by Laura Kaye
He was about to cross some cosmic line.
He knew it. He felt it in his gut.
But he couldn’t pull back, couldn’t resist the incredible seductiveness of Katherine Bordessa. He pulled her hand away and brought it to his mouth for a long kiss on her palm. That she smelled of his maleness caused his cock to twitch against his stomach.
“Katya, there’s something you need to know about what is going to happen between us.”
She tilted her head against the mattress, strands of her chocolate hair spread in a dark halo across the plush comforter, and stared at him a long minute. “You’re going to bite me.”
Hands braced on either side of her shoulders, he leaned over her. “How did you know that’s what I was going to say?”
She arched an eyebrow. “Well, number one, you’re a vampire.”
Biting back a laugh, he arched a brow right back. “Fair point. And number two?”
“Nikolai, I trained as a Proffered.”
“You…what?” His brain was so scattered he couldn’t pull his thoughts together to respond, to absorb the significance of her revelation. On top of everything, she was a Proffered? Groomed to be a vampire’s mate? Emotion barreled through his veins—that dark rage from before reemerged at the thought he might’ve lost her to another, soul-deep gratitude warmed his chest as each new evidence of her rightness for him filled his heart, convinced his brain. All this, it felt so much bigger than him—magical and fated, even. “But you didn’t serve?” he finally managed to say.
“I…no.” She shook her head. “The whole thing scared me. I don’t know.”
“And now?”
“Now—” she released a shaky sigh “—I want you to bite me so damn bad I can barely lie still.”
His heart was a freight train in his chest. How had he gone from nearly dying to having a chance to live again in just a few short hours.
Because of Katherine.
“Come here,” she whispered, cupping his face in her hands. The touch was so gentle, the voice so sweet, she lured him in as surely as if magnets resided in the center of their chests. “Before, it was an abstraction. Now, it’s just you. And, everything else aside, I want you, Nikolai.” She lifted her hips and rubbed herself against him.
“Jesus,” he said, taking his dick in hand. He was so hard, so sensitive, his own touch was nearly painful. “It may hurt, Katya, for a moment, but I will make it go away. Yes?”
She nodded. “I need you in me, Nikolai. The emptiness hurts already.”
“I will take care of you,” he murmured, his heart making plans his brain hadn’t yet approved. But, in that instant, none of that mattered. Her words beckoned him in, welcomed him home, seduced him to believe they could have a chance.
Kate moaned and dug her fingers into the muscles straining with leashed power all down his sides. The steel length of his erection pushed into her, filled her with a heavy pressure that made her hold her breath.
“Angel, I can’t—” He shook his head, blue eyes blazing, pleading.
She tugged at his back, urging him down. “Let go, Nikolai. I want it.”
With a growl that ricocheted out of his throat and down her spine, Nikolai’s weight covered her as he thrust forward, burying himself deep inside her in one hard stroke. Hunched around her, his hands curled under her shoulders and clasped tight. Kate cried out at the stretching invasion, but then his fangs sank into her throat, cutting off her voice.
His hips drew back and hammered home at the same time his tongue and teeth sucked a long, hot draw from her veins. The friction and the rush of blood worked together, easing her, melting her, making her hot, tense, and needy all over again.
Inhaling precious air, Kate surrendered to the dark ecstasy brewing between them. As soon as she did, arousal reignited within her body, erasing every care that didn’t involve pleasing him over and over.
Her body was on fire, but her mind was calm. All the angst, all the restlessness, all the questioning—it disappeared the moment they became one.
She buried her hands in his hair and cradled him against her throat. “Take me…take all you need,” she said. He was so thick, so long, and filled her so perfectly, like a missing piece of her very soul she’d searched her whole life for and finally, miraculously, found.
As he fed from her vein, her palm erupted in a new sensation. An ache, to be sure, but this time, it was the burn of a need nearly fulfilled. Any discomfort that remained resulted solely from the incompleteness of her relief. She had no idea what any of this meant, but she knew it the way she knew she needed oxygen, or water. That was how she needed Nikolai.
