Ben walked back to the wreck and began to dig through the ashes. He tore through the remains of cabinets and the odd swatch of fabric that had remained unburned, certain that at any moment he’d pull back a piece of rubble and see her impish grin.
Got you, she’d say.
“Tenzin.” He began to speak. “Show me where you are.”
More broken and charred cabinets.
Metal pipes.
Broken glass.
Twisted plastic, curled and cracked.
“What was the plan?” He stood and tossed the remains of the refrigerator across the clearing. “Where did you hide? You always have a plan.”
If she had hidden, why hadn’t she come back yet? He felt something wet on his face. He blinked hard and looked around.
The burned carcass of the trailer was torn apart, scattered across the clearing. The trailer chassis slumped to the side, broken and jutting from the ashes like metal bones.
Vampires don’t leave bones.
“Fuck!” Ben gripped his hair and screamed, “This isn’t funny anymore. Just tell me where you are!”
He didn’t think about Radu and his caravan. He didn’t think about the job. He didn’t think about the humans who must have burned her trailer.
All he wanted was Tenzin. All he wanted was for her to be alive.
If she was so pissed at him she never spoke to him again, he’d be fine, he just needed her to be alive.
Be alive!
Ben fell to his knees, staring at the empty field of ashes.
Nothing.
No sound.
No life.
The air curled around him and cooled the tears on his face.
It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. Was this how she’d felt? Was there an empty gaping hole in the center of her chest where his life had been?
She can’t be gone.
She can’t be gone.
She was Tenzin. The idea of her not existing didn’t even make sense. She always had a plan. She couldn’t be gone.
Silence.
The wind lifted him and turned him around. He felt the currents reaching beneath his clothes and pressing against his skin like gentle hands comforting him.
But Ben didn’t want the wind; he wanted her.
His amnis was wild, whipping the air around him, churning the ashes on the grass. Confused and broken, the wind lifted him and turned him, raising him from the earth to the sky. It whispered to his amnis.
I am here.
I am here.
I am here.
You are alive and I am here.
The air stilled and the clouds scattered, revealing a blanket of stars.
“Benjamin?”
He opened his eyes and she was hovering over him. Her face was covered in dirt, not ashes, and her eyes were clear and calm.
His lips cracked when he spoke. “Am I dreaming?”
“No.” She reached out and touched his face. “I’m here.”
Choking back a cry, Ben reached up and pulled her into his arms.
34
Ben’s mouth found hers and stole her breath. Tenzin had flown back to camp, prepared for his irritation and ready with explanations. She’d felt his amnis going wild from nearly a mile away. She’d flown faster, expecting to find him in a rage.
He hadn’t been raging. He’d been grieving. He’d thought she was dead.
Tenzin pulled her mouth away, keeping both hands on Ben’s ash-stained cheeks. “I’m here.”
His voice broke. “You were gone.”
“I flew away.”
“I thought you were gone, Tenzin.”
“I’m not. I’m here.”
Ben clutched her closer and buried his face in her neck. He didn’t speak. He didn’t say a word, but his arms welded her body to his as if he was afraid for even the air to come between them.
“Ben—”
He cut her off when his mouth found hers again. He ran his fingers into the hair at her nape and gripped. Tenzin wrapped both her legs around him as they spun in space. She ran her fingers through his hair, drinking in the tactile sensation of his touch, his amnis embracing her, his mouth moving over hers as the air held them in its soft embrace.
Ben had kissed her before, but not like this. He’d been playful. He’d been angry. He’d been hungry.
This.
This was different.
There was still an edge of desperation to his touch, but his lips met hers over and over, drinking her in, savoring the taste of her, lingering a breath away, then taking her mouth again.
“You’re alive,” he whispered between kisses.
“I’m alive.”
“You had a plan.”
“I always have a plan.”
His amnis built on hers like a storm gathering over mountains. Tenzin couldn’t breathe, but she didn’t need to. She didn’t need to speak. For once, they didn’t need to speak at all.
Ben guided them to the ground and led her to the trailer where he’d been sleeping. His was completely intact. As promised, Vano hadn’t tried to burn that one.
She’d watched them drive away under the burning caravan. Watched them argue before they left. Ben’s trailer had been intact and undisturbed.
Then René opened the ground to shield them from the heat and the flames.
Ben opened the door and lifted Tenzin from the ground and into the trailer, not even letting her feet touch the steps.
Tenzin snapped back into the moment. When he did things like that, she was wholly conscious of his physicality. He was a large man, far more muscular and solid than her slight frame.
An old voice hissed in her mind. He could hurt you.
He could not, a softer voice said. He would not.
Ben towered over her, running his fingers through her hair, teasing leaves and branches out and tossing them away. With one arm, he reached over and flipped on the water nozzle in the small shower. Almost immediately, steam began filling the space around them.
He reached down and began to peel off her dirty clothes.
She reached for him. “Ben, I’m fine.”
“Let me.” His voice cracked. “I know you hate the dirt.”
Tenzin nodded and allowed him to pull her tunic over her head. He gently pushed down her leggings, and she stepped out of them. Then she climbed in the shower. He tilted her head back and ran the water through her hair.
