Triquetra

by Marguerite Labbe

  “Fuck… you’ve got magic hands,” Jacob panted as I squeezed his length and rubbed my thumb over the head, smearing the pre-come. His eyes went hot on my face. “Lick it, Kristair.”

  I shivered, automatically responding to the command in his voice. “Like this?” I teased, bringing my thumb to my lips, never taking my eyes from his face as I laved it with my tongue.

  He groaned, leaning back down to kiss me hard, and then shoved away long enough to yank off my shoes and pants. “Stop fighting me, Kristair.” He jumped to his feet and held out a hand to me.

  I hesitated, a part of me relishing the battle between us, but I couldn’t deny the way surrendering to my lover made me feel. I gave Jacob my hand, and he smiled, helping me up off of the floor. He slid his arms around me and walked me back to my table.

  The next thing I knew, I was lying back on it and Jacob was stepping between my spread thighs as my breath quickened with anticipation. I wrapped my legs around his waist and drew him even closer as he fumbled for something in his jeans pocket before kicking them the rest of the way off.

  Heart pounding, I slid my hand around the nape of his neck and tugged him down as I felt his hand fumble between us. I bit his chest and turned my head, his nipple dragging across my cheek until I tugged it into my mouth by his nipple ring.

  “God damn it, Kristair. Yer making it a little hard to concentrate here,” Jacob cursed.

  Then he was gripping my hips, pulling me closer to the edge of the table, his lubed cock pushing into me. The burning ache turned me inside out. Only Jacob did this to me. Made me crave and want so much that I couldn’t think past the pleasure of him penetrating me. His hands slid down the backs of my thighs, hooking my knees over his shoulders, and he bent my legs back against my chest as he leaned over me and sank in deeper.

  “Jacob.” My fingers pressed into his shoulders and the back of his neck as he began to move with hard, fast thrusts. I shuddered as the pleasure whipped through me and slid one hand between my thighs, tugging on my balls before I began stroking my cock.

  “Fuck, baby, that’s a beautiful sight.”

  “I thought you might like that.” The scent of old books and leather, sex, and my lover combined in a heady fragrance. It was far more potent that I would’ve thought. And the fierce expression of lust and love on Jacob’s face told me that the experience of fucking me in my own library was everything he’d fantasized it would be. “You like seeing me in this manner, don’t you?”

  “You mean without the oh-so-proper façade? Fuck yeah. Seeing you without that cloak of control, your oh-so-dignified air, with your eyes so hot and your expression needy. I love seeing all that wild emotion you carry written so clear on your face.”

  “Makes you crazy.” And knowing that made my flashes of vulnerability worth every moment of them.

  My thighs ached, and the table was hard and cold against my back, but the aching desire was incredible. Jacob’s thrusts became harder and quicker. Then he groaned, and I clenched around him so I could feel every throb of his cock inside of me as he came.

  I gasped as he abruptly left my body. Jacob knocked my hands aside, and his hot mouth sank over my cock. I dug my hands into his hair, on fire with need. His fingers wrapped in a hard ring around the base, and my heart pounded.

  “Jacob, Jacob, Jacob….” I chanted his name, cursed him and begged in turn, and my lover didn’t let me go until I was aware of nothing else but him, until my pleas echoed off the chamber walls.

  Chapter 11

  I LEANED back on my elbows and watched Kristair crawl around on the ground as he searched for the buttons to his shirt. I didn’t know what he planned on doing with them when he found them. Unless he had a sewing kit stashed around here someplace. If anybody did, it would have been my lover. Always prepared. Wasn’t that a motto or something? Suited Kristair perfectly.

  Lord, he had a really fine, fuckable ass, round, with just the right amount of jiggle when we fucked. It was the kind of ass you definitely noticed as it went by, and right now it was in the air, his fine work pants clinging to every sweet inch. It was a crime that he was crawling around partially clothed. He should have been naked.

  Kristair turned his face toward me, his expression unreadable—no surprise there. Then it softened into a slight smile. “I hope this encounter in the library was everything you’d fantasized it to be. But whatever it is you’re contemplating, don’t.”

