Moira Rogers - Wilder’s Mate

It took two tries to get her regular gun into its holster. The special rounds glinted in the setting sun as she spilled one into her hand and held it out to him.

He cracked it on a rock and let some of the compound inside drip onto the ghoul’s chest. As soon as it penetrated his shirt, he screamed and arched backwards, booted heels scrabbling against the ground.

Blisters formed on his pale skin, angry red burns that she swore she could smell in the air.

Her nerves felt frayed, unraveling, as she dug her fingers into her palm. “Talk,” she whispered.

Begged. “Tell us where your master is.”

Wilder watched the ghoul in silence for a few long moments, then held out his hand to Satira. “Give me another one.”

No pretending she wasn’t an accomplice to torture. She fixed Nathaniel’s face in her mind as she pressed another round into his gloved palm.

He wrenched open the ghoul’s jaw and shoved the round into his mouth. The glass clattered on his teeth, and Wilder’s lips pressed into a grim line as he placed his hand firmly under the ghoul’s chin. “Talk, or I smash it, and it’ll hurt a hell of a lot worse than what I just did.” Bloodshot eyes rolled up until Satira could barely see anything but white. The ghoul trembled for an endless moment, then jerked his head up and down, beating his fists against the ground.

Wilder yanked the glass round free and sat back. “Talk.”

“Clear Springs.” The words shook. “Fifty miles past the border. He’s taken over the whole town.

Rebuilt the hotel, made it his manor. There’s a lab in the basement. Keeps people there. Inventors.

Hounds.” A shudder. “Us.”

“Inventors.” Wilder bit out the word, his eyes wild. “Is Nathaniel Powell one of them?” The ghoul let out rattling breath, but his whispered response made Satira’s heart leap. “Yes.” One rough breath and then another, and Wilder rose. “Get back, Satira.” It wasn’t a tone that invited questions—or arguments. She obeyed and crossed her arms over her chest in a futile attempt to suppress a shiver. “Are you going to let him go?” In a blink, he pulled his pistol and fired two shots. “They can’t recover,” he said roughly. “That’s why Levi said to kill ’em quick. It’s a mercy.”

“A mercy,” she echoed. Her heart hammered. “Are you all right?”

“No.” His hand trembled, and he holstered the gun.

The world tilted a little as she realized he felt as sick as she did. Bloodhounds were violence, were rage and vengeance, but maybe Wilder was a man too. One with a job he didn’t revel in, but would do regardless.

Not so different than her after all. She stepped forward and lifted a hand to the rigid line of his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“Clear Springs.” Wilder touched her hand, just for a moment. “I know where it is. We won’t make it there before—” He turned away. “We’ll have to stop for the new moon.” For all the numbering of days she’d been doing, that was one date she hadn’t considered. “How soon is it?”

“Tomorrow. After I find my horse, we can backtrack a little tonight, make camp. I know a place we can stop tomorrow night.”

He might as well have dropped her in an icy lake in the midst of winter. A place. A brothel. Where skilled women would give him everything he needed, all the things she hadn’t.

She was six kinds of fool, because a tiny part of her hoped she’d misunderstood. “A hotel?” Wilder shook his head. “Nothing that fancy. It’s an old railroad camp left over from when they tried to lay tracks through these parts. They lit out so fast they didn’t even tear down the shanties.” He didn’t plan to make it easy on her. Satira wet her lips and fixed her gaze on his boots. “Am I—am I enthusiastic enough to heat your blood, or are you hoping to seek out other companionship?” Gloved but gentle fingers lifted her chin until she had to meet Wilder’s eyes. “There isn’t anyone else, Satira.” The words held a light sting of warning.

Not so hard to summon a smile. “It’s not duty, or obligation. I’m not simply willing. I’m eager.” His thumb grazed her cheek, his own smile sudden and relieved. “We should get back. We won’t make it all the way to town, but we can find a safe place to set up camp.”

“It will be all right, Wilder.” She closed her eyes for just a moment and let herself lean into him.

“We’ll get through this. We’ll find Nate.”

“Yeah.” But he sounded bleak.

“We will,” she insisted. “Together, Wilder.”

He closed his arms around her, drawing her close. “We will.” If she kept her eyes closed, she wouldn’t have to see the sprawled bodies, the broken corpses of men whose lives had been destroyed long before Wilder had ended their miserable existence. Vampires were the enemy, the monsters who stole fathers and brothers and turned them into mindless slaves. Who stole sisters and daughters and fed on them, body and soul.

The vampires were the evil ones, but she knew—with something beyond her mind, with an instinct born of caring too much—that Wilder felt like a brutish sadist. Like a nightmare.

Maybe it took evil to fight evil, but it wouldn’t lighten the burden on his soul, or on her own. So she opened her eyes and didn’t shy away from the carnage, fixing it in her mind as the price, one that should never be forgotten. As long as it hurt, it meant they were still on the right side. Wilder didn’t deserve to be shut out in the dark because he did what he had to.

If she had to remind him of that fact, she would. Willingly. Eagerly.

Dusk was near— too near—when the abandoned railroad camp came into view the next evening.

Wilder’s legs shook, rattling his boots in the stirrups. At least the place was still deserted, from the looks of it. The last vampire who’d set up housekeeping there had grown tired of having to procure his meals elsewhere and moved on to a more populated area.

He glanced at Satira, who seemed more curious than anything else, squinting through the gathering gloom to study the various buildings.

“Should be fine,” he rasped, unacceptably distracted by the slender line of her throat. “I’ll take a look around.”

