Savage Hunger: Savage, Book 1 (24 page)

Sienna shoved Hilliard off her—scared shitless by the savagery of the wolf that had come out of nowhere.

Oh dear God in heaven. It was Warrick. She stumbled back from the tree, tripping over the uneven ground and falling onto her butt. Her fingers clawed into the hard dirt as she tried to scramble farther away. But he wasn’t after her.

Hilliard had somehow shifted in record time into a gray wolf, his clothes in shredded fragments on the ground. And he met Warrick head on.

They circled each other, growling, jaws snapping. Sienna had seen Warrick shift this afternoon, but he hadn’t been this savage. This terrifying. Every hair on his body stood up, his blue eyes screaming the need to destroy. His jaws were open wide as he snarled, flashing two long canines that looked all too capable of tearing Hilliard to pieces.

Her heart slammed against her rib cage and a shrill scream ripped from her throat as they suddenly lunged at each other. Fur flew and the snarls escalated. Oh God, they were going to kill each other!

Sienna shoved herself upright and moved toward them. Not stupid enough to get into the fray, but needing to get their attention.

“Stop!” she shrieked. “Warrick, stop it!”

They ignored her or maybe just didn’t hear her. But they continued to slash and bite, rolling around trying to prove dominance.

No, no, no. She had to stop this. Now. A sob escaped her lips as she searched for some kind of weapon. She found a small branch that had fallen from the tree and grabbed it. Hoisting it above her head she turned and moved closer to the wolves.

With a grunt she swung it downward close to them—not hitting them, but near enough to make them jump apart in surprise.

“Enough,” she screamed frantically. “Shift back to human. Talk this shit out.”

Both the wolves stared at her, the wildness still in their eyes. Or no, Hilliard didn’t look nearly as crazed as Warrick. If anything he looked damned amused.

But amazingly enough, Hilliard shifted. And Sienna’s face flamed as she averted her eyes from his naked body. She turned her attention back to Warrick, but found him still in wolf form, still staring at Hilliard as if he were ready to kill him.

“Warrick,” she pleaded.

For a moment there was no response. Then Warrick let out another growl that morphed into a human snarl as he shifted.

Sienna’s knees almost collapsed as relief seared through her. “Thank you—”

“Get the fuck out of here.”

She reared back in shock, until she realized Warrick’s harsh words hadn’t been intended for her. His attention was only on Agent Hilliard.

“Well, don’t mind if I do. I could use a break,” Hilliard drawled and picked up his shredded clothes from the ground. With a wide smile he strode past them and back up the trail.

The silence that swallowed up the space between them made the hairs on the back of her neck lift and her heart quicken to double time.

She cleared her throat in an attempt to calm her nerves. “Thank you—”

The trunk of the tree hitting her back cut off her words and sucked the air from her lungs.

Warrick’s palms slammed down above her head and his face hovered just above hers. Fury darkened his eyes to a stormy grey. “You let him touch you.”

“W-what?”

“His arm was around you,” he accused, his voice holding a tinge of the wildness of the wolf he’d just shifted from. “You kissed him.”

“What?” She shook her head and swallowed hard. “No. It was a kiss on the cheek, I didn’t—”

“You shouldn’t have touched him!” His roar echoed in the woods and sent birds scattering.

Sienna’s heart was going so fast she had no doubt he could hear it. That he could sense her fear and maybe was even feeding on it. Which was wrong. So completely wrong. Her wall of fear and unease began to crack, making enough space to let in a bit of anger and frustration of her own.

“Why not? Why shouldn’t I kiss him, Warrick?” she challenged recklessly. “You’ve flat-out told me we can never be mated. So you have no right—
no damn right
—to say another man can’t touch me.” Gaining more indignation and confidence, she ignored the warning glint that flared in Warrick’s eyes and slapped her hand against his bare chest. “I can kiss, or even sleep with, anybody I choose. And there’s not a damn thing you can say or do about it. Got it?”

“What I got, baby, is you,” he muttered with savage intensity and caught her wrists, pinning them above her head against the tree. “And you are mine.”

His lips crushed down on hers, splintering her indignation into a thousand little pieces and bombarding her senses with hot need. But she managed to hold on to the tiniest shred of sanity and struggled against his hold—determined to call him on his hypocrisy.

How dare he go all kinds of possessive on her? After telling her they could never be together, suddenly he wanted to stake his claim?

But he didn’t let her go. Warrick’s grip on her wrists tightened and his naked body ground into her, keeping her firmly wedged between his body and the tree. No. No way. Not like this.

Sienna tried to turn her head, but his mouth followed. Her muffled cry of frustration was swallowed by his kiss. His tongue made a swift invasion into her mouth, seeking to conquer and demand her submission.

The thick length of his arousal pressed into her stomach, a hard and sensual reminder of his desire for her. And as much as she wanted to fight it, Sienna’s body stirred in response. She softened against him, her bones turning to liquid as a heavy ache bloomed between her legs.

She tried to shake her head, to mutter a protest against his mouth, but it came out as a husky moan and instead her lips moved against his in a fervent response.

Warrick’s growl of triumph didn’t escape her, but she was too far gone to care. She wanted him. Wanted this.

His free hand was everywhere and nowhere at once. Skimming down her rib cage, the dent of her waist and over the flare of her hip, before making a torturous journey back up. The trail of his fingers left tingles and heat in its path.

Sienna curled her tongue around his, sucking and teasing, addicted to the taste of him and the mindless pleasure being with him like this evoked. The possessive growl he made vibrated in the kiss and his hand that pinned her wrists above her head tightened.

Oh God, she needed him. Needed him touching her with his hands and mouth. Everywhere. The urge was a fever in her blood that couldn’t be tamed.

