Marked (5 page)

The choice was no contest.

Pulling his pants on quickly, Russell ignored the rest of his clothes.  He all but ran back to the house in search of her.  Tabitha was already marked, and if her presence could hold back the beast, he wanted to keep her for as long as she would have him.

Time to go stake his claim.

Chapter Three: Claimed

“Oh, God…Tab…what the hell happened?!” Cera hissed as Tabitha re-entered the kitchen.  Relief flooded her head when she found her best friend and employees huddled together in the corner.  They looked terrified, but at least they were alive and all seemed to be in one piece.

“He bit me,” she answered with a shrug.  The movement pulled at the wound and she stifled a wince.  “No big deal.”

“No big deal?” Cera echoed, exasperated, then smacked a hand over her mouth to quiet her own voice.  “What the fuck are these people?” she hissed again

“Werewolves,” Tabitha said with no inflection at all.  “Not that any of you know that,” she added with a pointed look to each person in the room.  Her staff stared at her with blank expressions.  Shock was quickly setting in on them…she had to get them out of here, and fast.  “Close your eyes, Cera.”  Recognizing the tone for what it was, Cera did as she was instructed, but not without a whine of distaste.  Tabitha waved her hand from one side of the room to the other.  The six servers stared back at her expectantly, their eyes glazing with forgotten memories.  “Go home, everybody,” she ordered, and the brainwashed, baffled kids shuffled out of the room one by one.  Cera opened first one eye, then the other, and looked around before fixing Tabitha with a hard stare.

“Why don’t I ever get the redo?”

“Because tonight someone needs to know where I am,” she replied evenly, fighting the sigh rising in her throat. “Take the kids home.  I’ll call you tomorrow, and if you really can’t handle the truth I’ll fix it, okay?”

Cera issued a long-suffering groan and cocked her hip to one side.  “You always say that.”

“I will this time.”

“You better, bitch.”

“I promise.”  To Tabitha’s surprise, she found herself swept into another crushing hug. 

“Be careful, girl.”

With Cera and her employees gone, Tabitha pushed the kitchen doors closed and stripped off her shirt.  Blood still oozed from the wounds at her shoulder, thick and sluggish.  Normally she wasn’t a bleeder, so the wound must have been deep.  Only it didn’t
hurt
, not the way other wounds had.  It throbbed, yes, but more with awareness than actual pain.  Either way, the wound was gross.  And her shirt was ruined.  Plus, it was summer and she didn’t have a jacket to cover the stain.

Sighing, she dropped the shirt into a sink and filled the basin with cold, soapy water.  Infusing her will into her hands, she scrubbed at the stain, demanding it to release.  Her fingers tingled, but whether from the magic or the frigid water, she didn’t know.  Still, whatever the key ingredients in that combination, it worked.  Her bright white shirt came out of the pink water without so much as a dark spot.  Her shoulder, on the other hand…

No matter how she willed the blood to stop, or pushed at it with magic, the small, perfect marks still dripped their thick red bounty.  There wasn’t really any point in washing the shirt if the bleeding wouldn’t stop.  Tabitha groaned and tucked a towel around the wounds.

“Great,” she muttered, picking up her wet shirt and immediately slinging it back to the counter in a soggy pile.

“Is there a problem?” Russell’s voice filtered through the air and insinuated itself at the juncture of her thighs.  She resisted the urge to shriek with surprise, but could not suppress the shiver.

“Not really.” She sighed.  “Only that I’m bleeding profusely and I can’t go collect my chafing dishes because my shirt is soaking wet.  Besides, going into a ballroom full of recently turned werewolves with an open wound probably isn’t the best idea.”

“And that says nothing at all about you walking around my kitchen in nothing but your pants.”  His voice was full of innuendo…innuendo she did not have time for.  She was still wound up from his abrupt departure, and
now
he wanted to play?

Oh hell no
.

“Well, I wouldn’t have to walk around half-naked if you hadn’t bitten me!” she shrieked.  “I can’t stop bleeding!”

A low, deep rumble of laughter filled the silence following her outburst. Heavy footsteps moved across the floor toward her, but Tabitha refused to turn around.  If she looked at him, she’d be lost, and she was too busy being mad to fall for that again.

