Page 20

“Let’s get the hell away.” Forging her own path, Avalore rushed blindly through the bushes, not caring about the scrapes and cuts she felt from the sharp leaves and branches.

When they finally made it out, they saw the massive thick Wall surrounding the lands where their government ruled and required them to live. They turned toward the other way and saw dense forest and trees. They saw the path of well-worn tracks from the vehicles in the predawn light.

“We’ll go this way.” Avalore steered them in a direction away from the Wall and the path.

Boom. Boom. Boom. The pounding still reverberated behind them.

“No. We have to split up, Ava.”

“What?” Avalore shook her head as she stared at her friend.

Michaela took hold of her shoulders with sure, firm hands. “Look, if they open that gate, there will be no escape for both of us if we stay together.” Water filled her eyes. “I know what it wants. I will lead it away so you can escape.”

“No. No. No, damn it, Mich.” She gripped one of the other woman’s wrists. “We can survive together.”

Avalore didn’t even know what was beyond the Wall. What lay in the wilds surrounding them? Have we escaped death to meet death?

“We can’t. Please, Ava, I don’t have much time left. So, let me do this for you.” Michaela’s glassy eyes darkened with a steely resolution.

Sal's words filled her mind, reminding her that he had said how the others were dead. Avalore thought about the woman before her and how, for days, she lay in her bunk motionless and did not eat. Even if Avalore didn’t want to believe this could be the end of her friend, she had to accept some part of Michaela’s words may be fact.

“Okay.” She embraced her friend fiercely, holding Michaela’s reed-like frame against her. Exhaling, she finally let her go, not wanting to believe this was the last she’d see of the woman she’d spent so many weeks living beside and sharing the stories and hopes for the future.

Michaela stepped back. “Live, Ava. Promise me that.”

“I promise, Mich.” And she meant it. She didn’t know what it would take to survive the road ahead, but she would do anything not to waste the gift she’d been given.

Simultaneously, they both turned away and ran for their lives.

~YH~

Everything ached. There wasn’t a single part of her body that wasn’t sore on some level.

She peeled open her eyelids, even those felt heavy and tired, as she glanced toward the curtained window.

The heavy, long panels were still drawn, but she could see the barest of light around the edges, signifying it wasn’t morning yet.

Dawn. An unholy hour that she never saw.

She’d always enjoyed her sleep as long as she could get it.

What woke me?

She couldn’t put her finger on why she’d awakened.

But now that she was awake, sort of, her bladder was screaming, and it was a good enough reason as any to get up.

When she started to move, not only did muscles groan in her body, resisting her action, but she became aware of a distinct weight holding her in place.

Glancing under the covers, she spotted the shadow of a sinewy arm around her waist and the soft grip of a big hand cupping her right breast. A gentle, steady flutter along the back of her neck matched the rhythm of her slow breaths.

Chanin.

As everything from the night before flooded back into her mind, warmth filled her insides and caressed all the tender places her body ached.

The things the man did to her, how he turned her body inside out and made her climax so many times, all she could think about was letting him do those things again and again.

It would be too easy for this man to become addictive.

Hell, it was probably too late for it.

She sank her teeth into her bottom lip and fought the urge to roll toward him and beg him to pleasure her all over again. Teach her how to satisfy him.

What stopped her was the soreness between her legs that let her know she wasn’t quite ready for round four or five.

Chanin had awakened her two or three times in the night with his face between her thighs and his tongue stroking her sex or with slow thrusts of his cock inside her while he whispered the most erotic verses about the feel of her pussy, the scent of her body and the shape of her ass.

Only to pull her on top of him the next time and spend long minutes describing her breast in naughty detail.

Oh, yes, she craved this man. Why would she need air to survive when she could live off Chanin and the heady earthiness of his scent?

The insistent ache in her core snatched her mind from the intoxicating man behind her. The last thing she needed was to wake the sleeping lupine male in the bed with her, and he took it as an invitation. No, she would definitely need time before they could have another round.

Holding her breath to keep out his delicious scent, she slowly slid his arm away as she gingerly inched her body toward the edge, then let out the breath she was holding.

She choked back a hiss as she sat up on the side of the mattress.

All her sit parts throbbed, and she figured it was best to stand the remainder of the day.

Licking her lips, chapped and swollen from a night filled with kisses, she gathered her strength and rose to her feet.

Dizziness and nausea assailed her. It took every ounce of her body’s fortitude not to crash back on the bed.

Strangely, two odd things were happening in her body at the same time; heat seemed to be infusing every inch of skin on her body while at the same time, now that she was out of Chanin’s arms and the covers, she felt chilled to the bones.

She locked her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering.

How can this be?

She took one ginger step at a time and went to the bathroom, forcing her stiff, aching joints to move. What the hell?

Not wanting to disturb Chanin, she shut the door before flicking on the light.

She squinted for a moment at the brightness.

When she opened her eyes, she saw the impressive, simple decor of the room again.

Glancing over at the shower, she thought it would be a good idea to bathe, cleaning herself after the night of passion with the man still sleeping soundly in bed.

All she could smell was the combination of their scents: dark earthy spice with hints of sweet vanilla and the pungent aroma of sex.

The mixture didn’t offend her. No, it caused a mysterious erotic thrill to bubble up inside of her and an overwhelming sense of peace and protection.

She belonged to Chanin now; he would be there for her and not allow anything to harm her.

