Bad Girls Bite

Book 2: Blood Fae Druid

by S.L. Choi

Genres: Urban Fantasy; Paranormal; Vampires

Synopsis

Being bad never tasted so good.

Lane Callaghan almost died six months ago. Her heroic deed finally achieved the one thing she always wanted and finally realized she never needed—the sun fae’s respect. While the fae no longer wish her dead, she has new bigger, badder enemies at large. And after inadvertently binding herself to the beast inside her sugar muffin, Teddy, possibly within her bedroom.

Once again thrust into the unwanted role of heroine, Lane and her sisters are hired—some would say forced—into another job. This time, it isn’t just the sun stones that are missing, sun fae are vanishing without a trace. As Lane reluctantly begins to peel back the layers of the investigation, she discovers sun fae secrets and shames that hit a little too close to home and threaten to tear her family apart.

Lane must navigate a treacherous path through lies, secrets, and escaped homicidal druids, all with the jaws of Teddy’s black wolf hovering at her neck.

 

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Release date: January 3, 2023

Publisher: City Owl Press

Print pages: 427

Sample

Chapter 1

I’d never seen anything as perfect as Teddy Barbout’s ass in denim. Hard to believe I’d staked a claim on that ass. He refused to let me brand him. Weird, but I’d wear him down. I pursed my lips and let loose a catcall. The sharp notes echoed back from the trees lining the grassy lane where, almost six months ago, my body lay shattered.

My man patted those criminally firm cheeks. “Come and get it.”

I jogged toward him and vaulted onto his back. He hooked his arms under my thighs as I wrapped my legs around his lean torso and looped my arms loose over his shoulders. The warmth from the sun on his flannel and his own body heat soaked into me. “Looks clear to me. Time to show me around your old bar like you promised.” I leaned in to nip his earlobe. I had a plan. It was a good plan.

Three hours of patrolling this ghost town was more than enough. The corrupted moon fae, along with the two stolen sun stones still in their possession, were long gone.

Teddy shook his head, his shoulder-length, bourbon-brown hair tickling my cheek. “This place doesn’t feel right. I say we do one more lap.”

I groaned and made myself dead weight on his back—arms hanging loose down his chest, head drooped over his shoulder. He tightened his hold, which was a good thing because it was a long way to the ground. Teddy was tall, and thanks to my refusal to sip from his vein, I was still a little broken. Falling would hurt.

“Lane…”

I groaned louder.

“Didn’t know my girl was a toddler.”

“If you’re trying to motivate me by wounding my pride, you’ve forgotten I have no pride to wound.” Not true, but come on, he’d called me his girl. I was all rainbows and butterflies in the general vicinity of my hearts.

“Who do you think you’re kidding?” Teddy jiggled me higher on his back, the bounce interrupting his smooth gait and causing the persistent ache in my legs to intensify.

“Sweet fangs, you’re at least eighty percent pride.” His words danced with laughter.

Teddy was being generous. Eighty percent was way too low. I watched the ground pass beneath his sure steps as we moved between buildings, following the same path we’d taken over six months ago in pursuit of my sister Mae’s kidnappers, but in reverse. “What’s the other twenty percent?”

“At least ten percent are those awful artificial cheese snacks you choke down on a daily basis.”

I gasped with righteous indignation. “How dare you malign the exalted cheesy poofs?”

He ignored me. “You’re about eight percent stubborn.”

“You might want to revisit your ratio. I’m much more stubborn.”

He reached behind him to pat my butt as we stepped into the shadowy alley between two buildings. “Two percent sweet ass.”

“Ouch, just two percent?” I laughed and squeezed my thighs against his ribs. We had mutual respect for posteriors—particularly, each other’s.

“Evidence of that pride I was talking about.”

“Ha!” I smacked his shoulder and slid down from Teddy’s back. The impact when I hit the ground sent a dull ache arrowing from my shins to my femurs.

Unable to steady myself fast enough, Teddy turned in time to get an eyeful of my wobble. He scowled, and I bared my fangs. We were not having this argument again. He shook his head and held out his hand. I melted at his gesture and threaded my fingers through his. Me showing PDA, who knew?

I’d gone all in with this male less than a year ago. Sure, I was unconscious for two months of our dating lives after I’d almost fallen to my death thanks to his delightful brother, but it still counted. I’d learned for such a big, strong, sometimes scary guy, he was nothing but a gooey marshmallow on the inside—the correct state for marshmallow perfection. I set those babies on fire. My sisters, Y’sindra and Maerwen, were as much in love with him as me.

