“No, don’t listen to him, baby, just a few more steps. He doesn’t care; he’ll kill you once I’m gone. I want you, Tory. I’ve always wanted you.” Gunner stepped forward closing the gap between them and pushed her back to the wall, holding the weapons fisted in her hands above her head. He kissed her savagely taking back the years of wasted time he’d spent. He twisted the snap of his jeans and shoved them down with one hand. Gunner closed his palm around one breast and looked in her eyes. “Tell me what you want, Tory?” His body reverberated with carnal hunger, he needed to find satisfaction and soon. The weapons dropped to the floor and she leapt into his arms, wrapping her legs around him. He sunk into her sweet warmth, his mouth nuzzling the delicate curve of her neck, searching for the place where her pulse beat wild.
The wind engulfed the room, knocking the candles from the mantel, creating a deafening roar trying to break their joining. Gunner knew that with a willing mate in place, there was no question of who the next leader would be. As he joined his body to hers, so too, he took her lifeblood, making her one like him—a night dweller. Her scream of surrender stopped the wind instantly and Gunner stepped away, holding her by the shoulders until the new life he’d given her took hold inside of her.
“Are you okay?” He asked, brushing the hair back from her face. She looked up at him and nodded. “Okay? You’re sure?” He gave her time to process what had just happened and bent down to pull up his pants. From the corner of his eye he saw her with lightning quickness snatch the weapons from the floor. Surprised by her sudden movement he stumbled back and fell on the couch, watching in stunned silence as she ran to the window and flung the dagger. A screech, not unlike that of the alley cat, made clear that she’d met her mark. She faced him then, twirling the sword in her hand. “We’ll have to finish this downstairs.” Gunner blinked, too stunned by her calm demeanor to respond.
“How do you know how to go about killing a vampire?” he asked as they finished dressing. Gunner sensed her passion for him, but was confused that she could so easily kill.
She reached out and took his face between her fingers, planting a no holds barred kiss on his mouth. “I’ve had a long time to prepare for becoming immortal. I read…a lot.”
Gunner smiled. “You’ll make a fine mate for the Tribes leader.”
She regarded him with a smile. “I’ll make a fine protector, Gunner for the leader of my tribe, who happens to be my mate. If Artemis came to me, seeking a way to overthrow you, do not think that he was alone in his quest.”
Gunner wrapped his arm around her shoulder. “It was no coincidence, our meeting long ago, was it?”
She shook her head and glanced up, those gorgeous green eyes searching his. “It wasn’t, no. It just took time for me to come to grips with my destiny.”
Gunner breathed deep and Tory closed her eyes releasing her breath exactly the same time. They shared, not only in passion, but in loyalty. Destiny had made them soul mates. Now the reason for his special gift was clear. “As long as you breathe, I am alive.”
“And the same is true for me.” Her kiss was his future.
The End
My Soul to Stele
by Bethany Michaels
I knew he was watching me the minute I stepped through the doors of the Kostas mansion. His gaze moved over my skin as tangible as a lover’s caress and every cell in my body came alive.
Athan Kostas, as I heard whispered, was the grandson of the ball’s reclusive host. He wore a black domino and tuxedo like all the other gentlemen, yet he was clearly not one of them. Tall and fair of skin, with dark wavy hair combed straight back from his forehead, Athan stood in the shadows next to the painting of Poseidon, holding a flute of champagne he did not drink. His strong Roman nose, high, sharply angled cheek bones were striking enough, but it was his eyes, as pale and luminous as silver, focused unblinkingly on me, that stole my breath. In a moment of panic, I wondered if Athan somehow knew I was there in a borrowed dress, carrying a stolen journal and planning to search his home for a priceless piece of art the first opportunity I got.
Old Mr. Kostas was a wealthy man who loved beautiful things, but he opened his home to the public only once a year. Pieces from his significant private collection were displayed for the elite crowd of collectors, historians and society benefactors, who in turn would write a sizeable check to the university’s art department. The Kostas masquerade ball gave me the perfect entry into the house and I was going to use it.
