Chapter Six
Dante swatted at whatever weird bug was trying to wake him up. He groaned and tried to turn over in bed. He kept his eyes closed to hold on to sleep. If he woke up, he would have to deal with the fact that his dick was still hard eight hours after his wife’s marathon orgasm session.
The bug tickled his ear. He tried turning over.
He hadn’t come once. Well, he had, but it had been an “oops” kind of orgasm, so it didn’t count. He’d come in his pants like a horny teenager.
Dante sank down against the pillow. Light was starting to stream in from the openings above. He clenched his eyes closed and thought about the fact that he had a wife now.
Kaja had been so fucking hot, it was inevitable that he would come in his pants. Her little pussy had taken everything he’d given her. He’d fucked her with his fingers, his tongue, several vibrators, and a glass dildo. And he hadn’t even gotten to her sweet little ass yet. He needed to spend the morning working a plug into it.
Gods, he wanted to fuck her. He wanted to shove his cock into all her hot holes and leave a piece of himself behind. He hadn’t expected to want her so badly, and not just because she was lovely and female. He liked Kaja.
This wasn’t going the way he had planned. Luckily his pants cleaned themselves, or he would be asking the gnomes for some shorts.
He snuggled down on the pallet and reached for his wife. He would pull her close, and maybe he could convince her to have a little morning fun. She would be out of the influence of the aphrodisiac now. He could cuddle with her and kiss her neck. He would kiss her and lick up to her ears where he would nip at her lobes before taking her mouth. She loved kissing. Every time he kissed her, she softened and flowered open. If she asked him to fuck her this time, he could do so in good conscience. He was a married man, he thought with no small bit of satisfaction. He’d taken a consort. His future was secure. The sunscreen project would be back under his management in a week or so. In the meantime, he would enjoy his bonding time with a little bump and grind. He would have to make sure she got off first, though. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t last long in that tight little cunt of hers.
“Kaj?” He lifted his head when he couldn’t feel her next to him and frowned.
The night before, she’d fallen asleep in his arms, completely exhausted from the pleasure he’d given her. The aphrodisiac had been strong, taking hours to leave her system. She would settle down from one orgasm, and the fever would start again. He’d been relieved when she finally closed her eyes and let her head rest on his chest. He’d been proud of the little smile that curled her lips up as her breathing had become soft and even. He’d put that smile there.
And now she was gone. Dante forced himself up.
“Kaja? Holy crap!” Dante started to back up, but realized he was already against the edge of the tent. He wondered briefly if he could tunnel under. It seemed like a bad idea to turn his back on the brown wolf sitting on his bed. A wolf. On his bed. He held his hands up. “Nice doggy.”
He said doggy, but he knew what was sitting on his bed. It was a wolf. It was an elegant, lovely wolf that was probably going to kill him and eat him for breakfast. He wondered how the hell something so predatory had managed to get into the marketplace. There was supposed to be some form of security.
Kaja. Dante felt his heart clench. Where was his consort?
He didn’t see his wife’s bloody body anywhere. He had to assume she’d gotten away. She might have given him a heads-up on the carnivore using their bedroom as a hunting ground, but he was just relieved she wasn’t dead.
The wolf sat back on its haunches. Dante went very still. Maybe Kaja had gone to get Beck. Yes, Kaja had managed to sneak out, and she would bring his warrior king cousin. He hoped it was Beck and not Cian who rushed in to save him. If Ci came running, Dante would likely get a lecture on the habits of wolves while Cian cowered behind him hoping to get eaten last. Beck was really the only way to go in a situation like this.
Dante stared because he couldn’t help it. The wolf was beautiful. Her brown coat was glossy and looked incredibly soft. Something about her, and he knew the wolf was a female, called to him. She had to weigh at least a hundred pounds. Her face was delicate, and there was an intelligence about her that drew him in.
“Hello, girl,” he said quietly.
The wolf was patiently sitting. She made no aggressive moves toward him. He knew he should try to get away from the vicious predator that had made her way into his bed, but Dante felt compelled to put his hand out.
