by Rebecca Main
I share with him a smile. The hold on my heart bursts as happiness crashes over me. The past weeks I have faced the hardest trials of my life and managed to come out stronger than ever before.
And managed to top a dangerously sexy vampyré in the process….
A moan threatens at the back of my throat at the thought, and my bottom lip suffers the consequences of stifling it. My fangs pierce the flesh, leaving a small cut in their wake.
Jakob’s eyes, which have remained a daring red, narrow on the sight of my blood. His hand reaches up to cup my cheek, and his thumb tugs my bottom lip from my fangs.
“Wicked girl,” he rumbles.
His fingers dig into my hip as he pulls me down to meet his upturned face. The touch of his lips and tongue sweeping over my cut drags the stifled moan from my throat. I clench the fabric of his shirt greedily as I dive into the kiss. The restraints of my hunger are broken with the ample attention he places against the healing cut.
I am lost in our frenzied actions. As is Jakob.
His hands roam my torso and breasts. Mine tear open his shirt.
His mouth pays tribute to the length of my neck and over the tops of my breasts. Mine declares its wanton delight.
Guided by instinct, our hips seek friction. My eyes, having drifted shut long ago at the pleasure of Jakob's touch, flicker open to admire his movements. He sits upright, dragging us both toward the head of the bed to better accommodate our promiscuous position.
Jakob could easily tear my nightie in half, as I’ve done to his shirt, but instead, he takes his time moving it up my body. His smoldering eyes alighting anew at each new inch of skin revealed. The garment finds its way over my head and is tossed to the wayside. Jakob takes no time to press open-mouthed kisses between my breasts.
It is almost too much to keep my eyes open, yet I dare not miss a thing.
Jakob pulls back to look up at me. His face holds a modest flush, and his lips… his lips are red amidst the grayscale my vision inflicts. I trace them reverently before swooping down to capture them once more.
My enthusiasm is happily met, and Jakob flips me onto my back, his weight set deliciously upon me.
“Vixen,” he whispers harshly against my lips.
I take in a deep breath and am instantly surrounded by the smell of him—a mix of sultry amber and rich Madagascar vanilla. I squirm beneath the leisurely pace he sets, stretching beneath him and arching my back to better feel his touch.
“Patience, dear heart.”
I groan. “I’m tired of being patient,” I say, feeling inexcusably breathless. “It’s far past time these came off,” I continue, making it abundantly clear with a rise of my hips at exactly which clothes of his need to go.
Jakob pierces me with a heated look as my eyes drift to the erection tenting his pants. Again I bite my lip, this time to keep a giggle at bay from his rather ferocious expression. Jakob is not pleased. He lets out a half-strangled groan as the laughter bubbles forth despite my best efforts.
“You are sin,” he mutters, dropping his forehead to my shoulder as I ride my hips once more up against his hard length. An entirely different moan escapes him at the motion.
“Am I?”
I feel tremendously like the cat that got the cream as I let my hands steal between us to his belt buckle. I undo them with only the barest trembling in my hands, feeling both anxious and excited.
When we are finally together, skin to skin, shivers of pleasure dance up my spine. Inside I am sparked with warmth, and then Jakob’s hands are coasting back over my thighs to pull them around his waist. At the touch of his length against my wet folds, I secure my hands around his neck.
A bout of uncertainty plagues me with the penultimate moment at hand, but Jakob is quick to soothe my nerves away. His head, still resting near my shoulder, tilts so his lips might graze my neck. The soft scratching of his fangs follows.
As he nibbles and bites and teases the sensitive skin, his hand reaches down below to find my wanting sex. A moan ushers out of me at his soft caress and my body feels alive once more.
“Jakob.” His name sounds like a prayer between us as I squirm beneath his cool touch.
Yet he proves to be a patient man.
Jakob's pianist's fingers tease my soft core, skimming the delicate flesh and dipping inside of my heat until he must place his other hand around my waist to hold me still. I grind against him with a whimper, in awe of the way his fingers stretch me.
