Page 15

CHAPTER 15 - ASTRA

T he time to leave neared. It burned in my veins like poison aiming for my heart. Five days with Raze was nowhere near enough time to make up for our lost month. My heart warred over the decision to stay or go. I missed my other three men and wouldn’t be complete without my entire harem.

For how long could I realistically pull off this second kidnapping act ? Another week? Two? A month? What timeframe would convince the warden? How long until he sent his hunters after his missing asset? Styx was dead and the remaining soldiers would fight it out for top spot. And on that note, I needed to come up with a believable excuse for my escape.

Water splashed my jeans and hands, snapping me out of my dark thoughts and dropping me into the present. Slippery pebbles crunched beneath my rubber boots, and I almost tripped. The scent of wet rocks, muddy banks, vegetation, and the crispness of the river I waded in. Ripples in the water broke up the sky’s reflection. A fish darted past me, seeking the shelter of larger rocks and shadows to conceal itself from the hunter in its midst.

Raze lifted his homemade spear from the water, proudly showing me the fish flapping on the end, which he caught when demonstrating the spearfishing technique for me. “This one’s for my mate.”

Cute. He collected all sorts of knickknacks and gifted them to me. Rocks, leaves, and bark. All his way to show affection in his culture. Items I wouldn’t be able to take back with me to the prison, and my chest ached at having to leave them behind with my wolf.

The day before last, we spent an hour collecting various clays to mix into paints and Raze taught me how to use them to decorate different canvases with my fingers, twigs, and feathers for different techniques. Getting lost in the patterns of dots brought me relaxation and fulfillment I never felt before. And in typical Astra Nomical romance fiend fashion, we ended that activity by painting each other’s bodies, making love all evening, and washing it off.

Yesterday afternoon, we went searching for hollow trees to cut down and fashioned didgeridoos out of them. Shaving and crafting one took my wolf half a day to complete. Time with Raze was never boring and full of learning. My wolf got me all giddy and broody when he confessed how excited he was to teach our children about his culture.

Once he finished his work with Luna and her men, he intended to do a workshop to teach the kids in the sanctuary how to make and play the indigenous instrument. In the meantime, he’d take his to tonight’s campfire and introduce the sanctuary to his culture’s music, liven it up, get the kids dancing, even let them have fun and blow into it.

I bounced with excitement for the evening’s entertainment and toasting marshmallows because I hadn’t done that since my dad took my family camping. And damn, I got a little enthusiastic to introduce my wolf to my father, even though he wouldn’t be happy that I was dating yet another male.

This morning, Raze put the finishing touches on his personal instrument, painting various animals on it to match his tattoos and his life story. A possum carrying young on his back as an honor to his mother for raising him. Then a protective, fiery goanna to represent me. A Galah for Knoxe to characterize him as a warrior and leader, a kangaroo for Tor, who carried around and protected his family in his pouch, and a shy platypus for Pascal, to embody his uniqueness and his tendency for solitude. All the members of his pack, former and current. He shed a tear when he finished his mother, and I held him for a long time, soothing him, knowing how much he missed and longed to see her.

“Are you making me do all the work here so you can perv on my butt?” Raze teased, carrying the now still fish over to the cooler on the river’s banks, storing the five he caught to feed shifters in the sanctuary.

I laughed and stabbed at the fish taunting me, the one I stalked for the better part of five minutes, while it darted beneath a rock, forcing me to wait him out, or poke around to nudge him into the light.

The other three males living on site were out hunting mountain goat, which Raze normally joined them for, but stayed with me since I couldn’t shift. That, and he hadn’t left my side since our arrival.

Aaliyah, the healing avatar, restored his nervous system to normal levels, but she didn’t remove his memories of our ordeal, which he said she did for me, and it made him extra cautious and protective of me. Apprehension at leaving him mounted in the back of my mind like a tension headache. What would he do? Would he go feral again? Fret and refuse to eat without his mate? His reaction made it harder to go.

