Hunger's Mate

by A. C. Arthur

  Ezra had died and gone to heaven.

  He’d had a goddess in the Sierra Leone who had taught him all sorts of sordid sexual acts, some that were pleasurable and others, not so much. He’d killed her. And then he’d had a few more exploits over the years with women who were gorgeous and willing to satisfy—even though total fulfillment had always eluded him during those experiences.

  But never, not in all his years, had he ever been taken by a woman like Jewel Jenner.

  She looked almost celestial as the sun had begun to set, casting the room in a golden haze that seeped through the partially closed blinds. Above him, riding him like he was a champion Thoroughbred, her head tossed back, toned arms gripping her heavy breasts. Her hips curved to a delectable ass that he wanted desperately to grasp as she rode him, but his hands remained at his sides, fingers grasping the sheets.

  His hips thrust upward of their own accord, loving the feel of her pussy keeping a death lock on his dick. He was going to come any minute now, he could feel the release begging for its life and was absolutely helpless to stop it.

  Ezra wouldn’t have stopped it if he could have. Just as he wasn’t about to take the control she so obviously needed. She hadn’t wanted to be taken, hadn’t wanted him to make love to her. She’d needed to take what she wanted on her own terms, to be a survivor just as she’d told him. And he’d let her. Goddamn had he let her.

  When she stilled above him, her entire body trembling, her teeth biting down so hard on her lower lip he thought she might draw blood, the cat that had been growling and reaching for her took the lead. His hands went to her ass, gripping there just to satisfy the urge of wanting to feel those soft globes against his palms. They eventually moved to her hips, holding her steady as her release poured hot and thick over his dick, dripping onto his groin when he pumped up to meet the clenching of her pussy walls. He lifted his legs, planting his feet flat on the mattress and sat up.

  Her eyes opened in surprise as Ezra wrapped his arms around her and scooted down, off the bed. He turned quickly, holding her tight as he laid her on the bed, this time on her back. Grasping both her ankles he held her legs up high and began thrusting in and out of her, working until he felt like his entire body would explode with the release.

  She felt like heaven, like everything soft, wet, hot, needed. And in the midst of feeling nothing but fury, of shaking with the urge to hunt and to possibly kill, Ezra needed this. He needed her. His teeth clenched at the thought of how much. Looking down he saw that her eyes were closed, her fingers now clenching the sheets as she took each of his thrusts, took his length, his guttural moans, took everything he was giving her. And while he was certain she’d found her relief just moments ago, he felt like an ass, like a selfish bastard taking what maybe wasn’t ready to be given.

  He came anyway, thick gusts of semen jetting inside her. His entire body went still, guilt biting at him until he cursed. When he could move, he released her legs, let them down slowly and stepped back from the bed. His hands clenched at his sides as he searched for the words, for the right way to say … what? That he was sorry. But he wasn’t sorry that they’d made love, wasn’t sorry that the desire that had been burning inside both of them for weeks had suddenly been eased. No, that would be wrong. It hadn’t eased one bit. If anything this interlude had made him hungrier for her, more possessive of this woman than ever. And more afraid of what could possibly happen to her as a result.

  He wouldn’t kill Jewel. He couldn’t.

  All the nights he’d been fucking Acacia feeling as if he’d lost his mind in total bliss, he’d never thought he could kill her either. But the princess had provoked him. She’d embarrassed him and his family, she’d used him and had the audacity to not only taunt him again, but to tie him to a freakin’ wall while she did so. She deserved every slash of his claws, every bite of his sharpened teeth that she’d received.

  And what about Jewel? What did she deserve?

  While he stood there like a total ass thinking of what to say or what not to say, what to feel or what he shouldn’t feel, Jewel slipped off the bed and into the bathroom where she shut and locked the door.

