Hunger's Mate

by A. C. Arthur

  Her words halted as she flattened her palms against his chest, then grabbed the T-shirt he wore to keep from losing her balance as the floor beneath them ripped away from the surrounding soil, moving them down farther underground.

  “Don’t worry,” Ezra said, looking down at her with a smile. “I’ve got you.”

  When the floor was once again stable and Ezra had ushered them down off the platform, overhead lights illuminated.

  “This way,” he told her without touching her again. Lights clicked on ahead of him in twenty-foot intervals each time he passed a hidden sensor. His booted feet made a muted sound on the concrete floor, while behind him, the flats Jewel wore clicked with each step.

  She was just about to ask a question, he could swear he heard her intake of breath as she prepared to open her mouth, when around the corner came two shifters garbed in waist-length white jackets and navy blue slacks. They were from the medical facility, the black bags each of them carried full of supplies.

  Before Ezra could growl his discontent, two more shifters appeared, one on either side of a stretcher. Holding his frown in place he moved quickly to lower Jewel’s father down onto the bed. The second team of shifters immediately went to work on the man. But when the first two looked past Ezra and attempted to touch Jewel, she shirked back, staying close behind him.

  “I’m not hurt. I don’t need any medical attention,” she said.

  It was a lie, Ezra knew, but he figured it might be simply bruising, or at least he hoped so. He was no medical expert but he hadn’t seen any blood on her and she wasn’t limping and her breathing hadn’t been hampered, hence his bruising diagnosis.

  “I’ll take her with me,” he said.

  “There could be internal injuries,” one of the shifters said after having looked Jewel up and down, no doubt surveying her for the same apparent injuries and bleeding as he had.

  “I’ll call you if there are,” Ezra told him.

  He started to reach for her arm, to grab her and move her along with him down another level of the hallway. As his hand hovered in that space he thought better and let it fall until he could lace his fingers with hers.

  “There are private rooms down this way,” he said when she looked down at his hand in hers then back up at him. “We’ll just go inside and make sure you’re all right. Then I’ll take you to your father.”

  She looked like she was unsure, of her father’s safety, of being here in this underground place with him, of what he’d said to her and of what she might feel for him. Like a flood, her emotions and concerns ran across her face and Ezra almost stumbled back watching them. He could have sworn the heightened senses, especially where she was concerned, had subsided after he’d left that house. In fact, he’d felt a lightness in his step, in his breathing, in his mind, as if something had been released, or exorcised, he thought with a frown. Now, standing here with her, he felt like a door had been opened, one he’d had no idea was there in the first place.

  “He can’t die,” she whispered finally, lowering her head so he wouldn’t see that tears had begun to well in her eyes once more.

  Of course he’d seen them and he’d scented them. He’d wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around her and hold her tight. He wanted to swear his loyalty to her and to her safety, to claim her with every ounce of breath he had. But he didn’t.

  “Let’s get you checked out and then you can go be by his side,” he told her, moving slowly to lead her down the hallway.

  She followed, her steps slow but steady. They were down another fifteen feet when the doors began to appear. Aligned perfectly with the wall, the only indicator that there was a door was the palm-sized control pad that flashed an intermittent red light as he approached. It was another sensor, another one of X’s contributions to the safety of the Stateside Assembly. Ezra didn’t have a specific code for each of the doors even though he knew there was one. Dyson and Bas would most likely be the only ones with this information. But he remembered that as a default, X had programmed all the higher-level officials in the Assembly’s fingerprints into the security access system. By pressing his index and middle fingers over the flashing red light, the locks were disengaged and the door opened with a thunk. It almost resembled the entrance as a chunk of the mountain had opened, peeling back to let them in. This stretch of wall was a six-foot-high, five-foot-wide access that Ezra immediately pulled completely open so that he could allow Jewel to go in first.

