“All’s fair.” Creed kissed her until she succumbed and whimpered for more.
When she bashed a fist behind her into the wall, the drywall shattered.
Blu chuckled freely. She swaggered in his embrace
and shoved him hard. He landed on the mattress, angled half on and half off the bed.
It was going to be a long and adventurous night.
Fitting his leg between hers, Creed managed to flip the powerful wolf to her back. He pinned her by the wrists. Blu met his gaze with a defiant stare. So bold, her gray eyes. Trusting. He could not consider harming her, as he’d earlier worried. She did not struggle. He sensed she was giving him some slack.
Or else she was plotting new ways to overthrow him.
“I love you, Blu,” he said, and licked up the side of her neck to bite the lobe of her ear not too gently. His fangs were down, he now realized, but he cautioned himself not to break skin or draw blood. Never without her permission.
She arched her chest up to nudge against his and he palmed her breasts. The werewolf’s legs snapped about his hips and slammed his groin against hers.
“Let me get my pants off,” he said.
“You’re too slow.” Claws ripped down the each side of his leg, releasing him from the clothing and drawing blood at the same time. “Did I hurt you? My bad.”
“The pain you give me hurts so good, lover.” He kissed her breasts, holding her firmly because she was all energy and movement and he didn’t want her to slip away this time.
But she did not. She was ready for him. The vampire had tamed the wolf.
Entering her was like being overwhelmed by bliss. Creed gritted his teeth and his body shuddered as her sweet warmth clutched him tightly. He wasn’t sure, but he thought her inner muscles were even more powerful in her current state.
“
Mon Dieu
, Blu. I won’t last long. You’re so…hot.”
“Not this way.” She shoved him off her—and out of her—with a firm palm.
Lying back on the pillows, Creed wasn’t about to let her keep fighting. He wanted her. He needed her. Now.
She knelt on all fours on the bed beside him and wiggled her sweet derriere. “Now,” she whispered in a voice that was all sexy, teasing Blu.
So the wolf liked to do it doggie style? That made sense.
Hugging her against his body, Creed entered her from behind. He found a rhythm that made her whimper sweetly, and accompanied the friction by rubbing his fingers across her clit.
He could sense when his wife neared the edge, because he raced alongside her to that same precipice. They came together, she crying out in a feminine sigh that rose to a low and satisfied howl.
Creed shouted and spread out his arms. He thrust back
his head and shoulders, still firmly hilted within her, riding the luxurious orgasm his wife had granted him.
His werewolf wife.
Blu’s howl suddenly cracked. She reached back and smacked him on the shoulder, which effectively shoved him off the bed.
And then he heard a sound with which he was dreadfully familiar. The subtle cracks and uncomfortable moans as bone redesigned within skin and grew, changing, altering…
Blu flipped about on the bed. A long-taloned paw snapped out and slashed Creed across the chest, sending him colliding against the wall. He touched the deep wounds that revealed bone. Blood gushed over his fingers.
Before him stood a completely shifted werewolf.
T
HE CREATURE STANDING
before the wall bled. The scent frightened her, and at the same time, it seemed familiar. How could that be?
He held out a hand, coated with blood, entreating. Blu sniffed. Did he want her to slash the hand from his body?
Straightening her spine and putting forward her ears, she sniffed the air intently. Hackles bristled. The atmosphere was familiar, as well. But this was not a natural surrounding. The earth and fauna scents were missing.
Where was the pack? The aggressive scent of her males was not apparent.
“Blu, it is me,” the creature said in a calm voice.
She tilted her head, processing the familiar tones. It was human-speak. She understood some of it.
A
whuf
came up in her throat. She sniffed again and
leaned forward, towering over the creature who wasn’t quite man. He smelled…different.
“Your husband.”
The words made little sense. A simple bark or howl was all she required to communicate. Her muscles were lax, and she understood now she had just mated with this one. And it had not been unpleasant.
Perhaps he was trustworthy.
Stepping forward, she brought her muzzle up to sniff along his face. His blood scent was sweeter this close. She lashed her tongue up his cheek, tasting salt and perspiration and some blood. Why the blood?
Baring her teeth, she growled lowly.
Longtooth
.
The man remained perfectly still. She could not sense his heartbeat, but the warmth of him told her he was alive. Unafraid. And had not made a move to harm her.
It is safe here
. She innately sensed that.
And with that reassurance, Blu stepped back until her legs collided with an object, and she toppled on the soft surface as her body began to shift. Fur receded and bones changed. Skin moved. Her face ached the most where her muzzle shortened and she became completely human. The shift from werewolf to were was painful, but forgotten as quickly as it occurred.
