Dark Wrath (14 page)

She wrapped an
arm around his neck, pressing her breasts tightly against his chest.  They
swelled, growing heavy as her need increased.  Her nipples puckered into
hard nubs.

Groaning, he
broke the kiss, releasing the fistful of hair he’d captured and stroked his
hand down her back, catching one of her thighs and dragging it across his
hips.  The head of his cock nudged against her clit, evoking a riot of
sensations.  She undulated against it, increasing the pressure, feeling
her belly clench as a warm wetness bathed her sex in anticipation of his
possession.  When he shifted and his cock slipped along her cleft,
however, she pulled slightly away.

She was
determined this would be a night he wouldn’t forget.

Pushing against
his shoulders until he rolled onto his back, she shifted over him.

He was staring at
her quizzically when she lifted her head to look at him.  A smile curled
her lips.  “I read a hooker’s guide to giving head once,” she murmured.
“Want to see if I mastered it?”

His lips
twitched.  Without a word, he folded his hands beneath his head.

Taking that as
consent, Erin began to work her way down his body with a slow thoroughness that
left no part of him unexplored.  By the time she’d reached his cock, beads
of sweat had broken from his pores and his body twitched with feverish
heat.  Coming up on her knees, she bent over his hips, wrapping one hand
tightly around his shaft, stroking him from the root to the tip over and over,
first the underside and then the top, taking care that she massaged every inch
of his exquisitely sensitive shaft thoroughly.

A sense of
satisfaction filled her as his fingers clenched on the sheets on either side of
his hips, fisting and relaxing rhythmically.  His breath caught in his
chest, was expelled harshly and sucked in again.  His belly
quivered.  The muscles all over his body tensed, trembled with his effort
to remain still and passive to her ministrations.

Heat flooded
Erin.  Her throat closed with an unnamable thirst.  She stared at the
cock in her hands, resisting the urge to cover it with her mouth and suck him.

Switching hands,
she continued to stroke his cock and began to gently massage his
testicles.  He jerked, his shoulders coming off the bed.  With an
obvious effort, he lay back.  His hands moved over her shoulders, stroking
her, and then clutched the sheets again.

Erin felt her
belly clench.  Her throat tightened as she felt the heat of his need
washing over her.

“
Chère
,”
he muttered on a harsh breath.

“Shhh,” Erin
murmured soothingly, leaning down at last to place her mouth over his cock.

A harsh groan
erupted from his throat.  He went rigid, began to thrash restlessly. 
His cock jerked in her mouth, as if he would explode in that moment.

Erin’s belly
clenched with her own ravaging need.

Abruptly, he
bolted upright, grasped her shoulders and shoved her back onto the
mattress.  Almost before she’d caught her breath, he was driving into
her.  His cock head slid almost along her cleft and plowed into the mouth
of her sex.

Planting the
soles of her feet on the mattress, she lifted to meet him.

Mindless with his
need and completely beyond control, he pumped into her again and again until
she felt the root of his cock grinding against her.  His frantic need
surged into her, sent her own control spiraling beyond her grasp.  She
curled her fingers into his arms, dug her nails in, meeting each thrust with a
burgeoning sense of desperation.

When he stilled
abruptly, dragging in a harsh breath, Erin lost the battle to stave off her
release.  Groaning, she bucked against him as she felt her body begin to
convulse in waves of ecstasy.  Slipping an arm beneath her hips, he began
to thrust hard and fast, uttering a guttural cry as his own body exploded with
release.

* * * *

Erin pretended
she was asleep when Jesse eased from beneath the covers and dressed.  She
was fairly sure she couldn’t go up on deck and watch him leave without behaving
badly and making everyone, Jesse included, uncomfortable.

It was better
this way.  If she felt like crying, she could cry without having to
consider whether it would worry anyone else.

She almost gave
up the pretense when he’d finished dressing and stood beside the bed staring
down at her for what seemed a very long time.  Finally, he merely turned
and left, closing the door quietly behind him.

She turned onto
her back then and lay listening to the sounds around her.  Even without
the distant sound and vibration of the engine, she could tell the ship was
moving.  The closer it came to shore, the more violently waves battered
the hull and the ship bobbed in the water.  Abruptly the engine
stopped.  The ship didn’t.  For what seemed an endless time it glided
silently through the water.  Finally, she heard the sound of the anchor
being released.  The forward glide slowed and finally ceased altogether.

