“Where are we going?” she asked, her slight breathlessness betraying the tornado of desire sweeping through her body.
“Bed,” he grunted, his gaze pinned to her breasts. She supposed there was a lot to look at. She had an inconveniently-sized pair of tits that could not be pushed into perkiness by any bra on earth—at least, not any bra she was willing to pay for—but the way Luke was staring at them right now made them seem less like an annoyance and more like a promise of pleasure. She didn’t doubt that he could deliver.
He kicked open a door just off the living area and carried her into what must be his bedroom, since the only object in it was a bed. An enormous bed, too, piled high with a mess of blankets and pillows that made it look more like a nest. It almost filled the modest space entirely, illuminated by the street-light-tinted glow coming through the single, wide window. Luke didn’t do anything to change that; he just threw her onto the bed and followed, covering her body with his own.
“We’ll get chocolate all over the sheets,” she gasped.
“Don’t care.” And then his big hands were grabbing the soft mounds of her breasts, pushing them up and together for his enjoyment. He lowered his head without fanfare and licked a long, wet stripe over her skin, making her gasp and arch up beneath him. Chas found herself spreading her thighs wider, opening up beneath him—and then she felt the bulge of his rigid shaft against her pussy, pressing hard on her clit, making her moan.
He looked up with something wicked in his eyes, his tongue circling one rigid nipple. Slowly, deliberately, he rocked his hips forward, pushing firmly between her legs. She released a shuddering sigh and arched into him again, chasing that spark of pleasure, letting it kindle into a white-hot flame.
Luke released her breasts and rose up on his knees, his hands moving to her jeans. She didn’t protest as he undid the buttons, tugged at the zipper, dragged the stiff fabric down her thighs. His movements were almost frantic, his breaths more like a series of low, rapid growls.
He didn’t pull her plain and comfortable underwear aside; instead, he ripped it off so easily that she thought he must’ve used his claws. Maybe that should’ve alarmed her, should’ve pulled her out of this haze of lust—but she didn’t care. She knew what he was, and she didn’t care. She remembered what he’d said earlier that day: “I could no more rip out your throat than rip out my own heart.”
She believed him. Mostly because she was starting to feel the same way.
And then he was pushing her legs up and out of his way, his fingers digging into her thighs, his face pressed against her cunt. Her whole body jolted as shock and pleasure twisted their way through her veins, white-hot and electric. She felt him inhale, breathing her in, nuzzling her labia in a way that made her clit throb and her wetness grow. She could feel fine rivulets of her own arousal trailing from her slick entrance, down the curve of her arse. He kept going, making a sound deep in his chest that sent a thrill up her spine. The rasp of his facial hair was almost too much against her sensitive folds, but not quite.
Chastity kneaded her own breast with one hand, slid the other into his thick hair, and ordered through gritted teeth, “More.”
He laughed, low and dangerous. She felt his mouth move against her as he spoke, the most decadent tease of all. “Does that mean I’m doing okay?”
“Luke,” she warned.
He looked up, delight written over his face. “Did you just growl at me?”
“No!”
“Yes,” he said smugly. Then he lowered his head and licked her from cunt to clit, his broad tongue spreading her folds. Chas released a jagged cry that sounded far too breathless, way too desperate, to have come from her lips—except it matched the gnawing hunger inside her, the helpless need growing in her chest and the uncontrollable desire swelling between her legs.
When he parted her with his thumbs, when he held her open and lapped at her entrance with a low moan, she made the sound again, her body writhing without permission. It was as if her nerves were no longer taking orders from her mind, but from her swollen, sensitive clit—and when he licked her there, when he closed his lips around her and sucked, her vision actually blurred.
She felt as if she were burning alive, choking on pleasure, exploding with need. His tongue swirled over her aching flesh and she screamed out his name. His fingers pushed into her tightening pussy and she actually sobbed. His thumb replaced his tongue on her clit, rubbing hard—and then she felt his teeth sink into her thigh, and she came.
The lust was dizzying, suffocating. By the time she returned to her senses, he was lying over her again, his face above hers when she opened her eyes. She pulled him closer and kissed him hard and wanted, wanted, wanted. He kissed her just as fiercely, his hands roaming over her eager body one moment, then yanking at his own jeans the next. When his were shoved down to his knees, just like hers, he grasped her hip firmly and whispered against her lips, “Now?”
“Now,” she said, or tried to—but the end of the word was swallowed by a gasp when the head of his cock brushed over her hypersensitive folds.
He moaned and let his head fall forward to rest against hers. “Holy fuck, that felt good.”
All she could manage was a choked, “Please.” She widened her thighs as much as she could, jeans considered, and sank her nails into the curve of his arse, urging him forward. And he moved, the first inch of that hot, thick cock spreading her open, pushing into her swollen cunt, setting her nerves alight.
“Jesus, Chas,” he panted. “I want to mate you. Now. Let’s do it now.”
At those words, everything in her froze. Her pounding heart went from a sign of anticipation to a ragged drumbeat of panic. Blood that had zipped through her veins like starlight suddenly cooled and congealed. A second ago, she would’ve said nothing could break through this heavy, drugging pleasure. Clearly, she’d been wrong.
