Chapter 10

My vision unblurred as my heart slowed a bit, and I blinked up at the ceiling, staring at a crack in the paint until it came into focus again. Raven still hadn't moved, his hands resting on my shoulders. His fanned-out hair concealed his face completely. If I tucked my chin slightly, I could feel it, silky-soft and cool. The scent of it mingled with sex and sweat and magic, all lemony sweet and musky.

His relaxed weight on my chest gave me an ache deep inside it that had nothing whatsoever to do with compression of my lungs—he wasn't big enough for that.

Raven probably hadn't gone to sleep, but he had gone totally limp.

As if he trusted me. Not to hurt him, not to take advantage of having him tied to me with my knot…and possibly even to protect him.

He'd said he didn't trust me, but maybe he really had meant it only as a commentary on my clumsiness and not in a more general sense.

Although if I were him, I might not trust any alpha, anywhere, ever, and in that post-nut clarity that swept over me as I lay there in the quiet, scenting Raven's bone-melting deliciousness and savoring his slight body draped over mine, I wished to all the gods I hadn't said that stupid bullshit about "if you were mine." That must've sounded like more of the same to him. Another day, another alpha wanting to own him.

No doubt he'd be really impressed if I explained that it wasn't the same at all, because I was nothing like Cunningham.

Right.

On the other hand, my hands ached like a bitch, so I'd need to at least convince him to let me free them from the mattress.

"Raven," I said softly.

"Tony," he murmured without moving, and something that felt like one of my ribs, but wasn't, cracked and twanged.

"I'm going to get my claws unstuck. Half my arms are buried in the bed." Nothing. "Am I allowed to touch you now?"

His slight motion in response could've been a shrug. Anyway, he hadn't said no, so I started dragging my hands out of the fluff and springs and threads that had wound around them, my claws scraping unpleasantly as I tried to retract them.

Raven shuddered. "That's a horrible noise," he complained muzzily, lips moving against my chest.

My sudden desire to protect him from all horrible noises in the future had to be a sign that I'd finally lost my grip on reality.

At last my hands tugged free, bits of mattress stuffing floating up into the air and settling around us like dusty, sneeze-inducing snow. I flexed my fingers, getting my claws retracted all the way, and then—he really hadn't said no. With infinite care, holding my breath, I let my hands drift down onto his bare back, one in the center and the other on his ass, honestly, not his back. But I couldn't resist that soft curve. So smooth, so round, so lightly jiggly. And when I squeezed his cheek, I felt the tug of it inside him, around my knot, in his tightly plugged hole full of my come—

"Is that a purr or a growl?" Raven asked, sounding slightly more alert, if breathless. "I can feel it more than I can hear it."

"No, tigers can't purr," I said without thinking.

His head popped up, eyes glittering, hair hanging all around his face in a tangled, silky web.

"Ha!" And then, "Ha!" again. Raven grinned at me, a dimple appearing in one flushed cheek. "You really aren't all that much smarter than you look, are you?"

I really, really wasn't.

"You," I said, getting a firmer grip on his perfect handful of an ass, "really ought to be more careful," and I braced my feet, "about what you say to the weretiger who has you—"

"Oh!" he cried out, his eyes growing round. I shoved off and flipped us in a move fully worthy of someone who'd spent as much time working a strip club stage as I had.

"—knotted and pinned," I finished in a low growl, as his head bounced on the pillow and I landed on top of him, his legs around my thighs.

I'd held him flush against me so that my knot couldn't pull painfully on his stretched hole, but he whimpered, eyes sliding shut, as I thrust down into him, circling my hips, stretching him even more.

"I may not be much smarter than I look," I said, "but that doesn't mean you can get away with anything you want."

Raven opened his eyes and blinked, fluttering his lashes. "I'll be more circumspect in future." His voice quivered, and the corners of his mouth twitched. Oh, for fuck's sake, what now… "In fact, it'll be—oh, ha, it'll be—grrreat!"

