The Devil's Pride (Wild Beasts Series) Read online

  The Devil’s Pride Copyright © 2016 by T. Birmingham

  First Edition: 5 November 2016

  Wild Beasts Series Copyright © 2016 by T. Birmingham

  http://www.tbirmingham.com

  Original Cover Image by Kruse Images and Photography

  Cover Models: Kristina Canady, Noah Bartholomew

  Original Cover Design by Sassy Queens of Design

  Paperback and Electronic Book versions formatted by Irish Ink

  Editing by Underline This Editing

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Epilogue

  Glossary of Terms

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Because you are energetic, strong, capable, odd, loving, ridiculous, jovial, beautiful, and amazing individuals (should I go on? This is like your only chance…), and you have made this world a better place just by existing (PS Mom – Thanks for that, and for everything else, BTW).

  Love you,

  Wee

  “A beast does not know that he is a beast, and the nearer a man gets to being a beast, the less he knows it.” – George MacDonald

  Mud clung to her body like a second skin. Sticky yet smooth. Foul smelling. Bloody. The red blood and the wet dirt mixed together, and she panicked as she tried to get up, tried to climb out of the pit she’d found herself. Instead of slipping along the sides of the shallow pit and making her way free, though, she was met with red eyes in a shadowed figure. The figure was barely corporeal, and yet, it had a density to it that made her feel caged by its very presence. Its eyes bore into her, and she tried to scream, to let loose the fear that was building to a crescendo inside of her.

  The thing with the red eyes did not want her to scream, though. It wanted her to suffer, to be a prisoner in her own mind. And trapped she was, as she lay still again in the shallow pit, staring into the abyss of stars and sky and darkness. She felt a pressure against her chest and then a pop in her ears before her breaths became more shallow. She tried to move, tried to fight, tried to take in a breath, but the pressure was too much, too—

  She was lying on a cold, marble floor, and as she moved to stand, she realized the marble was scaled, and the cold, hard, impenetrable pattern made her shudder in fear. Her breath still came shallowly, but she knew what she was here for and she just had to reach him. She tried to shake off the memory of the pit, of the suffocation, but she couldn’t. She could feel the evil from the red-eyed thing seeping into her very soul, and she curled in on herself in pain.

  And that’s when she felt him – her Midnight. And suddenly, she could breathe. Suddenly, her vision was clear. Not red-tinged, blurry, or limited by the depletion of oxygen to her brain. Her Midnight was her breath.

  “Red,” he whispered next to her ear as he took her into his arms.

  “Midnight,” she whispered back hoarsely. His smile cleansed her soul, and she let herself be carried to the far side of the room.

  Her feet hit the ground, and the sound reverberated through her body, but the feeling wasn’t a bad feeling. The feeling was total awareness. His hands caressed her body, looking for injuries maybe, but her injuries were not on her mind. Her Midnight was…and as his hands made their way around her frame, she was having trouble breathing for very different reasons.

  He heard the hitch in her breath, and he lifted her chin to gaze into her eyes. His grey-green eyes bled to black and she shuddered at the animal who waited there, who needed her so badly, he’d been set free.

  “Red,” her Midnight warned, but she wasn’t having his coddling. She needed to breathe again, and her Midnight was going to give that to her just as she would do the same for him.

  She grabbed on to his large hands with her own and pulled them behind her, telling him where he needed to place them and she reached up and without hesitation met his lips with her own. She bit at the seam of his lips, demanding he give her what she needed, and she felt the moment he gave in, the moment his control broke completely.

  His lips tore at hers in a passionate kiss that had her falling against him and forgetting all that was going on around her. She slid her hand slowly up his exposed, strong milk-chocolate-colored chest and smiled secretly as she felt the hand she’d placed behind her move to her front and slowly slide under her skirt hem to the inside of her thighs. He moved into her side to get a better angle and slowly – so slowly she could feel every movement of his hand and fingers against the contours of her thick, beautiful thighs – he made his way higher.

  She needed him to touch every part of her – become every part of her. She wanted to be so absorbed in her Midnight that nothing else mattered, nothing else existed. She reached up to wrap her hand around his neck and pulled him roughly against her just as that heavenly large hand found the spot she’d been dying for him to touch.

  “Please,” she whispered, tightening her grip on him even further, this time using her claws to dig into his shoulders. A move that resulted in a growl that shook her to her core.

  She couldn’t get enough. She needed him inside of her, outside of her, all around her. And when his lips met hers, she could tell that as much power as he had over her, she had just as much over him. And she enjoyed that power. She enjoyed their vulnerability and strength. Because they were both of those things when they were together. What they had was ethereal, beautiful, forever.

  His hand moved faster beneath her skirt, and her breath caught at the sensations hurtling and spiraling her toward an a chasm, a cliff she knew her Midnight would take her to and run off of with her. She curled her animal’s nails into his back, scoring him, marking him, letting everyone know that he was hers and she was his.

  “Please,” she repeated as she pulled his taller frame down. She bit his earlobe with enough force to make his erection tick just a bit, and she could feel his hardness against the side of her belly.

