Feral Hedonism.

Lacey Savage.

Chapter One.

Fury tore through Victor McCormack's body with the vicious strength of a monsoon downpour, flooding his senses, drowning him in the fiery heat of vengeful anger. His fur bristled as he ran, ruffled by a gust of crisp morning wind. He snarled, lips peeling back from sharp fangs, jaw snapping around a mouthful of air.

She'll pay. In blood, if that's what it takes.

The vicious thought shook him, marginally souring the savage hunger surging in his veins. He'd never wanted to hurt Ali before, but d.a.m.n it, she'd left him no choice.

For years, he'd imagined what it would be like to finally have the elusive, mysterious Alison Hill at his command. Yet in all the nights he'd spent fantasizing about making her his bed-slave, he'd never once pictured having to kill her.

That Ali had to be punished for her crimes against the Zante pack, he had no doubt. Victor snarled, reminding himself he was the right wolf for the job. J.C. had put him in charge of pack security for a reason. Victor's reputation for being ruthless when it came to ensuring the welfare of his tribe was well-deserved, and he wasn't about to let anyone -- not even the Alpha's s.e.xy half-sister -- get away with trying to destroy the pack.

He tilted his head and urged his aching muscles to greater speed. When the chase finally ended, he'd have her in his grasp. He could finally make all those fantasies come true.

Maybe he'd even take his time with her, revel in the scent of her fear. He'd watch the feverish gleam of comprehension in her eyes as she came to terms with the fact that she'd taken her last mercenary job, performed her last cruel act. After all, Victor silently a.s.sured himself, whatever fate befell her now, she'd brought on herself. From the moment she'd thrust the needle into Brad Hennessy's thigh, Ali had forfeited her right to freedom.

She didn't know it yet, but the decision to inject Brad with Daniel Kraus's sterility formula had made her Victor's. As the pack's security chief, he had complete autonomy when it came to dealing with those who would harm any member of the tribe.

When he caught up with her, Ali was in for the punishment of her life.

If he caught up with her.

He grimaced, his paws digging into soft dirt. She was good, he had to give her that. She'd obviously been well trained during her time away. She knew all the tricks for masking her scent and hiding her paw prints from all but the most determined pursuer.

Well, Victor was nothing if not determined.

The musky aroma of excited female hit him square in the muzzle, igniting the rage that fueled his fevered pursuit. His prey was close. So close, he could smell the carnal flavor of her arousal as it drenched the air with pheromones. She was obviously high on her success, confident in the knowledge that she'd gotten away with destroying the Zante werewolf pack --his pack.

Her pack too, once.

He caught sight of Ali's hind legs as she ran, her sleek muscles pulsing under the soft white fur, her paws barely touching the ground. Desire stirred in his groin, sudden and unwanted. He slid through the foliage, keeping his belly low to the ground. Adrenaline flared, filling his mouth with saliva and hungry, desperate need.

She paused, her ears perking as she turned her head in his direction. He stilled his movements in mid-stride and gritted his teeth. Had she heard his approach? He'd hoped for the element of surprise, but at this point, he'd take the slightest opening she gave him.

Her dark eyes narrowed as she scanned the area, and he flattened himself lower to the ground, grateful for the tall gra.s.s that grew unabated this deep in the forest. He didn't dare breathe as she watched for signs of danger. If she caught his scent, she'd be on guard, prepared for his attack. Her obvious training would pose a problem, one he'd deal with if he had to, but one he preferred to avoid.

His gaze slid over the pure snow white gloss of her fur, and he found himself admiring the feral beauty of a were-female in full shift. He remembered what she looked like almost a decade ago, when she'd first learned to transform from a gangly teenage human into an exotic, glorious wolf. Her metamorphosis had always been flawless, her smooth limbs shifting with natural grace. He'd been enamored then. The memory of following her countless times as she ran through the night sparked in him, and he could recall the way her fur glistened, slicked back with the rush of wind, her low, sensual growls reaching his ears, stirring his blood.

She'd never learned how he'd felt about her, which, considering the current circ.u.mstances, was definitely a good thing. His feelings for her -- for the girl she used to be -- would only get in the way of what he had to do now.

He watched as she held her head high and sniffed the air, trying to catch a whiff of his scent. Her chest rose and fell with her ragged breathing, and her mouth was slightly parted, revealing only the tips of her sharp canines.

An oppressive stillness hung in the air, its potent calm rife with antic.i.p.ation. At last, she shook her head as though to clear it, turned back, and quickened her stride.

Recognizing his chance, Victor pushed himself off the ground and lunged. His first strike hit her full in the ribs. His front paws dug into her flesh and sent her flying sideways. She lost her balance, falling and rolling as he pinned her to the ground. Her eyes bore into his, darkening even further with recognition.

