by Tyler, J. D.
“Oh, no! Will you get them back?”
“Most likely.”
“You seem pretty nonchalant about it.”
“I’m not. But when it’s a choice between losing my abilities or my life . . .”
Not much of a choice at all. She hoped he didn’t regret their mating, but couldn’t bring herself to say so. In spite of nature forcing life-altering changes upon them, she and Jax had formed their own connection. One based on mutual trust, friendship, and attraction. Nothing could take that from them.
Except death.
She shivered.
“You cold, baby?”
“No, I’m fine.” She smiled and the worry in his eyes eased.
When they reached his favorite spot by the stream, he turned and gathered her into his arms. Pulling her flush against his hard body, he cupped her face. “Relax, angel. I’m not going to devour you. At least not until you’re begging for it.”
She was there already. His hands on her face, the heat of his erection burrowing into her tummy, his strength surrounding her . . . Oh, yes. She wanted more of that, with the two of them naked, tangled, and sweaty.
His kiss was slow and thorough. Sweeping and exploring. Like a master, he eased her gently under his spell, and she wondered whether he might be part Sorcerer. She rubbed against him, needing to be closer, to crawl inside him.
Breaking the kiss, she knelt on the spongy ground and unzipped his jeans. “First I want to devour you,” she said, voice husky. “Will you beg for it?”
His eyes darkened with predatory hunger. “Make me.”
“I like that sort of challenge.”
Hooking her fingers in the waistband, she pulled down his jeans, slid them off. He kicked off his running shoes, stepped out of the pants, and spread his legs, standing with his feet braced slightly apart, and then pulled off his shirt. All of the glorious skin she’d been eager to touch and taste was right there, a living sculpture of male beauty.
Reaching out, she cradled his heavy balls, squeezing, manipulating carefully. He moaned and widened his stance, encouraging her to do what she wished. What she wanted was to drive him out of his mind with a tongue bath, and so she grasped the base of his cock, lifting his stiff erection. Bending forward, she licked the silky sac, determined not to leave an inch unloved. He squirmed, buried a hand in her hair and thrust his hips, clearly enjoying the attention.
Getting into her ministrations, she kissed and suckled each orb as though savoring a juicy peach. Delicious, too, smooth and creamy, just like—
“Kira,” he rasped.
“Mmm. Ready to beg yet?”
Whatever reply he might’ve made was silenced when she swallowed him to the root. A cock this magnificent deserved her undivided attention and she gave it, sucking him with firm pulls, laving the underside, worrying the sensitive flesh with lips and a slight grazing of her teeth.
Her wolf lasted longer than she expected, and she smirked to herself as he disengaged with a low growl of warning. “Get those clothes off, because if I do it there won’t be anything left but scraps.”
“You wouldn’t want me to traipse back in the buff?”
His eyes narrowed. “I don’t share.”
“Good to know, because neither do I.”
Kneeling, he helped divest her of the pink cotton shirt she’d worn this morning, followed by the lacy white bra. Both were tossed aside and he literally crawled up her body, pushing her to lie on the grass. Straddling her, he tweaked a nipple and it immediately perked to attention, seeking more of the same. But he moved on, attacking her jeans with the same impatience she’d demonstrated, stripping them and her underwear down her legs. The shoes and socks went next, and the whole pile joined the rest of their clothing.
“Christ, you’re so pretty,” he breathed in reverence.
She resisted the impulse to cover herself. Barely, and because she knew he didn’t like it when she did. “I’m happy you think so.”
“It’s a fact.” Bending, he sniffed her neck, inhaling her scent. “So good. Sweet. You’re not afraid of the Big Bad Wolf eating you up?”
“Should I be?” Oh, God, he felt so good above her, his hard cock rubbing her belly.
“Oh, yeah. Be very afraid,” he deadpanned.
