Alpha King: A Dark Mafia Shifter Romance by Sara Fields – Serialization (Part One)

Chapter One

Lawson

“Come on! We need to get out of the room. This thing is going to blow in like thirty seconds and I promise you don’t want to be in the same room unless you want your ears ringing for the next year!” Genzo shouted. I hastily beckoned my men to follow me around the corner into the dark shroud of the tunnel and we got as far away from the detonation site as we could.

I took a deep breath, counting down the seconds until we breached the basement of the Venuti family fortress.

There was no doubt in my mind that this was going to work. I’d gotten my hands on the original blueprints for the fortified building, knowing that the only way in would be from beneath it. They’d buried their underground vault deep, but we’d dug deeper and found what would be one of the exterior walls of the massive skyscraper rooted below.

The Venuti had wronged my pack and I intended to fix that.

I would spare no expense to get my beta back. He’d been taken by the Venuti, and it was up to me to right their wrongs as the alpha of the Crescent Moon Pack. I had a reputation to uphold. I protected the members of my pack no matter what it took and that meant I had to rescue Toboe before the Venuti decided to kill him and start an all-out war between our two families.

Time seemed to slow, and I could almost sense the vibrations within the mechanism of the bomb about to engage. My heart pounded in my chest as I took a deep breath. I covered my ears.

Three.

Two.

One.

Boom!

A blast of dust, silt, and wet dirt exploded out of the doorway into the tunnel. We only waited a few seconds for most of it to settle before we charged into the room to see the damage. The walls the Venuti built were thick and it had taken quite of bit of explosive power to break through them. Mangled cement and steel practically smoked from the massive explosion, but there was a circular opening in the wall just large enough for us to make our way through one by one.

“Let’s move. Those fuckers will have heard that,” I growled, and my men smiled with exhilaration. They were looking forward to this, and to be honest so was I.

I stepped forward and dipped my head low enough so that I could make it through the opening without hitting the top. If I wasn’t so angry about my beta’s kidnapping, I would have been impressed by the rather incredible feat of engineering that had gone into making an underground fortress like this beneath the silt and sand of New Orleans. I didn’t much care about that now though. I just wanted to get him back.

I pressed forward and walked into a big room. The overhead lights were flickering, but that didn’t stop me from pulling in a small gasp of shock at what was inside that vault.

There were so many gold bars. Stacks and stacks of them piled on heavy-duty metal shelving built right into the walls. I had known the Venuti clan of vampires had been around for centuries but seeing just a portion of their wealth right in front of my eyes like this was another thing altogether. They were known to have been a part of the Roman Empire, the British Empire, and so many others in between. They were opportunistic creatures, picking and choosing various human governments to infiltrate to build and maintain their power and wealth. In the past hundred years or so, they’d pulled back and maintained their position here in New Orleans. Clearly, they’d taken all that ancient wealth and compiled some of it here. I was certain that this just barely scratched the surface.

My men funneled in behind me single file as I heard each one of them react the same way I did.

“Damn. This is something else,” Genzo whispered. “When we leave, I’m gonna snag one of these and buy my wife something nice.”

I chuckled.

“Yeah, she probably deserves it for dealing with you all these years,” I smirked, and he narrowed his eyes at me with mock anger.

“What do you mean, boss? I’m clearly a catch,” he replied, and even though he tried to cover up his grin of amusement, ultimately he failed and started to laugh.

“You snore loud enough to wake the dead, Genzo,” I said, my voice flat, and he broke out with a raucous laugh.

“No, I don’t,” he replied.

About a dozen men behind me voiced their disagreement with his words and I just grinned.

“Well. I’ll just make it a hell of a good-sized diamond,” he finally muttered with a chuckle.

“Good man,” I said. With a quiet laugh, I stepped forward toward the door and slowly opened it, expecting to be ambushed. For a moment, I just listened. I heard nothing.

I’d expected the Venuti to move slowly. I’d specifically planned to make our entry point just after sunrise when most of the vampires were asleep. They would die if they went into the sun. They’d sizzle right up like overcooked bacon. Didn’t smell particularly good.

I knew the vampires would come for us, but their reaction times would be slower right now in deploying a team to handle our infiltration. We had a small window to find and rescue Toboe from their clutches down here and we needed to take advantage of that.

“Follow me. The holding cells should be this way,” I whispered. “From here on out, try to move as stealthily as you can. Let’s make the most out of this.”

My men nodded succinctly. They all understood how serious this was.

I crept into the hallway, keeping my footsteps light. Carefully, we made our way toward the prison. The door was locked, but Genzo was prepared for that. He reached into his bag and pulled out a rectangular box. He pressed it against the steel lock, and it stayed, held in place by powerful magnets, before he typed a short code into the watch on his wrist.

The box popped as a small explosion destroyed the lock and the door swung open. It was all very quiet and self-contained, perfectly designed for missions that required a more delicate touch. Genzo had quite a superior talent with explosives and most other technology, so much so that I sometimes wondered what I’d do without him.

I swung the door fully open and strode inside. This section of the fortress was two stories tall, lined with two rows of cells designed to hold vampires and shifters alike. The metal bars were thick and as I moved closer toward an empty cell, I reached out to touch them.

My skin sizzled hot and I sucked in a furious breath. I pulled my hand away and glared down at the angry burn on my fingertips. At once, my flesh began to pull back together, and within a few seconds there was nothing but unmarred skin left behind.

“The goddamn cells are silver,” I growled.

“As expected, boss. I can handle that,” Genzo whispered, and I nodded once in acknowledgement.

I wrinkled my nose, breathing in the rancid scent of the vampires imprisoned here. To my kind, they smelled of rotten fruit and putrid stinking meat. To them, we just smelled like wet dog.

Nearby, one of the prisoners snarled. Our presence had been noticed.

Knowing time was of the essence now, I walked down the line of cells. I was surprised by the number of vampires imprisoned down here, likely from other families or perhaps they were even Venuti if they’d broken ancient vampire law. Those cells weren’t silver, but very thick ultra-hard steel strong enough to stand against the strength of their kind.

That wouldn’t stop the likes of us. That’s why they designed the ones meant for shifters with silver. It was our one weakness, and they took advantage of that as much as they could.

Having not found Toboe on the ground floor, I leapt up to the second. I vaulted over the iron railing and walked down the line until I finally saw the familiar blond hair of my beta. He was sitting on a cot in the back of the cell and when he saw me, he grinned.

“About time, Lawson,” he chided quietly, and I chuckled.

“I should have just left you here,” I smirked.

“Then who would you have to tell you that you look pretty every day?” he answered, and I snorted in response.

“Keep it up, Toboe. I’ve been thinking about promoting Genzo anyway,” I answered, and Genzo chuckled by my side.

“Liar. I’m irreplaceable,” Toboe grinned, and I just shook my head.

“What do you think, Genzo? Want to get out of here and find someplace to enjoy a nice steak?” I asked.

“Steak? Fuck, yeah. I always say yes to a good piece of beef,” Genzo replied, and Toboe glared at me, but his eyes sparkled with his amusement. Toboe would always be my second in command, no matter how much shit he gave me. Being a beta was in his blood, just like being an alpha was in mine. No matter how useful Genzo was, he was an omega and that meant he was at the bottom of the pack hierarchy, and he would always answer to the two of us.

“The bars are silver,” Toboe pointed out.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Genzo grinned as he reached into his bag. “It’s not like I was planning on pulling out the bars one by one with my goddamn hands.”

Toboe shook his head. He hadn’t stopped smirking.

Beside each cell was a digital panel that operated the door, opening and closing the cell with a code. Genzo would have to hack it to free Toboe. Firepower wasn’t going to work here. He’d need a more subtle approach so that my beta didn’t get hurt in the process.

“Get it done, Genzo,” I finally ordered, and at once my men got down to business. Feeling a bit inquisitive, I walked down the line of vampire and shifter inmates, but I didn’t recognize any of them. Some of them snarled at me, others looked on in curiosity, and yet others just trash-talked the Crescent Moon Pack as I walked by. I wasn’t surprised by that. As the alpha of my pack, I was quite identifiable. I would have been more shocked if they hadn’t known who I was.

At the end of the line, I came by an unexpected surprise.

A human female.

I stopped and peered into her cell. She stared back at me without a single ounce of fear.

That was… unusual.

“Keep walking, wolf. I’m not afraid of your kind,” she challenged, and I stared more closely at her. Long ago, the vampire and shifter families had come together to create an ancient pact to keep our existence secret from mortals. There were humans in the world that knew of us, but they were few and far between.

She was young, perhaps in her mid-twenties. The fact that she could recognize me without seeing me shift was unexpected, to say the least.

I approached the cage, casually reaching for the bars. These ones weren’t silver, and I could grasp them easily. They would be strong, sure, but no match for me. She wouldn’t be safe in her cage from the likes of a beast like me.

I took several long moments to study her fiery gaze staring back at me. Her deep blue eyes nearly glittered with challenge. Her jawline was tense, but it did nothing to hide the beautiful curve of her high cheekbones and full pink lips. Her eyes were framed by exquisitely thick lashes. In the dim light, her dark mahogany hair still shone, lush and exquisitely long enough to reach at least the middle of her back, but with her sitting against the wall I couldn’t be completely certain. She cocked her head as she watched me scrutinizing her and nearly snarled once my gaze dropped below her chin.

She was wearing a dark long-sleeve jacket and a dark shirt, but I could see enough to know that her breasts could fill each of my hands. Her hips curved in the most delicious way and her long legs were a sight to behold.

She was sinfully beautiful, and I breathed in deep, catching her scent for the first time.

My cock hardened almost immediately.

The aroma of fragrant wildflowers and brown sugar and vanilla swirled around me, holding me captive for several long moments before I managed to get ahold of myself. Carefully, I wrapped my fingers around an iron bar and cocked my head in her direction.

“What could the vampires want with a human like you?” I asked.

She shrugged, feigning indifference. I knew at once it was a lie. Everything in her body language screamed to me that she knew what she was here for. She just didn’t want to tell me.

No matter.

“I can’t imagine they’d let a pretty thing like you go. They’d drain you before they let you walk out their doors,” I murmured. Her gaze hardened. I’d struck a nerve.

“They wouldn’t dare kill me,” she answered, and I raised an eyebrow in disbelief. Even though she knew we existed, that didn’t change the fact that vampires and shifters were far more powerful than any human just by sheer strength alone. She wouldn’t be able to fight off even a single one. She didn’t have a chance.

Quickly, I glanced over at Genzo and my men. They were still hard at work on getting Toboe’s cell open so that we could rescue him.

“Are you sure of that, human?” I asked carefully, turning my gaze back toward the furious eyes of the curious little package I’d happened to find locked away down here. If I left her, she’d be trapped in a viper’s den of vampires. There was no way she’d ever get out of here alive.

The only chance she’d have was to come with my pack.

