Agent Read online

  Still, her fingers trembled as she placed them on the control panel, her mouth drier than the Hetap desert as she began to hack the Reaper’s security system.

  The codes were complex. Very complex. Each one folded in on itself until the locking mechanism was an intricate knot of threaded commands and sub-commands. Five times Jaienna was denied access. Five times. Kron would be mortified if he ever knew. Each time she thought she had it, a sequence revealed itself in a twisting, taunting string. Teasing her.

  Narrowing her eyes, Jaienna focused closer on the panel. Her fingers danced across its surface in a blur, fighting the threaded code.

  Another growl—louder, deeper—came from behind the door and a prickle of unease ran down Jaienna’s spine. Her ass clenched and she swallowed down a sudden lump in her throat. There was no denying the growl’s message. She was being warned: Go away.

  Staring at the door, she shook her head. “No.”

  The growl became a snarl and Jaienna’s heart hammered.

  Go away.

  “No.”

  Her fingers blurred across the control panel again, a fine sheen of perspiration breaking out on her forehead. The snarl continued on the other side of the door and in her mind’s eye Jaienna could see the animal—its head level with hers despite standing on all fours, sinewy muscles bunched and ready to leap, wicked teeth bared, golden eyes locked—

  The door slid open with a soft swoosh.

  To reveal a sweat glistening Zeric on the other side. A naked, sweat glistening Zeric.

  Waiting for her.

  Jaienna throat clamped shut. Oh, shit.

  Dilated golden eyes bored into hers, burning with fevered fury.

  The werewolf’s eyes.

  Their hypnotic power was undeniable; she felt like an animal—small and vulnerable—under their glowering weight. She sucked in a sharp breath, tasting Zeric’s sweat on the air…

  And then, with inhuman speed, he leapt at her.

  Her back smashed against the corridor wall, her feet fumbling over the floor as Zeric’s solid weight drove her back. The breath burst from her lungs, captured by Zeric’s mouth as it took possession of hers.

  His tongue plunged past her lips, brutal and dominating. He snatched her wrists and shoved them against the wall beside her head. His hard body, rippling with muscle and slicked with sweat, slammed into hers. The massive length of his rigid cock ground against the soft curve of her mons and she let out a short cry, wet heat crashing through her. Oh, gods.

  The mouth on hers grew wilder. He bit at her bottom lip and Jaienna tasted the copper tang of fresh blood on her tongue mere seconds before he laved it away. He dragged her hands above her head, jerking her arms straight, his grip on her wrists cruel. Sharp spears of pain shot down her forearms and Jaienna moaned. Not from discomfort, but utter pleasure.

  Zeric caught the low, raw sound with his plundering mouth, sucked it from her body just as he rammed her wrists together and held them—bone to bone—in one large, inescapable fist.

  For a heavy second, long enough for Jaienna to hear her heart beat twice, he stared down into her face, eyes dilated. Wild.

  Animalistic.

  “God save me,” he groaned. “I can’t stop.”

  Jaienna pushed her shoulders to the wall and her pussy to his cock, rubbing her sex against his swollen, throbbing balls. “Good.”

  With a snarl, he grabbed at her trousers, tore the fly open, and shoved his hand between her thighs. His fingers slid down the shaved hood of her pussy—like steel on velvet—and then he was in her. Two long fingers. Wriggling. Delving. Conquering.

  Jaienna arched, her back a severe bow as she rammed her shoulders harder to the wall and her sex harder to his hand. She wanted him to fill her. Not just with his hand, but with his body, his engorged cock.

  Rolling her hips back and forth, she ground the swollen button of her clit on the base knuckle of his middle finger, gasping as beats of liquid heat pulsated between her thighs. She clenched her fists, riding each fluttering wave as she rode his hand. Her body cried out for more. All her life she’d been a creature of sexual pursuits, driven to keep her and her sister safe in the slave camps through her unique ability. Sex was just a tool. Once she’d dared believe otherwise and was proven wrong. Until Zeric entered her fucked-up life.

  Zeric. The only person impervious to her planted suggestions.

  The Terran with the strange beast in his blood.

  A deep growl sounded low in his throat as though to prove her tumultuous thoughts. His unusual eyes still held her, keeping her imprisoned. They bored into her, a smoldering drill targeted on her soul. His fingers sank into her sex, as imprisoning as his eyes, stroking and squirming until Jaienna felt the muscles of her pussy constrict.

