“All Were are strong by human standards.”
Uh-huh. Something occurs to Jenni. “Am I strong?”
He nods. “Five times stronger than a human female, I’d wager.”
“And you?” Jenni asks softly, his nearness making her voice annoyingly breathless.
“Male Were are very strong. Alphas more so.”
“Are you Alpha?”
Quill smiles, and the expression is more a baring of teeth than a true grin. “Yes.”
Jenni should have known.
Quill pulls her forward, and the only comfortable way to sit on him is to part her legs around his torso.
His large hand slides to her lower back, and he presses her body flush against his. “This okay?”
“Ah-huh.”
When his erection rises between them, Jenni’s eyes meet his.
“Can’t help it, Jenni.” His gaze doesn’t shy from hers.
“I figured that part out.”
Her face is slightly above his, and Quill’s free hand goes to her neck. “This will hurt at first.”
Jenni’s heartrate speeds.
Quill pauses for a second then confesses, “I have to bite your eyelid.”
“What!” Jenni tries to squirm out of his hold.
“It’ll be gentle.”
Panic sets in.
“Hey.” Quill’s hold becomes brutal, uncompromising. “Look at me.”
Jenni’s eyes fly to his. Breaths coming hard and fast, she can’t escape him. Jenni can feel his immense power in every finger that holds her fast.
She whimpers.
Quill’s pupils are dilated so wide, they eat all the green. “I will not harm you. Scent the truth of my words.”
Space and time stop as their gazes lock. Only their synchronized breathing can be heard in the stillness of the space. From somewhere deep inside, the part of her that is a wolf keens… and somehow, that part of Quill quiets its fears.
He says nothing, silently watching her internal reconciliation, waiting for permission.
“Okay,” Jenni says. She attempts to laugh it off, but the sound escapes like a strangled squeak.
He moves toward her, and Jenni’s one good eye loses sight of him as he draws nearer and a bubble of her former panic rises to the surface of her mind.
“Shh, babe—I got you.” Then his teeth are on the swollen and angry skin of her eyelid, and she moans. The touch feels good. It scares her—and hurts.
Then the gentle bite bears down on the injured skin, and Jenni fights yelling from the searing pain.
But before she is really freaking out, the pain eases, and a pleasant burning begins as something warm runs down her face.
Blood, she has time to think before everything swims around her. Vision, mind, and power swirl over them, and her body sinks against Quill’s.
“That’s right, let me help you.”
Jenni realizes he’s talking instead of biting, and then his lips are on hers.
Not soft.
But hard, insistent.
Jenni forgets the ache of healing as it sweeps through her body. Her healing eye is one burning mass of flesh as she gives her whole self to Quill and the moment.
When she opens her eye to look at him, she uses both.
Then an orgasm spears through her body like a sword tipped by icy fire.
Jenni gives a hoarse shout of surprise.
The door bursts open as she’s relegated to hanging onto Quill for dear life as her body betrays her, pulsing against his hardness seated between her thighs and pressed against her sex.
Oh. My. God.
Embarrassment doesn’t cover the moment, not that she has the strength to disengage herself as she pulses all over Quill.
Quill’s growl resonates inside the space, vibrating through their bodies. “Get out.”
The Were who was guarding her takes one look at Quill and silently backs out of the room.
Jenni hazards a look at Quill.
His eyes are spinning silver, the green completely absent, and he reads the question in her eyes.
“My beast—”
“It’s okay—God, I’m so embarrassed. He came in…” She can’t finish what Quill is clearly aware of. Her panties are soaked with the evidence of what happened.
“Sebastian is a male as I am. He knows what this is.” Quill moves his finger between them, back and forth.
“What is it?” Jenni asks in a whisper.
Gently gripping her hair, he tightens his hold to just shy of pain. “A male healing his female.”
Jenni blinks her two good eyes.
When the tears come this time, she’s not shamed by them. They’re not caused by sadness.
