Hunter, Hunted: Claimed by the Enemy (Werewolf Erotic Romance) (7 page)

She grimaced. What a situation she found herself in, worried for the fate of her captor, trying to make a life among her enemies. But that’s how it was. She could no longer deny she and he were bonded – she felt it. Maybe their fates really were intertwined.

As usual Lucas sensed her anxiety, if not all the reasons. He moved closer, and nuzzled against her neck. “Don’t worry,” he said. “It will not be
my
death.”

.

Lucas tried to anticipate her needs, but knew so little about how humans lived that he was hopeless at it. It was almost endearing. He didn’t understand her need for modesty – why she insisted on wearing clothing even when it was hot, or the reason she blushed to hear or see others mating in the open.

Still, he made an effort. To the tent they now called home, he brought things he thought she would appreciate. Flat woven cushions to sit on, candles and a lantern, a bone comb for her hair.

On their second night with the pack they lay together in the tent. They caressed each other, languorously exploring. It was slow and unhurried, not like their passionate matings in the forest.

She learned what made him sigh, the places on him that were sensitive. She discovered how to bring him pleasure with her mouth, as he had done for her.

All her anxiety melted away when they lay like this. Adrianna felt her sexual side awakening – the side she’d never known was there.

Still, aware of the people sleeping in tents around them, she had to bury her face against him to muffle her moans, forcing herself to be quiet when her mate brought her to the heights of bliss.

The next day, they finally had time alone. Lucas had been away all day on a hunt. The wolves had brought back several deer, and the afternoon had been spent preparing the meat. Adrianna had helped, determined to carry her own weight and appear competent in the pack’s eyes.

As the sun began to turn the sky pink and orange, she stood, looking out over the grassland.

Lucas came up behind her. She started, jumping a little, then sighed and relaxed as he wrapped his arms around her.

“What is it?” He asked, always able to sense when something was on her mind.

“I could swear I hear the call of gulls.” Adrianna told him, holding back the real things she worried about. “Is there a lake nearby?” She had heard gulls on her one trip to a neighbouring village on a lake. The birds made such a clamour she’d always remembered it.

He gave a little laugh, his breath disturbing her hair. “No lake,” he said. “It’s the ocean.”

“What?” Adrianna twisted in his arms and stared up at him. “We’re near the ocean?”

“Of course. The bitter coast.”

“How far is it?” She asked, excitement bubbling up inside her. “I’ve never seen it before.”

“Really? How can you not have seen the ocean?”

She scowled, but saw the mischief in his eyes. He was teasing her. She smacked him uselessly on the chest.

Lucas laughed quietly, and grabbed her wrist, holding it away from his body as he bent to kiss her. She brought her other hand up to push him away, and he caught that too. It was a game between them – a token resistance that fuelled the fires of their passion. He kissed her. His lips were soft and warm.

“Will you take me there?” She breathlessly asked him. She wondered what the sea was like – she’d heard it was just water as far as you could see. Apparently it went on forever, until the edge of the world. She wondered if it was beautiful. She thought it must be.

Lucas didn’t see the sense in promising to do something tomorrow. He believed in doing things right
now
. He shifted to his wolf form, and Adrianna climbed gleefully onto his back.

It only took a short while to get there. She heard the waves long before they reached the ocean, and the earth became sandy under the wolf’s feet. He stopped, and she got off his back, and they walked together, her hand resting on his fur.

The sun was setting. The water was dark beneath a brilliant sky of purple, blue and pink. Little waves rolled in and crashed on the beach. Adrianna walked in the wet sand, edging closer to the sea. She stared at the endless sea, straining her eyes to see any sign of what was on the other side.

Her mate walked up beside her, changing to his human form.

“Did you know, our stories say that once Man sailed across the ocean?” She said, with a laugh. “It’s silly. How can you sail across it, if there’s nothing on the other side but the end of the world? Sometimes I think people just make this stuff up.” She grinned at him, and he smiled and shrugged. She saw the desire in his eyes when he looked at her, and felt a little thrill.

