Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Some nights you face destiny. Some nights you just try not to hit a bat.
Irose, and Donn followed with a sharp smile.
“I take it you’re hiding our liaison from your mate?”
The way he said that, infused with so much innuendo, was going to be the end of both of us if Hudson’s beast was riding him hard.
“I think it’s best if we cut this date short.”
“But I was having so much fun.”
Fun? Doubtful.
The air around shivered with the promise of violence riding in the air.
Donn moved so fast I had no time to react. His hand slid beneath my chin and tipped my face to meet his. My breath caught as his impossible eyes swam like liquid mercury. I might be spoken for, but I wasn’t immune to the pull of a god on a mission to prove he was worth my time.
A tree groaned from the edge of the cemetery as it lost its battle with a beast.
Before I could pull away, Donn’s mouth brushed mine—cool, deliberate, a provocation carved from arrogance.
The world trembled around us with the force of Hudson’s roar. His power slammed into the cemetery like a meteor hitting the ground.
I twisted away as my mate emerged from the shadows, chest heaving, eyes shimmering with a deep gold I’d never seen. His claws pushed through his skin, his control hanging by a thread.
Donn made a pleased hum. “Payment for our short date,” he murmured. “And the promise that Eloise’s strength will falter by dawn.” He winked and vanished as Hudson lunged.
Seriously?
Hudson’s fists skimmed empty air, and he snarled, his glower scorching every inch of skin I possessed.
“You kissed him?”
“He kissed me,” I said with a shake of my head. My heart hammered beneath my ribs. “Barely.”
His jaw flexed. “You let him.”
“No, he stole it.”
“But you left with him? On a date?”
“It’s part of the deal for the reduction of Eloise’s power.”
Hudson took a step closer. Heat rolled off him in waves, the bond tugging hard against my spine. “You chose him.”
“No, I chose a plan. One you weren’t ready to hear.”
“You hid it. You hid your deal.”
“And you didn’t?”
That stopped him cold.
My chest tightened. The bond twisted, and both of us winced.
He dragged a hand down his face. “Did you pause for one moment to consider how I would feel when I returned to find you’d left with another man?”
Heat pooled under my skin, sharp and violent. “You don’t trust me.”
He stepped in, his heaving chest brushing against my breasts, a barely contained violent caress. “Cora,” he breathed, “tell me how to trust you when you keep walking away.”
So many secrets. How could we say “I do” when we hid things in fear of the other’s reaction? Did we get this wrong? I’m a being made of death. I’m not made to be loved. Hudson needed warmth, a woman who waited for him with her deepest thoughts and desires spread wide open for him to explore.
What did I have to offer him? War? Misery?
I took a step back and shook my head, tears misting my eyes. He shackled my wrist in his hand, not hard enough to hurt, but preventing the retreat I craved.
“Don’t run,” he whispered. “Not tonight.”
“I need air,” I choked out.
“So take mine.”
He dragged me against his body, dropped his forehead to mine, and slid his fingers up my arm, tracing heat along my skin. His breath skimmed my mouth, and my lips parted. The bond snapped tight, and a punch of desire shot through my veins, so hot and reckless it threatened to drown me.
“Hudson…” My voice shook.
His thumb brushed my bottom lip, and a growl rumbled from him, vibrating through my bones. “Stop trying to convince yourself you aren’t good enough, Cora. We are endgame. No more running. No more questioning. No more doubts. I am yours, and you are mine.”
My heart tried to escape the confines of my chest. I’d taken this leap of faith with him, and he’d caught me several times, even when I hadn’t known I’d needed saving.
I couldn’t win this war alone, and I had to accept that Hudson was it for me.
In return, he had to accept the same, and that no one, be it man or god, could come between us.
“Only if you do the same,” I responded.
Hudson’s eyes fluttered closed, and his nostrils flared. “You smell like him.”
“I didn’t ask for the kiss.”
“I don’t care,” he rasped. “I care that he touched you.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
His fingers tangled in the neat bun I’d tamed my hair into, and he tugged it, tipping my head back and releasing the strands. I hissed at the sting of pain, and the part of me I kept contained rose to the surface.
“Don’t challenge me, Cora.”
“Not a challenge, Principal. A dare.”
His other hand wrapped around my throat as he walked me backward until my back hit a wall. “What are you daring me to do?”
He needed permission, I realized, after I’d shut him out of my thoughts, my feelings, and my bedroom. He needed permission to touch me.
