When he nipped at her nipple, Emma mewled in her throat.
You’re purring.
Of course she sounded like she was purring. The man made her hum on many levels. Emma folded her legs to the side and arched her back. Pressing forward, she lifted up on her knees and wrapped her arms around his neck.
Caine grabbed hold of her arms, and before she knew what was happening, he had her flat on her back with her hands pulled over her head. “Slow down, my little wildcat. Let me love on you the way you were meant to be appreciated.”
Emma thought she’d done something wrong, but she couldn’t control the urges clamoring inside her. She squirmed under his hold. “I feel like I’m going to crawl right out of my skin if something doesn’t happen soon.”
His dark gaze narrowed, then turned downright sinful. “Things are going to get out of control between us soon enough. Your scent is incredibly hard to resist. Let’s try and take it slow for a bit. Hmm?”
Emma panted as he released her hands and pushed the covers completely back. Oddly, she wasn’t embarrassed at all while his hot gaze swept her naked body. Instead, she wanted to touch him as intimately as he had her, to see him free of clothes and trace her fingers across his warm skin and hard muscles.
When he bent to place a kiss on her shoulder, she ran her hand along his biceps. “Aren’t you going to take off your pants?”
“Not yet,” he said in a rough tone and set his hands on the bed on either side of her, pressing another kiss between her breasts.
Curling her fingers inward, Emma ran her nails down his chest. “I want to see you.”
A low growl erupted from his throat and he grabbed hold of her hand. His nostrils flared and he gritted out, “You’re not making it easy for me to remain calm.”
She raised her eyebrow and ran her other hand down his arm, enjoying the tingling sparks. “I want you to feel what I do. All over.”
He gripped her other wrist and pressed it to the bed. “I’m having a very hard time not taking you now. Stop pushing me or what you’re going to get is a man who’s too far over the edge to go back.”
Caine glanced down at his chest and she followed his gaze. Five red furrows had begun to well with droplets of blood. Emma pulled free of his hold, her shaky hand moving to investigate his wounds. “Dear God, did I do that?”
Caine grabbed her hand and lifted it to his lips, kissing her knuckles. “I’ll be fine, but you’re making it difficult for me to maintain my cool. Let me enjoy your reaction first for a bit before we move forward.”
Emma bit her lip and nodded. She felt horrible for what she’d inadvertently done to Caine’s chest. He smiled and ran his knuckles down her belly. “You have a body of sheer beauty, Emma. It was made to be worshipped…every single inch of you.”
His compliment flooded her cheeks with heat, but when his fingers reached the bit of hair between her legs, her gaze locked with his and she held her breath. She’d never ached to be touched as much as she did at that moment.
Caine leaned close and grazed her jaw with a kiss at the same time his fingers slid between her legs. Slow, assured…teasing. Emma arched her back and rocked her hips. Anything to assuage the aching need deep inside her.
“Your primal smell is driving me insane. I want to taste every part of you, to suck and nip at your sweet body until you’re screaming for me to make you come.” He looked at her and his eyes were a lighter green. “And then you’ll beg me to do it to you all over again.”
Emma began to pant and she arched her back once more before she finally gripped his wrist to stop his teasing. She’d grown wetter with each passing swipe of his fingers along her sex. He moved so close but didn’t touch her where she wanted—no, needed—him to. “Touch me. I can’t stand it anymore.”
The dark look in his eyes made her heart hammer as he slid his finger along her damp folds, then plunged it deep inside her. Emma yelped at the surprising pain and Caine’s hand froze inside her. Cupping his palm against her mound, his eyebrows drew downward. “Are you okay?”
Emma winced, then nodded.
“You’re so tight and…” Caine closed his eyes, his entire body tensing. His gaze jerked back to hers. “Why didn’t you tell me you were a virgin?”
She bit her lip. “I thought it might be a turnoff to you.”
“That couldn’t be further from the truth—” he started to growl in a harsh tone.
