Collared for a Night (Crimson Romance) (18 page)

She laughed. “I wanted to see if you’d make me do as you wanted.”

“Don’t tempt me to teach you a lesson on top of what I already have in store for you. Seeing that pretty little ass of yours painted crimson would be too surreal for words.”

He’d already marked Diana. Since yesterday, he’d fucked her without tiring. What he did bordered on savage brutality in needing to possess her, and he wanted to fuck her again. Shit, what he had in mind for later that night replaced any guilt he felt about his inability to hold back. Each orgasm exploded, rocketed through his body and out his cock, with hot, streaming semen leaving him shattered. Where the hell had his Zen sensibility gone? Right the fuck out the window.

He twisted, took hold of her roughly, and seated her on top of his lap. His cock pushed up between her legs. Achingly erect, he ignored the throbbing pulse of his member. Soon he’d be buried inside her. What was to come amounted to the erosion of any question from either of their minds — she was his.

Until another male challenged him, openly and where there were no morals or justice. Or if she left of her own volition. Until then, Diana would belong fully and completely to him. Only him. After tonight, every shift of her emerald eyes would display his possession. If it meant spanking her until her ass suffused with crimson color, then all the better that her memory would be Technicolor-brilliant. Every fucking detail emblazoned vividly within in his recollection and hers.

He wove his fingers into her hair and yanked. Automatically, this close to a run, she bared her teeth and hissed without thought. Both of them were a hairsbreadth from shifting. Teeth and eyes were already catlike. Their rosette markings were dark black against a rose-golden background.

“Kiss me one last time before we leave,” he said, his voice harsh and demanding.

She sighed, pouting, and said, “Be gentle this last time.”

His chest hammered. How did she know he craved the time when he could display the torment she imposed, leaving him unstable and vulnerable? He released his grasp on her hair, and rubbed his hands down her back, stopping to graze the swell of her ass cheeks where he was certain his relief would be found. Without warning, she slipped from his grasp.

She inched back away from him off the bed, cocking her brow, hands planted at her hips. “Should I demand you catch me first? Or better yet … make me.” She turned from facing him, her body rippling in shredded, lithe beauty.

Her eyes flashed, mocking him to the core. To get hold of her required that he still his body. Even his thoughts would give him away. He centered himself, pushing forward even though he was seated. Calf muscles tightened, and he slightly rose up onto the balls of his feet. Behind half-closed eyes he noted the direction of her gaze and, more importantly, how she oriented her body, slightly toward the doorway. The fuzzy world receded, leaving her to become his locked-on target. One thought — and he had her. Reaching out to put her off balance while his body moved in the opposite direction, he careened into her direct path.

“No fair,” she squealed. “Let me go.”

“That was your second mistake,” he said, lifting her arms above her head. Naked and open to him, she’d have no choice but to give in to hunger. He leisurely licked along the side of her neck where he’d already marked her heavily. As he lowered his head, he brought her arms down and secured them behind her. Diana’s form rippled in his arms--graceful, fluid, serpentine movements to curve her torso across his upper body. He pulled her wrists firmly behind her, pressing her firm, high breasts up against his chest.

“Your first mistake was believing I’d be fair. When it comes to having you … baby, I’m not playing some game. If there are rules, I’ll break every one of them to get to you. That’s my promise. I get you in the end. I’ll destroy anything — anyone — that stands in my way.”

No more words. Syllables spoken were useless. He kissed her in a way that left them both breathless. He kissed her to remember. He kissed her to make sure she’d find her way back. He kissed hello, not goodbye.

• • •

Stepping onto the damp, dew-covered ground, he observed the earth was just beginning to cool in the evening air. He lifted his muzzle to sniff the air. Thoughts swirled around him, none of which he wanted to consider. In leopard form, he was free to just be. He snapped his tail, impatient for Diana to begin the ascent up the first level of cliffs.

He gazed upward along the western side of the mountain ridge. If she was going to complete her training, she’d need to make this climb unfettered and navigating on her own, defining herself as an alpha worthy of respect. Her scent and sound would carry across the air and then be carried further in messages by other Rocky Mountain shifters with access to this mountain range. The hairs all over his skin itched with the sense of wariness and need to protect her. He closed his eyes against the truth. If only this was a traditional chase for them.

