Rogue Huntress: a new adult urban fantasy novel (Rogue Huntress Chronicles Book 1)

by Thea Atkinson

  "You hate me, don't you?" he asked.

  "Yes," I said.

  "Then show it," he said. "Use whatever loathing you have to punish me. I'll take it. If you don't want seduction, let's go with aggression."

  My eyes flew open at that. A chance to hurt him, a chance to enjoy the infliction of pain? My skin prickled.

  "Don't believe me?" he said as a lock of sandy hair fell into his eyes. He pushed it aside with an impatient hand. "Try me. Bury those teeth of yours into my skin, tear it if you want. Swallow down my blood and howl at me. I won't resist."

  His cock became even more insistent, but it didn't press home. He was waiting, that was clear. I couldn't transform, and he knew it. My human teeth would work at him like a butter knife would hack at a steak and I'd have to clamp down extra hard to break the skin.

  A tittering went on in my belly, speaking of an anticipation I'd not felt in years. I didn't love killing, it was a thing I did to keep my pack safe. But this--this invitation to do harm to the werewolf who put that pack and my family in jeopardy called out to my most primal drive. Harm or be harmed. Kill or be killed. Survive or die. And feed the beast at the same time? Too perfect.

  He gasped when my teeth met the skin of his throat but he didn't struggle. Instead, he waited, tense and rigid, until I'd managed to find the coppery tang of his fluid on my tongue as I sawed at his skin. It was then that he plunged inside me, burying himself with such ferocity, it robbed me of my breath for a full heartbeat. Even then, I knew how completely he was mixing the sensation of victory with the feeling of invasion, and although something in the back of my mind bid me to stop, I found I couldn't. Something shifted within, something deeper than my viscera, down to a place that grew warm and aching. That place called out to his skin, straining for it and demanding it join me. At the same time, it was as though something had been shaken loose and I felt relief and freedom.

  Imprinting, my mind whispered but it was too late. I was already meeting him thrust for thrust and crying out with a pleasure that astounded me.

  I couldn't get enough of him. He buried his forehead into my chest and pumped, nipping at my breasts, running his tongue around them in circles. Finally, he claimed my mouth and I tasted blood on his tongue, realizing with horror, he'd broken my flesh too.

  "That's it, Shana," he urged against my cheek. "Let it go. Come to me."

  I swore when I climaxed. Battered by his assault and afraid of what I'd just done, I went limp. I shivered beneath his body. The human part of me felt ragged and disgusted.

  "There," I said. "It's over. Now call whoever you have to and free my brothers." I sagged on the bed, wilting beneath him and wished I could mop up my face. It felt sticky and wet, and I was sure the fluids weren't just blood.

  He peeled away from me and rolled to his side. I heard him fiddling with his smartphone.

  "It's done," he said.

  "That didn't sound like an order to release the boys."

  "Because it wasn't."

  He pushed himself from the bed and pulled on his jeans. I watched him button the fly, pull his plaid shirt over his shoulders. His face was bloody and his neck had jagged scorings. I'd bit him plenty. Bastard. I imagined Luca and Lynden wherever they were, shivering, afraid. Then my mind overlaid an image of a room like this one--their room, and I prayed they were held somewhere familiar if they had to be imprisoned. No matter where they were held, I'd paid for their release. I wanted it without delay.

  "And why wasn't it an order?"

  He pulled on the gloves and reached for the cuffs that still held my wrists to the headboard, ramming the key into the lock. My hands fell lifeless to the mattress. I could barely feel them. He yanked the sheet from the bottom of the bed and tossed it over my naked body. It was then I noticed the surgical pincers in his hand. Too late, he pushed the points into my shoulder and pulled the pellet free. I shrieked in pain and then in pleasure as I felt it escape my flesh.

  "Go on," he said. "Transform. Heal your wound."

  My hands started to tingle as the blood rushed back and I rolled to my side, letting my feet hang over the edge of the bed as I sat up.

  "Aren't you afraid I'll tear you limb from limb?"

  He smirked. "No."

  "Then you're a fool."

