“That’s it,” she yelled, splashing him back with such vigor that core energy filtered up from the earth and out through her hand, gushing a huge splash of water at his face.
Rafe stopped, looking down at her in shock and awe. “Wow, you’ve come a long way. And I’m taking you down.”
He grabbed her before she could react. Screaming, she fell into the water under him. They whirled together, intertwined, their bodies seeking connection. They resurfaced, kissing, tongues flicking as their hands moved slowly over each other’s wet skin.
He held her tight and gripped her butt with one hand. She could feel him hard against her stomach, and it sent tremors of arousal through her body. Kissing with increased intensity, she couldn’t get him inside her fast enough. It felt as if she were starving. She needed him so badly it hurt.
“Rafe, I missed you so much,” she said, between kisses.
“Cassandra, you have no idea.”
His hands ran over her breasts and he squeezed. Moaning under the sweet pressure, she watched his head move down her body to lick at her nipples. He flicked them between his teeth, biting with spiking, glorious pain. He sucked one pink bud inside his mouth while he plucked at the other.
Cassie’s body cried out for her mate. She radiated need, and she could feel herself pulling energy from the earth and sky. Energy flowed through her. An undercurrent of fear trickled through her mind—the energy could be dangerous.
Rafe’s hand slipped down between her legs as he licked her breasts. His fingers slipped through her folds to find the hard mound aching to be touched. She moaned and quivered with just a caress. When his pressure increased, she sucked in a gasping breath and threw her head back.
She could feel the energy building. It pulsed with their sweet, frantic sex, and suddenly, she was climaxing. It bubbled and built and burst through her. She called out and Rafe looked up at her, smiling.
He took her in his arms and raised her up to wrap her legs around his waist. His strong arms held her in the chest-deep water. He lowered her ready slit over his throbbing shaft. He entered slowly, easing his member inside her young body.
She clung to him, biting his ear as he held her. Her breasts pressed against his chest, her nipples rock hard. The energy vibrated between her legs, gripping and pulling Rafe into its undulating center. As he sank inside her, they connected and combined in the energy’s center.
Cassie threw her head back as her orgasm radiated through her. The power of it, the magnitude of pleasure, was almost too much to bear. She screamed his name as she came continuously.
Rafe had barely begun to move inside her when he walked with her out of the river and lay down on the river bank with Cassie straddled above him.
With her hands on his chest, she rocked herself through the building orgasms that bombarded her. The look in Rafe’s eyes told her that he was along for the ride. She could almost take no more when he put his hands on her hips and gave her several quick thrusts, pouring seed inside her.
The pulsation of hot liquid made her groan with pleasure, and she collapsed on his chest. She could never have imagined pleasure so intense, so great, so vast. Her mind almost couldn’t comprehend the enormity.
She lay on his chest panting, his shaft still inside her. Rafe kissed her cheek and held her against him. Neither of them spoke as she listened to his heart thump.
Finally, Rafe said, “Wow,” and adjusted himself underneath her.
“’Wow’ is right,” she breathed dreamily as she slid from on top of him and onto the warm sand. The sun had dipped over the western horizon, and sunset colors stretched on the landscape.
“Was that a taste of what you’ve been learning this last month? Because I like it.” He chuckled and slipped his arm under her head. She snuggled up on his chest, and they watched the colors dance in pink, purple, and gold across the sky.
“That’s a taste of what I’ve been trying to master. Believe it or not, it’s an extremely powerful weapon.”
“You definitely mastered the pleasure part.”
“I think I’ve mastered the weapon part, too,” she said, suddenly feeling serious.
“What happened today? What was ‘the gauntlet’?”
“I’ve been training, but I still couldn’t draw the energy like I did that day when Pyramid Corp. found us. Circe and I devised a kind of real-world test to push my abilities to the limit in the hopes I could get control of the most powerful one again.”
“And?”
“And, the witches nearly killed me, but I found it. Then…” She ducked her head against his chest, not wanting to remember, not wanting to spoil the beauty of their reunion.
“Then?”
“Rafe, Pyramid Corp is feeding the zombies. And that isn’t even the worst part.”
Chapter 56
Cassie sat in the stone circle under the bright glow of the full moon. The moon radiated concentric circles of bright illumination across the starry sky. The witches knelt around her, chanting in their unintelligible language.
Eyes fluttering, Cassie drifted slowly into the darkness. This time, her goal was not the sky above or the Anu spacecraft. This time, her goal lay to the west. She’d filtered the coordinates into her subconscious, counting on her psychic sense to show her the way.
Her astral body emerged from her physical form like a turtle emerging from its shell. Light blue and luminous, her astral form looked like her but different, more mature, eternal.
The wolves sat off to the side of the circle. From her astral eyes, she could see their auras pulsating with their emotions and the energies that made up their personas and souls.
They could not see her. She knew all they could see was her physical body sitting cross-legged on a quartz slab. The witches could see her emerge and could even interact with her to a degree, but for the most part, she was on her own.
With one last look at her family and friends, she shot through the dark night, her body leaving a streak of light like tracers in a hallucination. The time it took to traverse the distance between the stone circle and the coast took a single breath.