They’re grateful, happy.
And there’s a little hope mixed in there, as well.
CHAPTER NINE
Laz
T he Lycan never cease to amaze Laz. They are complicated in a way that defies logic.
If he were in Hades, warring over a female would not occur. The threat of torture is a real consequence of attempting to couple with a female spoken for by a high demon.
Laz cannot think of one circumstance where a low demon supplanted a high in the pursuit of a sexual interlude.
However, Between has less simple precepts in play.
And Laz’s feelings do not matter. Keeping his Redemptive safe is the only priority at present.
The male at center, whom Laz has identified as the greatest problem, lifts his chin. “Fuck him up, guys.”
The two Were who’d moved away from the main group sprint at Laz.
He releases his mental stealth, allowing his mind to burrow like a clever worm inside those of the approaching Were.
They drop where they are, screaming, as they hold the sides of their heads.
Relief sweeps through Laz that his ability Below works on these two. It is not an universal skill.
The leader—Bray, Laz remembers him saying—takes a look at his fallen comrades and scowls. “Hey numb nuts, stop fucking shit up.”
Eloquent sort, Laz notes.
Tessa strides forward and, in a smooth dancelike step, plows her foot into the face of the nearest male. The cartilage of the Were’s nose explodes in a spray of blood, causing his extreme paleness to gleam scarlet. He falls backward against the soft pebbled shore of the river. The top of his hair touches the water, blood spreading like smeared red paint in the lapping waves.
One down, Laz thinks, appreciating his pragmatic Redemptive with a joy that’s near pain.
His eyes travel the remaining members of the group.
Bray stalks toward Laz, and he moves to meet the Were. Pushing at Bray’s mental pathways reveals Laz’s ability will not work with the other three.
Tessa repeats the same maneuver with the other Were, but he is wily, grabbing her foot before it gains purchase, and gives it a vicious twist.
Laz hesitates.
His Redemptive moves with the momentum, her body spinning.
Tessa lands hard, her palms bracing her fall, though her eyes tighten as the pebbles bloody her hands.
The Were has managed to keep his hand on her foot and adds the other.
No.
“Laz!” Tessa screams, and the other Were are upon him. Belatedly, Laz recognizes that his Redemptive is the most absolute of distractions.
His tail bursts the confines of his pants with a tearing shriek and whips like a striking snake, neatly severing the head of the closest Were.
The head doesn’t fly very far, landing with a strange lack of acoustics at the seam of water and beach.
“Whoa—fuck,” Bray screams.
“Demon!” the only clean cut one of the group bellows.
Finally, a male takes a stab at intelligence of a sort. And as it turns out, that is who Laz should have known was the most dangerous.
They pile on Laz, except the one who named him for what he is. Laz wraps his tail around the neck of another, while Bray strikes him over and over again.
Bray’s blows begin to damage Laz’s organs.
Laz lifts the Were he’s strangling with his muscular tail and neatly inserts the Were’s body between himself and Bray’s fists, effectively creating a meat shield.
His eye roll in Tessa’s direction, and with a brisk cough, blood shoots out of Laz’s mouth.
He must get free of this and stop toying with his enemies.
“Laz!” Tessa yells.
Desperate.
Her fear thrills through him, and Laz’s horns burst through his skull. He shakes off the agony and levels his stare at Bray, who is trying to desperately get to Laz through his comrade.
When he feels the first spike of needle-like pain, Laz ignores it.
Then the pain becomes more, spreading like a vile pool of numbness. Sensing something awful, Laz stabs the Were above him with his short, sharp horns, spearing the skull of the Were above him.
With his tail, he throws the Were and hears the satisfying landing in the river.
That leaves only Bray and the Were with the precise haircut and blue eyes so pale they rival his own.
“Get him, Tom.”
Laz wants to look at this Tom, who approaches from the periphery. But his head will not turn, a sort of paralytic sensation is sweeping through his body.
