He took her face into his hands and pulled her close, bumping their noses. “You are amazing,” he whispered.
He felt heavy and light at the same time. Heavy with her delicious blood, but light of soul and the freedom of no secrets.
“And beautiful.” He gave her a tender kiss. “And mine.”
He heard her swallow and then she sighed, slumping into his hold. “Yes. And now, we are truly one. Forever.”
Tristan sighed wistfully, resting his forehead against hers. “I love the sound of that.”
She smiled. “I know.” She gave him a soft peck on the cheek. “Would you like more?”
“Hmm?” he hummed, completely blissed out, at peace.
“Me?” Ash asked, the word suddenly heated. “Would you like more of me?” She reminded him that, while he wasn’t entirely hard anymore, he was still inside her by thrusting against him.
He let out a long, low moan, running his hands down her back until he had ahold of her ass. “Yes,” he all but hissed and licked a line up her neck, though there wasn’t a single drop to be had.
Ash quickly went about reopening a wound and Tristan didn’t hesitate to latch on, sucking on her as he rocked his hips against her. Ash gasped as his first thrust nearly pushed her back and she locked her ankles around his waist.
Bite me, he all but screamed and Ash was all too happy to oblige, driving her teeth into his neck again.
I could get used to this, she thought back and he growled at her.
Less talk, more fuck.
She started to laugh, threatening to break her suction on his neck but he prodded her again, hard enough that he scrambled to grab ahold of her and pull her back to him. He groaned against her neck and lifted her off the sink, spinning her around quickly to slam her back against the wall.
The imagines assaulted him again as he drank her down, but they were all of him. What she thought of him, how she saw him, despite knowing his less than favorable aspects. But like he understood her now, she understood him and still accepted and loved him. Messed up and all.
Their climaxes came quick and fierce and still, they managed not to break their blood connection and ride through the pleasure while drinking each other down. Tristan fell still against Ash, keeping her pinned between the wall and him, her legs held tightly to him, and sighed.
Ash echoed the wistful gesture and took down one last swallow of his blood. Tristan took his last swallow of her blood too and in the last moments of their connection he felt the extra thump of a pair of heartbeats, an echo of his own and Ash’s.
Damn, that was… incredible.
Only, when Tristan lifted his head to bask in the hazy veneer of bliss on his soon to be wife’s face, he only found a mask of horror.
“Oh my god, Ash? What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?”
She wiggled against him and he let her go, helping her to her feet. She stumbled away from him, bumping her hip against the sink cabinet.
He fought himself not to touch her. Not until he understood what had her so spooked. He couldn’t hear her mind unless she let him and she was locked up tight. “Ash?”
“Did… Did you do that?”
“What?” he asked because he had no idea what she was referring to.
She swallowed hard. “That—the extra heartbeats. You felt it, I know you did. In me, they—” Her eyebrows went up and she bit her lip, her parlor going sickly by the second. “By the Goddess.”
Tristan stared, dumbfounded for moment and then his blood deprived brain caught up and he nearly passed out right there. “Ohmyfuckinggod, Ash. No.” He shook his head hard. “No.”
“Tristan,” she whispered, looking truly sick now. She reached out for him and he caught her in his arms. Unable to keep himself upright, never mind Ash too, he lowered them to the cold bathroom tile in a heap.
“It’s impossible,” he said, barely loud enough to be heard. “You… Can’t. Just can’t. You’re—you’re not technically alive. You’re a god damn vampire, Ash. It’s not possible!”
Her eyes widened in horror. “But, I… I think I am.”
He shook his head again, hard. No, this couldn’t be happening. He knew what he felt, the same as Ash but no, this was just too fucked up. More fucked up than finding out he was one part shinwa, one part heikō.
“Tristan,” she said in a hollow voice, looking dazed and spooked. “I think I’m pregnant.”
The Uruwashi Series
Beautiful Death
Bete Noire
Moon Child
White Lies
Primal Burdens
About the Author
SOMETIMES known as Stinna (pronounced Steena), Christina Moore just so happens to be her real name. Her writing career started under a pseudonym in the romance genre. But her true love has always been the paranormal. Vampires, werewolves, demons, faerie and everything in between, she loves them all—the allure of the unknown. The birth of the Uruwashi series started many years ago with a daydream sparked by the special voice of a certain bad-ass vampire in her favorite anime. Little did she know then that the story of the Uruwashi would morph into what it is today.
A Maryland native, Christina lives just outside of beautiful historic downtown Annapolis. Growing up riding horses to show in dressage and cross-country, later moving on to racing Volkswagens and then finding a career in the architecture industry as a graphic artist/mother hen, she’s never been a real expert in any one thing. When not writing or trying to keep up with her toddler, she loves to read, garden, cross-stitch, and play video games.
www.thebeautifuldeath.com
Primal Burdens: (The Uruwashi Series #5) Page 31