  No.

  She didn’t want it to end yet. Not after being deprived of his touch for so long.

  She jerked her hips back and his fingers slid free of her gripping sex, leaving her feeling empty. “Fuck me, Zeric,” she demanded, voice a husky whisper. “Impale me with your cock and fuck me until we’re both drained.”

  Zeric stared at her with those unnerving golden eyes, silent. The hand pinning her wrists to the wall tightened. Glistening with sweat and coiled to perfection, he closed the small distance she’d made between them. He didn’t say a word as his free hand—the one only seconds earlier he’d buried in her sex—reached out, wrapped around the front of her vest and tore it open.

  Her breasts tumbled free, the cool air of the brig like ice on her flushed skin. Her nipples pinched into painful tips, though Jaienna doubted it was the cool air that caused them to do so. Zeric’s burning gaze studied them so thoroughly she could almost feel it. She sucked in a long breath, her pussy clamping and her pulse pounding. Tears of Druentia. She was about to come and all he was doing was looking at her. “Touch me, Zeric.” The words burst from her dry throat. “Gods, please. Touch me.”

  Zeric’s lips curled away from his teeth in a slow, recondite smile and for a split moment Jaienna swore they were longer. Sharper. She sucked in another breath and her body filled with its scent. The werewolf’s. Musky. Carnal. Powerful. Her heart leapt into furious flight and her womb flooded with wet heat. “Oh gods…”

  “Deities have nothing to do with me, Jaienna,” Zeric murmured, drawing his head closer to hers. With deliberate purpose, his left hand covered her right breast. Squeezed it. Owned it. Ribbons of scorching pleasure stripped through Jaienna’s body, from her breast straight down to her sodden sex and she gasped. Zeric stared into her face, eyes burning. “If I don’t let you go now, you’ll soon know why.”

  Jaienna swallowed again, the pressure of his hand on her breast, her aching, eager nipples between his knuckles, making her legs tremble. “I don't want you to let me go, Zeric. I don’t care what you become. The beast… the werewolf… doesn’t scare me. We can deal with it together.” She shook her head. “Just don’t shut me out. Please.”

  “You should be scared, Jaienna.” Zeric’s nostrils flared. “You should be petrified.” And he grabbed the waistband of her trousers in his fists and tore it apart.

  He was on his knees, hands gripping her now bare hips, fingers clenching her ass before Jaienna drew breath. Fervent lips feathered her smooth mons, hard thumbs pressed her hipbones and Zeric’s tongue plunged between her thighs, finding her clit immediately.

  Jaienna threw back her head. “Fuck.”

  A deep rumble vibrated low in Zeric’s chest, though whether it was a chuckle or growl she couldn’t tell. His lips and tongue suckled on her sex, savage and hungry, as though he was starved and she his only source of life.

  She knew how he felt. It was only his tongue in her folds but she tingled and trembled—infused with energy beyond the norm. Truly alive. Thanks to Zeric. Being in the same room, breathing the same air…

  Oh, Jaienna… when did you fall so deep?

  Teeth, sharp and even, closed down on her throbbing clit and Jaienna cried out, the question for
gotten. She knotted her fingers in the tangled strands of his hair and pushed her hips forward, harder against his mouth.

  Strong, large hands moved to her thighs and her legs were shoved apart, exposing her wet sex further to his tongue and teeth. He sucked at the soft, satiny lips, flicked at the tiny nub of her clit with the tip of his tongue until Jaienna cried out again. “Yes, Zeric.” She tugged on his hair even as she pushed his head harder to her pussy.

  His teeth worked her sensitive sex. Mauled it. His hands gripped her ass, squeezing each cheek with brutal force and she wanted… “More, Zeric. Give me more.”

  And he did. With a violent jerk he wrapped her legs around his head, supporting her thighs on his broad shoulders as his tongue plunged into her heat.

  It wasn’t his cock but Jaienna screamed all the same. Screamed his name as tight, blistering waves of wet release crashed through her. From her. Lapped eagerly away by Zeric’s masterful, punishing tongue. “I’m coming. Gods, I’m coming.”

  He didn’t pause, his mouth assaulting her sex like a wild animal devouring its prey. Untamed.