The wolf immediately placed her head under his outstretched hand. She pushed against him, begging him for a pet.
“Oh, you’re a sweet thing, aren’t you,” Dante said, stroking the wolf. He grinned, fairly certain she wasn’t going to tear out his throat. She just wanted a little affection. Her fur was like silk under his fingers. “I always have had a way with the ladies. Apparently my charm crosses over to all species.”
The wolf snorted.
“Kaja?” Dante looked deeply into the wolf’s gorgeous arctic-blue eyes. There was no mistaking those eyes. Dante felt his heart beating. This was what she had meant the night before when she’d begged to change. Cara had been right. His consort was two-natured.
Kaja laughed, the sound pealing like a happy bell as she fell forward into his arms in human form. The change was so effortless he almost didn’t notice it. One moment there was a furry wolf begging for his attention, and the next, his wife’s naked body fell laughing into his lap. His hands came up to catch her.
“You should have seen your face,” she said, covering her mouth. Her eyes were full of mischief. “You looked like you might pee yourself in your fear. You did not expect that.”
“No, Kaja,” Dante said, still trying to get over his shock. His wife could change into a wolf. “I did not expect that my bride would greet me with fur and fangs.”
She sat up, all joking gone. Her face fell. “You do not like my fangs?”
His heart warmed, and he pulled her close. She was such a sweet thing. He pushed her hair back behind her ears. Her hair was soft, a deep, rich brown. “I love your fangs, Kaja. You’re beautiful, and you know it.”
“Am I?” She cuddled close, breathing him in. She didn’t seem at all self-conscious. He let his fingers tangle in her hair. He loved the dark-brown softness. “I would not know. One cannot see oneself.”
He chuckled. Her plane really was backwards. “Wow. So no mirrors on your plane, then. I have no idea how I would survive without a mirror, sweetheart. Wait here.”
He forced himself out of bed. He knew there was a handheld mirror in the dresser, and he brought it back to Kaja, who lay on the bed watching him. He appreciated the look in her eyes. She was watching her lover move. He knew the feeling. Now, he needed to show her how gorgeous she was. He sat down and held the mirror out. “This is you, Kaja.”
She gasped and sat up. Staring into the mirror, she leaned forward. Dante couldn’t help but watch her breasts. They were soft and round, with pretty pink and brown nipples that hardened at the merest whisper. Kaja touched her face as though unsure of the image before her.
“Do you see how beautiful you are, consort?”
A slow smile parted her lips. He felt the air around him, and she was a wolf once more. She nosed the mirror playfully.
“Yes, you’re fucking amazing in this form, too, wife,” he conceded, wondering if he was making a monster. Would he have to fight her for the mirror in the morning? He stopped himself. It wasn’t like he was going to live with her long-term or anything. They were just having fun.
The flap to the tent opened, and Meg walked in.
“Good morning,” she said with her usual exuberance. “I came to take Kaja to breakfast. Holy shit!” She backed up, never moving her eyes off the wolf on the bed. “Dante, stay calm. I have the gun in my backpack. I’m going to back out, and I’ll go get it. You just don’t make any sudden moves, okay?”
Dante laughed and petted his wolf-wife. Kaja’s head cocked as she looked at Meg, curiosity in her eyes. He wondered if Kaja saw her differently in her wolf form. There were a lot of questions he had about his wife. He put a hand on her fur and leaned toward Kaja. “She thinks you want to eat me, love. Actually…” His mind went to all sorts of dirty places. “No, that borders on bestiality. You’re going to have to do that as a human. There are levels even I won’t sink to, love. Though, not many.”
Meg’s eyes went wide. She stopped in her tracks. “Are you trying to tell me that’s Kaja?”
“I’m not trying to tell you anything, Meg,” Dante said with a frown. “I’m trying to enjoy being in bed with my consort, even if she is shedding. I think she’s trying to get rid of her winter coat.” He brushed some stray fur off the bed. He was going to have to tell the housekeeper to upgrade the vacuuming robots if Kaja ran around the penthouse in this form very often.
Meg ignored him. She approached Kaja, who sat up regally. Kaja cocked her head as though asking a question.
