They all howled together, and the sound was chilling.
I looked to Kyla, who was wiping at her eyes. She was crying? Oh, God. That big beast was Pax, wasn’t it? They were celebrating because their alpha had won.
I fell to my knees. It felt like my chest had been hollowed out.
42
Sylvie
Kyla saw me on my knees and rushed over, taking me by the shoulders. She had to raise her voice to be heard over the howling wolves all around us. “It’s okay. That’s Riggs. He did it.”
I lifted my head. “What?”
She smiled, but her eyes were still wet. She rubbed at them again.
“Then why are you crying?”
“It’s nothing,” she said.
But I realized it then. Riggs said she had killed her wolf to become a vampire. I didn’t know why she would do that, but I imagined it was hard to see this. To be reminded of what she’d lost.
There was a period of howling and an odd circling ritual where the wolves walked in a restless circle around Riggs, who towered over all of them. After a while—I couldn’t say how long—more of the white lights started to pop and sizzle from him as he formed back into a human. I blushed when I saw he was completely naked now, then realized I was surrounded by the clothes of the werewolves who shifted.
I guessed that made sense, but it still felt vulgar to see him like this in broad moonlight with so many others around.
He locked eyes with me, then I noticed the wounds all over his body. Trios of bloody red slashes cut across his bicep, his chest, his thighs, and even his chin.
I moved to him, putting my hand on the side of his neck and searching his face for any sign of how he was doing. His eyes were still yellow, and he lifted me into his arms, carrying me toward a nearby building.
“Riggs,” I said. “What’s going on?”
He didn’t answer, but God, he was burning up. It felt like his skin might actually burn me if he held me much longer.
“Riggs?”
He was breathing hard as he kicked open the door to the diner, then set me on the edge of one of the tables. It wobbled as he plopped me down, then pushed me back.
“I’m really not sure this is the time or place, Riggs,” I said. I glanced around him out the windows, but didn’t see any sign that we’d been followed. Shockingly, Kyla had decided not to come after her naked assed brother when he carried me off like a dog in heat.
“Riggs,” I said again, more forcefully this time. I clutched either side of his face, trying to get through to him like I had that first night. It seemed as if there was a sort of inner beast in him that tried to take control when he was aroused. Last time, I’d been able to snap him out of it.
“Riggs!”
All I earned was a grunt of frustration. He took my wrists and pinned them to the table beside me, then bent to kiss my neck.
I breathed out a surprised moan. His lips were on fire, and the kiss made my stomach explode with heat all of its own. It was still him in there. This was part of him, I reasoned. There was Riggs, and there was his wolf. But they were both the same person, in some strange, werewolf sort of way.
He yanked my pants down, then ripped my panties free with a tearing sound. He hardly made an effort not to rip my shirt as he got it off and then proceeded to pull my bra away.
I had to admit his intensity was doing all sorts of dirty things to my body. I liked feeling so wanted. So desirable that I’d made him lose control.
And then he bent, pulling my ass right to the edge of the table so he could kneel and put his head between my legs. I’d never had a guy down there, and I had about half a second to think about it before the impossible heat of his mouth was on me.
I gripped the sides of the table, squeezing my eyes shut and involuntary arching my back. The world turned to a swirl of white light and red flames. Those flames licked at me, teasing out my pleasure with passionate impatience. My body quivered and my thighs pressed in around his head.
“Riggs,” I whispered, suddenly wanting to know it really was him—that his wolf wasn’t some separate being stealing me from him. “Tell me you’re in there.”
He didn’t stop immediately, but when I took two handfuls of his hair and yanked him up to meet my eyes, that seemed to finally wake something up in him.
The yellow in his eyes flickered like a cloud passing in front of the sun. Then it was dulled, just a pale yellow behind his normal brown. He was still breathing hard and my arousal was on his lips, making them look puffy and red--wet with desire.
