Crowned by Fire (17 page)

She broke free and shoved him back against the wall, baring her teeth as she breathed in his scent like an animal. He should have been repulsed. He was still holding onto her hair, which looked like tufts of fur where it spiked through his fingers. She growled, and squeezed his cock.

Hard.

Finn mashed his mouth against hers to muffle his snarl, bruising her lips. He tried to use her hair as a lead to pull her back but she refused to be led and her hair was too short; the strands slipped right through his fingers.

Their feet tangled, and her body slid against his. When she wrapped her arms around his neck to steady herself, he automatically grabbed her ass, forcing her to wrap her legs around his waist. The bodice of her gown had slipped down and her skin was even hotter without the extra layer of fabric to act as insulation between them.

She bit his ear, and he stumbled.

They hit the floor, and he was already breathing so hard that it took him a moment to realize he was winded. Her nipples had been lightly chafed by the rough fabric of his uniform when her bare breasts had rubbed up against his chest. He dragged her wrists over her head, forcing her spine into an arch that pushed out her breasts. He brushed his lips over her nipple before closing his teeth over the taut skin, teasing her with his tongue as he gradually increased the pressure of his bite.

When she yipped in pain he stopped and switched to her other breast. “Enough,” she growled. She rolled over, so she was on top of him, sliding her fingers into the gap of his coat for purchase. Then she tore, and the fabric snapped against his skin, one of the buttons catching on his erect nipple through his undershirt. Because of the blood bond, she winced, and he was glad. Glad to see her suffer. Glad to see her emote.

“You ruined my uniform.”

“
See if I fucking care,” she said.

She reached for his wrists and he closed his fingers over hers, and then, with a quick series of moments, she was under him again. “I'll make you.”

“Fuck you.”

“
My pleasure.” Their mouths met, and he closed his fingers around her neck, squeezing lightly as he began drawing up the hem of her skirt. She whimpered into his mouth and when he pulled back, he saw one of the pins—the ruby—had worked free of its bob and stabbed her just below her left nipple.

Finn took that as a cue to remove his torn jacket. He yanked his undershirt over his head, and made a low sound of pleasure when he felt the softness of her skin against his chest. The last time they had been like this, she had still been wearing a thin top. Now, Finn could feel all the heat and friction, the miniscule tearing sensations when the points of contact between their bodies shifted. As he slipped his tongue into her mouth he ground his hips against hers, and thought about how good it would feel with nothing left.

No barriers. No rules. Nothing but skin on skin.

Her skirt was pooled around her waist like a dark sea. He ripped her underwear, which was more
difficult than he'd expected. It took him three tries before he had her thighs bare. Her eyes had turned faintly mocking now, as though she found his strength lacking, and his temper flared.

“
Something amuses you?”

“
You're no alpha,” she said, inciting him to pin her wrists to the floor with another ward. With a flick of his fingers, and a single spell, the moisture on her skin turned to whorls of ice. He tapped her nipple and it grew fuzzy with hoarfrost: the center of a flower of ice in the frozen motif.

She shivered violently from cold and something else—maybe fear. She had told him before not to use magic to seduce her. Finn unzipped his pants without taking his eyes off hers. Maybe that was the only way to dominate her properly, without silver.

“Is that right?” he said, freeing his cock from his fly. She looked away. Submissive. Perfect.

He slid a condom out of his wallet, and stretched it over the head, rolling it over the shaft. She was a sight, shimmering with ice, her hair a dark halo against the off-white floor of the cheap motel. He stroked himself, although it was unnecessary, more a formality than anything else; he was already hard.

As he slid inside her—and she was just as hot as he imagined—he sealed his mouth over her in another possessive, lingering kiss. The taste of blood filled his mouth and he was not sure whose it was, but it was sweet, and he pushed into her, forcing her to accommodate his size and length—

And then, he met with resistance.

