Bloodbound (BBW Shifter Romance Novel) (Moonfate Serial Book 3)

by Sylvia Frost

  Or an army.

  And they were moving south.

  “The meeting place,” I whisper. “Castile. That’s south, isn’t it?” Repeating the name, I realize it sounds familiar, but I can’t place why. “That’s the same way the werebeast herd was headed.”

  “It is,” Orion says, a shade too calmly.

  Suddenly, my lack of fear over my feelings for Orion makes much more sense. It’s hard to find the energy to worry about something that only poses emotional harm when there are so many bigger threats hurtling toward us. And Lawrence. Poor Lawrence.

  Orion executes a sharp turn onto the first of the many roundabouts that signal Rochester’s inner loop. To our right, the Genesee River glints with the few remaining lights left on in the city.

  Unlike other metropolitan areas like Detroit, Rochester still hasn’t recovered from the economic collapse it suffered in the 80s, long before I was even born. As we cross the bridge into the city center, empty skyscrapers loom in front of us like black tombstones, memorials to the city Rochester once was. It’s a miracle they haven’t been torn down after all these years. Or a tragedy.

  Orion turns from the inner loop onto a dingy side street. The only thing lighting it is a dim neon sign that says “$10.00 All Day Parking.” I expect him to breeze by it, but he enters the garage and pulls up to a ticket machine covered with a makeshift “Out of Order” sign.

  Then, instead of putting a card into the slot or hitting the call button, he swipes his finger across the blank green display at the top of the machine.

  It flashes once, and the bar rises to let us through.

  “A fingerprint scanner?” If I could raise an eyebrow I would. “In an already deserted parking garage? And I thought I was paranoid.”

  “You haven’t even seen the beginning of it, Little Mate.”

  “How long have you been here?” I ask, thinking about all the times I’ve bicycled only a few blocks away, never knowing that the thing I was most afraid of was right next door.

  “Three days.” Orion glides the Camry around the dangerously crumbling concrete pillars. Every single parking space around us is empty.

  “Three days.” I splutter. “But you couldn’t have been here three days ago. Your dot had you at about seventy miles away.”

  Orion offers me a knowing, if grim, smile as we head down a ramp to the lower level of the garage. “I work for the FBSI, Artemis. You really think that I let the general public have access to my real whereabouts on Tracker?”

  “Right,” I say, feeling dumb and frustrated.

  “The only reason you saw my dot at all is because I wanted you to, and even then all you had to know was that I was close. That I existed. I placed myself far enough away from you that I hoped I wouldn’t spook you into running and close enough that you would reach out to me.”

  “So you planned to lure me out from the very beginning.”

  He gives a dark chuckle. “‘From the very beginning’ is a bit of an exaggeration. I was as surprised by the dream as you were.” His hand drops to my thigh and runs down the length of it to my knee. The sensation that fizzles through me at his touch is unfairly intoxicating.

  I breathe in to calm my nerves, but doing so only sends a fresh wave of his scent coursing through me. The aching inferno between my legs rises.

  With his left hand he turns us down yet another ramp as his right moves from my knee back up my thigh again. But this time the higher he goes the farther inward he curves, until his surprisingly cool fingers flirt with the edge of my crotch. He lingers there for a moment, and it takes all my willpower not to part my legs to give him complete access.

  “S-shouldn’t you not be touching me? Isn’t it dangerous?”

  He nods once tightly, and pull away. It’s the closest he’ll come to an apology.

  I wish I hadn’t said anything.

  “Artemis. We’re here.”

  I look around, dazed by a mixture of lingering lust and all-nighter grogginess. But even after I blink and shift in my seat to try to see exactly where “here” is, I don’t find anything that screams “secret government lair.” Like every other level, all that surrounds us is a repeating sequence of empty parking spaces and cracked concrete columns. The whole thing reminds me of putting two mirrors together so that when you look into one, the reflection from the other stretches outward into infinity.

  “I don’t get it,” I say.

