“Oh Rafe,” she called into the still night. She’d only ever felt this way once before. But never like this. Not like this.
His tongue flicked and dipped into her core, and her climax burst against him. Her body pulsated as a scorching moan erupted from deep within.
Before she could calm down, his mouth claimed her, silencing the moan. His hard shaft pressed at her entrance. Cassie’s eye grew wide with fear, and she gripped his shoulders as he pushed ever so gently inside her. Her body stretched around his massive manhood. Her knees shook, and she did not know how she could possibly take it all in.
A sharp gush of pain erupted as he hit a wall inside her. She moaned, and he stopped there, letting her relax over him. He kissed her deeply, sweetly, moving his mouth over her mouth to her neck and ears. Her body gave way, and he pressed the rest of the way inside, resting there.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yeah, but what about? You know. Babies and all that?” she said, trembling.
“I’m not fertile unless I try very hard. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to pass fertile seed.”
He drew back and pushed into her again. She gasped. “That isn’t just some line you mutants use on the ladies nowadays, is it?”
“No. But what I will pass to you will mark you. You will no longer be viable for the Anu’s breeding purposes.”
“You aren’t going to make me smell bad or anything?”
“Far from it.”
He thrust into her, sinking to his base. She groaned with awakening passion. He slid his hands up her arms and gripped her wrists while his body worked into her in waving thrusts.
Cassie gasped each time Rafe’s hips plunged between her legs. Her breasts swelled against his chest; her legs wrapped around his waist. She kissed his neck and chest frantically before he lowered his mouth to her.
They kissed in the firelight as their bodies worked. She felt desire from deep inside waiting to erupt like a molten river of lava, yearning to burst from the depths of the Earth.
She moaned in a frantic rhythm that matched the rhythm of his body. The overwhelming flood of desire burst forth and consumed her. Her mind went blank as whiteness blinded her eyes. All she felt was mind-numbing pleasure. Her body merged with Rafe’s in all-encompassing, white-hot ecstasy.
His body swelled and pulsed, erupting into her core with a driving hot stream. She groaned into his neck as he moaned and gasped into hers. He shuddered, complete.
His body went lax over her, and his weight crushed her for a second before he rolled away, folding the blanket over her body to protect her from the cold.
She perched her head on his chest and ran a finger over his hard muscle, smiling with satisfaction. There was a dull pain between her legs, but she still buzzed and pulsed with pleasure so deep the pain almost made it sweeter.
“I’ve marked you,” he whispered.
“What does it mean?”
“It means you are mine, and I am yours. You are now my queen, alpha female of the pack. We will be mated forever.”
“What? Like married?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“You didn’t ask me to marry you. Shit. No prom. No marriage proposal. The apocalypse sucks.”
He laughed and tackled her, pinning her below him, gripping her wrists. He looked down on her with a dark smile.
“Cassandra Kline, will you be my alpha female?”
“When you put it like that…”
“Will you marry me then?” he said, his tone bordering on exasperation.
“Okay, sure. Why not? I don’t have any better offers.”
He rolled over and groaned, growing silent and staring at the starry sky. She bundled herself in the blanket and burrowed under his arm, resting her head against his heart.
“I didn’t mean that. I want to be your… alpha female, or wife… or whatever. I. I love you. Do you love me?”
“I’ve loved you from the first second I smelled you bleeding in the ravine.”
She sighed. “So did I. Except it was after you shifted. Before that, I just thought you would eat me. Actually, I thought you would eat me for a long time after that too.”
“I did eat you. And I’ll do it again,” he said, grabbing between her legs over the blanket. Wet desire grew in her, but she gasped and slapped him away.
“Gross!”
They laughed and teased each other until they grew still. Wrapped in the blanket, they fell asleep.
Chapter 23
They woke in the dewy morning air, soft yellow sunlight stretching long shadows from the east. Cassie stirred under Rafe’s heavy arm, raising her head to take in her surroundings.
