City Wolves: Paranormal Shapeshifter Werewolf Romance Bundle (Master of the City / Mistress of the City) (9 page)

T
he council would kill him
.

Veyr sat at the head of the table and listened to the squabbling going on around him. They weren’t listening to him, instead debating pack politics and precedence in ever-increasing voices. He sighed and rubbed at his temple.

Images of Cyan spread out naked over the tiles in front of him kept replaying in his mind. Her soft skin and softer sighs, the warm, silken feeling of her body around his fingers. The shudders that racked her body as she’d come hard and fast over his hand.

He bit back his groan and readjusted his position in his chair to conceal the raging hard-on trying to punch through his pants, and ordered his body to calm down. In a room full of werewolves, all with an excellent sense of smell, his condition wouldn’t remain a secret for long. Not if his damn brain kept up presenting him with images of Cyan in various seductive poses. He couldn’t wait to get back to her and finish what they’d started earlier.

“I’m telling you, this will
not
fly.” Jacob McCauley almost shouted, his face flushed as he faced down Alex, alpha of the Kingwood pack. Brave move. The Kingwood’s were distant cousins of the Langdon bloodline, and some said that every so often the old stone-wolf genetics re-emerged.

Veyr’s gaze slid sideways to an empty seat at the council table, the back carved with the Langdon coat of arms. It had been empty for years, left that way as a mark of respect for the cursed alphas that couldn’t be with them. He’d never seen the Langdon’s, cursed to stone by a witch centuries before in an ironic parody of their true natures, but he had fought those with stone wolf blood in the ring. He’d won, naturally, but only just.

Legend had it that stone wolves were the product of Werewolves and Gargoyles. Which meant, like both their parent races, they were hard as nails and twice as difficult to kill. Times fucking two.

Veyr’s face split into a grin and he sat back to watch the show. Alex Kingwood was one of the younger alphas on the council, but rock-solid, confident in his own skin, unlike the always pushing Jacob. But now, his eyes flashed with anger and he didn’t back down from Jacob an inch. Perhaps Veyr wouldn’t have to deal with McCauley after all. Fights between alphas weren’t unknown. Pack leaders could be replaced by rite of challenge. It would be a little odd for Alex to hold two seats on the council…

Veyr bit back his amusement. One for each asscheek?

“I don’t care what you know, or what you
think
you know,” Alex snarled, his voice deepening with his wolf halfway until it became a full-out rumble. “This is pseudo law. Spurious. Just the way things have always been,
not
what is written into law.”

“Law or not, would you want your bloodline corrupted by a filthy human?” Jacob all but screamed, spittle flying from the corners of his lips. His words dropped into silence, and Veyr’s amusement vanished. They’d been discussing borders between pack territories. He should have known Jacob would bring it right back to this.

It was obvious the fact Veyr hadn’t picked his sister at Midwinter ate at Jacob, niggling away under his skin. At every opportunity, he steered the council’s discussion toward how unlawful it would be for the Master of the City to take anything but a pure-blooded lycan woman to his bed.

“Corrupted?”

“Filthy human?”

Alex Kingswood and Nick Trevais spoke at once, their voices so cold they were almost arctic. Both had reason to be. Alex because he always took comments about pureblood lines to heart, and Nick because the woman Jacob had taken such a dislike to and had just described as a filthy human was his sister.

“I suggest, Jacob,” Veyr said, his words dropping into the silence in the room with precision. “That you retire from the current discussion to consider your words, and the thinking behind them.”

Jacob had apparently not learned his lesson because he whipped around to face Veyr, fury on his face. “I will do no such thing. I have a
right
to be here. You cannot dismiss me like an errant schoolboy!”

Veyr pinned him with a hard gaze. “Then I suggest you stop acting like one. Before you face down a challenge.” He glanced toward Nick and Alex, both still bristling with rage. Why was he trying to smooth this over, rather than just throwing the little shit literally to the wolves?

He sighed inwardly. Because he was the Master of the City. The one who everyone looked up to, was scared of, but who had to do the most compromising to keep everything running smoothly so everyone else wouldn’t have to.

All. The. Time.

Fuck. It would be easier to run a damn kindergarten. For ferrets. Or plait jam. He liked jam. Juggle soot in a white suit… Any number of frigging things.

Somehow, Jacobs’s obviously underdeveloped survival instincts kicked in and he blinked at the two bristling wolves. He bent his head, backing off.

“Perhaps it is time for the council to call a recess.”

