Authors: Rhyannon Byrd
“Oh.” She shivered…her body arching…drawing closer…closer. “In that case, I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“That’s my girl,” he murmured with a low, wicked rumble of laughter, and as he thrust his tongue back inside, rubbing one thumb against her softly pulsing clit, she broke, surrendering to the ecstasy…giving him everything that he wanted.
H
OPE HAD TRIED
not to get lost beneath the stunning, crashing waves of pleasure, but in the end, she’d lost her hold…and had seen stars glittering across the endless midnight stretch of her mind. When she came floating back to the world and could focus, she lifted her heavy
lashes to find Riley right there, pushing her hair back from her damp brow, a boyish, wondering smile at the corner of his mouth that made him look endearingly young…fresh. Untouched. As if this moment were taking them back in time, all the pain and torment and stress of the years since they’d last been together forgotten, wiped clean from the board, leading to a shiny, sparkling future that was just waiting for them. Only…it wasn’t.
Before she had time to dwell on that bitter dose of reality, he asked, “Are you on the pill?”
She licked her bottom lip as she shook her head. “Didn’t see the point. Sex isn’t really my thing. Or at least…it wasn’t.” A smile tipped the corner of her mouth as she stared up into the devastating beauty of his face. “But I’m thinking now that maybe I need to reevaluate my priorities.”
Riley would have laughed, but he was too raw inside. Too tense. Desire was pulling him tight. Hunger breaking him down. And jealousy slithered like a serpent through his veins, taunting him with the knowledge that there would be men who came after him. All he could offer her was this moment…this night. And when he was gone, some other lucky bastard was going to come along and sweep her off her feet. The only reason it hadn’t happened so far was because she’d been closed down. Locked up. Hiding away. But she was open now. In bloom. Flushed. She’d draw the eye of every man who came into the café, and he’d turn into a memory, forgotten…lost.
It made him want to howl. Made him want to imprint himself on her so deeply that the mark could never fade.
He wanted nothing more than to take her skin-on-skin, but couldn’t take that risk. Not when he’d be leaving her here alone to raise his child. Locking his jaw, he reached for the condom he’d left on the bedside table, ripped open the packet and rolled it on. And then he gathered her beneath him, fit himself against her, and drove deep into the melting, softly pulsing depths of her body. A harsh, guttural groan filled his mouth, and he buried his head in the curve of her shoulder, closing his eyes, soaking in the mind-shattering details as he began to move, not wanting to miss a single sensation. Their skin turned slick with heat, bodies sliding against one another, warmed by lust and hunger and need. A dark, devastating desire that had been smoldering for so many years.
Pushing up on his arms, he said, “I want you to come before me this time.” Then he dipped his head, nipping her lower lip, before thrusting his tongue into the sweet, moist well of her mouth, unable to get enough of her taste, the pansy-soft texture of her lips. The sweet suction of the kiss was intoxicating, the touch of her hands fluttering down the length of his spine making him groan.
Breaking the kiss, Riley straightened his arms and stared down at the place where his body penetrated hers, watching the heavy thrust of his cock as he pushed into her. She was so tender and silken and pink around his dark, vein-ridden shaft. He was built too big for her,
and yet she took everything he had to give, yielding and soft and infinitely sweet.
“God, that’s so sexy,” he groaned, his voice deep…breathless. Pulling his gaze up the graceful, feminine line of her body, he bent his elbows, using his teeth to pull the edge of the camisole over her right breast. He took the plump, swollen nipple into his mouth, loving the way that she cried out, arching against him. Releasing the tight, tender bud, he stared down into her eyes, his own savage expression reflected back at him in the luminous depths of her gaze. Changing the angle of his thrusts, Riley watched her eyes goes wide as he ground his body against her clit, pushing her into the orgasm, taking in every subtle nuance of her expression as she crashed over the edge.
“Beautiful,” he groaned, loving the way she surrendered to the pleasure, her body thrashing beneath him as she arched her neck and gave a throaty, provocative cry that made him pulse deep inside her, his own release bearing down on him. And with it came the rise of the Merrick, its fangs slipping free of his gums, heavy and sharp in his mouth, its talons slicing through his fingertips.
