Morganna's Sacrifice (Vampyre Falls: Blended Species Book 1)

by Adrianna Dane

  She had spent the last few days trying to decide why she was here. No solid answer was immediately forthcoming, and she was out of her element in this place. What she did surmise was a vast amount of magic existed here. What kind of magic was yet to be determined. There was depth to the atmosphere, melding and mingling of different magicks she had yet to identify.

  In a personal sense she remained here simply to discover the answers she’d waited years to find. Keelan’s disappearance had left such a void in her life. Their gazes clashed and the remembered electricity shot across the room, curling around her, her body humming with arousal. Even as a vampire she found him irresistible. Tearing her attention away, she raised the glass and sipped. It tasted of honey and berries, a touch of something she couldn’t quite identify. Maybe cinnamon?

  “You haven’t answered my question.” As attracted as she was, Morganna was still leery of him, knowing that he was not the same lover she had known. That he was vampire, and as such, very dangerous.

  He turned and walked away. Since that first night he hadn’t touched her and had kept his distance. Yet she saw things in his eyes. There had always been a darkness to Keelan Moonstalker, a bit of rebel she had found dangerously seductive. She shouldn’t have fallen in love with the dark elf, she should have known their relationship had been ill-fated from the start. But she had fallen so deeply in love that she couldn’t see anyone else, and never would.

  He walked over to the balcony that looked out upon a village below. The entrance through which he had escorted her to reach this cavernous hidden city within a city, overlooking the town was veiled behind a huge waterfall. Without close inspection, one would never know that a huge metropolis lurked behind the veil of the falls almost as sentry over the town surrounding the lake. Filled with vampires. She shuddered to think about the nature of this species and all she had been taught. Yet, so far, she had been safe. None of them had approached her.

  “I’ve a feeling you have quite a few questions,” Keelan said.

  “Let’s start with the first. What is this place?”

  He straightened and then spun to face her. He moved with such silent, predatory swiftness that it took her breath away. She had to admit she feared, and yet, still found herself attracted to him. Even as a healer, her magic filled with light, he had drawn her to the defiant challenge she saw in his eyes. At every turn it seemed he dared her to love him. She had flouted every caution of her mother and sisters to accept that seductive challenge. Would now be any different?

  Morganna remembered missing him so much that first year. And then Syril had offered to provide her with the graying potion, which, at first, she had hesitantly accepted. But what about now?

  “You’re in Vampyre Falls. It’s a place created as a sanctuary for species like us—those who are not entirely human. Those who are hunted. You’re safe here. The protection spells are strong around the falls.”

  “That’s something else you need to explain. What happened back there? Who were those…creatures?”

  He was silent for a long time as though trying to decide how much he should tell her. “Syril was never to be trusted. I’m not sure why you pacted with him. Fae blood is highly prized by vampires. It provides them with powers far beyond what mortal blood can achieve for them. It allows them to walk in sunlight, to change their appearance, to go for longer periods of time without human blood, and magnifies their vampire gifts. Let alone it allows them to more easily identify our kind, and to enter our world with little restriction.”

  “But they can’t take our blood unless it is offered by our free will. Not anymore. That powerful spell was cast to protect us eons ago. Boundaries between our magic have remained unbreakable for thousands of years. It’s what has helped to maintain the balance of our worlds, to keep us safe. Yet you tread both worlds now and it seems far too easily. How?”

  “Boundaries. This is a new age, Morganna. Over time, boundaries blur. Our worlds are no longer divided as they once were—at least in our province. There will always be someone who tries to challenge protections. Ravenous for more, hungry for control. A potion has been created that allows vampires to ingest our Fae blood without permission, without repercussions. The magic has been breached.” He looked at her. “Syril is the one who helped to create it. He sells it to them for a high price. In return, they procure anything he wants. He’s a very rich goblin, with more powerful friends than you can imagine. Even the Faerie Court falters to harness him. Instead, they have come to an agreement with him, in order to protect the fragile veil of fae and human worlds. And now it is too late.”

