Chapter 9 #4
Egon threw him. Just tossed him aside like discarded trash. The man flew several feet before crashing into a bush with a loud crack of snapping branches. He groaned once, rolled onto the ground, and stayed there.
The other two attackers froze. All their swagger had vanished. Their eyes flicked from Egon… to their unconscious friend… then back again. Every muscle in Egon’s body was coiled tight with restrained violence. He looked magnificent. Terrifying. A warrior in his prime. And very, very angry.
"Leave," he said. The single word carried the weight of a command. "Or join your friend."
They didn't argue. They ran. Branches snapped as they crashed through the undergrowth, fleeing back toward the resort lights.
Egon watched them disappear. His body still trembled slightly, the beast clearly fighting for control beneath the surface. Then he turned to me. The fury vanished from his face instantly, replaced by something sharp and searching.
"Tori." He closed the distance between us in two strides. "Are you well?"
I shook my head, but my voice wouldn't come. The adrenaline hit me all at once. My hands were shaking. My heart hammered wildly in my chest. They could have shot him. Hurt him. Killed him.
Egon pulled me into his arms. Hard. Crushing me against the solid heat of his chest. I could feel his heart pounding beneath the thin cotton of his shirt, fast and powerful. His skin radiated warmth, and beneath my hands his muscles still trembled faintly with leftover fury.
"I will kill him," Egon whispered into my hair. The promise was quiet. Deadly. "I will find Derek and I will tear him apart for this."
"No." The word came out rough. I pulled back just enough to look up at him. "We need to tell Chet. We need to call the police. We need to—"
"First I need to take care of you." His hands moved over me, careful but thorough. Checking. My shoulders. My arms. My waist. His fingers brushed down my sides, his expression tightening as he searched for injuries. "I need to see you," he murmured. "Touch you. Know that you are whole."
“What about dinner?”
“We will order room service.”
That made me smile. “Okay.” He swept me into his arms and carried me back to our suite. Once we arrived, I saw a cut on his palm. From the bat, no doubt.
Who could break a baseball bat in half like a toothpick?
My beast. That’s who.
"Sit," I said, pointing to the kitchen counter. "Let me see your hands."
"The scratches are nothing," he said automatically.
"They’re not nothing to me. Sit."
He sat. Something about the quiet authority in my voice must have surprised him, because he obeyed without another argument.
I moved quickly through the small kitchenette, opening cabinets until I found the standard resort first aid kit beneath the sink.
When I returned, Egon was watching me with that same intense focus that always made my pulse skip.
I stepped between his knees. Up close, the damage was clearer.
The scratches were already fading, his Atlan biology—or the nanotechnology put in his body from the Hive—healing them faster than a human would.
I soaked a cloth with antiseptic and gently wiped the blood from his palm.
"You were amazing," I murmured, dabbing carefully at the cut. "I’m sorry. I can’t believe Derek would—" Would what? Send thugs to beat us up? What a cowardly, spoiled asshole thing to do. Of course he would. God forbid the man did any of his own dirty work.
"I will kill him for threatening you. I protect what is mine."
I paused, meeting his eyes. The faint amber glow still lingered there, reflecting the warm kitchen light. The beast was close. Very close. He meant it.
"Does the beast always react like that?" I asked softly. "To threats?"
His hand lifted suddenly, wrapping around my wrist. Not hurting. Just holding me there.
"If the threat is to you.” The words vibrated with quiet intensity. "You are my weakness, Tori. My strength. The reason the beast exists." His thumb brushed slowly across the inside of my wrist. "Without you…" He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't have to. I understood.
Something inside my chest tightened. Slowly, I set the antiseptic cloth aside. Then I stepped closer until I was standing fully between his knees, my body nearly touching his. The heat of his skin radiated toward me like a living furnace.
"Egon," I whispered. His breathing changed immediately.
"I will ask once," he said. His voice was rough now.
Barely controlled. "If you say yes, I will not hold back.
I will make you scream my name. The beast will claim you so completely that you will never question who you belong to.
