Broken Dawn

by Duvall, Dianne

  Her warm walls clamped down around him, squeezing and releasing until he shouted her name and came deep inside her.

  Heart racing, muscles relaxing, Nick braced his elbows on the bed so he wouldn’t rest too much weight on her, then lowered his head to the pillow beside hers. His breath came fast and ruffled her hair as he nuzzled her neck. Hers did, too, emerging in pants that slowly lengthened and calmed.

  Moisture gleamed on their skin, cooling as passion faded.

  A peace and contentment he had never experienced before settled upon him. Usually once Nick satisfied his sexual needs, he couldn’t leave the bed fast enough. He had never in his long life wanted to linger afterward. To snuggle closer. Indulge in slow, leisurely caresses. Express affection with light kisses.

  Only Kayla made him want those things.

  Lifting his head, he gazed down at her.

  Her pretty hazel eyes reflected the bright amber glow of his as she stared up at him with the same wonder he felt. “Wow,” she whispered.

  Smiling, he brushed her tousled hair back from her face. “I was thinking the same thing.”

  She cupped his face in both hands.

  Nick dropped his gaze to her left arm and sent her a look of chagrin. “I forgot to remove your cast. Sorry about that.”

  When he started to lean back so he could do it now, she halted him and shook her head. “Leave it. You can remove it later.” A playful gleam entered her eyes as she arched a brow. “Because I believe you mentioned something about two hours being too quick for our first time?”

  He grinned. “Far too quick.”

  She shifted her hips and sucked in a breath. “You’re still hard.”

  Nick bit back a groan. “As I said, immortals don’t need recovery time. We can go all night. Or all day in this instance.” Dawn wasn’t far away.

  “Well,” she said with a smile, “as a mere mortal, I don’t know if I can go all day, but I’d sure like to try.”

  “Yes!”

  She laughed, then moaned when he withdrew almost to the crown and thrust hard.

  “Better yet…” Nick rolled onto his back, bringing her with him so she straddled him with his cock still buried deep inside her. “I want to watch you ride me.” Her long hair draped around her like a curtain. “While I play with your beautiful breasts.” He cupped the lovely mounds and teased her nipples.

  Bracing her hands on his chest, she flexed the muscles in her thighs and rose, sliding along his length, then plunged down and seated him deep again.

  “Fuck, that feels good.” He continued to fondle her breasts while she set the rhythm, her movements growing bolder as pleasure erased whatever insecurities lingered over baring her body to him. Insecurities he was determined to banish completely over the next few hours.

  She raked his chest lightly with her nails. Nick groaned, and she pinched his nipples. Swearing, he tweaked hers. She rotated her hips, altering the angle hers met his, picked up the pace, and drove him wild until he was clenching his teeth to hold back his release. Nick slid a hand down her stomach, teased her curls with his fingers, then began to stroke her clit as he thrust up to meet her.

  Kayla cried out as she came, again clamping down around his cock and squeezing him until he joined her. As the last ripples washed over them both, she sank limply onto his chest.

  Nick wrapped his arms around her and cuddled her close.

  Her heart slammed against her narrow rib cage, matching the frantic pace of his.

  Burying his nose in her hair, he found her ear and whispered, “I still want you.”

  She smiled against his chest. “You did say two hours wouldn’t be enough.”

  “Not nearly enough.”

  “Can I catch my breath first?”

  He chuckled. “Yes.”

  Resting her cast atop his chest, she propped her chin on it and smiled. “Then what?”

  Lifting his head, he pressed a kiss to the tip of her nose. “Then I’m going to stand right there”—he looked at the side of the bed—“drag you to the edge of the mattress, flip you over onto your stomach, and show you how advantageous a bed this high can be.”

  Her warm sheath rippled around him. “Forget catching my breath,” she said, her voice hoarse with resurging desire. “I want to do that.”

  Laughing, Nick hugged her close.

  “I wish you could see the adorably dopey smile you’re wearing,” Eliana called out a few nights later as they fought four vampires.