6
Judgement
Luke could barely hear over the rushing of blood in his ears, could barely see through the cloud of pleasure surrounding him, could barely think when he was finally pushing into Chastity’s burning, silken heat. But he could feel her, all of her, enough to notice even through his lust that she’d become still and tense beneath him. He blinked hard, shook his head until the sound of his rapid pulse gave way to the sound of her voice.
“No,” she said.
He froze. “You want to stop?”
In answer, she pushed at his chest. Which was quite clear. He gritted his teeth, pulled out, and rose up on his knees. His eyes ran over her body, but he ignored the lushness of her breasts, the soft plumpness of her curves, and focused on her skin. She was littered with random scars—some pale, some dark, some big and some small—but he searched for more recent marks or bruises as he asked, “Are you okay? I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
She snorted and sat up, shuffling away from him. “Brought me to my senses, more like.”
Well. That wasn’t exactly what he’d wanted to hear, but he decided not to jump to conclusions. Even though she was currently standing and pulling up her jeans. “Chastity, are we—”
“You’re a Werewolf,” she said, spinning round to face him. “Yes, you’re still you, and I still…” She bit back whatever she’d been about to say, shaking her head as she struggled with her zipper. “Whatever. I need to go home and talk to my family. I can’t just mate you,” she spat, as if the word were distasteful. “Didn’t you say that shit’s for life?” She didn’t wait for an answer, stomping out of the room.
Luke followed, shoving off his jeans completely instead of pulling them up, purely because it was faster. He found her in the kitchenette, throwing on her chocolate-stained T-shirt. The look on her face, one of bloody-minded determination, told him that he wasn’t about to get what he wanted here—not even close. But he still tried. “You don’t need to leave, Chas. Just hold on a second. Talk to me.”
She shoved past him without meeting his eyes, grabbing her jacket by the door. “There’s really
nothing to talk about. I’ve known you all of five minutes. This isn’t normal.”
“Who gives a fuck about normal? The fact that I’m a Werewolf isn’t normal,” he said, even as he fought against the pull of his beast.
“I do!” she snapped.
He closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. The full moon was tomorrow, and he could still taste her on his tongue. The fact that she was hesitating frustrated the monster inside him in a way that had claws pricking his fingertips and fangs trying to force their way through his gums.
He gritted his teeth and held it all in and talked fast. “Everything about both our lives is strange, Chastity, but that doesn’t make it any less real. You know what this is. You can feel it. And I shouldn’t have—I shouldn’t have lost my head and moved too fast, but you shouldn’t run, either.”
She whipped around to face him, her hands curled into fists, her gaze hard and narrowed. “You think I’m running? You think I’m a coward?” She looked him up and down, slow and scathing, as if he were a cockroach at her feet. His beast snarled in response, but he swallowed the sound, because he had a feeling she’d take any excuse to fight right then. And he would never hurt her.
But she hurt him. “I’m not running, Luke. I’m just leaving. Because I got what I came here for.”
She got what she came here for.
And now she was leaving. Leaving him. When he needed her around just to think, to breathe, to live. When her absence was his definition of loneliness.
She let herself out into the cold, slamming the door shut behind her, and he allowed it. He maintained iron-hard control, exercised his hard-won restraint, reminded himself that he ruled his own mind and his actions, that nothing and no-one could affect him. Those lies steadied his shuddering heart for a good few minutes, each second a burning eternity.
But eventually, the truth won out. He was not an island anymore. She’d come, she’d changed him, and she’d had the fucking audacity to brush it off and walk away.
He threw back his head and howled.
Abina Adofo had had a busy month.
She’d been home far less than usual, leaving her husband to hold down the fort. Travelling from John O’Grotes to Land’s End in search of answers to a question no-one dared ask in the daylight had taken a hell of a lot of time. And even now, though she’d covered every inch of land in England and Scotland, Abina had only shards of disjointed information to show for it. She still couldn’t fully explain why, last month, a monster had left one of her daughters alive—and stolen the clothing of another.
She didn’t like that. If there was one thing Abina craved and continued to lack, it was knowledge. Knowledge, more than the survival skills, battle tactics and weaponry she’d taught her girls, was power. But theirs was a world of shadows and whispers, and answers were smoke in the wind.
She parked her car in the drive and smiled at the sight of the neighbours’ imaginatively-carved pumpkins, glowing bright in the darkness. It was well past midnight, but as she approached her own front door, she saw the lights were on in the living room. Her husband, Solomon, must be waiting up. She’d told him not to, of course, but the man was stubborn as a bloody goat. And secretly, she was rather pleased about it.
She entered the house with a smile on her face, setting down the largest of her weapons before she went in search of her husband. She found him in his favourite chair, his expression unusually grave, his hands folded in his lap in a way that meant business.
And beside him, to her surprise, stood their youngest daughter. Abina’s heart raced for a moment as she swept her gaze over Chastity, wondering if something had happened, if her time had run out, if the Were had come hunting. Chas was theoretically capable of defending herself, but she must never. She could not. The oracle had been quite clear.
