by Laura Taylor
Down the narrow stairs, Thando arrived in the basement, a dim, dank room that was perfect for the ‘interrogation’ they were going to conduct with Kathy. So far, they had only Evans’ assurance that she wanted to leave the Noturatii, and they had no intention of letting Evans know they’d kidnapped Kathy until they had something more to go on. Worst case, they would have to kill Kathy, then tell Evans that, sadly, the rescue attempt had gone bad and Kathy had been shot by the Noturatii in the process.
For more reasons than one, Thando hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
On the side of the room furthest from the stairs, Thando set Kathy down on a sturdy chair, arranging her so she was sitting up more or less straight. Liam helped him cuff her ankles to the chair legs, then linked the cuffs around her wrists to a chain that was drilled into the wall. Though she was ‘only’ a junior lab assistant, that didn’t eliminate the possibility she had some hidden skills they didn’t know about. Security first, with no room for misplaced pride.
Once she was secure, Thando administered the reversal drug for the sedative he’d used to knock her out.
Several minutes later, Kathy began to stir. Thando took a seat on a backwards-facing chair, while Liam shifted into wolf form and sat down at his side. Right from the start, he wanted her under no illusions as to where she was, or with whom.
A minute later, Kathy opened her eyes, beginning to struggle immediately as she registered the dim room and her shadowy audience. Then her eyes settled on Liam’s wolf form, and she went still.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” she said to no one in particular. “Well, congratulations,” she went on, pinning Thando with a surprisingly confident glare. “You’ve captured yourselves a Noturatii member. Well done. Well done. But might I ask, while we’re all here and getting up close and personal, did you actually bother to do any research on me before you fucked up my car and stuck me in a dungeon?” Thando raised a single eyebrow as the woman began a free-flowing rant. “Because – I know, I know, we’re all the embodiment of evil – but do you actually know anything about where I come from? Or the results of my work over the past few years? I’m not getting any promotions, you know, not working my way up the ranks to try and grasp more power and perform ever more sinister feats of science. I mop floors and scrub petri dishes, and every now and then I break a few things, or ‘accidentally’ kill a rare sample, because – and get this – I loathe my employer. So if you’re hoping for a little victory dance about how you got a slice of revenge, I’m afraid it’s going to ring a little hollow. And clearly, you didn’t bother doing any research on me before you went to all this effort, because -”
Kathy cut herself short suddenly, her eyes narrowing as she looked Thando up and down. Thando glanced at Liam, wondering what he was making of this rather unusual captive. Liam let out a canine sigh, fidgeting slightly. He was as perplexed as Thando.
“Ohhhhh, this is about Dr Evans, isn’t it,” Kathy said, picking up her diatribe right where she’d left off. “You grabbed her – that’s what everyone’s saying, at least – and tortured her for information, and she probably mentioned me at some point, so you thought hey, let’s go for the easy targets. Well done, boys, you’ve succeeded in kidnapping one of the least dangerous people in the entire organisation. Kudos to you. No, really, I’m impressed.” Thando had to tamp down hard on the impulse to laugh. Not even five minutes in and he was already starting to like this woman. “You’re the guys who rescued the shifter captive we had, right? Back for a little revenge? Well, for what it’s worth, I hope he’s doing okay. Seriously, I do.” The bravado slipped, dark shadows flickering through her eyes. “I hated what I had to do to him. But you know the drill; defy the Noturatii and end up in a body bag. So I’m sorry. I’m really, truly sorry, and if it makes any difference, please tell him that. I didn’t want to be there, but getting out of the Noturatii alive is... well, basically impossible. Is he alive, by the way?”
“He’s alive,” Thando told her calmly. “And he’s receiving the best possible care, both physically and psychologically.”
“Okay. Good. Well, that’s something, at least.” She released a deep breath, but Thando made no further move to fill the momentary silence. He was content to wait until Kathy ran out of things to say. And she didn’t disappoint.