Finn pushed again, eliciting another yip, and she bit him. Finn hissed, glaring down at her. She was panting, with quick, hitched gasps. The ice on her breasts had melted and her eyes were squeezed shut. Finn, also breathing hard, realized what the problem was. He was surprised. She had never acted like a virgin; she had not blushed or shied away. He had always assumed that shape-shifters tumbled in the woods like animals just as soon as they were able.

Apparently, he had been wrong.

He shifted his hips so only the tip of him was still inside, moving her damp hair out of her eyes. Then he pushed into her, with more force this time, and she made a sound that didn't even sound human. When he looked at her face, her expression was completely alien to him; he had never seen its like on the face of a human or a witch, and had no words to describe it.

Finn lowered his head to kiss her, to fill her mouth as he filled her cunt. He braced his weight to one arm, using the other to reach down between them and
massaged her clit until his thrusts became more fluid. She was tight; he filled her snugly, without any room to spare, and every time she clenched around him he felt it in his lower belly as his spine and brain stem buzzed with pleasure. Her face still bore that odd expression but she hadn't told him to stop, so he didn't. Wasn't sure he could have if she had.

The shifter didn't speak, until the very end. “What was that?” he demanded.

“I said, bite me,” and she turned her head, baring her throat.

His cock twitched inside her as he sank his teeth into her skin. “Yes,” she said, “just like that, harder,” so he nipped and sucked until a bruise blossomed on her swarthy skin.

She mewled, arching against him, and her fingers dug into her palms hard enough to draw blood. He felt her climax and he came shortly afterward, releasing her from the ward. That was a mistake, as it turned out, because the moment her wrists were free, she scratched him, swiping from his shoulders all the way down to his nipples.

“
There,” she said. “Now you're mine.”

She disappeared into the bathroom before he could come up with a response.

Chapter Nine

Catherine didn't wake up so much as plunge back into reality with all the force of a sinking stone. Her entire body ached, the way it did when she Changed into several beasts over the course of a single day; her tongue was as dry as cotton; and for some reason, her spine felt stiff and sore.

Why am I on the floor?

There was a blanket wrapped around her. It kept out some of the chill from the otherwise unheated room. She  pulled the sheet more tightly around her and rolled over. Better to go back to sleep now and figure this out later—

But then Catherine found herself facing the witch.

His shoulders were bare and from the way the sheet draped over his body, she suspected the same held true elsewhere. A peek beneath the sheets confirmed her fears; they were both naked. She had fucked the witch.

That actually explains a lot.

Luckily, he hadn't woken yet. She had some time to think about what she was going to do. Catherine sat up, trying to jostle the sheets as little as possible.

There were scratches on his shoulders—she remembered doing that quite vividly—and what looked like a bite mark. His mouth hadn't escaped the onslaught; his upper and lower lip were both bruised and swollen, patchy with flecks of blood that had been left to dry at the corners.

A bizarre sort of pride welled up inside her. Predator wanted to lick it off and awaken him with a coppery-tasting kiss.
Fuck
, she thought, and then winced. That was the issue at hand, wasn't it?
Look where it's gotten you
.

Unlike her, he still had most of the injuries he'd gotten from fighting the vampires in the mall. She couldn't figure out why he hadn't healed them all, unless there was some sort of physical cap upon his abilities. It was possible that casting magic exhausted him the way shifting did her.

A number of these wounds had reopened during sex. She hadn't bothered being gentle, and the knife wounds on his chest and side were open and raw-looking. Catherine's eyes dropped to his hands, one of which was thrown over his chest, and gravitated towards the thick, gnarled scars that ringed the inside of each wrist, just below his palms.

The Bracelets of Misfortune. Bleeders' marks. He had been left to die and survived, against all odds.
She couldn't figure out if this was divine intervention or a clever curse.

Misfortune is something we both have in spades
.

The sheets rustled as the witch stirred, shifting his limbs. The slow movement of his arms made it seem as though he were trying to swim his way back to consciousness.

He's waking up
. The thought was chased by a sense of panic; she still had no idea how to approach this situation, and could feel herself slipping from offense to defense.

