Bethany's Rite (4 page)

There was only one thing Wyc wanted more than to see Enath’s
lifeblood pouring out into this garbage-filled alley, and that was to get
Bethany to safety. He felt her rising panic and didn’t want her to do something
stupid that could cause her harm.

The back door to the café opened a crack. The cook stuck his
prominent nose out and shouted that the police were on their way, adding
invectives after nearly every syllable.

Enath’s head swung toward the sudden noise. Wyc didn’t wait
for another chance. With a lightning-fast spin, he executed a perfect
roundhouse kick and planted the heel of his boot in the Sleht’s face, sending
him crashing into a pile of empty boxes. The café’s door snapped shut, and Wyc
stepped forward to slam Enath’s face into the asphalt. He wanted to finish the
son of a bitch off, but if he killed him, the Predator would return to his
natural form and tonight’s local news would look like an episode from the
X-Files
.

“Today’s your lucky day, you bastard,” he whispered as he
straightened over Enath’s unconscious form.

Time to get Bethany the hell out of here. He turned around
just in time to catch sight of her tight little ass disappearing around the
corner.

Damn it, why couldn’t the woman stay put like she was told?
Didn’t she know she could get herself killed by not doing what he told her? He
wouldn’t let that happen. Not to her. Not again.

Bethany’s hands shook as she dug her apartment keys from the
pocket of her jeans. She couldn’t believe that Wyc had kicked that guy in the
face. He had been rude, threatening and possibly insane, but that was no reason
to beat someone to a bloody pulp. She shivered, remembering the animal ferocity
of Wyc’s attack. Enath hadn’t stood a chance.

The key scraped along the outside of the lock several times
before she managed to ram it home. The lock clicked open and she breathed a
sigh of relief.

A solid heat pressed against her back as a large hand
appeared in front of her face, pushing the door open. She drew a deep breath to
scream, but an arm of iron snaked around her waist, and the hand that had been
on the door clamped around her mouth. She twisted and fought, her heels finding
their targets in shins and insteps.

“Jesus, Bethany,” Wyc hissed in her ear, “would you get out
of the hall?” He pushed her into her apartment and slammed the door shut behind
them. For a long moment, Wyc said nothing, simply raked a harsh glare over her
from the top of her head to her feet.

Against her will, she felt her body responding to his openly
sexual scrutiny once he passed her chin. With her heart still racing from the
encounter in the alley, his thorough perusal only increased her irritation. She
had never noticed before how irritation caused her nipples to harden and her
pussy to cream. She clenched her sex, repressed a shudder of pleasure and then
fisted her hands in anger. Why the hell couldn’t she control her reaction to
this man?

When his gaze returned to settle on her face, his dark eyes
burned into her as he shoved his fingers roughly through his hair. “I told you
to stay put.”

“What?”

“You ran off. You could have been hurt. Killed. You have no
idea what you’re up against.”

“You’re insane. Get out of my apartment.” She started to
step around him and reach for the door, but he grabbed her shoulders and backed
her against it instead.

“How the hell am I supposed to keep you safe when I can’t
trust you to obey me?”

“Keep me safe? I was perfectly fine until you showed up. Now
I’m getting dragged through restaurants and threatened with harvesting. What
the hell does that mean? I’m not a crop in a field.”

Her voice had risen steadily with each statement. Taking a
deep breath, she forced herself to calm down. When he opened his mouth to
respond, she shook her head sharply, cutting him off. “No. Don’t explain. I
don’t want to know. I don’t care. I only want you out of my house. Out of my
life.”

The harsh flash of anger in his eyes faded slightly. He
moved nearer. “This isn’t the way I wanted to explain things to you—”

“No. Stop talking. I don’t want to hear what you have to
say. I just want you to go away.” Her words ended on a desperate, whispered
plea as she flattened her palms on his chest and pushed.

He didn’t back up. Instead, he moved in until her hands were
caught, pressed between his chest and her breasts. She looked up into his face,
terrifyingly close to her own. The hard, steady rhythm of his heart pounded
under her palm. Seemed to pulse through her hand until it fueled the hammering
of her own heart.

“I can’t do that, Bethany.”

The finality of his tone staggered her. He was not going to
let go. She hated being afraid, yet Wyc frightened her beyond anything she had
ever known. And the most horrifying part was that in spite of her fear, she was
struggling with a frantic desire to throw herself as deep as she could into
this man.

