Shifters, Beasts, and Monsters (76 page)

“Feel him inside you, feel him pumping. Feel that strange
tightness halfway down him. And know that somehow, you’ve tamed him. You’re
controlling this savage monster.”

As she spoke, something about Alix’s voice made me relax
just enough, coaxed me just far enough into relaxation that I fell straight
over the edge. My climax beat against me, crawling across the red splotches
where Morzan struck, dancing over the crisscrossed lines where he dragged his
claws.

One more breath was all I had. I took it, held it in my
chest, and as I let it out, warm darkness slipped over me and I collapsed first
to the floor, and then backwards, into the Wolf King’s arms.

***

“What happened?” I whispered as Alix helped me to my feet
with an arm underneath mine.

“Well, which part? First he turned into a giant wolf, and
then...”

My exasperated look was all she needed.

“Sorry, you passed out. That’s really about it. You were out
for a couple minutes, and then
something
happened, and they all started
turning back to men. Morzan stormed out. He looked half insane. When his body
began turning back, he ran off, back through those doors he entered through. It
was all kind of a rush. That creepy eunuch kind of snapped me out of my daze
and made me gather you up. He wrapped us in these robes, and sent us back to
the house. He seemed a little concerned, but he’s a eunuch so who knows.”

I nodded, still trying to gather my wits.

“So we’re safe?”

“Seems like it. For right now anyway.” She pushed open the
door and helped me inside to my mattress, where I immediately collapsed with a
dramatic sigh. “But I’m still a little in shock. I might not be at my most
clear-thinking.”

“Well, we’re here now, we’re both still alive. That’s a
start.” I said.

She nodded and gulped some water.

“Huh.”

“What?”

“Oh, there’s an envelope here. I don’t think I saw this
before, but I can’t be sure. I have a feeling it’s for you.”

My heart jumped into my throat. She tossed it to me and it
landed on my chest.

“How do you know it’s for me?” My hands trembled as I popped
the wax seal on the back and fished the letter out of the envelope.

“I’ve never gotten a letter before. And it has your name on
the front.”

  “Oh...oh my.” I put my hand to my chest. I moved my lips
along with his words, and then drew another breath when I finished. “Alix,
listen to this.”

“Well get on with it, then, tell me all about your
boyfriend.”

I gave her a cross look, and read:

“Dear Jovena,

I was told your name by the auctioneer shortly after you
left. I convinced him to give me the location of your father’s farm. It wasn’t
difficult. Lotanese men don’t seem to like having their necks squeezed. I spoke
with your father before I left, and told him where you were going. He will have
received the money from your sale well before this letter finds you, but I also
gave him a chunk of the gold that should be going to Morzan for some plunder.

The ‘king’ won’t miss it. Not for a time, anyway.

Your parents wept, but promised to be strong. In return, I
made them a promise.”

I read the next line again to myself, not believing what it
said even after going over it twice.

“Well come on, then, what does he promise?” Alix said.

“He promises to use all his power to keep me safe, and...”

“And what? You’re good at building up tension.”

“And he says he’ll be here before the end of the next full
moon.”

“So we’ve got a month?”

“Well, he dated the letter three weeks ago. Meaning...”

“The moon is full
tonight
, Jo. I think we should be
ready for him. For whatever happens.”

I nodded.

“More than one thing is not as it seems here in the Kingdom
of Zor.”

“Nothing to be done tonight. Let’s try and rest. I have a
feeling we’ll need it.”

As I went to snuff the candle by my bed, I thought again. I
lit one corner of the letter and watched the flames lick up it until they
almost touched my fingers. I dropped it to the floor and let it be consumed.

To my surprise, sleep came quick and deep.

Both of us awakened at the same time, to cries outside.

“Riders! Riders coming up the mountain! Man the gates!”

***

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***

By

J. E. & M. Keep

Chapter
1

I
always ate lunch alone. There wasn’t a reason for it, it was just something I
preferred. A little break from the forced conversation and weak smiles. It gave
me a chance to prepare for the rest of the day, to coax me through those next
four boring hours.

That’s
all I really had. Little breaks in between the mundane office work and tepid
small talk. I crossed my legs as I finished the chapter in my newest book, but
they’ve gotten a bit thicker lately. They feel sweaty beneath my thigh-high
stockings and black A-line skirt, so I push the rest of my sandwich away with a
sigh.

