Chapter 7
7
Cyn listened with her mouth parted, with him looming over her, shuffling from foot to foot at times, and the Lure was there, shining in from the side. Glistening. She knew exactly which way to go, if she was free.
But Vargr’s words rumbled through her brain too.
“At the tribe someone will claim you. You’re pretty and…”
“You want to know who you are, and I can…”
“… my sister is up there along with the rest of humankind.”
He faded in and out with the Lure, but she sensed the meaning, found his hesitancy quaint despite the seriousness of this. Wide-eyed, ears singing with a high distant tone, she listened more intently with every second.
The Lure was fading.
Vargr stepped nearer. His wings flared, now and then, with the red light behind him that lit this place creating a pretty aura above and around the beaster. He was, bluntly, impressive. To her. A siren call to her ovaries. He is also forbidden. Cyanide to her kryptonite. Bugspray to her zombie butterfly. And she wasn’t making sense in this, yet everything congealed into one beauteous, dark, message. Touch me and regret it , was scribed in every shift of muscle, every breath he took, in every word he spoke.
And yet her hands shook. She wanted him.
Fuck, he was gorgeous.
She blinked then woke a little more from the glamor of the Lure.
She wondered if he knew he punctuated his words with wing flutters. Those giant, grey-black feathers belonged on a god in a painting, a glorious bird, or an angel. He was such a pretty man-beast. Shimmery blue dots pulsed along the feather vanes like runway lights telling a plane where to land.
“Mmm.” She encouraged him with small noises. All this was because he wanted to fuck her, and she’d said no to that before. Except now was different. The Lure made it so.
If she went to the tribe and stayed, someone would claim her. Truth.
If she left them, travelled on her own, the monsters he listed sounded daunting. There were nanite-mutated dogs as well as the stinkers and wild animals. Facing the Lure alone would be even more terrible. Would she climb up and be the Ghoul Lord’s prey again, eaten, chewed up, spat out as bones? This was life and death. Hers.
And Vargr was so pretty. Why not?
He’d help her find out who she was and who she had been before the world sort-of ended. For some reason, and it was probably the handwritten contract in the notebook, she believed him.
One huge problem—she didn’t want to be his forever, or bound to anyone forever. Her distaste at that surged. She grimaced. Owned due to whatever chemical change this induced in her body?
“No.”
“What?” His thunderously thick eyebrows angled and met in the middle.
“I won’t sign.” There must be reasons, good ones. “I was immune, that… may return. Or I can figure out how to get it again. I’m almost better.”
“Temporary, always is. Each night the Lure lessens. I won’t risk transporting you while the Lure has you.” He raised his notepad, shook it. “You will sign.”
“Hell, no.” Cyn found the ankle chain, began pulling at it, winding it in; the chain chinked and rattled. “I’d rather die than be fastened to someone like a leech. I will travel lower,” she added casually, “… to those understories of the scraper. That should work.”
“No! That is stupid.” He took a step closer, leaned down. “Sign. Here,” he said, smacking the page.
It would’ve been wise to stall him, wise to get unchained first. Then she could’ve run, though she recalled him tackling her easily before. Those yummy wings were an unfair advantage.
His blue eyes fixed on her as if she were the most infuriating thing he’d ever seen.
Mirth bubbled up.
Fuck being wise. She wasn’t going to win this, but that gave rise to a new, unique exhilaration. This was more fun anyway—taunting him.
She smiled, showing her teeth, daring him. “And if I say no again?”
That he wanted a contract, well it was silly, but nothing about this beaster was quite normal. Anyone else, from his words, would’ve taken her without asking.
Vargr growled, actually growled .
“Ooo. Look at this.” The ankle chain was only hooked to itself. She reached for that hook, and he snagged her wrist in his hand, dragged it to the notepad.
“Sign!”
“Fuck, no.” She narrowed her eyes as she regarded him, daring him because she liked the feel of it. The anger she’d brought forth amused her. “No.”
He pulled on her wrist. She resisted.
“Arhh!” Swearing, he flipped her over onto her stomach in spite of her kicks and clawing at him, straddled her with enough weight to keep her in place. Then he dropped the notepad, pulled her hand to it, shoved the pen into her fingers. His great fist wrapped about her nape below the collar.
“Sign, or else.”
My, my. The or else sent lust shimmying down her backbone.
This was, most particularly, the reverse of what she wanted and yet she enjoyed this situation he’d put her into, to infinity. So fucking hot to have him kneeling over her. The man-beast had been stirred from his complacency.
That he was going to fuck her after this, well, her objections had evaporated. She wriggled and got nowhere.
“Is this what you call voluntary, you asshole?”
“Is now,” he said harshly, breath sifting over her neck. “Is now, my smarmy little bitch.”
“Fuck your logic.” She chuckled then let out a long sigh that spread the heat he’d conjured to her intimate parts, made her so damn wet, and she arched and felt the length and hardness of him behind her.
His fingers massaged the back of her neck. “Hmmm. Do it now.”
Entranced, she watched him move her fingers until the pen touched the page.
