by Pam Godwin
I sneaked my hands beneath his coat, trailing fingers over the wool that covered his flat abs.
He stared at my mouth, his gaze losing focus. Then he blinked, and his face was all sharp lines, his eyes lucent shards of need. “We’re stuck here for about four hours. I have a small ration of food—”
I slipped my hand lower, and when I brushed the hard swell in his leather pants, raw desire pulsed through my core. “I want to kiss you. I want—”
He captured my mouth in a delicious slide of lips, his tongue teasing the seam and his arms snaking around my back. He angled his head and dove in for a deeper kiss. Reluctantly, I pulled back, unsure how to maneuver around my oversized teeth.
I pressed my tongue against my fangs. “You said no tasting, but if I scratch you with them—”
“Shh.” He nibbled on my lower lip and licked the upper one as his hands sifted through my hair. “If you nick me, don’t suck on the cut. I’ll know if your bloodlust rises.”
The danger was the hollow points of my fangs and whatever I might inject him with. He was stronger than me. Strong enough to stop me.
His fingers tightened around the roots at my scalp and pulled. “Give me your mouth.”
I lifted my chin and gave him more than a kiss. With every lick, nuzzle, and caress, I offered a piece of my heart. I felt myself falling and stretched out my arms, not to stop it from happening, but to absorb the collision and embrace him with the entirety of my being.
He kissed me savagely, dizzyingly, his hands pulling roughly on my hair. I attacked the buttons on his coat and spread it open, snuggling into the steely heat of his wool-covered chest. He slipped his tongue between my lips, and I ate at his mouth with mindless hunger.
The rich taste of iron slid down my throat, and I knew I’d pricked him. But thoughts of fangs and blood weren’t ruling me now. I wanted his cock, and I rocked against it to show him how much. Oh. My. Hell. He was so fucking hard. Straddling his hips, I pushed against his chest and angled him away from the wall until he lowered his back to the ground.
He stared up at me, lips parted and those vivid silver eyes penetrating me with desire. Greedy need vibrated beneath my skin, and my insides melted into one huge throb between my legs.
His fingers plucked at the clasps on my cloak, and a moment later, the heavy fur slid to the ground.
“I’ll keep you warm.” He untied the bandana around my chest and pulled off his wool sweater. “Take these off before I rip them.” He yanked at my borrowed trousers.
I stripped them quickly, trembling less from the cold and more from the flickering flames in his eyes as they licked over my nudity. With my knees on either side of his hips and cushioned by his coat spread open beneath him, I feathered fingers down the chiseled ridges of his torso, lingered on the button on his pants. The sight of his arousal straining the leather rushed adrenaline through my body, burning me up and racing my pulse.
When his length sprung free, he gripped the base and rubbed the broad head around my entrance. “Always so wet.”
“Always so hard.” I flattened my palms against his chest and leaned over him. “Fuck me like this…with me on top.”
His fangs lengthened, and mine ached in kind. With a hand on my waist and the other on his cock, he drove his hips upward and impaled me to the hilt. A string of breathy moans cascaded between us. Eyes locked, we moved together, slowly, then faster, causing every charged cell in my body to merge between my legs. The feeling of fullness was electrifying, the gliding strokes sinfully addictive.
The wintry air needled my skin, but as I pushed up and rode his cock like I knew what I was doing, my blood started pumping and heating my body. His hands were everywhere, cupping my breasts, tweaking my nipples, massaging my clit. He was all powerful thrusts and grunting need, and I was consumed by it. I’d intended to fuck him, but being on top didn’t give me any more control. He held me where he wanted me, led the pace, and set the balance of pain and pleasure.
The blissful sensation of his caresses eclipsed the hammering pressure against the back of my pussy. Soon, all I felt was his trembling urgency and the singe of his gaze. My pulse thundered as I looked into those eyes. I wanted him to own my lips, my desperate noises, and every spasm in my pussy. I wanted him to look at me like this forever, like I belonged to him in every way.