  His raw, rugged hands came out from under her dress, and she briefly missed the pleasure-pain of his rough caress. Then, he lifted her, his hands leaving light bruises on her hips, as he adjusted himself at her opening. Good God, she’d needed this. She’d needed to dominate and to be dominated. She’d needed the power of this moment as they came together. He entered her in one swift thrust that had her coming so fast, she screamed with the beauty of the moment. She could feel him moving inside of her, and as he moved, the fireworks she felt increased one-hundredfold. Her toes curled and her head felt light and ready to explode.

  She could sense other bodies in the room, other souls, but it was the one inside of her who mattered. Her head fell back in ecstasy as he wrapped his strong lips around the dark red nipple hidden by her thin red shirt. He bit down on that red bud only slightly, but she gasped as another spasm lit inside of her.

  “Oh my god,” she whispered or yelled – who the fuck cared? The feeling of him surrounding her was so intense, she couldn’t f
igure out where her Midnight began and she ended as he lifted her up and down on his velvety smooth fullness.

  “Fuck,” he whispered before once more bringing himself roughly to the hilt, so deep inside. She could see it in the strain of his neck muscles that he was about to let himself go.

  He wouldn’t let go yet, though. Not without her. She felt the fireworks moving through her entire body yet again, and he pulled her closer to him. She felt his warm breath on her neck just before he pulled her head roughly to the side, and his sharp teeth entered her exposed neck in a smooth glide of lovely torture—

  Alexia awoke to the curtains being opened by her roommate, Mindy Choudhury.

  “Lex! Alexia!” Alexia acknowledged her name with a grunt. “It’s really time to stop having sexy dreams now,” her best friend crooned as she opened the curtains even further. Mindy’s pixie-cut black hair had a bit of a sparkle in the morning sunshine, which only made Alexia want to rip it out at the moment.

  “Light. Bad. You. Suck,” Alexia sort of slurred, and pulled the covers back over her head.

  “Your alarm’s been going off for an hour,” Mindy huffed. “You really need to set it to a loud buzz like the rest of us. Music doesn’t wake anyone up; it’s too soothing. Come on, dream slut!” She proceeded to pull off the covers and headed into Alexia’s closet to pull out an outfit for her. “It’s Tuesday, and we’ve got Advanced Cultural Anthropology with Professor Anderson in literally a half hour...” She continued talking, as Alexia remained in bed, thoroughly spent from the emotional backlash of her latest dream involving the mysterious Midnight.

  “Mindy,” Alexia said. “Mindy.”

  Still, her best friend didn’t listen.

  “Mindy!” Alexia yelled. Finally, Mindy turned around and looked at her, Alexia’s favorite blue Poets of the Fall t-shirt, and one of her many pairs of Old Navy Rockstar jeans in hand.

  “What’s up?” she asked casually, like she hadn’t just disturbed one of the most interesting fake experiences of Alexia’s life. Although, it had sure felt real.

  “Ummm, so you know those dreams I’ve been having about Midnight?” Alexia asked, toes curling under her comforter just at the sound of his name leaving her lips.

  “You mean the Midnight from your dreams who has given you more orgasms in the past few months than you’ve had in the last eight years?” she asked, with a tone that had Alexia’s toes uncurling. She was right of course. Didn’t matter if the guy was eighteen or twenty-six, most of them were incredibly obtuse and incompetent when it came to the O-factor.

  “Yes.” Alexia pouted, hopping out of bed and rushing into the bathroom to get ready. From the view in the mirror, she could tell that her hair was going to take some work today.

  Her deep, red, curly locks were always wild after a night of working at Trappe’s, but it was just hair, and Trappe’s was one of her favorite places in the world. Having Mindy working on the accounting books in the back while she tended bar and waitressed was just an added bonus. The fact that Damon, the oldest of the Trappe brothers and also their boss, was damn fine didn’t hurt either.

  “That’s why you need to find a real man, hon. Someone like Cam who’ll make your toes curl,” Mindy said, emphasizing the word curl like it meant good sex. Toe curling definitely meant good sex, but despite the most recent and somewhat cryptic dream she’d just had, the Midnight man who’d occupied her dreams these last few months had definitely given her some toe-curling good sex.

  Mindy read her mind. “And dream toe-curling doesn’t count.” She laughed, and when Mindy laughed, it was without abandon. Despite her snarky comment, and the fact that Alexia hated it when Mindy was right, she smiled. Mindy was just that good, though. Her uncanny ability to sense a person’s mood was impressive. She put people at ease, and she always seemed to say the right thing, at the right time, and in the right way.

  “So, you had another dream about tall, dark, and deadly?” Mindy asked.

  Alexia popped her head outside of the bathroom while Mindy sat down on her own bed like she too wanted to curl her toes. She had dark, brown eyes and skin that resembled the color of espresso, but even with skin that dark, Alexia could have sworn her best friend and roommate was blushing. Alexia’s clothes, which Mindy had held in her hand, were now left forgotten at her side.

