"Fuck yes," I moaned, shuddering through an orgasm as I felt the heavy, seductive pull of his mouth on my neck, sucking the very life from my body. It was heaven, pure euphoria, and I never wanted it to end.
My fingers fumbled with his clothes, tearing his shirt open and sending buttons flying around my foyer like bullets. Smoothing my hands over his muscles, I went for his belt. As incredible as it felt to have his fangs in me, I just knew it'd be a whole other level if I had his cock in me, too.
By the time I got his belt loosened and his fly undone, my fingers were trembling. Nothing was stopping me from getting what I wanted, though. What I needed.
"No," Mik growled, tearing his face from my neck and shoving away from me. "No, this can't happen. This is wrong."
Panting, my legs like jelly, I stared back at him, totally unafraid to meet his gaze for once. I had no issues with him seeing inside my head as it was just a detailed play-by-play of exactly what I wanted him to do to me.
"Mik," I started, my voice in a husky whisper. He was perfection, standing there with my blood smeared across his mouth, his cut marble chest on display and his pants hanging open. "What's the issue here? We're both consenting adults, and I've never been one to get hung up on inter-species relations."
"The issue," he snarled, wiping his bloody mouth on the sleeve of his shirt. "Is that you're my employee—at best. At worst, you're food. And I do not fuck my food."
Stunned to silence, I said nothing as he pushed me away from the door and stormed out of my house. Powerful bastard that he was, he didn't even seem the slightest bit affected by the afternoon sun either.
Several moments after he disappeared, I regained my wits and slammed the door shut hard enough to lengthen the crack Mik had already made in it. Fucking arrogant son of a vixen!
Rage used to make me do stupid things, before I joined the guild. Before Mik taught me control. His rollercoaster mood swings were sending me straight back to square one though, because I was pissed.
"Fuck him," I muttered, scooping up Ziff's bag from where I'd dropped it on entering the house. Ziff must have taken himself off to the kitchen or something while we were arguing, which was a little out of character for him. Then again, Mik was bringing that out in all of us lately.
"Who needs that crazy, cold-hearted bastard anyway?" I was talking to myself as I wadded up a tea towel and pressed it to my still bleeding neck. It was all bullshit, what I was saying, and I knew it. Truth was, his words had cut me like a fucking knife.
The least he could have done would be to heal his damn bite though. Selfish prick.
Shelbi, my new wolf friend, was waiting out front of Rioja as promised when I rolled up in Lola at two minutes past eight. I popped the passenger side door open for her without getting out and she gave me a look as she slid in.
"What?" I asked her, frowning.
"You're going to meet with the Vail Valley Alpha—a man well-known for his dislike of any other species—wearing that, and flaunting a vampire bite?" She whistled low. "Damn girl, you have got iron clad balls. I think I like you."
"What’s wrong with what I'm wearing?" I demanded, looking down at myself. I was in my standard work-attire. Skin-tight, black leather catsuit and killer thigh-high boots. At my waist I had my bone knife, plus three other silver blades. On my back was a pair of custom-made short katanas which were perfectly weighted to my size and stature. In a pair of cross-body holsters and nestled under my arms sat two sexy purple Ruger LC9s.
"You do know I was hired to kill the diseased wolves, right?" I squinted at her, like she'd totally missed the point earlier.
"Oh, I know." She nodded with her eyebrows raised. "But you look like sex walking, and I'm as straight as an erect dick. Bennett is going to flip. I hope you know what you're doing, Thea."
"I do," I said with confidence, despite the fact that I really didn't. This was what I wore on all my jobs; it was comfortable and functional, and despite the fact he'd said it as a snide joke, Fin was right about it being easy to clean blood off.
Truthfully, it had never even crossed my mind that the wolf alpha might be interested in me in a sexual way. He'd been pretty clear that he was only turned-on by the thought of torturing and killing me … hadn't he?
"So where were these places you mentioned, that a shifter might hide if he were slowly going mad?" I changed the subject, not wanting to let my mind dwell on Bennett in anything less than a professional capacity. Besides, we had two hours of driving—one if I went all speed-demon which I fully intended on—to kill.
"There's a series of tunnels," she told me. Her fingers twisted at the balled up apron on her lap nervously, which was odd. "Or interlinking caves, really. They're on pack land, so only pack know about them. But you could easily hide in there for a long time if you had enough food and water."
"I see." I nodded. That definitely sounded like somewhere I'd go to hide, if I knew them well enough. "So Bennett can show me these caves?"
She snorted a laugh. “If you could talk him into it. He had some geology expert look at the system and was told that the structural integrity’s been compromised from some earthquake or avalanche or something back in the day. I don’t think Bennett’s been in the caves since. Doesn’t stop people from partying in there though."
"But you have?" I arched a brow at her and she gave me a wolfish grin.
"Lots of us have. Bennett became alpha when he was only thirteen, and as bad as he is now … he was worse back then. People used to meet up in the caves and bitch about him behind his back. Kid stuff, you know?" She smiled and shrugged. "We spent a ton of time in there anyway, so lots of us know the cave layout like the backs of our paws."
"What makes you think the diseased wolves know them, too?" I asked, guiding Lola smoothly around a tight corner in the darkness. I was heading straight for pack land, just like I’d done the other night. This time, at least, I had permission to be there. Well, permission from the alpha anyway. Mikhail was going to flip when he found out I’d gone against a direct order. Damn him though, he’d brought this shit on himself.
"Where else would they go? Anywhere else on pack land, and Bennett would have taken his betas to deal with them by now."
"Probably a good assumption," I agreed, settling into a comfortable sort of silence. Shelbi kept flicking glances over at me, like she was somehow awed by my presence. It was a tad uncomfortable, but I understood. She had no social standing in her own pack and here I was, treating her like we were good buddies when I didn’t know her for shit. I turned up the music, and we spent the remainder of the drive in companionable silence, pulling into the tourist parking lot and killing my engine. "Guess we better do this then."
She gave me a grin. "You totally could have just driven up to the main lodge, you know? Bennett will know you’re here whether we go see him or not. Hopefully, he decides you’re not worth his time tonight. You’d be better off with just me."
"I know." I shrugged. "But I like the idea of a secret entrance. Don't you?"
She chuckled, but followed me as I locked up Lola, then started into pack land on foot. For the first hundred yards or so we walked as humans, but it quickly became clear that Shelbi was no stealth agent by the way her feet managed to break every twig possible.
"Are you less noisy in wolf form?" I finally asked her when I cringed for what seemed like the millionth time as she tripped on a fallen tree branch. She nodded eagerly and I sagged with relief. "Thank fuck for that. Change then. I'll change too. If they hear us coming from three miles away we may as well have just driven straight there."