  “I was thinking about how damn tempting you look on your hands and knees. And I’m working on summoning up the energy to go over and take advantage of it.” I snickered as Kristair stood up and tossed me my jeans. He was so damn predictable.

  “Get dressed, we need to talk.”

  “Hey, that’s normally my line.” I tugged my jeans on and scooped my T-shirt off the floor as Kristair dumped half a dozen buttons on the table. In my personal opinion, Kristair should have gone shirtless more often. I could have stared at his long, lean muscles, his dark, olive-golden, tattooed skin, and the thin trail of black hair down his chest and stomach for a very long time. Even if it was distracting.

  “So what do you want to talk about? My foul attitude since last night?” At that moment, I was fine, unless I thought about all the bullshit too much. Then my blood started to heat again.

  “No.” Kristair turned to gave me, his expression grave. “First off, I want to apologize. You were right, my old instincts are too strong. I shouldn’t have run off without you last night. You have a right to be furious. You only want to keep me safe, the way I want to keep you safe. Sometimes, I forget that.”

  I scrubbed a hand through my hair, fisting it tight. “Don’t say you’re sorry, ’cause you’re just gonna do it again next time. I figure you’ve survived for two thousand years. I need to trust in your survival instincts. Otherwise, I’ll go fucking nuts.”

  “Well, my survival instincts tell me that you were right. I do need a weapon. Whatever that woman is, she’s fast and strong and has proven herself to be utterly ruthless.”

  “You’re gonna let me teach you how to shoot?” As much as I wanted to, I just couldn’t picture my lover with a gun in his hand. It just seemed wrong, even if it might keep him alive.

  “No.” Kristair walked over to a well-lit glass case and unlocked it. Inside were a number of relics he’d collected over the centuries. Kristair counted most of his worth in the books he owned, but a museum would have killed to get its hands on half of his other stuff.

  Kristair drew out a rod of dark wood incised all over with strange symbols. It was about a foot long and half as thick as my wrist. “I’ll use this,” Kristair said, hefting the rod in his hand.

  “What are you gonna do? Clunk them over the head?” I snickered. “Be serious, Kristair.”

  Kristair shot me a withering glance. “Don’t be ridiculous.” His brow furrowed in concentration, his dark gaze becoming intent. The next thing I knew, the rod had extended into a staff taller than Kristair.

  “Whoa, how’d you do that?” I reached for the staff, and Kristair shook his head.

  “Wait.” Kristair concentrated again. The staff shortened, and a broad, long, wicked-looking spearhead appeared at the end.

  I brushed my thumb over the keen edge and managed to cut myself in the process. I’d never seen anything so sharp. “What the hell is that and how did you get it?”

  “I found it in my wanderings after I left Rome. I never knew what it was capable of until I became one of the Ascended. I’d forgotten all about it until I glanced in the case this morning.” Kristair traced his fingers along the symbols that now decorated the wood just under the spearhead. “These tell you how to unlock its power; then it’s a matter of concentration and will.”

  “What does it say? What else can it do?” I took the spear as Kristair handed it to me and hefted it. I found the weapon to be perfectly balanced, fitting nicely in my hand.

  “It can be whatever I need it to be, but I suspect it will work far better with weapons that I
am already familiar with.” Kristair took the spear back, and it was merely a rod again. “I’ll make a sheath for it so I can carry it with me without causing much comment.”

  I scrubbed a hand through my hair and shook my head. “Well, okay, then. I guess that problem is solved. Have you figured out who the next target is?”

  “I believe it’s either going to be Lisabeth, Artemise, or Basim Farooq Raza, a scholar I know in Egypt. And now they’ve all been warned. I’m almost positive now that the unidentified woman who was killed was Mirella Brant. From what I’ve been able to gather, she left her haven in San Francisco and hasn’t been seen since.”