  After a few moments of standing there, naked, cat scratching at the surface, arousal beginning to take hold once more, the sound of his phone vibrating alerted Ezra. Going to where his pants were on the floor and retrieving the phone, he looked down at the text message and read it. Clenching his teeth and the phone in the palm of his hand, Ezra went to the bathroom door. He lifted a hand to knock, but his hand was shaking. He blinked, thinking he was seeing things. He never shook, never got nervous, never doubted himself.

  Yet, here he was, doing those very things.

  Yanking his hand down he closed his eyes, searching for peace, reaching for any solace that was left. But there was none. The shaman had been right all along. The spirit-laced smoke that he and Eli had consumed all those years ago had only been a temporary refuge, a Band-Aid on a much bigger bruise than it could handle. And now, the darkness within him had awakened.

  No, not the cat. That had already formed inside and had bared its claws, well before they’d arrived in the Sierra Leone. Unfortunately, this was bigger and more lethal than anything their DNA was meant to endure. It was dark and ugly and could not be constrained and it was now alive and brewing inside him. The killer had been awakened and if he wasn’t careful, the woman on the other side of that door could end up a victim.

  Chapter 15

  “Hello, I’m here to pick up my father.”

  “Oh yes, Ms. Jenner. We had him ready yesterday when you called. He was a little upset that you didn’t show up, but he’ll be so happy you’re here now,” Gail said, pleased that neither she nor any of the other evening staff would have to explain to Mr. Jenner why his daughter hadn’t shown up again.

  The old man had been up all night asking after somebody named Dawn. When she’d corrected him at least twenty times, telling him his daughter’s name was Jewel, he’d grown even more agitated. He’d yelled for her to stop calling him Mr. Jenner, but he did that whenever they used his last name. As long as they called him Thurgood, he’d been as sweet as candy to the staff. Last night and this morning had been the first time he’d gone off the way he had so that at one point they’d considered sedating him. So yes, Gail was more than glad to see Jewel Jenner here to pick him up.

  “He was a bit fussy last night but luckily we didn’t have to sedate him. He’s very excited about the trip to a new home. He’s been talking about the beach.” When they were standing outside of Mr. Jenner’s door Gail stopped herself from rambling, opened the door, and hurried inside.

  “Mr.… ah … Thurgood, look who’s finally here,” she said, then clamped her lips shut. Of course he wouldn’t be able to look, she berated herself. It had been such a long night and it seemed like all too soon she’d been back in this place again. Shaking her head she went to the window where he sat and touched his shoulder.

  “Your daughter’s here to pick you up,” she told him.

  A smile spread across the old man’s face. It was so warm and so genuine she couldn’t help but smile herself. When she looked up at Jewel she almost expected her to be smiling as well, or at the very least coming closer to embrace her father after knowing he’d had such a rough night, but she didn’t. She still stood just inside the doorway wearing those dark shades she always wore, her hair draping over her shoulders.

  “He’s all ready to go,” Gail added once again.

  The woman finally took a few steps inside the room, reaching down for the suitcase that was near the dresser. “Great. If you could get him in a wheelchair and to the door we can get going.”

  “Well, ah,” Gail said. “There’s some paperwork to be signed at the front desk. Just formalities we do when a patient checks out.”

  Jewel had already made her way back to the door, when she turned slightly. “Oh that’s right. I apologize, it’s been a really rough day. I’m just in such a hurry to get Daddy to o
ur new home. I’ll meet you at the front desk,” she said, giving Gail a nod and a smile.

  The questions Gail had had about Jewel’s reserve today melted away at that point.

  “No problem. I’ll just get him into the chair and we’ll meet you up front.”

  She left the room with another smile on her face, this one more devious as she carried the raggedy old suitcase in one hand and pulled out her cell phone with the other. A press of a button and she was hearing the ringing tone as she put the phone to her ear.

  “I’ve got dear old dad,” she spoke the moment the man on the other end answered. “We’ll be there in a couple of hours.”

  Fifteen minutes after disconnecting the call Bianca climbed behind the wheel of her white Hummer and slid the large-framed sunglasses from her face. Before starting the truck she looked into the rearview mirror and plucked the green contact lenses from her blue eyes. There had been no need for a wig since her own hair was dark and long, its only enhancement to make her look more like the Jewel Jenner that frequented the Sunset Brooke Convalescent Home had been done with her flatiron earlier today.

