Chapter 7 Rafe
Adri’s mouth slipped open, and Rafe watched entranced as his mate’s chest rose and fell in panting breaths.
“We don’t have time.”
Rafe let his hand drop to Adri’s collarbone, tracing a finger along it and down the centre of his chest, letting just a touch of his affinity with the wild magic in his veins out to make his mate shiver.
“Do you want to play, kitten?” he asked, voice dropping into a growl.
Adri shoved into his body, overbalancing him onto the rug they were sitting on until he was sprawled on the floor beneath him.
Unable to resist the temptation, Rafe grabbed Adri’s hips and ground up into him, letting their hard cocks slide against each other as they both lost themselves in rutting for longer than they should have.
Adri let out a sound that was part hiss, part groan. “We’re wearing too many clothes. I’m going to have an imprint of your zipper on my dick.”
Rafe smirked and took pity on him, flipping them over so he was on top and taking the pressure off.
“Better?”
“No,” Adri complained as he tried in vain to get some friction back.
“Do you want to come, kitten?”
“Fuck you. You know I do,” Adri snapped.
It was Rafe’s turn to groan, his fangs lengthening as he knew his eyes would be flashing gold. His kitten wanted to play, after all. Adri immediately realised what he’d done, freezing under him.
“I wasn’t trying to be rude.”
Rafe raised an eyebrow, and Adri looked away. “Weren’t you?”
Leaning forward on all fours over his mate, Rafe shoved his hand under the waistband of Adri’s sweatpants, taking his shaft in hand. “Tell me you want this, kitten.”
“I already told you I do,” Adri said, panting as he tried to arch his hips up into Rafe’s grip, but unable to move because of his weight on his legs.
“Beg me for it.”
Adri tipped his head back, probably in annoyance, but all Rafe’s wolf could see was his mate baring his neck in submission. His hips jerked forward in an aborted rut as he fought for control.
“Make me come,” Adri finally growled.
Rafe waited, raising an eyebrow.
“For fuck’s sake. Please,” Adri added.
Rafe tightened his grip on Adri’s cock, gathering the pre-cum leaking from his tip so he could stroke down his length, long and slow, before dragging back up again. “Are you sure that’s what you want to beg for?”
“What the fuck else is there?”
“You could beg to touch me. Or beg me to punish you,” Rafe said, licking a strip up his neck before blowing on it.
Adri shivered with need beneath him, squeezing his eyes closed. “Just do something. Anything. We’re late. We need to go.”
Rafe huffed another breath against his neck. So impatient.
Tugging Adri’s shirt up to bare his ripped abs, Rafe sat back on his thighs to keep him pinned as he pulled the waistband of Adri’s sweats down to reveal his steel-hard, leaking length to the room.
“Doc, hurry the fuck up!” Adri snarled when he stared too long.
Rafe’s lips twitched in a smirk as he let his fingers shift to claws and traced one sharp tip down his length.
“I won’t leave you like this at work this time.
Not with so much at stake. But I told you if you wanted to touch me, you had to earn it, and you’re still being rude, kitten.
So, no touch for you. You know what you need to do if you want that to change. ”
Violence shone in Adri’s eyes. “What? You said you’d—”
Before Adri could finish the thought, Rafe leaned down to pin his wrists to the floor and reached for his power, using it to flood pleasure into Adri’s balls.
A sharp cry left Adri’s mouth as his back bowed and his cock jerked into empty air before shooting stripes of cum up his chest, untouched, with none of the build-up it would normally take to orgasm.
It was instant and intense, but Rafe knew from experience it would also be ultimately unsatisfying because of that. It would leave him needy and wanting.
A whine left Adri’s mouth as his hips continued to try and jerk up against Rafe’s weight holding him down.
“Shhh, kitten. You were so good for me, coming like that.”
“Rafe,” Adri complained, voice soft. “I need.”
It was the first time he’d used Rafe’s name while they were intimate, and the aching desire in his chest became overwhelming as he looked down at his mate, but they didn’t have time for anything more.
This had punished him as much as Adri. He’d just have to hope his ornery mate let them have what they both wanted once the night was through.
Pressing a kiss to Adri’s jaw, Rafe whispered he’d be right back before racing to grab a towel from the bathroom.
Adri was still sprawled out on the floor, knees splayed and eyes closed when he returned.
Gently wiping the cum from his skin, Rafe pressed a trail of kisses up his chest as he tugged Adri’s clothes back into place.
His own cock was so hard he was starting to feel light-headed, but that didn’t matter.
All that mattered was taking care of his mate.
Helping Adri to sit up, he reached for the glass of water on the nearby table and supported Adri’s neck as he helped him drink it.
He could see the moment the jaguar came back to himself because every muscle in his body tensed and his head jerked away.
“What’s wrong, kitten?” Rafe asked.
Adri glared at him.
“I’ll let you come properly next time,” Rafe promised, testing whether his mate was ready to admit this thing between them wasn’t going away.
“I don’t give a fuck about that. You still haven’t come. Are you just fucking playing with me? Do you even want me at all?”
Who knew his kitten had such sweetness in him? “Does this feel like I’m playing?” Rafe asked, grabbing Adri’s hand and pressing it to his zipper where the fabric was damp from how much pre-cum he’d been leaking.
“Then why do you never take your own pleasure when we’re together?”
“Because I need you to have zero doubt you want to give it to me, kitten.”
Adri huffed and pushed himself to his feet, heading to the bathroom. “I need to wash the smell of sex off me, and then we need to leave.”
Rafe wished he could follow suit, but he didn’t have anything to change into, and the smell of sex wasn’t coming out of these clothes without more time than they had to clean them.
