She had to do something or both vampires would end up in a bad state that would take hours to heal and possibly put their current plans in jeopardy.
She reached deep into her prime female power, and a new intense vibration flowed through her. One by one, the shifters in front of her began to settle down, turning in her direction and at the same time creating a path for her. Though the battle raged in the air just a few feet above the floor, and despite how revved up the shifters were, they still obeyed the directive she sent through her frequency.
As both alphas met her gaze, she cried out, “Break up this fight and bring them both down now. Now!”
The alphas summoned their biggest shifters, three each, and a moment later, the men launched at Seth and Jude, ripping them from the death grip they had on each other.
Both vampires were in full-fang, savage as hell, and worse, Lorelei loved it.
While the shifters brought them under control and as both Seth and Jude roared their rage, Lorelei directed Valgus’s men to take Seth outside. She wanted Jude to stay in the lodge, corralled by the shifters until he’d calmed down.
She left the lodge, following behind the three shifters who hauled Seth with them. He struggled and lashed out, making liberal use of his fangs and causing the men nearest him to yelp in pain. But they held tight.
She moved in front and led them forty yards away to the nearest tree line. “Drop him in the snow. It’s still fresh here, just a thin crust.”
The shifters threw him so that he sank about a foot. The freezing snow had the effect of finally getting through to Seth and he sat up slowly, his brows pulled together in a tight frown.
He glanced around as though uncertain where he was or what had put him there. He struggled to catch his breath. His lungs worked like bellows, but he remained sitting in the snow, recovering.
Even with his clothes torn, his face bruised, his lips bleeding, to Lorelei he looked hot as hell.
She stood over him. “You done, Mastyr?” But she smiled.
He looked around, then growled at the shifters, since many of them had started chuckling, a sound full of male appreciation for Seth’s predicament.
When he growled again, she lifted her hand, glancing over her shoulders. “Leave us.”
She felt the remaining shifters melt away and she was certain she heard a few more chuckles. Shifting followed and more wolves now darted into the forest heading back to their respective gorges.
Seth, on the other hand, looked up at her, his green eyes still half-lost in madness, a state she decided very quickly that she wanted him to stay in.
“That Jude sure has a lot of muscle. He’s one big man.”
Seth did exactly what she wanted him to do. He roared and levitated at the exact same time, then lunged for her. Catching her by the arms and without asking her permission, he took her straight up into the air. Only this time instead of heading south toward his Shauck Gorge home, he flew north.
Just where the hell was he taking her so close to dawn?
Chapter Eight
With Lorelei held tight in his arms, Seth flew toward his fortified, treetop dwelling, but the whole time, a red angry hue colored his vision. The air grew colder, yet didn’t serve to diminish his rage that he’d found his woman ready to service Mastyr Jude with both her body and her blood. He needed to get Lorelei beneath him as quickly as possible, and he definitely required a hit of her powerful blood.
His destination wasn’t far, about twelve miles, so that within a few minutes, he saw the timberline of Redheart Peak. A strong instinct had driven him north, instead of south to his Shauck Gorge home. He needed to be with Lorelei here, in a small but very complex treehouse that a clever troll had built for him about two hundred years ago.
Three fir trees, the inner branches trimmed close, anchored the two-story structure, that overlooked at least a dozen ridges below. At this distance, when he adjusted his vision, he’d be able to watch the shifters while they ran drills during the daylight hours.
A few seconds later, he landed on the deck that traveled in a complete circle around the house.
His heart had become a loud drum pounding in his chest as he carried Lorelei inside. He could smell the abundance of her blood and that she needed him to take from her.
Turning her in his arms, he kissed her fiercely. When her lips parted, he drove his tongue deep into her mouth which brought desire rushing forward once more, hardening him all over again. He’d done some healing while he flew so a lot of the damage Jude had inflicted was now gone, but he wasn’t sure it would have mattered. He needed Lorelei and he needed her now.
Her body arched and she moaned, then her voice tore through his mind. Seth, take me now before I break into a thousand pieces. I need you.
Still holding her tight, he levitated up and over the railing between floors so that he dropped easily down to his bedroom below.
“I want you to feed first,” she said, pulling out of his arms. “My heart is laboring with each beat.”
“I know. I can tell. And we both need this.” Though he no longer suffered with excruciating stomach cramps, he felt light-headed, desperate for her blood.
Her familiar smile appeared as she moved to the side of the bed. “Come here and sit down. I have an idea.” She patted the comforter.
He loved the shifter-like glint in her eye and though he wasn’t completely certain what she had in mind, he planted his ass exactly where she told him to.
She moved in between his legs and shoved her hair away from the side of her neck. He reacted with a full-body shiver, took hold of her arms, and drew her against him. Though he sat, his height still made the position perfect as she angled her head and exposed her pale throat. He licked a line over the vein and felt her shudder as well. Her delicate white ruff appeared and his desire for her rose another notch.
He buried his nose in her fur, kissing along the line of the ruff. He could feel her pulse speed up as the sweet apple blossom scent of her sex rose all around him.