When he grasped my neck and trussed up a breast for the strike of his fangs, I sank into his hold. My eyes fluttered shut as his bite seared my nipple, seeped into my veins, and galvanized my senses.
“Come with me.” His mouth left my breast and caught my lips in a brutal kiss that sent us spiraling off the cliff.
Bright light burst behind my eyelids, zinging fiery sparks across my skin. My stomach tightened, and my teeth ached. When I tasted his blood, my orgasm intensified. I wanted more and broke the kiss to go for his neck.
The hand on my throat shoved me back. He hissed through his release, his pupils dilated in the faint glow of the lantern. A bead of red dotted his lip, beckoning me with an inconsolable thirst.
I strained against his grip, possessed with the need to lap at the well of blood. In a blur of movement, he flipped us, pinning me beneath the weight of his body, his fist around my throat and his cock buried to the root, spilling wet warmth inside me.
“Breathe.” With a swipe of his tongue, he erased the blood from his mouth. His free hand brushed the hair from my face, soothing my frenzied breaths. “Good girl. Now another one. Pull it deep into your diaphragm.”
His gravelly voice was hypnotic, his masculine scent a drugging comfort. I listened to his repeated instruction, breathing, relaxing, soaking in the protective warmth of his body. Eventually, the roar in my ears fled, the throb in my teeth ebbed, and my muscles slackened.
He rolled us to lay on our sides, face to face, his thigh wedged between my legs and the leather and fur of our coats wrapped around us.
“Will it always be like that?” I snuggled closer against his chest. “The overwhelming need to bite during sex?”
“It is for me.” He rested his lips on the crown of my head. “You won’t be able to stop me from biting, but I can stop you.”
Didn’t seem fair, but I accepted the circumstances. While I was immune to a hybrid’s bite, Salem’s bite had given me fangs. We didn’t know what my bite would do to a hybrid. Though Salem wasn’t a hybrid, I didn’t blame him for not wanting to be my first test case.
Michio should be able to determine if I had venom glands, if my bite would envenom Salem with something harmful or fatal. Until then, it was safer if Salem prevented me from penetrating his veins.
We ate a small portion of his packed food supply—hardtack crackers, deer jerky, and pine nuts—and washed it down with sips from his animal skin water bladder. Then we slept in a cuddle of body heat until darkness crept through the cave entrance like an unwanted intruder.
Salem dressed quickly, grabbed the club and hunting knife, and swept toward the narrow opening in a gust of leather-scented determination.
“Wait.” Panic edged my voice as I dragged on my clothes. “Where are you going?”
“I’m not leaving you, but I’ll move faster and quieter alone.”
My jaw clenched. “I need—”
“Wood and feathers for arrows. Something to eat. I’ll be quick. Stay here.” He tossed me a warning glare.
I didn’t trust him. Or maybe I just didn’t want to be cared for like a breeding woman. Whatever was causing my hands to clench, it wasn’t worth arguing over. I’d wait until he left and follow after him.
He ducked through the crack, gave the frozen river and treescape a swift scan, and in a flash, he was gone.
I shoved my boots on, and with my mother’s dagger clutched in my gloved hand, I headed toward the entrance.
And stopped.
Tingling in my gums drew my tongue to my straight, small…not fangs. A heavy feeling swelled in my stomach. I yanked off a glove and prodded around my teeth. No fangs. My fingers slid o
ver human canines again and again. What the fuck?
I paced around the cave, my mind swimming and heart racing. The change didn’t happen when he bit me again. That was hours ago. It happened when… I glanced at the serrated crack he’d vanished through.
Hybrids couldn’t retract and regrow their fangs. Neither could Salem nor my fathers. Their teeth were set in place, sheathed only by their lips. Why were mine different? Was the answer connected to Salem? We hadn’t been separated since my fangs first appeared. Did they only extend when he was near?
Anxious to test the theory, I ducked through the crack and stepped into the blistering cold. My breaths huffed in white clouds of vapor, and my eyes prickled against the bite of the wind. I probed the landscape, and all I could see was black. I didn’t know which direction he’d went or how far away he hunted.