  “But if our people knew this, they would banish him. We are a lenient people, but this goes too far. It puts us all at risk.”

  “His dark bargain has been struck. He is feared for who he knows and what he can do. And he’s smart enough to stay away from the faerie courts and remain secluded in the woods.”

  “So, you’re saying he betrayed me to these vampires.”

  Keelan nodded. “Apparently you became expendable to Syril. Or the vampires had something he wanted enough to offer you in payment—something that went beyond their initial bargain. And, frankly, he hates our kind, his own people. He doesn’t care about the pain he causes.”

  Morganna whirled away from him. “I can’t believe any of this. He’s turning on his own people. For profit.” She controlled her anger and slowly turned back to Keelan. “What about you?”

  “It was fairly easy for him to discover our meeting place. You are powerful in your own right as a faery doctor. I think he did offered me to the vampires in order to try to diminish you. And because my blood is darker, rather more powerful than a faery’s blood, it is worth more to the vampires.”

  “But you’re here. And you’re vampire.”

  He nodded. “I was saved from an eternity of unrelenting pain. I don’t know why I was saved, but since then I’ve sworn to help any of our people I can.”

  “Why don’t you just kill Syril? It’s well known that vampires have no conscience.”

  He winced at her words. She hadn’t meant to hurt him, it was simply a fact well-known among her own people. “That’s what we all have been taught to believe, isn’t it?” he said. “But it’s not true. Some of them are ethical. Some of us have a conscience. I saw compassion in the vampire who made me. It’s why I allowed it. Those here at the Falls work for life, not death.”

  “Did you choose to become vampire, Keelan? Did you offer your blood freely?”

  He met her gaze steadily. “Yes. I became vampire willingly. Not to the vampire who imprisoned me, but to the vampire who saved me, and taught me a different way.”

  She gripped the back of a chair to help steady herself. “Why did you bring me here? Why did you save me? All these years you could have let me know you were alive and yet you didn’t. Why now?”

  She hadn’t heard him cross the room, and she stiffened when she felt his firm hands on her shoulders. “Because I love you, Morganna. I have always loved you. When word came to us that you had been targeted, I couldn’t stay away any longer.”

  She trembled beneath his touch. “Who exactly is ‘us’?”

  “Daffyd Angelus is the vampire who saved me. He’s one of the founders of the Falls.” He turned her carefully to face him. Tendrils of remembered emotions beat against the drugging potion that still bound her, although the effects were diminishing.

  Keelan dipped closer and his breath whisked across her cheek.

  “Are you ready to be free of Syril, Morganna?” He turned her arm to look at the fading glyph. “Why, Morganna? Why would you pact with a twisted goblin like Syril?”

  To kill the pain she wanted to scream at him. But she didn’t. “I-I don’t know.” Gazing up at him, she saw glimpses of the dark elf she remembered, but there were frightening changes as well, particularly in the preternatural energy that now surrounded him. “I loved you, Keelan, more than my life. But you’re different now. How do I know it’s not just my faery bl
ood that you want?”

  He pressed her to him and she felt every inch of his hard body against her. His stiff cock thrust against her mound as he stared into her eyes.

  “If it was just your Fae blood, I could have had any of a number of faeries quite willingly over the years. I didn’t have to risk coming after you. I have no problem in drawing them to me. Particularly now.”

  She flinched because she knew that was probably quite true. Morganna felt the seductive pull of his mixed vampire-fae blood. Even before, when he had been her lover, there were many faeries who’d been more than happy to take her place with him. They’d never understood why she wouldn’t share.

  She cupped his face. His crimson-lips parted and she could just make out the hint of his dangerous teeth. What would it be like to feel them piercing her? She shuddered at the thought of such poignant pain. Her pussy clutched at nothing and suddenly she needed to experience the vibrant emotions that this tantalizingly passionate elf had always instilled in her. He was real. It wasn’t a vision induced by the ingestion of poppies. Suddenly, nothing mattered beyond that fact. He was real.