  Nick didn’t even try to school his features into a more somber mask as he fended off a vampire’s strike. The vamp’s eyes glowed silver and sparkled with insanity as he swung wildly again and again until Nick severed his brachial and carotid arteries.

  He swung to face the vampire creeping up behind him. That one halted, eyeing Nick warily.

  She laughed. “I think it’s freaking out the vampires.”

  Her opponent howled in pain, then stumbled backward.

  Nick’s grin merely widened as he faced the vampire. “You could always surrender,” he offered. “Our doctors are working on a cure and—”

  “Fuck you!” The vampire leapt forward, raising his weapon high… and left his stomach vulnerable.

  Nick’s blade sank deep.

  The vampire stared at him with a combination of fury and disbelief. Roaring in rage, he again raised his weapon high.

  Nick buried his blade in the vampire’s heart, severing his aorta and ensuring he would bleed out swiftly. As the vampire collapsed, Nick swung around to check on Eliana.

  Her last opponent fell, spewing foul epithets until he drew his last breath.

  Eliana turned, took in Nick’s fallen attackers, then glanced up at him. She grinned, her pretty face once more speckled and splattered with blood. “You’re still smiling.”

  “I am?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  She winked at him. “That good, huh?”

  “Better,” he admitted. He hadn’t told her he and Kayla had become intimate, but she’d known. He had so wanted to savor the hours he had spent making love with Kayla that first night… and morning… and afternoon that he hadn’t showered before going on his nightly hunt. He’d wanted to carry the scent of her with him. And, of course, Eliana had caught it.

  He’d spent every morning in Kayla’s arms since and knew he’d never get enough of her.

  Laughing, Eliana shook her head. “I envy you. I’ve never slept with a man I loved before. Does it really make that big a difference?”

  “For me? It makes a huge difference.”

  “How huge?” she asked curiously as she wiped her blades on one of the vampire’s shirts.

  He shook his head. “It’s like craving something sweet and having the option of either a green banana or a banana cream pie.”

  “Damn.” She slid her blades into their sheaths. “That is a huge difference.” Then she grinned. “Did you finally remember to remove her cast?”

  He laughed. “Yes.” Kayla had insisted he use the utmost care when cutting it off so she could save it. My accident brought us together, she’d said as she cradled the cast to her as though it were a precious treasure. And your painting it was a really sweet gift.

  Nick bent and began to collect the fallen vampires’ weapons.

  Eliana’s cell phone rang. “It’s probably Max,” she murmured. “He’s been mother-henning me from afar.” Wiping her hands on her coat, she tugged her phone out of her back pocket.

  Seconds tended to be overly protective and seemed to share the collective belief that their immortals couldn’t make it through a night without them.

  “Oliver has been doing the same,” he said. His Second still called him before dawn every day to make sure Nick was still living and breathing and not roasting in the sun. “Where’s Max?”

  “Visiting his family in Maine.” When she glanced at her phone, her face lit with a smile. “Nope. It’s Seth.” She tapped the screen. “Hi, Seth.”


  “Are you busy?” the Immortal Guardians leader asked.

  “No. We just finished taking out some vampires.”

  “Any lookie-loos around?”

  She laughed. “Not a one.”

  “Cameras?”

  “Nope.”

  Seth abruptly appeared beside her. Pocketing his phone, he glanced at what was left of the fallen vampires. “Any trouble with these?”

  Nick smiled. “None. And no surveillance cameras caught anything.”

  “Good.” He turned a discerning gaze on Nick and studied him a moment. “You seem awfully chipper tonight.”

  Eliana laughed and whispered, “He and Kayla have become lovers.”

  Nick fought a groan and began to clean his weapons. There really were very few secrets among Immortal Guardians.

  Smiling, Seth clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m glad things are going well for you two.” As he turned to Eliana though, his expression sobered. “May I have a moment of your time, Eliana? There’s something I wish to discuss with you.”

  Nick paused, his happiness receding a bit as his glance bounced back and forth between them. There had been something in Seth’s voice. Something… unidentifiable that sparked both caution and curiosity.

