by Michele Hauf
He stared at her, no remorse and no explanation. “Your father warned me, but I took you in anyway. I thought I could overcome your bad blood. Was I wrong? Are you a wolf or an abomination?”
She flinched as if struck. An abomination? She’d always known her father didn’t love her, that he saw her only as something to be used, but he’d never gone that far, never cut that deep, not even when he left her in that well, alone, cold and hungry for days.
Karl slapped the wooden stake against his bare thigh. “I promised the pack. I’m committed to making this work. How about you, CeCe? How committed are you? Where’s my chain?”
Her hand rose to her chest while her mind drifted to the motel and the bed where she’d left the symbol of her bond to the alpha...or the promise of their bond.
He lifted his arm. “This is for the pack. They’re all that matters.” The stake flew through the air. CeCe turned, leaned toward Marc, tried to cut off the trajectory of the alpha’s missile with her own body, but the vampire pushed her aside. She fell and the stake hit. She heard Marc’s grunt.
“No!” She jumped to her feet.
Marc was bowed over. She couldn’t see the stake, couldn’t see his wound.
“Let him die, or better, finish him. Show your loyalty. It isn’t too late.” Karl stood still and straight, commanding.
Too late. It had been too late long before she was born. She realized that now. Her father had never loved her. The pack had never accepted her. She’d been a possession, nothing more, and there was nothing she could do to change that. Nothing.
She had never had a chance.
Karl raised a hand. Robert, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, stepped from the trees.
“We searched the vampire’s room. Did you know that? Do you know what we found?” Karl asked.
Robert held up one hand. Dangling from his gloved hand were the cuffs Marc had used on her that first night.
“Laced in silver. This vampire isn’t innocent, but if you won’t believe that now...” Karl motioned toward her. A third wolf appeared; both moved toward her.
She grabbed at Marc, tried to get him to stand, to move.
“Forget the vampire. He’s dying. Time to remember who and what you are.”
The wolf with the cuffs walked toward her, unsnapping the restraints as he moved. The click was loud and foreboding. She didn’t know where to look, where to turn.
“Time to go home, CeCe. Time to fulfill your destiny.”
Her destiny. A destiny she had no part in choosing.
Marc’s blood congealed on her fingers, made her hand stick to his shirt. She wanted to curse and scream.
Then Marc’s fingers found hers. He edged backward, away from the wolves. He was still alive, but he was wounded, and in this state, didn’t stand a chance against the three male werewolves.
CeCe clutched at him, unwilling to let him go. There had to be a way out of this, had to be a way to save them both.
“A cave,” Marc murmured.
A cave? She realized then why Marc had chosen the spot where they had stopped. Another opening, not as big as the one they’d used to dispose of Russell’s body, but still an opening big enough for her, big enough for Marc.
He wanted her to jump.
But she had no idea what lay below them, how deep the hole went, what would be at the bottom...if Marc, injured as he was, could survive, if she could survive.
The last wolf to arrive pulled a second wooden stake from his back pocket. “Should I finish him?”
Karl lifted his chin. “CeCe, step away. You need the pack. Don’t make this hard.”
Robert was beside her now. He held out the cuffs.
Marc sucked in a breath. She could feel him waiting, wanting to jump, but refusing to leave her.
He would stay beside her, let himself be staked. Her own father wouldn’t have done that. Her supposed destined mate wouldn’t either.
She stared at Karl; new strength and anger swelled inside her. “You got something wrong. My father needed the pack and he needed me to get back in your good graces. But me? I don’t need anything, not from my father, or you, or your pack.”
The werewolf with the cuffs dashed forward, tried to tackle her. She stepped to the side, then spun and kicked him in the chest. For a moment hope washed over her. She could do this. She could take Karl and his minions out.
The werewolf fell backward, but so did CeCe. Her foot slipped from under her. She tensed for the coming impact, but it didn’t come. She didn’t hit the ground. Instead she stumbled backward, slipped on the grass hiding the cave’s opening and then tumbled into the never-ending darkness of the cavern. Her back hit something hard, a ledge. She grabbed wildly around her, tried to cling to bare rock, but it was hopeless. She fell.
The werewolves were gone, Karl was gone, the world and life she knew was gone.
* * *
The cool air hit CeCe first, then the smell of damp earth. It was like falling into a grave, and she realized she was. The fall was too far, the bottom when she reached it would be too hard. Even a werewolf couldn’t survive this.
She closed her eyes and tried not to scream. She wouldn’t give the werewolves standing at the top of this hole even that.
Unexpectedly, fingers tightened on her hand. Her heart jumped and she was jerked into an embrace. She collided with a hard masculine body. She wrapped her arms around the form and eyes squeezed closed, she hung on. The body pressed to hers was cool, the words murmured against her ear calming.
Marc. He had jumped with her; he was falling with her.
“Hold on,” he murmured, his hand cradling her head, his lips brushing against her ear. And she did. Her arms wrapped around his body, she clung to him as she had never clung to anyone before. He turned in midair, shifting so when they hit the ground, his body broke the impact.