“Wow,” Meg said softly. “That’s a werewolf. That is so cool. I can’t begin to describe it.”
“Werewolf?” Dante queried. He’d never heard the term. “I don’t know if I like that. I was going to suggest ‘shanimal.’ You know, ‘she’ because Kaja’s a girl, and ‘animal’ because, well, there she is.”
Both females turned to him. He knew what they were thinking. He knew when someone thought he was a dumb-ass. He shrugged. “Fine, werewolf it is then. But it’s not catchy like ‘shanimal.’ Don’t expect it to seep into our cultural lingo or anything.”
Kaja greeted Meg with a heavy thump of her tail. The wolf’s mouth opened, and her tongue panted out. She appeared to be smiling. It was a sweet expression. Meg’s eyes were filled with wonder. Kaja didn’t need to worry about Meg accepting her. Meg loved the strange creatures of the planes. Vampires, on the other hand, might see her as a lesser being. His people weren’t known for their easy acceptance of the odd and different. Especially in high society.
And that was why his plan would work. So why did his stomach turn at the thought of judgmental eyes on his Kaja?
“You’re an idiot, Dante. Werewolf is what she is. You don’t have werewolves on your plane?” Meg asked, though she never took her eyes off Kaja. Kaja nudged her hand, an invitation to pet. Meg ran her hands down the wolf’s strong back.
Dante wondered if he could get her to do that when Kaja was in human form. It would be way hotter that way. His brain was on sex. “No, we don’t have hot chicks who run around in fur. Well, not if they don’t want to get coated with blood. PETA. They should be arrested for wasting the blood.” He thought for a moment about Meg’s statement. “Is she from the Earth plane?”
Meg’s hazel eyes were staring into Kaja’s blue ones. “No, they’re just a legend where I come from. Though I thought about her a lot last night. When she was talking, before the translator took over, it sounded like she was speaking Swedish or maybe Finnish.”
Dante shook his head. “No idea. Everyone speaks English on my world. You know, language of the conquerors and all.”
Meg’s hands worked over Kaja’s fur. His wife seemed to love it. “How does the whole door thing work? When I left from this plane, I ended up in Fort Worth. The Vampire plane is very similar to the Earth plane. If we found a door from your plane to mine in Dallas, would I just end up in another Dallas?”
Dante laughed at the thought. “No, it’s far stranger than that. While the planes might look similar, they aren’t. Didn’t you notice that the time of day shifted as we went from the Vampire plane to this one? It’s several hours off. And there’s a door in upstate New York that leads right off a cliff into an ocean. Some corporation managed to put in a slide. They sold tickets for a while. Then some plesiosaur ate a couple of kids. You know how it goes.”
“So Kaja is from someplace like Sweden, but not Sweden.”
Dante really didn’t care. All that mattered was that she was here now.
Meg seemed content to continue her intellectual exercise. “Of course, it makes you wonder. Maybe they started out on the Earth plane and fled because humans can be real assholes, you know.”
“Yes,” Dante agreed readily. He arched a single eyebrow. “They can also really interrupt an interesting morning. Tell me something, Meg. Did I interrupt your opportunities for hot sex with your new spouse the morning after your wedding?”
Meg flushed. “Oh, I’m sorry. I just thought that since…Cian told us what was going on. I thought you probably wouldn’t be doing that.”
Dante stared at her like she was a crazy person, which was exactly what she sounded like. “You thought I wouldn’t have sex with my consort. I have sex with everything that allows me to, but you thought I wouldn’t fuck my own wife?”
He firmly intended to fuck her at every given opportunity. He knew he should play it cool, but he also knew himself. He wouldn’t be able to hold back, and he didn’t really want to try. This crazy possessiveness was just a phase. Fucking Kaja would put it all back on an even keel.
“Fine, you’re a man-whore,” Meg said, flustered. “I just thought you would want to get to know her, that’s all.”
Dante sent her a questioning look.
“Not in a sexual way,” Meg complained. “Men. Have you even talked to her? Have you asked her about her home plane and what she misses about it?”