“Hope,” he growled, knowing it was time. “Oh, God, baby. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t,” she whispered with a soft, womanly smile, as if she instinctively knew things that his male mind could never understand. As if she saw the universe in a way that would forever be closed to him.
“I’m ready,” she gasped, pulling the heavy weight of her hair to the side, exposing the pale curve of her throat.
He growled again, lowering his head…touching his mouth to her silken flesh, and then he drove his fangs deep into her shoulder, holding nothing back. Her taste spilled through his senses, making him shudder, his body slamming into her as the ecstasy of the feeding exploded through him with a savage, visceral intensity. He came with his talons embedded in the mattress…his fangs still buried deep, the rich, succulent heat of her blood heavy on his tongue, driving him wild. When he finally pulled them free, he lapped his tongue against the small, angry wounds until they no longer bled, coveting every drop…the power of the feeding filling him with indescribable warmth, as if a strange, exotic fire burned in every cell of his body.
Collapsing at her side, he waited for his fangs and talons to recede, before he rolled to his back as he took care of the condom, leaning over the edge of the mattress to toss it into the wastebasket beneath the bedside table. Then Riley rolled back and pulled her onto his chest, his hands smoothing over the silken length of her hair…her back, her damp cheek pressed to the violent beating of his heart.
Lifting her hand, Hope circled her fingertip around the dark nipple before her eyes, and with a wry drawl to her words, she said, “You might live like a saint, Riley, but you don’t make love like one.”
His body went tense beneath her, and as she lifted up to look at his face, she watched as shadows darkened the unearthly glow in his eyes, like thick, suffocating clouds choking off the warmth of the sun.
“I’m sorry if I hurt you.” His words were hoarse, more scraped out than spoken, his tension so thick, she could feel it vibrating through his muscles. “I didn’t mean to lose control like that.”
The corner of her mouth curved with a smile. “There’s no need to be sorry. A woman likes to know that she’s capable of making a man go over the edge.” He didn’t respond as he stared into her eyes, the moment stretching out between them, and then she said, “Now that you’ve fed…you’ll fully awaken. The Casus…they’ll know, won’t they?”
“Yeah,” he whispered. “They’ll know.”
“I know you needed to do it,” she told him, pressing her palm against the heavy beating of his heart, “and I’m selfish enough to be glad that I’m the woman who gave you what you needed. But…I can’t help feeling that we’ve just sped up the clock.”
His gaze slid away from hers, focusing on the ceiling as he said, “You can’t look at it like that, Hope. I can’t just hang around here digging forever, while they have their sick fun with the town. At least now they’ll go ahead and come after me…make their move, and that will be the end of it.”
Shivering at the thought, she sat up on the edge of the bed. She could feel the intensity of his stare on her
back as she touched her fingers to the pulsing wound in her shoulder. “I thought you would bite my throat.”
“I’d love to,” he rasped, “but I didn’t want to put you in an uncomfortable situation with Millie when she gets home.”
Looking at him over her shoulder, Hope started to say, “She’ll know sooner or…” But her voice trailed off, and she read the question in his eyes. “Sorry,” she murmured, looking away and moving to her feet. She grabbed the thin robe draped across the foot of the bed and made her way to the window. Cracking the blinds, she stared out at the stormy view of the sea, the churning waves mirroring the twisting and turning of her own emotions. “I was going to say that she would have to know sooner or later, but then I remembered that we don’t really have a later. So, I guess it’s not really an issue.”
He cursed something foul under his breath, and she turned in time to see him roll up off the bed in a powerful ripple of muscle that made her heart skip. “Really, Ri. I’m the one who’s been telling you that this was what I wanted,” she said quietly, watching with wide eyes as he advanced on her, the look on his rugged face one of hot, predatory intent. “Just some time with you. Stolen hours of pleasure. And I’m fine with that, okay?”
“No,” he grunted, herding her back toward the four-poster bed. “Nothing about this is okay, and I’m nowhere near done with you tonight, so stop talking and get back in the damn bed.”
She studied the smoldering look in his eyes for a moment, then slipped out of the robe and climbed back onto the sex-rumpled bedding, lying on her back. A sharp, wicked smile curled his mouth as he shook his head. “Not like that,” he told her.
“How then?” she asked, her voice thick with excitement.