I pulled in a breath, and the frigid air cut through my lungs like a knife. I should wait for him to come back. He had the compass to guide him. I had a head full of flustered thoughts and an impulsive tendency to run off and get lost. Fuck.
Slipping back into the cave, I pressed my back against the rear wall and sank to my haunches.
About an hour later, the tingling in my gums returned, and my canines lengthened. The sensation was subtle, a little sensitive, like growing a fingernail.
As my fangs reformed, I stared, unblinking, at the murky hole in the cave. A moment later, he stepped through.
That was when I knew he wasn’t just the trigger for unlocking a latent ability. He was the Achilles’ heel that could lead to my failure.
If my fangs were crucial in saving humanity, I needed him at my side.
If my fangs prevented me from succeeding, I would have to choose.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Salem must’ve noticed the turmoil in my huddled posture, because he froze at the entrance of the cave. A huge gray owl dangled lifelessly from one hand, his club gripped in the other, with a bundle of sticks pinned beneath his arm.
When he found my eyes in the dark, he dropped his burden and jolted forward, his silhouette cutting through the chamber in a blink.
“What’s wrong?” he asked from inches away, his chest pressed against my bent knees.
A voice in the back of my mind urged me to keep the revelation about my fangs a secret. “I need to pee.”
“Why didn’t you go when you stepped outside?”
He’d seen me? But my fangs hadn’t emerged. Maybe it depended on whether or not I could see him?
“You caught that nearby?” I nodded at the owl on the ground behind him.
“There are a couple owls in the woods across the river.” He narrowed his luminous eyes. “I’m faster and hungrier.”
“No beavers?”
“You needed feathers, and you’re stalling.” He gripped my chin, the sparkling silver of his irises so bright it felt like a spotlight tracking my every move. “Tell me what spooked you.”
“I really need to pee.”
A flash of anger set his jaw before he grabbed my waist, tossed me over his shoulder, and bolted out of the cave. Cold air morphed into frigid misery as he moved with inhuman speed across the river and through the trees. He set me down, and my boots wobbled on rocky ground, my breaths coming too short and heavy for someone who hadn’t taken a step.
“Careful.” He held my elbow and kicked a jagged rock out of my path. “Talk while you’re peeing.”
I turned away and shoved through the undergrowth, searching for a reason to not tell him about my fangs. Maybe I didn’t want him to stay with me because of a supernatural connection through teeth and veins. I wanted him to want me for me. But he’d already told me he wasn’t letting me go. He could’ve abandoned me the moment we were freed and zipped home to his utopia.
As I pulled down my pants and peed, I felt his watchful, patient gaze grow more watchful and less patient. “Dawn.”
“My fangs retracted.” I retied my trousers and stepped toward him.
“When?” He reached for my hand, glancing at my mouth.
I explained the disappearance and reappearance of my teeth on the walk back to the cave. He didn’t speak, didn’t look at me, his gaze sweeping the frozen shadows of the limestone cliff. But the furrow in his brow told me he’d heard.
Inside the cave, he plucked the owl feathers and helped me fashion arrows. Due to lack of time and dry firewood, I couldn’t cure the shafts. But I compressed them through bending, making them as straight as possible while he sharpened the ends into points.
“Tell me what you’re thinking.” I used the heel of my hand to bend a shaft of wood and watched him out of the corner of my eye.
“It changes nothing.”
“I disagree. My birth was foretold three years before it happened. Annie, my sister’s ghost, told Jesse there will be no human race without me.”
“I know the prediction, Dawn.” He fit a feather into the slit I’d cut in the shaft. “The whole fucking world knows.”
“Yeah, well, no one knew I’d grow fangs. Fangs that can only be meant to bite…someone. Fangs that only emerge when you are nearby. What does that tell you?”
“How many humans and hybrids have you been around since your fangs first appeared?”
Just Salem and our faceless captors. That wasn’t a big enough sample to assume my reactions were only connected to Salem.
“You’re right.” My shoulders loosened. “I’m jumping to conclusions.”
