Page 53 of Orion: Galaxy Huntress

Chapter 24

Ace

I hated leaving her,especially after we’d fucked for two nights straight and hunted all day. Fucking glorious. My wolf loved every minute of it. But I had to go. The blood moon hung overhead, a dark, orangey-red mass, looming like a deathly omen in the sky. My pack needed me, and I couldn’t leave them in their time of need. Abandoning them meant my brother would sign the pack away and merge them with our rivals. Over my dead fucking body. Those fucking bastards upheld an oath like a sieve held water. Darius would not sentence us to death.

My mate was curled up in my arms, her long lashes fluttering as she slept. Firelight made her bronze skin glow. Silky, dark brown hair flowed over her back in waves. Curved cheekbones showed her contentment. Those luscious, pouty lips that had been wrapped around my cock twice already ticked up in a sleepy smile. Her generous breasts squished against my chest and my dick had been hard all night from the press of them. Fuck, leaving her was like tearing my lungs out of my chest and I couldn’t breathe.

Against my better judgement, I escaped her arm draped over me and the tangle of limbs from the vampire and demon on either side of us. Orion moaned in her sleep but didn’t stir. Impossible when we’d fucked her body into oblivion. She’d sleep the next three days with how we’d worked and stretched that beautiful, curvy body. I placed a kiss to her cheek before I departed.

Tonight, the demon army arrived, and Vice had instructed them to meet me at the pack’s boundary where we would defend our land and get justice for attacking my packmate. The Lithgow pack would learn what it meant to fuck the Bathurst wolves and would never step foot in our lands ever again … if they lived to tell the tale, which I hoped they didn’t. I hoped the demons wiped them off the face of the planet and our pack absorbed their region. Left alone to prosper, we’d expand our pack, thrive, and become one of the largest packs in New South Wales. I swear to God, if the demon army failed to show and Vice had fucked me over, I’d come straight back here and rip his tail from his backside and shove it down his throat. A promise I was more than happy to action.

My movement prompted the vampire to crack open an eye and look at me. “Don’t go, shifter. It’s too dangerous. They’ll be out looking for you.”

“I have to meet the demon army. I can’t leave my pack in danger.” I grabbed two stakes to take with me. “Tell Orion I’ll be back. I won’t leave her.”

“She won’t be happy that you’ve left,” the vampire reminded me, starting a torrent of ice to pour down my spine. “After all the effort she went to for setting up the traps to protect us.”

Doubted it. Orion would understand and get over it. She’d already encouraged me to leave her and go to my pack, stating they were more important. Besides, she’d forgiven the vampire pretty quick for kidnaping her and holding her captive.

I shoved a stake inside my jacket and carried the second. “I won’t be gone long. Just a night to deal with my enemies. Then I’m all hers.” Whatever my mate wanted. We had a lifetime ahead of us.

“Your funeral.” The vampire snuggled closer to my mate, nuzzling her neck. “If you die, I’ll get more of her.”

“Asshole.” Death was not in the cards tonight. Certainly, not now. For that smug comment, I was more determined to make it back so I could hog her and push the fucker to the outside of the group.

Leaves crunched under my boots as I departed the camp we’d set up, careful not to step on any of the traps set up on the periphery. My night vision kicked in where the firelight failed to reach. Nocturnal animals moved about the forest, falling still as I approached, continuing to scurry as I advanced beyond them. The tightness in my lungs deepened with the distance separating me from my mate. To stop myself from going back to her, settling in beside her and shoving away that asshole vampire, I had to keep reminding myself that I’d be back in the early hours of the next morning to celebrate a victory.

A two-hour walk took me back to town, where I collected my pickup truck and drove out to the pack’s borders. Heavy cloud cover shrouded the blood moon, but that didn’t stop the radio crowing on about it, and the geeks who stayed up to catch it through their telescopes. Dew coated the grass and ground cover. A cold breeze tugged at my hair, but I didn’t feel it with my thick shifter skin.

No sign of the demon army. If there was, I would have been able to smell their ash, burning wood and sulphury scent. Vice better not have fucked me over and wasted my time or he was a dead demon.

I progressed into the woods, inching closer to enemy territory. The smart thing would have been to come with back-up in case of another surprise attack. Vice, maybe. But I didn’t have the heart to leave Orion alone or with just the vampire. By coming here, I risked getting assailed by my enemy and injured, possibly killed. But I was a desperate shifter, not a smart one.

A few miles in, I picked up a hot coal smell on the wind, and I paused to take it in. Ash. Burned wood. Sulfur. The demon army weren’t that far off. Energized to face my enemy, I quickened my pace. Another mile in, I found them waiting right where Vice had agreed they would. Fucking demon had actually told the truth for once in his life. I’d kiss the cheating bastard when I returned to our camp.

I surveyed the crew of fifty assembled demons, dark, grotesque with ridges all over their face and body. Pitch black eyes that narrowed at my arrival. Leathery, thick, dry skin and wings like crocodiles. Claws that could slice my hide to pieces. Lost out in the appearance department compared with Vice. That asshole was a looker, but maybe it was a trick of his glamor.

“You Ace?” the closest demon asked, his bumpy lips barely moving as he spoke.

“That’s me.” I nodded at him.

“I’m Incensum, the commander of this unit.” Strange name. Sounded Latin or some shit.

“Ace.” I extended my hand to shake, and the demon glared down at my palm. Okay. Not a shaker. I tucked my hand under my arm. “Caller of this favor from Vice.”

“Where the fuck are the wolf shifters we were promised?” Incensum cracked his knuckles and rolled his neck. “We’re hungry and want to crunch some bones.”

Fucking Vice. Trust that asshole to promise the demons they could eat my enemies as reward. That wasn’t part of the deal, but it was probably how he managed to get them to agree to show up in the first place. I only wanted to kill my enemy as a last resort. But Vice being the cunning demon that he was, just had to throw in a secret clause. Couldn’t help himself. Asshole was probably chuckling to himself back at the camp. Looked like he’d be eating his own tail after all.

I swiped a hand through my hair. “Is that the arrangement you made with Vice?”

The demon rubbed its unusually distended belly. “He promised us all the shifters we could eat.”

That’d be right. Of course, Vice did. Well, fuck, I better not be part of that equation. “Present company excluded, right? Deal maker and all. My soul’s already going to hell. No need to eat me.” Who the hell was I kidding, asking a demon for loyalty when they had none? Fuckers would no sooner slay my enemy than burn me to a crisp and chow down on me too.

“We don’t touch friends of Vice,” the demon grunted, and my eyebrows shot up to my hairline in shock. Friend? The demon had none. He was a fucking demon. Hell, I’d take it though, if it saved my ass.

“Good.” I rubbed my hands, both pleased at the news and nervous they wouldn’t live up to their word … sneaky, underhanded demons and all that shit. “Your men are following my command?”

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