Playing Easy to Get

by Sherrilyn Kenyon

  "None. Why, you can force me to have sex with you nonstop all month!"

  "Why would I force you when I can barely keep your hands--and mouth--off me now?"

  "Wroth, darling," she purred, smiling so sweetly. "I can't wait for the next time I get to put my mouth on you." In an instant the smile faded and she snapped her teeth and yanked her head back as if she was chewing something free.

  He didn't even have time to cringe because she wriggled from his shirt then. At the sight of her naked body, his cock shot hard as steel. She sensually dragged her underwear up her legs and then bent over in only the thong to step into a skirt. Just as he was fighting the overwhelming urge to take her hips and feed himself into her, shrieks erupted from downstairs.

  On edge in this place, he moved to peer over the landing outside her room and found ten or more Valkyrie downstairs. Some were lounging in front of a TV, bowls of popcorn in front of them--that they didn't eat. One was up and sparring with what looked like a ghost or a phantom. When the pair crossed in front of the television, the others screeched and threw popcorn at them.

  A small Valkyrie stalked in the door. She was covered in blood.

  "Cara!" they shouted in greeting, completely unsurprised by her appearance.

  "What'd you get into tonight?" one asked from her perch on the mantle.

  Cara pulled her sword sheath from her back. "My human unknowingly went into a demon bar. A demoness thought to make her lover jealous using my charge." She shook her head. "It was everything I could do to keep the demon from ripping Michael's throat out with his teeth."

  "How'd you do it?"

  Without blinking an eye, she said, "I ripped the demon's throat out with my teeth."

  When they all laughed, Wroth raised an eyebrow, vowing that Myst would never see these malicious creatures again. Never. Without their influence, she would be kinder, gentler.

  She sure as hell couldn't get worse.

  "Have Myst or Daniela returned?" Cara asked.

  "No. I'd expect this from Myst--"

  Because she often ran off with men?

  "--but certainly not from Daniela. She never returned from the Quarter."

  "Well, the hits keep coming--I just saw Ivo the Cruel in the Quarter."

  When they laughed again, she said, "You should know by now that I do not jest about vampires unless they're dead."

  They sobered and one asked, "Has he returned for Myst? Somebody needs to warn her."

  Wroth quickly turned back to her room--but Myst was gone.

  He traced to the opened window, then to the end of the field below when he caught sight of her sprinting away. He yelled for her to stop and somehow she kept running.

  She was fast and might have outrun him with her unnatural speed as she covered miles, but he traced, lunging from that momentum to snag her ankle, tripping her forward. She wore plugs in her ears from a music player. Enraged, he yanked them from her, heard the music blaring and threw the contraption into the woods beyond.

  She'd almost escaped him. Before he'd claimed her. Thoughts grew distant. A shadow fell over his vision. He pinned her down, tossed up her skirt, then ripped the silk from between her legs, glorying in that feeling. He was finally going to take his Bride.

  Hazily, he realized she was still struggling from him. Her words echoed inside him. "Wroth, you want it? I'll fight you for it."

  He would always fight for her, always. Would he fight her for the right to her body?

  "Then you're mine."

  Chapter Eight

  A nightmare was about to take her.

  When his fingers dug into her skin, dragging her beneath him, she knocked her forehead against his. He bellowed with rage, until she squirmed around and drove her elbow back into his throat. As he fought for breath, she took advantage by scrambling from him enough to mule-kick his chest, sending him reeling.

  Why hadn't she broken his neck with her elbow through his throat? She had before with other vampires. Why did she hesitate whenever it came to hurting him? She wouldn't again, she thought as she leapt on top of him, drilling her fist into his face so quickly it was like a blur. His lip split. Another two hits in rapid succession. She thought she broke his cheekbone.

  "You'll get no mercy now," he bit out, his eyes black, his deep voice rumbling almost unrecognizably. He caught her fist when she struck again and squeezed. With her other hand she swiped her claws down his shirt, across his neck, hissing in fury. Lightning came down like a hail of bullets. Somehow he caught her free wrist and turned over on her, pinning her hands above her head.

