Huntbound (Moonfate Serial Book 2) Read online

  I can’t. I can’t do this. Let Lawrence suffer or tell Orion about my parents and have him just erase my grief? It’s an impossible choice.

  It’s a good thing that I’m holding on to Orion, because I’m pretty sure I’m about to collapse. Crushed up against his strong form, my whole body pangs with guilt and despair, and below that, as always, is the throbbing of lust.

  Orion wants me, too. His hardness presses against my thigh.

  His denim jeans conform to his body in a way that makes clear that he’s definitely not wearing underwear. I’ve never seen a guy look so big underneath his clothing before. I’m almost worried he’s going to split the denim in two.

  “What about another way?” My tongue sneaks out to wet my lips, and I can feel each beat of my heart like an exclamation point.

  “Yes?” Orion’s gaze follows mine, and his brows furrow. “If you initiate it, it might work.”

  You’d think he’d be excited that I’m checking him out. He is, the bulge proves it, but his masculine face is cast in a combination of numbness and longing along with hunger. It’s an expression I know well.

  Staring at him is like looking at my reflection in a broken mirror. I wonder if he sees himself in me too. If he feels this overpowering need to touch me even if it means bloodying himself on the shards. I can’t gaze at him any longer. I can’t let my soul be bound to him in empathy. So I’ll let my body be bound to his in desire instead.

  I kiss him.

  His soft, wet mouth burns against mine. I may have started the kiss, but he deepens it, his tongue pushing past my lips. I meet him, stroking his tongue with my own. When he nips at my lower lip, I bite back, harder, until I taste something warm and metallic, but strangely sweet. His blood, I realize.

  Even then, I don’t stop. I want to eliminate this connection, to purge it from my veins, pour the corruption of need that’s infected my soul back into him where it belongs. I fist his hair, pulling him closer.

  He growls, sending his chest vibrating against mine and tickling my nipples. I tug at his downy platinum hair, liking the wolfishness of his noises, wanting him to make more.

  He doesn’t obey. Instead, he separates my thighs, and before I can register it, he’s cupping my crotch. His finger makes a tiny circle over my clit. Once. Just once.

  “Ah,” I groan. I want more. I crave that sweet oblivion. And he’s keeping it from me. I dive toward his neck and suck there hard until I know even his super-human skin will be mottled.

  But my plan doesn’t work. His hands leave.

  No! I dig my fingernails into his scalp, but not for long. In an instant he has a vice grip around both of my wrists and is steamrolling me back against the wall. I writhe in his hold. Less because I’m trying to get away, and more because now that this has started I need him to be moving faster.

  I need to have him inside of me.

  My back collides with the wall, sending my bones rattling with the force of the impact. I squirm forward, trying to kiss him again. I need that bittersweet taste of him. God, I have so much need and so suddenly. I close my eyes, trying to block out everything but the sensation of his hard body against mine. Maybe that will end the dream.

  “Look at me, Artemis.” Orion grabs my chin.

  My eyes fly open, and I stare at him with a defiance and fire I didn’t even know I possessed. Funny how giving in can make me discover my strength.

  “I’m going to fuck you now. And you need to know that no matter how hard I come inside you, no matter how hard I make you come, it won’t sate you. You will wake from this dream wanting more, craving it until you’ll beg me to claim you in reality, too.”

  He grinds his hardness against my crotch to punctuate the point, but it’s the force of hearing him use a word as human and dirty as ‘fuck’ that makes my core clench.

  “Those are just words, Orion,” I say. “Prove them.”

  Chapter Three

  He attacks my jeans first, tearing them in two in a single motion. A flood of cold air washes against my skin. I keen, but I don’t break eye contact. If this is a battle of wills, I’m not going to lose. I’m going to claw my way out of this dream myself and leave no part of my soul behind.

  He smiles at me, and if the words were in his vocabulary, his look would say ‘Bring it on.’

  I know Orion can use his werecall on me if he wants to, but I’m getting the feeling that if we want to have any hope of leaving here he has to play fair.

  I don’t, though.

  While he’s pulling down the tattered remains of my waistband over my butt — a time-consuming task even for him — I reach for his cock hidden underneath his jeans. He’s so stiff and large I don’t have to go far. I get three pull-tabs down his zipper before his fingers slip underneath the elastic band of my underwear. I get another three before he plunges a finger inside of me, gliding in easily with my wetness.

  My whole body bends with pleasure. He twists his finger in a half circle and I am blank. I am nothing.

  “I’m going to see you come, Artemis.” He bares his canines with primal promise.

  My wet lips part and my breath hitches with his every thrust. I toss my head back, my hair splaying in a golden wave around me, my eyes closed, my brows furrowed as if I can condense all this sensation into a single point.

  He pushes two fingers through my folds, slamming against me as his thumb rubs short strokes over my clitoris. “Look at me!” For the first time since I kissed him, the full force of his power pushes through his order.

