Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter One - Linne
Chapter Two - Linne
Chapter Three - Derek
Chapter Four - Linne
Chapter Five - Linne
Chapter Six - Derek
Chapter Seven - Linne
Chapter Eight - Derek
Chapter Nine - Linne
Chapter Ten - Derek
Chapter Eleven - Linne
Chapter Twelve - Derek
Chapter Thirteen - Linne
Chapter Fourteen - Linne
Chapter Fifteen - Derek
Chapter Sixteen - Linne
Chapter Seventeen - Linne
Chapter Eighteen - Epilogue
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Copyright © 2019 by Rylee Winters.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
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CHAPTER ONE
Linne
Giggling as Derek braced his palms on either side of my head, eagerness clawed at my gut as my brain swam in my skull. There was nothing soft about him but the way he looked at me, and my eyes stung from a mix of tears and alcohol. Ducking his head to brush his lips against mine, he sighed heavily to send hot air swollen with his smell down into my lungs as I inhaled sharply.
“I love you.” My thin eyelids couldn’t hold back the pure, untainted happiness that filled every part of me at Derek’s husky, tipsy murmur. Creeping up his bare chest, my fingertips tingled almost painfully as he bumped the tip of his nose against mine tenderly. “Happy birthday, my beautiful, perfect woman.”
“I love you so much, Derek…” Tilting my head to kiss him, I wrapped my arms around Derek’s neck as he pinned me against the closed door with his body. Goosebumps swept down my chest, and he tangled his tongue around my own in a sweet, sloppy kiss. Moaning softly, I savored his taste as I beat and furled my wings as drunken pleasure swept down my spine.
“What are you doing! It’s almost cake time!” Kristy’s slurred, shrill voice gyrated against my ear drums, and I jerked in surprise even as Derek’s hand slid heavily down to grip the door handle.
The door swung open, and a squeal burst from my mouth as I went tumbling backwards into his bedroom. A soft snitch echoed loudly as the world spun, and I barely managed to catch myself on the edge of his bed before his greedy hands were on me.
Adrenaline and ecstasy shot through me like lightning when Derek shoved down my shorts, and I tossed my head back to choke out an intoxicated gasp. Bent over the foot of his bed, my legs threatened to crumple underneath me from the fire that melted my muscles.
“Yes – yeah – yes!” Panting harshly, I urged my mate on, rasping from my throat as he spread my bare butt cheeks. Gliding up my back heavily, Derek gripped both my axillar tightly and wordlessly, while I squeezed my eyelids shut and pressed my face into the sheets.
“It’s been a year since we first met tonight.” Ragged and thick, Derek’s tone sent prickles up my spine, and he pulled on my axillar teasingly. “Do you remember, babe? The first time I fucked you was just like this. You’ve come so far since then…”
Grinding against his flushed, throbbing rod as his words rained down on me, I whimpered in pathetic need when Derek pulled back. My slit ached for him, and he tightened his grip on the base of my wings to nudge my slippery folds open with the head of his length. Bracing myself on my forearms, I glanced over my shoulder to heave hot breaths, and my throat tightened at the worshipful expression drenching his sharp features.
“Derek – please!” Suspense knotted my insides, and my whine caused Derek’s shoulders to jerk in a powerful shudder before he mercilessly thrust into my channel.
Choking loudly, I moaned as his rod filled and stretched me, and he tugged on my axillar with each, jarring thrust.
“Yes – ” Growling a thundering rumble that reverberated through my body and up through the carpeted floor, Derek thrust in wild abandon as pleasure rolled through me.
Clamping down on his heated, silky rod, my thighs slapped together as my knees gave out from under me.
But Derek held me up – he had never failed me. Not even once.
Our rough bout was over before I could even come down from the clouds fogging my mind, and Derek spent himself inside me with a strained groan.
Draping himself over me as I hung limply off the end of the bed, his lips caressed my shoulders and the back of my neck as I struggled to regain my breath.
Shivers raked down my spine, tingles assaulting my legs, and I spasmed lightly when he pulled out of my channel with a short hiss.
“Fuck – I don’t know who I’d be without you babe,” Derek mumbled. We’d both been drinking, and his words sent amusement bubbling up my chest, bursting forth as giggles from my dry, raw throat. “Why is that funny, huh?”
Fingertips dug into my sides, and my breathless giggles morphed into harsh barks of laughter as Derek held me in place with his body. Wiggling and worming as tingles rippled across my skin, my wings flailed out on either side of us before he gripped my waist to knead my flesh. The sudden change sent hiccups up from low in my chest, and I tilted my head to heave a shuddering sigh.
“You – you would still be you, Derek. Meeting me did not change you.” Craning his neck to kiss my cheek, he then trailed light kisses down the side of my face, and I released a low, pleased groan.