She rewarded him with a low, guttural growl, much too sensual for his liking. Before he could respond, her jaw snapped, teeth aiming for his neck. He barely had a chance to jerk out of the way before her fangs clashed, catching nothing but air. She followed the sudden move with another, this time driving her front claws into his chest. His flesh tore under her powerful stroke and he snarled, anger drumming in his temples.

They clung together, rolling on the ground as each pressed for the advantage. She fought well, Victor grudgingly admitted, but her sudden parries and blows were no match for his greater strength, and they both knew it. Still, she met him blow for blow, using every part of her body to gain the upper hand. Her claws raked at his fur and her teeth fought for every bit of flesh she could bite into. More unnerving than anything was the way she moved against him, sliding her muscled form over his body, teasing him with her sensual scent, driving him mad with the need to pin her to the ground and simply thrust his c.o.c.k inside her tight, wet channel until she howled with pleasure.

The unexpected thought flared into a full-fledged fantasy. He could picture her lying beneath him, her soft body molding to his, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s -- Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

He'd been so enthralled by the carnal images flashing through his brain he hadn't realized she'd begun to shift back to her human form. Stilling his motions, he initiated his own shift, then watched as her white fur gave way to hair so black it shone blue, tanned limbs, smooth, lean lines and lush curves. She had a warrior's body, toned and slim, but her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were high and full as they pressed against his chest.

When their transformation was complete, Ali's legs lay parted on either side of his thighs and his bare c.o.c.k came much too close to the tempting entrance of her c.u.n.t. His d.i.c.k pulsed with awareness as he noted it rested on her pubic bone, her smoothly shaved p.u.s.s.y silky and inviting against his naked flesh.

Her breath came in ragged gasps, caressing his face. "Victor."

The split-second it took her to utter his name was all the time he needed to take leave of his senses. Instead of yanking her to her feet and taking her back to the elders, he pressed his mouth down on hers, hard, and slid his tongue inside. A sigh slid from her lips. He swallowed it down along with the sweet, feminine flavor of her mouth.

Overhead, the sun beat down on his back, wrapping him in stifling, cloying heat. In contrast, the soft, velvety warmth emanating from between Ali's legs was altogether much too tempting. He shifted lower until his c.o.c.k pressed between her folds. Moisture slicked his shaft, driving him to the brink of madness. Her body responded, arching into him, her flesh taunting him with every small twitch and trembling beat.

She fought the intrusion of his tongue, disinclined to give him even that much, her aggressive defiance arousing him more than her immediate submission would have. Despite her unwillingness to give in to the a.s.sailing thrusts of his tongue, the soft, sensual feel of her mouth and the way she arched her back and crushed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s against his chest told him she wanted him as much as he wanted her.

At that moment, he knew exactly what he had to do.

He broke the kiss and trailed his lips across the angle of her cheek. "You've been a bad girl," he whispered in her ear. The closeness of their bodies couldn't hide the tremble that ran through her at the sound of his words. "You have to own up to what you've done."

Ali took a deep breath and released it on a shuddering sigh. "Great. So I suppose you're taking me back to the elders."

"The elders?" He should. Oh, G.o.d, how he should. But he wasn't going to. J.C. had given him absolute authority to do with traitors and criminals as he wished. Ali was both, which meant his jurisdiction and his power over her was absolute. He intended to make the most of it. "Oh, no. I caught you, which means you're mine, and mine alone. No one else is going to share in your discipline. Do you know the way to fight fire, Ali?"

She wriggled against him, fighting to get free. "With fire. I've heard that line before."

He chuckled at the way her voice quivered, though she tried to mask it. "What would be the fun in that?" Still holding her wrists, he raked his teeth down the side of her neck and lowered his mouth to bite sharply on her puckered nipple. Ali swore low under her breath and wriggled beneath him, the movement only serving to push her breast closer to his mouth.

"Oh, no, sweetheart. There's only one way to fight your brand of fire." He paused, letting his words sink in.

"And what's that?"

He hesitated for only a moment before replying, knowing it was much too late to change his mind now. "With pleasure. And you, baby, are in for the punishment of your life."

Her high, wild laugh held no humor. Victor grinned and rose abruptly in a fluid motion, yanking Ali to her feet beside him. If she thought he was joking, he had more to teach her about authority than he'd thought.

Without another word, he swept low and gathered her around the waist. Lifting her off the ground, he hoisted her over his shoulder.

She squirmed, beating her fists on his back. "What the h.e.l.l do you think you're doing? Put me down!"

