by Eros, Marata
Zach has drawn the line in the sand, and I must abide by the ancient rules. I know some groups still adhere to the old ways, forcing breeders to take two or three mates, but females don't always want it. Cole's a case in point. He found Rachel and basically told his home coven to fuck off. The corrupt leader, Alexander, did his best to take her back. In the end, Cole stayed the course and dusted his ass.
I want Nova for myself.
But she might have to fuck them all, give the bastards a chance to breed her in the old way, and then she can be my mate.
Hopefully Nova will refuse them all, and it'll be done.
She'll be mine.
The Reapers Mikhail and Damon give a simultaneous exhale of resignation. Kellan scowls.
“We want the breeder,” Mikhail says. “But we cannot win against you. Obviously, if we die, we cannot breed her.”
“You concede a truce?” Zach asks.
Mikhail nods.
“What of him?” Father points at the smallest Reaper, though still huge by human male standards.
“We saved Kellan from a massacring Faction contingent. They were sweeping the area for loose supernaturals in their way, eh?” Mikhail explains.
Zach nods in understanding.
Our king's well aware of the trouble of autonomy in travel. A lone supernatural is asking to have his ass kicked or killed by the maundering Faction. They have zero moral code. They live for the moment and are opportunistic to the nth degree.
“I don't like strays, Zach,” Cole says.
“Aye,” Zach answers.
Nova raises her hand and points at the smallest Reaper. “My vote is we leave his ass.”
Kellan glares at her.
“Druid female,” Zach addresses her.
“It's Nova.”
He inclines his head. “Why?”
“He's always trying to have at me, sleazing around, and... he belted me.”
I say nothing. Nova is a tigress, and I can see where a male's patience might dip. There's no excuse to injure a female he’s intent on breeding though. Kellan's actions just makes his position worse.
Cole's hands clench. “I loathe a male who uses his fists for harm rather than protection.”
Kellan stares them down, his eyes shredding the group like razors.
Zach trains the weight of his stare on Kellan. “Fine. We will take just the elder Reapers. You will have to make your own way.”
Kellan retreats several steps. “You all believe you have the answers to this puzzle, but really, all you've done tonight is strengthen what she is.”
I tense.
“You think the next group of vampire will pass her by? Honoring the old ways?” He shakes his head in apparent disgust. “No.” He points at his former compatriots. “They are soft, weak. They will take whatever the breeder is willing to part with. I say stick her now—all males—and see what she throws. There are others who feel as I do. Her thoughts are secondary to the potential for daywalkers.”
“Okay!” Nova steps away from me. “I'm trying to be open-minded, but it's the middle of the damn night. I'm tired and goddamned starving. I'm not humping”—her eyes flick around, halting on a streetlight—“anything vertical, and especially not his masochistic ass.”
“You are a dumb female.” Kellan’s gaze narrows on Nova, and I move to stand protectively in front of her. “You will be fucked true. By many. In the end, I’ll get a taste of that Druid tail.”
I prowl toward him.
“I think I'm going to slay him,” Lucia says with her typical slow thoughtfulness.
“Kellan, go,” Mikhail says. “You have been too long on your own. You lack compassion with the breeder.”
“Fuck off, you bleeding heart,” Kellan says.
Cole blurs toward him, but he's gone.
Only vapor remains.
Heat shimmers in the cold night air. Cole's face is grim.
“Not good.” Nova turns to the others. “What did you say he was? Vampire? Reaper?”
“No, he must be mixed,” Lucia says. “Though I'm not sure with what.”
Nova raises her hand again. “Listen, guys, let's get where we're going because that dude”—she points toward where Kellan just disappeared—“is getting reinforcements so they can have a little demon gang rape.”
I scowl. “Demonic?” I see Cole nod out of the corner of my eye.
Ren says, “Only demonic blood leaves a trail of heated vapor.”
Cole says, “The air holds warmth when it should not.”