Satisfaction raced through my veins, and I closed my eyes to sear this moment into my memories. The roughness of his tongue sent shivers down my spine, and he steadied his fists on either side of my head once again to lick my neck and shoulder.
“You’re wrong, Linne.” Derek didn’t say anything more before his human body crunched and contorted as he shifted.
Sinking to the floor to lean on the side of the mattress, I reached blindly for his thick, coarse mane to explore the gaps where his fur had been ripped out.
Hot breaths flowed under my shirt, and I flopped my head all the way back before his whiskers tickled my sensitive skin.
“Do they get jealous?” Lavishing at the light sheen of sweat that coated my body, Derek only grunted carelessly before I cracked open my eyes.
His shadow beasts lounged, piled up in a corner of swirling, black tendrils and indistinguishable forms. Shimmeri
ng, onyx eyes watched me intently, and I threaded my fingers through his mane as his tongue slithered along my abdomen.
Even with Kaslni’s help, Derek couldn’t really control his magic, and I frowned as my thoughts came together sloppily. In the nine months since she’d appeared in this realm, my former Master had been surprisingly docile. At first, it’d been worrying, but Derek had surmised that being on the ‘down-low’ was better for her.
But she was planning something; she was always planning, scheming – there was never an end, and everything she did was always carefully thought through. If she was on the ‘down-low’, there was a reason, and it probably had something to do with how power-hungry she was.
“I am uncertain, Derek… it has been so long… I am worried that Bareiijnr will attempt to overwhelm me with sheer numbers.” Mumbling softly, I kneaded and tugged at Derek’s mane, and he nuzzled my torso with his forehead soothingly. “I cannot find true happiness until he is defeated…I do not like living in this way.”
Derek couldn’t talk in this form, and I took the opportunity to once again express my fears over Bareiijnr. Across the Veil, weeks would’ve passed by now, but the shimmering aura in the sky above the city was still closed.
Muss could go through to the Unseelie realm, but his reports were startlingly quiet. Bareiijnr was not the tyrant, the bringer of chaos, that I had expected him to be.
He was much like Kaslni, though; there was more to the peace in my old home than simply his desire to be a giving and beloved ruler.
“There are others in my realm that we cannot defeat if they attack us in a group. If Bareiijnr is smart, he will send a group. I do not understand why he would wait so long otherwise.”
Despite the alcohol I’d consumed, my thoughts blared with crystal clarity in my inner eye, and I frowned at the ceiling. “What if all this is part of his plan – to loom over us – to force us into a constant state of unease and fear? He would do that, as well, and would consider the most opportune time to catch us off guard when we finally settle. There are so many ways in which he can inflict damage. I would not be surprised if he sends someone who is as adept at stealth as I am, and with the mission to attack those weakest and closest to me.”
‘Even now, you worry about things you cannot control or predict, Linne.’ Muss’ deep voice flooded my brain, and Derek grumbled at his interruption even as he scraped his tongue along my outer thigh.
‘Enjoy this moment. It is not often that you have a reason to celebrate. You have been in this realm for two years. It is your mating anniversary. Do not ruin your current happiness for fear that it will disappear at a later time.’
“I cannot help it. This is all my fault to begin with. If I had been better – if I hadn’t gotten caught, I – ”
‘If you hadn’t gotten caught, you would never know the joy that you are experiencing. You would never know friends – true friends – or the enrichment of others in your life. You would still be Kaslni’s tool, useful and invaluable, but still just a tool all the same. Remind yourself why you worry, Linne, not what you worry about.’
CHAPTER TWO
Linne
“What did you wish for when you blew out the candle, Linne?” Smiling as the human Chad sidled up next to me with a suggestive smirk, I blushed fiercely when all eyes suddenly turned to me.
My co –workers, Alpha Jackson – even Melinda – stared at me expectantly, and I shoved a forkful of cake in my mouth to avoid answering the question.
Kaslni and Muss had both refused to eat any, but I found it melted in my mouth, washing my taste buds in a thick, rich chocolate. Humming softly, I took my time chewing even as the silence stretched on into discomfort before swallowing harshly.
“I…I wished…I wished for h – happiness…” The declaration sounded stupid as I stumbled through it, and I shuffled from one bare foot to the other as I trained my gaze on the grass beneath me. “It is silly, I know…but that’s what I wished for.” My voice ending in a whisper.
“It’s not silly, Linne. It’s sweet.” Maddy’s polite quip fanned the flames that burned my cheeks, and I reached to rub my face with my free hand. “When I was little, I once wished for a pony. That’s silly for a girl that lives in the suburbs and has a huge pool in the back yard.”
“Oh – oh – I wished for aliens to come down and eat my little brother, once.” Kristy laughed at herself, and I glanced up as she held her beer bottle in the air with a nasty grimace. “They didn’t come. I was so pissed that I swore off birthdays… not that it stuck when my next one came around.”