“Please,” I beg.
Jakob lifts his head to look down at me. “Are you sure?”
I arch my body into his in reply.
A deep desire sweeps through me, but it is not the only one I feel. Jakob runs his hands over my body—all over—and my fangs dare to pierce my lip again. I watch as he braces himself above me, and I clench my thighs around him. And suddenly… suddenly….
“Oh,” I whimper.
There is a sharpness in his thrust that takes me aback, my virginity gone and the feeling of being so full drives me instantly mad. I writhe beneath him, unused to such a feeling. Jakob hisses at the motion, rocking his hips gently as he studies me through heavy lashes.
“You are—” He clenches his teeth as a moan rocks up his throat. His body shudders above mine, and my hands seek out the strained muscles of his back. “—exquisite,” he finishes breathless and captures my lips.
He moves, and oh.
To feel him fill me... his thrusts are deep and unhurried is the most delicious pleasure. I rock my hips to meet him halfway, spurred into action. His grip flexes upon me, and this too will leave a mark. Jakob hisses, and his hips sink down of their own volition, driving into me until there is nothing between us.
Our eyes meet.
“I bind myself to you, Irina Adolphus,” he says, voice husky and making me quiver. He guides my hand to lay beneath his soulmark, eyeing me meaningfully as he does the same.
“I bind myself to you, Jakob Vrana.”
“Kysely,” he corrects softly. “My human name….”
I close my eyes and nuzzle his neck. “I bind myself to you, Jakob Kysely… Vrana.”
Our fingers move in perfect synchronization and hit their marks—dear God.
What back bending pleasure is this? A reckless and mindless abandon accompanies the fission of ecstasy that drives through me. The world around me breaks into a rainbow of color as a wordless cry drags my mouth open. Jakob’s fangs bury themselves in my neck, and there to accent the already mind-numbing pleasure of our binding is a deadly fire running rampant in my blood.
My ankles lock around his waist. My nails dig crescents into his arm, unwilling to break the contact with the soulmark. He growls his pleasure, and the scent of my blood permeates the air.
“Jakob.” His name is little more than a whimper, and my hold on him vanishes as he captures my hands in his.
Jakob rears back from my neck, his lips and chin stained a bloody red, and then he is thrusting forward once again. His body yearning for my cries. It doesn’t take much to earn them. Every utterance I emit turns into a cry of delight or plea for more.
More, more, more.
Pressure builds inside of me, a rapture that refuses to be contained. It sits on the precipice between us, and with each echoed moan it climbs higher and higher until—
“Oh, God. Jakob!”
He thrusts impossibly deeper into me. Quicker. Harder. He rides the waves of my orgasm, face pinched with the effort of holding back his own. His head bends down to meet mine, the bruising touch of his hands urging my hips on even though I can’t—I can’t possibly—
“You’re not done yet,” he pants into my ear and offers me his neck.
I eye the throbbing artery along the corded muscles of his neck and do not hesitate. My fangs sink deeply past flesh and sinew, and rich blood floods into my mouth. It’s like a glass of wine— sophisticated, bold, and velvety smooth. Jakob groans, his hips stammering to a s
top as his own climax hits.
After a moment, he gently pulls me away from his neck. “Greedy,” he whispers against my ear. A delectable and satisfied throbbing travels up my entire body as he eases off my body.
“Very,” I murmur back, a lazy smile sweeping over my lips. Jakob curls his body up against mine, so we lay side by side. He wipes away the blood from my face.
Shyly, I return the favor. “I’m afraid I might have been too rough with you,” Jakob confesses, a small frown marring his handsome face. I shake my head and brush back his hair, admiring the golden locks.
“I liked it,” I tell him.
He loses the frown and smiles back at me. In his eyes, there is a spark of something... something I dare to call a beginning.
Montana | September 2018
Jakob believed that fighting in the rain was a touch romantic. No matter who the opponent was. He stood, at that exact moment, on a precipice, his life teetering precariously toward another new beginning, one after which the stakes would be raised far higher. Jakob was ready to fall.