She felt, rather than heard, the rumble deep in his chest
against her palms as his face sharpened with desire. He leaned down, his hands
on the door on either side of her face. His thighs pressed against her, and his
hips pinned her body in place, the softness of her belly giving way to the
solid length of his hardened cock.

She took a quick, deep breath and inhaled the same exotic
scent she had thought was cologne last night. It wasn’t. The strange mixture of
spice, musk and man that sent her senses reeling for want of his touch wasn’t
aftershave or soap. It was him. And once again, she found herself being
inexplicably drawn to him. Felt something within her that had been hidden so
deep she had not known of its existence, rise up, shake to awareness and reach
for him.

It terrified her.

“What do you want from me? I don’t even know you.” Her voice
was less than a whisper, her words a prayer for release. Not from him, but
release from the escalating need within her for him to fuck her deep and hard.
She didn’t understand this need he created in her, but no matter how much she
fought it or tried to ignore it, it wasn’t going away. Every minute in his
presence intensified her body’s demand until she burned for his touch. Wild and
fierce, he surrounded her with a presence that exceeded his obvious physical
dominance. As if he were literally sinking into her skin, burrowing past her
defenses into places that had, until now, been hers alone. Asserting ownership
over her very heart and soul.

He lowered his face toward hers, intent clear in his eyes.
He wanted her—all of her. And he was going to take her. Mark her as his. As his
mouth closed over hers, she felt the branding begin.

I don’t even know you
.

Bethany’s words echoed in Wyc’s head. He cursed the twisted,
malicious hand of fate that had kept him from her for so long. She should have
borne him at least one child by now. Instead, she was telling him to get out of
her life. Wanting to escape from him.

Except she wasn’t going to escape him. Not now. Not ever.
The sooner she realized that, the easier this would be on both of them. He’d
planned on explaining her heritage and family to her before fucking her.
Explain how he was her future, how she was his.

But now her hands pressed against his chest, her breath was
coming in short, quick pants, and her eyes darkened with increasing arousal.
Her scent rose to taunt him. She wanted him. Reaching past her fear to touch
him.

And she was going to stand there and tell him to go away?
Like hell she was.

Already tense muscles tightened further. When she refused to
go with him last night, he had wanted to push the issue. More than just push.
He had wanted to throw her over his shoulder and haul her back to his home.
Back to where she’d be safe. Where she belonged. Where he could lay her out and
feast until he was sated.

That’s exactly what he would have done if her mother hadn’t
panicked and jumped through the first portal she came to with Bethany and her
sisters. He wasn’t the only one who cursed the fact that they hadn’t entered a
different place and time. A more reasonable world where it was acceptable to
ride in and simply take what was yours.

Anger stirred his lust, and he took her mouth with the
ferocity of a warrior bent on absolute conquest. Conquest without negotiation.
Without compromise.

She let out a startled gasp, but he didn’t pause or gentle
his attack. Instead, he took advantage of her opened mouth and plunged his
tongue inside, insistent, dominating. Letting her know in no uncertain terms
how he was going to take her body. Just the thought of finally being inside her
tight, hot little cunt had his cock throbbing painfully for release.

He swept his tongue over her teeth before returning to fill
her mouth with fast, pulsing strokes. Her tongue swirled tentatively over his
and his desire spiked in a violent rush. He growled and shoved his fingers into
her hair, angling her head and holding her in place to give him greater access
to the sweet honeyed taste of her mouth.

With a soft whimper, Bethany fisted her hands in his shirt
and arched into him. He dragged his teeth over her bottom lip and then bit it
lightly. Pulling back, he looked down into her face. Her lips were swollen from
his kisses, her cheeks high in color. Her wide eyes, dilated with her own
desire so that only the thinnest rim of green circled her pupils.

She was stunning. So incredibly sexy she stopped his breath.

He would be her first lover. That safeguard had been taken
care of at her first birthday. He closed his eyes and tried to think past the
sharp slap of need pounding through his blood. He had to slow down. Had to take
his time, make sure he was in enough control not to hurt her more than
necessary.

She flexed her fingers, scraping his chest through his
T-shirt with her short nails. He ground his teeth together as his restraint
wavered at her touch. When she flexed her fingers against him again, this time
slower and pressing harder, his lust clawed to be free of its leash.

“Bethany.” He didn’t attempt to smooth the ragged need in
his voice.

She licked her lips, pushed up on her toes and placed an
openedmouthed kiss on his neck. She sucked his skin between her teeth and bit
down hard enough to leave a mark.

