Reluctant Mates - 21 Paranormal Romance Stories (Werewolf, Vampire, Minotaur and Monster collection) (44 page)

Psychically projecting yourself through the forest looking for a werewolf? Yeah. You’re crazy. Capital ‘C’ crazy. I bet you wish you kept that pistol. Magic or not, a couple of bullets in this thing’s head would go a long way to ending his little creep show.

“Sebastien! Help!” I cry out in my mind, planning to say more but feeling the creature’s tongue slide up my calf. Rough, hard and wet, it feels like a lusty sheet of sandpaper crawling up my leg. And then I feel the heat from his body against my hamstring and his muzzle on my knee.

“Stop, please!” I beg him, not sure what else to do. “Please! I don’t know why any of this is happening!”

“I’m not stopping,” the cat growls, “and you want this. You know you do.”

I feel my mind changing even as he speaks. I’m vaguely aware that he’s controlling me, but as soon as that thought occurs, it vanishes.

Again I beg Sebastien for help, channeling my thoughts as well as I can, but even as I try to project myself, my plea slips away, into the background. I have no idea what I’m doing; I have no idea if what I want is even possible. I just think about him as hard as I can, visualize him and imagine my voice flying through the moss and the swamp and the overgrowth.

Suddenly, just as it did when my wolf master dragged his paws down my back and entered me for the first time, I feel the greenness of the bayou crackle around me, and I become the sound of my voice. Flying, uncontrollable, dodging this way and that, around trees, through fog banks, and down the side of a hill, then back up.

Racing, pounding, my heart is the only sound I hear. Each pulse is a driving rhythm that thumps inside my head.

“Oh, she learns quickly, this one.” The huge cat’s drawling, curling, silk-smooth voice drags me back to reality. “Three days in the swamp and already shooting your thoughts around with the best of them. Remember we can all do such things, though, dear.”

His voice is smoke, dribbling from his lips and back up to my ears. Before I know what’s happening, the panther-like creature overwhelms me with his calm, statue-like composure. He moves closer again and I feel him brush my leg, his tail curling around me, so long it reaches between my legs, strokes the inside of my thigh and sends my imagination reeling.

“Something the matter, Jasmine?” He purrs, deep in his throat. “Seems like you’re worried. You’re certainly tense. Why not relax?”

I try to answer, but my voice hitches in my throat and all I can do is gulp. My whole body shivers as a paw slides gently down the back of my knee.

“I could have just done some real damage, you know?”

A nod is all I can manage.

“But I didn’t. Why is that, do you think?” Milton’s strange voice caresses my senses, and sends guilty thrills down my back. I can’t imagine it, can’t understand it, but somehow, this creature has me wet and a little hot. But at the same time, all I want is to get away from him and find my way back to Sebastien and be away from all this strangeness and magic and whatever else I keep encountering.

Jaz, wait a minute. You’re wanting to run off into the arms of a werewolf pack...to get away from a shape-shifting hillbilly that looks like a panther. Are you listening to yourself?

I swallow hard and feel a drop of sweat run from my hairline to below my torn up sweatshirt. One of my fingers runs along the rip in my collar and I remember Remy, or was it Leroux, tearing into it, throwing me backward against the cave of the wall and ravishing me like I was a helpless ragdoll under his incredible might, and I feel the wet heat trickle down my thighs, just a little.

And then I feel the hard muscles on the beast’s side slide between my legs. A long exhale escapes my lips and the creature rumbles in a way that can only be amusement. A nip where on the deep inside of my thigh gives me a sharp pain that very quickly turns to dripping pleasure and a wash of goose bumps flows up my belly making my nipples pebble and stiffen.

“This is...why are you doing this?”

He purrs again and licks me with that rough, sweet sandpaper tongue.

“Why?” His baritone voice is so deep that each time he speaks, tingles crawl from my head to my toes in long, slow, branching fingers. “I just don’t understand why you’re continuing to ask questions. Is it so hard to figure out?”

I look at him, terrified, and shake my head.

“You really don’t know, do you? You have no idea why Sebastien wants you, why I need you?”

“N-no clue,” I shake my head again.

