Page 3 of Stormbinder King (Stormbinder Pack #1)

A ll around me, women broke from the crowd and began to flee, dashing from the doors and into the dark night.

But I was frozen to the ground.

Run?

Where? And why?

Into that forest?

That dark, twisted, dripping forest where I’d seen the strange wolf take the mad boar down?

The other men made low, rough noises, pacing like they couldn’t wait to get out. But the man with the white-blonde hair just looked at me.

“I told you to run.”

But still I stood there.

Me? Could he be talking to me?

My eyes darted around, but when I brought them back to Prince Jack, he was still staring at me, with a fixed, intense expression on his face.

I wanted to speak but I was too afraid I wouldn’t be able to get the words out.

His voice dropped to a low, throaty growl and he took one step toward me.

“ Run, damn you .”

I turned and ran.

Bursting out the back doors, I was instantly pitched into the dark forest, the trees still dripping, the ground slick.

It was almost. . . obscene the way the leaves dripped with lush sticky heat, rubbing down my arms as I fled.

I knocked a scooped green leaf out of my way and the sharp barbs of the shorn branch flicked my face as I ran.

Ouch, that really fucking hurt

The dress constricted me but I ran anyway, grabbing the long train in my arms.

Howls echoed all around me, the forest alive with them, the sounds so deep and vibrating that I didn’t know if they came from behind me or in front of me.

Panicked, I ran faster, my arms pumping and my chest burning.

I had to get away

Twisting back, I saw a shadow chasing me, leaping agilely through the trees and past the branches that I was stumbling through.

Holy hell

Was that Jack ? Why would he want to catch me so badly?

My heart was pounding, and not from the exertion alone.

Shadows covered his face, but I remembered the intense, fixed way he had kept his eyes on me.

What was he going to do when he caught me?

He leaped over a jagged rock with an easy, almost animalistic grace, as I fled in panic, forcing me to veer sideways to avoid him.

And yet I ran, even knowing he was faster, he was stronger.

If he wanted to, he could easily catch me

And when I burst into the moonlight, my lungs heaving for breath, I realized I had been herded neatly, trapped like a rabbit in a dense circular clearing between heavy, gasping trees.

My hands groped around for a way out, but I found none, my fingers scrabbling desperately down the tree trunks, slick with dripping humidity.

I couldn’t take my eyes off Jack.

He seemed barely out of breath, like a changeling in the forest clearing.

There was a beam of moonlight that spun down between the leaves and he walked through it, the light doing strange things, making him seem otherworldly, inhuman.

He took one step toward me as I gasped, the laces cutting into my flesh.

My thighs were trembling so much that my feet wouldn’t move.

Up close, he was even more disturbingly handsome, those blue eyes mesmerizing, his cheekbones and jawline like cut glass. I felt like I was rooted to the spot.

Why wouldn’t my legs move?

“What’s your name, beautiful one?” he asked, flashing that bright gleaming smile at me as he took another step closer.

Then another.

“A-A-A-ndromeda,” I replied, feeling my cheeks flaming with shame, and hating my name.

I took one halting step sideways, my nipples rubbing against the fabric of my dress, breasts tight and panting against the agonizingly cutting bone in the bodice.

“That’s a beautiful name,” he said, his voice low and rich, some unique note in it that made my knees go weak.

“Do you know who I am?” he continued.

I took one more step sideways, hitting the tree hard and knocking the remaining breath from my lungs.

Jack seemed to gleam as he passed through the moonlight, the silver-spun color of his hair melding into the exquisite sharp planes of his face.

I was pressed so hard against the tree that the bark was digging into my back, splitting the delicate lace of my dress.

“Let me get a better look at you, sweetheart,” Jack said, his voice flowing over me like rich, decadent honey.

He put a hand on my arm and drew me over into where the moonlight lay across the clearing.

“Aren’t you afraid of what’s out here?” I gasped involuntarily as another howl split the night air.

He cocked his head at me, and something seemed to amuse him.

“No.”

I was frozen in place, my eyes dilated. My hands glued to my sides. Because what would I do with them if they were free?

Move them closer to this hypnotically attractive man ?

“Where are you from?” he asked, wrapping one hand around the back of my throat to draw me gently closer.

