“Good basic reaction, but you’re forgetting something. You’re a woman. You’ve got more muscle in your legs and hips than a man. Use it. Wrap your legs around me. Squeeze hard.”
She complied, bringing her thighs up and around him, pressing in against his hips, her calves and heels digging into his butt, pushing him right against her hot, wet heat. Let him bite on that.
“Good.” The edge of his voice wavered.
Sheer power radiated through her, making her skin tingle. Not as tough as you look, are you? Sure, it had started as merely a training exercise, but having her legs wrapped around his waist brought her far too close for him to remain the stoic warrior.
“If you squeeze hard enough you can pinch nerves in the spine.” Her hold on him softened, her thighs becoming more pliable rather than rigid against him.
Something shifted in the air around them. Beck saw the change in him, and an instant later, a buzz started in the back of her brain, an insatiable need, primitive and primal. He rolled them both, bringing her up to straddle him. Beck settled her weight on him letting the hard length of him press against her aching core. “So do vampires usually give up that easily in hand-to-hand combat?” She gave a slow roll of her hips. He growled low and deep. A feral sound that ratcheted up her own need.
“You forget yourself, fledgling.” His voice betrayed that his control was frayed at the edges.
She leaned down putting one hand on either side of his head, the sensitive tips of her breasts brushing against his bare chest, as she stared into his face. His eyes had darkened to emerald and his firm, sensual lips parted. Just below his upper lip peeked the tips of his fangs. She leaned in closer.
“You know you want me,” she taunted. “I know I want you. We’re both adults. Both vampires. Besides …” She reached forward, stroking his right fang lightly with the tip of her finger. Beck felt a half groan, half growl rumble deep from his belly beneath her thighs. The sound shimmered through her and torqued her own need up another notch. “Your fangs are already showing.”
“You have no idea what you’re doing to me.”
“Then show me.”
He grasped her head firmly in his hands and brought her mouth within kissing distance. She closed her eyes, waiting. But instead of his lips, the tip of his warm tongue curved over her upper lip and slowly and deliberately laved one of her fangs in a smooth downward stroke. Beck felt the brush of it all the way through to her core, as if he had stroked her intimately with his tongue. She shivered and gasped, her body quivering, already at the edge of her control. Her eyes opened wide. “Oh. My. God.”
“Told you.” His husky voice vibrated him against her making the ache worse, the need more intense.
“Yes, but you didn’t say I’d feel it there!” She ground her mons against him to prove her point.
Achilles hissed, fangs fully bared now, eyes so green they glowed. “We must stop this, woman. Now is not the time, nor the place. And this is not a game.”
“But I know you want to play.” She writhed against him, teetering on the edge of pleasure so acute it was painful. “Achilles. Please.”
He brushed his fingertips gently over her eyelids. “Close your eyes.”
She did.
And he vanished.
She felt the rush of air and the dissipation of heat the instant he left. Her eyes snapped open and she glared around the gym.
Where are you?
Where I can keep from harming either of us. Trust me.
Beck had no idea where Achilles had gone. Her chest ached and tightened, the pleasant heat leaving her limbs.
Suddenly she felt the glide of his warm palm against the base of her spine. A shiver of delight radiating outward to every nerve ending.
Where are you? She reached out with her mind trying to find him.
It doesn’t matter, wherever you are, I’m there with you. The warmth of his body was palpable, brushing against her as if he held her in his arms. No matter that she couldn’t see him, she could feel him, truly feel him. The warm solidness of his chest, the strength of his arms. His hand cupped her cheek and his mouth pressed against hers, coaxing and tasting her.
You always taste like cherries.
Her nape tingled with the pressure and damp warmth of his lips kissing a trail from her mouth along her jaw. His heated breath tickled the shell of her ear.
Time for lesson six. Vampires can make love with the mind.
Shouldn’t that be lesson sex?
His husky laugh was followed by the sensation of fingers trailing languidly from her shoulder, down the sensitive inner bend of her elbow to her hand. His large, strong fingers closed around hers, giving them a squeeze as he kissed her.
