Animal Instincts Read online

  “Mattayas.”

  He bit down, growling at her scream, releasing into her at her shudder. His cock thickened, stimulating her again...if it did so with a Lyx bitch.

  Her blood coursed into his mouth, salty and pungent, imprinting her scent into his hardwired memory. She could never hide from him now—he could track her, wherever she went.

  His cock had just started to ease when Seten pulled at his shoulder. Mattayas growled at him, his shoulders tensing, unwilling to leave her.

  “They’re coming, Mattayas. We are outnumbered.”

  His mind warred with his instincts. Normally, they would tell him to run, but it was his mind telling him that now. They had to leave, but his stubborn Wul instincts roared a protest at the idea. What was it about the bitch that did this to him?

  Mattayas thrust his wrist in front of her mouth. “Mark it,” he ordered.

  She hesitated, though she had no reason to. He was offering her the same advantage he had over her. He wanted her to have it.

  “Now!”

  “Mattayas.” Tragan’s hands joined Seten’s, pulling back at his shoulders without success.

  She nuzzled then bit down, her short, sharp teeth drawing his blood then retreating. Her rough tongue teased at the wound, drinking him down. His body was on fire, pulsing, leaking more come into the liquid heat between her thighs.

  “Mattayas!”

  He nodded. Their escape would be a close thing. Mattayas swept his hand away from her mouth and left her body, his heart aching at her soft protest.

  She curled to her side, shaking, her thighs pressed together, her bound hands drawn up beneath her bloodied mouth.

  Mattayas pulled his shirt over her and rose, shifting form and leading his pack mates away. His sensitive hearing picked up sounds of the Lyx pursuit, the sound of his name from her lips...and the bitch’s name.

  Anha.

  * * * *

  Everything happened at once. Mattayas and the other Wul toms were gone, and she laid there, abruptly cold and aching.

  “By Luna,” Eva—the queen’s-queen of their nest—proclaimed, appearing at Anha’s side.

  She stripped Mattayas’s shirt off with a disgusted grimace, and Anha shivered convulsively, her fingertips and lips numb. Anha sucked in her lower lip in an effort to warm it, groaning at his taste flooding her mouth again.

  “Your shirt, Ronel. Then catch those beasts,” Eva ordered.

  A shirt covered her. Anha thanked Luna for its warmth even as she acknowledged that she missed Mattayas’s scent. She whispered his name, letting her eyes slide shut.

  “All is well, Anha. The fems and queens protect our own.”

  But Anha didn’t want protection. She wanted Mattayas, his cock working her, his mouth teasing her. Her inner muscles clenched in aftershocks, and she sobbed in the intensity of it.

  The toms departed at a run, leaving her in the company of only the older fems. Anha kept her eyes shut, exhausted.

  There was little discussion among the others. Two went to work at the belt around her wrists, increasing blood flow to her hands. Others searched for injuries. Anha kept her legs clenched together when they sought to spread them. They moved on without forcing the issue.

  Eva cupped her cheek and prodded at the bite, prompting a hiss of pain from Anha. Her neck and shoulder throbbed in early healing.

  “The cursed Wul,” Eva spat. She lowered Anha’s head with a caress along her jawline. “Still now, young one. We will bathe and care for you.”

  “She injured two of the three, by the signs,” Zuma whispered. As Anha’s eldest sister, Zuma took pride in the fighting prowess of another fem of her sister-bed.

  Anha didn’t answer that. She’d injured one. The other...

  Why did Mattayas insist I mark him? What reason could he have for it?

  The fems eased Ronel’s shirt around her body and lifted her between them. Her head spinning, Anha let sleep drag her down.

  * * * *

  Mattayas shifted back to human form, passing into the inner den buck naked—to employ a sad human pun—since he’d abandoned his jeans and boots at the shift. As if an answer, Seten handed the former over silently. He must have scooped them up as he ran, guarding Mattayas’s back.

  He pulled them on, leaving them unbuttoned. It was a safe bet he’d be washing up shortly, and fastening the denim over his semi-erect cock sounded less than appealing.

