by Mina Carter
Unable to help herself, she licked him again, root to tip. His barked curse shattered the silence in the room as his cock pulsed in her grip. She pumped, using her saliva to make his shaft wet and slick until her hand moved easily.
“Harder,” he begged, voice hoarse, and his hand slid into her hair. Not hard, but… there.
She ignored him and bent her head instead.
“Holy shit, Eva. You’re going to kill me…” He gasped as she wrapped her lips around the head of his cock.
She slid him deeper in reply.
“…ugghhh…”
His hand tightened in her hair, not controlling her movements, but more like he needed the connection to ground himself. That was cool with her, this whole thing felt surreal to her as well.
His cock was long and thick. So wide she wouldn’t be able to do this long without her jaw aching. She wouldn’t need to though. The restless shift of his hips, like he was controlling the urge to drive upward into her mouth, told her that he’d be done before she was. Long before.
“Yeah, that’s it. Christ, it’s so sexy to see your lips wrapped around my cock like that.”
She looked up to find his gaze riveted on her mouth. A devil of mischief filled her and she took him as deep as she could. And sucked.
His head thudded back against the bed, his body taut as his cock throbbed in her mouth. Then all bets were off. She attacked his shaft with hard sucks, bobbing her head to work the length in the warm cavern of her mouth, or swirling her tongue around the sensitive head. His body got tighter and tighter, his breathing more ragged. She knew she was running out of time. Any minute now, he’d break… and she wanted that. Wanted him to lose control. Be as helpless as she’d always been in his arms.
Taking him deep again, she brought her nails down the sides of his thighs, both sides, in a light scratch.
The snarl burst from him without warning and the next moment, she found herself lifted off him and flipped to her back. He was over her in a heartbeat, but rather than parting her thighs and driving into her as she expected, he turned her over onto her hands and knees.
“You want to play with the big, bad wolf, Eva, you play the way I want,” he breathed against her hair.
A hard knee shoved hers apart even as his hand snaked around her hip and down between her legs. A cry of surprise, then pleasure, startled from her lips as his fingers swept through her folds.
“Wet already. Good.”
He found her clit and rubbed. She arched against him, need pulsing through her like a second heartbeat. She didn’t get time to beg. The next second the broad head of his cock fit against the slick entrance to her pussy.
No more teasing. With one fast thrust, he was inside her, balls deep.
She cried out, body stretched to its limits by his hard penetration. It burned and stretched, the pleasure bordering on pain, but so, so good. So addictive. Mewling soundlessly, she gripped his wrist where his hand was between his legs. He stroked her clit in fast, ruthless strokes, as though determined to punish her as she’d punished him.
“I want you to come,” he growled in her ear. “Come all over my cock, little wolf.”
As he spoke, he began to move, and she realized it wouldn’t be long for either of them. Her pussy throbbed around his length. In and out, hard and fast, she barely had time to process all the sensations as he took her. Overwhelmed her. Dominated her. Who had she been kidding, thinking she was in control of this?
Her release rose out of nowhere to steal her breath and threaten to topple her over the edge. With a gasp, she arched away, desperate to slow things down, but it was no good. He realized she was about to come.
“Now,” he ordered, moving his free hand to palm her breast. “I want to feel it over my cock, hot and wet. Now, Eva. Come now.”
He pinched her clit and nipple at the same time, and the sharp pleasure shattered her control. Pleasure exploded, filling her core and spinning outward in hot, pulsing waves. Ecstasy filled each cell, sending it spinning to crash into the next. A never ending chain reaction that overwhelmed her.
She cried out in pleasure. Whimpered his name. He growled in response, his thrusts harder now as he gripped her hips. Hands tangled in the sheets, she arched back against him. Wanted to get him as deep as she could.
Two more thrusts, so deep she didn’t know where she ended and he began, and he stiffened, cock buried deeply inside her. It pulsed, bathing her inner walls with his white-hot release.
