Fated: A Dark Shifter Romance by Delta James – Extended Preview

“Your what?” she whispered.

“My fated mate,” the alpha wolf said with a chuckle. “And Armand feared I would choose an inappropriate she-wolf for my own. Somehow, I don’t think he ever envisioned you, my mate.”

“I am not your mate,” Emma said, backing away from him.

Jean-Cristophe rumbled low, deep, and seductively to her. The sound reverberated through her entire being, warming it to the point that her entire system felt as though it was on fire, but not in a way that could damage her body. This was a far more destructive kind… one that threatened to destroy her.

She watched as his finger stretched out to her and gently stroked her cheek.

“You will tell me your name and then we will leave this place. I will see that your bill at the boardinghouse is settled and your sailboat scuttled.”

He reached over and tugged her riding skirt back up to cover her. She had forgotten that she had pulled it down past her knees in order to mount and ride the bull-shifter. Oh, God, had she been bared all this time?

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” she snarled.

“You will return home with me and we will settle this and make our bonding formal.”

“Rivière Du Loup is not my home. And I am not your mate, fated or otherwise. Did you miss the part where I am vampyr?” Emma said, drawing herself up regally.

“You are who and what I say you are. Right now, you are my most naughty mate who, if she isn’t careful, will ride home on a very sore bottom.”

“You seem to be missing the big picture here, Alpha,” she sneered. “I am vampyr; I am not for you. It is forbidden.”

He surprised her by laughing. “And who is to stop me, mate? You?” He shook his head. “You, my mate will have your hands full dealing with me. We will return home where you will take your vows sealing yourself to me for all eternity.”

“Eternity is symbolic for you. For me, it is fact.”

“A fact that has haunted you since your mortality was stolen when you were sired. I will restore that to you along with your glorious destiny as my mate. I will mark and claim you and take you into seclusion to knot and tie you and to begin to quell your rebellious nature.”

“Hey, jackass! Did you miss the part where I am vampyr?”

“And your point would be?”

At a loss for words, she repeated, “It is forbidden. Your Ruling Council will move against you.”

“They will not. They cannot defeat the Coalition.”

“My people…”

“Your people are now wolf. Night walkers have always been too selfish, too arrogant, too reckless to band together and harness the strength and power that is pack. But that, my beloved, will no longer be true for you.”

“Doesn’t it bother you that I sucked bull-boy there’s blood and was about to mount and ride him to ultimate satisfaction until you jerked me off of him? The least you could have done was let me bring both of us to climax…”

“My alpha, I did not know…” said the bull, trembling at Jean-Cristophe’s feet, clearly panicked by the idea of having intimately touched his liege lord’s mate.

Jean-Cristophe regarded the young man who knelt before him. He placed his hand on his head.

“You had no way of knowing and I am sure your blood has helped to restore her. I thank you for that. Know that you are always welcome at Rivière Du Loup.”

Jean-Cristophe extended his hand to Emma. “Come, mate, I would have us home before I breach you with my knot the first time.”

Emma backed away. “I’m not going anywhere with you!”

She whirled to run, but found the two guards had blocked her way. The bull-shifter whose lifeblood she had fed on now stood barring the hole Jean-Cristophe had just created. As she turned again, a large hank of her hair was fisted by the alpha of New Orleans.

“Come, mate. We have a long ride ahead of us. I will have the boardinghouse send your things to Rivière Du Loup.”

“I am not going with you,” she cried, trying to dislodge his hand from her hair.

When that failed, she brought both of her fists down on his forearm trying to break his hold. It produced no effect whatsoever.

“Enough,” he snarled, shaking her.

Emma grabbed his arm in her hands and using it for leverage, jumped up, kicking out with both feet to try to gain her freedom. Again, Jean-Cristophe held fast before jerking her toward him, bending at the waist to heave her over his broad shoulder, trapping her legs against his brawny chest with his muscular arm as he stood erect. Emma doubled her hands into a powerful hammer and struck his kidney area with all of her might. She couldn’t see or feel any effect.

Before she could make further plans for escape, Jean-Cristophe’s large hand descended on her backside, making a loud slapping noise.

“Shit!” she cried. “That hurts!”

Twice more his hand connected sharply with her upturned rump. Emma screamed, more in outrage than pain… at least at this point. She was well aware that if Jean-Cristophe continued to swat her, pain would overtake outrage. Not knowing what else to do, she began to pummel his back.

“I have had enough!” he thundered. “Barkeep!”

The fox-shifter appeared. “Yes, my alpha?”

“I need a room that will afford my mate a bit more privacy for her first taste of discipline.”

“No…” wailed Emma.

“The top of the stairs, to the right, at the end of the hall,” came the reply without any kind of hesitation whatsoever.

Jean-Cristophe turned toward the staircase. As the bull-shifter stood, the enraged alpha wolf turned on him.

“I thought to stand outside the door, my liege, to ensure you and your mate are safe and undisturbed.”