" His golden eyes burned into mine. "If you say no," he continued, quieter now, "I will let you go.
Either you stay. Or you go. There is no in between for me, mate. I can deny him no longer."
My heart pounded so hard it felt like it might break through my ribs. Every nerve in my body felt alive. Raw lust hummed in the air between us, undeniable and electric.
"Yes," I breathed. “I want you.”
The words barely left my lips before he moved.
His hands gripped my waist, lifting me effortlessly onto the kitchen counter.
The movement was so quick it stole my breath.
My legs wrapped instinctively around his hips.
Pulling him closer. Feeling the hard strength of him through the denim of his jeans.
"You are certain?" he growled softly, pressing his forehead against mine. The beast was there now. Just beneath the surface. "Once I begin, I will not stop. The beast needs this. Needs you."
"I'm certain." My fingers slid into his hair, tugging gently until his mouth hovered just above mine.
He kissed me. The kiss wasn't gentle. It wasn't tentative. It was the kiss of a warrior who had nearly lost something precious. A beast who had finally found the one thing capable of calming the storm inside him. And a man who intended to prove, beyond any doubt, that I belonged with him.
His hands were everywhere—tearing at my clothes, cupping my breasts, pinching my nipples into aching peaks. His mouth followed, teeth grazing my throat, my collarbone, closing around one sensitive tip with a suction that made me cry out.
"Egon!" I gasped, my head falling back against the cabinet.
"Mine," he growled against my skin. "Say it."
"Yours." The word was torn from my soul.
He tore the clothes from his body. Stood naked before me.
Transformed.
He grew, suddenly taller. Shoulders expanded. His jaw shifted, his entire face growing wider. The bone structure primitive. Brutal strength was carved into every muscle. His eyes glowed and fangs appeared. Claws.
What the—?” I’d seen the other beasts on television. They didn’t look like this.
For one second, fear took hold. He leaned in. Sniffed my skin. This wasn’t Egon. This was my beast. Holy mother of god. My. Beast.
“Afraid. Why?” The two words were so deep they rumbled through my chest. I watched, horrified and fascinated, as the claws retracted. The fangs, however, remained.
“Fangs? Are you, okay? I didn’t know beasts had fangs.”
He shuddered, huge hands coming to rest on either side of my hips on the counter. “Hyperion. Grandmother.”
Ahhh. Some kind of weird alien genetics. He wasn’t pure Atlan. I lifted my hand to his face. Cupped his cheek. “Can I see? Are you a vampire?” I knew nothing about Hyperions. Never heard of them before. “Are you going to bite me?”
“Yes. No.”
Yes to looking. No to the biting. Tension I didn’t realize I held in my shoulders released and I pressed my thumb to his upper lip.
Pushed the softest, most kissable lip aside to inspect the fang on one side of his mouth, as the most dangerous male I’d ever encountered held himself perfectly still. Didn’t look toooo dangerous.
“If you decide to bite me, just don’t bite too hard. I’m not really a pain kind of girl.”
The beast dropped to his knees in front of me and shoved my skirt up over my hips. I kicked off my shoes.
“No pain. Only pleasure.” He shoved aside the small scrap of fabric covering my aching core and fucked me with his tongue. No warmup. No warning.
I went from turned on, to on the edge, in seconds as huge hands pushed my thighs wide and he devoured me. Claimed me. His deep growls vibrated against my clit like a vibrator as he worked me. Licked me. I braced myself on the counter as the back of my head banged into the cabinets. Did. Not. Care.
One hand wrapped around my ass, pulled me closer to his mouth. Locked me in place. The other he used to fuck me with two fingers as he sucked my sensitive clit between his lips.
He was brutal. Efficient. Merciless.
I came in seconds. He didn’t stop. He feasted like a wild thing. Like he’d never get enough. Never tasted anything sweeter than my wet pussy.
My second orgasm rolled through me like a tidal wave, and I slumped in his arms as his aggressive strokes turned gentle. Tender.
He stood once more and removed every piece of clothing on my body then lifted me off the counter.
