“When I first saw you,” she gasped as he suddenly began to search her for a rhythm, “I could not help myself from wondering. Your size and stature, your hands were so large and so calloused, and I wanted to know what it would feel like to be held between your hands, against your body, to know the feel of your powerful legs—!”
Siena released a strangled cry as Elijah found her sweet spot, the understanding in her awareness immediately flooding his thoughts, and he instantly incorporated it into the deep tempo of his thrusts. She could no longer speak or think. She couldn’t even hold herself up. Elijah commanded her every movement, and he did it masterfully.
You are so tight, kitten.
Apparently he couldn’t speak either, and even his thoughts were a long groan of pleasure. Siena thrust herself into his mind, into the wild haze of animal need and almost cruel dominance. This she understood. Oh, so well. It was primal. Possessive. Territorial. She was his, and he was going to make damn sure she and everyone else knew it.
That was when his teeth pierced her shoulder. It was partly to pin her in place, and also a very distinctive mark. He couldn’t seem to help himself. He couldn’t restrain the brutality of his body as it surged harder and harder into hers. The tempo raced faster, she was screaming with ecstasy, and he could feel the blinding force of it in her mind and body even before he felt it clutch at him, relentless and tight, her entire being shuddering around him. He kept her there, catching her thrown-back head against his shoulder, deafening him with those incredible screams, until he couldn’t bear it a single second longer. He crested, exploding inside her like a violent bomb, thrusting deeply and shouting to the heavens, which answered him with a furious crash of thunder.
They both fell to the ground, a tangle of limbs, perspiration, and the unwillingness to move a single millimeter. They gasped for breath, even Elijah unable to regulate his oxygen needs in that moment. A hand rested limply against his chest, and he lifted it to kiss the palm. Instantly he saw the huge raw patch and blisters. He sat up suddenly, reaching for her other hand. It was equally damaged. As if coming out of a raging, senses-confusing storm, he looked at his mate.
“Siena!” He reached for her, gathering her against himself. What had he been thinking? She was fresh out of her sickbed, exhausted from battle. Now she lay battered, bruised, and blistered.
And bitten. Don’t forget bitten if you are going for an alliteration theme.
The smart-assed thought instantly eased his impending guilt. He knew that tone well enough to know she was doing better than fine. He had half a mind to dump her out of his lap and onto her head.
Siena’s eyes flew open.
“You wouldn’t!”
“Don’t test me!” he retorted. “Damn it, woman, you mess with my head!”
“Well, you need to learn not to worry so much. A few love bumps and bruises are all part of the game for Nightwalkers.” She reached to soothe him with a warm, spicy kiss. “It’s nothing to the way you turn me inside out when you make love to me like that,” she murmured, her golden eyes glittering with her pleasure.
Elijah suddenly felt lighthearted. He stood up and yanked her to her feet in a single smooth motion. With one more tug she was bumping into him and they were both falling onto the bed. The Warrior Captain rolled his bride beneath himself, pinning her to the mattress with his significant weight. He leaned to catch her mouth, kissed her until her pretty cheeks were flushed a rosy red.
“Before the sun comes up, I am determined to get back to the part about my powerful legs,” he said silkily against her damp, smiling lips.
CHAPTER 20
“Child of the night, walking in the night, beloved of the night…We name you.”
Elijah stepped forward as he reached toward Isabella, letting her daughter take tight hold of one of his fingers. Legna stepped forward and did the same.
“We name you Jacina,” Isabella said strongly. “This is your name of power, known only to the four of us. It will be used to care for you, discipline you, and mold you into a proud reflection of the newest generation of our people.”
“I name you Leah,” Jacob said, touching his babe gently on her dusky forehead. “This is your call name, my daughter, which many will use to become your friend, your teachers, and, one day, to write your existence into histories where you will distinguish yourself with greatness.”
“We are Siddah,” Legna and Elijah intoned in unison. “We will foster you, Jacina. We will temper you with love and shape you with respect and guidance according to the ways of our peoples. We will always love you as our own, Leah.”
“Blessed be by Destiny,” Elijah said, grinning suddenly from ear to ear.
“She is the first child of a new era for so many of us.” Legna sighed with satisfaction, reaching to hug the proud parents warmly.
“And never the last,” Isabella agreed, touching Legna’s belly with a smile.
“Come. My bride has laid a feast in our tradition for us,” Elijah said, herding the group away from the altar deep in the Russian woodlands. It had snowed earlier and it was far too chilly for the baby to be out much longer, even though she was tucked warmly against her mother’s breast.
“A Lycanthrope throwing a Demon feast,” Jacob chuckled. “I never thought I would see the day.”
“You never thought Elijah would be married,” Isabella teased, nudging the warrior with an elbow.
“Give me my fosterling before you lollygaggers freeze her to death.”
Elijah snatched Leah from her mother and disappeared into the brisk winds.
“Elijah!” Bella shouted after him. “I’m going to kick your ass!”
