The Psy-Changeling Collection (11 page)

If Lucas retained the incoming sentinels’ respect as he aged, they’d take over the physical role he played in the pack—meting out Pack justice and keeping Pack discipline. During such times, those who didn’t understand their ways often came to believe that the strongest of the sentinels had become the new alpha. Changelings saw no need to educate them otherwise.

But that was in the unknown future. Right now he had to be the most lethal of them all, savage and brilliant. Because not only was the pack watching but so were the SnowDancers. One hint of weakness in DarkRiver and the wolves would come down on them in a hail of teeth and claws.

He couldn’t allow his inexplicable attraction to one of the Psy sway him from his goal. More depended on this than merely the sating of vengeance. After DarkRiver had realized the existence of a serial killer preying on changeling women, they’d warned all other changeling groups in the killer’s hunting grounds. Every single alpha had wanted to go for the jugular—none more so than the wolves.

Lucas had insisted on taking on the job of hunting the killer because in spite of losing Kylie, he was the lone alpha who could still think. It was as if the blood that had christened him had also given him the ability to see beyond the dark-red glimmer of fury and retribution.

The SnowDancers had reluctantly handed him the reins because his pack had lost a member while theirs hadn’t. But their patience was limited. The wolves knew that sooner or later, the killer would strike them too. The second that happened, all bets were off—the SnowDancers would begin to hunt down the Psy and the Psy would retaliate, leading to war on a catastrophic scale.

Lucas slept deeply
after the exertion of a run that had left even Clay exhausted. He’d expected only darkness but the most exquisite pleasure welcomed him into his dreams.

Slender fingers traveled down his front as he lay sprawled on his back, exploring him so carefully that he felt owned. No woman had ever come close to owning Lucas Hunter, but in this dreamworld he allowed her to play. After endless moments, the fingers stopped their stroking and he felt the brush of wet heat against his nipple. His dream-lover was taking her time licking circles around it, arousing him to fever pitch. Opening his eyes, he tangled a hand in the silky curls cascading over his chest.

Her head rose and night-sky eyes met his.

He wasn’t surprised. The panther in him had found Sascha Duncan enticing from the start and in this dreamworld, it was okay to let that fascination free, to indulge his feline curiosity about this most unusual woman. Here there was no possibility of war and she was no longer an emissary of the enemy.

“What do you think you’re doing, kitten?” He let his gaze wander over the dark honey of her bare skin.

Those eyes widened in shock. “This is my dream.”

He chuckled. Even in his dreams, she was as willful as she was in life. He’d begun to suspect that not everything was efficiency with Sascha. No, sometimes she just liked sharpening her claws on him. “I’m at your mercy.”

She made an annoyed sound and sat up on her knees. “Why are you talking?”

He folded his arms behind his head, delighted by the sight of her lush breasts displayed so beautifully for him. He liked this dream. Even the panther was pleased. “Don’t you want me to?” He made it a temptation.

“Well . . .” She frowned. “The whole point is to taste you . . . I guess you’d never be silent in bed.”

“You’re right.” He watched her watch him. Her eyes held such pure heat that he felt branded. The alpha in him wanted to reach out and tangle his fingers in the shadowed triangle of curls exposed by her kneeling position, but he was wary of shattering this strange dream.

“Can I?” She ran her fingers along the markings on his face, her lower lip caught between her teeth. “Do you feel my touch?”

He wanted to bite down on that sexy mouth she was teasing him with. “Every stroke.” The markings were highly sensitive and he was very, very choosy about who he let touch them.

“I’ve been wanting to stroke them since we first met.” With a sigh, she leaned down to place a row of kisses along the jagged lines. The deep rumble of his purr seemed to startle her but it wasn’t a bad kind of startlement—he felt her nipples harden against his chest. After exploring his face to her satisfaction, she sat back up, raking her nails gently down his chest.

“Harder, kitten. I won’t break.”

She took a shaky breath and did as he’d asked. “Cats like to be petted.” It was a soft murmur.

“I told you we’re picky about who we allow to pet us.” He ran a hand up the outside of her thigh.

