On a Razor's Edge (10 page)

“Nice and big.
My kinda toy.” Her body bent further as she knelt between his legs. A warm, wet tongue licked up his sack before she sucked it in.

“Oh!” Charles didn’t know whether to push forward
, or fall back with his eyes rolled back in his head. He didn’t have to worry about it. The next second had her tongue licking up the back of his shaft and tickling along his crease, just about to take it all…

“Ohh, shit.” He leaned ba
ck, his eyes rolling back. Her hot mouth sucked his brain out of his dick, reaching through his body and wiping out all his thoughts. Not that he had many to begin with. He felt his tip reach deep down, all the way to the back of her throat, as her chin met his ends.

Maybe he wouldn’t rise like a champ. This female made him feel
like a novice.

Charles held onto the chair with all his might as he watched his erection pump
in and out of her mouth. He could barely stand it. He was already close.

Reading his situation, she straightened up suddenly and draped a long leg over his lap. With her hand, she took his shaft in a firm grip and
worked his tip along her slit. His shaking hands gripped her hips as she sat down with all her weight.

“Oh
, gods. Oh, holy gods. Holy moly.” Then speech ran out as she bounced on top of him, her breasts jiggling in his face merrily, her sex stroking his.

His balls tightened up and his stomach clenched. His whole body
compressed, magic leaking out.

“That’s right,” she purred, gyrating over him now, leaning those glorious breasts
against his chest. “Fall into it.”

The friction got more intense. She reached between them and ripped at his shirt, tearing it down the middle. Her taut nipples rubbed his skin. Her hot breath soaked into his neck.

So close now. Just about…

He felt the pinch right before one glorious, deep pull through the center of this body.

“Noooo
ooooohh!”

He shook her off his neck as his body erupted, exploding into her. He shuddered so hard he might’ve been sitting on a fault line in an earthquake.

“Oh, gods,” he said, panting. He pushed her away again as her lips aimed for his neck.

“No biting.” He leaned back against the chair, holding her shoulders.
“Against the rules.”

He barely registered her pout. “You’re not done yet, are you
?”

He groaned. “You want more?”

“Of course. I hear you’ve got great stamina.”

This was the first time in history he hated that rumor.

Her mouth licked down his bare chest, her tongue circling a nipple. Her hand started working him again, light and tickling. Playful. Expert.

Just as he was reviving, putting his all into the recovery, he felt another pinch. Like a tug through his pec, down through his stomach, and pulling on the inside of his balls, his dick became a live wire, deep and intimate. And she was the last
female he wanted to share this kind of intimacy with.

“No, no—no blood. I’ll stop right now, I swear to the gods I will.” Charles pushed her face away again, a dribble of blood dripping down his chest.

With a smile, she licked at it before continuing down. And down. Her mouth took in his almost hardness, sucking so hard he yelped.

“Hang in there, it’ll be worth it.” She winked at him.

He wasn’t so sure anymore.

Another swallow, sucking hard and deep.
He butted the end of her throat. Completely hard now and in his stride. He palmed her head and helped push her down, grinding in there good and deep. She took to it in greedy gulps like a pro.

Before he had to tell her
he was nearly there again—so he didn’t have to start from scratch with the hard-on, because that might kill him—she pulled off, his erection bobbing in the air. Moving quick, not losing momentum, she sucked at his balls. Very nice.

The pinch was in his inner thigh this time.

“Damn it, woman. You’re like a piranha.” He jerked away.

With an evil smile, she crawled back into his lap.

“Last time, though. I need to hit the sack,” Charles warned, dropping his finger to the top of her slit to make sure she got where she needed to go. He wouldn’t admit it out loud, but she was a bit above his caliber. The Boss was a real man to deal with this all the time.

Facing him, s
he clutched his shaft again, this time directing it to the opening in the back. Slowly she sat, his tip working into that tight hole.

“Oh
, my…oh. You’re into that, huh?
Oh!”

He
couldn’t focus. That hole was so deep and tight. So hot. Lips nibbled at his neck. His finger worked her nub. That glorious friction had his dick tingling already, needing to orgasm so hard all he heard was white noise.

And then the pinch came again
on his neck.

The pull sucked through his whole body, sweet and deep and so-fucking-good. He couldn’t back her off this time. Not with that deliciously tight hole.
And the friction. And the blessed pull.

