Giaus: The Feral Court, Book II

Hunted by a beast.

An unstoppable juggernaut is coming for her. A villain who will take what he wants. Fixated on her very scent, he stalks the wood in search of his precious mate. His tiny, rebellious queen.

Pleased by her defiance, entranced by her spirit and burning wrath, Giaus smiles, knowing she will be made to yield.

She can't deny what her body craves.

In her reluctant embrace, he samples a taste of forbidden redemption. The whisper of fate that knows nothing of the corruption in his blood.

She is salvation.

And Giaus will annihilate any who dares touch what he has claimed.

But he is not the only villain in these woods...

Gleaming amber eyes fixed on his prize, the hunter watched from downwind. He watched as slender, female limbs were slowly stripped of the leathers keeping her hidden. Her clothing a shield that reeked of death and rancid fat, but beneath it all? The scent of breeding female.

His female.

The taste of her coated the roof of his mouth, etched in the lining of his nostrils. Scrawled in elegant pen along the inside of his skull, imprinted on his brain in a way that let him filter all else out. The complexities and subtle textures that were unique to her alone, committed to the hunter’s memory. Obsessively focused on the one thing he wouldn’t walk away from.

His mate.

At no point in his mad dash did the hunter stop to wonder why. Why this slight creature? A female of a species not his own, stained in the fluids of other males. Soiled. Used. Beautiful and wild.

He only knew that she’d been created for him. A gift of the Nine he’d forgotten to worship. A lure he couldn’t refuse, and one he wouldn’t allow to slip through his fingers no matter how many others had touched her first. 

And so he watched as she dared to bathe when she should have been running, her lips frozen in a sharp grin with blunted teeth. Eyes over-bright with the sheen of victory.

Hunger pulsed through his veins. An itch to wipe that smirk off her face, to replace it with simple, enthralled adoration as she was remade to suit his needs. To worship all that he was.

To master this female whose wildling spirit had been fed by lesser males, left untamed. 

The beat of his pulse throbbed along his girth, heavy and hot. Swollen with desperate, aching need. And yet, he had merely stalked her through the wood.

Watching.

He kept himself secreted away, downwind. Loping along at her back as she fled through the brush, planning as he hunted, as she put distance between her and the pack. Learning her scent, her limits.

Even now, with a vulnerable female exposing herself to his ravenous gaze, he contented himself with the show. Claws extended where they dented his palms, he lurked out of sight. Drinking down her scent in one deep lungful after the next, while she remained oblivious. Waiting so his prey might continue undisturbed, scrubbing those rejected pack males from her delectable skin, she prepared herself to be drenched in his scent. To reek not of death and fear, but of belonging. Ownership.

To him.

Unbidden, a growl rumbled through his diaphragm. Pert, reddened nipples exposed to watching eyes. Fingerprints marred her hips, arms, her neck and ribs. Evidence of the other males who’d had her first. How brutal their joining, how careless and greedy they’d been with so precious a commodity as this.

Hackles rising, the hunter sucked fury between clenched teeth. Exhaled a steady stream of hard-fought patience, for this female had proven herself a cunning warrior. One who wouldn’t appreciate a simple, brutal fuck in shallow waters, but deserved the rigors of a proper taming hunt. She deserved to be worshiped with a chance to pit herself against a worthy suitor, to lose, only because she’d been bested and tamed.

Her match met, her place at his feet earned.

It was nothing less than what she deserved, to be broken over his cock, her primal needs serviced. Her appetite for rebellion smothered by a male equal to ruling her. Eating nothing, he’d let her feast on him as she was knotted and made to still. Her thirst quenched with what he’d pump down her throat. And then, when she’d been made to submit, when her eggs began to drop in honor of his conquering, he’d fill her belly with life. Take pleasure in watching her grow ripe with the evidence of his virility, she’d fast and beg for more.

Carefully hidden, he watched her shimmy free of the remainder of her clothing. Shucking putrid leathers on the sandy banks before plunging naked into the stream with a musical sigh.

And then she offered grave insult. 