  “Kiss me, Keelan.” She couldn’t find it within her to be afraid of him, no matter what he had become.

  She held her breath as he bent closer. His beautiful mouth. Moist, succulent lips parted, his reddened tongue about to pierce her. She yielded, closing her eyes as his demanding lips fastened over hers.

  And the stone wall surrounding and protecting her emotions shattered.

  Chapter Seven

  Keelan lifted her, his arms like steel bands wrapped around her. Emotion poured from her, swamping her with need that had been bound in pain for so long.

  The kiss lasted for an eternity as he sucked every bit of Syril’s potion from inside her, releasing her from the gray mists. She felt light-headed and giddy. Passionate desire soared through her. Gray transformed into a kaleidoscope of colors, of feeling, of want, of need.

  Finally, he drew away to look down at her. His eyes were swirling deep chasms of emotion and she tumbled into them willingly.

  “Make love to me, Keelan. Oh, please, I need you. I need you now.”

  His gaze darkened as he stripped the gossamer dress from her body and once again enfolded her into his arms. Her naked breasts brushed against the silk of the shirt covering his solid chest. Sensations whisked over her. The petals of her mind and body peeled open, with no thought of denying him. She wrapped her legs around his lean waist as he strode with her locked in his arms out onto the balcony. Her spread lips, exposing her inner wet core brushed hotly against him, driving her higher and higher as he moved toward the stone parapet protecting the room from the heady plunge to the earth far below.

  “As I remember, you always liked the tang of risk.” He settled her onto the narrow arm of the rail and she felt the wet, clinging drops of mist fasten to her skin. His hand smoothed down over her outer thigh, along the curve of her calf and he unwrapped her legs from around his torso, spreading her wide, staring down hungrily at her wet, glistening center.

  “With you it was always dangerous. Always exciting.” She looked at him and felt her nipples screw into pebble tautness, her breasts swelled at the thought of him touching her, of his mouth and tongue questing over her skin. Of feeling him inside her. “Now, Keelan. Now.”

  “Not yet.” He stroked a hand over the fullness of her breast, tweaking at a distended nipple. He plucked it, then twisted it between his thumb and forefinger. She gasped at the sensation which arrowed hotly down to her vagina. “It’s been too long and I want to savor you. Your skin always tasted like the dawn’s dew, drenching me with sweet anticipation. I could never get enough. Like midnight wine, heady and fragrant.”

  “And you,” she whispered hotly, “tasted like the forbidden absinthe, addictive, decadent and delectable. Always making me want more and more. Kiss me, Keelan. I have to know this is real.”

  Keelan wedged himself between her legs and she felt the length of his thick erection, clothed by his pants. Quickly, she released his cock from the fabric, needing to feel the hard length in her hand, to re-acquaint herself with his flesh. He groaned with pleasure as her fingers surrounded him and she wanted to taste him. Would his cum taste differently than it had before he was made vampire? She wanted to find out. She acknowledged and eagerly embraced the dangerous edge of intimacy with a vampire, knowing she walked a very fine line.

  He pushed her hands away, shoved her thighs wider and sank into her needy channel. She was home, at last, yet the feeling was bittersweet. How long could she hold onto this pleasure? Keelan filled her, and her sheath expanded and conformed to him, welcoming him inside her.

  He cupped her ass cheeks and then suddenly she was weightless as he lifted them both from the balcony, soaring upward.

  “Keelan,” she gasped. “What are you doing?” This was one ability he’d not had as a dark elf.

  He pressed her to him. “Something exciting I couldn’t do before. Hold on.”

  She gripped him as close as she could, feeling every inch of his cock buried inside her, the damp air surrounding her and whispering across her body, his hands cupping her buttocks. And then she felt the hard rock pressing against her back. He grabbed her wrists, yanked them up and locked them against the cold rock above her head.