  My eyes open and meet his. They’re so blue they scald my soul.

  “Good girl. Feel it, let it take you,” he whispers, his voice falling into a hypnotic cadence.

  I clench around his fingers, little earthquakes fracturing through me. I’m already on the edge. I’ve been on the edge since I first saw him in my dream only a day ago. Breath fails me as I wait for him to plunge me down over it.

  “Are you ready, Little Mate?” His breath is coming fast now, too.

  All I can do is give a tiny nod.

  Slowly he draws his fingers back, expanding the space between us as he goes until he’s spreading me open. “Good.”

  “Ahh!”

  My muscles twitch, but still I’m not coming. I am beyond my own body. He has captured it. He decides when I come. This thought sends a fresh wave of pleasure through me, and I spasm again. “Oh, God.”

  His fingernail traces around my outer lips, ignoring my throbbing clit to explore the topography of my body instead. Then his other hand retreats, and I watch as he manages to pull down his own jeans with one hand. As I suspected, he’s not wearing boxers.

  His cock pops free, but I can’t get too close a look, because he’s starting up that rhythm with his fingers again. Through my half-open eyes I watch him watching me. He regards me with dark fascination, as if I’m an ant under his magnifying glass and he’s enjoying burning me alive.

  But I’m enjoying it more.

  He adds a third finger and pierces me, so deep. God, he’s splitting me open now. What will happen when he uses his cock? He’s going to soon, because on the final thrust his fingers withdraw.

  Grabbing me by my butt, he hoists me up onto the wall, his strong arms lifting my not insignificantly sized frame effortlessly. His square jaw doesn’t even grit. I’d worry he’ll drop me, but I’m actually only half straddling him. My right foot still touches the ground for balance.

  My heart twists a little. I look away. Adventurous sex positions were off limits with my past boyfriends. Not because they didn’t want to try, but because maneuvering my body seemed such a difficult task for them.

  “I’ve never—” I start, but there are too many ways to finish that sentence and all of them are true. I’ve never had sex up against a wall or in a dream or with a werewolf, or with someone who wants to claim every part of me, or with someone who, no matter how I try to resist, seems like he will.

  “You will,” Orion promises. The wet, hot tip of his cock br
ushes against my mons and he lifts me higher, bearing even more of my weight with seemingly even less effort. “You are.”

  Then in one glorious thrust, he impales me.

  “Ohhh.” I exhale.

  This time when Orion turns my gaze to his, he does so gently, until his eyes once again capture mine. I don’t need to assure myself that this isn’t real anymore. In my waking life, no one ever looks at me like that.

  “There’s a good girl.” Slowly Orion pulls back, almost too big to fit inside of my tight pussy.

  I squeeze my inner walls tight, as if I can force him to stay.

  He presses a delicate kiss to my temple. Sweat trickles from his brow onto mine and I can smell my own desire on him, tangy and sweet. But the words he whispers next are anything but. “Artemis, I tried to meet with you the human way. To know you first. But you chose this instead.”

  I flinch backwards in surprise, but there’s nowhere to go.

  With a flick of his hips he thrusts again, tearing me in two. It hurts, but not enough to stop the pleasure in my veins. “So now you’re going to have to beg.” He kneads my ass, forcing his cock even deeper into me, until it’s touching my deepest place.

  “N-no,” I manage to stutter out, even as I wiggle my hips to get more stimulation.

  He thrusts again. It’s too slow. I need more. I need…

  “Please.”

  And again, slightly faster. “Please what?”

  “Please, Orion.”

  And faster, but never fast enough.

  “Please, Alpha Orion,” I beg.

  His eyes bore into me as he rips the truth from me, just as his dick rips me open. “I own your body, Artemis.”

  “Yes!” I shout.

  He starts to pick up speed, until his cock is pistoning in and out of me with terrifying velocity. My whole body shakes.

  “Say it.” His voice trembles. He must be close too.

  Stars prickle on the edges of my vision. “Y-you own my body.” And I am falling, falling, falling. But still not fast enough. Never fast enough. Even in the thick of this perfect pleasure I still need more, so I yell, “You own me!”

  And then everything collapses.

  Chapter Four

  Centuries of fear mongering by churches and kings would lead one to believe that many werebeasts kidnapped their chosen mates or worse, raped and abused them. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing is more sacred to werebeasts than their mates, for it is only through their mates that they can find peace with their pasts and hope for their futures.

  -Beasts, Blood & Bonds by Dr. Nina M. Strike

  For a moment I’m sure the world’s ending, or at the very least that I’m waking up. But after the trembling echoes of pleasure subside I’m left half-collapsed against Orion. The air is still cold, the walls are still institutionally barren, and most of all there’s still that smell underneath everything. That horrible, chemical smell.

  Orion’s stroking my hair again, too, soothing me. But this time it doesn’t work.

