Hannah bit her lip, her hands braced on the springy chair, thinking she’d never heard of anything more wonderful in her entire life. All her insecurities and past hurts faded away. He was hers. The man she’d fallen for the instant she’d laid eyes on him. The Were she’d tried to hate, but always dreamt of. She wiggled her bottom against his erection, flipping her short blonde hair out of her eyes to throw him a saucy wink. “I love you too.”
His eyes twinkled, glowing with an unnatural, beautiful light. She gasped at the first slow thrust of his cock inside her. Her sex stretched for him, clung to his flesh as he pulled his hips back just as languidly. She rose onto her toes with a cry when his hips met hers. So deep. And so slow it was torture. But Jasyn was taking his time, reveling in his claiming, holding her so tightly she couldn’t force him to quicken his pace.
Over and over with total control and deliberation he fucked her. Her body was on fire, limbs trembling so hard she could barely hold herself up. “Jasyn, please.”
“Say it again.”
Say what again? She couldn’t concentrate. She needed…something. Needed his bite. Needed more. “Please.”
“Tell me you love me, Sheba. Tell me you love me, and I’ll give you what you want.”
“I love you. I love you. I, ah—yes.” She threw her head back and cried out his name as he changed his rhythm, the chair shaking beneath her with the power of his thrusts. She clawed at the fabric of the chair, loving the wildness, loving him.
His body bowed over hers, and his steamy breath against her neck gave her a thrill of excitement. Yes. Now. Finally. A sharp, momentary pain and then he was there. With his fangs clamped down on her shoulder, his hands all over her body, and his cock deep inside her, Hannah wanted to howl for joy. She wanted to bite him in return. Taste him as he was tasting her.
“Your wish is my command.” His hand left her breast and she nuzzled his wrist, piercing his flesh and moaning as his blood slid down her throat.
They came together in such an explosive conflagration that Hannah was sure she smelled smoke. They rocked together, both shaken, neither willing to separate from the other. She never wanted to be separated from him again.
“Never, Mate. My mate. Love you.”
And she knew it was the truth. His feelings washed over her. His heart and mind were filled with memories. Snapshots of her.
The day he’d first seen her, sunlight in her hair, sketchpad in hand.
Watching her draw him while she thought he was sleeping, wanting her so badly he thought he might explode, or shift on the spot and send her running home to California.
After her accident. Walking for days, not knowing where he was going, or if he could bear to come back. Still loving her. Always loving her.
“Always, Sheba. Never doubt it.”
She never would again.
Chapter Seven
“Good place to think. I climbed up here all the time as a pup. ’Course, when I came down again I’d get my ass tanned seven ways to Sunday.”
“Planning on tanning my ass?” Midnight didn’t have to look at Wyley to know he had paused before sitting beside him on the high compound wall.
“I’m not a fool. And I would never hurt someone who’s been so important to my people.” Wyley looked out into the twilight. “You were sleeping for two days, but those marks on your neck are really fading now. The big guy told me that they kept you from remembering who you were, and where you belonged. Will you leave the mountain now that you know?”
“I have no choice.” His life was coming back to him like an ocean tide. There were large chunks that he still didn’t recall, but he knew it was only a matter of time. That wasn’t why he had to leave. “My grathita has run from me.”
He knew why. Her rising after Unity couldn’t have been easy on her. The truth of who he was had been a lot for her to take in. Especially since no one had ever told her he existed. Malcolm had never told her.
His brother had forgotten him, along with everyone else.
“Grath-oh you mean your mate. Amy told me she’d seen Liz tearing out of here like those Shadows were on her heels as soon as the sun went down. Never had a mate, but from what I’ve seen, they are exactly the sort of trouble I’d like to avoid. To tell you the truth, I’m surprised you aren’t already on her trail.”
He liked Wyley. There was no scent of fear on the Were, though he knew what Midnight could do to him. What he would have done to him only a few days before for mentioning Lizbeth. “She’s safe. Overwhelmed with her new situation, but safe. She’s on her way back to England. She needed time, so she has time.” Long enough to arrive a few hours ahead of him. That was all the time away from her he was willing to spare.
