He covered her hands with his and locked their fingers together. She gripped him hard in return. She needed this experience with him more than anything, to be this close to him after all they’d been through, to be physically joined with him. The blood-chain was one extraordinary experience, but nothing could ever replace the sheer physicality of sex.
He kissed the back of her neck repeatedly, and she arched enough so that his tongue could reach the vein.
I want to take you from behind and drink from you like this. Would that please you?
She moaned softly. Yes, it sounds wonderful. Ah, Marius.
Yes?
No question, really. I just like saying your name. She said it aloud this time. “Marius.”
While still laying kisses over her neck, he dipped low to push his cock between her legs. He released her right hand and slid his arm under her stomach, pulling her up onto her knees. He swept her long hair off her right shoulder well away from her throat, then used his hand to find her entrance.
She cried out at the mere feel of his cock starting to push inside. “I love how that feels.”
“You’re so wet for me.” He drew back, gripped her hips, and with firm thrusts made his way inside. He took his time and with a steady rhythm, in and out, began building her pleasure.
“I love doing this to you, Shayna.”
She was already breathing hard because it felt so good. She supported herself on her arms, something she found easy to do because his power constantly fueled her. As he pushed in she started pushing back, which caused him to groan. “Damn, that feels good.”
She moved faster and he did the same. At this rate, it wouldn’t take long. “Marius, drink from me.”
He leaned over her. “We need to slow this down.”
“You’re right. You get me so excited.”
“Same here.”
Once more, he kissed her shoulder, her neck, her back, but kept his hips moving, though at a much slower pace. She closed her eyes and savored. She loved the way he smelled, that summer grass scent of his. She turned her head a little more and his lips sought out her mouth. She shifted, turning farther to meet him.
When he kissed her, she moaned all over again. His tongue pierced her deep, swirling inside. His cock matched the movement, and she groaned heavily because he hit her just right.
Oh, Marius, that feels way too good.
So, of course, he did it again.
And again.
He held her tight at the waist so he never lost his rhythm and kept her in place on the bed. She had the thought again that before Marius, she’d never really known what sex was, on any level.
The blood-chain helped, because she could feel his pleasure, another sensation that kept her tightening around him deep inside because she knew how good it felt to him.
He kissed down her chin and once more began to lick all up her neck, finding the exact spot where the vein would rise.
She loved that sensation and it made her clench deep within all over again.
Drink from me, Marius.
Do you want to feel my fangs? Do you want me to nip your vein and take from you?
She moaned and writhed against him. Yes. Please, yes. Now. She whimpered. She couldn’t help it. It all felt so good, so incredible.
When he drew back, she knew he was lowering his fangs. Her whole body stilled. The strike was quick, then his lips formed a seal and he began to suck.
This time he groaned heavily, his cock pushing inside her. You can’t know what you taste like, Shayna. But it’s amazing and your blood fires me up.
His cock grew harder, bigger, and he pushed more heavily now. Each thrust made her cry out repeatedly.
He went faster and faster, the suckling sounds another added sensation.
I’m going to come. She wasn’t sure how she got the words out.
I want you to come, Shayna. I can hold back but I want to feel your orgasm and I want to taste those sweet flavors as I drink from you.
The orgasm began to pulse, driving along her clitoris then up inside her body as he whipped in and out. The sensations kept flowing, so that she could hardly breathe. She knew she was moaning or shouting or something because it felt so good.
A powerful wave of pleasure flooded her abdomen, her stomach, her chest. She shouted repeatedly, her hips flexing into each thrust until the wave softened on the shore.
He slowed his hips at the same time, the sucking at her neck as well, easing her down.
She worked to catch her breath as he continued to drink.
That was beautiful, Shayna. I felt your pleasure, what it’s like for you to have my cock buried deep.
And I felt how close you were. I want you to come, Marius. Are you ready?
God, yes.
* * *
He thrust heavily now, but he wanted something more, something he had a hard time putting a word to, something that made no sense. He finally let go of his hold on her vein and kissed her shoulder, her throat, and the back of her neck once more. He loved taking her in this position, covering her.
He remained kissing near the top of her spine, then licking in that place as well. He angled his head but kept his fangs in check. With Shayna, his fangs were always one breath away from emerging, something else that remained a mystery for him. Why did she bring such strong instincts pounding through his body?
And here was another one: that while still thrusting his cock into her, he felt a need to bite her, though just with his teeth and not breaking skin.
Shayna, will you let me do something to you? Will you permit me to bite you here, at the base of your neck, where I’m licking? I won’t use my fangs, I promise.
Her whole body writhed in response. She hardly needed to speak the words; he’d had his answer. But what followed sent another thrill streaking down his body and straight through his cock. “Marius, do whatever you want to do. I feel a drive in you that needs to be satisfied. Bite me hard, if that’s what you want to do.”
He kept licking the base of her neck. “Bend your head forward. Yes, just like that.”
He angled slightly, then took as much of her in his mouth as he could, grabbing hold of her nape with his teeth and clamping on.
