Bryce, page 19
part #2 of Anarock Shifters Series
She rode down hard on that stiff meat. He rocked her into his thrusts pounding, Mine, into her body and soul. She was his. He said so and she knew it. Her cells said so. Her juice said so. Her sweat said so.
Her brain said, Yes, but that meant nothing. She didn’t have to agree. She just was. She belonged to him. She was his for all time. She didn’t want to be anything else. She wanted the whole Battalion to know he was fucking her behind closed doors. She wanted to be his whore, his pleasure, his satisfaction. She wanted all of them to know he got off on her, that he got his manhood from her and no one else. She wanted to be his confidence, his willpower, his virility. She wanted to be the repository of his seed and the fountain of his strength.
He clamped both biceps around her waist. He lifted her up and slammed her down on his prick at his own pace. He split her in half and spattered her sauce across her ass. He made her gush into his ear and her screams christened his ascension. She wanted him to hear her torn apart and made his. Her screams said, His.
Her extremities clawing his back and shoulders said, His. Her pussy throbbing around his length said, His. His cock rasping her insides said, Mine. His teeth sinking into her nipples said, Mine. His secret touch sneaking around to her asshole said, Mine. She couldn’t stop him. She didn’t want to.
She didn’t want to stop him flipping her around on the bed, either. She didn’t want to stop him bending her over the mattress, taking hold of her arms, and jerking them back. She didn’t want to stop him arching her spine to meet his beat. She wanted him to do it. She wanted him to take what he wanted. She wanted him to want her that bad. She wanted him to be an animal with her.
His hips smacked her ass into position while his granite fists wrenched her into his thrusts. He drilled her to ecstasy plunging to her deepest core. He nailed her so incredibly, mind-blowingly hard. The harder he pounded, the more she loved it, the more she wanted him in all his unbending power.
He bent forward and grabbed her hair. He locked her wrists in one hand and levered her into him. From a great distance, she registered that he was doing to her the very thing McCain threatened to do. Bryce was making her his to do with as he pleased.
Bryce doing it didn’t disgust her the way McCain did. She wanted him to do it. She wanted him to use her and own her and objectify her. She wanted him to reduce her to base sensation. She wanted to be pure, unadulterated sex to him. She wanted to be his animal, his hole to fuck, if that’s what he wanted her to be.
He roared behind her and smashed his hips into her ass. She heard him cycling up to cum, but she didn’t care. She wanted all this and so much more.
His hot injection overflowed her pussy and ran down her thighs. It seemed so outrageously erotic to her. The next instant, he collapsed on top of her and flattened her face into the mattress. His chest pressed the air from her lungs, but she didn’t protest.
The next instant, he toppled off and rolled onto his back. He flung his arms out and groaned in matchless satisfaction. She lay still awaiting his pleasure. She was nothing. She was flesh. She was his bed slave.
He sighed and puffed for a minute. He surprised her by touching her shoulder. “Hey. Come here.”
She raised her head to see him holding out his arms to her. He crawled his fingertips up her and inched her closer. He eased her onto his chest and folded her into his embrace. He laid his hand against her head and hugged her ear onto his sternum.
Just like that, she was back. They were human again. Had they ever been anything else? She couldn’t remember if she ever had been an animal or a bitch or his bed slave, but she wasn’t now. She was his heart. She was his sanctuary. She was the one and only person in this whole dimension who knew who and what he really was. She was the only person who kept his secret. That fact and that fact alone made her his right hand—not the sex, not the command, not his willpower.
She was his warmth. She was his love. She was his only home. She heard the truth thumping with his heartbeat. He didn’t need the sex. He didn’t need her obedience. He needed this, this moment of rest, this drifting together above the landscape.
They both viewed this alternate world from the heights of flight. They observed the Omega Battalion from the vantage of Anarock. They united as enemies of the Battalion and no one knew it but the two of them. That was what Bryce needed from her—that and nothing else.
