Southern Shifters: Fast & Furless (Kindle Worlds Novella) (5 page)

Alek moved to Brita and pulled her off to the side. “Are you sure about this?” He searched her gaze as he stroked his thumb along her wrist needing the contact with her for his own sanity, even if she didn’t need it.

“Yes,” she whispered. Even though everyone would have been able to pick up on her voice. “I need answers.”

The urge to draw her into his arms and hold her, let her know that everything would be alright no matter what happened assailed him. However, he didn’t do it. “I’m here.”

She started to pull her arm from his hold. “You really don’t have to be—”

“Yes, I do,” he growled. He needed her to hear she wasn’t pushing him away. “I’m here,” he stated more firmly this time. Pulling her in, he wrapped his arms around her and buried his nose in her neck, filling his mind with her scent.

For the first few seconds she just stood there, her arms at her side. Finally, he heard her soft sigh just before her arms slipped around his shoulders and held him. It was brief. They possibly only stood like that for a full sixty seconds, but it was enough. She caressed the ends of his hair briefly before breaking away.

He shivered and felt his cock and heart stir at the small gesture. Their night had meant something to her, even if she couldn’t or wouldn’t acknowledge it.

“Gotta go.” She walked off.

Turning after she went into the room were Niki had disappeared and closed the door, he located his cousins where they sat in the line of chairs against the wall.

Moving to take up the vacant seat beside Dean, he waited. Not long.

“So, what’s the deal with you and She-ra?”

Princess of power. Alek laughed at Bhric’s moniker for Brita. It fit in some ways. Shrugging, Alek didn’t know how to answer the question.

“You didn’t claim her.” Dean commented.

“I heard about how difficult your own situation was, Dean.” He tossed out at his younger cousin, keeping the hybrid from getting too puffed up in the chest about having a mate and child.

Bhric chuckled. “Dean keeping Niki shook up the two territories and the neutral zone.”

“Shove it, Bhric.” Dean shot a heated look at his brother. “It’s a done deal now. That’s all that counts.”

“With a little one to show for your mating.” Alek glanced at Dean. “Where is your daughter?”

Dean’s eyes lit up, and he almost looked bashful as his cheeks filled with color. Damn. How could a little one break a man down so completely? His cousin was a fierce hybrid, quick to take on and take down any opponent in his path, but the thought of a tiny little cub could make him go all soft.
What the hell?

Alek’s gut ached. He craved what Dean had.

“She’s with her godfather. Calder loves spending time with her.” Dean went on to say, “He’s a huge guy, but is gentle with her and a great cub-sitter.”

“I don’t know how he got to be godfather,” Bhric griped.

“Because you got automatic uncle rights,” Dean countered.

Alek tuned out his cousins joshing and thought about just how done of a deal Dean had gotten. His mind could not help but think of what Brita would look like swollen with his child. If she didn’t allow him to even mark her, which would need to be done between shifters for her to be primed to even conceive, would she want his child? Fuck. He didn’t even know if she’d stay around once she got some answers to all her questions.

He rubbed a hand over his head. He wasn’t even staying around, not for much longer. Sooner or later he’d have to answer the call of the alpha. In his heart he cared too deeply for his prowl not to step up. He wanted the best for them. Wanted to see them prosper, stay safe and out of the prying eyes of the humans as best they could.

With the leadership position, he’d need a mate—offspring. No other alpha had assumed that position alone. That was part of the reason he had decided to leave. Clear his head. There hadn’t been anyone he wanted to sink his teeth into—claim. Then along came Brita.

His jaguar tossed him back to the night before. He thought about them on the kitchen table. The taste of her was still on his tongue. When he’d buried his cock deep inside of her, until there was no end to their connection, he’d wanted to seal that bond. Just like in the woods. However, he’d restrained himself. It took every ounce of his will power to fit the feline within. When Brita had licked along the tips of his canines. When he’d tasted her blood and it had mixed with his essence he’d almost come inside her. Together they were both savory and bitter. He coveted it again, more full-bodied next time. There would be a next time.

“Um, cuz, you need me to call Niki out of the room so you can use it with Brita?” Dean knocked knees with him.

Alek shot a questioning glance at his cousins.

Bhric tapped his own teeth. “You’re going a little feral over there.”

Licking over his teeth, Alek realized he’d dropped his incisor. “Shi-et.” The curse came out jumbled around his teeth. He took a breath and reigned himself in.

Dean and Bhric let out barking laughs at his expense.

~YH~

“What do we have here?” Simon’s keen stare pinned her, as he walked into the room and closed the door.

Brita would have assumed that the wolf-shifter would have looked at Niki first. Instead he was moving closer to her, sniffing and analyzing all at the same time.