So good, Katya, so good, so good. I can’t get enough.
She gasped and awe-filled joy brought tears to her eyes. She could hear him again. The way she’d heard him out on that street.
Emotions welled up within her chest and seemed to rework the very DNA in her cells. Intense affection barreled through her veins until she was certain he must taste what she felt for him, what she would always feel for him, no matter what. Electricity spiraled through her and settled low in her belly, building, charging, threatening an explosive release she didn’t think her body could possibly handle.
Stroke after delicious stroke brought his pelvis against her clit. She chased the maddening friction, lifting her hips, meeting his thrusts. Everywhere she reached out, her hands found hot, hard-bodied male flesh. Each breath sucked that incredible male spice—stronger and more attracting than she’d ever smelled it before—into her lungs until her toes curled against the bedding.
Forgive me, brothers. Wanting her doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten you.
The desperate lamentation of his thoughts was so different from her own ecstatic pleasure, the pain behind the words urged a single tear to spill from her eye.
“Oh, Nikolai,” she whispered through a tight throat, her hands stroking his hair. His words confused her—what had happened to his brothers? And were those the names on his back? But that didn’t stop her protectiveness over him from rearing its head. “It’s okay. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
A strangled moan rang out of him. His fangs withdrew. He laved that healing tingle over his bite before lifting his gaze and meeting her eyes. The sapphire burned with emotion.
Kate cupped his face. “I can hear you,” she whispered. “I don’t know how, but I could out there in that alley, and I can now.”
He opened his mouth to speak, and Kate’s eyes went wide.
Dark red ringed his lips, coated his tongue.
A demanding, foreign hunger erupted in Kate’s gut. She arched up, her mouth crashing into his, and sucked his tongue hard and deep, driven by a relentless need she’d never before experienced.
Kissing him wasn’t enough.
She shoved at his shoulders, and he let her flip them over. Kate’s hips took over their frantic dance, rising and falling over his cock, sucking him deep inside again and again. His big hands gripped her ass, grinding her down and lifting her back up. Her body was poised on the edge of a cliff, ready to fly to the heavens, to free-fall into space.
She just needed more of that red.
Clutching the hard angle of his jaws, Kate kissed him, sucked at him, whined that it wasn’t enough. “What’s happening to me?”
“Jesus, Katherine, talk to me.”
She moaned against his lips. “I don’t know, I don’t know.” Around the parched tightening of her throat, she swallowed, trying to ease the urgent thirst making her nearly insane. “Oh, my God, Nikolai. I want…I feel…”
His hands dug into her hair and forced their gazes to meet. “What, my sweet angel?”
“I want…your blood,” she said so quietly she barely heard the confession leave her own lips.
Within her clenching cunt, Nikolai’s cock grew harder, thicker. “Fuuuck, Katya, I think you are....” His words died in a groan as he rolled them in a messy tangle of limbs. Her head ended up right on the edge of the bed. “Oh, please,” he beg
ged, “if there’s a God above.”
With a roar, her king buried his fangs into the yielding flesh of her breast and erupted within her, igniting her own spasming release. His hips jerked and pressed as his mouth sucked her boneless.
It was the most glorious, peaceful, contented moment of her life.
She had nothing to compare the experience to, of course, but she already knew nothing would ever compare to Nikolai. He’d proven himself a giving and passionate lover, and in a few short hours had turned everything she’d thought she known about herself on its head.
Their bodies calmed, their panting breaths the only sound in the room, Nikolai licked closed his bite on her breast and lifted his head to meet her gaze.
Out of nowhere, a starburst of tingles exploded where their bodies were still connected. The sensation raced through her, fast and foreign, and left her insides feeling like a puzzle put together all wrong.
