Marked by Midnigh

by Lara Adrian

  But Nova was also a fiery woman--a sexy, vibrant female who made everything male in him want to stand up and beat his chest, show her in the most carnal, primal way that she was his tonight, and that no man would ever come near her again without coming through him first.

  As he walked over to the bed and sat her down on the edge of it, Mathias struggled with the two warring sides of himself.

  The urge to get her naked beneath him had his blood running hot in his veins, his fangs throbbing as fiercely as the erection that strained against his pants, demanding release.

  It took all the control he had not to act on that impulse. Instead, he smoothed his hand over her silky black-and-blue hair, let it sift between his fingers. He stroked her creamy, velvet-soft cheek, let his thumb trace the shell of her ear, over the combination of small silver and black hoops that rode its delicate perimeter.

  He caressed the satiny lengths of her tattooed arms, committing every colorful inch to memory as both his fingers and his admiring gaze traveled her skin. He studied the Gothic-looking design on her left forearm--the one he’d initially dismissed as a tombstone. On closer look now, he realized he’d seen the image somewhere in the city. Had walked by it a thousand times on his regular patrols of Southwark, in fact.

  “It’s the rose window on the remains of the old Winchester Palace, down by Southwark Cathedral,” Nova said, when he stroked the tattoo in silent contemplation. “That’s where I met Ozzy, after I first came to London. The Cathedral only gives homeless people shelter for the night, so I hung out at the ruins during the day, sketching to pass time. Oz was there one afternoon and saw my work. He offered to let me apprentice at the shop.” She exhaled a soft laugh. “Since no one else was going to hire a homeless fourteen-year-old, I decided taking a chance on Oz was better than panhandling tourists.”

  Mathias listened, moved that she had opened up this small bit of her past to him. He still didn’t know where she’d been before arriving in London at such a tender age, nor did he know the circumstances behind why she’d run...or from whom. He didn’t know her full name. Hell, he wasn’t at all convinced that Nova was even her true first name.

  All things he was patient to wait for, answers he realized he didn’t need to have at all, in order to care for her the way he did already.

  He kissed her again, then reached for the hem of her black tank top and slowly drew it up, over her head.

  Below the phoenix tattoo with its spread wings and scarlet Breedmate mark at its heart, Nova’s torso was a clear canvas of milky, unblemished skin. Her small breasts were perfect little globes, capped with sweet pink nipples just begging to be tasted. He could hardly wait, but he had to--at least, until he was sure Nova was ready for all he craved of her.

  “You’re beautiful, with and without the ink,” he murmured, his voice rasping, thick with want. He took her right hand in his, looked down at the modified tattoo that was no doubt a constant reminder of her past, of all she fought so fiercely to leave behind. “You’re safe with me. I promise you that.”

  She nodded, but it was a faint acknowledgment. Although Nova had proven herself unbreakable in escaping whatever horrors she’d endured, there was a fragility in her eyes as she watched him explore her body with his gaze and his touch.

  “You can trust me,” he said, then bent down and kissed her, slowly, deeply.

  It was too much--that fresh meeting of their mouths after he was already taut with desire for her. Mathias growled low in the back of his throat as his tongue tangled with hers, their lips wet and hot, their slow kiss turning fevered and unstoppable.

  He needed to feel her against him.

  He needed to be inside her, his impatience held back on the thinnest of tethers.

  But her pleasure meant more to him in that moment.

  He pulled his mouth away from hers on a snarl. “Lie back.”

  She did as he asked, and when she was settled flat on the bed, he prowled onto the mattress with her, straddling her knees. He soaked her in with his gaze, the coal-bright glow of his Breed irises bathing her skin in soft amber.

  Slowly, he tugged down her loose black sweat pants, baring the tops of her hip bones and the subtle dip of her slender abdomen. Mathias’s mouth watered as he glimpsed the lace edges of her panties--bright pink, silky, surprisingly girly.

  “Always the unexpected with you,” he remarked, grinning through his teeth and fangs.

  She smiled up at him. “I’d hate to be boring.”

  “I don’t think you ever have to worry about that.”

