STORY EXCERPTS

She rubbed her forehead again and reached for her glasses. She rarely used them, but when she was tired or strained, her eyes needed a little help. It didn’t make things better that she stared at a computer screen at a fixed distance for hours a day.

Valeri pulled her to a halt and looked her over. She was wearing threadbare jeans and her oldest wool sweater. Last night’s rain had continued into this morning, and the air had a definite chill to it.

A little smile grew on his face, and he kissed the tip of her nose.

“You are beautiful.”

“I’m not beautiful.” Her protest was automatic. “I’m too top heavy.”

His slow smile was very male, and Angel felt a flush tingling in her cheeks.

“And see,” she hurried on, “I wear glasses.”

Valeri laughed softly. “My Angel, if you believe that two small pieces of glass and some wire can fool me into ignoring your natural beauty, you are as deluded as your Dr. Novaks.”

“He’s not my Dr. Novaks.” The protest was firm.

“That will not save his life if he persists in his ill-fated scheme to capture a vulfen warrior in order to become one. The man is quite mad.”

Angel sighed. “He’s human, like I was.”

“You were never human.”

Angel pulled away. “My point is, he won’t know that it doesn’t work like that.”

“It doesn’t matter what he thinks he knows. He is trying to catch a supernatural creature that his culture tells him is evil so that he can become one himself. He isn’t even that particular about what type of creature he becomes as long as it grants him some kind of power beyond the normal human state. How can you defend him?”

“I’m not defending him. I don’t even like him. I just think we should have some compassion.”

Valeri straightened to his full height and bared his teeth. Angel’s wolf wanted to back down in the face of his aggression, but she held her ground and tucked her cold hands into her pockets.

“The man shot me. I will happily attend his funeral and show all the compassion you could wish, but I will not allow him to continue with his mad ideas. He is not rational. How do you imagine he will react when he realizes that he cannot succeed?”

Angel shrugged, but the question bothered her. What would the man do? He didn’t even take no for an answer in the regular context of dating. She had a feeling that he would be persistent.

“You can’t see it, or perhaps you just can’t admit it? I will tell you how he will react. He will not accept the truth if it denies him what he wants. He will escalate his mad behavior. He will end up killing some poor creature that he has captured, perhaps a young witch, or a vulfen child he has stolen. And how do we know that he will leave humans alone? He couldn’t even identify the difference between a lonely human girl and a vampire. It ends here, Angel.”

His eyes were hard, and the air around him warped with his anger. It was hard to breathe with such a force in the room.

“It may not be me who ends it, but it will end here. If not me, then another Cadre member, or the Alpha himself will stop this threat to our people’s safety. It cannot be allowed to go on. Don’t look at me as if I am a monster. We both know who the monster is.”

Angel hated to admit it, but she understood. Her wolf stirred.

“I would kill him myself to save a child,” she said. She sat down at the kitchen table and put her head down on her arms. It was a hard realization. She had been taught all her life that it was wrong to solve conflict by physical means, wrong to kill. But in certain circumstances, she saw the necessity of it.

Valeri’s hand came to rest on her back, and the contact comforted her. The tension in the room dissipated with the discharge of his anger.

“Angel, I am sorry. I know this is all new for you. We do not have to discuss and agree on every point.”

There was a silence where the only sound was the whisper of his hand over her spine, back and forth, soothing her spirit and creating comfort and an ache of passion that was never far away.

“The Cadre will take care of this threat, in any case. I will be able to stand aside and just let the situation play out if that is what you desire. It won’t be that way every time, because I am a protector of my people. I stand in defense of those who cannot defend themselves. But for you I will make an exception in this case.”

Angel sighed and rubbed her forehead on the scratchy wool of her sleeve. He was giving her an out if she needed it. And maybe it would be easier that way for both of them, but it wasn’t realistic.

She understood very little about Valeri’s life, about the vulfen life, but she knew Dr. Novaks. He was driven by some internal force and wouldn’t stop until he got what he wanted. He needed to be stopped before he really hurt someone.

ADULT EXCERPT

Her mouth opened and he sank deep. Her taste went to his head, and a kiss that was meant to be gentle turned carnal and demanding in a heartbeat. He explored with teeth and tongue until his beautiful mate was meeting each thrust of his hungry tongue with delicate strokes of hers.

She was delicious. His claw tips were out, and his cock throbbed urgently. She made him so damn hot he couldn’t think straight. He tore his mouth away to reach for reason.

When her hands gripped his hair and pulled him in for another kiss, his sanity disappeared like smoke.

He used his claws to slice through her shirt and the heavy good-girl bra she wore. The fabric fell to the floor, and he dropped his head and gorged on her round female flesh. He licked and nipped with careful fangs while his mate gasped for air and arched her back to give him better access.

His hands moved continuously, caressing her pale curves with true enjoyment. He kneaded her soft breasts with firm pressure while he nibbled around and around her stiff pink nipples, reveling in her taste.

He stripped the rest of her clothes off while she pushed ineffectually at his pants. He unzipped and shed the pants without a thought and freed his pulsing cock to the cool air.

Her soft hand closed around him, and he thrust once without intending to. Her fingers could hardly encompass the thick evidence of his desire for her and the approving sound she made pulled a pearly drop of pre-cum from his engorged flesh. She nearly drove him mad with lust.

He cupped her feminine mound and squeezed. Her petals separated, and wetness flowed over his fingers. The scent of her feminine perfume rose around them, and he groaned into her mouth.

Her hands slipped around to pull at his hips, and he couldn’t hold back from her any longer. He rolled her to the floor and shoved inside her wet heat to the hilt. When he stopped to savor the connection, she dug her little nails into his buttocks in unmistakable demand.

He pulled out and pushed in again with brutal strength, over and over, while his mate whimpered and twisted.

“You tempt me,” he ground out between clenched teeth. “I want to taste every part of your body. I want to take you over and over, until we have finished so many times that there is nothing left to do but begin all over again. I want to devour you.”

“Yes!”

Her body was open, and she wound her legs around his hips and pulled him in deeper.

He pulled out and flipped her onto her stomach. Angel cried out when he hitched up her hips and mounted her from behind. He pushed into her slick, welcoming heat in a slow glide of friction that blew every thought out of his mind.

He held still, deeply embedded in his alluring mate, while she bounced on his heavy cock and begged.

“Please, Valeri!” The end of his name rose in a wail that pricked him like spurs.

He sank his teeth into her vulnerable nape and plunged deep, increasing his relentless rhythm with each thrust until Angel screamed and exploded around him. Her wet pussy squeezed him like a gripping fist.

It was too much, and he shouted as he followed her over the edge into a burning ecstasy that joined their spirits in a blaze of light. In the midst of pleasure he was shaken by a rising joy. It was a true mating. He had known, but now he understood all the way to his soul that fate had blessed him.