by Roxy Mews
Amber smacked her forehead and turned around. They followed after her like puppies.
“We have more guests, Craig. Sorry if this dings the budget.”
What the hell just happened?
“What do you mean we have guests? Why are they following us?” Mary sputtered her questions at Amber. The rest of us were just too stunned to move.
Before we could gather our wits, a timid voice rasped from the limp body in Craig’s arms. “She is discovering her gift. It has begun.”
The witch passed out before she could explain further. Vague information was not welcome, and I had to resist shaking the woman to try and wake her up. Even after all we’d seen, I got chills at her voice. What had begun? Whatever it was, we all found our numbers increased by two vampires as we followed Amber, who was already halfway back through the woods.
I was beginning to hate witches.
It took only minutes to reach the same tree stump where this mission began. Amber broke her stride and turned to me. She didn’t have to say anything.
“You want me to leave.” I spoke with more frustration than I meant to, and had to wave off her mate when he stepped forward at my tone. “She’s my daughter, hybrid. I won’t hurt her. But I don’t like the idea of all of you heading back to wherever the hell you are going with two vampires in tow. Why are they following you, anyway?”
“I think I accidentally compelled them.” Amber made that look that reminded me when I caught her eating the entire cookie stash in the apartments.
“How did you compel them?” Jake’s tone registered mild confusion, but something told me they had seen an awful lot of fucked up if he was taking this odd turn so easily. “Vampires have the gift of compulsion, but usually only over other beings. I have never heard of a vampire being compelled. Even by another vampire. As a hybrid…”
Amber should be weaker, not stronger when it came to mind control abilities.
“Don’t you think I know that? I can’t even control humans. All I know is, I told them that they should take their happy asses back inside, unless they wanted to come and join a freak hybrid Clan. I was being sarcastic! I didn’t know I could compel. But as soon as I said the words, their loyalty pinged to me.” Amber slapped her legs in frustration. We all just stared at her. Jake sat down on the stump and put his hands over his face.
Craig stood holding the witch. I tried to keep my facial muscles from exploding as I clenched my jaw.
The two vampires were the most relaxed of us all. Their joined hands swung back and forth. They reminded me of two little kids standing at a rest stop on the way to an exciting vacation. They weren’t sure when they were going to get there, but they knew it would be fun.
“Goddammit, Amber!” Craig yelled before lowering his voice in deference to the woman in his arms. “I can feel them. They joined our Clan.”
“I was being sarcastic! Which I never do. So I guess we should just let them know I was kidding and send them back to the blood bank knowing that I can compel vampires.” She covered her eyes with her hands.
Her nails gripped her hairline as her palms pressed against her lashes. “I don’t know what I did. But I don’t want to accidentally do it again.” She kept talking with her hands up.
This was perhaps the strangest conversation I had had with my daughter. And that was saying a lot.
Amber shook her head before she effectively took me down a notch. “Daddy, you need to go back to the Pack. We will figure something out.”
“I think I should help you home.” I crossed my arms. Dismissing an Alpha wasn’t the way things went down in this world.
“You shouldn’t know where we are. Talk to Shelly.” Amber lifted her head, but kept her palms over her eyes. “We will communicate with her once we have my situation figured out. Jake, I will be damned if I remove my hands from my eyes and voodoo anybody else. Please carry me home.”
Jake’s shoulders shook before he hooked his arms beneath her knees and hoisted her easily. He placed a kiss on the rounded belly against his chest. “The queen has spoken.”
“If you keep calling her that, she will try and get us to do it again. Knock that crap off.” Mary, my daughter’s dearest friend, was no longer human and pulled the rest along like the strong Beta I could see she had become.
I would have been proud or had a sentimental moment if I had not just been dismissed like the pup trying to follow my Alpha on his first hunt.
“What are we going to do next?” Steven asked his new Alphas.
Matthew whispered something into his ear.
“Besides the obvious.”