  Not that clothing was strictly necessary. He could walk around the den or outside nude, and no one would think anything but that he was comfortable that way. The lack wouldn’t be a problem until the autumn rains and winter snows fell again.

  Seten and Tragan rested, their breathing slowing. They’d run the whole way in human form, and they weren’t happy about it.

  Finally, the demand came...from Seten. “What in the sun’s fire was that, cousin?”

  Mattayas warned him off with a growl and started moving again. In truth, he wasn’t certain what lunacy had gripped him, and he didn’t want to discuss it while he was in such turmoil. The most disconcerting thing was that he wanted more of it. Mattayas licked his lips, savoring Anha’s flavor...her mixed flavors: blood, female musk, and saliva. It had been a feast, and he felt he would starve without it.

  Other pack members approached then pulled back from him, some with sneers or comments that he should wash the Lyx stench from his body. Were the only scent that of the buck, he’d have agreed, but Anha’s scent was neither unappealing nor unwelcome.

  Still, he headed for the underground river at the edges of their tunnels and waded in to his waist with his jeans on. The current buffeted his sensitized cock, urging him up again. He plunged his hands in, wincing at the sharp pain of Anha’s bite, healing over though it was.

  Mattayas let his eyes drift shut, laying his head back. Visions of Anha taunted him. Mad thoughts of tracking her and stealing her back plagued him.

  What is wrong with me?

  His sire’s voice added to his inner turmoil. “Mattay... Dear Luna, Tragan! Have a healer see to your face.”

  “It will heal,” the young buck countered, probably envisioning honorable battle scar stories, though he’d be lying to claim it.

  “Now,” Dievan growled, putting the full weight of alpha buck behind his command.

  One set of footsteps moved away. Seten obviously stayed.

  “What happened, Mattayas?”

  He sighed. “Two were in our territory.”

  “And?”

  “I killed the buck.” And experienced something I’ve never dreamed of with the bitch. With Anha.

  “You were injured.”

  It wasn’t a question. Still, Mattayas had no clue how to answer it.

  Seten saved him the trouble. “He gave the bitch his blood, after he took hers.”

  “Anha,” Mattayas informed him, bristling at anyone else calling her a bitch, though it was the proper form of address for a female and not a slur. “Her name is Anha.”

  “What difference does that make?” his cousin snapped.

  “I... I don’t know,” Mattayas admitted. It shouldn’t make a difference, so why did it?

  His sire’s voice was strained calm. “Leave us, Seten.”

  Mattayas immersed himself in the river, then rose and strode toward his sire, buttoning his jeans.

  Dievan sat atop a boulder, his eyes assessing every move Mattayas made. Mattayas hoisted himself next to his sire, bracing one bare foot on the rock before him, in case an attack was in the making.

  “You gave her your blood? You gifted a Lyx that power over you?”

  It was a matter of honor that he not lie to his pack mates. Mattayas prepared himself for punishment. “I did. Luna help me, it was madness, and yet...it felt right.”

  There was a moment of tense silence between them. “You must never see her again.”

  His breathing hitched, though Mattayas had expected that and worse.

  “Find a bitch in the den, son. Forget this Lyx bitch.
If she tracks you here, we will kill her...and you will lead the hunting party that accomplishes it.”

  Mattayas couldn’t respond to that. It was probably better that he didn’t; doing so would have prolonged the discussion and might have led to an order to track and kill her immediately. Something told Mattayas he couldn’t risk that.

  As it was, Dievan left with that little instruction.

  * * * *

  Anha pushed away the quilts piled over her, wincing as her muscles protested her bid to rise from the sister-bed. She relieved herself in the dirt-corner, feeling raw and empty, then staggered toward the common nest in search of food and water.

  Her head was fuzzy, and she was uncoordinated. Overall, it was a disconcerting state for a Lyx to find herself in.

  Her musing of how long she’d been unconscious was answered by a wail in the common nest just ahead. Anha knew before she’d breached the tunnel mouth that it was Thoman’s queen.