I grasped the bars of her cage and pulled on them hard, using my strength to bend them far enough apart so that she could slip through. She watched me with skepticism, studying my expression as I worked to free her. She didn’t say a word, probably trying to figure out why a random shifter stranger would help free her from a vampire prison deep underground.

Once I bent the bars enough, which wasn’t that much because she was pretty small, I took a step back and casually glanced at her.

“If you want to get out, you’re welcome to come with us. If not, you’re welcome to stay here and die with the Venuti,” I offered.

I turned away and it was at that point that all hell broke loose.

Our presence had apparently been noticed.

The odor of vampire grew even stronger and more rank. There were at least two dozen coming for us, if not more.

I grinned. This was going to be a good fight.

I heard the tiny female scrambling behind me and I turned back. She shouldn’t be here for this. I wouldn’t allow it. I looked around and saw Lucas close by. I called out to him.

“Lucas, see to it she makes it out safely. I don’t want her here when the fight breaks out. Take her and move,” I ordered. Without a word, he obeyed me. He pushed past me and just when I turned my back, the sounds of a scuffle made me pause and look to see what possibly could be holding him up.

She was fighting him. He was a wolf shifter at least double her size and she was holding her own against him.

That was unheard of. I’d never seen or heard of anything like it.

Even though a small army of vampires were so close that the hair on the back of my neck was raised in alarm, I watched in awe as she spun out of his range and then back to just dip out of his grasp so that she could strike him.

She had a knife.

Where the fuck had she gotten a knife? Surely the vampires had searched her before they flung her in that cell. They’d have found any weapons on her.

Apparently, assuming that was wrong.

She fought him hard. There was a distinctly fluid motion to the way she fought, as if she could anticipate Lucas’ movements before he made them. I watched her gaze studying him, so intently focused that I realized that was exactly what she was doing. She’d had training and a lot of it. I couldn’t be certain exactly which martial arts she had studied, but her skill was impressive.

Honestly, it was a little arousing just to watch.

I couldn’t help but smirk as I watched Lucas try to contend with the feisty little human. He’d clearly underestimated her, as had I, but I wasn’t the one everyone would see fighting against her.

After this was over, the rest of the pack wouldn’t ever let him live that down.

He tried to grab at her arm, and she slipped far enough away that she just barely escaped his reach. She didn’t make a run for it as I would have expected. Instead, she moved in with her knife with brutal intent. She slashed at him, her movement extremely precise.

I crossed my arms, enjoying the show. If she managed to cut him, it wouldn’t much matter. Getting slashed with a knife was certainly no walk in the park. It would hurt, but he’d heal almost instantly. Our healing abilities were insanely useful for things like that.

As I expected, he didn’t jerk out of the way. He’d thought to use her closer proximity and take the blow so that he could grab her and disarm her quickly, but as she cut across the right of his torso, his roar of agony was far louder than it should have been.

His flesh sizzled where the knife pressed against it. I could see the steam rising into the air from it.

She knew enough to have a silver knife in her possession.

This little female was growing far more interesting by the second.

Lucas roared once more and his hands rushed to his side, trying to stem the flow of blood as he collapsed to the floor. She’d cut him deep. It probably wasn’t a wound that would kill him, but with the coming fight he would be severely weakened.

Wounds made by silver weapons didn’t heal like they were supposed to. I grimaced. I needed to protect my pack, not her.

“Shift, Lucas,” I demanded. “Leave her to fight her own way.”

He didn’t even hesitate. At once, his body began to grow bigger, thick gray fur spurting out from beneath his skin. In a flurry of movement that took no more than a second, his spine expanded and crouched forward so that his paws met the floor. His teeth lengthened and his nails sharpened into thick claws. He roared as he shifted into his wolf form and he staggered under the pain of the injury the woman had inflicted, but it would be better for him this way. Silver knives were more effective in our human forms when we had nothing to protect us. In wolf form, however, our fur made it far more difficult to inflict that kind of injury. Plus, we shifted into an animal about the size of a bear. Our enemies were less likely to be able to get close enough to strike us in our wolf form.

The woman took a step back, probably trying to evaluate her strategy going forward. Her angry eyes met mine, her pretty little mouth set in a firm scowl. As much as I wanted to handle her myself, now was not the time for it. My pack needed me and as their alpha, I would never abandon them. She’d have to get out on her own.

“Good luck, human,” I snarled, and I rushed into the fray just as the metal door we’d broken through slammed against the wall. A stream of vampires armed to the teeth rushed through the doors, many of them with rifles and a few of them with flamethrowers and even more with knives and pistols.

I would bet that all of them were armed with silver bullets.

Fuck. This was bad.

Just in time, Toboe’s cell door slid open. Genzo had been able to hack it and Toboe raced out of it.

“Shift,” I ordered my pack and they obeyed immediately. At once the room was full of massive red, gray, white, black, and brown wolves. I followed suit and in a rush, my sense of smell was stronger, my vision remarkably improved, and my hearing was heightened. Even in human form, my senses were quite strong, but in my wolf form they were truly extraordinary.

Our only true equals were vampires. Our wolf forms had evolved so that we could stand against them. A cocky wolf would think himself stronger than them, but that would be foolish.

Vampires were exceedingly fast and exceptionally strong. Their senses were just as heightened as ours. Different vampires were afforded various powerful abilities, including the charisma to force their human prey to do whatever they wanted, the skill to paralyze their prey, or the terrifying talent of causing them to go insane. The Venuti were strong, but they were fairly typical as far as vampire powers go. They could use their potent influence to make their human prey piss their pants in fear or fall in love with them even as they drained their blood. Their powers of persuasion were unmatched, but luckily that didn’t affect us.

Their guns would though, especially if all of them were loaded with silver bullets. Getting through Venuti security was going to be a fight. In all likelihood, people were going to die from both sides.

My pack included.

“Be mindful of their guns. Do not underestimate them. Be smart. Our mission is to get out of here alive. Not to kill them all. Do you understand me?” I commanded. I didn’t speak out loud, but the mental link between my pack members and me allowed us to communicate in silence even in the presence of our enemies.

A chorus of “yes, alpha” followed and in concert we branched out around the room. I didn’t see any fully automatic weapons in our enemies’ hands, but I wanted to err on the side of caution, nonetheless.

Slowly, the vampires and my pack circled each other. The head guard took a step forward and leveled a gun in my direction, but by the time he squeezed the trigger, I’d already moved far out of range of the shot. I bounded toward him, and he moved the gun to fire directly at me, but I had expected that. I feinted in one direction and caught him off guard before I closed my teeth around his wrist hard enough to shatter his bones to gristle and dust. The gun clattered down to the floor.

It wouldn’t slow him down for long. I knew that.

The only ways to kill a vampire were sunlight, a stake through the heart, or the separation of their heads from their shoulders. They had several additional weaknesses, but none of those would be particularly useful to me right now.

The vampire faltered and I took advantage, lurching forward and capturing his throat in my teeth. I tasted blood as I bit through his throat, separating his head from his body in the process.

Vampires didn’t have blood flowing through their veins. They didn’t have a beating heart for that, which could only mean one thing. This one had fed recently.

Viciously, I jerked my head away and the vampire’s head fell to the floor. The sickening sound of his cold body slapping against the floor echoed noisily. It took several seconds, but eventually his body began to wither away until the only thing left behind was a stinking dehydrated corpse.

I looked back, trying to see how the rest of my pack was faring. Not all of them had been as successful as I had been.

In despair, I watched as one of the vampires shot a silver bullet right in between Lucas’ eyes. Having been injured by the human woman, his movements were slowed. His massive wolf form collapsed to the floor and slowly shifted back into the shape of a human.

The vampires had killed him, but there was no time for grief.

I looked around the room, only to see a few more of my men falling as they fought against the vampires. Some of my men were tearing through the vampires too, but from my cursory glance we were evenly matched.

“Run. Don’t fight if you can manage it,” I commanded.

I rushed at another vampire, trying to open a path for the rest of my pack to flee through. I bit down on his wrist and threw him aside into the wall, but the bastard landed like a spider and flew back toward me with wild abandon. I rolled out of the way just before he landed on me. He reached for a gun on his belt. I bit his hand clean off. That would grow back, but it would take a minute or two. He snarled in response and circled me. I growled right back at him.

In a flurry of motion, I rushed at him, using my massive form to knock him aside once again. A few of my pack members made it to the door and out into the hall, but there were still too many of them left behind me for me to make my way out.

I fought tooth and nail so that as many of them could get out as they could. Toboe’s massive gray form finally bounded to my side, and he grunted as a single silver bullet grazed his right shoulder. He didn’t let it slow him down even though I knew it hurt.

As the alpha, I was the largest and strongest wolf. As my beta, Toboe was my second in command and his size and strength followed suit. We were the only two with a definitive edge over these guards. The silver bullets made even that difference difficult though.

I tore through several vampires before all my remaining men were able to make it out the door. By the time that happened, I’d already lost six of my men. Just as Toboe and I were about to exit the room, something strange happened.

The human woman flew into the midst of the battle just as all of us were about to make a run for it.

I snarled, wanting to jump back in and carry her out myself, but then she pulled a sleek-looking little gun from God knows where.

Impressive. Apparently she’d smuggled that in too.

She leveled the gun at the vampire closest to her and he laughed. She pulled the trigger at almost point-blank range and I watched as a gold bullet burst forth. He let it hit him right between the eyes, fully expecting it to bounce off his forehead.

It didn’t. It pierced right through his unnaturally hard vampire skin.

I saw the wound for a split second before a blinding, extremely powerful white light burst forth from within him. It was as bright as the sun and the vampire’s head exploded in a violent display of light. He’d probably fed recently too because an alarming amount of blood and gore splattered all over the place. The body of the vampire collapsed to the floor, headless and entirely motionless. He wouldn’t come back from that. She shot another before she burst toward the door and sprinted down the hallway herself. I watched her go before I bounded out in the hallway to follow my men.

Well, wasn’t that something. I’d never seen anything like it. I’d never even heard of anything that powerful that would take out a vampire. Ever.

And she’d taken out two of them. A human.

I sprinted after her with Toboe at my side.

At first, she raced in the same direction as we did. Silver bullets peppered the floor as the remaining vampires raced after us, but a lot of them missed, ricocheting off the walls and the floor behind us. One grazed my ear and I bit back a snarl of agony as it burned away at my flesh, but I didn’t slow down. I expected her to go the same direction, but when the time came for me to turn into the vault, she kept running past it.

I couldn’t go after her. I had to make sure that my pack made it out alive.

I swerved into the room and pulled back just enough for Toboe to dive through the hole first. I quickly followed suit and tore out into the tunnel with the rest of my men.

“Now, Genzo!” I roared.

I watched as he rushed forward and slammed his paws on top of the platform ignition that he’d set up in the event that we were followed in our hasty retreat out of this place.

The earth rumbled beneath our feet. I sprinted out of the tunnel after my pack, and behind me the world exploded into an elegant display of fire and dust.

