by Romi Hart
He put a lid on his mounting anger. “Don’t talk to me about Riley that way. You don’t know the half of what she’s capable of. She could destroy you with a blink of her eyelashes.”
Alexa laughed in his face. “Is that what she told you? She’s human. You know what these turned mutants are like. They’ll always be human. You need a born New Breed like yourself if you hope to consolidate your Crest.”
He squared his shoulders at her and willed himself to keep his cool. “Your own father is a turned mutant and it ain’t my Crest—not yet. If I can’t marry Riley, it never will be. You go find some other sucker to ride to the top ‘cuz I’m off the market. Sorry, Alexa. I can’t help you.”
He tried one more time to walk away, but she grabbed him with even more force. This time, she shoved him against the wall and attacked him balls out. She smashed her body against him and kissed him before he could react.
In half a second, she slotted her knee between his legs and crushed his crotch with her pubic bone. She humped him up and down and shoved her long tongue into his mouth. He recognized her taste. He could even remember it turning him on once upon a time. Now he hated it.
He fought her off, but she stuck to him with amazing tenacity. He shoved at her shoulders but couldn’t dislodge her. In his last frantic effort, he seized her by the head and ripped her off by main strength.
He stared at her face in horror. A hideous grin of devilish lust transfigured her features. The rest of her still stuck to his body all the way down to his knees.
For some reason unknown to himself, at that precise moment, his eyes slid to one side and he beheld his worst nightmare come true. A slender figure stood at the corner behind Alexa watching the whole disgusting episode. It was Riley.
Alexa must have seen the horrified shock in his face. She glanced around. When she saw Riley standing there staring, Alexa burst out laughing all over again. She peeled herself off Victor and strutted away with her high heels tapping.
Victor straightened up. That nauseated sensation of Alexa’s body still poisoned his skin. He needed the antidote to that toxin and he could only get that from one place.
He dragged his feet to where Riley glared at him. Her mouth twisted in a grimace and her eyes flashed. “Is this what you call having your fun with a few women around here?”
He drew in a shaky breath. He longed to kiss her, to taste her and wash Alexa’s saliva out of his mouth. “Come on. I told you this would happen. She threw herself at me. I had nothing to do with this. I even tried to tell her to get out of here, but she wouldn’t listen.”
She didn’t move. “Do you really expect me to believe that?”
He shut his eyes. He had to remain calm at all costs. “Believe it. I don’t want her. I don’t want anyone but you. I never would have kissed her like that. She forced herself on me.”
“Ha!” she blurted out. “You accused me of forcing myself on you.”
He refused to smile. “I told her I’m marrying you to consolidate my Crest.”
She pinched her lips shut and averted her gaze. “I don’t think so.”
The irresistible force drew him to her. He had to show her how he really felt. He took hold of her hand and placed it on his crotch. “Do you feel that? Do you feel what she did to me?”
Her gaze skated around to fix on him. She could feel through his jeans that his cock lay soft and asleep inside his pants.
Now he knew what he had to do. He rubbed her hand against his groin and growled low into her face. “I need you, baby. I need only you. You’re the only woman who can do it for me anymore. Come on. I need you.”
At her roving touch, his package started to swell. Hot blood rushed to his nuts. Fuck, he wanted her right now.
Her set visage changed. She didn’t stop glaring at him, but the spark in her eyes took on a smoldering tinge. She hissed at him through her teeth. “I came over here because I needed your help and this is what I see.”
“I’m gonna fuck you, baby,” he murmured. “I’m gonna fucking nail you right here against this wall.”
Saying those words and scraping her palm across his bulging shaft made him so unstoppably hard he couldn’t stop. He needed to own her, to be inside her. He couldn’t be alive without that.
“You fucking bastard,” she snarled. “I fucking hate you.”
He grabbed her. He strapped one arm around her waist and pulled her to him. He flattened his back against the wall and crushed her against his throbbing prick. In a fraction of a second, she attacked his mouth with ferocious bites. She mauled him and crammed her juicy box onto his stick. She panted and whined for it.