Hearing the Lycans
moving about on the upper deck, Erin threw the covers off at last and got
up.  To her disappointment, she saw nothing from the cabin’s porthole but
winking stars and the ripple of their light on the water.

She wouldn’t be
able to watch them leave.  The ship was facing the wrong direction for
that.

Feeling a sudden
need to catch one last glimpse of Jesse, Erin began to scramble for clothes,
dragging them on haphazardly and then dashing from the cabin and along the
gangway.  Silence had fallen by the time she reached the deck.  She
rushed to the starboard railing anyway, peering through the darkness toward the
darker shape some distance away rimmed by a pale ribbon of sand.  She’d
almost given up the effort to find them when her gaze finally lit upon a dark
shape moving through the water.  She studied it hard.  After a time,
she thought she could make out the individual shadows crowded into the dingy.

She couldn’t tell
which of them was Jesse, though.

“They will be
back before dawn.”

Erin glanced at
the man who’d come to stand beside her.  “You think?”

He leaned down,
bracing his arms on the railing.  “Tonight they will only reconnoiter the
place.  Tomorrow, or the next day, or maybe even the day after that, they
will sweep through it, destroy all the data that has been collected, and be out
again before the Feds know what’s hit them.”

Erin frowned as
she studied Billy Ray.  “Jesse didn’t tell me that.”

“No?”  Billy
Ray grinned.  “Maybe he get carried away by the worry in his lady’s eyes,
no?”

Meaning he was
too busy enjoying himself to consider her feelings?  She knew, suddenly,
that that was not the case.  He hadn’t said anything because he fully
intended to go in tonight if the opportunity arose and she was pretty sure
Billy Ray knew that.

He was only trying
to distract her.

She saw the dingy
had reached the beach.  Dark shadows poured out of it and disappeared into
the thick jungle vegetation that edged the ribbon of sand.

With an effort,
she forced a smile to reward Billy Ray for his efforts to reassure her. 
“So--even if he finds an open door, he’s just going to look around and come
straight back?”

Billy Ray
shrugged, but grinned.  “If they welcome him, then maybe he will go in and
take care of business, but Jesse is no hot head, nor one to fall into a trap. 
He is smart, very smart.  He will study the problem and pick it apart
before he strikes.”

Erin nodded,
realizing she
was
reassured.  “We’ll wait here for them?”

“
Oui
, for
now.  If they are not back before dawn, we will have to move further from
shore, but I don’t expect that.”

There was nothing
to do but wait.

She was going to
be a raving lunatic long before dawn.

She remained by
the railing for a while after Billy Ray had left.  When she could no
longer bear the inactivity, she wandered about the deck, her ears strained to
listen for the sound of distant gunfire.

She found no
peace when the sound never came.  Instead, her fertile mind began to
torment her with other scenarios, of the men walking into a trap, captured,
taken to the laboratory to be tortured and dissected.

Time hung upon
her like a pall.  The moon rose, but seemed to stand still in the heavens,
not moving by so much as an inch.  Finally, when she realized that
everyone but the night watch had gone below to try to rest, she went below decks
and paced her cabin for a while.  After glancing at the porthole for the
dozenth time, she decided to go to the main cabin.  At least there she
might see something when and if there was something to see.

She was sorry
she’d taken a nap earlier.  At the time, she’d been so exhausted from her
anxiety she’d welcomed the chance to rest.  Now she couldn’t even seek
that modicum of peace and staring at the clock on the wall of the main cabin
wasn’t helping her nerves any more than staring at the moon had.

Mentally taking
herself to task for working herself into a mass of screaming nerves, she strode
purposefully to the cabinet that housed Juliette’s collection of reading
materials and dragged out a stack of magazines.  After a brief internal
debate, she chose the couch and settled with the stack beside her, flipping the
pages idly and trying to focus on the pages rather than the thoughts teasing at
the edges of her mind.

It would’ve been
easier, she thought wryly, to distract herself with the damned things if they’d
actually held anything of concern to her, but even the ads, which naturally
enough were related to the subject of the magazines, didn’t pique her
interest.  She persevered, struggling to focus her mind away from her
worries.  She’d flipped through most of the stack when a sound outside
caught her attention.