Not that I was in love. Figure of speech.

With my five feet zero inches to Teddy’s six-foot-four, I had a magnificent view of his strong-cut jaw. My latest obsession, his lips, tipped up at their corners.

I pulled him close to my side as we walked, bumping his arm with my shoulder. “Come on, you promised to show me your life before me.”

“Not sure we have that kind of time. We’re talking a lot of years to cover.”

I rolled my eyes as he steered us onto the main road cutting through Outerlands. “Stop sidestepping. You agreed you’d take me on a tour once I was well enough to join you on the patrols.”

He grunted, and I narrowed my eyes at the dubious sound. “You might be okay limping around with me, but you’re not prepared for a

n attack.”

I shook my hand free of his. “Can we not? This place is dead. Let’s just go home. I need to finish packing, anyhow.”

Today was the big move to Las Vegas. With new real estate on the market we could afford—free—I’d said farewell to Interlands and made the move Y’sindra, Mae, and I had always dreamed of. Vaughn, the Blackthorne Casino and Resort’s vampire head of security, was less than happy, but the official letter of my legitimate claim to the luxury penthouse provided by the sun fae keepers, Iola and Torneh, was something he could not dispute.

When I’d reminded him my sisters and I were a package deal—which included my mega-hot sun fae sister, Mae—Vaughn had perked right up. His kind might be moody prima donnas, but I was on team vampire. Anything and anyone to keep her away from Cirron. The piece of shit who, less than a year ago, had carried her into the enemy’s cage and forced me to go on a rescue mission. Sure, he’d done it for his sister, but fuck that guy.

Teddy folded his large hand over mine pulling me to a stop, and he brought my fingers to his lips. “You win. Let’s go have a look.”

Despite this being my idea, I dragged my feet as we angled toward his old bar. The closer we got, the faster my heart rate pulsed in my throat. My first and only look at the place had come as I’d disemboweled soldiers and decapitated one of the most notorious spymasters in the fae’s very long history. None of which came close to affecting me as much as being forced to cut off my snow fairy sister’s wing. 

Why did I want to revisit this place?

My gut churned, as it always did, when I flashed back to the moment I’d severed Y’sindra’s wing. 

“Hey, it’s all right. We don’t have to do this today.” Teddy stopped us on the threshold to the bar. The tendons stood out over the ridge of my knuckles from the force of my grip, and my talons pricked the back of his hand, drawing blood. I licked my lips and tore my gaze away.

“No, it’s okay. I want to see this part of you.” A very specific pa

rt of him that wasn’t in his past, but in his pants. I had a plan. Not the most elaborate plan. Step one: rip off his clothes. I was great at ripping things, and it had better work. There was no step two.

With my slow healing and refusal to drink his blood, he’d wiggled his way out of consummating this relationship again and again, month after month. This celibacy bullshit ended today. 

If I got past the ghosts inside this building.

Teddy took his time looking me over from head to toe in an asexual, clinical appraisal of my well-being. I released his hand to cross my arms and tapped my toes on the white wood porch planks. This mother-hen nursemaid nonsense needed to stop.

His lips flattened into a hard line, but he pushed open the front door and motioned me inside.

I had two purposes in coming here, and the first was to confront the evidence of what happened only a few months ago.

Blood rushing in my ears, I stepped past him and blinked. This wasn’t what I’d expected. No broken furniture and not a trace of blood remained. The grapefruit-scented cleaner I was so familiar with from Teddy’s Interlands bar told me who’d done the cleaning. 

Locked in tense expectations of what I’d find and the memory riding beneath, my muscles spasmed in surprise at the soft thump of the door hitting the frame behind me. It swung back open, a slice of sunlight cutting across the room. I curled my fingers into tight fists. I flexed my hands, releasing the unspent adrenaline. This constriction of my lungs, this heightened level of anxiety I hadn’t expected. I was tougher than this, a certified badass. I’d brought down a wyvern, after all.

With a mediocre shot of confidence, I lifted my chin and waded deeper through the heavy silence I felt down to my bones. My talons raked a line into the polished bar top as I trudged toward the back corner of the big, square bar in the center of a room the size of a small grocery store.

