No, wait. She’d been on top. But now he was? Nothing mattered, though, because he was thrusting faster and deeper, the heat of her around him making it impossible to think. The frenetic pace wasn’t enough.
“Yeah, faster,” a voice said from behind him.
He didn’t need the encouragement as his pending orgasm pushed him tomove.He heard Riley’s cries, felt her seize and squeeze him inside her, like a vise of pleasure driving him mad with desire.
Kraft had never felt such a drive before, the need for Riley like a drug, more gripping than any rage he’d ever felt. With one final surge, he poured himself into her on a yell, a wash of magic cresting like a wave of agonizing pleasure while her mouth moved on his chest, drinking him down while he gave her everything, even his wolf...
Kraft jackknifed up in bed,breathing hard, not sure why he felt both lightheaded and worried. He frowned and tossed the covers off him, only to see his flagging cock and evidence he’d spent all over himself. Oy. He hadn’t had one of those kind of dreams in decades, not since he’d matured past puberty. He flushed. He couldn’t let the others know about this. Hell, he’d never hear the end of being a “fledgling.”
After stripping the sheets and hiding them in the closet, he took a long shower, wondering what he’d been dreaming about.
He froze.
Had he been dreaming? Vampires didn’t dream. They slept during the day and woke when the sun departed. Replenishing their energy, revitalized by the magic in their bloode circulating, gaining strength.
Yet Kraft recalled the scent of Riley, the feel of her heat surrounding him as he buried himself inside her. The thought caused him to grow hard again, and he stared in shock at his erection, no stranger to pleasures of the flesh though he hadn’t been burdened by such needs for a long time. Although some of his brethren enjoyed sex, he’d always been more for battle and bloodlust than carnal lust.
But he seemed to be having no problem with his dick when thinking about Riley.
There had been something else, though. Something wrong, and a stranger he’d recognized. Yes, that’s right, Mormo’s friend.
Kraft hurried through his shower, dried off, and went in search of Mormo.
And found Hecate waiting for him instead. Crap.
* * *
Riley hadno intention of doing whatever the vampire told her to, and she didn’t want to give him her phone number by calling. First, he hadn’t given her an address, and Max had only been able to tell her he recalled the house being on Mercer Island. Since she had no intention of knocking on doors to find a house filled with vampires, she would better spend her time getting the artifact back.
Bite me, vampire.She had to grin at her poorly worded pun and set off for the contact Max had given her, an eagle shapeshifter with ties to the underground magir world in Seattle.
Unlike lycans who changed into direwolves, shapeshifters shifted into mundane animals, nothing magical about them. A rare few shapeshifters could shift into more than one animal, and most shapeshifters congregated in groups. Talon belonged to an avian flock, as opposed to a wolf pack or a cat pride.
Lycans considered themselves the top of the ladder when it came to shapeshifting. Changing into a direwolf half again the size of a regular wolf and imbued with magic and aggression, lycans were naturally predisposed to dominance. As a berserker, Riley, a direwolf hybrid, was even larger and only a step below an alpha. She would have been a lot more conceited if her family hadn’t constantly put her in her place while growing up, and for that she thanked them.
Riley didn’t care about power. She cared about protecting those she loved. Her pack, her family, meant something to her.
Talon, however, didn’t care about power. Motived by two things—money and sex—he made no bones about his vices or desires. Riley could work with that. Besides, she liked him. He made her laugh, he was easy on the eyes, and she knew exactly where she stood with him.
She found him where Max had said he’d be, in the bazaar located in Capitol Hill, a known entertainment district with a rich night life in the city. A place where the magir fit right in with humans.
At just past eight in the evening, she walked through a kitschy shop selling low-end doodads to tourists and through a glamoured wall in the back. Past the wall that didn’t exist, she moved through an Employees Only door and walked down a staircase and past several large gargoyles pulling guard duty. She flashed a fang, and they let her pass without incident.
After pushing through a large double door and a sound-proof spell, she entered into a bustling crowd of magir hawking wares in a large expanse of the biggest magic market in the Pacific Northwest.
She’d been to the bazaar a few times, though not as many as Max and Flint, who spent an inordinate amount of time among those not pack. Not that Riley cared, but Max really needed to spend more time learning the ropes from Uncle Jack if he intended to take over as alpha.
The grand space was divided into several sections. Along the outside perimeter of the bazaar were the more popular shops belonging to herbologists, apothecaries, metal workers, and species-specific businesses that ran 24/7. At the very back, a collection of eateries and bars provided food for every kind of magir, to include vampires, though they rarely frequented the place.
The center of the marketplace resembled an indoor flea market. Most sellers had tables they set up and took down whenever they felt like it. No one had any expectation of security if they left those tables alone. The more successful boasted sturdy displays while those lesser fortunate hobbled together temporary storefronts, some with cardboard boxes and cheap folding tables. For the low price of just fifty dollars a month, anyone could sell anything—so long as MEC didn’t get wind of it...or didn’t care.
She frowned, wondering how often the Magir Enforcement Command circulated around the bazaar. She didn’t want anyone in her business, and she knew they took particular interest in her whereabouts. Not long ago, a few visiting berserkers from Canadian packs had gotten caught up in a scuffle at the university campus with the Seattle Bloode—the local vampire clan. She still didn’t know why everyone had started fighting, but her uncle had had his hands full trying to negotiate with MEC over the situation. Because those visiting berserkers had been his responsibility.
She had no urge to give him any more headache and focused on her mission to find Talon and figure out where to go from there. Too bad the shapeshifter refused to carry a phone.
Her phone buzzed. She stepped aside to see a message from her cousin. She didn’t have the patience to text back and forth, so she called him. “What?”
“And hello to you too,” he said drily. “Where are you? The vampire keeps texting me since you apparently haven’t texted him yet.”
