"They were dead weeks ago, when they stopped shifting. That girl you shot murdered her parents and her entire litter." I glanced over at Bennett, surprised to find him comforting me. But he wasn't really, was he? He was just reciting facts.
“You’re really not going to lose any sleep over this, are you?” I asked as the alpha male sat up in bed, his tattooed body brilliant in the candlelight. Even with the bloody bed, my hurt leg, and the dead wolves, it was almost easy to picture spending the night with this guy. Outside the window of his fancy lodge bedroom, it was snowing, frosted white edges kissing the window frame. The trees were nothing but shadows against a starry sky, and the candles coupled with a roaring fire in the stone fireplace made it all sort of … surreal.
I had phone calls to make, I knew.
A lot of them.
I had to tell Revel that I was sorry for bringing her over here under false pretenses (even if I’d done it unknowingly), I had to tell Riot and Fin how much I cared and how sorry I was, and I had to tell Mik that I’d deliberately disobeyed him.
But right now … I just had to be here.
“I knew there was a reason I fucking hated wolves,” I snarled when Bennett didn’t answer. He sneered at me, letting his eyes rake over my body in a way he hadn’t before, like I was a piece of meat. Not sure if he wanted to fuck me or kill me in that moment—maybe both—but like before, I wasn’t exactly turned off by it. All of this sexual tension and almost fucking was really starting to get to me.
"Whatever. Doesn't matter what you think, doesn't change the fact that she was a dumb kid who made a stupid mistake, not a monster, not really." Bennett just stared at me like he could give two fucks less about innocence or guilt, but even though he was, quite unarguably, a crazy son of a bitch, I knew it bothered him on some level. He was Alpha, and it was his job to protect his people.
He'd failed at that, and even an egomaniac like him was bound to find that a little disturbing.
Bennett ignored that statement, scooting closer to me, and then turning so that he straddled my lower thighs, his shaft protruding distractedly between us. My own blood soaked his knees as he bit his wrist and started dripping crimson onto my wound again.
"You don't have any diseases I should worry about, do you?" I asked, thinking of lupine sickness, an STD originally only contracted by werewolves but more recently passed through the rest of the canidae population.
Bennett just smiled which sort of scared the shit out of me.
"Don't I get anything special for saving your life?" he asked. "Instead of an inquiry about my bill of health? You were so far gone, and that thing, was a komodo shifter—its mouth bacteria is rancid as fuck. If you'd tried to go to a hospital, or wait for your vampire whore to get here, you'd be dead. So maybe a thank you is in order, if not a thank you fuck."
I stared at him, at his stubbled jaw and shaggy dark hair, his big, gold eyes and full lips. Bennett had a distinctly masculine face with a wide jaw and heavy cheekbones, an aquiline nose, and an attitude problem. He had toxic masculinity written all over him. And in that moment, I didn't give a crap.
"If we fuck, it'll heal the rest of this?" I asked, pointing at my leg and wondering about the poison he'd just mentioned. Komodos were notorious in the assassins’ guild for being able to do the job and do it quick, but they were all stationed way above my pay grade. They were so goddamn deadly, I'd never met one in person. Even if I had, I wouldn't have recognized the thing that'd leapt off the wall at me.
"Yes," he said, grinning and shoving his wrist against my mouth. I took it in both hands and sucked greedily, feeling this strange rumbling inside of me, like my molecules were being rearranged. Thus, the power of alpha blood was the reason that I was healing so quickly, right? "Why? You're seriously considering it? I've always hated kitsune, but you intrigue me. A quick, bloody fuck would do us both some good, don't you think?"
Bennett pulled his wrist away from my mouth, and I shoved my arm across it to clean away some of the viscous red. He tasted as good as smelled, fresh and wild, organic and of the earth. Frustrating, considering how twisted he was inside the head. But he was also tall, muscular, and attractive, and I'd been trying to get laid for weeks, unsuccessfully I might add.
Plus, I had a lot of emotions inside that I just wanted gone.
I was a mess in that moment, though I guess I can't really shirk responsibility for what happened next, now can I?
"Let's fuck then," I said, and Bennett threw back his head in wild laughter, like some sort of ancient viking or something. He looked like he was ready for fucking Ragnarok.
"Well put. Glad to see you're vociferous and well-spoken."
Bennett moved so that he was sitting between my legs instead of on top of them.
When our eyes met, I could tell this was going to be a simple, wild mating, that's it.
Thank the Fox Goddess and her harem.
Not sure if I could handle anymore emotions right now. I had heaps of them inside of me, and I'd been fielding heaps more from the men (and woman) around me. Gross.
"I guess we don't need a condom, considering you've just drenched me in your blood," I said with a long sigh. As far as pregnancy was concerned, I had that taken care of. One magic tonic a year from one of Inari Okami's miko (a miko is a shrine maiden) and I was infertile for the next twelve months.
"Interesting observation," he said with this wicked little expression on his face. When he grabbed my knees and pushed my legs up, I let out a small gasp of surprise that was amplified even further when he dropped down and put his mouth to the nearly-healed line of ragged flesh that made up my leg wound. His tongue lapped against the blood staining my pale skin, and I groaned. I had not pegged the alpha male for an oral fanatic, but there he went, licking and sucking at the blood leaking from my femoral artery. As he worked his mouth against me, the injury actually began to close right in front of my fucking eyes.
He literally had a magic tongue.
Holy shit.
Bennett also must be a fairly truthful man, because he seemed to like blood as much as he said he did. He sucked it off my skin, leaving me clean and pale when he raised his face and hooked a grin. His rough palms pressing against either one of my thighs and spread me wide. I didn't bother to resist or argue, just relaxed into the pillows and let him switch his attention from my leg to my cunt.
With my gaze focused on the vaulted ceiling and the dancing shadows from the fire, I let the blissful pleasure from below wash over me, crashing into the tsunami of anger and rage and pain from last night. It was the perfect counterbalance, tipping those feelings on their head the same way I'd flipped Bennett over my back last night.
He worked my folds with his tongue, teased my opening, paid extra special attention to my clit ... and then he turned his head to the side and bit me. Fucking hard, too. Hard enough that I let out a scream.
"What the hell are you doing?!" I snapped, but Bennett was already sitting up and dragging me down the pillows, putting the head of his thick, wide shaft to my core and giving me a look. I tensed up a little because, really, he was one of the biggest men I'd ever seen. But I'd be damned if I was going to tell him that.
"I had to bite you, to seal the magic," he said with a loose shrug of his massive shoulders. His hands were so big, and I was so small, they enveloped my fucking pelvis. I had to wonder if he tried, could he put his hands around my waist? And not just because I was naturally thin and athletic, but because his fingers were so long, his hands so big. "In our community, you know how important a binding or a seal can be, don't you?"