  “Follow me.” Orion opens the car door, the sound echoing operatically in the empty garage.

  When I notice that Orion is rounding the other side of the car to escort me out, I quickly push open the door on my side. “I don’t need your help.”

  He watches me patiently, as if if he doesn’t, I might accidentally implode. I hate to admit it, but it’s almost as endearing as it is annoying. Then, without another word, he pivots and walks in what seems like a random direction. I follow him, searching for secret passageways behind the columns or hidden markings on the ground between the faded yellow lines delineating the parking spaces.

  Eventually, we reach a nondescript orange door marked EMPLOYEES OF THE MONROE GARAGE ONLY. Orion opens it without a key, and we continue through a small hallway to a supply elevator. He types in a four-digit pin, and it opens.

  After he’s guided me into it with a hand at the small of my back, he presses a lone, scratched plastic button. It lights up. The metal box groans to life around us.

  “You really don’t want anybody finding you, do you?” I say.

  Orion offers me a wisp of a smile. “A sentiment I’m sure you understand after hiding from the FBSI—and me—for the past seven years.”

  The elevator dings when it reaches its destination before jerking to a stop. A few seconds later the door opens. It was an even more uninspiring trip than the one we took to reach the metal box.

  But what the door opens onto might be the furthest thing from uninspiring I’ve seen in my whole life.

  8

  The FBSI headquarters I remember in New York City was all classical marble columns and gilded framed portraits of werebeast hunters like Wesley Hex and Henreich Stormfell. When the agents questioned me about my parents, they didn’t do it in an interrogation room; they had me sit in a leather armchair.

  The FBSI’s new office—if you can call it that—is the exact opposite of their old one. Its open floor plan dotted with black metal desks and artfully ergonomic chairs makes me think more of a futuristic living room than an institution. An air conditioner is humming in the background, which explains the cool crispness of the air, and windows cover every wall except the one we entered from. Even before I look out of them I realize where we are.

  “The empty skyscrapers. We’re in the skyscrapers.” This fact lies squarely in the no man’s land between improbable and impossible, a space I’m becoming very familiar with. As I take a step forward, I notice the windows glinting with a tinted sheen, so even if there were lights on, they wouldn’t show through. At least, I think that sheen is a tint. It’s hard to tell in the darkness.

  “Skyscraper,” Orion corrects from behind me. Far enough away that this time his words don’t feel like they’re burrowing directly into my brain.

  “Hiding in plain sight, just like with the car.” I take a step forward, the black carpet swallowing my muddy sneakers. Unfortunately, I didn’t pack another pair of shoes. But after everything the FBSI has done to me, they can live with a dirty carpet. “Just like werebeasts did.”

  “Yes,” Orion says. There’s a hint of that soft amusement in his voice again and it unnerves me almost as much as when he touches me. “Cal says it was the old building for a company called Clearox.”

  “Xerox,” I correct absently. Something much more interesting than shoes or architectural history consumes my attention.

  The view from the windows.

  It’s wrong.

  Usually Rochester looks like a half-broken computer chip from above, whole swathes of the grid remaining unlit. But not tonight
. Tonight there is light. Everywhere.

  As I take another step closer, the tint on the windows gleams like oil on water. Except it’s not a tint. Holy shit, these aren’t just windows. They’re screens. And what they’re showing makes my jaw unhinge.

  Hundreds, no, thousands of green dots are teeming on the ground below, making the whole spectacle look like a three-dimensional, life-sized Tracker. A few of the dots are moving, but most are stationary, clustering on apartment buildings and hovering over houses. A trickle of green is pouring down East Ave, the only street in Rochester with bars open past midnight. What are those dots? They can’t be werebeasts; there are too many of them. If it weren’t totally crazy I’d say that they were…

  “People. You’re tracking people,” I whisper.

  This realization makes the whole thing both more revolting and more mesmerizing at the same time. Now more than halfway to the windows themselves, I turn, taking in all three hundred and sixty degrees of the scene.

  “Stefania is, yes.”