Fear breathes through Laz. “Tessa,” Laz calls softly.
Then the one who must be Tom stands above him, blood cascading from a jagged tear in his forearm.
Without hesitation, he flings more blood against Laz, cinching the paralysis more tightly.
Bray flattens his palms against Laz’s chest and pushes off. “Fuck me, what the hell is it?”
Tessa screams in the background, and Laz’s very marrow pulses with his need to get to his Redemptive, but he is prisoner inside his own body.
“High demon,” Tom says in a dead voice.
His eyes, the only thing he has dominion over, meet Tom’s.
Tom smiles. His teeth are black, very much like Praile’s, and if Laz could command his own death, he would—for nothing worse could have occurred.
Happenstance of the most grave variety has arrived at his metaphorical doorstep.
“So the great Lazarus is discovered.”
Bray’s mouth drops open as he turns to Tom. “What? Do you know this demon dickhead?”
Tom nods. “I was sent before Hades was upended. Sent as a scout to seek him out by our Dark Master.”
Bray backs up, and with him, another surviving Were retreats from Tom as though he is a pariah.
As Laz helplessly watches all of this from his back, a screaming Tessa is dragged before him, a cut marring the beauty of her full lips. The sight causes steam to uncoil from his nostrils.
Laz apparently does not have control over that, either.
The more blood Tom flings on Laz, the less ownership he retains over his body.
His very breath comes more slowly.
“You will stay here until the lowly demons are sent forth to bring you back to whence you came.”
“Laz,” Tessa moans.
His mouth moves, but no sound escapes.
“Are you a fucking demon too?”
Tom turns cool eyes to Bray. “I am many things. Judge, jury, Were, High demon, and summoner with enough angelic blood to render this traitor of Hades into stillness.”
He returns his attention to Laz, those pale eyes narrowing to slits on Laz’s still form. Tom’s skin changes to the deep red of the high demonic.
“Now we shall rape your female as you stand witness, oh great Lazarus.”
Laz strains against the blood that binds him. Tears of frustration and rage clog his throat. His tear ducts are swollen with a need to cry so fierce, Laz cannot bear it.
Yet he must, for there is no other choice.
Bray turns to Tessa and casually backhands her.
She spins, falling to her knees, elegant fingers biting into pebbles both smooth and sharp. Her ebony hair has come partially undone from her braid, and tendrils of inky hair curl around the delicate curve of her jaw and neck.
Another male approaches and grabs the very hair Laz spread beneath him as he took his Redemptive in love, giving her his entire being, and drags her a few feet away, dumping Tessa on her back.
Laz bellows, but he’s been silenced and stilled by ancient blood rite.
Tom gives a sardonic tilt of lips and a small salute at Laz and turns away.
Toward Laz’s undefended Redemptive.
Tessa
“God, she smells good,” Bray says as he stalks toward her, flaring his nostrils hard.
At the name of God, Tom flinches like he’s being bitten by a tick—so not very angelic. He said the blood of the high demon and angelic ran through his veins.
Tessa’s panicked stare finds Lazarus. He’s utterly still, his eyes watching her.
She can easily read how helpless Laz feels. The emotion fills his expressive now-black eyes.
That fucker Tom is going to make Laz watch them tear her apart.
Tessa killed one of them, but the squirrely bastard brought her down—he was that fast.
So that left her against Tom, Bray, and the little one. Though he was shorter than Tessa, he was still a male Were.
Tears threaten to undo her.
But fuck that. Tessa’s never given up, and she knows that deep in her heart, she’s not starting now.
Tom’s blood trick won’t work on her. Tessa’s so afraid, her stomach feels like it’s falling without landing. Her nipples are hard. Apparently for her, a high level of terror brings about the same physical reaction as arousal.
Quarter change moves over her body, and she gives a little grunt as the subtle shift pushes her already fatigued body to the breaking point. She can’t go wolfen, or she’ll lose the whelp.