  He drew her pants all the way off and dropped them to the floor. Nova’s lean legs were as clear as her torso, just smooth skin that tempted Mathias’s hands. He stroked the length of her limbs, slowing as he reached the apex of her thighs. Heat met his fingers as he toyed with the lacy scrap of fabric that covered her sex.

  He could smell the sweetness of her arousal, could feel the wet warmth of her bloom even more as he caressed her mound. Unable to resist, he followed his touch with his mouth, bending over her and nuzzling his face against the triangle of pink satin.

  Nova gasped, shuddering at the contact. She reached for his head, but instead of pulling him away from her, she held on, her fingers spearing into his hair. Mathias groaned, knowing he was lost now.

  He caught her panties between his teeth and drew them down, away from the trimmed patch of tight curls. Then he chuckled, having just discovered something else he hadn’t been expecting about his raven-haired beauty. He arched a brow at her. “Blonde?”

  She shrugged, shot him a playful smirk. “You never asked.”

  He grinned back at her, but he wasn’t about to let her have the last laugh. As payback, he dived into that tempting little thatch with his lips and tongue, wringing a startled cry out of her as he sought--and found--the bundle of nerves nestled between her folds.

  He suckled her, kissing her as passionately and deeply here as he’d kissed her mouth a few moments ago. He didn’t let up until she was writhing under him, her hands twisting in the sheets as her body arched against his lips and tongue.

  “Oh, God,” she gasped, panting as he took her even higher. “Oh, fuck...Mathias...”

  He glanced up as her orgasm rolled through her. She watched him too, her eyes locked on his as her pleasure crested, overflowed.

  Mathias held her gaze, giving her a silent promise that this was only the beginning of what he intended to show her.

  He wanted to make up for all of the abuses she had suffered at the hands of another, even if it took the rest of his life to help her forget.

  Hell, watching her surrender so openly to him now, there was a part of him ready to give her an eternity.

  If he had anything to say about it, this moment was already the start.

  “Mathias,” she murmured, breathless from the aftershocks of her climax. “I don’t want this feeling to stop. Not yet...”

  “No,” he growled. “Not yet.”

  Stripped out of his clothing and boots, he then knelt beside her, growing hungrier, impossibly harder, as she drank in his nakedness with passion-drunk, heavy-lidded eyes.

  His pulse hammered in his ears, in his temples, his blood running like molten lava in his veins from the intensity of his need for this woman. His glyphs surged with heat, color flooding their swirling, arcing patterns on his chest and shoulders and biceps.

  His fangs pressed against his tongue, razor-sharp tips fully extended, and he knew that Nova was seeing him at his most inhuman--in his savage, predator’s form.

  She didn’t flinch.

  She didn’t tremble.

  She reached for him. “Mathias...”

  There was nothing more she needed to do or say.

  He kissed her, unhurried, and positioned himself between her parted thighs. Her cleft was slick and hot against his shaft as guided himself to her. He couldn’t stop now. His desire for her swamped all of his senses.

  He pulled his hips back until he was seated at the core of he
r ready body.

  Then he drove home, inch by delicious inch, into the sweetest, hottest pleasure he’d ever known.

  ~ ~ ~

  He filled her more deeply than she thought possible, cleaving her core with so much heat and strength and passion that she could hardly draw her breath. The sensation overwhelmed her, stunned her.

  Obliterated every thought she’d ever had for what it meant to be at the mercy of a man’s carnal needs.

  Nova clung to Mathias as he rocked into her with unbridled force.

  Her body was still pliant from its release, nerve endings still thrumming from the pleasure he’d given her with his lips and tongue and touch.

  She felt that release winding up again as he crashed against her, the friction of his cock moving inside her swiftly becoming more than she could bear.

  On a cry, she shattered. Felt herself splintering apart into tiny pieces.

  Without warning, sudden tears filled her eyes. Burned the back of her throat.

  Mathias went stock-still above her, halting in mid-thrust. His breath sawed out of him, and the curse he swore was abrupt, dread-filled. “You’re crying.”