  Just as she tensed to kick her leg straight between his and send him flying forward, he groaned as if in desperation, sinking his teeth deep into her neck. She shuddered and cried out, body going limp beneath him. Her eyes widened in shock as she stared at the lightning above. This wasn't pain he was giving her.

  His bite was ecstasy.

  He did it again and again lower on her neck. Each bite, each time his fangs entered her skin was like the thrust of a man inside her. Each time he released her skin was like a slow, measured withdrawal. The pleasure was dizzying. Exquisite agony.

  She'd never been defeated before in a contest of two--no man had ever been strong enough. And Myst had an animal need deep inside her for a powerful male--like this one who'd pleasured her, fascinated her--to win. Her mind rebelled, reminding her of what he was. She'd killed the last three she'd blooded. Why not him? He'd planned to torture her in that horrid dungeon, planned to control her with the chain.

  But his bite...It made her body demand, growing wetter, feeling empty without him shoved tightly inside her.

  Please be strong enough...Please...For once in her life would a man take control?

  So she could finally lose it.

  When he pinned her wrists with one hand--hard--she arched her back in delight. He used his other to rip open her shirt and bra and bare her breasts. He palmed her flesh, then opened his jeans and freed himself. His huge erection jutted between them, the sack heavy beneath.

  Her eyes widened and she fought anew, digging her heels into the ground to scuttle back. Too large for her. Break her in slowly--that's what he'd said.

  His palms landed with a slap on her upper thighs, lifting her pelvis. Her hands loose, she rose up and fought him viciously--scratched, bit, hit--but it was futile. Still clasping her thighs, he used his thumbs to spread her sex, then wrenched her down on his shaft. Yelling brutally as she cried out in pain, he buried himself into her flesh until he was thick and throbbing deep within her.

  He'd done it. Myst will want the first man who can defeat her. That's what they'd always whispered about her.

  They'd been right. She'd challenged him and he'd bested her. In her mind, he deserved to claim his prize no matter the consequences.

  He stilled, then bent his head to her and dragged his tongue over her nipple as if to soothe her. As if somewhere in his crazed mind, he wanted her to have pleasure.

  He set to her other nipple for long moments, then sucked from her neck again. Somehow the bite turned pain to pleasure, helping her body grow slick to accept the invasion. She yanked the remains of his shirt open to sweep her fingers over his splendid chest and that helped as well.

  As he slowly withdrew, he groaned, "So wet," but when he thrust again, she hissed in a breath, eyes watering.

  "Wroth, it really hurts," she whispered.

  "Can't stop," he bit out. His neck and chest sheened with sweat, the muscles rigid from his effort already.

  "T-tell me not to feel pain."

  "Ah, Myst, don't hurt." His words were ragged. "I don't want you to feel pain from this." Immediately, the pain muted to only a feeling of fullness.

  When he drank from her, pulled back his hips and then tentatively thrust, she cried out again. He stiffened. "No, Wroth...it's good!...Keep going."

  He did. He timed each draw from her neck with the bucking of his hips, and she knew it was over, gave herself up to it, arched her back, arms limp
overhead. The lightning whipped up the wind, and it rushed over her heated body, over her tight nipples.

  He raised his chest up, positioning himself on his knees. She whimpered when she thought he would withdraw, but he dragged her up with him until she was straddling him. He spread his knees so he could thrust up inside her. He was getting too large to move within her, already hitting the end of her sex so she couldn't take him to the hilt.

  His body was so big around hers, making her feel truly vulnerable. As if he read her mind he wrapped his arms tight around her, pinning hers to her sides. He completely captured her to hold her in place while he drove into her from below.

  She relaxed every muscle in her body--why not? This was a position she had never allowed before, from which there was no fighting even if she'd wished to. She knew he wouldn't let her go or fall. She relaxed in the crushing tightness of his arms, her naked breasts pressed against his scarred chest.

  He kept her immobile while he continued to fuck like a piston below them. Her head fell back and she watched the sky in a daze of pleasure, seeing her own lightning thrashing the earth.

  Bliss welling up, strengthening, so close.

