“Kira! Kira!” Blaze yelled into her face. “Wake up, dammit!”
He was shouting, anger at the fear that he’d not only smelled as he’d slept in his own bed but that had also assailed him like a plague when he’d stepped through the adjoining door into her room. The sight of her flailing wildly into the air, pillows flipping off the bed, sheets tangled in her legs as she continued to scream had incited something deep and intense inside him until his muscles had actually vibrated as he moved quickly to get to her.
Now his arms were holding her tightly, her back against his front, her head thrashing over his shoulders. The screams had subsided, but her fear was still live, still potent enough to have her eyes closed tight, tears trickling rapidly down her cheeks.
“I’m right here,” he told her. “Right here. Nobody will hurt you as long as I’m with you. I promise you.”
Her heart was still hammering against her chest. He could hear it and feel it as his hand stroked along her arms. He had no idea when he’d begun rocking her back and forth or why, but the movement seemed to calm her, so he continued. Her hair tickled his cheek and Blaez leaned into it, until his cheek rested against the top of her head.
“They’ll never hurt you again,” he said when her sobbing had ceased, her body jerking slightly with her heavy breathing.
He moved so that he was now sitting on the bed, his back against the headboard, her body still cradled against him.
“Tell me what they did to you, lýkaina?” he asked after a few more moments. “Tell me so I can make them pay.”
She didn’t speak at first, the silence slicing through Blaez like a painfully familiar knife. He gritted his teeth against his own personal memory and vowed to focus only on her, on what she’d been through and what had ultimately brought her here to him.
“It’s all so stupid,” was her response. One Blaez had not expected. He’d half-expected an argument before the admission because since they’d met that seemed to be the formula that worked for them.
“What’s so stupid?” he asked.
She shook her head, attempting to turn away from him and to move out of his grasp, but he held her firmly. Not to cause her further harm, but to keep her close because every instinct he possessed said he needed her to be near him.
“A beta can become an alpha and form his own pack if he claims an alpha female. He can claim her without her permission, without her love! It’s stupid!” she yelled.
Blaez clenched his teeth, temples throbbing at her words. She sounded just like his mother as she’d made that declaration, but he didn’t want to think of that. “Someone wanted to claim you, and you disagreed.”
“Yes,” she sighed. “That’s why I left, because he wanted to claim me. He waited until the night of the full moon, my birthday.” The last came out quietly and she closed her eyes momentarily as if wishing whatever emotion she was feeling would go away. “The others had already been sent away. He’d made some plans for them at some bar where they could have sex with whomever they wanted as much as they wanted until dawn. They knew about those kinds of places. I didn’t.”
“And the bastard tried to force you.” Those words stuck in Blaez’s throat in a wad of disgust, threatening to actually choke him as the visions of someone attempting to forcefully claim her surfaced in his mind.
“He was going to take what he wanted regardless of how I felt, or what he truly thought of me. He didn’t like me. Never had. Called me names to my face and behind my back. Told me that I would change the moment I was his bitch. I would lose weight and I would wear the clothes he wanted me to wear, cook the food he wanted me to cook. I would be his and there would be nothing I could do about it.”
Blaez felt the rage boiling inside him as he listened to her words, heard both the anger and fear in her voice as she remembered that night.
“He was wrong,” she said, taking a shaky breath. “I stabbed him in the shoulder and would have killed him if Penn hadn’t shown up and stopped me. He said that I was a disgrace, that my mother hadn’t done her job training me, and that I should accept whoever wanted me despite whatever my mother told me, because that’s the best I was ever going to get. I told Penn and the rest of the pack to go to hell.”
“Bravo!” Blaze almost cheered. “Fucking bravo!”
Her father sounded like an ass, a clueless alpha whose pack was probably itching to turn on him. Blaez remained quiet, letting her words sink in, as he cursed inwardly when her body had gone tense in his arms.
“Which one was it?” he asked, trying like hell to sound as calm as he possibly could. The last thing she needed right now was to see how pissed he really was about what she was telling him.