There
had to be something else.

Something
exciting.

Something
that could free me from these binds.

My
boss was a tall man, handsome. “Striking” would be the word most women use.
Despite the more eccentric nature of the other scientists who worked in the lab
beyond the outer offices, he was all business. His sleek black hair so well
groomed; the pinstripe suit he wore well pressed and cared for.

He
was always curt with me. He was never mean, certainly never harassed me, but he
barely seemed to notice me. Another typical day he stopped by my desk after
returning from his lunch. “Any messages, Rita?” The question so formal. Not
even a spare glance in my direction. It was a miracle he remembered my name.

I
still gave him my most charming of smiles, my freshly made-up lips pulled taut.
“Just one, sir,” I said as I handed him the pink message slip. “They said it
wasn’t urgent.” I thought she sounded a bit too young to be calling him,
personally, but men are welcome to their secrets, even if I didn’t have any of
my own.

As
usual he gave a nod and a quiet, perfunctory “thanks” before he went back into
the labs, leaving me to my tasks again. Only the faintest whiff of cologne
reminded me another human being had once inhabited the plain white room.

It
started to make me mad after a while, and I clicked my black heels on the
floor, just to hear something other than the ticking of the clock. When finally
it was time to go, I’d like to say I was in a rush to get out of the sterile
building, but I meandered.

Life
at home wasn’t much better.

Chapter 2

The
quiet flat was just as I left it. Dark and lonely. I wish I could also say it
was neat – as neat as my office space – but I had no desire to keep
it that way. Why bother? I never had guests, and impressing myself with tidying
skills never did much for me. So to hell with it. It stayed as it was.

I
suppose I should have used my free time to cook well or clean up, but my
interests lay solely in reading and my hobbies. So as usual I turned on the
oven for something quick and easy, that would no doubt add to my increasing
weight.

It
all took too much effort, and I pinched some food into the small fish tank in
the living room. I’m allergic to cats and dogs, but the little blue fish
appreciated me as I was, and he made me smile. It was relaxing to watch him
frolic, at the very least, and as I settled in for the night, I picked up my
knitting.

My
brother has a baby, a one year old whom I never get to see, but his birthday
was coming up and I figured a winter set was as good as anything store bought,
and the click-click of the needles soothed my discontented mind.

Without
realizing it, I had drifted off, the task of knitting some children’s clothes
not enough to keep me conscious after the doldrums. Normally I didn’t become
aware of that until morning and it was time to start the whole routine over
again. This time I awoke early.

It
was still night, although the first thing I noticed wasn’t the darkness, but
the aroma in the air. It was nothing like anything I kept in my flat. It was
foreign, exotic, masculine... wrong, but enticing.

I
fluttered my eyes open, but I didn’t see its source, not at first. Instead what
I saw was a wispy trail of a dark, cloudy tendril curling around the corner of
the door. The voice, however, was what took my interest. It was faint, as if
from a distance across my home: soft and definitely a man’s.

“Come
to bed,” it called, as if the bed he spoke of – my bed – was
somehow his to beckon me towards. Yet... it felt somehow right.

It
was almost like a fantasy, something dark and forbidden that I rarely let my
mind wander to. It didn’t do me any good with my rounded, blushing face to let
such thoughts in. Even my boss wouldn’t look at me, let alone a stranger on the
street. Yet I stood up and felt my silken stockings press against the white
carpet.

There
was no man, I reminded myself. It was just my subconscious reminding me that it
was time for bed. That’s all.

As
if heeding that, the wispy black trail faded, and I walked alone. The beckoning
call of “come to bed” repeated, but surely just a memory. My mind playing
tricks.

When
I rounded the corner and flipped on the light switch, I could see that it was
empty. All the desperate hopes of my lonely mind.

In
my younger days, I would have cried at the realization, but a single woman in
her mid-thirties gets used to coming back to an empty house. I barely knew what
I’d do if I had to share my bed with anyone else, even if it was far bigger
than I needed. I liked to sprawl out, and the thought actually brought a smile
to my lips as I unbuttoned the white, now wrinkled blouse and pulled it away
from my pale skin. My bra was on the last clasp and my breasts spilled from the
top before I undid it and threw it on the top of the dresser.