Beck stared at her hand. He was there, yet he wasn’t. Her scientific mind said it wasn’t possible.
How does it work?
Stopping worrying about why and just trust me.
The word trust went down with a hard swallow. Beck closed her eyes and groaned as her invisible lover pressed a kiss at the sensitive juncture of her neck and shoulder. Along her neck. Down between her breasts and across her stomach, all at the same time. Why does it feel like you’ve got three mouths?
He chuckled. You need to realize, sweetling, the mind is infinite. Vampire sex isn’t like human sex. I can do as much as you like, wherever you like, no waiting required.
To underscore his wild assertion, she suddenly felt the warmth of his hand brush against her breasts, fingers and a warm mouth drawing her nipples into tight exquisitely sensitive peaks. At the same moment his hands kneaded her bottom, his fingers skimming along the cleft, and stroking her intimately. Yet another set of tender hands undid her ponytail, running through her hair and massaging her scalp, as a damp line of kisses trailed over each individual rib. Already swollen with need, and damp, Beck flexed her thighs together to stem the ache.
You see? he whispered, the words tickling in her ear.
Beck writhed on the mat, almost out of her mind with need. She reached forward. If he could do this to her, surely she could do the same to him. She was a vampire after all, wasn’t she?
She imagined the rippled plane of his stomach and pictured her fingers tracing the fine golden arrow of hair below his waist.
Achilles growled. You learn quickly, sweetling.
Beck pictured his firm mouth beneath hers, her tongue sliding slowly, twirling around first one of his fangs and then the other as her fingers closed around his shaft.
Time and space shifted and she felt him shudder, his groan rippling through her. She arched her back off the mat.
Achilles. Where are you? I need to feel—But before she could even complete the thought he was somehow there. Stretching her, filling her with the heated hard length of him. But there was more, so much more than just the fierce fullness and the delicious friction of him sliding against her. Beck reached down and felt only wet shorts and underwear, but by God he was there.
It’s real, sweetling. The tension and heat radiating off him soaked through her clothes as if there were no barrier between them, only naked, glorious skin, silk over steel.
Where are you? she screamed in her head. Suddenly the ache spiraled out of control. Somehow she felt him too, as he lost control and came undone. The strain of his body against hers was as real as anything she’d ever felt before.
With you. I am always with you.
The air shifted as he brushed a kiss to her temple and against her cheek before firmly taking her mouth in a sweet, drugging kiss. Then he was gone.
Out in the parking garage of the complex, behind the dark tint of the Bugatti Veyron’s windows, Achilles lay his head back against the head cushion of his seat and thought he might expire. He was spent, well and truly spent.
He cursed in Greek, Latin and English.
There was only so much a man could resist.
Achilles closed his eyes and beat himself softly on the forehead with the round of his fist. “You. Dumb. Idiot.”
&n
bsp; Suddenly the locks on the doors of the Veyron clicked open and his car door whipped open. Achilles had no chance to react before Vane pulled him from his seat and slammed his ass up against the side of his car.
“For once I agree with you.” Vane’s platinum spiked hair glowed almost white beneath the lights of the parking garage, his skin looking ghostly next to the black leather duster he wore.
How had Vane penetrated their outer defenses? It wasn’t something he could have accomplished on his own. “What the hell are you doing here?”
His pale lip curled into a sneer over a lethal smile, fangs glinting. “Someone would like a little word with you.” Vane’s red eyes glowed with pure delight and malice as they transported from the garage.
Chapter 11
The streets of New York were busy in the growing twilight, the honking horns and shush of tires on pavement close by. But rather than in the streets, they landed in a filthy, malodorous side alley that housed overflowing trash containers.
Vane’s black leather duster swirled around their feet as they materialized from transporting. He opened his hands, dropping fistfuls of Achilles’s shirt, then stepped away, hands raised.