Amber groaned in her mate’s arms, and peeked through her fingers. “How about you take care of Mary while we handle the rest of the situation? Without snacking on her.”
Matthew stepped up and grabbed the woman he’d no doubt eaten from at some point and leaned her head gently against his shoulder. “She doesn’t smell very tasty anyway. Where are we taking care of her?”
Mary frowned at them both, but something must have made her see they were either fine with the command or compelled enough to obey. “We’ve got a small place set up for the time being. Let’s go.”
They all started down the path away from me.
I struggled to hold my wolf back. “What the hell are you expecting me to do here?” I called after them. “Just go home and wait for instruction? Excuse me if I find that a bit ridiculous.”
Jake stopped in his tracks and turned in one elegant step to face me. My skin prickled and my height increased a fraction with the threat of the change pounding in my blood.
“Mr. Paulson, we have to keep Amber’s and my location a secret. She is also terrified of what she just did even if she is too stubborn to admit it.”
“Fuck you. I’m fine.” The expletive didn’t have a whole lot of weight coming from someone hiding behind her own hand again. She looked like a three-year-old playing hide and seek.
We both paused and the tiny heartbeat within her rang through the woods. Every creature around us stopped for a second, and that little being ruled the forest at that moment.
I couldn’t let this one go. “I want a way of contact. Or at the very least a future meeting.”
Mary peeked from behind the wall Jake made. “Tomorrow then. Eight PM. The hotel room we were all at the night of Amber’s change. We need time to regroup.” Mary eyed their new Clan members. “And time to figure out how much of this connection we now have is permanent.”
I took the opportunity to turn away from them. I refused to be dismissed again. This battle was brewing on my territory, but it wasn’t really my fight yet. I was the one joining their cause. Bristling at taking a second position beneath them was only natural. Holding back my wolf was not.
I itched to let loose. I itched for a lot of things as I made my way back to the apartments.
The threat of violence only weighed heavier on my body when I encountered them together in the weight room.
Chapter Seventeen
Shelly
They really were fucking amateurs. They left a trail of scent a mile wide. I burnt the sage back and forth along the path into the woods. There was something in that room that I didn’t want to see. I knew that much. So it wasn’t that much of a sacrifice to re-tangle the vines and grab some of the sage from the garden.
The Matheo had retired for the night under the impression we were all drunken idiots, high on the buzz of intoxicated humans. I had to pretend to drink three more times. Despite my best efforts, a bit of the sweet liquid made it past my gums.
There really is a reason some vampires hang in dark alleys. They aren’t waiting to pounce on damsels in distress. They are looking for the junkie getting his next high. It lets the vampire do the same.
I traced the scent path with the white sage bundle. Crazy that a simple plant could erase a trail so com
pletely when burned. But it worked. When I was younger, we’d learned a lot from a certain packless wolf. Jake’s mother hadn’t been the most nurturing creature on the planet, but she’d known how to survive. I’d caught her using the sage to erase a trail one day.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
She jumped nearly out of her skin at the sound of me. She waved the tiny leaves and sticks in her hand, creating a miniature tornado of bright white smoke. Then she slashed the burning embers through the center and it dissolved.
“Sage doesn’t erase all evils, little vampire, but it does erase your scent to those like you. Hard to follow a scent trail that no longer exists.” She laughed. It was a hard laugh. She held her very pregnant belly and I saw a tear drop from her eyes.
“What are you trying to cover up?” As one of the more junior members of the Family, I was suspicious of everyone. I had a reason to be. Everyone I knew had caused me some kind of trouble or pain. I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
She walked toward me and extinguished the remaining burning bundle in her hand. She hissed as her flesh seared, and I spared a glance to watch the wound heal.
“I have a lot to cover up. But right now, I am just trying to protect this life inside me. I gave up a lot of myself to make sure he survives.”
“It’s a boy?” I asked. “How can you be sure?”
