by Aja James
He thought back to the night he committed the deed.
“After I had almost killed Ryu, I felt her power over me receding. Perhaps she’d used all of her strength to command me one last time. Perhaps I managed to override her residual directive to stay my hand. I had never succeeded in getting the dagger close to my heart in the instances that I had tried to sever our Bond over many millennia. But that night, after seeing Grace Darling attacked, my men destroyed, I took a chance. It worked.”
“But you could have died!” Clara exclaimed, unconsciously taking his hand in both of hers and squeezing tightly as if she were trying to squeeze some sense into him, or to keep him with her as long as she could.
Because, the more he revealed about his past, the further he seemed to pull away from her, even though his physical self had not moved.
He looked at his hand in hers wonderingly, as if he was surprised to see her holding him after he’d shown her all of his ugliness, his irredeemable sins.
“When you have existed as long as I have, done the things I have done, is it not better to remove yourself from the cycle of life? I may have only watched over a handful of people impacted by Anunit’s plans, by my actions, but I have come to understand that there are countless others who have suffered just as much, if not more. I don’t…care for those people; I don’t know them. But I don’t want to be the weapon to cause them pain anymore.”
He quirked up one corner of his lips in the humorless mocking smile he always used to do before he’d forgotten who he was, and met Clara’s gaze.
“I should never have been born—a blade that doesn’t want to cut. Perhaps this is why I was never given a name.”
She held his gaze and searched his eyes with her true blue sapphire orbs, shimmering like the starlit seas in an endless night.
“You have a name. You’re Eli,” she told him quietly.
You’re mine.
He heard the words she thought in her mind, throbbing fiercely within her heart, as clearly as if she’d shouted them out loud.
He didn’t understand why she still wanted to claim him, after everything he’d told her. Perhaps in the light of day she’d come to her senses and order him gone, disgusted with the monster she’d let into her life. Fed, cleaned and dressed like someone precious.
But right now, tonight, in the last hours before dawn would break, he’d give everything, do anything, to be hers.
Slowly, as if she was afraid of startling him, she moved closer and came astride his lap. She hugged him with all of her limbs and buried her face in the crook of his neck, inhaling deeply, as if she wanted to drug herself with his scent.
“My Eli,” she murmured against his throat, placing a soft kiss there.
He held utterly still, absorbing the affection and benediction she radiated like a thirsty sponge. Perhaps the warmth of her body, the sweetness of her breath, the desire in her touch, were merely an illusion. For how could she want him knowing what he was? All the violence he’d committed for inglorious ends?
Her lips nibbled a path from his jaw to his cheeks and hovered a hair’s breadth away from his own.
“Your past does not define who you are, Eli,” she whispered against his mouth. The palm of one hand cupped his cheek while she pressed the other over his beleaguered heart.
“You still have the present and an uncharted future. I have seen the real you in the past couple of weeks, unburdened by birth, by title, by experience and expectations.”
She kissed him softly, tender presses upon his closed mouth. He felt the heat of her desire, but he also felt her understanding, compassion and care.
“You gave yourself a name, and it is a good one. You traced your steps here, to me and Annie. This is where you belong. In our hearts. This is who you are—the man I love.”
A shuddering sigh filled his chest as he opened his lips beneath hers, simply breathing her in.
Love me, he invited. Even though I don’t deserve it. Even though I’m afraid to accept it. I can’t stop myself from wanting it with every piece of my blackened soul.
She wet his lips with hers and swept her tongue inside, plundering all he had to offer, staking her claim.
You’re mine, her mouth said. Love is a gift given freely, and I want to give you all the love in my heart.
Slowly and deeply she kissed him, coaxing him to kiss her back, encouraging him to claim her just as she was claiming him. Endlessly, their mouths fused, their tongues tangled, their lips swollen with an insatiable, ravenous hunger to kiss and suck and drink and lap.
She pulled slightly away to murmur into his mouth, “This would be a good time to disappear our clothes like you did last time, ‘Lord Wind’.”
In an instant, her request was granted, their clothes fluttering in a soft heap at the foot of the bed. They moaned at the same time as their hot flesh collided against each other, her curves fitting his angles to seamless perfection.
“How do you do that?” she gasped, rubbing herself needfully along his torso, dragging the tips of her sensitive breasts over his hard, muscled chest; her soft stomach, over the steely bars of his abdomen.
“Everything contains air,” he answered seriously, “I have the ability to break matter into their components and harness the air in all things to move them, form and reform them at will.”
“Show me,” she urged, staring deeply into his eyes, “I want every part of you to be with every part of me.”
He understood what she was asking. She wanted to join with him at the most elemental level. Beyond their corporeal forms. Without barrier.
He’d never attempted to create such a bond with anyone before; the thought had never crossed his mind, given that aside from Anunit, his whole life had been about isolating himself rather than connecting with others.
Now, as Clara suggested it, he wanted it more than anything. He wanted to absorb all of Clara inside of him, and he wanted all of himself to be utterly immersed inside of her.
