by Nora Ash
Her release came before she could prepare for it, tearing through her body in a molten burst that left her breathless and boneless on the straw-filled mattress.
She wasn’t allowed a respite. The second her muscles released the vampire’s finger, he moved above her quicker than her eyes could follow. When he pressed his cock between her still sopping folds, seeking entry with an impatient thrust of his hips, she cried out and clasped onto his strong shoulders in a feeble attempt at slowing his advances.
Warin growled, his body tense with obvious frustration, and when he finally stilled long enough to stare down at her, she saw his eyes were black like a predator’s.
“Your body is ready, your moans say you are too… Why are you stopping me?” he demanded. The pressure against her opening didn’t ease, but he wasn’t forcing himself farther in, either.
“Go slow,” she said, fighting back a smile at the frustration in his entire demeanor. It was pretty clear he’d never taken much care with his lovers before—but was trying his best with her, despite how desperate he was to be inside her. “If you go too fast, you’ll hurt me.”
He exhaled with a worried frown. Slowly, he eased down on one elbow. With his other hand he smoothed down the length of her thigh in a caress so gentle he may as well have touched her with a feather. Hungry eyes roamed over her skin, but he kept his touches soft and cautious.
“Touch me there again,” she whispered, letting her own hand slide between their bodies to the nub of nerves he had made feel so good with his mouth.
Warin obeyed, brushing the back of his hand against her palm as he found her pleasure center with his thumb. The shock of bliss was immediate, and only intensified as he rubbed circles across the small pearl.
Thea groaned and tilted her hips up for more, inviting his thick cock inside as she did.
Careful this time, and without easing up on her clit, Warin put more pressure behind his hips. The delicious ache crested and was followed by an intense fullness that had Thea groaning and arching against him as he slid all the way inside. She may have lain with men before, but none had filled her so completely it bordered on pain.
Warin hissed above her, his fingers ripping deep grooves in the mattress as he clenched his hands in an obvious attempt at staying in control. But Thea no longer cared about the dull ache between her thighs as her insides spasmed fitfully around his intrusion. His cool flesh eased the pain of being opened wide to a delicious throb, and all she wanted in that moment was—
“More! Warin… give me more!” She wrapped her arms around his tense shoulders and pulled his body closer to hers. When he moved to follow her, rolling his hips with pained gentleness, ecstasy exploded in her blood. “Yes!” She raked her nails over his shoulders and wrapped her legs around the small of his back, needing him inside her more than she needed the air in her lungs.
A deep rumble tore from the vampire’s chest, his eyes flaming at the sting of her nails, but despite the darkness she could see fighting to take control in his heated gaze, he kept the pace slow. Full, deep, rhythmic thrusts of his hips against hers drove her higher and higher, suspending her in an ocean of pleasure somewhere beyond reality.
And behind the sweet ecstasy of their physical union, there was something else. Something more. She felt his touch every time he bottomed out deep within her sheath, not simply in her body but also her soul. It was as if the core of her very being tried to reach out and embrace the monster between her thighs as tightly as her sex wrapped around his girth.
Soulmates, the witch had called them. Was that why being with him made her feel she was finally home? Finally whole?
Thea stared up at the vampire as he moved within her, eyes locked on hers and the deadly length of his fangs bared with the restraint he was exercising to keep their lovemaking gentle. Those fangs were the visceral proof of his inhumanity—of the monster she’d seen when they first met. But now… when she felt him so intimately, on every plane, as pleasure rushed through her veins… they were no longer a threat. They, and the hunger for blood she knew came with them, were what made him what he was—who he was. If he had been a man, they would never have found each other. He wouldn’t have come to her village, wouldn’t have sought her out.
In the final throes of passion, when her sex clenched around his cock and her release ripped through her body and mind, Thea knew she would have sacrificed her village a thousand times if it meant she would be with her soulmate in the end.
“Warin! Bite me!”
The vampire roared with relief, his eyes gleaming in the moonlight as he went for her throat, fangs piercing her skin and sinking deep into her flesh. The last thing she registered was a sharp sting in her neck and the cool rush of his seed deep inside. Then everything went dark.
Chapter 10
Thea
When Thea came to, the moon no longer shone through the small window, but Warin lay above her still as he lazily drew his tongue across her neck.
“Will I become like you?” she rasped. Both her cunny and voice were sore from the pleasure he’d forced from her, but much to her surprise, she didn’t feel any pain where he’d bitten her.
“No,” he said. His voice was soft now, so very different from how he’d sounded before. As if all his anger and fear had vanished when she shared her body with him. “A simple bite will not damn you, my beloved.”
Beloved.
She smiled into the darkness. “I was so scared of you.”
“I’m sorry.” He sounded so guilty, she couldn’t help but laugh.
“It seems silly now, doesn’t it? That I could ever fear the man whose soul I share.”
“I am not a man, and you were wise to fear me,” he said, pulling back to look at her. She still couldn’t make out his face in the darkness, but knew he likely didn’t have such problems. “I am—“
“A monster,” she interrupted him softly. “I know. It doesn’t matter.”
