by Jules Tyler
“So, where is my room?” Alicia nudged Duke, who was giving her a goofy look that seemed to say he was pleased she hadn’t tried to run away yet.
“Right this way, my lady,” Duke picked up her bag, and they walked towards the hallway that lead to the back of the house.
Stopping in front of the only door at the end of the hallway, Duke set Alicia’s bag down and turned to wrap her up in a hug, “I’ve missed this. I missed you.”
Alicia could feel the rumbling from Duke’s chest, proving he truly was pleased that she was here with him, “I know. I missed you too.”
He slid his hands down around her bottom and lifted her up. Wrapping her legs around his waist to steady herself, she pressed her body to his as he carried her across the threshold of the bedroom and set her on the edge of the bed.
“Now, tell me. Where were we earlier?” He growled out, his eyes shining gold as his animal crept to the surface.
Alicia squirmed under his gaze. Something about that look in his predatory eyes made her eager and excited, “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”
Duke’s hands were in her hair in an instant, kissing his way down her jawline to her collarbone. He worked his hands from her hair down her body before sliding his hands up underneath the hem of her shirt to her breasts. Alicia gasped as his warm hands slipped into her bra and worked her nipples into hard, sensitive buds.
Alicia grabbed the bottom of her shirt and pulled it over her head before reaching around to undo the clasp of her bra. In one fluid motion, Duke was pulling her jeans and bra off to toss them to the floor. He quickly finished undressing before Alicia slipped from the edge of the bed and kneeled in front of him.
“Be honest with me, Duke; have you been with another since me?” Her own eyes were glowing with her vixen close to the surface as she teased the head of his cock with her hand.
Duke’s snarl was all the answer she needed before she wrapped her lips around his cock and slid them down to the base. She loved what she could do to him with such a simple task. Head bobbing, she reached a hand between her legs to feel the pressure that was building inside of her. She rubbed the sensitive nub and moaned as she worked them both towards the heavens. Duke pushed her mouth from his cock before scooping her up and tossing her on the bed.
“No, I get to make you finish with me,” he purred before leaning down and licking her folds.
Shivers rocked Alicia’s body as he swirled his tongue around and around before plunging inside of her, “Oh. My. Fuck! Duke, I need you. Please.”
He nibbled on the inside of her thigh before looking up at her with hungry eyes, “You need me to what, my love?”
“I need you inside of me. Hurry. Please.”
“All you had to do was ask.” He crawled up her body and slid his rock hard member inside of her, “I dreamt of this, every night. I would think about how great it felt to be inside of you.”
“Less talking, more fucking. It’s been so long.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Duke grabbed a hold of her hips pumping harder and faster inside of her with every thrust. He could feel her getting close, so he pressed his thumb to her clit and rubbed as he thrust again and again, “Cum for me, baby.”
Alicia felt the ecstasy working her higher and higher, struggling to decide what felt better, his touch or his cock inside of her. She rocked her hips against him and cried out in pleasure as they found their climax together. Her body spasmed with pleasure as the aftershocks of what they had done rolled through her.
“Promise me we won’t go another four years before we do that again,” Alicia yawned as she scooted up the bed to the pillows.
Duke entered the bathroom, came back with a warm washcloth, and began to clean her up, “I promise.”
“Good. Now put that away and get up here. I’ve been wanting to curl up with you in a bed for far too long. I’m not about to waste this moment.”
He rolled Alicia onto her side and slid up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and rubbing the side of his face against hers, “This feels like home, doesn’t it?”
As Alicia let her eyes drift to a close, she smiled, “Yes, yes it does. You did good, Big Kitty.”
Chapter Eight
Alicia sat back and rubbed the full swell of her belly. It had been a long time since she had allowed herself to eat that much food in one sitting. Looking around the circle of people sitting with her, she smiled. Duke had found a good group of friends and though she knew they didn’t know she exists until today, she also knew she could trust them. Good people were hard to come by in this world lately, so it was refreshing to find herself amongst a group of them.
Duke glanced over at her and squeezed her hand, “Are you enjoying yourself?”
“This is certainly the last thing I expected to be doing tonight. Shouldn’t I be getting some work done?” She asked, trying to ignore the fox in her head panting away at Duke’s touch.
“Dude! Her eyes match yours when your gorilla is close to the surface,” Elijah exclaimed from across the fire.
“Elijah. Rude!” McKinzy threw a bottle cap at his head.
Elijah shrugged, “I’m just stating the obvious. See? His eyes are glowing now.”
Duke’s chest rumbled like Duke’s tiger was trying to warn Elijah to back down. Alicia turned back to Elijah with a confused look on her face.
“Did you just say gorilla?” She canted her head.
“Yeah? I thought you two went way back? Shouldn’t you know what kind of animal he is?” Elijah asked.
“I do. But he isn’t a gorilla. Hasn’t he been shifting with all of you?” Alicia looked around the circle as everyone shook their head.
“That’s a negative, Ghost Rider,” Jasper said, sounding like he was just as confused as she was.
“What animal could he possibly be if he isn’t a gorilla?” Elijah inquired.
