Tales of the Golden Judge: 3-Book Bundle - Books 10-12

by Hart, Melissa F.

  He shook his head, half-smiling at her.

  “It always felt as if I were too busy fighting, with my father, with Bors, with the people they sent me to fight. I was nothing but a beast meant for the battlefield, and in the back of my mind, there was always you.”

  Her heart melted at his frank admission, and she pulled him close for a deep kiss. Pressed so tightly to one another, she could feel his cock harden against her thigh, but it was less important than how much she needed to be with him, to feel him gathered so wonderfully close to her.

  She wasn't sure when their kisses went from comforting to sensual, when they became more about fire and less about simple warmth. Her hips bucked against his, and she delighted in the scrape of his hairy body against her smooth skin. She twisted her legs around his, using the leverage to get even closer, and she whimpered with pleasure when he nipped firmly at her neck and her shoulders.

  “Mark me,” she whispered. “It's what I want, please...”

  With a willing groan, he latched his teeth into her shoulder, clamping his teeth over a tender patch of skin and sucking on it until she wailed. It took him long moments before he was satisfied, and when he was done, she was panting with pleasure and with the intensity of it. He didn't stop there. Instead, he rolled her to her belly and pressed his weight over hers, nuzzling at the back of her neck and biting her there, though much more gently.

  Tonna delighted in the weight of his body on top of hers, and when she felt the length of his cock slide up between her buttocks, she whimpered and pressed herself upward against him. He stroked himself against her sleek skin, whispering love words and sex words in her ear. She loved him, and she could feel that he loved her in every word he spoke and every bit of pleasure he made her body feel.

  “Do you want me, love?” he whispered. “Do you want me, please?”

  “I do, I do, I do,” she chanted over and over again.

  Instead of turning her over, he hefted her hips up in the air, and there was something so primal about the position that she groaned. He pressed his hips to her rear, letting her feel his heat and his strength, and she buried her face in their makeshift mattress, urging him on with small whimpers and moans.

  When she felt the broad tip of his cock press into her sweet, wet slit, she moaned. She was tight, but already so slick that he slid in easily. Oh, but he was moving so slowly, so achingly slowly!

  “More, more please?” she whimpered, and he laughed, a strained sound.

  “We've waited for five years, you don't think you can wait another few moments?”

  “No,” she cried, but then he pressed his length deep inside her, not stopping until they were joined as closely as they could be. Her hands fisted, and she groaned deep in her throat.

  “Tonna? Tonna, love, am I hurting you?”

  “No... no, please, just.. just give me a moment...”

  He obligingly stayed still, and she tried to pull herself together. He was inside her, hard and hot, and the pleasure was so intense she could have wept. It was all of it, the emotion, the physical intensity, the loss she had felt when she thought she would never see him again. It all came up, and it threatened to tear her apart.

  Then she felt his tender hands on her hair, and she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she would never be parted from this man again.

  “Now, please now,” she whispered, and with a soft moan, he did exactly as she asked him to.

  Ulfrik thrust into her deeply, and each stroke was like a homecoming. She could feel him press deeply into her, and she realized that she was pressing back against him, luxuriating in the depth of his possession.

  She wasn't sure when her legs started to shake, or when she started calling his name, but when it started, she couldn't stop, not even a little bit. The pleasure struck her low, but then it radiated out to every part of her, shaking her, and marking her as surely as his teeth had.

  She knew that when she climaxed, she was crying out his name, and that his own pleasure followed right after hers. It was a soul-shaking sensation, and they were in it together, feeling each other's climaxes and that enhancing their own more powerfully.

  Ulfrik brought both of them to their sides, but he didn't bother to pull out of her. Instead, he lay spooned against her back, and she relished the intimacy of still being joined with him.

  “I need you,” he said starkly. “I needed you so much and in so many ways over the past five years.”