Her arms stretching out and legs bending up to her stomach, Blu curled up and closed her eyes. She shivered
as her wolf body gave way to bare flesh. All parts of her ached now. Her memory was not complete, but she sensed she must have been fighting.
She felt the tender trace of Creed’s fingers along her torso.
“Love you,” he whispered beside her ear and, moving behind, he nestled his body next to hers.
B
RIGHT SUNLIGHT FILTERED
through the skylight. It didn’t fall directly on Creed, so he figured it must be after noon. He’d never worried for the sun before. Soon he’d have to move as the sun tracked the sky.
If he could move. His muscles were lax, his entire body warm with satiation. All energy was drained after a night of insanely acrobatic and intense lovemaking.
He stared at the skylight from the island of mattress that had found its way to the corner of the room. He crooked a brow. There was a pillow stuck in the crystal chandelier.
To his left, the Louis XIV chair was stuck in the wall by two legs, its watered silk cushions shredded. A slash through the wallpaper left hanging wisps of flocked emerald velvet. Two makeshift stakes—bedposts—were stabbed into the walls. The rug was bunched near the door. Feathers from the pillows snowed across the box spring, angled on the bed.
And at his side, a small warmth curled snugly against
his aching ribs. Her hair spilled across his chest like black silk. Her fingers, now sans claws, were wrapped about his semisoft cock.
Like a peaceful kitten, she purred in sleep. Or was that a worn-out puppy?
Creed stroked her hair, but she didn’t stir. How could she after the night they’d had? She’d revealed herself to him. And there may have been a few moments when he’d considered retreat.
Yes, even this former battle-hardened warrior had been shocked at the change in his petite princess. She’d become feral and wild, wary of submission, and not about to be pushed around. Wanting, needing and eager to take what she desired by tooth or claw.
Her werewolf had put her claws through his chest and broken ribs. He stroked a palm across his chest. He was healed now, but the bones yet ached.
He did not regret a single moment of it. Everything about Blu he accepted. Feisty, playful, daring, unwilling to settle when she could design her own way. A woman who had learned it wasn’t right for men to treat her cruelly. A woman who had lost all family, and found solace with him, a man not even her own species.
A woman like no other.
“I love you.” He hugged her warmth to his side. “So much.”
B
LU ATTACKED A HUGE
bowl of cereal with vigor. She was always famished the day following her shift. She’d need another bowl, or two, but they were out of milk. She had to find Housekeeper and send her to the store.
A delicious masculine scent perked her senses and she lifted her head to watch Creed enter the kitchen. He wore loose jeans that hugged his hips and revealed the dark hairs below his belly button. The precise cut of his abs made her go loopy with visions of frenzied sex, hips pumping against hers and body parts sliding slickly across one another.
Blu dashed out her tongue to catch the milk drooling down her chin. Her husband smiled at that.
She’d beat him to the kitchen after waking in the bedroom disaster, uncertain about confronting his dismay. Now it was inevitable.
His easy smile went a ways in alleviating her worry.
“How you feeling this morning?” He kissed her at the corner of her eye and hugged her from behind. Resting his chin on her shoulder, he reached around and flicked a stray chocolate crunch piece into the bowl. “Exhausted?”
“Elated actually. And hungry.”
“I see you got the Count Chocula.”
“Yummy chocolatey goodness served up by the Count. You, um…okay?”
“Tired, but elated also.”
She scooped a spoonful into her mouth and crunched quickly. A faint red line running from the center of his chest and across his shoulder revealed a healing talon wound. Oops. “You’re not upset?”
“About what?”
Seriously? “The room?”
“It needed redecorating. It’ll give you a chance to break in the credit card.”
Whew. Could the guy be any nicer?
“What about the talons? I’m sorry. I delivered you some good ones.”
“I heal.” He palmed the red mark. “Some slower than others. This was a deep one. Cut through some ribs.”
Digging the spoon into the cereal, Blu flicked a pale brown marshmallow onto it. No raging? No angry rebuttal to her wild need to push him away and then grab him back? Not an admonishment for the wounds she’d given him?
“Why are you so good to me? I could have killed you last night, you know.”
He nuzzled aside her jaw and kissed the milk trail from her chin. “If that’s what the dangerous werewolf wants to believe, I’ll give you that. But you wouldn’t have.”
“I remember holding a stake.”
“You wouldn’t have used it,” he whispered at her ear.