There was one more way to kill a vampire. They couldn’t put themselves back together if you blew them to smithereens.

As I ran out of the tunnel to join my remaining pack members, I wasn’t thinking about those I lost. Instead, my mind was embroiled with thoughts of the tiny human woman who had not only injured one of my wolf shifter brethren, she’d also killed two vampires with some kind of exploding light bullets.

I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Why would a human have access to something like that and why would she be held prisoner by the vampires when she could kill them as she pleased?

I wanted to know more. I needed to know more.

She’d gotten away from me today, but I had her scent now. The only thing I had to do now was follow it. I’d find her and she would tell me what I wanted to know.

As much as I wanted to deny it, I had a feeling this wouldn’t be the last time I broke into the Venuti tower, and it most certainly wouldn’t be the last time I had to deal with the Venuti themselves.

Although…

If I was able to get my hands on that woman’s weapon… that might change things. That could tip the odds in our favor in a major way.

She could run, hide, and fight me all she wanted. I was going to find her, and I was going to get some answers.

Chapter Two

Ava

A week later

My life had turned into a nightmare, one that was constantly plagued with long bouts of insomnia and terrible dreams.

I don’t remember the last time I’d gotten a full night’s sleep. It had been weeks. Maybe even months because every time I lay down and closed my eyes, I saw my father’s last moments play out in my mind, over and over again for the world to see until the end of time.

Forever captured on video.

Forever a murderer.

My family would carry the stigma of it forever.

The gunshots echoed in my head, and I groaned with annoyance, pressing my face into the white cotton pillow beneath it. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to think of anything but the crazed look in his eyes as that fateful scene ran across my mind for the nine billionth time.

But it wouldn’t stop.

It never stopped.

Ever.

It had been a massacre. My father had walked into Café Du Monde, where tourists and locals alike were enjoying a coffee in the late morning with the powdery sugar-loaded beignets that they were so famous for and pulled out a submachine gun.

The person who had captured it all on film had been a traveling college student from England, a young man who’d been inordinately excited about trying the sugary pastries he’d seen on several videos on YouTube. He’d brought his high school sweetheart to New Orleans with them, and he’d planned to propose that night at a fancy dinner at a steakhouse in the French Quarter.

I could still hear his voice like he was sitting there in the room with me, asking his girl if she wanted a coffee with her beignets. She smiled at him, her eyes sparkling with excitement of visiting America for the first time. She’d nodded with enthusiasm, looking forward to her breakfast just as much as he was.

I’d never forget the way her smile faltered as she looked over his shoulder, the camera still facing her and the way her mouth suddenly twisted in raw fear. Everything went insane after that. The video flew back and forth as they rushed to hide beneath the table, taking cover on the floor amidst the powdered sugar and dirt beneath them.

The camera had panned back, and the shooting had started. In fear, the young man had dropped his equipment, but not before it captured the face of my father on film.

There’d been no doubt that it was him. None.

They called it a mental break of some kind, that he’d been fine one day and had just snapped the next, but that wasn’t enough for me. The people who had made that diagnosis had never even met him. They hadn’t known anything about him aside from the files that had been prepared about him.

I’d seen them.

They’d all been a lie. Every word.

Right up to the moment that a group of men had surrounded him and broken his neck in the middle of the busiest café in the French Quarter.

The file had said they were cops, but I knew better. I knew what they were.

They were vampires.

I knew because my father had told me about them.

I knew the man behind the monster the media had painted him to be.

My dad had been sweet and caring. Years ago, he’d been a respected professor at the University of Louisiana. He’d taught mechanical engineering for years, but he’d stepped away from that in order to take a position as a consultant for a small company before he branched out on his own. Taking control of his career had been far more lucrative, yet it brought a certain set of dangers along with it.

His clients were dangerous, sometimes crime families, sometimes monsters, sometimes both. Some of them were shifters. Others were vampires. There were more, but he didn’t tell me about them all. He’d taught me to protect myself against them nonetheless, ever since I was a little girl. I grew up knowing that much of the world was run by the hands of monsters. I’d done my best to avoid them all my life, but then it had turned personal when they’d somehow turned my father into the villain that shot up Café Du Monde.

My father had never been a killer. I was convinced there was something more behind his death. I was sure of it.

Before he was killed, he’d started meeting with a new batch of clients. I’d known only the bare minimum in that they were members of the Venuti Clan, but he hadn’t told me what for or why, but I did know he’d taken a job with monsters and ended up dead.

I couldn’t accept what they said on the news. My father hadn’t been mentally ill. He hadn’t lost his sanity. He hadn’t decided to end it all.

No. I would never accept any of that. I couldn’t. I know he didn’t just snap. I needed to know who did that to him.

I needed to clear my family’s name.

What if the reason he broke was vampires? What if it had been the Venuti that had compelled him to act that way? What if they’d taken away his will and forced him to murder helpless innocents? I needed to know the reason.

I’d sacrifice everything to find those answers.

Honestly, I didn’t care if I wound up dead. I needed to know.

All I knew was that it had something to do with my father’s sunfire bullets.

He’d explained the science of them to me once. They had a solid magnesium ribbon inside the core. Once the gun was fired, it exposed the magnesium to oxygen and boom. An explosion of light and heat that could rival sunlight. The perfect weapon for killing vampires.

It was a secret he’d shared with me just days before he died. He’d taught me how to make them because he wanted to keep me safe.

With a sigh, I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling. I was lucky if I slept more than three hours since I’d gone to bed somewhere around midnight. The full moon shone through the maple leaves of the tree outside my window, sending my room into a flickering showcase of light and shadow. It was really quite pretty, and on a normal night I might have enjoyed it.

But… something was different. Something felt off.

The hair on the back of my neck rose and I felt the sudden sensation that I was no longer alone in my own room. Someone was here in my room with me.

I’d learned to trust my gut a long time ago and this time would be no different.

With a nervous swallow, I pushed my hands against the bed so I could sit against my headboard. As my upper back pressed against the padded leather surface, my gaze passed around the room to the soft recliner I had beside the window. I had initially set it up as my own personal reading nook, but the gray fabric chair was currently occupied by a very large man in a very nice suit. The light of the moon was just enough to illuminate him in shadow, but I could see enough of him to know that I’d come across him somewhere before.

I tried to rack my brain for any reason why and how a man like him would be sitting here in my room.

In a perfect world, he would be a male model. His hair was dark gold, a perfect mix of mahogany and golden threads, a beautiful color that reminded me of a sandy beach after a sudden rainstorm. It was full and thick, and long enough for me to run my fingers through and grab just enough to pull his head back by it. His jawline was covered by a thick beard that was neat and trim and the sudden urge to feel the scrape of it against my skin passed through me.

I swallowed hard, annoyed at myself for thinking something like that.

It was obvious that he was well off. I wasn’t certain of the maker of his suit in the dark, but it was either Saint Laurent or Valentino by the look of it. It was very fine black material with a hint of dark gray shimmer that happened to catch the moonlight perfectly. A pristinely white button-up shirt was beneath it. His tie was perfectly done, the fabric covered in a silvery gray rectangular pattern that shone like silk, which it probably was. His matching slacks were flawlessly pressed, and his black leather shoes looked like they had been recently buffed and shined.

Everything about him spoke of money, but more than that, it spoke to his power.

His gaze bored into mine, sparkling with a certain amusement and an even harder edge hinting at a deeper darkness that should have scared me. His irises were hazel, a captivating mixture of emerald and browns and yellows. The colors only seemed to intensify under the light of the moon and as the branches shifted outside my window, they began to change. In the shadows, they appeared to be greener, and, in the light, the yellow hue burned bright enough to shine like gold.

He was a wolf shifter.

He’d been the one to break open my cage in the Venuti tower. He’d been the one who had given me back my freedom and now he was sitting here in my room.

I knew enough about him from that night to know that he was dangerous. I’d need to protect myself from whatever this was.

I lifted my chin, pressing my lips firmly together and tensing hard. I didn’t look, but I prepared myself to grab the silver knife on my bedside table. I always kept it there beside a wooden stake just in case of times like this.

“Ava Winters,” he breathed, and I stiffened.

He knew my name…

“I know all about your recent adventures, little human. I’m here to ask you some questions and you’re going to answer. If you cooperate, I will leave you here in peace. If not, I’m going to have to punish you for your disobedience,” he purred, and I decided I didn’t like the way goosebumps were rising all over my arms just at the sound of his voice. I pressed my thighs together anxiously and prepared myself to fight.

As if they offered some kind of protection, I pulled the covers up to my chest, using the thick quilts to cover the hard buds of my nipples that were probably mortifyingly obvious beneath the thin fabric of my cotton nightgown. One of the straps slid down my arm and I rushed to put it back into place, oddly bothered by the fact that he could see the bareness of my shoulder.

I felt my face heat with embarrassment.

It was just my luck that he’d catch me in this nightgown. The straps never seemed to stay up, no matter if I tightened them or not. I’d been meaning to get something new for forever, but I’d never gotten around to it.

I was going to throw it out tomorrow for sure.

“I want to know about the weapon you used against the vampires. The gun appeared to be factory standard, but the bullets you used certainly weren’t,” he said.

I gritted my teeth and decided that it was time to act.

Without even a second of hesitation, I reached for my bedside table while keeping my eyes trained on him. My fingers brushed against the wooden surface, and I froze. Nothing. A flicker of panic raced through me, and I looked quickly, finding both the knife and the stake gone.

Shit.

Immediately, I turned back to him as he cleared his throat.

“Is this what you were reaching for?” he asked expectantly, and my gaze tore to his fingers. He was holding the knife by the handle, very carefully avoiding the silver blade with his grasp. I snarled and threw the covers off me, racing toward my bedroom door. My bare feet dug into the carpet, but as quickly as I moved, I knew he would be faster.

I gave it all I had anyway. The work my father had done was dangerous, so he had ensured that I’d had access to all the trainers I could ever need. I’d studied with some of the most renowned teachers, learning all aspects of various fighting techniques throughout the world. You name it, I studied it. If he caught me, I would use everything I’d ever learned to make sure he let me go and I got away.

I only just made it to the entryway of my bedroom before his arms circled around my waist. I screeched and grasped at the doorframe, trying to use brute force to break his hold on me.

It didn’t work.

As if I weighed no more than a bag of feathers, he tossed me on the bed. I tried to push myself back up, lurching toward the door once more. He was too fast for that. It was as if he was ready for every move I made.

In a flurry of movement, he pushed me ruthlessly hard down on the bed on my back with just the force of his hand. Unexpectedly, he climbed over top of me and sat astride me with his knees on either side of my waist. I tried to bring my knee up behind him, but he clicked his tongue in disapproval.

“I had hoped you’d make this difficult,” he murmured. Immediately, I tried to pry my way out from under him. This was fight or flight and right now, I just wanted to escape.

“Let me go,” I demanded. I pounded my fists against his chest, and he brushed my hands aside like I was nothing more than a fly.

