Aaron's Kiss Series Boxed Set (Books 1 - 7) (38 page)

Shade pulled hard against the restraints once again with her hands, breaking the bonds as if they were mere ribbons. Reaching up, she pulled the collar from around her neck and wall, bringing a large chuck of granite down with it. Shade tossed it across the room to land at their feet. Without removing the links from her ankles, she raised her hands high above her head and said, “Strike.” Lightning arced from her fingers. She didn’t even try to rein in the sudden power that arced from her fingertips, but aimed it directly at the terrified-looking Brenda, slicing her in half cleanly and quickly. She was dead before she had a chance to defend herself. Not that it would have done her any good. Shade was practically vibrating with power.

Just behind her ear, she heard Genese applaud and say, “Good for you, my lady. You are a true child of my mistress.”

Shade turned to the she-bitch and smiled. The smile was neither friendly, nor did it reach her eyes. Lynne would have been smart to run at this point. She was not going to let her off so easily.

“You are going to suffer for what you’ve done this day, to me and the others before me. You will regret with your very last breath that you fucked with me and mine.”

“You think you’re strong enough? You think you’re little bit of white magic scares me? Hardly.”

Shade braced herself as she felt the other woman’s magic rise. But before Lynne could strike, the ground beneath them shimmered and shook. Power surged through it and knocked Lynne off her feet and into the dirt.

As Lynne lay on her back, Shade stretched her own power, asking for help in subduing the wolf. This time, the earth responded in a different way. This time, instead of giving power, it pulled Lynne’s away. The ground absorbed it quickly, the dirt beneath her darkening with the stain of the magic. Within seconds, Lynne Wolfe was nothing more than a powerless woman who could shift into a wolf.  Shade felt the weakening of the wolf, felt the drain on her magic even as Shade’s own rose once again.

“How?  No! I...you can’t do that. I’m the stronger one. My magic is stronger than you could…”

The deep growl behind them startled both women and drew their attention to the mouth of the cave. Wolves. And plenty of them. And not only pack wolves, but the alpha and his guard.

As a large gray wolf, Bradley moved slowly toward the women. His furred body was twice that of any of his guard. Muscle rippled beneath his gray coat and gave no doubt to his strength or power. His guard stayed by the opening, their backs to him as he circled around Lynne in a pacing manner, his teeth bared, his hackles high. When he stood between Shade and Lynne, Shade felt him whisper through her mind.

“Colin comes for you now. You will need to leave this place and go beyond its magic to reach for him. You will be safe to speak to him beyond this cave and its magic. It’s what is keeping you from hearing his call.”
He spoke to her, and the slight growl in his voice moved through her, making her acutely aware of his role as the alpha, what made him the leader over the others.
“The blood I smell, is that the human dirt, the one called Brenda? Is she dead?”

“Yes, she’s dead. I killed her. There was a man, Sherman. I don’t know where he is; he left some time ago and hasn’t returned. He said that he...Brent. He’s here. His mother…they drugged him. I need to get to him before I can leave. He’s deep in the cave behind us. But the body of the dead one? What about Brenda’s body?”

Shade reached out to Brent and discovered while he was still weak, the poisons his mother had shot into his system were now gone. She had never been so relieved in her life. Now she needed to get him out of here.

“We’ll take the trash out, Shade. Don’t you worry about that. Go then. Go to Brent now. This is pack business, my business, and I’d rather you didn’t have to know what…”
He growled aloud now, deep and menacing, as Lynne started to move toward the opening.
“Go, Shade, my friend. We’ll talk soon.”

“Thank you, Alpha. Thank you so much.”

Shade moved up behind him and touched his flank. Power roared into him from her touch as she felt it move. Neither knew what it was, nor what it meant to them, but it felt like it connected them in a tighter bond.

Moving swiftly now, she went to where the earth had hidden Brent, and gently pulled him from the healing ground. Carrying him carefully out of the cave and past the guard, Shade nodded once to Bradley as she left. No one had moved from their positions. As soon as she was cleared of the cave, she reached out and touched Colin for the first time in the hours since they had been separated by the kidnapping.