Veyr’s teeth ground as Jacob spoke, somehow making it seem as though he was the one to decide what the council did or did not do. Perhaps his ambition didn’t just extend to ensuring his sister mated the Master of the City, perhaps he cast greedy eyes to the main seat himself…

“Indeed, it is.” Veyr stood, not bothering to hide the lethal grace in his movements. He hadn’t been brought up with a silver spoon in his mouth like most of the council. He was a fighter, a scrapper from the streets. “And Jacob?”

Jacob, already on his way to the door, turned to look over his shoulder. Veyr extended a single claw, running it over the table in front of him as he walked around it. An impressive feat, since only full and powerful alphas could part shift with such precision.

“Don’t try my patience any more. It will not go well for you.”

* * *

“
D
o
you plan to take Cyan to mate? Or are you just going to use her as some kind of fuck-buddy?”

Veyr had managed less than five steps from the door to the council chamber before he was accosted. Holding in the sigh that wanted to escape his chest with effort, he turned to face Nick Trevais, Cyan’s brother.

One of the calmest members of the council, Nick was usually the voice of reason, the one who could be counted upon to inject a measure of reason into even the most heated of battle plans. Just last month when the city’s territory had been breached by scouting parties from a city to the west, Nick had advised caution. His suggestion had been to return the errant wolves with a diplomatic envoy rather than sending them back in pieces, as was custom.

His instinct had paid off. Turned out that the wolves were young, and had been out without permission. The Mistress of their City had torn them off a strip right in front of the envoy, whom she had asked to convey her deepest gratitude to Veyr. Turned out that one of them had been her nephew, so killing them would have caused an all-out war, something that Veyr wished to avoid.

Now though, Nick was anything but calm. Anger shone in his eyes, the amber color warning Veyr that Nick’s wolf was close to the surface. So close in fact, that fur poked through the skin under his collar as he glared at Veyr. Although his sister couldn’t shift—unusual for an alpha’s sister—that Nick could shift was very obvious.

Veyr knew he had to tread lightly or this could end up in a challenge fight. Which he would win. There was no way on Earth Nick could match him for fighting ability. But trying to explain to the woman he loved that he’d killed her brother? That would not end well…

He paused. Blinked.

He loved Cyan.

Time dilated as a warm, fuzzy feeling spread out from the center of his chest. He’d never thought about love. Lust and the need to possess, emotions driven by his wolf, took precedence, but under all that was a deep, a soul-deep, connection. A need to have her in his life. Always. To wake up with her next to him every morning.

“Well?” Nick’s voice had dropped to a snarl and Veyr snapped his head up, met the other wolf’s gaze.

“I don’t plan to take her to mate, no.” He put his hand up as Nick surged forward, fury radiating from every line of his body. “There’s no planning involved. I will mate her. No matter what the council and that fucktard Jacob says about it.”

Nick relaxed, the amber vanishing from his eyes and the fur disappearing from his collar. “Thank fuck for that.” He chuckled, as though a little embarrassed. “Because, dude, I really was not looking forward to you handing my ass on a plate. But she’s my sister, you know… it’s all about family honor.”

Veyr chuckled and looped his arm over Nick’s shoulders as they walked away from the council chambers. “My friend, I would do nothing that puts a pack’s honor at risk. Don’t worry.”

As they walked away, neither of them noticed the figure lurking in the shadows at the end of the hall or the brief, satisfied flare of amber in its eyes.

“
Y
eah
… You’ll need to order from Giovanni’s. And tell Nick to check the utility bill. They always fuck it up so you need to be onto customer service to get them to sort it out. At least until we can get a different provider. Which honestly, can’t come quick enough for me.”

Cyan sighed and tucked a loose lock of her hair behind her ear as she spoke into her cell. She sat waiting for Veyr in his office, speaking to Melanie, one of the Trevais wolves back at the pack-house. None of them had foreseen her abrupt departure to live in the Master’s household, and with Cyan running the place, it had left them in disarray.

“Okay, yeah. Get Nick to check it, and whatever you do… don’t let my mother anywhere near the ordering system, okay? Yeah, you too. Take care, hon.”

She pulled the cell away from her ear and clicked it off, only to have it plucked from her grasp by a large male hand. This time she didn’t squeak, just turned around and found herself enveloped in Veyr’s arms. His mouth covered hers in a quick, hard kiss that left her breathless.

“What was that about coming quickly?” he asked when he lifted his head.

Unbidden her hands smoothed over his chest, bare beneath his jacket. He rarely wore a shirt, one of his quirks, but she didn’t care. It allowed her easy access to his deliciously hard body. Her fingertips brushed over his nipples, which caused a flare of amber in his eyes.