And his face scrunched up and went rosy pink as he dissolved into helpless chuckles, his eyes shiny-bright.

For a long moment, I simply couldn't believe my ears.

Grrreat!

Fucking son of a bitch.

My parents had been blissfully unaware of the connotations of being a weretiger named Tony, American cereal ads not having been a part of their Turkish cultural consciousness. A few thousand miles had been enough to keep them ignorant.

But a fairy, an actual magical being from across the divide of our mortal realm, somehow apparently knew about Tony the Tiger.

I stared down at him open-mouthed as he howled with laughter, vibrating with it, muscles clenching rhythmically around my knot, massaging me. He had my half-hard cock, fuck, my hardening cock, buried inside him, and he had the nerve—oh, he was going to get it.

Bracing my knees, I shoved deep into his wet heat. Raven choked, his laughter cutting off in a long, shaky moan. Another thrust, working my knot against his sweet spot, my cock splitting him open as I stirred his insides, and he moaned again, head thrown back against the pillow, staring up at me transfixed.

"That's right," I said, and thrust again. "You want to play that game? I can play that game."

"What—oh, gods above—what game? I'm not playing any—oh!"

"Yes, you are, and I'm winning."

Jesus Christ, yeah, I was winning, because I was balls-deep in the most beautiful man I'd ever met, ever even imagined, fucking him in earnest, now, pounding him into the shredded remnants of the bed, making him mine. At least for now. For tonight. For this stolen moment out of the twin chaos of our fucked-up lives.

I lifted him up with the arm I still had wrapped underneath him, holding him close, feeling his legs tangled around mine and his arms winding around my neck and my cock inside him and the sweaty heat between my muscled chest and his soft skin, our combined scents twining around us and making me lightheaded.

Or maybe that was just the oncoming rush of another orgasm, as irresistible as a tidal wave.

Raven's hair brushed my lips and cheek as I turned my head to find his mouth—and he twisted away from me with a pained-sounding murmur.

That stung, gods, sending a lance of pain all the way down into my stomach, but I latched onto the side of his neck instead, sucking hard, the flavor of him bursting on my tongue, bright and sharp and sweet.

If he really did belong to me, I'd mouth down to the juncture of his shoulder and bite, mark him, claim him.

Sparks burst behind my eyelids as I thrust harder, impossibly deeper, into the grip of his body, and filled him again, with a sudden cresting thrill that verged on agony.

He cried out, a counterpoint to my muffled roar, and more wetness spread against my stomach.

Nothing existed but him. My whole body shuddered, the twisting aftermath of my climax tugging me inward, and I let my head drop down to rest a bit above his, forehead on the mattress. Somehow, even after being flipped like a pancake and vigorously fucked with a knotted alpha cock, he'd managed to keep himself perfectly centered on the pillow.

Maybe I was lucky he'd snuck out the other night. Three times his size, and I just knew I'd have ended up clinging to the edge of the bed with no blankets or pillows.

Or on the floor.

He wouldn't be sneaking out tonight, magic or no. My arm tightened around him without any conscious input from me, and he mmph ed at me as his ribs creaked.

"Sorry," I mumbled into his hair, and forced my arm to relax.

Tucked all the way under me like this, he had to be either suffocating or crushed even without my too-possessive grip, and I started to push up.

Raven's surprisingly strong hands dug into my shoulders, tugging me back down again. Well, all right. No arguments from me. Missionary position was the worst for knotting in some ways, because then you had to hold a plank for half an hour if you didn't want to squish your lover. Maybe Declan was onto something, taking another alpha as a mate. He'd be durable.

Of course, Raven seemed like a good middle ground. Not an alpha, which was great, because I wasn't attracted to guys who looked like me, and most alphas ran to the big and muscled and rough. But…shockingly durable for someone so delicate-looking. And fresh-smelling, despite two rounds of sweaty, knotted sex. Mmm. I nuzzled into his apple-blossom-scented hair.

"I wanted you to kiss me," Raven said, so abruptly that it startled me out of my impending slide into total relaxation.