She stepped back and bumped into the table Niki had tried to convince her to sit on. However, Brita wasn’t familiar with hospitals and doctors. Fighters and tackle professionals, yes. This man set her nerves off more than those others had. And they could have killed her with one blow.

“I brought you a treat,” Niki teased. “This is Brita, Doc.”

“A hybrid.” The man leaned in to her and sniffed again. “She’s like you. Unique, queer, an anomaly of science.”

Growling, Brita stepped toward the man. She hated that word. She wanted to rip the medical shifter’s head off his shoulders. Enough people had called her an oddity, the last thing she needed was someone else joining in.

The male didn’t even balk at her advancement, instead he whipped out a pen light from the top pocket of his lab coat and aimed it at her eyes.

“He doesn’t mean any offense, Brita. Trust me. As annoying as he may be,” Niki confirmed her sentiments.

“Where did she come from? I thought I’d met all of your siblings. Ah,” he ordered.

Brita complied with a frown.

“Well, I’m not sure if she is one.” Niki moved up beside him and stared into her mouth as well. Even though the female didn’t look the least bit curious about what was in her mouth.

“Sit.” He canted his head toward the papered tabled.

“I’m not a dog.” Brita’s fists went to her hips.

The annoying male sniffed again. “Oh, I beg to differ. That’s significant notes saying you have traits in you.”

Rolling her eyes, Brita hopped up on the table with a smooth leap.

“So, where did you come from?” Simon closed his eyes as he asked.

She was sure the doctor was picking up on the rhythm of her heartbeat. “Texas.” Brita answered.

“The government,” Niki added.

Simon’s lids lifted. “Really?” He took hold of her jaw and turned it from left to right, taking in everything from her ears to her collarbone. “Why were you with the government?”

In an instant, she had the doctor pinned face first to the door, both his arms locked at the wrist in her one handed grasp while she had the syringe from his pocket against his carotid artery in his neck. “I’m trained to kill.”

“Daaamn,” Niki cheered behind her. “I thought I was fast.”

“I see.” Simon responded. His heart had kicked up in pace, but he still remained calm.

Stepping away from the male, Brita released him then held out his instrument to him.

Turning, Simon smiled, his eyes brighter than they had been when he first entered the room and spotted her. He took the syringe back. “This is going to be fun.”

Brita was shocked to see the wolf practically prancing on his toes in excitement.

“If you’ll excuse me for a moment, I need to get my team together. We’re going to need a few more vials for blood.” He exited.

Crossing her arms under her breasts, Brita glanced at Niki who sat on the stool appearing to be having way too much fun observing the situation. “Is he always like this?”

“Always. At times I’m not so sure that he’s not mad.” Niki sighed. “However, I’ve had my dealings with insane scientists and a crazy sibling for that matter. Simon wants the best for shifters and hybrids. So, I can take his zealousness in doses.”

Brita nodded.

The door opened moments later and Simon returned with two females who resembled Niki, smelling just as complex. One of them pushed a cart with all kinds of medical gadgets on it.

“Good news,” Niki rose. “You get to meet my sisters who work here with the
good
doctor.”

Shocked, Brita stared at the two woman before her.

“What are we looking at in timeframe, Doc?” Niki asked as Simon held the last of eleven tubes of blood in his hand, twirling it left and right to keep the blood from coagulating.

Brita pushed down the sleeve of her blouse. She picked up on the anxious tones in Niki’s voice. The other female seemed just as anxious as she did to discover the truth that lay within Brita’s body. Brita felt a connection with the woman just on this basic level alone.

“A day maybe two for preliminary results. We have enough of your DNA and your sisters on file to start there for a base line and see what matches and what doesn’t.” Simon backed up toward the door left open by Niki’s sisters when they left with all the specimens they’d collected from Brita.

Simon turned to walk out and almost collided with Alek who walked up to the door with Dean and Bhric in tow.

“Ah, the mates,” Simon commented. “She can leave now.”

He’s not my mate.

“You said that awful fast.” Niki chuckled as she moved close to Dean who stepped into the room.

Alek stared past the other doctor’s shoulder, his sunglow eyes flashing with heat.

She shivered in response. Brita’s mind recalled the taste of him last night and how much she had yearned to feel his teeth in her. Marking her.
No
.

“What?” Alek asked.

Brita glanced over at Niki who was too busy canoodling with Dean to meet her gaze. She hadn’t even recalled speaking. However, at the moment she was so stressed and tired, all her defenses were lower than they’d ever been since she’d learned as an adolescent how to guard and mask her scent and thoughts.

“Ah, neophytes. Have you learned nothing from me?” Simon shook his head and groaned in annoyance. “Mating has more to do with genetic matching than biting. The bite is only the conduit to the biological psyche that already exist. You can’t force a mating. Sadly, some do,” he shook his head absentmindedly. ”It doesn’t last. Never lasts, too easy to break…” Grumbling something about silk purses and swine ears Simon went on his way leaving everyone in his wake dumbfounded.