  “I know,” she whispered, her voice soft and sweet and drowsy. “And now you have me. What, pray tell, do you think you will do with me now, wolf king?”

  He laughed, a pleased and exhausted sound that thrilled her right down to her toes.

  “First I am going to wonder how I found a woman who is so full of life and laughter, and then I think I will make sure that I get the last laugh.”

  Tonna started to ask him what he meant by that, but then his clever tongue found her sensitive earlobe, and she whimpered instead.

  ***

  There was something almost morbidly familiar about it. As they walked back to the encampments, their hands so tightly intertwined that it looked like nothing could part them, they both realized that there was something wrong. There was a sense of unease in the air.

  Tonna sensed it first, and for a moment, she couldn't bear it. All of the grief and fear from losing her brother was back in her mind, and she thought she would choke. Then she remembered that she was not in that place anymore, she was not a green girl, and Ulfrik was beside her. The words they had spoken the night before strengthened her, and she strode forward to meet the new tragedy that was waiting for her.

  To her dread, she found that the fear and the confusion centered on her own camp, and she let go of Ulfrik's hand to meet her people. Automatically, she looked for faces, grouping them into families so she could tell who was there and who was missing.

  Her gut clenched when she realized it was Aja who was gone, and she looked around, searching for answers.

  “She was taken in the night,” Merrill said. She was an older woman with gray hair, not known for flights of fancy. “We didn't know until we got up this morning and we found this...”

  She held out the green dress that Aja had been wearing the night before, and Tonna felt a rill of fear run down her back. Her cousin was gone, naked, taken, and for a moment, her mind ran panicked before she calmed it.

  “We will get her back, we will,” she said fiercely, and by her side, Ulfrik nodded his agreement.

  “Chief,” he said respectfully, and Tonna turned to face him. They were still lovers, nothing would change that, but now he was on her ground, with her people, and he treated her with respect.

  “Yes?”

  “May I smell her garment?”

  Tonna nodded. There was something strange about it, something not right, but it was a scent she didn't know.

  Ulfrik shifted into his wolf form, an enormous gray wolf with tinges of black on his back, and he waited until Tonna held the garment out for him before he moved forward. Almost as soon as he had pressed his nose to the fabric, he backed off quickly, shifting back into a man.

  “Bors,” he said, his voice dripping with disgust and fury. “It's his work. It smells of his sorcery.”

  Tonna found herself growling, and she stopped.

  “We will find him, and we will get Aja back,” she said. “We will kill him.”

  “I did not do enough when I banished him,” Ulfrik agreed. “We will kill him together.”

  Their eyes met over the garment, and though Tonna realized that they could not know what was written for them or where their path would go, she knew they would be together.

  TO BE CONTINUED IN BOOK TWELVE: Judges Ascendant – Volume 12

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  Judges Ascendant

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  Synopsis

  Tonna and Ulfrik are on a quest to find Tonna's abducted cousin Aja, but after a battle with a monster that is more powerful than either of them imagined, it mi
ght be that Aja has to save them both instead. Tonna, Ulfrik and Aja discover the forgotten powers of their kind locked away in a desolate tower, and together they learn the elemental magical arts that will set them apart forever. Tonna must face her feelings and suffer a loss that she never imagined.

  ***

  In her fox form, Tonna streaked close to the ground, her head down and searching for the right scent. The autumn had been a dry one, and even the stone held scent easily. It was a small comfort to her as she searched, desperately trying to find some hint of her cousin Aja or the cruel man who took her.

  To her left, Ulfrik, in his massive gray wolf form, coursed back and forth, searching for a scent just as she did. They had become lovers again after five years apart, and though it hurt Tonna to think of that time, she could only be grateful that he was with her now.

  There were others out searching, and every shape-changing clan that owed any kind of friendship ties to the fox clan that she led was on the hunt with them. Somewhere above, golden eagles searched, and the otter people patrolled the waterways. Her cousin had only been missing for a night, but there was still the pressing fear that they would be too late, that they would find her as they had found Tonna's brother five years ago.

