Raven Moon (27 page)

Seeing his mark on her delicate neck, awoke his lusty wolf and his fangs emerged to take her again. He remained in control and his tone darkened, “I assure you, I will always be faithful to you.”

“Don’t you dare give me that I’m off to the Crusades and be faithful to you crap.” Her voice softened, “I get it. You want to protect your mate, no matter what the cost.”

“Your life is more important than mine.”

Rave planted her fists on her shapely hips. “Your life is just as important to me. I’m not leaving your side!”

Maddox had the strongest urge to pin her to the ground. Maybe a gentle nip on her soft throat would remind her of his alpha status. He salivated in anticipation. He garbled in half human, half wolf tone, “Do you think it’s easy for me to leave you?”

Rave took her sleeve and dabbed his drool. “Are you kidding? A wolf leaving his claimed mate? Of course not.”

Maddox growled and then drew her in. “Woman, you vex me!”

She smiled as if pleased with his wolfish reaction. “Good, then we agree to stay together.”

“Yes. After we get a car, we’ll go to your territory.”

“Wait, what?”

“You heard me. I’m giving up hunting Jaeger for you, at least for now.”

“But, what about the chimpanzombies?”

“Lazarus can handle them and if not, your witch friend, Dora can use her powers to destroy them. We’ll return with her and an entire battalion.” He smiled. “We wouldn’t be helping anyone, if we died stupidly, now would we?”

“Whoohoo!” Rave leapt on him, wrapped her legs around his waist and ravished his mouth with a slow sensual kiss.

She clung to him as he walked down an embankment and into a wooded area near a small lake, where the air was fresh from the dead and the only sound came from songbirds. Surrounding the lake sat bricked suburban homes. The type of neighborhood where it was safe to raise kids and jog at night. Once upon a time. He found a patch of soft tall grass and set her down below him.

****

Rave pulled down her pants and feverishly removed her top. Maddox gaped at her full, luscious breasts and then shot her a wolfish grin. He unzipped his fly, ready to plunge into her with his rather pleased pulsing erection. “Hold on.” Maddox froze as she gazed at him as if he was a piece of choice beef. He looked yummy under the sunshine. “Remove your shirt.” He hastily removed his black shirt and threw it to the side.
Holy hot!
His broad shoulders and muscular chest sizzled with alpha masculine electricity. Every bit of his body was larger than life. Dominant. Male. Her fingers stroked the corrugated muscles of his biceps and purred with lust as he shuddered from her touch. He was hers, forever.

Maddox blue eyes scorched her. “I’ve dreamt of making loving to you under the sky for a year.”

A flock of ducks took off. He growled and twisted to look. His wolf ears appeared, making him look feral as he scanned the area. A cat’s orange tail flashed from the tall reeds. She rolled her eyes. Ducks were so chicken. But maybe it wasn’t just about the feral cat. Zombies may come out of nowhere, not to mention, more drones and the werewolf hunters. Plus, mate or not, she was still on the Benandanti kill list for destroying their last bloodstone. She had reason to be frightened, and Maddox had reason to be alert.

Rave lifted her body by her elbows. “Is it safe for a quickie?”

Maddox laughed, his deep voice enriched with macho alpha testosterone. “After last night, you should know wolves never have quick sex.”

“Boy, do I ever.” Bird shifters did not take long to make love like the mammalian shifters and most notably the oversexed wolf shifters. A bird shifter must have coined the concept of a ‘quickie’.

He grinned and claimed her hardened nipple. The feel of his razor sharp fangs as he gently sucked blew her mind. She arched and her arms flickered into wings, feathering his hard muscled back. He groaned in pleasure at the feel of her light feathers. He let go of her climaxing nipple and sucked the other anxiously waiting nipple. She spread her wings as if soaring, not in flight but in pure sweet spasms.

Ripples of pleasure spiked through her and she pressed her lips together so as not to cry out and draw the attention of interloping zombies. However, the feel of his cock plunging into her, undid her and she cried out as a tsunami wave of an orgasm overtook her. She shifted her wings to arms and dug her nails into him so as not to drown in ecstasy.

