by BETH KERY
“Saint,” she said softly, leaning toward him. His nostrils flared when he caught a strong waft of her clean skin and the woman-scent beneath it. “You think Teslar is the Youngblood Thief, don’t you?”
He met her gaze and nodded once.
She exhaled shakily.
“How can you even begin to believe you’re like him? He’s a sociopathic killer…a rabid animal—”
“I am like him, Christina. I’m a parasite on your species. Humans have what I need, and I can’t exist without it. I take, but I can’t give. You’ll do best to remember that.”
He paused when he saw her flinch at his harshness. He closed his eyes tightly, but the image of her beautiful, confused face remained emblazoned on the back of his eyelids. He braced himself against the wave of pain that shuddered through his flesh.
It hurt him equally as much to consider her falling under his influence, however. He’d sensed his fate creeping up on him ever since she’d begun to pursue him more aggressively. He’d had to find a way to push her away, to demonstrate to her the impossibility of their union.
Once he’d done so, however, he’d discovered he was weaker than he’d ever imagined. The prospect of living without Christina left him breathless, like a powerful blow had just struck his heart. It had shamed him to have to try to convince her to stay and resume their platonic relationship, but he’d practically drowned in self-loathing ever since he’d fallen on her in her office like an animal. Now, because of Teslar’s attack, she’d seen more of his vicious nature than he’d ever wanted.
What’s more, now that Teslar knew of her and Aidan’s existence, they were no longer safe anywhere except for Whitby’s grounds. How was he going to explain that to her?
“Saint.”
He opened his eyes reluctantly when he heard how close she sounded. She’d moved and now perched on the edge of his Adirondack chair, near enough for him to see the light freckles sprinkled across her perfect nose.
“That’s why you’ve been pushing me away? Because you believe you’re soulless? Because you think you can only take from me and give nothing in return?”
“I don’t think it, Christina. Kavya told me long ago that it’s true, but even if he hadn’t, I would have known it for fact. I am an empty vessel. I only feel full, energized…alive after I feed off another’s vitessence.”
“Saint, you’re mistaken. You do possess a soul.”
He was unable to speak temporarily when he saw the message in her green eyes. His hand suddenly appeared on her cheek, surprising him. He slowly stroked the silk of her skin.
“How is your jaw?”
“It’s fine. My cheek is cut on the inside, but at least I didn’t lose any teeth. Don’t try to change the subject. How can you believe you don’t have a soul? You do. I would know it if you were soulless.”
“You possess such a singularly powerful soul that you cast your light onto everyone around you. Didn’t you wonder why you were able to fell that revenant tonight—Jacob Crane—with just a touch of your bare skin against his?”
She looked confused and he shook his head, frustrated at his feeble attempts to describe the simple reality of his world. Who knew better than he how rich her lifeforce was…how magical?
Her mere touch could make a revenant burn.
“I may not be as foul as a Scourge revenant—” he noticed her confused expression at the term and added, “—those things in the subway, Teslar’s followers—but I am still an empty vessel. The only thing you see in me is the reflection of your brilliance in my eyes. I have no more of a soul than the mirror that reflects your face does, Christina.”
Chapter Seven
She leaned into his hand, the pulse at her throat throbbing into his palm. When she began to come toward him, her lips parted, her vitessence pouring into his cells, her scent filling his nose, Saint erected an energy barrier with an extreme effort of will. She blinked, and he knew she’d felt the sudden break in their connection.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
“Yes,” he said softly before he removed his hand from her face. “We have to talk about Teslar. I’m sorry about what happened tonight. Alison told me she planned to meet Teslar at the Clark and Division stop, but I decided to follow her once she got off the Blue Line. I didn’t expect you and Aidan to be with her. Now that Teslar has seen you two face to face, he won’t rest until he has you. The two of you possess the strongest vitessences I’ve ever witnessed in my life, and that encompasses a good portion of recorded history. You shine like a thousand suns in my eyes. It’s the same for Teslar and the Scourge revenants. You’re not safe anywhere, save here at Whitby, where Kavya has provided me with a protective ward, of sorts. I can’t allow you and Aidan to leave until I’ve thought of a way to protect you outside the grounds.”