Her mind whispers, You might lose it anyway, if the criminal Were have any say.
Bray grabs an ankle at the precise moment she attempts to scoot to a stand.
“No ya don’t,” he huffs, holding her in a brutal vise-like grip and yanking her close.
Tessa doesn’t waste time bashing him in the head with her fist.
She is not a weak female and has the advantage of quarter change over the males.
“Fuck!” he bellows.
Tessa gives a grim baring of teeth, twisting out of his reach.
Tom is suddenly there and kicks her in the ribs.
The move steals her breath, and fine droplets of blood mist from her mouth. Broken rib.
“Grab her,” Tom says calmly to the smaller Were.
He backs up a little. “Hey, man, I don’t want to stick some injured chick.”
Tom’s face organizes into lines of confusion, then he turns to Bray, who is making a quick recovery.
Bray’s talons burst from his fingertips, and he swipes one across the other Were’s throat then shoves him hard with the opposite hand.
The short Were lands on his ass, hands to throat as blood shoots from beneath his fingers. “Br—” he tries to speak and can’t.
“Fucking simp,” Bray mumbles, walking to where Tessa breathes through the glass of her shattered rib.
He grabs her arms, jerking them above her head, and Tessa tries to scream, but there’s no breath for that.
She does manage moaning.
Tom has his own set of talons, but they’re not those of the Were. Her eyes fly to his. They’re black like Laz’s get when he faces something that’s not her.
Oh my God, Tessa thinks.
Slowly, and with great precision, he sets a razor-sharp talon at the waistband of her worn denims.
Their eyes meet, and Tessa knows what he means to do before he does it.
Tears of anger, pain, and frustration run down her face, scalding her, making the cut on her mouth sting.
All Tessa knows in that moment is she would have done anything for happiness. For one moment of peace where there was something like she had with Laz. And their whelp.
B
ut Tessa understands now. That fantasy was never her destiny.
Maybe for some other female.
Just not her.
Tom slices the pants right from her body, jerking the cloth from her. She shivers in nothing but plain panties on the side of the Dosewallips River. The deep-blue sky hangs above her, the low burning orb of the sun a burning promise of the dying day.
A shadow falls over her body.
“Hey, demon fuck! She’s mine—you get your sloppy seconds after I’m through.”
Tessa hears the choking of the Were who’s throat was cut and vaguely understands that Bray’s complaining he doesn’t get to rape her first.
Don’t give up, Tessa.
Don’t.
She remains still when all she wants to do is move.
Tom commits the final atrocity and removes her panties.
“Hey!” Bray wails in the background, moving as though to grab Tom.
Tom’s head swivels, and he stares at Bray.
“Fuck. Okay, demon boy—”
Horns have shot out of Tom’s head, but Tessa smells the Lycan component.
Taking a great chance, Tessa has decided already what she’ll do.
As though she’s on board, Tessa lets her legs fall open.
“Moon, look at that—fuck her!”
Tom needs no incentive, no crude encouragement to rape a female.
Tessa doesn’t need motivation for what she does next, either. Diving forward with her face, she latches onto his esophagus and clamps down on the thick breathing tube with her sharpened teeth, courtesy of quarter change. She tears open his throat and spits the slick chunk aside.
Tessa can’t see, and the blood is so thick, it chokes her.
Bray is suddenly there, trying to take Tom’s place, shoving him aside. Not wasting any time, Tessa strikes Bray through the throat with her talons.
He gives a grunt of surprise, dark eyes widening. Being skewed with talons through the neck is no small thing.
With a hard twist of her hand, Tessa feels one of her fingers give with the move and gulps back her sob of agony as the talon tears to the quick.
But the strike has the desired effect.
Bray tries to yank himself off the spike of her talons and causes more damage in the process. Tessa takes advantage. She wraps her legs around his neck and squeezes, strangling him of what little breath he has after she stabbed him.
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