“You’re mine, Eva,” he growled, his voice more animal than man as his teeth grazed her shoulder. “Never forget that. Because, believe me, I never will.”
Chapter Six
Hunger woke Eva.
Not the normal kind of hunger either. She was used to the midnight munchies, where her body craved chocolate or that leftover cream cake from the bakery down the road (she made cupcakes, cream cakes were a whole different level of decadence), but this was different.
She’d never felt this kind of gut-wrenching ache for food. Groaning, she turned on her side and tried not to wake Alex. On his back, sprawled over the bed, he’d finally let them both rest after the… fourth, or was it fifth time he’d claimed her? Whichever, she’d lost count. Her body was pleasantly sore in places she had no clue existed and she felt… yeah, thoroughly fucked.
She would be sound asleep, like he was, but for the hunger that clawed at her stomach like something inside determined to rip its way out through her ribcage.
“Ugh,” she moaned, easing herself to the side of the bed to sit up.
Upright was no better. In fact, it was worse. The room spun, the dead roses on the bedside table wandering in and out of darkness. She frowned and focused on them. Her senses were far more acute since the accident. Before she would have been mostly blind in the darkness, but now she saw pretty much perfectly. Well enough to decide those roses, long dead and dried, really needed replacing.
But that was the least of her worries as her stomach cramped again, almost toppling her off the bed. She clutched at it and grimaced. It felt like period cramps, but higher and a thousand times worse. Even now she could feel her body starting to shake. A warning. She needed to eat or she’d pass out.
Pushing herself to her feet, she staggered to the closet. Her old clothes were still there. Alex really hadn’t been kidding when he’d said he’d kept the place as it was. Good, perhaps that meant the kitchen would be stocked. At least, she hoped it wasn’t all old food in there… that would suck, big time. Grabbing a robe, she slipped it on and made her faltering way downstairs.
Not bothering to turn on the lights, she stumbled to the fridge. Cake, she needed cake. Or chocolate. Anything to fill the gaping hole where her stomach was. Yanking the door open, she practically fell inside, the smell of the food within making her growl with need.
Alex had kept the fridge well stocked. Thank god. She reached for a chocolate cake, her favorite, and her stomach rumbled. As she lifted it, the sickly-sweet smell of chocolate turned her stomach.
Eyes wide, she shoved the cake back and just looked at it. A world where she couldn’t eat chocolate cake had never occurred to her. Leaning forward, she tried another experimental sniff.
“Ack!” Her stomach threatened to turn itself inside out.
Well… shit. Looked like chocolate was off the menu.
Scanning the fridge, she spotted a platter of cold meats on the bottom. Before she could think, it was out the fridge and she had three slices of ham in her mouth.
“Omhhpfhmygod!” she exclaimed as she chewed.
It tasted so good. Three more slices and chicken followed as she practically inhaled the cold cuts. Was this some kind of gourmet platter or something? She’d never had cold meats that tasted so awesome.
The plate clattered in the sink, already forgotten as she went back for more. She stripped the substance from a meat pie, leaving the pastry and dissected scotch eggs the same way. Slices of roast chicken lasted all of a minute until, finally, there was nothi
ng savory left in the fridge.
She looked at the pile of empty plates in dismay.
She wasn’t a wolf, she was a damn pig.
A small sound, like the scuff of a shoe on the floor, brought her head snapping up. Her hackles rose. There was someone outside. Reaching out, she plucked a knife from the block. A cleaver, it was nice and weighty in her hand. Padding toward the door, her bare feet were silent and she plastered herself against the wall. Her ears strained for any sound beyond the wood and glass.
There. Again. Just the slightest sound, like someone trying to be stealthy.
Cleaver raised, she yanked the door open then flicked the light switch. “Hold it right there, you son of a bitch!”
The light poured out the door, catching the culprit red-handed.
“Hey! No need for that,” the tall blonde stumbled backward, arm raised to protect her eyes from the light.
Eva dropped her arm. “Isabella? What are you doing out there?”