No, she wouldn’t have. Her werewolf liked to play,
to tease, to coerce and, yeah, even claw, but she did not take life. What a hell of a way to get laid. But he’d been a sport about it. Heck, the guy deserved a trophy or something.
“I can’t be responsible for my actions when the moon is full.”
“No wonder you were pushed,” he muttered. “Glad you landed on my doorstep.”
“Even if I’m wolfed out? I mean…can you deal with that?”
“Each and every full moon.”
She smirked. “You talk as if we’ll be together many moons.”
“I hope so.”
She did, too. And how cool was that? The vampire and the werewolf getting it on and living in some kind of crazy harmony.
“Mmm…” Creed slipped his fingers between her legs.
“Seriously?” she said. “Because I’m eating breakfast here.”
“Give me one good reason to stop, and I will.”
Blu crunched furiously, her brain searching for a reason as her body thrummed at her lover’s masterful touch.
“I’m waiting,” he said with a flick of his forefinger.
Blu tensed at the delicious sensation. “I’m thinking.”
“Just one reason. I’ll stop.”
She arched her back, giving him easier access.
“What do you say?”
She stabbed the spoon into the bowl. “I got nothin’.”
She was on the verge of climax when an angry shout echoed down from the upper floor.
Creed slipped from her, and Blu cursed Housekeeper as her burgeoning orgasm slipped away.
“I’ll handle this,” she said, and made a furious beeline for the stairs.
Interrupt her morning pleasure, eh?
Stomping up to the bedroom, Blu arrived upon a frantic maid mumbling something in Spanish, which she didn’t understand. Housekeeper flung her hands about before her to punctuate her frenzied tirade. She thrust a gesture toward the destroyed bedroom, then made an I-don’t-understand gesture.
“I think I got it,” Blu said. “You can’t figure how that happened?”
Housekeeper rambled off a litany in Spanish.
“How ’bout this?” Blu bared her claws before the woman.
Housekeeper peeped to an abrupt silence. She gaped at sight of the claws, then fainted.
“Oops.” Blu teased the tip of her little finger into her mouth and gave the approaching vampire her best innocent flutter of lash.
Creed strode down the hallway and bent to lift the prone woman over one shoulder.
“That’s why I call them Housekeeper,” he said. “They never last for more than a few weeks. Sometimes it’s shock, sometimes it’s—hell, it’s blood loss. So I’m not a saint. But this time,” he admonished with a waggling finger, “it’s entirely your fault, wolf. Welcome to the family.”
Giving him a catty snarl, she clawed playfully at him. “You gonna come back and toss me over your shoulder when you’re finished with her?”
“Get undressed. I won’t be long.”
“Mmm, goodie.”
T
HE WHELP HAD THE
audacity to stare straight into Amandus’s eyes. Eugene Ryan hadn’t so much as offered a hello or what-did-you-need-me-for? He simply stood like some roughhousing bar bouncer waiting to be challenged. The muscles strapping his biceps were so big he couldn’t even relax his arms aside his torso.
Amandus bristled and stood fully, bringing his stature only an inch higher than Ryan. “You,” he muttered in the whelp’s face, “are out.”
Ryan gaped. He clenched fists before him, but didn’t strike out.
“You’ve a spy amongst your men,” Amandus continued. “Those bloody longtooths have found the past three
sporting events you have overseen. It is utterly senseless the depths of your idiocy.”
Amandus stepped back two steps until he felt the stolid presence of Ridge at his left shoulder. He glowered at Ryan, waiting for him to babble out some excuse for his ineptitude.
“Out.” Ryan nodded, shaking his head at the same time. “So just like that, then? First you take away my fiancée and now I’m out of the pack? I’ve served you well, Principal Masterson. I’ve kept your involvement in the sporting warehouses quiet—”
Amandus lashed out, his claws striking Ryan across the face. Four lacerations opened across his cheek, eyelids and forehead.
The wolf yowled, and punched a fist into his open palm. “I don’t need this headache! And I certainly don’t need to follow your weak ass around anymore.” He stepped back, putting up his palms when Ridge moved to parallel Amandus. “If you didn’t have him to loom over you like a carrion-hungry crow, I’d take you out, old man.”
Amandus smirked. “Get out of here before I command my crow to do the same to you.”
Lifting his chin in abject disobedience to the leader, Ryan backed toward the door. He fisted an angry gesture at them both, then stepped quickly out of sight.
“You want me to follow him? Tie up loose ends?” Ridge asked.
Sucking in breath through his nose, Amandus shook off the acrid odor from the defiant wolf lingering in his senses. “Not yet. We must play our cards right. The Council watches us too closely right now.”