She shivered. “Why would I dream of you touching me? I want to touch you.”

“But if you’re dreaming of me, wouldn’t I be touching you?” He was delighted by this odd dream, which felt almost like reality, except of course the real Sascha would never display her emotions so openly.

“Yes . . . you’re very territorial.” A frown line appeared on her forehead. “You’d want to mark me. My subconscious must be filling in the gaps.”

He tried not to grin. “Who do you let pet you?”

“Psy don’t get petted.” A hint of sadness flickered in those eyes he was starting to be able to read.

“Maybe you’ve been hanging around with the wrong people.” He stroked his hand to the curve of her buttock and stopped. “I’d take great pleasure in petting you.”

Her breath came out in a gasp. “Me first,” she whispered, leaning down. “It’s my dream. Just a taste,” she said again. “That’s all, just a taste.”

He would never say no to being petted by this exotic female who fascinated him. Not when she looked at him with fire not ice in her gaze. His hand clenched on her bottom as she nibbled, licked, and sucked at his nipple with the utmost attention to detail. She didn’t stop him when he ran his fingers down her thigh, luxuriating in that honeyed skin he wanted to lick all over.

Her mouth moved to his neglected nipple, one hand reaching down to scrape the nails up his thigh. He growled softly in the back of his throat. She looked up. “What does that mean?” Her hand had dropped to lay against his inner thigh, excruciatingly close to his rock-hard erection.

Her head tilted slightly to one side and he remembered her questions in the car. Odd that his subconscious would remember that small giveaway gesture, but then again, this whole dream was odd. Not that he was complaining.

“It means keep doing exactly what you were doing.” He moved his hand around her bottom and slid down to lightly rub at the wet heat of her entrance, sending the scent of her desire flaring into the air.

She gasped and pulled away. “Not yet.”

He was used to taking control but there was something in her eyes that told him she’d disappear if he pushed any harder. He put his hands back under his head, telling her without words that he was hers to play with. For now. As if she’d heard the unspoken caveat, she moved down the bed and straddled his thighs midway up his legs.

He looked his fill of that lush female body and knew he was going to mark her when he took her. Nothing hurtful. Just a bite or two, a playful nip here and there in places where no one could mistake their meaning. Sascha Duncan was going to be Lucas Hunter’s woman.

Night-sky eyes wide, she wrapped one slender hand around his jutting erection. He shuddered. “Tighter.”

She squeezed and then began to move her hand up and down. “Why does this make me feel good?” Her voice was heavy with sexual heat, her breath coming out in soft pants. “There was nothing about this in the manuals.”

Moving his hands from behind his head, he reached down and pulled her forward by gripping her thighs. She came only so far and not far enough. “What?”

“I’m caressing you and yet I’m the one who feels . . . pleasure.” The last word was a moan as he grew even harder in her hands.

Lucas was used to sex, used to sensual women who knew what they were doing, but this Psy with her questions and her strange innocence had him so desperately hungry, he was starting to lose the ability to think. “Suck me, kitten. Taste me.” The raw demand came from the animal heart of him.

She didn’t scare. And he was pleased. “Taste you? Yes . . . I have to taste you . . . have to satisfy the craving.” Scooting down his body, she knelt on all fours, knees between his legs, hands on his hip bones. Then she dipped her head and began to taste him as he’d asked.

He clenched his hand in her hair, telling himself not to buck as his body demanded. The sweet suction of her mouth was the most intense pleasure he’d ever experienced. When he saw lights flicker behind his eyes, he knew they were shifting from human to cat, cat to human. Only the most extreme edge of arousal could make him lose that much control.

Using his other hand to push her hair back, he watched her as she moved her head up and down the hard length of his erection, the sight serving to arouse him almost to madness. The need to pound into the silky heat between her legs was a driving rhythm in his brain, but tonight, he was at her mercy . . . and she wanted him in her mouth. He came with a growl that reverberated around the room, the thick richness of her hair in his fists.

“Thank you, kitten,” he said.

There was no answer.

With a frown, he opened his eyes. And found himself in his lair, spent, pleasured, and alone.