Emma was surprised when he withdrew his hand from her body and leaned forward to bury his nose along the column of her neck. His voice was ragged with emotion as he gripped her inner thigh. “Say the word and I’ll stop if you want me to, but damn it to hell, Emma, the last thing I want to do right now is to move away from you.”
Emma desperately wanted him to stroke her back to the heightened arousal she’d felt seconds ago. Caine’s heartfelt request and the need in his voice only made her want him more. She cupped his face so he would have to look at her. “I want whatever this amazing connection is between us. Very much. Never doubt it.”
Her golden eyes shimmered in the dim morning light with honest passion, stealing his breath. For several seconds, Caine just stared. She completely enthralled him. As he rubbed his thumb along her inner thigh, her skin felt so soft and feminine, a knot formed in his throat, locking the words inside. The complete trust Emma gave over humbled him, obliterating his doubts as to her motives. Her attraction was as sincere and heartfelt as his. When their secrets finally came to light, they would face them together. That’s all that mattered.
As if she knew he had a hard time voicing his thoughts, she gave a shy smile and ran her fingers across his shoulder. “Say something in my mind. I like the closeness.”
Emma, I—
A deafening crash slammed the cabin’s front door open, nearly ripping it off its hinges. Emma screamed and Caine whirled around to see three men standing outside the door. One of them took a step through the doorway and fury engulfed him. The need to protect Emma sent him leaping across the twenty-five-foot distance in one single bound. As he sailed through the air, his wereclaws unsheathed while his spine and rib cage began to pop.
Without a second thought, Caine instinctively called forth his Musk form, welcoming the enlarged chest and the searing pain as his jaws started to elongate. When he landed, he hadn’t yet fully shifted to a werewolf, but that didn’t stop him from instantly attacking the first man who dared to invade his home.
The short stocky man flew backward through the opened doorway with one swipe from Caine’s deadly claws. Caine snorted in satisfaction at the blood dripping from his fingers, then started to stalk through the door after the intruders when a dark-haired man of medium height stepped from a hidden spot outside the door and rammed his fist into Caine’s chest.
His surprisingly powerful hit sent Caine flying backward to land with a heavy thump on the wood floor. Caine heard Emma call his name in the background as he howled his rage. He recognized the man who’d attacked him as the guy Caine wouldn’t let exit out the club’s back door last night. Snapping to his feet, he started to go after the guy when the bastard lifted a crossbow-style handgun toward him and pulled the trigger with a snarl. “Down, dog.”
Something zinged through the air. The impact threw Caine several steps back and pain exploded in his left shoulder right before a similar jolt slammed into his right arm. Caine roared his rage and tried to yank the silver arrows out of his chest and arm, but the flange on the ends suddenly spun, slicing his hands. Blood spewed from his hands and wounds while the metal shafts drilled deeper into his flesh.
Growling, he fell to his knees in sheer agony, running his claws down his skin, anything to dislodge them. When the flange tips stopped spinning, then curled inward and imbedded themselves into his muscles, the silver began to poison his body with vicious, deadly purpose. Caine fell back against the end of the twin bed, breathing with heavy painful snarls as the silver forced his body to revert back to his human form.
“Damn, he’s
a tough sonofabitch.” A man with thinning blond hair stepped beside the man who’d shot Caine, his own weapon held out, ready to shoot. “It took only one shot each to take down the other bastards.”
They’re the ones who killed the zerkers. I’ll rip them to shreds. Caine snarled and tensed his body, preparing to fight. Despite the pain making him see double, he pushed his shoulders off the bed and fear shot across the blond man’s face at the same time his hand tensed on his weapon.
A dark shadow appeared over Caine a split second before a panther landed in a crouch on all fours. Its paw planted on the floor between his feet, while its bulky body blocked Caine from the shooter’s line of sight. The animal twitched its long tail and let out a deafening, high-pitched roar, full of anger and warning, daring the men not to get any closer.