When her lips pulled back and revealed her teeth, it wasn’t something you could call a smile. “Call it witch’s intuition.”
That woman had been a few screws loose of an erector set. But she knew her sage. I put out the bundle on my hand just as she had, and the trail they had all left was gone. I walked back toward the house and smelled it. Something I missed. The air shouldn’t have held his scent but it was there. My nose wasn’t the only part of my body that noticed either.
Even when I stopped breathing to gather my wits, that bit of Rick clung to me. My eyes swept back and forth. Had he left something here? No. There were no dropped or ripped articles of clothing. Then, there it was. A single drop of blood at my feet. It was his. I licked my thumb and wiped the tattle tale bit of him off the stone floors. Without thinking, I popped my thumb in my mouth to clean it off. A moan poured out of me.
It had to be the ecstasy the donors had dripped into my system. No man’s blood tasted that incredible. I licked the sides of my thumb hoping for more. I was suddenly famished, and it wasn’t for blood.
Against my better judgment and my miasma, I started off for the Paulson compound. There wasn’t time to stop and grab a drink either. I had to go now. I needed to know what happened. And I wanted to be near him. I could admit that. The blood drew me.
My feet hit the pavement. I hoped by the time I crossed the campus I would have a real reason to go to him. I also hoped I wouldn’t get too tempted and bite him. Or do anything else wildly inappropriate. The middle of a brewing war, and I was walking around with damp underwear.
It wasn’t Alpha that I found when I arrived. It was Doc. Trevor. He had wanted me to call him Trevor when his tongue was down my throat. Well, not when his tongue was in my throat. I obviously couldn’t talk then, but when he kissed my neck, or licked my ear, or…I moved my weight from foot to foot. My underwear was not getting any drier.
He was in the weight room using a punching bag. I was surprised the thing was holding up. He pounded relentlessly on it. He still wore no shirt. There were remnants of the paint war still on his skin. Sweat he was working up caused the spots to run. He was an unintentional work of art. My fingers twitched with the desire to fingerpaint all over his body.
I shook my head and balled my hands to fists. Nails digging into my palms were a bit of a help, but as I snuck silently into the room through a large open window, his scent hit me just as hard as Rick’s had. Did these two wear some kind of hottie cologne that was an aphrodisiac to vampires, or what? Whatever it was, I sat on a weight bench watching him—like it was the latest TV show—until he finally noticed me.
He hit ten times in rapid succession. A bit of sand trickled through a crack in the leather. He cursed and started looking around. His hunt for repair tape stalled, as he caught me straddling the bench press.
I was trying to not rock myself back and forth against the padded backrest. I was failing. My core ached just being in his presence. Trevor ran his hand through his hair, and the delicious scent refreshed. Whatever he was selling, my body wanted to buy.
“What the hell are you doing here?” He rushed to shut windows and doors and threw a towel on the handle of the door facing the apartment building. He picked up a remote and blinds inside the glass doors and skylights lowered. The unasked question of what was he doing formed in a pinch between my brows, and he answered without prompt. “You weren’t supposed to show up here, remember. I was just making sure we had privacy.”
“The blinds I get.” I waved a hand toward the door. “The towel?”
Trevor’s grin turned predator with a hint of mockery. “You’re in college, aren’t you Shelly? Don’t recall what it means when you hang a towel outside the door?”
My laugh came out breathy and deep. “You think you’re getting lucky?”
He was in front of the weight bench in a second. His hands were millimeters from my thighs. I had to keep my legs spread wide to keep them from touching his hands. He sniffed and I knew he smelled my slick panties.
It was Alpha’s blood that ignited my fire tonight, but sitting here with Trevor, I could safely say he was the one that had me burning to heady heights. Trevor’s eyes glinted honey gold. His wolf was near. I was almost as wild. The miasma’s relentless catalog of facts faded. My conscious mind was focused on the man in front of me. I needed to get laid. I know I had done my job for tonight. All kidnapping distraction and no play made Shelly a dull girl, did it not?