“Colin? Love? I could really use your help. Can you find me? I have Brent and he’s hurt. I need you. I...I love you. Come for us, please?”

As suddenly as she touched him, she felt his return touch. His was filled with happiness and warmth and she felt it move through her.

“Oh, God, Shade, I love you too. Yes, yes love, I’ll be there soon. I’m coming for you now.”

Colin materialized beside her in an instant, gathering her up into his arms. That was how the rest of the pack found them, huddled together tightly, him kissing every exposed area of her face and holding a sleeping Brent in his arms close to his heart.

~CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE~

Two days later, they woke up in about the same position they had been in when they had gone to bed, both naked and wrapped around each other. This time, she didn’t try to get away from him, but snuggled closer to his body. He felt her stir and wrapped his arms tighter around her, pulling her into his warmth.

“Ummm, this is very nice. I could get used to this. Waking up next to you every day, snuggling next to this big, warm body.” Shade ran her hand down his chest as she whispered in his ear.

“You will get used to it, woman. You certainly aren’t sleeping anywhere else!” He trapped her hand with his.

Colin had been told by Thomas that Shade would need at least a week to rest before she was up to her full strength. He was trying to abide by his strict orders, but if she kept touching him like she was, he would have a hard…no, a harder time telling her no.

“Stop it, Shade. You need to rest,” he pleaded.

Shade moved against him again, running her leg up and over his, and then her foot followed the length of his leg down to his ankle. She did this several times, always moaning when she rubbed against his thigh. He pushed her onto her back, hoping to pin her and her wayward leg there. But his plan backfired.

Shade’s body was now beneath him, soft and pulsing, pushing up and into him. When she arched her breasts, pushing against his chest, her groin undulating hard against his erection, he was lost. Hell, he thought, he was lost the moment he set eyes on her. Before he could think, which was getting less and less possible, he pushed his cock hard against her, her heat searing him even through the blankets that separated them. Looking down at her, her eyes glazed with need, golden and heated.

He felt his fangs elongate and stretch within his mouth. Shade cupped the back of his neck, pulling him closer to her, to her mouth. He tried to resist, he really did, but when her pink tongue darted out and licked his lips, he knew fighting her was futile. His growl came from deep within him. He moved against her pussy again and again, the friction taking them both higher and higher.

“Please, Colin, please, take me now,” she purred at him.

With each of his downward strokes, she moved up, driving him on. He wanted her with a desperate need, and knew as soon as he gave in, they would come together hard and fast. The need to reclaim what was his soared through him in that moment, making thinking about anything else but her impossible.

Colin slid down her body, biting her nipple through the sheet that barely covered her, soaking it as he tried to pull her breast into his mouth. Her body arched into his, giving him more of her breast to suckle. Her whimpering was becoming loud and long, like a siren’s call to his needs. She was wet and hot. He could smell her perfumed scent. “Shade, love, I want you. I need to be inside of you. But I want to taste you first.” He barely recognized his own voice. It was deep and raspy with need.

Colin tugged at her covering, tearing it away in his haste to pull her bared flesh into his mouth to toy with her hard nipple. His cock was throbbing and tight, the blood beating hard and fast through him like his heart was. He moved down and settled himself between her legs.

“Bend your knees, spread them wide for me. I want to taste you. I want to lick your pussy and have you come in my mouth while I do it.”

He watched her face while she moved to do what he wanted. When she had her legs spread as wide as they would go, he inserted a finger deep into her pussy, fucking her like that until he could gather his control. Her hips came up off the bed, grinding into him with each stroke of his fingers. Her pussy wept for him, soaking his fingers and his hand with her hot juices. As he moved his mouth closer to his treasure, she moved up to meet him. He ran his tongue along the seam of her nether lips, gathering the cream that was now pooling onto the sheet beneath her.  She screamed out his name, bucking up and down the moment he touched her. He flicked his tongue against her clit quickly, making her shudder hard against his mouth.

