Claimed (The Cull Book 1) Read online

  The pull of Rebecca’s wolf was hard to resist with his own animal so close to emerging. When she rubbed her breasts against his back, her fingers tangling in his hair as she kissed his neck, he didn’t respond but he didn’t stop her.

  “I won’t let you go,” Rebecca whispered fiercely.

  Anna threw herself forward, wound her fingers into Rebecca’s long hair, and yanked her sideways. “Don’t fucking touch him, bitch. Conor is mine!”

  Anna makes a discovery

  Anna had felt tricked and betrayed, but on learning Conor hadn’t really changed her, only given her a short reprieve, another emotion occurred. Disappointment. It felt like the first time she thought she was pregnant. She hadn’t been ready for parenthood, hadn’t been sure if she loved Robert enough to share the responsibility of a child, but when the test had been negative, she’d mourned for all the possibility of that new life. She hadn’t wanted Conor to make her a lycanosapien, but now that she knew he hadn’t, she grieved the life that might have been.

  She’d been prepared to let him go, but when the tall and lanky woman, with her perfect face and perfect body had skulked into the room, Anna’s disappointment turned into bitterness and jealousy. If she rejected Conor, his life would go on without her. Worse, his life would go on with Rebecca and her perfectly buoyant breasts.

  Even when she’d been married to Robert, she’d never been the jealous type, and he’d given her plenty of reason to go through his clothes and check for lipstick stains on his collar. Maybe I didn’t care because he wasn’t Conor.

  She yanked Rebecca’s hair again, resisting the urge to punch her. The man-stealing bitch rolled to the side of Conor, coming up on the balls of her feet and fingertips. An attack stance. Rebecca’s lips curled back revealing sharp canines, unnaturally large, designed to tear into prey and enemy alike. Her eyes were golden and wolfish, her nails elongated into claws, and her muscles bunched on the edge of transformation.

  Anna should have been frightened. The display should have made her recoil in terror, but she was a dying woman with little to lose but her life. So instead of cringing and cowering, Anna barked a laugh.

  The abrupt sound stopped Rebecca better than a full on assault. The woman jerked her head to one side, as if the noise Anna made confused her.

  Anna fixed her gaze on Rebecca until she forced the other woman to look away. That’s right. I’m not scared of you. “Come near Conor again and I’ll give you the fight you’re spoiling for, bitch.”

  Conor stared at Anna as if she’d just grown a second head. “Go, Rebecca. Now.” His expressions shifted as if he were sifting through a gambit of emotions and couldn’t land on any of them. When Rebecca withdrew from the room completely, he sat back on his heels. “Does this mean you want me, Anna?”

  His hesitant question gave her pause. She could see a fragile hope in his expression. So fragile, she worried the wrong word might shatter him. Did she want him? Yes. She’d wanted Conor Evans since the first time they’d met. But she had other responsibilities, even now. How could she justify having an existence where she would outlive her own child? Dying before he could marry and have children of his own was bad enough, but to outlive him, outlive his children—the idea was too painful to consider.

  Did she love Conor? Yes. Did she love him enough? The answer came with two suitcases full of uncertainty and doubt. “It’s not that easy, Conor.”

  “Because you won’t allow it,” he said with a rise of irritation. “I’ve always known you were more, Anna.”

  “More than what?”

  “I don’t know if I can explain it in a way you’ll understand.”

  What did he see in her? She’d never been certain. “Try me.”

  He rubbed his face briskly, his eyes turning up in concentration. Finally, he looked down at Anna. He held his hands out. “Okay. For lycanosapiens, there is a structure. A hierarchy.”

  Anna remembered him telling her about this when she worked for him. “An alpha system.”

  “You remember.” He smiled and took her hand. “You are a rare anomaly. A human who has the traits of an alpha, even if you don’t have the supernatural strength.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “You made Rebecca look away.” He circled her palm with his thumb. “You dominated her without lifting a finger.”

  “You knew I could do that?”