Yeah, baby. Come on. He loved it when she let go like that. He received all her boiling desire and then some. In a flash, he spun her around and pushed her back. He pinned her in place and stripped down her pants. He unzipped his tool and plowed between her legs.
She climbed him like a tree to perch on his hips. She hooked her glorious thighs around his waist and plunged onto his waiting cock. He stabbed inside and she gasped, but she didn’t scream. She stopped herself from making too much noise.
He locked his gaze on her face. He needed to see her cum. He needed to see her give herself to him in all her raw, wild, power. She humped him to keep up with his rhythm. Her saturated cunt swallowed him whole. He couldn’t think about Alexa now. He couldn’t even remember her.
Riley’s honey scent floated into his nose. It cleansed him of every drop of Alexa’s taint. It drove him out of his mind on drunken delirium.
He seized both her wrists in one hand and fixed them to the wall above her head. She levered off that point of contact to ride his never-ending penetrations. Every drilling blow made her yelp in rising passion.
When he kissed her, she gnawed his lips and lashed his tongue. She took brutal bites of his neck and ears. He couldn’t stop now. He nailed her with all his might until she screamed at every thrust.
He shoved her up the wall and let her sink down onto his shaft. When he drove in to pound her, her pussy clenched around him in an involuntary spasm. She shuddered and tensed when he pulled out, only to groan in matchless ecstasy when he plowed in again.
He savored the exquisite sensation of her riding her clit against his bones. Her swollen cunt sponged his fevered cock in all the matchless beauty that was her.
22
Victor set Riley on the ground and pulled up his pants. She buttoned her fly while he zipped up. She checked up and down the street, but no one saw them. At least, she hoped no one saw them.
He glanced right and left, too. When he came around to looking down at her, he cupped her chin in one hand and raised her lips to his. He placed a single delicate kiss on her mouth and peered deep into her eyes. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
She gulped gazing into the cosmic depths of his soul. She had to struggle to pull her head out of what they just did to think. “We have a problem, a big problem. Colonel Weeks was right. The military is moving in. They rented Felix Tennant’s apartment over the speakeasy. They’re all over there right now living it up with the girls. I don’t know how many people they’ve got, but from the noise they’re making, I’d say it’s at least twenty. They aren’t spies or scouts or recon or whatever you want to call ‘em. These are advance operatives. They’re plants to give an invasion force a head start on the ground. God knows how many other cells the military has stashed around town.”
His eyes went cold and hard and his features solidified to granite. He arched one eyebrow and Riley’s blood froze in her veins. “You’re sure about this?”
Riley nodded. “I wanted to go straight back to Ogru-Kuche and warn the Colonel, but Malia said we had to follow orders and keep questioning the girls. I wasn’t sure, so I came here to ask you.”
He jerked away like he’d been shot. “You’re right. We have to warn him, but we don’t have time to go back to Ogru-Kuche.”
“What can we do?” she asked. “We have to raise the alarm.”
> He whirled the other way. “We’ll warn Pop. Come on. He’s just around the corner at the…..”
Spattering gunfire cut him off. He and Riley both spun around fast at that sound. Riley strained every nerve. It couldn’t be. Fighting couldn’t be breaking out, not this fast.
In answer to that thought, another spate of rattling bullets crashed out of sight followed by a dull explosion. Victor hurtled forward roaring with all his might. “It’s starting! Come on.”
He lunged around the corner with Riley hot on his heels. They bolted halfway down the street and stopped. Riley’s heart leaped into her mouth and her throat went dry at what she saw. A flank of soldiers in fatigues marched down the middle of the street. They wedged automatic rifles into their shoulders and swept back and forth. They opened fire and slaughtered anyone who showed their faces in the open.