Still on edge after this morning, when he’d brought her to an earth-shattering orgasm but still hadn’t fucked her, she grinned slyly. Two could play at the temptation game.

“Coming quickly? Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Keeping the innocent look on her face, she pulled away and dropped her hands to his belt. His nostrils flared, darkness seeping into the amber of his eyes as she undid the buckle. Already he was hard, the thick ridge of his cock pressing against the fabric of his pants at the same time the scent of his arousal wrapped around her.

Parting the fabric, she reached in and slipped her hand around the rigid shaft. Like shirts, he also seemed to have a thing against underwear. Not that she was complaining about that. His cock pulsed in welcome, as though pleased to see her. She hummed in pleasure, reaching up to plant a quick kiss on his lips before she slid to her knees.

“Fuck me,” he muttered, one hand reaching for the edge of the desk he leaned against and one driving into her hair.

“Maybe… if you’re a good boy,” She threw back and liberated his cock from his pants. The thick, flushed head bobbed just in front of her lips and his hand tightened in her hair. A smile on her lips, she flicked a glance up at him to find him watching her, his attention rapt… fixated even… on her lips.

Just to be evil, she licked them, her tongue almost whispering against the sensitive head in front of her lips, but not quite. His groan seemed to roll up from his toes, but his grip in her hair remained constant. She almost expected him to use it to force her head forward and her lips over his cock, but he didn’t. That wasn’t Veyr. Not at all.

Uber-masculine, alpha male he was, he did not need to force to coerce her into anything.

Not when everything he asked she wanted to do anyway. And then some.

Leaning forward, she swiped a lick over the flushed tip. It was a quick touch, no more, but he jerked like he’d been hit by lightning. His back arched, and his hips thrust forward. She smiled, knowing she had him at her mercy. Parting her lips, she licked him again. A long, slow lick over the bulbous head, with a pause to flicker the tip of her tongue in the groove at the top. He swore, all the muscles in his arm standing out in high relief. She didn’t stop though. Instead, she moved forward and took him deep.

His cock was long and wide—very wide—but she didn’t care. Humming with pleasure, she slid him deeper, until her mouth filled with cock. Her nostrils flared and she closed her lips around him, sucking as she pulled back.

He said nothing, but the small groan and the cracking of wood as his hand closed around the edge of the desk was enough to tell her he liked what she was doing. Like,
really
liked it. Spurred onward, she slid him deep again, relaxing her throat so she could take him in further.

“Fucking hell, babe… that’s sexy,” he panted, breaths ragged as he attempted to keep his hips still.

“That’s it, just like that. Not too fast…”

Screw
that
. She wanted to test his control, wanted him to lose it. They had the best sex when he did. Hard and fast and dirty. And she needed to keep it that way—dirty—or she was in danger of losing her heart to him, which would never do. Not without a mating mark on her shoulder. She was just the Master’s Woman, not his mate.

Pushing the envelope, she swirled her tongue around the head of his cock and sucked, hard. He swore, hips bucking, and a growl ripped from his throat.

“That’s it!” He pulled her from him, yanked her up to her feet and turned all in one swift movement. Crowding her with his large body, he pushed her backward. Her thighs hit the edge of the desk, but he didn’t stop, shoving her down until she lay on her back.

He moved like a tsunami, her skirts up around her waist and her legs spread for his pleasure before she could utter a word of protest. Not that she planned on protesting, not when two strong fingers slid deep into her slick, wet pussy in one toe-curling slide.

“Perfect,” he growled, his eyes bright with amber and lust. “Hot and wet for me already. I like that.”

Hooking a foot around the executive chair behind him, he pulled it forward and sat. His arms wrapped around her thighs, pinning her in place and he used his fingertips to part her gently. Hot breath washing over her exposed lower lips pulled a gasp of pleasure from her. The sound had barely escaped her before his hot tongue flicked over her clit.

His mouth descended for a slow, rough lick before he closed his lips around her and sucked. Liquid pleasure invaded, pulsing out from her clit through her body in thought-stealing waves.

“Oh lord…” she whimpered, reaching up to grab the front of the desk and trying not to grind her pussy down on his face as he feasted. There were many things Veyr did excellently, and whatever his reputation in the ring, he was an expert at eating pussy. Never hard or rough, he teased and cajoled the orgasms from her. Sometimes he wouldn’t let her come, instead backing off each time she got near, to leave her balancing on the knife edge of arousal.