“I dare you,” I said, making sure my eyes locked with his. “To claim what’s yours.”
The growl he released was predatory, wild, and utterly consuming.
I wanted to be devoured by him inside and out.
I wanted to know his world spun on the same tilted axis as mine, so that together we clung on, because if he wasn’t with me, I’d be adrift and wouldn’t survive it.
Hudson had shown me extraordinary, and now I knew what that felt like, no other would ever compare.
“Are you sure?” His voice trembled.
“Always, mate.”
His lips fell on mine, and unlike Donn, there was no calculation. This was a claiming, just as I’d asked. The pressure was bruising—as was his grip on my hips—but it was exactly what I needed.
His mouth left mine, and his teeth raked down my neck, causing my spine to arch. His fingers grabbed the hem of my dress, and he tore it clean in half. “I don’t have slow and steady in me right now, Cora. So if that’s a problem, tell me.”
Was he kidding? I dared him to claim me, and he was asking if I needed rose petals and sweet nothings? Idiotic man.
I hitched my leg up and pressed myself against his hardening length with a moan.
He unclipped the front fastening of my strapless bra, cupped a breast, and fastened his mouth around my hardening nipple.
He sucked so hard that I cried out as he balanced me on that enticing line between pleasure and pain.
My nails scraped through his hair, ensuring he continued this sensual torment.
I was about to have sex in a graveyard, and yet it was the most peace and privacy we’d found in weeks.
He tore my panties from me, and his fingers swept between my legs, finding me ready for him. Hudson pushed two fingers inside me and skimmed my clit with his thumb in a way that told me he’d memorized the exact pressure and motion that drove me crazy.
“Yes,” I breathed, chasing the crest as he pumped in and out. My eyes fluttered closed, and my skin tingled, ready for—
He stopped and withdrew. I blinked. “What are you doing?” If he stopped now, I couldn’t be held responsible for my violent reaction.
He smiled, all teeth and wicked intent. He spun me around and guided my hands to the gravestone. Forgive me, Martha Louise James. You didn’t sign up for this.
“Don’t fucking move your hands,” Hudson growled before nipping my ear.
The rest of the dress fell from my body in ribbons to the ground, leaving me in nothing but heels.
He kicked my legs wider apart, and cool air whispered across my heated flesh.
The silence stretched for an unbearable moment, and I turned my head to glance at him over my shoulder.
The sight of him staring at me like I was the most beautiful woman in the world shot adrenaline through my veins.
His gaze lifted to mine, and he licked his lips before dropping to his knees. He set one hand on the base of my spine and the other on my stomach. The unbelievable feeling of his tongue trailing through my core made my legs tremble. I was so close.
“Please,” I cried out.
“I got you. Just a little longer.”
Longer? I was ready to blow now. I wasn’t into delayed anything, whether it be a train or an orgasm.
“Hudson,” I snarled as he kept backing away. He dropped his hand on my back and skimmed his fingers through the mess he made between my legs. My forehead dropped to the stone, my fingers curling around the top.
“We could have him pinned beneath us in a heartbeat,” Indigo purred.
“Try it, and I’ll find a new definition for the term edging,” Hudson growled.
My breathing grew ragged as he wound me tighter. Then his tongue swept backward, and my mind blanked at the unfamiliar sensation. Holy fuck.
He chuckled. “You like that?”
Did I? I didn’t know.
“Yes, you do,” Indigo said.
He did it again, and my core clenched, feeling empty, needy... greedy. He dragged his drenched finger back and pushed inside my ass, just a little. I cried out into the night.
“Have you ever—”
“No,” I cut him off. “And without inflating your ego, you aren’t exactly small to ease me into it when your beast is riding you to take me hard.”
His teeth nipped my butt cheek. “That’s okay. We can work you up to it. All I needed to know was whether my mate likes her ass played with.” He worked inside me a little deeper, the sting adding to the dizzying heights he was pushing me toward. “And now I have my answer.”
I tried to close my legs to relieve some of the ache, but he swatted my butt and slapped the inside of my thighs in warning. “I need to come,” I huffed.
“I know.”
He sounded smug.
“I’m going to murder you. Slowly. Much like how you’re edging me now, except you will be deprived of oxygen rather than an orgasm.”
“Kinky.”
I snapped my foot out, aiming for his head. He caught it with a laugh and stood, opening me wide and tipping me forward. His rough jeans pressed against me as he ran his cock between my legs. “Ready?”
