Dangerous Prey

by Erika Masten

  You have to trust that Martin and I are coming for you. We are answering that call, sugar, and when we do…. Rory intentionally opened up the part of himself to Kendra that held the overwhelming hunger of a shifter for his mate, so she could feel how urgently he needed to have her with him. In the darkness of her fears, Galloway’s lips found hers in a kiss that transcended distance and the physics of mortal man.

  Kendra moaned into Rory’s mouth, a sensation so real that he felt the humming vibration along his tongue and the inside of his hollowed cheeks.

  You taste salty, she thought.

  Sweaty. It’s hot out here in your South Carolina summer.

  But it’s good. You taste good, Rory. More.

  Exactly as he’d hoped, the shifter had calmed her mind by engaging her body—and, apparently, her very real physical need for her mates. Her soft hands ran the breadth and length of Rory’s body, testing the muscular curves of shoulders and biceps, tensing pecs and flexing abdominals. Kendra’s agile mind removed the illusion of clothing in their shared fantasy, and she reached for his hard, twitching cock. Sucking in his breath through his teeth, Rory eased her hands away, always concerned that first time a woman felt the size of him.

  Don’t, she begged. Let me. I’m not afraid. This isn’t even my physical body, right?

  Kendra, sugar, we have to hurry—.

  There was no arguing with the bliss of those delicate hands stroking his cock root to tip over and over, weighing, memorizing every inch. And he had half again what the average human male had to offer, with just as much in thickness. All of it aching to get inside the tight, wet heat of Kendra’s voluptuous body. Fuck, Rory thought to himself and groaned, what he’d have given to have a green pasture underneath them, a bed of grass to lay her down in and spread her wide for the slowest, deepest ride of her life. How he’d taste her and make her wriggle with his tongue lapping into the sweetness of her pussy.

  With the girl being a psychic, Galloway shouldn’t have been surprised at all to have her feel that want inside him. She changed the scene around them to a grassy field with the boughs of a huge oak above them for shade. The horse shifter rested back in the silky blades, his hands buried in all that long brown hair, as Kendra’s maddening tongue trailed hot along his aching cock. She couldn’t take more than the broad, smooth head and maybe an inch besides into her mouth, but it was still his definition of heaven. Rory strained against the intoxicating pleasure to lift his head and gaze down at the curvy beauty, his brilliantly psychic mate, as she enjoyed the effort of trying to suck his massive cock.

  Galloway had only a moment to realize their shady oak was now a stand of redwoods over a floor of thick loam. Martin. As soon as the wolf’s name entered Rory’s mind, the shifter stepped up beside them as naked as they were. Beside Rory, all height and bulk, the werewolf was lean, sinewy fury, hard-packed and honed to an edge.

  Falk came down to his knees instantly and, gripping her hair again, directed Kendra’s mouth to his own ruddy, deeply veined rod. The Odin’s Wolf growled low under his breath the whole time as their mate kissed and tongued his cock, then sucked him half his length into her little rose blossom mouth. Rory couldn’t help kneeling, too, and edging forward until the shifters were taking turns directing Kendra to lick their ready cocks while they enjoyed the sight. Her wide kittenish face. Her soft, pale breasts. The broad curves of her full body. Rory had the reach on him to find her swollen clit and begin to finger it in circles, making her hips dance. Martin took the example and, playing on Kendra’s dark curiosity and delight, teased and massaged the tender ring of her anus.

  It was too easy for all three of them to forget time continued to pass outside their private little world. Easy until a gasp from Kendra pulled them all back into her prison. The shifters, fully dressed again as an automatic mental defense, stood at one end of a featureless gray corridor as black-clad Agency hunters wheeled Kendra’s body away on a gurney. Seeing her strapped down like that, unresponsive, made Rory’s gut turn inside him. She didn’t even look alive.

  Kendra, now. Focus, and listen to me, Rory ordered. When Kendra groaned and tossed her head, the shifters’ view of the hallways jumped forward to catch up with her. They were watching the Agency move her as though they were hovering above the scene. Look around at the walls, at the people, everything, Kendra. Show us where you are.