  Please, no, not like Aeson.

  Her black nose pressed to the ground, she searched and searched and searched. She was far beyond the others, but she didn't care. She had to find Aja; she had to find her cousin.

  The sun was setting when she stopped, blowing air out of her nostrils and frantically checking again to be sure. It wasn't the burnt and unpleasant smell of the sorcerer who had taken her, which Ulfrik had identified. Instead it was a sweet scent, that of the honey cream that Aja used on her hands. She started to bark to alert the others, but she hesitated. If she could still detect the scent, there was a chance that the sorcerer would be alerted by any sounds she made. She looked around wildly, realizing she was all on her own.

  Tonna was torn. She knew that she was no match for the sorcerer on her own, but she also knew that this late in the year, a sudden rain shower could wash out the scent clinging so precariously to ground. Even as she thought it, she felt a cold wind rush down from the north, bringing with it a promise of storms.

  Tonna whimpered in frustration, her ears flickering back nervously, and as if she had summoned him, Ulfrik appeared by her side. He was nearly four times bigger than she was in his wolf form, and he looked down at her with bright eyes. In his human form, he was a muscular man with dark hair and dark eyes, and she was comforted by him in his wolf form as well.

  “What is it?” he asked softly, and then he put his nose to the ground as well.

  “We've gone far beyond the others,” Tonna said flatly. “We need to go on to catch them, though.”

  Ulfrik hesitated. He was the head of his clan in the same way that Tonna was the head of hers, and she knew that it was his instinct to put others before himself.

  “Run back to the others and bring them along,” he said finally. “I can find and face Bors myself.”

  Tonna's golden eyes sparked fire, and she shook her head viciously. “That's not going to happen. He has my cousin, and I will not leave her, do you understand? There's nothing that says your trail won't be washed out, too.”

  As she spoke, she felt the first splatters of rain on her nose, and she squashed the rising panic in her veins viciously.

  “I am not arguing about this,” she growled, and setting her nose to the ground, she started to follow the trail. After a moment, Ulfrik fell into pace beside her, helping her puzzle it out. Following a trail, even a fresh one, could be a confusing thing, and there were times when Ulfrik called her back to the trail when she rushed ahead in her need to find her cousin.

  They traveled miles like that, deep into the forests. After a while, Tonna realized that they were heading into the mountains, where there were more frightening things than the shapechangers that only wanted to live in peace.

  Ulfrik forced them both to stop for a break, and though Tonna protested, she knew that he was right. They changed into their human forms to relax, and wordlessly, Ulfrik pulled her into his arms.

  “We will find them,” he said, and Tonna nodded tersely.

  “I never doubted that,” she mused. “I don't think I would go on till I did see Aja again. It's just... I don't know what will have happened to her when I do find her.”

  She felt another surge of fear as she remembered her brother's still, still body, and she remembered that Aja had been torn right out of her gown, leaving the tatters behind. She shuddered, and Ulfrik cradled her close, sitting underneath an ancient pine tree with his vixen on his lap.

  “What is Bors?” she asked finally, and she felt Ulfrik tense underneath her. Bors had been his father's adviser before Ulfrik had banished him, and Bors was responsible for the old wolf king sending Ulfrik out to fight needless battles against humans and other shapechangers.

  “I don't think he is what he says he is,” Ulfrik said finally. “He told us that he was the only survivor of a great battle from the south, and that his clan, the other red wolves, are dead. I don't believe him. Some of the things he says, and some of the choices he makes, tell me that he is much older than he says he is. I remember speaking to him and finding that I have only vague memories of what we discussed. Sometimes, I dream of him, and in my dreams, he is far larger, far more powerful. Far more cruel.”

  “He is the one who split us apart,” Tonna said thoughtfully. “He told me that I had done enough harm after my mother cut you.”

