Julien instinctively threw up his arms, creating a makeshift cross, and shielded his breast from the blow, and that’s when Ian’s claws became flesh: soft, feminine, and entreating, reaching out to…take his hand?
With feral desperation—and raw, unconcealed rage—Julien ignored his defensive instincts and groped at the outstretched palm. “Rebecca!” he bellowed like a madman, linking his hand in hers. He grasped it like a lifeline and tugged, practically willing his soul to funnel through her arm. Ignoring the demon before him, the inevitable embrace of death, he plunged straight into the fray.
thirty-one
Rebecca fell forward onto Julien’s chest, still startled by his savage cry. She tried to brace her palms against his breastbone and frantically push away, but the feral vampire was far too strong and much too aggressive to restrain. His crazed eyes grew wide with horror; he encircled her waist with his arm and tugged her hard against him.
“Bring me to life!” he snarled, sounding more like an animal than a man.
Rebecca flailed in panic, absorbed in a primal struggle of her own, and tried to restrain his hands. “Wh…what’s happening?” she whimpered, trying desperately to understand.
“Breathe me to life,” he insisted. “Give me your soul. Give me your blood.”
She opened her mouth to cry out or protest—she really wasn’t certain which one—but the warrior moved too fast. With his free hand, he swept her golden-brown hair to the side, clutched a fistful of curls in his palm, and hauled her neck forward to his mouth. And then he bit into her jugular, sinking both of his piercing fangs deep into her vein.
He didn’t stop there.
He released her hair, tugged at the buttons on her blouse, and ripped the bodice open. He twisted around in the bed—bandages be damned—and pinned her effortlessly beneath him, clutching at the fly of her jeans.
Rebecca screamed, and the door to the clinic swung open.
Kagen Silivasi rushed in, with Saxson Olaru right on his heels. “Warrior!” the healer bellowed, charging toward the bed.
“Snap out of it, J! You need to stop.” Saxson’s powerful voice ricocheted throughout the room.
Julien retracted his fangs, allowing them to recede about a quarter of an inch as he released his feral bite, and then he panted in Rebecca’s ear. “Ian!”
Rebecca gasped, drew back from his desperate barrage, and tried to meet his ravenous gaze. “I don’t understand,” she muttered, fear still getting the best of her.
The corner of his top lip turned up in a scowl, and his eyes narrowed on hers like lasers. “The Valley of Death and Shadows. My soul is lost. Breathe me back. Bring me back. Before he takes my soul.”
With their superior vampiric hearing, Kagen and Saxson heard every word, and they both stopped dead in their tracks: The healer halted at the end of the bed, just shy of grasping Julien by the shoulders, and the sentinel skidded to a halt at the tracker’s side, one hand extended toward the vampire’s bicep. They were clearly prepared to haul him off the bed, if that’s what the situation called for.
“What did he just say?” Saxson murmured instead.
Kagen stared numbly at the open bandages. He surveyed the multiple patches of regenerating flesh, and his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “What happened here, Rebecca?” His tone betrayed his concern.
Neither one knew what to make of what they’d just stumbled into.
Before Rebecca could reply, Julien slid his hands down the small of her waist, along the curve of her hips, and curled his fingers inside the seams of her jeans. And then he ripped the denim sideways, splitting the article in half before he tossed the material to the floor. His thick lips parted as he stared at her trembling belly, and his fangs visibly sharpened.
He moaned.
And Kagen gasped.
Saxson blanched, reached out to take the tracker’s forearm, and Rebecca almost screamed…again.
And then she saw it.
All of it.
Like a moving picture suddenly appearing on a screen, and every detail was in high definition: The Bridge Between Worlds, covered in ice, the high-arced tower, and the frozen deck. She saw the girders and the giant icicles, and she saw Hercules…and the Blood. She saw the aberration seize Julien, and then she felt the fog swirling all around him like devilish fingers, grasping, groping, teasing, desperate to consume his soul.