She took in a deep breath and said, “It was Dallas. He’s closest to Penn and probably had Penn’s blessing over the others.”
“You ran away because a beta in your pack tried to force himself on you and your alpha, the sorry bastard, did nothing to stop it! Even when he knew—” Blaez didn’t finish the sentence. What if Penn didn’t know his daughter was a Selected? After all, it didn’t seem as if Kira knew herself what she really was.
“Yes, he knew that I didn’t want Dallas. I didn’t want any of them and I’d made a point of telling them on more than one occasion. They’d backed up for a while, but then after my mother’s death … I don’t know, it just seemed like they became more determined after she was gone. At least Dallas had. I hated how he looked at me,” she said, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes.
“Dammit. I didn’t mean to tell you all that. I’m fine now,” she said, clearing her throat. “Sorry I woke you with my nightmare. You can go now, I’ll be all right.”
“I won’t leave you,” he told her adamantly. “I will protect you.”
“From the boogeyman?” she asked with a light chuckle. “Seriously, I’m good now.”
She’d turned a little, so that she was now looking right up at him. He glanced down, saw her hazel eyes, still red from her crying. Honey-toned cheeks streaked from tears, hair a wild mass that for all that it was worth, aroused him just as much as the feel of her soft body pressed against his. No, Blaez did not believe in the selection process because if it were true she wouldn’t be here with him; of all the lycans in the world it would not be him.
“I’m not leaving,” he replied adamantly, ignoring his thoughts. “Turn around and go back to sleep.”
She huffed and acted as if she were about to say something else. Blaez only stared at her with every bit of intent that he possessed. He meant it. Alpha female, Selected, homeless woman on the streets, who- or whatever Kira was, Blaez had no intention of leaving her or letting her go. It was that simple. And that damned complicated.
He’d never slept with a woman before. Never held one in his arms in this way before either. Had never wanted to.
“You cannot sleep if you keep staring at me,” he said, this time not looking down at her.
Something happened when he looked deep into her eyes, something stranger than what was happening now, and Blaez figured he could only deal with so many anomalies at one time.
“Are you really planning to stay with me every second of every day from now on?” came her tired inquiry.
“I already told you I don’t plan on letting anything happen to you.”
“That’s not an answer to my question, Blaez. Why would you want to keep me here knowing that my family is intent on hunting and killing yours?”
The question had caught Blaez off guard, but he didn’t show it. He should have known she knew who he was. She was a Hunter after all. Gritting his teeth, he said, “This is not the time for a question-and-answer session. It’s the middle of the night. You need to get some sleep.” And he needed to think. He needed to figure out what the hell was going on here and how he actually planned to deal with it.
“And what do you need, Blaez?” she pressed.
He was the one to stiffen this time.
“Why are you doing this when there’s a very real possibility that I could be setting you up to be killed?”
Blaez looked down at her this time, ignored the urge to push a few thick strands of hair from her forehead. “Are you setting me up?” he asked her simply, seriously.
She shook her head. “No. I’m not.”
He believed her. That was simple and also very serious.
“Then go to sleep. Tomorrow you’re going to tell me all about your pack and why one of them was stupid enough to try and claim you against your will.”
“Why do you care?”
Blaez had no answer to that question. None that he was ready to admit anyway. “We’ll talk more later. Go to sleep now, lýkaina.”
She blinked up at him. “Why do you call me that?”
Another question. Blaez should have been amazed, but nothing about her was as it should have been. Nothing was normal or self-explanatory. That was a big part of the problem.
“Because you’re one spitfire of a lycan.”
“It’s the Greek translation of the word,” she continued. “There are books in the library written in Greek. They’re yours, aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“I could tell some things from the pictures and a few words looked familiar. I think I’d like to know what they say.” She paused momentarily. “I read the book about your family.”
And that’s how she knew who he was. Or had she always known? Blaez couldn’t think straight, not with her lying so calmly in his arms, her body soft and warm against his. He knew who she was and who he was. For all intents and purposes that alone caused a problem. If that sign on her back had any real significance, the issue was magnified. When all of this came to a head the damage could be irreversible. His head pounded, even while his body hardened reacting to her proximity, the innocent whisper of her voice in the still of the night. It had been a very long time since Blaez had been this conflicted, since the decisions that he needed to make weighed so heavily on his mind.