The coals from the fire had long since gone cold, and tiny flying bugs swirled above the sand on the riverbank. She sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes, yawning.
People used to talk about what it meant to lose it—virginity. When the war had come, she’d only been fifteen. Girls her age had lost theirs, but she hadn’t really had a boyfriend at that level yet and had been too busy singing into a hairbrush in her bedroom.
Rafe groaned and shielded his eyes from the rising sun, lifting himself onto his feet in one swift movement. He looked even more dazzling in the morning glow than he had the night before. Several days of stubble had grown on his chin, and his proud manhood stood erect to greet the morning.
Cassie giggled and covered her mouth. He knelt down over her and breathed in her scent, ready to sink inside her a second time. She still felt a dull ache between her legs, but she leaned back on her elbows, inviting him.
From above them on the mesa, Neil’s yell shocked them out of their game. Cassie couldn’t make out what Neil had said, but she and Rafe hurriedly pulled on their clothes, grabbed the blanket, and hiked back up the hillside.
They came to the stone circle on the top of the mesa where the rest of the pack had parked and camped the night before. They were just finishing their meal and putting away the cooking supplies when Cassie and Rafe approached the caravan.
Neil jogged over, but Cassie could already see what had him concerned. Out in the distance, over the flat, dry desert, the spacecraft hung in the air. It silently hovered as it moved on the horizon.
Cassie’s breath hitched, and her hands went to her guns. She sneered. Time to end this.
“Let’s blow up their ship,” she said, walking in the direction of the vessel.
“Hey there, little warrior. Don’t go off half-cocked.”
“They’ll come this direction. We should hide underground,” Neil suggested.
“No. We don’t need to hide anymore. They can’t find us.”
Neil sniffed the air around Cassie, and his eyes widened. “You marked her. You marked a human!”
“I did. Now she cannot be tracked by the Anu. Her genetic marker has been altered.”
“But. She’s. Human.”
Cassie glared at Neil and crossed her arms, cocking her chin. “What’s your problem?”
“This isn’t a problem, Cassandra,” said Rafe. “I love this woman. I’ve chosen her to be my mate.”
Neil looked at them aghast, his mouth open as if he wanted to catch flies.
“We’ll talk about this later, friend,” said Rafe, patting Neil on the shoulder. He raised his voice and addressed the pack. “Let’s pack up. We’re moving out.”
There were words of protest and questions about the spacecraft in the distance. Everyone thought they should go underground. Rafe waved them off and said there was no longer a concern.
Cassie was ready to draw her guns at any moment. While she trusted Rafe and Circe, she wasn’t sure that “marking” her would make the Anu and Pyramid Corp leave her alone. She’d been imprisoned by Pyramid Corp and hunted by the Anu for so long; she couldn’t accept that having sex with Rafe was all it took to get them off her back. Werewolf semen must be some potent stuff! Why hadn’t they done it days ago?
There was a scuffle of gravel behind her, and
Cassie turned to see Circe and the other witches escorting Selina back to the convoy. Selina had a pronounced limp, but her color looked good.
Rafe went to talk to the witches, and Cassie offered to help Selina to the car. “I was so worried about you!” Cassie said, rubbing the other woman’s back. Selina sniffed Cassie’s neck and drew away looking at her wide-eyed.
“He marked you!”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Do you have any idea what that means?”
“Um. Apparently every werewolf in the area can smell I lost my virginity last night.” Cassie frowned and looked down at the ground. “At least be happy for me.”
“Well. Congrats and all that, but… for the pack, it’s a big deal. It means you’re our alpha female.”
“He kind of mentioned that. So what’s the problem? I don’t want to boss anyone around or anything.”
“The problem is that now you are one of our leaders, and you are a human.”
“Are you mad at me?”
“Mad isn’t the correct word. It’s politics. I like you a lot, Cassie. We’re friends, but having you as my alpha…”
“Come on. Let me help you back to the car.”