  She gave a feeble shake of her head, struggling to find her voice. “I just...I thought it would be different,” she choked out. “I thought I could handle it...”

  “Ah, shit. God damn it.” Every muscle in his body had ceased moving now. His scowl deepened. He started to withdraw from her. “Nova, I’m sorry--”

  “No.” She clutched his shoulders and swallowed back the raw lump that was blocking her voice. When he continued to shift his weight off her, she wrapped her legs around the backs of his thighs to hold him in place. “No, Mathias. That’s not what I mean. I’m not crying because you did anything wrong. It’s because this feels so incredible. You feel incredible inside me. I wasn’t prepared for this--for how we’d feel together. I didn’t expect it.”

  In his silence, he stared at her, unmoving. His fiery gaze warmed her face with its heat. “You feel all right, then?”

  “More than all right,” she assured him. “I feel...alive. With you inside me like this, I feel whole. For the first time, Mathias, I feel like the rest is really behind me. You’ve given me that.”

  He swore again, something low and reverent. Then he kissed her with more tenderness, more aching pleasure, than her heart seemed able to contain.

  When he finally broke the contact, he was grinning, fangs glinting.

  She frowned up at him. “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing,” he murmured, giving his hips a meaningful grind against hers. “I just think it could be amusing, doing other things you’ll enjoy but might not expect. Finding ways to keep you guessing, for a change.”

  He was still moving within her, still hard. Getting harder, in fact.

  Nova caressed his face, his handsome, otherworldly face. She wondered how long it would take for her to tire of looking at him.

  Longer than she dared imagine.

  A lifetime and then some.

  She held on as he found his tempo once more. Sighed with pleasure as his rising rhythm steered her toward the edges of another crest of sensation. Closing her eyes, she let him take her there, rode with him as his large body began to go rigid and tense, his hips pumping harder now, furious and deep.

  She cried out his name. Heard him mutter hers on a coarse shout beside her ear in that next instant, as heat exploded within her and he shook with the force of his orgasm.

  Nova’s heart was pounding like thunder in her ears.

  Then she heard the rumble again--a rapid drumming, urgent and unsteady. Coming from the other room.

  Mathias heard it too, no doubt before she had. He reared back abruptly.

  “Nova.” Eddie’s voice sounded oddly thin outside the apartment door.

  “Something’s wrong.” Mathias said it before she could voice her concern. His face was grim, nostrils flaring. “There is blood.”

  “Oh, God.” Alarm jolted her off the bed. She hurried back into her tank and sweat pants and was racing out to the living area in the next instant. She yanked open the door and shock hit her like a punch to the gut. “Eddie...oh, my God!”

  The boy was white as a ghost, his eyes dilated with shock. Blood stained the front of his T-shirt and jeans. A lot of blood.

  Nova grabbed him and hugged him close. She felt for injuries, but he seemed unharmed. Her hands came away sticky and red. “What happened to you? Where’s Ozzy?”

  “In the shop,” he murmured, his voice thready. “I couldn’t do anything, Nova. He told me to hide. I wanted to help him, but he wouldn’t let me.”

  Panic seized her. “Ozzy?” she shouted into the silence of the building.

  Mathias stood behind her now, bare-chested, dressed only in his black pants. Nova swung her gaze up at him, a raw sob hitching in her throat.

  “Oh, God. What the hell is going on? Oz!”

  She lunged past Eddie, only to be halted when Mathias took hold of her arm. “Nova, stay here. Let me--”

  She wrenched loose on a miserable cry and bolted for the stairs leading down to the studio.

  CHAPTER 8

  “Ozzy...oh, no. No!”

  Nova found him in the empty tattoo shop, lying in a pool of blood near his station. Dropped in a ragdoll sprawl on his back, his body was motionless, his eyes frozen wide. His throat was gashed open, hideously savaged.

  “Oz!” she cried, standing barefoot at the edge of the blood pool, her hands covering her mouth as a howl of anguish tore out of her. “No, Ozzy. No...”

  “I was sweeping the back room after Ozzy finished with a client, when I heard a man come into the shop,” Eddie murmured from behind her at the bottom of the stairs. “He was looking for someone. Looking for you, Nova.”