“Big of you.”
“Couldn’t resist, could you, wildcat? But don’t blame me for my desire to touch my grathita. Just because I understand your reasons doesn’t mean I have to like them.”
He smiled at her stubborn silence. He didn’t mind, he could feel her inside him with every breath he took. When he was younger, the idea of Unity was appalling. His father had tortured his mother with their connection, using it to manipulate her, to bend her to his will. A memory formed in his mind. Alexander Sariel had tried to convince him that cases like those were rare, that the Mother didn’t make those kinds of mistakes, and usually finding and loving your grathita was the greatest gift a Trueblood could receive. It had been hard for him to believe. He believed now.
She was sex incarnate, long thick curls of flame, brilliant emerald eyes and a lean, feline body he knew he’d never have enough time on this Earth to explore. No fragile flower, his Lizbeth. She needed no one to fight her battles. She was, in a word, magnificent. And, even when he had been trapped in the Shadow’s spell, he knew he needed her.
Night had fully descended once more, not that it mattered. He was old enough that his blood would protect Lizbeth from the light of the sun, and the Were who’d brought Liz to him had mated his own Unborn. Hannah’s transformation would be swift. If they needed to fight, her initial transformation would be painful in comparison to a Trueblood shift. But Jasyn Dydarren would have to protect her. Midnight couldn’t wait any longer. It was time to gather the others and go home. Luckily they would have a Healer on the journey.
Lux Sariel. Alexander’s youngest son, all grown up and mated, and with twins of his own. It was hard for Midnight to reconcile all he’d missed. At times it seemed as though he’d just fallen asleep for a moment. He might believe it if he didn’t recall every minute he had dwelt in his own personal purgatory as well. If only he could remember the Trueblood responsible. So he would know who to kill.
He leapt off the wall and strode back to the adobe apartments that held the others. Wyley landed on the ground beside him, trying to keep up. “If you’re going, I was wondering if I could come along. Jasyn promised to introduce me to the European Alpha, and the more I hear about those Shadow Wolves, the more I think my claws could be put to better use than they would around here.”
Midnight shrugged. “It’s up to you. Are you the Alpha of your people?”
Wyley shrugged. “My people never really cottoned to that kind of power structure. They came here to get away from the rules and ingrained instincts that shaped them. But I do most of the trading in town, and break up the scuffles during mating season. I guess I’m as close to an Alpha as we have. But don’t underestimate Amy. That female is tough as nails if you get out of line.”
His smile was disarming, but Midnight had a feeling the Were’s western charm was not entirely genuine. He was too wary of the Cursed One. Still, he’d never sensed any malice from these Weres. In fact, in a way they’d been a comfort to him all these years. He nodded. “Come. But do not underestimate the Shadow’s abilities. They are not as vulnerable as they seem.”
He rubbed his neck, knowing the marks were still there, but fading rapidly. The Shadow Wolves. Lizbeth’s belief that they were extinct was false, he knew. Her experiences with the psychotic
Grey Wolf and Gyvain, both dead, had led her to believe that the others had scattered to the winds. He knew better. They may not be around in the numbers they’d had before, but there were enough to cause significant damage.
Look at what a single Shadow had accomplished. Grey Wolf had taken Sebastian’s weakness and used it toward his own ends. They’d killed Malcolm and made it look like a random Were attack. Not Shadow. Not the purpose driven murder it was. He felt no sorrow for Sebastian’s death. His younger brother had finally gotten what he wanted when he became the heir of the Elder Abaddon. Midnight’s only regret was that he hadn’t been the one to kill his power hungry younger brother.
“Well, that settles it. I’m coming with you. But I can’t go around calling you Cursed One all the time. It seems rude now that we’ve bonded. Would you mind if I called you Marcus?”
“Midnight. My name is Midnight.” He couldn’t think of himself as Marcus Abaddon. That naïve Trueblood had allowed hundreds of years, his family, his entire life to be stolen right out from under him.