“He is going to spoil her rotten,” Legna predicted.
“Now you tell me,” Bella said wryly.
Elijah materialized before his wife with the babe cradled in the crook of his banded arm. Siena was dressed in formal attire, literally glowing gold between the short silken dress she wore, her glowing eyes, and her luminescent skin.
“Our fosterling, I presume.” She greeted him warmly, rising from her throne, her collar winking in the gaslight as she moved to touch the child her husband held. She lifted her mouth to his, letting him kiss her with the gentleness she knew never ceased to amaze the court that was still getting used to seeing their former enemy by their Queen’s side.
“My Lady Queen, may I introduce Leah, daughter to the Enforcers.”
“Hello, Leah,” she said softly, her eyes twinkling with sudden mischief as she looked up at Elijah. “You look frighteningly natural holding a child, my husband.”
“Don’t get any ideas, kitten,” he warned with a chuckle.
“No. I won’t,” she assured him. Then she touched soft, delicate fingers over the baby’s lightly furred scalp. “At least…not for a few months yet.”
Elijah’s breath froze in his chest and she felt the chill of shock that rushed through him. She threw back her head and laughed so hard that the entire room turned to look at her.
“Did I say months? I meant years,” she corrected, laughing so hard she brought tears to her eyes.
“That was not funny,” he growled at her.
She ignored him, stepping past him to greet her recently arrived Demon guests with a combination of hugs and a few formal kisses on their cheeks.
“Come, and be welcome. My people and I warmly greet you all,” she announced loudly, expansively opening her arms towards the enormously festive banquet. “Let us celebrate the naming of this beautiful child. And let us celebrate all of our futures, for as sure as this child’s name will never change, our futures will never again be the same.”
As Elijah watched her move forward, the regal hostess from head to toe, he closed his eyes and slipped warmly into her mind, making sure she knew without a doubt that he would grow to love her even more than he did in that moment.
Siena turned to look at him as his pale green eyes flicked open. She reached to touch her collar absently, smiling at him as she did so.
>
I love you as well, warrior, she whispered into his thoughts. Perhaps more than either of us will ever know.
I will know, he corrected her. I will always know.
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It was daylight once more when Jacob floated down through Noah’s manor until he was in the vault, one moment dust dancing through the incandescent light, the next coming to rest lightly on his feet. He looked around the well-lit catacomb, seeking his prey. He heard a rustling sound from the nearest stacks and moved towards it.
There was a soft curse, a grunt, and the sudden slam of something hitting the floor. Jacob came around just in time to find Isabella dangling from one of the many shelves, her feet swaying about ten feet above the floor as she searched with her toes for a foothold. On the ground below her was a rather ancient looking tome, the splattered pattern of the dust that had shaken off of it indicating it had been the object he had heard fall. Far to her left was the ladder she had apparently been using.
With a low sigh of exasperation, Jacob altered gravity for himself and floated himself up behind her. “You are going to break your neck.”
Isabella was not expecting a voice at her ear, considering her peculiar circumstances, and she started with a little scream. One hand lost hold and she swung right into the hard wall of his chest. He gathered her up against himself, his arm slipping beneath her knees so she was safely cradled, his warmth infusing her with a sense of safety and comfort as he brought her down to the floor effortlessly. In spite of herself, she pressed her cheek to his chest.
“Must you sneak up on me in midair like that? It’s very unnerving.”
She had meant to sound angry, but the soft, breathless accusation was anything but. Anyway, how angry would he think her to be if she was snuggling up to him like a kitten? Damn it, Demon or not, he was still a sinfully good-looking man. Jacob was elegant to a fault, his movements and manner centered around an efficiency of actions that drew the eye. He was dressed again in well-tailored black slacks, and this time a midnight blue dress shirt with his cuffs turned back. She could feel the rich quality of the silk beneath her cheek, and when she breathed in, Jacob smelled like the rich, heady Earth he claimed his abilities from.
Besides all the outwardly alluring physicality, Isabella knew that he was extremely sensitive about all his interactions with others. She could feel his moral imperatives tingling through her mind whenever he was near. His heart, she knew, was made of incredibly honorable stuff. How could she find it in herself to be afraid of that? Especially when he had never once hurt her, even though there had been plenty of influences compelling him to.
“Shall I put you back and let you plummet to your death?” he asked, releasing her legs and letting her body slide slowly down his until her feet touched the floor.