“Fuck,” he breathed, pushing off the table as he stood. “I’m sorry, I-”
“Hey,” I said, sitting up and pulling him to me. It had the unintended effect of pressing his abs right into my pussy, which made me shiver with accidental pleasure. “What was that?”
Riggs reluctantly met my eyes, then looked away, shaking his head. “Taking the role of Alpha changes the dynamic with my wolf. He’s more alive, now. More powerful. He has to be to keep the others in line, but it has been a while since he’d tried so hard to grasp control.”
I felt suddenly cold. “So it’s not you when you’re like that?”
“It is. We want the same thing. But he isn’t as subtle about taking it. That’s all. I’m still in there. It’s like being drunk, sort of. Or in a trance. It’s all desire with no reservations. Power drunk,” he said finally, seeming to settle on that as the most accurate description.
I thought about all of that, then worked my lips to the side and titled my head at him. “So when you have all the power in the world with no consequences or reservations, you carry me off and try to fuck me?” I had to admit even saying fuck me aloud took me beyond my painfully innocent comfort zone. But it made me feel hot and bothered all the same.
Riggs grinned. “It has taken inhuman amounts of self-control not to fuck you at every possible opportunity. All my wolf needs is a slight handhold and I’d probably come charging at you.”
“That’s charming, in a scary sort of way.”
Riggs’ eyes flickered yellow, and he shook his head, like he was trying to hold it back.
I reached up, touching his lips and marveling at how soft and warm they were. “No,” I said. “It’s okay. I don’t want you to stop. Either of you,” I added, not quite sure how to navigate his shared psyche delicately.
Riggs tensed, muscles flexing as he seemed to struggle with something. He shivered, and then when he opened his eyes one was blazing yellow and the other was perfectly brown. He looked momentarily surprised. The hand on the side of his body with the yellow eye reached out suddenly, gripping me with intense strength and pulling me closer. His other hand was more gentle on my hip. I noticed one was warmer, too.
Oh, wow, I thought. Was he literally splitting his body in half with his wolf and his own mind?
I didn’t have time to contemplate because his wolf arm—as I started thinking of it, even though it looked perfectly normal, took me by the hair and moved me from the table to my knees, which brought me face to face with his erection. He pulled me into it, forcing my mouth around him as he started fucking my face without apology.
I did my best with what little bits of anecdotal knowledge on dick sucking I’d gained from books and TV, which wasn’t much. It felt like the best I could do was try to avoid hurting him with my teeth, which I hadn’t anticipated being such a challenge. I let him do most of the movement, focusing instead on being whatever he wanted as he gripped me with both hands—one firm and tight in my hair and the other more gently running fingertips across my scalp.
It wasn’t fire and ice. It was a scalding shower on a cold morning and the beautifully warm croissant for breakfast afterwards. It was blind passion and controlled desire. And it was all for me.
I smiled, unfortunately, with his cock in my mouth. Riggs grunted, forcing himself in and out of me as I struggled to keep up. I tried putting my hands on him, but his wolf hand removed them, apparently preferring a mouth-only approach
.
He was gasping with enjoyment before long, and finally yanked himself free, shivering slightly as he appeared to try to refrain from releasing his pleasure. He lifted me with both hands then, skipping the table entirely and walking me to the nearest wall, which he pressed my back against.
I met his eyes moments before he kissed me, mesmerized by the glinting yellow of one eye and the muted brown of the other. I thought I understood Riggs more fully than I ever had in that moment. That was him. He was the place where two extremes met. He was the compromise between them, a constant struggle for control.
He pulled my legs apart so I could wrap them around his waist, my heels resting against his firm, bare ass as he positioned himself to enter me.
I gasped, not bothering to stop him even though he hadn’t put on a condom. I didn’t care then. He’d told me a werewolf could get a vampire pregnant, hadn’t he? But of all the things on our plates, it didn’t seem important at that moment.
