So his.
Her hands were in his hair. Not urging him away, no, his vampiress was asking for more.
He’d give her more.
He licked. He tasted.
She came against his tongue. “Drake.” A whisper now.
Slowly, he rose above her. Her eyes were wide, shining, and her fangs flashed faintly from behind her red lips.
“You’re not a monster.” It pissed him off that she’d said those words before. No f**king way. Not her. Not ever. “You’re beautiful.”
She blinked up at him, and her lips curled in a faint smile. The sight nearly broke his heart.
What was left of the damn thing.
He thrust into her, driving deep, joining them. His hands locked with hers, their fingers threading together. The bed squeaked beneath him. In and out, he thrust. Again and again. Their eyes held.
Their breath heaved out.
Faster, faster now, harder…
Her legs locked around his hips. Her feet dug into his spine when she arched toward him.
His claws cut through his fingertips, but he didn’t slice her. Hell, no, he didn’t so much as scratch her with his claws.
Deeper, deeper.
He saw her come again. Saw the flash of pleasure on her face as she eyes seemed to go blind. She jerked beneath him and her sex squeezed his cock.
Yes.
He was so close to coming. He’d explode in her at any moment when she–
“Mark me.”
Her husky words had every muscle in his body tightening.
Wolves marked their mates. He hadn’t marked her before, he’d been waiting. There was an official ceremony, a marking in front of the pack. He’d wanted to do things right with her.
He’d waited…
And lost her.
“Mark me,” she whispered again, and dammit, she was asking for his bite. She wanted him as wildly as he wanted her.
He’d never been able to deny her anything.
She arched beneath him, offering herself. His teeth closed over her flesh, right where her shoulder curved into her neck. He licked the skin there.
Mark her.
It was what the wolf wanted and what the man needed.
His teeth pressed into her skin, breaking the skin, and the sweet flavor of her blood flowed onto his tongue.
Even as he tasted her, claimed her, his climax slammed into him. The powerful release crashed through his body as he pumped into her. He lifted his head, stared into her eyes, and, as he drove into her once more, the pleasure tore a roar from him.
Her name.
Drake held her tight, didn’t let her go, couldn’t. And he kept thrusting. Because he was still hard for her and growing harder every second.
He’d finally claimed her as his own, and no one would ever take her from him again.
***
“How do you lose a werewolf?” Gabe asked as his boots sank into the snow. So much damn snow. Bathing everything in white.
He hated that pure snow.
It looked much better when it was stained red.
So he turned to the right and sliced open the stomach of the incompetent newbie vamp next to him.
The fresh bloods were always so hard to train.
The guy, a blond with too-soft features, immediately fell to the ground, gasping and bleeding with a bright spray of red.
“Suck it the hell up,” Gabe snarled at him because the fresh blood’s screams grated. “It’s not like the wound will kill you.” But he was tempted. Oh, so tempted to finish the job.
The foolish bastards around him had let the alpha get away. They’d let the prick just vanish into the wilderness.
“Probably back at his compound by now,” Gabe muttered as he spun away and stared off into the distance. “Surrounded by all those mangy wolves.”
Gabe had been around a long time. Too long. He’d seen the worst wars and hell that the humans could create.
That hell…it had made him smart. He’d learned from the mistakes of the others. He knew how to pick his battles. Plan his attacks.
He wanted this land. The land that was rarely kissed by sunlight. The land with the savage side that loved his darkness.
The wolves had made a truce with him long ago. Divided the territory. That twisted freak Jeremiah had been all too eager to forge a deal with him.
But the new alpha wasn’t the same. Gabe had known that for years. Drake Wyler was different. Not so easily manipulated and controlled.
Drake will come for my head.
Because Gabe had taken the head of Drake’s father. His mother. And because…
I took her.
A wolf howled in the distance. A real beast? Or a shifter out for a run?
Gabe narrowed his eyes and stared into the darkness. Jeremiah had wanted him to take the little human. To torture her, to kill her.
He’d had his torturing fun. Oh, he always enjoyed that, but…
Gabe hadn’t killed Paige Sloan. Death would have been too easy and not at all in line with his plans.
“Wh-what can we do?” One of the vamps asked behind him.
Gabe’s teeth ground together. “She stopped screaming,” he gritted out. When she’d finally realized what was happening, when she’d seen Jeremiah and had known why she was taken, Paige had stopped calling out for her lover.
He’d actually seen the life fade from her eyes, even while she was still breathing.
That total lack of feeling–he’d seen that look before.
In my own eyes.
So he’d stopped Jeremiah from gutting her. Gabe had bitten Paige, transformed her. She’d fled, but he’d watched her. And he’d always known that the perfect time would come to use her.
That time was now.
“H-he followed her out to the lake, ran right out…” Ah, this came from the still bleeding blond. John. John Mackenzie. How long had he been in the fold? Two years? Three? It was getting hard for Gabe to remember all the fresh bloods. As he stared at the blond, John gave a quick nod. “He chased her out…I saw ‘em…through my binoculars.”
Because you couldn’t get too close to a wolf’s lair, not without being scented. So the vamps used technology to supplement their already enhanced vision.
They’d watched. They’d waited. They’d attacked.
The plan had still gone to hell.
“He took her with him.” This came from one of the other vamps. The one with the dark eyes and weathered skin. Lorenzo, the Spaniard. “She’s probably dead by now.”
Gabe laughed. They really didn’t understand the wolf at all. He did. “She’s probably getting f**ked.” Because she was the one weakness that Drake possessed. He’d run away from his pack for her. Run into danger for her.