmly told her she was going to die. Awesome.
And to think her mother had told her to behave. All she did was behave—well, mostly—and look what happened.
Gritting her teeth against the pain, she forced herself to think. Trevor had no idea where she was. She had no idea where she was. All she knew was that this was a really bad situation.
“But you claimed me for the pack yourself.” She managed to level a firm look at Thayne the terrifying bully as her head cleared a little more with each second. “And Trevor claimed me.”
What she wouldn't give to see Trevor right now. His furious blue eyes, that dark hair tousled above them. The mate who had claimed her.