“Curious. How very, very curious! It’s an old story and a very long one. The short version is that the swamp queen is on her last gasps, and Sebastien’s wolves want to replace her with some ridiculous notion of freedom. We want another queen. That’s the right way of things. People are too stupid to rule themselves.”

The monster touches the back of my leg with a shoulder – which I realize is incredibly strong, round and hard. A rustling sound from the trees catches my attention for a moment, but I’m immediately brought back when Milton’s muzzle pushes against the lower part of my back and he nudges me gently, and then shoves, me to the ground.

“Don’t you agree? After all, you’re next in line for the throne.”

My eyes open wide and I try to answer but all that comes out is a whimper.

“Maybe I’m just less interested in playing the long games that those silly dogs will play. Here’s the short version: I need to keep you under control because of a deal I made with that strange woman you met. Things, as you can see, are not exactly what they seem to be in this little stretch of swamp. I made her a promise and won’t be going back on it.”

Trembling, I stand back up. Reaching back behind my leg to touch the cat’s muscled body, I jump in surprise when his tongue lashes out around my wrist. My first thought is to pull away and run, and even though I know I can’t get anywhere, I’m just overwhelmed with a need to escape.

“Leave me alone!” I shout, “I’m not yours to play with or make deals about or anything else!”

I kick backwards, heel whooshing through thin air, and I fall to my knees, bounce, and spring up to my feet in a motion that I’m not ashamed to say was more graceful than I could consciously manage. As I turn and run, the foreboding sense that something lurks in the trees past my vision strikes again but I have no choice but to ignore it.

That’s right, Jaz, just run. And once you’re away from this thing, whatever the hell it is, just keep running. Get away from the wolves, out of this swamp, and don’t stop until you’re back in Baton Rouge. When you get back there, march right to school and change your major to theatre or English or something and never step foot in a damn swamp again!

I jump deftly over a low-hanging branch, then slide under the next. A thorny vine whips past my face and gives me a smart scratch, just barely missing my eye. I wipe the blood away, along with a panicked tear, and duck just in time to evade another grasping, pointed dangler.

Shooting a glance back, the strange, rust-colored cat monster is coming after me, although very slowly. He plods forward, not seeming to be in much of a hurry, and as I watch him duck under the same branch I avoided seconds before, another vine whips against me, but this one scrapes my arm, tearing a gash in my shirt and then another lashes my belly, stinging but strangely pleasurable.

I look back again and the monster is closer, but isn’t moving any quicker – it’s almost like I’m running but not going anywhere. The sound from before, rustling in the trees, shakes my attention again. I scan the canopy as I run but see nothing. I take a deep breath and push my hair backwards out of my face, and enter a clearing in the green, moist growth.

Strangely, the woods just ended and as I look around, the foliage is teeming with life. Birds, ones that have no business in Louisiana, chirp and tweet all around. Something that resembles a toucan flits around, looks at me and perches. Then my eyes are caught by a series of four yellow orbs coming through the green wall.

Yellow circles, all split with black lines.

Cats.

All at once, two sounds explode from the forest in front of me and one comes from behind, catching me in the back and knocking the wind from my lungs as I hit the ground face first, barely catching myself on my palms before my head strikes a rock. Something heavy comes to rest on the middle of my back, restricting my breath.

“You – you’re suffocating...I can’t breathe!” I manage as two half feline-half human faces enter my very limited field of vision.

“Oh,” one of them says. “Look out Whiskey. You’re suffocatin’ the girl.”

“What girl?” the other responds. “Oh, I musta’ stepped on ‘er. Sorry ‘bout that.”

They laugh. The sound is cold and cruel. Once again I try to send my thoughts out to Sebastien and cry out for help though a moment ago I was planning to run from all of it and escape and never look back.

“See?” I recognize Milton’s voice. “This is what happens when you try to run through places you don’t know, or when you try to run away from things much faster, stronger and smarter than you are. All that effort, and what did it come to?”

I recoil as his breath slides down my back which is now bare, my shirt torn away partially by the vines and finished off by a claw that drags softly along my spine.

“Don’t hurt me, please,” I beg. A tear runs down one cheek with another following right after. I can’t imagine anything worse, or more awful, or crueler, than the cold callousness of these creatures. At the same time, there’s that heat between my legs and the flickering sense in the back of my mind that there’s just no way out of my predicament. And if there’s
really
no way out...