He sheathed himself in another condom, then climbed onto the bed with her, forcing her onto her knees with her face against the sheet, and Hope braced with a deep breath for the thick, heavy push that she knew was coming. But he shocked her with the soft, lapping thrust of his tongue instead. His hands settled onto her bottom, thumbs holding her open as his mouth covered her with a hot, ravenous urgency. His deep, fractured groan vibrated against screamingly sensitive flesh, making her claw at the bedding. His low chuckle followed, breath hot against her folds, and he pushed his tongue into her, moving it slowly, hungrily, as if she were the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted. The instant she started to come apart, to shatter and pulse, he buried the long, heavy weight of his cock inside her, taking her hard and fast, until the violent, scorching waves of pleasure overtook them. They collapsed together against the soft bedding, panting and breathless. Then he pulled her into his arms again, holding her possessively against the heavy pounding of his heart as they both drifted into a deep, exhausted sleep.
Thursday morning
A
S
R
ILEY OPENED
his eyes to the watery stream of early morning sunlight spilling in through the window, he found Hope sitting beside him on the bed, the sight of her softly glowing face making something warm settle in the center of his chest. She had the same thin, silky robe that she’d worn last night pulled around her shoulders, the soft fabric draping her body like a sensual second skin. Guilt should have been eating him alive, and though he could feel it lingering at the edges of his consciousness, he refused to let it take hold just yet. There’d be plenty of time for self-recriminations later, when he had to leave this room…and Hope, heading out to the forest to find the Marker. Instead, he focused on the hot, primal burn of lust that stirred his blood. Reaching out with his hand, he stroked the pale, feminine length of thigh revealed in the robe’s parting, and with his voice still scratchy from sleep, he asked, “How long have you been up?”
“Not long,” she murmured. “Rhonda, our manager
in training, was already scheduled to handle the café this morning, but I wanted to check on Millie. I caught up with her in the hallway just before she headed out again this morning. She’d grabbed a few hours of sleep after Kellan brought her home at two-thirty, and was on her way downstairs to meet Hal’s niece. They’re driving back to the hospital to spend the day with him. He’s stable, but still hasn’t regained consciousness.”
“Did Kellan go with her?”
She shook her head, looking down at the hand he’d placed on her thigh while she traced the dark veins beneath his skin with her finger. “She told Kellan to stay here. Said she didn’t want him to be bored out of his mind at the hospital. She promised not to go anywhere on her own, so she should be okay, don’t you think?”
“Yeah,” he rumbled huskily, beginning to slide his hand farther up her sweetly rounded thigh, when the sound of his name being shouted from the bottom of the stairs made them both jump. “Shit,” he muttered, jerking up into a sitting position, the white sheet tangled around his hips.
Hope’s eyes went wide with surprise. “That didn’t sound like Kellan.”
“That’s because it’s my brother,” he grunted, throwing back the sheet as he climbed from the bed.
“Ian?” she gasped, moving to her feet. “What’s he doing here?”
“I don’t know,” he grunted, quickly pulling on the jeans he’d left lying in a pile on the floor. “But whatever
the reason, it isn’t going to be good. I’ll go see what’s going on while you throw on some clothes.”
She was already moving to get dressed while he disabled the sensor that she’d reset and walked out the door, a heavy feeling in his gut as he wondered what had brought his brother all the way to Washington. Making his way down the stairs, he found everyone waiting for him in the living room. His brother, Watchman Aiden Shrader and Kellan were spread out over the sofa and love seat, mugs of steaming coffee sitting on the mahogany table that was centered between them. The rich scent of cinnamon rolls drifting in from the kitchen made his stomach growl, but from the look on his brother’s face, Riley knew food was going to have to wait.
Though his brother and Shrader were both tall, with hard, muscular builds, Ian had Riley’s same dark hair, only shorter, and blue eyes, while Shrader had hazel eyes and thick, caramel-colored hair that fell to just above his shoulders, as well as a wealth of tattoos on his arms and hands.
“What are you two doing here?” he asked, glancing between the two of them.
It was Kellan who answered the question. “They said they needed to talk to you.”
Riley arched a brow as he stopped in the middle of the room. Crossing his arms over his bare chest, he threw Ian a sharp look of frustration. “And you couldn’t have called? You know damn well that with Malcolm dead, it’s too dangerous for you to be out wandering around
right now. You’re a free meal to any Casus that has the balls to come after you. What the hell were you thinking?”