I
have no idea how he had gotten there, but the first real proof of his presence
I got were his arms around me. Lean, but strong. He embraced me. Simply
embraced me, and it would’ve been so sweet and tender if not so jarringly
unexpected. Those bare, dark arms around me, just beneath my bust, his chin
resting against my shoulder as he husked into my ear in a deliciously masculine
voice, “You look so lovely.”

Snapping
my gaze to the mirror I could see him. Long dark hair, so silken and glossy,
framing a stunning male face; beautiful almond shaped eyes, half lidded as he
nuzzled into me. Although those features were lost when I saw the curved black
ram-like horns on his head.

I
was going to argue, but all thoughts, all words left me as I saw him. My lips
dropped open and I just stared at him, hugging my half nude form. My breasts
were bare, the nipples slightly pinker than the flesh around them. I don’t
think I’d ever seen them so aroused, and just the simple touch of a terrifying
man was enough to make me warm between my thighs.

It
was then that his words sank in, and I shook my head.

Why
I wasn’t more alarmed at the presence of a dark, ashen skinned man with horns
of the devil, I couldn’t say. I was more consumed with what he’d said, as if
his very words were something that could not be ignored by universal law.

“But
you are,” he said, and his voice was something of a seductive whine as he
trailed his nose up my neck to my ear and then wrapped his lips around the
lobe. To feel his warm, moist mouth take that bit of skin and flesh in and
suckle it softly...

I
couldn’t help but tremble, and he brought a hand up to cup one of my breasts,
hefting it in his palm. “And I’ve never seen a pair so big that were quite so
lovely as these,” he murred in my ear, each word a honey treat.

God,
it had been so long since I’d been touched, and my eyes fluttered back. Even if
it all was a dream, a hallucination brought on by bad food or loneliness, it
didn’t matter. It felt so real, and so welcomed that I swear I felt moisture
beginning to form in my blue eyes, so I blinked it away.

“You’re
not real,” I managed in a soft voice, and it sounded like I was lamenting the
fact. Because I was. Even some devil was better than the endless loneliness.

He
let loose my lobe and flicked it with his tongue before mewling into my ear
like an admonished pet. “Don’t say such things.” He squeezed my breast, letting
the large, ripe flesh swell between his dark, slender fingers. “I’m as real as
you,” he countered. “I should know... I’ve watched you for so long. Watched and
yearned.” I noticed the feel of bare flesh against my back, the whole of his
chest as bare as his arms and shoulders.

No
one watched me. No one even saw me. I was like a ghost, floating invisibly
through life, and it felt like the weight of it would bring me to my knees. But
he was my buoy. I forced my eyes open again, staring at my troubled face and
then up to his mirrored reflection, looking over his tall, fit form with a
quivering lower lip.

“No
you haven’t,” I argued back.

He
was gorgeous. Everything a man should or could be. Strong but beautiful;
muscled but majestic; tall but lean. Most importantly, his face was such a
vision of perfection. So well-shaped, he looked like a man out of a movie.
Perhaps he was, and I had stolen that memory from a film and used it to fuel my
deranged fantasies.

“Why
don’t you like me?” he asked, and I could see the wounded look on his face. He
wore so little, and though his groin was masked from me by my own body in the
mirror, it looked like he wore nothing there. Only leather cuffs about his
wrists, a thick leather collar around his neck. Some straps of leather that
criss-crossed his chest, and what looked like dark black socks covering his
calves and feet, though they looked like a seamless part of his whole.

“I
hoped and dreamed that you’d like me when we finally met,” he bemoaned.

I
hated making people sad, and my entire face fell in deep concern. “I would like
you,” I admitted. If he were real, of course. Which he wasn’t. Still, turning
down my fantasy man certainly wasn’t on my list of things to do, and just the
thought of someone feeling my body was enough to make me come alive in a way I
hadn’t felt in years.

It
felt like I could leap out of my skin, the sensations were so raw and tender.
My back moved into his chest more eagerly, because I didn’t want to wake up to
find out he wasn’t there.

That
one sweet moment was bliss, but I blinked and he was gone. A phantasm.

“What
do you mean you would like me?” came his voice, and my eyes darted to the bed
to find him there. He lounged upon it, his body full and on view to me. That
exquisite male physique so casually displayed, and there fully exposed was his
manhood. That proud, large member, flaccid but still so big, rested against his
thigh as he propped his head up on his palm and watched me. “I’m right here.
Don’t you trust your own senses?” he asked with a troubled gaze.

