Horn of the Unicorn Read online

  “You won’t hurt me,” she told him, her voice thick with emotion and the soft, heavy weight of physical need pulsing in the center of her body, spiraling out into her fingers and her toes. “Take from me whatever you need, but you won’t have my fear. Of all the things that terrify me, you could never be one of them.”

  “How little you know, sweetheart,” he answered aloud in a gritty, yet tender tone that she could swear held the shadow of a smile. “If I fuck you as I’m dying to right now, I’d scare the life out of you. And if I don’t, it’s going to fucking kill me. Hell of a dilemma.”

  Tess laughed softly, and from somewhere behind their heads, Graedor murmured, “Once a smartass, always a smartass, Zarn. It’s good to know the years haven’t changed you.”

  Tess started, surprised to realize she had forgotten they weren’t alone, and suddenly wondered when the werewolf had released his hold on her.

  In truth, she knew nothing beyond the body trapping her against the unyielding surface of the rock beneath her, and though she could not see his face, she knew him.

  “Gods, are you still here?” the silver-haired beauty grumbled against the sensitive skin beneath her ear, making her shiver, and this time she knew she felt his smile as it spread slowly across that warm, wicked mouth.

  “Are you kidding?” Graedor snorted. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

  “Mmm…neither would I,” she sighed, sifting her fingers through the lustrous silver silk of her lover’s hair. It flowed over his back and across his broad shoulders like a silver cloud, soft and warm and gleaming beneath the pale shafts of moonlight, the darker threads of blue shooting through the thick silver mass reminding her of the purest evening sky.

  Oh yes, this was her dream lover. She soaked in the knowledge with a decadent feast of satisfaction, and in a sudden, stunning rush, emotions clamored through her in a kaleidoscope of sensation, dizzying and full of disorder. She struggled to find an appropriate word to describe how she felt at that precise moment in time, but it was like trying to reach up into the summer sky and snatch a rainbow from its lofty perch among the clouds. Her heart seemed heavy and light all at once, her senses buzzing with adrenaline and something that she suspected bordered on a bitter happiness.

  She was joyful, yes, deliriously so to finally be with him, with the one she thought she would never have, and yet her happiness was tinged with despair because she knew it would not last. Her sister still suffered with the monsters—with Montgomery and his men and who-knew-what. Emily still needed her, now more than ever, and no matter the joy and bliss she found in this man’s—this being’s, this warrior’s—arms, she knew that the commitment she must uphold to see her sister safe and free would most likely separate them. How could it not?

  But you have now, Tess. Right now, he’s here and he’s yours—and damn it, you’re going to enjoy him. You’re going to wring as much pleasure and passion from this moment as you can.

  And taking pleasure with this man was so very easy to do, like breathing the night air and taking comfort from his solid, muscled weight trapping her under him. The seductive scents of night jasmine and strangely enough, honey, filled her head, mixed sensually with the ripe, sultry aroma of lust that seemed to stroke her body in slow, tangible waves, as if the scent of their desire itself had fingers and hands and tongues to caress her skin. And beneath it all, she could feel that burning, evocative presence of ready male animal. Hot, musky heat, the kind that seemed to throb in beats with the hammering pulse of his heart against her breasts, and it wrapped her in rich, weighty strokes of arousal. Weighty, because she could feel them roll through her body, like a physical movement that had substance, as if the need for this man were a thing she carried around inside her, living and meaty and real.

  “I’m trying, but I fear I cannot wait much longer, lass,” he rumbled against her throat, kissing her warm flesh then nibbling provocatively with his teeth.

  She trembled beneath him, overcome with the need to feel him everywhere. “Can’t you tell that I don’t want you to wait?”

  Surprising, yes, but true. Considering the chaotic events of the night, it seemed untenable to want this now, but just the smell of him turned her into a quivering mass of hunger and irrational want, and she felt starved for all that she needed from him. For all that she’d hungered each time he’d visited her dreams and left her writhing in unrelieved need. She ached from her toes to her scalp for the press of all that gleaming, naked flesh—needed to feel the unyielding strength of the sinew, muscle, and strong bones buried beneath that silken skin. Not soft or smooth like a woman’s, but slick and slightly sweaty—sleek in the way only a man could feel, as if all that warm skin had been stretched as tightly as possible over the powerful muscles and strong bones beneath its surface.