She felt the warm rivulets coursing down her body, washing away the dirt that had crusted to her. She stared at his bare chest, dusted grey with ash. Black streaks marked his torso. He was wearing only a pair of loose pants, and she could see the erection rising beneath them, but he was solely focused on her.
Ben took a bar of soap and ran it over her shoulders and down her arms. He rubbed soap in his hands and ghosted them over her breasts and her back, sliding his fingers over her skin.
“You’re covered in ashes.”
“I’m not hurt.”
Tenzin put a hand over his heart, and it offered her two rapid beats before it fell silent. “I miss your heartbeat. Have I told you that?”
His voice was barely over a whisper. “No.”
“I do.” She closed her eyes. “I miss your beautiful dark eyes. I miss the way they used to look at me.”
Ben’s amnis, which he’d held so tightly as he bathed her, broke free and rushed over her. He fell to his knees, wrapping his arms around her waist as he fell. He pressed his cheek to her belly and his body shook. She felt everything. His panic, his grief, and his wild, burgeoning rage.
The water was going everywhere, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“Come here. Don’t be angry—come here.” She lifted him to his feet and pushed his pants down before she pulled him into the shower.
He kicked the clothes away and climbed in, wrapping his arms around her body again and letting the warm water wash them both.
Ben bathed her as she washed him. The shower was tiny, and they were pressed together, but that didn’t see
m to bother him even though his body was far bigger than hers.
He washed her hair and skin meticulously, scrubbing every inch. She washed his chest and rinsed the ashes from his skin.
When they were both clean, he reached for a towel and wrapped her in it.
“Are we safe here?” he asked quietly. “Do you know where they went?”
“Yes, they’re approximately seventy kilometers away. I didn’t find any remnants when I went out to look. We’re alone.”
His voice was barely audible, even to her ears. “I thought you were dead. I didn’t want to believe it—I didn’t think it was possible—but for a few minutes I thought you were gone. And I can’t…” He pressed his lips together. “I don’t have words for what I felt.”
Tenzin sat on the edge of the bed and watched him wrap a towel around his waist. His eyes had aged a hundred years since nightfall. There was an edge of darkness in his amnis that she hadn’t felt before.
“Ben—”
“They tried to kill you.” He looked at the floor. “Who?”
“Vano and his men. They didn’t tell the other Poshani. I’m not sure what they told Radu, but the Poshani caravan was hours gone before they set the trailer on fire.”
“I’m going to kill every one of them.”
“Not tonight.” She reached her hand out. “Come here.”
He hesitated. “You’re right. I’ve been angry with you and with myself. I’m sorry for what I said last night.” He put his hands on his hips, staring at the ground as he avoided her eyes. “I don’t know how to be with you the way I am. I don’t feel like myself. Most nights I wake up and I don’t know who I am anymore.”
“I know who you are,” she said quietly. “I know you said you couldn’t trust me, but—”
His harsh laugh cut her off. “Tenzin, I thought you were dead.”
“I know.”
He finally looked her in the eye, and any hint of humor was gone. “Do you think there’s anything I wouldn’t have done to get you back? Do you think there is a line I wouldn’t have crossed? I know why you did it. Don’t ever explain yourself again.”
One day you will be infinite.
She fell into his amnis, the threads of darkness twisting around his natural warm glow. His scent changed, and she felt the predator in him wake.
Ben walked toward her and lifted her chin with his finger. He bent down and pressed his lips to hers with exquisite care.
Nothing could have seduced her more.
She reached for him, pulling him onto the bed, wrapping her arms around his neck and holding his body to hers. She shoved her towel off and reached for his, but it was already gone.
She pulled his body over hers, reveling in the weight of his muscle and bone, the length of his legs and the hard muscle of his arms. He embraced her, lifting them off the bed so he could slip his arms around her. His hands spread over her skin as he devoured her mouth, cutting his lips on her fangs so the heady taste of his blood flooded her senses.
His hands stroked up and down her back, one caressing the curve of her buttock while the other kneaded the small of her back. Her belly was pressed into his erection, and always there was the spark and seductive whisper of his amnis surrounding her, teasing her skin and stoking the growing storm.
“I love you,” he whispered against her lips. “I never stopped loving you, not even when I hated you.”
“I know.” She gripped his hair and pressed her cheek to his, whispering in his ear. “I did not want to know what the world would be like without you.” She turned her head and kissed the arch of his cheekbone. “I did not want to know what I would be like without you.”
He turned to her and caught her lips with his own. This kiss was different again, a long and luxurious mating of blood and teeth and tongues that tasted of the different flavors of who he was and what he was becoming.
Ben was gold and fire, a gathering storm that held her so delicately she thought she might scream.
Tenzin nearly wept with relief when his hand moved from her thigh to between her legs. Her mouth fell open as his fingers slid up and down.
There was no hurry in this coupling, no violent storm of desire and anger and passion like what had swept them away after he woke. This was another new thing, another crystal moment she would hold in her mind.
