“I don’t like…they’re…I didn’t mean…” She couldn’t form a complete sentence as he slid his industrious hand up over the curve of her hip, fingers trailing low along her pelvis until they touched sparse curls.
“You don’t like them?” he supplied for her helpfully, lifting his head so he could burn her with the fierce green-gold heat of his eyes. She nodded mutely, and then gasped breathlessly when she felt the flutter and flick of his teasing fingertips. Reule could smell her heat now, the dampness seeping from her body that was laden with musk and pheromones. It made his head spin and his cock harden into steel. She was excited, hot, wetting herself in preparation for him. He’d only meant to kiss her, to claim his place in her attentions after feeling so slighted by his own friends. In an unexpected instant he’d gone far beyond that.
Reule lifted his mouth back to hers, kissing her even though he had to dodge his own fangs to do so. Then he slid his seeking fingers through feminine folds drenched in liquid heat. He caught her cry of surprised pleasure against a groan of his own.
“Kébé, you’re so hot,” he rasped as he glided through soft flesh and sought her center. He found her entrance, circling the sensitive borders silkily before retreating to find the small nub of her clitoris. If he’d doubted his accuracy, he was reassured by her cry and shudder of response. Leaving his thumb resting against that sensitive spot, he once again sought her core. He easily slid a thick finger into her, the way made simple as her body welcomed him with a liquid greeting.
Mystique canted her hips forward, riding his hand with pure instinct and a passionate reaction that dragged Reule down into her uninhibited intensity. He tugged aside her bodice, freeing a breast to his mouth, using a ferocious suction that made her squeal against the prepared seal of his palm against her lips. One hand suppressed her pleasure while the other evoked it. His thumb toyed with her while his finger slid rhythmically deeper. With teeth scraping and sucking her nipple, he slid a second finger into her incredibly snug channel. He reveled in the jerk of her body as she was overwhelmed with sensation. Her hands held him to her desperately and she cried out again from his teasing fingers.
Reule moved his stifling hand and replaced it with his mouth, wanting his lips and tongue against hers as he stroked her responsive body to climax.
“Shall I make you come, sweet?” he asked her roughly. “Can I make you come? What if your people are like the Sánge? Do you need my blood on your tongue to make you climax? Hmm?”
“Please,” she gasped, her diamond eyes heated with a need as bad as his own. He didn’t think she was aware of anything but the response of her wild little body, but then she was looking at him with those hot eyes and he knew she saw him. “Please…” she repeated on a moan before drawing his mouth to hers. She kissed him hard, brutally, causing his fangs to puncture the inside of his bottom lip. He knew she had done it on purpose the moment her tongue swept inside to stroke his blood into her mouth.
She threw her head back in a silent scream as her body closed tight around his torturous fingers. She orgasmed with blinding intensity, her body squeezing around his hand as her hips jerked with violent release. Had he been inside her, she would have milked him dry, and he smothered a frustrated growl against her breasts at that knowledge. The taste of his own blood in his mouth made it all the worse. It should be hers. Her flavor on his tongue as he spilled himself inside her and made her his.
Reule heard her dragging in wild breaths, her entire body falling limp against him. His touch made her jolt in sensitivity and he carefully released her from it. He let her skirts fall back in place, but he kept her pinned hard by the force of his hips and the throbbing erection nestled tight against her. He kissed her gasping mouth as he repaired her bodice, making everything just as it was before he’d pulled her into the alcove.
Except for the wild flush on her skin, the swollen, well-kissed look of her lips, and the topple of red hair that had come down from its constraints. She looked for all the world like she’d just been tumbled, and the idea pleased him ridiculously even if it wasn’t precisely true. His smiling lips drifted to her ear.
“Para is coming to look for you,” he informed her.
“I don’t care,” she sighed sincerely.
“I mean right now. She’s at the head of these very stairs. And while I can keep her from sensing me, you won’t be so lucky.”
With that information and a perverse sense of humor, Reule thrust her out of the alcove with a single sudden shove. She stumbled and corrected herself, whirling in an instant to glare at him and give him a piece of her suddenly violent mind.
“My lady!”
Mystique froze when Pariedes bellowed from the stairs. She quickly smoothed hands over her wild hair and her crooked dress while Reule folded his arms over his chest and leaned back perfectly concealed in the dark alcove. He was grinning when she shot him a deadly look. He simply shrugged a shoulder. As far as he was concerned, it was perfect payback after she had spent the day flirting with his men. Besides, it wasn’t as though she were the one left unsatisfied.
“I’m coming, Para,” she called as she picked up her skirts and started to run, clearly hoping that it would help account for her flush and disheveled state.
“Liar, you already came,” he thought to her with a smug chuckle.
“I swear you will come to regret this one day,” she thought back with a feminine growl of frustration.
“You were the one who didn’t want to be treated as fragile and weak,” he countered.
That made her hesitate in her mind, although she was still running up the stairs straight past Para, who was lecturing her on the need for a lady to be more concerned with her appearance and not to rush. One day soon Pariedes would realize her lady was full of independence and quirks that would never fit the perfect mold of a Sánge lady. And that, Reule decided, was a very good thing. Mystique was bold, honest, and refreshing.
