“Jagr.” Her nails bit into his back, her voice ragged. “I need you.”
Eager and willing to fulfill her every desire, Jagr unlatched from her throat, gently licking closed the two small puncture wounds before scattering kisses down her collarbone and over the swell of her breast.
“Your every wish is my command, my love,” he assured her as he shifted to settle between her legs. “For now and always.”
Her hands clutched his lips, her creamy skin flushed with need. “A dangerous promise, chief.”
He gazed deep into the slumberous emerald eyes, capable of feeling the sharp ache of her desire.
“You don’t scare me, Were.”
“No? Maybe you should…”
Her words broke off with a low groan as he surged into her damp heat. Pure sensation jolted through him, clenching his muscles and heating him to the very marrow. For a moment he halted to simply relish being so intimately bound together.
“I should do this?” he breathed as he lowered his head to plunder her soft lips. “And maybe this?” Slowly he pulled back his hips and once again thrust deep inside her.
“Oh, yes,” she breathed.
A growl was wrenched from his throat as she lifted her hips and his cock sank to the heart of her. So close to perfect.
So. Very. Close.
“Regan.”
Her eyes were clenched shut as he steadily pumped himself into her. “Mmmm?”
He traced the tip of one breast his tongue. “It’s time to complete the ceremony.”
“Christ.” With obvious effort, she lifted her heavy lids. “Does it have to be now?”
With a soft chuckle he brushed his lips over her cheeks and gently nipped at her earlobe.
“You are a part of me, little one. Now I want to be a part of you.”
Her beautiful face softened with a heartrending tenderness. “You’ll always be a part of me, Jagr.” Her hands moved to frame his face. “Now and forever.”
With a soft kiss, Jagr cupped the back of Regan’s head and pressed her mouth to the side of his neck.
“Bite,” he commanded softly.
There was a moment of hesitation before he felt her lips part and she dug her teeth deep into his skin.
Jagr shouted in raw pleasure as she gently sucked at the wound, taking his blood into her.
He’d never willingly allowed anyone to feed from him. He hadn’t realized just how intimate the exchange could be.
A primitive passion surged through him. This was his woman.
His mate.
Urging her to drink even deeper, he rocked his hips, pumping in and out of her with a growingly desperate pace.
This was it.
This was perfection.
Wrenching her mouth from his neck, Regan cried out in fulfillment, her nails raking down his back with a blissful sting of pain.
Jagr had never seen anything more beautiful than the sight of Regan reaching her peak, and with one last thrust, his climax slammed into him.
Arching his back, Jagr gloried in the sheer power of the explosion.
Nothing ever had felt so good.
Regan struggled to catch her breath.
Yow.
That just gave a whole new meaning to “bringing down the house.”
Certainly she felt as if the roof had collapsed on top of her.
In the best possible way.
Sighing as Jagr rolled to the side and gathered her in his arms, Regan readily snuggled against his cool body. She felt sated to the very tips of her toes.
And more than that, she felt…
Jagr.
Christ, it was amazing.
He was like a low hum in the back of her mind.
She sensed his glow of peaceful contentment, his stark need to protect her, and overall the fierce love that shimmered through his soul like threads of gold.
Awed by the sensation of being so closely bound to another, Regan stroked an absent finger down a puckered scar on Jagr’s chest. Instantly she was aware of his heated response to her touch. And unexpectedly, a hint of vulnerability as she caressed the flesh he’d kept hidden for so long.
Her heart melted.
How could she have wasted even a moment with her stupid fears?
Culligan and the damn curs had made her a captive, but it had very nearly been her own choice to remain a prisoner.
“It’s strange,” she murmured.
Dropping a kiss on top of her head, Jagr pulled back to study her with a lift of his brows.
“Strange? That’s not exactly what a virile vampire wants to hear after making love with his mate.”
“I meant it’s strange that I can feel you.” Grasping his hand, she pressed it directly over her heart. “Here.”
The brilliant blue eyes flared with a heat that he reserved only for her.
“The mating bond.” His hand shifted to curve possessively around her breast. “From now on you will always know where I am, what I’m feeling, if I have need of you.”
“Need of me, eh?”
He teased the sensitive tip of her nipple, his body hardening with an eagerness that made her chuckle.
“Which will be always,” he husked.
Regan deliberately glanced down at the full erection pressing against her hip.
“So I see.”
The words had barely left her lips when she found herself flat on her back with a smug vampire perched on top of her.
“Would you like to do more than just see?”
Oh, yeah, she wanted more.
She wanted to lick him from head to toe, pausing to nibble at all the most interesting places. She wanted to spend hours exploring the hard planes and angles of his body. She wanted to forget the world and…
Almost as if the mere thought of the world allowed it to intrude, her lovely fantasies were suddenly distracted.
“Holy crap,” she muttered.
A ghost of a smile played about his lips. “Again, not what a virile vampire wants to hear.” His fingers brushed her cheek. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t believe I forgot to ask about Levet. Have you heard from him?”
Jagr snorted, lowering his head to sprinkle light, tormenting kisses over her face and down the line of her throat.
“That’s a story for later.” He easily evaded her question and set about distracting her with delicious strokes of his tongue that were leading lower and lower.