I’d
never seen one so large, and I caught myself staring before I blushed and tore
my eyes away. My nipples tightened, and my thighs warmed, but I tried to ignore
it. To ignore him. I wanted so badly for him to be real, though, and my
stockinged feet carried me forward.

“I
don’t...”

He
patted the bed beside him invitingly. Inviting me.

“I
thought I had finally found someone like me,” he said sweetly, that dark voice
rich and yet welcoming. It drew my gaze back to him, as if against my will, and
I witnessed that large cock twitch as he stared at me. Ogled me. “Someone
alone. But special. Someone so beautiful.” He licked along his full lips, leaving
them shiny with his saliva.

I
wanted to argue, but this was a fantasy. It was all a pleasant dream, and even
in such a pleasant dream, it bothered me letting the compliments stand. Yet his
cock throbbed again, and my eyes dropped to it. I could barely believe how
horny the sight of a naked man was making me, even if he wasn’t like any man
I’d ever known.

I
swallowed as I stood next to the edge of the bed, the mattress pressed to my
thick thighs as I stared down at him. “I am alone.”

His
lips formed into a soft smile. “You don’t need to be,” and he reached out, took
my hand in his, tugged me towards the bed and I found myself compelled to obey.
I had to climb in towards him as he gazed up at me so fondly. So longingly.
“Neither of us has to be anymore,” he added as he rose up – along with
his cock, so enormously large and proudly it made my head spin – pulling
me onto the mattress and into his arms.

The
warmth, the feel of another person was overwhelming, and I wanted so badly to
be surrounded in the feel of his flesh. To have him touch me and hold me; to
fill my head with sweet lies that I desperately wanted to believe. My body was
soft where his was hard, but he responded how I wanted him to.

I
might have put on pounds with time, but he showed no sign of being troubled by
it. He lowered me down onto the bed with such ease using those strong arms of
his. He laid me out like I was a prized treasure, those dark, almond-shaped
eyes of his wide as he loomed over me. “You are perfect,” he murmured huskily,
and I felt that massive cock of his throb against my thigh as he positioned
himself on top of my body.

He
needed but the one arm to hold himself up, and the other felt out my flesh.
Cupped, squeezed and kneaded my full breast, gazed at it in awe and wonder as
it melded between his fingers. “I’ve never wanted someone so much,” he said in
a confessional tone, and I felt that throbbing cock brush me again, this time
leaving a streak of sticky precum upon my thigh and stocking.

I
gasped and felt a lightning shock travel through me, making me so wet I could
barely stand it. A dream or not, I didn’t care anymore, and my hand traveled
down my stomach until I grazed his manhood with my fingertips. Oh god, I wanted
it so badly. I needed it. Everything, every part of me was so warm, so desirous
of the strange fantasy man.

He
sensed that surrender in my mind, for he grinned toothily, angled his head down
so that his long, ebony hair fell about his face so beautifully. “I knew you’d
want me too,” he said, and that large cock throbbed so thickly in my grasp. It
was spectacular. So perfectly shaped, lined with such prominent veins, filled
with the rich heat of arousal.

Lowering
himself down to me he buried his face into the crook of my neck, kissed me
there, licked his tongue up the length of my skin and suckled. How he ravished
me with his affections, kissing and nipping in such perfect form. “I want you
so badly,” he said in a moan.

“I
want you,” I whimpered back, because it was the truth. Because I was lonely,
and in need of comfort and affection, just like anyone else. Because he wasn’t
just a random person that was as despondent as me. He was virile and
attractive, and everything I’d given up on getting in life, and he wanted me.

My
heart nearly stopped, and my breathing held in my chest as I swallowed. “I want
you very badly,” I clarified.

His
heart must have sang as mine did, for he responded to that addendum with a
grind of his hips, causing that thick, meaty shaft to push through my hand in
such an erotic manner. It caused his foreskin to peel back, and the bulging,
elegantly carved crown to bloom out from beneath its hood.

“Oh,
yes,” he said in response, and lifted his head to kiss my lips. It was pure
passion, unadultered desire with which he tongued my mouth and plumbed its
depths. He kept his tongue within me long before he parted our mouths and gazed
at me with those wide eyes of his. “I’ve waited so long for you.” His eyes went
glossy with moisture. “I worried I might never have you.” He lunged for my
mouth again, his thick dick bulging even wider in my grasp, and staying its
new, obscene thickness.