“I saw the light and was checking for burglars.” The lycan woman straightened, squinting in the stream of light until she adjusted to it.
Eva had to stop her lip curling back. She hadn’t liked Isabella from the moment she’d met her, but overnight that dislike had strengthened. All she wanted to do was launch at the woman with the cleaver, hit her again and again until blood ran and the anger inside her was sated.
Obviously not being able to eat chocolate had affected her more than she realized. She wasn’t normally a violent or confrontational person, but right now, she’d argue with her own fingernails.
“As you can see, there’s no burglar. So you can go, bye.” She’d already started to close the door on the woman when Isabella shoved her foot in the gap.
“What?” She glared at the lycan woman. “In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s the middle of the freaking night and some of us want to sleep.”
A strange expression crossed Isabella’s face. She flicked a glance behind Eva, then moved closer and lowered her voice. “Is Alex here?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but yeah. Why?” Eva frowned, something in the woman’s manner not sitting right. Rather than arrogant and full of herself as she had been, Isabella seemed scared.
“Listen, I know where he has your brother.”
“Brother?”
Eva blinked. Holy shit, she’d forgotten about Davie. Like completely and totally forgotten. How the hell had she done that? How could she do that?
“You’d forgotten, hadn’t you?” Isabella smiled tightly. As Eva let go of the door, she pushed it open more, a wary eye still on the door that led deeper into the house. Eva shivered a little in the cool air, chilled in the thin robe.
“Yeah… I don’t know how.”
Isabella snorted, but the sound held bitter amusement. “He’s the alpha. He can make you forget stuff. And make you do stuff you wouldn’t normally do. Why do you think no one argues with him?” She bit her lip. “Sorry, you already saw that bit. Pack justice.”
“Yeah. You all saw me take my licks for disobedience.” Her mood soured. A woman had called for more. Had that been Isabella?
She shook her head. “Not me. I’ve been on guard all evening, but I heard the others talking. I can’t believe he did that to you. Especially when you haven’t manifested a wolf.”
Eva folded her arms, keeping hold of the cleaver. Sure, Isabella might have been a full lycan with the ability to have fangs in her throat within seconds, but there was no way she would make it easy.
“Well, if it had killed me, it’s no great issue, is it? According to you, I’ll never be more than a beta anyway and the pack has enough of those.”
Isabella’s face flushed bright red. “That was ill done of me, I apologize. But you aren’t a beta. You haven’t manifested a wolf at all so Alex should have let you go back to your life. You shouldn’t be subject to pack law or punishment.”
“Run that by me again?”
“You’re not a wolf if you don’t manifest,” Isabella said softly, her expression concerned. “Alex shouldn’t have punished you like you were.”
The world ground to a halt for Eva. That sneaky, lying fucking asshole. He’d lied to her and had her whipped for disobeying him, all under the guise of protecting her. What kind of man did that? Her back ached in memory of the whipping she shouldn’t have had.
Her jaw set. “Where is Davie?”
Isabella shook her head, backing up, her face pale. “He’ll kill me if he finds out.”
Eva snarled, stepping forward. “Not so fast. You’ll take me to Davie, or I’ll tell Alex you told me all this, and tried to turn me against him. Him. Your alpha. I should think that counts as dissent and treason, wouldn’t you?”
The lycan staggered back, and as Eva watched, all fight drained out of her.
“Okay, follow me. But please, for both our sakes, you have to be quiet.”
Eva nodded, slipping out the door after the blonde woman. Her heart pounded in her chest as she shut the door behind them, expecting Alex to charge through it at any moment and grab her. Stop their rescue/escape attempt before it even started.
Alex. Her heart ached at the thought of him. She couldn’t believe she’d bought his lies hook, line, and sinker. Did she have idiot written across her forehead or something, because he’d played her from the moment she’d walked into his office just over a week ago. Back then she’d been an independent woman with her life firmly on track. Seven days. That’s all it had taken to reduce her to this… a pathetic creature scared of her own shadow skulking through the darkness.