That statement demanded my full attention, and I pushed up to look down into his face. Christ, why did he have to be so…so…he hadn't been crying this time, because I'd have noticed, but the shiny corners of his eyes and the tightness around his mouth caught at my heart in a way no one else's emotional displays had ever done. Usually I figured people would sort out their own crap unless they directly asked for my help, and I much preferred it that way.

Not with Raven, damn it all.

Gods. He'd wanted me to kiss him. The bubbly sensation in my chest made me a little bit embarrassed to exist.

"Then why didn't you let me?"

He turned his head a bit and met my eyes. The gods only knew what mine were showing him, probably too much. But his had clouded over, the shimmering polish of his jet-black irises dimmed.

"You've heard about eating fairy food? What can happen to someone from this plane of existence?" His mouth turned down at the corners, and I'd never wanted to kiss him more, even as the pit of my gut started to sink like he'd dropped a brick into it. "It's all true. It's a very bad idea. You can't consume something that's not of the mortal world without it having an effect, usually unpredictable and even more usually undesirable."

"And your bodily fluids are the same. If I consume them. Is that what you're telling me?" Fuck me. The headaches and the longing and the protectiveness…not that he hadn't warned me. Although. "You know, you could've tried a little harder to explain why I should keep my mouth to myself."

Raven's eyelashes swept down and up again in a slow blink that was almost more catlike than an actual cat, and I should know.

"My general attitude toward alphas can be summed up as ‘go knot yourselves and die.' I made quite an effort, considering." I raised my eyebrows at him, and he sighed, one corner of his mouth quirking up. "Unfortunately for my total lack of concern for your well-being, you haven't been completely dreadful. In fact, in some ways, you're grr—oh!" He pressed himself back down into the pillow. "That's what your actual growl sounds like. Ah."

Good to know he could take me at least a little bit seriously, for fuck's sake, although the way he lay still and lax under me, my cock slowly starting to soften inside him, suggested I hadn't actually scared him.

Even better.

And anyway, I had more questions.

"Is it cumulative? I mean, you said it might wear off. You thought. And by the way, if you think that counts as quite an effort, you know, try harder." A slight nod was all I got in acknowledgment. Little fucker. "But if I kiss you now, will it actually make it worse? Whatever the hell you've already done to me? And don't pretend it was only the effect of kissing you. You whammied me to knock me out the other night."

"It's also the effect of licking me. My sweat isn't any better than my saliva."

"Not an answer," I gritted out. "And way to make it sound gross instead of hot, dude."

He tensed up slightly, sending one last ripple of sensation through my now truly exhausted cock, his fingers digging into my upper arms.

"If you call me ‘dude' again," he said primly, "I'll use my magic to change your name from The Hammer to Tony the Tiger on every piece of promotional material your club puts out from now until the end of mortal time."

That cartoon tiger in a glittery G-string…wearing my face?

I dropped back down against the edge of his pillow to hide my expression, but my shaking shoulders gave me away, and he poked me in the ribs until I pinched his side and made him squeak and cut it out.

"Fuck," I wheezed. "Fuck. But you really overestimate the good taste of Lucky or Knot's clientele, Raven. I'd sell out the house as Tony the Tiger. All I have to lose is my dignity."

"Will you pinch me again if I point out that you don't have a lot of that to lose?" The warm, relaxed amusement in his voice took all the sting out of the words.

After all, when I fell down on stage the other night—still his fault, I hadn't forgotten, simply chosen to forgive—it'd been all right when they were laughing with me instead of at me.

"It's the glitter," I finally managed. "It doesn't leave you with a lot of dignified high ground."

And then I remembered what I'd said to Dominic about girls and corvids, and I lost it again, whooping with laughter, my soft-at-last cock slipping out of Raven as I shook with it.

I rolled over and off of him, our bodies unsticking in a way that made me wince, and flopped onto my back, the bed giving a horrid screech under me.

