by Aja James
He groaned deeply at the indescribable sensation of being set free.
Finally, after an eternity of Hell, after millennia of restraint, his body, mind, and spirit soared. For the first time in his too-long existence, he felt undiluted pleasure. In Rain’s embrace, he tasted his first slice of happiness and peace.
Rain sobbed with relief and joy at the feeling of being filled by Valerius’ Nourishment. Her body drank him thirstily in shuddering gulps. Immediately, she was infused with strength and vitality. Her blood practically sang at the return of her power. In his body, she found Heaven. Never had she known such bliss.
It seemed to go on forever, the shockwaves that racked him, the intense pleasure-pain that blazed through him, and she seemed to absorb it all into herself, her core sucking and pulling at him even more hungrily. He could no longer keep his weight balanced off her. Every muscle seemed to flash fire, then numbness, then fire again.
And then she whispered, “I’m sorry” as she wrapped her limbs more tightly around him, needles of her hair penetrating his pores.
Just as his orgasm started to ebb, a blast of breathtaking pain followed so close on its heels, Valerius reeled from the impact. It was the same splintering pain he’d felt during the second day of the Rite when she’d tested him for endurance. She was releasing the accumulation of pain from the wounds she’d healed over the past ten years into him. Even dissipated and diffused, the onslaught brought him to his knees.
Valerius gulped for breath, his chest hurting with his wildly pounding heart, his entire body reduced to one giant wound.
But before he could even remotely prepare himself, she moaned huskily:
“Again.”
On command, Valerius’ body tightened from head to toe as another orgasmic onslaught overwhelmed him, jetting hot pulses of Nourishment into her.
The rapture of the release was quickly followed by the mind-blowing pain she funneled into him, making his veins stand out against his too-tight skin.
The warrior’s broken gasps gusting against her ear, Rain waited for the tremors to subside and rolled until she was draped like a rag doll on top of Valerius’ magnificent torso. She knew she was a glutton, she knew she was pushing him dangerously to the edge. She knew she should pace herself, but Goddess above, it felt so gooood.
His Nourishment was like no other she’d had. It was her very own ambrosia, her incurable addiction. And the way his body fit hers, stretched hers, filled hers—there was no pleasure greater in her entire existence. The feel of him, the scent of him, the taste of him… her fangs ached so badly to sink into him, she gave into the compulsion and latched onto his throat once more.
“Again.”
On a groan so guttural and deep he physically vibrated with the primal sound, Valerius’s body erupted once more into the Healer’s.
Continuously, he gave and gave and gave.
He felt wrung out, yet so full he was bursting at the seams. He felt depleted, yet powerful and invigorated at the same time. He felt such wondrous pleasure it brought tears to his eyes, yet never had he endured pain so acute, so devastating.
For hours, she fed. Endless hours, she milked him. Until the bed was sticky and wet from their fluids, his blood and sweat. And still she feasted on him, brought them both to climax over and over and over.
As the mural changed from night to dawn, Valerius could no longer move, his body so sore and heavy it was all he could do to draw breath.
Because he’d given so much of himself, even his enhanced healing ability couldn’t erase the evidence of her feeding. Bluish purple bruises covered his entire frame—his neck, wrists, chest, lower stomach just above his pubic bone, the inside of his thighs… wherever there was a vein that caught her attention, she nursed at it with insatiable appetite.
Rain was now sprawled around his legs, her face level with his still throbbing, engorged manhood as Valerius lay wasted on his back. Like a starving woman savoring the last morsel of cake, she meticulously bathed his cock with her tongue, drew strongly on the plump, aching head, and ran her fangs along the dark vein that pulsed against the satiny skin.
Valerius was so drained and hurt so badly from both the Mating and the persistent urge to keep Mating that a soul-deep moan of surrender broke from his lips.
The sound seemed to spike her arousal even higher, and she closed her mouth around the weeping head of him at the same time as her fangs sank into the thickest vein in his cock.
Valerius shouted hoarsely in agony and ecstasy, his body arching high off the bed as his blood and semen shot into her mouth.
To keep him trapped within her web, Rain’s hair wrapped their silken tendrils around his body, a few needles inserting into the areas where she’d already bitten him. Valerius gasped soundlessly at the invasion, at the bottomless depth of her penetration into his helpless body.
She was everywhere. She took everything. Her fangs, her hands, her zhen, her mouth.
Rain drank him greedily, sucking harder, drawing faster. One of her hands closed around the base of his penis and squeezed in time with her pulls upon his cock, the other tending masterfully to his scrotum, making his orgasm go on and on.
Valerius ground his teeth against the plea for her to stop. It was too much. He felt shattered, broken, reduced to raw flesh and bones. Despite all the Nourishment he gave her, he received no Sustenance, no equal exchange of spiritual fulfillment, in return. At the same time, his hand cradled the back of her head, urging her to continue taking from him. Even if there was nothing left of him, even if she took everything, he would give into her without complaint.
She owned him, body, blood and soul.
A lifetime passed before she finally disengaged from him, crawling up his prone body to nestle against his chest.