Shawn peered into the night sky and panted to taste the air, thoroughly savoring wisps of Diana’s scent. The experience was akin to sipping wine, her fragrance of leopardess musk so sweet and intoxicating. He held back from caterwauling. If he distracted her during a leap, she might miss her destination.

There, he heard her. Her low, muted growl echoing up the side of the sheer granite wall that lay before them. From the sound of her, she’d be somewhat north of his location. She’d more than likely been loping to have gotten that far from where Tristen and Fin had dropped them off.

A narrow, naturally carved path could be found if she followed her leopard intuition. Tristen had worked with her for hours, untangling her neural pathways he’d said were fried or burnt. He laid down new tracks, repairing what he could. Before leaving, Tristen had said Diana needed more work but she’d do fine, more than fine, tonight.

Shawn raced through the terrain, claws digging into the moist detritus, clods of earth spewing as he tore up the distance between Diana and him. Prickly rose caught in his coat, scratching his nose, and making him blink. At the end of a patch of shale, bristling reed grass swayed. He leapt over and into the gravelly stretch that brought him out into the open, away from the line of trees, a border defining where they’d begin climbing sandstone foothills.

It was a great warm-up for him, allowing the burn to loosen his muscles, and he readapted to leopard form. He brought his back paws to meet his forepaws, before bursting into a leap driving him upward onto a low-lying ledge. He inhaled. Diana had left her mark. His pulse skyrocketed from a rush of adrenaline. She’d made it to the first point, over two miles from their drop-off and was in front of him, nearly able to outdistance him. But he’d not really tried — had he? Rocky debris scattered under his paws. He left claw marks on the side of the broken boulders.

A canopy of white spruce covered the sky again, and the air condensed in the moisture-laden upper foothills. Shawn’s speed increased as his step lightened. As his muscles worked out the knots leftover from his human form, he was pure power racing up the hills. A snarl let loose from his throat to let Diana know she was not alone. In quick response, her echoing hiss relayed to him she didn’t need his help. Even in leopard form, his mouth pulled tight against his fangs before he had to choose between jumping right or left. It was not enough to follow behind her; he knew he must almost circle around, coming up on her flank, to overtake her as well as protect her. His best plan was to sweep forward without her knowing it.

This time of year was ripe for mating. Bears were thick as pine needles, as were cougars roaming higher up. Mountain lions stayed on the lowdown but wouldn’t think twice about attacking a leopard out for a hunt coming upon a den or litter.

He paused, contracting his body, then, effortless in streamlined fortitude, leapt and landed on a nearby ledge ten feet to his left. Continuing to climb, he surreptitiously moved away from Diana. This action was both nerve-wracking and electrifying. Scanning the upward slope only yards away, Shawn quickly realized this was not a path he was unaccustomed to taking. In leaving her to the path of leopards, he’d taken another, unmarked course.

The clouds streamed over the sky. The darkness gave away again, displaying ledges that wound upward, rich with drops and missing sections. Rocks gave way without warning, tumbling down the hillside. He slowed his gait, squinting to follow the maze of centuries-old carved rock, not wanting to blindly head down a course only to dead-end — or worse, leap into an abyss that had nothing to do with the sweet softness between Diana’s legs.

A crashing howl of wolves, Tristen and Fin were home. Alerting the mountainside to stay back. He shook his head at his worrywart staff.

Coming down the path, he ran over the last part of shale, noticing the change in terrain. Small rock and sandy dirt lay underneath his paws. He jumped up to the overhang above his head, then leapt again, zigzagging a hopscotch pattern until he was well into the rugged alpine landscape.

Water dripped down the side of the mountain, cutting away micromillimeters one at a time until gorges formed in these bedrock exposures. The side of the mountain twisted as his breath did, not from exertion but from the elevation. There were fewer trees up along this side of the mountain. A few stragglers, willows and a few heather trees, but for the most part low-lying scrub.

Rocks pelted his fur from above. Then more, followed by loose, larger rock from somewhere up the side of the mountain. He had to get off this ledge, and fast. He could jump down and continue a descent or try to reach the next ledge over. Without considering anything but getting closer to Diana, he leapt the twenty feet, tearing his claws into the side of the ledge as he struck the edge mid-belly.