“Reule?”
“Yes, kébé, I’m still here.”
“Did you do that to punish me?”
“Did I do what to punish you?” he demanded, stepping out of the alcove and looking up the stairs though she and Para were already long gone.
“You said it served me right…”
“I meant exposing you to Para’s censure, sweetheart,” he thought gently to her, though his first reaction was fiercer. “I made love to you because I can’t keep my hands off you. Don’t ever think I’d use that as either punishment or reward. Lovemaking is independent of those things.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you. I just didn’t understand.”
“And now you do. Don’t worry, kébé,” he thought with pure heat, “you’re going to learn everything you need to know about me. I promise you that.”
There was no thought response, but Reule felt the sexual excitement that surged through her right down to his toes. He groaned softly, streaking both hands through his hair.
He began to plot how to keep Para far, far away from Mystique for the rest of the night.
Chapter 9
“By the Lord, Reule had better bed that wench soon,” Rye growled as he restlessly paced the dining hall. “Mara is going to start thinking her pussy is made of gold if I keep frequenting her bed like this.”
“You mean it’s not?” Saber joked, chuckling softly. Rye was the most sensitive of the Pack and he was suffering the worst of it, but they were all feeling the backlash of Reule’s unfulfilled needs.
“I don’t get it,” Delano grumbled. “Reule has chased women before. Wanted women before. And yeah, it’s made us all a little edgy because of our connection, but this is unreal! It’s practically savage! What to hell is it about her that’s so different? Isn’t anyone else worried about her being this close to Reule?”
“That’s your frustration talking,” Darcio countered, by far the calmest of the Packmates. “The fact is, Reule is in mnise, and it’s been a long time since he gave himself over to it. Mystique is provokin
g him whether he wants it or not. Stop obsessing over your erections and pay attention. Look at them. Feel them. Feel Reule when he stands back and watches her.”
Darcio leaned forward toward them. “We were all giving him a hard time today by flirting with her, and it was a kick, but did any of you really feel that jealousy? Jealousy. From Reule, who cares about only two things: Jeth and the well-being of this Pack. He displayed hostility toward us because we were buzzing around a woman he has marked as one hundred percent Prime territory. Kidding aside, if any of us dared to touch her, we’d find ourselves in the middle of a challenge more savage than we could even imagine. Pack oaths would mean nothing. It would be as if one of us challenged his rule.”
“Darcio, you have a point?” Rye said shortly.
Darcio knew all their tempers were a little taut because of the hormones flowing so strongly through them. “The point is, my friends, that you need to start looking at Mystique and wondering how you will feel when she becomes Prima.”
“To hell!” Delano barked.
Saber snorted. “Reule would never wed an outlander.”
“I can’t imagine Reule wed at all, and neither should you, Darcio. You know him best of all of us. He’s not going to get tied down until he has no other choice,” Rye said.
“Rye, that remark would be true if Reule had been forced to choose from the flock of marriageable noblewomen he considers to be uptight, grasping, and spoiled. He would have done his duty eventually, but now there’s an opportunity for him to do his duty, but to do it with someone he actually likes a great deal.
“Saber, while marrying an outlander would be risky and something he’d never have considered doing before this, I believe Mystique has changed his mind about what an outlander is capable of learning and appreciating about the Sánge.” Darcio took a deep breath and leaned back with a contented half-smile on his lips. “Then there’s the fact that he’s in heat for her, she’s a powerful ’pathic, and, oh yeah, she’s a sweetheart.”
“To hell,” Delano repeated, though it was more thoughtful than a curse.
“She’s coming. With Reule,” Saber said suddenly, making all of them stand up straight behind their chairs. There was a conscious shedding of frustrations and emotional reactions to what Darcio had just said, and for those who couldn’t shed, protective walls rose in defense of any leaks that might disturb their Prime.
It was one thing to consider and discuss the Prime’s love life, but it was quite something else for him to know it was being considered and discussed.
Reule knew something was wrong the instant he stepped into the room and found things unusually calm and quiet on the ’pathic front. His Pack had a bad habit of blanking him out like that when they didn’t want him to know something was bothering them. He glanced at Darcio, who was by far the most relaxed of the group, while he guided Mystique into the room with a gentle hand at her back. This time she wore gloves all the way up to her elbows, and he felt sympathy for her fear. She had a fully fledged set of powers, but no true sense of how to control them. However, he had faith that she’d either remember or relearn.
Mystique felt highly self-conscious as she took her seat at Reule’s left hand. The last time she’d been in this room, she’d unearthed terrible feelings and secrets. Tonight, everyone was acting strangely, different from their lighthearted play of earlier. She worried her bottom lip with her teeth as she wondered if they were remembering the previous night’s meal.
Then there was Reule, and that was an entirely different landscape of emotions and wild thoughts. She could hardly peek at him without her heart racing into overdrive and her skin bursting out in a moist flush. He’d been so gentle with her, so careful and respectful, that she’d never once expected that sudden rupture of savage passion from him. Not that she hadn’t known he was capable of it. She had known that he was holding himself under a very tight leash of control. But to have it sprung on her so suddenly had left her with only half a brain and knees that were decidedly weak.
