Dark Wolf (Shadow Pack Book 1) (11 page)

“I have known you all of my life, Katie Duncan,” he said, and he watched her gulp hearing her name on his tongue. “I know your smile, though lately you haven’t shared it nearly enough. I know that you have an unholy lust for huevos rancheros and Cast Iron Bloody Marys. I know I have seen you in my dreams most of my life and want nothing more than to wake up over and over as tangled up in you as I was this morning. And I don’t know much about your stepfather, but I suspect he and I have one thing in common; neither of us wants to ever let you go. I am not accustomed to losing, so he’ll have to give you up.” He grimaced. “I don’t mind making him give you up, either.”

A bitter smile crossed her lips. “God, David. You’ve already been wounded twice because of me,” she said, indicating his shoulder. “How long did it take Bill to dig the bullet out of that wound? And don’t tell me that it’s already partially healed or that it didn’t hurt. Ambrose will
never
leave me alone, David. He is a man possessed, and he truly believes that I belong to him. If you are within breathing distance of me, he will kill you, like he has everyone else who cared for me.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “If he kills you, there will be another death on my tally sheet. I can’t take any more. I endangered Frank by coming here, and now, because of some hormonal urge, I am endangering you. I’ll never forgive myself if you are hurt again. And if I ever feel you as a part of me, I’ll never be able to let you go. That is why we can’t do this. It hurts to have you this close to me.”

“You’ll never be able to let me go?” His breath whispered through her hair as his trembling hands clutched her tighter.

∙•∙

“Never.” She was a lousy liar, so she might as well tell the truth as far as possible. She’d never be able to let him go, at least in her heart. She was sure her eyes were like those of the proverbial deer in the headlights at the moment.

“Good,” he said firmly, just before he crushed her lips with his own.

Once again Katie was on fire in a millisecond. She tried to push him away by placing her hands on his chest, but her inner spirit and her golden wolf would not be denied. Her hands refused to push, instead fastening themselves around his neck. A furious hot ache rose and spread through her body. With a sob, she pressed herself furiously against the heated wall of muscle that made up the body of David Finn. His cock was rock hard and bulged beneath the safety of his jeans, but she instinctively ground her aching pussy against it anyway, taking in the heat, letting it pulse through her until her clit was twitching underneath her own restrictive jeans.

He lifted her shirt over her head, exposing her breasts to his hands and lips. Her heart hammering loud enough to be audible, Katie did not bother to protest. It was too late for anything but what she had known would happen since early that morning. She arched her back as his mouth fed on her breasts, sending lightning throbs of sensation through her body. His hands encompassed her waist entirely as he lowered himself to his knees to nuzzle her flat stomach. Working the zipper of her jeans, he finally freed her and pulled down the denim along with her thong, effortlessly hooking it with a finger as he slid both garments down her legs. She stood nude in the glow of the firelight, her body trembling from his caresses. David’s mouth began a slow descent as her knees began to buckle. He gently palmed her pussy, running his fingers across her clit again and again.

The intimacy of his touch turned the sensual ache to agony. The heat of his tongue found her folds, and he buried his face in her body to drink deeply. Katie clutched his shoulders to hold herself upright as her knees threatened to buckle, careful to avoid grasping his injured shoulder. She ran her fingers through his thick hair. It hurt her to think of his wound, but then, thinking was no longer something she could do easily. Everything had become a sensation—a monstrous need that felt his every move and urged him on. She surged and writhed in his large hands that massaged her ass and pushed her onto his merciless mouth and tongue. Helpless, she realized she was rhythmically gasping from his assault, and at the moment she was to shatter, he stopped, leaving Katie struggling for breath. Pulling her to the floor in front of the fire, David gently laid her down on the soft rug and sat back to view her already sweat-soaked naked form.

“God, you’re beautiful.” David spoke in a husky whisper with tones that promised more than Katie could ever ask for. He pulled his shirt over his head and stripped off his jeans, never breaking eye contact with her.