  Now, there was no need for a disguise, the old man was blind as a bat. He couldn’t see she wasn’t his daughter, he had no clue.

  “He finally caught up with her, huh?”

  She’d just started the truck and pulled onto the old dirt road when she realized he’d spoken. “What did you say?”

  He chuckled, a rough sound that led to a second or so of coughing, before he removed the hand he’d used to cover his mouth and spoke again. “You ain’t foolin’ nobody. That bastard that was using her finally figured out where she was. But it don’t matter what he does with me, I’ve lived my life and my Dawn, well, she’s a fighter. He’s never going to own her, no matter how much he tries.”

  With a smirk the man couldn’t see, Bianca settled back in her seat and looked at the open road in front of her, glad there were no pretenses between them. He knew he was going to die even if he was totally off base about his precious daughter. She wouldn’t get away, she wouldn’t even try once she found out they had him. And once they both figured out that Boden was now calling the shots, well, wouldn’t that be a lovely day.

  * * *

  “I can’t give you what you want, Ezra,” Jewel said the moment she stepped out of the bathroom. “I’m not sure exactly what it is, but I know I can’t give it to you.”

  She was in the room with him again. Ezra knew this not because he’d heard the door open, but because her scent overpowered him. It was mixed with something else now, something entirely too familiar to him and it made his temples throb.

  He’d pulled on his pants, not buttoning them or bothering with anything else, for that matter. For the last … he didn’t even know how long … he’d been sitting on the side of the bed, bent over so that his elbows rested on his knees, his head held between his arms. It rippled up and down his back, running alongside an already agitated cat. That darkness that he was so afraid of returning to was back without a doubt.

  The return of her scent, however, had caused it to still.

  That’s why he lifted his head to look at her, not her words. He’d barely registered them. The one thing prevalent in his mind at the moment was the stillness of everything within him, as if it were waiting for something to happen, or for someone to do something.

  “Why are you here?” he asked through the fog that hovered in his mind. “Why are you here with me?”

  She stared at him quizzically, her eyes narrowing then opening fully as she crossed her arms over her chest.

  “I don’t know why you brought me here,” she said with a huff. “You should have just let me go my own way before. As long as I’m around, Larry is going to follow. I’m sorry about Jacques but there’s nothing else I can do. I can’t go back to Larry and he’s not going to stop hunting me. So the best thing for me to do is to get my stuff and leave like I was planning to do all along.”

  Once she’d said that last sentence she moved to the dresser with its one drawer missing a handle and scratches all along one side. She picked up her backpack and headed for the door.

  “Don’t go,” he said slowly, closing his eyes once more to the haze in his head. He wanted to stand up to stop her, to go to the door and block her exit, but wasn’t sure his legs would hold him.

  Surprisingly, she stopped at his words and turned back to face him.

  “Don’t go until you tell me what the hell is going on.” He looked over to her as he spoke this time, his vision crystal clear, magnified so that she looked like she was standing much closer to him. Her breasts looked larger, softer, and his mouth watered, the hunger still not appeased.

  “What do you want me to say?” she asked impatiently. “I already told you I stole the diamonds from him. What else is there to tell you?”

  “Tell me what the bastard did to you to make you run. Tell me why you changed your name and your appearance and why you’re prepared to do whatever you have to do to get away from him again,” he insisted.

  She was shaking her head as he spoke, denying him this knowledge, the explanation that he felt might help him to better protect her.

  “It doesn’t matter what he did to me. All that matters is that I got away. I needed to get away and I did. Now, I need to stay away. That’s all you need to know,” she insisted.

  “No,” Ezra replied, gritting his teeth and inhaling deeply. “No, that’s not all. I won’t allow it to be all.”