I wrapped my legs around him, the hard tip of his huge cock bumping my core as he carried me through the suite.
I closed my eyes and clung to him. Thought he was taking me to the gigantic bed we’d spent the last two nights in.
No.
My back hit the cold tile of the oversized shower. He turned on the water and blocked the spray with his body until the water warmed.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Too many others.” The beast frowned. “Mine.”
So what? I smelled like… other people? Whatever.
I felt so good. Replete. Safe. Wanted. Protected.
Egon was amazing, but his beast? I’d never felt safer or more content in my life.
They could send an army in here to hurt me, steal from me, any other damn thing I had to watch my back for every day, and the beast would end them. For me.
He washed me with those huge hands. Everywhere. I languished under the attention as my desire went from slow simmer after two orgasms, right back up to inferno.
I reached for him. With a snarl that shocked me—and sent white hot fire straight to my throbbing core—he grabbed my hands and held them in place over my head. “Stay.”
Yes. Sir. O.M.G. And I thought he couldn’t get sexier.
“Mine.”
He had one hand under my ass, holding me in place as he slipped wet soap and bubbles all over my skin. He shifted and my back slid down the wet tile wall. My pussy stretched over the tip of his enormous cock.
I groaned. Hot. So ready. So damn ready I was going to explode if he didn’t hurry up and fuck me.
He stopped.
“No.” What did a girl have to do to get fucked around here?
“No?”
My eyes flew open and I gasped at the bulging veins, the struggle on his face. The beast thought I didn’t want him. “I mean no, as in don’t stop. Don’t stop. I need you inside me.”
With a sound I was sure every room in this wing of the hotel heard loud and clear, he used the wall at my back to hold me in place as he filled me up one thick fucking inch at a time.
I gasped. Fists clenched on empty air. He was holding my wrists. I couldn’t move. Could do nothing but take whatever he wanted to give me.
I wanted everything. Everything.
Leaning forward, I used my teeth to nip at his flesh, just hard enough to tell him to hurry up. Go harder.
His growl was nowhere near any sound a human had ever made as he thrust hard. Fast. Deep.
“Yes!” My hips bucked, tried to move. But he’d left me no room. No space. There was the hard tile wall behind me and the solid wall of muscle in front of me.
“Mine.”
This beast seriously had a one-track mind.
I liked it. “Say it again.”
“Mine.” He moved. Pulled back. Pressed deep. Again. Again.
“Say it again.” I needed to hear it. Part of me still didn’t think this was real.
That this insanely gorgeous male had chosen me when he could have Jessica and her long golden hair, or the Asian woman whose hair fell like black silk, or the gorgeous model who’d arrived at the show directly after a Paris lingerie fashion show.
Why me? Why the hell would anyone choose me?
“Mine.”
He fucked me hard and fast. Tears streaked my cheeks, emotions I didn’t dare name flowing from me in a torrent as the beast repeated his vow to me over and over, louder with each thrust. Harder. Faster. My ass and breasts bouncing like I was on a trampoline.
“Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine.” He didn’t stop. Didn’t stutter.
My orgasm ripped through me, a sob escaping my throat. The steam and spray from the shower hid my tears. I didn’t want to explain them. Expose my inner demons. My insecurities. My doubts.
Being wanted this badly hurt. Hurt in places I’d locked down so hard and tight I had forgotten they existed.
He followed me into bliss with a long, slow moan that sounded like he was wounded. Falling apart. Maybe this hurt his soul as much as it was breaking mine.
When it was over, he lifted me so we were eye to eye, face to face. “Mine.”
“Yes. And you’re mine.” No way was I ever giving this up. Giving him up. Ever.
The beast was no actor. The naked devotion I saw in his eyes shocked me, tears threatening to fall once more.
The beast leaned in close. Kissed me. Softly. Reverently. And then… he left me. One moment he held me, the next Egon had returned. It was his arms around me. His lips pressed to mine.
We didn’t speak. Me, because I had no idea what to say.
Egon rinsed me. Dried me. Carried me to bed and wrapped his arms around me as I fell into an exhausted sleep.