I accepted a flute of champagne and waited for my opportunity. I glanced at the Atalanta and found Athan was no longer there. Surreptitiously, I looked about the room and was pleased that he was nowhere in sight. I deposited my half-empty flute of champagne on a tray, took a deep breath and headed off to begin my search.
Though the mansion was sizable, there were only two places one could hide an eight-foot slab of solid marble--the attic or the basement. After making sure no one was looking, I slipped up the main staircase and headed to the back of the house, where the attic stairway was located.
Once in the attic, I pulled a small flashlight out of my evening bag. The room ran the entire length of the house and was packed with items covered in dusty white tarps. I peeked under the corner of one to find a museum quality Louis XVI sofa. Another tarp hid a Biedermeier. I could have spent all night admiring the treasure Mr. Kostas had hidden away, but after checking any lump large enough to hide a statue, I came to the conclusion my prize was not there.
I turned to head back towards the stairway, but froze when I heard the distinctive creak of one of the treads. I switched off my flashlight. My evening bag dropped to the floor. I held my breath, waiting to be discovered.
When I didn’t hear any other noise after several minutes, I let out my breath. The house was old. It was going to have creaks, I convinced myself. I moved towards the stairs, but quickly realized I had forgotten my evening bag. I retraced my steps to the place in the attic I had dropped my bag.
It wasn’t there.
A voice drifted out of the shadows, startling me.
“Did you lose something?”
I looked up and Athan stepped into my flashlight’s small pool of light. He smiled and held the bag out to me.
I could feel my face go pale. Should I offer an excuse? An apology? What realistic reason could a guest give for poking around her host’s attic without permission?
“Thanks,” I said, taking the bag. It was lighter. I looked back at Athan. The awareness I had experienced in the ballroom was amplified by the darkness, his proximity and the fact that we were completely alone.
“This is what you desire, I suppose,” he said, pulling the journal out of his jacket. “It’s been a long time since I saw this little book.”
I could smell his soap and the wine he’d been drinking. I could see that his strangely luminescent gray eyes were framed with midnight black lashes. Below his mask, his lips were turned upwards in amusement.
“You’ve seen this journal before?”
“Oh, yes,” Athan said, tracing the initials stamped into the cover with one fingertip. “I’m wondering, though, how you came to possess it.” His voice held an accent I couldn’t quite place and he spoke with a formal cadence that belonged to another century.
“I found it in the university’s library. In the archives.” I could hardly tear my gaze away from his.
He nodded. “Of course. Emily was an instructor at the university.”
“Yes.” The journal had belonged to an English professor who had taught at the university in the 50’s. I’d read the journal cover to cover, though the entries held no clues to the piece I sought. The only reason I’d taken the journal was the grainy black and white photo tucked between its pages--a photo of the marble monument and a man standing next to it. The inscription read only “Kostas, 1952”, but it had been enough to lead me to the mansion.
“Tell me. What brings you to the attic?” An ebony brow arched over the top of his domino. His voice was low and
calm.
“I guess I got turned around,” I said. “I should probably go back downstairs now.” I turned towards the door. Being close to Athan had my pulse racing and all my senses drawn tight. He was attractive and dead-sexy for sure, but there was an edge of danger lurking beneath his calm exterior that excited and terrified me even more.
I blinked and suddenly Athan was standing before me, blocking the door. I stumbled backwards and he caught me around the waist, pulling me against him. It was difficult to breathe. Blood thundered through my veins.
“Let me go,” I whispered. “Please.”
His grip tightened and I could feel every hard contour of his body.
“What do you seek?”
I swallowed. “I’m a student,” I said. “I’m researching Greek funerary art. A particular stele, actually.”
He leaned in closer until his face was only inches from mine. His voice was low but there was an edge to his words, a subtle threat.
“What do you want with it?”
Athan knew exactly what I was talking about and hadn’t even bothered to conceal it.