Jean-Cristophe nodded once, said nothing and headed up the stairs. Emma beat at his back, kidneys, anything to force him to let her go. Nothing even seemed to faze him. He flung open the door and slammed it close behind him. He crossed the room and dumped her unceremoniously on the bed. Jean-Cristophe’s eye seemed to focus on the gold doubloon that hung around her neck. He reached for it, but she swatted his hand away. He looked her over from head to foot before shredding her clothing and stripping her so that all that was left was her under-bust corset, the chemise pulled down to reveal one breast, and her boots. Shoving her back onto the bed with enough force that she rocked back, he grabbed her feet and removed her boots.

Emma crossed her arms over her chest but then realized it was, for the most part, covered, but her uncovered mons was on full display. Quickly she moved her hands to cover her nether regions as she tried to back away from him. “Get out!”

Jean-Cristophe’s nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply, exhaled in a sigh, and then called to her quietly but with deliberate intent. Emma shuddered. Realization hit her with the force of a warhorse’s double-barreled kick. She physically recoiled. Darby had told her so many times about the call of a fated mate—how regardless of what the intended wanted, she was helpless to resist. This had to be fate’s twisted idea of a bad joke—had she escaped Sir Nickolas only to be saddled with an alpha male wolf-shifter?

“No,” he said, grasping her ankle and dragging her back across the bed to him.

Emma tried to grab the bedclothes to stop his progress, but it was no more effective than trying to fend him off with her fists had been. He released her ankle only long enough to grab her forearm before sitting on the edge of the bed and pulling her across his hard thighs. She could feel his cock, rampant beneath the front of his breeches, straining to get out.

She and Darby had been close… close enough for Emma to know exactly what Jean-Cristophe planned. Her nipples were beaded, her breath was erratic, and desire pooled between her legs. Emma knew that like all the she-wolves before her, his spanking would not only quell her rebelliousness, but it would also light a fire of arousal that would be impossible for anyone but the man inflicting the spanking to quench.

Emma tried reaching back with first one and then the other hand to deflect any blows he meant to deliver and protect her naked buttocks.

“No!” she cried again.

“Yes,” he answered in a deep, low rumble that set her every last nerve on edge.

Jean-Cristophe’s palm came down on her bottom with a resounding thwack. Over and over his hand connected as pain bloomed across the fullest part of her lower cheeks. When they had been together, Sir Nickolas had spanked her, and she had found it mildly arousing and far from painful. The blows that Jean-Cristophe landed were meant to punish first and arouse second. He repeated the swats at least a dozen times, causing Emma to yowl.

Even as the pain spread across her bottom, a different kind of fire raced through her veins. Instinctively she knew that this man knew how to elicit the amount of pain and arousal he wanted as he punished what he believed to be a deserving female across his lap. The harder and longer he spanked, the more the hurt increased and spread. She began to writhe over his lap as he held her in place by her crossed wrists pressing against the small of her back. Emma’s clit being rubbed against his breeches as his spanking caused her hips and ass to rise and fall rhythmically. His cock continued to harden and throb as he spanked.

As suddenly and violently as it had begun, Jean-Cristophe ceased thrashing her and began to rub her red, swollen globes sensuously as he growled seductively. Her legs spread as if of their own accord, inviting him to feel her wet need. Emma could have withstood more of the harsh strikes against her derriere, but this gentle rubbing was her undoing and she began to cry.

“Name?” he asked, speaking for the first time since he had drawn her over his knee.

Emma said nothing. The growl returned to its angry and commanding tone and made her quiver in his grasp. Without a word, he began to spank her again. She wriggled and struggled and tried to get away. Worse than the expanding level of pain was her ever increasing arousal, which was driving her into a frenzy of primitive, feral need. Coupled with having just fed on fresh blood, her body was screaming for release. Her poor, seldom-used pussy continued to get wetter to the point she was sure she was dripping onto his thigh.

The blows Jean-Cristophe laid across her bottom were not meant to be anything but punishing. Emma could feel the grim determination in each strike as it landed. She was quite certain that he meant for her not to forget this spanking any time soon. Hard swat after hard swat rained down on her backside. She could feel each one individually and as it compounded with the ones before it to ignite a fire on her backside, she feared it would consume everything in its wake.

“Stop… please.”

She hated that she had resorted to pleading with him. He landed another five hard strikes on her bottom, on each of her sit spots and on the top of each thigh. Emma couldn’t repress the yowl that came out as he laid the last one on her upper leg.

“Name?” he asked almost cordially.

“I hate you!” she cried.

“Perhaps, but when I have knotted and tied you to me a number of times, that will change.”

He repeated the pattern of five hard blows, reversing the order from the previous set so that the last one was a harsh swat to her now very red, very swollen globes.

Emma tried to stifle the tears but failed and began to sob almost immediately. “Pl-pl-please?” she managed to choke out.

Nothing, in all of her centuries of life, had prepared her for the level of agony Jean-Cristophe had been able to inflict on her. When she hesitated, Jean-Cristophe landed another round of five stinging smacks. Each one was distinct as well as cumulative.

“Name,” he commanded harshly.

“Emma,” she cried.

“Bien.”