  Excitement built and curled inside her. She glanced at the ground far below and suddenly an orgasm swamped through her and she screamed with the unexpected pleasure as she convulsed around him, bathing him with her cream.

  His unrelenting hands bracketed her arms against the hard granite as she arched against him, overcome with sensations. He felt so much bigger, so very rigid inside her, stretching her beyond what she had known before. Hot and cold magnified as her heart galloped in her chest.

  He leaned forward and she felt the sharp edge of his teeth track across her shoulder and up along the column of her neck. The world spun away. The only thing she was aware of was Keelan. His body claiming her, his sharp teeth pressing against the pulsing beat at her neck, his cock spearing her, his hands manacling her. His earthy scent filling her as he possessed every inch of her.

  “Yes, Keelan. Take me. Make me yours again. In every way. If it’s my blood you want, take it. Everything I am is yours. I can’t live without you again.”

  The pressure of his incisors lessened and he raised his head to look at her, piercing her with their darkness. “Is that what you think? That all this is about your blood? And your permission?”

  She rocked her head back and forth. “I don’t care, Keelan. I just need you so much. And I want to give you anything you want. I have to.”

  He kept her gaze fastened to his as he circled his hips and the tip of his cock buried deeper inside, touching the heart of her.

  “Yes, my love. Yes.”

  He thrust in and out, her juices easing his way, her nerve endings tingling with awareness, of welcoming. She thrust her hips. He dipped his head and sucked in a sensitive bud and his sharp teeth pressed against her flesh. She screamed as another orgasm washed through her.

  Keelan’s mouth tracked back up over her skin, he sucked at the drops of water and sweat that clung to her. She arched and thrust her hips as he pounded into her. It was too much and not enough. He swelled inside her, filling her, overfilling her as he supported her. It was as though she weighed less than a feather in his grasp.

  He tightened, groaned, and then his seed bathed her womb.

  She soared without wings. Everything she was belonged to Keelan, and if he wanted every drop of her blood right now, she would die happily to give him the last bit. No single moment had ever been more precious than this. And she knew, right then, she would sacrifice everything to stay with him because each second in his arms, even as vampire, was worth more to her than acceptance in her own realm without him.

  Slowly, he drifted downward to the balcony with her cradled against him. He slipped from inside her, lifted her into his arms, and carried her back into the room. Laying he
r on the couch, he knelt beside her and brushed a wisp of hair back from her face.

  “I will let you go, if you want it. If you stay, there will be sacrifices to be made.”

  She leaned up to stroke his hair. “Why didn’t you take my blood?”

  Keelan looked away. “It’s not my place.”

  “What do you mean?”

  It was a long time before he turned back to her. Leaning down, he placed a hungry kiss on her swollen lips. “Not now. Rest for a while and then I’ll take you to meet Daffyd. There’s plenty of time for more explanations.”

  He rose, unfolded a blanket and covered her with it.

  “Don’t leave me.” She was so afraid of losing him forever.

  He gazed down at her. “I won’t be far. There’s a lot for you to consider, and as much as I want you here, you need to think clearly about your options. I love you, Morganna, more than you could possibly know. I stayed away because I thought it was better for you, to protect you. There’s so much you don’t know, some of it you may never understand. But not right now.”

  There was something behind his words that frightened her. She latched onto his hand and drew him back down. “I love you, Keelan.”

  He stroked her hair. “I know, love. But I’m not the man you knew. And I can’t go back. I made choices and sacrifices you may never be able to comprehend. I can only hope that you will come to accept who and what I’ve become.”

  Morganna hoped he was right because she wasn’t sure she wanted to try to go on without him again.

  Chapter Eight

  Keelan was stretched out on the bed, his bare backside exposed. His bound hands gripped the bed posts. Much as Morganna had needed Syril’s potion, he needed the element of pain only Daffyd could provide. Because Daffyd needed the exact same thing himself and had learned its bite from Romulus.