  So slowly, she reacted and complied with Galloway’s instructions. They passed guarded door after guarded door, most marked with room numbers, some with chilling red warnings. Anatomical Pathology. Biosafety Level 4. Weapons Research.

  Galloway felt Martin’s attention lurch as they passed that last door.

  Kendra, please think, the wolf practically begged in an urgent rasp. Can you think of any place near the campground that would have concrete structures? Maybe even underground?

  Yeah, she muttered without hesitation, and it pulled the men up short and breathless. The reservoir above Jocassee, with the hydropower plant. No one goes up there. They don’t allow anyone out on the lake, ‘cause the water levels rise and recede too fast when they’re pumping.

  More likely, Martin snarled, it’s because they don’t want anyone to know it’s a secret government lab.

  But he said, Kendra murmured, and her loss of concentration made Rory’s connection to her waver. When he focused back on the psychic rather than the building, he saw a technician administering a shot with an obvious and fast-acting sedative effect.

  Shit, Kendra, stay with us. I can hold you. Don’t let go. But Rory wasn’t sure at all that he could maintain his link to the girl. The force of concentration was making it feel like the top of his head would blow off.

  He said… they weren’t going to kill me. Said they weren’t going to dissect me. He said….

  “Out to the transport,” a black-haired man instructed the guards escorting the gurney. “We only have until nightfall to get her into position. That dose should only keep her under just long enough. You won’t have long to fall back.”

  An Agency officer, Martin said, and Rory felt the Odin Wolf’s hatred like it was his own, like the deaths on the hands of the hunters had been his kin and his friends.

  As Kendra lost consciousness, the shifters’ view of her surroundings dimmed progressively, but they followed her progress as far as an enclosed concrete parking structure attached to the facility. Instead of the expected black SUV, they loaded Kendra into the back of a little trailer, the sort of thing someone would use to move small equipment or tools. Not a person. Rory grimaced at the thought that they hadn’t even given her a blanket, just laid her down on the cold metal floor. And then her mind went blank and dark, and he’d lost her.

  Back on the trail, Martin immediately pulled out the map he’d had folded in his back mpocket. He traced an area with his fingertip, then tapped the creased page. “There, in the mountains north of Jocassee. A reservoir. Not far from here and not many roads. If we run—.”

  “We’d better,” Rory said, interrupting. He stared at Falk hoping his realization was wrong but knowing gut-deep it wasn’t. “I know where they’re taking her. The clan gathering. Martin. She said it was going to be somewhere back in the mountains. All those supernaturals gathered in one place? They’re going to use Kendra as a weapon. She’s a biological time bomb they’ve been winding up for two days.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Fifty years before Kendra Hennessey found herself sprawled shivering and helpless on the grubby rubber mat on the floor of a trailer, the Hennessey women of Clan Nacey were the equivalent of what the wolf or the cougar shifters would have called Death Enforcers. No one, human or otherwise, within a hundred miles of the Upcountry would have dared take a tone or looked cross-eyed at Nacey kin for fear of the The Three Lines, the three bloodlines of psychic women who were the steel-spined pillars of their combined families: the mind-rending seers of Castellaw, the enforcers of Hennessey, and the ruling matriarchs of Nacey. They preferred to marry and foster children among the lin
es, sharing critical psychic powers between the three. No clans could stand against them, and few outside the kin were worth their notice or protection. Cold, hard, compassionless Appalachian aristocracy.

  Thirty-five years ago, a feud started by the faithless adultery of a Hennessey woman with the husband of a Castellaw seer liked to tore the clan and the town around it apart.

  Ten years after that, the plan to settle bad blood with an arranged marriage fell apart when Sherry Hennessey turned up pregnant by the son of a minor line to the dishonor of her fiancé, Roy Castellaw.

  All the while the clan was suffering under the weight of its own hubris, clawing and cloying after influence and power once again, the psychic and shifter bands around it and to the west climbed out from under the thumb of The Three Lines. The nearest clans carved out chunks of what had once been Nacey territory for themselves and left pity and scraps.