Emma heard him inhale and knew that her arousal called to him the same way his rumbling called to her. Silently, Jean-Cristophe stood her up, but before she could even begin to fathom what that might mean, he’d spun her around and pushed her back down on the bed, belly first. He fisted her hair and used it to hold her down. It had been centuries since she had not been the aggressor in all matters sexual—always insisting on being on top and controlling the action. She knew that with this man, she would never have control. He would dominate her in all ways, sexual or otherwise. It terrified her that she knew, even now, that her life had irrevocably changed. Jean-Cristophe would claim her as his mate, would possess and control her completely and there was nothing she could do about it. The illusion of being one of the top predators had been ripped away in the space of a heartbeat.

Out of the corner of her eye, she tried to look back; she could see him opening the fly of his breeches and allowing his hard cock to spring free. He stepped between her legs, holding her by the fist in her hair and his other hand grasping her hip, his fingers digging into her fair skin. The head of his cock probed and then parted her labia as he relentlessly pushed forward, her hot, wet heat yielding and betraying any argument she could make to herself that she didn’t want him. Jean-Cristophe meant to mount her and take her from behind. This would be no gentle claiming, but one predator demanding the submission of the other and enforcing his will upon her own.

Emma screamed as he surged forward, his cock plundering her pussy as he sank to the end of her channel, her vaginal walls softening and expanding to accommodate his size. His groan of supreme male conquest and satisfaction made her writhe beneath him. Jean-Cristophe began to stroke her heated sheath with his rock-hard staff, his hips slapping against her punished buttocks driving home the lesson that she had been well spanked and by a man who knew how.

She was being fucked… hard with little thought as to what she might want. His need, his arousal were all that mattered—not only to him, but, in that moment, to her as well. As her muscles clenched in anticipation of her impending orgasm, she realized that the walls of the room she was in were thin. Every sound, every cry, every squeaking bedspring, every male grunt could he heard by anyone wanting to listen. Emma had never been used this way by any man. Not even Sir Nickolas had dared to possess her with such unadulterated hedonism. Never had she been taken by a man who saw her as his without regard to her wants or needs. The fact that she had come and her body was preparing to do so again was irrelevant.

Pure lust and a need to dominate seemed to drive him in a frenzied display of feral dominance and desire. Seemingly, without conscious thought, Emma arched her back, offering her pussy at a better angle for him to pummel. His cock was enormous, but her pussy expanded to receive it all. His staff continued to enlarge and began to twitch in a way that signaled his impending release. Emma’s body sought its own pinnacle and her inner walls shook and quivered as the level of pleasure he was inflicting increased.

Her breath sped up, and the cries she had been making morphed into whimpers and moans as another orgasm strove to overtake her. Emma’s body stiffened in anticipation, and she began to pant like a she-wolf in heat, terrified that once more he would wring an unwanted climax from her body. As he gave a series of brutal thrusts, she fell over the edge into the abyss of bliss as her pussy spasmed, clamping down on him, legs trembling as she reveled in his hold. He shoved himself deep, penetrating her to her very core, howling as he sent his seed to flood her pussy.

Jean-Cristophe surged against her sore bottom, ensuring every drop of his life’s elixir was trapped inside her. She knew the amount he would seed her womb with when sealed to her in the tie was far more than what he continued to release into her. He had taken what he believed to be his and filled her. The fact that her kind was forbidden to him didn’t seem to faze him. Stunned, sore, and incredibly sated, Emma laid there, her pussy full of his seed. Jean-Cristophe remained deep inside her, his cock throbbing as it spurted the last drops of his cum nudged up against entrance of her womb.

Emma believed him to be mad… howling at the moon mad. But Jean-Cristophe didn’t seem to care and he had given her no choice in the matter. She lay beneath him spent, as her sheath still experienced small spasms as if to draw all that he had deposited within her as deep as possible. After one last surge forward, Jean-Cristophe, the alpha of New Orleans, patted her painful backside with what she thought might pass for affection and uncoupled from her, their intermingled essence dripping off the tip of his cock onto the inside of her thigh.

Seeking to try to take back some of her own power and knowing that male wolves took satisfaction in successfully breeding a mate, she said scathingly, “You do know I’m undead, right? Regardless of how many times you mount me and flood my pussy with your seed, I will never bear you a child. The act of knotting and tying me will yield no different result. Take me to mate and the Gautier line will end with you.”

Jean-Cristophe shocked her by laughing. “If that is your best example of pillow talk, my beloved, I can see why you have been alone so long. And for the record, the warm, wet pussy I just fucked felt nothing akin to undead to me. On the contrary, it pulsed and trembled with the very essence of life all along my length, bidding me welcome and to stay. Even if we are not gifted with offspring, I have brothers and sisters who will ensure the continuation of our bloodline. But do not fret, beloved, I will see a baby in your belly or die trying.”

“Do you not understand? I am undead, I cannot give life.” This was the great sorrow of her existence. Before she even knew she wanted it, the ability to bear a child had been taken from her.

Sensing her anguish, he rumbled to her soothingly as he stroked her still fevered body. “Do not fret, my Emma, when you are made wolf, all will be right.”

“You cannot turn me without my consent…”

“And again, who is to stop me? You are my fated mate, my Emma, and wolf you shall be.”