Scions: Resurrection

by Patrice Michelle

  How could she have been so wrong about Jachin? She’d never seen this side to him—hungry, angry and on the edge of losing control. Her throat seized and her heart threatened to ram a hole right through her chest.

  Ariel stumbled to her feet and rushed to the door. She knew no one would come to her rescue, but self-preservation was a powerful if not always a logical force. She began to hammer at the thick wood with her fists, screaming at the top of her lungs. “Help me! Someone, please! Mirrrra! Help me!”

  Two big hands landed on top of hers, pinning her fists to the door. The sight of Jachin’s fingers burrowed deep into the wood, displaying how easily he could shred her thin skin to bits, cut her scream off in a strangled gulp.

  His hard body pressed against her back as his warm breath brushed across her neck. “I was bred to survive at all costs. I will take your blood,” he rasped next to her ear.

  Ariel began to pant in short, frightened gasps of air.

  “The question remains, Ariel…will it be with your consent or without?”

  Chapter 12

  A s Jachin’s question echoed in her head, Ariel struggled for breath. Turning to face him, she searched his harsh features and remembered his promise that he would never hurt her.

  But somewhere underneath the haze of bloodlust reflected in his eyes she saw compassion. She knew he cared for her.

  In the midst of all this chaos, despite her fear of vampires, she’d come to care for Jachin, too. More than anything, she appreciated his heroic effort to protect her from himself.

  The fact that her family had played a role in the Sanguinas’ past and ultimately their current circumstances allowed her to shed some of the guilt that had been building around her heart, placing a barrier between them. They both had reasons to hate—did those reasons cancel each other out?

  Her blood had healed his wounds in the past. Maybe her blood wouldn’t be his death warrant. She was well aware she was playing with a fire on the verge of an out-of-control inferno, but if she was going to die, then let her death come in the arms of a man who seemed to care enough to fight his programmed primal instincts as long as he could.

  Her heart beat at a rapid pace as she kissed one of the wounds on his chest. Swiping the bit of blood from her lips with her tongue, she placed her trembling hands on the torn fabric over his hard pectorals and met his tortured, haunted gaze, answering his question. “Make me beg for it.”

  A sense of relief rushed through Jachin at her consent, but he couldn’t let down his guard or he would lose total control. He yanked his claws from the door, and as his talons retracted, he ran his knuckles across her cheek. His hunger raged within him, turning his attraction to Ariel to full-fledged, overwhelming lust.

  She didn’t remember their time together, but it was all he could think about. Amid the dark, ravenous animal clawing inside him, he held on to the memory, the beautiful sight of her complete, passionate surrender.

  He didn’t know how to recover her memory, but he hadn’t completely erased it. He hoped like hell he could help her come back to it. The look of tentative trust mingled with fear in her eyes stabbed at his heart. He needed her to rediscover their passion.

  “You lay naked on the bed, completely open to me, while I tasted your body.” His fingers trailed down her neck, barely touching her skin.

  Her brow wrinkled in confusion, her voice a bare whisper when she said, “I don’t understand.”

  “In Landon’s cabin. There was a period of time you don’t remember.” Jachin traced his fingers down her throat until he touched the swell of her breast right above the jacket’s collar. Extending his talon, he popped the first button off her jacket.

  Her breath hitched as his action exposed her cleavage, but her gaze never left his. “I remember wondering when I had changed clothes and why you were kissing me.”

  Jachin’s body tensed with his need to rip the jacket open. He fought back the voracious creature battling in his mind. “We took a shower together.” He popped open another button.

  “No.” Ariel closed her eyes for a second and shook her head.

  Another button fell to the stone floor, spinning until it fell over on its side with a quiet plink. “Your hair was wet.”

  Her gaze flew to his as the truth of his statement sank in. “I—I don’t remember.” Her lips trembled and she moved her hands to his shoulders.

  A generous show of beautiful fair skin was now exposed, and her sweet, firm breasts were barely covered by the jacket. His body throbbed for hers in painful anticipation while his thirst grew in exponential proportions.