“I’ve been obsessed with the stele since I first read about it as an undergrad. Those who have seen it say it’s impossibly well-preserved and the most beautiful example of classical sculpture in existence.”
He waved his hand dismissively. “I have heard of this piece. It is nothing more than a myth.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head, it’s not.” I stepped away from the man and pulled the photograph out of my bag. “See?”
Athan took the photograph and stared at it for a long moment.
“It was in Emily’s journal. She knew the statue and someone in your family quite well.”
His eyes flashed and in the next instant his lips were a breath away from mine. “You look like her, you know. Emily, that is.” He stroked my hair and with one hand tugged at the silken ties of my mask. It slid silently to the floor.
“Yes. So young, so perfect.” He bracketed my face with his cool hands and leaned in to kiss me. “Flush with life and vitality.”
I should have pulled away. Athan was a stranger. We were alone in a part of the house in which no one would hear me scream. But I was undeniably attracted to this man, had been since the moment I stepped across the threshold of his home. It was as if I had been waiting for the moment forever and now that it had arrived, there was no question that it was right.
Athan still wore his mask and the silk grazed my skin as his lips moved over mine in complete mastery. When I opened my mouth, he seized the moment to deepen the kiss. I had never known that a kiss could be so thrilling and it wasn’t long before I was gripping his jacket and pressing my body against his, wanting even more.
His hands glided down the silky black sheath of my gown and up again to my breasts. The cut of the gown allowed for nothing beneath, and his hands on my breasts brought the hardened nubs into the palms of his hands. I felt him smile against my lips.
“I knew it would come to this between us when I saw you. It was simply inevitable.”
By then I was writhing in his arms. I ran my hands up the hard contours of his chest, loving how delicate I felt locked in the circle of his arms.
Athan broke the kiss with a small groan and tugged the tarp off a beautiful red velvet Victorian fainting couch. He looked at me intently, waiting for the reply to his silent question.
Staring right back at him, already anticipating the sensation of him sliding into me, I hooked my thumbs in the slim straps of my gown and let it slither off my body. I was bare except for a skimpy pair of black panties and my strappy, high-heeled sandals.
Smiling, he circled around behind me, skimming my belly with his fingertips. Cupping both my breasts, he squeezed gently, rolling my hard nipples between his thumbs and forefingers. His head dropped and his mouth went to the curve of my neck where it met my shoulder. Athan inhaled, seeming to take in the scent of my skin, then pressed his open mouth there, licking and tasting, sending shivers racing through my body. Though he was fully clothed, I could feel his excitement, too, pressing into my backside. I arched backwards wanting to feel more of him, wanting him to be as aroused as I was.
Athan eased me onto the couch and tugged my panties down the long lines of my legs, never breaking eye contact. I stared back, anticipation sending blood pumping through my veins at an alarming rate. My whole body felt sensitized and flushed, teetering on the edge of something totally out of my control.
Jacket, tie and his snowy white shirt were removed and Athan laid them carefully, piece by piece over another piece of draped furniture, though he kept his mask on. He removed his shoes and socks with maddeningly slow precision, then unfastened his trousers and pushed them off.
My breath caught--he could have been made of marble himself. Hard chiseled lines and well-defined muscles bunched in his abdomen, this thighs and the curves of his biceps. Shadows accented that delicious line that delineated his hips from his torso and I ached to trace it with my fingers and mouth.
“You are a work of art,” I said, feeling a bit sheepish when I said the words out loud.
He smiled down at me. “And you, my dear, are perfection itself.”
Athan settled on the couch between my thighs, his skin cool against the flushed heat of mine. His fingers slid into my hair, as his tongue slid into my mouth for another soul-stealing kiss.
Hot tension gathered in my loins at the feel of his hard arousal pressing against me. Please,” I whispered raggedly into his mouth. “Please, Athan.”
He broke the kiss and pressed all the way inside me in one long, unrelenting stroke. I gasped as my body adjusted to accommodate him, but he pushed on until he filled me completely.