“Mmm.” Satira pulled her horse to a stop in front of a relatively sturdy-looking little shanty. “How does this one look? I could clean it up a bit while you check the rest of the camp. Make things a little more comfortable?”

“It’s fine, it’s—” He had to move away, or he wouldn’t, not until he’d pounded into her and slaked his lust.

Satira glanced at him, then looked away as she slid to the ground. “If you leave your horse, I’ll take care of everything.”

He swung off his mount with a growl. “I’ll be back soon.”

His body throbbed, insistent and demanding, as he stalked off. Leaving Satira, even to check the camp, turned the heat of anticipation into a boiling rage.

But there was nothing to be done.

He forced himself to cover every building, every abandoned wagon and moldy haystack, before turning back to the shanty she’d chosen. It was fully dark already, and a light burned in the open window.

Inside he found Satira smoothing the blankets from his bedroll over a thick mattress. The wooden floor was swept clean, and most of the surfaces seemed hastily dusted. She turned as the door opened, her face alight with nervous anticipation. “The furniture was quite nice, under the dust. We’ll be comfortable enough for a few days.”

Blood pounded in his ears, but he found himself nodding. “Yes.” Her boots sat next to the door. Her belt was already curled on the table. She stared at him from impossibly wide eyes as she pulled her hair free from its binding. “Tell me how to help you, Wilder. Tell me what you need.”

One of the buttons popped off his vest as he pulled at it. “Help me undress.” She came to him, quiet and shy. Her fingers were steady as she eased the buttons on his vest free one at a time. “The mattress might be nicer than the one I have at home, though the dust hasn’t done it any favors. Seems like someone made this place awfully pretty, then abandoned it. It’s almost sad.” He barely found his voice through the haze of hunger that clouded his consciousness. “Must have been the camp boss’s place. None of the workers’ shanties would have been this nice.”

“Needed a little care, that’s all.” She eased his vest off and reached for his belt next. “Someone to take care of it.”

He grabbed her hands, hands that were too small and delicate. “Am I scaring you?” He knew he had to be wild-eyed, terrifying.

Satira smiled and shook her head, red curls falling riotous around her shoulders. “You need a little care too. Let me.”

If he fought it, he could hurt her when his control finally broke—and it would. “Yes. I need you.” She stepped back. Her gaze never left his as she unfastened her rough trousers and stepped out of them. The oversized men’s shirt followed. She stripped to her skin in silence, then stood shivering in front of him, pale and softly feminine, a desperate longing in her eyes. “Need me. Take me.”

“You’re cold.” Silly words that had nothing to do with the violent way his body reacted to hers, but he had to distract himself. He had to—

Wilder swept her into his arms and crushed his mouth to hers.

His lips couldn’t muffle her moan. Her trembling fingers plunged into his hair, clutching at the short strands as she kissed him with the same hungry eagerness he’d come to expect. But there was an edge to it this time, a vulnerability given voice in her quiet, gasping whimpers.

She would take him, the pleasure he could bring, and give back the same.

Wilder spilled her to the bed, her wrists pinned in one hand, and bit her throat. She twisted with another desperate little noise, then dug her head back against the bed, offering her neck to him in the basest kind of submission.

He licked the pale line of skin she bared, nipped lightly. “I don’t know how long I can be gentle.”

“Tell me what I need to know,” she whispered, rubbing one foot against his calf. “If there’s anything I mustn’t do. If there’s anything you want me to do.”

Only one thing to say, one thing for her to know. “If I’m to stop, tell me so and make me hear it.

Don’t—don’t push me away.”

“Never.” Her foot slid higher, until her leg was all but wrapped around him. “I’m not an innocent, not afraid or delicate.”

“No, it—” He bit his tongue. She’d had hounds before—he had to acknowledge it even as it made his skin heat with primal jealousy. “It isn’t about that. You know why you mustn’t run from me.”

“I know.” Tenderness filled her gaze as she met his eyes. The sunburn on her cheeks had faded, but this close he could see the freckles dusting her pale skin. She dug her teeth into her full lower lip, just for a moment, then smiled at him. “I don’t wish to. I only meant that you shouldn’t worry that I’ll want to run from you. The things I would have you do to me…there is nothing proper or respectable about them.”

“I will take you.” Their encounters up to this point had been passionate, raw…but controlled. “Do you know? Do you?”

She didn’t lie. “No. But I trust you. And I want you.”

Perhaps a better man could have stayed in control. Wilder growled, the last of his sanity slipping away in the blackness of the night.

He wanted her sweetness, her pleasure. Her cries.

He would have them.

Satira expected him to fall on her like a beast. Instead he stared down at her, wildness in his eyes, but the hand grasping hers still gentle. Firm—she imagined she could struggle with everything in her and not break free—but careful.

The hound shaking above her would not hurt her. That truth might as well be carved in her soul.

He put his tongue on her first, licking the delicate ridge of her collarbone. Tasting her skin. She didn’t fight her shiver or her quiet moan. Let him have no doubts about her willingness or the way her body sang when he touched her.

He parted her legs with his knee and nestled his hips tighter to hers. “What is it you want?” he rasped.

She couldn’t deny him anything, even if it meant she might be forced to deal with the consequences later. “You. Inside me.”

The fingers around her wrists tightened, and he thrust against her, hard through his clothes. “Now?

Already?”

Satira didn’t know how to guide him, didn’t know if it was madness to try at all. “I want to hear your desires. To know the ways you’ll take me.”