His back paws scraped at air, then he began to slide backward. All he had was upper body strength to pull himself up and over the side. To move forward, he had to let go with one paw. He roared in frustration, snapping his claws up and then forward, hauling his lower body upward. Again he released his opposite paw, clawing madly into sheer rock, tearing grooves into the ground. His claws gripped and stopped sliding backward, and he pulled himself upward, his back paw latching onto the side of the cliff. He dug into the rock with his claws while using his tail for balance. One last effort to claw and hoist himself upward, and he stretched, coming fully on top of the ledge. He glanced back over his shoulder as a stream of rock and gravel fell onto the other ledge, followed by larger rocks, the size of bowling balls, which began raining and gouging the cliffs below. That would have been him buried under a ton of rubble had he not leapt. He turned and sprinted, moving upward along the ridge. Near the top, he stopped to gauge his distance from the house and Diana. Up here, along the western slope, Douglas fir spotted the landscape.

His attention riveted on a series of low-level growls. His ears tugged forward, twitched, and if he could forcibly capture the sounds at will he’d sit stone-still for as long as it took. A tiger salamander skittered near his front paw. He searched the landscape that lay in front of him, his fur ruffed in agitation. A snarl fell from his lips. He issued a growl, loud and deep, aimed to alert Diana. He listened. Nothing.

The sounds he’d heard were coming from the thicket in front of him, about two hundred yards off. Christ, he wondered if black bears would find her scent as appealing as he did. Fuck, those greedy bastards ate anything in sight. Some were mean-spirited, just for the hell of it. They screwed with campers for no other reason than they could. They were fucking alligators with mangy fur and he detested dealing with them in the realm of business or under the canopy of a pine forest.

For fucking once, he wondered where in the hell was nanny goat one and two who seemed incapable of leaving him in peace. He swore a vow that he’d nail Tristen and Fin’s hides to the wall when he returned home. On that thought, Shawn savagely tore through the juniper and bitterbrush, not caring that his eyelids were scratched. He swept a heavy-handed growl from the back of his throat and he hurled it up and out of his mouth, aimed to gather the attention of Tristen and Fin to this emergency.

Diana was near black bears on a rampage. These wild bears had been spotted out along one of the Southern ridges. So far no one had been able to track them or capture them. They tended to stay hidden along the South slope and hadn’t trespassed on his land long enough to hunt them down. Until now.

He disliked this form of profiling, but these bears were not part of the greater ecosystem of the Rocky Mountains. They were outcasts, scavengers, and had come from God-knew-where. They reminded him of human misfits, where being part of the group meant everything in an attitude of
either-you-are-with-us-or-against-us.

A lilting snarl and hiss filled his head and white-lightning concern crackled up his spine. Echoes of bears growling ripped at his bowels, forcing him to race, not run, over the terrain. The wind was swimming over him, keeping his scent hidden. The sound of Diana kept him from forging ahead thoughtlessly. He crept along the brush, totally hidden.

He could easily have leapt up into the pine tree at his shoulder to assess the situation. But then the bear clan would be informed of his presence, making them giddy with stupidity. Attention reinforced their actions, for most of them were based on a delight in thwarting authority.

Shawn being the owner of this part of the mountain would prompt them into further acts of violence and it wasn’t his safety for which he worried. Before, he would have taken the proper channels to settle a dispute. Taking the higher road demonstrated that he believed in justice. That was before he had to consider Diana’s welfare.

Well, fuck justice when it came to Diana. He’d deal in what he believed was fair. And that didn’t include taking prisoners, names, or excuses. He opened a can of whip-ass and intended to spread it on thick. Shawn watched, ready to tear through the low-lying shrubs, but he didn’t see Diana anywhere. Her scent was here; she was here. Somewhere. He studied the three large, male black bears standing with their backs to him. He padded through the thicket, noiselessly, and then he heard her before seeing her. The bears edged apart and, in front of him, Diana’s voice struck him deeper than a blade to his heart. Hissing, her ears back, baring her teeth, she hunched her back up, head down, and eyes so heated sparks should have blasted forth.