  Again, lights were activated by sensors responding to movement. Once he closed the door behind him he could see the six-foot table with four chairs surrounding it. To his left was an empty shelf, a notepad and a pen on top. To his right, a sink with a mirror hanging on the wall. Ezra had no idea what this room was used for, or had been built for, since this was the first time Bas had brought his shifters down here, but for now, it would serve the purpose of examining room.

  “Take off your shirt,” he said before turning around to face Jewel again.

  Her eyes grew wide, breasts lifting and dropping with the quick deep breaths she was taking.

  “Look, I’m not the one that hurt you!” he told her vehemently. “I’ve never been the one to hurt you and yet you run away from me every chance you get.”

  She didn’t flinch but Ezra knew he shouldn’t have yelled. Adding more intimidation on top of what she’d been through in the last couple of days was clearly not the answer.

  “No, Ezra, you didn’t hurt me, not with your fists or even your words. But you will,” she said in a huff. “If I let you, you will.”

  “I told you I wouldn’t,” was his retort.

  “Men lie, Ezra! You’ve been lying to me since day one.”

  She lifted her hands, shaking fingers raking through her hair. “Ever since that first day you’ve been watching me and saying things to me, acting as if you couldn’t stay away from me when all the while you knew it would never happen, knew it shouldn’t ever happen.”

  Ezra shook his head, taking a step toward her. “I never lied to you. Everything I said I felt was the absolute truth.”

  “Except you’re not supposed to feel anything for a human, are you?” The words spewed from her mouth as if they were actually sparks, stinging against his skin upon impact. “I heard when your leader was here he was thinking of killing Priya because she was a human.”

  “And now Priya works for us and she’s with Bas, so how exactly did I lie to you?”

  “Did you tell me you were a Shadow Shifter? Did you tell me you could shift into a cat and kill me if that suited your needs? No, you didn’t tell me any of that. All you talked about was desire and needs and all that other bullshit that men spout to get what they want! You’re an opportunistic user, just like him! Just like him!”

  With those last words she lunged for him, her arms swinging, tears streaming down her face. Ezra let her land a few licks, figured she needed to exert that anger, that pain that she’d carried around since the day she met Crowe. It was funny how people dealt with their darkest memories, their deepest sorrows. Jewel had created a whole new identity and every day had convinced herself to forget. She was much stronger than he’d ever been. His answer had been to visit a shaman who’d in turn shot some dangerously tainted herb smoke inside his body, almost destroying the shifter he’d once been.

  When he finally grabbed her wrists he held them close to his chest, locking her to him, feeling his heart thump wildly at that connection. “He didn’t give a damn about you, Jewel. He didn’t give a damn about your father. He didn’t love you.”

  “And neither do you!” she yelled in his face. “Don’t stand there and give me that line about falling in love with me after the few weeks that you’ve been here when you never planned to stay, you never planned—”

  “You’re right!” Ezra yelled back. He walked toward her, still holding her wrists and forcing her to take backward steps until her legs were up against the table. “I didn’t plan for any of this. I never planned to find a mate, to b
e so drawn to a female that I couldn’t breathe without her being near. My past isn’t pretty so I made a life in D.C., but you’re…” He sighed with the words, sighed as he looked down at her beautiful hazel-brown eyes. “You’re here and right now I don’t know what my life is going to be in the next minute, or the next hour, or next week, if I can’t be with you.”

  The last was said in a huff of breath that left Ezra feeling deflated, empty, purged. He’d never spoken like this to another woman, never thought these words would be formed in his mind. A mate wasn’t in the cards for him. The darkness inside him had prevented that, had given him the best defense against any type of permanent relationship. It had convinced him he was as wicked and tainted as the female that forced him into the clutches of the darkness in the first place.

  And like a blanket Jewel had lifted all that away. His darkness had never been as powerful, as close to the surface as it had been once he’d laid eyes on her. The conflict within him had stayed on a low boil all these years, until the second he scented her. Then the war had begun and she’d won, goddammit, Jewel Jenner had won, she’d beaten the darkness and freed him. And now he wanted to do the same for her.

