THE RIPENING (Dark Side of the Moon Book 1) Page 9

  The chance was slim, but it was there.

  And Luther was with her now.

  All at once, the young woman threw her arms around Luther's neck, pressing her mouth to his as she kissed him with every vestige of emotion that he possessed.

  Above all else, regardless of what happened the next day, what had happened in the past week, she'd had him for her entire life, and she had him now. That was nothing she could ever regret.

  The man holding her made a low sound of appreciation in the back of his throat as he pressed her even closer to his chest, his tongue stroking deftly over the line that separated her lips. With a low moan of acquiescence, Yuna admitted him inside, shuddering as he proceeded to thoroughly brand every part of her mouth with his flavor. Within moments, he was lowering her to the cool marble floor, his hands seeking the hem of her sweater.

  As he peeled the thick, rough cloth up and over her body, Yuna ran her hands through his thick auburn locks and down to curl into shoulders thick with repressed strength. When he tore his mouth from hers for the brief moment that it took to extricate her from her sweater, she made a soft sound of protest that was almost immediately silenced when he kissed her again.

  God, the man was like a drug. It took less than a minute for her to completely and totally lose herself in him, and Yuna knew that would have been the case with or without his mark. However, when her lover lowered his head to exhale hotly against the raw skin on her shoulder, the young woman gasped, her body jolting slightly at the sensation that lanced through her. When he kissed it, an almost delirious moan escaped her as her inner thighs immediately slicked with copious moisture. When he grazed the tips of elongated canines over it, tightening his jaw only enough to inflict the barest amount of pressure against the prone flesh, Yuna's vision momentarily whitened and she saw stars.

  “Oh... my God.” Her breathing ragged, the young woman clung to him as she fought for a breath. If this was what all the fuss over the mating mark was all about, she supposed she couldn't fault Luther's clan. It was certainly wreaking havoc with her human body. “What else does it do?”

  Her lover's dark chuckle vibrated over her skin, making her womb clench in want.

  “It connects us.” His mouth ghosted over her opposite shoulder and down her arm in a series of drugging kisses that only paused when his tongue flicked at the delicate skin of her wrist. “I'll always know where you are; if you're in pain, or lost. I'll feel when you're upset or angry... and I'll sense when you want me.”

  At that, Yuna laughed softly, the sound morphing into a gasp as Luther took a single finger into his mouth to toy with. “Constantly.”

  He smiled, releasing her digits to straighten. Reaching out, he took her hand in his to pull her to her bare feet a moment before lifting her into his arms. As his mouth took hers again, he backed her against the cold wall of her cell. Luther swallowed her brief hiss of discomfort at the temperature before his mouth left hers and he gazed down the length of her, from her bare breasts with their nipples peaked from the temperature down her stomach to the place where her thighs wrapped around his divinely narrow hips.

  “My Yuna. You're beautiful.”

  The warmth of his hands curled into her behind to hold her aloft as he nipped his way down her neck. The young woman let her head fall back as the sensation washed over her, sending a promising, sensual languor to assault her limbs. Her own hands found the hem of his sweater and hiked it up a broad back to feel the bare silkiness of his skin.

  When his mouth found the tip of her breast, she squirmed in delectation, her toes curling as he suckled her deliciously. While one hand continued to hold her in place, the other moved between them to search out the heat between her legs. Luther took her opposite nipple between his lips over he stroked over the dewy folds of her, driving Yuna insane with longing.

  His fingers ignited a desperate fire deep within her- one that always threatened when he was near. When they actually pressed past her entrance, burying themselves within her, the young woman's head fell back against the wall with an audible thump as she moaned headily. Each slide of his lithe digits against her inner walls made her thighs quiver and a soft sob escaped her as she begged him for more.

  God, her Luther. Only hers.