Badass I might be, but I couldn’t drop my gaze to the floor. Couldn’t risk seeing the bloody stain where I’d maimed my sister. Instead, I looked from repaired tables to gouge-free walls, down the long hall to the new back door. Teddy and his best bud, Lo—my sister Y’sindra’s ne

w main squeeze—had been busy on their Outerlands patrols. Though they no longer lived here, why waste their time? I supposed it could be nostalgia, or maybe they were bored walking up and down empty streets.

At last, I stopped and drank down a fortifying breath. My hearts tapped my rib cage faster, harder with each millimeter my gaze fell until it landed…on an evidence-free floor. “What the hell? The floor’s clean.” More accurately, spotless and gleaming. We’d painted this place in blood, and there wasn’t a spot in sight.

“Have you seen the fights at my bar?” Teddy eased up behind me as if I were a feral beast, which wasn’t completely inaccurate. He drew a circle around my waist with his arms and pulled me against him. The delicious heat he always seemed to exude seeped into my back. He whispered in my ear, “I can clean anything.”

The tension stretching every tendon in my body to the breaking point popped, and I laughed. A little maniacal, but I’d cut myself some slack. This was an emotional roller coaster I wasn’t certain would stay on the tracks.

“There was so much blood. It had to be soaked into the wood. Did you replace the floor?” A spike of suspicion stabbed me. I spun inside his arms to face him. “Why would you do this? Are you leaving me? Moving back here? To Outerlands?”

Great job, Lane. Why not add a page to your new, fancy YML Investigations website and bare your insecurities to the world?

Teddy slid his hands down to grip my ass. “Your sister and Lo asked.” He shrugged, the movement lending a slight jiggle to my butt cheeks.

Weird Y’sindra would be interested in getting this joint cleaned up, but then it hit me. How had I not seen it? She didn’t want to be reminded of what I’d done to her, either. I still marveled she hadn’t gone into a rage and frosted me in my sleep. Instead, she swore she didn’t hold it against me. She was grateful. And what the hell was that about? Thank you for severing a vital part of my body, sis.

It wouldn’t surprise me if she was playing the long game. Girl co

uld plot and scheme like no other. I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my forehead into Teddy’s chest, the familiar ache of guilt pinching somewhere beneath my ribs.

Teddy slid his large, capable hands up my back again. He tunneled his fingers under my waist-length hair to support my neck while he tipped my face toward his with his thumbs, forcing me to meet his gaze. Unless I closed my eyes, and why not? He didn’t need to see the depths of my self-loathing.

His dark eyes, the color of fertile soil, searched mine. “I know what you’re thinking.”

“That I’m hungry?” Avoidance was key to emotional conversations.

“That you cut your sister’s wing off. You ruined her.”

“Whoa, why slap me in the face when you can hit me with a wrecking ball?” I tried to pull away, but Teddy moved his hands to the small of my back and held me tight.

“You gotta get out of your head.” Teddy bent to press his forehead to mine. My eyes crossed, trying to stab him with my death glare, but I gave up and instead focused on his lips. He had the sexiest mouth. “Y’sindra is alive because of you.”

I continued to stare at those mobile, kissable, perfect lips and shrugged.

He sighed. Breath, spicy from the cinnamon gum he’d been chewing, caressed my cheeks. “All right, let’s approach this in a different way. The alternative would have been living with the knowledge you could have cut off your sister’s wing and saved her, but you didn’t. You let her die.”

Like a lightning strike, I straightened and stared dumbfounded at Teddy’s crooked, knowing smile. Gods damn him, he knew he had me. He’d said the same thing as everyone else, but different, and forced me to view the trauma through a new lens. Enough people berated my self-flagellation over the event, even Y’sindra. They’d pointed out she was alive because of me, but this slight shift in perspective made all the difference. W

hat if I’d let her die?

I brought my hands up to frame his face. “Thank you.” Tunneling my fingers into his thick, soft hair, I pulled his face toward me.

Time for the second reason I’d brought Teddy to this little oasis of privacy.

“Don’t mention it. You—”

Our lips collided, and I opened my mouth, devoured whatever his next words might be. Heat blazed from my core through my chest. This was more than a tepid flame. This was a sun-blessed bonfire, and I wanted him. I had to have him this instant. I would not accept one more excuse from this male. “I’m no porcelain doll,” I growled and shoved Teddy against the bar.