“Great,” Nova says. “It's not enough that I have vampires trying to stick their talons in me. Now I have to deal with vampire studs with fire shooting out of their dicks.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Nova
“I'm sorry, Ren. This entire thing is too ridiculous. Really?” My legs swing anxiously over the bed I sit on. The vamps have been nice enough to give me a little reprieve from “my role.” Whatever. “Breeder? Like in brood mare?”
Ren paces in front of me.
“This is what you were meant to do.” He swings his muscular arms out in irritation, and a stab of lust nails me.
I guess I really am in some kind of heat.
Perfect.
He swings to face me, his hazel eyes bright with anger and frustration. I get it—I'm a pain in the ass.
“Do you really want to go back to a different job each month? Where human males, the dredges of humanoids, paw at you like a common woman?”
I don't have an immediate response that doesn't involve the F-word. I let sullen silence permeate the room instead.
“Give Brandon a chance. That's all I'm asking.” His eyebrows rise to his hairline. “I noticed you weren't saying a lot of no in the back of the car.”
Heat rises like a brush fire on my face. So embarrassing.
I try a different tactic. I walk over to Ren. He watches me with a wariness I'm responsible for putting there. I place my hands on his shoulders.
His body tenses. “Don't, Nova.”
“Don't what?”
He grips my shoulders, giving me a small shake. “I am three hundred years old. There's not much you can put off on me I can't see a mile away. Your infatuation for me isn't real. It's easier for you to ignore your true destiny if you deny it with an imagined crush.”
“Crush this.”
I kiss him before he can think about it. Deeply. Thoroughly.
His lips are still beneath mine, then they grow warm, pliable. With a groan, his hands slip from my shoulders to my back. Gradually they fill the hollow at the small of my back. His thumbs pressing into the dimples there.
I inch closer, deepening the kiss, and his hands cup my ass. I feel his erection as he lifts me, and my legs curl around his trim waist.
Ren lays me on the bed.
“Nova, no.”
I lock my legs behind him, but he could escape a hundred times if he wanted to.
Instead, he flattens his lithe length against me, splitting my pussy lips with his stiffness. I'm going mad with arousal. I don't know if this Druid breeding thing is real, but I know I don't want to hold on to innocence. I feel a throbbing need in my core, at the center of me.
Ren rocks on top of me, his prick pressing back and forth as he dry humps me.
“Touch me, Ren,” I whisper.
His fingers shake as he rolls up the hem of my thin T-shirt to reveal my stomach, then the lace edges of my bra. My nipples press painfully against the thin fabric.
“I am sorry, Nova.” Then his mouth is on my nipple, wetting the fragile lace as he pulls the tight bud into his mouth. He moves both cups aside and my breasts pop out, pushed together by the material tight beneath them.
He presses his face between the mounds of my tits and nuzzles the soft skin, kissing and pecking between them.
Ren's hands find the button at the top of my jeans, and he stops rocking just long enough to pull them down. My jeans are kicked off the bed, and he lands softly on top of me again.
>
His hands cover my breasts, kneading them into some kind of submission.
I arch my back, pressing them more firmly into his grip.
“Yes.”
His teeth graze the edge of my panties as his hands continue to squeeze and release, squeeze and release.
The cloth tears, and I tense.
I try to sit up, and Ren's hands become bonds.
“You want this,” Ren says.
He's right, I do, but now I'm in over my head. This is more than I've ever done with any man. My pussy's a wet, throbbing thing I don't have control of. It has a mind of its own, and right now it's beating a steady rhythm of fill me up.
I don't want to be forced. I've been the aggressor this whole time. Ren's been fending me off for years, but now on the eve of handing over my cherry on a plate to Brandon, or the Reapers, Ren decides he wants to fuck me?
It can't be right.
The hands that held me down dig into my breasts.
It's not seductive—it's painful. My body jerks as his hands leave my breasts to tear away my panties.