All that stuff about being his slave and his bitch and his servant—that was all just a diversion from the fevers of passion. It was a game she played to turn herself on. It wasn’t real. Only this was real. He was real and she was real. All the rest belonged to a theater of the absurd known as the Omega Battalion. She and Bryce lived in another world—that other, real world. No matter what happened, she would always come back there. She would anchor herself to him until they found their way back to the planet that made sense, the planet they called home.
Elliot (Anarock Shifters, Book 3) - Special Preview
1
Elliot Weeks slammed both fists down on the table. Pens bounced before they settled. “You can’t do this! You can’t stand by and let them get away with this.”
Colonel Horace Weeks drew himself up to his full height and confronted Elliot. His one eye glared and his half mouth hardened into a stern line. Elliot knew that expression only too well, but Victor Griffin spoke before the Colonel could say anything. “We have no other option. Alexa made a free choice. We offered to bring her in and she turned and ran off.”
Elliot rounded on him spitting tacks. “You were only too happy to let her run off, too, weren’t you? You were happy to see your problems run off to bother somebody else for a change. I only wish you were man enough to admit it.”
Colonel Weeks snarled under his breath. “You better watch your step around here, boy. We’re all upset about this. That’s no reason to forget our manners.”
“And you!” Elliot lunged for his father, but he stopped himself from actually crawling across the table to grab his father by the throat. He wanted to, though. “You go along with this! You stand around in this fucking war room talking while she’s out there doing God knows what. She could be in danger. She could be fucking dead by now and you don’t even care.”
Riley Strickland spoke up for the first time. “We all care. We care about Bryce and Alexa. It’s thanks to both of them that we’re alive and we know about this fucking Omega Battalion at all. They risked everything for Anarock. We’ll do everything we can to help them, but right now, we have bigger fish to fry. They wouldn’t want us putting Anarock in danger to help them.”
Elliot shoved off the table, but he didn’t unclench his fists. Every face at this table enraged him beyond endurance. “You can’t seriously expect me to believe Alexa ran off to be with that…. that traitor. How can you even begin to think that?” He bared his teeth at Victor. “You said in front of everyone that you would kill him if he ever showed his face around here. He did and you let him go.”
“I didn’t let him go,” Victor murmured. “Malachai and I both tried to kill him during the air battle. Alexa defended him and then the Omega Battalion took him away with them. She went with them. We can only assume she did this to get him back. We don’t know for sure.”
Elliot locked his teeth and narrowed his eyes at Victor. “If you don’t do something to bring Alexa back, I will.”
“You’ll pull your head in before you get it bitten off, boy,” his father rumbled. “You don’t speak to this man like that—not in my presence or out of it. Are we clear?”
Elliot’s shoulders slumped, but when he scanned the group, he lowered his voice to a threatening growl. “I meant what I said. You can’t hold me back forever. None of you gives a flying fuck about Alexa, but I still do. I’ll get her back if it’s the last thing I ever do. You all stand around and talk. I’m out of here.”
He spun on his heel and stormed out of the war room. He blasted through the doors and hit the corridor. He didn’t know yet what he would do. He only knew that, for the first time in his life, he couldn’t rely on the Prometheus Crest to protect him and his family.
His father only cared about kissing Victor’s ass and playing along as commanding officer. He would let his own daughter twist in the wind rather than step out of line.
Elliot played through their arguments one after the other and dismantled them. Riley kept insisting that Bryce and Alexa were trying to help Anarock from inside the Omega Battalion. Well, that didn’t really make a difference in the end, did it? If the Omega Battalion was holding Alexa against her will and using her power to threaten Anarock, then that only made it more imperative to get her out of there, didn’t it?
He cursed his father and Victor and Riley and Malachai and the whole Prometheus Crest. They were all so stuffed full of their own political importance that they couldn’t act. All they could do was talk.
Elliot trotted up the stairs and emerged into a bare concrete passage spray-painted with graffiti on all sides. Reeking drunks and half-dead homeless wrecks slouched in corners and sprawled across his path. He picked his way between bodies wrapped in rotten rags to the steps exiting Ogru-Kuche.