“I was wondering when you would notice,” he said aloud, stepping from the tree line into her view.
She was a beauty, he acknowledged. Long black hair. Striking green eyes. The most severe scowl he had ever seen on a woman, and it made her all the more appealing to look at. It was a pity he was going to kill her.
Jakob slanted his lips upward, but only enough to convey his dark amusement.
“I wasn’t expecting company,” she said.
A gust of wind tumbled into the pair. Rain splattered each, but as the vampyré was hit with another lash of the rain, the lycan smirked. Jakob lost his dark smile and, in a moment, was only a few feet from the hot-blooded creature.
“The ring, if you please.”
The woman, who Jakob knew to be the sister of the alpha, let her eyebrows shoot toward her hairline. Her feet, he also noticed, shifted wider apart.
“You’re the vampyré?” she asked. Jakob inclined his head and kept his eyes on the lycan. “I thought you would be taller.”
Genuine amusement struck Jakob at his core. Their fight would be spirited. Good. He never liked a fight too easy to win. It made his victories far less worthwhile.
“My apologies,” Jakob murmured.
“My apologies as well,” she replied. She kept her voice low and calm, but Jakob knew her pleasantry was a ploy. “I’m afraid I can’t give you the ring. It belongs to a friend of mine, you understand. Don’t you?”
The vampyré’s lips shrank back to bare his fangs. “That ring is mine.”
He struck like lightning. Jakob was ruthless, and his movement was filled with deadly intent. Yet the lycan held her ground, admirably so. A rare bit of pity flooded through Jakob’s mind. It was a shame to have to lay waste to such a beautiful creature, and one with such fire in her blood.
Jakob stilled the moment she drew the blade. There was a wild look in her eye—the feral drive of survival.
“You’re not getting this ring,” she spat, blood dripped down her lip.
Jakob watched with keen interest, knowing far too well how the fight arose in him such stimulating feelings. Without humor, he laughed at the young lycan and began to circle her. She watched each movement he made with barely contained contempt.
He tossed his jacket aside.
Unfastened his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves.
The lycan stiffened her spine, her ivy-colored eyes narrowing.
“As I said before, the ring belongs to me. If you want to see your friends alive, I’d advise you to hand it over now.”
She opened her mouth to give a scathing retort, but nothing arose. Her eyes widened momentarily, and then her features dissolved into nothing. No hint of emotion. No fear in her eyes. Just a glimmer of something more.
“I’d advise you to find a different ring. Purple really isn’t your color, leech.”
Jakob did not appreciate her cavalier tone. He charged forward with his vampyric speed, not expecting the blade to strike his abdomen so soundly.
“I did offer to be lenient,” Jakob rebuked, a bitter undertone to his words.
Their fight hurdled toward its final end with a massive blow delivered by the vampyré. The lycan fell to the forest floor, with Jakob atop her in a flash. His hand wrapped too tightly around her neck. She struggled valiantly, but Jakob was finished with this game. He had waited 152 years for this moment, and no mere slip of a girl was going to take it from him.
“There’s no use fighting it,” Jakob said and snatched her pretty pale hand within his. With some effort, he worked her fingers open from their formed fist and slipped the Amethyst of the Aztec ring from her middle finger.
Finally.
Jakob was overcome with emotion. For what might have been an eternity, he stared at the ring in his hand. Finally. Finally—
Jakob attempted a swift retreat, but the little bitch had her nails drilled into his arm and her palm touching—touching... A breathy gasp swept from her bloodstained lips, the action drawing her chest to his as lightning stole between the two. It drew up the vampyré’s veins and ignited a storm.
Their eyes clashed. The storm raged on, pulling him imperceptibly closer to his… soulmark. Jakob’s lips parted in astonishment. No, no, no.
“Let it be known that thy are found,” she said, voice raw. “My soul awakened. The stars incline us, my love, and so we are sealed.”