With a pleasant burst of shock, I realized his cock was as warm as his body had been when the wolf was in control. It felt incredible inside me, like little tendrils of warmth were snaking through me to explode in fireworks of bliss throughout my body.
I clutched the back of his neck, grinding myself into him with each thrust of his body, not knowing what the future held for us but knowing this was where I wanted to be right now. Where I needed to be.
Riggs’ rhythm picked up, and I sensed he was close to climax. Knowing he was about to come pushed me over the edge. My whole body tensed, and I felt my walls grip him as I gasped into his ear. “Oh God,” I said through gritted teeth. “I love you.”
My eyes snapped open as he came.
I felt the twitch of his cock inside me and the vague sense of increasing warmth and something filling me. But more than that, I felt my words echoing between us. Had I really just said that? And where the hell did it come from?
Riggs closed his eyes, arching his neck back with a happy half-smile as he came. When he opened them again, they were both brown. He kissed my nose, smiling wider. “I love you too.”
43
Sylvie
It had been three days since I was turned, and I had to admit I already missed the sun a little bit. I was sitting outside on a grassy knoll a half hour’s walk from town with Gravy Boat at my side. He was purring while I scratched his head.
“You probably wish Riggs was here, don’t you?” I asked him.
He rubbed his gums on my hand, marking me in his weird cat way. I grinned. Gravy Boat felt like one of the few things that still remained from my old life. It hadn’t even been two weeks, had it? I gave up trying to figure it out because it didn’t really matter. I’d lived more in this short span of time than I’d lived in my whole life before. It was like packing a lifetime into a to-go container and binging it on the car ride home while driving with my free hand.
It was a misty night, with little beads of water clinging to the tall grass around me. I had my back against a tree, which was surprisingly comfortable. To my right, the sleepy town of Silverback was dark and dormant. To my left, I could see a nearly endless canopy of green trees from the relative height of my little hill.
It was chilly, but I didn’t feel the cold like I used to. It was almost like there was a disconnect between my brain and body. I could sense some things I used to sense—cold, discomfort, and pain, but they didn’t reach me as viscerally as before. It was more muted, like a little flashing warning light in my brain I could choose to ignore if it was convenient.
“He will be back before morning,” I said to Gravy Boat. “Riggs and the pack have to ‘roam’, whatever that means.”
He’d tried to explain it to me, but I didn’t quite get it. Apparently, part of being a werewolf in a pack meant going for wild wolf excursions in the woods together. They’d hunt, play—yes, he’d said they would play—and just run. Apparently, it helped somehow with the whole Alpha thing.
He seemed to think he needed to solidify his claim as Alpha before we could get the pack to help us rescue the others from The Coven. Whether it made sense or not, I was learning to simply roll with things.
My werewolf boyfriend has a wolf in his head that tries to grab the wheel during sex? Yeah, sure. No big deal. He wants to go play in the woods with the other wolves before we rescue my sister from the bad guy vampires? Makes sense.
I was grinning, even though I had no right to be. I should’ve been petrified for what was about to come. I thought part of me was starting to learn to embrace the danger, though.
It was part of living out of the bubble, wasn’t it? You could hide from any and everything. You could put your walls up and live safe in your cage. Or you could kick the door open and go out there. You could take the good with the bad and wake up without knowing what to expect. You could let your mind live or cage it to keep your body alive.
In his own way, Riggs was teaching me to let my mind be free, even if it meant putting my body at risk.
I thought about what we’d told each other last night in the diner. We’d said the big “L” word. I’d always rolled my eyes at movies or books where people professed their love so quickly. “You like each other,” was what I wanted to scream at them. Love was supposed to be different. It was supposed to be this big ordeal that took a long time to cultivate and develop.
Now I wasn’t so sure. I’d tried to talk myself down from the ledge of love ever since last night and so far, failed.