The whisper of the friction of their clothes hummed across Jacob’s skin, and he felt his senses focusing in on every nuance of sensation she provided for him. The swishing silk of her hair even in its present tangled state, the sweet warmth of her breath and body, the ivory perfection of her skin. He reached to wipe a smudge of dust from her delec table little nose. She was a mess. There was no arguing that. Head to toe covered in dust and grime and she smelled like an old book, but those earthy scents would never be something unappealing to one of his kind. Jacob breathed deeply as the usual heat she inspired stirred in his cool blood. It was stronger with each passing moment, with each progressive day, and he never once became unaware of that fact. He tried to tell himself it was merely the effects of the growing moon, but that reasoning did not satisfy him. Hallowed madness would not allow for the unexpected compulsion toward tenderness he kept experiencing whenever he looked down into her angelic face. It would never allow him to enjoy these simple yet significant stirrings of his awareness without forcing him into overdrive. True, he was holding onto his control with a powerful leash of determination. He was tamping down the surges of want and lust that gripped him so hard sometimes it was nearly crippling, but somehow it was still different.
Then he had to also acknowledge the melding of their thoughts as something truly unique. Perhaps a human could initiate such a contact if they were a medium or psychic of noteworthy ability, but she made no claims to such special talents. Every day the images of her mind became clearer to him. She had even taken to consciously sending him picturesque impressions in response to some discussion they were having with Noah, Elijah, and Legna. He believed that, if things continued to progress in this manner, he and Bella would soon be engaging in actual discussions with each other without ever opening their mouths. He didn’t have fact to base that assumption on, but it seemed the natural evolution to the growing silent communication between them.
He had seen Legna staring at them curiously on several occasions. Luckily, because she was a female Mind Demon, she was not a full telepath. If she had been a male she would have been privy to some pretty private exchanges between him and Isabella. Nothing racy, actually, but he found Isabella had such an irreverent sense of humor, that he wasn’t sure others would understand it as he seemed to.
It was a privacy of exchange he found himself coveting. It was the one way they could be together without Legna or Noah interfering. It was bad enough that the empath was constantly sniffing at his emotions, making sure he kept in careful control of his baser side. Since the King was not able to subject him the usual punishment that was meted out for those who had crossed the line as he had with Isabella, his monarch had been forced to be a little more creative. Setting Legna the empathic bloodhound on him had done the trick. It was also seriously pissing him off. He knew she was always there, and it burned his pride like nuclear fire.
What was more, he couldn’t keep his mind away from Isabella. And since even the smallest thought of her had a way of sparking an onslaught of fantasies that brought his body to physical readiness…well, it was the very last thing he wanted an audience for.
It had taken quite a bit of planning, and the deceptive use of herbal tea mixtures, in order to slip out from under Legna’s observation so he could sneak away to the vault. The empath slept as soundly as the dead, and she would stay that way until this evening.
“I wouldn’t have fallen to my death,” Bella was arguing, her stubborn streak prickling. “At the most, I would have fallen to my broken leg or my concussion or something. Boy, you Demons have this way of making everything seem so intense and pivotal.”
“We are a very intense people, Bella.”
“Tell me about it.” She wriggled out of his embrace, putting distance between them with a single step back. Jacob was well aware of it being a very purposeful act. “I’ve been reading books and scrolls as far back as 700 years ago. You were just a gleam in your daddy’s eye then, I imagine.”
“Demons may have long gestation periods for their young, but not 78 years worth.”
“Yes. I read about that. Is it true it takes thirteen months for a female to carry and give birth?”
“Minimum.” He said it with such casual dismissal that Bella laughed.
“That’s easy for you to say. You don’t have to lug the kid around inside of you all that time. You, just like your human counterparts, have the fun part over with like that.” She snapped her fingers in front of his face.
His dark eyes narrowed and he reached to enclose her hand in his, pulling her wrist up to the slow, purposeful brush of his lips even as he maintain a sensual eye contact that was far too full of promises. Isabella caught her breath as an insidious sensation of heated pins and needles stitched their way up her arm.
“I promise you, Bella, a male Demon’s part in a mating is never over like this.” He mimicked her snap, making her jump in time to her kick-starting heartbeat.
“Well,” she cleared her throat, “I guess I’ll have to take your word on that.” Jacob did not respond in agr
eement, and that unnerved her even further. Instinctively, she changed tack. “So, what brings you down into the dusty atmosphere of the great Demon library?” she asked, knowing she sounded like a brightly animated cartoon.
“You.”
Oh, how that singular word was pregnant with meaning, intent and devastatingly blatant honesty. Isabella was forced to remind herself of the whole Demon-human mating taboo as the forbidden response of heat continued to writhe around beneath her skin, growing exponentially in intensity every moment he hovered close. She tried to picture all kinds of scary things that could happen if she did not quit egging him on like she was. How she was, she didn’t know, but she was always certain she was egging him on.
“Why did you want to see me?” she asked, breaking away from him and bending to retrieve the book she had dropped. It was huge and heavy and she grunted softly under the weight of it. It landed with a slam and another puff of dust on the table she had made into her own private study station.
“Because, I cannot seem to help myself, lovely little Bella.”
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Gideon wore the habits of his lifetime like an unapologetic statement, and he wore them very well. He blended the male fashions of the millennium in a way that was nothing less than a perfect reflection of who he was and how he had lived. This only served to beautify his distinctive and powerful presence with his incidental confidence.
Elijah Page 35