“I told you how this was going to go, Ava.”

I pushed against the firmness of his chest, trying to squirm out from underneath him. His muscles rippled underneath my palms, giving away just how hard he was beneath his shirt. Without delay, he pushed my hands once more to the side as if they weren’t there at all and then unbuttoned the top of his suit jacket. He shrugged it off and tossed it to the side. As the shadows flickered across his chest, I could see almost every ridge of muscle through the pressed white cotton of his button-up shirt, the broad set of his shoulders, the toned lines of his stomach, and the rippling bulge of his pecs.

It was at that moment that I became aware of something else.

My pussy was wet.

And not just a little.

A whole lot.

To this date, I’d never been bested by anyone, human or monster. I’d always been able to fight my way out of anything. Hell, I’d fought my way out of the Venuti tower and killed at least a dozen vampires along the way.

This man had singlehandedly manhandled me into a position that I couldn’t figure out a way to get out of and that was so terrifying that my body was reacting of its own accord. Much to my irritation, my clit pulsed with arousal at the thought.

What the hell was wrong with me?

He stared down at me, his eyes dark with cruel intention.

“Such a tiny human, but so much fire,” he breathed. He reached for me, and I flinched as he brushed a lock of hair off my forehead back behind my ear. He chuckled at my reaction, dragging his fingertips across my cheek and down along my jawline. Then he pressed a single finger firmly down the line of my throat. He followed the ridge of my collarbone until he reached the thick strap of my nightgown and slipped his fingers just underneath it.

His touch was hot against my skin, practically setting me aflame, and I hated it. I pressed my thighs firmly together as he studied me underneath him, trying to use sheer will to push away the rising arousal that seemed to be running rampant from somewhere deep inside me.

It didn’t work and I detested that he appeared to notice my discomfort.

“I think I’m going to enjoy this very much,” he murmured, his words carrying a dark undertone that sent a shiver racing down my spine at the same time that my pussy felt like it was catching fire.

He took hold of the strap more firmly now. With no warning, he tore it clean off as if he was simply ripping a piece of paper. Systematically, he did the same to the other side. With one hand, he captured my wrists and I tried to pull away, but he was so much stronger than me and with barely any effort on his part, he reached over my head and tied my right arm to the bedpost. With measured swiftness, he did the same to the other side and when he was done, he paused and stared down into my eyes.

As if he was letting my captivity really sink in.

He was the predator, and I was his prey. He was bigger, faster, stronger, and superior in every way.

I tested the bonds gingerly at first and they held fast. I tried harder and I still couldn’t get free. I twisted and turned my hands, pulling against them as firmly as I could.

I couldn’t get out. I was his prisoner, his captive to do with as he wished.

This was bad.

He reached for me again, but this time his fingertips grazed along the sweetheart neckline of my nightgown. I gasped in fear, but it came out sounding more wanton than I wanted it to. The edges of his mouth perked up in a smirk and then it was gone, as if it had never been there in the first place.

“You’re not wearing a bra, Ava. Do you know how I know that?” he asked, and I gritted my teeth.

“Fuck off,” I spat. He wasn’t going to get me to admit anything, especially when it concerned my very aroused and traitorous body. I’d hide that no matter what.

“It’s such a simple design. Thin cotton decorated with light pink embroidery, but it does nothing to hide how very hard your nipples are beneath the fabric. If the lights were on, I bet it would be sheer enough so that I could see the outline of your areolas, wouldn’t I?”

I didn’t answer him because he was right.

The fabric was more than a little worn through from the wash. Why couldn’t I have worn something else tonight?

But it turned out that I didn’t have to say anything at all because he grasped the neckline of my nightgown and tore it right open, baring my breasts in less time than it took me to draw in another breath.

“You bastard!” I screeched.

“I’ll tell you a secret, little human. Even in the dim light of the moon, I can still see them. My eyesight is especially good, even more so in the dark. One of the perks of being a wolf,” he said.

“Fuck. You,” I answered and I spat right in his face. For a moment, he stilled, and I watched my spittle drip down his cheek. I expected anger, but his gaze remained steady and calm.

“Bad girl. You’re going to pay for that.”

With ruthless intention, he grasped my nipples between his thumbs and forefingers. For a second, he just held them in his clutches before he pinched them hard. If I had expected gentleness or mercy of any kind, I would have been sorely disappointed.

A cry of pain escaped my lips before I could stop it.

A vicious flare of agony blossomed from the tips of my nipples, radiating downward and spreading with electrifying intensity until it centered in the depths of my core. He twisted them hard, and I keened with fright, embroiled in wave after wave of punishing pain that left me feeling helpless and afraid and undoubtedly angry.

He squeezed harder and I started to panic before he finally released them. The wave of agony that followed was almost as intense as it was initially, but it eventually ebbed away to a gentler aching throb long after he let them go.

I trembled beneath him, feeling real fear for the first time.

For a long time, he stared down at my breasts. The pads of his fingers grazed over top of my sore nipples, reawakening the hurt he’d forced upon them. I didn’t say anything more, too shell-shocked to do anything but lie there trapped beneath him.

He leaned forward, just grazing his lips against my ear. I gasped as his breath tickled the tiny hairs along my skin and I desperately tried to ignore how it was causing little bolts of electricity to trickle down so far that my clit started with pulse with it.

I wanted my body to stop reacting to him. I didn’t want to enjoy his threats or the way his touch was making me tremble with shameful need. I didn’t want any of it.

“I want you to think about something, Ava,” he whispered, and the rumble of his words made me clutch my thighs together as if that could protect me from whatever was to come.

At least I was wearing panties. I thanked God that I had decided to put on a pair tonight.

I didn’t respond because I was afraid my voice would give away everything that was running through my head.

“I want you to think about the fact that you’ll be telling me everything I want to know one way or another, but I’m very much looking forward to punishing you for your refusal to do so in the first place. You should know that in the end you’re going to beg to be allowed to tell me what I want to know and then, just maybe, I’ll finish your punishment in the way it would please me the most before I finally give you permission to tell me what I want to know,” he whispered in my ear, his words tickling me in a way that made my pussy clench with burning need.

I shouldn’t want to fuck him.

I should want to kill him. I should want to use my silver knife to stab him right in the fucking heart.

“I’m not going to tell you anything,” I snarled.

I could feel his lips curling up in a smile against my ear. He was enjoying my defiance and I didn’t know if that bode well for me. For all I knew, it was just making things worse.

But he was a monster. He was a thing I could never trust.

“Do you think you’re in control, little human?” he asked, and I jerked my wrists in an effort to break my bonds once more. He chuckled and an ice-cold chill hurtled through my veins, sinking right down into the marrow of my bones.

“Who are you?” I spat.

“My name is Lawson Clearwater. I’m the alpha of the Crescent Moon Pack,” he answered.

I froze.

Everything started to make way more sense. He was the kingpin of the Crescent Moon Pack, the alpha. He headed the biggest wolf family here in New Orleans, which was really only opposed by the Venuti vampire clan. Very few people knew of their existence because they liked it that way, but they were far more powerful than any human mafia families here in the city. If either the Crescent Moon Pack or the Venuti Clan decided to eliminate the Gambinos or the Genovese family that reigned down here too, they could do it in less than twenty-four hours.

“Have you ever tried to fight off an alpha before, little human?” he purred.

I shook my head, glaring at him as he drew back just enough to stare into my eyes. His irises sparkled like yellow diamonds. The emerald had lightened to something of a peridot color, hidden behind the golden yellow that gave away his real identity. His gaze was like looking into stained glass, but with far more power behind it. I found myself getting lost inside his eyes before I forced myself to turn away.

“Let me go, you mangy bastard,” I growled, and he laughed openly before he leaned down low enough to brush his lips against my nipples.

“Get off! What are you doing?” I yelled.

“Such a bad, bad girl. It’s time you began to understand what a punishment by my hands means,” he murmured.

There was no time to prepare for what came next. I couldn’t have, even if I’d tried and not even if he warned me with what he was about to do.

He pulled back his lips with a snarl and used his teeth to capture my right nipple. He bit down hard, and I shrieked as the pain from before rushed back and escalated to something far beyond just the pinching of his fingers.

My nipple felt scalded by his harshness, and I tried to breathe through it, but his teeth pressed more firmly around it and I couldn’t stop myself from crying out.

The agony intensified, building higher and higher until it radiated across my entire breast, sinking deep into my body with every passing wave of it. I tried to pull away, but that only made it hurt more, made the pain run deeper. Instead, I arched my back and tried to press into his bite, but he pulled away with my nipple still firmly locked in between his teeth.

“Please! Please!” I cried out. The words flew from my lips before I could stop them. This hurt so very much, and I just wanted him to let go. I keened and closed my eyes, trying to stop myself from crying from just how much it hurt.

My nipples had always been especially sensitive.

Finally, he opened his lips and I fell back against the bed, blinking away the hot tears that were threatening to fall. My nipple throbbed hot, and I looked down, fearful that he had marked it, but there was nothing more than just an impression left behind from his teeth.

His mouth moved to the left side, and I panicked.

“Please! Don’t!” I begged. His tongue slipped out from between his lips and curled up, just licking the tip of my nipple with gentle promise.

“You don’t know me well enough yet, little girl, but you should know that it isn’t up to you. I will deal with you however I please. It will never matter how much you beg,” he warned.

He bit my left nipple after that. I don’t know if it was as hard or harder than the right side, but it felt worse maybe because I knew what was coming. I knew it was going to hurt, but experiencing it was something else altogether.

I thrashed beneath him, desperate to escape but it did nothing. He held my nipple between his teeth, tightening as hard as he wished until at long last, he released me.

I panted hard, trying to grapple with the pain as it gradually faded away. It throbbed with continual hurt, tiny aftershocks of soreness that refused to ebb long after he was through with punishing me there.

“I enjoy seeing my teeth marks on your pretty little nipples, but they aren’t pink enough for me yet. I’m going to have to make sure they’re spanked properly after I tear the rest of your nightgown off,” he threatened.

What?

He took advantage of my momentary confusion to shift backwards so that his body was situated just over my thighs. I still couldn’t move enough to buck him off of me, not that I could even hope to throw a man of his massive size.

He probably weighed twice what I did. At least.

He wasted no time in gripping the fabric of my nightgown and tearing right through it. It fell apart in his fingers as if it was nothing but a pile of threads, baring the rest of me in a matter of seconds.

I sucked in a nervous breath. The fabric scraped against my punished nipples as he pulled it away, and I whimpered softly as the ache from before intensified into a hard throb.

His palm cradled my left breast tenderly. I stilled, trying to study his face for any hint as to his plans. I saw nothing. Not even a hint of malice or anything else before the touch of his fingers faded away only to return with brutal force.

He smacked my breast, and I could only just watch as the marks from his fingers flared white and then bright pink, stark against the paleness of my skin. He did it again. And again.