“The things I’ve done… Thea—“
She put her hand on his shoulder, silencing him with a light squeeze. “It doesn’t matter. It can’t. For whatever reason, and despite whatever we were before, we are one now. What you were before doesn’t matter. What I was doesn’t matter. I know you feel it too.”
He sighed softly, an unnecessary breath that ghosted over her face. “I… feel such… shame. For tying you to… this. To me. I am of the night, and you… you are the brightest star in the sky. I fear… I will taint you.”
“By sharing your curse with me?” she asked. A sliver of unease traveled up the length of her spine and she touched a hand to her neck where he had bitten her.
“No. Never. I will never turn you, my love. No one deserves this fate, least of all you.”
“Then I will die,” she said, remembering the frightening conversation between him and Zet. “I will grow old, and I will die. What will happen to you once I am gone?” Just the thought of being without him made her insides turn to ice. The idea that he would have to go through that once her mortal body gave in hurt equally as bad. She couldn’t imagine surviving losing him.
It had only been days since her only wish was to escape him, yet now…
Everything had changed.
“We have years until old age claims you,” he said, though he held her tighter against his chest as if he subconsciously was already trying to prevent time itself from separating them. “I will find a way for us to be together in eternity, without dooming your soul to the darkness. When I rise tomorrow night, we will begin our travels to Rome. The Night Lady there may know more.”
There were more questions she wanted to ask—things they had to discuss, plans they had to make… but Thea found she didn’t have the will to do so. Not then. Even if there was no ward against old age, she didn’t want to think about it now. He was right. They had years. Right now, she wanted nothing more than to lie in his embrace and savor the sated hum from deep inside the core of her being.
She found her soulmate. Nothing else mattere
d.
The darkness in the small room turned a deep gray before Warin roused her from her sleep by slipping out of the bed they’d shared.
“Where are you going?” she mumbled groggily as he bent to grasp his leather pants from the floor. Dawn was still nearly an hour away, but its pale march let her see his intricate tattoos move as his muscles flexed. They looked vaguely like the geometric figures she’d seen depicted on her village’s attackers’ shields, yet were different somehow.
“Dawn is near. I have to go underground until dusk.” Warin turned to look at her, a gentle smile on his face she hadn’t known his stark features could produce. He reached out and touched her cheek, and she pressed against his palm with an unhappy hum.
“I don’t want you to go.”
“I will return for you the second the sun sets,” he promised softly. “Tonight, and every night after that, until the end of time.”
“Where will you sleep?” she asked, frowning at the thought that he might have to leave the city during the day. She knew from the dirt caked on both his and Aleric's bodies that they dug graves to spend the day shielded from the sun. In the middle of a city, it seemed unlikely he would find somewhere hidden and undisturbed.
“The graveyard by the catacombs where Zet holds court,” he said. It was the first time he had shared his location during the daytime with her. The first time he trusted her enough to do so, she realized.
“The dead man sleeps in a graveyard,” she mused. “I suppose that is poetic, in some way.”
He didn’t answer her—only leaned down to brush a gentle kiss to her lips.
“Tonight,” she said as he walked to the door.
“Tonight,” he confirmed. “And every night, my soulmate.”
Sleep did not return to Thea after Warin left. She lay in bed, staring at the ceiling while night yielded for day. Thoughts seemed fleeting, the pleasant buzz in her body from their intimate time together drowning out any desire to think about the implications of their union.
It was not until sunlight filtered in through her small window that something caught the edges of her conscience. A niggling, as if someone was prodding her to gain her attention.
Thea frowned and sat up, unable to shake the sensation that someone needed her. It was the same sort of feeling she’d often had back in her village moments before someone would inevitably burst through her door in need of her healing herbs, the same sort of urgency.
Her eyes fell to the floor, and she frowned at the dark shadow outlined in the light from the window. When she looked up, she saw a large, black bird sitting outside the window, peering in. A raven, perhaps.
It looked like it was staring straight at her, and Thea fought a ridiculous impulse to cover her naked breasts. It was just a bird, after all. Even if…
The urgency coiling in her gut grew the longer she looked at the bird. It was almost as if… it wanted her help?
Thea drew in a deep breath as she slipped out of bed to find her clothes. She had lain with a Nightwalker and seen a witch light candles with a wave of her hand. A raven wanting her help wasn’t the weirdest thing to have happened to her since she’d met Warin. Heck, it wasn’t even the most outlandish thing that had happened in the past twelve hours.
The raven knocked its beak against the window, as if urging her to hurry.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” she muttered as she straightened her hair and brushed her hands over her dress. As quietly as she could so as not to disturb the other patrons, Thea let herself out of her room and tiptoed down the stairs.
The raven was waiting for her when she walked into the narrow street outside the inn. It gave a squawk at the sight of her and flew a couple of houses down, perching on a butcher’s sign. Waiting for her. When she followed, it flew farther, leading the way through London’s streets.