“I can teach you the Greek words,” he said finally. “After you get some sleep.”
She actually looked as if she was contemplating his response, her brow furrowing slightly. Blaez slid down so that he was now lying on the bed, pulling her to him, and settling them both against the two pillows that still remained on the bed.
“Good night, lýkaina,” he said, this time praying to every god he did believe in for her questions to cease. At least for tonight.
She moved then, an action that pressed her flush against his hard cock, her back to his chest. The fear was gone now and she smelled like rain. Her hair brushing against his chin smelled like coconut, which matched the shampoo that he knew was in her bathroom.
“Good night,” she replied finally, the sound of her voice like a fresh breeze on a summer’s day.
Minutes ticked by, then hours, Blaez was sure. He did not sleep, did not close his eyes or even relax. Instead, he remembered.
His mother had been born in Greece, in a small town at the base of Mount Olympus. His father had moved there after years of traveling, attempting to find solitude from the role he’d been cursed to play. Alec Trekas had no idea that he’d been going to the very place he needed to be to continue his part in this war that Zeus had begun. Kharis was a believer in the Moirai, or the Fates. She knew that meeting Alec on that summer’s day was a thread in the life she was meant to lead. Ten years later Kharis and Alec had moved to the United States to raise their three sons and daughter. And Kharis had begun to tell her middle son, Blaez, the stories of the Fates, explaining that his life had a purpose and that he would one day find that purpose and act accordingly. He would live up to the power of his bloodline.
And on that fateful day while Blaez was in basic training at the Marine Corps, his family had been killed by a group of Hunters. In the blink of an eye his fate had been sealed. He’d tried to run from it, joining the human military and getting as far away from his family and their beliefs as he possibly could. Yet he had been unable to run from the threads of fate that were steadily twining together to form his life.
Kira was a thread.
The thought had hit him some time just before dawn. The Moirai had brought her here and that knowledge was the intrinsic reason why he could not let her go. He’d held back a curse as once again what he wanted no longer mattered. His destiny had been pre-ordained by powers beyond what even he and his many books on their history could comprehend.
So, yes, he would keep her close and he would protect her and he would face the pack of Hunters that he knew were coming for her. He would face them, all the while praying that they had no idea who and what he really was, because that would be a game changer.
That would be the beginning of the end.
* * *
Kira awoke with a whoosh of breath escaping her lungs, her eyes cracking open to see a great ass … naked, flexing much closer to her face than she thought was good for her sanity. Or anyone else’s sanity for that matter. Her palms itched to touch each tight globe, to run her fingers along the deep dent on each side. She’d just been moving her arms closer, her fingers wiggling with anticipation, when it dawned on her what was going on.
A door slammed and she jolted upward, or at least she tried. A strong arm across the back of her legs and the fact that she seemed to be moving despite that had her about to scream. Only something told her that she wasn’t in danger, at least not in the traditional sense. No, this was different; this was the type of trouble that started with a capital B and seemed to be right up her alley as of late.
“What the hell are you doing? Put me down!” she yelled at his back … the exceptionally great-looking backside of this man she couldn’t seem to keep out of her mind or her personal space.
“I need a shower,” he said while he continued walking.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said just after her feet hit the cool ceramic tiles. She looked down at her feet, light against the dark gray of the floor, then up to see that mouthwatering ass again as Blaez leaned over into a shower stall that looked the size of half the room she was staying in. He turned the silver handle and looked up as water instantly began to fall … from the ceiling.
Kira looked up then to see one of two sleek silver showerheads that blended seamlessly with the stark white ceiling. The walls surrounding the shower were gray tiles that matched the floor, clear glass doors encasing the entire structure. A bench lined the entire wall, with three inlays that housed bottles of body wash and shampoos, she presumed.
“You can’t take a shower from over there,” he said, and Kira looked up at him.
