The hammer of her hands moves through Bray's forearm like a butter knife, making a clean break.
He bellows like a stuck pig, pinwheeling backward and falling on his ass.
Jenni's heightened vision lands on the break.
Jagged bones erupt from the skin. The radius bone connecting the wrist and hand dangles from a still-attached tendon.
Jenni grunts. Maybe not so clean.
Devin stares at Bray for a few seconds, her face paling, then pivots to the right and begins heaving her guts onto the asphalt.
Oh.
“Bitch!” one of the guys to Jenni's left bellows.
The other one wraps his beefy arms around Jenni from behind, lifting her off the ground. He tightens his arms like bands around her torso.
Squeezing, squeezing.
Instinct consumes her as her mind shuts off.
Something painful bursts from her fingertips. Stars explode at the edges of her vision. Lightheadedness sweeps through her.
Jenni raises her hands.
Small knives of bone protrude from the tips of her fingers like a nail job gone bad. Look, I'm Wolverine. Jenni snickers, realizing she's on the brink of losing consciousness, with shock closing in fast.
The other loser charges like a bull. Head down, he never looks up. Never thinks of an alternative that doesn't involve beating the shit out of her.
With the symphony of Devin barfing in the background and Bray writhing on the ground, Jenni gives a sloppy sweep of her hand at the oncoming druggie.
Ragged stripes of parted flesh cross his chest.
Slices of white soon fill with red.
He stands, staring at his chest as if he's seen a phantom. “What. The. Fuck!” he screeches.
Jenni's vision is going gray, and the guy who's holding her starts to shake her back and forth, like a dog worrying a bone.
“Die, bitch!”
“No!” Devin screams, lurching shakily in their direction.
“My chest!” the one who Jenni sliced screams, backing away. His palms come away slick with his own blood.
He's losing a lot, Jenni notes dimly.
Devin sweeps in. The vomit lacing the corners of her mouth smells stale as she bashes the one who holds Jenni on the head with her purse.
“Ah!” he roars, loosening his hold.
She does it again. Lipstick flies out of the handbag and loose change pings on the ground—along with the keys that Bray was so interested in.
Dickhead drops Jenni, attempting to scramble toward the keys.
Jenni turns smoothly, hitting him in the chest with her palm, intending to shove him off balance.
Instead, he flies ten feet before landing on a bed of late-blooming rhododendrons in the small triangle of landscaping that holds the To-Go audio order board.
He crashes into the electronic sign, folding it in the middle with a groan of metal and crash of glass breaking.
“Watch out!” Devin screams.
Jenni spins, dropping low as arms covered in blood converge where she just was.
Like a determined zombie, the guy she slashed with her new claws lumbers forward, stooping awkwardly to get to her.
Jenni plants her hands on the pebbled asphalt, kicking out wildly with her right foot.
He flies backward, tumbling into a moaning Bray, who clutches his arm, shouting in agony as the other guy barrels into the wounded appendage.
“Jenni,” Devin says from above her, shock causing her skin to look like a sheet of paper.
“Yup,” Jenni answers, breaths sawing out of her.
“What—what are you?”
She looks up at Devin and gives the best answer she can: “Not exactly sure, but exploring that right now doesn't sound like a good call.”
Devin nods vigorously. “I'll...” She looks around at the beaten guys and covers her face with her hands.
Jenni staggers to a standing position, surveys the group hugging the ground, and grabs Devin's hand, towing her carefully around the pile of puke. On the way to the only beat-up car in the parking area, Jenni stops to pick up the stuff that fell from Devin's purse.
When they get to the car, Jenni plucks the keys from Devin's unresisting hand and unlocks the door.
Devin sniffs, wiping streaming eyes.
“I'll drive,” Jenni announces.
“Okay.” Devin's voice shakes.
They get in. Jenni starts the car and takes off, leaving the drug trio for the cops she’ll call when the car’s out of sight.
CHAPTER FIVE
Slash
Slash cradles his mate's face, trying to force her to look at him—take from him.
Adrianna is unbelievably stubborn. One of many things Slash admires about her is some of what frustrates him, as well.
“Let me ease you, Adrianna.”
She shakes her head, tears easing out of the corners of her eyes. Adrianna is a tough Alpha female Were.
She is also an infant in Were years, going through her heat too young, with circumstances of stress and her first sexual encounter preceding where they find themselves right now.
And Slash is not wholly comfortable with any of it.
Della has not shown them violence. In fact, she has—for a witch, and for what he knows of their kind—been downright hospitable.
His nose doesn't smell violence. But his instincts are lit up like a firefly in June. Slash always trusts his feelings. A human male would be full of bravado. Slash doesn't feel things—he thinks.
And that's where humanity has lost its footing. In their arrogance, humans have decided that instincts shouldn't be followed.
Slash knows differently. Instincts have kept him alive for nearly three hundred years. During battle. During ascensions. During his mating with Adrianna.
A human male would have gone soft with Adrianna. Would have comforted her instead of getting her out of harm's way.
Not Slash. He knew the move was paramount to get his mate away from where males without ethics might return for easy pickings.