  Eliana tilted her head back and stared up at their powerful leader.

  Had she heard the same thing Nick had?

  “Sure.” She sent Nick an uncertain Do you think I fucked up? look.

  No one wanted to piss Seth off or get on his shit list. An honorable and generous leader, he nevertheless would not hesitate to punish those who transgressed. But such was very rarely necessary. Seth was the most powerful immortal among them, so just the threat of punishment was usually enough to keep Nick and his immortal brethren in line and out of trouble.

  Eliana motioned to the mess. “Can you clean this up without me, Nick?”

  He nodded. “Sure.”

  Seth smiled. “You haven’t done anything wrong, Eliana. I just have a task I wondered if you would be interested in performing and wish to explain the details to you.”

  “Oh.” She smiled. “Okay.”

  Nick’s curiosity skyrocketed. What kind of task?

  Seth nodded to him and rested a hand on Eliana’s shoulder. They vanished in the next instant.

  Nick made swift work of cleaning up the battle fallout. The vampire’s clothing found a new home in the nearest dumpster. He would take the wallets and weapons left behind to network headquarters so they could concoct plausible explanations for the dead vampires’ sudden disappearances. Then he would hie his ass home to shower and spend what was left of the night and then the day with Kayla.

  His buoyant mood returned. His lips stretched in a grin that would no doubt make Oliver laugh and join Eliana in deeming it a dopey smile. But he couldn’t help it. Nick loved spending time with Kayla. He loved Kayla. And he’d tell her as soon as he sucked it up and disclosed the last two little secrets he’d kept regarding his existence… which weren’t so little. Some might, in fact, deem them colossal, which merely made him more nervous about telling her.

  “Leah loved Seth after he told her,” he reminded himself as he drove home. And, having lived thousands of years, Seth had a hell of a lot more secrets than Nick.

  The love Leah bore their illustrious leader was truly something to behold. Seth was a different man when he was around her. As was Nick when he spent time with Kayla. She just made everything better. Brighter. So he really should pry his head out of his ass and start searching for the right words to explain the rest of his life to her. He couldn’t very well ask her to share it without letting her see it all.

  He swung his Tesla into his driveway, cut the engine, and eyed the garage that served as an art studio for production of his larger or messier works. The motion-sensing light above the garage doors didn’t come on. It must need a new bulb.

  Making a mental note to change it before Oliver’s vacation ended so his Second wouldn’t look at it, roll his eyes, and declare Nick helpless without him, he headed for the front door.

  Music boomed a couple of blocks over, accompanied by a roaring guitar in what reminded Nick of music produced by an eighties hair band. He grimaced. Having preternaturally sharp hearing could really suck sometimes. What would manifest itself as irritating background noise to ordinary humans sounded more to his preternatural ears like a damned DJ—surrounded by massive speakers—was spinning tunes right on his front lawn.

  If the inconsiderate ass blasting the music became a repeat offender, Nick would do what he usually did in such instances and get one of his telepathic immortal friends to scare the crap out of him by mentally bellowing at him to turn that shit down every time he cranked up the volume.

  He smiled. Such had been astonishingly effective in the past.

  Locking the front door behind him, Nick tossed his keys onto the table by the coatrack without reaching for the light switch and started to remove his coat.

  A warning crawled up the back of his neck.

  He stilled, his hands gripping the lapels. His nose twitched as scents invaded it. Gun oil. Sweat. A brand of deodorant neither he nor Oliver used.

  At the same time, heartbeats reached his ears beneath the booming base of the asshole two blocks over.

  Multiple heartbeats.

  Shit.

  Something pricked his chest.

  He glanced down. Fury rose when he saw the large tranquilizer dart sticking out of him. Fury and alarm. There were only two drugs on the planet that affected Immortal Guardians: a tranquilizer developed by their enemies that could render both immortals and vampires unconscious within seconds and the antidote that network doctors had created to counteract it.

  There should be no one left to use the tranquilizer against them. The immortals had destroyed them all, hadn’t they?