  Kristair set the rod carefully on the table and began going through his neat, precise notes. “I think this whole mess has something to do with the Ascended, but the why escapes me. Even if the Syndicate had the manpower and wanted to destroy all of these older vampires, they wouldn’t destroy the information they’d gathered as well, and that’s clearly what happened at the apartment we explored.”

  “What if it was those fanatics that Tony had sided with? You know, Claudia’s bunch.”

  Kristair frowned, rubbing his finger alongside his nose. “No, even if they were behind it, they’d have to rely on a third party to do the actual killings. Someone who can withstand the sunlight and kill and older vampires. Even half-asleep because of the dawn, it wouldn’t be an easy task.”

  “Okay then, you said you think this goes back to the Ascended. Could they be behind it somehow? This shit is personal and it’s aimed at you. Maybe they’re pissed at the way you left.”

  “Not in all likelihood. I said it might have something to do with the Ascended, not that they were behind it. They have a very strict rule about interfering. As long as I’m not down here giving away secrets or bringing attention to myself or them, I think they’re content with leaving me be.”

  “Yeah, and they’d have the mojo to just blast you away without playing stupid-assed games like this.”

  “Even so.” Kristair drew on his shirt, making a grimace at the way it gaped. He touched his collarbone where a livid hickey stood out. “You left a mark.”

  “So says the man who tattooed my entire torso.” I took his hand. “Come on, I’m sure you have a spare shirt in the rooms behind your office, just in case you get an ink spot or something on the one you’re wearing.”

  Kristair stuffed the rod in his pocket as we walked down the short hallway to his office. “I have noticed a few new curious things the last several days.”

  “Other than the world has gone crazy? I’m telling you this much, Kristair, it had all better be done and over with by the time training camp starts. I’m not going to be an hour away when shit starts going down here.” The thought of Kristair being in trouble and me being unable to get to him made my blood turn to ice.

  “I think things will be escalating rapidly. This woman has my attention now. The remaining players who are still alive have all been warned. We’re going to need everything we can to defeat her. Which brings me to what I’ve noticed about you, mo chroí.”

  I squirmed a bit, thinking about how hard I’d been concentrating on renewing our link since the night before. I didn’t think I’d made that much progress, but he must’ve noticed somehow. I couldn’t stop myself, though. I didn’t want to be apart from him and not know what the fuck was going on unless he chose to tell me.

  “You managed to find me last night. I could’ve been anywhere in the park. Yet you came right to me.” Kristair pulled a clean, pressed shirt out of his small closet, and I had to smile at the sight of two others neatly hanging up. He liked to be prepared, that was certain. If one plan didn’t work, he smoothly went onto the next. It was somewhat reassuring. “At first I attributed it to coincidence, but then another oddity cropped up.”

  Kristair was too damned observant. At least he didn’t seem irritated or worried about me stretching my mental abilities. There was none of the icy precision to his voice that he got when he was furious. When I didn’t respond, my lover continued.

  “Did you know I haven’t had one nightmare since you woke me up the other morning?” He stripped off his buttonless shirt and donned the new one, his concentration seemingly on the row of buttons on his cuffs, but I knew it was really on me.

  I straightened, startled out of my musings. “You haven’t?”

  Kristair shook his head and leaned in closer to me, his dark eyes both intent and warm before he stole a kiss. “Every time the dream starts, someone comes into my mind and smothers it or changes it into a distinctly erotic dream. Even if I didn’t recognize your mental touch, only you would dare give me such images.”

  “Seriously?” Kristair nodded and turned his attention back to his buttons. “I didn’t do it on purpose. I mean, I’ve been wanting to help you. I hated that you were being tormented like that, but I didn’t know what to do.”

  “You have always been very strong-minded, Jacob. I’m not surprised you did it subconsciously. You have a knack for getting exactly what you want through sheer stubbornness and will.” A slight smile played about his lips as he glanced at me.

  “It wasn’t all by accident,” I admitted.

  “I didn’t think so. You were tracking me in the library. Not as easily as when we still had our connection, but the instinct was still very strong.”