"Master," he said, orienting himself and heading in the direction of the nearby highway.

"Excuse me?"

"Put me down, Master. That's the proper way to address me from now on if you expect me to listen to anything you have to say."

The torrent of blows falling on his back halted. "You can't be serious."

He blew out a breath between gritted teeth. This was definitely going to take some work. "You can't be serious, Master."

Chapter Two.

Confident of her impending success, Ali had every detail of her celebration planned before she'd even stepped foot in the clearing where J.C.'s mating ceremony was to take place. She'd known that once she accomplished her mission -- and she'd had no doubt that she would -- she'd meet with Daniel, collect her pay-off, and then spend the next day reveling in the rush that always came with a job well done.

Bound and blindfolded by a man with an ego bigger than Texas was not the way she'd imagined spending her euphoric day. d.a.m.n it, she'd gotten the job done! Daniel would have been delighted with her performance. Until she'd slammed the needle home, Brad had had no clue she'd been playing him.

She'd had every minuscule component of the mission planned out. By the time the sedative effects of Daniel's formula wore off Brad, she was supposed to have been long gone. Brad's lover, Sean, she hadn't considered a threat. A mere human couldn't match her feral speed and agility. Besides, judging by the lovesick puppy look she'd seen in his eyes, there was no way Sean would have left Brad's side to sound the alert.

So what had gone wrong?

How had Victor known to come after her? She'd had to go through him to gain admittance to observe J.C.'s mating ceremony, of course, but she'd played the family card to perfection. At the time, he hadn't seemed particularly suspicious. At least, he hadn't snarled at her any more viciously than he'd snarled at any other prospective guest.

No matter how often she replayed the previous night's events in her mind, she couldn't figure out where she'd slipped. Even more frustrating was the knowledge that her mistake had to have been one of gigantic proportions.

Otherwise she wouldn't be lying here naked, wrists and ankles cuffed to G.o.d-knew-what, a black silk strip covering her eyes and dampening her sense of perception. The surface beneath her felt smooth and oddly pliant, like the soft padding of a downy pillow. The edges of the blindfold itched where they touched her forehead and the bridge of her nose. Ali wrinkled her brow and shook her head, but the feeble attempt at scratching provided little relief.

d.a.m.n him. d.a.m.n that arrogant, infuriating man!

Victor had carried her the entire way to his mansion over his shoulder. Ali had no way of knowing how long the trek had taken, but she judged it at about an hour. At first, she thought he'd have a car waiting by the highway, which was only a few miles from where he'd caught up with her, but he'd traversed the side of the road on foot instead. He'd kept to the seclusion of the woods, and when they reached his mansion, Ali had only a brief glimpse of a high, plastered wall and a cream-colored hacienda-style villa behind it, its arched doorways and wide balconies completely at odds with the peaceful, natural look of the forest.

Like Brad and his cozy gingerbread cottage, Victor had apparently chosen to make his home where he felt most comfortable. Ali couldn't blame him, she supposed. She'd never felt more at home anywhere than out in the open, with the hard soil beneath her paws, the wind ruffling her fur, stopping only to drink from a nearby brook.

At the memory of running free, Ali squirmed and tugged at her bonds. She tried to shift into wolf form, but metal bit down on her flesh, pinching the smooth skin of her wrists and ankles, preventing her body from initiating the transformation.

Gritting her teeth against the pain of an incomplete shifting attempt, she struggled to regulate her breathing and listened intently for any sign of Victor's approach. In the forest, she'd missed the obvious signals of branches snapping, the soft crunch of leaves under paws. She didn't intend to make that mistake again. When he came near her, she'd be prepared.

Not that she could do much bound spread-eagled on a flat surface, but at least he'd no longer have the element of surprise.

Unfortunately, all she could hear was the tell-tale thump of impending doom. Or maybe that was just the thundering of her pulse pounding in her ears.

The first caress was no more than a feather-touch down the center of her belly, starting just below her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and ending at her pubic bone. Under any other circ.u.mstance, it might have made her tremble with desire. As it was, it only made her scream.

"Victor, you son of a b.i.t.c.h. I don't know how you do that, but I swear, when I get out of here the first thing I'm going to do is make it so that you never sneak up on anyone again."

A chuckle, low and throaty, slid through the room. "You'll tie bells to my shoes?"

Ali's entire body shook with barely contained rage. "How dare you kidnap me and tie me up like this? I'm royalty, or have you forgotten?"

Silence greeted her outburst. Her heart thumped hard against her breastbone as she waited for a response. Any kind of response. Another laugh, perhaps, or a wry retort. Or even a harsh blow. None of it came.