  When his gaze finally met hers again, she wasn't surprised to see yellow bleeding into icy blue. He raised his hand to suck his fingers clean of her essence, and Yuna's stomach clenched at the sight. “Mine,” he growled lowly as he ground his prominent erection against her. “Say it.”

  The young woman gasped, arching against him as her copious arousal colored the front of his pants. “Yours. Only yours.”

  She felt him fumble for a moment at the crux of his legs before the hot press of his arousal was suddenly bare against her. His eyes, deeply primal and yet somehow still the Luther that she'd always known, burned into her as he took her inch by inch.

  Yuna squirmed and undulated against him as he penetrated her, the feel of him cleaving her, pushing her to the edge of her limits. He continued to stare deeply into her eyes as he began a slow, agonizing rhythm, each thrust so deep she felt the tip of him kiss her womb. “This is what I am, Yuna.” His voice was deep, raspy; somewhere between animal and human. “This is what we are.”

  She cried out as his fingers found the bud of her pleasure between them. The pad of a claw-edged thumb slid against her and she trembled, reveling in the danger even as she knew he would never hurt her. “You are my mate,” Luther growled against her marked shoulder, sending pleasure thrumming through her. “Now and always.”

  Yuna's hips rocked against his hand almost deliriously as she clung to him, her sweat-slick form on the edge of relief.

  Part of her expected it when he bit her again, but what she didn't expect was the sudden and unbridled wave of ecstasy that took her with a force so intense it was almost violent. A scream was ripped from her at the height of her pleasure before Luther stifled it with a hand against her mouth, his own hips pumping erratically against hers until she felt the delicious burst of his seed within her.

  He held her like that, supported against the wall, for moments after until she finally came back to herself; and even when he let her stand, her legs almost buckled beneath her.

  She flushed slightly as he pulled her against him to prevent her falling, his grin one of pure masculine satisfaction. It only took a moment, however, for him to sober. As his mile faded, he knelt to retrieve her sweater before helping her fit it over her head.

  “Yuna, whatever happens tomorrow, know that I chose you, and I would, again, if given the opportunity.”

  The young woman smiled wanly. “It only took my being kidnapped by your family and the threat of imminent death for you to admit it, so I suppose you're not so different than other guys.”

  The smile she attempted to draw from him didn't show. Luther only sighed pensively as he sank into a sitting position and pulled her into his lap to hold her close.

  Her body still humming from his loving, Yuna snuggled against him.

  Viola would be back soon... and mere hours later, she'd face the leaders of Luther's clan. She only hoped that whatever his mother knew would be enough to keep the experience from spiraling into chaos, blood, and conflict.

  Part Four

  Luther's heart clenched at the way Yuna winced when she saw sunlight for the first time in a week.

  He'd left her scant hours ago but it felt like several lifetimes since he'd held her. This was due in no small part, he was sure, to the knowledge of what would happen to her if their meeting with the Elders went awry.

  He'd been present at dawn when the five stooped, cloaked figures had arrived in an old sedan. The future Alpha and the rest of the clan had stood in the crisp early morning air, greeting the Elders with the respect due those of their age and status. Even as he had murmured honorifics and titles that accompanied the greetings, his heart had been chilled by the cold distance present on each elderly face.

  All, that was, exc
ept for Dame Strauss.

  Though she might have come to them from Scotland, the land of origin, Adelheid Strauss was as German in face as she was in name. Hair still as dark as coals framed her lined face, and fathomless, intense cerulean eyes stared out of a face that was as wise as it was intimidating. When her gaze fell upon Luther, her reaction was drastically different than that of the other elders. Where they had cast him frigid looks of judgment, her expression had been instead intensely curious. For a moment he had been lost in the depths of her stare.

  It had been like falling into the deepest part of the ocean, having the breath stolen from your lungs and flailing wildly against currents far stronger than you would ever be.

  Dame Strauss was the last to pass him.

  When she finally stood before him, she reached out to take his hand, her gaze still pinning him to the spot. “So you're the one.”