Then he gave her nipples his full attention, treating them with the same care she’d lavished on his balls. He suckled, scraped, and licked, making every nerve ending sizzle in joy. She clutched his short black hair as he began to kiss his way south, humming to himself in pleasure. Callused fingers parted her folds and it was his turn to drive her wild, his tongue lapping at her clit, her channel, sending tendrils of delight spiraling through her abdomen and to her limbs.
Somehow he knew when she couldn’t take anymore, but instead of backing off, he upped the ante. “Am I driving you crazy, baby? Who’s going to beg now?”
A smart remark hovered on her lips—and was instantly forgotten when his mouth went back to work on her slit. And when a slick finger teased her back entrance.
Her eyes widened and she gasped. “What are you doing?”
“Relax, angel,” he purred. “Give yourself to me. Just feel.”
She started to refuse. She really did. But the wonder of his tongue combined with the finger rubbing sensually around the sensitive ring of muscles there reduced her to a puddle of mush. He was never too invasive, simply teased and stroked in time to feasting on her, to the point that she was nothing but his.
“Jax, please!”
“Please what, my angel?”
“Fuck me,” she begged. “I need you, inside me.”
“What my lady wants, she gets.” He sounded rather pleased with himself.
Deftly, he urged her to flip over and grabbed her hips, pulling her up on her knees with her ass poking in the air. Offered to him. The man and the beast.
She knew what would come with the fucking and she welcomed it. Wanted it hard and feral, no holding back, and she made sure he understood. “Take me, like a wolf takes his mate. Show me how it can be.”
“I’ll show you how it is,” he asserted. “You’re mine.”
The blunt head of his cock pushed into her, sliding deep. He filled her to the hilt, his strong body covering hers, and still she needed more. Her blood called to him, every cell in her body yearning for the completion only he could give them. To be his Bondmate, the one at his side for life, loving him. Fighting their battles, celebrating their triumphs. She wanted it all, with him.
“God, yes,” he hissed. Gripping her hips, he began to thrust, slamming into her core with almost brutal force, skirting the edge of pain.
Breathless, she moaned, pushing back onto him. Tempting him to increase the intensity, to own her. Spearing her again and again, he drove them higher, to the brink. His nails lengthened, became claws needling her flesh. He seemed to grow bigger all over as he pounded into her channel, his muscles taut and unyielding.
About to go over, she reached back, trying to touch his face. “Jax, I can’t . . . Please!”
Sitting back, he brought her into his lap, the position burying his cock deep. Instinctively, she tilted her head to the side, offering her neck in submission to her mate. A finger brushed aside her hair and he licked the vulnerable skin where her neck and shoulder met.
“You’re mine.”
“Yes, I’m yours! Don’t make me wait any longer . . .”
He struck, sinking his canines into her flesh like razors slicing through paper. She cried out, the pain unlike any she’d ever known, and then . . . ecstasy.
Pure, white-hot pleasure that boiled and rose for about five seconds and then exploded in the most powerful orgasm she’d ever experienced. Screaming, she writhed on his lap, spasming around his cock. Her release triggered his and he poured into her, warmth bathing her womb. She opened her eyes and was shocked to see the forest through a golden glow, almost like a veil surrounding them. A glow that sank right through their skin as they remained connected, winding into a tangibl
e golden thread that ran between them.
From her heart to his.
Jax stiffened with a hoarse shout, emptying the last of his seed and then slumped, still holding on, his face in the crook of her shoulder where he’d bitten.
How long they remained there, joined, she didn’t know. Finally he raised his head and peppered her neck, her cheek, with kisses. “Are you all right, baby?”
“I think I blew a fuse,” she teased.
“I know I did.” He sighed, and then said, “My wolf is gone, and so are my other gifts.”
“What? How can you tell?” Something like panic pushed at her breast.
“I just can.”
Easing off his lap, she sat facing him. “Well, try to shift.”
“Okay.” Scooting back some, he remained kneeling, and concentrated. After a couple of minutes, he shook his head. “Nothing.”
She reached out, took his hand. “Oh, Jax, I’m sorry. But Dr. Mallory said they’d probably return,” she reminded him.