She saw the Valley of Death and Shadows and the monstrosity Ian had become.
And she knew.
Oh, blessed Mother of Mercy, she knew...
Exactly what was going on.
Her healing, her light, her desperate touches, her spirit reaching out to claim his…
For whatever reason, Rebecca had become Julien’s lifeline, and just like a buoy in a storm, a refuge in a roiling sea, he was clinging to her light, desperate for her touch, trying to take her breath, her body—perhaps her very soul—deep into his own in order to escape the tempest.
He wasn’t sentient, and he wasn’t in control.
He was desperate, primal, and consumed with need.
The need to survive.
The yearning to live.
The desire to escape a nightmare.
And she was his link back to their world, back to Dark Moon Vale.
If decisions could be weighed in an instant, Rebecca Johnston did just that: She weighed what Julien had done for her, how he had removed the threat of her stalker. She considered the promise he had made to save the VOSU women, and she measured his love for two disabled girls in an ancient Spaniard village. She weighed the despondency of a ten-year-old boy whose world had been shattered by a monster, and she weighed his resilience, his courage, and his strength, the reason he had turned to drugs. She evaluated all that had happened from the moment she had met him, that terrifying day on his porch, the moment he had spoken those five horrifying words: Where are you going, Rebecca?
And then she heard that deep, raspy tenor, spoken in a Romanian drawl: “Tu îmi aparții mie șoarec mic.” You belong to me, little mouse. And she knew that she did.
Her expression relaxed.
Her voice became calm.
And her body lost all of its tension.
“Go.” She spoke harshly to Kagen and Saxson while encircling the tracker in her arms. “Get out, and leave us alone.”
Saxson released his hold on Julien’s arm and took a cautious stutter-step back. “Rebecca, he’s not entirely sane. I think he may be dangerous.”
“I know,” Rebecca whispered as she cupped Julien’s jaw in her hands, ignoring the scars and the damage. “Kiss me, warrior.”
Kagen cleared his throat. “Look, I know you mean well, but he could…he might…”
Julien responded like a wounded beast, a tiger, both beaten and starved.
As if he had just been tossed a morsel of meat, he devoured Rebecca’s mouth with a fury: His lips crushed hers; his tongue swept deep; and his teeth taunted, grazed, and teased. And then he bit down on her lower lip, piercing the outer vermillion, as he hissed like a snake and lapped up the blood.
“Bite,” Kagen said quietly, finally finishing his sentence.
Rebecca flinched at the pain, but only for a second.
She relaxed her jaw and gave him what he needed.
And then she pressed her thighs against his hips, locked her ankles around his spine, and gave in to the momentary sting, the ache of his serrating canines.
And then she bit him back.
Julien growled like an unleashed beast, the corners of his mouth dripping with their mingled blood, and he reached down to free his growing erection.
“Alrighty, then!” Kagen exclaimed, backpedaling madly away from the bed. “Uh, Saxon?”
“Yeah,” Saxson muttered. “Time to go.” He paused to glance once more at the bed.
“Get out!” Julien snarled, sounding moderately insane.
As the sons of Jadon made their way out the door, Rebecca thought she heard a final, awkward entreaty: “We’ll be jus
t outside if you need us.” But she couldn’t tell who was speaking. The words were lost in the ether.
All she could hear, all she could make sense of, all she could feel, everywhere around her, was Julien Lacusta growling in her ear, hovering like a lion above her…waiting to devour her soul.
His hands made instant work of her lace-covered bra and her matching silk bikinis. In what seemed like a mere flash in time, the blink of an eye or the beat of a wounded heart, his bandages were gone, and so were the remnants of his hospital garb.
Flesh on flesh.
Groin on groin.
His fingers lifting her hips.
“Take me now,” he rasped into her open mouth. “I can’t wait, little mouse.”
Rebecca sighed and arched her back, bracing herself for the transition: the shock of his imminent entry, the stretch of his massive girth, the feel of his body filling hers, without any preparation. “I’m yours, tracker,” she breathed against him. “My heart, my body, and my soul.”