  And though the lust burned front and center in her mind, there was more than just the physical hunger. It went deeper than that, beneath the needs of the flesh, to something more than physical. An ache deep inside that only he could feed. That only he could satisfy.

  He’s here! He’s mine to touch and take and hold onto, she thought, wondering with a dazed sense of pride and exhilaration if it could really be true.

  Beyond eager to touch him, to hold him, Tess placed her damp palms against the fevered, muscled skin of his broad shoulders and ran them down the long line of his back, marveling at the powerful contours mapped beneath her touch as he shifted and moved with life.

  “You…should…wait to do that,” he warned tightly. “Just a bit longer, Tess, until…until I have more control. I do not think the change is yet complete.”

  “I don’t want to wait,” she breathed out, her voice soft but strong. “To be honest, I can’t. I’ve waited so long to touch you. To hold you close.”

  Something that was almost a purr rumbled up from his chest, bathing her throat, and he jerked against her with a violent twist of that long, hard body, snarling as the change seemed to consume him in another powerful wave. It shuddered through him, snapping the bones beneath all that hot, silken skin into place, so loud and forceful that she could hear as well as feel the movement as tendon and sinew shifted beneath her touch. His mouth moved to press against the vulnerable line of her throat just beneath her jaw, forcing her head to arch back, and it was with a small shock to her system that she locked gazes with the golden giant who still stood just behind the stone.

  “You’re watching us,” she gasped, and he flashed a sexy, crooked smirk in reply.

  Bloody hell, how could she have forgotten he was there! And not once, but twice! It seemed impossible, seeing as he was so singularly unforgettable, but then her only excuse lay in the hot, hard body pinning her to the cool stone.

  Graedor’s amber gaze swam with everything from laughter to fury to ungratified hunger, one tawny brow arched as if to say, “I may be pissed that I don’t get to touch, but I’m more than enjoying the show,” and it was with a sharp jolt to her system that Tess realized she wanted him to see this. Wanted him to witness her claiming, and the feelings were so far out of her scope of reality that she didn’t know how to accept them—couldn’t find the part of her psyche that would help her search out and identify the appropriate response for such an animal reaction. With no other answer, she did the only thing she could think of and closed her eyes, filling her reality with nothing but the presence of the man pinning her beneath him.

  “This is going to be so damn good,” her lover rumbled against her throat, every touch of his lips and breath making that hollow ache deep inside knot with need. His breathing came rapidly, heavy and rushing against her skin, moist and rich with life, and then he cried out again as a long, voluptuous wave of creation seemed to slam through him, jerking him above her several inches, then dropping him back down so fiercely that she lost her ability to breathe. It was like drowning in weight and she couldn’t find any air, couldn’t find her way through the thick, heavy presence of him, and her mouth opened on a soundless scream that struggled f
or life until his large hands settled at her shoulders and he pushed his upper body away from her. He lifted just enough so that the air could slam into her lungs again and her scream could seek a means of escape.

  But it never came. No, her eyes shot wide at her first clear look at his fierce, unbelievable beauty. It stole any thoughts of needing to breathe from her mind, and suddenly that rushing air collapsed heavily within her lungs, until it felt as if her chest would cave with the incredible pressure as everything seemed to pull back into her, like bathwater fighting for the drain when the plug is finally pulled. She writhed beneath him, shaking on the sharp edge of panic as her lungs began to burn and her head grew heavy, tiny pinpoints of light beginning to shimmer at the edges of her vision. Just when she thought she was going…slipping into that fretful unconsciousness that had claimed her earlier in the day, the man above her, her lover, the one Graedor called Zarnak, pulled her back.