He wrapped her tightly in his arms as she licked the spot
she had bitten. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing to me?” His blood
rammed through veins on fire, and every thought in his head involved her naked
and open.

She nipped at his neck again, and then stretched against him
like a cat rousing from a long nap. He released her long enough to pull her
sweater over her head and drop it. A second later, her plain white bra was on
the floor next to it. His eyes narrowed as he took her breasts in his hands and
molded them to his palms.

Mine
. The word tore through him with a surge of
possessiveness that bordered the line of insanity. He didn’t understand it, but
he didn’t question it. At least one Matching myth—fierce possessiveness—was
true after all.

He circled his thumbs around her nipples and watched them
pucker into coral-colored peaks. Bethany dropped her head back and let out a
low moan that went straight to his cock. He lowered his mouth to her breast and
ran his tongue around the tip. Pulling the hardened bud into his mouth, he drew
on it forcefully until she was twisting her fingers through his hair and
writhing against the door.

He kept her other breast cupped in his hand, feathering his
fingers over and around the nipple. When it couldn’t get any tighter, he
pinched and tugged it in rhythm to his sucking of its twin.

She jolted, and her fingers dug into his head. “Oh my God,
Wyc. Stop. Please. I can’t breathe.”

He chuckled and slid his free hand over her belly and
unsnapped her jeans. She tried to push him away, but he ignored her, lowered
her zipper and slid his hand inside her panties. He released a harsh groan when
he found her hot and slick.

“You’re wet.” He pressed his fingers between the lips of her
sex and started to spread her dampness around and over her clit. “So wet and
ready.”

She rocked against his hand again and again, her body
tensing, reaching for release. Her juices coated his fingers as he increased
the pressure on her clit. He pressed her swollen nub between his index and
middle finger. With a moan, she bore down hard.

“You like that, don’t you, babydoll.” He moved his fingers
faster, harder against her clit.

“Oh God. Oh Wyc. Oh God.” She panted out each phrase over
and over and her palms flattened on the door behind her. He squeezed her breast
and pushed a finger up inside her pussy.

Suddenly, her body shuddered and her cunt spasmed around his
finger. Her eyes went wide with surprise, her ivory skin flushed with the heat
of her climax. Her thighs clamped around his hand and she let out a low keening
sound. Panic flashed through her eyes, and she shook her head hard enough to
send her hair flying around her face.

“Let it go, Bethany. Now.” He flexed the finger within her
pulsing cunt, skillfully forcing her orgasm to continue long past when it would
have faded on its own. When the tremors slowed, her body slumped against the
door, her hands on his arms for balance. He withdrew his finger and she sucked
in a fast breath. His hand lingered on her mound, teasing her with gentle
swirls of his fingers in her soaked curls. Another violent shudder racked her body.

“See what I can do to you? And I’m going to do it again and
again. Starting now.”

Bethany bit her bottom lip until the pain helped clear the
euphoric fog from her brain. She forced herself back to reality when all she
really wanted to do was melt to the floor in a puddle of sated desire. What the
hell had happened between her telling Wyc to leave and those mewling sounds
that had just come out of her?

Wyc yanked her jeans and underwear down her legs. “Lift your
foot,” he said. She did.

He tugged off her shoe and sock at the same time he removed
one leg of her jeans. Repeating the process, he finished stripping her and
straightened. In one fluid movement, he dragged his own shirt up and off.

The sight of his bare chest made it difficult to think. He
had a faint tattoo of a dragon on his left pec. Very sexy. Too sexy. She took a
deep breath and focused. On the ceiling.

“Wyc, wait.”

“I’m past waiting, Bethany. And so are you.” He shoved his
hand between her thighs, pressing his fingers into her damp heat. Her head
snapped back down. His unrelenting gaze burned against her bare skin like a
furnace blast. As if to prove his point, he thrust a long finger up inside her,
making her gasp.

“But I can’t—” She cut her own words off with a moan when he
started tracing small circles on the inner wall of her vagina with his finger.

“You already did.”

She tried to catch her breath, catch the reason he wouldn’t
be able to go through with this. A small voice at the back of her brain begged
to keep her concern to herself. The louder voice of her conscience won out.

“I mean, you can’t.”

He pulled his hand away from her and began undoing the
button fly of his jeans. “The hell I can’t, babydoll.”

She swallowed, trying to focus on what she wanted to say and
not on what he was doing.

“You don’t understand. No one has ever been able to fuck
me.”

