Blood Red Kiss

by Kresley Cole

  Hunter nodded as he shoved his bone-handled blade into the sheath at his hip. “I believed you when you told me. I just had to make sure my clan believed it too.”

  Well, that would have been good to know. Hunter had changed, but he was still a bit of a dick.

  “Before Kars shot her, she talked about a mutual friend.” Lobo did a quick distance check to make sure no one was within earshot or listening, but lowered his voice anyway. “Hunter, I think you have another traitor in your ranks.”

  “I know.” Hunter met his gaze, and in the depths of his dark, intelligent eyes, Lobo was stunned to see a spark of respect. “Thank you. Both of you.” He bent to pet Tehya, his hand smoothing over her sleek head. “Maybe Nicole or our other mystic-keeper can find a way to turn her back. You’re both welcome at MoonBound.” He straightened. “Permanently, if you want.”

  Tehya took off, ears up and tail erect, which meant she was after a rabbit or a squirrel. He smiled, but his heart wept. This wasn’t right. How could he have found the female of his dreams—literally—only to have her gone so soon? How could he go back to the way things had been, knowing that the vampire he loved was trapped in another body?

  “Yeah,” he rasped. “I’ll bring Tehya in tomorrow.”

  Hunter gripped his shoulder and shook him a little. “Hey. Listen . . . Nicole will figure it out. And when Tehya turns back, there will be no repercussions for mating her.”

  Lobo blinked, unsure he’d just heard that right. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean just what I said to Kars. Things are changing, Lobo. The vampire race is evolving, and our laws and customs need to evolve with it.”

  “Damn,” Lobo said under his breath, unable to believe this was the son of one of the most brutal clan leaders in the vampire race’s history. “You’re not the male I remember.”

  “Yeah, well, I can’t take all the credit.” Hunter dragged his hand through his hair and gazed longingly in the direction of home. “I have a mate who has some experience with animal-based abilities, and she sort of led me to some revelations.”

  Lobo thought of Tehya and nodded slowly. “I know what you mean.”

  “Come on,” Hunter said. “Let’s go home.”

  Lobo’s heart turned inside out, because, yes, he had a home. And he had Tehya. But it was no longer the same.

  It would never be the same again.

  11

  Tehya woke to the sound of Lobo building a fire. She watched him as she always had, from her rug near the door, but this morning something was different. It was the way he was moving. Instead of his usual brisk, sure movements, he was slow. Mechanical. As if he was going through the motions.

  How long had it been now since she’d turned back into a wolf? A couple of weeks, she thought. A couple of weeks of daily treks to MoonBound so she could be poked, prodded, dosed with strange herbs, and subjected to bizarre chants. She was starting to lose her patience with it all, had even snarled at the mystic-keeper a couple of times. But, damn it, she wanted to be a vampire again, and nothing was working. She was frustrated and angry and on the verge of giving up hope.

  Maybe Lobo was feeling the same way.

  She nudged his arm as he crouched in front of the woodstove, forcing him to acknowledge her. But when he looked at her, the sadness in his eyes broke her heart.

  “I know you’re in there, Tehya,” he said roughly. “I know you can understand me. And I know I shouldn’t say this because you can’t help it, but I miss you.” He took a deep, shuddering breath, and when he spoke again, his voice dripped with pain she felt all the way to her soul. “And you know what I think? I think taking you to MoonBound after you were shot wasn’t as much about saving your life as it was about saving mine.” He gripped her by her scruff and buried his face in her neck, his big body trembling as he held her.

  She whimpered, sensing his distress as if it were her own. Probably because it was.

  “Fuck,” he whispered. “I can’t do this.”

  Abruptly he was on his feet and out the door, slamming it closed behind him.

  And on the floor, in a tiny little puddle, was a single teardrop.

  Lobo was hurting, and she couldn’t do anything about it. Her presence was probably making it worse. She was a constant reminder of what they could have had.

