by Aja James
Immediately, his penis hardened even further within her as she continued to flex her core muscles around him, his scrotum clenching to produce more Nourishment to fill her.
Her orgasm flowed through her as she drank his life force down her throat, as she milked and swallowed his cream into her womb.
It was she who now pressed him down into the mattress. He couldn’t have moved if he wanted to, his body heavy and aching with sexual exhaustion, even as he continued to pour himself into her.
He closed his eyes and saw stars, making him smile. He was ridiculously, incandescently happy.
At last, she pulled out of him, licking the wounds in his throat closed, and nuzzled her face in the crook of his neck, peppering little kisses on his collar bone, his jaw, his cheeks, his brows.
“You missed a spot,” he murmured huskily, his eyes shut, still seeing bright, flashing stars.
“I was saving that for last,” she replied, nibbling her way to his lips.
And then she thrust her tongue deeply into him, claiming his mouth as she claimed his body—possessively, savagely, inexhaustibly.
Forever.
*** *** *** ***
“I needed that,” Rain murmured sleepily, licking the puncture wounds in her Mate’s throat closed.
“So did I,” Valerius replied in his deep, smoky voice, sending a pleasurable shiver down her spine, making her arch against him, clasping him tight inside of her.
Rain was taking a much needed break from her nonstop job as the Pure Ones’ healer.
She and Ava had been running for over twenty-four hours doing experiments, trying to find a treatment or cure for Tal’s “condition.” They were now relatively certain he didn’t have the Decline after all, that his body’s unraveling was the result of all those unhealed wounds he’d accumulated over several millennia of imprisonment and torture.
Unhealed, both because of the extreme duress constantly applied to his physical being and also because of a pervasive poison they discovered within his cells. A kind of venom, both vampire and reptilian.
Right now, their best hope to at least neutralize Tal’s symptoms and strengthen his own body’s healing was for Ishtar to increase her Bond with him. There was little they could do at this point to provide direct aid.
But neither Ava nor Rain were ones for waiting around helplessly. So they started a comprehensive DNA sequencing study to compare all of the genetic material they’d gathered from the permanent and temporary residents of the Shield, including frequent visitors like Ava, Ryu and Kane.
As well as the yet unidentified DNA from a sample called Evergreen, which Ava and Ryu retrieved from Japan after destroying the rest of Medusa’s latest genetic engineering experiments.
Right now, there was nothing the two healers—one Pure without her Gift and studying modern human medicine, one “special” human learning rapidly about Pure and vampire physiology—could do but wait for the automated experiments to run.
Even with state-of-the-art technology, some of which were prototypes, they didn’t have enough equipment to run all the samples at the same time. Because they were creating the genome database from scratch for each sample, it would take at least twenty-four hours if they worked nonstop to get complete results for batches of eight samples. And then even more time to run all the comparisons.
While the machines did their job, both Ava and Rain took much needed breaks with their families.
“Do you wish you could have pulled the poison out of Tal’s blood?” Valerius asked after a long, cozy silence, stroking his Mate’s back comfortingly as she cuddled on top of his chest.
“Yes, I did wish it,” Rain said.
She propped herself up slightly to look into his eyes.
“But I would never wish to do it at the cost of losing you,” she stated firmly, willing him to accept the truth.
“I would die without you, my love,” she whispered, kissing his mouth. “If my Gift had to die so that we could be together, then so be it.”
He didn’t say anything, simply regarding her with solemn eyes.
There were times Valerius still doubted whether he deserved her love. As a Roman sex slave in his human life, and a gladiator before that, he’d known nothing but violence and pain.
Rain had healed him in so many ways. He was no longer afraid of another’s touch. He sometimes even initiated contacts of affection with his comrades and friends at the Shield. Though rarely.
And of course, he loved it, craved it, was addicted to the way Rain touched him. As she did now, with her whole body, lying fluidly on top of his, her sex holding his erection deep within her, clutching and squeezing him whenever she shifted. And often on purpose when she flexed her strong core muscles.
But his self-doubt still haunted him, especially when he was confronted with the knowledge that she’d sacrificed such an enormous Gift to be with him.
“Stop it,” she rebuked him softly, sensing his thoughts.
It pained her acutely whenever she witnessed her Mate’s uncertainty. As the race’s Protector, he was strength, honor and self-sacrifice personified. He was the most lethal warrior of their Kind, the most dangerous within the Elite. So much rested on his shoulders, and he’d never let them down.
Yet still, when it came to his own worth, he always put himself last. He still blamed himself that the Pure Ones lost the greatest healer across all the ages.
He blamed himself because he doubted he was worth it.
“Everything happens for a reason, I truly believe that now,” she said, one hand stroking his face, while the other pressed against his heart.
“We are meant to be together and forge a new path in this modern world. I am learning so much about human medicine. Ava’s knowledge and training were instrumental to helping Tal. One day, I hope to be armed with the same modern medical advancements.”
“Will she be able to save him?” Valerius asked, submerging his self-doubt and focusing on the present. “Do you think Ishtar’s Bond with him is strong enough?”