“Lane, you’re not healed.” Even as he spoke, tried for escape, his hold tightened, and he coasted his hands down my back and slipped them beneath my shirt. Goose bumps rose on my skin as the cotton climbed with his caress.

Oh, I had him. Sucking his bottom lip between mine, I nipped just enough to sting, but not to break the skin. Even if his blood did taste like mana delivered directly from the universe, I was serious about not drinking anymore. I would not be an anchor around Teddy’s neck. My emotional hearts already depended on him. I would not add my strength, my life, to that list.

Teddy pulled away. He was reluctant as hell, first taking a small step and then following with his hips, putting less than an inch of space between us. He wasn’t getting away, not today, not now. I needed to get laid, and I needed Teddy to do the laying.

With my back against the bar, I fisted my hands in the front of his flannel and held tight. He wasn’t going anywhere except between my legs. I hopped atop the gleaming counter and pulled him precisely where I intended. He didn’t quite touch me, but he was in the right vicinity, and he fit better than anything else that had ever been between my legs. Even better than Thumper—my little pocket rocket bringing me body-rocking orgasms since I first discovered their existence.

He pushed his arms forward, and his palms smacked the bar top on either s

ide of my hips. Teddy bowed his head into the crook of my neck, his heavy breathing tickling my neck. “You know what I am.”

“Horny, I hope?”

“I’m not willing to risk hurting you. There are consequences you don’t understand, and you mean too damn much to me.” His arms strained. Veins popped on his bulging muscles for want to touch me. He wanted it. Our water bill was through the roof, thanks to all the cold showers he’d been taking.

Poor guy was still trying to resist. I hooked my feet together behind his hips and pulled him closer until the evidence rising to life in his denim pressed against the sweet, sensitive spot he explored so well with his tongue. My eyes nearly rolled back in my head. Today, I would have more than his tongue.

“This…” I moved my hips, and he hissed. My inner bad girl waved her pompoms. “Says you don’t want to go anywhere. Come on, I’m tired of waiting.”

Teddy groaned and fisted his hands at my side, still not touching me. “Lane, you—”

in my kiss. I licked the seam of his lips, applied pressure, coaxing his mouth open, and invaded with my tongue, making my intentions pretty damn clear.

While I had him distracted, I moved my right hand to the button fly of his jeans. After a few fumbled attempts, the first button came free and then the second. The third button was a different story. It caught on the fabric and refused to let go. Who the hell thought this sort of fly was a good idea? Impatient, I curved a talon under the remaining buttons, popping them off one by one.

True to his nature, Teddy didn’t have a stitch on beneath his jeans. Would he never learn? I sure hoped not.

I dug my heels into his ass and forced him to me. My gaze dropped, and my breath stuttered. The smooth head of his rock-hard, thick, and delicious length flattened his flannel against his belly. Saliva pooled in my mouth. I licked my lips, staving off an embarrassing moment of uncontrolled drool, and reached for my prize.

Teddy locked his fingers around my wrists and pressed my hands against the bar top. “Don’t you like what I do to you?” He leaned in and demonstrated what he meant with a slow drag of his tongue along my throat.

My stomach went weightless, and I whimpered. “You know I love it, but Teddy, I want all of you. Right here, right now. Stop playing with me.” I pressed my heels into the delicious divot where his lower back met his butt, relishing the heat of him between my thighs. My clit ached where his thick, hard length rubbed against me. Teddy did indeed do wicked things with his tongue, but it was time for more.

“Fuck,” Teddy ground out between clenched teeth.

“I’m trying to.” I put more oomph into my pull. He and his misguided white knight attitude made a last-ditch effort to escape my octopus grip, but I wasn’t letting him go. He could break my hold, but he wouldn’t. This not wanting to hurt me thing benefited me, not him right now.

“Come on, Teddy.” I gyrated against him, which didn’t do wonders for my tailbone, but if it got the job done, I’d take the bruise. “You want this as much as I do. Stop pussyfooting around.”

He choked and blinked at me. I should stick with sexy talk. Threats and insults killed the mood.

“I won’t break.” I strained to press my chest to his, to suck at the sensitive spot just below his ear. He was softening—his body, not his dick. He tilted his head, giving me access to his throat.

My lips curved against his flesh, and then I did the thing guaranteed to drive him over the edge. I licked from his collar to his ear. I sucked his earlobe into my mouth and then dragged a fang down the path I’d painted with my tongue.

