In many ways, Titus felt as trapped as Desdemona by the expectations of the world. The weight of his position as Alpha hung heavy on his shoulders. In the beginning, he had hoped to make things easier for everyone. And maybe it had. For everyone but him.
When he arrived at the hotel, he parked in front of the building and tossed his keys to the valet. On his way into the lobby, he met the Blackrose coven walking out. Kyran was dressed in a long black coat that contrasted deeply with his pale skin.
The vampire’s eyes shined on Titus and a smile curved on his red lips.
“Titus Silverdrake, what a pleasure,” Kyran said.
“We need to talk, Kyran.”
“Here and now?” Kyran asked extending his hands.
“In private.”
“We just checked out.”
“I have offices in this building. Follow me.”
Kyran and his entourage followed Titus down the hall and around the corner to the private offices the Silverdrakes kept in this building. Titus nodded for the rest of the coven to wait outside while he and Kyran went in. The offices downstairs near the kitchens were sparse, but the clan kept them for organizing events in this building. There was a simple waiting room and a single office in back. Titus walked into the office and sat behind the desk, motioning for Kyran to sit across from him.
“Usually I would meet you at my high-rise offices, but this will have to do.”
“What is it, Titus? I don’t have time for this.”
“I came to Chicago last month to discuss a missing shipment with you. That shipment still hasn’t been located. Since it was last seen in a port under your control, you have a responsibility to help me find it.”
“This isn’t about the shipment, is it, Silverdrake? This is about the girl.”
“Leave her out of it.”
“I think we both know that is impossible.”
“That isn’t what I came here to discuss.”
“Oh, but that’s what I want to discuss. All those years ago, you ignored that girl. You broke her heart and made her feel small. She came to me and she told me what she wanted. It wasn’t unreasonable. If she wanted to have a bunch of babies, then why not let her? I would have given them to her. But you didn’t want to let me. You took her away from me.”
“I didn’t take her away from you. Gama took them all for her spell.”
“Don’t bring the goddess into this. She has nothing to do with it. You rejected Patrice. Why don’t you just admit it and stop blaming everyone else for your mistakes?”
Titus slammed his fist on the desk, causing a hairline crack to grow in the cheap fiberboard surface. He gritted his teeth and stared at Kyran with violence in his heart.
“She needed more time, Kyran. If you truly cared about her, you would have known that.”
“Why do you think you get to decide what she needs? How was that your job?”
“It’s my job because she’s mine,” Titus said.
Kyran stood, laughing. “Not yet, as far as I know.”
“The Silverdrakes and the Blackrose have been allies for thousands of years. Don’t jeopardize our alliance with your jealousy. Desdemona came with me from the temple. She will be my bride. You will not interfere again. And if you have any information about my shipment, I suggest you tell me before I take this up with the allied counsel. I’m sure your brother and the rest of the counsel will be impressed with how you’ve handled this situation.”
Kyran’s expression went dark, and he stood up straight and still like a statue.
“The truth is I know nothing about your shipment. I investigated it myself. From what I can tell, it left the port as scheduled. I know what is happening in my own port. If I were you, I would stop focusing on me, and start looking at possible suspects around the lake. Keep your own house, Titus. And if you want to keep Desdemona, I suggest you keep her well.”
Kyran turned with the grace only a vampire could exhibit and left the room. Titus with left with a storm of emotions ranging between anger and regret. Kyran was right. About more than one thing. He had to believe the standing leader of the Blackrose coven when he told him that the shipment left the port. Titus had been too narrowly focused and perhaps he had been with Desdemona as well.
By the time Titus emerged from his office, the Blackrose coven was already gone. It was a relief to have Kyran leave town. Titus didn’t want any chance of he and Desdemona bumping into each other again. For all the difficulties that he and the little witch had, Titus knew that she was his. He knew it more now than ever. Desdemona had told him herself that she had never really loved Kyran.
If she truly did love Titus, then she had to accept how he loved her. Even if that meant he didn’t always give her exactly what she wanted. How could he when she was so very young, and he was so very old? Protecting her meant something she didn’t understand. Kyran didn’t understand it either. Titus had always believed Kyran had gotten involved with Desdemona simply to annoy him. His opinion on that hadn’t changed.
But despite their old rivalries, it was time for Titus to stop suspecting Kyran in the disappearance of his shipment.
16
Desdemona clutched the neck of her sweatshirt, already missing the feeling of Titus’s arms around her. In the few minutes before he’d left the penthouse, they had come closer than they ever had before. Desdemona finally felt like they had a true understanding. Now that she had a fuller view of what had happened between her and Titus in the past, she could better understand what his position had been all along.
He truly had tried to protect her. As Desdemona stood in the dining room of the penthouse, she felt a surge of memories roll through her brain. Images of her past life flooded her consciousness. All the pieces started to fall into place and she finally understood the woman she used to be.
Patrice had a temperament like her own but without the formative years of humanity. She was born an immortal and was always treated as one. She’d lived a much different life from Desdemona.