“You know why I work for the Noturatii? It’s a pretty shit story, all things considered. I finished high school and I wanted to study biology at university, but then my mum got sick. Non-Hodgkin lymphoma. She had chemo, but it wasn’t doing much good, and she wasn’t working, so there was no money. Then the Noturatii showed up – of course, I didn’t know who they were at that point – and offered me a scholarship with a guaranteed job at the end of it. Who wouldn’t take an opportunity like that? And for what it’s worth, they were really good to me while I was studying. Gave me a living allowance, paid all my university fees. Even paid for my mum’s funeral when she died. But then I started working for them, and each day, each week, each month, you realise you’re getting in a little deeper, but you’re stuck in this fucking contract ‘cos they’d given me all this money. And I can’t figure out how to work my way out of it, and then one day, BAM, there’s a man on the table turning into a fucking wolf, and your whole world has turned upside down. And I hate it. I hate what I do, and I hate the Noturatii, and in some ways, I’d have to admit I hate the shifters as well, because if you didn’t exist, then I wouldn’t be in this damned awful situation. But I guess you’re just trying to survive, just like the rest of us. But I’ve got no loyalty to the Noturatii, so you don’t have to torture me for information. I’ll happily give it to you, free of charge. I’ve worked in half a dozen labs in as many countries. I can tell you about Italy, the USA, Finland, Germany. Germany! You know about Germany? Head office? The throbbing heart of the Notu-fucking-ratii? You can have it all. And if you can use anything I know to take some of those bastards down, then believe me, I’m all for it.”
Well, well, Thando thought, as she finally ran out of steam and fell silent. It seemed he had underestimated Dr Evans after all.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The door to the small bedroom was flung open with force, swinging back to hit the wall with a thud. Alistair and Lee stumbled through, lips locked, arms wrapped around each other, trying to keep as little space between them as possible. Alistair fumbled for the door handle, eventually getting a grip on it, and he flung it shut again with just as much force. The wall was a welcome surface as he pressed Lee back against it, finally able to close the remaining distance between them as his knee insinuated itself between her thighs and his groin found a welcome home nestled into the curve of her hip.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked raggedly, forcing himself to come up for air, but he only had time to gasp in a fresh dose of oxygen before Lee’s mouth was pressed against his own again.
“Yes,” she breathed against his lips, her hands already working their way beneath his coat.
He stripped the item off, still mindful enough of the situation to make sure the small handgun in the inner pocket stayed hidden, then he helped Lee do the same with her jacket. In a daze, he reached out and flicked on the light switch... but a moment later, Lee hastily turned it off again.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, glancing around. The curtains were closed, so there was no risk of anyone seeing them.
“I prefer the dark,” Lee said, but there was something in her tone that seemed off.
“You’re beautiful,” Alistair told her honestly, running a hand through her hair. “I want to look at you.”
Lee kissed him again, backing him away from the wall with the light switch and towards the bed. The edge came up against his knees, and she tried to tumble him backwards onto the soft surface, but he resisted, contemplating pushing the issue. If some man had made Lee feel she wasn’t up to scratch in the looks department, he wanted to do whatever he could to repair her self-confidence. But at the same time, he thought there was somethin
g in her tone that he should be paying attention to, something important... but the amount of blood currently rushing away from his brain was making it very difficult to think.
Lee took his hands and lifted them to cup her breasts, and Alistair moaned as he kissed her again. “I mean it, Lee,” he said breathlessly. “You’re stunning. What about just the bedside lamp, if you don’t want the full lights on?”
“No.” There was a distinctly wounded tone to that single word, and she paused, her right hand cupping his backside, her left one on his shoulder. He held his breath, wondering if she was going to pull away, uncertain whether he should just forget the issue and try to distract her, or let this misstep play out.
“I have scars,” Lee said, sounding more angry than hurt. “I was in a car crash as a child, and... I have scars. I don’t want you looking at them.”
“Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to... Okay, if you want the lights off, that’s fine, but your scars aren’t going to bother me. You’re still beautiful. And courageous, and stubborn, and very, very sexy...” What was the point he was making again? A stealthy hand slid down to cup him through his trousers, then Lee suddenly stripped off her t-shirt, revealing in the dim light a plain black bra and a very athletic torso. Holy hell, how had he ever thought he could just let this woman walk away at the end of her trip? He’d thought he would lose interest in her after a few dinners together. His first impression of her was that she was too meek to hold his interest for the long term... but the way she’d thrown him to the ground out there had been totally unexpected, and had presented a challenge that had awakened his canine instincts. She would be more than a match for his wolf side...
Get your fucking head back in the game, he scolded himself sharply, even as he reached around to undo the clasp on her bra. His breath caught in his throat as he got his first real look at her breasts, albeit that the room was lit only by the glimmer of a street lamp beyond the curtains. They were small and firm, high and perky, and god, he just had to taste them. Lee gasped as he did so, letting her head fall back, her hair tumbling over her shoulders, and Alistair slid one arm around her waist, holding her close, while his other one fondled the breast that wasn’t currently in his mouth.
“God, Drew, that’s... keep going. Please, that’s... Mmm, so good...” Her hand was stroking his hair, her encouragement heating his veins. Despite her telling him she’d slept with men before, he’d half-expected her to behave like a shy virgin. This wanton creature who was so confident in her own pleasure was as surprising as she was captivating. “Take your trousers off,” she breathed, and Alistair struggled to remember what he’d been thinking a moment ago. There was something important he had to keep in mind...
He stepped back, unlacing his boots in record time as Lee did the same, then he was stripping off his shirt, unbuckling his belt, and ohhh, bloody hell, she’d just slid her hand down inside her own trousers, the motion of her hand an unmistakable sign that she was pleasuring herself. She is not for you, a sharp voice reminded him, and he forcibly tried to get a grip on his thundering hormones. Don’t fall in love, he told himself urgently. Wild or not, Lee was going to be leaving, and he had no business seeing this as anything other than a brief fling. Enjoy the sex, he counselled himself, and remember that next month, or next year, there’ll be some other young, pretty distraction to wipe away any lingering nostalgia he felt about letting this one slip through the net.
Once he was as naked as the day he was born, he knelt on the bed, holding out a hand. Lee came willingly, pressing him back, straddling him, and then setting up a slow, delicious rhythm as she rocked her hips over his groin. “You’re beautiful,” she said, sounding strangely surprised. “I didn’t think...”
“You didn’t think what?” He slid his hands up her thighs, wishing she’d already taken her trousers off.
“You’re perfect,” she said, sounding almost sorrowful about it. “I didn’t think you would be.”
“Come here,” he said, urging her to lean down over him, kissing her deeply while his hands travelled further south. They paused at her breasts, revisiting familiar territory, then down further, to her waistband, down inside her trousers...
Bloody hell, she wasn’t wearing any underwear. He slid his hand down easily, feeling coarse hair, then moist warmth, two fingers sliding inside her in a way that had her gasping and rocking back onto his hand. “Drew! I... Ohhh, yes...” She spread her legs further and arched her back, and Alistair felt himself throb. By Sirius himself, she was divine...
Exercising a tremendous amount of willpower, he pulled his hand away. “Take your trousers off,” he told her urgently. She swung her leg off him to do just that... but then bent down, engulfing his rock-hard erection with her mouth. “That’s not fair,” he protested, having intended to do a very similar thing to her. As he watched, she shimmied out of her trousers, her mouth never ceasing its erotic exploration, and he had to take a couple of quick, deep breaths to get himself under control. She was kneeling on the bed beside him, and he ran an encouraging hand up one of her thighs, thinking that if she would just move around a little further, he could...
“Do you have a condom?” she asked suddenly, pulling back and gazing at him with half-lidded eyes, and Alistair’s eyes opened wide for a moment. Did he? Had he remembered...?
He lurched off the side of the bed, fumbling around for his trousers in the dark, and felt a rush of relief when he found one in his wallet. On his side of things, of course, he didn’t need one – shifters could neither catch nor carry sexually transmitted diseases, nor could he impregnate anyone – but explaining the complexities of shifter physiology to humans was never an appropriate option, so all the men in the Den were simply resigned to using protection, if and when they were asked to.