He uses that same instinct now. A deep and abiding foreboding has set up residence inside him. Slash will not ignore the internal warning. Every fiber of his being is pushing him to resolve this issue of Adrianna's heat. It's as though a clock has begun endlessly ticking.
If they need to run without notice, they will not be able to stop so Slash can breed Adrianna. And the pain of her heat will go on unabated, rendering her absolutely immobile.
Slash must protect her.
“I don't want to here, Slash.” Adrianna bites her lip, her face wet with tears, nervously looking around the loaned bedroom.
“You're not thinking straight. If we breed, this indecision and emotion will end.”
Her face tips up to his, bright hazel eyes regarding him. “Promise?”
Slash shakes his head, lowering his forehead to hers, where he presses their flesh together. “No.”
Her brow furrows. “What?”
“I can't lie. Until your heat is gone—utterly vanished—we must breed.”
He feels the warmth of her skin as a deep flush takes hold. “Don't be ashamed. I am your mate—your life partner, Adrianna.”
“I can't help it. We're in this witch's house, and I've... you're the only male I've ever been with, and look what happened.”
Slash can't help the low growl that escapes his lips.
Adrianna breaks contact, leaning back to see him better. “Why are you growling?”
He pulls her roughly forward again, cupping the back of her skull. “Because no other male will ever know you.”
The corners of Adrianna's mouth curl.
Slash's hands creep to the bottom of her buttocks, cupping her tightly. He hoists her easily, and her legs lock around his waist.
“Don't make noise, and I will take you tenderly, my mate.”
A single tear slips out of her eye, and she nods, swiping the wet drop away.
Slash grins suddenly, and Adrianna reaches for his lips, ligh
tly brushing over the curved expression and the ball of scar tissue at the rise of his cupid's bow.
He kisses her fingers. “You smell of soap and me,” he growls, gently nipping the tips of her fingers.
Their eyes lock, and the next moment, he's spun her, pressing her back gently against the wall.
“Slash,” she chokes, head rolling against the wall as she gasps, “I'm a little sore.”
“I will treat you like glass.” He doesn't waste time. Tearing his loose athletic pants to his ankles, he grasps Adrianna's ass cheeks hard, tilting her pelvis and spreading her with his hands.
Her feminine fragrance hits him like a bullet, and his cock goes hard.
Slash groans as he sights how wet she is for him, how pink and tender. How willing.
“Adrianna,” Slash whispers and rubs the tip of himself over her wet folds, lavishing precise attention on the bundle of nerves located above her entrance.
“Ah!” she sighs softly. Grabbing the back of his head, she crushes him against her.
“I will go slow,” Slash promises, worried about making the second time better. He is dying to take her hard, as a mate should, yet he loathes the idea of hurting her. She is open to him, but new to mating.
He throbs, but stills, offering only light friction, spreading her wetness while stimulating her clit with his tip.
“Don't,” she murmurs. “Once you enter me, please take me. Don't be a pussycat.”
A huge insult to a male Were.
Slash smirks, inching the head of him inside her tight, wet entrance.
He withdraws, and he can feel Adrianna's frown before he plunges partway inside her heat. Waiting, he allows her to adjust to his size.
“I forgot how big you are,” she says, her voice strained.
Slash's smile widens. “That's why I told you I'd move slow. No matter how much you spur me on, female, my body knows what yours needs, and I won't give you more than you can accept, Adrianna.”
“You sure talk a lot.”
Slash moves more deeply, and she moans, a sound that is music to his ears. He adjusts his hold, hiking her up higher and spreading her wider.
“I'm in your hands, stud,” Adrianna says, giving him all her trust. All her body. Her love.
Slash moves to the end of her, and they pulse together. Adrianna's body begs for his seed, and Slash holds back when he's never wanted to pour it forth more.
“Slow, Adrianna,” Slash says through gritted teeth. His mate is tight and slick. Her womb is an open invitation for what he can give her.
But Slash wants her pleasure as well as the salve of his seed to sate her heat.
He can do both. I will do both.
Withdrawing, he rocks back inside her, deeply seating himself for a painful second of wanting to release. In and out, he thrusts inside Adrianna, and her body begs him for his seed with each deep rock of himself inside her.
Slash clenches his teeth, working her clit with his thumb, fighting the silken feel of Adrianna's tight, drenched flesh like a well-made glove around his cock.
Slash increases the tempo of his thumb on her sensitive nub.
“Please,” Adrianna begs as he hits high and deep, her back sliding along the wall as he plunges.
Slash presses his head against the wall, laying soft kisses against her throat as he moves over and over that spot inside her.
Her body tenses, back arching. “Yes!”
Adrianna's screamed orgasm is muffled against his neck as his next rock forward is the cooling seed her heat so desperately needs.
He pours everything he has inside his mate, jerking her hips against him, joining their bodies so tightly that there is no escaping the moment, smothering her womb with his release.
Adrianna’s body milks him of every drop, eventually falling limp against him. She sighs, her head dipping forward against his shoulder.
Their heartbeats sync, and Slash straightens, still within her, and shuffles to the bed.
He gently lowers Adrianna, his half-hard erection falling away from her entrance.