Below her she could make out the light of an encampment. Tents were pitched around a small collection of buildings in what looked as though it had once been a farm.
She could make out movement below but could not tell who or what it was. Descending, she sent out her awareness in an effort to understand who lived there. Once she hovered roughly twenty feet above the ground, she could see the encampment was populated by humanoids.
She couldn’t tell if they were human, shifters, or Pyramid Corp. soldiers. They were not dressed in uniforms and looked too rag-tag to be part of the organization that had helped destroy the world.
Her awareness pulsated over the encampment, and she could feel that these people were mutants. Shifters. But they weren’t just wolves, who she would have expected to be using technology. They were a collection of different shifters: wolves, but also cougars, hawks, otters, dragons, ravens, and more types she could not yet identify. There was even perhaps a witch or two among them.
She descended further until her feet touched the ground, and she walked through the encampment. The people were clean and well fed. There were children, even babies. They had electricity and running water. She could feel a sense of togetherness among them—a common purpose. It warmed her heart.
Seeking the source of the radio transmission, she snapped instantly to a small outbuilding where a woman sat among computers and radios. The woman pushed a pair of thick glasses up her nose and turned a dial on an ancient-looking radio.
Behind her, the door opened, and a woman, whom Cassie knew by her long black hair and bleached white skin was a witch, entered the workshop.
“Emilia, the alpha would like to talk with you,” said the witch. The woman named Emilia looked up at the witch as the witch’s eyes fell on Cassie.
“What are you doing here?” she said to Cassie, her tone aggressive.
Cassie tried to speak to
the woman, but the shock sent her reeling back through space to the stone circle, where she gasped inside her physical body, blinking, surprised at the abrupt departure from her astral form.
“What happened?” Rafe asked, standing and walking toward the edge of the circle. The witches’ chanting subsided, and Cassie shook her head, trying to clear the haze.
She gulped and slid from the stone slab, still disoriented. “There is a settlement of shifters, and a witch or two. There are about a hundred souls living on a small farm. Electricity, water, food, children…”
“What kind of shifters?” Rafe asked.
“All kinds. I don’t even know how many kinds. The source of the transmission seemed to be a female shifter who has a substantial workshop. I might have even seen some terminal equipment among her collection.” Cassie took another deep breath, still surprised at what she had seen.
“I’ve never heard of such a settlement. Shifter species don’t live together. Witches don’t live with shifters. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Circe rose to her feet, brushing the dust from her robe. “I believe we are working together now, wolf. We also work with a human. What would be so shocking about shifter species working together?”
“Typical wolf attitude. So exclusive,” said Hecate.
“Hey, I think it’s cool. It’s time we started branching out from our little group, especially now that everyone else from our pack is dead,” said Selina, an edge in her voice.
“So we’re going?” asked Clark, who still sat several yards away. He didn’t sound happy about it.
“We leave at first light,” said Rafe. “You witches are welcome to join us.”
“I will come,” said Circe. “My sisters will stay here and maintain our circle. We must not abandon it.”
“Good. Now we should sleep.”
Chapter 57
In the morning, the wolves, Cassie, and Circe packed up the Mazda to drive across the desert to the sea. It would be a tight fit with five people in one car, but it didn’t make sense to take the witches’ car and to fuel two vehicles over the distance.
“We need weapons,” said Selina, eyeing Cassie’s guns as they tossed their supplies in the back of the car.
“I know. I’m low on ammo.”
“Hey, look, Cassie. I’m sorry about before. It was stupid, juvenile behavior. I think everyone was going a little crazy in the desert, me included. I’ve always liked you. I shouldn’t have been a bitch to you.”
“It’s not a big deal, Selina. I get it. I admit it bothered me, but that’s over now. I can’t tell you how sorry I am for the loss of your pack.”
“Thanks, Cass. You’re sweet. I appreciate you.”
“Same to you, Selina.” Cassie patted Selina on the back, and Selina pushed the trunk closed.
“Time to go,” Selina said, with a grin and a wink.
The dusty freeway to Phoenix was rutted from lack of maintenance and cluttered with cars left when their occupants were irradiated during the blasts after the war.
The group squeezed together in the compact car. They got good gas mileage, but Rafe still had to pull the car over halfway to Phoenix in a small-town gas station and tell everyone to get out to look for gas.
“I’ll scavenge here,” Rafe said. “I might be able to get into the underground tanks. Selina, go with Cassie; Clark, go with Circe. Spread out, look for supplies and weapons, and stay alert for zombies.”
The two pairs went off in opposite directions. He watched Cassie walk away, her beautiful body swaying as she went. He sucked in his breath. I can’t get enough of that girl. It will never be enough. He prayed for the day when he could lie down beside her and there would no longer be anything to worry about. They could start a family and live a happy life when the war was over.
But the war was a long way from over. He trusted Cassie’s instincts, but there was no way to be sure this plan would work, or how much liberating one dome would help. For now, that was what would be done, and he was behind her 100 percent.