  “I suspected.” He shook his head. “I’m very dominant, Anna, and there have been times when I’ve felt the strong urge to bend to your will.” He shook his head. “I’m doing a lousy job of explaining. You drew me, Anna. From the first time we met, I never wanted another woman the way I want you.”

  She wet her lips, her breath hitching while her lower parts tightened with desire. “So, you are like… what? A moth to my flame. A fly to my bug zapper. PMS to my chocolate.”

  “I wouldn’t put it that way.” He leaned in close to her again and brushed his lips against her ear. “But if you want me to eat you, I’m definitely up to the task.”

  Anna’s pussy clenched with a jolt of strong desire as she imagined Conor “up to the task.” She craved his hot mouth all over her body. When the heat of his hard length brushed against her thigh, she groaned. “Why are you naked?”

  Better question, why wasn’t she naked? The bra and panties she wore might as well have been chastity belts. They were thin reminders that she had a choice in what happened next.

  “I went for a run while you were sleeping.”

  “You mean unconscious,” she quipped. She narrowed her gaze. “You don’t mean jogging, do you?”

  He smiled sheepishly. “No, not that kind of running.”

  “Didn’t think so.” She’d watched him transform to wolf one time. The process had been quick and painful to watch, but the result… His wolf form had astounded her.

  His lips caressed the side of her neck making her body constrict with lust. She couldn’t think with him this close—touching her. “Maybe you should go back to the other side of the room.”

  “Is that really what you want?”

  “No.”

  When he licked the side of throat, she moaned and blindly reached for him. He kissed and nibbled his way down to her shoulder, but when his teeth grazed her collarbone, she jerked away. “No, don’t, Conor. Please. No teeth.” She knew how lycanosapiens were created. Bite and blood. He’d explained the process to her all those years ago, and while she knew she wanted to wrap herself in the warmth of his body, she didn’t want to commit beyond the moment.

  “I won’t,” he panted.

  “Promise me.”

  “I promise.” He kissed her shoulder. “Not without your permission.”

  Anna laced her fingers into his hair, allowing his green eyes to drink her in. “Oh Conor. I feel like we’ve waited forever.”

  “We have.” He closed the distance between them, burying her mouth with his own. His lips parted, making room for her tongue as they sipped and drank the passion already blazing between them.

  In all her years, even when she’d been healthy, Anna had never felt so alive.

  Conor makes his claim

  Conor burned with a fevered passion he could barely control. He’d promised Anna he wouldn’t take more from her than she willingly gave, but as her tongue tangled with his, her lips teasing and nipping as she moved her hands along his chest, he worried she’d make a liar out of him. He rubbed the surface of his palms up her sides until he cupped her covered breasts. Next, he unsnapped the front latch on the bra and freed the soft, mounds of flesh. He brushed his thumbs across her taut nipples. His cock responded with a hard jerk. Tearing away from the kiss, he dipped his head, taking one rigid nub into his mouth, sucking and teasing until Anna cried out with pleasure.

  He wrapped his arm around her waist and drew her onto his lap—the only thing separating his cock from her hot pussy was a thin pair of saturated panties. She ground herself against his groin, making them both moan. He wanted nothing more than to be
inside Anna—to take her hard and fast until her climaxing screams echoed throughout the camp. But fast and hard wouldn’t get him what he wanted long term: Anna’s permission.

  He lifted her and placed her back on the pile of blankets. Anna hissed as he trailed hot kisses down her stomach, lightly grazing her velvet skin with his canines. He tugged her panties between his teeth and growled as the scent of her arousal firmed his resolve. I will make her mine.

  Gently, Conor lifted her leg and placed it over his shoulder. He pressed the back of her thigh, lifting her ass from the floor as his mouth connected with the heat of her sex. He licked the satin fabric and smiled when soft noises of surrender passed her lips. He hooked a finger between the soaked panty and the swollen lips of her pussy.

  “In me. Oh God, I want you in me.” Anna spread her legs for him, inviting Conor to take more and more.