She dipped a toe in the water. It was cold. “Is it safe?” She asked, imagining monsters in the depths.

“It is when you’re with me.”

Adrianna didn’t know how to swim well, but they splashed and played. They made love on the sand, and she didn’t hold herself back or try to be quiet, letting her cries of passion ring out over the rolling of the waves.

.

They arrived back at the camp, damp and sandy, to find a roaring bonfire and the wolf-kin laughing and dancing around it. Several of them gambolled around in wolf form, chasing each other between tents and leaping over obstacles. Children ran around by themselves without any fear. Everyone feasted on roasted meat.

The Alphas watched over it all, serene and smiling. Max showed no sign of animosity, any conflict between he and Lucas forgotten for the moment. It was the way of the wolves’ society. They were first and foremost a pack - a family. Issues between them were put aside until they needed to be aired, in the interest of harmony in the group.

Adrianna looked for her friends. Martha was leaning back in the arms of her mate and Catelynn rested in a pile amongst a big grey wolf and another smaller wolf.

Starving, Adrianna ate her fill of roasted meat. To her delight, there were vegetables too – onions and potatoes and carrots. Martha explained that during the summer when the pack settled in one place, she and Catelynn kept a garden.

In wolf-form, Lucas let the little wolves climb all over him, playfully batting them away and mock-growling. They tugged on his fur and ears.

Illura came over, her tan skin glowing in the light of the fire, and sat down. Adrianna was unsure how to react, wary of the issues between Illura’s mate and her own. “How are you, little one?” She asked.

Adrianna looked at her. Illura showed no sign of anything but genuine friendliness. “I am well.” She answered with a small smile.

“I suppose it is hard for you here,” the Alpha female said. “It is quite a perspective change.”

Addy blinked, surprised, and stared at the woman. “Yes.” Was all she could answer.

“My mother was human.” Illura said.

“Really?”

The Alpha nodded. “She taught me a lot about your people.”

They were quiet for a minute, watching the others.

“Do you miss them?” Illura asked.

Addy had to think about it for a moment. She had asked herself the same question. She thought of her brother Eli, rough, scarred and full of hatred. Of the cowed women and children of her village, and the hunters that set the law for everyone. “Yes, and no.”

The Alpha nodded, seemingly unsurprised. “You will find we are not as terrible as you have been taught. Not in all ways, at least.” She revealed her sharp white teeth with a smile. “Anyway. We wolves are the future. If you would have a future, you are in the best place.”

“What do you mean?” A coldness crept up her arms, and Addy shivered. Was the woman goading her after all?

But Illura looked at her kindly, with something like pity in her golden eyes. “You see, humans are the relics. The world has moved on.” She said. “The vines and forest have overtaken your creations. The wild has eaten away everything people once built.” She raised her chin, looking fierce and proud. “Beasts once driven to the brink of extinction by your people now live in abundance, unchallenged.
Our
kind rules the wilderness.”

Adrianna stared at the fire. After a moment, she reluctantly nodded.

“Yet, you stubbornly cling, believing you own the earth and it has merely been taken from you. You kill yourselves fighting to regain what no longer belongs to you.”

“What else can we do?” Adrianna asked. Her eyes were stinging from the smoke, and unshed tears.

Illura shrugged. “Adapt.”

“Can we ever work together? Or at least have peace?”

The female looked at her. Her eyes looked older than her youthful, pretty face. And she looked a little sad. “I don’t know.”

“We can.” Adrianna said, with more surety than she felt. Illura smiled at her, and she smiled back.

The seed of a wish, a plan, was planted in her heart.

I
n the morning, she started the long, painstaking process of making a bow. She filled a water skin and borrowed a knife and a small hand-axe for a trip to the woods.

Lucas wanted to come with her. She shook her head resolutely and pushed past him. When he followed her, she whirled on him with anger in her eyes.

“Am I your mate, or your slave?” She said. Lucas only looked at her, confused and perhaps a little hurt. For a moment, it felt good to hurt him. He had brought her into this mess. “I was fine before you came along,” she said, “and I will be fine alone in the forest for one day.”