Maybe because of the recent encounter with Jude, but suddenly his mating frequency shot to life.
She gripped his shoulders and cried out. “Sweet Goddess! Seth, what is that?”
“My mating frequency. I need you now. Clothes. Off.” His voice carried weight and resonance.
Her eyes widened, but as he started to strip out of his leathers in vampire speed, she followed suit.
As soon as he was free of his Guardsman uniform, he sat back down on the bed. He was very firm by the time she stood naked in front of him. He caressed her breasts in turn, once more nuzzling her ruff.
“More,” she murmured against his cheek. “More of that.”
He savored the feel of her tight buds against the palms of his hands, adding pressure as he worked her breasts in circles.
She kissed the line of his cheek all the way to his ear then frenched him deep. His cock loved the feel of her tongue swirling inside his ear. His hips rocked and his hands found her bottom. He squeezed and fondled her. He turned his head and found her lips, kissing her hard.
She wrapped her arms around his neck as he drove his tongue into her mouth once more.
Mount me while I take from you. Again, he commanded her.
Yes. That’s exactly what I want. Lift me up.
Good idea.
Holding her bottom in his hands, he lifted her so that she was able to wrap her legs around his waist. He was so damn hard, and the moment he touched her entrance and felt how wet she was for him, how ready, he groaned against her mouth.
He guided her down as he slid inside, her body writhing with need.
“Seth.”
That she whispered his name against his lips twisted his heart again. Lorelei could do things to him with the passion that vibrated through her voice.
That’s when he felt her realm mating vibration come to life, an echo of his own. He held his own frequency steady as he tilted his hips and pushed himself into her. He watched her neck arch and her
mouth open with a moan.
“Heaven,” she murmured, her eyes closed. “You feel so good.”
His gaze fell to Lorelei’s neck once more. Her vein throbbed and her blood called to him.
She opened her eyes and held his gaze. “I can feel your mating frequency.” She planted her hands on his shoulders as she arched her hips into him, stroking him with her well, digging her nails in.
The white ruff at her throat invited him all over again to nuzzle, to bite, to feed.
He reached for her with his mating frequency, a vibration that left his chest and touched the center of hers. She extended her frequency and made the connection.
Pleasure exploded through his entire body and the groan that left his throat shook the angled rafters of the tree house.
Seth, that’s amazing. I can hardly breathe. Feed from me, take all that you need.
Sunk in the pleasure of their joined frequencies and the sound of her words inside his head, he dipped his nose once more into the ruff at her throat. Rich streams of apple blossom scent drifted through his senses.
His fangs emerged.
She breathed in short pants as she tilted her head once more, her pelvis rocking into him, stroking him. Holding her tight, he pinned her chest against him in order to keep her upper body immobile while he continued to thrust into her.
A swell of desire and hunger rose as he drew back his head, then struck with his fangs to the perfect depth. He pierced her vein and her blood began to flow.
A familiar elixir like apple blossoms and wine hit his tongue first. Flavor burst in his mouth.
But as her blood traveled down his throat and landed in his stomach, the whole world tilted on its axis. His rational mind winked out. Power flooded his body, desire unleashed as he took deep draws at her neck. At the same time, he drove faster, the strength of his lean body keeping both movements synchronized.
“Seth,” she cried out, a long plaintive sound.
Her nails dug into his back and her scent moved around him like a whirlwind. Her mating vibration glided over his, touching and stroking his own frequency so that he trembled with lust and need.
With his blood-hunger slaked, he drew back and held onto her hips, moving faster now.
The passion on her face took him to the brink, but he wanted more. “Look at me.”
She met his gaze, breathing hard. “You have my blood on your lips. Oh, Seth, I’m going to come.” She drew in a final ragged breath and he felt her tug on him in strong pulls.
His balls tightened and at the last second, with his gaze fixed to hers, he sent a jolt of vibration through his cock.
She screamed her pleasure and his release came, a hot, fiery stream of male power that shot in pulses the length of his cock. He roared now, ecstasy igniting the muscles of his thighs and buttocks. He kept thrusting and just as she came down from one orgasm, he felt a second one firing his body up, the result of her amazing blood.
“You ready for seconds?” He wasn’t even sure how he got the words out.
But she laughed and nodded. “Yes. Sweet Goddess, yes!”
He watched as another orgasm took hold of her again and when her body began to pull on him once more, another lightning strike of pure pleasure streaked through him.
Still he held her gaze, shouting his moans and savoring the expressions of passion that moved over her face, the cries that left her lips.
Ecstasy crested a third time and he roared yet again as his mating vibration wrapped around hers and tightened, taking their joining straight to the edge, close to a complete bond. But he held back knowing this wasn’t the time. Soon perhaps, but not yet.
At last, his body began to settle and his breathing eased down.
She kept chuckling, a beautiful euphoric sound, her arms draped over his shoulders.
“Why are you laughing?” He smiled as he wrapped his arms around her back, holding her tight against him. “Tell me.”
“It just all feels so damn good. Sex with you is a flight to the stars. I’m just amazed, Seth. Amazed and we were so close to bonding. Could you feel that, I mean in the middle of everything?”