  "Myst," he growled, releasing her neck.

  She thought he would order her to come, thought he was tightening his arms even more as if to threaten her should she disobey, but he didn't. "Milaya, I want you so much."

  Milaya, the endearment from years ago said in his accent, sent her over the edge. She cried out from the shattering pleasure. But it only built when he desperately wrenched her up and down on his shaft as he tensed to come.

  Groaning, snarling, another bite that made her shudder in her second orgasm. Then he threw his head back, neck and chest tensed with corded muscle, to bellow from the force of his spending. She felt it inside her, searing, palpable, seeming endless as he pumped and pumped within her. She came the entire time, her body squeezing around his thickness.

  Then after-shudders. Arms loosening though she didn't want them to. She didn't want this to end.

  When his breaths had calmed somewhat, he drew her back to search her face. His eyes had cleared. "I didn't want to hurt you," he rasped. "I didn't--Your neck," he said in a shocked tone, staring.

  She brushed her fingertips over her marks. "It didn't hurt. Even before you...we...uh, worked it out." They were nothing and would be healed by tomorrow. "You've really never seen this before?"

  "Never."

  "I was your first bitee?" Why that would please her she couldn't know. Why she wasn't leaping away from him in disgust confused her. She was just so overwhelmed with everything. And she felt...tenderness toward him. Yes, Myst had always been the girlie-girl of the coven, but she'd never in her long, long life felt truly feminine until this male had squeezed her in his arms and taken charge. She had never--in all the lifetimes she'd endured--experienced that much pleasure.

  "I've never taken flesh to drink because I knew what it would do to me." He rested his forehead against hers. "Myst, my eyes will go red from this. I will turn."

  He looked so horrified, the words slipped out, "Your eyes will go red only when you kill as you drink living blood. The ones whose eyes turn drink to the marrow of their victims, sucking from the pit of the soul. They take all the bad, all the madness, all the sin."

  His jaw slackened. "Is that why pure-blooded vampires go mad?"

  She shook her head. "It's more than that. They get addicted to killing, which means they can never drink from the same source. After years and years of different victims, the memories add up."

  He cupped his hand behind her head. "Every sunset I checked my eyes, not sure if I would turn from your blood. Not knowing if my brothers would have to kill me."

  His tone wasn't reproaching, but hell, could she feel more guilty? This male was still inside her, inside her body that was humming as she'd never even known it could...and she'd tortured him. "Wroth, you're a vampire. Others might not agree, but I for one believe that you're meant to drink. To connect, to live. But never to kill like that. And it takes decades of killing every day for the memories to accumulate."

  In a stunned voice, he said, "I won't turn. I'm meant to drink." His lips curled, and he stroked her hair, still supporting her with one arm. He would never let her go. He's bested me--she shivered.

  "And you found pleasure in it."

  It wasn't a question, but she answered, "Your bite was the only thing that saved you from a stiff legged kick at your groin." When he grinned, she added softly, "It was intense pleasure."

  He groaned in approval and thrust into her once more, still semi-hard. To her surprise, she moaned, desire stoking again. "Did I take too much?" he asked. Still on his knees, he laid her back until she was horizontal, secure in his arms, one hand cupping her head, the other clutching under her shoulder as he pulled her along his length in a long, strong stroke.

  Her eyes fluttered closed, and she answered without thought. "Immortal here. Remember?"

  He stopped suddenly, brought her back into his chest, arms around her, protective once more. "I heard something."

  "It's nothing." Frustrated, she kicked him in the ass with her heels, rocking on him. He stifled a groan but didn't thrust. When she opened her eyes, she found his gaze furious and focused on...the sword point tucked under his chin.

  Regin was pressing hard enough to bring blood trickling down. Lucia stood at her side with an arrow nocked.

  "No," Myst said, her voice sounding hoarse from screaming. "Don't."

  Regin stared at her in disbelief. Regin, whose entire race had been destroyed by vampires...and who'd secretly learned to count by her mother's bite scars. "This thing just violated you--"

  "We followed the lightning here, Regin," Lucia interrupted. "Whatever he did to her she let him do."

