Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
THINK BIGGER
Finding my fated mate while in the depths of hell was a kind of luck I never thought I’d have. Good luck, yes, but horrible, too. If he didn’t let me mate him now, we’d both die in here tonight.
“Let me fuck you,” I rumbled quietly in his ear, “and I’ll have the strength to escape this place.”
It would be a temporary boost, but I had to believe that would be enough to break through the glass behind me and into the observation area. Their bullets wouldn’t harm either of us—my essence within him giving him some of my abilities for a time.
And I would shred anyone who tried to stop us.
“What about me?”
I licked his cheek, tasting salt. “You’re mine. You go with me.”
He swallowed so hard, I heard his throat click. I lifted him higher against the wall and rode the crack of his ass with my slick cock. He made a whimpering noise, the whites of his eyes showing as he tried to see me over his shoulder, but he bowed his back to rub on me, too.
“Okay, just don’t leave me behind,” he said and closed his eyes.
I knew he was drugged—had tasted it in his blood—but those words were enough consent for what I needed to happen now.
Circumstances being what they were, I didn’t have time to explain everything to him like the gentleman I usually was.
The beast needed to claim him, protect him, and this was the only way.
“Finish him,” a voice said over the speaker, “or we’ll take him away.”
Oh, I would finish him. Just not in the way they meant.
I eased my naturally slick cock into his tight, hot body and reveled in the howl he made as I stretched him open.
But then he whined high and tremulously, sagging in my arms. I was too big like this, had to be too quick, but gods did he make delicious sounds of pain and surrender.
Setting my teeth to his tender skin, I held him still and fucked him there against the wall.
“Stop that right now!”
I growled, and my mate moaned. He had his knees against the wall and was using that as leverage to fuck himself back on my cock.
My mate wanted me, too! Even as frightening as our situation was, that he desired me filled my heart with hope.
We would make it out, and I would keep him safe for the rest of our lives.
My skinny little mate yowled, his body clenched on my cock, and the scent of his cum filled my nose.
I bit harder than I should’ve and made him bleed, but that only added to my lust. Licking his blood from his skin, I thrust into him again, once more, and— I came with a roar, filling him with my cum, my essence, that would merge with his fragile human body to protect him from our enemies.
Already, I felt invincible.
I heard the door open and mourned the fact that we couldn’t regain our breath, whisper to each other, begin again like mates should.
No, I had to pull free of his grasping body, spin around, and crash through heavy glass into a room full of surprised faces in white lab coats.
The glass cut into my wings, but they healed instantly, and I flung my mate onto my back between them.
He clung to the ruff of fur at my neck, letting me have both hands free to tear into our enemies.
I didn’t hesitate to make them all bleed.
Humans never realized how weak they were until someone bigger and stronger tore their arms and legs off.
I didn’t even have to concentrate to tear into a ribcage and remove a heart.
Heads popped off like dandelions in a child’s game.
In short order, five men and two women lay gasping, gurgling, or wailing on the floor before the ones with guns arrived.
I did my best to dodge their bullets before launching myself across the room and tearing into both men while they were still in the doorway. The one who had delivered my mate to me looked particularly startled to be missing his throat.
In the hall, I closed my eyes and called, activating my echolocation to see the space around me.
I had come here unconscious and needed to know which way to go to escape quickly.
In my mind’s eye, now I could see halls that ran around the center of the square building, more rooms on the outside, with a staircase and elevators right through the middle.
I needed to reach the elevator shaft, and then I could climb out to the roof before flying us away from this place forever.
I dug my claws into the seam of the elevator doors a moment before I realized the car was coming. I crouched low as the doors opened, springing inside to tear the uniformed men apart. One of them got off a shot, and I heard my mate yell before he released me and fell to the floor.
“I’ve been shot! Oh my god!” He sat on the floor beside the doors, waving his hands frantically as blood oozed from his thigh. That it didn’t gush told me he was reacting positively to my essence.
I increased my speed, slashing through the soon-to-be dead men. When all were in pieces, I yanked them out and turned to pull my mate into the elevator.
“Fuck! What the fuck!?” His body expelled the bullet onto the floor with a ping before his skin sealed itself again.
“You’re fine,” I said as I hoisted him up onto his feet. He wobbled but remained standing, the drug leaving his system faster now. “Come.”
He made a retching noise as he tried to step over or around the pools of blood, but he followed me into the elevator anyway.
I could see the fine tremble overtaking him and wished I could hold him properly, take the time to speak with him as I should.
Instead, I reached up and ripped a hole in the ceiling of the elevator.
We started to move the instant the doors closed, and I looked over to see that my mate had pressed the button for the uppermost floor. “I figured up was the goal?” He shrugged.
Smiling, I grabbed the back of his head and leaned down to kiss him.
I wanted to kiss him as a man—a much easier feat than when I had a snout—but the drugs the scientists had been giving me to keep me in this form hadn’t faded in the slightest yet.
They would. I had to believe that anyway.