Maddox captured her mouth, muffling her screams as he growled in pleasure. His tongue joined the rhythm of his thrusting shaft. With his clawed hand, he lifted her bottom while his free arm, did pushups over her, so as not to crush her. Rave wrapped her legs around him, meeting his thrust. He released her mouth and nibbled her ears. Human earlobes drove bird shifters wild with sensation and she gasped short glorious pleasure pants. “Oh, yes…”

Maddox grunted as he rode her like a cowboy on a rodeo bronco. Determined. Hard. She convulsed beneath him, exploding in soul-shattering intensity. “Maddox!”

He growled, “Mine!” He stiffened, then groaned in masculine satisfaction as he pumped hot semen into her.

Surrender. Rave melted in pure spent bliss as he finished by nibbling her throat. Spent, they lay still.

The zombies’ grumbling moans muted the birdsongs and their nearing stench polluted the fresh air. Talk about killing the mood. Maddox stood and pulled up his pants. Darn. Longer than a quickie but not by much.

He smiled down at her and gave her a hand up. “Get dressed. We have an audience.”

Rave pulled up her pants and turned. A swarm of a hundred or more zombies shambled toward them from what looked like the abandoned child-friendly neighborhood. They were about a football field away. “Geez, were we that loud?”

He unhurriedly buttoned his shirt, not the least bit concerned that their booty call might turn out to be the zombies’ afternoon snack. “Only a raven’s caw would have been louder than your cries of pleasure.”

“You should have let me know sooner.” She donned her shirt and grabbed her satchel.

“Ravenna, don’t ever ask me to stop making love to you before sending you to oblivion, which I believe I did.”

“At least five times.”

“Good.” He cocked his head as if considering something important. “I can get used to quickies.”

Rave grabbed him by his belt, ignoring the present danger. “Not me. I prefer hot wolf sex marathons.” The zombies’ cacophonous moans grew louder. The newly bitten walked at a good pace, not race walking but not slow shuffles. “Are you going to shift to your badass werewolf?” More suburban zombies kept on spilling toward them. “Umm. Actually, we should shift, like now.”

“No worries.” He picked her up and threw her over his shoulder, fireman style.

“Wait, wouldn’t it be easier to carry a raven?”

He slapped her ass. “No, I’d miss your pretty bum. Hang on.” He took off on a dead run up the road, possibly as fast as a racehorse.

“Whoa!” Faster than any horse.

****

Maddox set her down next to a family van, packed with luggage and a bike rack with five bikes. He opened the door. “Another push button ignition.” The proximity key must still be on the person, who was probably a zombie.

“I might be able to hot wire it.”

“Can you now? I had no idea my mate was a car thief.”

“Moi? A thief? Part of our training by Dirk’s Wolf Guard was to hotwire abandoned vehicles. I preferred looking for keyed cars since there were always plenty.” She wiggled her fingers in the air. “Now that I have use of both my hands it should be no problem.”

He looked down a row of cars and sniffed.

She stiffened. “What?”

“That truck with the horse trailer.” A stain of old dried human blood near the tires meant whatever happened wasn’t recent. At least, the scent coming from inside was not rotted horse.

“What about it?”

“I smell ammo.”

They rushed to it and he twisted the trailer open. Inside were stacks of boxes labeled Smith Wesson, boxes of ammo and a row of crossbows. He took a small crossbow and handed to her. “How’s this instead of a wedding ring?”

Rave’s purple eyes brightened. “I’ll take this over a diamond ring any day.”

He opened a box and then another. Each contained an assault rifle with magazines and enough ammo to fight thousands of ghouls. “It looks like this person intended to sell the weapons in exchange for fuel or food.” Smaller boxes contained Glocks, .38’s and even Uzi’s.

She hefted the crossbow for size and then looked through the scope. “Or to buy women.”

He spotted a small SUV. “Grab a few more weapons and then we’ll take that green car.”

Inside the driver’s seat was a skeleton of a man shot in the head. Maddox moved him and his gun fell from his lap. Suicide. The keys still in the ignition. He pulled the body out and rolled down the windows. “Any perfume?”

Rave plugged her nose and nodded. She reached in and pulled out a small genie lamp shaped glass perfume bottle. “Your wish is my command. You’ll have to go to Paris and replace it.”

Paris with Ravenna. Someday.
“I promise.” Maddox took it and sniffed. The subtle aroma of her perfume along with her sweet scent was tattooed in his memory since meeting her last year. He lightly sprayed the seat and handed it back to her. The mixture of the two opposing odors did not neutralize the stench completely but once it aired out, it would be tolerable. She found a couple blankets and spread them on the seats. He turned the ignition on and the car started immediately. Half a tank.

