STORY EXCERPT 

“Look at him, he’s crying.”

Parker trembled. He couldn’t move his head. There was something wrong with him and he couldn’t move.

Another of the men with chalk-white faces leaned in. The creature opened its mouth, revealing pointed teeth.

Not just fangs. All of his teeth looked like that.

He hissed in Parker’s face, forcing him to feel the heat of his breath, and smell the stink.

Vampires really did stink like out houses.

“Don’t think he likes that.”

Parker pulled against the bonds that strapped him to the chair. A bright light sat immediately over his head. He could hardly see a thing despite it. Or maybe that was the point.

The strap around his head prevented him from looking around. Where was Fergus? He’d been taken, too. If he was at least here then Parker could know he wasn’t alone.

No. He was lying to himself. Parker would be ready to piss his pants even if Fergus was here with him to comfort him.

One of the vampires grabbed Parker’s hand, and he felt something picking at his fingernails.

Beneath his fingernails.

Parker groaned, pulling against the leather straps that much harder, but they wouldn’t give.

“Don’t move so much,” singsonged the vampire. “Don’t want to push it deeper than it needs to go.”

“We’re allowed to have fun with you,” said the other, breathing in Parker’s face as well. “Her majesty doesn’t like that you won’t talk. Just tell us what we need to know and this will stop.”

But it wouldn’t stop. Parker could see that. Which was fucked up because he still wanted to talk. He wanted to tell these assholes everything they wanted to hear. Even knowing it wouldn’t help, he wanted to do it just for the slim chance it would spare him.

But he didn’t know anything. The queen wanted information on some escapees. She wanted to know about Orin and Milo, and Parker didn’t know a damned thing, which was why before the needles pushed beneath his fingernails, he begged them to stop, crying and pleading even with the anticipation of pain.

And when he felt it, he screamed. He screamed for Fergus.

And then he broke free from the chair he’d been strapped into and sat up with a hard yell.

Lightning sounded, pulling his attention out of that bright room when it faded. He looked at the window as the room darkened. A hand touched his shoulder and he flinched.

Fergus pulled his hand back sharply, and then reached for Parker, pulling him into Fergus’s arms.

Parker went, in a daze at first, but then he held his mate tighter, clutching Fergus’s naked chest as though it was his lifeline.

He never wanted to let it go.

“Another nightmare?”

Parker nodded. He sniffed. He’d actually been crying in his sleep. He’d almost felt the pain. Shit. Had he screamed out loud, too?

“Did I wake you?” he asked, his voice coming out sounding much more fragile than he intended.

“Don’t worry about it.” Fergus stroked Parker’s hair, and he felt a kiss settle on top of his head as his mate held him close. “Don’t you ever worry about it.”

But he did worry about it. That was the problem with him. He worried about it so much that there were times when he couldn’t think of anything else.

Even months later, when the snow melted and his life should have moved on, he felt himself back in that miserable place.

Maybe he needed at least a year. At least for a year to go by. It had barely been six months since he and Fergus had been kidnapped, since Parker had been tortured to the point where his wolf had almost come out of him, a feral monster, and when Fergus had to claim Parker as his mate just to make sure that wouldn’t happen.

Now Parker had control of his wolf, but he didn’t feel as though he had control of his life.

No. Feel was the wrong word. It wasn’t a feeling. It was a statement of fact. He didn’t have control over his life. That was the worst part.

“Think you can get back to sleep?”

Parker looked at the clock next to their bed. It was almost three in the morning. Way too early to be getting up, but he didn’t think he could sleep either.

Parker shook his head.

“Want to go out for a run.”

Parker almost smiled at that. “I can barely do any running with you as it is now.”

Fergus’s hand touched down on Parker’s belly. It was getting bigger as the months went by.

Alpha shifters could impregnate their omegas. Fergus was definitely an alpha, and Parker was definitely his omega. Shifter bodies changes in such strange ways, and Parker was still getting used to how strange this was, but he knew he could do it so long as Fergus was there with him to help.

“I don’t mind going out with you.” Fergus looked towards the window. To the rain pelting against the window. “We’ll get a little wet, but that never stopped us before.”

Parker swallowed, suddenly overcome with a strange feeling of bashfulness.