He laughed. “I know. I was thinking how ironic it is that five years ago, when I was turned into a shifter, I thought I’d been cursed. I would’ve done anything to reverse it. And now I feel quite naked.”
“You are naked, in case you forgot.”
Fortunately, he responded to the tease. “Oh, my God! You’re right. What’re we gonna do about that?” Playfully, he got on his hands and knees and stalked her.
“I haven’t the foggiest.” Giggling, she began to inch backward. “Hey, you’re bullet wound is healed! I guess that means something good came from bonding, huh?”
“It means I’m in good enough shape to stalk my mate.”
He leaped, and she jumped up with a squeal, trying to run. She couldn’t get away, though. Even without his abilities, he was still faster and stronger than she was. He easily caught her, spinning them around, and took them both to the ground.
He turned, taking the brunt of the fall, giving her a cushion for the landing. And she had to admit, she didn’t mind landing on him at all.
“I’m your captive—now what will you do with me?”
He smiled, his canines oddly normal. “I’m sure I’ll think of something.”
Fifteen
“Did you mean it when you called the compound home?”
“Hmm?”
Kira didn’t even look away from the TV as she munched on her popcorn, and Jax couldn’t help the swell of love that blossomed in his chest, leaving little room for anything or anyone else. The little imp had gotten most of the team hooked on watching that ghost-hunting reality show. Even Sariel was sitting cross-legged on the floor with his wings draped around himself, eyes wide, fixated as though he’d never seen anything so fascinating.
“I said, is this home to you? That’s what you called it the other night, when we were returning from the rescue.”
“Did I?” She looked at him thoughtfully. “Of course I meant it. Why?”
He shrugged. “I was thinking you might want to move out and get our own house someday. I’m not required to live here. It’s just easier.”
Her eyes softened. “Honey, I don’t care where we live. Home is wherever you are.”
“Aww.” He tweaked her nose.
“Oh, gag me,” Aric snarked, but without much heat.
“Shut up, dickless. You’re just jealous.”
“Hey, I can get my knob polished anytime I want—without the ball and chain hanging on my ankle.”
“Okay, boys, don’t get started,” Kira scolded with a frown. “I’m trying to watch this.”
Jax and his friend made a face at each other over her head, and then he went back to his favorite pastime of studying his new mate. Was it his imagination, or did she have this really healthy glow surrounding her? He liked her pale blond hair pulled back into a ponytail, her cute nose, her little feet. He especially liked the mark of his canines at the curve of her neck, the two small punctures having made a faint, permanent scar in the four days since they’d bonded.
“Quit staring at me,” she muttered, crunching more popcorn.
“Why? I love looking at you.”
“You’re giving me a complex.”
“A good one, I hope.”
“Is there such a thing as a good complex?” Exasperated, she plopped the bowl down on her lap and opened her mouth, most likely to give him hell, when Nick’s voice broke in over the building’s intercom.
“Alpha Pack, Kalen, Kira, and A.J., to the meeting room, stat.”
“Goddamn,” Aric grumbled. “The show’s only half over. What’s so freakin’ important it can’t wait until tomorrow? Can I move out and get my own place?”
“I’ll help ya,” Ryon quipped.
Jax didn’t blame his friend for being pissed. Most folks didn’t live at work twenty-four-seven and had no idea how annoying it was to be on call day and night. With an assortment of curses and rumbles, everyone rose except the Fae prince, Chup asleep in his lap, who waved them off without looking up from the TV.
Setting aside her bowl and giving the program a look of regret, she fell into step beside Jax for the short walk to the meeting room. When they trooped in, Nick was already waiting, as were Melina and Mac. That and the late hour could only mean some news was breaking, classified as “need to know ASAP.” The team’s lazy demeanor rolled off like oil on wax paper, and they took their seats, completely alert and professional. Not one complaint passed anyone’s lips; they’d already voiced them all.