Kate gasped and clutched to Nikolai, and only held her panic at bay by focusing on the sheer and utter joy reshaping her new lover’s face.
Chapter 11
Nikolai threw back his head and shouted a warrior’s cry of victory. Katherine screamed, the nails on her right hand digging marks into his back. He grasped her left, interlocking their fingers.
“Hold on, angel,” he gritted out.
All at once, the sensation disappeared, and Nikolai’s gaze cut to their joined hands.
Delicate black markings formed an overlapping pattern of endless square knots that wrapped around his right hand and continued onto her left. His heart expanded in his chest until he was sure it would burst.
For the love of all that was holy, he’d found his mate.
As he stared at the mating mark in awe and wonder, the dream he’d had upon waking after surgery came back in vivid detail.
On some level, he’d known.
Her blood in his veins had revealed the truth. No matter how much he’d fought the idea, tried to deny what he’d been feeling these last long hours, she was meant to be his. And he, hers.
“Nikolai, our hands,” she whispered, eyes wide and beautiful as she lifted their hands and studied the marks. “Is that—”
“It’s a mating mark, Katya, and the mark of a good mating, too. See how small the knot work is, how tight?” She nodded, her gaze meeting his before returning to their hands. “The blood magic between us is strong. It tells me things I already suspected, though I resisted them, and now I know for sure.”
“And what’s that?” she asked, dragging those baby blues away from their joined grasp.
“That you were meant for me. In every way, you are my equal. Hell, my better. I admire you greatly, Katya, and not just for saving my life. Me, my warriors, we put you in an impossible situation, one you handled with grace and courage. I hate that we met in this time of war and chaos in my world, and God does it scare me that you could get hurt. But there’s also no denying that the mere idea of you standing by my side through the good and the bad of it makes it…all so damn much easier to bear.”
He felt the truth of those words down deep, down into the dark places within him that had before so filled with grief and guilt.
Reaching out to stroke the hair off her face, he shifted, reminding him that he remained buried in her sweet pussy. Despite the incredible, mind-bending orgasm, his cock was still as hard as she was wet.
He rocked his pelvis, slow and gentle, and hummed his approval when she released a small moan and lifted her hips to meet his.
“What happened to your brothers?” she asked, her voice so full of that compassion he already associated with her. “On your back, it’s their names, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “They were killed in a battle with the Soul Eaters. Six months ago. They walked into an ambush, were outnumbered, and I couldn’t get to them in time.”
She squeezed his hand. “Oh, Nikolai, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was my fault, and I will never forgive myself.”
She tilted her hips, just the littlest amount, and he couldn’t remain still. The soft give-and-take of their actions, of this new round of soul-bearing lovemaking, provided as much comfort as pleasure.
“No, I don’t believe that. How could it be your fault?”
He scoffed. “We call the part of the city where they died the meat grinder, because all the abandoned buildings provide nests for the Soul Eaters. We used to play poker to see who got that sector on patrol. Kyril and Evgeny died because I bluffed my way through a hand of seven-card straight.”
Swallowing roughly, she dragged the fingers on her free hand through the left side of his hair. “Is that why you refuse to wear the marks of your position?”
“I dishonored myself, Katya. As a warrior, as a ruler, by playing games with men’s lives, with the lives of my only living blooded relatives. I lost the right to call myself warrior, or king.”
“Do you want to know what I think?”
He kissed her hand, still intertwined with his, and rocked his body into hers in an easy, gentle rhythm. “Always.”
“I didn’t know your brothers, of course, but I have brothers of my own. And though sometimes we want to kill each other, they have always been my greatest defenders, and the first ones to call me out when I acted like a brat. And I just think…I think your brothers wouldn’t want you to turn your back on something so important, Nikolai. Kings rule. Warriors fight. That’s who you are, and who you should be.” She licked her lips and offered a small smile. “They wouldn’t want you to stop living just because they no longer do.”
Her words lodged a knot in his throat. Oh, God in heaven, he was falling in love with this woman.
