Dark Passages: Tristan & Karen

by Reinke, Sara

  She came, an orgasm more visceral, explosive, and powerful than she’d ever felt before—without having a finger laid against her or within her. Jerking against him, she tightened her fingers in his hair and cried out his name in breathless release. His mouth slipped away from her neck, and she felt a rush of light-headedness sweep over her from the amount of her blood loss. With a soft moan, she crumpled forward, her cheek settling against the socket of his shoulder. She felt weak, tremulous, and lay beside him. The side of her throat felt slightly damp as the blood flow from her wounds oozed to a stop.

  Closing her eyes, she listened to the frantic pounding of his heartbeat as it slowed once more from its own excited, lust-fueled peak. She wanted to raise her head, look up at him, see if he’d lapsed back into the unconsciousness from which he’d only murkily emerged, but felt too exhausted, too frail for even this meager effort.

  Instead, she waited. Mason had said that once the Brethren fed from the human to whom he or she was pair-bonded, an infallible mental rapport was born. She waited for this to happen, this uncanny awareness of one another, but nothing seemed to occur. Her perception of him remained—undeniable, inherent, and strong—just as it always had.

  “Because it…must not matter,” Tristan murmured, his voice coming from fathoms away. His eyes were open now, heavy lidded and somewhat dazed, his pupils constricting back to more normal circumferences.

  “The feeding must not matter,” he said again. “Because I’ve always felt bound to you. Right from the start. I think Michel must’ve been wrong.” With a small, crooked smile, he added, “And God, please let me be the one to tell him. Can’t wait…to see his face.”

  She laughed, and reaching up with his good hand, he touched her face, a clumsy caress. “He’s my father,” he whispered.

  She nodded, turning her cheek into his palm. “I know. He told me.”

  “Davenant said he knew it right away. How could he tell in less than five minutes, and in all of these years, I had no idea? No fucking clue.”

  He looked stricken, confused, and she kissed his forehead gently. “Don’t do that to yourself,” she whispered. “You couldn’t have known.”

  “All along, Davenant was after me,” Tristan said. “Because he knew. A brother for a brother, a son for a son, that’s what he kept saying. And Michel knew that all along too. That explains him taking my car keys away, his big freak-out the other day.” He managed an unhappy laugh. “One of them, anyway.”

  She moved to kiss his brow again, but he tilted his head, meeting her lips with his own. “Stay with me,” he said, pulling lightly against her, trying to get her to lie down in the bed.

  “Tristan, no. I don’t want to hurt you,” she said. He was on the mend, but not even feeding could fix his broken ribs so quickly.

  “You won’t,” he said. When she still hesitated, his brows lifted. “Please. I want you here. I…I need you, Karen.”

  He looked up at her, vulnerable and pleading, and she relented. Closing her eyes, she settled in beside him, resting her head gently against his chest. “Are you okay?” she asked, with a worried glance up at him.

  He’d closed his eyes, resting again, but managed a smile. “At the moment? I’d say I couldn’t get much better.”

  Me, either, she thought as she smiled back. Snuggling more closely, she closed her eyes again, letting his heartbeat lull her to sleep.

  # # #

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  “Definitely an author to watch.” That's how Romantic Times Book Reviews magazine describes Sara Reinke. New York Times bestselling author Karen Robards calls Reinke “a new paranormal star” and Love Romances and More hails her as “a fresh new voice to a genre that has grown stale.” Dark Thirst and Dark Hunger, the first two books in The Brethren SeriesTM of vampire romance are available from Kensington/Zebra Books, while the third installment, Dark Passion, is available from Double Dragon Publishing. The series continues in 2011 with Dark Passages and Dark Vengeance, from Bloodhorse Press, and in a free online graphic novel, Dark Interludes, available at: www.sarareinke.com.