Alicia looked at Duke with a mix of concern and confusion written all over her face, “Why do they think you’re a gorilla?”
Duke looked down as he whispered, “I was trying to make sure if they came looking for me, they wouldn’t be able to find me.”
“So you thought telling everyone here that you’re a gorilla would be the best idea? That’s what you used as your animal when we were undercover.” Alicia’s mouth drew down in a frown.
“Duke, what’s going on bro?” Adrian asked from the other side of McKinzy.
Alicia explained, “Duke and I met when we were drafted to work for the task force the military has for shifters. Towards the end of our enlistment time, we were given an undercover assignment. We told other people we were different animals. Duke told people he was a gorilla shifter. Since this country runs high on racism, no one questioned it. If a man is black, he must have family from Africa. If you’re from Africa it only makes sense that you would be a gorilla. What I’m trying to understand is if he was trying to throw the Firebirds off of his tail, why would he use his undercover animal as his known animal here?”
“I don’t know, okay? At first it was to keep me safe, but after that I didn’t think to bring it up again,” Duke’s eyes were glowing so bright that they could be used like flashlights.
Desmond spoke up, “I get it. It was that little piece of your past you wanted to hold onto. You wanted to hold onto Alicia, but since you left her behind, you could only keep the undercover animal to hold onto your past.”
A beat of silence went around the circle before Elijah spoke up again, “So...what kind of animal are you?”
Duke huffed a laugh, “I mean, if it’ll shut you up, I’ll tell you.”
“Please! Please, please, please, please, please!” Elijah begged like a little kid in the candy aisle at the grocery store.
“I’m a tiger,” Duke smiled, looking at Alicia with a look that said there was more to come from this conversation.
“Oh my cow! That’s why I smell another cat around here other than Adrian! I’ve been trying to figure out who the hell stinks up her
e for months!” Elijah exclaimed, jumping up and down in excitement.
“I don’t smell, dog. You do,” Duke said, taking a swig of his beer.
“Wolf! Not dog! There’s a difference. I don’t play fetch,” Elijah said, starting to get defensive.
“Hey Elijah, why don’t you be a good pup and go fetch us another round of beers!” Jasper laughed.
“Oh, I’ll get you a beer, Jas. But I might shove it up your ass, bear,” Elijah grumbled as he walked towards his cabin to get the beer.
Alicia giggled to herself as she and McKinzy shook their heads in dismay. They certainly had their work cut out for themselves with this bunch. It was definitely nice to just kick back and relax for once though. It had been too long since she had let her guard down around others.
“Thanks for ratting me out,” Duke murmured teasingly.
“I have no regrets. They’re good people; they don’t deserve any more secrets,” Alicia beamed.
“Good point,” Duke said as they relaxed back into the comfortable sounds of the fire crackling and the crickets chirping. Alicia had a feeling that this was going to slowly start becoming where she called home.
Chapter Nine
Alicia slammed her hands down on either side of the laptop in front of her on the table. She’d been working on data retrieval on Cole’s laptop for five days now, and none of the techniques she was familiar with were working. She’d tried password generation using a scrambler that had been given to her by one the best companies in the technology industry. She had tried taking the hard drive out and putting it into another computer. She had even tried going as far as taking it all apart and putting it back together. The only option left was more of a last-ditch effort to get into the damned thing, but it was worth a shot.
As far as she could tell, the password might be thumbprint activated or there might be some sort of facial recognition that it was looking for. Without being able to get into the laptop though, she had no idea about where to start looking for clues as to who was responsible for the attack up here. Sure, she and Duke felt it was most likely the Firebirds getting more desperate and edgy in their attempts to gain control of any remaining dragon shifters left in this world, but they couldn’t be certain without getting into this stupid laptop.
“Knock, knock!” A blonde behemoth knocked on the open door.
Alicia looked up at Jasper as he walked in and plopped down in the chair across the table from her. The bear shifter had kind, honest blue eyes and lean muscles paired with long blonde locks. Quite frankly, until she had run into his beautiful polar bear counterpart when she was out letting her fox run the other day, she wouldn’t have believed he was actually a bear shifter at all.
“Hey, Jas, how’s the watchtower today?”
“Eh, it is what it is. Never anything exciting up there these days. The guys up here aren’t in a big hurry to try and go anywhere, especially after Cole’s little episode,” he shrugged, kicking his feet up on the table and leaning back in his chair.
“This place doesn’t seem like much of a prison to me. It’s more like a sanctuary.”
McKinzy’s voice came from the porch, “My first impression was that it was a summer camp, to be honest. Jas, is it really necessary to put your nasty ass boots on the woman’s work station?”
Jasper grinned a naughty grin, “But, of course. I thought maybe some of the dirt might help jog something in the laptop loose.”
Alicia grinned as she watched McKinzy roll her eyes in exasperation. From what she had gathered the past few days, Jasper and Elijah were really the troublemakers. Poor McKinzy had her hands full just trying to keep these two in line. Desmond was quiet but polite. Alicia was certain there was a reason he was so silent. It was almost as if he was observing everyone going about their days. Adrian and Duke were definitely the most dominant of the group of men, which probably had something to do with the large cats they kept tucked away.