  She couldn't imagine what they looked like there in the field. They'd fought ruthlessly. They must be bruised, bloody, their clothing in shreds.

  Why hadn't he traced her away? Why hadn't he thrown her out of the way and attacked Regin? She suspected the answer to the first--he wanted them to see her like this. Their relationship couldn't be made more brutally clear. She pulled away from him, though his arms tightened around her to prevent it. "Please, Wroth," she whispered in his ear, "let me face them." He finally released her.

  But jealous Myst didn't want her sisters to see Wroth hard, huge and magnificent, and she pulled her skirt over them as she drew him free from her, then yanked his shirttail down. That's mine, she thought irrationally. She'd been acquisitive all her life but never with men. Now she wanted possession.

  When Myst stumbled away, Wroth reached for her, but Regin raised her sword against him, piercing several inches into his chest muscle. He didn't fight back--he could hardly feel it--and he had vowed not to harm her family.

  He was euphoric. There stood his Bride, putting her chin up as she pulled her shirt closed. Claimed. He stifled an evil grin. With witnesses. She could never go back now. She was his.

  His heart pumped madly for her, his blood rushing inside him--and her luscious blood as well. She'd enjoyed his bite, lightning had streaked the sky each time that she came--he'd seen her pleasure. He could give her lightning each time he drank, without fear of turning, without fear of hurting her. No more checking his eyes each sunset.

  They could sustain each other. He'd never known greater satisfaction.

  Now if he could just get her witch of a sister to cease stabbing him.

  "You just had sex with a vampire," Lucia said. "Myst, where is your mind? You know the repercussions. You'll be shunned by the Lore, mistrusted."

  Regin added in a deadened tone, "When Furie rises..."

  Whatever that statement meant, it made Myst's brows suddenly draw together. She appeared shocked by everything, as if her sisters' arrival had splashed ice water over her, waking her from a dream. He needed to get her home, away from them.

  Suddenly Regin gasped and stared at Myst in horror. "Oh sweetheart," she whispered, "where's yo
ur chain?"

  "Quickly," Wroth snapped to Myst as he reached for her, "take my hand." Myst obeyed, diving forward to take it. He traced them just as Regin leapt for Myst's legs and an arrow sang for him, hitting him in the shoulder but not staying within him as he disappeared.

  Back at Blachmount, he set Myst on the edge of the bed. "Stay here," he ordered, then returned for the goddamned bag he'd gone to get in the first place. Just as he arrived in her room, Regin and Lucia bolted up the stairs. "Give her the chain back, leech!"

  "I've claimed her. She's my wife now," he said simply, then traced with an ease he'd never had, covering the distance as if an afterthought.

  Back home, he tossed her things to the side, then took her shoulders. "Rest, milaya. Take a hot bath and relax here until I return." She didn't respond, and he didn't want to leave her unsteady from tracing and reeling from the events of the night, but he needed to let Kristoff know that Ivo was in the New World. They needed to hunt him down and destroy him.

  As Wroth gazed down at his Bride he wondered how Ivo could not be searching for her.

  He brushed her hair from her face, trying to get her eyes to meet his. "Make yourself comfortable here. Your clothes are here. This is your home now."

  When she nodded absently, her pupils were huge, her eyes stark, and he knew he couldn't leave her like this. He would warm her with a bath then put her in bed.

  He ran water, undressed her and set her in it. She sat silently as he scrubbed the dirt and grass from her alabaster skin and held a cloth to her neck, to the bites that marred her.

  Suddenly, she turned to him and placed her hands on his face. "Wroth, you said you would vow never to hurt my family?"

  "Yes. I make it again."

  "I believe you. You could've traced and attacked Regin and Lucia tonight and you didn't. But please, if you take more memories from this night, don't give others our weaknesses. Don't allow others to hurt them either."

  Was his first loyalty to his king or to her? She was his Bride, and as he stared into her eyes, he realized that that meant she was his family. Wroth's family had always come first, and nothing had changed except that he'd now added to it.

  "If I learn of other factions I will relate that information. But never about your kind."