“Of course,” Dante retorted. “It sucked, and the men there sucked in bed. Then she just moaned a lot. Don’t look at me like that. I learned an enormous amount of information about her from those moans. I learned that she likes the middle setting on a vibrator. A little twist and midlevel hum and she goes off like a rocket.”
Meg rolled her eyes. “You are useless, Dante. Fine. I’ll go, but when you’re done, please send Kaja to my tent for some breakfast.” Meg looked down at the wolf with a friendly smile. “We can have some food and get to know each other. We’re family now. It’s so awesome. I have a werewolf in my family.”
Dante felt another surge of irritation. “You have a vampire as well. I don’t see you gushing over me.”
Meg shrugged. “Vampires aren’t as cool as I expected them to be. In romance novels, vampires are all dark and broody and sexy. In real life, you talk an awful lot about stocks. It was a definite disappointment. But Kaja there seems like a real werewolf. I can’t wait to get to know her.” She turned and started to head out. “Oh, and we have to stay close to the market today. Beck and Ci got called away. There’s some trouble in a Fae encampment on the other side of the plane. Something about fields and starvation and stuff. Cian needs to do his Green Man thing. Beck is worried about him being alone too far from civilization. Can you believe he used that word to describe this place?”
Dante rolled his eyes. “You can stay here all you like. I’m taking Kaja home in a little while. I’m not spending our bonding time on a pallet in a marketplace.”
He wanted to get her in a real bed. He wanted to see her laid out on sumptuous sheets with her hair haloing around her pretty face.
“You walking then?” Meg asked with a shit-eating grin.
Dante felt his indignation rise. He was going to have a talk with his cousins. “Damn it, Meg. Why did they take both bikes? They fit on one.” They’d travelled to the marketplace on two of his customized Harley hover bikes. Each one seated two, but no, his cousins had to take both, leaving him stranded.
“They fought about who would drive. Cian says he’s the obvious choice, and Beck won’t give up control, so they took both. Besides, I think they think you’ll babysit me. As if.”
Meg walked out, and Kaja changed immediately. She ignored the little argument. She seemed to have other things on her mind. Her eyes stared at the door Meg had just disappeared behind. “She likes me, Dante. She wishes to dine with me and speak with me. I should hunt and get her a good meal for our breakfast.”
Her pretty face was flush with excitement. Dante couldn’t help but smile back. “Meg is a nice lady. She’ll be a very good friend to you, but you don’t have to worry about hunting, love. Food is taken care of.”
“What is friend?” Kaja sat back. She looked eager to learn.
Lustful thoughts fled. “Damn, love, what was that place like for you? A friend is someone you can depend on, someone you share your life with and talk to and stuff. It’s a little different for a girl. Guys just hang out and watch sports and bail each other out of jail. It’s a little more intimate with women. You talk about feelings and stuff. And you apparently buy a lot of shoes.”
She opened her mouth to ask another question.
“Meg would be better to explain the whole shoe thing, sweetheart.” His lustful thoughts were back, and he didn’t want to talk fashion with her. She was lovely and naked and sitting on his bed. She was completely out from under the influence of the aphrodisiac. All he had to do was convince her that making love was a good idea. He leaned over and ran his hand across the soft skin of her arm. She shivered slightly. “Why don’t you come back to bed, Kaj?”
Her eyes narrowed, wariness clear.
He patted the place next to him. She wouldn’t be beside him for long. She’d be under him as fast as he could get her there. He felt his fangs lengthen. The silver was obviously out of her system, too. It was what had kept her from changing forms. There was no good reason not to sink his teeth into her smooth white neck. He could see the faint blue vein that ran up the side of her neck. There was another vein in her thigh that would work as well. He could drink his fill, all the while breathing in the scent of her arousal. His mouth would fill with her blood, and they would be married in the traditional way of a royal vampire.
Gods, he was suddenly so fucking hungry. For the first time in his life, he knew a meal pill just wouldn’t do. He wanted her. He wanted to take her blood and then fill her with his cum.
“Your eyes are strange,” Kaja whispered.