  The sight of the old fem holding her son’s bloodied shirt shook Anha to the chilled core of her being. Meera screeched her agony, and the sound of shredding material overlapped with it.

  Memories cleared Anha’s senses with a rush of ice down her spine. Thoman was dead, and Anha was the one who’d bid him come out for a romp. Thoman was dead, and Anha had reveled in the cock of his murderer, before the tom’s body had even gone cold. She’d accepted his mark. She’d obeyed him and taken him like a submissive little mate.

  Mattayas.

  Anha weaved on her feet, grasping at the smooth wall as if it would provide purchase. It didn’t, and she found herself on the floor, holding weakly to consciousness.

  The room went silent, and she forced her eyes to focus. As she met Meera’s eyes, Anha wished she hadn’t succeeded.

  Thoman’s queen stood, surrounded by her fems and Anha’s, tears streaming down her face. Anha slumped against the wall, waiting for blows, harsh words...banishment.

  Meera crossed the room, squatting before Anha, the bloodied shirt fisted in her hand. Anha stared at it, choking on a sob.

  “You drew blood on them?” she asked.

  Anha nodded, not trusting that words would issue forth if she attempted speech.

  “Did you scar them?”

  She hesitated then nodded again. Mattayas might carry her mark...or not. His beta would.

  The fem took a calming breath. “Then I can find them. I can kill them.”

  “Meera,” Eva began.

  She ignored the queen’s-queen of their nest and focused on Anha, her gaze panning to the meat of the younger fem’s abdomen. “Is there a chance?” she whispered. “Did my son deposit to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I hope to Luna his seed catches in you.”

  Anha’s lips trembled in mixed emotions. “I hope so, as well.” Then why does it feel as if I am betraying Mattayas to say so? He was a Wul, and she owed him nothing.

  Anha’s sisters moved toward her, as Meera turned toward her sister-bed. They lifted her and took her back to the privacy of their nest, promising food and water she wasn’t certain she’d be awake long enough to sample.

  Animal Instincts

  Chapter Three

  Mattayas snuffled at the Lyx marks, his head aching in the strong afternoon light. He’d waited half a moon to attempt tracking her. He’d been at this insanity for nearly a moon, and he hadn’t caught more than a faint whiff of her yet.

  What am I doing here?

  But he knew that well enough. He was searching for her scent, for whatever news of Anha it would provide for him. What he didn’t know was why he was doing it.

  He caught scent of a bitch hunting party and abandoned the question to follow the faint trail of what might be Anha...or a sibling or dam of hers. He had to catch a stronger whiff to know for certain.

  Their hunt had been successful, a young deer. The bitches had trampled each other’s scents in the preparation to move the kill. Mattayas was about to give up the track when he caught scent of what could only be Anha.

  He followed it away from the others, finding the spot she’d chosen to relieve her full bladder. It was what he’d been waiting for, what he’d hoped to find.

  The scent was strong in female musk...and bitch’s warning. His heart stuttered. By Luna, she carried young. But who was the sire? Her weak Lyx buck...or himself?

  His parenting instincts rose up strong and fast, demanding Anha and whatever brood she carried. Even if they weren’t his get, Wul raised the young of others, though they’d never raised a Lyx cub that he knew of. He’d heard tales of human babies raised by the pack...even young wolves taken in, but never Lyx.

  His mind cleared enough to reason the problem fully. If he took Anha to his pack, his sire would order her killed by Mattayas’s hand. Her pack would never accept him. What did that leave them? Even if he stole her away, they would be without the pack, and their strength was in their communities.

  Still, his instincts raged at him to claim her. Anha was his. She’d accepted him as her mate.

  The battle between his reason and his instincts was driving him mad. Mattayas growled and ripped at the ground, marking half-over Anha’s with vicious precision and purpose. That accomplished, he threw his head back and howled out ownership, then turned tail and ran for his own territory, secure in the knowledge that he’d made his meaning clear.