  Wait. Nick tilted his head thoughtfully. He wasn’t feeling sluggish. At all.

  Another dart struck him.

  He smiled. No. This wasn’t the drug mercenaries had wielded against immortals. This was just an ordinary tranquilizer that didn’t do squat to him.

  Feigning a stagger, he glanced around the room. There, there, there… there, there, and there. Six men garbed all in black with ski masks and night vision monoculars concealing their faces as they aimed weapons equipped with silencers at him.

  Who the hell were these guys?

  Another dart pricked him.

  Nick glanced down at it, then eyed the man who had fired it. “Oh, you shouldn’t have done that.” He leapt forward in a blur.

  Shouts of surprise and alarm erupted. Fingers tightened on triggers. Bullets buzzed through the air like bees high on coke.

  Shit. He hoped they wouldn’t hit any of his neighbors.

  Fear for Kayla rose.

  Since Josh—his other next-door neighbor—was in San Antonio, Nick tried to stay on that side of the house to keep stray bullets from hitting Kayla. Or the neighbors behind him. Or the ones across the street. Life had been a lot less complicated when all a man could fight with was a sword and shield.

  Quick as a blink, he disarmed the man with the tranq gun and drew his fist back.

  Bullets peppered him. Pain drove him to strike a harder blow than he’d intended.

  The man dropped dead at Nick’s feet.

  Shit. He needed to keep some of these bastards alive so he could find out what was going on.

  He sped on to the next attacker and dragged him in front of him.

  The man cried out and danced as bullets struck him, some passing through and hitting Nick. Well, that answered that. These guys weren’t above taking out one of their own in order to capture the prize.

  Crashes sounded all around him, crap splintering and flying off shelves as bullets wrecked his home. Glass shattered, fragments sparkling like fairy dust in the little bit of moonlight that swam through the windows. Nick dodged as many projectiles as he could, but even preternaturally fast immortals had their limits. As soon as he reached the next ma
n, he yanked the gun out of the bastard’s hands and swung it like brass knuckles.

  As the prick collapsed to the floor, Nick spun toward the next. Stuffing flew from his sofa cushions, floating in the air like snowflakes. Rips and holes appeared in his paintings.

  Motherfuckers! That’s it!

  Pain and rage engulfed Nick. His shirt clung to him in front and back, saturated with his blood, as he dove at the three remaining men. He grabbed the first. “Who sent you?” he demanded.

  When the man tried to shoot him, Nick snapped his neck, dropped him, and stepped over his body.

  “Who sent you?” he shouted as he leapt at the next. A bullet nicked his damn carotid artery just before he reached him.

  While he yanked the gun from the bastard’s hands, the last man darted out the back door. Nick tossed the weapon aside and punched the man he held in the head.

  The man dropped, unconscious, to the floor.

  Spinning around, Nick raced for the door. Rampant blood loss from all the holes bullets had carved in him slowed his steps to mortal speeds. Once outside, Nick followed the fleeing man’s scent and felt fear tear through him.

  He’d gone over the fence into Kayla’s backyard.

  With a last burst of speed, Nick vaulted over the fence.

  The man was two steps away from her back door when Nick caught him by the collar and yanked.

  The man’s hand tightened on his gun, firing it twice as he flew backward. Thankfully, both bullets pierced Kayla’s roof rather than the windows or the walls.

  Despite the weakness that rapidly weighted his limbs, Nick picked the man up and threw him down.

  The man cried out as his back hit pavement. His night vision monocular flew off.

  Nick fisted the man’s shirt, leaned down over him, and got up in his face, flashing fangs and glowing eyes. “Who sent you?” he snarled.

  The man pissed his pants.

  Nick’s ears caught the sound of movement inside Kayla’s home.

  Swearing, he grabbed the monocular and dragged the man off into the shadows on the opposite side of her home where the floodlights didn’t reach. Once out of sight, he knelt on the man’s chest, drew a dagger, and pressed the sharp tip to the man’s throat right above the pulse that gyrated wildly beneath the surface.