  Sitting down, she howled, letting out her own pain in the only way she could. A few weeks ago she’d been content as a wolf. She hadn’t known how to live as a vampire, and she had nothing to go back to in her human life. Not that she could go back. Kristen Parker was probably listed as missing or presumed dead, and if she returned as a vampire, she’d either be killed or enslaved. So, yes, she’d been content as a wolf. Happy, even. She hadn’t wanted to shift back.

  But now . . . now she wanted to be a vampire. She wanted Lobo.

  Her eyes stung and her vision blurred as tears threatened to spill.

  Wolves don’t cry.

  She froze mid-howl as a warm tingle spread through her body. Both times when she’d turned into a wolf, she’d gotten tingles, but they’d been cold, as if she were being stabbed with millions of icy needles. She still wasn’t sure how exactly she’d made the shift happen, but the same pull was tugging at her now. All she had to do was reach out and take it.

  Take it.

  No!

  Panic reached up and seized her by the throat, and it made no sense. She wanted to be a vampire. She did. She’d have responsibilities, relationships, love.

  And pain. People die.

  She didn’t want to think about that. Didn’t want to admit that maybe part of the reason she’d been content to be a wolf was that she didn’t have to deal with the death of her mother, the only family she had. As a wolf, her human/vampire emotions and memories had been dulled, and it had worked for her for a long time. But now she had a family again, and something to run to instead of from.

  And she had someone to run with.

  The thought of Lobo made her heart beat faster, and then she was through with the second-guessing. She surrendered to the pull, surrendered to the pain of the shift, and a few agonizing seconds later she was standing in the middle of the cabin. On two legs.

  Naked. Why did she keep losing her clothes? Lobo never lost his when he shifted.

  She didn’t bother looking for something to wear. She sprinted to the door and threw it open. Fog and drizzle painted the sky and the landscape beyond the porch in somber colors, but as Lobo wheeled around, his hair whipping across the hard planes of his face, the world got a lot brighter.

  “Tehya.” He stared in astonishment. “What . . . how . . . ?” She threw her arms around him and hugged him so hard he grunted. “Okay,” he wheezed. “Doesn’t matter.”

  She peppered his face and neck with kisses. “I figured it out,” she said between nuzzles and pecks. God, he tasted good. Smelled even better, as if he’d been chopping wood in the rain.

  He eased back and looked down at her, his brows pulled down hard over his eyes. “How?”

  “Once I realized why I couldn’t shift . . . I don’t know, it just happened.” She slid her hand down to his sternum and measured his heartbeat in her palm. It was beating as fast as hers. “It wasn’t a glitch with my breeding or my turning. It was a mental block.”

  “A mental block?”

  “It’s so obvious now.” She was babbling, but she didn’t care. Her body was overflowing with excitement and joy, as if sparkling wine had replaced her blood. “For all of those years, I couldn’t turn back because I didn’t want to. My life was so messed up, and I’d lost everything. What did I have to go back to, you know? I had nothing left to claim as my own.”

  He knew. She saw it in his eyes and the way his throat convulsed on a swallow. “But now you have something to come back to? Something to claim?”

  “Yeah,” she murmured. “This life. You. You’re mine.”

  His grin made her heart soar. “Just promise you won’t pee on me like you do to everything else you consid
er yours.”

  She probably turned a dozen shades of red, but she played it cool. “There are other ways to mark my territory,” she whispered, stretching upward to kiss him.

  She wasn’t a wolf anymore, but she still felt the instinctive desire to claim what was hers, and she made that clear by wedging her hand between them to cup his erection.

  “Oh, thank the Maker,” he breathed. “Finally.” In a smooth, blindingly fast motion, he lifted her onto the corner railing so her spine bit into the post and her legs were hooked over the log rails. The position left her wide open and exposed . . . and wildly turned on as she clung to his broad shoulders while he tore open his jeans.

  His erection sprang free of its denim prison, and her breath caught in her throat. She’d seen him naked hundreds of times, had even seen him aroused and pleasuring himself. But as a wolf, she hadn’t had the same reaction. Not even close.