Cassie helped Selina limp back to the car and climb in the passenger side of the backseat. Clark was already there, watching the spacecraft glide by in the distance with a pair of binoculars.
“They aren’t after you,” he said, turning to look at Cassie.
“How can you tell?” She genuinely wanted to know why he thought that. She didn’t believe it was possible, and it took all her strength to not fire on them or run and hide under the mesa.
“Last time they were within this range, they practically teleported to your location and beamed down a bunch of humans to kill us all. But now, they just seem to be cruising.” He sniffed the air inside the car as Cassie jumped in and closed the door. “Oh. Now I see.”
“Jesus. Could you people be any weirder?” said Cassie, rolling her eyes. “Stop smelling my sex life.”
“So it’s true then. I wonder when he’s planning to tell us.”
“For God’s sake, just drop it. It’s between me and Rafe. Not the whole freaking world.”
Selina and Clark made grunting sounds and went quiet.
Chapter 24
The caravan drove down the gravel road and away from the witches’ stone circle. The silent Anu ship hung in the sky. The light of the sun seemed to be absorbed into its obsidian blackness. Cassie felt her stomach clench tightly as she watched the ship slowly fade into the horizon, where the cerulean blue sky met the sienna desert.
She waited, fingering her gun, expecting that at any moment the ship would swoop across the sky and open fire on the convoy. But it didn’t. Rafe drove the SUV onto the main freeway, and they continued their trek southwest deep into the desert toward Tucson.
She’d never been this far south. Rafe ran the air conditioner on full blast, but she could still sense the intense, dry heat at the edge of the coolness. He pulled off the freeway under the shadow of a red hillside after midday. When Cassie stepped outside to relieve herself, a blast of heat hit her with blinding force.
She blinked her eyes and gasped, trying to make sense of the feeling. Sweat instantly ran down her brow and down the insides of her arms.
“It’s going to be hard to hunt in this heat,” said Selina, limping from her leg wound. Cassie trudged toward a saguaro cactus to do her business. No one else seemed to have as much need for privacy as she did. They did walk around naked in front of each other all the time.
Cassie made her way back to the car and poured water from her canteen over her head. Rafe came up behind her and dipped his face into the back of her neck, taking a long draw of her scent.
“Mm, I smell good on you,” he said.
“Cut it out. Everyone is pissed at me right now.”
“Don’t worry about them. I made the decision, and I stand by it. It’s my problem. Not yours.”
“If you say so. But no PDA. I can’t deal with their glares.”
“Whatever you want. Until it’s time to eat again. Then it’s whatever I want. Grr.”
“God. You’re so gross. Would you cut it out? What did I expect from a guy who listens to the Beastie Boys on repeat? Don’t you listen to anything that isn’t thirty years old?”
“They just don’t make them like they used to.”
Cassie jumped in the passenger seat, trying to ignore that she was mated to a guy with horrible taste in music. He grinned at her wickedly and shut the door behind her.
Rafe had cooled down on the dominating male thing a lot since they left the compound. Even though his taste in music sucked, she liked this side of him. He was easy to connect to and easy to love. If only it were just him and her, this would all be so much easier. Her newfound strength had given her some level of confidence with her guns and swords, but she still didn’t know how to navigate the world of the pack or her relationship to its leader.
They drove through the day. On the outskirts of Tucson, one of the cars slowed and stopped moving. Rafe parked his SUV and went to go see what the problem was. He came back a few minutes later to tell them that the car had run out of gas and that there was no gas left.
“Can’t you try to siphon something from a car or a gas station?” Cassie asked as she stood on the baking hot highway, shielding her eyes with her hand.
“Maybe, but it isn’t likely there is any fuel left. Other mutants use fuel as well. It is a precious resource. The fuel we had for this journey was saved for over a year.”
