A flower opened.
A whisper released to the wind.
An alteration in my subconscious. One I felt in the marrow of my bones. That heady, masculine scent filled my nose and plunged deep inside. I clamped my lips closed, drawing it in deeper, letting it spread through my lungs. I didn’t know what I wanted more…that scent or the languid thrusts of his cock as he worked himself in deeper.
“More,” I cried, and ground my teeth.
“More fucking,” he growled, and thrusted in deep. “As you command.”
My eyes widened, and my breath caught. He stretched me, filled me, stoked that hunger inside. I curled my fingers around his as heat turned to rage. “Harder.”
His gaze shifted with a curl of his lips, unfocused…unbridled. He slammed his hips against mine and I was lost in the brutal ecstasy of him. In the power…in the strength.
For a second…just one blinding second, I imagined him as mine. My lover…my Wolf. My defender…my partner—before I ripped the illusion away.
He wasn’t mine…and never would be.
Wrong side of the river…for both of us.
The orgasm barreled down on me, filling my ears with thunder…sending tremors quaking through my body and sparks of lightning behind my eyes.
He stilled, hilt deep, his warmth spreading inside me. Still I rocked with the motion, desperate for every inch…and every drop of him. Hard breaths filled me as he lowered his head to the side. I turned my face into the side of his neck.
And as the pain of what might’ve been lashed with a cutting sting, I pressed my lips to the pulsing vein in his neck and kissed him. He stiffened, and a low growl rose before it was swallowed.
“Do that again…” he murmured.
I dragged my nose against his neck, drawing in that seductive scent of his skin. One tiny lick of my tongue against the pulse and he shivered. I kissed his neck…small, tender kisses. When that green pulsing shit flared again in my side and I stiffened and moaned, he grew hard inside me and settled into that rhythm once more.
He moved lower, kissing my breasts, pulling that thick, throbbing, delicious length free to slide his fingers inside me.
“Come for me, Carina,” he murmured, his thumb circling my clit. “Come.”
I bucked and howled, digging in my heels to drive my body down harder. Splayed thighs, throbbing pussy. He stared down at me with singleminded focus, the slick fingers of his other hand pressed down on my abdomen as he locked me in place.
He fucked me with his fingers.
He fucked me with his tongue.
And when that agony eased inside me…I finally closed my eyes. Hard breaths eased…and carried me away into darkness.
I slept, plunging into terror once more. Red glowing eyes waited for me.
You fight like a warrior…
It’s just sex.
Dreams haunted me. Agony mingled with lust. I cracked my eyes open, my body aching and sore.
“I’m right here.” That voice from my dream was beside me.
His hand on my hip rolled me onto my side. A massive thigh pushed between mine. I whimpered as he slid against my entrance. I was burning up inside, aching and throbbing. My whole body was one giant pulse of need.
I barely had enough strength to lift my arm over my head, but he was there. The scratch of a beard that wasn’t there before, and the faint sound of voices somewhere outside. The door opened.
“Not now,” my lover growled.
A dream. It had to be a dream. A sinful, erotic dream. The door closed once more and it was just us again, thrusting…needing. That heavenly scent moving deeper inside me, making me push back against him.
“More,” I murmured, my voice thick with sleep.
“Deeper?” he asked.
“That smell,” I answered. “I want more.”
A deep growl against my throat and it was there, heavy and ripe in the air. He moved between my legs, his finger finding my clit, circling and claiming, drawing deep shudders from my soul. I lifted my knee, wanting him everywhere.
I couldn’t get enough. Even when I quaked…even when I came.
Thick tears slid down my cheeks. I never cried.
I never cried.
He slipped from me and curled his body against my back.
I drifted once more into the darkness….and this time there were no Vampires waiting.
This time there was only him.
Phantom.
4
Phantom
She’s mine. The hunter staked his claim. I want to keep her. “No,” I commanded as I stood beside the bed, watching her chest rise and fall. He just snarled, bared his teeth, and pawed at the ground.
No? he said finally. That one defiant sound said all I needed to know. This was going to be a battle for the fucking ages…I could feel it in my bones.
“No,” I answered. “She doesn’t want us.”
Then fucking make her want us, he demanded.
I turned away from the sight of her, the thin sheet draped over her body and crumpled at her waist. The mating scent was thick and fucking choking. What the hell have I done?
One glance over my shoulder and I was tearing myself away, turning the handle and striding from the room. Voices roared, filling the hallway from the other side of the house. I opened the door of the bedroom next to mine and strode to the closet.
“Your marking stench is stinking up the place.” The growl came from behind me.
I grabbed a pair of sweats before stepping into them and yanked on a shirt.
“What’s up with that?” Church leaned against the doorway.
“None of your fucking business…that’s what.”
There was a twitch at the corner of his lips. A raw nerve, stabbed and flailing…he knew better than to push it anymore.
“The fallout?” I demanded.
“It’s bad,” he said with a shrug.
“Justice?”
“Alive…for now.”
I stilled at the words. For now. That didn’t sound good. “Set up a meeting with the Fae…make that Mojin. Here.”
“Here?” his voice rose. “You sure that’s wise?”
“No.” I turned to him. “You want to tell me how to run the pack and take care of business?”
He backed down. “Here it is.”
“We need eyes and ears watching Finis. I want to know his every fucking move. I need to know where he goes, who he sees. I need every communication, Church.”
“I know, brother.”
I jerked my gaze to his. Panic crowded in. I couldn’t let it. Not panic. Not fear. It had no place in my world…it was hunt or be hunted, kill or be killed. But still it was there, at the edges of my mind…like a scream, trapped…frozen. One gut-wrenching, terrifying sound. A woman’s scream. Howling. Soul-shattering. But I wouldn’t allow that scream in. I wouldn’t turn my attention to it…not yet.
“The girls?” Church asked.
“If need be, we torch the files.”
“We do that and we lose track of them…every one of them,” my enforcer warned.
A sinking feeling filled me. I drank it down deep. Every hurt and every pain…every woman’s name that’d crossed my desk. “So be it. The pack needs to be ready to run…” my focus drifted to my bedroom. “But not yet.”