Riley swallowed hard, but Victor didn’t hesitate. He thundered at the top of his lungs and launched at the soldiers bellowing his challenge. In half a second, he shifted into that horrific dragon who first struck fear into Riley’s heart.
Before he hit the ground, he spouted fire on the soldiers and set all of them ablaze. They waved their weapons and slapped their clothes trying to put out the fire. Riley gathered herself to shift, too, but at that moment, a patter of gunfire popped behind her back. She whirled around to see another troop of soldiers hemming her in.
Bullets zinged around her ears. She had a fraction of a second to react, but she couldn’t move without running straight into the line of fire. Without thinking, she shifted on the spot and just in time. Ten bullets smashed into her chest, but her nascent scales deflected them off.
They stung her skin through the still-transforming armor. That pain ignited her dragon rage as never before. She streaked across the street to annihilate her enemies, but she never got there. She spread her wings. The soldiers retreated a few steps and a massive concussion ruptured the pavement beneath her. An explosion went off and shot asphalt and paving gravel into her face.
The blow startled her for a second. When her vision cleared, she saw more troops moving through the streets. They came up behind the squad confronting her. From the intersection, she could see numerous troops going block by block mowing down anyone in sight.
Her heart contracted. This was it. The military was trying to wipe out the New Breed. They found out mutants congregated in this part of town. They didn’t give a shit if they killed a few dozen human civilians in the process.
At that moment, ten dragons came burning down from above. They zoomed low over the soldiers’ heads and unleashed their fire. At the same instant, an army of creatures loped around the corner and charged from the west. Wolves, lions, bears—Riley couldn’t keep track of them all. Monsters of indeterminate origin joined the fight. Before she could move, they closed with the soldiers in full-blown street warfare.
Shrieks, snarls, and howls filled the air. Behind her, Victor lifted off the ground and circled above the buildings. Riley’s spirits soared. This was her time. This was her chance to help these people against an unstoppable foe. The military wanted to erase the evidence of their own mistake by getting rid of all these people. She wouldn’t let that happen.
She flexed her wings and launched to follow Victor. In a second, she reached his side. From this vantage point, they could see thousands of military personnel moving through the streets. People fell before their gunfire. The soldiers poured into buildings and drove the inhabitants through the windows to their deaths.
Beyond that, tanks, trucks, and rocket launchers motored over the bridges to join the fight. For a second, Riley hesitated to go back down there. How could New Breed stand up to such an invasion?
Victor answered the question for her. He tucked in his wings, narrowed his eyes, and plummeted. He whizzed low over the buildings and landed smack in the middle of a street crowded with cars. He screeched in rage and planted his enormous body in the path of all those vehicles.
A tank rumbled to a halt in front of him and a voice crackled over the bullhorn. “Raise your hands above your head and get down on the ground or we will open fire. This is your last warning.”
How pathetic and childish those threats sounded to Riley now. Victor lowered his head and bellowed at them with all his might. The sound made the bridge sway and some of the vehicles slowed down. From her position in the air, Riley could see the drivers looking around in confusion. If Victor unloaded his fire on them now, they would be toast.
The tank gunner seemed to hesitate, too, but maybe he just needed an extra minute to power up his cannons. When Victor didn’t move, the turret swiveled around to aim directly at him. It thumped and the ordnance whoofed from the barrel. It whistled at Victor and pounded him in the chest. It knocked him up and back. He reared and flailed his limbs screaming to the Heavens, but he didn’t move.
Riley couldn’t watch this. She stooped flying faster than light. The wind howled off her scales, but she didn’t brake. She took deadly aim and banked over the bridge. At the last second, she rotated her talons forward and snatched the tank off the ground. She vented her aggression crushing it to pieces. Then she soared over the river and dropped it in the drink.
She chuckled to herself imagining the drivers’ confusion now. If that didn’t send those cocksuckers a message, nothing would. No way could she and Victor allow those assholes into the city.