With my arm still trapped under him, it only took one quick motion to tug him with me and nestle him against my side. A little to my surprise, he didn't resist, his arm coming to rest over my chest. The weight of his head on my shoulder, the silkiness of his hair…I stared up at the ceiling, not laughing anymore.

It'd been on the tip of my tongue to say something about how next time we needed to find a sturdier bed. Much sturdier. Did any super expensive hotels offer beds made out of titanium?

But it hardly mattered. There wouldn't be a next time. Why the hell hadn't I insisted he meet me earlier than midnight, of all the stupid times, so that we had more of the night together? It had to be two in the morning already, and now that I'd focused on it, the seconds seemed to be racing past, galloping their way to the inevitable end of this. The gods only knew how Raven had gotten away from Cunningham for a few hours, especially since he'd been with me two nights ago, too. I knew alphas, and I knew toxic, asshole alphas, and suspicion and jealousy and controlling scrutiny came with the territory. Someone like that would keep tabs on Raven. Obsessively, even.

And Raven had sounded close to panic when I demanded to see him. At the time, I hadn't cared much. What a difference a couple of hours could make.

"How are you getting away with this?" I asked, when the silence had stretched to the boiling point.

Raven tensed up against me, but he didn't waste his time, or mine, pretending not to understand what I meant.

"The bargain we struck gives him a great deal of power over me," he said, his voice surprisingly steady. The wild heartbeat hammering against my side told a different story, and his body had gone almost rigid. So much for post-coital relaxation. "But I'm powerful too. Even if I can't use my magic to hurt him, and I'm obligated to belong to him for now, he's not stupid or na?ve, and when I tell him I require time alone to commune with the air, he knows better than to push too hard. And I'm very good at covering my tracks, luckily for you and your lease on life. Besides, he has his own obligations that keep him busy much of the time. I'll pay for it, though," he added, in a weary little undertone that made my teeth clench.

Given my previous total focus on making Raven pay for the way he'd cheated me, which I finally had to admit to myself had been a cover for my desperate need to get him under me again—which had, in its turn, probably been a function of having kissed and licked him too much for my magical health—I hadn't spent a lot of time thinking about the bargain's terms and the coin's bizarre behavior.

But now…

"So why didn't it work? Paying me for a mirror image of what he paid you for. You said it needed symmetry, right? Why?"

"If I knew, then I'd obviously have done something else," he snapped, sounding much more like himself. "And it needs symmetry because it does. Because that's the way these things work. It's not something I can explain to someone who doesn't simply feel it in his bones."

Christ. "You can try to explain it, at least. I'm not actually a complete fucking moron—"

"Then stop acting like one!" He wrenched himself out of my hold and landed on his feet beside the bed, moving with the lightness and grace of someone who really could command the air—or commune with it, whatever the fuck that meant. Raven stood with his back to me, shaking out his hair, clearly putting himself together mentally and physically.

Getting ready to leave this room, and me.

I shoved up to sitting a lot less gracefully and swung my legs over.

"Don't," he said tightly, without bothering to turn or look at me. "Don't touch me again."

"I won't if you don't want me to, but—"

"No. You won't." Raven's voice rang with total finality.

Something like panic wrapped a big hand around my chest and squeezed. "Look, come on," I said, hating my own pleading tone. "No. We need to talk about this. You used me for this crazy plan of yours. Now I'm involved, whether I like it or not. I can feel the effects of your magic on me, okay? You owe me."

Raven spun on me, hair flying and floating in the air, and glared down at me with that innate magic of his sparking in his eyes and shimmering around his pale, perfect body. Most people looked silly or vulnerable when they were naked, one reason why stripping took more skill than we usually got credit for.

Not him. I gazed at him, transfixed, a shiver working its way down from the tingling crown of my head to the soles of my feet.

Magic. He was pure magic. And for a moment, I almost pitied Cunningham: he might think he had the upper hand, but he was playing with fire, trying to own and tame an elemental creature like this.

Almost. Because Cunningham deserved to burn. And in the meantime, Raven was trapped and suffering.