Brita wasn’t sure what the wolf was talking about and was too worn out to even try to figure it out at the moment.

“That male needs to learn to speak shifter.” Bhric called out down the hall to Simon’s retreating form.

“How about something to eat and some rest? Since you have time.” Alek walked over to her. “Unless you were going to head back to Pigeon Forge until the results came in.”

She hadn’t considered leaving. That shocked her. However, she chalked it up to being focused on being so close to getting some answers.

He was close to her, less than a foot, but didn’t touch her. She could still feel his the heat of his body.

“Food and rest sound great.” After all the medicinal smells during the last hour, Brita drew in Alek’s musk, a balm to her tired senses.

“Let’s get out of here.” He glanced over at his cousins and Niki. “We’ll catch up with you all later. If you happen to hear from the doc before we do, let us know.”

“Will do,” Bhric agreed, since Niki and Dean were too involved in each other to respond. “I’m going to let these two have the room and head out myself. They can walk home after they markup this place.”

Dean’s hands had found their way beneath Niki’s shirt, as Niki licked along her mate’s bottom lip.

Brita noted that hybrid-shifters seemed to be free in their sexuality. Public and private. In a military environment, especially in a deployed setting, there was very little opportunity for coitus. People had to engage in a clandestine manner. She’d done it a time or two. However, after the last incident had become very public when her partner ended up in the hospital and subsequently medevaced back to the states, she leashed her sexual appetite. Until Alek.

The three of them headed out, closing the door behind them. Brita wondered if it was like that for all mates. She desired Alek greatly. But, Niki and Dean seemed incapable of being more than an arm’s reach away from each other. When they were close they couldn’t tamp down the need for each other.

She tried a covert glance in Alek’s direction. He caught her look since he was staring at her even as he moved with confident strides through the medical facility and out the front door.

A shiver raced through her and her nipples tightened. Maybe I can understand how Niki feels.

~YH~

“You’re some kind of grill master.” Brita brought out the fresh slices of pineapples from the kitchen to where he stood before the charcoal grill in Dean’s backyard.

Shifters of all species preferred the smell of charcoal and wood chips to the acrid scent of propane gas. The pungent odor tended to make them dizzy and nauseated.

He’d directed Brita to the butcher and farmers market on the way back from the clinic. After everything she’d been through that day, he’d wanted to feed her more than just soup and sandwich, and he had no desire to share her with others if he took her to a restaurant.
Selfish. Hell yes.

Alek took the plate from her and smiled. “I try to be. Winter will be on us soon this year, so the days I can get out and do it are coming to a minimal.”

She lifted her head toward the sky and took in the grayness of the midday fall sky. The air was crisp and a soft breeze ruffled the loose strands of her ponytail. When she’d come down the stairs in the clothes Niki loaned her, Brita had pulled her hair back into the severe hold again. He wanted to snap that band off as he’d done the last one, but he kept his claw retracted.

He enjoyed seeing her wild and free too much. That same light gust of wind was carrying her heady scent right to his nose. It wasn’t making it any easier for him to not think about carrying her into the house and fucking her. Better yet, he could have her out of her clothes in a flash then take her to the grass under their feet. He loved the smell of her wet pussy and outdoors. The woods had been a prime place.

If she was his, he’d take her into the thickets twice a day and bury his cock inside her. His dick throbbed.

She quivered next to him. He was sure she had detected his arousal. Hell, had most likely scented it before they left the Comyn clinic. But, she kept her gaze fixed on the sizzling meat.

Returning his own focus to the grill, he flipped the thick steaks once to check the sear on the other side of the rare meat. Removing it from the grate, he placed it on the plate he brought out earlier. The pineapples didn’t take more than a couple minutes on each side and he was pulling them off. The corn on the cob, silk removed, was steamed perfectly in its own husk. They were the last to come off.

“Ready to eat?”

“Oh, yes.” She led the way to the patio furniture Dean had out there. They already had drinks, plates and utensils there.

She took a spot at the table, and Alek settled in one beside her on the four person setting. After they divvied up the food, Brita went for the steak first while he sank his teeth into the sweet, juicy corn.

They were more than halfway done with their meal before Brita spoke. “Tell, me about your prowl. The people. The area. What’s it like?”

He figured she was asking about the connection he had with his family and the members. Her voice was low, monotone. But, he wasn’t fooled. This line of questioning meant something to her. To a woman who’d been designed, in a way, like any other tool or weapon, the government neglected the one major aspect of life. The intimate connection with others. How Brita had been treated was a perfect example on why hybrids and shifters kept to themselves—existing below the radar of human society where they could.