His face dips between my legs, and his hot breath on my sensitive opening makes my pussy open like a flower awaiting pollination.
The skin on those hands isn’t fair like Ren's, but a light red. The fingertips have short black nails. Talons.
Not Ren.
Panic ensues and I struggle.
A face rises from between my legs.
Kellan.
Yet—not.
I scream and a hand lifts from my breast and slaps me. My face rocks to the side.
“Scream all you want, breeder, but I’m having my slice of Druid twat. No one can save you. It's your own sorcery that has availed this opportunity.”
I kick at him, and he pins my bare leg with his, landing on me hard enough to take the breath from my lungs.
I suck in a lungful. “Get off me, or I'll bite your nose off!”
A tail rises behind him as fangs grow long inside his mouth.
What the fuck is he?
“Try it, breeder. Your own magick has assisted me. You'll never figure out how to escape. In the meantime, I’ll fuck you until your virgin blood runs off the bed and pools at our feet.”
I heave, toss, squirm, bite, kick, and finally cry.
Kellan spreads my legs with his knees. He jerks a pillow underneath my hips as he holds my hands above my head with one of his own.
He poises above me, his prick at my opening as his phallus-shaped tail brushes the bud of my ass. He’s primed for tearing out my cherry.
His image wavers. I shake my head in denial and to clear my vision of the horror of Kellan.
His words come together in my mind.
My magic.
My mind scrambles even as I feel the beginning of his harsh entry.
The spectral realm is so close to the dreaming one that the border between them is as thin as a sheet of paper.
It's a nightmare.
If I can wake myself, I can escape.
I opened myself to invasion by entering the spectral realm, and Kellan found some kind of backdoor. His true form is revealed in this living nightmare.
My thoughts take only moments.
I gouge my hands that are secured under his hold. My nails bite deep, blood filling the crescent-shaped wounds as I lie there.
“No!” Kellan screams, his image becoming translucent.
That's it.
I force more injury on myself.
He wavers then disappears.
I open my eyes, and two anxious gazes stare at me:
Ren and Brandon.
I gulp back my fear-induced adrenaline. Looking around the bedroom they've holed me up in, I remember where I was and take a shaky breath. I'm in the Reaper-Druid stronghold in Seattle.
“What is it?” Brandon asks.
I throw Ren a guilty look, remembering the near-sex incident that really wasn't. Kellan used my crush on Ren to get into my brain.
I blurt out the truth as I see it. “I'm not safe.”
“You are safe.” Brandon’s anxious eyes make my guilt worse, if possible.
“Kellan tried to dream-rape me,” I whisper.
Brandon's face contorts into a frown, and even with that screwy expression, I can't help but notice how handsome he is.
“How the fuck does that happen?” He crosses his arms as his eyes rove my perfectly uninjured body. “We've offered you sanctuary. We have a Reaper guard outside your door. There's no way he could've entered.” His intense gaze searches mine.
“He doesn't have to,” Ren explains. “All he must do is know the pathway of dreams. If he can find a map to get to Nova, he can hunt her down as she rests. It's horribly simple.”
“How can he, Ren?” I ask miserably. I feel like checking myself but I'm too embarrassed. I can't really look at my crotch with two men I lust after in the same room.
Not gonna happen.
“He must be Reaper, demonic and something far worse.”
Brandon grabs Ren's shirt, hauling him close.
“Don't,” I plead. I don't want my Harborer hurt again. He's all I have in the weirdness that's my life.
Brandon's gaze moves over my face, and he sighs, letting go of Ren's shirt.
“Tell. Us. What. The. Fuck. It. Means.”
“He must be a Druid priest.”
“Fuck me,” I say.
Ren gives me a sharp look. “He almost did.”
Goddess. Only a priest could do something in a dream state and make it manifest in the conscious realm. That speaks of great power. I see my fears reflected in Ren’s expression.
“In a dream?” Brandon scoffs.