Fingers plunging beneath the surface, she scrubbed between her legs. Treating her abused flesh as if it wasn’t the source of divine beauty that had drawn him in from leagues away.

He planted one hand on a tree trunk, claws sinking deep into the bark. Exerting himself to remain hidden in the shelter of shadows instead of charging into her life and fucking everything that was wet and wanting. Watching as her fingers delved between reddened thighs, as she plundered swollen tissue with deft movements, and cleansed herself of their leavings. Scoring her insides until that shallow stream was laced with the flavor most coveted in the Silver City and beyond it. Her slick flowing freely, despite a night of rutting with unworthy males.

The hunter stood sentinel through the rough ritual, seething, he guarded her against the legions of corrupted unworthy. Those who would slake their needs, their hunger, and leave her broken. Those who would reduce her to little more than a tribute to monsters reigning in the dark.

Plunging her head beneath the surface gave the hunter a moment’s reprieve. A moment to vent the tension winding tighter and tighter through his core, his breath exploded from frozen lungs. Cock jumping where it hung fat with need.

Dripping and angry.

But it was only a moment. She popped back up with a dainty, feminine squeal. Purpled nipples tightened into points, gooseflesh pimpling every available hint of bared skin.

She was quick about dressing. Slipping into leathers with the sort of efficiency that spoke of an innate need for speed over comfort. Still wet, the leather squeaked where it was dragged over her limbs, concealing his prize once more. Her mop of dark hair was twisted and wrung free of excess moisture, bunched in a messy knot, then tucked beneath her hood. Kneeling, she brought a palm full of chilly water to her lips and drank deep, her gaze locked not on the dangers watching from the gloom, but the stream itself.

A fatal mistake born of inexperience, speaking of just how lucky she’d been to survive this long. For to expose herself like this, was to show herself to be a babe among beasts. An innocent, utterly ignorant of the true dangers that was life beyond the wall.

Unforgivable that she would be so bold. So careless with her safety.

A mistake he’d be sure to prevent her from making ever again.

She paused to stretch, thinking herself safe. That her only concern was the pack of males she’d claimed and abandoned. Her pace, when she once again took up her flight, was nothing short of leisurely. A stroll in the morning that took her right past his hiding place. Offering him a chance to inhale the breath she left in her wake, tiny feet landing within striking distance of where he’d hunkered down. Oblivious to the threat as she meandered by.

It was then, as she traipsed between shafts of dappled sunlight, that he caught a glimpse of her face.

Elegant, high cheekbones. Her jaw a sharp slash that blended with ears left mercifully intact, her form was pleasing. High-bred, all refined lines and exquisite curves. And there, hidden beneath leather, her hips set in a gentle flare meant to cradle his young. Hips that would fit in one hand. Fragile enough to crack, sturdy enough to bend when the demand was issued.

Unblinking, he watched her slip into the gloom. The quiet rustle of a small creature trying to go unnoticed. But he’d seen what lay clutched between her fingers. The little bits of forest fluff and pretty rocks her kind were known to hoard, her eyes glassy. Pupils blown wide and unseeing as she wandered. Searching and snuffling for more.

A slave to instinct, she’d abandoned the safety of her pack, thinking her needs had been met. Thrown herself to the mercy of an unforgiving place rife with predators slavering for the kill.

Her season still ripe.

Drawing in another lung full of her delicious scent, he filled himself with fury.

An explosion of sound ripped free of his chest. Setting the forest alive with startled creatures both hungry and small. Sleeping and waiting. They all fled from the sounds of the hunter declaring a challenge. Only the scavengers remained, circling high above, they watched with beady eyes. Knowing that sound was might be followed by easy pickings.

The girl squealed, branches and twigs snapping as she bolted from the brush without a thought toward discretion. Flushed out, she fled like the prey she was. His every sense triggered for the hunt. The chase.

The reward of wearing her down and filling her up.

Strides long and lazy, he paced her through the gloom. Driving the scent of terrified female toward the edge of the forest, where the hunting was effortless and relaxed.

An open space, with nowhere to hide…