“So the big problem here is a little bit of blood?”  His dark chuckle crawled up her spine and settled at the back of her neck.  “Well why didn’t you say so?”  Large, warm hands found her waist. Every cell in her body stood at attention as his breath puffed along her neck.  Tabitha whimpered and bit her lip to stifle the accompanying moan.  Even furious, she still wanted him to finish what he had started.  And finished.  And started again, damn him.

Brushing her hair to one side, Russell pressed his lips to the soft patch of skin behind her ear.  Her breath rushed from her lungs on a hiss as his tongue darted out to trace the line of her shoulder.  Sharp needles of pain tore through the raw skin around the bite as his tongue rasped over it.

She bit down hard on her lip to stifle the little sounds of pain as the sting intensified; then she moaned as it blissfully faded away.  A strange numbness descended over her skin, an intoxication of sorts, and Tabitha began to forget.  Where she was.  Whose arms she was in. Why she should collect her things and leave as fast as her legs would carry her.

She leaned back into him, accepting his hands around her body while his tongue continued its hypnotic rhythm along her throat.  She found she didn’t care that she was standing shirtless in his kitchen anymore, or that all of his dinner guests were still in the house.  All she cared about was that his fingertips drifted higher, brushing the underside of her left breast, testing its weight.   She arched into his touch and her head rolled to one side as she moaned, a long, low exhale of breath.  The pad of his thumb grazed her swollen nipple, and she cried out.

Even after their intense lovemaking in the garden, she still wanted him.  With each lap of his tongue along her throat, every brush of his hips against her ass, she craved him more.  She knew what he was capable of now, and she wanted him to do it again.

“Russell…” she panted, and drew her arm up to thread her fingers through his thick auburn curls.  He chuckled and nipped at her earlobe before withdrawing.

“Come with me,” he purred, voice low and sultry.  Numbly, Tabitha nodded and allowed him to take her hand. She would follow him anywhere so long as it meant he would continue to touch her.

He led her down the hallway between the kitchen and the ballroom.  The scent of warm, rare meat still hung in the air, swarming her senses, threatening to turn her stomach.  She had not eaten in hours, but she normally preferred her food a little less alive. Behind the odor of meat, she picked up on another set of smells that put her on edge.  Smells that had not been there before.

Pheromones.  And the bitter musk of sex.  Soft whimpers and moans floated on the air.  Russell pushed open the doors, and for a moment Tabitha stalled.  The sight that greeted her momentarily numbed her senses, threatening to draw her under.  Russell’s guests, their expensive clothes cast aside, moved across the ballroom floor, a sea of writhing, naked bodies.  Hands groped for breasts and cocks.  Mouths suckled nipples.  Fingers skipped across clits.  No questing hand was turned away.  Some continued to couple in strange and intriguing positions, regardless of gender or preference.

Tabitha’s eyes widened and her breath hitched.  She had never seen anything more erotic, or more intimidating.  She was suddenly very aware of her current state of undress, though she wore more clothes than most.  Panic lashed through her, followed by a wild swell of magic that crackled along her skin.  Russell’s grip on her hand tightened, but it did little to contain the surprise.  She closed her eyes, swallowed hard around the lump in her throat, and pushed the power back down inside her.

“Come,” he whispered, and pulled her along.  She looked at him for the first time, surprised to find that he was still barefoot, and naked from the waist up.  So was she, she thought a little hysterically.  Too late to worry now, as several pairs of eyes turned to her, or more specifically her hand clasped in Russell’s.

A low, rumbling growl started at her feet, where bodies parted to let them pass, and moved toward each wall.  Many people paused in their ministrations to sniff the air.  Their attention turned to her.  She’d been found out… The uncontrolled outburst had given her away.

***

Taking the little witch as a mate was, hands down, the best decision he had made tonight.  With her hot little hand burning in his, his mind never once went to the beast that lurked under his skin.  His whole thought process was consumed with having her again, laying her out for everyone in the room to admire, and then taking her with such force that no one questioned whether she belonged to him or not.

It was his home.  He was the alpha.  Who he chose as a mate would have little bearing on the rest of his pack.  They would accept her as their mistress, and those who felt any sort of dissent would be allowed to leave.