There was the faintest hint of fear in her voice. She backed away slightly. Dante knew his irises were bleeding out, and his entire eye would be a vivid green before too long. He’d only seen himself that way a few times. He knew he would look alien and dangerous to Kaja.
Dante didn’t like her backing away from him. She was drawing something primal out of him. He was a good-time lover. It had always been that way. He enjoyed the sex and had kept many mistresses, but he could easily walk away and find another if they showed they didn’t want him. He knew suddenly that he wouldn’t allow Kaja the same privilege. He would never rape her, but he wouldn’t allow her to leave.
“It means I want you, Kaja. My eyes change when I want something very badly. Look at me.” It was an old trick royals used on peasants to draw them in for a nice meal. Dante had never felt a compulsion to try his hand at persuasion, but the impulse was there now.
Kaja did as he asked. She stared into his eyes, and he knew the moment he caught her. A savage sense of satisfaction filled him.
“Come to me,” he commanded in a voice that sounded foreign to his ears.
Kaja moved forward and placed herself in his arms. She cuddled close to him, tucking her face into the crook of his neck. “You are working magic on me,” she accused.
He forced her head up. “Do you want me to stop?”
She considered the question for a moment. “Yes and no. Yes, because my heart will ache when you set me aside. No, because my heart already aches when I think of never touching you again.”
He pressed his lips to hers. “Don’t think about the future, Kaj. Can’t we enjoy today? And I would never cast you aside. I just think we should let all of that sort itself out. Whatever happens, whatever we decide, I promise, I’ll take good care of you.”
“For as long as you want me,” Kaja said with a little bitterness.
Dante felt the ache she talked about. He didn’t know what she wanted. “Isn’t that all you can ask of a man, Kaja? I promise to be good to you even if things go wrong. You won’t ever want for anything again.”
“But you will not give me your heart.” It wasn’t a question.
He sighed. He could give orgasms all day long, but he had no idea how to deal with this. “I don’t think I have one, sweetheart. Can’t it be enough that I’ll give you what I have?”
She seemed to come to some inner decision. She pressed her lips to his. “Mate with me.”
Her lips were closed against him, but he took advantage anyway. He pressed her down and covered her small body with his. Dante knew he should feel triumphant and thrilled because the night before had been difficult for him. Yet all he could manage was a strange sense of awe. Her clear blue eyes were open as she looked up at him. He didn’t need to remind her what he wanted from her. She spread her legs willingly. There was so much honest, open desire in her face that Dante almost turned away. It was too much, but he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted a woman before. Looking down at her, he realized he’d just wanted sex before. Now he wanted Kaja. It was a disturbing feeling.
“What’s wrong?” Kaja asked. There was worry all over her face.
He pushed down his unwanted emotions. This was just sex. It was just sex between a vampire and his consort. It was the most natural thing in the world. He gave her his surest smile. “There’s nothing wrong, love. Everything is just right now. The only problem is these pants of mine. They seem to be in the way.”
He ground himself gently against her letting her feel his hard cock.
She sighed. “How do you do this to me? Already I feel some pleasure.”
“I told you, love. I know what I’m doing,” Dante replied. He felt surer now. The need to fuck was riding him hard. He wasn’t thinking about the future. He was thinking about how damn good it would feel to pound away at his wife.
His hands reached down to unbutton his trousers. He didn’t want to take the time to get out of them. He’d just shove them down enough to free his cock and then work his way inside. The second time could be slow. They had all day.
Kaja stopped suddenly, throwing her hands to his chest and pushing him away.
“Don’t, baby,” Dante said, not giving an inch. “I promise I won’t hurt you.”
“Dante, something is coming,” she said, trying to get up.
“Yes,” he coaxed. “You can come first. Then I’ll come, and then I’ll rest, and we can both come again.”
The tent flap opened, and Meg ran in. She turned slightly when she saw the erotic scene before her, but she didn’t leave.
“Dante, there’s an ogre coming,” she said breathlessly. She had her gun in her hand. “He’s attacking the marketplace.”
In the distance, Dante heard the screams begin. He rolled off his bride and fastened his pants.
That ogre was going to suffer, he vowed.