“This is why we can’t have nice things, Jasper! Do I need to set Desmond on you?” McKinzy crossed her arms and something terrifying started to waft off of her.
“Kinz, it really isn’t a big deal,” Alicia tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, trying to focus on breathing as McKinzy’s dominance faded away, back into her skin.
McKinzy pinched the bridge of her nose, “I just don’t understand why it’s so hard to respect other people’s property, Jas. You and Elijah are always into something. Hell, the hose outside my cabin has holes along the entire thing! I don’t even understand what that was all about.”
Jasper’s jaw dropped as though he were offended as his feet dropped to the floor, “Those holes are there to help with the watering of your nonexistent lawn you asked us to plant two days ago!”
“Jasper, that’s what a sprinkler is for!” McKinzy shook her head in frustration.
Alicia didn’t know whether to laugh or stay quiet. Jasper and Elijah definitely tried hard to come up with ‘inventions’, but usually they were just drunken shenanigans. Alicia had coined them the nickname Shenanigators in light of how many different things they had managed to get themselves into the past few days since she arrived.
“Jas, shouldn’t you be grabbing those sandwiches that you were telling me Desmond wanted?” Alicia lied, trying to help distract them both from the argument that was unfolding before her.
“Sandwi...Oh...Yeah, I forgot. Thanks, Alicia.” Jasper jumped to his feet and scrambled out the door.
“It really wasn’t a big deal,” Alicia smiled as McKinzy took Jasper’s seat. She had grown to enjoy the warden’s company as they got to know each other. Both took their jobs very seriously, but weren’t afraid to dish out the sarcasm that the guys in the group liked to give them. They were what Duke referred to as long lost twins.
“I know, I really just wanted to pick on him so he’d go away,” McKinzy laughed, leaning her head back in the seat and staring at the ceiling.
“I like the way you think,” Alicia giggled, taking a sip from her coffee cup.
“How’s Mission Impossible coming along? Any luck?”
“Not a damn thing. I just took apart the whole laptop and put it back together. Still no luck.”
“You what?” McKinzy’s head snapped forward to lock eyes with Alicia, trying to gauge if she was serious or not.
“I took apart the laptop and put it back together?” Alicia hesitated.
“No shit, you did that? The think looks just like normal! If I had tried that, we would’ve ended up with a pile of not-so-spare parts. That’s fucking brilliant.”
“Uh...thanks?”
“Do you want to go with me up to Cole’s cabin? I know the boys have already torn it apart looking for clues but some things need a woman’s touch. Ya know?”
“I could be up for stretching my legs. Let me put some jeans and boots on and I’ll be good to go.” Alicia stood, looking down at her black booty shorts and fuzzy slippers.
“Ha, yeah, I wouldn’t call red fuzzy slippers hiking appropriate shoes. I’ll meet you outside in five; I need to run next door and grab my backpack, in case we find anything worth carrying back.”
Alicia hurried through changing and scooped her red locks back up into a messy braid down her back to get them out of her eyes. She had already considered taking the scissors to it, but she couldn’t bring herself to cutting it into a pixie cut, which was the only other hairstyle that worked with her facial structure. Rushing outside, she tugged her boots on and almost ran into Duke as she bolted out the door.
“Woah, woah, woah! Where’s the fire, babe?” Duke put his hands on her shoulders to right her as she lost her balance.
“McKinzy and I are gonna head up to Cole’s cabin to do another walk through. See if maybe we can turn up any other evidence.”
“I take it that tearing apart the laptop this morning proved unsuccessful?” He smirked, Duke had been the one to suggest she was wasting her time pulling it apart in the first place.
Alicia rolled her eyes,
“Yes, you were right. I was wrong. Can I go now?”
“Only if you pay the toll first.”
“The toll?”
Duke leaned down and gave her a quick kiss on the lips, “Yeah, the toll.”
“Ohhh, the toll. Guess I’d better pay twice then,” Alicia rocked forward on her tiptoes and kissed him back.
“Okay, lover boy, I’m stealing your girl away. We’ll be back later,” McKinzy teased as she tugged on Alicia’s arm.
Alicia followed McKinzy and cast a smile over her shoulder at Duke. She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so comfortable with someone other than Candi. Actually, she could. Back when they had been together the first time. Growing up, she had always questioned if this intended mate stuff was just a load of shit that shifter parents told their kids to keep them from amorous activities, but she knew once she had met Duke she was done for. Meeting him had been like the warm shower she needed to wake her from the daze she had been living in. Having him back in her life now was so much more than that. It was the water to the man stranded in the desert.
“Alicia! Hellooooo,” McKinzy bumped into her shoulder.
“Huh, what?”
“Have you heard a single thing I’ve said in the past ten minutes?”
“No, I guess not. I’m sorry,” Alicia apologized. She didn’t realize she had been so lost in her thoughts for so long.
“I was asking how you and Duke met. Did ya’ll know each other before the military?”
“Oh, no. We met while we were in combat training together,” Alicia smiled a shy smile.
“That’s awesome. Was hooking up permitted while you were training? I know sometimes the military has restrictions on stuff like that.”