  Behind me I hear Orion’s purposely quiet footfalls as he prowls a few feet away from me. If it weren’t for the oppressive quiet of the room, I’m sure I wouldn’t have noticed. I sidestep Orion, pretending to give more room to his path, but really just wanting to make sure we don’t touch.

  If Orion notices my maneuver, he doesn’t comment on it as he peruses the office with a lazy curiosity. “She must not have turned it off when she left. Judging by the fact that ours was the only vehicle in the garage, she’s probably running late, as usual. I’d say half an hour.”

  My attention turns back to the screen and all the dots teeming there. That looks like half the population of Rochester, maybe more. There’s no way all of them voluntarily signed up to have trackers surgically inserted into their bodies. “How does she do it?”

  “By lacking any internal discipline and sense of time,” he growls.

  “No, no. I mean how does the screen work.” I’m close enough to the window now that if I were to breathe heavily it would steam up, but I still can’t gather the courage to touch it.

  “Black magic, as far as I’m concerned.”

  I shoot him a smirk, “Has anyone ever told you might need to get over your technophobia if you’re going to be a secret agent.”

  He smirks back. “I don’t let people tell me what to do.”

  I sigh and raise my hand, palm out, as if to wave hello to the machine. A ridiculous thought.

  Or at least it would be if the display in front of me didn’t ripple and give a ping.

  “Unauthorized access or error in biometric scanning. Please try again,” an artificial female voice intones.

  Out of surprise, I stumble backward and straight into Orion’s chest with a thump. Only a second later do I realize my mistake. It was touching him by accident that got me in trouble the last time. A trouble Orion claims I relish.

  He doesn’t, at least not at first. He flinches before he snakes one arm around my waist, half to keep me from tripping farther, and half to keep me from escaping his embrace. Although I have a suspicion that if I really struggled he’d let me go in an instant.

  I don’t. The moment we come into contact my body starts to crackle with coming desire. The clean pine and mint of his scent replaces the air-freshener, office-y smell of the FBSI.

  I wait for Orion to release me.

  “You should be more careful.” With the back of his knuckle he brushes away my curls to expose my neck. When I knelt at his feet, he executed a similar motion. It feels like a purposeful reminder.

  “You’ve hurt yourself enough already,” he says.

  “I thought neck fetishes were a vampire thing?” I try to crack the joke to dilute the tension that has shattered what little composure I had. It doesn’t work. My attraction to Orion is like quicksand. The more I fight, I realize, the worse it becomes. At this point my best bet is to stand still.

  He lowers his mouth to the nape of my neck. Each of his exhalations sends a new crop of goose bumps rising on my skin. “It’s an alpha dominance ‘thing’, Little Mate.” The barest edge of his lower lip grazes over my hairline.

  My heart gallops in my chest. “Why are you touching me?” I try to speak lightly, but my words come out strangled instead. “Won’t that make it harder to resist claiming me?”

  “It will.” His nostrils flare. I can feel them against my skin. He’s caught the scent of my arousal. “But I’m not perfect.”

  “Oh I knew that,” I say, hoping to cover my nerves.

  “I think you may be though.” His fingers splay across my stomach. “Perfect.”

  I lurch forward, panicking instinctively at the captivity.

  “Calm down. I’m not going to hurt you,” Orion says.

  With purposeful gentleness, I attempt to loosen his grip. “I know, but you can’t do this here. Someone might see.”

  “Are you asking me to stop?” His other hand, the one not pressing me to him, breezes lower until it’s resting on the waistband of my jeans. “Ask me and I will. That’s all.”

  I give up on trying to pry myself out of his hold. His forearm is so big that even if he didn’t have superhuman strength the task would be impossible. Why don’t I just tell him to stop? Why don’t I want to.

  “I won’t take you if you don’t want it.” Continuing its inevitable assault, his hand slips underneath my waistband, seeking out my folds with no detours before he finds my already pulsing clitoris. “But you want it.”

  “Please,” I beg, not knowing what I’m asking for.