From here, he could see the ten-foot barbed-wire fence surrounding the Prometheus Crest headquarters. A heavy iron chain and padlock held the gate shut against all intruders. He couldn’t see Jules Hitchcock, but that didn’t surprise Elliot. No one saw Jules until Jules was ready to let someone see him. That made him the perfect guard.
Beyond the gate, the streets and neighborhoods of Central City New Orleans extended out to the human world. None of those innocent people knew or cared that a whole society of New Breed mutants lived side by side with normal humans. None of them suspected that the toxic waters of the Louisiana bayou changed millions of people into New Breed with fearsome powers and an underground society all their own.
Elliot considered his options. If he left Ogru-Kuche now, he would never come back—not the way he did before. If he really intended to turn his back on the Prometheus Crest and get his sister back, he would cross a line in the sand. He would make enemies of his father, his brothers, and a whole lot of other people—and for what? For Alexa?
If he believed Riley, Alexa wouldn’t want Elliot betraying the Prometheus Crest. Alexa loved Victor more than anything—at least, she used to. She ran off when he married Riley. That seemed to indicate she turned her back on the Prometheus Crest, too, but Riley didn’t seem to think so.
Riley was the only person in Anarock who had spoken to Alexa and Bryce Griffin since both of them disappeared on Victor and Riley’s wedding day. Why should Elliot doubt Riley’s word?
Standing on those steps, Elliot realized he’d already crossed that line. He already betrayed his family and his Crest in his heart. All he had to do was follow through.
So where could he go? What could he do? Who could he turn to to get information on Bryce and Alexa’s whereabouts?
His gaze skated over Central City, but his mind ranged farther afield. Shifters dominated the Prometheus Crest, but they weren’t the only Crest in Anarock. The most powerful magic-wielders belonged to NightRage Crest. They fought the Omega Battalion for Victor. They must be tracking those freaks wherever they went after the battle.
NightRage lived in other parts of the city, dangerous parts where sane men feared to tread. They lived in Zion City and Hoffman Triangle—neighborhoods where every man, woman, and child needed paranormal powers just to survive.
Did he dare go there? Did he dare to throw himself on NightRage’s mercy? If he did that, he could never show his face in the Prometheus Crest again. He would become a traitor just like Bryce Griffin. He would become a marked man. Only NightRage would be able to protect him from his own people.
Elliot knew his father too well to delude himself of the consequences. No one could match Colonel Weeks for loyalty to the Prometheus Crest. He would turn on his own son before he betrayed his Crest and the Crest meant Victor. What Victor said went and Victor already decided to let Bryce and Alexa go.
Elliot couldn’t accept that. Maybe he never really accepted Victor as his leader at all. Elliot pledged his fealty to Victor at the wedding the same as all the others, but that was before he found out about Alexa. Alexa loved Victor. Elliot might be one of the few people in Anarock who fully appreciated Alexa’s feelings about Victor. Elliot realized a long time ago that Victor didn’t return her feelings. Elliot probably figured that out before Alexa herself.
That was no reason to discard her when something better turned up. That was no reason to drive Alexa out of the only home she’d ever known.
Elliot couldn’t accept Riley’s assessment. He couldn’t just give Victor a pass for rejecting his sister. Even if, by some chance, Alexa returned to the Omega Battalion of her own volition to save Bryce, that only proved Elliot’s point. Alexa never would have been anywhere near the Omega Battalion in the first place if Victor hadn’t thrown her away like he did. She never would have left Anarock. She never would have hooked up with Bryce—if that was in fact what she did.
Either way, Elliot wouldn’t abandon her to those crackpot circus freaks. He still knew the value of family. He would get her back come Hell or high water. He didn’t care if he had to join NightRage to do it.
He set off walking. Jules appeared at the gate and let Elliot through the way Jules always did. Elliot Weeks moving in and out of Ogru-Kuche never raised any eyebrows. No one could see the change from the outside. In his heart, nothing would ever be the same.