  I lost everything in his embrace. Stripped myself bare for him. Screamed his fucking name.

  And for what? We’re still here.

  I grab him tighter, my half-bitten, once-manicured nails digging into his rock-hard biceps. What if we’re trapped here? What if there’s nothing I can do? A sob coagulates in my lungs. I can’t breathe. I can’t do anything but tremble against him.

  “Shh,” he whispers.

  The rough texture of the white-painted brick rasps against my skin as Orion lets my body slowly slide down the wall until both my feet are once again touching the ground. Then with a hand at the small of my back he guides me to the bed. One thought keeps drifting through the haze of my twisted afterglow as I fall onto the stiff mattress. Why here? Why is this his nightmare? That’s stupid — it doesn’t even matter what the nightmare is. All that matters is getting out of it.

  The bed dips as Orion sits down next to me. His hands trail across my arms. Funny, he’s the wolf, but he seems to always want to pet me.

  “It’s alright—”

  “N-no—” I shudder as a final ripple of pleasure ghosts through me. Even now, in my despair, my body taunts me with its reaction to him. “I didn’t fight it. I…you—”

  I can feel his pulse thumping through his skin. His werewolf heart beats with ten times the strength of a human one. “Artemis.”

  My heart squeezes at the way he says my name, and at all the nameless promises hidden within it.

  “How did you do it?” I whisper. “How did you end my dream?” Leveraging my elbow, I manage to wobble upright until I’m staring at him. I trail my fingertips over the downy ends of his platinum hair.

  And I almost gasp.

  His eyes were once a frozen cobalt, but they’ve melted into a kaleidoscope of patterns. Blue, green, purple, even wisps of gold dance across his irises. “From the moment I first saw you alone in the forest, Artemis, I knew that you were mine. I knew that I wouldn’t let you suffer, no matter your past. But you…” He shakes his head and closes his eyes. “You’re less certain. Even now. So here we are. “

  I trace his lip with my thumb, not sure why I feel wetness pricking at the corners of my eyes. His mouth is velvety and slightly moist. I half expect his tongue to dart out and lick me or his teeth to worry my flesh, but he doesn’t move at all.

  “And where are we, Orion? Really?”

  I wait for him to deflect the question. But after only a moment he answers. “This was the safe house where my father kept me for two years.”

  “Safe house?”

  “Yes.” Numbness, longing and pain flit through his eyes in a storm of magenta and emerald. “In the early days, your government hadn’t decided yet whether to simply brand us like cattle or exterminate us entirely. And with your drones scouring the forests we had to hide somewhere.”

  “They weren’t my drones,” I protest.

  I don’t know why that fact seems so important. Maybe it’s because in some sense they were. The drones, the Tracker app, all of it was the result of my parents’ murder and the fact that my face was plastered all over social media.

  Just like it’s my fault that we’re still stuck here. Shame burns my cheeks bright red. Everyone I love always ends up hurt, and somehow I come out unscathed. Lawrence has been kidnapped and his lover has been killed and what do I get, a mate who wants nothing more than to help me?

  And when he does, he ends up stuck in his nightmare.

  As I stroke the underside of Orion’s chin I notice that even though the rest of his body is hairless, his face has a light dusting of tiny hairs as soft and bright as freshly fallen snow. I drag my hand lower down the column of his neck, luxuriating in the sensation, until my fingers trip over something rougher and almost wet.

  When I bring my hands away, I can see that underneath his neck is a long, angry red line. A scar. And not an old one, either.

  Orion flinches, but doesn’t lower his chin.

  Gently, so gently, I stroke the area around his wound, wishing there was something more I could do to heal it. But I don’t have magic powers. “How did you get it?” I whisper.

  For the first time Orion looks at the room around us, but he can’t look for long. The moment his gaze hits the door he closes his eyes again. “Werebeasts weren’t meant to be confined. It eats away at us. Will drive us mad if we don’t have a distraction. And there is no better distraction than pain.” He grits his teeth. “Although cutting me was never my father’s favorite method, because in the end it might weaken me. Other ways, like poisoning the room with silver, or keeping it just below freezing, I could come to tolerate or even grow strength from.”

  Oh, God. I dart my hands away, a sick, hot guilt burning in my chest. Now the tears really do come, stinging my eyes. His is a kind of suffering I can never even hope to understand. Let alone fix. If it’s even possible for anyone to fix it.

  And yet.

  As I reach out and touch him, tracing the scar with
the barest, most careful of movements, his eyes open.

  I swallow and steel myself, ready for him to fling some pithy innuendo at me, or worse, command me to touch him again, but he does neither. He just looks at me with those wide eyes.

  The tension seeps out from between my shoulder blades. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry.”

  I remember his words when we first met in the flesh. That love is a human foible. And he looks so very human in front of me, lonely and strong at the same time, gazing at me as if he can’t believe this is really happening.