Page 49 of Orion: Galaxy Huntress

Chapter 22

Orion

I hadto get in between Vice and Reznor before the vampire killed the demon.

“Fine, I’ll refund you your soul,” Vice said begrudgingly, saving me the hassle of having to clean up dead monster.

Reznor scowled as he made himself useful and began assembling more thick logs we needed for the traps.

I shoved a stick in the demon’s hand. “Collect me more of these. Fashion a lattice that we can tie the spikes to. Then we’ll hide eight around the perimeter and have four swing from the trees.”

The demon hooked me in his strong arms, wrapping his wings around me for extra comfort. “I love it when you talk violent, kitten.”

I laughed, melting into his body, his humor disarming me. “Go!” I shoved his chest, knowing he would keep flirting if I didn’t.

He looked down at me through his thick lashes with those impossibly sexy, dark eyes with flecks of gold. “Can’t I stay for a little cuddle before you eviscerate me?”

I laughed again, falling deeper into his arms. Damn him. I didn’t want to like him. Definitely didn’t want to swoon over him. But the demon had a way about him.

“You’re impossible.” My words came out breathy, needy, and his eyes flashed, knowing it. “I’ll never get any work done with you around.”

Hades, they all had a hold over me. Stormy gripped me by a mate bond that tugged at my heart to go to him and fall into his arms too, knowing I’d be adored and protected fiercely. Even the vampire lured me with his cold, dark, seductive style that made me want to make his heart beat again just for me.

Heat fused in my body like I was a star burning hydrogen again. The three of them surrounding me brought on a claustrophobia that choked me. I had to stay away if I knew what was best for me. Protect my heart at all costs. But my heart didn’t want to run from them, it wanted to run to them. Explode like a supernova and go all black hole and suck them into it. I paused, thinking at that thought, suspecting it a sexual analogy and the demon rubbing off on me, and not in a good way.

“I get it.” Vice nodded, pointing a clawed finger at me. “You’re a work first, play later kind of Hell Kitty.”

I twisted out of his hold. “You don’t kill monsters pursuing you with jokes.”

“Playing hard to get. I like it.” The demon waltzed away to collect branches with a skip in his step. “And my humor is killer!” he added, and I shook my head.

Stormy stayed to shape the stakes with me. I didn’t know him well but wanted to unravel the mystery. His words from earlier sat heavy in my stomach, however, discouraging me from enquiring. He wanted to leave and protect his pack. Said the demon army arrived tomorrow to defend his home, and that we’d be released of the mate bond, free to go our separate ways.

“You don’t have to stay, you know.” I finished another gouge and dropped it by my boot. “Your pack is more important.”

“I want to make sure you’re safe first.” He finished his impaling stick and let it fall to the ground, retrieving another piece of wood.

Hades, my insecurities and doubts came flooding to the surface like a wall made of spikes, warning away male attention, never letting them get close. Never letting me feel anything for an attractive man besides lust and desire to lay with him, nothing more. “Why? You said that tomorrow we’ll be free of each other. You won’t have to worry about me then.”

Stormy gave me a soft, adorable smile at odds with his gruff, serious personality. “It’s partly my fault the demon made you fall from space, and I feel obligated to correct that. Keep you safe until we can send you back.”

“Vice didn’t summon me here,” I replied, keeping myself busy, whittling the wood into the shape I needed to avoid losing myself in the shifter’s beautiful, turbulent eyes. “Zeus did.”

Stormy cough and spluttered. “Zeus the god?”

“Yes.” My shaking hands over-sharpened the wood, forcing me to stop and start again on a new piece. “He sent me to save my sisters, who are also in danger.”

“Well, fuck me, then.” Stormy chased a hand through his hair, staring at me with a confused gaze. “Vice didn’t fuck us after all.” He let out a nervous laugh.

If the demon hadn’t bound us, then why did I feel this draw towards Stormy and him me? What bound us together? Attracted us to each other?

The shifter scrubbed at his jaw for a moment. “Then you really are my mate. And I’m a wolf shifter that can’t deny the call of our bond.” He proved it by dropping everything and moving to me, caging me in his arms, and dropping his mouth to mine. “The others have tasted you. Now it’s my turn.”

Fire raged in my belly and streaked between my thighs, setting off a pulsing ache that needed to be soothed by his caress. My lips enjoyed the roughness and dominance of his lips. The call of his wolf to my spirit. Hades! I couldn’t breathe, let alone answer his statement or deny it. After the last rise and fall of the moon, I needed to be held, reassured, and feel safe. Everything I felt in his arms. I hadn’t known how much I needed it until I fell into his wild, possessive hold, and I looped my arms around his neck, terrified of letting go.

“Now that I know you’re mine—my mate—I can’t let you go.” Stormy’s breathy whisper trembled through my body from neck to toes.

The roaming, primitive side of me wanted to stay with him forever, let him take care of me, so I didn’t have to fight for every scrap I earned. All my life I’d had to take care of myself. Hunt to ensure the butcher fed me and let me have a bed to sleep in. Hunt to guarantee my survival once I earned my freedom from my master. Hunt to make it in a man’s world and become the best so that I never starved, was never abused and deprived of anything, never made a slave again. Except, I’d fallen into being the gods’ slave, hunting monsters for them, bringing them down to save my patrons.

---