My body seemed to hum with awareness, my skin embarrassingly tight, melting everywhere he touched me.

There was music from somewhere distant, but I could barely hear it.

“I’m from f-f-f-ar away,” I said as the prince slipped another hand around my waist.

I smelled something mouth-wateringly good in the air, like a cool crisp cinnamon scent, and his hand seemed to heat up my body through the dress.

“You’re beautiful, Andromeda.”

I didn’t reply, not trusting my voice, but I felt the sudden prickly heat of desire as he moved his hand down to the small of my back, his fingers just skimming the curve of my hip, pulling on the back of my dress to bring me closer to him.

The place where our bodies joined felt swollen, heated.

“You smell good,” he said, and I felt him slide a thumb under the top strap of my dress. “Is that plum?”

I could feel him looking at me, but I turned my head away. His tunic was opened at the neck, and I could feel my heartbeat throbbing under his fingers, my whole body screaming that I wanted him to take me, right here in the middle of this forest.

I felt like I couldn’t think straight.

“I—don’t know what I smell like,” I choked out.

My voice felt thick with desire.

I wasn’t usually like this. It wasn’t me.

But I had never felt this raw, almost animalistic attraction to anyone before.

His deft fingers popped one strap off and it fell down my arm. I felt his lips at my throat, not touching me yet, but so close that I couldn’t stop the hairs from rising on my neck.

“You smell like plum to me,” he said. “A little tart, but so sweet inside.”

His lips were on my throat then, tracing a kiss down the length of my neck.

The heat between my thighs pounded again, each beat more powerful.

“Look at me,” he ordered, not unkindly, but expecting to be obeyed.

I looked up reluctantly at him. I was not used to this kind of attention. Not from men like him. I hadn’t had a steady boyfriend since college, had only had situationships ever since.

What was Kyle going to think about me just getting yanked out of my world and thrust into this one?

He’d probably just go to the next woman on the roster.

Jack cocked his head again, considering me. This close I could see the strange flicker of colors in his eyes, the crystalline ice-blue shot through with flecks of silver and gold.

Then he grinned at me.

“Let’s get you out of this dress, Andromeda.”

I almost whimpered with desire.

This couldn’t be real.

I would have dropped my eyes in embarrassment at my own craving for him, but he took me gently by the chin, keeping my face tilted upward to him.

“I love that splash of freckles across your nose,” he said as he pulled out a knife from somewhere in his back pocket, and the gleaming white grin was back. “I think I’ve found my fated mate.”

His mate ?

He bent down to kiss me, and I had one moment of panic but then his lips were making me forget any fear as I opened eagerly for the wicked plunge of his tongue into my mouth, and the knife scraped slowly down my chest, slicing through the tight ribbons in my gown, my breasts bursting free.

My heart was palpitating so hard I was afraid it would burst out of my chest and I gasped loudly, filling my lungs with the sweet, sticky air of the overhanging trees.

Jack put one hand under my ass and laid me gently down on the forest floor.

I had a glimpse of the heavy, verdant trees above him, framing the moonlight-white of his hair.

“My mate,” he whispered in my ear, and at the sound of his voice I could feel my nipples hardening painfully, desire twisting in my belly.

I silently cursed the thin fabric of my dress and my lack of proper undergarments. There was no protection against the sheer, almost naked, want in my body.

I pressed my knees together in a vain effort to stop the pounding between my thighs, deep inside me.

His eyes were scouring down me and I saw him flick across where my nipples strained at the thin fabric of my torn gown.

I felt frozen, transfixed by his smile, the rich, silky scent of his body, and he put one hand around my neck and drew me to him.

He began to kiss my throat, moving down slowly, oh so slowly, each inch sending more heat pounding shamefully to my pussy, my nipples hardening into diamond-sharp points, my breasts feeling heavy with the need to be touched.

He flicked a tongue at the hollow in the base of my throat and I couldn’t suppress a moan.

Then he slipped the strap from my shoulder and I gasped, feeling his flat stomach press down and his cock hard where our bodies met.

There was a rumble of satisfaction from his throat as he traced the spray of freckles across my nose and cheeks.

“These look like a constellation too, don’t they, angel? Like a swan?”

“Y-yes,” I said, hardly trusting my mouth.

I would have agreed to anything he said.