She froze,
listening more intently.  She’d just decided it was purely imagination
when she heard a very distinctive thud on the deck above her.  She was on
her feet before she even formed the thought.  They were back!

Dropping the
magazine, she strode briskly from the main cabin, glancing at the clock almost
absently as she moved past it.  Three O’clock.  Three hours.  A
prickle of uneasiness went through her.  She didn’t realize why, or what
errant thought had caused the wash of anxiety until she’d reached the stairs
and started up.

They’d only been
gone three hours and it had taken them a good twenty minutes even to reach the
shoreline from the ship.  Could they possibly have gone, stayed long enough
to see what they needed to, and come back in no more time than that?

Abruptly, the
door at the top of the gangway was flung open.  Erin stared upward at the
beast that leapt through the opening and uttered a scream of pure terror.

J
esse’s
face was grim as they emerged at last on the beach nearest the island that was
their objective.  It had taken nearly two hours to reach this point, far
longer than he’d expected.  The island itself where the facility lay was a
good six miles from the mainland, no great distance if they could have crossed
it openly in the dingy they’d lugged through the jungle, but to cross with
stealth would take more time.  The moon was high now.  They would
have to settle and wait until it was nearing the trees on the western horizon
before they could chance a crossing.

The uneasiness
that had been plaguing him since he’d left the ship deepened, making his flesh
creep.  He’d struggled with the undefined anxiety that something was wrong
ever since.  No matter how much he assured himself, he was certain that it
was nothing more than reluctance to leave Erin.

The seed she’d
planted in his mind had been sown in fertile soil.  From the moment he’d
left her he hadn’t been able to get it out of his mind that she was vulnerable. 
Ordinarily, he would never have doubted that the three men he’d left to guard
her and the yacht were perfectly capable of handling most any situation. 
He was certain the only reason he doubted it now was the fear Erin had planted
in his mind that someone would harm her or take her from him.

He was almost
certain.

Irritated, he
left the men resting near the forest edge and followed the tree line a little
further down the beach, sniffing at the wind and trying to catch the scents of
the jungle.  It was an exercise in futility. The wind blew almost
constantly off the water, carrying scents inland.

If there was
anything there….

The hackles along
the ridge of his spine rose abruptly as a faint scent teased at his
nostrils.  Whirling abruptly, he raced back toward the others, uttering a
warning call.  Almost before the sound had ceased to vibrate from his
vocal chords, a chorus of feline snarls answered.

From every
direction if seemed save the beach that trapped them at the water’s edge, dark
shapes sprang forth, leaping from brush and the overhead limbs of the
trees.  Something heavy impacted into his back so hard the weight and
momentum of it slammed him into the ground.  Claws tore at his back. 
Snarling, he twisted beneath the beast’s weight, clubbing it on the side of its
head with his fist.

Any doubt he’d
nurtured that the beast that had attacked him was no more than an animal
vanished in that moment.  The blow would have taken the head off of a man,
crushed the skull of any jungle cat.

Blood shot from
the creature’s nose and mouth, spattering him, the smell driving his beast mad
with bloodlust.  The adrenaline that surged through him in response
magnified his strength.  He bucked, breaking the creature’s grip on him
and launching it into the brush.

Coming up onto
all fours, he bellowed a challenge.  Even as he struggled to get his feet
beneath him and rise, three more creatures sailed from the tree limbs above
him, driving him into the dirt once more, pinning him.

“Yield,” the
creature on his chest bellowed.  “We have your woman!”

It took several
seconds for that to penetrate Jesse’s maddened mind.  When it did, he
uttered a roar of pure rage and fought harder, but defeat was already seeping
into his mind.  His ears told him the battle was already lost for the rest
of his men.  They were outnumbered perhaps three to one.  Strength
would avail him nothing at this point.

They had
Erin.  He could not save her if he allowed the madness to push him to a
fight to the death.  Abruptly, with a tremendous effort, he began to
struggle against his beast, to find control.

“Release us,” he
snarled.  “We have no quarrel with your clan.  We are here to kill
the humans on yonder island and take back my son.”