  He shrugged and strode to the bureau where he'd set up the camera. I heard it hum to life.

  "Tell them you have bonded to me," he said, backing up so he could fit into the lens's eye. "Shana, tell your pack you are my alpha mate."

  I stared at the camera's red eye. He hadn't forgotten after all, but he had no proof of what had just occurred.

  "I will kill you," I said instead.

  He spread his arms wide. "Please," he said. "Do try."

  Liberation and permission? It was too delicious. I welcomed the transformation as it prickled across my skin and in seconds I was on all fours, padding about him, sniffing his human feet and calves.

  I'd start with his groin. I'd tear through those jeans to that arrogant flesh beneath and I'd rid him of that offensive thing so he couldn't even consider assaulting me or any other woman again. Then I'd move to his stomach and then his throat. I'd take my time. My nose twitched as it took in his smell. His scent was familiar and strong, and horrifyingly intoxicating. I froze.

  He looked down at me.

  "You're bonded," he said and placed his hand on my head, stroking it like a man would his favorite bitch. I tried to grab his leg beneath my jaws. I yelped as a spasm went through them. I backed away, thinking to leap and go straight for his throat but ended up stretching out onto my belly. I got up, thinking to take him down from behind. I ended up rubbing my jowls over the backs of his legs.

  No matter how I tried, I couldn't bring my beast to assault him. Instead, it surrendered its form and I found myself sitting at Caleb's feet, tears streaming down my face.

  It was almost sickening, the realization as it came. "You didn't want my submission for the pack to see at all," I whispered. "You wanted me to imprint."

  He shrugged. "I as much told you we were fated."

  "But we weren't."

  "Semantics."

  "You know same as me the act of joining doesn't bond us," he said. "Maybe for weaker wolves than us. But it takes more for two true alphas."

  "You tricked me."

  "You should have known, Shana. Your mother should have taught you."

  "She did. She said bonds are fated."

  "Maybe she wasn't a true alpha. Maybe she was weaker than you think. Beta wolves and the others, they bond without intention."

  I squinted at him. "What are you saying?"

  "Have you ever bonded with a wolf in all your decades?"

  I squirmed, thinking of Jeb. I knew I had felt the connection with him, that drive to protect him, to do no harm. It didn't make sense. It couldn't have been just mere attraction that kept me from harming him, that reacted to my beast. Especially in light of this notion that I was an alpha born who had to choose a bondmate. I would never feel that way about a human. I hadn't felt that way ever, in all my decades.

  He eyed me as I scrabbled backward, trying to find my feet again.

  "No," he said. "You never bonded because you aren't weak. You have refused to submit to any wolf."

  "I just did, didn't I?

  He chuckled. "You call that submission? No. Not the act, Shana. We are alphas. We choose our mates."

  "The bite," I said with a start and a slow smile spread across his features.

  "You wanted to tear my skin. You wanted any opportunity to harm me and I merely used it to my advantage."

  He laughed then, and I wanted to tear into it again except something within froze my jaw as I bolted toward his neck, teeth bared and ready.

  "See?" he said. "You've bonded with me. It takes blood to make a she-wolf like you imprint. We shared ours together and now it's done."

  "Bastard," I said, finding my feet finally but swaying on them as I understood the full scope of his meaning. I'd
lost my independence, my will to resist him. I'd lost my ability to wreak the vengeance on him I needed so badly.

  He strode forward for each step I took backwards until I was butted against the footboard of the bed and he was close enough that I could smell my blood on his mouth.

  "And now your pack knows you are mine."

  I held my hand up to him, warding him off, unable to trust myself now. I clung to the one hope that had set me on the path.

  "My brothers," I said.

  "Are dead," he said, his expression softening just enough that I knew he told the truth and I had to cling to the rails of the footboard to keep from stumbling as my knees went to water.

  "I don't understand--"

  "Jeb killed them."

  "No," I said. I had to sit down or fall down. I staggered sideways, fumbling for the mattress, unable to see for the water that swam in front of me. It wasn't true. How could it be? Not the boys. Not Jeb.

  "It can't be," I said.