He was not interested in debating the politics of his decision.  It was his, and he chose her.  If someone challenged him, he would deal with it when it happened.  But he would not, under any circumstances, let her go.  He planned to bind her to him in any way possible, even if it meant real bindings.

Not that she would have a problem with that, he instinctively knew.  She had let him—a complete stranger—strip her bare and do things to her that most men only dreamed of.  If he’d thought about using his tie to bind her hands at the time, she likely would have gone for it.  Of course, that would have required forethought…and with her, all thought vanished.  Instinct took over, and he found himself ruled by his penis.

Not that it was such a bad thing.

He would mate with her.  He would take her in front of all of them, and she would become their mistress.  No one in his pack had ever questioned his judgment before; no reason to start now.  Witch or not, she had the power to turn him inside out.  His dick hardened against his stomach in anticipation of being inside her sweet depths again.  If he could only get through the things he had to say, he could stretch her out beneath him, and fuck her until his balls exploded.

Which sounded like a very good idea.

***

Russell never acknowledged the revelations of his pack.  He moved steadily toward the dais, where he turned and spun her to face the curious crowd.  Tabitha gasped, and crossed her arms over her chest when she realized that every pair of eyes in the room was focused on her.

“Don’t,” he ordered, and the command in his voice was unmistakable.  Tabitha dropped her arms, her face flaming with embarrassment.  As her arms fell away and she straightened, a surprised murmur passed through the room.

“My friends,” Russell boomed, and the writhing crowd fell silent.  “Tonight fortune smiles upon us!  Our pack shall yet stand strong!”  Curious murmurs filled the air.  Reaching out, he clasped Tabitha’s delicate wrists in his rough hands and tugged her forward.  “This little witch”—the crowd gave a low, growling hiss—“is the key.”

Two beats passed in absolute silence, then a round of ecstatic cheers rose from the still-nude and intimately entwined crowd.

Russell pulled her in front of him, her face to the crowd.  Despite the fact that she wore more clothes than any other occupant of the room, she felt very self-conscious.  A shiver of shame tangled in her gut, followed quickly by the warming of a full-body flush.  Two hundred lupine eyes twinkled at her curiously as she felt his fingers tickle up her spine.

Hushed murmurs moved toward the back of the room, something about a mark.  Tabitha cringed…she hadn’t looked at her shoulder since Russell had come back inside.  All she knew was that the pain was nearly gone.  She had not even thought about the bite after his thorough tongue bath.  She was too busy wanting him to remember that she was supposed to be in pain.

She swallowed a bark of nervous laughter.  A room full of hungry, aroused werewolves were staring at her breasts and at the jeweled moon that dangled in the well of her navel.  Now was not the time for inane thoughts, but still they came; bizarre notions such as whether her nipples were pointing the same way, or if she possibly had a rogue pimple on her back.

His hands came under her elbows and spread her arms wide just when she made the decision to go against his demand and cover herself.  Nervous panic winged through her belly as his palms smoothed up the underside of her arms.  Burning-hot fingertips tickled down her sides and around her front over her ribcage.  He turned his palms up and tested the weight of her breasts in them, his long fingers pinching her nipples, sending a shock of unexpected pleasure streaking toward her center.  Russell lifted the globes as if offering them to his pack. 

“Does she meet your standards, my young ones?” he boomed.  Murmurs of approval answered.  A deep chuckle rumbled from his chest and through her body, nestling its power deep in her sex.  Tabitha’s body quaked with the force of her arousal.  Sweet Earth Mother, she wanted this man so bad she could hardly stand it.  She closed her eyes to block out the aroused stares and tried to focus her energy for an escape, hoping he would follow and, Heaven help her, punish her for whatever wrongdoing she could come up with.

She was scattered.  No matter how she pulled, magic would not come.  His fingers tugging her nipples felt too good; his warm, wet breath puffing against her ear too welcoming.  The thought of so many onlookers to this private moment only heightened her awareness of his hands on her body, fueling her growing need.

Tabitha had never been an exhibitionist, but this…this was amazing.  Freeing.  Russell’s hands drifted down her sides, over the flare of her hips, and around to the catch on her pants.  If he removed them, there was no doubt in her mind he would fuck her again.  On the dais.  In front of his pack.  And she wanted it more than she had ever wanted anything.