  Now her mouth watered as he closed his hand around his shaft and stroked from the plump head to the thick base. He watched her with hooded eyes, his scent growing thicker and muskier with every stroke.

  She gripped his powerful shoulders, her nails scoring his skin hard enough to make him hiss, flashing massive, sexy fangs. He pumped his fist more slowly now, teasing her, letting his fingers caress the heavy sack between his legs before dragging his palm back up to swipe his thumb over the crown, catching the silky drop of precum at the tip.

  “You like watching,” he said, his voice vibrating through every one of her erogenous zones and stealing her ability to do anything but nod. A cocky smile tilted one corner of his mouth as he released his erection and lifted her hands from his shoulders to pin them over her head, forcing her to grip the post. Before she could ask what he was doing, he dropped to his knees and buried his face between her legs.

  She cried out at the first probe of his tongue, and when he licked her slowly, sensually, while looking up at her with those smoky eyes, she arched in ecstasy and damned near fell off the railings. Lightning fast but without stopping what he was doing with his tongue, he gripped her butt, lifting and bracing her against the post.

  “Lobo,” she moaned. “Yes . . . right . . . there.” Throwing her head back, she let herself succumb to the sweet sensations of his mouth on her sex, his lips nibbling at her swollen nub and his tongue spearing her aching flesh. She melted against him, and dear God, she was on fire.

  “You taste like honey, Tehya,” he murmured against her. “And apples. I fucking love apples.”

  He eased his finger inside her slick heat and pumped slowly as he kissed her deeply. Intimately. Tremors shook her and a sultry moan rattled her all the way to her core, adding to the amazing sensation whipping her into a frenzy.

  Ecstasy spiraled through her, spinning faster and faster as his clever tongue lapped at her. She was close, so close. . . . He captured her clit and sucked, and she screamed as the orgasm crashed over her. Distantly, she heard the flap of bird wings as the startled creatures flew out of the nearby trees, and then she heard Lobo whispering her name as he came to his feet and stepped between her legs.

  “You’re so beautiful when you come.” His voice was rough, raw, and he was just as rough and raw when he entered her in a single hard thrust.

  He didn’t give her a chance to adjust to his enormous presence or to catch her breath. He braced his hands on the post and pounded into her, his hips slamming against her thighs. The vortex of pleasure and heat spun up again, and she wrapped her arms around him and clung as if she could get even closer.

  “Don’t leave me again,” he said, lowering his lips to hers. “You’re everything to me.”

  He fused his mouth to hers, capturing her moan of acceptance. She wrapped herself tighter around him, stroking his back, reveling in the flex of the hard muscles under his smooth skin. He ground against her, his shaft hitting just the right place, and she came without warning, a sudden, explosive blast that rocked her all the way to her bones.

  She felt Lobo stiffen and jerk reflexively, and a shout tore from his throat as hot jets filled her. His expression . . . ah, damn, she’d never seen anything as amazing as this powerful man locked in the sweet agony of sex. The tendons in his neck strained, the veins next to them pulsed, and her fangs punched down hard.

  “Yes,” he whispered, sensing her need. “Feed.”

  She tapped the back of her fangs with her tongue, a sharp instinct guiding her. During her feverish delirium of transforming from a human into a vampire, she’d scoured the SuperWeb, looking for any information she could find about vampires. She vaguely remembered reading something about glands behind the fangs that produced an agent that made penetration more pleasurable.

  Glands that were harvested from vampires for use as extreme luxury arousal ointments. She shuddered. Humans were horrible. But they were probably onto something, so she’d have to experiment with using her fangs on more sensitive parts of Lobo’s body.

  Later.

  Right now, the vein in his throat was throbbing in a mesmerizing rhythm that made her mouth water. She struck fast, sinking her fangs deep. His groan vibrated against her teeth as she drank, and then he was moving again, his hips pumping even more furiously than before. Hunger and pleasure swamped her, allowing for only a dim awareness that somehow they’d ended up in his bed, and the hand-carved headboard was banging against the log wall.