  “Don’t tell me I don’t love you,” he said to her, his voice measurably lower, his heart still thumping wildly. She turned her head and he shook her until her gaze met his again. “Don’t fucking tell me that I. Do. Not. Love. You!”

  “Stop it, you’re hurting me!”

  Ezra softened his hold on her before replying, “I’m not sure that’s true or if that’s just the excuse you want to use. That’s what you want to accuse me of so you can walk away. Otherwise, you’ll know what I’m saying, what I’ve been saying about us has been true all along.”

  “I don’t need or want you or any man, Ezra. Why can’t you understand that?”

  “Prove it,” he said simply. “If you don’t need or want me, then you’d damned well better resist me.”

  With those words Ezra pushed her back on the table, and his fingers were wrapped in the collar of her shirt before she had a moment to gasp as he ripped it off her. She looked startled at her second ripped shirt of the day. That may have made her feel a certain way, may have incited some memory that made her feel uncomfortable. But she didn’t lash out again, only told him in no uncertain terms, “Stop it, Ezra. This doesn’t prove anything.” She spoke but didn’t lift a hand to stop him.

  To the contrary, the moment he released her hands, she’d grasped the edge of the table where she leaned, so that now with her breasts all but falling over the rim of her bra, her back was arched as she gripped that table, staring up at him with not fear, but lust in her eyes.

  “It proves everything,” he mumbled as he dipped his head, using his teeth to rip the thin wisps of lace away from her breasts. Once free, the heavy mounds bounced against his cheeks because he’d buried his face in the crevice, inhaling deeply at the spot where her scent was the strongest.

  Not her normal scent, not the fruity freshness he’d first lifted from her when he’d met her in Bas’s restaurant. No, this was sweeter, edged with a familiar spiciness—his scent. This was their companheiro calor, it was the blending of their lovemaking, their physical compatibilities bleeding through the surface. He inhaled again and again, loving that scent, wanting it to encompass every pore of his body.

  “This is just sex,” Ezra heard her say.

  “Right,” he nodded, lifting a hand to cup one breast in his palm, positioning his mouth over the other one. “Just sex,” he repeated about two seconds before suckling the mound deep into his mouth.

  Her puckered nipple rubbed enticingly against the coat of his tongue, filling the inside of his mouth like the sweetest delicacy. He sucked and sucked, squeezing its twin, while his dick grew harder every second, pressing painfully against the zipper of those damned fatigues.

  She arched beneath him, her fingers still holding onto the table, her bottom pressing against the steel. She didn’t speak again, but gasped as he drew her into his mouth deeper, clenching her other mound tighter. When her body began to shift he released her breasts, letting his tongue create a hot path down her torso, delving deep into her navel.

  With a yank he undid her pants, pushing them and her panties down her hips and pulling them from her feet. He didn’t give a damn about the shoes, they weren’t in his way at all. On his way back up her body, Ezra kissed the backs of her knees, the inside of her thighs. He lifted them then, placing them on his shoulders, inhaling again another sweeter-than-life scent, her essence as it dampened the thick folds of her vagina.

  Jewel made a sound but Ezra couldn’t tell if it was a whimper, or his name whispered, or whatever, all he could focus on was the milky center of her, the outpouring of delectable nectar that tempted him. Licking his lips he lowered his head, loving the soft brush of her thighs against his cheeks as he went down. He speared his tongue, going as deep inside her as he possibly could without drowning. Then he loved her with his mouth, licking and suckling every ounce of desire she had for him. Beneath his ministrations Jewel undulated her hips, she whimpered, refusing to cry out or to lift her hands to touch him. Ezra knew that wouldn’t last forever. He cupped her ass cheeks, lifting her farther off the table, bringing her closer to his mouth and feasted like a man starving all his life. He licked her from the hard bud of her clit to the tight rim of her sphincter, once, twice, until her entire body convulsed around him.