I thrashed beneath him, trying to avoid his palm, yet still his aim was true every time. He spanked all over my breasts and just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, he held me in place and smacked my nipple directly. He focused on one side and then the other and just when I thought I would break and scream, he stopped and sucked in an appreciative breath.

“There now. Your pretty breasts are so beautiful when they’ve been spanked bright pink,” he mused.

He sat back and gazed over my bared body, admiring the handiwork of his mark on my skin. He stared at me for what felt like forever, letting his eyes linger on the fullness of my breasts and the gentle curve of my waist before it dipped even lower to study the light blue lace trim of my silky panties.

“You will ask me to remove your panties, Ava. Ask me to show you just how wet they already are,” he coaxed firmly, and I shook my head.

I couldn’t ask him to do that. I wouldn’t.

“No,” I scoffed. “I’d never ask that of the likes of you.”

I couldn’t live with myself if I did.

“Do you think you can hide your arousal from me, little human?” he asked carefully.

“I’m not aroused,” I snapped. I’d never admit something like that, especially to him.

“Yes, you are, little one. Not only can I see your wetness seeping through the seat of your panties, but I can smell it. An alpha like me can sense it by the scent alone,” he murmured, and I gave one last-ditch effort to try to buck him off. I did it even though I knew I’d fail.

He laughed openly this time, and the effect was chilling.

His fingers grazed along the lacy hem of my panties, glancing just beneath it to brush against my skin. His touch was gentle at first, just gliding back and forth. It was strangely calming initially, pulling me into a gentle lull that maybe the worst was over for at least a little while.

That didn’t last very long.

He slipped his hand just far enough underneath my panties before he curled his fingers and grasped them firmly enough to hurt just the slightest bit. I jerked away as he pulled them tight enough to wedge the fabric between my wet and sensitive folds.

He held still for a moment, and I froze.

“What are you doing?” I asked nervously, my voice beginning to shake and reveal just how anxious I was beneath him. I hated myself for not being able to hide that.

He said nothing and simply jerked my panties harder against me, capturing my clit beneath them. Then he relaxed his hold just a little before pulling them up against me once again. The fabric of my panties rubbed against my clit roughly as he repeated the motion over and over.

The cloth burned. At first it was painfully jarring, and I struggled to think of anything more I could do to get him to stop. I’d run out of options. There was no getting out of this.

For the first time in my life, I was completely helpless. This man, this perfect stranger, could do whatever he wanted to me, and I wouldn’t be able to stop him.

Any woman in her right mind would have been terrified.

But not me.

Apparently, that thought in particular just made me wetter and even more aroused than before and now the fabric of my panties was rubbing against my clit and forcing me to face things I didn’t want to.

Forcing me to recognize my arousal.

Forcing me to admit the truth.

I wanted to come. Badly. With the hands of an alpha on my bare flesh.

The fabric moved faster and the orgasm I wanted to push away so badly raged forth. I tried to think of anything to keep it at bay, but nothing worked. I thought about the fact that he was a wolf shifter, but that only seemed to escalate the rising heat between my thighs. He was a monster, a criminal, but right now he was so focused on forcing my release that nothing could stop my orgasm from breaking over me like a sudden storm.

His movements were so rough that my clit burned red hot. Even though it was painful, the arousal in my core only seemed to clench tighter. At some point, it started to become far more pleasurable than I expected, molding together with the pain and becoming something far stronger altogether.

His movements were so rough, so different than the gentle feeling of my own fingers between my thighs.

I’d never felt the touch of a man there before him. Ever.

Held captive, I drowned in the roughness of it. There was nothing gentle about the way he rubbed my clit with my panties. He forced my pleasure forth and before long, I felt like I was tiptoeing on the edge of a cliff about to fall off at any moment.

I moaned out loud for the first time.

“You’re going to come for me, little human. I’m not going to give you a choice,” he warned, and my nipples throbbed hot just as I arched into the growing sensation between my thighs.

“Please don’t!” I yelped. Even as I said the words, I was unsure if I actually wanted more, for him to be rougher, or if I really wanted him to stop.

Fuck.

It only got more intense after that.

Just when I thought he couldn’t get any rougher, he did. He rubbed my clit with ruthless obsession, forcing my orgasm whether I wanted it or not.

But I did.

I was going to come. Hard.

With my clit burning from the constantly rubbing cloth of my panties, I fell off that edge into the strongest orgasm I’d ever had in my life. My own fingers paled in comparison. Even my little egg-shaped bullet vibrator couldn’t hold a candle to this single forced orgasm at the hands of an alpha wolf.

With a pitiful cry, I arched upward just as my thighs began to tremble. I fell deep into the blissful chasm of mind-rending pleasure. I closed my eyes, the light of the moon becoming far too bright to behold, but that wasn’t all I was hiding from.

I didn’t want to see the look of victory in his eyes when he saw what I looked like when I came for him.

My orgasm went on longer than it ever had before. My core twisted tight, and my clit pulsed with scalding hot sensation. My pussy clenched down hard, my inner walls fluttering with need.

I felt so empty.

I wanted to feel him inside me.

I’d played with a dildo before all by myself in a dark room. I blushed at the vision of what it might have looked like when I fucked myself with that toy.

All of a sudden, I felt the need to take his cock deep inside me. I was so needy that I lost focus of everything else entirely.

My thighs continued to tremble as my release went on and just when it reached its peak, my eyes rolled back in my head.

My orgasms had always been quiet. I’d never been a screamer.

Until now.

Until him.

I lost control and I writhed, screaming my pleasure along with it. White fiery ecstasy pulsed through me and when it finally released me from its wondrous captivity, I was left panting and breathless and utterly exhausted.

Oh, fuck.

That felt good.

“You will ask me to take off your panties, little one,” he demanded.

Wait. What?

I blinked, still caught in the flowery haze of bliss of that orgasm. Even though my clit throbbed with both pain and pleasure, it wasn’t enough to make me ask for something so shameful.

I shook my head.

“No,” I whispered, my voice hoarse from screaming.

His other hand worked between my thighs, dipping down to my entrance. Very slowly, he pressed two fingers inside me, carefully keeping the fabric of my panties snugly pinched between them.

I cried out, so caught off guard to suddenly feel his fingers inside my pussy. I hated that it felt so insanely good.

“This little pussy is so very tight. Tell me, am I the first man to touch it?”

I flushed hard. He didn’t need to know I was a virgin. I was twenty-five, but I’d never had time for a man or the patience for one. Men my age were immature, obsessed with partying and getting with as many girls as humanly possible. That hadn’t been enough to hold my interest, so I’d never sought one out.

Lawson grinned with conquest.

“I thought so,” he murmured knowingly, and I blanched as his fingers slid inside me even deeper. I cried out as he slowly pushed into me, his fingers feeling far larger than the one toy I’d been brave enough to play with in the privacy of my own bedroom.

“As punishment, my bad little girl, you’re going to come for me again,” he threatened.

“I can’t,” I squeaked.

I’d never come more than once in my life. I’d attempted it just once and my clit had been far too sensitive to the touch to even dare it. I’d given up almost as soon as I had started.

“Do you think it’s up to you, naughty girl?”

He began to fuck me roughly with his thick fingers, using his other hand to jerk my panties back and forth. When he placed a thumb over top of the fabric that covered my clit, I knew I was lost.

I cried out as that familiar painful sensation returned, but this time I couldn’t escape it. This time it wasn’t my own fingers in charge, but his.

My inner walls clutched greedily at his fingers, either wanting them deeper or needing to push them out. My nipples hardened even more than I thought possible, aching and pulsing from his punishing bite still. My nostrils flared as I tried to draw in air and my heart pounded in my chest.

The agony between my legs only grew more intense. This time, the pain far outweighed the pleasure. When I would have stopped, he pushed past it and just when it felt like it was too much to bear, my body relented, and I shattered.

I thought I’d come hard the first time.

The second one devastated me.

His fingers moved roughly between my thighs, and I felt every ridge, every knuckle, every inch of friction from the thickness of those masterful digits. He fucked me with them hard. He wasn’t gentle and they hurt too. My pussy couldn’t seem to get used to the girth of those fingers and it burned hot as they constantly stretched me open. The cloth fabric of my soaked panties still roughly rubbed against my clit, and I couldn’t hold off the onslaught of pleasure even if I’d tried.

I screamed from the very beginning. My legs shook and I tried to close them, but it didn’t matter. He jerked the fabric so much harder, so much more roughly, and I responded with far more intensity than I could have ever prepared for.

My throat started to grow hoarse, but the drowning abyss of my release continued. This orgasm felt as if a knife was twisting deep in my core, threatening to tear me open and render me entirely defenseless and utterly wrecked.

“Oh, please!” I screamed, my pussy clamping down around his fingers like a vise. My body held him firmly, but still he pushed past that tightness and fucked me with those fingers hard enough that I knew I would be sore long after he was through with me.

My release lasted far longer than I thought it would and when it finally started to fade away, I was left a whimpering mess of well-satisfied woman. My body slumped into the bed, all fight drained away and I just focused on the effort it took to draw one breath after another into my lungs.

I’d come two times in a row.

I closed my eyes, just trying to calm down. My heart pounded in my chest so hard that I thought it would fly right out. My blood rushed so swiftly through my veins that it sounded like a surging river in my head.

I was worn out. I hadn’t been able to sleep before, but I was certain that I would be able to now. I’d be able to sleep like a goddamn baby. I was that tired.

“I’m going to give you one last chance, bad girl. Ask me to remove your panties.”

Chapter Three

Ava

He couldn’t mean that. He couldn’t. I told myself that over and over because I was in unknown territory. If I refused, would he make me come again? Would he leave? Would he do something else?

Did he want to fuck me?

Did I want him to?

I swallowed hard and met his eyes. At once, all the questions in my mind fell away. He was dead serious. I’d never been so certain of anything in my life.

I was exhausted. My pussy was sore. My clit and my nipples throbbed hot.

But I still had my pride. It was all I had left.

I shook my head, refusing him for a third time. I would never ask for him to remove my panties. I wouldn’t be a willing participant in whatever this was.

Not now. Not ever.

His mouth set in a firm line and without missing a beat, he pulled his fingers from my pussy and tore my panties clean off. The fabric caught my sensitive folds, ripping against my aching clit and burning hot like a brand. I cried out, feeling as though he’d scraped my flesh from my body. I blinked hard, trying to rein back the tears that suddenly threatened to fall. My pussy ached long after he tore my panties from me, a powerful reminder of just how strong he was.

Fire.

Oh, God.

It hurt.

My clit wouldn’t stop burning.

I couldn’t stop screaming so he took my soaked panties and stuffed them in my mouth, effectively gagging me with them. The taste of my own arousal washed across my tongue, sweet and musky and shamefully arousing. I felt myself blush with embarrassment, blazing even hotter when I saw his gaze dip downward to take in the sight between my legs.

His fingers curled around my pussy, and he met my eyes with his hard unforgiving ones.

