“Oh,god...” I moaned, jerking my hips back and forth with abandon. “More, please, more—oh god, bite me, bite me,bite me—!”
My mate was inside me, pushing me toward a climax that would blot out the world... but it still wasn’tenough. I needed more of him in me. I needed to make sure that he could never,everleave.
His growl dipped into a lower register, resonating inside my chest with every unforgiving stroke.
“Mine,” he snarled, his grip on my hip tightening until I could feel the finger-shaped bruises forming. “Mine... mine...mine!”
He slammed into me, and the dam inside me shattered. I screamed and clamped down on him, slick squirting between us as my muscles milked his length violently. My awareness whited out, the force of the towering orgasm competing with the ravenous hunger for somethingmore. My mating gland throbbed and ached with the need for sharp teeth to pierce it.
“Please!” I sobbed. “Oh god, please, Ican’t—”
Strong arms pulled me upright on my knees, my back slapping hard against a muscled chest. One arm wrapped around my torso, a hot hand grabbing my breast possessively. The other hand wrapped around my throat, my pulse pounding crazily against the firm grip.
The hand twisted my head to the side, and I let it fall limply. My choked groan of relief vibrated against the warm constriction against my windpipe as unsteady breath puffed against myaching gland. With a rough groan, my alpha bent his head to the juncture of my shoulder and bit down hard, until the blood flowed.
TWENTY-ONE
Tony
I COULDN’T HELP FEELINGa little guilty about leaving Knox on his own at the hospital. After all, I’d promised to stay with him until one of the others showed up to take over.
Still, I reminded myself repeatedly that he was going to be tied up with doctors and tests and medical questions for the next little while. More importantly, it wasn’t as though my presence was going to, I dunno, bring himcomfortor anything. I was just some random beta guy that did errands for Heath sometimes. Knox barely knew me.
I hadn’t received a call back from either Heath or Gage, almost two hours after I’d left them both voicemails. No matter how hard I tried to convince myself that it wasn’t a big deal... I knew that it actually was. It didn’t matter how tired they were or how little sleep they’d gotten since the attack. There was no way in hell that one or the other of them hadn’t heard their phones ringing and checked for messages.
So, here I was in my old Volvo, driving out to the pack house to find out what the heck was going on. My head was pounding after the long, sleepless night—not helped by the early morning sun that had peeked out from behind the clouds seemingly for the sole purpose of burning out my retinas as I’d negotiated myway from the hospital’s visitor parking area toward Lake Shore Drive.
Everything was probably fine, I told myself for the dozenth time. There would be a reasonable explanation for why I couldn’t contact either of the alphas. Maybe their phones batteries were dead, and they hadn’t noticed. Or... something.
Whatever the case, I’d find out soon enough.
I pulled into the winding driveway leading to the old house and parked by the front door. Nothing seemed out of place. There were no other vehicles out front, but I was pretty sure the others usually parked in the back, where an old carriage house had been renovated into a detached garage.
Heart in throat, I jogged up to the door and rapped my knuckles against it until they ached. “Heath?” I called. “Gage? Wake up and get down here!”
When that didn’t immediately bring someone down to let me in, I leaned on the doorbell buzzer. I honestly had no idea if the damn thing was even hooked up—but sure enough, the muffled electronic tone reached me faintly through the heavy door.
I was pacing back and forth on the porch, trying to figure out what I should do next, when the door swung open to reveal Gage standing there in rumpled clothes and bare feet. I whirled to face him, my eyes immediately drawn to his gaping fly before I wrenched my attention up to his face.
“Tony,” he said blankly, as though I was the last person he’d expected to find at his door. His scruffy stubble had long ago left the land of five o’clock shadow in the rearview mirror, and his square-jawed face was so pale that he looked like a ghost. His hazel eyes were very wide.
“Gage?” I asked stupidly.
He swallowed hard, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing. “We’ve... um... we’ve got a problem. A big one.”