Pain flickered across his face. He wet his lips, wincing at the feel of them—she could imagine the sting of his rough tongue as it chafed the still tender skin.

Frowning, but still more asleep than awake, he ran his hand over his scored chest in a brief and simple movement that made Catherine's stomach twist at the unconscious sexuality of the act. Because she
was
attracted to him; he was the perfect mate for a beast of prey—strong, brutish, dominant, and just capricious enough to be interesting.

But for a human, those traits were not so flattering. That was the problem here. And just as soon as she realized that, the witch opened his eyes and his
mouth curved in sleepy satisfaction when he glimpsed her sitting there.

The sheets pooled around his waist as he sat up. His well-muscled abdomen flexed very nicely, but she was not interested. Her curiosity insofar as it pertained to his body had been more than satisfied last night.

And speaking of satisfaction, the look on his face was starting to make her feel a little sick. “You look like you tried to fuck a barbed wire fence,” she told him pettishly, in an attempt to knock the smile from his battered lips.

It didn't work. “Nothing a simple healing spell won't fix.” He said another one of those short, simple spells and his fingers turned a glowing blue. She recognized it as the water-based curative; he had used it on her once.

Catherine watched the witch smooth his hands over some of the cuts and bruises, though for some reason he left his scratches and his mouth unhealed.

“
We are in
trouble
.”

“
That is nothing new.” His eyes devoured the parts of her that weren't covered by the sheet. “And I don't quite recall it giving you such a pressing sense of…urgency.”

So that was his game; he was trying to humiliate her into submission. But she didn't care that she was naked and he could stare until his eyes fell out of his head, for all she cared. She was far more concerned with the consequences of what they had done. They had broken the Second Rule:

Witches and Shape-Shifters may not fraternize with One who is not of their own kind.

Actually, they had broken a lot of rules, but thanks to the witch, that was the offense that would have the Council in an uproar.
As if the Council needed another excuse
.

Gods, she could still feel the heavy stares of disgust. The phantom weight of their narrowed gazes stuck to her skin like a sticky film she couldn't brush off. How could he have done that? How could he have kissed her like that?

Don't go pointing fingers. Look at what
you
just did
.

But she hadn't fucked him while the Council watched.

You might as well have. Sleeping with their prince was the best way of flipping off the witches you could think of
.

Was that it? All she could remember of her mindset was that she had been angry and drunk. Had she done all this in a single petty act of revenge?

Not a single act. You fucked him more than just once
.

Catherine was starting to hate the voice in her head.

“You know, I used to spend hours imagining what it would be like—what
you
would be like.”

“
That's kind of pathetic,” she told him.

He drew a single finger up her throat, tilting up her chin, and his touch made her breath come up short. He leaned in, and Catherine felt his warm breath on her neck tickling the place she had begged him to bite her during climax.

He wanted her again. How could he want her again?

“
You exceeded my expectations.”

Catherine swallowed as his teeth closed over her earlobe, and stared at one of the yellowed walls.

“And—” he chuckled; without moving away from her ear, he ran his hand up her thigh through the sheet “—I possess an exceptionally vivid imagination.”

This is bad
. She tugged her head out of his very loose hold.
Very, very bad.
“I'm sure you do,” she said haughtily.
What are you doing?
“I wish I could say the same.”

The witch blinked and let his hand fall back to his
side. His assessment of her had morphed into his more familiar guise of ill-concealed scorn. “What do you mean?”

“
What I
mean
is that alcohol can make you do some very stupid things.” Catherine raked her hair out of her face and winced: something crusty was caught in the strands. She hoped it was only blood. “Incredibly stupid—”

Her back hit the floor. “Did I not please you?” the witch demanded, swinging over her pinned hips. “I
am
sorry. You had no complaints before.” There was a dangerous glow in his eyes. “In fact, I believe you started this game.”

“
And now I'm finishing it.” Catherine dug her nails into the marks on his shoulder and he hissed and pulled away.