He pushed through it. “I think there’s something else you can help me with instead.”

“What’s that?”

Parker looked up at his mate. The man he felt nothing but adoration and love for. Even now, he could hardly believe there was a time when Parker wouldn’t allow himself to be touched or kissed by this man. That there could be a time when he and Fergus didn’t get along.

Fergus was his everything. His rock. His protector and his alpha, and Parker needed to only remind himself of those things as he leaned up and pressed his mouth to Fergus’s.

ADULT EXCERPT 

“Want you inside me,” Parker groaned between kisses.

He only wanted to feel the good. He only wanted to remember the good. That was a difficult task when, even now as his mate touched him, licked and stroked him, he still thought of his childhood and that time spent in the vampire queen’s mansion, but if there was anyone who could do it, it was Fergus.

Fergus, as always, was a man of few words when they were in the middle of getting off. That was fine with Parker, so long as he got what he desperately needed out of this exchange.

The man hoisted Parker up as though he weighed nothing at all, settling Parker onto his back while Fergus positioned himself between Parker’s legs. The man continued to dry hump him a couple more time, as though he needed the friction before he would be able to think of anything else.

Parker groaned. He clenched his eyes shut, thrusting back against the other man.

More. He wanted so much more. Fergus was good at giving Parker everything he needed, and yet despite that, Parker greedily wanted more.

With a heavy growl, Fergus tore himself away from Parker’s body, taking his body heat with him, but as he hooked his finger in the waist of Parker’s pyjama bottoms and pulled them down his hips with ease.

They slid down his waist like melting butter. Parker’s cock sprung up, slapping his swollen belly. He took it in hand on instinct, needing to hang on to keep himself from coming at the sudden change in temperature.

It was warm in here, too warm, but the air around his dick felt almost cold in comparison.

Fergus groaned at the sight of it. He slid for Parker’s body, taking his dick in hand just before letting his tongue slide along the shaft of his cock.

Parker shivered before he let out a long moan.

Fergus put the head into his mouth next, and all Parker could focus on, all he could think about, was wet, warmth, and the slick tongue as it slid wickedly around the head just before Fergus sank his lips down, down, down.

Parker arched his back. He came. He didn’t mean to. He’d wanted to come when Fergus was inside him, but it couldn’t be helped and he couldn’t hold it back. There was nothing he could do for it.

Fergus reacted quickly. He always did. The man groaned, adjusting himself, swallowing down everything Parker gave and then licking him clean before he pulled back, looking up at him with that pleased expression on his face.

He really should have been a cat shifter. The way he looked at Parker just then was all feline intelligence and mischief.

“That was fast.”

Parker puffed for breath and still didn’t feel as though there was enough air in the room. “Sorry. You didn’t have to lick it all away.”

It still embarrassed him the way his mate treated sex. The way he would swallow Parker’s come every time, the way he worshipped Parker’s body.

Almost as if they were having romance novel sex. Parker never thought that sort of thing was real. He’d never expected anyone to treat him like that in bed. Especially not a man.

Especially not Fergus.

Went to show how much he knew about the world.

“You all right?”

Parker swallowed, then nodded. He’d nearly let himself get pulled back into that terrible state of mind again. He didn’t want that. He wanted to be right here with his mate. He reached for Fergus. The man came to him, crawling on top of him, allowing Parker to kiss him.

Parker thrust his tongue against Fergus’s lips. Fergus opened, and Parker tasted the inside. The inside that was so sweet now that he could taste his mate as well as himself on Fergus’s tongue.

He stayed that way for a while. There was very little Parker found more pleasing than a nice, long makeup session with his mate. Fergus was a good kisser. Parker never would have thought that about him when they’d first met.

About the only thing he figured he liked more was his growing collection of Force of Will cards.

Parker still wanted more. His dick had softened considerably, but he still felt the stirrings of interest.

The need wasn’t the same as it had been when he and Fergus had been going through their mating heat and fucking like rabbits every day, but his desire for the man was still strong.

He was just too embarrassed to say it. “Can you…can you still…?”

Asking to be fucked was a little different when the heat of the moment was no longer there.

Fergus smiled at Parker as though he’d said Fergus’s favorite words.

“Absolutely, baby.”