“You have
encroached on the territory of the panthers without leave,” the one who had
threatened Erin snarled.  “We do not take trespass lightly.”

“Our quarrel is
not with the clan of the panthers,” Jesse growled as they hauled him to his
feet.  “And neither should yours be with us.  Those humans there have
taken the Lycan to build their armies.  No shifter is safe if we do not
destroy them, not even your people.”

“We leave them
alone and they do not bother us,” the panther responded, but he turned to study
the distant island through narrowed eyes.  “You can tell your strange tale
to Carlos.  But I will warn you now he is in no benign mood and unlikely
to listen to anything you might think to say now.  You know the
protocol.  You should have gone to him at once and negotiated a treaty
between our peoples.  Then, perhaps, he would have given you permission to
bring your war to our doorstep--and maybe not.  But it is less likely
now.”

Jesse lurched
against the two panthers that held his arms.  “There is no time!” he
snarled.  “If you have my woman then you know she has only just given
birth to our son!  They hold him there to experiment on him.  They
are breeding more!”

The panther’s
eyes narrowed.  “
Si
!  I have seen your woman.  She bears
your marks.  If it is as you say, why would she bear your mark?  You
chose her as your mate!  Carlos is not likely to believe your lies,
señor
Lycan!”

Jesse ground his
teeth, but he resisted the urge to argue further.  It was useless to even
speak to the leader’s lieutenant.  Besides, if they had Erin he would have
to go with them to get her back.  “Take me to Carlos, then.  If he is
intelligent enough to lead your clan, then he will not be so stupid as to
ignore a threat to us all.”

* * * *

Erin knew she was
in a state of shock.  As balmy as the night was, she was shivering
uncontrollably.  Clamping her teeth more tightly together, she drew her
knees more tightly against her chest, shifting her buttocks on the deck to ease
some of her discomfort from sitting on the hard surface.

To her surprise,
the Lycans on either side of her shifted closer to share the warmth of their
bodies with her.  She glanced up at Billy Ray in gratitude.

At least, she
thought it was Billy Ray.  He had shifted into beast form and she had
trouble distinguishing between the Lycan when they morphed.

“What do you
think they intend to do with us?” she whispered.

His yellow eyes
examined her piercingly for a moment.  “They would have killed us already
if they had been ordered to do so.”

It was some
reassurance but not quite what she’d had in mind.  She peered through the
gloom at the creature that was guiding the yacht through the shallow waters of
what looked like a cove.  She hadn’t noticed it before.

She wondered if
Jesse had, if he would find them, or return to discover the ship gone and
believe they had abandoned him and others.

The screaming
demons that had descended upon them were not Lycan.  It had been hard
enough for her to come to accept that the werewolves actually existed.  To
discover that there were others, werecats, was a jolt and at least partly the
reason for her shock.

The assault had
been enough to thoroughly terrorize her, though.  Her own animal instincts
had taken over from the moment she had looked up to see the great, black beast
crouching above her, ready to spring.  Mindless with terror, she’d whirled
and raced back to the main cabin--the only avenue of escape open to her at all
and that would’ve proven to be no more than a trap even if she’d succeeded in
barricading herself in before the thing was upon her.

She’d fought it,
too mindless to realize that her efforts were useless.  She was bleeding
from dozens of claw marks and the thing hadn’t even tried to savage her with
them or its teeth.  She wondered if she had any cracked ribs from the
thing pouncing upon her and slamming her into the deck.  She felt bruised. 
Every breath pained her and every muscle in her body protested to the slightest
movement.

Maybe that was
why they hadn’t bothered to bind her as they had the others?  They knew
that, as a human, she was so frail next to them that she was already too
battered just from being captured to present any sort of flight risk.

She held on to
that thought.  The hope that her weakness might be turned to an advantage
was all she had.

The ship lurched
abruptly as its prow dug into soft sand.

They’d grounded
it.

Erin shot Billy
Ray a panicked glance.  Unless the incoming tide released it, they were
thoroughly trapped now with no way to flee but on foot.