“We told him that, but he was determined to do this in person,” Aiden drawled, nodding his tawny head toward Ian, who sat with his left elbow braced against the high arm of the leather sofa, his left hand rubbing over his chin as he studied Riley’s face through dark, shadowed eyes. Angry tension poured from his big, powerful frame like heat coming off a towering blaze, filling the room with a sharp, electric presence.
Whatever was going on, Riley knew he wasn’t going to like it. He started to tell Ian to go ahead and spit it out, when Hope came down the stairs behind him in jeans and a T-shirt, instantly snagging the attention of every male eye. Her mouth was kiss-swollen, cheeks flushed, hair falling around her shoulders in wild, sexy disarray, as if she’d only taken the time to run her fingers through it and not a brush. Ian arched his brows at the obvious fact that she looked as if she’d been thoroughly ravaged, while Kellan and Shrader both snuffled warm, appreciative rumbles of male laughter under their breaths.
She murmured a quiet “Good morning” as she took the vacant spot on the love seat beside Kellan, her hands clasped nervously between her knees. Though he hadn’t spoken to Ian since getting to town, Riley knew that Saige had told him about Hope…and no doubt filled him in on their history. And while he didn’t think
that Ian had ever known her very well, odds were he remembered her from school or around town. His brother took a moment to study her face, as though looking for remnants of the girl he’d known back in Laurente all those years ago, then slid his hawklike gaze back toward Riley. Narrowing his eyes, he drew in a deep, searching breath. “You’ve fed,” he announced in a low voice, the husky words making everyone freeze. Hope’s face turned bright red, her eyes going round with one of those deer-in-the-headlights kind of looks.
Riley responded with a curt nod, warning his brother with his eyes to drop the subject before he embarrassed her any more than he already had, but the guy apparently didn’t give a damn. “Shit,” Ian muttered, and Riley’s own eyes narrowed with suspicion.
“What do you mean by ‘shit’? I thought satisfying our hunger was a good thing. Isn’t that what you’ve all been nagging me to do? Now that I’ve finally done it, I can face Gregory as a Merrick and take him to pieces.”
Kellan looked from him to Hope, then back again, the corner of his mouth twitching with a grin as he gave a low whistle. “Oh, yeah,” he murmured. “You’re blasting out Merrick vibes like a beacon. They’ll be tripping over themselves to get to you now, whether you’ve found the Marker or not. The Casus will probably be swarming around this place by tonight.”
“Good,” he grunted. “I’m ready to end this.”
“Goddamn it,” Ian snarled, leaning forward and
smacking his fist down on the surface of the table so hard that everyone’s mugs jumped a good inch…as well as Hope.
“What the hell is your problem?” Riley snapped. But his brother just sat there, looking ready to explode with some violent emotion, while the tension in the room cranked up another uncomfortable degree.
“I don’t suppose you guys brought the first Marker with you?” Kellan injected into the heavy silence, looking between the two men who sat across the table from him and Hope.
Shrader shook his head, saying, “Riley won’t be needing it, so we left it at Ravenswing, rather than risk losing it. Especially now that Westmore has his hands on the one that Saige found down in Brazil.”
Kellan arched his brows. “Why won’t he be needing it? What do you guys know that we don’t?”
Shrader leaned back into the corner of the leather sofa and glanced at Ian. “I think it’s time you go ahead and tell the big guy why we’re here,” he said.
With his elbows braced on his spread knees, Ian scrubbed his hands down his face, then cut his dark gaze up at Riley, and the uneasy feeling in his gut flared with warnings of something bad…something ugly.
His brother just kept staring, and Shrader sighed, saying, “Ian had a dream.”
Kellan snickered. “I thought that was Martin Luther King Junior.”
“Shut up, smart-ass,” Ian growled, glaring the youn
ger Watchman into silence, while Riley absorbed the telling words. Though they still didn’t understand everything about Ian’s “gift,” it seemed that his dreams could sometimes be a form of precognition, enabling him to see things before they actually happened.
“So you came all this way because of some damn premonition,” he said in a low, raw-edged voice. “Why in God’s name didn’t the others stop you? What are they all doing?”