  A chill rippled up Jaienna’s spine, delicious and wanton. Dropping her head, she looked down at the man between her thighs…

  To find Zeric’s already massive frame growing.

  Jaienna tensed. Shit. He’s changing again. Fear stabbed at her heart even as her sex pulsed and constricted from the most brutal orgasm she’d ever experienced. Druentia wept. He’s changing.

  Still her pussy fluttered. Wanting his cock where his tongue now was. “Zeric…” she managed to moan, riding the crest of each powerful wave with almost breathless craving. He was becoming the werewolf—the strange Terran beast—between her thighs and still she wanted more. She wanted… “Zeric.”

  Nails that felt like claws sank into the flesh of her ass as Zeric fed from her sex.

  Incapable of stopping him and unwilling to do so, Jaienna closed her eyes and held on. Whether man or beast, he was taking her to a place she’d never been. She wanted to go there so, so much. She clenched her fists tighter on hair now more like fur and rammed her head back into the wall. Wanting it all. “Oh my animal, yes.” The words, softer than a whispered breath, slipped from her dry, parted lips.

  Yet Zeric heard them.

  And reacted.

  He reeled away, scrambling backward until he stood upright, broad chest heaving, golden eyes dilated and haunted.

  Jaienna took a step forward, her body still in the throes of its consuming orgasm. “Zeric? What—?” He stood before her, bulging muscles contorting under skin now covered in a million tiny strands of fine, gray fur. “Zeric?”

  His low growl froze Jaienna in her tracks. “Don’t.” The word was thick, as if it struggled to form in a mouth filled with long sharp teeth. Smoldering werewolf eyes held her as he shook his head.

  “But Zeric,” Jaienna began, before a violent shudder wracked his body and he folded over, the muscles under his skin writhing and bunching together.

  Jaienna stared, heart hammering, pussy still fluttering. By the Gods. Was he fighting the change? Or succumbing to it? “Zeric?”

  Another shudder rocked his body, and another and another. Then he was standing again, naked and human. The Terran Boundary Guardian once more. “Get out, Jaienna,” he said, nostrils flaring. “If you care for me at all you’ll do as I say. Get out.”

  She looked at him. Felt pain, anger and contempt in his stare. Felt his hungry craving as well. The cabalistic, undeniable desire to fuck her.

  The muscles in her pussy fluttered and she almost took a step forward. Almost.

  Zeric’s eyes turned murderous, as if he knew what she wanted to do. “Get out, Jaienna,” he repeated, voice flat and utterly cold. “Now.”

  She lingered for a second and then fled the brig, heart beating so hard it hurt.

  The door shut behind her and she closed her eyes, the pulse between her thighs still beating, regret and misery threading through her veins. “Damn you, Arctos,” she whispered seconds before a long, low howl rose above the low thrum of the ship’s engine. From the brig.

  From Zeric.

  From the animal inside him.

  * * * *

  Hrung Crortek turned from the projected holo-image of Psy Lyso’s dismembered torso shimmering above his desk, a satisfied smirk playing over his lipless mouth. It was a well-known fact that anyone who displeased him died. Why the fat Xolotlan thought he’d be any different was beyond Crortek. Lyso’s stupidity had brought chaos to The Pit. Chaos and destruction. Whether a successful Bliss dealer or not, he had to be punished for that.

  With a contemptuous snort, the Ornithion moved across his private suite, fingering the long, jagged scar crossing his cheek as he went. Close to twenty of the tiny, steely scales on his face had been ripped from his flesh, a permanent reminder of the man responsible. Stopping at the far window, Crortek stared out at the flashing lights of Pellaxion Four’s Pleasure District, his own pleasure from Psy Lyso’s torturous death forgotten.

  He traced the rude scar again with a hooked claw, white eyes narrowing to slits as he drew an image into his mind of its creator.

  Zeric Arctos.

  The smirk on Crortek’s mouth turned to a snarl, revealing row upon row of needle-sharp teeth in the window’s reflective surface. The crime lord stared at his reptilian reflection, seeing the glowing golden eyes of the Terran Boundary Guardian instead. Seeing them change until they were the eyes of a savage animal unlike any he’d seen before. An animal capable of beating him.

  Zeric Arctos.