  Though Luther knew for a fact that she was well over eighty, the voice with which she spoke was that of a much younger woman, untouched by time. “You've raised the seven hells boy.” Reaching upward, she shoved back the cuff of his shirt to expose a well-tanned wrist. When her bony fingers encircled it, he jerked. The surge of ancient power that slammed through him was breathtaking. “You're strong-willed, and clever. There is much in you that your brother lacked.” When she released him, the large man swayed slightly on his feet. “Perhaps it is enough.”

  With a last glance beyond Luther to the rest of the clan standing around him, Dame Strauss pulled her hood lower over her face before disappearing behind the crumbling manor.

  There could be no doubt about it. Unless they had her on their side, he and Yuna were sure to have lost this battle.

  So there he stood, watching the ugly looks his clan directed at her as Viola accompanied her from the lower levels. As Luther understood, she was to be given the chance to bathe and wear actual clothes before the Elders. His mouth twisted at the backhanded nature of the gesture. Certainly they didn't want to seem like barbarians, they had only called the most powerful of their kind here to ask permission to snuff a human.

  His mate's large green eyes briefly found his own and Luther was humbled by the calm he saw there. While he had always known that Yuna was an exceptionally strong woman, he would never have imagined the grace with which she'd handled the situation she was in. If that in itself wasn't a sign that she was meant for him, little else could be. As Viola ushered her up the steps and away, his mind filled with the memory of the feel of her against him-of the way she clung to him when he was inside her and accepted all of him - the danger and the pleasure.

  He couldn't let her be killed.

  “You've doomed her, brother.” Liam's tone cut through his consciousness like a knife and he gritted his teeth against the urge to give his brother a matching scar over his good eye. He'd been fighting with the younger Douglas all week.

  He wouldn't today.

  It was important that the Elders see him as calm, rational, and capable.

  Luther merely spared his brother a withering glance before his father spoke, drawing both of their attentions. “We'll convene in the study in an hour.” His gaze moved between his two sons, to his wife, and finally to rest on Yuna's retreating back. “I'm helping the elders settle as we speak.”

  Luther glanced around the room at all those assembled. His father, mother, Liam, Viola, Nita and her mate, Ryan, who were distant relations of his father's, as well as three of his cousins- all twice his age and with no real connection to him. His clan. Would it really have to end with him?

  He could only hope against hope that it didn't come to that.

  Though the week since they'd been holding Yuna had seemed to creep by at a snail’s pace, the last hour before they came before the Elders was gone in the blink of an eye. Before he knew it, the Douglases were crowded into Magnus' makeshift study. Only when they were seated around the perimeter of the room before the previously assembled Elders did Viola enter, leading Yuna behind her.

  Luther fought raising hackles at the realization that Yuna had been bound again. At least, he capitulated, they had let her shower. Clad in a pair of loose blue jeans and a deep gray sweater, her hair freshly washed and face scrubbed, the young woman crossed the room until she reached its center, where Viola left her to take her seat. He read the emotions roving her face as she realized that they meant for her to stand and wished that he could catch her eye in a silent apology. Luther's father, however, had been strategic in seating Luther as far away from his mate as possible, in a position that made it impossible for her to look at him without the gesture being completely obvious.

  On top of that, he was between Liam and Nita, neither of whom, he was sure, would have qualms about restraining him if need be.

  “We're here,” everyone in the assembly fell silent at Baccus Rounds, a bare-headed ancient of almost ninety, began speaking, his voice thick with the accent of his homeland, “to help resolve a matter that this clan could not handle on its own. Even though the law,” he punctuated the word clearly, his graphite colored eyes hardening, “is quite clear what must be done.”

  “Indeed.” Next to him, his mate and fellow Elder Agatha agreed. Her gaze was hard on Yuna as she addressed all present. “I might ask how a human was so easily able to penetrate your clan in the first place.”