He plunged inside her with one hard thrust and shouted with such feral abandon that her stomach and her legs began to tremble. “Oh, gods,” she groaned as she shuddered, still trying to adjust.
He began to rock his hips, moving wildly at first—brutish, dominant, and furious—even as he stroked, raked, and kneaded her flesh with desperate, masculine hands. “Take me,” he growled, plunging even deeper. “All of me, Becca,” he groaned.
She did all she could to accommodate him, trying desperately to relax, and then, just like that—as if someone had flipped a switch—he began to fall into a milder rhythm: a wickedly hypnotic, expert rotation, where he teased her cleft with his pelvis, rocked her world with his hips, and stroked her core with such maddening friction that she thought she might die from the pleasure.
The heat was overwhelming.
His aggression was unrelenting.
Yet his manner was purely arousing: dominant, yet oh so seductive.
Nothing—and no one—had ever made her feel like this.
Her body was instantly on fire.
“That’s it, șoarec micuț,” he moaned into her ear, his voice sounding hoarse, yet familiar. “That’s just it. Let go…and take me.”
Her head fell back, and her lips parted softly, even as she began to writhe beneath him. She reached up to draw him nearer, to stroke his cheek and cradle his head in her hands, and that’s when she noticed she was clutching his hair, twining her fingers between his thick, downy tresses: gorgeous mahogany locks that felt like silk beneath her exploration.
His hair had grown back.
She opened her eyes in wonder and stared as his angular face. The burns were fading, the flesh was healing, and his eyes were once again…tame: two endless pools of moonstone-gray that sought her gaze and locked them together in a passionate, unwavering embrace.
“Julien,” she whispered as if seeing him for the very first time, even as she bucked beneath him.
He met her ardor with a glide of his hips and held his pelvis against her, freezing them both in the moment. “Come for me, angel,” he drawled in a dark, silken rasp. “I’m back. I’m here. I’m yours.”
As the words caressed her ears, and their meaning took root in her heart, his body jerked and twitched inside her, sparking the climax he had asked for.
Rebecca grasped the sheets as she stiffened, arched her back in abandon, and tossed back her head in utter ruin. “Yes, yes…yes!” she cried as her body inevitably obeyed him, and his climax immediately followed.
They hurtled over the edge in union.
When at last Rebecca drew in a shuddering breath, and once again held his passionate gaze, she noticed he was staring down at her with the strangest mixture of tenderness, triumph, and gratitude in his eyes.
He was staring down at her with love.
A mischievous smile tugged at her lips, and she purposefully softened her voice. “Welcome back,” she whispered softly. Then, hoping to add an element of humor: “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
Julien smiled—it was brilliant, unreserved, and spontaneous—and the very air around them grew electric from the radiance in his soul. “Well, as long as you’re asking, șoarec micuț, I think I will have you conceive.”
thirty-two
Thirty-six hours later
Rebecca waddled through the front door of Julien’s massive foyer, eyeing the stone, the wooden beams, and the rough-hewn slate tiles. She wasn’t sure if she was ready to return to his domicile, but she couldn’t bear another moment in Kagen’s clinic, especially after the X-rated show they had both put on for the healer, Kagen, and the sentinel, Saxson.
Had the vampires really stood outside the clinic door and listened?
At what point had they finally walked away?
She cringed at the mere thought of it and placed a nervous hand on her rapidly expanding belly, which was the equivalent of a six-month human pregnancy. “I look ridiculous,” she said as she made her way through the foyer to the great room and took a slow, careful seat on the couch.
Julien followed quietly, his vibrant, fully healed body projecting a glorious masculine power. “I think you’re adorable,” he drawled in a sexy tone, taking a seat in front of her on the coffee table. He rested his elbows on his knees. “Besides, you’re also hot.” The logs creaked and groaned beneath his sudden weight.