The landing was hard and jolting. Her jaws snapped together, her head jerked backward and she tasted her own blood.
But as she lay atop Marc, her heartbeat slowing and her mind cataloging each ache, she realized she had survived. They had both survived. They had fallen from God knew how far and she had only a bleeding tongue and aching head to show for it.
Marc had said he had no magic, but he was wrong.
She pushed herself up, off Marc, and slid onto the earth beside him. “We’re okay.” She stared blankly for a moment, still processing. Then she leaned over him and bunched the front of his shirt in her fists. “We’re okay.” She pulled him up toward her, laughing.
He brushed a strand of hair she couldn’t see from her face and tucked it behind her ear. “We are.” But his voice was strained.
The stake.
The elation she had felt at surviving dissipated. She lowered him quickly, jerked herself upright and ran her hands over his chest. The stake was still there, protruding from his pectoral muscle, but it had missed his heart by six inches. “Who knew Karl was such a lousy aim?” she asked, trying for light...to keep the fear that had crept back over her from showing.
Marc grunted. “Not a bad aim. Slow. At least if he wants to hunt vampires.” He grabbed the stake and jerked it free.
CeCe flinched. Then she grabbed the weapon from Marc’s hand and threw it into the darkness. She never wanted to touch or see a stake again.
“What now?” she asked, shivering. With the elation of their surprisingly easy landing behind them and the too-obvious reminder of the danger they were in still fresh and bloody, the temperature of the cavern hit her. She rubbed her hands over her arms.
“We wait for day and continue with our plan.” His voice sounded tight and he hadn’t moved since they had landed. She wished she could see his face.
“Look for another exit?” she asked.
“Look for other vampires.”
A
s she started to speak, he held a finger to her lips.
She realized then that the werewolves were talking...about her.
* * *
Marc moved his finger to CeCe’s lips, hoping she’d read his silent signal and know to keep silent. He didn’t want her pack deciding to come down in the cavern and investigate what had happened to them. Better they think both CeCe and he were dead.
Of course, CeCe, despite what she had said to the alpha aboveground, might not agree. She might still want the pack. He ran his thumb over the back of her hand. The bones were fine and delicate, but right now she was the strong one. He was wounded, severely enough that he wasn’t sure he could move without resting or feeding.
“Do you think she survived?” The voice of the wolf who had approached CeCe with the cuffs drifted down the channel through which they had plunged.
“How far is the drop?”
Marc’s lip rose at the new voice—Karl, the wolf who was supposed to be CeCe’s destined mate, supposed to be dedicated to her.
A pebble skittered down the through the hole and landed on the flat rock next to CeCe. She watched it bounce, then closed her eyes and began rocking back and forth on her seat.
Nerves or regret? Marc feared it was the latter.
“Can they hear us?” she whispered.
Still lying on his back, he reached up and ran his fingers down her spine.
“Can you understand them?” he asked. He didn’t know how good a werewolf’s hearing was.
She nodded.
“Can’t tell.” From above again. “Didn’t hear the rock, or for that matter, them, hit.”
The tone was cold and analyzing, as if they were talking of inanimate objects lying at the bottom of this chute, not another wolf, one supposedly a valued part of their pack.
But then, Karl cursed. “The vampire did this. He turned her mind somehow.” More rocks and debris fell through the opening. For a moment Marc thought the alpha might fall in too—or jump.
One of his men must have pulled him back. There was the sound of low arguing voices.
“Fine. We leave. We’ll come back after we’ve destroyed the others and regained the stake.” There was silence for a second. Then low, almost inaudible, a whisper. “I never desert my pack, CeCe, and despite what you might think, you are pack.” The words were followed by the noise of something else falling. Two objects hit the ground beside Marc. One landed on his chest.
He grimaced and reached for it.
A flashlight.
He handed the light to CeCe. She stared at its unlit end. “As if this fixes anything,” she muttered.
“He cares. In his twisted way, he cares.” Marc hated saying the words, hated believing them even more, but CeCe deserved to know the alpha and his pack did care for her, even if it was in a completely sick way.
He didn’t know if that made what the wolves had planned for CeCe any easier to swallow. It might even encourage her to forgive them completely, but she had earned the information.
She looked up, but nothing else fell. After a moment she moved onto her hands and knees and shuffled through the dark to see what else the werewolf had dropped.
She held an old canteen out to him. “Water. With your wound you can use some.”
He closed his eyes. The werewolves were gone; the immediate threat was gone. If he concentrated, he could rest for an hour, use that time to heal before daylight came fully and he needed to start hunting for the vampire who had taken the silver stake. “Water isn’t what I need.”
Back beside him, she placed a hand on his chest. She flipped on the light and pointed it at his wound. He kept his eyes shut, but he could feel the warmth of the bulb and could see it shining through his closed eyelids.
“It isn’t healing. Shouldn’t it have healed some by now?”
“Perhaps werewolves heal without aid, but vampires need rest or...” He didn’t want to tell her he needed blood. Didn’t want to sound as if he was asking for something she might not be willing to give.