“Please.” Her begging came out in a long hiss. She wanted his mouth on her and grabbed his head to show him.

He fucked her pussy with his tongue and fingers, his tongue lapping her up and his fingers touching and stroking the sweet spot inside of her. She was close, so very close, and he wanted her to come, wanted to taste her when she did.

“Come for me, Shade. I want you to come. I want to taste your cum on my mouth, down my throat.  Come for me baby, now!”

Drawing her clit into his mouth, he bit gently. Her climax ripped through her and into him. He could only hold onto her and ride wave after wave of her orgasm, feasting on the copious amount of hot cream filling him. When the last of her tremors were still subsiding, he crawled up her body, tearing the sheet away. Closing his eyes, he feasted on her breast, suckling first one then the other, then nipping at her nipples until she was in a fevered pitch again. Leaning back on his heels, he began stroking his cock, fisting it hard while he watched her beneath hooded eyes.

“You like this, don’t you? You like me stroking my cock for you, don’t you?” he asked, looking at her with heavily lidded eyes. He didn’t want to hurt her. He knew that if he entered her now, there would be no gentleness between them. Too much had happened to them and his need to assert himself as her mate was driving him over the edge.

“Yes. Please, Colin, inside of me, please. I want to feel you come inside of me.”

Colin stroked up and down once more then leaned into her and entered her core just as he saw her mark. He hadn’t noticed it before because of the sheets. It was just over her left breast, right over her heart. Suddenly, he wanted to taste it, needed to sink his teeth into it. As he pushed just enough to enter her, he licked the tree. He felt her shudder and tighten. He pushed forward, completely burying both his cock and his teeth into her, sinking deep into her flesh, tasting her blood as it filled his mouth.

As soon as he drew his first taste of her into his mouth, he felt her tighten around him, pulling him deeper into her, her climax imminent. Suddenly, her arms wrapped around him, pulling him closer to her breast and the sigil. He felt his body responding to hers; his balls tightened up against him, on the verge his own climax.

“Wait, not yet. Please, not yet,” she begged him. He nearly cried out in frustration.

Then he felt it, something moving from her to him, through him, over him. He pulled harder on her breast, drawing more of her essences into him through her sigil. Suddenly, his heart began to pound, beating hard like it was going to leap from his chest. Shade’s scream shattered through him.

“
Now
!  Colin, come now!”

His release was instant, both of them coming together and apart at the same time. He pulled away from her, threw back his head and roared. It echoed throughout the room, blending with hers, a symphony of sexual completion.

It was ten minutes before either of them could move or even wanted to. He knew that he was heavy against her, but couldn’t gather the energy to roll to his side. When he did, he moved to his back, dragging her over him, pulling her close, securing her to his body. They slept like that, neither of them moving throughout the rest of the night, and the entire next day, stirring only when the sun went down the next evening.

“How are you? We should have waited, you know. Thomas said you needed another few days before we even entertained the thought of having sex.”

Thomas was going to stake him when he found out. Colin didn’t regret what they had done; he just worried about her.

“Well, then it’s a good thing we didn’t have sex, isn’t it? I call what we did making love, not sex.” She sat up over him, straddling his waist, riding his cock hard between her legs. “If you’d like to have sex now, I think I can be persuaded to play with you.” She leaned down and kissed him, her tongue dancing with his in a lover’s dance.

Colin gripped her hips to slow her down, to try at least once to make it last, but she was not helping. Then she stiffened, pulling her head back to look at him.

“What, baby, what is it?”

He looked at his chest where she was staring and saw that her sigil was now tattooed on him. He looked to where hers had been when he’d bitten her and it was still there. They now carried the same mark, the sigil of her kind.

“You’ve claimed me, marked me as your mate.” He grinned stupidly. “Is that all right with you, Shade?”

She looked at him for long minutes. “Is it all right with you?”

He looked up at her face. “I love you, Shade. It’s more than all right with me.”

“I love you too, Colin. I think I always have.”