“Damn you.” Teddy cursed, and I laughed, deep and throaty, triumphant.

He wedged a hand between us and pressed against the juncture of

 my thighs. I gasped, bucked against his hand, and threw back my head. The cotton and leather of panties and pants was almost painful.

“Damn you,” he said again, voice hoarse against my ear as he popped my button with much more agility than I’d shown. The descending zipper was a whisper beneath our ragged breaths. When my pants sagged open, he straightened from me and tried to step away.

Oh, hell no. I glared and tightened my legs, pulling him closer than I thought possible. Bless Mae and her insistence on squats.

Teddy caught himself and chuckled. “If you want those pants off, you need to get your ass off the bar.”

“Oh, yeah.” I dragged my kiss-swollen lip between my teeth. “Good point.”

I eased my hold but didn’t unhook my feet. I’d waited too long. This was so close to happening, there was no way I’d take any chances.

Teddy rolled my pants from my hips, his eyes locked on the bare flesh it revealed. When he reached my hips, I lifted my butt and let him tug my pants from beneath me.

He licked his lips, breath shaking and rough. “I can’t pull them off unless you let go.”

I shook my head. Sure, I was stubborn, but he could figure something out.

And he did, shoving a finger inside me. Surprised, I clamped down on a scream at the instant, intense onslaught of carnal sensation.

“You’re so wet. I give up. I want inside you.” He worked his finger in and out, slow, hard. “I need to be inside you.”

Reclined on my palms watching his hand work magic, I couldn’t speak.

Teddy added a second finger, plunging deep. His thumb grazed close—so close. “I can’t make love to you unless you let go.”

Shit. I thought I won, but maybe he did too? Whatever, I had to have this. My legs loosened and dropped. My feet dangled and heels thumped the bar from the sway his pumping hand created. He p

aused for a heartbeat to peel my pants and panties from my legs.

Without me holding him to me, his delicious cock leaned forward, heavy and thick.

“Are you sure?” Teddy asked, never slowing his rhythm.

“Are you kidding me?” I curved my spine into a C to pull him closer, watching the part of his body I craved bob toward me. Stars, this was torture. “Teddy,” I warned, and drilled him with the most intimidating look in my arsenal.

Chest heaving from his restraint, he withdrew his hand to slip his fingers into his mouth and moved closer.

Oh, gods. Was he trying to kill me? Body flushed, chest tight with anticipation, I once again slung my legs around his hips. This time when I pulled him to me, it was heat to heat, flesh to flesh. I slipped my hand between us, but he wrapped his fingers around my wrist and maneuvered my hand away.

“Lie back. Let me.” His chest rumbled with his growled words. He moved my hips forward until I hung off the edge of the bar. A breeze kissed my bared flesh as he reached between us and took hold of himself. I almost came undone at the sight.

I licked my lips, watching his cock fill his palm. “Anytime now.”

“Patience.” He laughed and guided himself to me. His laugh dropped to a moan as he pushed inside in one smooth, swift surge.

A scream erupted from me, and he froze. I pounded the back of his thighs with my heels. “What the fuck are you doing? Move.”

He chuckled and groaned all at once. “You’re going to kill me.”

“Yeah, if you don’t do this.” I did a little circle with my hips. He hissed. I grinned and rotated again.

He withdrew slowly. The delicious friction sent my talons into the bar top. It was too polished anyhow. He eased back inside me with the same deliberate torture. The smooth glide, the friction, set me on fire. Filled me again and left me empty. I wanted more, needed more.

I’d had him in my hands, in my mouth, but this…

My thighs shook against his sides. A tiny flame nestled in my c

ore. It sputtered, begging to be stoked. “Faster.”

Sweat beaded on his brow. His teeth gritted from holding back. He pumped into me, faster, but not fast enough.

“Harder.”

“I won’t last.”

“I don’t care. Make me scream.” My demand was a breathless plea as he tilted his hips, angling up inside me. So close. My inner muscles contracted, released. Something built and built. “Oh gods, so close.”

His restraint broke, and he hooked my legs over his straining arms, angling my hips to thrust deep. He drove in hard and pulled out fast.

That demanding thing inside me quickened and went taut. The heat, the friction, the pleasure spiraled from my hot chest to my pulsing core, all blended and tightened low in my belly, skating the delicate line between pleasure and pain.

I was on the edge of something, something huge. My body was so tight. ...