  "It can." He reached out for me, gripping my elbow to pull me against him as he settled on the bed next to me. "That was the call I got, why I had to leave you."

  "You're lying." I pushed at him. "Why would you lie like that?"

  "I wish I was," he said.

  "How?" I asked. "I thought Jeb was your muscle."

  "Jeb is no one's muscle, Shana," he said into my hair. "I'm merely using him for a short time under considerable duress and pressure."

  Everything in the room tunneled down to one small pinprick of light and all the air vacuumed from my chest. I heard it suction from me and for the life of me couldn't pull any back in. I fell to my palms on the bed, gripping the duvet that had just moments before been tangled between us. For nothing. All for nothing. And now those boys were dead and I was betrayed.

  "I'm sorry, Shana," he whispered and although I wanted so badly to resist his embrace that I fought him at first, eventually my beast succumbed and I found myself sagging against his chest as he crooned to me. I heard myself sobbing but had no way to measure how long it was that I cried into his chest. It was only his hand on my hair that brought me to some kind of calm. On the tails of calm came rage.

  I couldn't breathe. I felt like I was boxed in. Panic sent icy fingers through my chest as I scrabbled for anything I could fight and tear through: the lid of a crate, the cover of a coffin, the foot of dirt shoveled onto a child's form that I had to dig through to find the air and win a single proud stroke of my hair. I went blind for several seconds and only realized I was clawing into skin and striking out at muscled arms that worked to hold me still when I smelled blood.

  I blinked. Caleb's face was bloody again. Several scratches rose red and angry on his cheek. His eye was swollen.

  "It's nothing," he said, putting a finger to his cheekbone. "Nothing that won't heal when I change."

  "How could he?" I croaked. "They were just boys."

  I wouldn't cry. I wouldn't. I didn't care how much my chest burned with the need to release the grief. I wouldn't cry until I wreaked the same havoc on Jeb as he had me. I felt Caleb's fingers on my forearm and realized he had been speaking and that I'd not been listening.

  The backs of his fingers stroked my cheek. "You know what needs to be done," he said and I nodded, already feeling the need for vengeance steeling my spine.

  "You need to find him," he said. "And kill him."

  Choices

  My breath shuddered in a hitching inhalation. I felt a coldness enter my core, hardening me like a hot sword quenched in frigid water.

  "I want to see them," I said. It wasn't a request. If Caleb knew what was good for him, he'd realize it for the demand it was.

  He pursed his lips at that. "It's not pretty, Shanna," he said. "My men haven't had time to clean it up yet."

  I had a hard time swallowing. I had trusted Jeb and now those boys were dead. I needed to get away. I needed to think. I backed up, my feet turning me as I went toward the bed. I wanted to fling myself on it. I looked at Caleb, studying his expression and his body language. Shook my head. I felt strange, and not just from shock.

  "Why would he kill them?" I asked. "What could he gain?"

  "He's human, Shana," Caleb said. "He kills supernaturals for money."

  I peered at him from narrowed eyes. "It can't be any other reason, could it? Leverage of some sort?"

  "You mean the woman?" Caleb sank on the bed next to me, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. "It's true I used her, but you saw me offer him her freedom." He lay his free hand on top of mine. "I keep my bargains. He, on the other hand, has a very checkered past. Guantanamo Bay is just one period in his tenure. You don't want to know the rest."

  I felt myself lean into him as he spoke, feeling almost drugged by his voice.

  "You feel it, don't you?" he said.

  "Grief?" I spit out. "Of course I feel it." I fell backwards onto the mattress and then rolled to my side, my knees coming up of their own accord. I breathed deep, pulling in focus like it was the very air my lungs needed to expand. He crawled over me and lay facing me. I watched him from my spot, struggling to keep my lip from trembling.There was something in his demeanour that halted the grief in its tracks.

  "What else is there?" I demanded. "What are you keeping from me?"

  His finger trailed down my forearm as his face lit up with a peculiar expression of interest. "It's kind of like a fever, isn't it."

  "What are you talking about? What fever?" I pushed myself onto one hand.