“Next time,” Achilles drawled, as he, too, stepped back, smoothing out the wrinkles in his shirt where Vane had grabbed hold of him. “Ask before you touch me. I don’t give a rat’s ass who the hell you think you are. I won’t be summoned like a serf. I’ll break your hands the next time you touch me.”
What he wouldn’t give for a nice sharp broadsword right about. But Vane was only one reiver. The bigger problem was whoever had helped Vane get inside the clan complex as a messenger boy. If Vane could get that close, then Vane could get to Rebecca. And Achilles wasn’t about to let that happen.
“You’d best mind your manners, vampire, if you want to keep that pretty head on your shoulders,” Vane taunted.
Achilles glanced around, tense, waiting for reivers to attack. “Who else is on the guest list? It’s hardly going to be a party with just two of us bloodied up.”
Vane turned, glancing over his shoulder, and lifted the corner of his lip in a perfect punk rocker sneer. “You’ll see.”
The slow hum of tires on pavement caused Achilles to scan the dark tunnel of the alley. A white stretch limo blocked that exit. There were other ways and means to leave, but he was curious. He wanted to know who or what had wormed into the clan complex’s outer perimeter without setting off the alarms. If he were lucky and survived, perhaps Vane would inadvertently answer some of the questions Achilles had.
The door of the limo opened and shut, but he could see no one approaching. Whoever they were, they were ancient enough to cloak themselves from view. Powerful enough to outwit the charms and protections around the outer rim of the clan complex.
The scent alone indicated rogue vampire. But also something more.
Something worse.
From the prickle on his neck Achilles knew the vampire or vampires approaching had less than the best of intentions.
Oh, now, that’s harsh, a familiar female voice purred.
A black mist curled along the edges of the alley, filling the floor with a dark fog that smelled suffocatingly sweet like lilies. Only one being caused chaos for her pleasure.
Eris?
Hello, Achilles. Long time no fight.
A harsh gust of wind tugged at his hair, and scraped his face. Papers and leaves pitched and twirled down the street in uneasy cartwheels. The swirl of black mist eddied in the agitated air before him, knitting quickly into the form of a woman. A beautiful woman, incongruously dressed in a pearl gray suit jacket that draped in soft artful falls from her shoulders and matching pencil skirt that clung to her thighs.
The ends of her honey blond hair swayed against the tops of her petite shoulders, and several strands of perfect pearls looped along her graceful throat. Wispy bangs swept over the pale sweet oval of her face half hiding a pair of guileless clear blue eyes. Her generous pale pink, highly glossed lips curved into a sensuous smile. But he knew from hard-won experience that looks could be deceiving.
Eris, daughter of Ares, god of war, was only interested in one thing: chaos. Inspiring conflicting emotions was her specialty. Achilles tamped down the metallic bite of fear surging in the back of his throat. She was a hell of a lot more to fear than Vane ever could be.
Eris fed upon war, fear, anxiety, pain and arguments as surely as vampires fed on blood.
“I’ve missed you,” she said, the saccharine tone barely covering her malicious intent.
A bone deep chill swept through him. Being the focus of her attention was never a good thing. “What the hell do you want?”
Her eyes sparkled as if he’d just offered her a deep rich dark chocolate. “Can’t I have a visit with my favorite vampire now and then?”
Damn. He had to have better control.
“No.”
She narrowed the gap between them and drew a French-manicured nail along his jaw. The nail transformed midstroke to a black talon. The sharp point leaving a thin stinging cut along his jaw. “Since we’ve no time at present for more interesting games, I shall be woefully brief. I’m taking your fledgling.”
His gut coiled. Not Rebecca. Showing anger or fear would only feed her need for it. He opted for a casual monotone. “What do you want with her?”
“I can’t have her interrupting my delicious plans. Besides, Vane was very put out that you took his fledgling to mentor without even asking. He so enjoyed her mother.”
Achilles glanced behind him at Vane. He lounged up against the grimy bricks, one booted foot behind him. He swiped his reddish tongue over one fang.