Rain sighed and tucked her face in the hollow of his neck, cuddling close.
“I hope so,” she murmured.
“For both Ishtar and Tal’s sakes, I hope so.”
*** *** *** ***
“Do you still see stars?” Ishtar asked cheekily as she squeezed Tal’s tortured cock strongly using both hands, the scented oil on her palms creating a delicious heat wherever she touched him.
Tal groaned at her unrelenting, exquisite abuse of his still painfully erect sex.
How many hours had it been? Twelve? Twenty-four? More?
She’d made use of all the mirrors and scented oils in their chamber—devouring him in the shower, had him pumping her against the bathroom counter, the floor, the chairs and sofas, back on the bed.
She even kept him inside while she ate, leaving him only long enough to retrieve the enormous rolling cart of food from room service.
She ate him too. Puncturing every vein with her fangs, gorging on his blood. Smearing jams and honey all over his body, then kissing and licking it off with relish.
The last time she’d demanded this much from him was during the three nights of Claiming millennia ago. But back then, he hadn’t been a full participant, much less instigator of sexual indulgence.
And he hadn’t released into her, hadn’t orgasmed at all during the Claiming. He’d been a giant swollen lump of flesh with blue balls at the end of it.
The torment then was nothing compared to now. At that time, his emotions had been repressed, weighed down by sadness and shame.
Now, they were just the opposite. The more she demanded of him, the more he soared. And the more she craved him, endlessly insatiable.
His reproductive organs might just fall off at the end of her gluttonous possession of him.
But, Goddess above, how he loved it.
Nothing gave a Pure male more satisfaction than Nourishing his female. He wasn’t sure if he felt the infusion of her Sustenance, her spirit
ual energy, in return, as a Pure female would provide, but he didn’t feel the ravaging effects of the Decline either.
What he did feel was a bone-melting repleteness, a pleasure-pain of euphoria that both devastated and energized his body. The more she took from him, the more he wanted to give her.
“I always see stars,” he rasped, eyes closed, lying back on the bed like a great slain beast, a prize to be devoured by the feline predator who’d hunted him.
“I always see you, ana Ishtar.”
He could sense her beatific grin.
“Do they sparkle brightly or are they glowing softly?” she asked teasingly as she twisted her fists slowly up his engorged column of flesh, engulfing the plump, plum-like head, squeezing it just so, then twisting back down to the root.
His breath hitched and it was a moment or two before he could reply.
“Glowing.”
She straddled his stomach in reverse so that she faced his lower body while her back was toward his face, and lowered her head to wrap her lips around the crown of his penis while her hands squeezed rhythmically below.
“And now?” she asked around the fullness of him, her voice muffled.
“Fuck,” he ground out, his hips jerking when the tips of her fangs penetrated just barely the head of his sex.
She chuckled throatily, taking immense delight in his reaction.
She released him from her mouth for a moment to promise darkly, “I’m going to drink and eat you up, and then I’m going to start all over again until the stars in your eyes are exploding like the American Independence fireworks.”
Tal wasn’t sure what that reference meant.
He’d experienced one Independence Day since being liberated from his prison, but he had only heard the fireworks that went with the celebration. What did fireworks look like?
He found out soon enough when she took him as deeply into her mouth as she could while fisting the rest of him tightly in her hands. She sucked him down her throat slowly at first, then with increasing pressure and friction.
He wrapped his own hands around her upper thighs and pulled her naked, silky core to his mouth, devouring her in turn, lapping up her juices and thrusting his tongue into her heat.
A dangerous growl emanated from her body, making her quiver with the ferocity of it. Purposely, she struck her fangs into the fat dorsal vein in his cock with a primal savagery, no longer gentle, fiercely commanding.
His hoarse shout was muffled against her sex as his body arched and tightened into a painful vise before racking with shudders and quakes as his seed and blood gushed into her mouth, overflowing it and dripping down her chin, her neck.
As the first tangy, sweet and salty taste of him exploded on her tongue like ambrosia from the gods, she came hard against his mouth, clenching around his tongue, drenching him with her fluids.
When she finally disengaged her fangs and licked his wounds closed, when her own volcanic shudders subsided to electric tingles, she nuzzled his sex with her face and purred so loudly, she could feel his stomach tighten beneath her at a laugh he was too exhausted to give voice.
“So that’s what fireworks look like,” he rasped, his eyes still shut.
“I think they’ve singed my eyebrows off.”
But Ishtar had fallen strangely silent all of a sudden, and he sensed the abrupt change in her emotions.
Then, so softly she barely grazed him, he felt her fingers stroke the scars marking his scrotum, his inner thighs, and when she gently touched his perineum, he stiffened not with anticipation but dread.
He heard her sharp indrawn breath. But that was all. She was so silent she didn’t even seem to breathe.
Ashamed at his own tell-tale reaction, he turned his face to the side but otherwise kept still.
He could feel her eyes taking in every inch of him with a different intensity, not the kind enflamed by desire, but the kind borne of horror.
He let her look at him as long as she wanted. She deserved to know what she was getting.