Perhaps, too, the situation had my instincts keeping me shifted for maximum power and lethality.
I allowed us a few moments while the elevator went up floor by floor. “What’s your name?”
“Oh, uh, Wiley Winslow,” he said with a blush blooming on his cheeks. “You?”
“Hamilton Fawkes.”
I left off my title and accolades because there would be time enough for—
“I thought it would be something more beastly,” he said with a chuckle.
—and because I looked nothing like a great legal mind who also happened to be royalty. Ah well, there would be time enough later to share more of myself.
First, though, we needed to get out of this hellish building.
The elevator started to slow, so I looked through the hole I’d rendered to see the mechanics of the elevator above us.
As we slowed, I reached over and flipped the switch to stop us where we were and keep the doors closed.
An alarm sounded—the first I’d heard since our escape—and I hauled myself up onto the outside of the car.
The space was cramped before I filled it, but there was a ladder leading up to a panel that might lead to the roof. I could reach it if I tore cables and whatnot out of my way. Clearly, I needed Wiley up and out before I did that.
“Come.” I reached down for him and was very pleased when he held up his arms. I grasped both of his wrists in one hand and pulled him up. It took some maneuvering, but when I had him standing beside me, I pointed to the panel. “Climb up there. Tell me if you can open that.”
I watched him go, glad he didn’t question whether he should.
From this angle and with him naked, I had a delightful view of his pert ass, wet red hole, and the lean muscles of his legs.
Before I’d scented who he truly was, I’d only known that his blood had been sweeter than any I’d tasted before.
When my bite had aroused him, I’d realized he must be my mate, for only they reacted with desire.
The way I’d responded to his scent had confirmed what we were to each other.
Again, that I’d found him here was a horrible miracle.
“It’s locked.” He pushed up on the panel, and it barely moved. “Like from the outside.”
I started tearing things free and dropping them, bending them, to make room for myself to reach Wiley.
I kept checking on him, making sure I didn’t jeopardize his perch, and almost chuckled at the comically alarmed expression on his face.
His allowing me to mate him had awoken a strength in me that was unparalleled. At least he wasn’t screaming in fright.
Tiring of this piece-by-piece removal, I held onto something that looked structural and tore the elevator gear box down. It hit my back, and I shrugged it off to fall with the car down the entire shaft.
“God. Damn,” Wiley said.
I shook smaller debris from myself and looked up to see that I’d torn a hole in the roof. It was larger than the panel, so I went through and then reached back in to grasp Wiley’s arm and pull him up and out as well. He hollered a bit but seemed unharmed when I set him on his feet.
“This is so insane,” he whispered as he covered his groin and hunched his shoulders as he looked around.
He didn’t know the half of it.
I could hear footsteps on the pavement below to the right.
Using echolocation again, I could see for miles that we were on the edge of a city with a forest not far away.
I called louder and got more details that let me see a house abandoned amongst the trees.
We could hide there until my transformation faded and we could walk out as men.
I went to Wiley. “Put your arms around my neck and hold tight.”
“Oh, god, you’re going to fly, aren’t you?” He gulped but didn’t hesitate to reach up. “Oh, god.”
“It’s pronounced Hamilton.”
He chuckled a bit hysterically but also held onto me tightly. For just a moment, I let myself appreciate the length of his lithe body pressed to mine.
Then I ran across the roof to the left and soared out over the parking lot.
A few shots barked in the quiet night, but no bullet hit either of us as I caught the wind and banked higher into the dark sky.
I never flew near populated areas—had, in fact, sworn to The Coalition to never reveal myself as a monster to the humans of the world who still outnumbered us.
And now had federally funded organizations studying us, it seemed.
In addition to saving myself and my mate, delivering to The Coalition what I knew of where I’d been and what they’d done was paramount.
“This is fucking horrible and amazing! Oh, my god!”
I chuckled and held Wiley tighter against me, gliding on the late-night air toward that darkened home.
I called out and saw that no one was within, though lights blazed inside and out.
Were the owners on vacation or just out for the night?
Hopefully, they might be gone long enough to afford us a quiet place to rest and regroup.
I didn’t know what city this was, but maybe Wiley would know—that would help me to know what we might do next.
That neither of us had a stitch of clothing or phone between us was a problem as well.
At some point, one of us would need to procure both just to gain assistance. I had people but no way to reach them.
“Where are we going?”
“I saw an empty house in this forest. We can rest there.”
“You saw? How? Do you know where we are? It didn’t feel like we drove far, so I think we’re still in Irmaville.”
“Irmaville? What’s the nearest city?”
“It is a city.”
“Think bigger.”
“Oh, well, then probably Parnell. They’ve got the university and that fancy new hospital. It’s like…forty-five minutes north of here?”
I knew Parnell. It wasn’t far from Saint Jude, the state capital, where they’d captured me. Should I change my plans and go there now? No, not while I was like this. I couldn’t risk exposure with people already looking for us. I was far too easy to spot and couldn’t blend.
I spiraled down toward the house, hoping I’d made the right choice.