He was naked. Totally. Deliciously.
Had he been naked last night when he’d come into her room? More important, had he been naked the entire time he’d lain in that bed next to her? Oh yes, she recalled immediately, he definitely had. The inside of her thighs were still wet from that knowledge, as she’d continuously pressed her ass back to rub along the mouthwatering length of his arousal. He’d been hard and hot all night long and she’d wondered how she’d managed to fall asleep at all. Easy, when she slept she dreamed of him slipping every inch of his thick cock deep inside of her, sort of like that wolf in her nightmare had done with its tongue.
“You can stare at me from inside the shower as well,” was Blaez’s final irritatingly cocky statement before he stepped through the glass door, to stand beneath the spray of water.
His words bothered and aroused her, and before she could analyze them any further Kira found herself doing exactly as he’d said, again. She stood there staring at him as water sluiced over his ripped abs, down his toned thighs. When he turned she sucked in a breath to see a line trickling down the crease of that perfect ass of his. Hell, she wanted to scream that he shouldn’t look so damned good and be so freakin’ irritating all at the same time. No, what she really wanted to do was fuck him.
It was a startling truth, and since she’d decided long ago that she wasn’t in the business of lying or betraying or any of that other stuff her father and his pack seemed to thrive on, she had to start by at least being honest with herself. No matter how she’d come to be here or how much she thought leaving was the only answer, she wanted to be beneath Blaez with her legs spread wide, willing and waiting for him even more.
With that thought and the realization that it was morning so she would need a shower anyway, she pulled the nightshirt up and over her head, moving slowly until she was opening the shower door and stepping inside, with him.
He’d already grabbed the soap and stood just a couple inches away from the water rubbing it all over his body. There was nothing seductive about his movements, they were purely functional, and yet she could not stop watching every swipe of his hand over taut muscles, sculpted peaks, and that rigid gloriousness of his shaft. Her mouth watered at the sight.
Kira had never gone down on a guy before. She’d seen it of course, as her father’s pack were absolutely shameless in their sexual exploits. There’d been more than one occasion when it had been late and she’d gotten up for a snack—or because she’d known what she’d see—and she’d found them in the living room. All of them. Together. Of course she’d seen more than she’d ever personally experienced. Dallas sitting on the couch, his head tilted back, mouth open as he groaned, some unknown female between his legs sucking his hard cock until he was coming into her mouth. Cody would be behind the same female, spreading her ass cheeks as he thrust his length into her from behind. While across the room Kev and Milo would touch and suck each other, until finally they were both howling with release.
She’d been both aroused and alarmed by the sights at first but over time had grown more accustomed to seeing how lycans were together, how her father said they were meant to be. But when Dallas had come for her that night she’d wanted him off of her. She’d screamed and fought back and done everything in her power to resist becoming a part of the circle these men had formed, no matter how normal it was said to be for their kind.
“You like what you see?” Blaez’s deep voice pulled her from her reverie and her gaze snapped up to his face to find him staring intently at her.
His eyes were usually brown—she’d noted that during yesterday’s breakfast—but in the gym and again last night when she’d looked up at him they’d been almost black and clouded with what … she thought might be desire. Was Blaez as attracted to her as she was to him? How could that be possible? He was an alpha of his own pack and she was just— On second thought, yeah, he could want her. He could want to claim her just like the others. If nothing else, she was an opportunity to any pack, a rise in their power and a key part to whichever side that pack was on. How was that for knowing her worth? However, Kira sensed something different here, something more intriguing than anything she’d ever seen the members of her father’s pack doing before.
“What are we doing?” she asked in response because she simply wasn’t sure. Her plan had to be to find her mother’s family, to possibly stay with them while she figured out what else was out there for her, what her mother had said was her true destiny.
“You’re just about salivating while staring at me,” came Blaez’s reply.
“Even in the shower you’re an arrogant ass,” she quipped, turning away from him and reaching for one of the bottles of body wash. She was just reading to see what scent it held when he reached an arm around her, taking it from her hand.