Neither of us blinked as I slid forward. The heat from his hands seared through the thick denim I wore. I could have been wearing nothing with how aware of him I was. I let my eyes roll back as he gripped the tops of my legs. He moved slowly around my thighs. His fingers traced circles higher and higher. His thumbs pressed just inches away from the throbbing of my clit, as he grabbed my ass and pulled me to the end of the bench. My body slammed against his and we both groaned in need.
“I may not be Alpha of this Pack, Shelly, but you are pushing me to dominating you. What game are you playing?”
He didn’t soften his hold. Instead, he nuzzled my head aside and licked my delicate collarbone. He nipped when I didn’t answer and pulled the skin between his blunt teeth. I felt his canines begin to lengthen. They slid warm and slow across the skin he was holding captive. “Well?”
“No games.” I took a breath to form more words. “There is something wrong with me when I am around you.”
“Just me?”
Why would he ask that? Well he shouldn’t ask if he didn’t want the answer. “Umm…no. You and your Alpha. You guys share the sex on a stick cologne or something?”
He laughed and his teeth released the spot on my neck. The sliding of his fangs and tongue along the veins of my neck was driving me wild. I was starving, but I wanted more than just the bag of blood that I could dig out of my purse. I wanted a werewolf cocktail.
Hell, they could keep their tails. I just wanted the cock. But I wanted them both. I was hot and horny as hell, but I still wanted more. My hands yanked hairs from the roots to pull Trevor from his delicate kisses on my skin. He kept licking even after I pulled him back. I thought I had put enough distance between his mouth and mine, but when his tongue reached out and slithered against my lips, there wasn’t enough willpower on the planet to keep me from kissing him back.
I released my grip, and the barrier that I didn’t really want to be there, and he fell against me. The momentum carried us backward. His hands adjusted and the bounce kept us rolling until his back hit the floor. Without any effort he gu
ided my legs on either side of him. An oh-daddy-please erection pushed the seam of my jeans against my throbbing clit.
I started to move. I needed an orgasm as much as I needed air. Wait, I was a vampire. I needed an orgasm far, far more than air. I gripped his ears for leverage as my hips began to rub. Back and forth the pressure built. I went faster. He moaned louder. The damn elaborate belt I had on could be hurting him. If it was, he didn’t say anything. Instead, he lifted his hips from the floor and fought harder for the pleasure I knew was just a few pieces of fabric away. Almost there.
I forced the blood down where I needed it. I felt my body blooming for what I prayed was to come. Hopefully me. So damn close. I didn’t care if this orgasm came from dry humping like newbies. I needed this. I needed anything he could give me.
The door that had held the towel rattled. “Someone’s in here.” Trevor’s breathless voice let whoever it was know exactly what was going on. The door rattled again. I thrust faster against him. If we were going to get interrupted, I was getting off first.
A splintering sound echoed loudly and glass shattered as the door was kicked in. Trevor jumped up, effectively launching me over to the floor on my ass. Every bit of me was throbbing in need. And even though my clit was screaming for attention, the little girl stood up and did the happy dance along with my nipples when Rick pushed through the door.
He looked at me, sniffed, and looked at Trevor. Then he was looking at Trevor with his fists. Growling and snarling, both men had blazing gold eyes zeroed in on where they could strike next. Trevor had created Alpha Richard Paulson. Now Rick was showing Trevor that Alpha beats Beta every time. Or at least he would if they kept going like this, and then I was never getting laid.
They could damage each other if they desired, but this fighting was more about releasing frustration. There wasn’t even any blood yet. I knew how to stop this.
Sure, I could get in the middle and try and break it up, but then all I would get is them angry at me. Instead I walked around the tussle, dodged a couple of thrown twenty pound dumbbells, and went to work securing the damaged door with a nearby chair.
