The All Encompassing: Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 1) (31 page)

“No,” Tamara says. “You’re…something newly born. And very old.”

“What are your kind called?”

“Our enemies named us the Stricken. Now…things are different. Now we are evolving.”

The Night Stalker ripples close beneath my skin as I lift the black heart to my lips and feed. He brings memories of the jungle at dusk, a carpet of leaves beneath my paws, the scent of prey heavy in the hot, humid air, and me moving soundlessly toward my next victim.

Like a shadow. Like the night itself.
 

“Tell me about the red blooded,” I say, looking at the shattered glass where two red blooded men flung themselves from the penthouse as Tamara and I made our way through the audience, our claws and fangs tearing and piercing.
 

“Skins,” Tamara says, shrugging. “Weak. Short-lived. Blind to us. The Skins are prey and nothing more. They will not heal. They’re too weak to fend for themselves. But they’re cunning. They invent…machines to strengthen them. Machines that can throw metal and fire.”

“It’s the black blooded I hunger for the most,” I say, glaring at Tamara and licking my lips. “The ones like you. The…Stricken?”

“Keep it in your pants,” Tamara snaps. Then she takes a long breath, stabs her claws through the throat of a man who’s not quite dead and says, “I feel your hunger. But I think…there are others you might prey upon. My ancient enemies the Purebloods. Red blooded like the Skins, but powerful like us. Once the Purebloods were even more powerful than my kind, but that has changed. You’re a mongrel, Rodas. A bit of both. All and none. Able to consume all three species: Skins, Stricken and Pureblood.”

I motion to the dead Stricken at my feet and say, “You gave your own kind in offering to free me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Tamara walks to me, slips her arm around my waist. She’s stripped naked. Her skin, pale and smooth and lovely, brushes against mine. I’ve never felt a woman’s skin before. An odd sensation surges in my loins. It’s like wanting to offer her and wanting to consume her at the same time—

“You want to fuck me,” Tamara smiles, running her fingernails down my chest, over my taut abdomen and still lower, to the base of my stiffening cock. Her touch is warm and soft as she wraps her hand around my cock and begins stroking me.
 

A growl builds deep in my chest.
 

“That’s how you feel,” Tamara purrs. “You should tell me, though. You should say it. Say you want to fuck me.”

“I want to fuck you,” I say, leaning my head back and loosing a long, rumbling growl.

“Yes,” Tamara says as she strokes me. “I want to fuck you too,” she whispers. “Very badly.”

My cock swells still more. I pull this female offering close while her other hand slips down to cradle my testicles. A need builds in me, a deep, radiating heat stronger even than my desire to release offerings to my Night Lord.
 

I scent this woman’s cunt, warm and sweet and moist. I want to fuck her. The One I Am Slave To still demands her blood. But after today…with so many hearts already offered…he can wait until I finish with her.
 

I press down on Tamara’s shoulders, forcing her to kneel before me.

“They’re coming,” Tamara whispers, looking up at me, stroking my cock with one hand and cupping my balls with the other. “We can’t stay.”

“I want to fuck you. Now.”

Tamara smiles, squeezes my cock. “I see that,” she says, looking at my hard, throbbing cock with an appreciative gleam in her eyes. Then her smile fades. “But not now.”

“When?” I growl, digging my claws into this female’s shoulders.

Tamara winces, bites her lip, then sighs and says, “Soon, Night Lord. Very soon. I swear it.”

Tamara’s black blood runs from the scratches on her shoulder. Her eyes sparkle. “Do you want to feed from me? Only a little?”

“How?” I ask.

Tamara stands, grabs my hand, slips it between her legs and runs my fingers across her soft, wet folds. “Careful with your claws,” she breathes, pushing into me and closing her eyes and leaning her head back to expose her tender neck and pulsing jugular vein. “Retract your claws a little…please Rodas…there, like that, yes.” She moans as I work my fingers across her cunt, parting her folds. “Keep doing that…yes…don’t stop…harder…”

I slip a finger inside her warmth. My cock aches, hurting, demanding. I want to plunge my throbbing cock into this offering. Want to to stretch her wide and steal what I desire, and suddenly my need to appease The One I Am Slave To feels very far away, and my breath seizes in my throat.

“Something wrong?” Tamara says, her voice thick.
 

I shake my head.