“I knew my mate would be the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen but I wasn’t prepared for how much I’d want you.”

I felt his thighs tighten around my legs, and then his tongue was teasing at the entrance to my mouth, a seduction of lips and hands, and I was lost.

He tasted like cinnamon and something biting and sweet at the same time, and I opened for him, as he made a low note of pleasure.

He wants me, too! I thought with a wild, ravenous excitement.

His kisses were deep, passionate, his hands tangling in my heavy hair now, pulling me closer, his kisses so passionate that I felt a little nip on my lips.

I squeaked and he pulled away, his chest rising and falling swiftly.

His eyes were so silvery now, and I felt something between us rise, something raw and animal.

Something once in a lifetime.

There was something that scraped the sensitive skin of my throat as his put his hand around my neck, turning my head gently to look at me again.

“Mine,” he said, as my insides liquified.

There was something that flashed in the moonlight, something that passed over his face, something sharp and shiny that activated some primitive instinct deep inside me.

“Are you—are you human?” I asked.

“Sometimes,” he said, and grinned at me.

Then he held one hand up in the moonlight.

I gasped, my body heating further at the sight of long, wicked claws beginning to curve from the tips of his fingers.

Half-wolf, half-man

Or all-wolf, all-man

Maybe I should have asked more questions, but I didn’t care.

I only wanted Jack.

He was so magnetic, and the heat between us pulsed even stronger.

Jack pulled his shirt off with a taut, elegant motion. His body was beautiful, long, lean limbs with strong corded muscles, and a flat, athletic belly.

The heat in my body felt like it spiraled higher as he undid my dress and leaned his head to run his tongue down the swell of my breast and circle around my nipple, one sharp fang scraping my sensitive skin with shivering power. I gasped as a pleasurable hunger began to build inside me.

“Are you going to let me in, Andromeda?” Jack asked, his knee nudging at my thighs.

“Yes—please touch me,” I breathed.

“Lie back and spread your legs for me,” he said roughly. I obeyed, feeling my limbs trembling.

I saw him pull down his pants, his erect cock springing out, and he pounced with the grace of a leopard over me.

To my surprise, he didn’t immediately sink his cock inside, but knelt looking down between my legs.

“I can smell you,” he said, his voice rolling through me, churning every inch up. “I can smell your arousal and I want to taste it.”

“Please,” I breathed.

The sight of him between my thighs almost undid me, as he swiped his tongue from the top to bottom of my slit, the metallic of his piercing rubbing seductively against my dripping folds.

“So wet for me.”

He was shifting still faster in the moonlight, all man and all beast.

His rough tongue flicked inside me, making me whimper in need, and then he pressed a finger inside, the claw hard and cold.

With the rounded end, he carefully massaged a rough spot in my walls and I felt my thighs start to tremble.

“Oh, god, yes, Jack,” I gasped as I gripped his hair, sleek white-gold locks and rough fur as he shifted between monster and man.

Stars clustered at the corner of my vision as I came, the unfamiliar erotic sensations of a smooth rounded claw inside me replaced with the feel of a big swollen head pressing at my sopping core.

“Ready to be claimed?” he asked with a low growl and I nodded wordlessly.

But when he went to press his cock inside, it wouldn’t go. Anxious to be filled, I arched my back, spreading my thighs wide and jerking my hips back and forth.

He laughed, a musical sexy sound, and put one hand on my hips.

“Calm down, sweetheart. I’ll get it in, nice and slow now. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

Jack pressed his cock in slowly, tipping my hips up to get an angle that would work as I strained to stretch my thighs as wide as they could go.

God, this was embarrassing, to want him so badly.

But he didn’t act like I should be embarrassed, tracing the swell of one of my breasts with a strong tanned finger as my inner walls clamped around his cock, like I was desperate to be totally filled.

I bit on my lip, trying to play it cool, but I couldn’t help another little moan of need. I saw his breathtaking face break into a smile.

I had never fallen like this

It was more than just love at first sight.

It was a headlong plunge into total devotion.

He was dangerous.

He was half-man and half-beast, a wolf-man with shifter claws scraping through my hair.

But I didn’t care.

Mate

What did it even mean? To be the fated mate of a wolf shifter?

When did he shift?

What did he eat?

I didn’t care.

I was already going to do everything for this man.