He wished he had Rocco’s ability to hide scents with his magic, but his power didn’t work that way.
He’d just have to deal with every shifter around them knowing exactly what Adri was doing to him.
At least everyone would know who he belonged to.
As soon as Adri stepped out of the bathroom clean and dressed, Rafe stepped in close, gripping his nape and rubbing his stubble up and down his sensitive neck while he slid his hands up the muscles of Adri’s back and generally did everything he could to make sure the jaguar was bathed in his scent.
“Fucking hell. Why don’t you just piss on me while you’re at it?”
“Is that an option?”
Adri slammed him against the nearest wall, gripping his throat hard as he snarled in his face, and Rafe held his hands up in surrender. “That was a joke. For real. Water sports aren’t my thing.”
Adri huffed in annoyance and stepped away, heading to the entryway without bothering to check that Rafe was following. Smiling to himself, Rafe followed after his mate. Adri was totally warming to him. Otherwise, he would’ve been sporting claw marks and a concussion after a comment like that.
The location of the fighting ring that night was a closed-down nightclub partway into Cruor Coven territory.
While the Lunettis had taken over running the fights over a decade ago, they hadn’t tried to contain them to their own territory.
There was more profit to be made by continuing to circulate the locations throughout the city.
They tended to make sure the vampire fighters were on the roster when they were in coven territory.
That night’s fight was Adri’s six-foot-five vampire friend Jay versus a cougar shifter Rafe was unfamiliar with.
It was rare to find a cougar in New Trinity, let alone the ring.
They weren’t an aggressive shifter type as a rule, which made the fighting circuit in the city known for its violent inhabitants an unusual choice.
This one was female and sticking to the shadows behind the bar as she waited for their match to be called.
Her face revealed nothing as she focussed her attention anywhere but at the gathered crowd of bloodthirsty viewers.
“Who is she? I haven’t seen her before,” Rafe said when Adri checked in with him for the third time as he leaned against a wall, sipping at a shifter-strength whiskey.
The way Adri had continually looked to him and checked in on him as he went about his responsibilities as unofficial assistant manager and coach had left Rafe a combination of hopeful and horny.
“Indigo. She goes by Inferno in the ring. She’s another new one—a recruit rather than a debtor—but Viviana said she had solid references.”
Rafe watched as she started her warm-up routine, stretching on the corner of the space Adri had taped out on the wooden floor.
There was no cage this time, just a thin red line the fighters were expected to contain their violence to.
The fact that Indigo wasn’t in debt explained why she hadn’t been on Rafe’s radar.
He only kept track of those closest to Adri, and Adri focussed on the ones who needed his support to get their lives back under their own control.
“Who do you think will win?”
“Jay, no question. This is just a chance to test out her range and strength, so Viviana knows where to schedule her in the future.”
“And a chance to reassure the punters that last week was an anomaly,” Rafe pointed out.
Adri tilted his chin up in agreement, all his focus on the two fighters.
With his mate distracted, Rafe indulged himself in drinking in the beautiful sight he made.
Not just his peak-condition muscles bulging against his tight clothing, but the sexy way he took responsibility for those he worked with.
As he watched, a sudden flare of bright light lit Adri’s face like a bonfire, throwing it into sharp relief.
The agonising scream that followed just about pierced Rafe’s eardrums. Spinning as one, the two of them turned toward the chaos as the sweet scent of burning flesh, cut through with an unusual tang of sulfur, blossomed in the air.
In the corner of the fighting ring where Indigo had been stretching, there was now a column of white-hot flame.
Her screams cut off before they could take more than three racing steps toward her.
Not because of the fire extinguisher someone nearby had managed to send shooting in her direction, but because whatever had caused her to immolate was consuming her body so quickly, there was already nothing left to make the sound.
Rafe sent a wave of healing power ahead of him as he sprinted closer, pouring it into her body like he had an endless supply as he dropped to his knees and skidded across the polished floor toward her still flaming body.
A wall of solid muscle tackled him from the side before he could reach her, and he found himself pinned to the ground by his jaguar.
“It’s too late, Rafe. Don’t drain your power again when we don’t know what else they’ll throw at us.”
Rafe was about to snap at his mate that he had to at least try, but the tear that fell from Adri’s lashes onto his cheek drove home the truth of what his mate was saying. The truth he could feel from the power he’d bathed her burning corpse in. She was already gone.
Swearing under his breath, he reeled in what he could of his wasted magic.
Adri was off him a moment later, sensing the change in his focus.
As his mate took charge of the venue, co-opting fighters and guards to secure the space while punters raced toward the exits, Rafe shrugged off his jacket and used it to smother the last of the flames.
From nearby, he could hear the familiar voice of Silas—Marco’s second—on the phone to the MC, presumably Blaze, asking for a fire witch to get there as soon as possible so they could figure out what the fuck had happened.
Rafe already knew this hadn’t been elemental witch magic, though.
Their powers might work differently, but it was similar enough that he could sense its presence, especially in a shifter body. This was something else entirely.
“What are you thinking, Doc?” Silas asked when he was off the phone.
“Bring what’s left of her back to my clinic, and I’ll see what I can figure out.”
Silas jerked his head in assent before heading to the exit, presumably to meet whoever from the MC the rumbling engines outside belonged to. Adri stepped into his field of vision a moment later.
“I’m taking Jay home. I need to be there for him and the others,” he said.
Rafe frowned, instinct screaming at him to keep his mate close. To protect him. Viviana or Silas would order Adri to stay with him if he asked.
“You’re not safe there. None of you are.”
“Here’s your chance to show me you’re not trying to control me. I’m not a delicate kitten you can keep locked away, Rafe.”
It took everything he had to watch Adri walk away.