Today’s fishing expedition aimed to establish a sense of normalcy after a stressful period and to teach me to fish. I smiled at him and went back to poking the water with my stick, honoring the way his former tribe hunted for food.

Raze wandered back to me, all flexing muscles in his trunks and short-sleeved shirt. “You haven’t caught anything yet, Little Wolf.”

There wasn’t much to the technique—aim and let the spear loose. Easy for anyone with a good arm. Coordination and I weren’t the best of friends, and I had to practice something hundreds of times to perfect it.

Everyone at the Academy thought I was a natural. Book nerd, yes. Magical practitioner, so so… unless I had to lob spells around to hit a target. Weapons aficionado, not so much. They didn’t see me late at night, out in the courtyard, practicing until my fingers were cold and blue, my eyelids barely able to stay open, body aching and exhausted. Not even Luna knew that.

“I need a little more practice,” I told him.

He swept me into his arms for a heart-melting kiss. “You’ll get it, I know you will. You don’t stop until you nail a task.”

I fawned under his encouragement to keep going, and kissed him right back, pouring all my adoration into it.

My men made me cry once when they told me they admired my persistence and dedication, throwing myself into every challenge and never stopping until I perfected it. The biggest and best praise came from Knoxe, who started out hard and strict on me. They loved that I was one of the boys, dauntless, and not a princess that complained.

“If you catch one, we’ll eat that instead,” Raze murmured into my temple, his breath warm and coaxing.

Oh, now we were talking!

“Challenge accepted, mister!” I accepted a final kiss, one that took my breath away and left me dazed and blinking, my goal completely evaporated.

“Stop thinking about my ass, pervert.” Raze cracked my behind and set me down in the water, nudging me to victory.

Well, wouldn’t you know it? I achieved my first kill after a few more tries, earning heaped praises, kisses, and him spinning me around in celebration.

I couldn’t stop smiling for the rest of the hour, where I snared another two fish, while Raze’s haul shamed me, almost overflowing our cooler.

“That’s enough, Little Wolf.” He deposited his last catch with the rest, sprinkled the remaining ice from the bag we bought at the gas station, and set the lid on the box. “You did well. Tomorrow we’ll practice some more and double your score.” He stroked me between my throat and shoulder.

“Don’t lie, my wolf,” I teased with a devilish grin. “We both know that I schooled the fish out of hiding and onto your spear.”

He hummed as he lifted me into his arms, my mouth level with his. “I think you tell tales.” He wrapped my legs around his body, brushed my spine, and licked at my throat.

I pinched his nipples. “Oh, come on! I deserve some credit for chasing those fish.”

His head tipped back with his loud laugh that echoed off the rocks. “You’re definitely an expert at making lots of noise, splashing around, and scaring the fish away.”

Really? Let’s see if I could make him play along.

I pinched him harder, starting off a long, delicious rumble that curled in my belly like flames rising from the ashes. “I think I need to change your perspective on that.”

“How do you propose to do that?” Raze’s timbre dropped three notes, and the fire heated up to meet him.

“A bit of this.” I flexed my fingers and dragged my nails down his bare chest, promoting a long and deep groan. “And a bit of that.” I made my intentions clear, sucking on his earlobe and biting gently.

His groan twisted into a growl that heaped more fuel on my fire and turned it from warm to hot.

“Keeping doing that, Little Wolf.” His nails sharpened into claws and grazed my back, eliciting full-body tingles and shivers. “You know I like it when you scratch, nip, or pinch me.”

Oh, yes he did. All wolf species enjoyed it.

I increased the pressure of my nails, and his chest thundered with delight. “I didn’t catch as many fish because you distracted me all day without your shirt.”

“You prefer me naked.” Raze never stopped teasing me about running into him naked on a mission after he shifted, and my gaze dropped to admire his package.

“Truth.” I raked my nails as hard as practical without breaking the skin, and his cock thickened against my pussy.

“Little Wolf, you’re asking for trouble,” he growled into my throat.