There drew a sharp pain inside of Jakob. A chord inside him struck so tightly he thought he might cave. Instead, he felt some part of him, long since forgotten and left behind in time, surge forth and fill his veins. Yes, there was a pain, and then light. Warmth. Like the sun was shining down on him. Within him.
He felt a profound rightness in his bones that he refused to accede to. Just as quickly as the sensation rocked his body, it fell away. Yet, the shock of it all lingered on. Jakob tumbled aside, staring at the lycan aghast. Rage settled quickly then.
All of his plans...
All of his carefully laid plans.
She had ruined them all. Jakob easily swept all notions of warmth and glorious sunshine aside as he let his hatred consume him. Jakob took a deep, calming breath.
Patience would conquer still.
“You’re going to regret that,” he promised darkly. His fist caught the side of her head, and the beauty slumped unconscious to the ground.
Chapter 20
Present
Sleep is no different when you are dead. You close your eyes and rest your head and dream of better things… except better things are different now. Better is the time spent by his side, touching him whenever I want. Better is the centerpiece bite of a rarely cooked filet mignon. Better is feeling stronger than ever before and—
“Irina. Irina, wake up.”
The soft jostling of my body and Ruby’s whispered words stir me from my drowsing. I come to gradually, the comforting lull of my thoughts putting up a meager fight, but Ruby’s insistence wins. A hand smooths itself over my brow and brushes my tangled hair from where it sticks to my face.
“We have to leave now, Irina. We don’t have much time.”
I sit up, blinking sleep’s hold away. “What are you talking about?”
“Get dressed, and I’ll explain.”
Stealing a sheet, I carefully extract myself from Jakob’s bed. Ruby doesn’t bat an eye, but I note the pleased expression on her face at the recent turn of events. Though I can’t be sure her current happiness is wrought from the development between Jakob and me, the twitch in her cheek indicates otherwise.
“Where are we going?” I ask, going for the untouched stash of clothing I’ve piled atop Jakob’s dresser. Sequestering myself to his room for the past five nights has rendered the clothes useless—a fact I didn’t mind at all.
“I’m to escort you back home, above ground,” she says.
I turn to her in alarm, a pair of leather leggings halfway up my thigh
s. “Why? What’s happened?”
“The tribunal is set to happen tomorrow night.” The world creeps by at a crawl as my vision sharpens on Ruby, her words and their meaning calling me to a stop.
“I knew the court called for a tribunal, but I didn't think it would happen so fast... I thought Count Delacroix wanted to take his time to gather the appropriate evidence?” My utterance brings the world back into motion, even if there was no action occurring around us in the first place. My sight loses its blurred edges and eerie stillness all the same.
Ruby sighs. “He did. He wants to bury the Thorburns. Apparently, he's wanted to see them dethroned for a long time. He wants to reseat the power to someone more mailable to his preferences. But news and rumors of what happened has gone too far. The courtiers want an immediate trial of all guilty parties... including us.”
“We only took back what was rightfully ours,” I argue, finishing dressing with haste. A pair of Manolo Blahniks finds their way to my feet, and I run a hand through my tangled hair. Bedhead didn’t get better with death. Pity. “What exactly are they trying us for?”
“Not us,” Ruby corrects, ushering me out of the room. “Me.”
My motion to stop is halted with a touch to my lower back; Ruby guides me onward until we are at the apartment suite door, and I finally find my voice.
“Why?”
“There are no witnesses to come forward regarding Adrian's death, which means you and Jakob are in the clear. Nova and you have William Douglas’s testimony on your side in regards to the Mubark fiasco, but the death of Iris Roux is another matter.”
“But—”
“We don’t have time to argue, Irina. We knew something like this could happen, which is why we’ve been preparing everything above ground for our return. Well, your return.”
I grace Ruby with a quizzical frown as we leave, but she doesn’t respond. Instead, she speeds down the corridor with her vampyric speed, stopping every now and then to assess the best route for our destination. I place a hand on her elbow to pause our escape, if only for a moment.