Emma! How had she shifted without an injection? Caine wondered. Had she been shot with one while he was fighting? His worry for her spiked. She was definitely challenging the men, despite the weapons they held. Caine grabbed her tail and yanked her backward slightly. “No!” he growled.
A third man stepped to the leader’s other side and raised a different gun toward Emma, a look of worry flashing through his eyes. But the dark-haired man in the center waved him back. Closing his eyes, the leader inhaled deeply, then said in a reverent whisper, “Listen to the sheer beauty. It has been so long since we could unfurl and give a battle cry out in the open like this.”
The man beside him tensed. “Her roar will alert the Lupreda to our presence, Malac.”
Malac opened his eyes. Lust and covetous desire reflected in their brown depths as he stared at Emma in her panther form. “We’ll be gone before they can reach us,” he said to the blond man once Emma quieted. Her rib cage heaved as she snorted out warning clicks and snarls through her bared fangs.
The leader lifted his hand toward her. “If you come with us, we’ll let him live.”
The panther lowered her head. A deep growl rumbled in her throat, while her claws flexed against the wood floor and her long black tail twitched in Caine’s hand. Caine squeezed. “No, Emma!”
Malac tsked. “Debating your chances? Remember, I still have the old woman.”
The panther’s head came up in a fast jerk and the growl in her throat rose to menacing levels. Pulling free of Caine’s hold, she turned toward him. Her beautiful yellow eyes reflected sadness as she lowered her mouth to his shoulder.
Caine shuddered when she used her teeth to pull out the silver bolt. Before he could speak, she’d removed the other one from his arm, as well, dropping it with a heavy thunk on the floor. He gripped her ear as she laved at his wounds with her warm tongue. “Don’t do this.”
“We leave now!” the man demanded behind them.
Emma turned toward Malac and gave an annoyed snort before she returned her attention to Caine and ran her whiskers along his cheek. Don’t go, Emma! I can’t protect you if you go with them. Caine touched her head and started to slide his hand down her neck. She grunted out a little growl and quickly pulled out of his hold before his touch could lock her in place.
Emma walked with a stealthy gracefulness toward the men, but when the blond man raised his gun toward Caine, she bared her teeth and moved with lightning speed, slicing his wrist with a swipe of her extended claws.
The man yelled and held his hand over his gushing wounds, looking to Malac. The leader shrugged and shook his head. “You should know better, Scott.” His gaze shifted to Emma as he squatted to pick up the gun the man had dropped. “It’s only a tranquilizer gun. The one we’d planned to use on you.”
“Emma, no!” Caine’s entire body shook from the fever the silver spikes left behind.
When Malac raised the tranquilizer gun toward him, Emma hissed, but she didn’t attack. Caine roared at his body to ignore the nausea and pain. Move, damnit. He began to slide across the floor, willing his muscles to respond…to react. He’d shifted only a couple of feet when a sharp pain jabbed him in the chest.
I will come for you, Caine vowed in Emma’s mind as he struggled to stay conscious through the heavy tranquilizer. The last thing he remembered was Emma lifting up on her hind legs to scoop her aunt’s medicine container from the table with her jaws.
Chapter 7
A fter they ran through the woods for about a mile, the men pointed their guns at Emma and told her to jump into the back of what appeared to be a moving truck. She heard radio squawks as they closed the doors on her and locked them. “We’ve got her. We’re heading home.”
Emma’s legs began to tremble and all the bravado, fear and adrenaline that had kept her moving through the woods fled her body. She released the pill container onto the truck floor, collapsing onto her belly with a heavy thump as her mind raced with chaotic thoughts.
Emma stared in shock at her fur-covered arms—paws—stretched out in front of her. Not only could she see in the total absence of light, but she blinked several times as she flexed her fingers and her panther claws extended. I’m having a nightmare. I’ll wake up soon, she told herself as she set her chin on her trembling arms and closed her eyes.
The truck started up underneath her, its loud rumble refusing to let her block out everything that had happened. She’d shifted. To a panther. God, I’m not human, but I felt human. Why had her aunt lied to her, raising her as a human and never telling her of her true nature? Did her aunt not know what she was? Or was her aunt a panther, too? So many questions flooded her mind, making her tense with worry that the one person she trusted above all others might’ve lied to her all her life.