  Her pleas brought his beast even closer to the surface. The slight shift stayed below his skin except for the razor sharp claws extending from his fingertips. He curled his fists into the crotch of her underwear, his nails easily slicing the damp cotton, and yanked.

  Anna bowed forward, crying out as the satin underwear tore from her body. Conor looked up and met her gaze, her eyes wide with wonder, and her full sensual lips parted in a sexy pout that made his balls draw to his groin. “Sweet Anna,” he whispered, deliberately punctuating her name by delving between her swollen labia and licking her pussy from her succulent opening to the tender mound of flesh at the top. He sucked her clit into his mouth, watching her face as he teased and tormented the sensitive bundle.

  He dug his fingers into the blankets, claws slicing through fabric until they found purchase in the earth. It took every ounce of self-control not to bite down on her engorged clitoris and let her blood mingle with his saliva. It would be so easy to let instinct override his morality.

  “Ow, fuck,” she panted. The sound made him ease the pressure he’d been applying.

  As an apology, he licked her bruised flesh. He hadn’t broken the skin. No harm. No foul. Her juices, fragrant and sweet, flowed into his mouth as he drank the pulsing heat of her sex.

  “Goddamn it, Conor. I’m going to come.” Her voice, constricted with need and desire, had raised an octave. “I need you in me now.”

  Hearing his name from her lips made his heart skip a beat. He wanted nothing more than to thrust into the warm, lubricated heat of her delicious sex, but if he did now, he knew he wouldn’t last. Not with Anna. “I want you to come again and again,” he murmured against her skin. “I want to feel your pussy explode while my tongue is deep inside you. Only when you’ve been completely sated, then I will fuck you, Anna. I’ll fuck you so good.”

  “Yes,” she gasped. “Yes.”

  That Happened

  The edges of an orgasm burned any doubt from Anna’s mind. At least any doubt about having sex with Conor. His hands and mouth on her body were even more erotic than she’d imagined all those years ago. God! Why had she denied herself this pleasure when she’d been healthy? You were a fool, her body screamed. That’s why!

  She propped herself up on her elbows and watched—mesmerized—as his mouth explored the wet slit of her pussy. When his tongue darted inside, she moaned. “Oh Lord,” she whispered. “So good.”

  She fisted his hair with one hand, his head undulating beneath her grip as he licked and sucked and fucked her with his mouth. Rocking her hips forward, she urged him to go deeper, his tongue dancing over the sweet spot just an inch or so inside her channel. “Oh God. Oh God.” The slow burn of lust and desire raged into a

  bonfire threatening to consume her with its heat.

  Conor snorted, hot breath blowing out across her skin as he wrapped his arms around the backside of her thighs, lifting her for better access. He darted his tongue in and out. She felt him so impossibly deep. When his teeth scraped her clitoris, the stimulation drove her over the tenuous edge. She cried out as the flood of ecstasy tore through her, her pussy clenching and unclenching at the relentless stabs of his tongue. She threw back her head and arched her back as her hips bucked and legs quivered in his grasp until she could only make desperate noises of total surrender.

  When she could finally breathe again, Anna stroked her fingers through Conor’s thick hair as he nuzzled his cheek against her thigh. “Well,” she said, exhausted and sated. “That happened.”

  Conor tilted his face toward hers. “Yes, it did. And it can happen every day for the rest of your life if you’d only say yes, Anna.”

  A tingle stirred in her groin, the beginnings of arousal, as his words glided on her skin. With her heightened senses, she could see his face glistening with her fluids. A more modest part of her thought she should be embarrassed to have the evidence of her excitement plastered all over his scruffy cheeks, but the part of her that had ridden the wave to nirvana found the sight sexy as hell.

  Anna sighed. Longing and need drew her lower parts tight again when he licked around his mouth and smiled. To say he wore a wolfish-grin might sound cliché, but she couldn’t think of a better way to describe how truly pleased he seemed. “You know I can’t.”

  “I know nothing of the kind. There’s no reason for you to go back to that… Life.” He spit out the word as if it were bitter fruit. He’d started up her body, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her to him. “I don’t understand, Anna. Make me understand.”