Now Desdemona’s soul had lived multitudes of lifetimes, her cycling through human life over and over again. Compared to Patrice, Desdemona was an old soul. Perhaps now she could be with an immortal like Titus, the Alpha of the Silverdrake clan. She hoped it could be true.
She went to her rooms and changed, wondering when Titus would be back. She looked at herself in the mirror in her bathroom, the memories having given her a much better understanding of who she was. Her face looked different, more complete somehow.
Desdemona finished her hair and makeup before heading back out into the penthouse. As soon as she walked into the main hall, Titus entered the front door.
“You’re back,” she said, feeling nervous. “Did you learn anything?”
“I learned that Kyran is not our problem,” he said, looking at her intently from down the hall.
“Really? What is the problem, then?”
“There are always problems, Desdemona. The question is how we choose to deal with them.”
He strode down the hall closing the distance between them in a few long steps. He gathered her up and pulled her to him. She sucked in a startled breath of anxiety mixed with relief.
“And how should we deal with our problems?” Desdemona asked, her body quivering with awareness of Titus’s body against hers.
“Directly and without fear,” he said, pulling her over his growing hardness.
“Without fear,” she breathed.
He picked her up in his arms. The long jersey dress she’d put on draped over his arm as he carried her down the hall. Desdemona felt all her lifetimes leading up to this moment, and converging in an instant of utter preparedness. Titus intended to claim her. Her body was alive with desire and openness to him.
He took her to his bed, laying her across the soft dark fabric. His eyes burned into her soul. She reached out to him. They’d been separated for so long and now they would finally be joined together. Her palm brushed over his smooth, strong jaw. The smell of his
cologne awakening her lust. His hard cock between her legs made her bite her lip. He’d just had her for the first time the night before and her body was still raw and sore.
He ran his hands up her bare thighs, his tongue darting in and out of her mouth. Desdemona groaned, pressing her sore pussy against his hard cock. Titus’s fingers slid through the leg of her panties, feeling her wet, swollen core. He groaned, sliding her dress off and leaving her in her panties and bra. The tie he’d worn hung over her naked stomach as he moved down her body, slipping off her panties. His tongue dampened her trembling need.
Slowly, gently, he licked her swollen flesh until she felt ripe and awake, ready for more. The tip of his tongue flicked the tip of her clit, sending a jolt of desire into her nipples. Titus pressed his tongue into her channel, sliding the smooth flesh in and out of her, making her sopping wet with need. Desdemona watched him pleasuring her, panting and groaning. He stood, pulling off his tie. His eyes burned with desire as he took off his clothes. When he returned to her, he flicked off her bra and ran his tongue over her budded nipples.
Sucking her breasts, he put his hand to her pussy, flicking her clit with his thumb while pushing his fingers up inside her. The pleasure could not be denied. She couldn’t hold back any longer. Titus moved up to kiss her while sliding his fingers into her core. She groaned and gripped his shoulders, her pussy pulsing with release. She gasped for air and groaned, yearning for more. For all of it.
Titus slid his cock over her slit, pressing against her softness. Letting out a breath, he pushed into her. She groaned again, feeling him open her for the second time in her life. She arched her back and gasped, feeling him enter her again so soon. It was like icy fire, pleasure and pain.
He kissed away the pain and bitterness. All that was left was the sweet feeling of his body inside hers. He held the back of his neck, reveling in his tenderness.
“I understand now,” she breathed into his ear.
“Understand?”
“How much you love me.”
“Oh, babe.”
He kissed her again and slid into her in waves, drawing out long bursts of liquid pleasure. The thrust of his hips punctuated the thrill of him inside her. She wanted to forever be this close. She groaned, feeling her orgasm squeeze her pussy around his shaft. He thrust harder, pushing her further toward release.
After all the hundreds of lifetimes she had waited to be with Titus like this, she was finally able to have him. Being so close and sharing their bodies, minds and souls, Desdemona felt a rush of connection sweep her up and carry her away on the flood of her orgasm. Titus continued to move above her like an unstoppable force. He was so strong and wise and timeless. She should have trusted him from the beginning, but she never had. She would not make that mistake again.
As Titus moved her through the boundless levels of pleasure, kissing and holding and exciting her beyond reason, his teeth slid over the soft sensitive flesh of her neck, descending in sharp points. She groaned as she felt him there, ready to claim her and make her his forever. After taking his bite, no other immortal man would ever look at her again. Kyran or anyone else.
But that no longer mattered. Desdemona had always wanted Titus alone. Kyran had only ever been a diversion. He’d helped her foolish immortal soul feel less rejected by the man who cared for her more than anything else in the world.
Titus’s teeth broke through the skin of her neck, biting into her flesh. He gripped her hard and tight, not letting go. With his immortal dragon bite, he transmitted all of his essence. Desdemona could feel the centuries of experience, of heartache, of joy, and all of the things that made Titus the man he was.