“It’s great. My parents have been mated since the year before I was born. My father’s the Zusmen Prowl Alpha. I have three sisters, all younger. I’m sure the one under me will be mated by the time I return home. A full-blooded jaguar was already stalking and sniffing around her when I left. Other than us, there are about twenty-six adults in all.”

“That’s a big family,” she marveled. She picked up her soda then drank.

“The area where we live is like this. Except we are much closer to the Appalachian, at the base. There’s a state park and lake about thirty miles from us. We do a lot of late night swimming as a prowl. I think that’s one of the things I’m missing most here. Most of the businesses in our community are an off shoot of someone’s home, like Bhric’s bar.”

“In Pigeon Forge I worked at a tourist store and restaurant. I actually learned to cook there.” She smiled and there was pride in her eyes. “It’s the first thing I’d ever done that didn’t require someone to be dead at the end.”

“Hm. How’s your cooking again?” he teased.

She laughed, hard and loud. It broke off then started again.

Alek had the sense that was the first time anyone had ever ribbed her. She seemed shocked and happy all at the same time.

“You may be right. Since our place is a quick stop for tourists, I could be serving up food poisoning and never know it.”

“Well, to be on the safe side, I’ll do the cooking while we’re here.” He took a swig from his own soda.

“Deal.”

He enjoyed seeing that light in her eyes. Since he’d met her, she was either contemplative or aggressive. Seeing her so relaxed and charming set his blood to blazing. He wanted to see more of that joy. Wanted to see it turn to passion.

“If everyone runs a business, then what’s yours?” She took a gulp of her drink then lowered it and licked her lips.

Transfixed by the movement of her nimble tongue, his response was perfunctory, “Hardware. I do all the electrical service work as well.”

“Handling wires can be tricky, but I’ve always enjoyed it.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “You’ve done electrical work?”

“Defusing bombs and security systems mostly.”

“Ah.” He nodded. “I bet you have some interesting situations you’ve been in.”

“Some.” She turned away from him. That blank stare was back in her eyes as she glanced toward the copse of trees.

Probably more not so interesting and possibly horrific. It made him angry that the government would use her in such a way. They had built a dam that wrecked her life.

Wanting to get them back on the relaxed playful ground, he asked, “What would you like to do the rest of the day?” He rested back in his seat then pushed it back so he could stretch his legs out alongside her chair, and observed her.

Her gaze slowly returned to his as the last tendrils of despondency faded from her eyes. “What are my choices?”

“Going for a run. Heading to the bar across the way for drinks. There’s a theater in the next county over if you’re up for a movie.”

She sat in her chair, her gaze never leaving his. She was still, unmoving.

He wondered which idea would take root. Then he smelled the shift on the breeze and his dick hardened and stretched to full attention.

Rising, she kept her gaze on him. “Your ideas were nice. However, I had something else in mind.”

There really wasn’t a reason for him to ask his next question, but during all of their interaction she had never been the initiator. “What’s that?”

Before he could complete his next breath, she was before him nude. Even her naughty boots were gone. Damn, her expeditious movements were a beauty to behold in motion. “Fucking.”

“I like how you think.” He reached for her. Taking her by the hips, he pulled her to his lap.

She straddled the arms of the chair and rested her ass in his lap. “I scented that you would.” She leaned in then kissed him.

The kiss was explosive on impact, causing them to clutch and grab at each other. A ripping sound rent the air. Feeling the breeze along her chest and back, he pulled away.

Brita was panting and smiling. She lifted a toned shoulder. “I owed you that for turning my clothes into shreds.”

“True.” He groaned at the heat of her touch as she caressed his chest; over his pecs, down his abs and teased along the edge of his waistband. She ground her hot sex along the zipper and over his stiff length. He growled, gripping her ass and he held her tight against him then claimed her lips again.

“I want…you inside…me,” she pleaded. Her dexterous fingers slipped beneath the band and grazed over his sensitive tip.

Damn
. “Fuck.” He wrapped one arm around her waist and lifted her with ease as he unfastened his pants and shoved them down his hips to his knees. Lowering her for a moment, he hooked her behind both of her knees then bore her weight as he brought her up again. “Put me in you, sweetness. I want that tight pussy around me, now.”

With one hand on his shoulder, she used the other to grip his cock and angled him to the spot he wanted to be most in the world. She glided him along her slit, gathering her cream around the head before pressing him inside of her.

“That’s it, take mo-re.” He voice broke as he was engulfed in her slick heat. He arched up, feeding her another inch before gliding back out.

“Oh…Alek. You feel so good.”

“I think we feel good together.” He began to lower her as he thrust again.

Both their breaths caught.

She trembled as she pumped her hips, seeking more.