Her spine stiffened. “I won’t live in fear, Saint. I’m sure if we call the police and let them know about the identity of the Youngblood Thief—”
“We’re not going to the police.”
“Why not?” she asked, clearly aghast.
“Teslar and I share the same face. I can’t afford to have the police watching me, possibly detaining me, when I’m the only one who can control Teslar. Besides, you’ve seen Teslar and the revenants. A jail cell won’t hold them. They’d drain the life out of everyone in prison. Ten percent of the inmates would survive the Final Embrace, making a brutal addition to Teslar’s Scourge army.”
“Army?”
“Maybe I’m overstating it, but not much. Something has altered in him. He’s been hunting with unusual fervor for the past six months or so. More killing equates to more humans turning Scourge. Only ten percent convert, but I have a feeling Teslar eats not only to empower himself, but to swell the numbers of his followers beyond my ability to destroy them.”
“Why don’t you just destroy Teslar?”
“I can’t.”
His answer clearly took her by surprise. “Why not?”
“The Magian’s primary mandate has been both genetically and magically encoded into my blood. I can’t kill Teslar, only try to control his bloodlust. That’s why my heartluster—my short sword—couldn’t pierce his flesh tonight. My power is such that I can destroy a Scourge revenant. I can battle Teslar, I can diminish his power, I can force him to flee and retreat. But I cannot kill him.”
Christina shook her head incredulously. “Why would the Magian give you a mandate to control your clones and not give you the power to destroy them? It doesn’t make any sense.”
He forced a small smile. “I have almost as much understanding of why the Magian act as a human being divines the logic of their God or gods. There are some things that are impenetrable. I only know my nature, Christina.”
She sighed heavily. “Well, at least it’s reassuring to know Teslar can’t kill you.”
“Teslar can kill me the second he pierces my heart with his heartluster. The Magian placed the mandate only in the Sevliss Princes’ blood, not their Scourge clones’. There were originally seven Sevliss Princes. One hundred and twelve years ago, Shin was killed by his clone in Hong Kong.”
“That’s ridiculous! Why would the Magian do such a thing?”
He shrugged and glanced away from her outraged face. “Only the Magian know.”
Christina bristled. “Well I’d like to meet this Kavya guy and let him have it. He sounds like a sadist to me.”
He couldn’t help but smile at her moral indignation. “Perhaps you’re being a bit biased? Has it never occurred to you that a sentient being from another planet might say the same of humankind’s gods?”
Christina crossed her arms in defiance, plumping her breasts. His gaze lowered to the sight of firm, creamy flesh swelling in the V of the halter sundress. His cock throbbed against his thigh, the magnitude of his need stunning him. How much longer? How much longer could he abstain from having her? It was necessary now more than ever for him to be as near to her as much as possible. No longer could he just stand up and wal
k away when his hunger became dangerous.
Fardusk, the chief of the Iniskium, insisted that Saint could control his hunger with Christina, but Saint had his doubts.
And with good reason.
He fought himself, just like he battled Teslar. The conflict was too sharp, too agonizing to continue much longer. Now that Teslar had seen her, Saint would have to be near Christina frequently in order to protect her. The thought of what Teslar would do to her, the fear he’d cultivate in her before he indulged in a bloodbath, was too unbearable for him to consider for longer than a second.
“I refuse to believe in a god who relishes seeing his creations suffer,” Christina told him staunchly, green eyes blazing.
“Suffering is not pleasant, I grant you, but perhaps it serves a purpose we can’t see.”
“No!”
He was taken aback. He hadn’t been prepared for her fierceness, so he couldn’t defend against his reaction when she suddenly came down over him, straddling his hips with her thighs, her soft mound pressing against his aching cock. She placed her hands on his chest and pushed his back against the chair.