“Oh
, holy gods,” Charles moaned, lightheaded and delirious. He pumped into her, that suction on his neck pushing him higher, her ass muscles clutching him like a fist.

Warning bells went off, but he couldn’t focus. Or function. All he could do was close his eyes and pump like an animal.
Beyond reason. His balls screamed to let go. His body flexed. His fingers dug into her hips.

Blessed release.
Hard and fast. He slammed into her, groaning in ecstasy. Unable to help calling her name in bliss.

His head
lolled, his body totally spent. She backed off his neck.

“Thanks, pet. Your blood hit just the spot.” She wiped her face with a smirk. As she left, she
swooped down and snatched her dress off the ground.

He hated her laugh as she left the room.

Well. That happened. He’d given a nasty bitch a bunch of blood. Fantastic.

He swore at himself as he stood
, swaying slightly as his body registered the amount of blood sheʼd stolen. He walked across the grounds with his dick dangling. No sense in trying for decorum now—he’d given up his pride to the top of the sexual food chain. So much for no means no.

He
kind of felt like one of those human chicks in the movies after she got used like a tool. Kind of manhood stripping, he’d say that much.

He entered the cabin he shared with Sasha and Jonas. As he walked down the hall to his room, knowing there was no way he was working out right now, Sasha stepped out of the bathroom. Her eyes did a quick assessment before her face fell.

“You didn’t.”

“Don’t want to talk about it.”

“With
her,
though, Charles? She sucks.”

Charles stripped off his shirt and threw it in a ball into the bathroom. “
I know this. I was outgunned.”

Sasha’s eyes snagged on the
quickly healing cuts on his neck. “You gave her
blood?
Charles, what the hell is wrong with you?”

“He’s a young twerp that barely knows how to use his dick.” Jonas passed by without a glance. “
Lets every species he sees bowl him over. And this is my partner.”

“Oh
, great, yes. Rub it in, everybody. Even better.” Charles wiped spit off his chest. “Can you two just shove off? I need some alone time.”

“Is this because I won’
t do you? Is this spite?”

Charles turned to Sasha, stared at her for one second, and then slammed the door in her face. They just didn’t understand. Until you were in the lion’s mouth, you had no idea how sharp the teeth were.

He felt like a schmuck.

Chapter
8

The next day, I sat on a plush leather couch in the common room. A few other people within the room cleaned, read, or relaxed, each doing their own thing. A book lay open in my lap, staring at me as I stared back at it. All I saw were black letters on a white page, blending together as my eye focused and unfocused. I couldn’t stop thinking about Stefan protecting his interests. I logically knew he had to, and Toa had explained it in depth, but it still stung. It meant he didn’t have the utmost faith in me like he said he did. Being that I had never had faith in myself, it left me feeling empty and forlorn.

“It’s going to work out, seriously.” Ann leaned against the bookcase, supposed to be off doing something, but when she saw me mope into the room, she followed. “Just as soon as you get your head around the magic, you’ll wipe the floor with Miss Runway.”

“So you say.”

“I
do
say. Sasha, listen to me. You need to have a little faith. You need to walk before you sprint, you know? Just--ˮ

“Alpha.”

I looked up in time to notice Tim enter the room, his eyes gleaming with that predatory light this group of Shape Changers was known for. The man at the desk came out of a shallow bow, continuing whatever paperwork he had been contemplating. A woman, young and spry, closed her book, stood and offered a slightly deeper bow, her eyes shining with stars, and her face flushing a desire-ridden rose. “Alpha.”

Ann’s face went bright red
, caught somewhere other than at her post. She bobbed her head in jerky movements.
Busted.
“Alpha.”

She
glanced my way, her eyes riddled with panic. “Gotta go, Sasha. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be working the perimeter?” Tim asked, flaying Ann with a hard stare.

“Yes, Alpha. Just headed there now.” She very nearly sprinted from the room.

Tim watched her go before stalking through,
not offering an acknowledgement of the respectful diffidence of the others in the room. His eyes burned into mine as I tried to rip my gaze away from the power in that stare. I was used to Stefan, however, and if my backbone wouldn’t allow me to drop my gaze before his, which was stronger and more forceful than this guy, I certainly wasn’t going to drop it for a near stranger.

“Sasha.” He seemed to be trying to soften his
gravel-infused voice. Apparently thinking I scared easily. Probably not wanting to get hit with an unpredictable blast of magic.

“Hi
, Tim,” I responded, scooting over so he could sit next to me.