The sense of urgency in her gut grew as she stumbled along the cobbled roads, until finally, the raven dove into an alley so narrow the sun didn’t touch its filthy depths.
Thea hesitated by the entrance as she tried to peer in through the darkness, but she couldn’t see much of anything. The alley appeared to writhe like a serpent only a few yards in.
The raven squawked again from farther in. Calling her.
Thea stepped into the alley, letting the darkness swallow her up.
Chapter 11
Warin
Consciousness snapped back into Warin’s unmoving body with a pain so intense that for a moment, he thought someone had shoved a stake through his heart.
He gasped into the dark earth surrounding him on all sides, dazed and confused. He could still sense the presence of the sun in the sky. It was much too soon for him to rise, but the agony in his chest tore viciously at his body and roared through his mind.
Thea!
His soulmate’s name echoed in his head and a wave of pure, unadulterated panic set in.
Thea. Something was wrong. She was…
It felt like a physical rending of his flesh, but it was his soul that ripped apart, shredded to pieces as the half of it he’d only found the previous night was torn away.
Warin bellowed and clawed at the dirt above him, but there was nothing he could do to get to his soulmate. He was trapped underground by the sun, imprisoned by his curse. He could do nothing but lie in the grave he’d invaded and wait for the sun’s torturously slow crawl across the sky, praying to gods he no longer believed in that his soulmate was still among the living.
The second the sun set, Warin burst from his grave. Damp soil crumbled from his body as he climbed up from the ground.
The crippling agony had long since died down to a dull pain lodged deep in his chest, icy numbness spreading in its place.
“What’s going on?” Aleric asked. He was ascending from the grave next to Warin’s, a clear note of worry in his voice. “I felt… something while I slept. In our bond?”
Warin didn’t take the time to explain. He lifted his face to the dark sky and inhaled, scenting the air for any signs of his beloved. He found none.
Not caring if any human noticed his unnatural speed, he ran through the dark streets to the inn he’d left her at, hoping against hope she’d be there, waiting for him with that gentle smile on her lips.
“Ah, young sir!” the innkeeper greeted him when he burst in the door to the common room below. “Will you be needing the room another night, then?”
“Where is she?” Warin put the full force of his Compulsion behind his question. The innkeeper blinked dazedly.
“Your wife? She left with you this morning… didn’t she?” the man said, his voice thick and sloppy from the strength of Warin’s mind.
Warin didn’t bother explaining—he sniffed the air and finally caught the faintest trace of Thea’s scent. It was hours old.
He followed it outside where hundreds of people had soiled her crisp fragrance during the day, but something more than just his sense of smell guided him down the road. A pull from his chest led him through London’s narrow streets, the sense of dread mounting in his gut for every yard he ran.
In the city’s underbelly, the trail stopped without warning.
Warin faltered, looking around the cobbled path he was on. Houses rose on each side, and to his right a windy alleyway reeking of human waste opened up. The dread in his gut, rather than any remaining smell of his soulmate, made him step into the narrow opening. Even Thea’s scent couldn’t make it through the stench emanating from within.
He followed the alley along its coiling path until it opened up into a small, square space.
And in the center of the square lay his soulmate’s lifeless body, her neck broken and sea-green eyes staring blindly into nothingness.
Pain so intense it made him stumble exploded behind his ribs as he stared at the woman he had loved so shortly.
“Thea! No!” Warin fell to his knees by her side. Crushing despair closed in around him from all sides.
“Thea! My love, no, no, no!” She was cold to his tou
ch when he cradled her in his arms, her body stiff as if frozen by the shadows surrounding her while she lay in the alley, discarded like a piece of garbage. She had been dead for hours.
Deep down, he’d known the second he felt his soul splinter apart that she’d been ripped from him. Yet he had hoped with everything he was that he would find her alive. Injured, but alive.
But she was gone.
He’d only known her for a few days before she’d been torn from his side. Had only known the sweet bliss of what she was for mere hours.
She should have been his salvation.
“What happened?” Aleric asked, his concern and surprise vibrating through the alley.
Warin didn’t pay him any mind. Tears of despair blinded him as he bit into his wrist and pressed the bloody limb to Thea’s cold lips. He had sworn never to create another of their kind, but if he didn’t… she would be lost to him forever. And he could never survive it.
Chapter 12
Aleric
“What are you—?” Aleric caught himself as he stared in disbelief at his kneeling brother and the dead woman in his arms. It was obvious what he was trying to do—even if the why was less clear.
Cautiously, he crouched by Warin’s side and put a hand on his shoulder. “Warin, she’s been dead for hours. The spark won’t catch.”
“It will! It will, it has to! Come on, Thea. Please, come on, my love, I cannot… I cannot live without you!”
Aleric had never heard his Elder so distraught—the sheer panic in his voice and the raw pain in their bond sent waves of queasiness through him. If there was one thing Warin had always been, it was strong. Ruthless. Devoid of emotion except bloodlust. And now… now, Warin was sobbing. Over a human girl who would have died soon enough regardless.