  When she fell limply against the table, he pulled back, yanking that shirt over his head and undoing the buckle and zipper of those pants. His dick was hard and jutting forward, the tip leaking with his fevered desire for her. Spreading her legs wider Ezra thrust until his dick was buried as deep inside her as his tongue had been.

  He knew Jewel liked to take control, knew she felt like she needed to in order to enjoy this primal act. But he wasn’t that bastard, he wasn’t going to hurt her. In fact, he only wanted to please her. It was with that thought that he thrust deeper, pulling out to the tip then going in hard and fast once more. Her back stayed arched, her mouth open as she gasped for breath, eyes closed to the intensity. Harder and harder, faster and faster, he speared in and out of her, loving how tightly her walls hugged his dick and when she was just about to scream, when he could hear the moans getting louder and louder, Ezra pulled out completely.

  He stood over her, heaving.

  “Look at me,” he told her.

  She bit her bottom lip, shaking her head, and refused.

  “Look at me, dammit!”

  Again she didn’t, wouldn’t, or possibly couldn’t.

  His cat roared and Ezra clenched his fists. He wanted to … needed to claim her, to have every part of her, memories and all. So he reached for her, cupping her neck and bringing her head up to meet his. He crushed his lips down over hers, using his tongue to work her lips apart and sinking into the warmth of her mouth the second she did. He kissed her as deeply as he’d fucked her, guiding her head with his hand, giving every ounce of himself in the hopes that he’d get the same in return.

  When he needed to breathe, Ezra pulled his mouth away from hers, watched as she took in deep gulps of breath, her eyes—fiery with passion, sparks of gold glistening against the hazel—finally looking up at him.

  “Stop me or take me,” he told her as he put his hands on her waist, pulling her off the table. “You’re mine or you’re his.” He gave the ultimatum, hating the sound of it in his ears, but knowing how important it was for her to stop the comparison, to let go of her past and embrace what was her future.

  When she was facing him, her breasts rubbing against his bare chest, Jewel didn’t speak. She licked her lips and blinked but did not look away.

  Ezra turned her then so that her back was facing him. He rubbed his wet dick along the seam of her plump ass and felt the growl rumbling deep in his chest. It was now or never.

  With a palm to the base of her back, Ezra pushed Jewel over the table, waiting, listening, hating the thought of her te
lling him to stop or moving out of his reach. When she did neither, he stepped in closer, using both hands to separate the voluptuous rounds of her ass until he could see the dampness his tongue had left along her center. His mouth watered, his dick stretching so painfully he thought he might spontaneously combust.

  He wanted the tight rear entrance, wanted to claim her there, to make every part of her his, but he did not. He loved her and needed her to understand his desire to protect and care for her. He was not an animal, although half of him was purely animalistic. He was a man and she was his woman and he was going to make her shiver and come, to whimper and plead and call his name.

  He entered her slowly, pulling out to the tip, then slipping back inside again. For endless seconds he repeated this motion, until she finally gasped.

  “Take me, dammit. Please!” she finally yelled, slapping her palms against the table.

  The words were music to his ears, a symphony playing over the otherwise lackluster music of his life. He grabbed her waist, planting his feet on the floor and pumped her until sweat rolled down her back, rivulets of moisture slipping down the crease of her ass until they landed on his dick. He lifted her legs, placing her knees up on the table, then thrust even deeper into her, loving the new angle, the depth and the tightness, holding his cock captive.

  When his spine tingled, the cat inside roaring, its mouth gaped wide, feral, Ezra buried himself in her dripping wet cove and let his release ride the wave of her body trembling beneath him. Leaning forward, he wrapped his arms around Jewel’s crouched body, loving the heat of their bodies still linked and the scent of their companheiro calor filling the room.

  “Mine,” he murmured into her ear. “Mine.”

  Chapter 22

  The temperate spray of hot water felt like heaven to every part of her body it touched. After standing for endless moments beneath the showerhead, Jewel finally turned to let the water massage the tense muscles of her shoulders. She flattened her palms on the tiles in front of her and lowered her head, closing her eyes and breathing deeply in and out.