Shayna cried out. You have no idea how good that feels. Oh, God, Marius, I’m going to come again.
He had complete control of her, the way animals in the wild could control other animals. He held her firmly and speeded up his thrusts at the same time. He could feel the excitement coursing through her and loved hearing her guttural cries as he plunged in and out.
She gripped his cock now with her internal muscles, in the same way he had command of her neck. His balls tightened. Shayna, I’m close. I’m going to go faster.
Do it.
He moved with a speed only his kind could attain. Her pleasure began to rush through her as his release came. A geyser of fire exploded through him, streaking through his cock. But he held on to her neck, biting down just a little harder.
He heard her cries of ecstasy and he grunted deep from his gut. The intense sensation caused his vision to falter. He’d never experienced anything like this.
The orgasm eased down, but he wasn’t done. He knew his power had increased, but apparently what came with it was more than one release.
He was breathing hard, still working her low but slowly.
She panted and pushed her hips against him.
I’ll be coming a second time, Shayna. You ready?
Yes. My whole body is thrumming with a kind of vibration and all because you’re holding my neck. I wish I could tell you what it feels like.
But he could tell; the chain at his neck told him everything. I can feel it, Shayna, and it feels the same way to me, another point of connection.
He started moving faster and her body released another wave of moisture that had him pumping hard.
When she came this time, she screamed and the intensity of her pleasure forced him to release her neck and rise up. He held her hips in place and t
hrust. She arched her neck, still crying out repeatedly.
As before, his balls tightened and he let go.
Pleasure rushed through his body once more, intense and fiery as he gave her his essence. His arms felt bulked up, his thighs, his back. He roared, lifted his head, feeling her pleasure roll and his own drive to the pinnacle finally peak. He groaned heavily. He’d never had such a profound orgasm.
He felt Shayna’s ecstasy crest. She breathed hard as the last of her cries left her throat. As her arms gave way and she stretched out flat, he moved with her, firm enough to remain connected to her. He lay on top, his body rising and falling with his own harsh breaths.
He felt so fucking good.
She stretched out her hands and he covered them, once more linking fingers. The three roses lay askew.
Marius felt so much in this moment that he couldn’t separate the strands of his emotions. Gratitude, mostly, rose to the surface. He was so thankful she’d stayed in his world long enough to help him find the final extinction weapon. And what an extraordinary thing that something about her had increased his power almost as though he was an Ancestral. The fact that he had no proximity issue with her at all had him baffled and amazed.
But he was also grateful for this: how much just being with her had deepened his life in ways hard to explain. He hated the saying, but he honestly felt more complete as a man, even as a vampire, because she was in his life.
He felt her emotions as well, mostly that she was caught up in the feel-good of sex. Her breathing had evened out and her fingers worked his, stroking him gently, a very affectionate movement.
“Marius, the way you caught my neck in your mouth was incredible. I want you to know that. I don’t know what it did, but I had these sensations rippling through my body, straight between my legs because of it. I definitely want to do that again.”
He shifted slightly, angling once more, and bit her in the same place, giving her neck a soft shake.
She giggled and his cock jerked. She moaned. “I want to stay like this forever. Just like this. I love the feel of you still connected to me.”
He released her neck and reclined his head off to the side of hers once more, half on her arm, half on the pillow. He could get used to this—a thought that sent a shard of anxiety moving through him.
“What is it?” she asked.
He decided to be honest with her. “I keep having a powerful desire to beg you to stay with me, but I know it can’t work for so many reasons, most of which you already know.”
“And some come from me.” She released a heavy sigh. “I want to face you to have this conversation. Can we do that?”
He nodded, then disengaged, pulling from her slowly. He hadn’t wanted to, but she was right: The moment required some talk.
As he shifted off her, he would have left the bed to fetch her a washcloth, she but she caught his arm. “Don’t go yet.” She tugged him back to her so that this time, he lay on top of her face to face.
She caressed his face and leaned up to kiss him. He responded, kissing her back.
She rested her head on the pillow. “I wish we could keep doing this, Marius, stay together forever. Part of me feels so strange about being here now, as though I can’t imagine ever leaving. Yet I’ve only been here a couple of days. I fault the intensity of what we’ve been through for that, as though we’ve lived together for a hundred years.”
“I feel the same way.” But the situation felt deeper than that, something he couldn’t explain. “I keep thinking about how drawn you are to the tablets and our ancient language, to all that we are as a society.”
“But don’t you see? That’s because I’m an anthropologist.”
“Are you sure it isn’t more than that?”
She held his gaze, searching his eyes. “I honestly don’t know.” She looked away from him, but this time her eyes didn’t flit around. Instead, it was as though she was searching deep within herself. Finally, she said, “Can we visit the refugees tomorrow night? The ones that Gabriel had his men rescue?”
At that, he laughed and shook his head.
“What?” She seemed genuinely surprised.
“Well, for one thing, we were talking about the unique aspects of our relationship including how drawn we are to each other, and suddenly you want to visit with the refugees.”