“But I wasn’t lying,” he said. “You were staring at me like you wanted this dick for yourself.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but he touched two fingers to her lips after replacing the body wash. “Shh, just listen before you argue.”
Kira did not want to listen to him, not again, and certainly not now when he was so close to her and the thoughts of him pounding hard and fast into her pussy were still running rampant through her mind.
“Like I told you yesterday, part of taking full control of your life is knowing what you want and taking it,” he said, water trickling at his back.
They were both wet and standing only inches from each other. The water was hot and steam had begun to fill the stall, so that she could no longer see anything outside the space they now occupied.
“I do know what I want,” she told him defiantly. “I know that I do not want to be here. I never planned to be here … with you.”
“And yet, you want to touch me,” he told her, his gaze going dark as he stared down at her. “You want to wrap your little hands around my hard cock and stroke until I come. Or do you want to suck it? You do, don’t you? You want to suck me dry, lýkaina.”
His voice had deepened as he’d continued, his gaze falling to her lips that as if on command had opened, not wide enough for him to slip his length inside the way he’d suggested, but enough so that even if she denied his words he would know she was lying.
“I don’t understand,” she replied with every ounce of honesty she possessed. “Why me?”
His gaze came back up to meet hers, his lips pressing tightly together before his next words seemed to be ground out, “Why not you?”
“I’ll bet that smart mouth of yours is hot as hell. And wet, just like your pussy. Ever since that night in the woods I’ve been unable to get the scent of your arousal out of my head. It’s driving me insane!” He had raised his voice and Kira took a precautionary step back.
“I don’t belong here.”
“You do,” he replied.
She was shaking her head, refusing to hear his words, wanting desperately to focus on the sound of the water hitting the tiled floor.
“I don’t belong with you.”
“That’s what I originally thought,” he said, reaching out to grab her wrist in his hand. He held it firmly while their gazes remained locked. When she could feel him pulling her hand closer Kira swallowed.
“I vowed to never let anyone in. I had no choice.” His voice sounded strained, almost tortured, and Kira’s heart beat wildly as she stared at him, seeing that strange glow outlining his body once more.
“But then you showed up,” he continued, and Kira blinked. She tried to focus to hear his words, to understand what they meant, what this aura surrounding him was supposed to mean to her.
“I didn’t expect you,” he said, his voice growing deeper as he placed her hand at the base of his dick. “You,” he repeated, clamping his lips tightly once more.
Kira gasped when her fingers scraped along the turgid length of his arousal. Her body trembled, her mind warring with what she should do next. Part of her thinking she should pull away, kick through the shower door, and run like hell, doing whatever she could to get out of this house and away from this man. Another part demanding she stay right there, that she touch him, be with him, accept him. It was weird in a long line of unexplainable things that had been happening to her—Tora’s death, Penn’s betrayal, her running away and ending up in the midst of a Devoted pack, the dreams that seemed so real, and him, this lycan who should have been so wrong for him but felt so damned right.
Her fingers extended, wrapping around the base, loving the warmth that immediately spread from him to her palm, up her arm, and throughout her body. She held him tightly, her lips trembling, eyes trained on his face.
“Take it, lýkaina. Take what you want,” he said through gritted teeth.
Kira stared at him, amazed at what she thought she saw. His face was contorted, in pleasure, she thought, as his breaths were coming faster, a muscle in his jaw twitching as she tightened her grip on him. When she pulled her hand back, stroking her palm along the veined length of his cock, stopping to rub her thumb over the bulbous head, he closed his eyes, shaking his head slightly from side to side.
She repeated the motion again and again, moving faster, watching his shoulders bunch, his Adam’s apple shift up and then down each time that he swallowed.
“I want your mouth. Now,” he told her. “Right, fucking now!”
His words had been spoken in a guttural tone, raw with something she wasn’t totally familiar with. When his eyes opened and he caught her staring at him, he licked his lips slowly. Kira thought she remembered that tongue and felt her pussy clench in response.
“Put your mouth on me, lýkaina.”