They transferred their selection of weapons from the trailer into the trunk and back seat, but she kept her crossbow and sat on the passenger seat. “Maddox, now that we have weapons, should we go after Jaeger, kill him and the chimpanzombies?”

He gripped the steering wheel and stared at her. “No. I’m not going to risk losing you.”

“Oh no, you don’t. Even though I’m your mate doesn’t mean I’m staying home and knitting wool socks for you.”

He snarked. “Not a bad idea, only don’t knit wool, I hate thick socks.”

Rave’s cheeks turned crimson, in what was to be their first nuptial spat. “I’ll have you know, I’m an officer in the Avian intel branch of the Wolf Guard. I’m not taking a back seat to your macho adventures.”

He fumed. “You sound like Mariah and look what that got her.”

“I know you worry, but I might pluck every feather on my body stressing about you.”

He’d heard about parrots plucking out their feathers and the thought of Rave doing that horrified him. Maddox was about to drive off, when she stepped out with her crossbow. “What the bloody hell.” He stormed after her.

Rave stood in the middle of the road and aimed at three zombies who stumbled out of an embankment. One after another fell, each with an arrow embedded in their brain. She turned and smiled. “This is how I protect my mate. Any questions?”

Maddox raked his hair back and scoffed. “Targets that don’t fire back.” He narrowed his eyes, prepared for her to snap at him with a snarky comeback.

Instead she laughed. “Point well taken. Next time I’ll hide behind something.” She returned to the car and shut the door.

Chapter 18

Rave woke when Maddox pulled into a gas station in a small cow town. Literally, behind the station five longhorns grazed. She wished she had her sketchpad, which she left in Yosemite. Her last drawing depicted zombies in their odd stasis stance near a huge 3-D cinema. The sign over the movie theatre read, Zombie film fest. Who knew all those people would end up as mindless extras on a set not of their creation? During the last days before the end of civilization, every movie theatre showed zombie movies. Not as much for escape entertainment, but rather as survival education.

Maddox parked the car and got out. “Time to fuel and stretch.”

Rave slung her satchel around her neck, grabbed her crossbow and stepped out. The sweet ozone smell after a thunderstorm accompanied the scent of livestock and comforted her. Animals, though not hunted by zombies, shied away from the foul smelling zombies. The calm herd indicated they were safe from zombies. For now.

Her raven foresight sensed the subtle changes in light. In a few hours, it would be dark. Maybe this was a good place to stay the night.

Maddox closed the gas cap and shot a predatory glance at the cattle. One perceptive longhorn bellowed and the herd moved on.

Poor critters, safe from zombies but not hungry werewolves. Rave looked at his tempting meal escaping from his immediate grasp. “I bet the fat Hereford cattle will soon be replaced by the smarter longhorns.” Maybe even the buffalo would make a comeback. “Please tell me you’re not going to feast on Texas longhorns.”

Maddox licked his lips and scanned the street. “Let’s see if the town store has any food left.”

They walked across the street, passed an old saloon and into the corner store. The door was unlocked and all the shelves long emptied. No surprise. It looked like it would be a longhorn hamburger night.
Not if I can help it
. “Actually I’m still pretty full from yesterday’s venison.”

“Is that why your stomach has been growling?”

“I’m sure this is not the only place that might have had food.” She walked out and went next door into the saloon. Maddox shadowed her. There were still some bottles of booze, which meant tankers had not raided this little one-stop-sign ghost town.

He pushed her behind him and went into the employee’s only back room. Pots and pans banged.

Rave set an arrow on her crossbow. “Everything okay, wolfiegang?”

Maddox walked out with a bag of tortilla chips and a can of chili. A big grin plastered on his gorgeous face. “Hidden in the broom closet. Expiration date is in two years, so we’re good.”

“I’m game.” She laughed. “And I don’t mean that literally.”

He set the chips down. “You get the drinks, and I’ll show you how domestic I am.” He withdrew a long claw and pierced the can. Having a werewolf around was like having a Swiss army knife with benefits.

Rave gazed above the bar and set her crossbow down. One shelf still had display bottles of beer and wines. But whisky and anything you might run across on a western movie was gone. She grabbed two bottles of American beer. “Warm, just to make you feel at home in Merry Olde England.”