He was a silent thief, stealing her breath and confusing her senses. There were too many things happening at once. His amnis kissed every part of her skin while his fingers danced her along the edge of an exquisite pleasure. His mouth took hers, over and over again, drinking in her blood while his tongue caressed her fangs.
She reached for him and wrapped her hand around his erection. “I want this.”
“Not yet.”
Tenzin wrapped her legs around his hips and rode his fingers and the hard press of his flesh until she was mindless and lost in nothing but him.
Benjamin’s touch. Benjamin’s scent. Benjamin’s taste.
She couldn’t remember a time she’d felt more present in her body. His blood seeped into her system, mingling his amnis with hers, and still she wanted more.
Just as her body began to convulse with pleasure, Ben took his fingers away, slid inside, and rode her through her orgasm, his fingers playing along her clitoris as he drove deep.
Yes. She wanted all that. And more.
He angled his body and gripped her thigh, pulling her closer as they rose off the bed and into the air.
He pulled away from her mouth and gave Tenzin half a smile as they rolled. “That’s going to take some getting used to.”
Her lips were swollen when she spoke. “Let me.”
She pushed them down to the bed, Ben beneath her as she straddled him. The change of positions only sent him deeper inside her.
“Fuck.” He arched his hips up as he gripped her hips, but even as he held them in an iron grasp, his thumbs fluttered delicately over her hip bones, tracing the lines of tattooing that marked her pelvis.
Ben looked down at their bodies joined together. “Beautiful.”
“Yes.” She lowered her torso to his and licked from his collarbone up to his neck as she rode him. “I want to bite you.”
Ben’s pupils dilated and his lips flushed. “So bite me.” He angled his head to the side, exposing his neck.
“If I bite you, are you going to come?”
He groaned. “Yes.”
“I want to come again.” She pulled him up to sitting and put both his hands on her breasts, smiling when he immediately began caressing her sensitive nipples.
“Good.” He bent to kiss her breasts.
“Bite me first.”
Something came out of his throat that sounded like a growl, and he lifted his head. “Are you sure?”
She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and ground herself down as she laid her head on his muscled shoulder and bared her neck.
“I want your bite,” she whispered. “Only yours.”
He didn’t have to be told twice. Ben’s lips closed on her skin and his fangs pierced her neck, flipping her into another head-spinning orgasm as she felt her amnis enter his body. He grew impossibly harder as her muscles convulsed around his erection.
He drank deeply, pulling her blood from the vein like a starving creature. Then he licked the wound closed and locked his lips on hers. She tasted her own blood in his mouth, along with the hint of his own.
Ben grabbed her and lifted her up and down on his body, the combined friction and amnis whipping the air around them into a frenzy.
She heard something crash, and Tenzin thought the door flew open from the wind. The scent of lilac and new grass filled the air, but she didn’t look. Her eyes were locked on Ben, and all she could see was him.
His cheeks were ruddy with her blood, and his strange grey-and-brown eyes searched her face.
“I want to bite you,” she whispered again. “Say yes.”
“Yes.” He threw his head to the side and pressed her head into hi
s neck. “I’m yours.”
She licked his skin, warming it with her breath before she slid her fangs slowly into his neck.
“Oh fuck.” He panted and groaned. “Faster.”
She didn’t rush. She drew out the pleasure, stroking the nape of his neck and the smooth skin of his shoulders, tightly stretched over straining muscles. His skin was gold, darker than hers.
How lovely.
When she began to pull from his vein, he came hard, shouting her name as his hand slammed into a cabinet, shattering it as his pleasure overtook him.
Ben lay on his side, Tenzin in front of him, lazy from her blood and sated by pleasure as he surveyed the wreckage of the luxury camping caravan.
They were not going to be able to have sex in the loft for a while. Not unless they wanted to be impaled by weapons.
“Outside is good,” Tenzin murmured.
“Right.” He slid a hand down her side, tracing a finger over the tattooed lines that had taunted him.
The tattoos ran between her pelvic bones, but there were smaller, finer dots and symbols along her hips and trailing up her center toward her breasts. He could also see with his keener vampire vision the telltale marks that told him she’d born children in her mortal life.
Not tonight. He wouldn’t ask tonight.
He could feel her in him, her amnis unexpectedly warm and threaded with an emotion so powerful and fine he understood why she had trouble putting it into words. Ben couldn’t name it either. Love seemed woefully inadequate.
“I love you.” Ben said it because even if she couldn’t say it, she needed to hear it. He kissed her shoulder and cupped her breast. “I love you more than anything.”
She didn’t speak, but her amnis kissed him. It reached out all over his body and enveloped him in warmth.
“Even though I love you,” he said, “I’m still kind of a mess.”
“I know.”
“I’m not… whole. I don’t feel whole yet.”
“I don’t need you to be.” Tenzin turned in his arms and looked at him. “I don’t need you to have all the answers to be mine. I will take whatever part of you is ready, Benjamin. The rest of you has time to catch up.”
He kissed her nose. “Sounds good, Tiny.”
Dawn Caravan: Elemental Legacy Book Four (Elemental Legacy Novels 4) Page 26