She gave him a look that fell short of conveying her disgust and grabbed her messenger bag. “Well, I'm glad you enjoyed it at least.” She did up the buttons of her shirt she could find. “Because this can't happen again.”

His eyes narrowed as she stepped into her underwear. “Do you really believe that I'd let you go?”

“
I'm not going anywhere,” she said. “But I'm not fucking you again, either. You're too cold, too proud, and too cruel.”

Finn stood up, letting the sheet fall from his body. “You think I'm too cruel.
You—
a creature that adheres to the rules of Darwin and no other. Kill or be killed. Eat or be eaten. Fuck or be
fucked
. You
dare
—”

“
Yes,” Catherine said. “I do.” She belted her jeans and left the motel room without a backwards glance.

She didn't intend to go far. Alcohol may have led her to this particular juncture, at least in part, but she needed to think about her present situation, and what she was going to do about it.

She shouldn't have drunk as much as she had; she had placed too much confidence in her metabolism and ended up overloading her system. But dammit, she had been nervous and the Council had been making her so tense.

As if that weren't enough, the witch had kissed her in front of those fucking Council members. Catherine shuddered at the memory; she had been shocked by the passion and urgency of the kiss—it seemed beyond him.

And she would never forget the look on his father's face. Such an utter look of loathing. It was clear where Finn had learned his elaborate displays of abhorrent contempt.

Catherine wasn't sure what to think when the witch used that wind spell to relay his father's terrible words. She knew she shouldn't be surprised—Royce Riordan was well known for his hatred of her kind, and had sent out his son on more than one occasion—but hearing the king of the witches commissioning her own death was another matter entirely.
And now we're flying in the face of another war.

A pair of hands shot out of the darkness and grabbed her. Catherine gasped, shocked—but not afraid, at least not at first. Humans were constantly underestimating her because of her small stature, only to receive a nasty surprise later.

No, the fear came only when she realized that she could not fight her attacker off. He or she was too strong. And there was only one creature stronger than a shape-shifter.

Dextrous fingers unbuttoned her collar. She growled when she felt the hand close around her chin, yanking her head roughly to one side in order to bare her throat.
So that's how they're going to kill me. They sent a vampire after me.
Her heart lurched wildly. “Fucking
leech
.”

The vampire's movements, neatly choreographed up until that moment, faltered, and the vampire
leaned in, bringing his face out of shadow and into the light of the motel's flickering neon sign.

Catherine stared at him, wide-eyed, taking in the slanted eyes, the full mouth, the olive tints beneath that deathly pallor, the face she would have recognized anywhere.

It took her a moment to remember how to speak.

“…
David?”

Even though his vision was clearer, sharper, and brighter than it had ever been as a shape-shifter, David still couldn't believe his eyes. He had to blink several times to make sure that it really was Catherine who he had pinned against the filthy brick wall of the filthy motel.

That it really was Catherine whose shirt he had all but ripped open while ignoring her obvious terror.

That it really was Catherine who he was looming over like a creature in a monster movie, mere inches away from sinking his teeth into her firm, golden skin.

Just like biting into a nectarine.

David backed away from her as if she'd shocked him, and in a way, she kind of had.
Gods
, he thought.
I can't believe—I almost—
Although he no longer had a pulse, his skin buzzed with agitation.
Fuck.

“
David.”

He jolted a little. She was reaching up with a shaking hand to touch him, to stroke his face. Her fingers hesitated over his skin, close enough that he could feel the warmth.

But she didn't quite dare, and that was a good thing because all he could see was how juicy her veins looked, how easily her supple skin would yield to the needle-sharp tips of his fangs, how the blood would be almost scalding.

And the
taste—

He pressed his lips closed obdurately. He would not bite Catherine. He would
not
.

“
David.” She wet her lips. “You're a vampire.”

“
Yes,” he said quietly, because this was true; he was.

Catherine hesitated, and then slid one of her arms through his. David was as cold as she was hot, and the temperature difference of their skin gave him a slight erotic shock. He was so much stronger now, too; it would be so easy to hurt her, even by accident.
Too easy
.