Bryce, page 16
part #2 of Anarock Shifters Series
His other hand kept her face sealed to his. His mouth explored her heart and soul and wouldn’t let her go. His eyes fixed her there belonging to him and no one else. Was this why she couldn’t accept Victor’s offer? Did Bryce put his stamp on her across the miles even when they were apart?
He advanced a step and pushed her back. Her spine made contact with the stout log wall. Nothing could move that wall. It would stand forever against any insult, just like Bryce.
His lips caught her mouth. He kissed her harder. He bit her lips and his tongue jabbed into her throat insisting, exploring, devouring. She moaned in agony. She needed him like this. She needed him strong and controlling and unrelenting. She needed him to take her, to own her, to demand her without asking permission.
He let go only long enough to pull his pants open, but he didn’t release her mouth. He mesmerized her with his eyes. Before she could decide what to do, he guided her hand to his cock. Her effervescent desire told her what to do. She glided his foreskin down and rolled it back over the tight frill of his shaft.
He didn’t appear to move—at least, she didn’t see him move. He unbuttoned her jeans and tore them down. She kicked them away to bare her legs, but his hard prick in her hand occupied all her attention. It wanted to be inside her. It injected its heat into her from inches away. It excited her beyond reason. She felt herself spiraling out of control just touching it.
His lips eased off only for a second. “We’re free, baby.”
Those words pierced her soul. He made her free. His hardness, his strength, his resource, his power. He freed her from herself, from the burden of being her. She was free with him. She didn’t need to be a dragon. She only needed his arms, his hands touching her moist slit, his solid meat moving toward her pussy.
Every stroke down his shaft brought a gush of wetness from her until she couldn’t keep still. She whimpered for it, but he didn’t seem to be in any particular haste to take her. He studied her with his unflinching eyes. He swayed with her strokes and his nostrils flared when he inhaled. Did he smell how hot and sticky he made her? Did he hear her whining for him to take her?
He tugged her hand away. He lifted both her arms above her head and locked them against the wall. She gaped up at him in shock. She couldn’t move. She could only wait the eternal time it took him to lower his cock into her. He bored between her legs and his head drilled into her wetness. Her channel cracked and she screamed contorting in orgasm.
He braced his legs behind him and plunged to her very depths. His shaft scored her all the way inside. She couldn’t keep track of all the blistering nodes of ecstasy firing at once. He pumped nonstop strokes to drive her up that wall.
“We’re free, baby,” he rasped. “We’re free.”
She cascaded on one orgasm after another. Every time he said that, she spun off somewhere beyond all comprehension. This was freedom, this torrential cataclysm wiping her out and floating her to the stars.
Her legs folded around his hips and he thumped into her from below. He slammed her against the wall holding her up by the wrists. Christ Almighty, she wanted every cruel inch of him! She wanted…..wanted…. She couldn’t form words anymore.
Only the incessant repetition kept her connected to him. “We’re free, baby. We’re free. We’re free.”
Free. Free to love him, to taste him, to belong to him, to dissolve with his brutal thrusts. He stirred her to liquid gold. He crushed her under his weight. He exploded her into stardust. He was her freedom. She didn’t want any other.
He corkscrewed his prick into her and smashed her clit under his pubic bone. Every smacking penetration made her thighs quiver. He nailed her so hard she had to scream just to survive the catastrophe.
Free. Free. She wanted to say something, something like, Yes, but no sound would come to her. Those screams didn’t belong to her. They belonged to space. They belonged to the slick juice flooding out of her to welcome him back to her.
He dove in and kissed her, but only once. He kept growling into her face. “We’re free, baby. We’re free. Do you hear me? We’re free.”
She couldn’t not hear. She couldn’t unhear. Everything he did, every flicker of his facial expression meant volumes to her. He was her world, her future, her freedom. Only he mattered. What he said entered her and became law. All the rest passed to incidental.
19
Bryce set Alexa’s feet on the ground. Her fragrant honey clung to his skin. He smelled her perfume when he zipped up his pants. Her cheeks flushed while unwinding her tangled-up jeans.
He kept thinking, We’re free. Nothing can stop us. We’re free now. Her screams sounded like, We’re free, in his ears while he fucked her against the wall. He wanted to fuck her again so he could hear that sound. They were free.
She glanced up and blushed. She bowed her head kicking her feet into her pant legs. Everything about her smelled and tasted and looked so sweet and delicious. He could never get tired of fucking her. He could never get tired of any of her. “Hey, baby.” She looked up and her eyes widened, but he had something else in mind. He jerked his chin toward the door. “How about you and me go out and have some fun?”
Her eyebrows lifted. “You mean…..?”
He took hold of her hand. “We’re free, baby. We can go anywhere.”
He backed away gripping her fingertips. He steered her outside. The sky darkened and stars pricked the eastern firmament. She frowned. “What are you going to do?”
He pointed upward. “How would you like to run around up there for a while?”
“But McCain said…..”
He didn’t wait to hear what McCain said. Fuck McCain. Fuck everybody. He spent too long a prisoner of this stupid Battalion. He wouldn’t wait another minute to enjoy his freedom.