  “Say it.” Flick. He teases my nub. A hot wetness gushes around his finger as an electric shock of pleasure blazes through me.

  I writhe in his hold like a caught animal, each of his touches making my brain fuzzier with lust. My whole body feels swollen with need. He’s right; I could ask him to stop. Maybe I should. But I don’t. I bite my tongue so I don’t beg for more instead.

  “Do you know how badly I want to taste you, Artemis?” He grinds his cock against my ass, and my soft, curvy body yields to the stiffness of his shaft. “I told myself I could make the wanting go away, if I could press my face between your soft thighs.”

  Holy fuck. “I-I—”

  Tracing a path down my labia, his finger glides closer and closer to my opening. “Or maybe I’ll make you come another way.”

  His large but deft fingers part my sex’s lips, leaving me completely open and vulnerable to him. A tickle of coolness from the air conditioner whispers between my legs. My whole body trembles in anticipation of the orgasm I can almost taste on my tongue. That sweet oblivion. Nothing else matters when he touches me.

  “Do you want to come, Artemis?” He kisses the side of my neck. Sweetly. So fucking painfully sweetly.

  I moan. The syllables tangle into something that might be yes, might be no, might be always. Either way, I do want to come. I want him to shatter me into little pieces and then reassemble them in a way that fits his pleasure. I want to kneel at his feet like I did in the alleyway and scream out to him instead of to God. I want him to part my thighs and carve his name onto my clit with that wicked tongue of his.

  I want it all.

  Ding.

  Behind us, the elevator opens.

  9

  Dedication:

  To my three daughters, who have given me the wisdom, courage and patience to finish this book. And to my fourth. I will never forget you, Adriana. Wherever you are.

  Beasts, Blood & Bonds: A History of Werebeasts and Their Mates

  By Dr. Nina M. Strike

  “So sorry I’m late!” trills a melodic soprano from behind us.

  Orion and I both whirl at the same time. More graceful than I, Orion manages to extract his hand from my panties before he’s even all the way around. I shove my fists into my jeans pockets, hoping that I don’t look like as big a catastrophe as I feel. My cheeks sting.

  And it’s easy to look like a mess compared to the woman exiting the elevator. Tall, with shampoo
-commercial-shiny hair as straight and neat as the crease in the black slacks of her pantsuit, there’s no doubt in my mind that Stefania is the most beautiful government employee I’ve ever seen. I recognize her, too. She was one of the agents in the black car by my house.

  But as she bridges the distance between us, I notice there’s something slightly off about her. Maybe it’s that the toothy, too-wide grin she’s flashing at Orion and me seems tinged with desperation.

  “Fifteen minutes late,” Orion says curtly.

  “Hello to you too, North.” Stefania’s smile doesn’t budge. “And you must be the alleged Artemis Williams.” Having reached us, she holds out a delicately boned hand for me to shake. I’m glad she doesn’t make the same gesture to Orion. “I’m Stefania Strike.”

  “Stefania Strike,” I repeat as I accept her handshake.

  The heartiness of her grip surprises me. Although she doesn’t so much shake as squeeze.

  Her name sounds familiar to me. “Wait, as in Nina M. Strike, the author of Beasts, Blood & Bonds?”

  “One and the same. Like mother, like daughter. Although it helps that I’ve got actual access to werebeasts instead of just books. I love my mother, but myths really have nothing on big data. In fact, I’d actually argue that big data and collective social-media-based storytelling are our modern myths.” She pauses and raises a single manicured fingernail. “The same story repeated over and over until it’s more about universal truths than specific details. The grumpy cat god and the meme muse.”

  Each sentence Stefania speaks tumbles out faster than the last, but the crispness of her consonants means that I can understand every word. Her gaze can’t keep still, either, darting around the room.

  “Stefania,” Orion says lowly.

  “I’m rambling again, aren’t I?” She bites her lip, frowning at herself.

  “It’s late, and Artemis and I would like to get some rest before our meeting with everyone tomorrow. You want to test her DNA to verify her identity, yes?”