He concentrated the energy within the air around them at the places where their skin touched and radiated the energy gradually outward to envelop both of their bodies, until they began to shimmer, the lines of their physical forms blurring into the very air they breathed.
Clara gasped as she felt her skin, then muscles and bones, become engulfed in the most amazing, brilliant heat, as if the sun were rising inside of her. Everywhere the heat extended, it felt as if every cell was being licked by flames of ecstasy, until every molecule throbbed with desire, pulsing with a sizzling euphoria.
Clara.
She heard Eli’s voice calling her name, as his own molecules fused with hers, penetrating her everywhere, consuming everything, and she penetrated him in turn, voraciously marking all of him, filling every crevice, no matter how deep and hidden, with her love.
Suddenly, her eyes no longer saw the darkness of her apartment, but the lush green paradise of her dreams. In this dream world, she was still in her physical form, and Eli was in his, both of them naked and entwined upon the soft mossy grass.
Where is this place? He asked her in his mind. How did you bring me here?
It’s my home, she answered him. The home in my heart. It’s where I feel most myself, unfettered, powerful and free.
Show me, he urged, raising his hips to plow deeper into her secret core.
She took his mouth in a hungry kiss and clutched him tighter within her body. Slowly, she breathed between his open lips, as if fanning the flames of their desire.
But then the flames became real, white hot searing pleasure, spreading from their locked lips to their necks, torsos, limbs, to coalesce in a blazing conflagration where she held him deeply inside her body.
He was the air that breathed life into her fire; she was the spark that lit up his soul.
A blinding white light shot through her eyes as her dream world receded and her body erupted in flames. She felt their souls ascending higher and higher without the constraints of their corporeal forms, and the heat between t
hem, all around them, throbbed with a burgeoning pressure, until finally, they imploded together in an orgasmic inferno so hot and bright the entire apartment flashed with incandescent light.
Slowly, softly, like stardust from the heavens sprinkling down to earth, they reformed into their physical selves, clutching each other tightly, his sex pulsing deep and hard inside of her, both their bodies shaking with the aftershocks of their transcendence.
For long, long moments, they focused on simply breathing, carefully drawing oxygen into their lungs. Clara felt like every one of her cells at the molecular level had had their own orgasmic explosions, one after another in an endless string of fireworks, and were still pinging around in her body, drunk on ecstasy.
“That was…” she trailed off, struggling to form coherent thought, much less speech.
She had no words to describe what that was. The last time they’d made love he’d given her the very first full-bodied orgasm. And now…this was a full-cellular orgasm.
And more than that, she felt as if she now carried him inside of her, merged into every fiber of her being, even her dreams, just as he carried her inextricably inside of him.
Exhausted and replete, she closed her eyes, lying bonelessly on top of him.
Love you, she thought as sleep covered them both like a warm, soft blanket.
Tomorrow, they would begin anew, she thought with a smile. Eli, Annie, and her.
But Fate had other plans.
Chapter Sixteen
A bloodied and wearied Hunter and Assassin returned to the Cove to debrief with the rest of the Chosen.
Fortunately, none of the blood was theirs.
That wasn’t to say that the fight clubs on the outskirts of the City had been easy to disband. Some had even spread across the Hudson to New Jersey. Hungry vampires frenzied by bloodlust didn’t make for the most focused fighters, but their amped up adrenaline and strength in numbers as they crowded in packs gave them an edge.
Devlin had had his hands full, literally—one hand gripping the throat of a hissing bloodsucker, the other slashing through another vampire with his saber—when Ryu arrived as reinforcement, answering the emergency call from Maximus.
Devlin had sent him a wry look of relief when the Ninja joined the fray. For, while the Hunter’s fighting prowess was formidable, he was only two-hundred-thirty years old, the youngest member of the Chosen and therefore the weakest.
And besides, he hadn’t gone through the ruthless training of a shadow assassin.
Together, they quickly and efficiently turned the rest of the maniacal Horde into dust, but there was nothing they could do about the blood-drained human bodies and torn and shredded body parts that littered the dead end alley of this particular impromptu fight club. Police sirens were a mere couple of blocks away. They didn’t have time for cleanup.
Maximus would have to deal with questions from law enforcement and rabid journalists later.
“You must teach me more of those moves, Senpai,” Devlin lobbed at his friend and comrade as he ducked into his awaiting Bugatti Veyron while Ryu mounted his Kawasaki Ninja.
Ryu gave a two fingered salute and gunned the engine, speeding back to base.
He wanted to get the team huddle out of the way and return to Ava and Kane ASAP. His mind was still reeling from the encounter at the restaurant.
The debrief was thankfully swift and to the point: Grace uncovered the weapons facility’s location and was currently scoping the area for number of foes and other potential threats. Ryu was tasked with eliminating all traces of research related to the “vampire killer” tomorrow night while the rest of the team focused on other pressing missions, including a new to-do for Maximus to handle damage control with human law enforcement agencies.
Once back at his private residence, Ryu cleaned up quickly before easing into bed with Ava, just before dawn.
She rolled into his body immediately, instinctively seeking his warmth.
“Everything okay?” she murmured drowsily.