She knew this so profoundly in her core.

The same core that was drawn tight like a fist and causing her hands and legs to shake. Her quivering body drew her gaze from the bathroom layout to her reflection. She looked like she’d been pulled through an old-fashioned washtub and wrung out, then tossed in a heap on the floor to dry.

Her short curls were riotous, evidence of Chanin’s fingers in them gripping her, holding her in place as his mouth devoured hers. She didn’t need to lift a hand to prove the ravaging there; it showed in her swollen red mouth and the small split at the center of her bottom lip.

Everywhere. The man had not left a single area of her body unmarked.

The deep-purple and red marks on her medium-brown skin from where his mouth and hands had sucked and held her made her look like a children’s game of connect the dots.

She couldn’t help but wonder if she got a marker and drew a line to each bruise—from neck to belly, to hips, and all the ones on her ass and to journey to the ones around her thighs, to even his fingerprints on the side of her knees where he’d held them up and opened wide as he thrust deep, and deeper still—what design would it create?

Wolf . She shook her head. She was being fanciful. She would have allowed herself to laugh at the silly thought if her stomach wasn't cramping so much.

The little nips around the dark-berry areola of her right breast caused heat to flood her sex and wetness to pool between her labia and spread onto the inside of her thighs.

She recalled waking up to his actions and feeling him playing with and suckling her nipple until she came and didn’t stop until she came again.

Both corners of her mouth curled, and a shiver shimmied down her spine.

As she pushed that thought away, she allowed her gaze to do a slow curl up the length of her petite form until it landed on the place she’d been avoiding: the left side of her neck.

Her mind played the memory in such vivid color and imagery of Chanin holding her up on her knees, gripping her hips tight as he thrust his thick, long, hard cock into her.

How her body had dipped low to the point of pain as she took everything he had to give as she bucked back and rode his impressive length while he claimed her.

Thoughts of their wicked coupling started flames blazing up from her sex, paused to dance around her core, then shot upward to cause a forest fire over her face. Her eyes even appeared to glow with a thin, familiar amber ring.

Even as heat infused her face, she returned to stare at the vicious mark on the curve of her shoulder.

One of her hands shot up and covered her mouth to stifle the whimper that started to come out at the horrific view.

Her skin wasn’t only angry and discolored around the outer edges of the bite, but her flesh was raw and torn around two wide puncture holes dug deep into her muscle.

She would have expected to see dried rivers of blood streaming from them or weeping within the holes.

Nothing. She rolled her shoulder forward, and it smarted from the bite as she leaned over the sink and spotted two more craters on the back almost directly behind the first two, but smaller in size.

She could have easily had a chunk of her body ripped off there if he’d chosen to.

But your Alpha won’t hurt you. There went that small, still voice from inside her again. She shook it off. She was going mad. It had to be the case if she felt like she was speaking to herself but not.

It was easier to stay focused on her body instead of her mind.

Concurring evidence of Chanin’s possession of her was in the long, shallow claw marks over her abdomen and the inside of her thighs, as well as the shorter ones on the other side of her neck. The body before her in the mirror appeared to have been mauled by an animal.

A wolf.

“A wolf,” she whispered soundlessly as the pressure in her bladder returned with a vengeance.

She sighed as she made her way to sit on the commode.

Yes, both the visual and physical effects of the impact of not only Chanin’s lust but his mating with her may have been shocking and scary on so many levels that her human brain struggled to comprehend, but she hadn’t gone into it completely ignorant.

He’d told her clearly what it would take for him to mate with her, claim her.

It didn’t even take close examination to admit she didn’t regret it. Nothing that happened last night. She’d want to be his at whatever the cost to her physically.

That assurance echoed in her mind even as she stood at the sink washing her hands when a spine-binding pain tore through her stomach and buckled her knees, causing a broken scream to rip out of her throat.

She squeezed her eyes shut and gripped her stomach hard, willing the pain to stop as her body constricted into a ball on the cold tile floor. The coolness of the floor didn’t calm the searing heat igniting her flesh or the horrendous agony holding her core in a steel grip.

“Morlie.”

The sound of her name seemed so distant outside of her and saturated in trepidation.

A vague feeling of being lifted played along the very edges of her mind, but she couldn’t comprehend anything beyond the hurt devastating her body.

“No!” She shoved against a hard, warm wall, not wanting to be moved but preferring to remain where her body had lain until sweet death claimed her. Because she had to be dying, it was the only explanation that made sense in her addled, pain-induced brain.

As her body twisted and bucked, it settled into something soft. She assumed it was a cloud, one an angel would ride in on and take her to heaven at the moment of her demise.

Then another scream bellowed from her mouth, long and low as if something inhuman manipulated her voice. It dragged on, shredding the cords and flesh of her throat as her body began to contort and shudder through one convulsion wave after another.

Come Death, come Reaper, come Angel of Mercy. Those pleas played over and over in her mind. “Please... Death, take m-e-e—”

“Shh...shh, little bunny, I’ve got you.” Those faraway words somehow accompanied thick, strong bands that surrounded her and drew her against something so solid and warm it seemed to seep into her pores—soothe her on some level.

The sensation eased the ache only a fraction, but enough to give her a glimmer of peace, allowing her to focus on the darkness waiting for her—the darkness that painted her vision. This cavernous oasis would give her serenity from the destruction within.

A curled, broken whimper fell from her lips as she gave herself to the darkness.