Rafe and Neil discussed what should be done, and they appointed a scouting party to go look for gas. In the intense heat, being in wolf form was dangerous due to the chance of overheating. Neil took his car with a few hunters and drove back to the city they had just left. The rest of the party pulled the cars into the shade of an overpass and waited.
Cassie passed Rafe as she went to join Selina and Clark against the cool concrete of the overpass, and he smacked her bottom and pulled her into him behind the car. They had a semiprivate place, mostly hidden from the rest of the pack who were behind them in the shade.
He grabbed her and propped her up on the driver’s seat of the SUV. The force of his body against hers as he sank between her legs made her gasp with desire. She clung to him as he drove his tongue into her mouth. Sweat beaded on her temples and between her breasts as his mouth trailed over her neck.
“It’s too hot,” she said. “People can see.”
“Let them watch. I decided I don’t care anymore. I need you. The pack needs you.”
“Rafe.”
His thumb grazed over the sensitive flesh between her legs. She groaned and pushed him away. “Later. If this place you’re taking me has running water and beds.” She hopped out of the seat and went to join the rest of the party in the cool shade. Her body still throbbed with need, begging for his touch. She watched him pace in front of the SUV, waiting for the hunters to return. His powerful body made her moist with desire. She couldn’t get enough of him, even if the pack didn’t approve.
The hunters returned after several hours when the sun had dipped low on the western horizon. Long shadows grew out toward the east when their SUV finally pulled under the overpass. Neil got out with a gas can and poured it into the stalled vehicle.
“We found a gas station that still has a good amount of fuel. We’d be smart to siphon it now while we have the chance.”
“Take all the gas cans and go siphon the gas. The rest of the convoy will continue on to the fallout shelter.”
Rafe delegated a group to repack the cars so that Neil could fit all the gas cans into one vehicle. By the time the car was repacked, it was already sundown. Neil’s crew drove off into the dim orange light, their headlights flipping on as they drove away. Everyone else piled into the three remaining cars and continued to the east, away from the setting sun.
Darkness fell fast. They drove another fifty miles on the highway and the
n finally pulled off onto a one-lane paved road into the desert. After several miles, they pulled onto a dirt road that ran through the sagebrush. It was obvious no one had been on that road or maintained it for many, many years. Everyone bounced up and down over huge potholes and massive bumps. Cassie almost hit her head on the ceiling before putting her seatbelt on.
When Rafe cut his motor, Cassie couldn’t see any discernible landmarks in the landscape within the illumination of his headlights. She followed everyone out to stand in the middle of a barren desert.
“This is it?” she asked, feeling rather disappointed.
“Just wait.”
Rafe took out an oil lamp and held it over the ground, looking down as he walked. Suddenly, he lifted his leg over a stone and stomped down. The ground below seemed to shutter, then the sound of cranking echoed through the quickly cooling air.
Just in front of Rafe, a circular hole opened in the ground. Two plates moved away from each other under the desert gravel, revealing a dark shaft.
“This is it,” said Rafe. He looped the lantern through his belt and made his way to the first rung of the iron ladder inside the shaft. “Wait here.”
He disappeared into the darkness underground. Cassie’s heart contracted, as she thought of something happening to him. If he didn’t return, what would become of her? She would be alone with a pack of wolves who did not see her as one of their own.
Her mind shifted to ideas of wandering the world alone, seeking revenge on Pyramid Corp and the Anu they served. In the middle of a vivid daydream of liberating a dome, an iron cage elevator cranked to the surface with Rafe inside.
He applied the break and instructed the pack to begin unloading the SUVs. Cassie fell into line with the rest, unpacking the car she’d ridden in. They had carried the weapons, which she was more than happy to spend some time inspecting as she brought them to rest near the elevator shaft.
The pack took turns loading supplies into the elevator. Cassie’s stock of guns and ammunition was the last load. Just as she and Clark finished packing the elevator with gear, headlights broke through the blackness of the desert.