Adrianna's eyes widen on his semi-hardness. “What?” she gives a little laugh.
Slash gives a rueful shake of his head. “Until your heat is gone, there is no down time.”
“Again?” Adrianna asks with a poorly stifled yawn.
Slash nods, gently swimming between her legs. He lays a kiss on her inner thigh, his cock going full tilt with the mingled scent of them both so close to his nose.
He rubs his face against the tender skin at the inside of her thigh and places a gentle kiss on her hot center.
“Slash,” Adrianna whispers. “Do you think Della heard us?”
He smiles against her thigh. “I do not care. If she doesn't understand mates breed, then I have no hope for her.”
“Moon!” Adrianna’s breath catches as Slash tongues her from entrance to clit.
“Your seed...”
“Tastes spectacular with your drenched parts.”
“Drenched parts?” She gasps as he does it again.
And again.
Adrianna moves underneath him, and he flattens her knees wide, licking her until everything is gone.
“There is not enough of my seed inside you.” Slash can't wipe the smile from his lips, pressing kisses against her softness.
“I feel better,” she says then moans as he inserts the tip of his tongue inside her.
“Slash—please.”
“Please what?” he whispers, the scar tissue next to his mouth painfully tight.
That's what happens when he can't stop smiling. An unusual event. Before Adrianna came into his life.
“Stop.”
He instantly halts, but keeps his warm breathing at her parted, sensitive flesh.
“Why?”
“Shouldn't we? I don't know...” she says, struggling to close her legs.
Slash easily keeps her where she lays.
“No, I want to pleasure my mate and come inside you again. That will assure me as a male Were, you are well and truly sated. That I have cooled the fire of your heat.”
“I don't know about this heat thing.”
The silence lengthens as Slash's powerful hands hold her thighs and his hot breaths bathe her entrance.
“But I love the feel of your mouth on me,” Adrianna admits, and Slash can sense her embarrassment. Her restrained pleasure.
He purses his lips around her clit and gives a final sucking pull with his mouth.
Adrianna comes off the bed, back arched in frozen spasm. Her gorgeous breasts fall away from the center of her chest, nipples pebbling in the coolness of the room.
She collapses back on the bed, and he reaches up to pluck a nipple as he works her slick clit within his mouth.
He closes his teeth around the flesh without biting, and she trembles.
Slash inserts two fingers deep inside his mate, and her tight walls pulse around him as the orgasm breaks from her mouth in a series of choking gasps.
His Adrianna tries for quiet, and it's adorable.
Slash badly wants her composure to shatter but knows they have an audience of sorts.
Instead, he covers her mouth with the hand that was just playing with her nipple and breaks the seal of his lips on her clit.
Withdrawing his fingers from her, he replaces them with his huge erection, plunging inside her wetness as far as he can go.
Her eyes widen, her nostrils flaring as she sucks breath and he covers her mouth.
“Make all the noise you want.”
Slash feels her smile and thrusts hard, not worried about his size or speed anymore. He is a male who has properly prepared and pleasured his female, and she can now take what he offers.
Slash pumps in and out, the muscles of his buttocks coiling and uncoiling as he stabs forward, his tip meeting her end.
He feels another spasm and lifts his hand right before her scream so Adrianna can take breath.
He catches her wail of pleasure in his palm, and she b
ucks as his own release shoots out of him in hot, wet jets.
Slash feels the build of a second course following the first, and he slowly lifts his palm, the throbbing of his essence sinking deep once again.
Adrianna captures his hand with hers, clinging to him. Gradually lowering his hand to her face, she kisses the center of his palm softly.
“I love you,” she whispers. “No matter what happens, I love you.”
Slash knows he's always loved her. No matter how much he tried to deny it or talk himself out of her. That Adrianna was too young or that he was too ugly to deserve her.
In the end, they were meant for each other.
“I love you more than the moon,” Slash says in a voice so quiet that it's breath and words.
“No Were loves anything more than the moon.”
Slash just smiles.
There's no need to defend that which is so deeply felt.
CHAPTER SIX
Laz
Laz scowls. “What is the meaning of all this?”
His Redemptive, gorgeous even with a thick coat of Praile's blood still covering her body, folds her arms, giving Laz a look he's grown accustomed to in their short acquaintance—irritation.
“What is the meaning?” Tessa asks, incredulity saturating her question. Sweeping her palm at Drek, knees planted on the blood-soaked ground where Praile's decimated corpse fills the cracks between the floorboards, she spins to face Laz.
Laz cups his chin. Apparently, she is still irate over the Praile incident. However, Laz is unfazed. He did not get where he is within the ranks of the high demonic by losing his composure. And he's not self-deceiving. Laz understands perfectly that if Praile had truly suspected him, the outcome would have been much different. Laz might have been the one soaking the floorboards instead of Praile, leaving his Redemptive at the mercy of the merciless.
Thank everything dark that Tessa was not Praile's plaything.
Laz suppresses a shudder at the unbidden thought. “Yes. The Lanarre princess has flown the coop, as the humans say. I have healed Drek of the wounds he procured because he kept me from my Redemptive. Why would this concern us? I healed him only because you asked it of me. Drek is of no consequence.”
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