That stopped his movements cold. His eyes held an arctic
gleam that shot a shaft of alarm through her.

“And how many men have tried to fuck you, Bethany?” The ice
in his tone could have frozen a sunbeam.

“Enough. And they all wound up sick or hurt. I’m trying to
tell you that I’m cursed—”

He pushed his jeans down over his hips. “Not cursed.
Protected. Kept for me.”

There was something fundamentally wrong with his statement,
but all coherent thought streamed out of her brain at the sight of his erection
so suddenly and fully revealed. He was huge. Thick. Long. The head of his cock
dark red, almost purple in color. Dark veins ran down the length, standing out
in stark relief. His balls were already drawn up tightly under his shaft.

He was planning to put that inside her. Doubt and disbelief
rolled through her. Fear started to win the battle against lust, but before she
could move, he gripped her thighs and lifted her off the floor. Her back
pressed against the door, and her hands flew up to grasp his shoulders.
Spreading her legs, he opened her body. He looked at her exposed cunt, and the
planes of his face sharpened with a mixed expression of possessiveness and
want.

He lifted her higher and stepped into her, pressing her wet
pussy flush to his stomach.

“Wrap your legs around my waist. Now,” he growled when she
hesitated. His cock prodded her bottom and she squirmed, trying to move higher
and locking her ankles together behind his back.

He shifted her, his fingers biting into the cheeks of her
ass, until her sex slid along his shaft. She looked down. He wasn’t entering
her, just moving her slowly up and down. His cock started to shine as her
juices spilled out and over him, more each time he pushed her up and then
allowed her to slide back down his length.

“That’s right, baby. Watch.” The sexy timbre of Wyc’s voice
drove her lust up another level. “Look at how wet you’re getting me. I can feel
your heat, smell your need. The way you’re creaming all over my cock is driving
me crazy.”

She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the straining head of
his penis trapped between their bodies. The heat of his cock scorched her pussy
and made her whimper in need. Pre-cum beaded out from the slit at the top,
glistening and pearly white.

Giving in to the urge to taste it, she reached down, wiped
it off with the tip of her finger. As she brought it up to her mouth, the heavy
musk smell of his sex invaded her nostrils, and she realized that he had
stopped sliding her over his cock.

His chest didn’t move with a breath, his eyes didn’t blink,
his hands didn’t shift from their almost painful grasp where he held her in
place. The only thing that kept him from looking completely frozen in time as
his eyes focused on what she was doing was the ticcing muscle at the side of
his jaw.

Her mouth curved into a slight smile right before she parted
her lips, slipped her finger inside and sucked. Slowly, she pulled her finger
free.

“Mmmm,” she hummed, pressing her lips together. Bethany
watched in amazement and alarm as dark lust—wild, fierce and primal—flamed in
Wyc’s eyes.

His body jerked, bucked once against her and a strangled
noise forced its way free of his throat. His mouth branded hers with a kiss so
violent and base in its taking, she was lost. Completely engulfed by him.

She felt a release in her soul, heard him murmur against her
lips before crushing them under his again. He positioned one forearm underneath
her butt, rocked his body seductively against hers until her cunt was clenching
with a need to be filled.

He continued the rocking motion and slid first one, then two
fingers up inside her. Pushing them up until her virgin barrier stopped them.
He pressed against it, and she stiffened from the brief stab of pain. He pulled
his fingers back and began stretching her opening until three fingers were able
to slide inside her.

It was uncomfortable, but not unbearable. The rocking motion
of his cock against her clit overrode the slow burn of muscles being stretched,
and his consuming kisses kept seizing her attention. She twisted her hips,
seeking the release he was building her to. He changed position slightly. A
wave of apprehension rolled over her as she realized he had replaced his
fingers with the hot, smooth head of his cock. Its steady ingress unyielding
and insistent.

He worked just the head in as he maintained the rocking
motion of their bodies. The fit was tight, and she squeezed him hard, afraid to
move either up or down. She shook with the effort to remain still. The need to
have him fully implanted within her struggled against the overwhelming surge of
emotion and pain at having him invade her body.

He withdrew slightly and then pushed in again, deeper. She
sucked in a breath and dug her nails into his shoulders. Once again, he pressed
against the barrier, only this time, the pain was sharper. She shook her head
and closed her eyes, trying to push up off him.

He didn’t release her. Instead, he lifted her up a couple of
inches. The relief was immediate. She let out a deep breath and opened her eyes
to tell him to put her down.