  Jachin severed the last button holding the fabric together, a dark grunt of male satisfaction echoing in his head. “You asked me to erase your memory.”

  Unshed tears glittered in her beautiful blue eyes, acknowledging the first signs she believed he might be speaking the truth. “Why?”

  “Only you can tell me your reasons.” Jachin gingerly cupped her neck with both hands, rubbing his thumbs along her collarbone.

  Her head moved back and forth in an adamant motion. “I don’t remember any of it. How can you expect me to tell you what my reasons were?”

  His fangs seemed to elongate even more with the need to clamp down on her neck. Sliding his palms down her chest, he spoke in a low tone full of pent-up need. “I remember every sweet, erotic detail, from your wet body grinding against mine to your sweet, musky flavor as you begged me to take you.”

  Ariel’s body stiffened. “I did not!”

  “You will remember!” he demanded as he palmed her breasts, then ran his thumbs across her hard nipples. Despite her mortified tone, she gasped at the brush of his fingers against her sensitive skin.

  He gripped her waist and pulled her against his chest. “I’ve overcome many obstacles and unbeatable odds in my life, but holding back from filling your body with mine was the hardest temptation I’ve ever faced.”

  “So we didn’t…?” Confusion and frustration flitted across her face as she trailed off. She cupped his jaw, tears sliding down her cheeks. Her glittering eyes searched his face for answers. “I wish I remembered.”

  With sheer willpower Jachin forced his fangs to retreat. Lowering his mouth to hers, he spoke in her mind. We’ll just have to make a new memory together.

  Ariel welcomed the deep thrust of his tongue against hers, the blissful obliteration of every emotion except exquisite pleasure. When he cupped the back of her head and slanted his mouth across hers, his kiss consumed her, taking her fear and turning it into an all-out adrenaline rush.

  Ariel’s breasts tingled from his touch, her belly fluttered and her sex ached. How could his kiss elicit such a deep response? Did her body remember and crave what her mind couldn’t recall?

  She moaned against his mouth and blocked out the cool stone chamber, her dire situation and the fact the man seducing her might very well take every single drop of blood that pumped in her veins. She just wanted to feel alive for what could be the last day of her life.

  As Jachin’s tongue explored every crevice of her mouth, flashes of memories scanned through her mind: Jachin standing behind her, his arm around her waist while he asked why she’d saved him; his lips grazing her neck as his hand cupped her breast over Landon’s button-down shirt. She’d wanted him desperately.

  When Jachin gripped her waist tight and his lips skimmed down her neck, she began to tremble. It was as if he sensed his current seduction was spurring her lost memory to return.

  He backed her against the door and lifted her slightly in the air. Grinding his hard erection against her mound, he groaned alongside her neck as he swiped his tongue over the wounds Braeden had inflicted. His body held her pressed against the door, his hands palming her hips before sliding lower until he cupped her rear through the skirt’s fabric in a tight, possessive hold.

  How can you forget this, Ariel? he whispered in her mind. What we share is indescribable.

  His husky mental words coupled with his aggressive actio
n made her heartbeat ramp up to an erratic pace and her pulse thunder in her ears. She felt his barely controlled tension knotting his shoulders underneath her hands and reveled in it. Ariel had never been more sexually wound up in her life.

  I couldn’t bring myself to fully erase your memory…just to push it to your subconscious. Jachin’s warm tongue ran along the other side of her neck as he lowered her to the floor and slid his hand past the panels in her skirt.

  The sconces’ light appeared to dance in the dungeon’s small space, moving in time to their heavy breathing. She didn’t have time to ponder the cool air hitting her bared skin before his warm hand slid up the inside of her thigh.

  Jachin lifted his head and captured her gaze at the same time his fingers traced through the curls between her legs. “I might’ve erased your memory, but I’ll never forget the way you felt, the way you smelled or how you tasted.”