  "It's not just that you're bonded to me," he said and his fingers probed his pulse. "There's also this feverish feeling. Your heart is pounding. You're dizzy." A look of wonder sat on his face as he lay the back of his palm against his forehead.

  I watched the flush creep up his neck. Horrified, I realized he was telling the truth. I took stock of my own faculties. There was a tingling at the base of my spine. A strange sort of warmth climbed its way through my bones to viscera. A mix of desire and illness washed over me, making my hearing nothing but a buzz. I knew I had begun to hyperventilate but I couldn't slow my breathing.

  "Can't be," I said. "The bond doesn't work that way."

  "How do you know? Has anyone ever explained it to you?" He stepped closer and something in me responded to the movement with a shiver. "Tell me why you're feeling so off if it doesn't work that way. Why I'm feeling it."

  "It's a trick." I pushed my feet to the floor. My back went rigid with alarm. "You put something in my drink."

  "What drink?" He spread his arms. "It's the alpha bond, Shanna. The true Alpha bond. When Alphas choose each other the way we have, we get under each other's skin."

  The tingling had already turned to some mad dancing like flame beneath my skin. Even as I looked at him, some wash of deception made him look different to me. My heart started to beat in an unnatural rhythm. I felt it hiccup once or twice, so strongly it took my breath away for a second.

  "No." I tried to push myself to a stand but sunk back onto the bed. My legs had turned to water balloons. Somehow Caleb had become a master storyteller, a master at deception. I could handle that. I couldn't handle a sizzling fever that robbed me of my faculties before I could assess whether or not the tale he spun about my brothers and Jeb was a true one. I needed to see it before the bond took me over. And I could feel it taking me over. Each beat of my heart seemed to pump more heat into my veins, filling it with a primitive sort of lust. My thighs quivered with it, my sex ached.

  He advanced on me, his keen eye roaming my throat as though he wanted to push his knees between my thighs and ram his member into me until I begged for more. The image of it twisted my stomach into a knot of desire and I caught my breath as he came close enough to reach out for me. His fingers landed on my cheek like moths and slipped over my temple. I had the insane urge to turn into a wolf again and prance around for him.

  His palm smoothed over my hair. "Beautiful," he said. "I've always loved that platinum hair."

  "Careful," I said through gritted teeth
. "I might bite your hand."

  He chuckled. "You won't, and you know it."

  "I might find a second of hatred." My hand fisted itself as it lay on the bed, and I dug my nails into the palms. "Show me my brothers."

  "It won't change anything between us," he said. "I finally have you and all those years of your precious father thinking I wasn't good enough for you are but dust in the wind."

  I gaped at him. I felt it: all his longing, his hurt, rage. I imagined a flood light had blinked on in my mind as I regarded him.

  "You love me," I gasped out.

  He looked at me. "Haven't you been paying attention?"

  I couldn't look at him. The weight of his emotions was crushing. I might have been able to stare at the curtains for eternity except he spoke again and the beast in me responded the way ear does to music.

  "What was that?" I asked, hearing in my voice a sort of distraction. What was I thinking again?

  "I said the bond is changing how you feel about Jeb."

  "How do you know how I feel about Jeb?"

  "How you felt about him," he said as his voice went soft. "I can feel it, Shana. I couldn't before, but I do now. I sense it the way you can feel my desire for you."

  "It's an unnatural thing you feel for that human," he murmured. "Don't worry. It will disappear in time. The more I take over your blood, the more you slip into mine, that insanity will be obliterated and all that will be left is me."

  I did feel it, like an eel slipping away. In its place bloomed a hard and bilous rage, a blade of sharp grass poking its way through hard-packed soil.

  "Show me," I said, determined to keep my focus. "Show me where you kept them."

  Those green eyes of his drilled into mine, and though I tried to read the message in them, I could feel nothing but the heat building in me. He jammed his hands in his pockets and I knew he was struggling with the lust as well.

  "I need to see first," I said. "Before this bond steals all I am, I need to see."

  I felt a flash of compassion rise in him and he nodded mutely. He walked across the room and lifted my mother's robe from a hook next to the door. He tossed it at me.