  A small smile curled the hypnotic perfection of the most sensual mouth she had ever seen, and in that achingly familiar voice, he gritted through the hard line of his white teeth, “Breathe, Tess. Breathe for me, my beautiful one.”

  And so she did.

  Her lips parted, her back rolling with the surging movement as the sweet, floral scented air of the forest slammed back into her lungs, and her arms shot wide, smacking against the stone as she arched from the quickening sensation of life filling her up, spilling back into her with the rush of his hot, succulent scent filling her lungs, her head, her senses. She shivered with the sensations, her hips lifting, pressing upward, and suddenly the raw sexuality of their positions crashed into her in blinding, heart-stopping detail.

  He was so perfectly, utterly male…and he was there.

  “Oh god, you feel so good,” she moaned in a throaty whisper, and both men, lover and werewolf, growled in response.

  Zarnak’s hard, beautifully muscled body, so heavy, so wonderfully heavy, pinned her hips to the smooth, unyielding surface of the chilled rock, and against her he was just as unyielding. But he was not cool. No, he was hot, nearly searing against her tender, vulnerable flesh, and the rigid, massive power of his purely male equipment, that impossibly heavy cock and balls, pressed possessively against the drenched seam of her sex in a way that seemed to proclaim that only they belonged there—that no other could ever claim the right to that quivering, damp, eager place between her legs. And he was right. No other ever could.

  “Once I’m in you, the bond can never be broken,” he said in a rough, heavy voice that stroked her like silken chains, enslaving her with his need. “Heart, body and soul, and sweet, wet cunt are mine.”

  And there was no arguing his claim of possession.

  His powerful cock was bold and hungry shoved there against the slick, sensitive folds of her pussy, the imposing organ’s skin stretched impossibly taut with blood—thick and immense with need. Tess could feel the damp, hot head of that mouthwatering shaft lodged firmly against her quivering abdomen, and the fire in his bluest eyes told her everything. He looked up at her from beneath his brows, and then he moved in a rippling dance of muscle beneath warm skin, placing his face just above hers so that their noses touched. Her heart lurched, making her wonder if it would simply pound its way through her chest, and the glittering look in that blue, silver-flecked gaze seemed to drill straight into her soul, shoving its way into her with a physical force, refusing to let her look away or deny him.

  “No matter what happens, you must stay.” The words were hard. Bitten. Growled from between his clenched teeth, making her swelling sex gush with rich, slippery wetness. “Stay with me, little one. Say that you will stay,” and though urgent and harsh, the brutal tone of his words was somehow pleading.

  Tess gave him the only reply that she could, when so many things battled for the chance to be spoken. “Yes. God, yes,” she gasped, lifting her arms to grab hold of that breathtaking silver hair as it fell around the hard angles of his cheekbones and jaw. “I’ll stay. I’ll stay…I’ll stay…I’ll stay…”

  For now. Until responsibilities that are mine alone rip me away from you and I must go.

  Tess watched as, unaware of her silent thoughts, the satisfaction flared thick and hot in his dark gaze, but he trapped her wrists in his hold, closing his long fingers around the fragile bones and pushing them back to the stone. “Whatever you do,” he rasped huskily, “do not move.”

  “And what about me?” the irreverent lycan drawled from somewhere behind her head. “Don’t I have any say? I rather think I’d like to see the lass move. When those delicious tits of hers sway with her movements, it’s a fucking gorgeous sight, Zarn.”

  His jaw hardened, but he ignored the taunting werewolf and repeated his order. “Do not move.”

  She wanted to argue, damn it, because she had every intention of touching him, of grabbing him and learning the feel of all those rigid, mouthwatering muscles and that fascinating hair, but a slow, heavy movement of his thickly lashed eyes snagged her attention. With a small catch to her breathing, Tess watched as he finally looked up at the man, the golden werewolf, standing at the head of the stone, and the look on his face changed in slow, careful degrees. No longer drowned in wonder and what looked shockingly like joy, the look he sent Graedor the Grey was filled with utterly male purpose.