One thing about having no memory was that she had nothing to compare the experience to. She was rather glad. She expected everything she’d known beforehand would pale in comparison, and he hadn’t had to work very hard at it. She thought of his hands on her, inside her, and her face flushed while her body went taut and damp all over again. She had to struggle to control her thoughts, to keep her gaze averted from him so she wouldn’t begin to crave what she hadn’t yet had. The room was full of telepaths and empaths, and it was the last thing she wanted to be thinking around them.
She felt as though all eyes were on her and examining her from all quarters. It made her very uncomfortable. Even Reule was staring at her, but she suspected she knew what he was thinking. He had definite plans for her tonight, and it was about time. She needed him. Badly. Her entire body cried for him. The intensity of it left her with a fine tremor of excitement shivering constantly through her. She’d been given a wild taste of Reule’s passion, and she wanted more. She wanted endless time wrapped up in it. She wanted Reule.
She watched him as he ate and spoke to his friends, thinking of all she had learned about him. His kindness, fairness, and tenderness were wondrous. He was gruff and even cold when it was imperative that he be that way, and always quiet and observant before he acted or reacted. He had a temper, but it was usually set off over matters of honor. It was hard to see that as a bad thing. Honor, truth, and friendship enriched his rule. He laughed when he wanted to, wasted no energy on the frivolous, and cared about his city first and foremost.
All these disparate qualities came together to make up an extraordinary man. One she was quickly coming to care about. If nothing else, his choice in trusted companions would have told her all she needed to know about him. Each man was unique in his own way, and their personalities were as different as the seasons. The binding fiber was the honor and loyalty they all had for the man they loved above all others. The fact that these powerful men loved Reule, enough to hand him power over whether they lived or died, made an impressive impact.
Reule was wishing he’d arranged a private supper for just himself and Mystique. He was getting a little tired of the distracting presence of his Pack. But then he’d have Para hovering over them, and that would be just as bad. What he wanted, what he needed, was Mystique in his bed, beneath him and surrounding him. He’d been in a state of arousal ever since their encounter in the alcove and he ached with the sheer potency of his desire for her. He hardly ate anything as the meal progressed, and he knew he was staring at her more often than not because a permanent blush had taken up residence on her fey features.
Needing contact with her, he reached out and covered her near hand with his own, closing her into his palm possessively and watching as she rode out a shimmer of excitement before she sneaked a peek at him from below her lashes. He longed for her mind in that moment, but he resisted provoking her when there were other strong ’pathics nearby.
He wasn’t stupid. He was well aware of the backlash his Pack was picking up from him as he struggled with his desire for Mystique. He knew he’d never felt the mnise so strongly before, and he was convinced it was Mystique who caused the intensity. The result was a powerful urge to throw her over his shoulder this very minute and drag her behind closed doors where—
“Damn!”
Rye lurched up out of his chair, drawing the attention of the entire table. The Prime Blade swung his gaze to Reule and his dark expression turned to one of pure surprise. A tangible ripple began to flow through the Pack until Reule finally withdrew from his fog of preoccupation enough to realize why Rye was looking at him so strangely.
“Jakals.” Reule heaved to his feet as he spat the cursed word, turning to the door just as one of Rye’s lieutenants came rushing in, one of Saber’s sergeants hot behind him.
“My Prime! Jakals. A horde of them. There’s fire beyond the walls!”
The Pack mobilizing all at once was a daunting thing. Gone were the courtly manners and good-
natured smiles of earlier, and in their place rose stone-cold warriors. ’Pathic power surged throughout the room instantly as every man opened himself to the others, a chain of communication so familiar to them it was like breathing. Mystique could feel the feedback of it buzzing all around her, even though she wasn’t sensitive in the same way that they were.
Reule stepped up to her briefly, folding his large hands around her small shoulders and squeezing them in tight reassurance. “Don’t worry. This happens a lot out here. Without the snows, the field stubble and winds will spread the fire unless we fight it back quickly. I’ll return later. Don’t wait for me.” He gently brushed an affectionate finger down the slope of her nose before releasing her and rushing out with his Packmates.
She stood staring at the abandoned room for all of a minute before she closed her gaping mouth with a snap and shook indignation into herself with a sharp shudder.
“To hell!”
She scooped up her skirts and ran for the stairs. Cursing her corsets and high-handed males, she burst into her rooms and gave Pariedes the fright of her life. She reached for her laces and began to whip them apart.
“I need trousers. A boy’s should fit,” she panted as she wriggled out of her overdress, leaving the plum creation in a pool as she stepped out of it.
“But…” Para began.
“Para, don’t give me any arguments! Fetch me breeches and a shirt or I swear I’ll walk naked through this keep searching for them myself!” Para closed her gaping mouth quickly when she realized how perfectly serious her mistress was. “And send that blasted girl in here to help me with this damnable corset in the meantime. Now hurry!”