“What? Not water... Oh.” She flipped off the light and laid it down beside him.
He sighed. “I’ll take an hour to rest. It will be enough.”
“Will it?” she leaned close; her hair brushed over his neck. “Are you sure?” Her breath teased at his skin. She smelled of blood too, hers, the vampire’s she’d fought, others that she had encountered, but all he could concentrate on was her.
“You were wounded too,” he reminded her. “You should rest.”
“Only silver keeps us from healing. There’s no silver touching me.” Her lips trailed over his neck. She nibbled at his skin. He’d never had a female bite him like this, not teasing and playful.
His groin tightened and his fangs lengthened.
“If you’re too weak—”
He rammed his fingers into her hair and pulled her mouth to his. She tasted wild and sweet. He slipped his tongue past her lips; her tongue met his, both demanding, both trying to prove they were the strongest.
He rolled over, so she lay beneath him. “Never too weak...” he murmured against her lips. He ran his fingers down the front of her shirt, then jerked it over her head. Dried blood was caked on her neck. He ran his hands over it, massaging it away. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I’m sorry he bit you.” No one would ever bite her again, no one except Marc.
He lapped at her skin, cleaning away every hint of her hurt, every hint of someone else having touched her...harmed her.
She shivered and pulled at his shirt, jerked it free from his pants. Her hands were warm on his back, and when he tossed his shirt to the side and lay on top of her, her body was warm against his. He could feel his wound healing already, could feel his soul healing too.
Being with CeCe did that to him, reminded him of being alive, made him strong enough to allow himself to feel.
He wanted to do the same for her.
“Do werewolves ever exchange blood?” Vampires did when the feelings were intense on both sides. It showed they trusted each other enough to bare their throats, risk everything even their immortal existences.
“We...bite.”
He felt her blush.
“Like you just did?” he asked, honored and intrigued.
“More.” She opened her mouth and bit down softly on the muscles that ran from his neck to his shoulder. “And...during.”
Sex. He finished the sentence in his head.
Vampires did the same.
“It’s a sign...” Her words drifted off again.
“A commitment,” he guessed.
“Yes,” she whispered against his neck. Her breath was warm and stirred his hair, stirred his interest in stopping their discussion and moving on to something much more physical.
He didn’t want to ask about Karl, didn’t want to think of he and CeCe together, but he needed to know.... “Have you made a commitment like that?”
She shook her head. “No. I haven’t.”
It was all he needed to know. The alpha might have given her his chain, but she hadn’t taken it with her when they left the hotel, and now she had admitted she’d never really committed herself to the werewolf, to any werewolf.
He murmured words of appreciation into her ear. Kissed the side of her face and down her neck. She was beautiful. He wanted her to know that, wanted her to realize how special she was. He didn’t care if she was a werewolf, didn’t care that the rest of their kind was at war. CeCe was meant for him and he was meant for her.
He could never be happy, never be whole, not without her by his side.
* * *
Marc’s tongue trailed down CeCe’s neck. A shiver danced up her spine. She clutched at him, grabbed the firm muscles that ran up his sides. He shifted so his mouth moved lower. He kissed her breasts, swirled h
is tongue around one nipple.
Her back arched. She pulled his face closer. Her thighs parted and he ran one finger between her folds, found the tiny nub there. She wriggled beneath him, desire and excitement building until her breath left her mouth in tiny pants.
She moaned and he moved again, dropped his mouth even lower, to her inner thigh. His fangs grazed her skin. He whispered something she couldn’t hear.
Her breasts ached, her core tightened. Something was coming, her body knew it, was ready for it, craved it.
Then his fangs pierced her skin, and he suckled at her thigh, blood flowing from her body, slow and rhythmic as if he had somehow matched the beats of her heart.
She cried out and wrapped her fingers in his hair. Pleasure so intense she could never have imagined it existed coiled around her. She squirmed, wanting this strange new experience to never stop but also longing for what she knew would come next.
Slowly, delicately, he pulled his fangs from her flesh. She gasped and pulled at his hair again, desperate now to feel his fangs at her neck and his sex deep inside her. To join with him completely.
As if sensing her need, he walked his hands up the rock beneath her, let his naked body brush over hers, inch by inch, slow and deliberate.
With his mouth next to her ear, he whispered, “And now you know one more place a vampire may bite. Do you approve?”
She moved his hand to her heart, let him feel the rapid beat of it. “Judge for yourself,” she answered.
With his lips against her cheek, he smiled. “And what about the neck? Does it deserve another try?”
“To be fair, before I decide my favorite,” she murmured.
He smiled again, then he lowered his mouth to her throat and pierced her skin again. The feeling was just as intense, the euphoria like nothing she had felt before.
Her core tightened. She shifted her body, so his thigh fell between hers, so his sex, hard and ready, lay against hers.
He groaned and pulled back, stared down at her with eyes that she knew were nothing but pupil. Dark and dangerous, but she felt no fear, no trepidation at all. She knew that what awaited her would be welcoming, make her feel safe...no, more than that―strong.