He bowed his head and let her pass. Adrianna suspected he would follow at a distance anyway.

She was wary, but nothing challenged her in the forest. She saw a monstrous snake, but it didn’t seem to notice her and she was able to walk the other way.

After an hour or two of searching, she found a couple of likely branches and carried them back to the camp. Her ire had dissipated by then, having had space to think things over.

Lucas was there acting as though he hadn’t been trailing her, but he had a dried leaf stuck in his hair. Adrianna went to him and picked it out. She raised her eyebrows, but said nothing.

He watched her while she sat on a log behind their tent, and used a knife to strip her branches. He had picked up on her newfound sense of purpose, and was curious, but it seemed he didn’t want to push her after her earlier coldness.

“I was a helpless village girl at home,” she said, gritting her teeth with effort as she made long knife strokes. “I’ll be damned if I’ll be one now. If I am to be part of your pack, I will make myself worthy of it.” She set her jaw and looked defiantly at him, expecting some resistance. But he smiled resignedly.

“That’s one of the reasons I chose you.” He said.

Adrianna rested the end of her branch against the ground, leaning on it as though she needed it for support. “Why?”

“You are fierce and clever,” he said, “Like one of us.”

She looked at him carefully. She hadn’t told him about her new ambition. Not yet. She had to think it over. There were decisions to be made.

“I was not born a wolf, but a human, the relic of a dying race.” She said. She put the branch down, and knelt down on the ground with Lucas. “I belong to your people now, but I can’t stand on this side and watch humanity struggle.”

He opened his mouth to ask what she meant - but she climbed onto his lap, straddling him, and pressed her body up against his. She felt his body’s immediate reaction, as he brought a hand up to wrap in her hair.

“I am carrying your child.” She murmured. Catelynn had told her, somehow able to detect it in her scent, even so early on. Thinking of the younglings in the camp and their free way of living, Adrianna couldn’t help feeling tentatively excited at the possibility of raising her own child.

She wondered if Lucas already knew. He held her tightly and kissed her furiously, his tongue seeking hers as though he needed to taste her. He kissed away a tear as it ran down her cheek. His teeth grazed her ear.

Suddenly breathless with need and other unnamed emotions, Adrianna raised her skirt – a mere slip of fabric that reached her knees – pushed aside clothing, and lowered herself down on him. She felt him enter her. His manhood was rigid and throbbing, his skin hot. He filled her perfectly, groaning as she rocked against him.

He took her by the hips and thrust up into her, not content to let her set the pace. His desire for her reached new heights and overflowed, and this time Adrianna felt equal need. Their lips only broke apart when the need to breathe became urgent, and quickly came back together.

She didn’t even think to worry about anyone seeing them. But the pack, living closely together, had a way of making themselves scarce at moments like these. If they heard her moans and cries, Lucas’ murmured declarations of love, and Adrianna’s soft answer, no one ever let on.

g

Did you love
Hunter, Hunted: Claimed by the Enemy (Werewolf Erotic Romance)
? Then you should read
The Prince's Pet
by Alexia Wiles!

Her village burned and ravaged by raiders, farmer's daughter Eveline has been sold into slavery. Her journey will take her further than she would ever guess. All the way over the sea to a foreign land, to be presented as a gift to the handsome warrior-prince Issander, the heir to the Cimbrai throne.
Surrounded by luxury, Eveline is pampered and groomed to be the perfect pleasure slave. As she learns to serve her new master, Eveline is taken on another journey: one of awakening sexual desire, spirituality, passion and love. And the reluctant heir finds himself falling for his fair foreign beauty.

With an ailing king and an obligation to marry and secure the succession, will Eveline's prince cast her aside, or will the two find a way to achieve happiness together?

Warning: This erotic romance is intended for adults only. It contains sex scenes, light bondage, discipline and slavery themes.
Length: 43k words - novella/novel

This book is set in a fantasy world in an historical time period. It does not correspond to any particular location or time in our history.