“Bad girl. I gave you three chances and still, you refuse me. I wasn’t planning on spanking this naughty little pussy tonight, but you most certainly earned it,” he growled.

I cried out into the soaked cloth of my panties in fear.

If he hadn’t cut off my ability to speak, I would have begged him not to. I had the feeling it wouldn’t have mattered though. He’d have done it anyway.

The first time his palm slapped against the overly sensitive flesh of my pussy, I screeched around the sodden cloth in my mouth as a rush of fierce agony spread across my wet folds. His hand was fast and hard, striking against my bare flesh with ruthless and terrible intent.

This was a punishment. This hurt a lot and there was no way for me to make it stop. My only choice was to take all of it until he decided that he had given me enough. I wailed in despair.

I tried to close my legs in a protective measure, but he shifted once more and placed a single knee between my thighs, keeping me vulnerable and open to his punishing hand. Over and over, he spanked my pussy, thoroughly punishing my tender flesh as hard as he wanted.

Then he used his fingers to spread my pussy wide open, baring my clit. He spanked that next. I thrashed and writhed as much as I could, but it all was for naught. I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself not to break.

The last thing I wanted was for him to see me cry.

“I’m sorry,” I screamed into my soaked panties, but he didn’t listen, and I was left to suffer with the taste of my wetness on my tongue and the burning sting of his punishing hand between my thighs.

“Are you ready to tell me where you got the weapon you used to kill the vampires?” he pressed.

I shook my head, trying to tell him to stop and that I desperately wanted him to stop spanking my pussy so brutally hard.

He was a monster. I couldn’t tell him anything.

Even if I wanted this all to stop.

His mouth set in a firm line and his gaze darkened. He held my pussy open and spanked my clit several times in quick succession and then he pinched it so hard that I swore that I saw stars.

I cried out in pain and reluctant pleasure. My pussy felt scalded from his punishment, but still my desire for more seemed to rise from the fire as if it was immortal, and nothing I could do would bring it down.

I didn’t know how it was possible, but I was coming to the terrifying conclusion that he could force me to come for a third time.

I didn’t know if I could take it. I didn’t even know if I was capable of it.

“You will beg to tell me what I want to know,” he warned and the veiled threat in his tone that he could do far more to me if he wanted to was so terrifying that I stilled with fright.

There wasn’t any doubt in my mind that he would.

But I couldn’t give in. With fear, I shook my head. I refused him once more because I had no other choice.

He shifted backwards once more, holding down my legs with the strength of his arms as he lowered his mouth to my pussy. He blew a warm breath over top of my scalded flesh, and I shivered.

“I bit your nipples as punishment earlier, didn’t I little one?” he asked purposefully.

I nodded.

“Your little clit can suffer the same fate,” he warned, and I tried to jerk away in an ill-conceived escape attempt.

I keened into the gag in my mouth as he opened his lips and I watched in open horror as his teeth moved forward and latched around my clit.

For a second, he held my clit just so with his teeth. I shook with panic, unable to do anything but sit there and look on in disbelief before he bit down on my tender bud so roughly and cruelly that the punishing hurt was agony from the first moment.

I cried out before the pain even began. My clit was more than overly sensitive from the two forced orgasms at his hands, and he probably knew it. Pure pain and exquisite pleasure poured through me, two warring sensations and before long, the hurtful edge began to win out. I screamed and I cried out. I begged through the sodden cloth of my panties and when he finally released my clit, I moaned in sheer relief even as it continued to throb with punishing soreness.

As the pain began to fade, I was left with something even more powerful.

Desire.

The unfathomable need for more.

I wanted him to fuck me, and I wanted it badly. I wanted to feel his cock sinking deep into my flesh and I whimpered, trying to cope with the unexpected urge to suddenly offer him the gift of my virginity.

He didn’t let me lose myself in my passionate wants for very long, because he shifted once more and climbed off the bed.

He started to get undressed.

A feeble-sounding mewl escaped my lips, unabated and unwanted. The corner of his lips turned up in a cocky grin. He’d heard me. Very slowly, he began to unbutton his shirt, revealing the dark blond nest of curls along his chest. The fabric opened up and the hard lines of his torso rippled in the shadows, catching my attention for far longer than I wanted them to.

My pussy tightened hard, and I couldn’t help it.

He shrugged off that white button-up and tossed it on the chair by the window. Next, he kicked off his shoes and unbuttoned his slacks, pushing them down his hips. He stepped out of them and tossed them aside too. He sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled his socks off next.

He was wearing a dark, silky looking pair of boxers, but those didn’t last much longer either. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him as he pushed them down too. I lay there frozen, and he flew toward me, straddling my waist once more and pinning me to the bed.

Oh.

My.

Fuck.

His cock.

It was so hard and only inches from my face. I could see every thick ridge, every pulsing vein, and that all paled when I took in the sheer size of it. My pussy clenched down hard in anxious anticipation. Would it hurt if he fucked me? Would I like it? I didn’t know.

I kind of… wanted to know though.

I hated myself for even thinking it. His body weight was heavy over mine and I knew that no matter how hard I bucked, there would be no escaping him.

He reached for me and pulled the sodden panties free from my lips.

“If you aren’t going to talk, little human, I have a different use for that pretty mouth,” he purred, and I hissed with fury. There could be no doubt of what he meant by that, not with his cock only inches from my lips.

The fucking audacity of this man.

“I’ll bite clean through your cock if you try to put it in my mouth,” I spat.

I wouldn’t tell him that I sort of wanted to find out what he tasted like. I wouldn’t tell him that I kind of needed to find out what his cock in my mouth would feel like.

“Good luck. Unless you have silver teeth, that won’t do you much good,” he chuckled, and I forced myself to look away from the throbbing monstrosity of a cock in front of my face.

My blood ran red hot.

He gripped my chin and turned my face right back with one hand before the other slapped my breast hard. His dark eyes held mine as they peppered my chest with hard spanks, catching the tips of my nipples over and over.

My cries echoed all around me, helpless and pitiful and weak. There was nothing to do but take it until he decided that he was through.

Casually, he transferred his weight backwards so that he could touch between my legs. I should have tried to close my thighs and keep him out, but I was ashamed to realize that I was instinctually opening for him, my hips rocking back and forth.

Was he going to fuck me now? Was I going to lose my virginity to a cruel monster?

Instead, he slid two fingers inside me, slowly. Surely. Arrogantly.

My pussy gripped them like a vise.

He pumped them in and out of me, teasing me and a wave of humiliation washed over me as my body reacted of its own accord, like a goddamn traitor. I was never going to get over how much I hated myself right now for responding that way.

His fingers fluttered inside me, and I moaned softly before he drew them out. Without even a second’s hesitation, he forced them in between my lips.

“Suck. Taste yourself on my fingers and then tell me you don’t want my cock in your mouth,” he demanded.

Instinctually, I started to suck his fingers, tasting my own milky sweetness intermingled with the saltiness of his skin. He pushed them in and out of my mouth, going in deeper with every subsequent motion. I closed my eyes and the only thing on my mind was what his cock would taste like against my tongue.

I hated myself for thinking that. I hated myself for wanting that.

I cleaned his fingers off the best that I could. I could see something that was akin to pride in his gaze as I did what he commanded, and when he finally pulled his fingers from my mouth, I was hopeful that I had pleased him.

Without ceremony, he reached between my thighs and pinched my clit. Hard.

I keened, grappling with the painfully intense sensitivity of his punishing hand. I bucked as much as I was able, not an attempt to force him off of me, but more as a way to simply make it through the pain he was forcing on me. When he released my clit, I cried out with relief. He laid the pads of his fingers against my tender bundle of nerves, a silent warning that he wouldn’t hesitate to chastise me that way again in a heartbeat.

I swallowed anxiously.

“I’m going to give you a choice. Either you’re going to talk or you’re going to suck my cock. Now choose. I can keep this up all night,” he growled.

I knew one thing for certain. I knew that I couldn’t keep up with him for that long. I had to choose one or the other, so I chose the lesser evil.

I opened my mouth.

His grin was victorious, and I suddenly grew very nervous about my choice.

His hand slid over top of the comforter on my bed until he cupped the back of my head. I would have thought it an act of tenderness until he slipped his cock between my lips.

He was so much bigger than I realized. My jaw seemed like it was too small for a man of his size and a sudden wave of fright poured over me, causing an icy chill to race down my spine.

I hadn’t picked the lesser evil. I’d picked the greater one.

There was no period of acclimation. No slowly opening my throat. No exploration or mercy of any kind. None of that.

He started fucking my face and he fucked it hard.

There was nothing for me to do but take it.

“I’m going to teach you a lesson with my cock, bad girl. When I’m through with it, maybe then you’ll know better than to refuse to answer my questions,” he warned, and my eyes watered.

I tried to hold my mouth open, keep my teeth pulled back, but it was all in vain. Nothing I did granted me any sort of gentleness. My cheeks started to hurt first, and my lips soon followed. My mouth was too small to take him, so it wasn’t long before the tip of his cock bumped against the ring of muscle at the back of my throat, and it hurt far more when he pushed past that. I gagged, but it didn’t matter either. I tried to control my reflex to push him out, but it was difficult. I didn’t know how.

It was a ruthless punishment. I knew that now.

I cried around his cock, shamefully gagged by his thick length. If I could have spoken, I would have begged for mercy. I would have said that I’d tell him whatever he wanted to know, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t going to be able to speak a word until he finished using my mouth as he saw fit.

As rough as he was, there was a sickening part of me that enjoyed being treated like this. My clit was pulsing hard as his cock throbbed against my tongue. My arousal was slick on my inner thighs, dripping down and I already knew there was a wet spot beneath me because I could feel its cool shameful touch against my skin.

Please.

I wanted him to fuck me. I wanted him to make me come again.

The fucking of my mouth went on and on and I couldn’t stop the fresh wave of tears from streaming down my face from the sheer mercilessness of it.

It was at that point I gave in. My body took over and my mind fled.

I started to suckle him as enthusiastically as I could. I swirled my tongue around his length and as the shock of his roughness faded into helpless acceptance, I began to taste him.

He was salty, a touch sweet, and so entirely masculine. The taste of him only added to the vigorous possession of my mouth and I moaned around his length. With vigorous effort, I swallowed around him, again and again as his cock began to throb even harder against my tongue.

He roared and my pussy clenched tightly with anticipation.

“Only good girls get to swallow, don’t they?” he growled.

I whined around his cock.

“You weren’t a good girl, were you?” he continued dangerously.

He never stopped fucking my mouth.

Please.

Don’t.

“Close your eyes,” he demanded and without thinking I did.

I cried out. I wanted to be a good girl. I wanted to swallow for him. I wanted to beg him to let me show him that I could be good.

He didn’t allow that.

Just when he was about to come, he pulled free from my lips and his thick seed coated my face. It spurted onto my forehead, my eyelids, and my cheeks. I hadn’t had time to close my mouth, so some of it fell onto my tongue and my lips. It was all over my face and I whimpered.