  Ulfrik touched the deep scar that ran down the side of his face. He had inadvertently sent Tonna's brother to his death, a playful distraction that had turned out to be deadly. Rivka, Tonna's mother, had acted in rage and slashed his face in revenge. In the end, it had been a mercy. She could have done far worse. She could have killed him, and Tonna sent a brief prayer of thanks to her dead mother that she had not.

  “He told me that you swore that you would never lay eyes on me again,” Ulfrik said finally. “He said that you were furious and grieved, and that you would never come again to the moot or suffer my presence.”

  “Oh my love, he lied,” Tonna said, planting a kiss on Ulfrik's chin. “I never said that. I would never.”

  Ulfrik nodded. “I know. He has cost us time, but he has cost others their lives.”

  Tonna stood. “Then let us make sure that he does not hurt anyone else.”

  She shifted down to her fox form, and he to his wolf form, and together they were on the trail again.

  ***

  The moon was almost set when Tonna realized that they were being followed. She lifted her head, but otherwise she gave no sign. Instead, she ran close to Ulfrik's side and got his attention with a whisper. “Ulfrik, there is something there, in the dark...”

  “What?”

  Tonna could have laughed at how stunned her lover sounded.

  “Trust the wolf not to notice that he has become the prey,” she said softly. “Keep walking next to me. The trail goes straight for a little while yet, and I can guide us.”

  Ulfrik did his best to scent the wind and what he scented made a deep growl start in his chest.

  “You're right, there's something there, and it's been following us for a long while.”

  “That means it’s either just following us or looking for the right time to attack,” Tonna murmured. “We can find out when the ground is in our favor.”

  It was a nerve-wracking thing to continue on as if nothing was happening, but there was nothing else to be done. They continued their trek into the wilderness, and together they traded off on keeping track of that strange presence that was never far away.

  Whatever it was, it was large, heavy, and there was a wet smell to it, something that reminded her of water. It wasn't the fresh and wild scent of fresh water, however. There was something murky and stagnant about it, something deep and still. Shivering, she thought of the cistern where her brother had died, and
she kept going.

  Soon enough, Tonna and Ulfrik came to a high point in the land, a small hillock bare of trees. It was a rare piece of high ground in the forest, and they both realized that it was the best chance they were going to get.

  “Let me call the challenge,” Ulfrik said, and Tonna reluctantly agreed. Her skills were her clever mind and her sharp tongue. When it came to all-out battle, Ulfrik was the one who stood a chance. She crouched down close, and she watched in awe as Ulfrik planted all four feet on the hill and bayed. It was a deep and terrible sound, so unlike the joyous wolf calls that his clan shared. It was an invitation to do battle, aggression and pain, and blood that was going to be shed.

  For a long tense moment, she thought that the thing would stay in the shadows and not come out. She wondered if they would have to go looking for it because there was a limit to how long they could tolerate it following along behind them like a shadow. This had to happen now, not when they were tired, not when there was both danger before and danger behind...

  The thing raged out of the forest like a storm sent from hell, and suddenly Tonna found herself more afraid than she had ever been. There was something lizard-like about it, but far larger and more vicious than any little lizard she had ever caught on a brook. This was a primitive and terrible thing, with a hide so hard that Ulfrik couldn't pierce it, with teeth so large that they struck her dumb. The thing was about the size of a large horse, but oh it moved so fast.

  She watched in horrified fear as it lunged for Ulfrik, and though Ulfrik was fast and strong, she realized that he was simply going to be overwhelmed by this monster.

  “Run! Run, oh gods, run, Ulfrik!” she cried, and it still wasn't enough.

  The monster closed its jaws over his foreleg, making him howl with pain, and Tonna didn't stop to think. Instead, she simply threw herself at the thing’s face, leaping far higher than she thought she could. Whatever the monster expected, it did not expect her to be there and fighting it. Instead, she made it back off, and she shouted at Ulfrik again to run.