Of course she’d given away her enjoyment of this with that laugh. Still…
She watched her hand move under his grip, wished she could lean in and nip his wrist, lick along his fingers.
Cyn swept her tongue over her lips. The scent of him so close… it was so overwhelmingly male.
She signed. A scrawled Cyn manifested on the page in grandiose swoops as if she performed elegant calligraphy.
“Good.” He took the pen from her, his hand brushing the inside of her fingers. Another frisson of heat livened her. Then he backed off and let her sit up. In his eyes, she saw the burn of raw, unadulterated lust. “Very good. Obedient girl.” Then he turned and placed the notebook on his pack.
“Obedient?” she drawled, half-ready for another round of defiance.
His large fists clenched and unclenched then he smiled. “Very. I liked it. Even your bullshit. You like being held down?”
He wasn’t as dumb as she’d thought. “Never.”
“Sure you don’t, babe .” He walked over until he backed her into the column and had one leg either side of her.
Man, he liked taunting too.
She put her hand to his ankle and caressed him, circled it partly, marveling at his size. A sudden craving took away the breath from her lungs as she looked up at this towering male—a craving to yield her body to whatever he might wish to do to her…
God, was it ever that . She spoke, voice rasping, “The Lure is almost gone.”
“And we need that now, don’t we? You’ve been so bad. What will I do to you.” Rhetorical question, and threat leaked from every word.
She gulped and decided she needed him, naked. Doing stuff to her, before she came from thinking about it. Night was surely falling outside—the stars, she imagined, fading and tumbling from the sky. Meteors flaming. Moons destructing. The universe was about to implode.
Vargr leaned down and hooked her collar with one finger. He pulled her to him for a kiss that rendered her instantly deaf, blind, and shuddering for breath, then he stopped to whisper against her lips, “Strip for me, so I can fuck you.”
He released her and backed away, enough distance to give her room, enough to still dominate the space.
Cyn remembered to inhale, then she turned, still sitting up on her knees. She edged her leggings lower, first one side then the other, allowing her underwear to roll down, just… enough. Feeling the cool air on her slickened bared skin, she swore her swollen lips separated as she imagined him looking there.
From behind her, a faint growl said she’d found the right gesture.
With the ankle-attached chain dragging over the floor, she went to all fours then waggled her ass, rotated it, letting him see what she had to offer between her legs.
She angled her head to see him.
This is when she needed a heavenly choir to sing, with the voices echoing faintly across this immense space like a space opera reaching its battle climax, as he undid the buttons on his pants, pulled them down, and shucked them, kicking them aside.
She’d always had a good imagination.
But she’d never imagined what was in his pants. His cock was more than impressive; the word stupendous came to mind. It had knobbles. It had bumps. Blue motes danced and swirled on the skin.
She was sure it must rival stone for hardness.
Holy fuckedness , she said in awe in her mind then almost out loud, except he distracted her, for he’d kneeled behind her with that destructive weapon aimed at her pussy. One hand pulled at her butt to position her and to thumb her open. She whimpered in staccato gasps as he leaned in to slowly slide the head up and down her slit. To push at her. To shove.
“Fuck.” She braced herself. Desire soared, overwhelming her.
Groaning, with her hands flat to the floor and her butt pushed high, she wished he’d grab the collar at her neck, hold her in place, and thrust that cock fully into her. And was afraid he would.
Because that might break her in two.
“Like it, hmmm?”
“Never!”
“Liars get punished.” He poked at her and entered her with barely a spit’s worth of dick. “And teased.”
Hardness verified. She moaned and lowered her head, feeling every part of this contact. The communication of heat between them was scintillating. Slippery, he rocked into her again.
Her wetness welled, her lower lips parted and swelled, making the touch of him electrifying. Hot. Her entrance tingled with a thrill that thrummed higher. Her nipples popped outward, and then… then he pushed another small distance inside her, his cock barely in, and… he stopped.
Letting her adjust to him, but she wanted more .
Her mouth fell open.
She panted, wet her lips with her tongue, and waited for his next exquisite move.
“More.”
“Say please,” he murmured to her ear, and biting her neck, here, there.
She arched.
Her pussy clenched onto him, hard, then relaxed, then clenched in yet again. A sigh escaped her that was half a gurgle. Her eyelids quivered as she appreciated how he was almost there, inside her. Thighs tense, she rocked back but it did not make him penetrate her further. Fuck me. Please.
She whimpered and gave in. “Please!”
With a long, hard thrust, he entered her fully, and all she could muster was a higher arch of her back and a strangled gasp. And that sense of the forbidden , of wrongness, returned but only for a flighty second that was gone in the next rupture of breath, the next massive thumping spear of him forging inside her that rocked her forward. She collapsed onto her forearms, took whatever he gave her, her own wetness leaking from her with each stroke, lubricating the sex, his breaths following hers, both of them rushing toward climax.
The ram of him into her, over and over, body thumping into body, the liquid sounds of sex, it obliterated all thought, all sense of self.
She was utterly his in this filthy moment in time.