To Love a Shifter: A Paranormal Romance Boxed Set (52 page)

“Domenico?” Her eyes widened when she felt him hardening inside her. No. That wasn’t possible. He had just --- she gasped when Domenico started to move again, and even more impossibly her body was reacting, her breasts feeling fuller and extra sensitive. Misty cried out when Domenico cupped her breasts, kneading it gently before bending down to nuzzle them. When he took one nipple into his mouth, his cock twitched inside her and Misty’s body jerked at the sharp zing of pleasure his twitching cock created inside her.

“I don’t understand,” she whispered even as she locked her legs around his waist and moved up to meet his thrusts.

“Mating is a process, sweetheart.” He grinned down at her.
Wolfishly.
It was the only word for it, and she suddenly felt like she was about to be devoured.

“More to the point, it’s like being animals in heat, and to complete the process we would need to fuck each other’s brains out until the pheromones my body released are absorbed by yours, thus cementing our bond.”

As if to prove his words, he tweaked her nipple, and she jerked up, so sensitive that Misty was afraid she was going to come if he touched her nipple another time.

“H-how long?”

He drove in and out of her in a steady pace, torturing her with his leisurely strokes when he knew she wanted him slamming into her again and again. “How long is what?”

“Domenico!”

“Say it,” he urged her huskily.

She whispered awkwardly, “How long…how long do we h-have to fuck each other’s brains out?”

Another wolfish grin slashed his lips. “About ten hours.”

“WHAT?” But she couldn’t say anything else, moaning instead because Domenico had finally quit taking it easy and his cock was again slamming into her, again and again, making her sex ache in the most pleasurable ways.

“Ten fucking hours Misty.” He bit her ear, and her eyes rolled back when his tongue swirled inside her ear. Her body became tense, feeling another orgasm about to come but instead Domenico pulled his cock out and she groaned in protest.

He flipped her around. “This way you’ll come harder.” And then he was thrusting into her from behind, one hand going under her body so he could start playing with her clit at the same time.

Oh.

Domenico was pounding into her more furiously, the erotic sound of the slap of his balls against her sex making her moan. She did her best to shake the pleasure-induced haze from her mind but couldn’t. All she was able to do was moan, urging him to go faster and faster.

Domenico leaned forward, pushing her down until her breasts were squashed against the pillows while her ass was up in the air. Domenico didn’t miss a beat, fucking her so beautifully and so roughly it made her see stars.

“This time you do not need to say we are truly mated, Misty. This time they will know.”

“H-how?” She twisted her head around to look at him as she asked the question.

His grin was unrepentant. “They’re Lyccans, remember? They would have smelled us mating by now.”

Her eyes snapped open when the import of his words sunk in. “DOMENICO!” 

He cocked his head to the side. “Oh. Don’t worry, Misty. I can hear our guests having fun. I think they just heard you scream my name.”

She moaned. “Domenico!”

“Sssh, sweetheart, be a good girl and let me fuck your brains out again.”

~~~

Far underneath the roads of the city, in the deepest recesses of dungeons long forgotten by humans, naked women writhed on the ground, uncaring of the dirt that clung to their skins and the wounds that the rough uneven surface wrought on their flesh.

One woman was named Rafaella, the other woman was Ivory, and there were so many others. Only one word emerged from their mouths, and they moaned it over and over.

Master.

A man hidden in the shadows purred, “We will do better next time, won’t we, my lovelies?” He smiled with vicious pleasure at the gagged woman cowering in front him, the one that had to be punished for failing him one last time.

Yes, Master.

He looked at the woman who was about to satisfy his greatest appetite. “Nanette, Nanette,” he crooned, “I gave you so many chances and yet you failed. You let greed get the better of you.”

Nanette Wall desperately shook her head, her eyes bulging with fear.

He slapped her, and even though it wasn’t his full strength it was enough to send her flying to the end of the dungeons. “Didn’t I tell you I despise liars?” he hissed. He looked at the women he had enslaved with promises made in the dark. “You know that, too, lovelies, don’t you? The Master will not tolerate liars.”

Yes, Master.

He held Nanette by the hair, pulling her head back roughly and was rewarded by the tears of pain that glazed her eyes. “We won’t stop until we crush them one by one, won’t we?”

Yes, Master.

“And you would not hesitate to lay down your lives if it would mean finding their weakness, won’t you?”

Yes, Master.

Satisfied, his hand shot out, his fingers easily pushing through the flesh and muscle until he grasped the frantically beating heart of his meal. And as he took his first bite, he sent a bolt of pleasure through their bodies, causing the women to cry out. And so they came and came as Nanette died, the rest of her heart disappearing into his mouth.

If Misty had seen this, she would have only one word to describe it.

Sceleri.