  “Hold her arms,” he ordered in a low, sin-filled voice that was all command and arrogance and savage intent, and something deep inside her melted like thick, warm syrup, when her rational mind, or what was left of it, wondered if she should put up a fight.

  Am I really going to be this easy for him? Just lie down and spread and let him claim me like this? Allow him to order another man to hold me in some kind of purely primal act of dominance?

  She wet her bottom lip with her tongue, thinking it through, when he pulled back in an utterly male movement between her splayed thighs now pressed wide by his hips, and that rigid, impossibly heavy cock seemed to stroke the swollen folds of her cleft in a purposeful, teasing caress. And as easy that, Tess suddenly had her answer.

  Well hell, apparently I am that easy. At least when it comes to this particular arrogant, gorgeous male.

  “I’ll do as you say, but I want you to take me. I want you to…to fuck me,” she whispered in a lust-thickened voice that was in a strange way both shy and bold at once. Mentally shaking her head at herself, she could hear her conscience chuckling in some faraway corner of her mind that such coarse, provoking language could be spouting past her lips, out of her virgin mouth. And somehow, she knew that she had taken the words from his mind, knowing it would enflame him. And she wanted that—wanted to watch the way his eyes widened at her words, burning as if lit by an inner fire.

  Oh, yes. She wanted to free all those dark, savage desires she could sense roiling just beneath the surface of his calm. Wanted to smash away at whatever shreds of restraint he still held and send him reeling out of control. She wasn’t even entirely sure why she wanted such a thing, but on some deep, instinctual level, she knew she wanted him to join her, adrift and at the mercy of physical and emotional hungers.

  “I want you pounding inside me, working me as hard as you dare, holding nothing back,” she said throatily, warming to her seduction, loving the way he stiffened at her provocative words, both in the beautiful lines of his body and the unyielding, massive shaft between his powerful thighs. “I want you to take from me everything that you need, but have never had. And…and I want you to give me everything that I’ve craved every time you’ve come to me, until it felt as if I’d go crazy from wanting you.”

  He made a low, rough sound that rumbled up from his chest, and she knew she couldn’t have made it any clearer.

  “Damn, Zarn,” Graedor laughed quietly, his voice a coarse grunt of humor. “That sounds like an offer you can’t refuse, you lucky son of a bitch.”

  She hoped so, because this man could do whatever the hell he wanted to her, so long as he did it now.

  * * * * *

  “Yo
u are everything that I need, woman. There’s never been any doubt.” Zarnak released one wrist to the lycan as he brushed his thumb against the corner of her mouth, noting the fragile silk of her lush lips. “Such a sweet, fuckable little mouth you have, Tess. I cannot wait to be here, buried deep in your throat, watching you fight to take more of me.”

  It was a wide, sensual mouth, clearly designed for physical pleasure. It beckoned him to kiss, to take and ravage with his lips and tongue, to nip gently with his teeth, and when those earthly delights were sated, for a time, to fist his strong hands within the soft wash of dark, silken hair and hold her still as he pumped the thickness of his cock within that tender hole, scraping along the edge of her teeth to lodge at the back of her throat. His nostrils flared as he imagined the painful pleasure of fucking her mouth, watching his wet dick slide in and out between her stretched lips as her teeth gently teased the swollen, vein-ridged mapping of his cock, her tongue whipping against his pounding flesh in greedy, avid hunger.

  “I’d like that,” she gasped thickly in response. “I want to know what your…your cock feels like in my mouth. Want to know how much of you I can swallow, what you’ll taste like, feel like. But first I want you in me.”

  “Where?” he asked with a wicked smile, wanting to hear her say the words.

  “I want you in me…in my…my pussy,” she said in a shaky, desire-rough voice, soft cheeks warm with embarrassed color.

  “I love that word on these soft, pink lips,” he murmured, rubbing his thumb over the silken texture of her mouth. “Now tell me you want me in your warm, wet cunt, little one. Tell me you want my cock in it. Tell me you want me to fuck it. That you want it hard and deep and all that I dare to give you, Tess.”