Maybe love wasn’t a finished product. It wasn’t the culmination of years of work and perfect conditions. Love was like a sickness to be caught. It grabbed a hold of you and made you know with every fiber of your being that you were in this for the long haul. Somebody else had crawled inside your heart and mind. They’d spread roots and now removing them would be as painful as removing one of your own organs.
Maybe that’s why they called it falling in love. Except it felt more like this scene I’d seen in a movie once. The girl had been walking on a forest trail and she’d taken one wrong step. That slight loss of footing had sent her sliding down in the dry leaves towards a hill beside the path. Within moments, she was sliding, then the hill got steeper and she was tumbling. Eventually, she was careening down the hill like a ragdoll, completely at the mercy of gravity and momentum.
I smiled. I guessed that’s where I felt like I was. I’d slipped into falling for Riggs, and now all I could do was fight the fall or embrace it. Last night I’d decided to embrace it.
I heard Kyla coming long before I saw her. My new vampire-enhanced hearing really was spectacular. I could even tell it was her because of the pattern of her steps and the weight of them. I tried to do the cool movie thing where I said, “Hi, Kyla,” once she was close without turning.
She snorted. “Enjoying the improved hearing, are we?”
I felt a little embarrassed. She was a vampire, too. I wasn’t going to impress her with the same abilities she’d probably long-since mastered and grown bored of.
“I have to admit,” I said. “I feel a little weaker today. For a while I was feeling like I could’ve ripped a tree out of the ground by its roots or run a marathon without breaking a sweat.”
Kyla nodded. “You’re just young. Your system is learning to burn blood more efficiently. Right now, it’s like a gas guzzling truck that gets two miles per gallon. Give it time and your strength will last longer between feedings.”
“So I should feed soon?”
“You should, but everyone here is a werewolf. You shouldn’t drink their blood if you can avoid it.”
“Why?”
She hesitated. “It’s taboo, for one. Werewolf blood is different than human blood. It gives them some connection to you if you drink it. They’ll be able to sense where you are for a time. Maybe even pick up on your thoughts and emotions. It gives them some power over you, but it also gives you a taste of their strength. It’s a delicate balance, but neither vampires nor werewolves consider it remotely okay to do. Vampires obvio
usly don’t like giving over any control to werewolves, and werewolves don’t want vampires tapping into their strength. Besides, neither side wants to feel like there’s any need for dependence on one another.”
“Did your parents?” I asked, frowning when I couldn’t think of how to word it. “Share blood, I guess?”
Kyla thought for a few seconds before responding. “You’re wondering if Riggs should let you feed on him? Maybe thinking you wouldn’t mind him having that connection?”
I blushed. “I don’t know what I was wondering, to be honest.”
“I don’t know what my parents did when they were alone. If they were sharing blood, they were smart enough not to admit it to anyone. That’s all I’ll say.” She winked.
“Oh,” I said, stopping Kyla before she could get up and leave. “Has Riggs given you any clue about the plan?”
“No. He’s either been with you or trying to bond the pack. I haven’t had much of a chance to talk to him one on one.”
“I’ll try to give him a push to make time once this is all over,” I said, smiling.
Kyla smiled back. “Thank you. I would appreciate that. Riggs and the pack should be back soon, by the way.”
As if on cue, I heard a loud howling from the distance and several more rang out in response.
44
Riggs
I shifted back to my human form once I was inside. I felt so fucking alive. It was like every nerve in my body was electrically charged—ready to arc out with energy at the slightest touch.
I hadn’t realized how distant I’d grown from my wolf until I had him back like this. Part of me had been withering and dying, and I’d been too damn blind to see it.
The pack and I got dressed again, picking up our clothes from where we’d shifted before our run in the woods. There was no shame for our nakedness when we shed our wolf forms. It took time for the mind to return to normal, and during the early moments after shifting I was still more wolf than human. I saw naked human flesh as desirable as a human saw a “naked” dog.
I Bite She Sucks Page 19
