while he thrust hard. I tensed around him, intensifying the friction, and he made a noise somewhere between a moan and a growl. His fingers dug into my hips while he buried himself so deep inside me I rode the line from pleasure to pain and back again.
Faster and faster he thrust, and each time our skin smacked together in a rough, desperate frenzy, I lost a little more of the hold I kept on my control. When his teeth bit down on my nipple and he drove into me so fiercely I thought I might end up inside the tree, I buried my fingers into his hair and jerked his neck to the side.
He didn’t stop biting me, not even when my fangs pierced his artery.
His blood filled my mouth, and every time he pumped into me, more of that precious liquid spilled over my tongue. I drank deep while he fucked me, and then it came. The moment that brings vampire blood donors back for more. The stinging pain of the bite changed, and the pleasure rode him. He cried out, fingers digging so hard into my skin I would be bruised, and his rhythm became more vigorous as the ecstasy of the bite mingled with the cresting orgasm from our wild coupling. I pulled back, licking the wound to seal it, and gasped as his thumb circled my core while he drove into me, pushing us both over the edge.
We collapsed onto the forest floor, too exhausted and bleary-eyed to move or speak for a long, long time. When we finally disentangled our sweaty limbs, he looked at me with astonishment. “I don’t know what to say.”
I smiled at him, one eye half-open. “You can start with thank you.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Ceremony night.
I was a bouquet of raw nerves.
Considering everything that could possibly have gone wrong on this trip had gone wrong, I was certain a disaster of Titanic proportions was waiting for us at the ceremony site. Lucas was so positive it would run smoothly he wasn’t willing to accept that anything bad might happen.
I wasn’t willing to listen when he said it would all be fine.
How could it be fine?
The closest I’d come to shifting since I was a baby had been in a do-or-die moment, and I hadn’t a clue as to how I’d shifted my hand then. How was I supposed to turn myself into a wolf when I’d spent my adult life burying the ability as deep inside of me as I could?
We’d been given black robes to wear for the ritual. I guess the wolves didn’t see much point in dressing up when they would be getting naked again to change forms. When Lucas and I left our cabin, there was a trail of lit tiki torches lining the way into the woods. Although no proper path existed, after years of wolves trekking the same way into the woods, a groove had long ago been worn into the forest.
We followed the queue of black-cloaked wolves as they made their way to the site. Some chatted casually, like this was nothing out of the ordinary. Others bowed their heads in quiet contemplation, clearly viewing their shift as a kind of religious experience.
Dominick walked behind us, Morgan and Jackson in front. Eugenia and Ben worked their way into the pilgrimage a little farther up the path, and she looked back, throwing me a smile and a wave. I waved back but couldn’t make my lips form a smile.
I was going to throw up.
I remembered my imaginary top-ten list of worst experiences ever. If I got into the ceremony circle and didn’t shift…well maybe the whole damned list would have to be revisited.
Sensing my unease, Lucas took my hand, and we walked that way for the rest of the journey. He’d been looking at me differently since our woodland sexcapades. An expression somewhere between reverence and worry. Who knew what was going on in his head? He hadn’t tried for a second round.
We arrived at the ceremony site, amongst the last to show up except for Callum. When Lucas and I entered the circle, the whole pack bowed their heads as one. Callum entered behind us, and they all removed their hoods and lowered to the ground, bowing before him.
“Let the ceremonial fire be lit,” he commanded, his huge voice filling the circle of trees like he were wearing a microphone.
A middle-aged pack member pulled one of the torches from the ground and threw it onto