Kira wondered if he meant on his lips, which he’d just licked again, or on his cock, which she was thoroughly enjoying stroking.
“Where?” she whispered, her throat going dry with the simple word.
“There,” he said the moment her thumb rubbed over his tip again. “Right. There.”
Never in a million years would Kira have thought she would be here, doing this, with an alpha like Blaez. She’d been told she would never get anyone better than a beta and that even then he wouldn’t really want her for anything other than the status her birthright could provide.
There were so many questions, so many obstacles that should stand between her and Blaez. She didn’t know the answers to any of those questions, and right at this very moment Kira didn’t care. Her body had already begun to lower, her knees planting firmly against the wet tile, her hand still tightly gripping his dick. His gorgeous long and heavy cock with the thick veins stretching like rope along the sides and the tip that at this very moment wept a drop of white cum that she couldn’t wait to taste.
So dipping her head lower without another word, Kira extended her tongue, licking the tip of Blaez’s cock and taking that drop as if it were there especially for her. His hands were immediately in her hair, tangling and wrapping the strands around his fist until his blunt nails scraped along her scalp and he began to slowly push her down farther over his dick.
Having never done this before, Kira simply went on instinct, opening her mouth, letting her tongue slide along the underside of his length, the head reaching the back of her throat where it seemed to tap and ask for entrance. Blaez helped her this time, by tipping her head back slightly, pressing forward as he did. She looked up at him, shivering at how hot and hungry his intense gaze on her made her feel. His teeth were bared, the sharp tips of his incisors clearly visibly through the steam rising around them.
He worked her head slowly, easing himself in and out of her, like he was spoon-feeding her. She could tell he was holding back, that maybe he wanted to pump more deeply into her mouth. That thought had her thighs shaking, her pussy dripping. Her nipples scraped against his legs, sending tendrils of pleasure flitting throughout her body.
With a start she realized she wanted more, needed more. She sucked him in deeper, loving the feel of his turgid skin sliding sinuously against her tongue, pressing back along her throat. Her hand worked up and down his shaft in conjunction with her mouth, until her lips were as wet as his length, the suckling sound echoing in the stall.
When his dick began to pulsate in her mouth, his hands gripping her head more firmly, holding her in place, Kira shivered all over. She wanted desperately to reach between her legs and thrust her fingers deep inside. She would come instantly, she knew; her arousal was so keen she was ready to explode.
“I don’t … do … this,” he said, his voice strained as his hips jutted forward, his balls slapping against her chin as she took him completely inside her mouth.
Kira had no idea what he didn’t do. All she knew for certain was what he was doing to her at this very moment. Every nerve in her body was on alert, her breasts so full they ached and her pussy creaming so heavily she was certain the moisture on her thighs was not water from the shower.
“Never before,” he continued, this time pulling her head back again.
She could see him looking down at her, saw the twist of his lips, the muscles bulging in his neck as he looked to be fighting something. Whatever it was he was working against must have been strong; the struggle looked so intense that Kira almost let him slip from her lips.
“No, lýkaina, you cannot stop. It’s too late for that,” he told her, thrusting forward one more time so that he was once again filling her mouth.
Kira sucked hard and deep, her cheeks hollowing as she held him still right there.
“That’s right; you’re gonna suck it right out of me,” he said, his teeth gritting between his words. “Whether I want you to or not!”
And she did, without evening knowing what to expect or how to complete this task. Blaez stiffened over her, his hands firm on the back of her head, a growl reverberating throughout his chest as the heated jets of his release shot straight to the back of her throat. When she swallowed once, then twice, it was with a spike of something new coursing through her body, something more powerful than she’d ever imagined.
She held him in her mouth until his fingers loosened in her hair. Then with a few last licks along his still-stiff cock, she pulled back slowly, only to gasp when he lifted her up quickly from the floor. He was staring at her intently as he locked her ankles around his back and moved them until they stood just beneath the spray of hot water.
“I’m going to fuck you now,” he said with a growl quickly following his words.
A sound that sent heat spikes straight down to her pussy, stalling any reply she hoped to make.