Howling Sacrifices (3 page)

Chapter Five

Lucy’s wolf yipped lightly in her ear and a heavy weight lowered on top of her, bringing her back to her surroundings. She had the feeling that’s exactly what he intended. The warm furred strength was somehow reassuring, but then the figure on top of her started to change. Before her very eyes, the wolf’s frame lengthened and widened. Fur was replaced by warm, smooth skin. It seemed to her to be a fluid transition, but there was a tight grimace on the face of the man who took the wolf’s place, suggesting that whatever strange and scary magic—or hallucination—had just taken place, was not completely pain-free.

Blinking hard to bring everything into focus, she somehow wasn’t surprised to see that it was Dougald’s face gazing down at her. She was a little surprised to discover that he was as naked as she was, even as she instinctively strained to get closer to him. As close as she could while still tied down.

As soon as he saw her trying to move, his hands reached for the rope and he made quick work of her bonds. “Aileen. Where—?”

“Yer friend is all right,” he assured her in a low voice. For some reason, she believed him. She automatically assumed that somehow the other wolves were…like him and they had already taken Aileen somewhere safe.

“Why did you let him take me?” Panic and fury choked her. “You just sat there in the carriage and—”

“I’m sorry, lass. We knew the bastards were goin’ ta perform this ritual tonight, but we didn’a know where.”

“Who’s we?”

“The wolves. This has been our territory for hundreds o’ years, but every so often, the witches and their devils try to take it from us.”

“What? Why?”

“Because o’ the magic properties of these woods.”

“Magic?” It made an odd kind of sense. How else would one account for a pack of werewolves running loose? She gasped. “So you used me as bait?”

Dougald moved aside as Lucy tried to sit up, but at the loss of his warmth, she immediately started shivering again—with cold and probably shock—and he wrapped her up in his arms.

“How come you’re naked?” she murmured, wondering if she was going to pass out.

He gave a low chuckle that she felt all the way to her toes, and shrugged. “It’s rather difficult to carry a set of clothes in wolf form, aye?”

Glancing over his shoulder, she gasped at the death that surrounded them. The fire still raged. It probably would for hours, given how fiercely it had been fed by the priests in preparation for their disgusting ritual—the ground was covered in blood and torn red silk. And bodies.

A sob caught in her throat, but not for the priests. Try as she might, Lucy didn’t have a lot of sympathy for the men who’d died here tonight. Not when the body of the girl they had broken and mutilated still lay spread-eagled not five feet away. Not when they were going to do the same to her.

Oh God.
She needed to get out of here. Now.

Maybe sensing her rising panic, Dougald stood with her and stepped down from the stone slab. Lucy closed her eyes and held on to him as tightly as she could. Burying her face in the curve of his neck, she didn’t even notice where he was taking her until long moments later when he stopped walking and sat down with her in his lap. She realized that they’d left the circle and had retreated deep into the thick of the surrounding woods.

“What about—”

“The others will take care of yer friend and arrange for the dead girl to be brought home to her family.” Lucy nodded and let out a long breath, relieved to know that the poor soul would at least receive a proper burial.

“Are all Canadian women as much trouble as ye’ve been?” His breath teased the fine hairs at her temple and then she felt his lips on her forehead. She lifted her face and he dropped a soft kiss to each of her closed eyelids, the tip of her nose, cheekbones, chin.

Her mouth.

He kissed her softly until Lucy became more insistent, needing his lips to erase the stain of evil those awful men had forced on her. She was suddenly desperate to reinforce the fact that she was indeed still alive. He gave her his tongue and she sucked it greedily into her mouth, pressing her tight, aching nipples into his chest with a groan. A sharp pang of need sliced deep in the wet, pulsing core of her.

Their nakedness became her number-one concern as she twisted in his arms until she was able to straddle him, only realizing at that moment that he sat perched on the fallen trunk of a large tree.

He held her close as she kissed him again, so close his warmth became hers, his strength a cocoon surrounding them both. His long cock was hard and hot against her belly. She lifted herself, rubbing up and down on him until he growled at her like the animal he was beneath the surface of his beautifully sculpted human form. He made her want to be an animal too, and run away with him into the wilderness where the evil of this night could never find her again.

“Ahh,” she moaned, tilting her head back. “I wish…”

He buried his face in the curve of her neck, nipping lightly just beneath her ear. “What do ye wish,
mo leannan
?”

She didn’t know what the rumbled words meant, but they sounded so good, like the endearment of a lover. “I wish we could stay like this forever. I don’t want to go back.” She shuddered, once again seeing the blood and death, feeling the evil that had threatened to reach inside her and rip out her soul. “I don’t ever want to go back.”

“Shh,” he whispered. His hand settled over her breast and she groaned, letting his touch pull her back to the here and now.

“More,” she urged. “
Please
.”

Beneath her, his thighs tensed and his erection twitched against her belly. “Ah, sweet. Ye dinna know what ye’re asking.”

She shook her head and rocked her hips, drawing the head of his cock to the slick entrance of her pussy. “Yes I do. For once, I know exactly what I want and I’m not going to be afraid to take it.” She kissed him, slipping her tongue inside his mouth. She loved the taste of him. Wild and hot. After long moments, she gasped and broke away to look into his beautiful light eyes. “Dougald, please. I need to be fucked. I need it so bad.”

“Jesus,
mo leannan
.” The hand on her waist tightened and he seemed to growl. “I want to fuck ye more than I care to breathe right now, but I canna do it and hold back the wolf. Do ye understand what that means?”

No, but she didn’t think she cared. The only thing she cared about was this straining, aching, demanding feeling inside her. The confidence he’d given her and the way he was able to shut out everything else that had happened to her tonight until she only felt…
him
.