He cleaned the owl, wrapped the meat in a scrap of leather, and stored it in his pack. When I ran out of feathers, I had twenty-four arrows. That done, we packed up and followed the river southeast.
For the next two nights, we plodded over the unforgiving terrain. Another cave on the Yukon River provided shelter during the day. He caught a second owl, and I made more arrows. But we didn’t encounter a human, a hybrid, or any signs of intelligent life. I continued to knot tree limbs and stack stones, anticipating my fathers tracking me. Though the closer we drew toward camp the more I hoped they’d stayed put and awaited my return.
On the third night, the wind grew stronger, more bitter, bringing with it a torrential hell of sleet and heavy snow. We plowed through it for miles, my hair whipping against my face, icy droplets clinging to my lashes, and my cheeks and lips cracked and abraded.
Salem kept a hand clenched in the furs on my back and guided me along the treed shore of the river. It was too dark and blustery, the poor visibility making the billowing snowdrifts unwieldy to navigate. He wanted to carry me, but he was already burdened by the huge backpack.
Sheets of freezing rain permeated my cloak and fur pants, weighing me down and soaking through to my skin. The vicious trembling in my muscles slowly ate away my strength. Each step required more energy, more willpower. I was running out of both.
A couple hours later, the glacial cold stiffened my joints. Icy water seeped into the neck hole of my cloak and trickled down my spine. I no longer felt my fingers, face, and toes, and my movements grew clumsy. The shivering had subsided, but I struggled to fill my lungs with air. I just needed to sit down for a minute and gather my strength.
I sensed him move in behind me and pitched my voice over my shoulder. “Leafff me lere…here.” Why was I slurring? “Find slllelter. Come back fler me.”
He would travel faster without me. He’d have to. My vision blurred to blackness. The howling sounds of the wind faded. My knees liquefied, and I started to sink toward the ground. Before my face hit the snow, he caught my waist, lifted me against his chest, and wrapped his coat around my body.
The last thing I remembered was his fierce demand. “Hang on.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I woke with a parched mouth, head fuzzy and my body dry, warm, and nude. The pillow beneath my cheek was made of steel and sinew, and I burrowed in as the rest of my senses slowly roused.
Heat crackled at my back with the scent of musty wet earth and burning wood. A fur rug lay beneath me on the floor. My fingers and toes were
stiff but thawed. There was no wind. No stinging ice on my face. It was too good to be true.
Opening my eyes, I stared into luminous silver aglow in a flawless face that was all sharp bones, black brows, and sinful lips.
I propped an elbow on the pillow—which was Salem’s chest—and took in the rustic log walls, raw wood flooring, and yawning rafters overhead. Our clothes, overcoats, and boots spread over a long table—the only furniture in the huge space.
No windows. No pounding sleet against the exterior walls. The blizzard must’ve passed. How long had I been asleep? Had he found one of those public use cabins built in the old, old world? Numerous hunting cabins were tucked in remote corners of Canadian wilderness, but finding them without a map was damn near impossible.
I turned toward the source of heat at my back and sighed at the glorious sight of the low-burning fire in the hearth. “Where—?”
“Drink first.” He reached for a tin cup sitting near the fireplace and sipped from it. “Careful. It’s hot.”
He held the handle as I slowly swallowed the piney-citrusy concoction, avoiding the green stems floating in the cup. Pine needle tea was high in vitamin A and C, a fantastic booster for the immune system. I would’ve expected something like this from Michio, but knowing Salem made it warmed my chest even more than the tea.
“Thank you.” I set the empty cup aside, curled into the softness of the fur pelt beneath us, and luxuriated in the heat of his nude body wrapped around me. “Where are we?”
“About fifty miles south of the river.”
Shit. That wasn’t the direction of my camp, but I couldn’t bring myself to feel anything but gratitude. “You carried my dead weight for fifty miles.”
“You weigh nothing.” He brushed a lock of hair behind my ear and tugged me closer, chest to chest. “As the blizzard died down, I tied and bent tree limbs in this direction. If your fathers are out there—”