And Caine…her heart sank with worry for him. She hoped she’d saved him. What was he? When he’d started to shift to some kind of half-man, half-creature form, she bit back a cry of shock, but nothing scared her as much as those men shooting at him and disabling him with their strange, deadly silver arrows. She’d both cried and seethed when she saw him sitting there, wounded but still snarling and ready to fight them, even once he’d shifted back to his human form.
Instinctively, she knew the men were there for her. Maybe it was because of the way Caine had fought, refusing to go down. When he fell to the floor, something inside her snapped. Anger and worry had curled in her stomach as she watched the violent scene unfold in front of her. Guilt rode her spine, sending ripples up and down it. Maybe her hackles were actually raising and because she was unaware of her true primal nature, she didn’t recognize the sensation for what it was—her body readying itself to shift.
Instantly.
She didn’t feel a thing, not a twinge. It was so surreal. One moment she was shaking on the bed, fearful for Caine and furious at the men, and the next she was diving out of it to protect Caine, to yell at the men to stop. Then her body felt like she’d slipped into the skin she’d been born to wear, even if shifting like that had scared the hell out of her.
Hearing herself roar stunned and frightened her, but once her panther’s battle howl came out, all her primal instincts took over. She would’ve taken out any man who went near Caine without a single ounce of regret. No matter what truths she was sure she’d discover about herself and Caine, he’d saved her when she needed him and she would do the same for him. She owed him that much, regardless of the beasts that lay underneath their human skin.
Caine knew, she realized suddenly as she thought back to what he’d said. “We’re different. You and I. Tell me, damn it!” He’d been trying to get her to tell him that, as if she knew what she was and even what he was. Shaking her head, she snorted. God, she had no freaking idea!
The truck’s back door opened and the leader, Malac, hopped in. When she saw he was alone, the need to rip him to shreds for taking her aunt, hurting Caine and kidnapping her rose within her. A low roooowwwl rumbled in her throat.
“Music to my ears,” he said in a calm tone before he sat with his back against the wall diagonally across from her. “We’re going to chat while we drive home.” Placing his elbows on his knees, he leaned back in a relaxed pose a
s the truck began to move.
Emma didn’t miss the gun he held casually in his hand. She narrowed her eyes and opened her mouth a little to let free her threatening snarl.
“We’ve been searching for you for a very long time.”
When he looked directly at her, she saw his eyes for the first time in the dark. Even though they were brown, they glowed like Caine had said hers did. He was a panther, too. Why couldn’t she catch his scent like she did Caine’s musky one? And why didn’t he shift earlier when Caine had gone after him?
She stared him down. You’re not the man who kidnapped me from the club. Tell me why you’ve been looking for me. She wished she had Caine’s ability to speak in the bastard’s mind, but as much as she would’ve loved the ability to rail at him, there was no way in hell she was letting go of this panther form. It was her best defense. She didn’t blink as she waited for him to continue.
He tilted his head to the side, contemplating her. “Your roars in the cabin…they sounded beautiful but stiff, like you’ve never done them before.”
Emma tensed. She didn’t want the man to know that she’d just discovered what she was…what she could do. She could hardly believe it herself. Right now he seemed to know a hell of a lot more about her panther half than she did. She didn’t like being at a disadvantage.
He inhaled and nodded, understanding dawning on his narrow face. “Ah, that old woman kept you in the dark.”
When Emma didn’t react, his gaze narrowed. “You are Velius, Emma. A panther, like me and the others. Don’t believe the lies I’m sure they tried to tell you about me, however indirectly.”
Who might’ve told her lies about him? Was he referring to the people who kidnapped her from the club? Weren’t they all from the same group? And that word…Velius? Why did that sound familiar to her? She racked her brain trying to remember where she’d heard the term before.
Scions: Revelation Page 10