“I appreciate you all being so prompt and giving up part of your evening,” Nick began. “You know I wouldn’t interrupt unless it was extremely important. Dr. Mallory and Dr. Grant report that it appears our two rescued shifters will survive. One of them finally awakened a short while ago and is talking. What we’ve learned from him is the reason I’ve called you here.” He paused before continuing. Jax and some of the others exchanged glances, but no one spoke.
“The shifter who’s awake is a jaguar named Beck. He told us the other guy is an eagle named Archer who’d been held captive longer than him or any of the others, as far as he knows. He also said there were other captives who were moved a day or so before we arrived, but he’s not sure exactly when because there was no way for them to measure time.”
Zan spoke up. “How many and who were they?”
“According to Beck, three were moved. Two humans and another shifter.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t want you guys to get your hopes up, but . . . the shifter’s name was Micah.”
“Christ,” Jax breathed.
“What the fuck?”
“Why were we told he was dead?”
“And where the hell is he now?”
“If he’s alive, what about Terry, Jonas, Phoenix, and Ari?”
Nick weathered the explosion, fielding their barrage of questions as best as he could under the circumstances. “I know, and believe me, I’m with you all the way. If this is our Micah, then we’ve got a big fucking problem because we’ve been lied to, and maybe worse. But we have to take this one step at a time. Let me turn the floor over to Dr. Mallory for a few minutes so she can explain how what we’ve learned from Beck supports the findings from our lab and coincides with the information we liberated from NewLife.”
Giving Nick a short nod, she moved forward. Jax thought she looked rather pale, and figured the idea of Terry perhaps being alive had shaken her. Badly. She wouldn’t wish him dead, but theirs hadn’t been a match made in heaven by any means.
“As I told Nick, the two new shifters will make a full recovery. The speed with which this has occurred is nothing short of remarkable, and our tests on Beck and Archer have given us some startling information.” Scooping a sheaf of papers from the table, presumably her notes, she relayed their findings.
“Both shifters’ bodies contain abnormally high levels of epinephrine, which has super-stimulated their adrenaline. As a side note, this overdosage may account in part for heart failure in at least two of the four bodies we received from th
e coroner that were found locally. Anyway, in our two survivors, their systems absorbed and accepted the drug, as well as a cocktail of a designer drug that has, by all indications, altered their DNA to contain more animal than human genes.”
“And this means?” Nick prompted.
“In layman’s terms, some of the doctors and researchers at NewLife are attempting to create a breed of highly advanced super-shifters. They’re taking existing shifters and fit humans, enhancing their greatest and deadliest genetic strengths, and striving to perfect the process of making an intelligent man-beast that has Psy gifts and is virtually indestructible.”
Ryon’s eyes were wide. “Like that creature from the old movie Predator with Arnold Schwarzenegger? They couldn’t kill that fucker.”
“The premise is similar,” Melina allowed, “except NewLife is working with humans and shifters, not extraterrestrials, and using DNA and genes rather than technology perse. But creating a ruthless, unbeatable soldier is the bottom line.”
“That’s what the dead guys were trying to tell me,” Ryon said, looking tired. “They’re agreeing with you right now, all excited. They’ve been driving me crazy.”
Jax felt sorry for him, and hoped he got some peace from the ghosts.
“This all makes sense, except for why Beck and Archer were in such bad shape when we found them,” Kira put in. “If they’re strong enough to recover so fast, then why would the bastards starve and torture them?”
Nick answered that one. “How do you produce the best warriors? By breaking them down and building them back up again and again, until nothing can stand in their way. The weak perish; the strongest are made stronger.”
“That’s . . . evil.”
“Yes,” their boss agreed. “It’s horrible for the victims, unethical, and dangerous for humanity. Worse, according to Beck these aren’t volunteers in an aboveboard, sanctioned program. They’re being stalked and kidnapped from all walks of life and forced into being test subjects. Beck said that he and Archer were two of the few who’d survived all of the doctors’ engineering so far, and had been scheduled for ‘mind reprogramming.’ ”