  They peaked again, this time together. A perfect circuit of sexual energy sizzled through them—she could actually feel what he was feeling, hope, happiness, contentment—and somehow it was all connected inside them both.

  Pleasure and warmth flowed over her for so long that she lost track of time and place. She thought she might have lost consciousness too, but eventually the world came into focus again. She and Lobo were tangled together on the bed. At some point he’d stripped, and now they were skin to skin, and he was still inside her.

  He blinked drowsily and gave her a lopsided smile. “Well,” he said in a raspy, sexy voice. “You marked me, just like you said you would.”

  A drop of blood dripped down his throat, and she gasped in horror. “Oh, shit.” Shoving up on one rubbery arm, she swiped her tongue over the punctures in his neck to heal the wounds. “I’m sorry. Does it hurt? Will it scar?”

  He chuckled, a deep, masculine sound that fired her up all over again. Oh, yes, being a vampire was way better than being a wolf. Well, mostly. There was nothing like running through the forest on four legs and howling into the night.

  The beautiful thing was that now she could play in both worlds.

  “I wasn’t talking about your bite.” He pushed up on one elbow and pointed to some angry raised lines just above the scar from the recent arrow wound.

  Frowning, she traced the contours of the design with her finger. What the heck was it? A leaf? No . . . a feather. “I don’t understand.”

  He captured her hand, bringing it to his mouth to kiss her knuckles. “It’s a mate mark. According to legend, it appears when a match is approved by the gods.” He winked. “Or something like that.”

  She wasn’t sure she believed his legend, but she couldn’t deny that it sounded wonderful. “What does that mean exactly?”

  “It means I’m yours,” he said, pulling her on top of him and tucking her head against his chest. “My precious Tehya. You’ve saved my life in so many ways.”

  And he’d done the same for her . . . so many times.

  12

  Are you sure about this?”

  Lobo grinned at Tehya as they stood, completely naked, at the top of a ridge that overlooked the forest that was their home. Their own personal playground.

  Sure, they’d begun to consider MoonBound their home as well, especially now that Tehya worked there a few days a week as the clan’s resident dentist and Lobo served on Hunter’s advisory committee. He’d been accepted into the fold—not just accepted, but welcomed. There were a few holdouts, older members who eyed Lobo with distrust; but Hunter was sure that a war with the humans was
coming, and someone with Lobo’s abilities could only be an asset.

  Hunter was definitely not his father.

  But as happy as Lobo was to finally be a real part of a community, he also recognized that at heart he was a loner, content to dedicate the majority of his time to Tehya—and soon, he hoped, their growing family.

  “Absolutely,” he replied. “I want our children to share our gifts. That is the only way to ensure it happens.”

  She worried her bottom lip between her teeth for a moment. “And you really think skinwalkers will be accepted in the future?”

  “Times are changing, Tehya.”

  Hell, they were changing faster than he could ever have predicted. The more the clans came together under Hunter’s vision, the less important their differences became. The common enemy was the human race, and vampires could no longer afford to fight over ideology, prejudices, or ancient grievances.

  “Okay,” she said breathily, “let’s do it.” She shot him a playful wink, and then she was off and running, shifting gracefully as she went.

  Son of a bitch. How did she do that? She had far less practice than he had, but she could shift much more quickly, and she could do it on the run without missing a step. Nicole suspected it had something to do with the fact that less of Tehya’s energy was spent on the transformation because she could shift only into one species, while he could morph into almost any land mammal of somewhat similar size. A brown bear pushed the very top of his limits, while a large coyote was at the bottom. In her dry, scientific way, Nicole had explained the role of checks and balances in nature, but what it boiled down to was that Tehya always got a head start when they went for their runs.

  He’d catch her, though, and this time when he did—

  He growled in anticipation as he completed his shift. Throwing his head back, he howled through the last of the pain, sending Tehya a message.

  I’m coming.

  Pulse pounding, he raced after her, ears flat, his claws digging into the soft earth with every bounding leap. He caught glimpses of her silver fur weaving through the vegetation in the distance, moving fast. She was running full-out, making him work for this.