  She snickered. “Are you kidding me? You think because of what we just did you can allow or disallow something in my life? No!” she yelled. “Never again! You don’t control me and neither does any other man! Now, I’m outta here,” she snapped, turning and reaching for the doorknob.

  She was leaving him, just as he’d tried to leave Acacia. He should let her go. It was safer that way, he knew. Yet, the sight of her back to him had something inside snapping. He was moving before he even knew it, catching up with her before she could even turn the knob, slapping his palm on the door above her head.

  “This is not a fucking game!” Ezra roared. “You don’t get to play your hand and then walk away while I deal with all this … this … shit inside!”

  His teeth chattered as he finished, his eyes closing, burning.

  She used that moment to slip around him, going back into the room. Ezra stood absolutely still, holding his head down, wondering when one of them was going to win and the other surrender. They’d gone to Dagar to prevent this from happening. The possession had been just a myth. He and Eli had laughed at the bent-over old man that always lay across the way from Acacia’s cottage. He’d tried to warn them after their first night in there with her, tried to tell them what would happen. “She’s evil, that one. You think her body is all there is.” He’d shaken his head, the thinning strands of hair dangling down the sides of his dirt-riddled face. “But there is more. So much more and it is evil, deep down to the root, evil.”

  They’d laughed at him, called him jealous because Acacia wasn’t inviting him inside and having wild, crazy sex with his old ass. But they’d been wrong, they’d been so wrong.

  And the old man had been absolutely right. Acacia had done so much more than control their bodies, she’d made certain they were addicted, craving all the sadistic pleasures she so enjoyed until they were hard-pressed to do anything else. It was that addiction that ultimately led them to Dagar, begging for any type of freedom from what felt like a horrific spell. What they received in return was an implosion of every part of themselves, good, bad, and totally fucked up.

  The deepest, darkest part of Ezra, which came from his Shadow Shifter genetics combined with the anger he’d had for Acacia at the time of inhaling the shaman’s drug, was free. It was horny and wanted desperately to fuck Jewel again. The human part of him, on the other hand, was confused, but not so much that he couldn’t see what was about to happen.

  Unfortunately, Jewel had no idea what was going on inside him. All she
saw was the man that now threatened her, and her reaction was swift and astonishing.

  Ezra felt something pelt him against his back, a bunch of tiny somethings that slapped against the door with a click, then fell to the floor. He looked down, focusing on the glint coming from the puke-green carpet. They sparkled like glittering raindrops around him.

  “I know it’s not a fucking game, you moron!” she screamed.

  Still reeling from the inside out, Ezra turned slowly, looking at her as she stood with a black velvet bag in hand before tossing it onto the floor. He inhaled deeply of her scent, letting it wash through his system, once again tempering the turmoil inside.

  “Do you think I didn’t consider every possible way there was to escape his clutches? I’m not a thief, I’m a survivor! I did what I did to save myself, to save…” She hesitated. “I had to get out and I needed a safety net. I needed something to hold over his head should he ever come back for me.”

  “You needed insurance,” Ezra said, hearing a semblance of control return to his voice. “You took these diamonds so that if he came looking for you, you could tell the world where he got them. He’s a commander in the United States Marine Corps. There’s no legal way he would come to own this many diamonds.”

  She was biting her lower lip again and when she looked away, Ezra knew what he’d just said to her was right on point.

  “I need you to trust me, Jewel. Trust me with the whole truth and trust that I will protect you from him.” The words “trust that I will not kill you” echoed in his head like they were being shouted through a bullhorn.

  “Trust you?” she yelled back. “Trust you, the man who’s been lying to me since day one? The one who is a part of a group of people that lie for a living? Why the hell should I trust you, or any of your kind?”

  Ezra hesitated only a second before crossing the room and lifting her off her feet. He tucked her legs behind him so that her pussy was flush against his throbbing dick. When she tried to swing on him, he grabbed her wrists and when she opened her mouth to say something, he stuck his tongue inside. Stroking hers once, twice, then suckling it into his mouth, he felt her moan and groaned in return.