My nipples hardened against his chest, aching for his palm to squeeze them, his mouth to descend on them, his tongue to flick them. Moisture flooded my pussy, readying me to take his big length, and his nostrils flared at the scent of my arousal. His cock hardened further, and I rocked my hips against him, needing him inside me. He sank his fangs into the spot where he marked me during our mating, orgasm crashing over me, and I shuddered in his arms.

“You don’t play fair,” I panted.

He claimed my mouth in a savage kiss that left my lips bruised and begging for more. “You like it that way.”

We went on kissing with languid strokes of our tongues and brushes of our lips that only served to dial up the heat in my body and make me wetter and needier. Raze operated on his time and no one else’s, and he displayed the resistance and determination of a saint not to throw me down and commit sin.

Eventually, he backed me up to the nearest tree, sliding his palms over the curves of my hips, waist, and cupping my breasts and treating them to the worship they deserved.

“This needs to go.” He stripped me from my shirt and growled at my bra, his eyes charging with silver as his beast rose to the surface. “And these too.” He practically sliced my pants, underwear, and bra from my body.

I didn’t care. Didn’t need them. They were replaceable. He was not.

He lowered me to the ground, sunk to his knees, kissed all the way from my belly, up my ribs, over my breasts, and lapping at my collarbone. I arched into his palms as they found my breasts, and he latched onto my nipple.

“Raze, please, I need you,” I moaned as he sucked my breast into his mouth, rolling my hips frantically, my pussy clenching on air.

“Not yet, my mate.” He lingered on my nipple for a long time, making his point, then lavished my other, rewarding me with a finger between my legs. “Not until you’re a good girl and come on my finger so I can taste you.”

I fucking loved when my men talked dirty like the heroes in my romance audiobooks, and rocked over him, frenzied for more.

Raze sucked, licked, and bit my breast and nipple until he surged me through a second and third orgasm.

“Give me your cock, Raze.” I tugged at his hair.

“That’s not my name, Little Wolf.” He nipped at the flesh between my thigh and hips. “What’s my name?”

Ohhh. I liked this game.

“Daddy Wolf?” I played along.

“No!” he barked, biting my thigh.

“Big, bad wolf,” I tried again, laughing as he bit the side of my ass.

“Not even close,” he growled, biting a line along my belly.

I leaned my head against the trunk. “My sexy wolf.”

His hand clapped on my hip. “Closer.”

Fuck, this game was sexy as hell. “My wolf.”

“Good girl.” He rewarded me by lifting my leg over his shoulders while he fucked me mercilessly with his tongue and fingers until I was an incoherent mess that frightened away all the wildlife.

Giving me a respite to catch my breath, he leaned back on his haunches, trailing his palms along my calves and thighs. “So beautiful, my mate.”

“I love you, Raze,” I panted, stroking his hair and forehead.

“Love you too, Little Wolf.” He stretched up to seal that declaration over my mouth, stealing my air.

I sank my fingers into his hair and raked his scalp.

He withdrew and cracked me on the side of my ass again. “Turn around and bend over.”

Oh, yes, please. I did as he ordered.

His hand came down on my butt and wasn’t gentle enough to soothe the smarting. “Stick your ass out.”

I bent deeper and wiggled it for him.

“Fuck, Little Wolf,” he growled. “I’m going to give it to you so hard. Put your arms up to protect your face.”

Boy, did he deliver, slamming into me without warning. I glanced over my shoulder to watch him bend his legs at an awkward angle to drive into me like a beast unleashed.

“Touch yourself,” he growled, his hips slapping ferociously into my behind. “Then let me have a taste.”

I reached between my legs and stroked my clit, then reached over my shoulder, and he leaned in, sucking my finger into his mouth, groaning.

“Your honey is the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted,” he snarled.

That one taste spurred him into a frenzy, and he wrapped an arm around my waist, locking me to him and he plundered my pussy for all it was worth, spiraling me into a world-bending orgasm that went on for over a minute. He roared and came, his hot seed spurting into me in jets that dripped down my leg when he pulled out.

He plugged my hole with his finger. “We’re not leaving until I get you pregnant.”