  “Sam.” She blurted softly. Her son.

  When Conor had offered her a new life, she’d made all kinds of overtures about being ready to die. Getting sick hadn’t been part of her plan, but she’d come to accept it in the end. She’d made preparations, had her will in order, her funeral already paid for, and arrangements had been made for her son. Anna fought the hot tears threatening to roll fat and heavy down her cheeks. She’d just shared a beautiful, magnificent moment with the love of her life, and all she could do was mourn a future she wouldn’t live to see. “I can’t live, knowing my son won’t be there with me at the end.”

  Conor jerked away from her. His glare pierced the darkness to the depths of her soul. “I never thought I’d say this of you, Anna. But you’re a coward.”

  His words slapped her across her face—more damaging than an open hand. She flinched. “How can you say that to me? Without you in my life, I’ve had to be brave every waking moment.” She’d regretted turning him down all those years ago, and since then, she’d had to find a way every day to make it without Conor. Sam had been the one person who’d kept her from losing her mind.

  “No.” His anger made her recoil. “You hide when things get tough, Anna. I don’t know why I thought now might be different. When it comes down to it, you always make the easy choice. Not the choice that will make you happy, but the one that disrupts your life the least.”

  “Stop it,” she said. Her own rage simmered. “Just stop.”

  “Why should I? What do I have to lose? You?” He barked a sardonic laugh. “You’d actually have to be mine for that to happen.”

  “Fuck you, Conor Evans.” Anna shoved him, but he didn’t budge. “You don’t know anything about my life or the choices I’ve made. None of them have been easy.” She scowled and leaned forward until her nose nearly touched his. “Staying with a man I didn’t love. Not easy. Living a life without you. Not easy.” Anna poked Conor’s chest. “You say I’m not yours. Well, asshole, I’ve never been anyone’s but yours. It has been a complicated and miserable existence without you. My son has been the only light in an otherwise dark life. So, excuse me if I’m reluctant to watch him die.”

  His eyes widened and the edges of his mouth softened. He caressed her cheek, his fingers tracing the edge of her ear. “Then watch him live.”

  “What?” His words startled her. She’d spent four years fighting cancer. Four years of coming to terms with death. She’d left nothing unsaid between her and Sam. His life would go on without her.

  “Watch him live.” His mouth moved over her lips, brushing t
hem with a light kiss. “You’re so focused on him dying. You forget he’s only twenty-one years old, Anna. He still has years ahead of him. Years of falling in love, getting married, having a career, buying a home, having children—all these wonderful things will happen for Sam, and you, well, you won’t be around because you’re too afraid it will hurt when old age finally takes him.”

  Anna gasped as a sob broke from her chest. She couldn’t stop the tears streaming down her cheeks. Was Conor right? How many times had she wished she could be around to witness Sam become a man? Conor was offering her exactly what she needed. Time. Could she make this choice? The choice to live?

  “Yes.” The word, full of emotion, bypassed her brain as it tumbled from her lips. “Yes, I want you to change me. Make me a part of this cull,” she said clearly, so they would both know she meant it.

  The Challenge

  Conor’s stomach flipped and his palms began to sweat. He’d longed to hear her say “yes.” Prayed she would say “yes.” But never in his existence had he really believed she would. Anna Davis was the most stubborn woman he’d ever had the pleasure of knowing. Her curvaceous figure and ample breasts might have been what he first noticed about Anna, but her conviction to her ideals had been the reason he’d fallen in love with her.

  He’d kept his expectations low, having been resolved to the idea he would probably have to go on without her in this world. But she’d said “yes.”

  “Are you sure?” Mentally, he kicked himself in the ass for not just sinking his teeth into her, but he didn’t want Anna to feel coerced. He wanted to make sure she was certain. “If you say yes again, I won’t give you another option.”

  His gut clamped into a contracted ball as he waited for her to respond.

  She leaned back far enough for him to see her large brown eyes blink once. Her lips parted in a soft sigh. “Yes, Conor Evans. Yes.”