He angled his body toward me, glancing at the book on my lap for a second before honing in on my face. “How goes it?”

“Not well. Toa lectures me about my magic, tells me how to use it, and then expects that to be enough. It just doesn’t sink in. So, I try to mimic him, and I blow things up or create monsters.
Then
he yells at me because I’m doing things in opposite land.”

I didn’t want to admit that
Stefan was right to send Darla. That I wasn’t getting it; that I was letting him down.

“You need a practical lesson. I had a great many new subjects that had never attempted a controlled change. I needed to work through it with them. Explanations are for theoretical knowledge. They don’t help with actually
doing
something.”

“I know, but no one has my type of magic. No one can show me.”

“Well, keep at it. You’ll get it. Stefan seems to have faith in you, so you need to have faith in yourself. That is one of the biggest needs in any type of leadership role. You can’t second-guess yourself or wander around without a purpose. If you do, people will think you aren’t in control.”

“I’m
not
in control. And Stefan has so much faith he sent Darla into harm’s way.”

“He is a great statistician with risk and a great leader.” Tim paused for a moment
, and then placed a comforting arm around my shoulders. “I don’t know if his actions were right or wrong, but I, too, thought he had more faith than to send reinforcements. Nonetheless, he has his reasons. Maybe the decision isn’t what it seems. Maybe he is vying for the Regional position and wants to leave a successor.”

“I don’t know, but crying about it isn’t going to help.”
I blew out a frustrated breath. “What I really want to do is just punch her in the mouth.”

“Atta girl,”
Tim said softly.

“How come you guys can change into animals?” I asked to sidetrack the conversation.

Tim sat farther back, his arm still around my shoulders, continuing to lend support which I took greedily. “We think it’s a mutation in a person’s genetic makeup. Unlike Stefan’s kind, we are all human. At some point in a person’s life, we develop what the doctors think is an advanced stage of cancer. We either get treatment or we get a terminal date. In some people, it takes a few months to make the change, some longer, but the body priming is a painful affair. The person affected stops eating, has to stay in bed, loses sleep—you can see why they continue to think it is cancer even though some medical tests might seem strange. At the end of the body’s transformation, the person undergoes their first full change, which is often scary and sometimes dangerous.

“We try to find these potential Shape Changers and help them through the change. We can smell it coming, you see.
The body’s chemistry changes, changing a person’s scent. If we get there in time, we can help a person through it. If not, we have to hope they don’t endanger themselves or others. Some have gotten shot because the townspeople thought a wild animal prowled the streets.”

“I bet. If I was walking around willy-nilly and saw a giant wolf I’d be a bit nervous, all right.”

“Exactly. We are pretty good, though. We constantly have people looking. There aren’t so many that make the change.”

“But, that’s in this area. W
hat about the rest of the world?”

“This…affliction happens all over the world. Like
Stefan’s kind, we have a larger pack system. We’ve had to develop it to keep our people under the radar—keep us safe. If potential mutants landed in human hands, we’d spend our lives in a research facility or be hunted.”

I nodded, because that was a very realistic view of what scientists would do. And if they didn’t, the Homeland Security people would step in, trying to engineer a new weapon. Or just kill on sight.

“Is that why you are joining with Stefan? To unite forces?”

“It’s smart. Plus, we were approached by
Andris. They are trying to organize a power shift with humans. They want to dominate, and to do that, they need to up their numbers. We were a logical choice, of course. We are human, and exist within the human society. What better group of people to infiltrate, and then bring the humans down from the inside. But in that way lies death, which Stefan and his Council know from experience. Andris is smart, but power hungry. He will eventually emerge from the shadows, but not until he has a clear way. I am trying to help Stefan put up a roadblock.”

“I’m supposed to help with that.”

“And you will,” Tim said softly, his eyes losing their alpha strength. I marveled at their soft depth, their color a deep auburn.

“What animal do you change into?” I asked, entranced by those eyes.

“A Kodiak,” he whispered. 

I noticed for the first time his face, broad and defined, with a strong jaw and straight nose. He was a handsome man, if no
Stefan, with strength and power tempered by a slow way about him. “Are there many grizzlies?”

“No, just one.
We have quite a few wolves, a few large cats, some smaller animals; an all-around mix.”

“So if you bite me, I won’t turn into an animal?” I smiled, hiding the gulp when his eyes traveled my face.