The thought chills me to the bone. I can’t believe I’m actually considering surrender to these horrifying creatures, but they
are
lithe and muscular and in their own curious way very beautiful. And then there’s something about their calmness that drives me just wild.

Suddenly, instead of frightening me, the monster’s weight on my shoulders, pressing my lungs and squelching anything more than the shallowest of breaths kindles strange warmth inside me that only grows when one of them takes a bit of the weight off, and runs his sandpaper tongue between my bare shoulder blades.

Forbidden, dangerous, terrible thrills slide up my scalp, make me take a deep breath through my nose. I smell the life around me – the earth, the plants, but most of all, the curiously soft, muted smell of these great beasts. If the smell of a wolf is tanned leather, hard and rich and sun-kissed, these creatures carried the scent of suede and shadow. Subtle, musky and dark, my imagination almost immediately runs away with me when I feel another tongue slide along my neck.

“That’s a good girl, don’t bother fighting anymore. You know you can’t win, hmm?” Milton growls as his muzzle pushes against my sex, hot between my legs. His voice seems to have a calming effect on me. One that’s almost too relaxing for me to believe. As he speaks, and I feel his vibrations and his warmth, my anxiety begins to melt.

But, as it does, I remember the wolves, and it’s almost like there’s a battle in my mind, like this beast is taking my thoughts and putting whatever he wants in there. I tell myself to fight it, to fight him, but it just feels
so good
when that long, hot tongue slides up me far enough to tickle my navel and then back down, along the flimsy fabric covering my slit. I can’t control myself.

From one moment to the next, my mind is constantly changing itself. I think ‘fight’ and then I think ‘surrender’ and then I think about Sebastien and the wolves and then I feel another breath slide along my neck and under my hair and teeth drag down an arm.

“So sharp, so sharp and long,” I moan, almost entirely out of my own head. It’s like I’m watching it all happen, like I’m an audience member at the most salacious, terrible and wonderful theatre production I’ve ever seen, but at the same time, every sensation fills me with desire and a strange comfort that no matter what I do, I can’t escape.

“How – how can anything be
this
strong? What are you?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Whiskey says. Just like when Milton talks, his voice rumbles in his chest, against my body, but the younger panther retains his Deep South twang. I can hardly contain the moans and sighs that want to escape, but I keep them inside, as though to let them out would be an admission of what I know deep down inside that I want to happen, but can’t give in to – at least not yet.

A tug on one of my legs catches my attention. Twisting around, I look down and see the big, red were-beast gnash his teeth and momentarily thing he’s about to tear me limb from limb when his savage maw closes around my trousers and a tooth punches through.

“Why do you people insist on wearing all this business?” He groans, his body shuddering between my splayed-out knees. “It never seems to do much of anything but get in the way.”

He pulls again and I hear the seam along the side of my pants tear. Milton cackles dryly as a split opens all the way to my hip, and his warm breath caresses the newly bare skin on my thighs. It strikes me that these creatures may not be entirely sane, or exactly in control of their faculties. After all, when Sebastien and the others were fully in the throes of lust, they thrashed and bit and snapped at one another – things they’d never do at normal times.

Something prompts me to kick and try once again to get away, but my attack bounces harmlessly off the great cat’s side and he just laughs again.

“Whiskey, Whip,” he says under his breath. “I’m quickly getting tired of all this. We have business to do. Tie her up. Now.”

Both of the monsters hovering near my head sigh and recoil.

“Aw, Pa, can’t we just enjoy her for a while? Seems like we’re always in such a hurry.”

“No. Do as I say. The Queen is not one to wait. Especially not with the shape the swamp is in. Things are fading fast.” He withdraws, dragging my shredded clothing behind him. “Have you fun, but don’t dally. Accomplishing our task and continuing to have a home for our people is far more important than your having a good time. Clear?”

No response.

The one with the youngest voice – Whip, Milton called him – retains his accent too. I wonder if there’s some reason for that, but before I can commit much mental effort, the full weight of two paws presses my shoulders into the spongy forest floor and I’m inhaling a face-full of soil, moss and leaves. As the scent fills my nose, familiar crackles of my exploding consciousness spread out from the middle of my forehead, trickles along my nerves all through my body, and finally warms the tips of my fingers.