“I won’t let you believe that it’s your sole purpose to suffer,” she said, her fragrant breath brushing against his lips. “I won’t let you sacrifice what’s between us to such an idiotic idea.” She shifted her pelvis, rubbing her pussy against him. He couldn’t stop himself. He grabbed her hips and ground her down against his erection rhythmically.
“I cannot have you, Christina,” he growled. She lowered her face toward him. Against his will, he bit at her lower lip, scraping his teeth against the plump flesh until he felt her shiver.
“I can make you happy. You fed from those women. Why won’t you let me sustain you?” He groaned as she ran her hands along his shoulders and back, dropping rapid, airy kisses along his jaw. Too late, he realized he’d dropped the energy barrier he’d erected between them when Christina made her surprise attack. Now his senses were inundated with her potent vitessence. He flexed his fingers greedily into her firm, round ass and rode her pussy along the ridge of his cock, gritting his teeth at the sensation of her heat penetrating his jeans.
“I never feed from a woman more than once. After that, I run the risk of taking too much of her vitessence and harming her. Christina—” She cut him off by biting his lower lip lightly and coaxing him to kiss her. For a few pleasure-infused seconds he ravaged her mouth. When he realized what he was doing, he lifted his head and swatted her ass.
“What…what are you doing?” she asked in amazement when she found herself in his arms. He didn’t answer until he’d opened the screen door to the coach house.
“Taking you to bed.”
She made a low, sexy sound of satisfaction and began kissing his neck hotly. He carried her up the stairs, knowing she occupied the solitary loft bedroom. He stared straight ahead, focusing on his wavering mission while Christina tormented him with her mouth and nibbling teeth.
He closed her bedroom door behind them.
She cried out in surprise when he tossed her down on the bed. He stared down at the vision of her, her midnight hair splayed across the pillow, her cheeks flushed pink, her full lips parted slightly, making them the sweetest, sexiest target for penetration Saint had ever seen.
Before he knew what he was about, he was sliding his first two fingers between those lips, into the warm, wet haven of her mouth. Her eyes went wide in surprise at his actions.
“You think you know what it would be like to bed a creature such as me?” he growled as he thrust his fingers into her mouth.
She nodded and tightened her lips, sucking hungrily. He cursed under his breath but couldn’t stop himself from penetrating her lush lips again and again.
“You’re wrong. I have very little control once I become aroused, and you arouse me like no other, Christina. How are you going to react if I take you in the manner to which I’m accustomed? Are you going to like it when I replace my fingers with my cock and fuck your beautiful face?”
She mumbled an assent around his plunging fingers, her green eyes shiny with excitement as she gazed up at him. Trying to push her away with his crudity and threats of his feral nature was having the opposite effect—and not just on Christina, himself as well. His cock lurched against the confining material of his jeans, demanding he do just what he’d threatened.
He grunted in irritation at his inability to control his swelling desire. Gods, if he was so stupid as to allow himself to touch her, he should have at least done so in his subterranean bedroom, where he possessed various mechanisms designed to control his ravening hunger when he planned to pleasure a particularly attractive, powerful woman.
And there was none more so than Christina.
She made a sound of dismay when he withdrew his fingers from her mouth and roughly untied the halter of her sundress. Stretchy elastic around the back allowed him to drag it over her body and off her feet without difficulty. He tossed the dress aside and straightened as he stared down at Christina, who was wearing nothing but a tiny triangle of silk that barely covered the neatly trimmed black pubic hair between her thighs.
He placed his open hand on her belly, the sense of feral possession that rose in him freezing his lungs for several seconds. His hand moved up and down as she panted.
He’d long admired the hue and sheen of Christina’s skin. Her stomach looked strikingly pale next to his hand, although her long legs and lithesome arms were a shade darker. Her skin possessed an apricot hue, as though she carried the sunshine around inside of her. Her breasts were high and firm, the nipples large and succulent. He moved his hand slowly, entranced, and ran his fingertips along the lower curve of one breast. Her skin felt as soft as a dewy rose petal. Her nipples grew stiff as he stroked her. He looked into her face when she whimpered, pausing at the trust mixing with the lust in her green eyes.