He walked away without a backward glance. He never wanted to see the place or his family or the Griffins again. He wanted nothing of the whole fucking Prometheus Crest and their politics and their war room and their strategies. They could all go suck on it.
He strode from one block to the next, past businesses and houses and people leaning against cars. He passed dozens of people that he knew—all of them loyal to the Crest—his Crest—what he considered his Crest up until a few moments ago.
He came to South Claiborne Avenue and stopped. He gazed across a very normal-looking street. A strip of lawn separated Central City from Hoffman Triangle. To the untrained eye, it looked like any other New Orleans neighborhood.
He checked both ways for a gap in the traffic. He was just making up his mind to migrate down to the crosswalk when a familiar voice called him. “Elliot! Elliot! Where are you going?”
He didn’t have to turn around to know who it was. He kept his eyes locked on houses across the road. “What’s up, Aria?”
Aria Slaughter hustled up next to him. “Hey! For a second, it almost looked like you were about to cross the street.”
He didn’t look at her. He couldn’t. He didn’t want her to see the truth that he was about to cross the street. He mumbled over his shoulder instead. “You shouldn’t be out here. Don’t you have work or something?”
“Mama gave me and Amaya the day off. It’s Gianna’s birthday on Saturday, so we’re planning a surprise party for her. We were thinking of checking out that new Bejeezus band at the Orion. Do you want to come?”
“I don’t know, Aria,” he mused. “I might be busy.”
Her tone changed in a heartbeat. “Shit. You’re always busy. That’s all I ever hear from you anymore.”
He really did turn his head and look right at her this time. “It ain’t like that. Don’t go painting it as such when it ain’t.”
She bobbed her head sideways. Her long, straight black hair sizzled in the sunlight and her black eyes glittered. That girl could throw her attitude around like nobody’s business. “Go fuck yourself with your ‘it ain’t like that’ when you know it is like that. Don’t go shoving your bullshit up my ass, Elliot Weeks, ‘cuz I ain’t that stupid. It’s me who’s always asking you out and never the other way around. Fuck, you ain’t asked me out in six months and the last five times I have asked you out, you’ve been too fucking busy to turn around and look at me when you speak. If that’s the way you wanna play, just come right out and own it. Don’t fuck with me ‘cuz I’ve got better things to do.”
Her voice cut him to the quick. Normally, that biting tone would make him mad, but a hidden catch in her throat made him swivel around to confront her. She wore her usual pencil jeans and her denim jacket the way she always did. She wore those same Doc Marten boots every day of her life, but her lack of fashion sense didn’t make her any less miraculously beautiful.
Her Choctaw features gave her a harsh, dangerous appearance, but Elliot knew her too well to fall for that illusion. Underneath, she was just as sweet and innocent and vulnerable as a man could hope a girl to be. She put up a tough exterior because she wore her heart on her sleeve where anybody could come along and hurt it.
He spent too much time with her not to recognize when something was bothering her. The worst part was that she was right. Ever since the military attack on Anarock, Elliot got more and more distracted by politics. That was another reason to distance himself from the Prometheus Crest. He let himself get sucked into the same all-consuming vortex as his father and his brothers.
He didn’t mean to slight Aria. He honestly cared about her. He might even feel tempted to think they had a future together. One hiccup after another prevented him from accepting her many invitations to spend time together, much as he might like to.
When he faced her, he couldn’t hide from the pinched, strained expression around her eyes. He knew he would see that expression there. He softened and sidled toward her. For a second, he actually forgot the errand he wanted to attend to across the street.
“Hey,” he breathed. “It ain’t like that. You know I always want to go out with you.”
“Not much, I’d say.” She shook her hair aside and looked across the street. She didn’t see Hoffman Triangle, though. She wouldn’t want anything to do with that. Only he would toy with that.
She raised her hand and brushed aside a strand of her long, silken tresses. They shone so sleek and black against the sun that they tricked Elliot’s vision. He had to double-check that there really was something there to see and not just a vision or a shadow.