He climbed off of me and grasped my left leg. I was so shell-shocked that I didn’t notice that he bound my ankle with the remnants of my nightgown. By the time that I did, he’d already spread my legs wide open and was working on tying up the right.

His seed dripped down my face. More of it dripped onto my tongue.

He hadn’t allowed me to swallow, but when I finally managed to close my mouth, I did just because it felt like I was defying him. The taste of his seed was bitter at first, but then a creamy salty sweetness followed and even though I felt humiliated by his rough use, I enjoyed that single moment of quiet rebellion.

Now fully bound, I was defenseless as he reached between my legs and pinched my clit firmly once more. I moaned, the sound so shamefully wanton that it made me blush.

“Please,” I begged.

“You will lie here with my cum dripping down your face as punishment while I search your place for answers. Be a good girl. I think you understand now that I know how to deal with very bad ones,” he murmured.

I did now. I really did.

He stood in front of the bed and stared between my thighs.

The effect of his gaze on me was staggering. I should be well past sated by now. I’d experienced pleasure at his hands that had physically shattered me, twice, but the look of his hungry eyes dancing over my soaked, sore flesh made me want more all over again. His stare darkened and I fidgeted just a little bit.

He said nothing, but the look in his eyes said everything.

He wasn’t through with me. Not by a long shot.

“I will return for you, bad girl,” he promised, and I watched with measured sadness as he walked out of the room.

My clit throbbed. If I wasn’t bound, I would have made myself come with my own fingers. I wondered if he’d known that. I glanced down at my breasts, taking stock of my hard nipples and the bright pink marks his fingers had left behind on my pale skin.

For some reason, I found myself proud to wear them. The impressions from his teeth had long faded, but I swore I could still feel them and that made a jolt of arousal spark straight down to my clit.

My tongue poked out from between my lips, catching several drops of his seed. I cleaned off my lips as thoroughly as I could, feeling almost desperate to swallow every bit of it that I could.

With every swallow, I felt myself growing more defiant. I felt more like myself once again.

His cum began to grow cold on my face and I chewed my lower lip. My temporary rebellion faded, and I sniffled, suddenly overcome with emotion. I’m not certain how long he left me for, but by the time he walked back through the door the first wave of tears had begun to fall and was dripping down my face. I watched him come in and my body curled in a quiet sob as I tried to hide just how much his absence had affected me.

He sat down beside me, and he pressed a damp towel against my cheek. He began to wipe the cum and tears from my face and there was a certain tenderness in the way he did it that I didn’t expect.

“There now, that’s a good girl,” he murmured.

He was so thorough and gentle as he cleaned my face and a single thread of guilt pulled at me for trying to defy him all this time. It took me a short while to realize that he’d taken the time to moisten the towel with warm water and that only made my guilt pang even harder. I looked down, unwilling to face the fact that I’d thought him kind, not even for a moment.

“You took my cock so very well, little human. Such a very good girl,” he whispered, and my heart swelled with pride for some unknown reason.

“You came back,” I answered. I wasn’t certain if I believed he was sitting here beside me or if this had all been nothing but a dream. I felt somewhere in the middle of reality and fantasy, as if my brain was captured in a hazy fog.

“I did. I’m a man of my word,” he replied, and I believed him.

He was quiet for a while, inspecting my face for something. I wasn’t sure what.

“I still have questions that need answers, but we need to deal with something first, don’t we?” he asked, and my stomach dropped precipitously with both nerves and sudden unfathomable arousal. His fingers dropped to cup my pussy, gliding along the incredible wetness that had seemingly developed in his absence.

“You’re soaking wet, so much wetter than when I left you,” he observed softly.

A quiet squeak echoed all around me.

“I’m going to need to take care of this,” he murmured, and I was ashamed to realize that my hips were rocking against his touch.

This had all gone to my head and there was nothing I could do to bring it back.

The surface of his fingers pressed firmly against my aching clit. I pressed back against him.

“I’m going to fuck this soaking wet little pussy until you’re sore enough that you’ll feel it all day tomorrow. That is already decided. The only part of this that is up to you now is whether I fuck your naughty little bottom afterwards and that depends on whether or not you tell me what I want to know.”

For a split second, I considered telling him about my father’s murder, how my family had been ruined by his villainous conduct and that the Venuti were probably at fault for some sort of deal gone wrong, but I stopped. I remembered myself and I blinked back tears. There was a part of me that wanted to tell him, but he was a monster too. He was a criminal, and all of this was probably just some terrible form of torture designed to give him the answers he wanted before he killed me. I couldn’t trust him. Not now. Not ever.

Knowing I had no other choice, I just shook my head.

I refused him. Again.

“You should know that the scent of your arousal is only increasing, little human. You continue to fight me, but you can’t stop thinking about what it’s going to feel like when my cock takes your tight little pussy for the very first time,” he observed.

I gritted my teeth.

“Tell me something, little human. Has anyone else ever touched that pretty bottom hole before?” he pressed. I drew in a shocked breath, unable to hide the surprise that surged through me instantly.

Instinctively, I pressed my thighs together. I didn’t want to know where this was going next.

“No,” I sputtered.

“Have you touched that tight little hole?” he pressed, and I couldn’t stop the way my breath pulled in noisily all around me.

He couldn’t know. There was no way.

My face flushed hard, and my legs spread for him. It was an unconscious reaction and entirely involuntary, and I couldn’t stop it. My body had long since taken over the sound logic of my mind. By the ravenous look on his face that followed, he’d seen it too.

I had touched myself back there. One time and I’d never told anyone about it.

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Right?

It was after my friend’s bachelorette party, and I’d been pretty drunk. She’d given out gift bags and I’d only opened it after I’d staggered back into the safety of my hotel room to find a small steel butt plug and a packet of lubricant. I’d only used a little bit of the lube before I’d rather hastily pushed the plug inside me. The rubber band of pain after I’d pushed it all the way inside was far more sobering than I ever wanted to admit. The strange part of the whole thing that once the ache had faded to something of a gradual smolder, I’d left it inside me because I’d found myself so turned on that I’d needed to come right after I’d put it in.

Worse than that, I’d used my vibrator on my clit because I’d needed to and before him, it had been the hardest orgasm I’d ever had in my life.

I didn’t tell my friend. I didn’t tell anyone. It was my secret to keep, and I wasn’t about to give it up to the likes of a wolf.

I refused to answer him.

His eyes narrowed with dark promise.

He tore through the binds that held my ankles like they were made of tissue.

“What are you doing?” I shrieked.

“Only human men fuck their women on their back,” he replied. “I’m not human and I’m not going to fuck you that way.”

Roughly, he flipped me over on my stomach and I yelped when he placed one hand in the middle of my back and the other on top of my bare bottom.

I’m not sure why, but him looking at my naked backside was the most embarrassing part of this whole ordeal. I could feel myself blushing hard and his palm smoothed over the surface of my skin. He cupped each cheek, and I was left with the harrowing thought of how his hand dwarfed each side of my ass. His hands were so very big. I found myself pressing back into the hard plane of his palm and just when I thought maybe he was being gentle before he fucked me, he spanked me hard.

I whimpered out loud and a second cruel smack followed.

I was getting the first real spanking of my life. I soon lost count of how many times his palm connected with my bare cheeks. His smacks were relentless and quick and far harder than I was ready for.

I was in so far over my head.

“Stop! You have no right to spank me!” I shrieked.

It hurt so much that I was beginning to fear that I was losing grip of the very last semblances of my control, of my sanity, of everything that made me who I am.

“I do, pretty human. I want this little bottom bright red before I force every last inch of my cock into that tight virgin pussy,” he smirked with amusement.

“Please!”

“It makes me very hard when you beg for mercy, sweet girl, but it’s not going to rescue you from the thorough spanking you’ve had coming since you first refused me,” he countered.

I cried out, feeling helpless.

With his hand in the center of my back, I couldn’t roll to the side. I couldn’t avoid even a single one. His hand was relentless and the longer my spanking continued, the more I convinced myself that his palm must be made of wood. He punished the upper curves of my cheeks, all the way down to the middle of my thighs.

I was his prisoner. His to do with as he wished. His to hurt. His to fuck.

“Please stop,” I pleaded. My voice broke and he started spanking the backs of my thighs exclusively. “Please, alpha. Please,” I begged. Over and over, I tried to appeal to his sympathy. There had been a glimmer of it when he’d cleaned off my face, but it was nowhere to be seen now.

He intended to punish me, and he wanted it to hurt.

It did. So much.

My mind edged at a dark place, teetering on that thin border and I squeezed my eyes shut, just trying to survive before I fell apart.

My entire focus was centered on his hand spanking my backside. It was as if he was branding me with fire with every strike and it was only that much more intense when he punished the backs of my thighs. My hips arched back and forth, and my cries grew louder. Was he going to make me cry? Was that what he wanted? I was terrified that I would.

Would my tears be enough to set me free?

“Your spanking will end when you lift that pretty bottom for me. Present me with that soaking wet little pussy so that I can fuck it,” he demanded.

I didn’t even think.

I just obeyed.

I arched my back and spread my legs, only to earn a very quick flurry of spanks on the sensitive flesh of my inner thighs.

My mouth opened in shock, desperate for air and his punishing smacks stopped.

“Good girl,” he murmured.

My heartbeat nearly skipped a beat at the words of praise.

My bottom burned hot, but my pussy burned far hotter. The hard punishment, the rough humiliating treatment was turning me into a soaking wet mess of arousal and need and red-hot desire. He grabbed my hips and lifted me up onto my knees. With my wrists still bound, I couldn’t reach back or do anything to fight him off.

Not that I wanted to.

I should want to.

But I didn’t.

My pussy ached. It felt so empty, and I knew now that it would soon be very full of this cruel bastard’s deliciously massive cock.

And I couldn’t wait.

“You were wet when I left you covered with my seed, and even wetter when I returned after leaving you to wonder about what might happen next, but you’re absolutely soaked now that you’ve been very thoroughly spanked,” he observed.

I shivered with shame. I’d lost my grip on reality.

I was a prisoner to his wants, his needs, and the worst part of it all was that they had become mine too.

“Do you know what else I can see, little human?”

“No,” I whispered hoarsely.

“I can see your tight little bottom hole practically quivering in anticipation of being fucked there too,” he added, and I squeaked with embarrassment knowing that he could see such a shameful thing and that only made it tighten even more in absolute terror and unfathomable arousal.

The next thing I knew the head of his cock was poised against my entrance. It was scalding hot, and I forgot how to breathe. And then it was inside me.

All of it. In a single brutal thrust.

He breached my virginity without warning and without apology. My entire core blazed hot with fire. My arousal eased his entry, but it still hurt so much more than I imagined it would. He was so big, and my body felt too small and too tight around him. His girth stretched my pussy so widely that even though I was crying out for him to get out, he refused. Instead, he pushed so deeply inside me that his pelvis pressed against the scalded cheeks of my backside.