  As he slid his finger deep in her channel, his nostrils flared and his chest lifted and fell as if he’d lost control of his ability to slow his breathing. Ariel whimpered at the erotic sensations his invasion caused. Her heart hammered out of control, and she clenched her walls around his fingers, wanting more…wanting his body ramming deep inside, stretching her tight and making her scream with the need to come.

  “I’ve never wanted this much—Ariel…both your blood and your moans of pleasure.”

  When he added another finger, déjà vu flashed more patches of buried memories through her mind, while the lustful, haunted look in his eyes made her belly tumble and her knees threaten to give way. Witnessing his need for her on so many levels finally brought all the memories flooding back, completely freeing her heart and mind.

  “I remember.” Ariel breathed hard as she began to tug at his jeans’ button and zipper.

  Jachin slammed his fingers deep inside her channel and cupped his palm against her mound. “Tell me why.”

  She gasped at his aggressive action, feeling both filled and frustrated by him. Ariel tried to move her hips, to continue the pleasurable build blossoming inside her, but he held her pinned against the door, his expression hard and unreadable.

  The pressure of his palm against her sensitive nub was almost unbearable, a mixture of oh-so-good and almost too much at the same time. She let go of his jeans and grabbed his hand to try to relieve some of the friction, but he refused to budge.

  “Tell me why you wanted me to erase your memory,” he repeated in a voice of steel.

  Her stomach flipped back and forth between flutters and cramps, she was so on the edge. “I—I don’t know.”

  His gaze narrowed and his jaw tightened. He moved the heel of his hand and replaced it with his thumb, sliding the rough pad back and forth along her sex. “I need to know, Ariel.”

  Ariel’s frantic panting hitched with each brush of his thumb against the firm, sensitive skin and the brief sight of his fangs when he spoke. She wanted to climax with those fangs staking a claim, just the way he’d done to her in Landon’s cabin.

  “Because I didn’t want to care for a vampire. I—I didn’t want to fall for a man who would throw me away so easily—”

  He didn’t let her finish. Instead he kissed her hard, with a fierceness that surprised her…as if he were trying to absorb every part of her heart, body and soul.

  Jachin spoke in her mind as he kissed her jaw and then her neck. I couldn’t let him have you. No matter my duty to my people. It felt wrong on so many levels. You’re mine!

  When he moved his lips to her neck and she felt the sharp points of his fangs gliding along her skin, Ariel’s pulse skittered while her heart swelled. He’d finally admitted what she already knew—he’d come to care for her. She tugged his jeans down, so ready to join with him that her body ached.

  Jachin gripped her hips and lifted her body against his. Ariel clutched his shoulders, and her heart thudded out of control as he slid the head of his erection inside her. His cock was so much larger than his fingers, but the tight fit only made her moan more. She gyrated her hips, wanting to take all of him at once.

  Setting her back against the door, Jachin plunged deep inside her, filling her completely as his voice whispered in her mind, I want to be the only man to make you scream.

  Ariel let out a keening cry at the glorious sensation of her body stretching to accommodate his girth and deep penetration. “You’re well on your way,” she responded with a half-hysterical laugh.

  He buried his nose against her throat as he withdrew and thrust hard, slamming her against the door again and again.

  Tight coils of intense pleasure flooded through her sex, making her even wetter. His teeth grazed her neck several times, but he never bit her, even though she felt the warm air exhaling from his nose in heavy puffs.

  She wanted to feel his teeth sliding inside her body. Ariel shuddered as she felt her climax approaching with each of his aggressive thrusts.

  She speared her fingers in his hair and used her hold to press his mouth against her neck, telling him what she wanted.

  Jachin slowed his hard thrusts to one last deep penetration until he stayed buried completely. His fangs clamped on her throat, pinning her still.

  The sharp pinpoints made her insides quake in rippling desire. Ariel’s body hummed with the need for release. He was rock-hard inside her.

  “Bite me,” she rasped, clutching her legs even tighter around his waist.

  Beg.

  She gripped his hair and demanded in tiny huffs, “Bite me!”