  Now the child of a failed peace and broken hopes lay shattered herself, sick of mind and body, in that metal box. She wandered her hallucinations while she awaited her fate at the hands of government men who could never have touched a Nacey psychic two generations before. Kendra was the death of aspirations for both the power-hungry and peace-seekers among her clan. And all for pride.

  Beyond the metal walls of the trailer she heard strange voices and familiar ones, and she knew where she was and what she was: a Tallan mine planted underfoot right in the middle of the gathering of clans. And what havoc and destruction she would sow once Bright Eyes and his lot had wound her up good and tight. They’d wait until her denied mating call had so fractured her mind that she was ready to explode in a storm of psychic energy that the other clans would surely see as a deliberate attack, an ambush. Would she set off a war or just a bloodbath? Kill a few dozen or mar generations with the legacy of active hostilities? Was that the shame she’d leave her mother? The future she’d make for Sage? To be hunted and hated not just by the government but by the other clans, maybe even by their kin, all for what Kendra had done?

  A jolt of uncontrolled Tallan energy crackled and arched in a circuit out from Kendra’s prone body, around the interior of the trailer, and back around to hit the psychic like a lightning strike. She contorted in pain, thoughts obliterated, senseless in the white-hot flare of agony. A vague hope of relief, the memory of rescuers on their way, crumbled to ash that sifted through the fissures in her mind.

  “They were right to threaten to put me down,” Kendra mumbled aloud, to herself but to the Lord and to the power that was Tallan itself as her witness. “This is my sin of pride, not the clan’s. Not Mama’s, not Sage’s.” Damn, not even Bradley’s, no. Just hers. “Let the clan find me. Let them kill me. Just don’t let me hurt them.”

  The door of the trailer swinging open was like the answer to Kendra’s prayers. Light poured into the utter blackness that had swallowed Kendra up what seemed like hours, days, years before, devouring her will and the last of her lucidity. The psychic crawled at first on bare knees, still wearing just the tank top and cotton shorts, but she gripped the trailer’s metal frame to climb to her feet in the doorway. Looking out, she squinted against the glare of heavenly light until it receded. Just lantern light and torchlight, that was all there really was. Just men and women, shifters and psychics, small wants and petty schemes parading past with few noticing her on the periphery of the gathering.

  Another arch of electricity shot out from Kendra’s body as she stumbled forward toward the makeshift outdoor amphitheater built of rough logs and stones. A battery-powered lantern carried by a passing man burst, and the hulking man flew backward off his feet. From the ground, he shook his head. An enraged snarl began to cycle up through his barrel chest as the cougar in the shifter surfaced.

  “No shifting! That’s the rules,” someone called from nearby, not seeing how the cougar had ended up on his butt. When Kendra looked toward the voice, another whip of bright electricity struck the speaker.

  The screaming started then. Screaming and snarling, shouting and cursing. And gunshots. Government men, Kendra realized. She spun around in a clumsy whirl looking for the muzzle flashes, the source of the shots felling shifters and psychics alike while they tussled and fought each other in the clamor of confusion and distrust. The psychic couldn’t see for all the people in the way, so she cleared them back with another sweeping discharge of lightning. It annoyed her that the screaming just got louder.

  Kendra, stop. Look at me.

  She did. The woman turned to look at the huge man striding, then running at full speed and full force toward her. Long blond hair flew back form his face like a lion’s mane in the stirring wind. Such a beautiful man, she wondered who he was. He knew her, knew her name. Kendra, he’d called her. Yes, she thought that was who she might have been, before. Who called her that?

  Hadn’t… hadn’t the man who had taken her and locked her away called her that? Was that him? That would have made the figure charging at her a government man, here to hurt the clan, to destroy the gathering. She glared his direction as she lifted her hands. Energy in the sky above and air around her flowed toward Kendra at her command, crackling from her fingertips, ready to arch out with deadly force.

  Kendra, stop, Put your hands down. Sugar, think. Think about who I am. Rory.