Not this time though. Instead, he attacked her pussy with a barrage of sensual licks and sucks, nothing held back. Each touch propelled her up towards her climax like a starship. She moaned, her body quivering under his ministrations as her clit ached and her pussy clenched, yearning to be filled.

Soft growls rumbled from his chest, the vibrations against the tiny, sensitive bud heavenly. Then he moved, slicking his tongue down the groove between her wet lips to thrust it deep into her cunt. She cried out, her flesh stretched as he reached deeper, fucking her with his clever tongue. He didn’t let up, reaching a hand down to rub over her clit with a calloused fingertip.

She shuddered and moaned, her body caught in the coils of heat and heaven. She’d needed to come, but she needed fucking as well… to feel the thick length of his cock splitting her in two. He shoved his tongue deep again, growling as he licked and sucked, as though determined to gather up all the wet evidence of her arousal.

Her climax ripped through her without warning and she cried out. Heat raced through her like wildfire, but he was nowhere near done. With a snarl, he was on his feet and strong hands flipped her over on the desk. Her feet had only just touched the floor before he pushed them wider with his foot and in the next instant his cock pressed against the slick entrance to her cunt.

She barely processed his presence before he thrust deep in one, hard movement. Her breath caught, stilled in her chest as her pussy stretched wide around the thick invading shaft. Filled to the brim, her cunt throbbed around his cock. He didn’t give the burn time to dissipate, instead pulling back to shove back into her. Again and again, until she rode high on the pleasure-pain of his possession.

Her body adjusted quickly though, and then there was nothing but pleasure. Liquid heat flooded her channel, making his cock moving within her slick and wet. He thrust again, adding a rock of his hips and they both groaned.

“You feel so good, little wolf,” he growled, slamming his hand down on the desk by her head, using the change in position to power harder into her. His nails elongation to claws, scoring the polished surface of the wood and pride filled her despite the damage to the furniture. The most powerful wolf in the city, and his control balanced on a knife edge because of her.

Her own wolf surged to the surface, the strongest she’d ever felt the creature, as though it could sense his wolf close and was desperate to reach it. The growl rumbled up from her throat and she pushed backward when he slid into her, grinding her ass against him.

His claws dug deep into the wood, his movements stilling as a new scent wound around them both. The scent of the forest and wildness whipped her wolf up into a frenzy and she groaned, torn between her feral nature and the pleasure of his body in hers.

“More, now!” Her demand ended on a snarl. She wasn’t normally like this, not usually this aggressive, but she couldn’t help it. She needed him, needed this, more than anything… so much that she didn’t want it to end, but pushed him to go faster. Harder. Take her so thoroughly that she could lose herself in the act.

“More,” he agreed, his voice lower than normal, as though his wolf were fed by the scent of hers close to the surface. He upped the pace, slamming into her until the sound of skin against skin punctuated their soft growls and moans.

She whimpered, so close to the edge she was full with it. Her skin was tight, the tension in her pussy tighter, and she swore she could feel fur brushing against the inside of her skin.

“Oh lord…I’m go—”

“Come,” he ordered between pants. “I want to feel you come all over my cock, feel that sweet cunt clench around me.”

She did, her release announced on a hoarse cry as he rolled his hips and tipped her over the edge. A million points of bright light exploded in her veins, racing through her bloodstream like a cascade of shooting stars.

“Mine,” he growled, his hips surging against hers, driving his cock deep into the grip of her clenching pussy. Each thrust sent her deeper into the coils of pleasure, each snarl behind her… each time his claws dug deep into the wood as he fucked her made her heart sing. He was
hers
. All hers.

“Mine,” she panted as his lips found the side of her neck, leaving a trail of blazing kisses down the side and onto her shoulder. She moaned, stretching her head to the side in unconscious invitation, never expecting him to take her up on it. He couldn’t mate her, she was just his woman…

He growled and struck. Pain flared for a second as sharp fangs buried into the muscle at the top of her shoulder. She gasped, crying out as the pain flared, replaced with pleasure. He growled around his teeth in her shoulder, slamming into her once… twice… three more times before he buried himself deep within her and let go to roar his release.

Boneless with pleasure beneath him, she bit her lip as his cock jerked and pulsed within her as he emptied his white-hot seed within her. The waves of pleasure from her own release died down to little shudders and warmth spread out from the center of her chest.

He’d bitten her during sex.

He’d marked her… And for a wolf to bite his partner during sex meant just one thing.

Screw the politics. She was mated to the Master of the City.