“I once wished that my father would adopt Derek.” Speaking up from behind the spout of his own bottle, Alpha Jackson grinned devilishly as he met my wide eyes. “It was right after we had both shifted, and everyone was treating him differently because of his skin. I thought that if he was my brother, he’d get some respect. Looking back on it now – it’s really stupid that I thought that.”
Turning to Derek who was frowning at Alpha Jackson from beside me, I pursed my lips together at the bright glint in his eye. Catching my stare, my mate wrapped his arm around me to press a kiss to my forehead, and pleasurable tingles shot down all the way to my toes.
“I got my wish, babe.” Murmuring softly, for my ears only, Derek’s confession fluttered in my chest, and I smiled as he squeezed my arm gently. “There was that one time – when I’d turned six or seven though, and I’d wished the old man would croak because he got me a fucking lemon cake thinking it was vanilla.”
“I remember that – you threw the biggest tantrum ever, then you got even more pissed off because you had to clean everything up.” Sniggering at Derek, Jackson took a deep swig of his beer to sigh fondly at the memory, tilting of his head. “What about you, Kaslni?”
“I never celebrated my birthday. When I was a child, I would wish before I went to sleep that my marriage bond would be a good man.” My eyes flying to Kaslni, they widened at her revelation as she grimaced and stroked Muss absently from her perch on a cushioned lawn chair. “He was not. I killed him shortly after the ceremony.”
“Wow…what’d he do to you?” Surprised, awkward silence nestled over everyone in the yard as Kristy posed the question, with everyone waiting to hear Kalsni’s answer with unbound curiosity. I nodded my head, showing my own desire to know the answer, as I pushed another bite of cake into my mouth, leaning forward in anticipation as Kaslni shrugged dismissively, the movement graceful like the rest of her bearing.
“He did not do anything. That was the problem. I waited for him, but he did not appear for many hours. So, I killed him and obtained everything that was his. In a way, I suppose that means he was a good man. I would probably not have been Chancellor if I had not married him.”
“…My husband did the same thing on our wedding night.” Speaking up from her place by the fire pit that illuminated the back yard, Melinda shook her head with a little laugh as all eyes turned to her. “We’d just moved in to a new house, and I was waiting for hours for him upstairs in the bedroom. After a while, I got fed up and went downstairs. I found him in our new kitchen trying to cast a spell to make everything in the boxes put itself away so I wouldn’t have to do it the next morning. It was a total disaster.”
“I did not know you were married, Melinda?” Leaning back in her chair with a nod, Melinda caught my gaze as my own question rang out in the quiet yard.
“It was, many, many years ago. We met in 1907 as teenagers here in the States. He was killed in action during the Second World War.” Melinda’s explanation caused everyone else to launch a torrent of questions, but I stayed silent, and glanced around Derek’s back yard instead. A warm, round feeling of content welled in my chest, and I took another bite of my cake to sigh heavily through my nose as I chewed.
Humans – witches – unseelie – shifters…all collected here in harmony. Even the human Chad was having a good time, and he still didn’t like shifters for the most part. There were no miniature humans running around or c
rying that we needed to worry about, and a fight hadn’t erupted during the party like I had expected.
I hated to admit it, but Muss was right. I did worry too much over things.
“Do you want some more cake, babe?” Slowly shaking my head at Derek as he murmured the question, I gazed down at the last bite on my plate with a smile stretching my lips. “I’m happy you’re having a good time.”
“I am…” Leaning my head on his shoulder, I sucked in a cool breath through flared nostrils as Derek rubbed my back soothingly. “It is a nice day for a party.”
“After everything we’ve been through, we deserve a break.” Humming softly in agreement, I exhaled slowly as the past few months rushed through my mind’s eye.
My wings had taken weeks to heal, as expected, and I’d finally been able to get out of the wheel chair. When they were fused back onto my back, I was able to use my legs again.
Everything returned to normal, and I’d been surprised at how easy it was to see Kaslni as my friend and not my Master. She’d acclimated very well to human life even though she couldn’t hide her wings from the shifters in Alpha Jackson’s clan.
After her display that first day, no one really got in Kaslni’s way, and I envied her ability to shut down threats before they’d even appeared. At the time, I’d wondered if Rachel would’ve attempted her stupidity with my former Master, should she have lived.
“I’m gunna head out, Linne.” Slinking over to us, Jon cracked a hollow smile, and warmth suffused my chest. “I’ll see you Monday.”
“Yes – okay. Goodbye, Jon.” Nodding even as the human turned away, I watched his back get smaller before disappearing completely beyond the edge of the house. The conversation we’d had so long ago, during those troubling times, sprung to my mind, and a sigh of content escaped my lips. “It is getting late.”
Retribution Page 1