She smiled sheepishly. “Oh, I can see how you would think that. But here’s where my mind went. I know that for me everything shifted when you originally took me through the Dark Cave system. The plight of all those women supported my decision to stay. The longer I’m with you, the more I want to stay, so I think I need more data to help me understand my relationship with you and how I might fit into your world here. Does that make any sense at all?”
Marius hated just how much his heart soared with even a hint that Shayna might stay. Yet at the exact same moment, the other powerful reality of his life flowed through him in a painful agonizing wave. He shifted, rolling onto his back to lie next to her.
She leaned up on her elbow to look at him. “Marius, what is it? I don’t understand. I was talking about seeing the refugees and the next moment that horrible guilt is on you again. I wish like anything that you’d tell me the whole story. I feel that you’ve held on to something for a long time, and you need to let it go. What happened that you feel as though your life must only be about making war, about battling Daniel and his kind? Won’t you tell me?”
He stared into her eyes. He wanted to tell her the truth, but he knew it would change things forever, even ruin what he had with her right in this moment. If she knew the truth, she’d walk out the door and never look back. He settled his arm over his forehead, partially shading his eyes. Yet he had to tell her something; he owed her that much.
“I won’t go into the specifics, but I will tell you this.” He felt how quiet she’d fallen, almost reverent. “I betrayed my brothers in the worst way possible.”
When? How?
Her questions hit his mind like swiftly thrown daggers. He moved his arm to his side and stared at her. “Shayna, I just told you I didn’t want to talk about this in detail.”
She clamped a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry. The questions slipped so fast through my head that I must have shifted into telepathy without thinking. Pretend I didn’t ask. And you know how I am with the questions.”
He nodded and settled into the pillows. “I think that’s all I can tell you, but that’s the guilt you keep feeling and it’s the main reason I’ve fought as hard as I have. I’ve been trying to make up for this for the past four hundred years.”
“Do your brothers know?”
“Of course they know. They were punished for what I told Daniel.”
“So this happened when you were a child?”
He nodded, but nothing else would come. “Let it go, Shayna. Just know that I’ll never be free of the remorse I feel.”
“It’s impacted your life, hasn’t it? I mean, that’s why you’re not married, why you haven’t found someone to share your life with.”
“I’m sure it’s one of the reasons.”
He glanced at her and the odd thought went through his head that maybe another reason was that he’d been waiting for her all this time. Even Gabriel must have felt it, how special she was. Why else would he have opened up the secret vault of tablets just for her, a human?
But the weight of his guilt had settled in hard and he rolled from bed.
Wish I could help. Her voice, full of sympathy, made him cringe.
He didn’t turn to look at her as he headed to the bathroom, but let his thoughts fly. Wish you could as well.
The next moment, he heard running feet and before he reached the shower, she caught him from behind, wrapping both her arms around his chest, holding him fast.
His throat tightened painfully.
He overlaid her arms with his own, holding her fast just as she was holding him. For a moment he couldn’t breathe. All the air had rushed from his lungs
, and his eyes burned. He wished like anything that this woman would stay, this lovely, eccentric question-riddled human, with her long white-blond hair and light-blue eyes, with her tenderness of heart, her love of other cultures, and her beautiful willing body.
God, yes, he wanted her to stay.
* * *
An hour later Shayna sat on a park bench deep inside the Catskill system in the state of New York. The cavern was one of the more massive ones she’d seen and had been cloaked in an intricate layer of disguises that not even Marius could detect, let alone see through—Gabriel’s handiwork, no doubt.
The Catskill refugee center housed five thousand former female slaves and even a few men, mostly human but with a smattering of vampire slaves as well. She and Marius had learned that Gabriel and Rumy together had built and paid for about a dozen of these centers throughout their world, all hidden, and they’d filled each to capacity. Apparently they’d had several black-ops forces working in secret over a long period of time, stealing slaves out of a number of sex-slave organizations around the globe.
She sat facing a large park, where a number of women wandered about and talked in groups. A massive complex, built into the adjacent cave wall, formed the dormitories and gathering rooms, as well as several classrooms that served the refugees.
A couple dozen of the latest refugees that Gabriel had recovered from the Dark Cave system sat with her. The women had told her all about the rescue mission, that a hundred male vampires had suddenly just shown up and that the extraction had taken less than two minutes.
She kept shaking her head in between all the comments. Something wasn’t adding up, which was why she kept pelting the group with her questions. She just couldn’t seem to get to the center of something very important, something critical to the vampire world.
She asked the group at large. “So if I’ve understood correctly, what you’re saying, especially those of you who had been enslaved for over a year, that neither Daniel nor his two sons Quill and Lev was even in residence for most of that time?” She had always supposed that Daniel would have spent most of his time in the Dark Cave system, engaging in the orgies he sponsored and sold.
A murmured ascent went around the group. An Indian woman spoke up. “You could always tell when they were gone. The vampires left in charge became more relaxed, and there were fewer assaults. Some of the guards even protected us from customers who became too rough. Daniel would have been furious at such leniency and more than once he beheaded vampires for treating us kindly.”