Warrick’s mouth slid from hers and down to her neck, his tongue flicking over the rapidly beating pulse.

Sienna squirmed against him, a plea for more, flirting on her lips, but she held back. Refusing to go so far as to beg.

When he closed his lips over the curve between her neck and shoulder an arrow of pleasure shot straight down her body to between her legs. She moved her feet restlessly, her flip-flops digging into the hard dirt as she moved to her tiptoes.

Warrick moved his hand in a return trip back down to her hip, but didn’t stop there. He moved farther, down her thigh and to the edge of the gray cotton shorts she wore. Her pulse jumped when he slipped his fingers beneath the hem of the leg, before moving upward with a purpose.

“Oh God,” she choked out as he brushed the core of her through her panties.

He exhaled in a huge rush of air against her neck and grazed her flesh with his teeth, before working his fingers under her panties to find her bare flesh.

“Who do you belong to, Sienna?”

His harsh question had her shaking her head in confusion. “No one. I belong to no one.”

“Wrong answer.” He traced her folds, dipping into the crease of her just enough to drive her mad. He teased and tortured with his featherlight touch, until she whimpered.

“Please,” she whispered.

Warrick laughed huskily as he slid a finger deeper inside her. Sienna came apart immediately. Her body already strung so tight and on the edge. She clenched around him and a sob of pleasure fled her lips as she trembled through the powerful release.

“
Who do you belong to, Sienna
?”

You
. It would always be Warrick. Her eyes filled with tears as she stopped trying to fight the inevitable. Even as she hated him for making her admit it aloud.

“You,” she whispered. “I’m yours, Warrick.”

Triumph slammed through Warrick as he buried his mouth against Sienna’s neck. He penetrated her faster, harder. His cock jerked, hardening further at the way her body squeezed his finger like she wanted to break it off.

She was his
. Maybe he didn’t deserve to hear the words but, dammit, he needed them.

The blood pounded through his veins in a rhythm of need and desire. So fierce it consumed his every thought and left no room for rationale.

Warrick tightened his fingers around her wrists. It wasn’t that he thought she’d fight him again—the cream on his finger and the husky cries coming from her throat proved otherwise.

But he liked seeing her like this. Spread out like a feast for him alone, submissive and begging.

Mine.

He slid his finger up through the warm, moist folds of her sex until he found the tiny kernel of flesh he was looking for. When he rubbed her clit Sienna jerked against him and let out a hoarse cry. He teased and pinched, listening to her mounting pleasure and waiting for her to come again.

His hips ground against hers. He would take her soon. Before he lost it and came all over her stomach. A rational part of his brain managed to sneak in a thought that maybe it would be better that way. But he pushed it aside.

No. He wanted everything. To be balls-deep in Sienna and hear her scream his name. Feel her nails dragging down his back.

He rubbed her clit faster, felt her body growing creamier in response, and knew she was close. Closing his fingers around the tiny, hard flesh, he squeezed, and was rewarded when she again flew over the edge.

With her body still trembling, and moans of pleasure spilling into the air, he tugged the shorts and panties from her body. He released her wrists so he could grab her ass and lift her. Sienna’s legs wrapped around his waist and her hands plunged into his hair.

There was no hesitation this time. With another roar of possessiveness, Warrick flexed his hips and surged up into her body.

“You belong to me, Sienna.” With a roar that lifted into the canopy of trees, Warrick let go of his restraint and pounded up into her. Moving harder and faster in a rhythm that grew closer to appeasing the animal within him. He buried his face against her neck again.

Mine. Mine. Mine.

The chant echoed in his head with each thrust. Coincided with her gasps of pleasure and the way she met each hard thrust. Her scent, the feel of her body, consumed him. Until nothing mattered but claiming her in the physical and literal sense.

This time when his canines slid down, he didn’t try to hide them. He let the sharpness of his teeth scrape against her silky flesh and heard her whimper of surprise.

His pleasure grew, expanding in his head, narrowing his line of vision until his thighs tightened and he knew he was about to come.

Mine.
He didn’t hesitate, but closed his teeth over her skin. Biting. Marking. Claiming.

Sienna screamed, her nails raking down his back as the walls of her sex hugged his cock and spasmed as she came. He was right there with her, releasing himself again and again inside her, until he was physically and emotionally spent.

He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against hers, waiting for the frantic beating of his heart to slow and the ability to form a thought to return. And when it did reality slammed into him like a semi.

Warrick opened his eyes and stared beyond her into the forest—seeing nothing but his career, his life within the shifter community, coming to an end.

Chapter Fifteen

Sienna pulled back and glanced at him, making a sweet little nervous laugh that had his gut clenching.

“Wow. That was…intense,” she murmured and touched her neck. “But…I liked it.”

He dropped his gaze to the red marks on her neck. The bite wasn’t deep enough to draw blood, and it would soon fade. But its connotation wouldn’t. He’d just claimed Sienna as his mate. And she didn’t even have a clue.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

Warrick lowered Sienna back to the ground and stepped away from her, not trusting himself to say anything. He didn’t want to think about why he’d done it or if there’d be regrets later. Right now it was just easier to be a little numb.

“Warrick? What’s wrong?”

He shook his head and thrust an unsteady hand through his hair. Not ready to answer her yet. He needed a distraction. To think about something else besides his life going down the drain. There’d been a reason he’d come out here in the first place. Before he’d seen her with Agent Hilliard and gone blind with jealousy.

Of course…

“The jump drive,” he accused. “Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

The concern fled from her face, replaced quickly with shock. Then fear. Her head moved from side to side in denial, before she turned away from him and fumbled around for her clothes.