CHAPTER 6

Sascha was having
trouble meeting Lucas’s gaze, scared he’d be able to see the erotic images flashing through her mind like a full-motion picture. What was happening to her? She’d spent last night lost in the most seductive dreams of her life, had woken gasping for release, her skin wet with perspiration.

And Lucas had been the star figure in her fantasies.

The plan had been to get him out of her system by programming her brain to dream about him. She’d intended to let her senses run wild in the safety of her mind and indulge until she was sated. It had backfired horribly. She’d had her taste and now found she wanted even more. Like an addict, she craved the sensations he’d shown her.

“I’ll be taking you to meet Clay Bennett, our construction supervisor, in about twenty minutes. After that I want to show you the materials we’ll be using for construction, since you want to double-check every nut and bolt.” Those piercing green eyes were tinted with hints of mocking amusement.

She couldn’t help but remember how those same eyes had looked as she’d used her mouth to suck him to orgasm. That word brought her to her senses. Her shields were cracking again and he was the catalyst.

“Thank you for telling me.” She tried to note down the details on her organizer but could barely see through the buzzing in her head. This was bad, very bad. Instead of containing them, the dreams appeared to have strengthened the creeping fingers of insanity.

“You don’t look like you slept well.”

Was there a subtle innuendo in that sentence? No, she told herself. How could there be?
She
was the one who’d had the dreams. Lucas surely had no need for release found in fantasy—she’d seen the way women looked at him. And why not? He was a man who made no bones about his sexuality and even she understood the kind of primal heat a male like that could produce.

Once again, her mind threatened to run away with her sanity. Shoving up shield after mental shield, she said, “My rest was disturbed but I’m perfectly capable of functioning.” As soon as she got control of her runaway thoughts.

“Bad dreams?” He watched her with the concentration of a hunter stalking prey.

“The Psy don’t dream.” It was the accepted wisdom. If that was a lie, she thought, what other lies had she been fed? Or was it true for all other Psy? Did they not live even in their dreams?

“A pity,” Lucas said, that rough-edged voice smoothing into a drawl. “Dreams can be very . . . pleasurable.”

Wet heat flared. She pressed her thighs tight, terrifyingly aware that her body had reacted in a way a changeling might detect. Panic had her shoving everything deep into the secret compartments of her mind.

The panther inside Lucas crouched low, tracking Sascha’s every movement. Man and beast were both puzzled—what was it about her that had triggered the sensual eroticism of that dream? In life she was as cold as ice, as touchable as a hunk of metal. Aside from the hint of fire in those cardinal eyes that he refused to believe was a figment of his imagination.

He froze as he picked up the faintest traces of female arousal. The panther lunged at the walls of his mind, telling him to take her, that she was ready. The man wasn’t so certain. What if it was a Psy trick—the ultimate back door into his mind? Until he knew for sure, he wouldn’t be stroking Sascha except in his dreams.

“The Psy know nothing about pleasure,” she commented, looking down at her little computerized tablet. “And we intend to keep it that way. Shall we be on our way to see your construction supervisor?”

“After you.” He stood and waved toward the doorway. “How’s your mother?” It was time to start digging. The reason for this charade could never be forgotten.

“Fine.” Sascha reached the glass-enclosed elevator and waited for it to rise up to their level.

“She’s an extraordinary woman,” he commented. “I heard that she became a Councilor at forty. Isn’t that very young to reach such a high post?”

She nodded. “But Tatiana Rika-Smythe was younger at the time of her ascension. She’s only thirty-five now.”

“The Rika-Smythes are your primary business rivals?”

“You know that already.”

He shrugged and gestured for her to enter the elevator ahead of him. “Never hurts to make sure.”

In the closed atmosphere, the scent of her was intoxicating to his animal senses. She was pure woman, lush and barely awakened, and he was very interested, the panther in him arrogantly convinced that her reaction was without trickery. He had to force down the low growl that gathered at the back of his throat. Now was not the time to stalk this particular prey.

“It’s well known that the Rika-Smythes and the Dun-cans have some of the same business interests.”