They filtered into her, adding up to more than the sum of their parts. She knew he was feeling the same thing too. Gripped in his bite, she felt she could fly to the stars on wings of his creation. Dragons could not turn other dragons by biting, but the mating bite did carry with it a certain kind of power. Desdemona would be forever changed, and she would be forever his.
With Titus’s tight grip around her neck, Desdemona felt him burst inside her, his hot seed firing against the back of her cervix. Gripped in his embrace, feeling his seed seep inside her, and the bite of his jaw around her neck, she wanted more than anything to give him a child. She wanted to give him everything that was her, and fill the world with new young dragons who carried the fierce love and protectiveness of their father.
Suddenly, Desdemona understood why Patrice had wanted to be a birthing goddess for Titus. She loved him so much she wanted to see his copy go out into the world over and over again, growing into an army of love. The very reason she had loved him so much was what had kept them apart. But that would never happen again. Desdemona and Titus were now one. She would never let him go.
Titus released the last drops of his seed and withdrew his teeth with careful precision. He drew from within her and rolled over on the bed to hold her against his chest.
Neither of them spoke, they were both so overcome by emotion, it felt as if words would destroy it. After lying in the afterglow for some time, Titus broke the silence.
“Now I understand,” Titus said, holding her tight.
“Understand what?” Desdemona asked.
“I understand how connected Orion feels to Lucia,” Titus said. “He has been so devoted to her for so long, he almost drove the clan into the ground in his despair. I taunted him for it. I saw it as a weakness. But now I know why he couldn’t live without her.”
“After all these centuries of waiting, the connection I feel to you now is so much sweeter. I wish things could have been different and we could have gotten together sooner. Now we finally are and it’s better than I ever imagined. I think I understand why I wanted to give you so many children. It was because I admired you so deeply. You were everything I imagined a man to be then, and you still are now. I am so happy that we are finally together.”
Titus wrapped her in his arms, holding her as tight as she had always wanted to be held.
“This is like a dream come true,” she breathed.
He slid his hand over her belly, cupping her young curves.
“Soon, our dream will become a reality. Our child will come into the world and our legacy will begin.”
Desdemona kissed him on the cheek and then rested against his chest. The future swimming into clear view, the darkness finally giving way to the light.
17
Titus prepared his jet to go out on another investigation. From his glass pad from the breakfast table.
“I wish you didn’t have to leave me alone again today,” she said. “Is there any way I can go with you?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to find,” he said, feeling her need to be with him.
“You can protect me,” she teased.
After everything they’d been through to get to this point in their relationship, he didn’t want to go backward. His desire to please her conflicted with his need to keep her safe. But since he hadn’t found anything particularly threatening so far, he decided it was better to spend the time together than apart.
“Okay, you can come with me,” he relented.
They made their way to the roof and climbed into his waiting jet. The hovercraft rumbled and lifted them off the ground. After a few seconds, he propelled them through the air over the city. They followed the Illinois river toward Chicago, Desdemona making comments about the beautiful landscape all the way. They passed small, abandoned towns that hadn’t recovered since the Dark Sun took out the power grid.
“Are those zombies?” Desdemona asked pointing out her window.
“The zombie-like vampires created by the Surge rarely come out during the day,” Titus assured her.
“I know. But those creatures I just saw looked an awful lot like the ones I’ve seen in California.”
“Maybe they’ve gained further abilities,” Titus commented.
“Let’s hope not,” Desdemona said nervously.
Since the battle in Denv
er, the Surge had been quiet in most of the United States. There were scrimmages outside of cities like Los Angeles and New York that had been almost completely run over by The Surge. But the allied immortal clans and covens had been able to push them back everywhere else.
The zombie-like vampires that Xander had created with his genetically modified virus still roamed the land. Titus had not heard of them becoming a greater threat than they had been two years ago. People were still taken out by them every day but this was the first time he had heard anything about them being more active in the daytime.
“It looks like the whole town was crawling with them,” Desdemona said. “They do have a particular way of walking.”
“I believe you saw something,” he said. “I just don’t know what.”
“Where are we?” she asked.
Titus ran his finger over the glass pad dashboard and brought up their exact location. “We’ll be arriving in Chicago in a few minutes.”
“I can’t believe how fast these jets are. It boggles the mind.”
“If we could work faster on restoring the power grid, it would be easier to consolidate resources in order to manufacture immortal technologies for everyone. But with the Surge still a problem and the zombies roaming the land, it remains difficult to rebuild.”
“You’ve done as much as anyone could possibly do,” she said.
He looked over at her, his hands on his jet’s controls. Hearing her say that made his heart burst with pride. He’d been waiting since her arrival for her to recognize the work that he had done in his city. His brother Orion had let the clan’s holdings fall into disrepair until he finally gave up his position at the worst possible moment.
Titus had been working diligently since the Dark Sun to bring light to the people of his city. He hadn’t been perfect, but he had done his best. And now his beloved mate was finally acknowledging him.