  Confusion jabbed through her grief as she stared down at the savagery done to her beloved mentor. “Looking for me? Are you sure?”

  “He didn’t seem to know your name,” Eddie went on, “but the man knew what you looked like. He told Ozzy, asked if he knew you. The man said it was important that he find you. He said you were in trouble.”

  She frowned, trying to make sense of the horror in front of her. Even in her state of numb shock, she could scent the lie in what the attacker told Ozzy. “Did you see who it was, Eddie?”

  “No. He was wearing dark clothes, had a hooded jacket on. I only saw him from the side, as he walked over to Ozzy’s station.” Eddie released a shuddering breath. “He was big, Nova. He sounded mean, angry. I could tell Ozzy was scared of him too.”

  She closed her eyes, fear pouring into her veins. “Was he human?”

  “I don’t know,” Eddie said. “I tried to look, but I couldn’t see his face. The man didn’t see me standing in the back room. I wanted to tell him to leave Ozzy alone, but Oz motioned for me to stay put. He mouthed for me not to say anything, to hide...” The boy choked on a sob. “So, I did. I crawled into a cabinet and I hid, Nova. And then I heard the man hurting Oz...”

  She glanced behind her at Eddie, and saw Mathias, now arrived at the bottom of the stairs.

  “You did the right thing,” he told the kid, who had dissolved into wracking tears. “If you hadn’t done what Ozzy told you, both of you would be dead now, Eddie.”

  The boy looked up at him. “You were here last night. Were you upstairs with Nova just now?”

  Mathias gave a slight nod. His gaze was solemn, grave. And in the pools of pale green that met Nova’s eyes now, she saw the crackle of amber sparks. She saw the tips of his fangs too, and the flush of color that was slowly seeping into the dermaglyphs on his bare chest.

  The sight of so much spilled, fresh blood could not have been easy for him. His Breed nature must have been clawing at him, yet Mathias held his vampire side at bay with remarkable control. For Eddie’s sake, no doubt. Maybe for her sake too.

  Nova’s own jagged sob scraped in her throat as she looked down at Ozzy again.

  She didn’t hear Mathias move up behind h
er.

  She didn’t know he was close enough to touch her, until his warm palm settled lightly, tenderly, on her shoulder. “Nova--”

  “Don’t.” She shrank away from his comfort. The idea that she had been mindless with passion, crying out in pleasure with Mathias while Ozzy was being attacked and murdered right under them was a pain she could hardly bear. She stared at Mathias in abject misery, guilt and grief shredding her from the inside. Her voice came out flat, forbidding. “Don’t touch me.”

  He frowned, letting his hand fall to his side. “Eddie, did the man say anything else to Ozzy?”

  “No. He wanted to know where to find Nova. Ozzy wouldn’t tell him, and then the man got really mad.” Eddie sniffled. “Is the man going to hurt Nova next?”

  “No,” Mathias answered sternly, swiftly. “I’ll never allow that to happen. I won’t let anything bad happen to you either, Eddie. But the two of you can’t stay here now. I’m going to call in some people who can help me look after Ozzy, then I’m going to bring you both someplace safe with me.”

  He reached for Nova as he said it. She couldn’t curb her knee-jerk reaction, the jolt of denial and grief that sliced into her at the thought of going anywhere without Oz.

  “I’m not leaving him.” She pulled out of Mathias’s reach. Cold, thickening blood was slippery under the bare soles of her feet as she moved closer to Ozzy’s body. “I need to know what happened. I need to know who did this.”

  She dropped down on her knees beside him.

  Mathias saw what she was about to do. He scowled, started to shake his head. “Nova, don’t--”

  His caution was a distant echo in her ears as she reached out and took hold of Ozzy’s lifeless hand.

  The final moments of his life played out behind her closed eyelids, just as Eddie had described them. The immense man in dark clothing, his face all but obscured by the hood of his black jacket. The demands he made of Ozzy, his low voice deadly with menace.

  Then Ozzy’s courageous, foolish, effort to protect her. To lie for her, even when he knew it would likely cost him his life.