  Luther felt rather than actually witnessed Liam's hard glare at his back. Before the younger Douglas brother could speak, however, Magnus cut in, his tone apologetic.

  “It was our fault, Elders. We were far too lax with our son. We should have instilled in him earlier the impossibility of successful relations with humans.”

  “The law forbids this for a reason.” A reedy, Arabic flavored voice- that of Aremis, who sat to Agatha's right- interjected. “Any and all attempts at successful interactions between our races in the past have failed.”

  “Um...Elders?” Everyone, including Luther, looked to Yuna in surprise when she suddenly chose to address the five imposing figures before her. “Luther made a friend. That was all. He was a child, and every child needs friends. I don't believe there was ever anything... disobedient in his intentions.”

  “What's your name, girl?” It was Dame Strauss who spoke now, the velvet timbre of her voice by far the easiest on the ears. She was staring intently at the small woman standing before the group, her gaze unwavering.

  “Yuna.” The young woman glanced around the room, and for a moment Luther thought she might be searching for him before he realized she was simply taking stock of all the faces present. “My name is Yuna Thompson.”

  “And how long have you been 'friends' with Luther, Yuna Thompson?” A male was the final member of the Elders to raise his voice, and Luther could clearly see why. The old man's tone was raspy with disuse, and he didn't think it was presumptuous of him to assume that he'd probably damaged his trachea in an errant right while in his ripened state. If that were the case, then he was certainly Ian Malcolm, the final member he'd heard about of the five.

  “All my life.”

  Yuna's answer was so simple and heartfelt that Luther's heart seized.

  “Which is exactly where the problem lies.” Agatha was speaking again now, her tone fierce. “A childhood friendship is one thing; dancing on the edge of discovery for an entire lifetime is not only dangerous, it's foolhardy.”

  “Our laws,” Aremis chimed in, “are for the most efficient protection of our species’ existence. We cleave to each other and avoid contact with the outside world as much as possible. It is these customs alone that have kept us from being discovered.”

  “Excuse me, Elder Aremis.” Viola's low tone came from among his cousins, and Luther's hold on his chair tightened. He'd barely spoken to his sister-in-law all week, angry at her for the part she was playing in Yuna's imprisonment. Even so, he'd been around her enough to know that, whatever had happened between she and Liam, it had changed her. She wasn't half as demure as she used to be, and she walked around the den with her eyes blazing
with emotion more often than not. “I think we all know and accept that the laws are in place to protect us. My question is: How well do they account for deeper, underlying emotions?”

  Luther felt his brother stiffen behind him. “Everything that we do is for the preservation of our way of life, but, as I'm sure you know, there are things that I have done that have not been in the same vein.” Viola's hair caught the light of a lamp glowing from the room’s wall and cast bright fire over all seated when she stood. “I, a viable female, willingly mated myself to a male who I knew to be infertile.”

  “What?” The hollow disbelief in his brother's voice was enough to break Luther's uncaring facade. He looked over his shoulder to see Liam's voice lax in shock as his mate continued to speak.

  “My own clan begged me not to squander my birthing years,” Viola's voice trembled slightly. “They even went so far as to threaten disowning me if I tied myself to a man that couldn't give me his pups, but I didn't listen. I mated with Liam because I love him. Because beneath the surface, despite his blind abiding to law and tradition, he is a caring, kind man who puts his family before all else.”

  There was a moment of silence following her statement, and Luther could do nothing but stare at Viola in slight awe.

  As far as he had known, as far as anyone had known, Viola had only discovered that Liam couldn't give her viable children after they'd been mated for nearly a year. If their mother and father hadn't known, and if no one in the clan had known, how had his sister-in-law possibly discovered the fact?

  “You told me what he would be.” Viola's voice had lowered so that Yuna, the only truly human occupant of the room, had to strain to hear it. “You came to me in Germany, when I was a child, and you told me that the man I loved would be everything I wanted and care for me as no other had before. You also told me that I would never have his pups.”