He caressed her and kissed her. “We were very close, but I held back. I just didn’t feel like the timing was right.”
“I know it would solve the problem, but I don’t think either of us should feel pressured. Just keep me away from other mastyrs and I’ll be fine. Do I want to bond with you? I’d do it in a heartbeat, but for now, I’m content like this, savoring your body joined to mine.”
His heart swelled at the sight of her soft, brown eyes, and all her grace and affection. He brushed a lock of hair behind her shoulder and glanced at her throat. “I think I sucked a little too hard. I’ve left a bruise.”
Her voice became a throaty whisper. “You can suck me that hard any day of the week, mastyr.”
He chuckled this time and his hips flexed automatically. He didn’t always return to a flaccid state following sex and often, with just a little encouragement, he could be brought to life again.
He told Lorelei as much and she squeezed him low.
He groaned. “You are so my kind of woman.”
“I’m part shifter. We like sex a lot. The more physical in nature the better.”
“I noticed.”
She kissed him and with her eyes at half-mast, she whispered, “Tap my vein again and let’s go for round two.”
He nodded, but this time drank from her wrist. As he firmed up, he rolled her onto her back and for the next hour worked her out slowly at first and then with his speed and a few extra vibrations from different parts of his body had her whimpering and screaming once more.
Later, holding her in his arms, he found it difficult to fall asleep and apparently so did Lorelei.
He hadn’t been to the treehouse in over a month, though he liked to come here to think, and maybe that was one of the reasons he’d brought her here. He really needed to think.
He had a vampire crew that came in every other week to clean and restock, and to top off the water tank, a feat that required a lot of hard work. He paid everyone really well for their services.
Like his home at the gorge, his treehouse had plenty of windows. But with dawn coming, he would need to lower the protective metal shades.
He caressed her arm. “I’m so sorry for all of this.”
“Seth, after what happened with Jude, I guess I’m just worried.”
“I know.”
He’d talked to all three bonded mastyrs and knew that there was more than one way to bind himself to Lorelei if that was what he really wanted to do.
Quinlan, in particular, had defined the act more than anything as a strong effort of the will, of clear intention: to decide was to bond.
He walked the line, however, hovering just shy of a final commitment. He knew Lorelei was willing, that apparently she had less concerns than he did about what would happen once the bond was forged.
And he hated the thought of what he risked by not bonding with her. There was a strong likelihood that he’d end up battling for her again, if not Jude, then another mastyr.
In the middle of wrestling with Jude, he’d felt how much the experience had been a fight to the death. Without the help of the shifters to haul them away from each other, he was pretty sure one of them would have died. Given Jude’s brute strength, Seth knew he would have fallen on the ill-fated side of that coin toss.
“And you have no doubts that you want to bond with me?”
She turned in his arms slightly to place a kiss just below his ear. “If we were bonded, I’d never have to worry about another mastyr coming after me, tempting me. Besides, you must know by now that it’s you I want.”
He wanted to believe that Lorelei’s longing for him went beyond the call of the blood rose, but how could he trust her if she could so easily offer her vein to Jude?
He also knew that seeing Lorelei with another mastyr had brought up the old wound, the one Kristen had inflicted all those centuri
es ago. She’d cost him the one thing he should have been able to give to the woman of his choice, a heart free to love unreservedly.
“I just don’t know if I can believe any of this is real. The intimacy that would come from bonding with you would be built on air, nothing more.”
“That’s where we differ because I believe with all my heart that what we share between us is very real, despite that the blood rose part of me is willing to feed other mastyrs.”
He knew she was sincere in her belief, but he couldn’t agree with her. “I can’t do it, Lorelei, not under these circumstances.”
“Is it that you don’t trust me?”
He didn’t answer right away, because he wanted to respond as truthfully as he could. Finally, he said, “I believe in your character but I don’t trust the situation.”
She leaned up on her elbow to look down at him. “It’s okay. This is new to both of us so how about until Jude leaves, we just stick close together. How does that sound?”
“Like a good plan.”
Though she smiled softly, he couldn’t mistake the longing in her eyes.
Her gaze drifted over his face. “You look a lot better. That fight with Jude had you pretty bruised up.”
“Don’t remind me.” He huffed a sigh, scowling.
“Everything will be all right.”
He hadn’t loved anyone in a long time, but he was damn close to loving this woman.
With a sigh, he reached for the button that controlled the shades, lowering them just enough to prevent direct sunlight from entering the house. The remainder of the panorama view he retained, which consisted of a wintry sky filled with snow-covered trees, and the occasional hawk hunting through the quiet forest.
Putting his head on the pillow, he drew Lorelei into his arms, holding her close. “You can rest now.”
He needed to sleep as well. The brigade had a big battle coming.
* * * * * * * * *
Once Seth was sound asleep, Lorelei eased out of his arms so that he rolled on his back, his lean, powerful body spread out in relaxed disarray. She’d spied on him more than once during her weeks as his bodyguard, but she had to admit this was the first time she’d ever seen him so at peace.