Marcus was dead. Long live Midnight Fog.
The headache was finally gone. Liz felt normal again. As normal as she could under the circumstances. It didn’t make any sense. None of it. Why wouldn’t Malcolm have told her he had another brother? A twin? Liz thought of all the opportunities he’d had from the moment he’d first introduced her to Sebastian and Sari, to the evening she’d woke to find him dead in the kitchen. They’d shared everything. There was no being, human or other, on the planet who’d known more about her.
“Until now.”
She ignored Midnight’s intrusion, but knew he was right. Regina hadn’t been exaggerating. Not just about the heightened senses, but about the connection as well. She’d created Unborns, shared blood with lovers, with her husband Malcolm, himself a Trueblood, but it had never been like this. This intimate. This complete.
He knew how she’d struggled after her father had put her out with only the clothes on her back. The nights of hunger. The things she’d done for a warm place to sleep. For a plate of food.
She’d made her way to London, looking for a new life, but it had been harder than she’d thought. No one had cared. No one had seen her. Except for the filthy men with rotting teeth and jangling pockets who had wanted a quick toss in the corner.
The irony of her fate wasn’t lost on her. She’d been innocent of the accusations her father had laid at her feet. She’d been a good girl, stubborn and more opinionated than most, but still a good girl. Then, because she’d been left with no choice, she’d become the whore he’d always imagined she was. She could never go back home.
Her life had stretched out before her. Too short, filled with pain and humiliation and an early grave. Until one unbearably cold night, yet another spent on the dark, stench filled streets that she’d seen him.
Her first vampire.
Long hair so blond it had seemed white in the moonlight. Tall and broad shouldered with smooth, glowing skin unmarred by pox or scar. His glinting amber gaze that had trained on her when she rounded the corner the instant before he had bitten into the throat of another working woman, moaning at the taste of her blood.
He’d had fangs. Sharp, white fangs that had slid into the woman’s rough flesh as though it were cream. She had watched as his other hand disappeared beneath the whore’s skirts, his arm pumping in time to her sounds of pleasure. Pleasure?
She’d heard of creatures like this. Monsters that hid behind a beautiful façade. Demons who seduced you, beguiled you with their soft words and irresistible touch. Who only killed when their victims had reached the heights of satisfaction.
They were stories told to children to scare them into staying close to home. But Elizabeth had been more fascinated than afraid. The power rolling off him had been seductive. Would that she had that power. Over life. Over death itself. She would never have to suffer again.
When the body in his embrace had gone limp, he’d dropped it to the cobbled streets without sparing it a glance. As he had strode toward her, blood dripping down his chin, she’d realized for the first time that she was in jeopardy. He had been coming for her. For a moment she had been tempted to let him take her. To feel pleasure in her final moments. To feel something other than cold and hunger.
Her instinct to survive had reared its head at the last moment, and she’d turned to run, only to find her way blocked by a pair of strong arms.
“She isn’t for you. Clean up your mess before I take up your new hobby with the Clan Trust. And never let me catch you harming an innocent again.”
“An innocent? What, Malcolm? Have you taken to roaming the streets like some avenging angel? The war is over my friend. Life is sweet. You have all the others bowing and scraping, but do not pretend heroics with me. We both know you’re partial to redheads.” The creature had laughed. “Must run in the family.”
Elizabeth had heard him walk away, her heart pounding in her throat. Was this another then? She took a fortifying breath, lifting her chin to face her savior, or her end, as bravely as she could.
Angel indeed. The most beautiful man she’d ever seen. Dark hair and long lashed eyes swirling with unusual blue and purple hues. He’d studied her intently, as though looking for some answer in her eyes. And then he’d smiled. “You’re safe with me. Come, it’s a cold night. Food and drink will warm you.”
“Will’na ye bite me, then?”
His smile had grown at her thick accent. “Not tonight, lass. And when I do, it won’t be like that.” He had gestured to the pool of blood left behind on the ground. He’d wrapped one arm around her shoulder and led her to the nearest pub, finding a seat near the fire, and had ordered enough food to feed all five of her brothers.