Another explosion drew her attention back to the ground. She couldn’t make out much from this distance, but the echo of gunfire increased along with the general din of fighting. The military was down there wiping out New Breed as fast as they could. She had to do something and she and Victor couldn’t stand around defending the bridge all day.
She swiveled and took aim at the bridge itself. Dozens upon dozens of vehicles stretched behind it all inching toward the City Center. Personnel carriers, weapons transports, supply wagons—the military wasn’t holding anything back. They planned to move in until they finished the job. Riley knew what she had to do.
She angled over the river. She took aim and closed her eyes. Then she let gravity do the rest. She tucked her chin into her neck and braced for impact. She curled into a ball and crashed into the bridge with all her gigantic weight. Concrete smashed and steel twisted. She felt the bridge give way.
Then the river water closed over her head. Pounding impacts splashed all around her, but she didn’t have time to rest. She uncoiled herself and arched for the surface.
She hit the air flapping for the clouds. She climbed several hundred feet before she dared to look back. The bridge sagged into nothing five hundred feet from where Victor stood. A driver in fatigues hung out of his truck door waving his arms at the vehicles behind him. Riley couldn’t be certain, but to her it looked like he was trying to instruct his friends to reverse.
She indulged in a wicked grin and locked her eyes on the support tower holding up what was left of the bridge. One direct hit and the military could forget about bringing any supplies into town from that direction. That might not hold them off, but it certainly would slow them down.
She spiraled as high as she could and retreated several miles eastward over New Orleans. She didn’t need to see her target from here. She teetered on the airstream for a minute gathering her resolve. Then she dropped.
This time, she kept her eyes open. She thundered out of the sky flying faster than she ever flew before. She adjusted her trajectory. Several hundred yards away from the bridge, she opened her mouth and unloaded her vengeance on the tower. She blasted pure flaming heat at it. She didn’t let up for an instant.
The river flashed beneath her belly. Her wingtips brushed the ripple with each blistering flap. She kept pounding her flame at the tower. It rushed toward her. She measured her position down to the last iota. Then she flipped her chin down and shut her eye.
Her forehead punched through the tower weakened by fire. Tons of concrete and twisted steel rained on her back, but she rocketed away before the whole structure co
llapsed behind her.
She screamed around in a wide arc. Victor stood up on his hind legs and flapped his wings in triumph. He shrieked to her cheering her success. Riley soared around and descended to his side. She answered his cries with her own tempestuous bellows. Then the two of them turned around and marched side by side into the battle.
23
New Breed of every variety fought hand to hand against the soldiers and still more military personnel flowed into the city. Where did they all come from? Victor never imagined the military planned an assault this big against his kind.
He saw people he knew intermingled with a vast array of all kinds of mutants. Lincoln Manning ran up a side street and shifted in mid-stride. His face extended into a snout full of teeth. Shaggy black fur sprouted from his skin and he became the menacing wolf hunting down his prey. He pounced on soldiers, ripped out their throats, and mauled their faces before he moved on.
The soldiers spread out aiming their guns at anything that moved. They targeted New Breed in their shifter forms first, but failing that, they shot down anyone they could find. They only stopped when New Breed attacked them and tore their guns away.
Before Victor’s eyes, five full-grown lions teamed up on one soldier. They stripped his weapon away and hauled him to the ground. A young male with a sparse mane went for his throat and all the other cats moved in for the kill. Behind their backs, another two soldiers opened fire on the cats. They shot three before Victor dove in.
He smacked them away with his tail and set them smashing into the nearest building. He and Riley stormed through the streets marauding wherever they could. They snapped their teeth to chomp soldiers in half. They flipped over trucks and flattened anyone that tried to run away.
They turned off the main boulevard and entered the smaller neighborhoods. From here, they came face to face with a scene of indescribable devastation and chaos. A solid ocean of bodies blockaded the streets. Soldiers set up rocket launchers on the sidewalks and fired them at one house after another. The structures detonated into matchsticks and flying body parts.