  I shrugged, crossing my arms and leaning against the wall. “I had to find you. We were out there in the woods with god knew what hunting us down, and after I lost you the second time, I was just so damn frustrated. I know you worry that if you start using all those abilities the Ascended might come and get you again. The thing is, we both know how the Ascended have learned to do what they do, but we’re not exploiting it or even trying to. That connection of ours came into existence before you were taken by them, so I don’t see the harm in trying to use it. It’s a personal thing, not some über-powerful ability that can change the world.”

  Kristair was quiet for a long time, his brows drawn together as he folded the ripped shirt and found a small bag for its buttons. When he finally spoke, his voice was subdued. “It is so very tempting, and that’s what frightens me.”

  The tone of his voice had me pushing away from the wall. I stepped behind him and slid my arms around his waist, resting my cheek on his shoulder. “You’re going to have to run that by me again.”

  “If I open that door, if we open that door. It’ll be easier to open others as well. It’ll become more tempting to cross that line. When we need something or it’s an emergency and we tell ourselves it’s okay just this one time, but it’s never just one time.”

  “You have more discipline than anyone else I’ve ever met.”

  “And I also haven’t lived as a human for long at all. It isn’t natural for me. All the discipline in the world won’t help me resist my inclinations if I start messing with my abilities.” Kristair laid his hand over mine and twisted his head to kiss my brow. “And what about you? You don’t like limiting yourself either. What if you start developing your physical abilities again? That could threaten your football career. You’d consider that cheating, and you have too much pride to cheat.”

  I hadn’t thought of it in quite that way, and I could see Kristair’s point. “I guess this means that there’s no easy answer.”

  “There never is.”

  There was a long silence as we stood there holding each other, and I realized that the frustration of the last several days had vanished. Kristair was good at soothing me without even seeming to try. “Who was that lady?” I asked finally. “She seemed to know a whole lotta shit about you, very personal stuff.” There was something familiar about her, something that tugged at my heart and instincts.

  “I wish I knew.”

  “Was she right? About why Nerissa turned you into a vampire?”

  “Perhaps.” Kristair broke away from my embrace and turned to face me with a thoughtful frown on his face. “It sounds like a reason my Mistress would have, though I don’t know
for sure why. I never asked her why she chose me.”

  The memory of the attack on Kristair came back to me, the terror and desperate struggle of that dark night. I’d always wanted to know how a vampire was created, but I’d never delved that far into Kristair’s memories. It seemed too much like a personal invasion. He was remembering it now; I could see the stark memory written on his face.

  I took his hand in mine and curled my fingers around it. “What happens?” I asked gently, morbid curiosity gone under the sense that this was something Kristair had never spoken of and it was time that he did.

  “Technically, a vampire drains a human of their blood and, when they’re on the cusp of dying, replaces it with some of their own.”

  “I take it that ‘technically’ doesn’t even begin to cover it.”

  If anything, Kristair’s eyes became even bleaker. “It is a madness that descends on you. It’s not just pain, it’s as if every nerve in your body has gone haywire and is lying on the outside of your skin, as if every cell has been scraped raw and bleeding, and there is acid in your veins. And you’re so cold. It takes months for that chill sensation to leave your mind and you become accustomed to it. And the hunger….” Kristair paused and shook his head. “You have some idea what it felt like, similar to when I had been burned, but without the discipline and control I’d developed since then.”

  I shuddered, recalling all too clearly Kristair’s savage hunger. Both he and Tony had gone through that when they’d been turned. “How long does it take?”

  “Forever, it seems at the time. The hunger assuages once you’ve fed, but you have to wait until either you can walk to go find it or until your creator feeds you. The pain lingers until the next night. By then, if you haven’t gone mad and been destroyed by your creator, well, then you realize what you are and have to come to terms with that. All in all, it’s not an easy change; it’s not for the weak.” He squeezed my hand and brought it to his lips. “Don’t look so serious, mo chroí. It was very long ago and once the shock of it passed I rather enjoyed being a vampire.”