“Quinn tried, but he was no more successful than I was,” Shrader explained. “He’s back at Ravenswing with Molly and Saige. All three of them are working on the maps now, which I’m sure Saige has already told you. And Kierland has been called to Austria to stand before a special meeting of the Consortium. He’s on the plane as we speak.”
Riley knew that the Consortium was a sort of paranormal United Nations, comprised of elected officials from each of the remaining ancient clans. The Watchmen reported directly to the organization, acting as the Consortium’s eyes and ears around the globe. The shifters were forbidden to interfere in problems that arose among the clans, unless given special permission by the Consortium. Kierland and the others in the Colorado unit had broken that rule by stepping out of the shadows and making contact with Ian when his awakening had begun, which was probably why Kierland had been called forward. Riley assumed the opinionated Watchman would use the opportunity to go
ahead and argue his position that the other clans could no longer stand by and allow the Casus’s return to go unchecked. He also knew that Kierland was trying to work out a way of sharing the Marker between the different Watchmen units, so that more Casus could be taken down. Though his plan made sense, especially as Saige continued to work her way through the maps and more of the crosses were found, no one had much hope that the Consortium would agree, knowing the issue would be argued and debated for so long, it would probably be a moot point by the time they came to any sort of decision.
He was ready to ask again what Ian had dreamed, when his brother finally moved to his feet. Standing in front of the sofa, his tall body vibrating with violent emotion, Ian said, “I thought I knew you.” The words were soft…bitter. “I mean, I know we’ve never been close. And I get that it’s my fault. I bailed. Left you behind to deal with everything back at home. But I thought we at least had respect between us, Ri.”
His stomach churned, but he managed to rasp, “We do.”
“Like hell we do,” Ian growled, suddenly taking a step toward him, his hands fisted at his sides. “Brothers don’t lie to each other. They don’t keep each other in the dark, especially not when it counts.”
The dread coiled tighter, like something constricting around his neck. “What do you want from me?”
“I want the truth!” Ian shouted, his dark features twisted in a grimace of fury. “Is that so goddamn much to ask?”
He didn’t respond. Instead, Riley uncrossed his arms and headed for the back door. But leaving the room meant turning his back on Ian, which was never a smart move. One second he was walking away, not wanting to have this conversation in front of Hope, and in the next Ian was gripping his shoulder, jerking him back around, getting right in his face. “Don’t you dare walk away from me!”
“I don’t need this right now.”
“If not now, then when?”
“There’s crap going on here that you don’t know about!” he roared.
“Because you won’t tell me!” Ian fired right back, shoving at his shoulders hard enough to send Riley slamming back against the door.
He sagged there for a moment, letting the door support his back, clueless as to what he should say…how to explain. It amazed him that the floor was still holding him up, when everything else around him seemed to be dissolving into a pile of shit. “Christ, Ian. I don’t want you to have to be a part of this.”
“I already am.” His brother lifted one hand, ran it back through the midnight strands of his hair, then slowly shook his head. “I know what you have planned. What you’re going to ask Kellan to do.”
Riley locked his jaw and stared into Ian’s glittering eyes, a vein beginning to throb in his temple.
“What?” Kellan asked. “What’s he going to ask me to do?”
Ignoring the Watchman’s question, he said, “It has to be done,” in a low, emotionless tone that seemed to infuriate Ian even more.
“Like hell it does. What are you thinking?”
His mouth twisted with a bitter smile as he said, “I’m assuming that in your little dream, you didn’t hear the explanation I give him when I make my…request?”
“What request?” Kellan burst out with impatience. “Would someone tell me what’s going on?”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass what kind of reason you have,” Ian growled. “Nothing could make me believe that your idiotic plan is the only answer. It isn’t going to happen.”
“If Kellan doesn’t do it, I’ll find someone else who will.”
His brother sneered. “Yeah, well, they’re going to have to get through me first.”
He stared into his brother’s eyes, doing everything he could to avoid looking at the others. To avoid looking at Hope. “Stay out of this, Ian. It has nothing to do with you.”
“It has everything to do with me. You’re my goddamn brother, and after everything we’ve been through, I’m not about to lose you like this. I want an answer, and I want one now.”