  The scar seemed to burn under Crortek’s clawed finger at the name, as though to mock him.

  Zeric Arctos.

  Spinning around, Crortek stared at the holo-image of Lyso’s bleeding, ruptured body again. “It will be you there soon, Arctos,” he hissed, the spines on his back flaring. “I will find both you and the Raavelian slut and make you watch as I tear her limb from limb. Then it will be just you and me. I have great plans for you, Arctos.” A cold smile stretched his mouth and he dragged his claw down the length of the scar on his cheek once more, staring at the suspended hunk of dead meat that had once been his top Bliss dealer. “Great plans indeed.”

  Chapter 2

  The chain felt heavier than normal. Zeric studied it in his hand, running the pad of his thumb across one fat, solid link. The walk from the brig to his quarters had been a torturous test of willpower, the desire—no, the need—to go to Jaienna like the necessity to draw breath: undeniable. Yet deny it he had and now here he stood, his blood still boiling, the beast still simmering in his veins, snarling for release.

  He closed his eyes for a moment and saw the human hands at the end of his arms change, watched his blunt fingernails turn to claws. His heartbeat tripped and he snapped his eyes open. Jezu, what the fuck was going on? Once, only anger freed the beast in his blood but since he’d met Jaienna Ti… A shudder wracked his body as the beast roared and flexed within. Since the Raavelian entered his world his tenuous control on the ancient Terran curse was weakening.

  With every molten, explosive orgasm she wrenched from his body, with every drop of cum she milked from his cock, the beast grew stronger, wilder, until it threatened to take over with just the faintest breath of her scent. And then she’d saved him from Crortek.

  He knew she didn’t care what he became, but when he became the beast, he didn’t know himself. When the beast took over he became a creature ruled by base instincts, not the beating of his human heart. He didn’t like that creature. Didn’t want to be that creature. Not at all. But he didn’t seem to have a choice anymore.

  An image—brutal and horrendous—flashed into his head: his ex-wife, Leyna. Dead and mutilated on their bedroom floor.

  Sharp pain wrenched at Zeric and he gripped the chain harder, nails digging into the flesh of his palms with agonizing force. Leyna knew all too well what the beast was capable of doing, what its base instincts made him do. Leyna and her lover.

  A gr
owl rumbled low in his throat and Zeric dropped the chain. He was a fool to think he could have a life again, a life with a woman who loved him. No matter how much his body wanted her, no matter how much his heart wanted her, Jaienna Ti was off-limits. Leyna’s deceptive blood on his hands he could live with, just. But Jaienna’s…

  He dragged in a long, steadying breath and the soft, musky scent of her sex, so recently pressed to his mouth, invaded his body. His cock twitched between his thighs and he scowled. The sooner they docked at Ry’l the better. The isolated spaceport was the “regroup” location whenever he and Jak had an unforeseen separation on a mission and Zeric had no doubt he would find his partner and Jaienna’s sister there. He would see Jaienna off the Reaper without hesitation and he and Jak could returned to task. Their orders to bring in Hrung Crortek still stood, regardless of the fuck-up on Pellaxion Four. The only way to do that was to get rid of all distractions.

  He drew another breath and Jaienna filled his highly tuned senses again, making his cock pulsate harder. Hungry, eager and deprived.

  Jezu, Arctos. Don’t you ever—

  “Incoming communication. Guardian Thorson.”

  Zeric started, the sound of the Reaper’s computer cutting his self-disgust short. Moving from the bed, he snatched up a pair of discarded trousers, shoved his legs into them and then stormed across to his communications station. “Receive.”

  “Hey, partner.” Jak’s voice emanated from the com-link, its boyish tone belying the Yrathian’s lethal edge. “Where the fuck are you? I’ve been stuck here on Ry’l forever, waiting for you and Jaienna to turn up.”

  Zeric’s mouth stretched into a caustic grin. “You’ve been stuck there for what, three hours max? And something tells me you’re not in any hurry for me to get there.”

  Jak Thorson wasn’t fooling anyone. Raavelians were his one weakness and Jaienna’s sister was a perfect example of her species: blonde, violet-eyed and smoldering with sensuality. Her face had been hideously scarred while Crortek’s slave, but Zeric suspected Jak would pay for that scarring to be removed, if he hadn’t already.