  * * * *

  Anha rolled off the sister-bed and into a crouch at the sound of the Wul howl so close to the nest. Her heart pounded, and she’d shifted halfway into her Lyx form before she reasoned that Mattayas and his betas would have to fight through a full third of the nest length to get to her current position.

  Her fems surrounded her, offering their comfort and assurances that they would defend the nest and her against any marauding force. In moments, the younger fems were in a group on the bed while the eldest of their number went in search of news.

  It seemed to take forever, and sounds of debate rose in the common nest. Finally, Zuma returned with Eva. There was a tension about them, as if they’d come to some decision they didn’t like...or Eva had forced a decision on Zuma that Anha’s sister didn’t agree with but had to accept.

  Anha stared at them, waiting for whatever was coming.

  “The Wul have violated our territory. Our toms cover his rancid stench, even now,” Eva offered.

  There was more. There had to be. Anha couldn’t force the words to question what it was.

  Zuma offered the next bit of information. “He tracked your scent, Anha. The one...” She motioned sharply, showing her unwillingness to state what Mattayas had done. “He marked over your scent and—”

  “Why?” The inquiry was out before she could leash her tongue.

  Eva’s jaws snapped shut in aggravation. “We can only assume it was a sign that he means to harm you.”

  Again, silence fell, heavy and suffocating.

  “You are not to hunt, Anha.”

  Her heart stuttered. Anha was a good hunter, and it was a matter of pride that she provided for the nest, as all able-bodied fems should. She opened her mouth to protest, but Zuma cut her off.

  “Eva has decreed it is so, Anha. If the Wul tom returns, we will do our best to kill him. Until then...and as long as we scent him on our lands, you are to remain nested.”

  Animal Instincts

  Chapter Four

  Anha stared at the three babies curled to her chest on the bed, piled together and sated from their first meal. They were born, all three toms, and she still had no indication of who their sire was.

  They’d gestated for six moons, a half-moon longer than most Lyx did, but not out of the realms of possibility for a Lyx brood. It was a full moon shorter than the average Wul brood gestated, which gave her hope that the young were of Thoman’s seed and not Mattayas’s.

  Young always smelled of their queen alone for a moon or more. Then their sire’s scent would out. It was to hide the new young from predatory males who might harm them but didn’t dare attac
k with a queen protecting them.

  Further, they all had black pelts, just as she and Thoman had. Had the young been born with red-brown pelts, their sire would have been clear. Black told her nothing, since her own black pelt might have won out in the mix.

  Not even their eyes would give a clue to their sire for ten nights or more. Until their sealed lids opened, the color was a mystery.

  Anha sighed, stroking her fingertips through the silken fur of the largest of her sons, smiling as he purred in contentment. Surely, purring was a noise a young Wul wouldn’t make.

  She sobered. If they were Mattayas’s young, they weren’t fully Wul, which meant she couldn’t anticipate what attributes they might display.

  She pulled her hand back, torn. What would she do if the young were Mattayas’s and not Thoman’s? If she bonded with them, and they were of Mattayas, how would she hand them over to death?

  I must. If Mattayas sired them, I must hand them over.

  Then why did her heart ache at the thought of it? Why did tears burn her eyes and throat at losing them, even now?

  Because they are my sons!

  Even if they are monsters?

  Visions of Meera gutting her sons or tearing out their throats in retribution for the wrong done Thoman left her cold and quaking. She’d do that. Eva would sanction it.

  Her youngest yawned widely then pushed off the elder babies. He wiggled over them and rooted his way to a nipple, latched on, and snuggled his feet to her chest.

  Anha’s heart softened, and she placed an unsteady hand on his back. “You’re no monster. Are you?”

  * * * *

  Anha laughed, nuzzling her rolling sons. They were much more active than they’d been the first week or so. Now they cooed as well as purred, grunted and grumbled, cried and screamed. And they laughed.

  Missayan wriggled toward her and stroked his face against a primary breast. He didn’t suckle, as Anha thought he would. Instead, he tipped his head back and opened one eye a slit.