He put the sheath on quickly, trying to get his shaking fingers to cooperate, and then lay back again at Lee’s urging. She straddled him, hands on his chest, while he ran incorrigible fingers up her thighs. Then she reached down and guided him inside her... and ohhh fuck, it had been a long time. He moaned, his hips bucking upwards involuntarily even as his head fell back. He was going to be remembering this night for a very long time...
Li Khuli felt oddly disconnected from her own body as she rode Drew. The rhythm was as familiar as breathing – somewhere over the years, she’d lost count of exactly how many men she’d had sex with – and the associated desire to kill, to hurt, to punish rose unbidden. The images in her mind were both arousing and horrifying, sex and violence inextricably linked in the mind of a Khuli. She imagined stabbing him with a thin, sharp knife, strangling him, feeling him struggle beneath her, and hated herself even as she felt herself throb with pleasure. No, she scolded herself sharply. There would be no killing this time...
But killing aside, she was still fucking a wolf, she told herself with a sinister thrill. She had the thick, hard cock of a shape shifter deep up inside her, and she felt a perverse sort of victory in the idea that her master would be outraged at her current behaviour. Sleeping on a bed and drinking beer were negligible misdemeanours in comparison. Drew was losing himself in the pleasure, and she didn’t expect him to last much longer. And a strange, quiet, almost childlike part of her felt an odd sort of pride in the fact. He was enjoying this. Her charming, handsome, confusing, captivating shape shifter was enjoying what she was doing to him.
She couldn’t remember a time when she’d felt so damned pleased with herself.
She sat up straighter, feeling him rub against her inner walls in a way that managed to distract her from even her own dark thoughts for a moment. She rode the wave of pleasure willingly, head thrown back, eyes closed, hips rocking hard until that glorious wave broke over her, blocking out everything but the raw, visceral feel of her own orgasm.
She was dimly aware of Drew letting out a heartfelt groan, his hips bucking beneath her, hands guiding her hips to just keep going... and then it was over, Drew collapsing back on the bed, breathing hard, Lee falling forward over
him, catching herself on her hands as the last tremors worked their way out of her body.
Sex, her instructors had told her again and again, was not about pleasure, but about control. Controlling another person, distracting them, making them vulnerable. Gaining their trust, only to turn around and stab them in the back.
Fuck them, Lee thought to herself, as she felt her pounding heart begin to slow. Tired but happy, she slid sideways off Drew and waited while he disposed of the condom. There was no risk of her becoming pregnant, of course. Every Khuli female who reached puberty underwent surgery to remove the possibility that they could ever bear a child, and though she didn’t know for certain, she suspected that shifters weren’t able to produce children either. But since Drew didn’t know what she was, and she wasn’t supposed to know what he was, there was a certain prudence in behaving in a manner appropriate for a young woman of childbearing age who was having a temporary fling with a foreigner.
Carefully, Lee lay down on the bed, making sure to keep her back to the wall. In the darkness, there was little chance that Drew would see the tattoo that sat over her right shoulder, the mark that all Khuli bore somewhere on their bodies, but there was no point tempting fate. As a member of the wolf clan, he would undoubtedly recognise the symbol if he saw it, and then both their worlds would change irrevocably.
Even so, her lie about the car accident had not been an idle one. Her body was, indeed, riddled with scars, some more obvious than others, but they had been created through an endless series of battles, a never-ending nightmare, rather than one brutal, sweeping disaster.
Drew climbed back into bed, kissing her eagerly, then settling down on his side, gentle fingers tracing lines over her lips, her eyebrows, her nose.
“Are you okay?” he asked her softly. “You seemed pretty upset earlier.”
Lee smiled into the darkness. “I’m fine,” she told him firmly. “I’m tougher than I look. I’m not happy with my father, but I’ll find a way to work through it. I always do.”