Using the last ounce of strength, he turned his face toward hers, his lips brushing her temple with exquisite tenderness.
She sighed long and deep and murmured two little words that filled Valerius with reverence and peace.
“Thank you,” she whispered before slumber finally took her.
Valerius lay awake despite his mind-numbing exhaustion. Everything had changed. He knew there was no turning back. Just as surely as he loved her with all his being, he faced and accepted a second irrefutable truth:
With this joining, with the surrender of his life force into the female he loved, he had entered his Decline.
Valerius had begun to die.
*** *** *** ***
Sophia found an unaddressed manila envelope in her on-campus mailbox.
Curious, she quickly broke the seal and peeked inside. There was a pinky drive and a folded piece of notebook paper. Without taking either item out, she spied the masculine signature at the bottom of the sheet.
Ere.
Startled, she closed the envelope and darted a glance at Dalair, who was on duty this day to chaperone her around school.
Though he was a good fifteen feet away and completely inconspicuous, she hissed, “Do you mind? A little privacy please?”
A small frown drew the warrior’s dark brows together, but he didn’t argue, turning away until he faced Harvard Yard instead of the inner classroom corridors.
An involuntary smile of delight brightening her face, Sophia carefully took the folded note out and read:
Sophia,
My sincerest apologies for abandoning you to the disorganization and confusion that is Professor McGowen’s constant companion. A researcher’s dream find came up at the last moment and I had to depart immediately for the Louvre.
Not that I expect you to think of me when I am away, but I couldn’t help but plant the seed. On the USB is a song I hope you’ll like. (I noticed that you are never without your iPod.) It is before your time, I suppose, I’m not sure what your generation is listening to these days, but it is one of my favorite songs.
I hope you think of me whenever you hear it. Lyrics enclosed below.
Ere
"Creep"—by Radiohead
When you were here before/ Couldn't look you in the eye
You're just like an angel/ Your skin makes me cry
You float like a feather/ In a beautiful world
I wish I was special/ You're so fucking special…
I don't care if it hurts/ I want to have control
I want a perfect body/ I want a perfect soul
I want you to notice when I'm not around
You're so fucking special/ I wish I was special…
Whatever makes you happy/ Whatever you want
You're so fucking special/ I wish I was special
But I'm a creep/ I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doing here?
I don't belong here/ I don't belong here
Sophia gripped the note until her palms began to sweat. Shivers of hot and cold made her break out in goose bumps.
Oh Goddess above, what did this mean? She’d never gotten a personal letter from a boy before, much less a present.
He gave her a song! He wrote her a letter with his own hand!
Not an email or text or Facebook post. He wrote actual English words on paper with what looked like a fountain pen if the little curly cues and elegant slashes were any indication.
Sophia was so giddy she could barely contain the squeal that threatened to spill forth in an undignified manner from her lips. She held the paper to her nose and inhaled deeply to see if she could still catch a whiff of his scent—she did! There was a faint fragrance of dark spices, chocolate, and… pure decadence. She was going to faint from euphoria!
She read and re-read the note with the abbreviated song lyrics three more times, barely noticing that students had begun filing into the lecture hall beside her.
What could he mean by sharing this song with her? Was it some sort of message to her? Some representation of himself and how he viewed her?
But that couldn’t be, she thought with confusion. Who in their right mind would describe him as a “creep” and Sophia as an “angel”? It made more sense if they flipped the descriptors. But then she should be giving this song to him, not the other way around, right?
What did it all mean???
“Sophia, your class is starting.”
She jumped at Dalair’s voice close beside her and hastily hid the note and envelope behind her back.
“Why are you spying on me?” she accused with a scowl.
His expression remained bland. “I am merely reminding you that the lecture hall door is about to close.”
Sophia stuck her foot in the threshold before it did and regarded him with her nose haughtily in the air, “Fine. I’m going in. You stay out here and out of view. And keep your distance when I come out. I might actually make a friend or two today and I don’t want them to get freaked out with you lurking around.”
The statement was so ridiculous Sophia almost winced as she said it. If anything, Dalair’s presence would attract “friends” to her like bees to honey, rather than repel them away. But she wasn’t about to admit that to him.
“As you wish,” he replied with a slight nod and watched her slip into the classroom.
Dalair narrowed his eyes when the Queen was inside the lecture hall. He’d glanced at the note when she first unfolded it. Even from fifteen feet away, his enhanced eyesight took in one word as if it were flashing on a giant billboard.
Ere.
*** *** *** ***
Ayelet, Rain and Valerius sank back in their First Class seats on American Airlines three hours into their trans-Atlantic flight from Boston to Kunming, China.
They’d make a transfer in Beijing onto Air China, take a connecting flight from Kunming to Shangri-La, then a train to just outside Lushui County, then rent a local tour van to drive them up the mountainous paths, and finally trek the rest of the way on foot to the remote village where Cloud Drako secluded himself.
If they were lucky, they could probably hitch a ride on a donkey cart.
Ayelet snuck a glance at her two companions across the aisle. The transformation in both Protector and Healer boggled the mind. After more than six hours in their presence, from the time they chugged down breakfast to getting to the airport and settling into their designated seats, Ayelet still couldn’t get used to their changed appearances.