She tried to hang onto a shred of sanity. “But…”
“Later, little one.” He tugged her legs apart and smiled with wicked intent. “Much later.”
And it was.
Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of Alexandra Ivy’s next novel in the Guardians of Eternity series, coming in April 2010!
Chapter 1
It wasn’t his finest day, Salvatore Giuliani, the mighty King of Weres, had to admit.
As a matter of fact, it was swerving toward downright shitty.
It was bad enough to regain consciousness to discover he was stretched out in a dark, nasty tunnel that was currently ruining his Gucci suit, and that he had no clear memory of how he had gotten there.
But to open his eyes and use his perfect night vision to discover a three foot gargoyle with stunted horns, ugly gray features, and delicate wings in shades of blue and gold and crimson hovering over him was enough to ruin a perfectly horrible mood.
“Wake up,” Levet hissed, his French accent pronounced and his wings fluttering in fear. “Wake up, you mangy dog, or I’ll have you spaded.”
“Call me a dog again and be assured you’ll soon be chopped into bits of gravel and paving my driveway,” Salvatore growled, his head throbbing in time to his heartbeat.
What the hell had happened?
The last thing he remembered he’d been north of St. Louis to meet with Duncan, a cur who’d promised information regarding his pack leader (a renegade cur with a taste for regicide) and the next he was waking up with Levet buzzing over him like an ove
rsized, extremely ugly butterfly.
God almighty. When Salvatore got out of the tunnel, he was going to track down Jagr and cut out his heart for sticking him with the annoying Levet. Damned vampire.
“You will not be doing anything unless you get up and move,” the gargoyle warned. “Shake your tail, King of Slugs.”
Ignoring the grinding pain in his joints, Salvatore rose to his feet and smoothed back his shoulder length raven hair. He didn’t bother knocking the dirt from his silk suit. It was going in the nearest fire.
Along with the gargoyle.
“Where are we?”
“In some tunnel.”
“A brilliant deduction. What would I do without you?”
“Look, Cujo, all I know is that one minute we were in a cabin with an extremely dead Duncan and the next I was being rudely dropped on my head.” Bizarrely the gargoyle rubbed his butt rather than his head. Of course, his skull was more than likely too thick to harm. “That female is fortunate that I did not turn her into a beaver.”
“It had to have been a spell. Was the woman a witch?”
“Non. A demon, but…”
“What?”
“She is a mongrel.”
Salvatore shrugged. It was common among the demon world to interbreed.
“Not unusual.”
“Her power is.”
Salvatore frowned. He might want to choke the gargoyle, but the tiny demon possessed the ability to sense magic that Salvatore couldn’t.
“What power?”
“Jinn.”
A chill inched down Salvatore’s spine and he cast a swift glance up and down the tunnel. In the distance he could sense the approach of his curs and a vampire. The cavalry rushing to the rescue. His attention, however, was focused on searching for any hint of the jinn.
A full-bred jinn was a cruel, unpredictable creature who could manipulate nature. They could call lightning, turn wind into a lethal force, and lay flat an entire city with an earthquake. They could also disappear into a wisp of smoke. Thankfully they rarely took an interest in the world and preferred to remain isolated.
Half-breeds…
He shuddered. They might not possess the power of a full-fledged jinn, but their inability to control their volatile energy made them even more dangerous.
“Jinn have been forbidden to breed with other demons.”
Levet snorted. “There are many things forbidden in this world.”
“The Commission must be told,” Salvatore muttered, referring to the cryptic Oracles who were the ultimate leaders of the demon-world. He reached into his pocket, coming up empty. “Cristo.”
“What?”
“My cell phone is gone.”
“Fine.” Levet threw his hands in the air. “We will send a memo. For now we need to get out of here.”
“Relax, gargoyle, help is on the way.”
With a frown, Levet sniffed the air. “Your curs.”
“And a leech.”
Levet sniffed again. “Tane.”
Expecting Jagr, Salvatore’s brows snapped together. One vampire was as bad as another, but Tane’s reputation of killing first and asking questions later didn’t exactly warm the cockles of a Were’s heart.
Whatever the hell a cockle was.
“The Charon?” he demanded. Charons were assassins who hunted down rogue vampires. God only knew what they did to lesser demons. And in a vampire’s mind, every demon was lesser.
“An arrogant, condescending donkey,” Levet muttered.
Salvatore rolled his eyes. “Jackass, you idiot, not donkey.”
Levet waved a dismissive hand. “It is my theory that the taller the demon, the larger his conceit and the smaller his…”
“Continue, gargoyle,” a cold voice cut through the dark, abruptly lowering the temperature in the tunnel. “I find your theory fascinating.”
“Eek!”
With a flutter of his wings, Levet dashed behind Salvatore. As if he was stupid enough to think Salvatore would keep him from certain death.
“Dio, get away from me, you pest,” Salvatore growled, swiping a hand at the gargoyle even as his gaze was warily focused on the vampire rounding the corner of the tunnel.
He was worth focusing on.