“Will you tell me about them sometime?” she asked, wrapping an arm around him and pulling them closer together.
“Will you stay long enough to hear all there is to tell?”
She glanced at their hands and squeezed. “Is that what this means?” Her pale eyes went wide and a light blush colored her cheeks. “Oh, I guess I just assumed—”
“Shh, angel, yes, it’s what it can mean. It’s what I want it to mean.” His heart tripped into a sprint. “The mark will last three days, then disappear forever if the mating is not consummated.”
He rolled onto his side and pulled Katherine to him, holding her thigh open so he could maintain their intimate connection.
Even as his hips moved, he spoke words he never thought he would: “Will you be my mate, Katherine? Will you stand at my side, serve as my queen and share in my life, my blood, my immortality?” Now that he’d surrendered to the blood magic so clearly working between them, he felt the rightness of it down deep.
She gasped and grasped her throat, as if surprised. “Oh, Nikolai, are you sure? You said one night. Just one perfect night.”
“Angel, I’m more than sure. I didn’t dare hope for more than that. And, now…now that I have the chance for a lifetime of perfect nights, a chance at a lifetime with you, I want it more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my very long life.”
She smiled. “I do want you, Nikolai. I truly do. I left the service of the Proffered and fled five thousand miles around the world to get away from it, I thought. But, really, something in me just knew that, had I stayed, I’d have been in the service of the wrong warrior. The wrong vampire. The wrong king. How fast this has all happened is crazy, but I want you, a life with you, all of it.” She bit down on her bottom lip and one hand rubbed at her throat.
Her words were like the sweetest salve, knitting up the raw edges of the psychic wounds he bore deep within. But still, he frowned. Unease stirred in his gut. Something wasn’t right… “Are you okay?” He grasped her hand before she marked her neck.
She trembled. Nodded. “I…I don’t…I’m so thirsty, Nikolai.”
The world went still around him. They weren’t mated. Not yet. But every instinct told him she was hungry and hurting for the want of his blood.
Jesus. How could he make her wait until the ceremony to feed? Ev
en if they held it at tomorrow’s nightfall, that was hours away.
He couldn’t. He didn’t want to.
An idea came to mind. Maybe he didn’t have to, either.
Withdrawing from her body, he squeezed her hands. “I want to ease you, angel.” He reached over the side of the bed and found his pants. From the pocket, he retrieved a small leather pouch. He returned to her and pulled the drawstring open. “Hold out your hand.”
Four faceted gemstones and a few little bands poured out into her palm. She gasped and leaned in, turning her hand this way and that to catch the light of the stones.
He smiled, knowing just how fascinating they were to look at. “They’re alexandrite. Our sacred stone. Very rare. It changes color in different lights.” Just then, they appeared red with flashes of pale purple.
“Oh, they’re beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it. But, how will this help—”
“If you’ll allow it, I would like to share a private consummation with you. Right here. Right now. I still want the formal ceremony, Katherine. I want to stand before you and my warriors and claim you as my own, but I can’t watch you suffer, not when I can take the pain away.”
“Oh, Nikolai, yes.”
Deep satisfaction pooled in his gut. The thought of her feeding from his vein seduced him with the rightness of the plan. “But I need you to hold on a moment longer, if you can, because you deserve a male doing his duty, shouldering his responsibilities. And I want to be that kind of a male, for you. So—” he lay on his back next to her, his marked hand settling on his chest “—it doesn’t have to be perfect, but if you could braid three of those into my hair…”
“You want me to do it?”
He looked at her and smiled. “Who else would I ask, my angel?”
“Okay,” she whispered.
As her fingers grabbed and tugged thick strands of his hair, Nikolai closed his eyes and imagined all there was to come. Her mouth filled with the flavor of his blood. The consummation mark adding color to the black of their hands. Standing within a circle of his warriors and publicly claiming her, and being claimed in return.