My pussy clutched hard at him, convulsing with pain and extremely reluctant pleasure as I tried to get used to the sheer size of him inside me.

And then he began to move, and my fucking truly began.

I closed my eyes, trying to grapple with the demons inside me and utterly failing.

I was a prisoner beneath him, held captive by his cock. I knew that I wouldn’t be set free until I broke all over his cock.

There was not even an ounce of tenderness in the way he took me. He used my pussy brutally hard and viciously fast, mounting me like the savage beast I knew he was. My pussy burned from the start, and I knew that his promise to ensure that I felt him tomorrow would be kept.

When this was over, I was going to be very sore. Panic fell over me in waves. I grappled with fear and longing. I warred with my pride. I shouldn’t want to be treated like this.

It shouldn’t be making me wetter.

It shouldn’t make me want to orgasm. Again.

My pussy was so wet that I could hear it with every single thrust of his hard cock. I would have been embarrassed, but his practically feral use of my body held my entire focus.

It hurt so very much at first, but once I reached a certain point, I fell off the edge of something else. My desire hurtled through me with wild abandon, rising higher and higher despite everything in my head that demanded I fight it. My pleasure held me captive, and I feared when it finally reigned free, it would destroy me.

He leaned over me and gripped my shoulder with one hand, using my own body as leverage to fuck me even harder than before. With his other hand, he reached around and captured my clit between his fingers.

My arousal escalated tenfold.

With far too knowledgeable fingers, he stoked my need until I was practically shivering with it in his arms. His cock continued to pound into me brutally hard, a daunting reminder of his strength and power over me, but his touch played across my clit like a lover’s caress. He varied the pressure of his fingertips, slowly building me up so that he could tear me apart.

It wouldn’t take very long.

Even with the aching pain of the hard fucking he was forcing me to take, my pleasure soon raged forth like a hurricane. In seconds, I was overwhelmed and consumed by the incredible sensations warring inside my innocent body. My core twisted hard, and I knew I was tiptoeing along the edge of exquisite ecstasy and cruel agony. As his fingers worked my clit and his cock thrust into me ruthlessly hard, I remained uncertain which sensation would win out.

But I didn’t have a choice. I was going to take one or the other whether I liked it or not. I trembled and shook beneath him and then something inside me snapped.

I screamed his name.

I lost my grip on reality, bridging into the dark world of savage pleasure and ruthless insanity.

My release shattered me into a million different pieces, like shards of glass that would never be put back together again. My legs shook and the physical devastation that followed was so incredibly powerful that I wondered if I could ever go back to being myself after it was all over. My toes curled and my nails dug into the pads of my hands as I suffered on that thin edge of pain and pleasure far more powerful than I’d ever known.

My orgasm went on and on and on.

My mouth opened in a circle, and I gasped, desperate for air and finding none.

I couldn’t tell up from down or left from right. All I knew was that my pussy gripped his cock so hard that I feared it might force him out, but it didn’t. My nipples peaked against the surface of my bed, still sore and aching from the punishing pinches and bites he’d put them through. The more I arched into him, the more they scraped into the comforter and the more I realized that I was doing it on purpose.

I wanted it to hurt.

I was coming this hard because it did.

I screamed for him and by the time the orgasm finally began to fade away into the edges of pure bliss, my voice was hoarse, and a wave of exhaustion surged through me.

But he didn’t stop.

I whimpered fearfully. He didn’t show a single sign that he was starting to slow down.

My satisfied need withered away, only to be replaced with a growing anxiety that I wasn’t going to make it through this. As if he could read my thoughts, his fingers returned to pet my clit and I tried to jerk away from him as an electric surge of discomfort raced through me at his touch.

“I can’t. Please,” I cried out with panic. I wanted to push his hands away, but I couldn’t break my own free.

“You can and you will. You’re going to come again for me and I’m going to mark this pretty little pussy with my seed, little mate,” he murmured.

Mate.

He’d called me his mate.

There was no more time to think. My fucking began again, and I descended back into that dark painful place once more. My ability to focus on anything but the thick cock surging between my thighs fled.

His rough touch pressed against the overly sensitive bundle of nerves even harder, making me scream, and I didn’t stop. I begged for mercy. I pleaded for forgiveness. I told him I’d do anything if he’d stop forcing me to come for him. His fingers mercilessly worked my clit, driving me into the world of pleasure and barely manageable pain once more. Real fear mixed in with the ecstasy and agony and I found myself wondering if I could even survive through yet another orgasm.

I cried out, drowning within the varying emotions that flew through me at his dominant hand. His cock never stopped slamming into me, possessing me, and reminding me that in our world, I was the human and he was the monster.

He was teaching me that my proper place was beneath him and that was the most powerful feeling of all.

I tried to rush back to the surface and reclaim what I’d lost, but I’d long passed the point of having control. I’d lost it somewhere in my own bed. Maybe I’d never even had it in the first place. Maybe he’d taken it the moment he’d first set his eyes on me.

Against my will, I could feel myself approaching a fourth orgasm. I could tell that it was going to be brutally hard and that more than anything, it was going to hurt considerably.

I panicked, but it didn’t matter. He pushed on anyway.

As much as I tried to fight it, he forced it forward, and it poured over me like a pot of boiling water.

From deep within, a blazing fire surged forth, hurtling through my veins and scorching through every last inch of me. I began to scream, just trying to survive the overwhelming storm of pleasure and intensely hot agony that scalded me from within. My core twisted hard, and my clit pulsed with one jolt of aching sensation over and over again until I lost every bit of myself.

I thrashed beneath him. I writhed into his thrusts, taking him deeper and deeper until I felt his massive girth throb inside me. He roared with his own pleasure, and it forced my orgasm even higher, throwing me into a pleasurable panic as I suffered for him while wholly impaled on his cock.

His seed spurted deep inside me, fiery whiplashes of cum that lashed inside me so hot that I feared that it might brand my pussy with his mark. He pounded into me, enjoying every last second of his orgasm as he conquered me with every inch of his big cock.

That final release broke me, and I soared into the heavens.

I floated somewhere in a dark void in the seconds following that orgasm. It was free of the worries of the world and everything that troubled and scared me. It was a beautiful place, so very peaceful and so wonderful that I found myself wanting to stay there forever.

It was the blissful numbness of complete and utter surrender.

His soft touch brought my head very slowly back to Earth. His touch was tender and soft, and it took me several minutes to realize he’d freed my hands. Carefully, he began to massage my shoulders, probably to help soothe tension, but I was so well satisfied and dazed that I felt nothing of the sort. He gathered me in his arms and arranged me so that I was on my side facing his chest. He wound his arms around my waist and pulled me firmly against him.

I blinked several times and I realized that my cheeks were wet. When I licked my lips, they tasted salty, and it eventually dawned on me that final orgasm had been so powerful that I’d started to cry. My sobs quickened and my body racked forward and in some crazy place in the insanity of it all, I clutched at him with my fingers as though he could save me from myself.

There wasn’t any strength left in my body. My legs felt like jelly. Even the prospect of pushing myself up to a seated position in my own bed seemed like too daunting a task.

“Shhh, my sweet mate. I think that’s enough for you today,” he said gently, his breath tickling the tiny hairs along my earlobe. I cried harder for a time until I could pull myself together enough to quiet my sobs and slow my tears.

Timidly, I curled into him, pressing my forehead against his chest at first before I turned my head and laid my cheek against it. The pounding of his heartbeat was loud, but soothing and for several long minutes I just listened to it. My breathing started to normalize, and I shivered as the heat began to bleed out of me at an alarming rate. My body temperature was dropping and fast. I started to tremble so hard that my teeth chattered.

He moved so quickly that I couldn’t keep up with him, but he lifted me cleanly off the bed and tucked me under the covers. He dove underneath the sheets with me and pulled me back to him, offering me his body heat along with it.

As the minutes passed, I started to feel more like myself. I could feel the sweat evaporating off my skin and his thick milky seed dripping down my thighs. If I had more energy, I would have gotten up to clean myself up, but I was so exhausted that I didn’t really care about how filthy I felt with it drying on my legs.

In fact, I kind of liked it.

The more the numbing bliss faded away, the more I began to feel the aching soreness throughout my limbs and even more so between my thighs. Not too long after that, I finally braved a chance and looked up at him through damp tear-soaked lashes.

“You’re so beautiful like this, little mate,” he murmured, and his compliment made me blush unexpectedly. I bashfully bit my bottom lip, not knowing what to say so I didn’t say anything at all.

“You should know I’m not through with you yet, not by a long shot,” he added, and a soft sound of desperation fled my lips.

“Your refusal to answer my questions still needs to be dealt with, but I’ll save your bottom fucking for another time when you’re not so worn out and I can really enjoy taking that tight little hole,” he whispered, and I shivered at the same time that his hand slid down the arch of my spine. I whimpered softly when he continued his exploration until he slid a finger down the cleft of my backside.

He slid far enough to cup my pussy first. Then, he gathered the wetness that was still seeping from me with his finger, and he returned to find my bottom hole, vulnerable and unprotected and he took advantage of that.

“Don’t! Please!” I yelped, my voice still incredible shaky from what he’d already put me through.

“You’ve got so much more coming, little mate. I’m going to give you just a taste,” he purred.

Without thinking, I tensed hard, and he roughly forced a single thick finger inside my bottom hole. I tried to clench my cheeks to keep him out, but he was too strong. He growled as my tight ring of muscle tightened immeasurably hard around him, unused to taking anyone or anything back there for a very long time.

Pain blazed up and down my spine for several long moments and the tears that had fallen already threatened to return once more.

“Please,” I begged. “Please take it out.”

“I’ll be back for you tomorrow, sweet mate, and by the time I’m finished with you, you’re going to ask me to fuck you here. You’re going to beg me to make it hurt,” he purred.

“I won’t,” I vowed, and he smiled with amusement.

I swallowed hard. He’d already proven himself to be a man of his word.

I hid my face in the crook of his shoulder, feeling my body tremble against him as he roughly pumped his finger in and out of my bottom. The feeling of that thick digit was painful and entirely too foreign, and I hated how it made my sore pussy tighten with anticipation.

Good girls weren’t supposed to getting their bottom holes fingered. Good girls especially didn’t think about getting their asses fucked.

But I was.

And it was making my clit zing with unwelcome desire. Maybe I was a bad girl.

Maybe I was his bad girl.

Whatever. I didn’t want to think about it anymore.

I did know that I wouldn’t be anywhere near here tomorrow night. I wasn’t going to lie here and wait for him to arrive and fuck my bottom hole with his ginormous cock.

That was a worry for tomorrow though. I was too tired to think about it anymore today. I closed my eyes and fell asleep, still safely encased in his arms and surrounded by the security of his scent.

And to be honest…

I liked it.

That’s all until next week’s installment! If you’re aching to finish right now, though, just click below and buy the book!

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