“I can’t, Christina.”
“You can. You yourself told me my lifeforce shines brighter than anything you’ve ever seen. I can sustain you. Please…let me. Let me end your suffering.”
Her words soaked into his lust-drunk brain. “The end of my suffering will mean the beginning of yours,” he grated out miserably.
“No,” she insisted. She sat up partially when he dropped his hand to his thigh. She looked incredibly beautiful to him at that moment, her cheeks stained pink with her arousal and indignation, her bare breasts heaving shallowly. Her vitessence sparked furiously around her. He smelled her blood as it tore like a torrential stream through her throbbing veins. The need to bury himself in her suffused every cell of his being in a potent rush, blinding him temporarily.
He barely resisted an urge to throw back his head and howl in anguish. When his incisors lengthened against his will, he turned and walked out of the room without a backward glance.
Afterwards, he realized how foolish he was to think he could actually walk away from Christina for long when they were both primed to mate.
Chapter Eight
Christina awoke with a start. The trees outside her window thrashed frenziedly in the howling wind, causing eerie shadows to flicker against the drawn shades and the walls of her room. A summer storm was brewing.
She knew before she glanced at her glowing bedside clock that it was sometime between two o’clock and dawn. Sure enough, the dial showed that it was three-twenty-two a.m. She hadn’t fallen asleep until a little over an hour ago, after she’d stewed in a vat of fury and helplessness when Saint walked away from her for the second time in twenty-four hours.
This time had been different, though. She better understood his bitter ambivalence about his desire for her. He wanted her as much as she wanted him. But he was afraid he would harm her.
He was wrong.
After she’d ranted at him both in her mind and out loud, with her mouth pressed against her tear-soaked pillow for over an hour, her anger had begun to fade. She kept imagining the naked longing on his handsome face as he’d stared down at her, his hand open across
her belly. That longing tortured him, flayed at the soul he insisted he didn’t possess.
Recalling Saint’s anguish had altered her bitter tears of fury to tears of sorrow. It hurt her, like a physical pain, to think of him suffering so greatly when she had the power to comfort him.
Her anger had faded even more as she considered her and Aidan’s situation. How were they going to function if, as Saint said, the only place they were safe was on Whitby’s grounds?
And why was that, anyway? Christina realized with a burst of frustration she’d forgotten to ask Saint the question.
Alison had said she shouldn’t believe him, Christina recalled as she turned anxiously in bed and thunder rumbled in the distance.
Not too surprising, since Alison trusted no one.
One thing was for certain, she wasn’t going to be forced to be holed up at Whitby all summer long, although Aidan was another matter entirely. If Aidan needed to be kept at Whitby, she’d agree with that once she understood the terms completely. Aidan’s safety was paramount.
Even though the coach house was situated on the farthest western side of Whitby, she thought she could hear the waves of Lake Michigan breaking hard on the beach as the storm built, the sound echoing her own restless spirit. With a grunt of irritation, Christina rose from bed, finding her discarded dress on the floor with the assistance of a bright flash of lightning. Thunder shook the night as she made her way down the stairs in the darkness.
She paused in the downstairs hallway, her heart freezing when she saw a flash of lightning reflected in a pair of gleaming eyes.
“Scepter,” she gasped.
The huge, sinewy wolf rose without a sound. Christina realized he had situated himself halfway between Aidan’s bedroom door and the stairs that led to her bedroom. Aidan must have heard Scepter scratching at the front door earlier, asking for shelter from the oncoming storm, and let him in. Christina hadn’t initially approved of her son letting the half-wild animal into the house, but she’d quickly learned the wolf was the perfect guest—clean, silent, and gone quicker than either she or Aidan would have preferred.