He was incredible, from his thick dark hair and craggy face to his hard flat stomach and muscled brown legs. Katie tried not to stare at the rigid cock that stood out proudly from his thighs. She had known it was good-sized from feeling its length against her body that morning, but now, she was not sure she could do this. She had not had many sexual encounters, and the last one had been years ago. Being on the run was not conducive to getting laid. She tried to hide the panic she felt with a weak smile. “You’re not that hard on the eyes yourself.” For the first time in a long time, she swallowed her fears, and instead, embraced the anticipation of loving him as he descended upon her, a predator to the end.

And I’m the hunted
, she thought, instantly rebelling in her soul.

∙•∙

He read the expression on her face instantly. “You know we fit together, Katie, you know it’ll be good.” David lowered the length of his flesh onto hers, covering every possible inch of her exposed skin that he could with his own, melding them together. He started when she caught at his lips to begin her own invasion with her tongue, wringing moans from deep inside him. Her hands boldly ran up and down the muscles of his back and ass, exploring every inch. Whenever she came near the bandages, Katie’s hands hesitated and then slid around them. Her hips bucked underneath him, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, surging upward to let his cock slide into her heat. She stifled a scream as her body rippled with violent need.

Holding her in his dark gaze, David gave an animal growl and plunged into her tightness balls deep, held himself fully sheathed in her body for a moment, and then pulled back to surge forward again. Beneath him, Katie rose to meet him, matching his movements, making tiny mewling sounds, tightening her already strained muscles until he thought he would lose his mind as well as his heart.

∙•∙

The pressure quickly built to a crescendo with their desperate need, the heated friction of his cock sliding hard against her sensitive skin over and over, filling her, each exquisite stroke bringing her closer to the edge of a metaphysical cliff until finally, after one deliciously suspended moment, she shattered. A scream tore from her lips as his body violently joined hers, spurting jets of his cum into her depths, filling her. He growled once more before collapsing around her, still deep inside her folds and deeper inside her spirit. Bound.

Katie lay silent, her head against his chest listening to the thunder of his heart. She hadn’t asked him about birth control. She’d never had to worry about disease or getting pregnant with her human boyfriends because of her wolf’s blood. It was too late to question him now, and she didn’t have the time anyway. As soon as he slept, she would have to be gone. She smiled sleepily.
I might as well tire him out
.

They lay entwined for several moments until he rolled to the side and pulled her into the circle of his arms, locking them around her. She basked in the heat of his body. She stretched like a cat, feeling like she could purr. “What are you smiling at, wolf princess?”

“I was thinking about what I’m going to do to you tonight,” she rejoined without hesitation. His eyes glittered in the firelight and turned from soft to predatory.

David sucked in a gulp of air as she turned and climbed on top of him, leaving her legs on either side of his hips. “Uh…I hope you mean that in a good way—” he bit off his sentence to grit his teeth as she slowly ran her tongue over his chest, centering on his right nipple and biting down gently.

“That depends on how much stamina you have, wolf man. It might be good…” she nipped him a bit harder on his earlobe, “and it might be a bit…painful.”

∙•∙

“Don’t you want to do that woman thing and lay here and talk after sex? Don’t you want to try to suck me into a conversation about our future?” He suddenly choked off with a guttural gasp since she had slid down to his cock, gently skimming her teeth over the sensitive crown as she caressed and stroked his balls. It was his turn to writhe as she nibbled and nipped at his large body, finally sliding his cock into the heat of her mouth after laving it and stroking it to a painful size. First she sucked him gently and then with increasing force as she continued to play with his body.

He couldn’t believe how much he needed to drive into her again so soon after their first coupling. If she kept this up, he wasn’t going to be able to walk. Her hot mouth pulled at him as he buried his hands in the pile of silky hair about his waist. With a moan, he pulled her up and lost control completely at the sight of her wild golden mane and her blazing eyes. She placed one finger on his lips and pulled him toward her.