“You will, but only until climax.” He chuckled, prompting an edge of uncertainty to crawl into my awareness.

I turned my face away, suddenly
hyper-aware of our proximity. “Anyway,” I said, “I should probably go and find Charles. He gets in trouble when left to his own devices for too long.”

“He said the same thing about you yesterday evening.”

I snorted. Figured.

As I stood and headed for the door, my book forgotten, Tim said, “And Sasha…”

I turned back, seeing Tim stand, his large shoulders straining the cotton of his t-shirt, currently molding to his defined pecks like spray paint. “Yeah?”

“Watch out for Jonas, okay? He’s made it pretty clear he doesn’t trust humans.”

The only reminder I needed on that score seemed to come from Jonas himself whenever we were in the same room. That hard stare was not easy to forget. Neither were the warning tingles up my back.

A stocky man with giant arms stepped in front of me as I tried to exit the room, his eyes,
a weird shade of light hazel, almost gold, rooted me in place and had my tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth.

“Something is happening, where are your guards?”

Tim was there in a flash, bristling behind me. “What is it?”

“Alpha.”
The man bowed his head quickly. “A large group is coming. The sentries sense a large amount of mag—ˮ

The m
essenger was cut off as a wolf song broke through the walls. Sorrowful and haunting, it caused me to shiver, my familiar warning butt tingle making me wrap my magic around me like a cloak. I needed to get the hell out of there. I didn’t know how to use my magic well enough, and I didn’t have Stefan to protect me. Tim and his crowd were great fighters, but they couldn’t balance my potentially fatal draw of magic.

“Get her to safety and then meet me in the front!” Tim
pushed past us, moving down the hall with massive, lumbering steps. The bear side of him wasn’t far from breaking free.

“Sasha!” I froz
e at that nightmarish growl.

Jonas stalked up on liquid joints, his tattoos
glowing a furious orange. His fierce gaze took in the were-tiger Tim had ordered to escort me to safety. “Run along kitty-cat, I’ve got her.”

A deep growl rumbled out of the man’s chest, shaking my bones and
making me step to the side, out from between these two wild men. Jonas struck out with his hand, grabbed my arm and dragged me near. The intensity in his eyes shocked into me a second later.

“
They’re here for you. We gotta get you outta here.”

“But…
I should fight…” I started, much rather facing a horde of unknowns than this one man alone.

“You fight, you die. The Boss trusted you to my care
. You’re coming with me.”

I
stared at the burly man, unsure. He stared back, no expression, turning my bones to liquid. Jonas was right, though, Stefan trusted Jonas for some reason.

I hadn’t told
Stefan about that first battle. About Jonas leaving me to die in that first battle.

But still, h
e trusted Jonas, and not the
Mata.
I trusted Stefan. I didn’t have much to go off of, so I had to trust the lesser of two evils.

I started to jog next to Jonas, his long, hurried steps
nearly impossible for me to keep up with. “Where’s Charles?” I asked in as close to a normal voice as I could muster. It sounded like a wobbling, squeaky bicycle.

“Charles can look after himself.”

I opened my mouth to push the issue, ducking into the twilight under Jonas’s arm. The evening was just falling, creating that strange gloom that hid things even in plain sight. A light breeze ruffled my hair as a surge of magic pounded in my chest. Freezing cold trickled down from the top of my head, a sure sign that those
Dulcha
monsters were near.

“Hurry!”
Jonas urged, grabbing me by the arm and yanking.

“Why are we going toward the woods?” I asked
, trying to avoid branches that
thwapped
me in the face.

In answer, Jonas turned to me, a vicious glint in his eye. Without uttering a word, he ducked down and scooped me up, immediately starting to jog deep into the trees, the first blast
of battle sounding behind us.

Panic welled up, his harsh grip and haste sending pain and uncertainty into my core. I could shock him and get out of his hold, but then what? My power could beat his, but my use of it
was truly lacking. Then where would I go? To the front line, where the
Dulcha
would chase and hound me? I couldn’t hide. Already I could feel them, seeking me, drawn to my power.

I wiggled, still uncertain, hearing all the warnings over th
e last few weeks. Everyone had cited Jonas as someone to watch. Someone to steer clear from. Stefan trusted him, yes, but friendship could disillusion a person. And didn’t Stefan say he trusted me? That he had faith in me?

But t
hen heʼd sent Darla to basically sit on her hands and wait for me to fail.