She'd begun to think he'd left the room without her noticing when another brief touch sc.r.a.ped her flesh. This time, the hand moved up her arm, over the curve of her shoulder, and stopped at the tender hollow at the base of her throat. She shook her head, as though that would clear the phantom touch away.

It didn't work. Another hand brushed her skin, this one sliding down her inner thigh, perilously close to her l.a.b.i.a. Heat suffused her c.u.n.t at the realization that she was completely open to him. She squirmed, trying to stifle her body's unwelcome reaction to Victor's touch.

When the third set of fingers cupped her breast, her sharp intake of breath rang through the room. "What the h.e.l.l?"

More hands followed, more sensual strokes. Her nerve endings flared as she struggled to see or hear something -- anything that might tell her how many people were touching her body. Not knowing was maddening. Understanding that this was all part of Victor's plan was absolutely infuriating. At least it gave her a solid shred of hatred to cling to as she fought against the rising tide of pleasure.

"If you're doing this because I wouldn't call you that stupid name, a few gropes won't make me change my mind. You're not my --" The word lodged in her throat. She clenched her jaw firmly shut and thrust out her chin in the direction she thought him to be.

"Consider this your first lesson." Victor's voice was smooth, controlled, lacking the uncertainty her own tone had held only moments earlier. She hated him for it.

If he'd brought her up in front of the Zante elders to face the charges they'd lay upon her, that would have been one thing. She could have handled that. But this -- this game Victor was playing wreaked havoc on her nerves.

"I'm not going to do this with you." There. She'd managed to tell him what she thought of his stupid lesson and her breath hadn't even hitched in her throat. It wasn't much, but she'd take the small measure of satisfaction wherever she could get it.

As before, he didn't respond. Fingers moved with an expertise borne of practice up and down her body, only lightly grazing the places that were rapidly awakening beneath the sensual ministrations. A dozen scents tickled her sensitive nostrils, ranging from spicy aftershave to vanilla shampoo. Among them, Ali's own potent arousal stood out sharply, as did Victor's natural scent, a heady blend of sandalwood and pine.

Her p.u.s.s.y flared as another hand slid inside her thigh. She felt long, tapered fingers brush her outer l.a.b.i.a, and she fought to suppress a shiver as an icy chill ran down her spine to blend with the fiery heat slicking her skin.

It was a man's hand, but not Victor's. As he'd carried her through the forest, he'd kept his palms clamped tightly on her a.s.s, and they'd been broad, firm, confident. This man's fingers were slimmer, longer, his palms narrower.

A light pinch on her right nipple made her groan before she could think to suppress the sound that slid from her throat. The fingertips that rolled her nipple between them were cold and delicate, definitely female.

Something soft brushed the side of her abdomen, and she sank her teeth into her lower lip as she recognized the unmistakable feel of lips pressing against her skin. Lower still, nails trailed upward from her ankle to her kneecap, then back down again. Long, silky tresses fell like rippling waves, tickling her stomach.

"What kind of lesson is this?" She'd promised herself she wouldn't give in, but the merciless teasing caresses were beginning to drive her to distraction. If she could only figure out Victor's plan, she might be able to deter him from this maddening course.

There's only one way to fight your brand of fire.

His voice rang through her mind, though her question hung unanswered in midair. No one else had spoken. The people who were taking such liberties with her body seemed eager to contribute to her slow, sensual torture.

Victor had promised her pleasure, but that made no sense. She should be punished for what she'd done to the tribe, especially since her mission had been a success. Brad was probably even now sowing his seed in the tight a.n.a.l pa.s.sages of every male member of the pack, and with it, the formula that would spell the end of the Zante pack.

So why was Victor languidly subjecting her body to this carnal ecstasy? She arched her back into the smooth sweep of a tongue as it slid inside her navel and swirled, sending a tremor of sensation through her bunched muscles.

Master. That's the proper way to address me from now on if you expect me to listen to anything you have to say.

"Enough." She hated the pleading edge that entered her tone, but she couldn't help it. Pain she could deal with. Anger and rage she could understand -- h.e.l.l, she'd lived with them her entire life. But this was much too foreign. She licked her lips and swallowed back the bile that rose in her throat as she uttered, "Master."

"Good." The tone of approval sent heat pooling in her belly. She rebelled against it, clenching her teeth until her jaw hurt.

"I don't understand why you're doing this."

"You need to be taught a lesson. I don't believe you're as evil as your actions have proven you to be." He trailed the back of his fingertips over her cheek and down into the valley between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Even among half a dozen other pairs of hands, she could recognize his touch. It was like no other, awakening a fire deep inside her c.u.n.t that pulsed and burned with each delicate stroke.