~~~

“Lysander?”

He turned around at the hesitant sounding voice, his eyes narrowing when he saw a familiar figure. He had seen her once in a while at the realm and wondered why the young girl had followed him into another race’s territory. He remembered every woman he had fucked, and someone this young would never have gotten even a kiss from him.

But still, her face nagged at him.

And finally he remembered who she was. “Star,” he murmured, real pleasure underlining his voice. She was a sweet kid, quiet but cheerful, and he had spent quite some time with her during the summer of the past year, during those days that she had caught him in his garden.

“I heard…you’re looking for a Lyccan princess to be betrothed to?”

He raised a brow. “And?”

“Is it true?” she insisted.

He sighed. “And if it is?”

“What kind of princess are you looking for?”

“Anyone who could help protect my race.”

“But what about what you want?”

“That is what I want.”

“Ah.” She smiled at him bravely. “Then you’d want me. Because I’m a Lyccan princess and my name isn’t really…well it’s Star but not in English.” She took a deep breath. “My real name is Estrella Moretti, and I’m the younger sister of the heir apparent Domenico Moretti.”

###

      Fall is the time when Caro’s emerge from the darkness, with leaves turning red as blood and the nights are longer and colder. I was eighteen when my father took me with him to attend my first Caro ball. And this was no ordinary ball for it was the First Night. This is a special occasion for their kind, one that had every beautiful being of their race making their way to the Brethren, where the Season of Crimson Fetes will formally begin.

      Caro parties are not like any human or even non-human eyes would ever see. They party hard…harder even than the dying breeds of fauns and nymphs who answer to Dionysius’ call. In these parties, everything is brighter and louder, more colorful, more dazzling, and more glamorous. There seems no end to them: as the memories of one ball fades away, another one emerges, noble Caro families trying to outdo each other with gloriously decadent fetes that only the most privileged can enjoy.

      Everything is opulent without being gaudy. You can say anything you want about Caros, but one thing they’ll always be is tasteful. Everything about them—the way they speak, dress, even the way they kill—everything is done with such impeccable grace.

      The Season of Crimson Fetes is meant to celebrate the race’s ascendancy. Caros are
infamous for being haughty and cruel, indifferent and insensitive to the plight of other races. You will never hear a Caro beg. You won’t ever catch a Caro lying or cheating out of some base emotion like greed or envy. If ever a Caro is guilty of a sharp word, a careless gesture, a merciless slaying—all these things are only to
prove their superiority over others.

      Selfishness is inherent in every Caro, reinforced by The Brethren’s doctrine, one that even the youngest of its kind learn to recite alongside the Lord’s Prayer.
 
We are the brightest among the children of the Night, and forever we must shine.
 
Not
 
will
. Not
 
may
. But
 
must—
because failure is unforgivable.

      And yet…they are not evil. But they are often perceived to be so, the misconception rooted in this race’s uncompromising determination to act with cold-blooded precision. Never do they also let themselves forget that in the darkest days of their race they had only been able to turn to each other for aid. Duty to the Brethren must therefore supersede everything else—their thirst for power, their desires, even their love. For once their race was known to love, and that time had devastated the world, vampires desecrating life.

      Legends say that there were once twin princes who fell in love with the same woman, whose heart could only beat for one of them. The spurned twin, unable to bear the thought of sharing the woman with any other, lost his soul to the throes of unrequited love and murdered her. If he couldn’t have her, no one else could.

      When she died, the first vampire was born, followed by his twin, whose grief was said to have made him go insane and turn vampire, too. Millions of innocent lives were wasted in those never-forgotten days, the rampage only ending when the sun burned the twins to ashes. Since then, the Caros swore never ever again should they let such a tragedy repeat itself—even at the expense of themselves, even if it meant denying the reason for their existence.

      And so came the one and only inviolable rule for Caros: Let the blood flow, the flesh burn, but never let the heart decide.

          ^{An excerpt taken from An Introduction to Caros: The Cold Race;
Those that Live Among Us Unseen—An Advanced History Textbook for Viver}