He jumped and his feet left the ground. Gravity no longer bound him and he flung out his wings. The next second, he rocketed into the pale dusk screaming high and long. He didn’t look back. He raced heavenward streaking down the wind. He aimed into the stars and let the black surround him.
He narrowed his eyes into the cool airstream. He started to relax when Alexa came hurtling off his wing. She clipped him and raked her talons across his shoulder before she plummeted away and disappeared.
That vixen. This game was his idea and she had to pull a stunt like that. He would show her. He put on speed and advanced on her from behind. She glanced back once and shrieked in thrilling excitement. She tried to dodge out of the way, but he overtook her in a heartbeat.
He snatched her tail zooming for the horizon. He yanked her ass over tea kettle and left her spinning out of control. She shrieked again, but he was already long gone. She wouldn’t take a blow like that lying down. He could expect her to come at him stronger than ever.
He vaulted higher into the densest sky. The stars wheeled and he stalled at the apogee of his flight. He spotted her whizzing straight up from underneath him, but at that moment, he saw something that made him stop.
He hardly noticed when she shot up under his wings. She nipped his neck and went careening nearly into orbit, but he kept his gaze fixed on the ground. He scanned the swamp below him.
He couldn’t call it the Quag. He couldn’t even call it the bayou because he didn’t recognize any of it. He spent enough time flying over Louisiana. He knew every lake and every backwater for a thousand miles in any direction and this definitely wasn’t it.
Alexa hovered over his head watching him. Then she descended to his side and floated there. She didn’t disturb him.
A single patch of light marked the Honeycomb. Embers glowed in the houses. Beyond that, not a single trace of human habitation marred the carpet of black to the far corner of the world. Where in the name of God were they? They weren’t in Louisiana. They weren’t in the United States. For all he could tell, they weren’t even on Earth anymore.
He traced the coastline farther south. That looked like Louisiana, but that was a trick of the eye. He didn’t even recognize the stars. How could he fail to miss this?
He couldn’t stay up here. He didn’t want to play. He needed to think. Alexa followed him down to the ground and he landed inside the fence. He scowled at the houses one after another. He should have figured this out a long time ago. How did the Omega Battalion exist without the folks back in Anarock detecting them? Bryce’s father and Colonel Weeks knew pretty much every New Breed man, woman, and child on the southern coast.
The Omega Battalion must have sprung up in this other world. They must have crossed the portal recently. They couldn’t have just appeared in Louisiana without someone realizing it.
So McCain had some being who could open these portals and transport the whole Battalion to Earth. That meant he could retreat to this other dimension whenever he wanted. No wonder he remained so confident in his impending victory. He probably planned to use the portals to get into and out of Anarock without being detected. That was what Bryce would do in his place.
Alexa strode out of the shadows and took her silent place at his side. She didn’t say anything. She left him to brood. That was their way. Getting their freedom back raised a whole slew of new problems. It presented another threat to Anarock that Bryce didn’t foresee.
He sauntered back to the house and flopped down on one of the couches. The leather seat creaked under him, but he barely noticed. He didn’t hear Alexa come in. He didn’t see her stop in the doorway and study him with her deep brown eyes.
He snapped alert from his musings sometime in the night. The house and the whole Honeycomb lay dead quiet all around him. He didn’t hear Alexa moving around. He got up and stood listening. He couldn’t see anything in the dark, but his senses picked up distant snores in other buildings. Did his heightened senses return when Susie restored his power or did he just imagine it?
He could almost detect where people were in space around him. He could intuit their hidden powers as never before. He could move them around in his imagination like so many chess pieces. He could anticipate McCain, but only to a limited degree.
From start to finish, McCain manipulated Bryce. He kept vital secrets from him and led Bryce around by the nose. Bryce couldn’t expect to get ahead of him. He had to find some way to defeat that bastard once and for all.
He wandered into the bedroom. From the doorway, he saw Alexa lying under the down comforter. The ivory white cotton sheet cut across her creamy brown back. Her bare arm hugged the pillow and her eyes flitted under the lids in deep sleep. The rounded pendulous beauty of her breast showed under her arm.
Was she dreaming she was holding Bryce in her arms? Was she imagining him getting into bed with her and curling into her chocolate brown warmth? How did he ever get so lucky as to get a woman like her to love him?
He never doubted anymore that she loved him. She didn’t say it out loud. She didn’t have to. Her actions told him in more ways than one.
She would want him in bed with her, but he couldn’t go to her. He couldn’t enjoy her, not with all these thoughts crowding his head. He gazed down at her for a long time. Then he turned on his heel and walked out of the house.
He halted in the center of the compound again. It looked different to him now. It looked different every time he saw it. It constantly changed as a more complete picture formed in his mind of the Battalion and its capabilities.
Without thinking, he leaped into the air. He let his human consciousness fall away and his primal reptilian soul took over. He unfurled his wings and burned up the miles, but he didn’t fly far and away. He gained the heights and stopped there. He didn’t have to worry about Alexa up here. This was all his.