Rebecca sighed and tried to get more comfortable, and then she stared down at her belly. “Yeah, well, don’t get any ideas,” she admonished. “The last thing I want is…” Her voice trailed off.
“Șoarec micuț,” he said lazily, “it won’t always be like that.” The corner of his mouth turned up in a mischievous smile. “I won’t always be that feral or…insistent.”
She peeked up at him through lowered lashes. “Yeah, well, you’d better not be.” Despite herself, she smiled. “And you’d better not bite, either. Not unless I ask you to.”
At that, his gray eyes lit up. “If I recall, you bit me back. Oh, ingerul meu, I think we will have an entire repertoire of erotic powers to play with.”
Rebecca felt her face flush with heat, and she rocked forward to slap him on the thigh, and that’s when the babies shifted. “Ouch,” she uttered unintentionally.
Julien moved with a quickness.
He nestled on the couch beside her, cradled her in his brawny left arm, and placed his right hand on her knee. All of her sensations vanished—she could no longer feel a thing. “Forgive me, little mouse. I got momentarily distracted.”
Rebecca patted his hand reassuringly. “That’s okay,” she mumbled.
“No,” he clipped. “It’s not. And it won’t happen again.”
She sighed. “Julien, there’s no need to be so formal. I mean…not anymore.”
He held her gaze for a protracted moment, and then he brushed a lock of her golden-brown hair away from her face and stared at each one of her features, as if drinking in her visage.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
“Just looking at you,” he said.
She blinked and angled her face away. “Why?”
“You’re beautiful,” he murmured.
She extended her bottom lip in a pout. “I’m fat.”
He chuckled and massaged a gentle hand over her round, distended belly. “You’re mine.”
She swallowed her angst and shifted anxiously on the couch.
“Does that still make you nervous?” He removed his hand from her abdomen and tilted her chin toward him, to force her gaze. “Even now?”
She took a slow, deep breath. “Honestly? I don’t know. It makes me wary.”
“How so?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m just babbling. Maybe it’s the pregnancy.”
“Talk to me, Becca,” he intoned. Lowering his voice, he added, “Please.”
She held his gaze of her own accord this time, searching his eyes for hidden mysteries: It was so odd, so unexpected, to see Julien acting like this, speakin
g with such sincerity and directness. True, he had always been blunt and to the point, but this was somehow different. She could still hardly believe she was there; that he was alive; that the two of them had actually made love, if that was the term one would use for such an intimate battle of dark versus light, for the moment he’d claimed her soul…and she had saved his. “I think that…” She sighed, contemplating her words. “Obviously, I’m beginning to come to terms with our situation: me being your destiny, us being…together—”
“With our mating,” he interjected.
“Our circumstances,” she amended. “But a lot has happened in such a short amount of time, and it still feels pretty surreal.” She studied the deep, chiseled slopes of his cheekbones, the perfect rising arches of his brows, and the strong, angular set of his jaw and quivered just a bit inside. “I mean, in another twelve hours—which is insane to begin with—you and me, we’re going to have a child. And our lives will be connected forever. We will be connected…forever.”
Julien nodded, his expression earnest and his brow creased in thought. “The gods have decreed it, and it is happening, Becca, even though neither of us, at least for a time, knew what to think.” Before she could reply or expound on the thought, he brushed two fingers lightly over her belly and continued. “And this; you are going to sleep through it, at least the unpleasant part, the emergence of the soulless twin. And I…I will handle what needs to be handled—history is not going to repeat itself here—and we will never speak of it again, unless you need to. I promise. So, tell me: Is that still what you want?”
Rebecca lowered her head and thought deeply about his words. “Yeah. Yes. Definitely. But I also want to know what happens next. I mean, in terms of you and me.”
Julien flashed a sideways smile, his full lips turning up at one corner. “We will decide that together, Becca. I give you my word—how we live, where we travel, what we need to put in place for ourselves and our son—nothing is going to happen to you without your consent, not from this moment forward. And I am not going to change your entire life, at least not every aspect.”