Although not as large as many of his brothers, the vampire was dangerously muscular with the golden skin of his Polynesian ancestors and thick, black hair shaved on the sides into a long Mohawk that fell past his shoulders. His face was that of a predator, lean and hard with faintly slanted honey eyes. At the moment he was wearing nothing more than a pair of khaki shorts, obviously not sharing Salvatore’s own fondness for designer clothes.
Of course, the big dagger he was holding in his hands made sure that no one was going to question his taste in fashion.
Not if they wanted to live.
There was the sound of footsteps and four of his curs came into sight, the largest of them rushing forward to drop to his knees and press his bald head to the ground in front of Salvatore’s feet.
“Sire, are you harmed?” Hess demanded.
“Only my pride.” Salvatore returned his attention to the vampire as Hess rose to his feet and towered at his side. “I remember nothing after entering the cabin and finding Duncan dead. No, wait. There was a voice, then…” He shook his head in aggravation as his memory went blank. “Damn. Did you follow us?”
Tane absently stroked the hilt of his dagger. “When we found the cabin empty, Jagr assumed you were in trouble. Since your clueless crew seemed incapable of forming a coherent thought, I agreed to come in search of you.”
Not surprising. Unlike purebloods who were born from full Weres, the curs were humans who had been bitten and transformed into werewolves. Hess and the other curs were excellent killers. Which was why he kept them as guards. Using their brains, however…well, he did the thinking for them. It solved any number of problems.
“So what happened to our captors?”
“We’ve been gaining on you over the past half hour.” Tane shrugged. “They obviously preferred escape over keeping their hostages.”
“You never caught sight of them?”
“No. A cur escaped through a side tunnel a mile back and the demon simply disappeared.” Frustration flashed through the honey eyes. Salvatore could sympathize. He was anxious for a bit of blood and violence himself. “There’re only a handful of demons capable of vanishing into thin air.”
“The gargoyle thinks it’s a jinn mongrel.”
“Hey, the gargoyle has a name.” Stepping from behind Salvatore, Levet planted his hands on his hips. “And I do not think, I know.”
Tane narrowed his eyes. “How can you be certain?”
“I had a slight misunderstanding with a jinn a few centuries ago. He zapped off one of my wings. It took years to grow back.”
Tane was supremely unimpressed. “And that’s somehow relevant?”
“Before the demon dropped me and did her disappearing act, she left a little present.” Turning around, Levet revealed the perfectly shaped handprint that had been branded onto his butt. Salvtore’s laughter echoed through the tunnel and the gargoyle turned to stab him with a wounded glare. “It is not amusing.”
“That still doesn’t prove it was a jinn,” Tane pointed out, his own lips twitching with amusement.
“Being struck by lightning is not a sensation you easily forget.”
Tane instinctively glanced over his shoulder. No demon in his right mind wanted to cross paths with a jinn.
“How do you know it isn’t a full jinn?”
Levet grimaced. “I am still alive.”
The vampire turned to Salvatore. “The Commission must be warned.”
“I agree.”
“This is Were business. It’s your duty.”
“I can’t lose the trail of the cur,” Salvatore smoothly pointed out. Ah. There was nothing better than getting the upper hand with a leech. “He’s proven a danger to more than just Weres. I’m sure the Commission
would agree that my duty is put an end to the traitors.”
A blast of frigid air filled the tunnel. Salvatore smiled, releasing his own energy to counter the chill with a prickling heat.
The curs stirred uneasily, reacting to the power play between two dangerous predators. Salvatore never allowed his gaze to stray from Tane. Few Weres could best a vampire, but Salvatore wasn’t just a Were. He was king. He wasn’t going to back down from any demon.
At last, Tane snapped his fangs in Salvatore’s direction and stepped back. Salvatore could only assume that the vampire had been ordered to keep the bloodshed to a minimum.
“This will not be forgotten, dog,” Tane warned, turning on his heel and silently disappearing down the tunnel.
“Good riddance, leech.”
Waiting long enough to make sure the vampire didn’t have a change of heart and return to rip out his throat, Salvatore turned back to his waiting curs to discover them battling back their urge to shift.
He grimaced. As a pureblood he had the ability to control his shifts unless it was a full moon; curs on the other hand were at the mercy of their emotions.
With a shudder, Hess at last gained control and sucked in a deep breath.
“Now what?”
Salvatore didn’t hesitate. “We follow the cur.”
Hess clenched his meaty hands at his side. “It’s too dangerous. The jinn…” His words broke off in a squeal as Salvatore’s power once again reached out, striking the cur like the lash of a whip.
“Hess, on how many occasions have I told you that if I want your opinion I’ll ask for it,” Salvatore drawled.
The cur lowered his head. “Forgive me, sire.”
“The cringing cretin is not entirely wrong.” Levet waddled forward, his long tail twitching. “It had to have been the demon who killed Duncan and knocked both of us out.”
“No one is asking you to join us, gargoyle,” Salvatore snapped.
“Sacrebleu. I am not going to be left alone in these tunnels.”
“Then chase after the vampire.”
The damned gargoyle refused to budge, a sly amusement entering the gray eyes.
“Darcy would not be pleased if something was to happen to me and if Darcy is not happy, then Styx is not happy.”
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