Perhaps she hadn’t truly seen before all of the wounds he bore. Or perhaps she’d never looked closely enough to understand what they signified.
She didn’t speak, didn’t ask him questions.
After a long, long time, she turned and trailed one hand up his thigh over his hip bone, drawing along his obliques, up his chest and neck, to his face.
She held his face with both hands then and lay down beside him, breathing deeply. Purposely inhaling in and exhaling out.
As if she were fighting tears.
Gradually, she inched closer, her arms enfolding him, turning his body toward her, her legs wrapped around his.
Slowly, she took him inside her again so that she could hold him tightly against her womb, and sighed a shuddering breath.
“You’re so strong and beautiful, Tal,” she murmured against his lips.
“How is it possible that I love you more with every moment?”
He clenched his jaw as a wash of acidic tears filled his nostrils.
How did she know he needed to hear these words in this moment? When the shame of all the monstrosities that had been done to him threatened to overwhelm him with sorrow anew? When he questioned whether a broken, ugly mass of scars and abuse that was his physical self could ever hope to fulfill her, be worthy of her?
He knew that he would always carry this shame within himself—millennia of torture and imprisonment couldn’t be overcome in a couple of nights, or even a few hundred thousand nights.
He dared to believe that she loved him. Dared to believe in her.
But doubt and self-derision ate at this pulsing ray of light inside: didn’t she deserve better? Didn’t she deserve the best male? One who could protect her? Who was perfect in body, mind and soul?
There would always be darkness within him now, tainting his spirit as the countless scars marked his body. And there would perhaps always be doubt in his mind, because despite her love for him, and his love for her, they were not Mates in truth, even if they were in their hearts.
He kept his eyes shut and breathed deeply, focusing on pushing back the dark emotions swirling inside of him. He’d promised himself to give her only his joy. He couldn’t show his weakness and torment now.
Ishtar deserved only joy.
“One day, I wish you’d tell me everything that happened,” she said, as if reading his thoughts and arguing his internal decision.
“I know a little of it. I can guess at a bit more. I wish you would share with me. I want to feel your pain, your sorrow…everything you feel, along with your joy. Because it’s what Mates are for. Because I love all of you.”
Involuntarily, he gave an infinitesimal shake of his head; his knee-jerk reaction was to protect her from the ugliness he’d lived through.
Most of all, in order to share his truth, he’d have to reveal who his captor had been. He didn’t want to break her heart that way. She’d lost so much already.
And he needed to keep her away from Anunit—the serpent would destroy her.
She sighed, accepting that he wasn’t ready for words yet.
Her hands began to roam his back and shoulders, stroking and soothing his scarred flesh, lingering over every ridge and dent.
And then they became more inquisitive than caressing, her fingers thoughtfully running along the lines of his scars.
“The skin feels smoother,” she murmured more to herself than to him.
“There were more pronounced ridges before. Has the pain from your wounds lessened at all?”
Tal fully focused on what Ishtar was saying and doing, coming out of the dark place his soul had retreated to.
It was true. While he was sore from his wounds and their insatiable love making, the pain was noticeably reduced from a sharp, stinging burn to a dull, throbbing ache.
Most of all, the deep-tissue pain he’d always carried inside, since the night he left her on the mountain top, had dissipated entirely.
He’d been so used to t
he pain that he probably still felt some phantom echo of it, but now that he focused his senses to evaluate with a fresh perspective, he realized that his body felt much lighter, suppler, and infinitely stronger, now that it no longer had to use all of its energy to fight his wounds.
“Tal,” she whispered, as if at once too excited and too afraid to voice her revelation, “I think you’re finally healing.”
If that was true, then…
His eyelashes fluttered as he battled within himself to raise his lids.
A part of him didn’t want to open his eyes and have his hope to see again crushed by never-ending darkness.
But another part fervently, desperately wanted to see her.
The part that wanted to see his beloved’s face won.
Slowly, he opened his eyes.
“The Serpent and the Leopard lost each other for a time, each one taking her own chosen path. Until one day the Serpent’s truth the Leopard finds, a truth of misery, destruction and wrath.”
—From the Ecliptic Prophesies, buried and forgotten
Chapter Fifteen
The Creature prepared everything its Mistress requested.
Expansive mansion filled with ostentatious opulence, check.
Manicured grounds with life-sized Greek and Roman statues, many depicting scenes of debauchery and orgies, check.
High security, electric fences, check.
Lightless, cavernous basement that reminded the Creature of French catacombs, check.
Isolation away from the noisy, lively Baltimore city so that no one was around for miles to hear the screaming that might go on in this stately manor, double check.
Although all the preparations had been made, and as far as the Creature knew, all the key players accounted for, if not on the estate itself, then at least their exact locations so that a reunion could be easily arranged—the Mistress seemed content to simply wait.
It didn’t have a clue what she was waiting for.
This was saying something. For, after millennia of serving the Mistress in the role of trusted left-hand (the right-hand had been filled by Lord Wind, who was no longer part of her entourage), the Creature had gotten very accurate at predicting her moods, moves and counter-measures.