“You deserve this, Rodas,” Tamara says. “You’ve labored alone for so long…”

I press my fingers harder into this offering’s wet cunt, then wrap my arm around her waist and pull her tight. I feel her black heart beating strong beneath her breasts, and the scent of Tamara’s desire and the sight of her heart beating make me shudder and growl, long and low and deep.
 

Tamara grips my shoulders and leans against me while I stroke her. Fine beads of sweat break out on her brow, track down through the blood smeared on her face. “Rub my fucking cunt, Night Lord. I need your beautiful fangs. Please? And that perfect cock, oh please soon—”

The woman offering’s body begins trembling. She presses hard into me, grips my wrist with both hands, directs me to the place she wants me to stroke and then her lips part, her beautiful, full red lips and her eyes go smokey black like my amulet and her fangs drop and Tamara whispers, “Now! Do it now. Bite me! Sink your fangs into my neck. Please, Rodas. Bite my fucking neck…oh please…drink from me…”

Raging, long-forgotten lust roars through me. I scream and plunge my fangs into Tamara’s neck, just above her collarbone. Her skin parts easily and then a rush of warm black blood greets me and I drink her down, this female offering, and Tamara screams in pleasure and pain and throws herself against me, her legs shuddering and her cunt tightening around my finger and I press upward into her while sinking my fangs still deeper into her flesh, her black blood spilling down us both, across her breasts and onto our sweat-slick bodies and her scent and taste drives the Night Stalker screeching through the dark jungle, the wild animal unleashed and I clamp my jaws onto this prey still harder as Tamara softens beneath me and her cries become pleading begs to drink from her, feed from her, and her nourishing black blood fills my belly and I feel a power unlike any I’ve ever known, my entire body on fire, so hot my skin begins to steam and smoke and I’m burning her now, Tamara’s midnight black eyes slammed closed, her mouth open in a long, needful moan and then she shrieks, “Please my Lord please stop oh god you’re hurting me Rodas you’re
killing
me please stop,” and something in this offering’s voice makes me tear my jaws from her and permit her live.

For now.

Tamara falls against the wire mesh cage, gasping and holding the wound at her neck.

My skin smokes and hisses as I study her.
 

“That was more than a little feed,” Tamara says, glaring at me over her bleeding shoulder. “That was a fucking
feast
.”
 

I study how the hollow of Tamara’s lower back swells up to her ass, the lovely curve of her her ass and hips, her cunt hidden and waiting beneath.
 

“I’m going to fuck you now,” I say.

Tamara traces her fingers over the bite-mark on her neck, looks at my hard cock and flashes me a broad smile. “Maybe I was wrong,” she whispers with a smile. “Maybe we have time.”

“You called me Night Lord,” I say, stepping to her. “Why?”

“Because I’m yours,” she says, turning to face me and opening her arms. “You’ve marked me.”

“Marked you?”

“Shush. I’ll explain later. Now bring me that lordly cock.”

I slide forward, press her against against the wire mesh cage, forcing the breath from her lungs, then reach down and grip her ass and lift her into the air, pinning her slender body between the cage and my torso. Tamara grabs my chin and pulls my mouth to hers, the taste of her blood still heavy in my mouth as her teeth sink into my lower lip. Our first kiss is desperate, filled with ancient animalistic desire and a buried need that’s simmered for millennia, and her lips are hot and sweet, tender and demanding all at once.
 

She’s strong, this offering.
 

I know she fears me but still she offers herself, and the thought of this woman roaming at my side as my bloodmate makes another commanding growl escape my throat.
 

Tamara wraps her legs around my hips, then reaches down and grips my cock and steers me into her and when I thrust inside my cock parts her tight, tender cunt and she moans and shudders and winces as I push into her, and then I’m buried deep inside this beautiful offering and the sensation is intoxicating, there’s a power here…and something more, a…
vulnerability
…like I’ve never imagined and that makes a tingle of fear trace down my spine.