He rode the wind for a few minutes studying the terrain, but its unfamiliarity didn’t bother him anymore. He made a detailed survey of the country beneath him. He measured every lake and creek. He might need to use it to his advantage one of these days. How much did the Omega Battalion know about their own land?
They didn’t seem to know the first thing about Anarock. With any luck, they wouldn’t know much about the rest of Earth, either.
20
A drumming thump startled Alexa awake. She spotted Bryce lounging in a chair across the room. The next minute, a voice called, “McCain wants you at his place!”
Alexa blinked at Bryce before she remembered where she was. The events of yesterday came back to her. They were in the Honeycomb and she was naked in this magnificent bed.
Bryce didn’t look all that surprised. He waved his hand. “You better get up. We don’t want to keep His Royal Highness waiting.”
Alexa slumped and her hand flew to her head. “Do we have to?”
“Yeah. We have to.” He got to his feet and crossed to the window. He peered out into the bright sunshine.
She frowned at his back. “You’re still dressed. Didn’t you sleep at all?”
“Naw. I had things to do.”
She groaned and threw the bedding aside. “I guess.”
She stuck her legs into her pants and tugged her shirt over her head. She stood up and stuck her feet in her shoes.
He met her at the door, but she stopped him before he could leave. “Is there…..?”
He cocked his head. “Is there what?”
“Is there anything I should know before we go over there? Is there anything you want to tell me?”
“Nothing you don’t already know.” His eyes glittered and not in an innocent, easy-going way, either. He looked hard and cold and deadly. He almost looked like a completely different person. “You know everything I know.”
She walked away and his footsteps followed behind her. Somehow, she got the impression he knew something she didn’t, that he was holding something back or at least thinking something he didn’t share with her.
Why should that bother her? He didn’t make a habit of discussing his thoughts with her in any great detail before now. Still, something in him gave her pause. She didn’t mistrust him, but for the first time since this whole thing started, she wondered what he was thinking. She couldn’t read him and she didn’t like that. She couldn’t read McCain. She didn’t want Bryce coming to resemble McCain in any detail.
They marched through the compound. People emerged from their houses. The log city sprang to life exactly the way it did on the long, painstaking hike to Anarock. These people never seemed to vary their day to day routine at all except that now they wouldn’t spend their days walking.
She halted at the steps leading to McCain’s house. She wanted to ask Bryce one more time what was going on, but he strode right past her and entered first. He pushed open the door without knocking and waltzed right into the living room like he owned the place.
His manner unnerved Alexa more than the prospect of facing off against McCain. McCain was a fruit cake. Bryce was calculating, measured, and deadly accurate. He wasn’t crazy. He was just hell-bent on beating the Battalion at their own game. He scared Alexa a lot more than McCain did even though she loved him.
She loved him. She knew that now without a doubt, but she couldn’t say the words. They meant too much. Even thinking them hurt.
He swept his unwavering gaze around the room. He didn’t seem to notice that McCain wasn’t there. He didn’t seem to care. Nothing touched him.
She stopped in front of the fireplace for lack of anything better to do. She wanted to pace, but she didn’t. Whatever was going to happen would happen without her fretting over it.
A crash preceded McCain into the room. He bounced off the door frame and burst in. He didn’t look at the pair. “I’m glad you’re here. I want to talk to you both.”
“If this is about Anarock,” Alexa began, “we already told you everything you need to know. You can’t take it. They’ll never let you near the place.”
He turned around and fixed his blank stare on her. “This isn’t about Anarock. This is about you.”
“If you want us to fly overland and scout the city,” Bryce chimed in, “we can’t do that, either. We’re in another dimension. We would have to cross the portal. We can’t go anywhere near Anarock from here because it doesn’t exist in this dimension.” A faint smile touched his lips. His eyes shining gazed down on McCain. “But you already knew that, didn’t you? That stuff about us scouting the city was just a smokescreen like all your other smokescreens. You’re trying to play us the way you did before. I just can’t figure out what you stand to gain by keeping the truth from your people.”
McCain glared at him. Then he surprised Alexa out of her mind by laughing. It sounded more like a guttural croak than a real laugh, but he cracked a grin and shook his head chuckling like a mad fiend. “I knew you were smart. I just never figured you for the big patsy you really are. You’re right. You can’t scout Anarock from here, but like I just said, I didn’t call you here to talk about Anarock. I called you here to talk about you.”
“Us?” Alexa repeated. “What about us?”
“Not you….” He flipped his hand back and forth between her and Bryce. “Not you both, but you.”
He swiveled around and stared straight at her. Alexa froze under that empty, icy gaze. She gulped, but she couldn’t speak.
“You see, my dear…..” He sauntered toward her with an exaggerated swagger. “I was telling you the truth when I said I saw everything during the battle. I saw you both pull your punches when it came time to shoot down your friends. You never fought for the Battalion—not against the military and not against Anarock.”
Alexa’s blood ran cold. She could almost believe he did something to her to hold her immovable while he menaced her with his cruel eyes.
He stopped too close to her. She smelled the musty stink coming from his clothes. “You’re not loyal to the Battalion—neither of you,” he murmured. “You never were. You’re our enemies. You deserve to die, but lucky for you, you’re far too beautiful to waste.”