No, not pathetic, she told herself firmly, following silently on Isabella’s heels as she darted across the open garden. She was a strong woman with a healthy understanding of the obstacles and adversaries between her and what she wanted. Alex was an alpha werewolf, only an idiot would discount him as a threat.
It seemed an infinity before they reached the relative safety of the tree line. Eva breathed a small sigh of relief as the shadows wrapped around her. At least now Alex wouldn’t see them if he should happen to look out of the window.
Please don’t look out of the window, she prayed silently. If they were lucky, they could find Davie, free him and be off Kingwood land before Alex woke. She’d never have to see him again. And after all the lies he’d told her, if she saw him again in this lifetime it would be too soon.
Liar, the little voice in the back of her head whispered as her heart ached and something within her, perhaps her soul, whimpered. Head ruled the heart, she told herself firmly, dashing at her eyes with the back of her hand. She wasn’t crying. It was the cold out here that was making her eyes water. Yeah, and if she could make herself believe that…
“Shh, down!” Isabella hissed softly, shoving her against the truck of a tree. “Patrol.”
Eva crouched in the undergrowth behind Isabella. They were a little way off the path, but as she watched, two men materialized out of the darkness to walk toward them. She swallowed, suddenly thankful for the other woman’s more acute senses. She’d have blundered onto the path and been caught in minutes.
At least now they had a chance. As long as the lycans didn’t spot them crouched behind the trees. Thankfully the robe she wore was black so it merged into the shadows, but her legs were so pale they practically glowed in the little moonlight. There was no way anyone looking toward them would miss her. She tried to fold them beneath her without making a sound, but she must have because Isabella whipped her head around and bared her teeth in warning.
Eva stopped moving instantly, eyes closed as she began to pray again. Shivers hit her, the cold breeze that had been pleasant when it reached tendrils into a warm house was less so now she was out in the wild. Resisting the urge to rub her hands up and down her arms in case the movement attracted the attention of the two men walking silently down the path a few feet away. She closed her eyes.
Something made her concentrate on her breathing and her heartbeat, her consciousness reaching inside
… where it touched something. Something she hadn’t noticed before. A quietness like a deep pool in the middle of the forest, its surface serene and untainted by ripples. It reached up and enveloped her. Warmth followed and she was no longer cold. Instead, she felt like she was wrapped in her very own fur coat. So real was the feeling that she had to open her eyes and look down to make sure all she wore was the same robe she’d left the house in.
Yeah, definitely the same one.
“Come on, we need to move before they come back.” Taking her hand, Isabella pulled her to her feet and then they were running again.
“I thought you were on guard?” Eva asked, hard pushed to keep up with the woman’s fast pace. “Where did they come from?”
“I was, but we work in shifts. They were from the takeover shift.”
There was no further chance for conversation. They worked their way deeper into the forest. As the trees became more closely packed and the shadows got deeper, Eva’s apprehension grew. She had left the safety of the house and was now in the forest with a female wolf who if not hated her, actively disliked her. How dumb was that?
A bird screeched overhead and she jumped, squeaking. Isabella slowed the pace with a chuckle. “Relax. It’s just a bird. There are some owl shifters in the local area.”
Eva nodded, looking back the way they’d come. She couldn’t see any sign of the house now, but instead of feeling bereft and cut off from civilization, she felt connected to nature in a way she never had before. If she closed her eyes, she could feel everything around her: the branches of the trees swaying gently above her in the breeze, the grass growing under her feet… smell rain in the air and the shampoo Isabella used last. Strawberry. The slight breeze lifted the edge of the robe and ruffled her fur… wait, what?
Her eyes snapped open, bringing her back to reality with a bump. Buildings rose out of the darkness ahead and Isabella’s pace slowed. They looked like garages, but there was no drive wide enough for cars leading up to them. Just the single path through the trees they’d used. Eva frowned, she didn’t remember any mention of garages out here, but the buildings looked new so it was possible they’d been built after she and her family left the estate.