  “Yep. Another deliciously sexy scene,” Alexia said and she could practically hear her best friend salivating. She propped herself against their bathroom doorway as she brushed her teeth and thought about the strange pre-Midnight dream that had happened this time. Blood and mud. She almost spat out her toothpaste. She could still smell the foul scent from the gore that had clung to her, that had almost suffocated her. She brushed off the dark thoughts and quickly finished brushing her teeth before grabbing her Poets of the Fall t-shirt and her jeans from the bed next to Mindy’s.

  Mindy, in a shift dress, leggings, and fake Ugg boots, had the most perfect hourglass shape outside of a 1950’s pinup ad. Alexia, on the other hand, had hips. She wasn’t a size six like her best friend, and yeah okay, she was an apple bottom girl.

  “But damn, Mindy,” she said, as she hopped into the most comfortable pair of jeans in the world. “This was hot. I mean like the hottest thing I’ve ever felt.”

  Alexia continued giving her specific dream details as she threw on her t-shirt and applied light pink lip gloss. Her blue flats were next, and as she put them on, she shared the part where Midnight had lifted her all beast-mode-like, and Mindy squealed and mock fainted. Mindy also made a comment about how Alexia had been reading too many paranormal romances. Alexia just scoffed and advised there was no such thing as too many paranormal romances.

  The Supremes’ “Baby Love” suddenly played loudly, signaling that Mindy had a phone call. It was a Tuesday morning, so Alexia knew it wasn’t her parents. Mindy’s parents called every Sunday evening at 7:00 pm and spoke to her for exactly fifteen minutes. Their regimented attitude and almost indifference to their daughter had put Alexia on the wrong side of too many arguments with them over the past eight years since the two had met freshman year of college.

  Mindy took the phone call in the hall outside of Alexia’s bedroom, and by her occasional giggle, Alexia could tell the caller was male. That meant Detective Cam Waters, who she’d been seeing the past few months, even though Alexia had to hear about him for the past year. She’d never seen Mindy so taken with a guy.

  Since she was waiting, Alexia attempted to tame her deep, blood-red curls. After throwing on some cream, and working it in, her hair started to resemble its normal tousled look. Curly wisps fell halfway down her back and framed a pale face. Her cheekbones sat high; her nose was small and symmetrical with a slight tilt; her small mouth was as bright as the red of her hair; and her eyebrows were a light shade of red that stood in dark contrast to her pale skin. It was, ironically, her crimson eyes that made her stand out, though. She still remembered how the kids at the foster homes and state facilities had made fun of her because of her strange eyes.

  It wasn’t until she was adopted at fourteen by the Martinez family, and had moved to Montville, New York, that she’d found stability and acceptance. She’d done well since then, but at the state homes and especially the last – St. Martins Youth Facility – she’d been made fun of. Not that being bullied was unusual in the foster care system, but no matter where she was sent, the other kids in the group homes had always taken one look at her eyes, and never failed to choose the same nickname: demon. Alexia had since accepted she would always be a little different, but her time in Montville, and her time with the Martinezes, her adoptive family, had taught her that everyone was a little odd and being different was a blessing, not a curse. Still, even at 26, it hurt when someone looked at her eyes in an unusual way.

  Mindy was finishing up the call as Alexia grabbed her blue book bag to head to class. She pulled the phone closer to her and said, “I love you, too, Cam,” before hanging up.

  “Love?” Alexia asked with c
uriosity after Mindy had put her phone in her back pocket. They had talked about Cam – a lot. And they’d even gotten together with the man in question quite a few times. In fact, Alexia almost considered him a friend. He was nearly as smooth as her dream man, although maybe more so since he was real. He was also a tall, sexy detective, so Mindy was obviously infatuated. But love? Alexia hadn’t seen that coming. She waited for an emotion to bubble to the surface, but this was Mindy, and Alexia pushed aside the worry she thought she would feel. Mindy deserved all of the happiness in the world, so the only emotion Alexia could find was complete joy when she saw the smile Mindy gave her in answer to the question of love.

  “Yep!” she said, running over to the front closet to grab her gold Michael Kors book bag. “He’s amazing! The best man I’ve ever been with. The kindest, most compassionate soul. I mean, I know we’ve talked about him, and you’ve hung out with him, so you know. But still. You don’t know how he is with just me. It’s like we connect on this deeper level. I always thought girls who talked about soul mates were strange, but now…” She paused. “Yes. Yes, I am incredibly in love!”

  She had the brightest smile on her lovely, heart-shaped face, and Alexia couldn’t help but answer with a smile of her own.

  “It’s too bad we can’t double date,” Mindy added. “I mean, unless you want to describe your Midnight man to one of the art students on campus. They could draw up a nice life-size caricature to bring—”

  “Enough!” Alexia said, laughing. Her best friend was happy, and life was beautiful.

  “Seriously, though,” Mindy said as she put a hand on Alexia’s shoulder and smiled. “Girl, you need to get laid. Like ASAP.” She smacked Alexia’s ass, opened the door, and ran down the main hallway, shouting something about “midnight,” “real men,” and “orgasms while awake.”

  Alexia didn’t bother listening. She locked the door to the apartment they’d had for the past four years, and followed her down the hall. Mindy might be smaller, but Alexia could run circles around that girl, and she caught up to her in no time.