“Yes, go back to sleep.” He kissed the top of her head and held her close.
She stirred a little and nuzzled his sternum.
“Do you want to talk about what happened earlier?”
“No.”
“He doesn’t look like the same male I met in Japan,” she ventured, knowing that he didn’t like discussing his sire, and she was continuing a line of thought he’d already shut down.
Ryu didn’t reply.
It was true. Though his instincts and past memories had spiked his adrenaline to aggress on the Master, and the Master had responded in kind, the confrontation hadn’t been about two males fighting for supremacy.
Both of them had been protecting their females. Their innocents.
Ryu recognized that now, as he thought back to how the Master’s body had radiated a defensive tension; his posture had been about countering moves rather than initiating attack.
Then again, each of the times Ryu had challenged the Master to the death, he’d always made the first move. The only time the Master had stuck first, and mortally wounding him, had been at the lighthouse in Japan a year and a half ago.
Had the Master truly changed? Could someone fundamentally change? Or was it more that people remained ever the same, but different contexts revealed and enhanced different facets of the same crystal?
“Ryu?” Ava murmured sleepily.
“Sleep, little bumble bee,” he coaxed, pulling her fully into his embrace, languidly filling her body with his.
She sighed in contentment and clasped him tight, smiling at his special endearment just for her. Because every time he said it, what she heard was I love you.
*** *** *** ***
The next afternoon, Annie looked up at Clara with questioning eyes as they walked hand in hand from the subway station to the psychotherapist’s office where Clara had booked an appointment with a Dr. Erena Marion, the specialist recommended by Annie’s pediatrician.
“Eli couldn’t come out with us, but he’s just fine, don’t worry,” Clara reassured the little girl, correctly interpreting her look.
“He’s just exhausted, that’s all. He needs a lot of rest.”
He ought to be exhausted anyway, and so was she, given that they’d literally combusted in a ball of flame last night and put themselves back together one molecule at a time.
Good Lord!
Talk about an incinerating climax! Her blood was still sizzling in her veins, her skin tingling with pleasure, even twelve hours after the fact.
If you broke your body down into its individual parts at a cellular level and every cell had its own orgasm, did that count as one giant orgasm or an infinity of orgasms rolled into one?
Whatever it was, the man deserved his rest!
Or vampire, rather. Shadow warrior?
Clara didn’t know what to call Eli. She smiled to herself. It honestly didn’t matter.
Annie continued to look up at Clara, and now a small frown scrunched up her brows as she watched a deep red flush bloom all across Clara’s skin, highlighting her freckles like a rash of stars, wherever it was revealed by the light maxi dress she wore.
Clara cleared her throat. “We’ll see him when we get home,” she said, “he’ll wake up by nightfall.”
Annie eyed her dubiously, but was distracted from further silent interrogation when they mounted the steps of the therapist’s office.
The interior of the office looked like any other doctor’s office that Clara had visited. More therapist than doctor, she supposed, without the antiseptic smell of hospitals.
They seemed to be the only patients visiting at this time, perhaps because it was almost five PM on a Friday. There was no receptionist, but forms on clipboards had been conveniently laid out.
A minute after Clara signed them in and filled out the paperwork, a pretty Asian woman came out of a side door to guide them to the therapist’s office in the back of the building.
Used to taking things in with a brief
glance and remembering them with perfect detail, Clara noticed a small flower tattoo on the woman’s forehead, as well as the fact that when she moved, the small bells around one ankle made delicate tinkles like distant wind chimes.
How lovely, Clara thought.
When they entered the spacious office, the therapist was sitting behind a mahogany desk, making notes in a journal, a pair of designer glasses perched on her nose.
Clara took a few seconds to survey her surroundings.
The office was well lit by two tall windows and bright overhead lights. It was tastefully decorated to look like a private residence’s study or library; relaxed and comfortable, in other words.
Strangely, no diplomas or certifications were mounted on the walls, as most professional offices would have. The desk behind which the therapist sat didn’t even have a name plate to proclaim that this was her space.
Maybe this was a temporary office, or she was sharing it with someone else, or she just moved in?
But the questions evaporated from Clara’s mind when Dr. Marion raised her head and smiled in greeting.
Clara had never seen a woman so mesmerizingly beautiful before.
Long, wavy dark hair pulled back in a loose braid. Pale, translucent, flawless skin. Large black eyes fringed with thick, long lashes, and a full, moist red mouth, all framed in an angular face with a pointed chin. The woman brought to mind the painting Prosperine by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
Except a thousand times more enchanting.
“How do you do, Ms. Scott,” the uncannily gorgeous creature said in a haunting voice, rising and coming forth to greet her.
She was quite tall, possibly over six feet, even in flats. And now that she stood and revealed her figure, Clara noticed her rather flat chest and narrow hips.
Was that an Adam’s apple bobbing in Dr. Marion’s throat?
Without the hair, the outrageously long eyelashes, and the feminine style of her clothes, she could have passed for a man, albeit a very lovely one.
“And this must be Annie.”
Her voice was also deeper than the average woman, with both a feminine and a masculine undertone.