They made love slowly this time, touching each other, tasting, nipping. When he finally entered her and moved inside, she wrapped her ankles around his hips and moved slowly, drawing it out, making it last for as long as they could. When they came, it was a slow burn, moving through them, burning their souls into one. And they were one, mated for eternity.

~~~

When they came up from sublevels, everyone was in the living room. Thomas had left on another emergency and Dominic had gone to feed. Mel and her parents and grandparents were there as well, sitting on the large sofa near the roaring fireplace. Aaron was seated in one of the numerous wingback chairs with Sara on his lap. Duncan was handing around a large tray of scones that Penny had made for the occasion.

“Shade has something to tell everyone. Well, I do as well, but this is important to the kiss.” Colin nodded to his mate and then looked at his master. “Aaron, I need to speak to you privately when this is done.”

“Of course. You are both well then?”

Aaron could tell that they were. Colin was practically glowing with well being and happiness. Shade just glowed, literally. Aaron looked at the couple and knew they were now truly mated. He had never been so happy for his friend. Colin would make Shade happy; Aaron knew this. And making her happy would make Colin so as well.

“The woman, Lynne, the she-bitch had help when she took me. Not just from Brenda, though I’m not sure how much help she could have been. The woman was worse off than she had been before. This man, he promised them both that they could...play with me before they killed me. I’m sure now that Lynne had been getting help from this being for some time. They seemed...well, comfortable with each other. Sexually comfortable, I think. He was with them in the van when I’d been shot, and then he was there again when I woke up in the cave. Lynne told me his name was Sherman.”

The stunned silence of the room was profound. Sherman, Aaron thought. Then he looked at Shade. Yes, he could see that she had been touched by his brutality. Aaron felt Sara stiffen in his arms and pulled her closer to his body. Sherman again. Damn, but why wouldn’t that bastard just die already? Mel looked stricken and pale. He nodded toward James and the man pulled his daughter into his fierce embrace. Right now, they needed each other more than ever.

“Go on, Shade. Tell us the rest,” Aaron prompted, knowing there was more to her tale.

“He said that he had taken me in hopes of luring the two of you”—she pointed at Sara then at Mel—“to the cave in hopes that you would come to rescue me. He said that you were going to pay for his scar and what he’d thought you’d both done to him. It’s a long, jagged one on his neck.”

“I gave him that. And had he not disappeared like he had, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. The dirty fuck-tard. Damn, but I really hate that man.” The venom in Sara’s voice left no one to doubt that.

Aaron had been there when it happened with Sara and Mel. Sherman had tried to kill Sara because he’d known she above all others would protect Mel. When Sherman had been taunting Sara, knowing that because of his immortality as the king to the queen, he thought that he had been safe from her blade. But Mel had renounced him before royalty, which had been Sara, Mel’s own cousin, rendering him mortal and able to be killed by severing his head. But it had only taken away his white magic, the only magic that Mel had bestowed upon him when they mated.

Sara had brought her sword down to do the deed and he disappeared, apparently less injured than they had first thought. They had all hoped that he had crawled under whatever rock he’d slithered from in the first place and died.

“What else did he tell you? I don’t suppose the bastard told you which rock he had slithered under, did he?” Mel shifted in her father’s arms as she spoke. “No, that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?”

“No, Mistress, he did not. But you should know this Sherman person is tainted. Black magic is all over his soul and his mind is not quite right. He is a sort of slow burn psychopath and I found him to be incredibly scary.” Shade moved back tighter into Colin’s arms and Aaron pulled Sara back as well.

Colin continued. “He planned to kill Brent and have Shade watch him do it. He probably meant to kill Brenda as well, but he never returned before Shade had to kill her. Then he was going to kill the three of you together. Aaron, we need to kill this being before he harms another of our mates.”

Aaron agreed with Colin.

“You should also know that the alpha…I believe he took care of the woman, the wolf,” Colin finished for Shade. “Brenda was already dead when Shade left, but Alpha said he’d take care of the trash, I believe his exact words were. I don’t believe anyone will have any problems with the she-bitch again.”