“Yester—”
My vision blacked out, and a scream tore from my throat when he filled me in one thrust. He didn’t give me time to adjust as he powered inside again and again.
My world fell away, and all I could do was cling to him and hope he caught me.
Would it always be all-consuming like this?
I both hoped it would and feared it would. It was complicated.
His free hand wrapped around my front, and he pulled me back to his chest. My head turned, and he captured my lips with his own.
The throb grew insistent until all I could hear was my heartbeat. A dizzying, heated rush swept down my spine and created an ache in my core. My back arched, and I gritted my teeth, trying to force the inevitable back. I was going to lose the battle.
I pulled free, spun around, and wrapped my legs around him, all in a single breath. The new friction drove me to an inevitable crescendo, and I lost myself in the pleasure of his arms.
“Let go,” he urged. “Trust me. I’ve got you.”
My wings tore free, spraying my blood in a wide arc. I’d fought the release, and they punished me with pain.
“Fuck,” he snarled, grasping my ass in a bruising grip and pushing us both over with an explosion of pleasure that stole my breath.
My damp forehead rested on his bare shoulder.
“Cora.”
“Hmm?”
“Not to cause concern, but you probably need to open your eyes.”
I blinked them open, and my stomach lurched as the cemetery shrank below me. “Oh my god, why are you flying?” We were only a few feet in the air, but it felt like a mile.
“Correction—you’re flying.”
That couldn’t be right... I glanced over my shoulder, finding huge wings beating. “Oh, shit.”
“Just don’t drop me,” Hudson said.
“No promises.”
I flapped harder and shot sideways like a drunk pigeon.
“Watch out,” Hudson growled. A panicked squeak left my throat as my wings spasmed.
“It’s not like I got lessons.”
“Isn’t it like riding a bike?”
“No clue, but that only works if you’ve learned how to ride a bike in the first place, and I have not.”
Hudson’s weight shifted in my arms as I lurched sideways again.
“Don’t wiggle. You’ll throw off my… flight path.”
“You don’t have a flight path.”
Fair.
I attempted to level out, angling my wings the way instinct—or chaos—told me to. “Okay, I’ve got this.”
“Sure you do,” he deadpanned.
“A little faith, mate. I’m the biggest thing in the sky.”
Something small and squeaky launched out of the dark.
“What the hell?” I shrieked. Leathery wings smacked into my face like a tiny missile.
“We’re under attack,” I screamed as it tangled in my hair. See? This was why superheroes didn’t wear capes and lose their hair.
“It’s a bat, not a weapon.”
My wings snapped open too wide, and I catapulted backward through the sky like a broken kite. Hudson swore violently into my shoulder.
The bat finally detached, cursing me in squeaks before flapping off in a wonky zigzag. I stared after it in outrage.
“Isn’t there some kind of etiquette in the sky?” I wondered. “Like the biggest wingspan gets priority?”
“Apparently not. You’re the supernatural equivalent of a learner driver with ‘Please be patient, I’m new’ slapped on your ass.”
I opened my mouth to argue and snapped it closed. He was right. “Are we even going the right way?”
“You are.”
The dark smear of trees and road below shifted, and with a few more drunken flaps, I finally angled toward the familiar glow of home. Summer Grove’s white columns rose out of the night like a very judgy wedding cake.
“Okay,” I muttered. “Landing. How hard can it be?”
Hudson tightened his grip. “You had to say it.”
I aimed for the lawn, tried to remember every bird I’d ever seen, and promptly dropped the last few feet like a sack of potatoes. We hit the grass in a tangle of limbs and wings, my knees buckling as my heels sank into the soil.
“Oof,” I wheezed, sprawled half on top of him. “Nailed it.”
“Zero stars,” he groaned. “Would not recommend as an airline.”
I peeled myself off him, breathing hard. The night air kissed every inch of bare skin, and only then did it fully register. Shredded dress, gone. Bra, gone. Panties also gone. I was literally naked in the front yard with blood-slicked wings dragging behind me like a feathered murder cape.
Of course, the porch light flicked on, illuminating Rebecca, Dave, and Sebastian lining the front steps like the world’s most sarcastic welcoming committee. Three sets of eyes blinked in unison.
Rebecca’s gaze swept over me, lingering on the wings, the dirt on my knees, and finally the heels still clinging to my feet. She glanced at Hudson’s wrecked shirt and undone fly. Her lips curved.
I straightened my spine, lifted my chin, and strode past them up the steps, wings trailing a bloody arc behind me. “Not one word.”