  She wasn’t fooled. He was there to trap her, to bind her as sure as a chain, as sure as a man who would claim her as mate.

  Mate….

  Kendra realized her mistake too late. Her body was moving of its own accord, an automated weapon tracking its target. Rory. The only horse shifter she’d ever heard of or met, let alone kissed. The most beautiful soul she’s ever felt. Lord, what she was about to do!

  Don’t let me, Rory! Martin, where are you? You’ve got to stop me! I’m going to…. I’m going to….

  The stray bullet and the searing pain ripping through Kendra’s side was a blessing, dissipating the building electrical charge immediately.

  “No!” Rory bellowed from a few yards away. He kept running toward Kendra, faster in fact, brow furrowed with exertion. The shifter whipped his shirt over his head and tossed it away. His pants were sweats; they ripped easily as his body swelled with muscle. Rory caught Kendra up as she was falling, as his horse form was spilling like liquid from his human shape. A second later, she slumped on the back of a massive brown stallion and held for dear life to his mane as he carried her out of the clearing and into the trees.

  Kendra clung to the stallion’s neck and shoulders and cried at the warmth of his body beneath her. She had never felt anything so strong or so comforting. She didn’t care about the pain or the blood. It wasn’t his, and that was what mattered.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Martin found them in the meager shelter of a dry ravine at the end of a trail. Kendra lay bloodied and unconscious in the arms of the naked horse shifter as Rory rocked her. Galloway didn’t start or even look up as the wolf broke through the underbrush. Falk chalked that up to Rory sensing him.

  The sight of Kendra with one side of her top and shorts soaked red, with thick stripes of blood painted down her leg, brought the werewolf to a skidding stop—then, seeing her shallow breathing, to his knees. “No,” Martin rasped, emotion grating up along the inside of his throat with the word. “How… how bad?”

  Rory shook his head, mouth pinched closed.

  “Don’t let her die, Galloway.” Rory looked up, damp-eyed, but didn’t answer. “Do what you did for me. Reach in… into the black for her and pull her back. Make her come back.”

  Rory’s whisper was so low and soft it was more like a breath. “It’s not the same thing.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Martin agreed, climbing to his feet and striding forward to stand over Rory angrily, menacingly. “She’s different. I’m a dirty goddamn wolf barely fit to serve the gods. I don’t even deserve a mate. Everyone I care about dies or….” Or they’d left him behind. Falk swallowed a snarl of anguish that threatened to become a sob. “But this isn’t about me. This isn’t ab
out…. She was just scared and running. She didn’t mean for….”

  “I know,” Rory whispered, stroking Kendra’s hair. The stallion shifter who had been such a source of calm and comfort now radiated such grief that Falk couldn’t bear it.

  “You can save her,” Martin insisted one more time. He willed himself to stay steady in the face of Rory’s dismal expression and the crash nearby of approaching figures. The werewolf smelled… humans. Agency hunters were coming to finish them. In Galloway’s embrace, Kendra gurgled briefly and winced, the only sign of life left in her. “You can save….” Martin knew better. “You’re a psychopomp, Galloway. Give her that. Ease her crossing so she doesn’t hurt, and give her peace.”

  Finally, at this, Rory frowned and nodded. They—her mates—could give her that.

  Martin began to strip off his own clothing carelessly, as he gave rein to the beast that had been waiting for this, this final shift. “I’ll see to it no one interrupts you, brother.”

  Again, Rory nodded.

  Figures, Martin thought, knowing the horse shifter would hear him. I just start to like you and now this.

  You always liked me, asshole.

  Yeah. Yeah, he had. Martin had no reason not to admit it as he turned to face one of two certain and irrevocable options: death or wilding. The Odin’s Wolf had never been more True as he strode in the direction of the hunters while his wolf took half-form. The bristle of pain as fur erupted through Martin’s skin. The nauseating crack of bones breaking and reforming, reshaping a man’s face into the hungry maw of a wolf ready to feast on an enemy’s blood. Meaningless. Mere physical pain. A welcome contrast to the anguish tying up his gut when he thought about the girl dying in Rory’s arms.