Page 40 of Reaper's Pack

A snarl echoed in my chest as I barreled toward her, and with a laugh she took off down the beach. We had been running since the storm started, something wild hounds in Hell did together. Race across their territory. Conquer the cruel terrain, bonding as a pack. She hadn’t suggested it when the first drops of rain misted across the sand, and neither had I. As the humans fled, we’d broken off into a run—together, as one.

But we weren’t running together now.

She ran.

I chased. Hard. Feet pounding the wet sand, my vision narrowed on her back, on the white mane blazing behind her like the tail of a comet. She wasn’t trying to evade me. Hazel jogged. I sprinted. When lightning cut the sky again, my shadow consumed her, and she faltered with a glance over her shoulder, an echo of a laugh on her lips, her eyes wide.

Had she ever been hunted before?

Captured?

Consumed?

She deserved to know how it felt.

We deserved that.

I hooked her around the waist and dragged her flush against me, her back a perfect fit to the naked mold of my chest. She exhaled a shocked cry, bare feet hoisted off the sand, and her hands fell to my arm as I spun her around, away from the mossy grey rocks ahead. No escape, sweet. You’re not going anywhere.

The beach betrayed me, sinking beneath my heel, and I lost my footing with a growl. We crashed to the sand together, her yelp drowned out by the earthshattering boom of thunder. She squirmed on top of me, and I rolled us—once, twice, three times down the gentle slope, not stopping until the surging tide was within reach.

Not until I had her pinned beneath me. Need tunneled my vision, the beach, the forest, the ocean blurred in my peripherals—Hazel’s flushed features front and center, her chest rising and falling in uneven beats. Elbows in the sand, I caged her in with an arm on either side of her head, and her useless wriggling only made it so I nestled deeper between her thighs.

My lips hummed at the closeness to hers, our faces mere inches apart. Desire had my cock hard against her center, and she stilled when I made my affections known—physically, for the first time—with an insistent rock of my hips. I’d been so cautious before, savoring the spark of skin-to-skin contact with her yet never acting on it. But no more. No more sweet words and stolen glances and hands accidentally nudging whenever we walked side by side.

“Declan,” she whispered, no longer the laughing, dancing goddess, no longer the queen of the storm. From the wary look in her eye, she straddled the line between goddess and reaper—torn between desire and duty.

I could work with that.

“Hazel,” I growled back, daring her to protest. The rain muted her scent, muffled the sunshine, the dates, the feeling that filled me whenever I took a moment to breathe her in. So I closed the space between us, dragging my nose down the slender column of her neck, filling my lungs with her, with her exquisite scent mingled with stormwater and the ocean’s rage. Her hands found my shoulders, fingertips cautiously pressed to their tops as I trailed down the hollow of her throat, smelling her, marking her with an openmouthed kiss that had her arching up.

She was always so cold, such a sharp, delicious contrast to the ever-present fire flashing through my veins. Tonight, she tasted of salt and freshness, not the sweet honeyed dates I’d expected, but I had the rain to blame for that. Her chest rose and fell with short, curt breaths, her back arching to meet my mouth, her hips ever so slightly undulating against mine. I growled when I met her soaked dress, despising the layer of fabric between us, desperate to rip it to shreds—to show her that I could be brutal like the rest of them, that I wasn’t all wagging tails and skipping steps and happy howls in the surf.

“Declan—”

I’d issued the challenge—dared her to protest, to push back against me—but I couldn’t stomach the thought of hearing the words. Snarling, I crawled up her figure and claimed her mouth for my own. Hazel squealed into the kiss; I’d caught her with her lips slightly parted, and I seized the opportunity without hesitation, tasting her as I’d needed to from the start, exploring her mouth and tangling my hand in her hair.

Trapping the white locks around my fist.

Tipping her head back so I could take what I wanted, drink my fill of her as our bodies rocked together. I found her bare beneath her dress, my cock nestled in her slick folds, so desperately close to uniting us that it fucking hurt.

Hazel moaned and shoved at my chest, but her protests died when I nipped at her lower lip hard enough to make her flinch. Shocked golden-brown eyes stared up at me, until finally they fluttered shut, her tongue suddenly chasing mine and her arms thrown around my neck. Nimble delicate fingers worked into my hair, smoothed down to cup my face.

This morning, I would have been satisfied with a kiss and nothing more.

But not now.

Like the riptide, there was no stopping this—no fighting it.

Desperate for more of her, her scent, her chilled flesh and her supple curves, my hand slipped between us, grabbed the neckline of her dress, and ripped the fabric clean down her body. I swallowed her indignant cry, then tore away from the kiss with a wolfish grin. Fire bloomed in her cheeks, skittering down her neck and flushing bright across her chest. Mesmerized, I traced the burn with one finger, not stopping until I reached her swollen lips, plucking at the lower one as she gasped for air.

Lightning made her blush even prettier. Thunder boomed in my heart now, coaxing the beast within me to the surface as I dragged my teeth down her neck. She arched up to meet me again, her moan a detriment to my self-control.

I had never shifted accidentally before. I had never lost control, turned from beast to man or vice versa without intention.

Here, I could have.

If I let the animal inside take over completely, there was no telling what would happen.

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