He searched around the gas station for the opening to the underground tanks. It didn’t take him long to find the manhole. He went inside the mini-mart looking for something to open it with. He found empty shelves and broken glass. Ancient paper cups decomposed on the floor.
Pushing his way into the back rooms, he found a cache of tools including a crowbar. He hefted it and continued searching the room for anything useful. In a dark back corner, he found a full ten-gallon gas can.
A slow smile crept over his face. This might get them to Phoenix. As soon as he lifted the gas can from the dusty concrete floor, he heard a loud crash and a shriek from outside.
“Rafe!” Selina screamed behind him. He spun around to see her red face in the doorway.
“What happened?”
“It’s Cassie. Pyramid Corp. Hurry!”
Rafe dropped everything and followed Selina out the front door. They ran in human form down the street to a hardware store, where a squadron of Pyramid Corporation soldiers stood. One held Cassie around the shoulders with a gun to her head. The squadron turned their guns on Selina and Rafe.
“Hold it right there,” said the soldier holding Cassie. His black hair and tiny mustache reminded Rafe of Adolf Hitler. The soldier had the same slim build and the same psychotic look in his eyes.
“Let her go,” Rafe said in a slow, controlled tone. A deep growl rumbled in his chest.
“We’re taking this escapee. She’s the property of Pyramid Corp.,” the soldier said, gazing at Cassie’s cheek where his gun pressed against her face.
“Cassie, use your power,” Circe screamed as she rounded the corner with Clark.
“I can’t. I can’t make it work! Circe, help me!”
Circe lifted her arms and grabbed the soldier holding Cassie and threw him against the window of the hardware store. Glass sprayed on the sidewalk as the other soldiers grabbed Cassie and shoved her into their Hummer.
Bullets fired down the street at the wolves and witch as they quickly ducked around the corner. Rafe shifted, ripping his only clothing to shreds. He galloped down the street, ignoring the consequences. Bullets shot toward him. He dodged out of their way and lunged after the Hummer as it sped down the street.
The car accelerated too fast for even a werewolf to keep pace. Cassie was gone. He shifted again and screamed her name, naked, panting, and frantic for his mate. Rage at his failure to protect her rushed through him.
“No!” he screamed. Shifting back to wolf form, he shot down the street and pounced on the bleeding man lying inside the hardware store.
He bit deep into the man’s shoulder and dragged him to the street where the others had gathered, bewildered. The man screamed in pain as Rafe’s teeth penetrated further into his flesh. The taste of human blood poured over Rafe’s tongue. Human, but not quite human. Rafe shifted back to human form and spit the blood from his mouth, wiping it away with the back of his hand.
“Where did they take her?”
The bloodied Pyramid Corp. solider looked up at Rafe and laughed bitterly. “I’ll never tell you. Torture me. Kill me. It doesn’t matter. I’m just a cog in the machine. I am replaceable. What matters is the whole, and the plan of our masters. They will prevail.”
“What are you? You aren’t fully human. I can taste it in your blood.”
The soldier continued to laugh. “You cannot see what is right in front of your eyes. Humanity has always been weak. Even as mutants, you are still weak, gullible, controllable, and pitiful.”
“What…are…you?”
“I am your superior in every way.”
Rafe growled. Circe lifted her hand in the air and squeezed. The solider lying on the ground began to choke and grasp at his neck, kicking against an invisible foe. Circe’s hand clenched tighter until the man’s face turned blue and the light went out of his eyes.
“Wait!” Rafe said once he realized what was happening. “We need him alive.”
Circe dropped her ha
nd and the man went limp. Still. Dead. “Enough of this. He would never tell us a thing. Don’t you know what that is? He is a hybrid of the original line. They have been here for tens of thousands of years, controlling and manipulating the human race. He is not an individual. We could torture him for days to no avail. He would never tell us anything. Come. We must find her before they get too far.”
They hurried back toward the car, and Circe went into a deep trance while everyone else scavenged for clothing and weapons.
Chapter 58
With bitter hatred, Cassie struggled against the soldiers. “Let me go!” she screamed as they shoved her in the Hummer and sped away. It was no use. They had no intention of letting her go. They obviously had much more sinister plans for her.
She’d been trying to reach down inside, to the space where she could draw energy, but she couldn’t find it. It felt as if she’d never run the gauntlet, as if she hadn’t found that place inside her just the day before.
They bound her hands with zip cords attached to a pipe in the Hummer. The plastic cords dug into her wrists as she watched Rafe running after the car. She called out to him, but he couldn’t hear her through the walls of the military vehicle.
“What do you want from me?” she said coolly to the man sitting beside her. He gave her an uninterested glance and looked back out the front window. She kicked her feet against the driver’s seat in front of her, screaming. “What do you want from me?”
The man beside her grabbed her feet and restrained them with zip cords tied to a rod under her chair. “We are taking back our property. You may have been tainted by that mutant and made incompatible with the breeding program, but you have other uses. Since you blew up the squadron in Phoenix, the masters have taken a renewed interest in you.”
“How could you betray your own kind like this? You’ve been working with them since before the war. All those people, our entire society. How could you? How could you?”