“Fuck Rodas…your skin…it’s so hot…it burns…”
 

Tamara shrieks as I push the full length of my cock into her. She rakes her claws across my back, her cunt hot and wet and tight around me and I realize the One I Am Slave To will accept this lust offering as well, an offering only one step removed from the ecstasy of death and blood-freedom, and as I thrust upward I lower Tamara down onto me, seeking, pursuing, hunting, and the metal cage rattles from the force of our fucking and Tamara’s screaming, begging me to fill her with my hot come and I pump my hips hard into her as my balls squeeze tight and my fiery come floods through me, making me arch my back and stand on my toes as the heat pours into this offering, making her roll her head from side to side while our bodies shiver and we kiss once more, deeper this time, slower, and all the world is warm and full of potential, like the rays of sun lighting through the jungle canopy to illuminate fleeing prey after a long privation.
 

I collapse against this woman who is now my bloodmate, spent, gasping, my heart pounding in my chest.
 

Tamara strokes the back of my neck, my hair, my cheek.
 

“You’re a beautiful animal,” she whispers. “A wild, wicked, beautiful animal.”

We remain like that for a while, holding one another, until an odd sound rings out, making Tamara wince.
 

I give her a questioning glance.
 

“Cell phone,” she says, eyeing the dead offerings littered across the floor. “The muscle will arrive soon. We have to hurry.”

“Muscle?”

“The men and monsters paid to guard the powerful in this world,” she says as I lower her to the ground. “They’re waiting for their masters in the main lobby. When that security call goes unanswered they’ll swarm in. We don’t want to be here when they do.”

“Let them come,” I snarl. “The Night Lord thirsts.”

Tamara sighs, runs her fingers through her wavy blonde hair, frowns when she finds a knot. The bite on her shoulder is still bleeding. “We need clothes,” she says. “Preferably not soaked in red and black blood. Have you ever worn clothes?”

“No.”

Tamara laughs. “You don’t know what a cell phone is. You’ve never worn clothes. I envy you. You’re not missing much.”

I part from Tamara’s arms, suddenly hungry. Bend over the chest of a man wearing a trim blue suit, tear his black heart from his chest and plunge my fangs into its sweet flesh.
 

“What of the others?” I ask as I feed. “The ones you first believed I was?”

“Purebloods?” Tamara looks around the room. “I’d be surprised to find any of them here. They tend to avoid social gatherings.”

The momentous day in the Cloud Temple continues. The Lord of Near and Nigh is lifting this wretch from the land of filth. He’s lifting me the undeserving into the Night Wind, and I owe him everything.
 

On this day I have added nearly two dozen rosettes to my tattooed skin.
 

“What about him?” Tamara asks, nodding at my former Keeper.
 

The Keeper is tied to the wire cage with his own intestines. Black blood runs from the hideous wound at his belly. I tore his tongue out to silence his screams. He’s still alive, still healing, and he stares at me with terror and hatred.
 

I look at the bloody stump where my right foot was. Sometimes I set it down, forgetting there’s no longer a foot there, and am surprised when I topple over. I limp toward the Keeper, stand in front of him, study him. I’ve known him all my life, and suddenly I’m uncertain of this path the Stricken woman Tamara has led me down.

What have I done? Have I angered you, O Master? Have I insulted you, O Lord of the Restless Wind? Defiled your sacred Cloud Temple with my union with this female bitch?
 

I pick up my deer’s foot and stuff it in the Keeper’s mouth.
 

He cowers at my touch.

“Do you seek release?” I whisper.

The Keeper shakes his head no. He really is an ugly creature. His scent is awful. Rotten.
 

A strange sound, like huge, mechanical blades slicing through the air, thunders through the room.

“Rodas we have to—”

“Do you seek release?” I ask the Keeper again, ignoring the female.

The Keeper looks me in the eye. His hope fades. I see acceptance at the moment of death and then…relief. He’s accepted the freedom I offer.
 

The Keeper nods.
 

“Yes,” I say, wrapping the Keeper in my arms, embracing him. “Be born to live again in freedom.”

I drop my claws, wrap my hands around the Keeper’s neck, shear off his head, then rip out his black heart and offer it to my female.
 

Disgust and fear twists Tamara’s face. “I can’t…not my kind. I can’t consume them. It’s hard enough to watch you—”

There’s a blinding flash of white light, then the giant floor-to-ceiling windows explode inward, showering me with razor-sharp shards and half a second later a dozen men dressed all in black and wearing strange masks swing from ropes and drop the room. Outside I see the yellow smoke blanketing the nameless city and, hovering close to the Cloud Temple, three leering, insect-like machines bristling with more masked men.