Rain looked more refreshed and vital than Ayelet had ever seen her, and they were only half way into the Phoenix Cycle. Her complexion had taken on a rosy hue, her eyes bright and shining, no bluish shadows to be found beneath them. Overnight her face seemed slightly rounder, her cheeks filled out rather than gaunt, and there was actually flesh beneath her skin, which looked more resilient and healthy instead of their previous paper-thin fragility. Even her hair glistened like diamonds rather than semi-transparent glass.
And then there was her expression.
Ayelet had never beheld such a look of utter bliss and contentment on the Healer’s face. Truly she seemed like a completely different female.
Valerius, on the other hand, looked like he’d been flattened by a freight train, backed over by a mac truck, and thrown over a ravine just for the hell of it.
He was covered from head to toe in a form-fitting long-sleeve black turtleneck and loose black trousers, so it wasn’t as if the countless bruises Ayelet knew he bore were visible to the public eye. But she knew his body was wasted. Whatever could make the stoic warrior grimace in pain every time he moved—hell—every time he breathed was beyond Ayelet’s ken. She wouldn’t have caught his fleeting expressions of pain had she not been watching him closely, or had she not known what to watch for.
But Ayelet was very familiar with the Phoenix Cycle and the effects it had on Consorts. Leonidas, Alexandros, and Dalair, among other Pure-males of the warrior class, had all Served the Healer before over the two thousand fie hundred years she’d been in her role. While they had looked exhausted and drained over the thirty days, they also looked strangely relaxed, loose-boned, probably due to the release of sexual tension.
Valerius, however, looked tenser than ever, as if his entire body was a tightly coiled spring. His shaven head magnified the sharpness of his cheekbones, the hollows beneath them, the acute angle of his jaw. Veins stood out on the back of his large, lean hands, and his chest rose and depressed as if he were struggling to breathe, as if it hurt to breathe.
But the expression on his face was at odds with the obvious pain radiating from his body. His usual focus and determination seemed doubled. But along with that, there was an underlying peace and even pride. And when the Protector looked upon Rain, his eyes shimmered with reverence, yearning, possessiveness and most of all—
Love.
It was so private, carnal and heart-wrenching that Ayelet blushed to witness it. She felt compelled to look away as if she’d seen something she shouldn’t have seen, as if she were glimpsing into the deepest, most hidden corners of the warrior’s soul.
The interaction between the Healer and her Consort had also metamorphosed from a distant and reluctant regard to a closeness that surpassed most mated bonds. Their bodies seemed so in tune to each other, it was as if they were one and the same. When she shifted to her left to better access her overhead light, he followed as if pulled by an invisible string. When they lay back in their seats, the armrest folded back so that there was no barrier between them, their bodies and faces unconsciously leaned into each other, until both her arms tightly hugged one of his, her face turned into his chest, his lips brushing the top of her head.
Ayelet possessed the Gift of empathy. It was more than simply putting herself in someone else’s shoes; it was the ability to truly feel the emotions herself that someone else felt, as if the emotions were her own. Ayelet rarely used it, for the repercussions on herself were unpredictable, and she always felt as if she were prying into someone else’s private world without their permission. But even without it, she could see how Rain’s body hummed with desire whenever Valerius was near, and how his body vibrated to fulfill hers in return.
It was as if where the
two of them were concerned, no one else existed. They were only aware of each other. All they wanted and needed was each other.
With a pang, Ayelet thought of her Mate. She would not see Tristan for the next few days, hopefully no longer than a week. But it seemed like an eternity when the bond Rain and Valerius shared were a constant reminder of the absence of her knight. She prayed for Tristan’s safety along with everyone else remaining at the Shield, as well as for the success of hers, Orion’s and Eveline’s mission.
Ayelet glanced once more, a lot enviously and a little worriedly, at the couple entwined in the middle row of seats across the narrow aisle. She did not know what to make of the exponentially growing bond between Healer and Protector, but even if she did have that knowledge, it wouldn’t be her place to interfere.
Loathe to disturb their exclusive connection, Ayelet put on her headset and turned on her TV screen, browsing through the videos on demand AA stored in their system to distract herself on this long, long flight. She chose Red Cliff, a movie about the War of the Three Kingdoms in ancient China. Perhaps it would set the mood for the journey ahead. For if her research was any indication, they were about to enter into one of the remotest corners of China, where the landscape remained largely unchanged, where industry and modernization had yet to make its mark.
And where they would hopefully find the destined Elite warrior.
Chapter Twelve
Alexandros swung his leaden legs over the side of the bed and sat still for long moments, orienting himself as the dizziness from being upright for the first time in days gradually faded away.
Thanks to the Healer’s touch, his broken bones had knitted properly, his internal organs regenerated and his flesh wounds closed with nary a scar. He was still weak as a babe, however, his muscles enervated and sore. What he wouldn’t give for Valerius’ enhanced healing ability right now. It killed him to lie around useless, a liability to the Dozen, when he should be out there searching for Leonidas and bringing the vampire Hordes to their knees.