As soon as the
ship stopped moving, the panther people who’d captured them swarmed upon them,
dragging them to their feet.  She screamed as she was tossed over the
side.  The sound was cut off abruptly as the air was forced from her lungs
when she landed in the waiting arms of a man-panther standing in the water
below.  She was still struggling to drag air into her lungs again when the
creature tossed her over his shoulder and began to jog up the beach with
her.  The impact of her ribcage against the beast’s shoulder forced the
air from her lungs again and internal darkness swarmed up to swallow her.

A profound blackness
like a cave greeted her when Erin finally roused.  For many moments, she
couldn’t focus beyond the pain spreading through her ribcage and pounding in
her skull, but when she’d managed to shift slightly and relieve some of the
pressure, the pain receded sufficiently enough for her to assimilate the fact
that she was still moving and that the heat radiating into her came from the
body of the creature that was carrying her.

They were moving
quickly.  Around her, she could hear sounds that indicated many others.

How could they
see where they were going?

From the foliage
brushing along her arm and tangling occasionally in her hair to snatch painful
strands loose, she knew they must be deep within the jungle.

Where were they
being taken and what did these creatures intend to do with them when they got
there?

She shied away
from that thought, unwilling to deal with it until she had to.

The slim hope
she’d nurtured that she might be able to escape since they hadn’t bound her
like they had the others died though.  Even if the thing wasn’t carrying
her, she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face.  They obviously could
see quite well.  She wouldn’t have a chance in hell of outrunning them or
hiding from them.

After what seemed
an eternity of suffering, Erin began to notice that she could pick out darker
shapes within the blackness.  At first, she thought she was only imagining
it.  Then she wondered if it was dawn.  She realized shortly that it
was neither.  The trees were thinning, allowing some light from the night
sky to penetrate to the floor of the forest.

Abruptly, the
creature carrying her stepped from the trees and into a clearing.  The
contrast was sharp.  She reared upward again, bracing her palms on the
creature’s back to look around.

They were moving through
a field of some kind.  Around her, she saw others emerge from the trees,
her fellow captives among them.

She didn’t see
the stone fortress until the creature carrying her passed beneath the outer
wall.  Vegetation gave way to dusty, bare dirt and then to stones set into
the dirt in a swirling pattern.  Twisting her head, Erin saw a collection
of shabby huts leaning against the outer wall of the fortress.

It looked
ancient.  She wondered if it had once been just that.  Or, perhaps,
it had been a mission?  The style, from what she could see, was Spanish,
but then she’d heard the were-creatures speaking Spanish.  She didn’t
understand one word in ten, but she knew Spanish when she heard it.

She wobbled when
the beast carrying her set her abruptly on her feet.  Her feet and legs
had long since lost circulation.  Her knees buckled.  She would’ve
collapsed on the stones except that he grasped her upper arm.  It wasn’t
enough support.  She sank anyway.  Hauling her upright again, he
wrapped an arm around her waist and half carried her while she struggled to put
one foot in front of the other.

Stout wooden
doors, looking as ancient as the building itself, lay before her across a wide
verandah.  Glancing around and upward as she was shoved toward the doors,
Erin noted details that seemed to bear up her suspicion that this had once been
a mission, dating back, no doubt, to the Spanish conquest and colonization in
the Americas.  It was too far inland, she thought, to have been a fort,
but she supposed she could be wrong.  Maybe it had originally been built
as both?

The interior, she
saw once they’d entered the main structure, was lit with lamps.  Exposed
electrical wiring and bare bulbs testified to an attempt to modernize at some
point, but she supposed so far into the jungle electricity wasn’t easy to come
by.  It would take generators, and that meant a lot of fuel would have to
be hauled in unless they only used the electricity sparingly.

Brightly colored
rugs and dark, heavy furniture littered the great room, which looked to be a
gathering point for a large household.

Without pausing,
the creature carrying her crossed the main room and stepped through an
arch.  A wide corridor lay before them.

Erin’s first
taste of panic since she’d come hit her when she glanced back and discovered
the Lycan were being led off in a different direction.  She burst into
motion so fast, she very nearly managed to break free.  “No!  Put me
with them!  What are you doing?”

The creature
snarled.  “Be still,
gringa
.”

She ignored the
command, fighting him every step of the way as he dragged her down the corridor
and finally shoved her into a tiny room.  She didn’t know whether to be
relieved or more worried when he simply stepped out again, slamming a heavy
door and bolting it from the outside.