  Jachin’s negative response was a low growl in his throat. He pressed his body fully against her, applying pressure to her sensitive nub.

  Ariel’s breathing turned rampant and her body began to shake. Her heart melted when she realized he was holding back for her, giving her exactly what she’d asked for. “I want to feel your fangs deep inside me. Make me scream, damn it!”

  His fangs sank deep at the same time he rolled his hips against her body.

  Ariel’s vision blurred at the sheer combination of pleasure and ecstasy he caused. She didn’t even feel pain. Instead she screamed and gripped him close, sobbing in satisfaction as wave after wave of erotic shudders rippled through her core, splintering along her body in a shock wave of indescribable bliss. She clenched her body tight, moving with him to absorb every single thrust of his aggressive possession.

  When he groaned against her neck and kept drinking as if he savored every drop, she knew in her heart that at least to the only vampire who mattered, she wasn’t poison.

  Digging her nails into his tattered T-shirt, she rode the sensations as long and as hard as she could until her body quit moving out of complete exhaustion.

  Jachin was in a fog of sheer lust and gluttony. He’d never tasted blood as rich and sweet as Ariel’s or felt so sexually satiated. He was so bewitched he could drown in her blood, her flavor, her alluring smell, and die a happy man.

  Ariel’s muffled voice entered his mind. “Jachin?” Why does she sound so far away? he wondered as he swallowed with fervor once more.

  Something landed on his shoulder, like an annoying fly. He grunted and shrugged the insect away. But it persisted, trying to draw him out of his euphoric state. A haze of irritated anger flashed before his eyes so primal he saw nothing but black.

  “Jach…in.” Ariel sounded even farther away, her voice strangled and weak.

  The change in her tone knocked him out of the high he’d fallen into. Jachin squeezed his eyes shut in order to focus, to pull himself back. The sensation of Ariel’s body going limp in his arms made his eyes snap open. His heart jerked and his gut clenched as he withdrew his fangs and quickly laved at her wounds to close them. Carrying her over to the bed, he gently laid her down on it. He cupped her pale face, alarm and fear rushing through him.

  She gave him a wan smile. “For a few seconds I actually saw stars.”

  When her eyes fluttered closed, Jachin set his jaw and touched the pulse on her neck. Its slow, sluggish thump sent his own pulse thunder
ing in his ears. He’d never felt more alive or stronger than he did at this moment. With that realization, swift, gut-wrenching guilt knotted his stomach. Selfish bastard. You failed to keep a lid on your thirst and now you’ve taken too much blood from the woman who would help save your clan.

  His heart swelled as he gazed down at Ariel’s face. She was the human the prophecy spoke of. He admired and respected her more than life itself. If she died due to his reckless feeding, he’d walk right into the sunlight. It would be a fitting punishment for the monster he was…and would always be.

  He sat on the bed, his jeans around his ankles, and gathered her lifeless body in his arms. His eyes stung with tears as he ran his nose through her hair. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t control my bloodthirsty instincts, Ariel. I don’t expect you to forgive me. I’ll never forgive myself.”

  “You’d better…” She sounded tired but gave him a smile. “If we ever get out of here, I’ll be demanding an encore performance.”

  Jachin clenched his teeth and looked away, shaking his head. “No.”

  She cupped his jaw and applied pressure until his eyes met hers once more. “You snapped out of it as soon as you heard my voice. Your heart has more capacity than you give yourself credit for.”

  Her eyes widened as she stared at him, searching his entire frame in wonder. “It’s amazing. The wounds on your face and chest are already healed. Even the old scar on your neck—it’s gone.”

  “I was happy to finally let that bastard’s scar heal.”

  Realization dawned on her face. “Did Braeden give you that scar?”

  He nodded. “The day he banished me.”

  “Is that why you didn’t want me to heal it—because you thought you deserved it?”

  “Yes.” Jachin’s tortured gaze swept over her. “You’ve given me everything, and here you lay, weak and drained.”