Searching my face for signs of pain, he waited until my body adjusted. He moved then, drawing slowly out of my wet heat and back in again. I dug my nails into his back at the sweet friction that hovered somewhere between pleasure and pain.
Blood slammed through my veins and I felt hot everywhere. I breathed heavily, loving the sensation of his cool body on mine, the soft velvet of the upholstery on my bare skin and the unbearable intimacy of the moment. Though we were virtual strangers, it felt like a reunion—I was exactly where I was supposed to be. This was exactly what I had spent my life looking for. It was a complete and utter possession.
My hips jerked as his pace increased and I wrapped my legs around him. Pressure built deep within me, a molten ball of energy stacking and stacking upon itself until I became light-headed with its intensity. I squeezed my eyes shut as he drove me relentlessly closer to the precipice.
Athan’s lips moved down the column of my throat, teeth and tongue scraping lightly along my flesh. He paused at the juncture of my neck and shoulder, pressing his lips there for a long moment, almost reverently.
Then I felt his body go tense and his sharp teeth slid into my soft flesh.
I cried out as his mouth fastened to my throat, drinking in my essence. Athan pumped his hips, driving into me with sharp violent thrusts, pushing me higher and higher until at last the bubble burst and waves of pleasure flooded my body with pure sensation. Heat rushed to every corner of me and I floated, my body seemingly detached from the earth.
I felt his shudder of pleasure, and at last he raised his head and looked at me. Flecks of blue fire lit up his eyes and his razor sharp canines were glistening, wet with my blood.
My mind went blank, whether from lack of blood or complete shock I don’t know. A moment passed when I simply struggled for breath and to grasp exactly what had happened.
“Are you all right?” he asked me, cocking his head. His fangs had disappeared, making me wonder if I had imagined the whole thing.
I nodded, frowning. “I think so.” Athan stroked damp hair off my forehead.
“You’re a –”
“Yes.”
Denial pressed at my brain but at the same time, I knew it to be true.
He pulled out of my body then used the soft cotton of h
is shirt to dab at my throat. “Come now, my dear. You sensed there was something different about me the minute our eyes met.”
“Yes,” I admitted. “But I never thought…never imagined…”
“I hope I did not frighten you.”
I should have been screaming my head off. I should be running away. Freaking out. But I wasn’t. I couldn’t.
“No.”
Athan smiled. “Good. That is good.”
Reaching behind his head, he untied his mask and set it aside.
I gasped. “You. You’re the man. In the photo.”
He nodded. “Emily was my lover. She begged me for a keepsake.” He looked at his hands. “I should not have allowed it. Photos, records of any kind, are too dangerous. But I could deny her nothing.”
“The stele?”
“Mine. From my human life.”
My mind reeled. It was here. “Can I see it?”
Athan chuckled softly then cocked his head and looked at me for a moment before nodding. “I find I cannot deny your request either.”
I scrambled up off the sofa and tugged my gown on over my head.
Taking my hand, Athan led me to the back of the attic. He slid a panel aside and there, inside a secret compartment built into the wall, was the object I had been searching for.
It gleamed white in the light of my flashlight, looking as fresh and new and perfect as the day it was carved. And my lover, in all his glory, was rendered to perfection in stone. The impossibly masculine lines of his torso, his strong profile, the wave of his hair--it was an exact likeness of him.
“You understand now why I keep it hidden.”
I nodded. It would raise too many questions—questions about where it had come from and how it was so perfectly preserved. There would be no paper trail to prove he was the proper owner, and it took only one look to know that the man standing before me and the one born in marble were the same.
“It’s beautiful.”
Athan nodded. “My father was very talented. He sculpted burial monuments for the wealthiest families in my region. When my human life was ended, his grief drove him to work day and night until he produced this masterpiece. I saw it on the ridge bordering our family burial plot several years after my new life had begun and after my father died, I returned and claimed the stele. After nearly 2500 years, it is my one remaining link to my humanity.”
Just One Bite Volume 2 Page 8