"As I already told you, I fulfilled my side of our bargain," he snarled, vicious, teeth bared, a feral wild thing struggling against its fetters. "I said I could offer you the coin. And I gave it to you. I never guaranteed that you'd keep it."

"You know damn well that's wrong! No, not incorrect," I gritted out, as he opened his mouth to argue, "morally wrong. And I know you're not actually angry with me, because I haven't wronged you in any way, and we both know that. So get off your damn high horse."

A shadow of something like guilt flashed across his pointy little face and was gone again. He lifted his chin.

"I'll do no such thing. But you're right. I'm not angry with you, I'm frustrated by your stupidity and stubbornness. I'm going to shower, and I expect it to take me quite some time. I'd be very grateful if you were long gone by the time I emerge."

And with that, he spun on his heel and strode for the bathroom.

As if I didn't even exist for him anymore.

But I was faster than he was, and I launched myself off the bed and into his path, forcing him to fetch up short, inches from touching me. He stumbled back a step.

"I'm not just going to leave," I said. "Not without—"

"Without what?" he demanded. "There's nothing to say. Nothing to do here. Fuck, fine. If you truly feel that I owe you, as soon as I'm reasonably able to do so, I will send you the equivalent monetary value of the coin. You have my word. Are you happy now? Will you please stand aside? And then go. Please."

If it hadn't been for that second please , which never would've left his mouth if he hadn't been desperate, I probably would've done any one of the dozen things I burned to do. Grab him, kiss him breathless, bear him back down onto that wreck of a bed and wreck it, and him, a whole lot more.

But he'd said it. He'd asked me not to touch him, to leave him alone. He'd asked me.

It took every bit of willpower I had. Raven standing there nude and gleaming and rumpled, with my come dripping down his beautiful thighs, could've tempted a saint. And I wasn't any saint.

I clenched my fists, claws pricking my palms, and I stepped aside.

"Oh," Raven gasped, and he hesitated, eyes darting away from my face and then back again.

Had it shocked him that much that I hadn't simply taken what I wanted? Gods. I held my breath. Maybe he'd change his mind…

And then he walked past me, eyes fixed ahead of him, and shut the bathroom door behind him with a terribly final click.

The shower came on with a rattle and whoosh, but I couldn't hear anything else, and with my alpha hearing in play, that meant he had to be standing perfectly still and practically not breathing. He hadn't locked the door, either. I'd have heard the extra snick from the doorknob if he had.

Was he waiting for me to ignore him and follow him into the bathroom? Take him in my arms and get in the shower with him, and then, what, whisper to him that I'd make everything all right? Protect him from Cunningham, help him think of another way out?

My laugh echoed bitterly in the quiet of the room.

Yeah. Right.

That was my fantasy, not his. He just wanted me gone, a complication that he'd enjoyed more than he expected to, maybe, but that he really didn't fucking need.

So I dressed as quickly as I could, ignoring that I needed to piss and wash up myself. The alley behind the parking lot would take care of the first, and I'd be home soon enough to get in my own shower for the second.

To make it clear to him that I'd done what he wanted, I tossed the room keys on the nightstand, and then I slipped out and shut the door firmly behind me before I could rethink it yet again.

For a long moment, I stood there in the hall, letting the miserable gray and brown of the carpet and wallpaper blur in my vision, my mind's eye full of Raven: in the shower, tipping his head back so he could slick his long hair down his neck; leaning against the wall, forehead resting on his arm, the water beating down on his round, rosy ass and washing away every trace of me.

And then stepping out of the bathroom, towel around his waist and hair dripping everywhere, all shiny and scrubbed and pink.

Looking around for me, maybe. Even though he'd commanded me to go, somehow I knew he'd be taken aback by the gloomy, sordid emptiness of the dingy room and the ruined bed. He'd see the keys there. He'd know I'd really gone.

Would he be relieved or secretly, horribly disappointed?

I'd probably never know.

I shook my head and walked away, every step feeling like I had weights on my ankles.

But I went. And I didn't look back.