Ren nods. “If he'd succeeded, his semen would have been like a poison that would contaminate her and all who had relations with her. It's comprehensive and insidious. It takes out her and any number of”—he meets Brandon's gaze—“warriors who would breed with her.”
I fall back on the bed, forearm over my eyes and sob.
Why can't I just have a regular boyfriend?
And can somebody pass the Ambien? Maybe I’ll can be safe if I'm dreamless.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Brandon
“So let me get this straight.”
I plug my hands on my hips and walk it off.
I'm pissed. Mainly at myself because I have no way to protect Nova. Here she is, smack dab in the center of the only sanctuary I can provide, and this dream-fuck is trying to stick it to her while she sleeps.
And man, do we all need the rest. The past few days have been nothing but one epic clusterfuck after another.
Nova is crying. Female. In. Tears.
What the fuck do I do now?
I sigh, dropping my hands into fists by my side, and stride over to her.
“Nova?” I edge onto the side of the bed. One ass cheek balances along the seam of the mattress.
She folds her hands around her face.
“It's my fault!”
I meet Ren's gaze.
He shrugs. “Druid females are highly volatile.”
Nova drops her hands. “Fuck right off, Ren.”
He smiles. “It stopped the caterwauling.” He shrugs innocently.
“Gee, thanks. I almost get raped in my dream by some pyscho out-of-body Druid priest posing as a demonic-Reaper wannabe, and you say I'm volatile?”
She throws herself back and heaves a great sigh. “You dudes!”
A knock falls on the solid wood door.
“Yes?” I call.
“It's me.”
I lift an eyebrow. Mother.
This couldn't get any more complicated if I had custom-ordered it.
“Come in.” Why the hell not? What more could happen? I'm all thumbs at this comforting thing. Nova's not responding to my protection, claim, lust, or presence all that great.
Mother walks in carrying Gabriella.
Nova's face stills. “Who is this? Madonna and child?” She makes a noise of disdain and crosses
her arms underneath her breasts.
I try not to stare in front of Mom and my little sister, but Nova's got me, fang, line, and sinker.
I could have told Nova not to take on my mother, but I smirk instead, ready to watch the show.
Mother raises an eyebrow. “Listen, you're being an ungrateful, whining shrew. We're opening our home to you, and the rest of us are sufficient Druid to breed, so it's not like you're the only one. Cut the bull and pull up your big-girl panties.”
Nova's face freezes. I bet she is often shocked. “Who the hell are you?”
I love this part. “That's my mom, Aubree, and my baby sister, Gabriella.”
Heat rushes to the surface of Nova's high cheekbones. Her green eyes glitter with agitation and more than a little embarrassment. Good.
I'll grant her it was a near thing with Reaper-putz and could have ended like hell, but it didn't because she figured it out. Now she'll have to understand where she fits in here, in our space.
I can't let her go back out to get an entry-level job and be gobbled up by the troll vamps roaming around and looking for that exact opportunity. How many Druid females are snatched up by maundering rogues or Faction as it is?
Too many.
The baby coos, and Nova's face pales. “I—” She snaps her mouth closed. She looks at me then at my mom. She takes a couple of deep breaths. “I was minding my own business, working a regular job—”
“Nova, you were fired from Lue's. Be honest, it was a regular job suitable”—Ren lifts his broad shoulders—“for no one. I hated protecting you there and at the other slums.”
Nova looks at her hands, picking at nails so short there's no white at the tips. Her sleek black hair falls forward. “It kept me anonymous.”
“Not really,” I drawl. “The Reapers scented you out the moment you went into heat.”
Mother turns to me and frowns. “I can dress her down, but you—you need to think about what kind of mate she'll make you.”
“Mom”—I plow my fingers through my short hair—“she doesn't want me.”
Nova gives me a sharp look. “I didn't say that. I just said I don't want to be passed around from one supernatural to the next. I don't like all your stupid-ass assumptions, Brandon.”