Achilles fought back a surge of anger. “Taking her won’t stop the clan. They will level the laboratory and stop the creation of the vaccine because they think it will be used to kill vampires.”
“Oh, it will. I’ve seen to that.” Her confirmation numbed him like a plunge in an icy river. It sucked away his ability to think, to act. By sheer will alone, Achilles fought back the dark power Eris cast around her.
He looked at her with a steady, level gaze. “Vanquish will not be allowed to remain in the hands of mortals. My clan and the others will stop it, and you.”
She closed her sparkling eyes, sniffing the putrid air with appreciation. “Wonderful.” She cast her gaze on him, a smile curling her pink glossy lips, and tipped her head to the side. “I don’t really care who suffers in the process as long as someone does.”
“Always hungry, aren’t you?” he asked.
“A goddess has to eat. My favorite warrior isn’t going to disappoint me, is he?”
He shrugged. “I’m afraid I have no option. It isn’t my call how they handle the situation. I’ll, of course, encourage the clan to seek a peaceful resolution.”
She leaned in, her wintergreen-scented breath causing a chill to skate over his skin. “Careful vampire. If you cross me, I’ll take matters into my own hands. The clan will discover how truly instrumental you were in my release back into the world.”
For over almost two thousand years she’d been locked up in a special cage, created from silver and orichalcum that was located underneath the Greek Parthenon, just waiting to be set free. And just as the twentieth century had dawned, she had been released by the brothers of the Sang Noir Guild—the secret vampire military he’d been part of since its inception.
Without the goddess the imbalance had become too great. In the vacuum humanity had turned to destroying themselves. Restoring Eris to her rightful place had led to world wars and natural disasters, but it had also restored balance as people formed alliances and became heroes and gave humanity a chance to survive. It was a choice he and the other members of the Sang Noir Guild were forced to make for the benefit of all. Without humanity, there would be no new vampires. Without humanity, vampires would someday cease to exist.
But after so many centuries of being denied her just due, Eris had been ravenous. Two world wars and a host of cataclysm
ic volcanoes, earthquakes, floods and hurricanes, her personal favorite, hadn’t been enough. Achilles knew, even as his gut formed a Gordian Knot around the problem, that World War III was just waiting around the corner. And he bore responsibility for setting her free.
If the council, or even Dmitri, ever discovered his role in Eris’s release, he’d be beheaded, as would the other members of the guild if they were revealed. And an imprinted Rebecca, if she wasn’t already returned to mortal, would suffer.
Achilles forced a leisurely smile. “Whatever works for you, babe.”
Blue lightning flashed behind Eris’s eyes. Her glossed lips pressed into a teeth-baring snarl, the ends of her hair writhing like snakes. “You cannot deny me my due, vampire. No one can,” she snapped.
He held up his hands. “When you’re right, you’re right, goddess.”
“Insufferable vampire.” She spun away, her pale gray jacket rippling and turning on the spot into black mist as she vaporized.
He glanced over to discover Vane had disappeared as well. Thank the gods for small favors.
Achilles transported back to Seattle, where he’d left Rebecca safe inside the Cascade Clan’s complex. At least Eris couldn’t touch her there. Beyond the sheer number of powerful vampires who lived there, the complex was protected by enchantments and blood magic. Older magic that even Eris had to respect or face the wrath of the other gods.
Achilles found Rebecca in the atrium, her wet hair spiraling in damp dark curls around her shoulders. Clothed in a pair of blue jeans that hugged her derriere, and a black hooded sweatshirt that hid her other assets. He placed a hand on her shoulder and she started, whipping around to face him.
Her eyes widened, then narrowed, as she held a small package pressed against her chest.
“I should have known,” she muttered and started stalking away from him in the direction of the exit to the parking garage elevator.
“Miss me?”
She threw a hard glare at him. “Do you know how stupid I felt laying there by myself when Kris walked in and thought I was having some kind of fit?”
The Vampire Who Loved Me Page 12