“I want you,” she whispered. “Nothing else matters. I want you any way I can get you.”

Twining her fingers in his hair, she marveled at the soft, silky texture of it and how only a few minutes ago it had been short, coarse fur.

Breaking away, she let her hands continue to roam over the sleek muscles of his chest and then looked up into his eyes. “Dougald…what are you really?”

His eyes flashed almost silver. “I’m one of those myths nobody believes in anymore.”

Balancing her knees on the log, Lucy lifted her body until he was positioned just right. She slid down, feeling every long inch of his cock penetrate her, fill her. This was no figment of her imagination.

She smiled and tugged on his hair to draw him closer, her breath coming in faster, shorter puffs. “I believe.”

His answering grin was decidedly wolfish. He looked at her as if he
hungered
and she was the last tasty morsel on earth. As he clasped her hips with both hands and thrust upward hard, she couldn’t help but feel a frisson of fear arc through her.

But it was quickly forgotten when he finally lowered his mouth to her hard nipple. He tormented her with hard flicks of his tongue and sharp nips of his teeth until she cried out, and then he moved to treat her other breast to the same erotic attention. All the while rocking his hips into her slowly, shallowly, over and over again.

She couldn’t handle any more. She had to come soon or she would die from sensory overload. “Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”

He lifted his head. She licked her lips and watched as he used his fingers to tease her further, pulling at her tight nipples until they were red and every brutal tweak sent a fierce spike of pleasure-pain to her full, throbbing pussy.

“Beg me again to fuck ye,” he growled, grinding hard against her pelvis. “Tell me ye want it fast and rough. That ye aren’t afraid of the animal inside me.”

“Please, Dougald,” she answered, rubbing her breasts against his chest. “I’m not afraid.”

“Lord forgive me,” He kissed her as if to seal the deal
.
“Ye should be and ye will be,” he promised in an ominous voice. “But it won’t save ye now.”

“What do you—?”

He lifted her off his thighs and jerked her around until she faced the dark shadows of the woods.

“Get on yer knees,” he ordered. His hand fell between her shoulder blades, pushing her forward until she obeyed.

The position made her feel vulnerable and defenseless. For the first time since he’d carried her from the horror of the devil circle, Lucy was supremely conscious of her nakedness. She felt the dirt on her palms and her knees. Her breasts swayed as Dougald took her hips in his hands.

She thought he would take her right away and bit her lip, tilting her head back as she waited for the head of his cock to penetrate her from behind.

But instead, he smoothed both hands over her back and down to her ass. “Higher,” he rumbled. “Get that arse in the air.”

“Oh God.” She did as he asked, resting on her elbows and lowering her chest until the tops of her breasts skimmed the ground. She spread her knees wider too, ready and willing to take him inside her.

He surprised her again when he spread her ass cheeks with his fingers and lowered his face between her thighs. “Oh fuck.” She cried out with every stab and stroke of his tongue into the dripping core of her pussy until she was coming on his face and he was drinking up each one of her shuddering tremors.

Before she was completely finished, he positioned himself behind her and finally—
finally
—he pushed his cock past the swollen lips of her pussy, driving forward in one smooth motion until he was seated to the balls.

“Yes, oh yes.” She loved the stretched fullness of him inside her, loved the way he could make her feel so free and abandoned. His raw wildness seemed to flow right into her and she held on, not wanting to give it up.

His hips thrust forward and back as he pushed himself harder and harder, deeper and deeper. Lucy was rushing fast toward another orgasm and nearly jumped off the deep end when Dougald leaned over her and fingered her clit, circling it and pinching it until she called his name and begged for release.

She felt his mouth close over her neck and angled her head to the side to give him better access.

His every muscle seemed to tense and finally he let out a savage roar that echoed all around her and inside her. She felt the violent spasms of his cock going off and the warm flush of his seed. She had a moment of panic that they hadn’t used protection, but it was obliterated by the wave upon wave of molten pleasure flooding all her senses.

Just as her pussy started to contract and she tumbled headlong into another orgasm, his teeth closed over her shoulder.

Lucy screamed as he bit through skin right to the bone and she felt the vibration of his fractured growl against her. She bucked against him but she couldn’t escape either the ecstasy or the agony. Her arm felt like it was being torn off, but at the same time she’d never experienced a climax so overwhelming.

He slammed into her again and again, his body just as hard as it had been before he’d come, as if the taste of her blood was getting him off.

She’d come down from her own high. Her arms trembled holding her weight and her thighs quivered as she took him and took him. Tears blurred her vision now, but she refused to let them fall.

Finally he stiffened behind her once more, his shout echoing between them. After a long moment, he removed his teeth from her shoulder and let her go.

Lucy scuttled a few feet away before she turned. With her hand pressed to her neck, she felt the wet warmth of blood seeping through her fingers and the stickiness of his cum dripping down her thighs.

He stood and came for her. She tried digging her heels into the dirt and moving back, but he grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet in front of him.

“I told ye,” he growled.

Caught by his glowing eyes, she tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let go. The fingers closing around her upper arm tightened and she felt the evidence of claws, as if he were close to changing back to the wolf. The teeth in his mouth looked longer, sharper. A trail of her own blood traced a line down his chin.

“But ye wanted to play wit’ a wolf,” he said. “Ye wanted to be wild and free—and now that’s exactly what ye’ll be…for all time.”

“For all—?” Lucy stopped. The words got stuck in her throat. Suddenly, it felt as if something was crawling inside her, no,
tearing up
her insides. “Dougald, what’s going on? What have you done to me?”