“It is time you made love to me like a wolf, David.” She turned her slim back to him and crawled onto all fours in the center of the sheepskin. David could barely take a breath as he mounted her in the oldest tradition of their people and, in one deep stroke, drove his cock into her still dripping pussy from behind. He shouted as he slid himself into place and began to slowly thrust against her soft ass, running his hands around and over her breasts. His thrusts built in tension and speed until he was pounding against the soft flesh, flexing to push every inch of himself deeper and deeper to mark his mate, to make this woman his own.

He gasped as he felt himself come in time with her, and they both collapsed again to lay silent, their bodies tangled together. Then they slept as the snow softly fell in the velvet night outside of the windows of Hawkeye Manor.

On Seven Devils Island, a storm had appeared in the dawn of a new day. The black clouds were assembled, impatiently waiting to come inland. The sea was black and angry beyond the houses on the island. It was hungry for them.

In the softly glowing library of the antebellum mansion that perched on the highest point of the island, Ambrose’s eyes shone as he examined the luminescent blue liquid in the ampule the smaller man had handed to him on his arrival in the residence. “This is the serum? The key to becoming a werewolf?”

“It is our latest batch, and it has much promise, sir. We tested it on our newest volunteers, and the results were fantastic. We do need more work, and we need to observe any aftereffects, but I believe we are truly there.” Williams was genuinely excited, glorying in the joy of pure science so much that the deaths of his test subjects or the use to which Ambrose would put the serum did not bother him overmuch.

“More time? I don’t think so, Doctor. I have invited some guests to dine tonight, and they will be very interested to see the preliminary results now. It could be a very profitable evening.”

“You could parade some of the successful test subjects in front of them.”

∙•∙

“Tell me more about the effects of this serum, Williams. I think we are going to need something more spectacular for the Chinese.” Ambrose’s exterior was the picture of calm power, but inside he was rejoicing. As the little geek prattled on about the dangers of not proceeding with caution, Ambrose’s mind wandered, too busy to pay attention to the scientist’s words. He would soon be one of the most powerful and wealthiest men on the planet. Plus, his men were finally in position to capture Katie. Hawkeye Manor was impressive, Kane had reported, but there was nowhere for her to run. Strange. Kane had not been able to gather very much information about the owners of Hawkeye Manor. It did not matter. Soon they would be dead and his stepdaughter brought to the island where, if she didn’t behave herself, Katie would spend the rest of her life. Damn, he was hard just thinking about her. For now, he would again vent his spleen on one of the prostitutes he kept at the estate. Katie would want him now that he was one of her people, he was sure of it. If she still resisted her fate…unfortunately, he would have to break the beautiful spirit inside of her. He could not wait any longer to taste her body. After all, it did belong to him.

»»•««

The golden wolf stood silent in the early dark of dawn and listened. Her pursuers were closing in, which was exactly what she wanted. Escaping from Hawkeye Manor was a simple matter of turning off the alarms and walking out the front door. She had taken one last look at David’s house before turning away. The icicle teeth that hung from the eaves of the pitched roof looked as if they were about to suck the house into the depths of some unspeakable creature’s stomach. She stood framed in the moonlight for a moment, examining the surrounding night. She was immediately aware of a presence awake in the darkness.

She knew no one would bother the people in the house once she was gone. She was the one they were hunting. She always had been. No one else would die for her. It was long past time for her to become the hunter, though that meant getting her pursuers to take her to her prey.

It had taken everything she had inside her to turn and leave the man she had bonded with for life. Her mate. She stalked down the halls of the great lodge, a nude shadow, gathering her lost power and anger. There could be no surrogate for her when it came to Ambrose. Katie Duncan would be the instrument of his death, or she would die trying. The running was over.

The wind blew their scent to her. They were close. She stood frozen, waiting for the familiar pain of the dart. There had been many moments like this in her life, but for the first time, she welcomed being hunted. The fury in Katie’s heart over the victimization of her people overrode any fear. She began to wonder if she would have to jump up and down in front of one of their sights to get them to go for the shot when a silent projectile slammed into her side and she fell into the soft snow. A group of shadowy figures arose from behind the trees to survey their catch. The stupid, smelly one spoke first.