Total pages in book: 40
Estimated words: 37136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 186(@200wpm)___ 149(@250wpm)___ 124(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 37136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 186(@200wpm)___ 149(@250wpm)___ 124(@300wpm)
Ivan glanced over at the pair of them. “Are you going to be a pussy about eating people again? Because I got no fuckin’ time for that.”
Will wasn’t sure if Ivan was talking to him or to Henry. The question would have been nearly as appropriate to both. Henry had once led his pack to slaughter Ivan, whose bloodthirsty tastes and disdain for the laws of men made him a danger in a variety of ways. Henry’s rules did not allow for the killing of people for food. Ivan’s rules did.
Ivan was a survivor, through and through, and for that Will was grateful. This was how he needed to be now. Ruthless, and entirely focused on himself. Fuck everybody else. There was nobody in this world who was going to take care of him better than he did himself.
He picked up a charred hand and snapped a finger off between his teeth, chewing aggressively, breaking the brittle bone and tasting the marrow within.
Ivan’s blue stare softened slightly. “Good,” he said. “You’re learning.”
“Have you seen my mom lately?” He asked the question between bites of flesh.
“Your mom?”
Ivan playing dumb was stupid. He was part of the maternal conspiracy, and Will would have been bitter about that if he wasn’t directing all his rage about the situation toward Maddox alone.
“Yeah. Where’s Candy?”
Ivan looked at him. “You got some reason for asking that?”
“I know she’s my mother, or was, before she became whatever she is now. I want to see her.”
“Well shit, you finally know. About fucking time.”
Will agreed but did not have the time to devote to bitterness about all the secrets that had been kept from him. He had spent long weeks and months locked in Gideon’s hound dungeons, serving a monster he felt nothing for, and clinging to the small slivers of hope pack master Henry offered from time to time. Now he was free and he wanted nothing besides the truth.
“I don’t know where your mother is,” Ivan said. “And that’s the truth. She comes and she goes, she’s there and then she isn’t, and I have to say I’ve never been one of her favorite people.”
Somewhere behind them, Henry and Lorien were locked in a passionate embrace. Will heard kissing, grunting, the sounds of two men about to fuck in the woods. Their love had not waned one bit during Henry’s imprisonment. The alpha had maintained positive feelings without bitterness of any kind, and Lorien had done his level best to maintain their relationship in spite of the many and brutal punishments handed down for all attempts at fraternization.
Will’s jealousy flared, as it had many times before. His own rift with Maddox seemed amplified by Henry and Lorien’s happiness. It was so easy for them. No resentment, no uncertainty, no constant fear of abandonment. Throughout their tribulations, they had remained connected.
Blissfully unaware of their reunion being observed with deep jealousy and perhaps a growing feral rage, Lorien and Henry made their togetherness count. Their embraces were intense, their kisses passionate, and their erections most turgid. It had been months since Henry had bedded Lorien, and every instinct in his animal body told him to pin the vampire down on his face and mate him, rutting until they were both satisfied.
But he had been an animal long enough. He wanted to be human and have a human conversation before they got to the rutting.
Lorien smiled into Henry’s eyes. “I knew this day would come,” he said. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t spring you from that dungeon sooner. Gideon would have…”
“I would rather serve a hundred years in Gideon’s dungeon than see you hurt,” Henry said. “Protecting you is all that matters to me.”
Very quietly in the distance, had they been listening to anything other than one another, they might have heard a bitter voice mutter.
“Ew. Gross.”
“Enough talking,” Henry growled. “I need you.”
He gripped Lorien’s hair and drew his vampire mate close, kissing deeply with a passionate growl. It had been months since their last coupling, and that made their mating all the more intense.
Lorien found himself wrapped in Henry’s powerful grip. Technically the elegant vampire was much stronger, but when in the pack master’s arms, he found himself weak. He submitted to Henry’s greater maturity and his intense animal energy. He gave himself to the master and let himself feel like a freshly-made fledgling being filled for the first time.
“Fuck, I have missed you,” Henry growled.
Clothes were removed, Henry’s ripped, and Lorien’s carefully removed. The two of them sank into the depths of the forest, away from prying eyes and jealous ears.
“I want you over this,” Henry said, pointing to a thick, fallen tree which would put Lorien’s hips at the perfect angle for fucking.
Lorien elegantly draped himself over the tree branch, perfectly obedient for his mate.
Henry went to his knees and began to lick Lorien’s rear, delving into the cleft between his cheeks, tasting, loving, preparing the region of his imminent conquest.