“Everything is fine,” Solomon said, his soothing baritone setting her at ease. Of course, he’d know her worry and immediately assuage it. She flashed him a grateful smile before looking to their daughter.
“Ma,” Chastity said. “I think you’ll want to sit down for this.”
Repeating everything she’d learned from Luke was the easy part—well, except for the fact that echoing his words, remembering his voice, made Chastity’s throat burn and her eyes prickle. But she used the icy panic that had filled her when he’d spoken about mating, embraced the cold until her volatile emotions froze over. She was a soldier, and she was making a report. That was all.
Until her mother looked up from the notes she’d been making for the past hour and asked the question Chastity had been dreading, the one that had made her flinch at every interruption so far. “Where did you learn all of this, Smudge?”
Fourteen Adofo children, and each one had a nickname—one that only their parents used, that made absolutely no sense and had no discernible origin story. Some weren’t even real words. But to Chastity, the sound of her ridiculous pet name was like a steadying hand.
She cleared her throat and said, “A Werewolf told me.”
Silence. Ma blinked rapidly. Dad took off his glasses, cleaned them carefully on his shirt, and put them back on. Then he said, “Pardon?”
“Almost four weeks ago,” Chastity said, trying her best to sound Extremely Mature and Professional, “a Were in human form came into the café. Despite clear signs as to his nature, I doubted my suspicions at first because his behaviour was… anomalous. But after a while, I decided that he must be the creature Victory had that incident with.” She paused, then said very quickly, “I decided to hunt him alone.”
Her parents, in unison, bellowed, “You did what?!”
She didn’t think that was a genuine invitation to repeat herself, so she ploughed on. “He seemed to be attempting to flirt with me, so I allowed the situation to continue for a few weeks. He came in every day and spoke to me, until I eventually encouraged him to take things further. At the end of the week, I went to his home—”
“You went to a Were’s lair? What were you—no, never mind. It’s done. Where is it? Where was he hiding?”
“He wasn’t hiding, Ma. He lives in a house.”
Her mother made a strangled sort of choking noise. Dad patted her back soothingly.
“I went to his house,” Chastity continued, “and attempted to kill him. During our fight, although he shifted, he remained rational and tried not to hurt me.”
Her mother’s jaw dropped. It actually dropped. She could’ve caught flies. The sight distracted Chas for a moment with its sheer unexpectedness, but she collected herself and continued. She had to. Because if she stopped talking about Luke in this clinical way, she might start thinking about Luke in a visceral way.
There was this uncomfortable roiling guilt inside her because of the things she’d said, the things she’d allowed him to believe so she could push him away. The idea of some mystical Werewolf connection tying her to him—to the very thing she’d once believed she was made to destroy—turned her blood to frost in her veins. And yet, beneath that knee-jerk anxiety was a rightness that scared her, and a burning desire to be his, to make him hers.
He could explain it all he liked, but she wasn’t ready to understand. And knowing that didn’t make the dissonance any easier.
“He also displayed clear indications of humanity,” Chastity went on, her voice wooden, “such as this.” She produced the acorn from her pocket, held it up to the light. “He makes his living as an artist. He is kind and funny and frequently exhibits admirable self-control. It was obvious to me that he was… different, in some way, to the creatures you’ve taught me about. So, I let him live. The next day, he found me.” She swallowed hard as she remembered, as she realised that it had happened less than 24 hours ago.
As she recalled the heat of his hand between her legs, the gentleness in his eyes, and the things he’d said. “All I want is you. I need your sunshine.”
“What did he do?” Ma demanded when Chas hesitated too long.
“Nothing! Nothing. I mean…”
she cleared her throat. “We talked. He offered to answer my questions and gave me the information I’ve already relayed to you.”
For a long, long moment, Ma was silent. Then she held out a shaking hand and said, “Give me that.”
The acorn, of course. Except Chas didn’t want to hand it over. She did, though, forcing her stiff fingers to release the half-finished carving.
Her mother peered at it, then handed it over to Dad. He studied it and murmured, “Extraordinary.”
“It’s a copy,” Ma said. “True to life.”
“But the fact that he felt moved to make it at all—”
“He creates,” Chas interjected. “I’ve seen it. He makes art.”
After a pause, Ma levelled a hard look at her. “You believe in everything he’s told you.”
“Yes.” Unreservedly. “I know I’m not a huntress, but—”
“Just because you’ve never been cleared for active duty, doesn’t mean you’re not a huntress. Knowledge is at the root of everything we do, Chastity. A hand can’t act without a mind to guide it. Your discoveries might just restore this family to the force it was always meant to be.”
Every word seemed to sink into Chastity’s skin and warm her from the inside out, her chest swelling with tentative hope. “You… You’re pleased.”
“I’m proud.” The precious moment lasted as long as Ma’s hard-won, quicksilver smile. Then, in the next breath, she asked, “Why did the Werewolf look for you, specifically?”
Ah. She didn’t really want to go into that—not least because it suggested an ulterior motive on Luke’s part, a reason for misleading her. But she couldn’t lie to her parents, so she said flatly, “He claims that I’m his mate.”
Mating the Huntress Page 8