She’d fallen a little in love with him that night. The man with the beautiful face and tender heart. He’d told her more than she ever wanted to know about vampires, werewolves and war. He never held back the truth from her, even when she didn’t want to hear it. He’d married her and lived with her for a few, short, blissful years.
Liz came back to the present with a heavy heart. But he’d never told her about the brother he’d lost. The brother who was her true blood mate. Another Abaddon. The Mother was surely having a laugh at her expense. But she couldn’t deny that the knowledge had hurt her, confused her on so many levels that she had to run. Mal, you should have told me.
Nothing. He was no longer the voice in her head. No longer her silent cheerleader. The last remnant of the man who’d saved her from the untenable life she would have led back then, a woman alone, was gone.
She felt her mate’s sadness when he thought of Malcolm. The brother he’d been so close to, lost to him before he could tell him why he’d been so distant. Why he’d pulled away. She couldn’t help but admire the sacrifices Midnight had made to protect his brother. The memories were murky, unclear, about how he was taken, and why. But the love he felt for Malcolm had shone through the darkness. Along with his feelings for her. His blood mate.
Not Unborn now but Trueblood. For so long Liz had defined herself as an outcast. The founder of the Deva Clan and hater of all things Trueblood. And then her Gypsy had joined with a Sariel, and Lux had come back into her life. The Priestess Glynn Magriel had lost sleep working to save Nicolette. All of them holding pieces of her heart. All of them Truebloods.
And now so was she.
She’d had to leave when she’d woken up beside the unconscious Midnight. Had to think. But most of all, she had to see Nicolette and discover why this had happened. What secret was so important that it had to be kept at this cost?
The pub was finally in view. Haven. She should have been here sooner, but she’d needed to think. The evening was in full swing inside. She could hear the music, the breathing of more than eighty beings, vampire and human. Their world had continued as it always had, even though hers had been irrevocably changed. She stopped for a moment in the alley, trying to slow her racing heart. She knew more, could feel more than she
ever had before. The world was brighter, sounds intensified, and her instincts had never been sharper.
This morning she’d seen daylight. Through the tinted window of her plane and the sunglasses she’d never had the need for until today. Midnight was older than Zander or Lux, as old and powerful as Malcolm had been.
There were times Mal would leave their bed to watch the sunrise, watch the humans starting their world turning. He’d tell her that, apart from being with her, it was his favorite thing to do. The dawn had been beautiful. And strange. Luckily she’d landed and found shelter before the full heat of the day. But after all this time in the darkness, the light was breathtaking.
Gripping her knapsack in trembling hands, she headed toward the sign, red lion rampant and the words Ye Olde Haven Pub etched upon it. Liz took a deep breath and pushed open the doors.
The music was loud. Bodies writhing on the small dance floor while the crowded leather booths filled with whispered conversations. Conversations that began to lessen as Truebloods who recognized the Deva Clan leader looked her way. They could sense the difference in her, and she wasn’t sure who was more shocked, her or them. In moments all gazes were turned her way, some smiling in malicious delight, others with eyebrows lifted to their hairline at this stunning turn of events. This was ridiculous.
She planted her hands on her hips and stared them all down. “Yes, yes, it’s very exciting. Another Deva bites the dust. Pureness triumphs and all is right with the world. Gossip about it while I’m gone, there’s a good group of bloodsuckers.” She turned and plowed forward to the door leading up to the lofts above, Midnight’s laughter ringing in her ears.
“My woman.”
He sounded proud of her. Not embarrassed by the scene she just made in front of the other Truebloods. She’d tried hard to keep her head down when she was with Malcolm, to be a good wife to him, but she knew the mere fact of her existence made life difficult for him with his people.
“I cannot speak for my brother, but why would I be embarrassed, wildcat? You are mine. My lover. My grathita. I am the envy of all the bloodsuckers.” He chuckled again, using her word for the vampires muttering behind her. “You are running out of time to prepare for me, my love. I’ve almost arrived.”
Midnight Falls: Children of the Goddess, Book 4 Page 10
