by C. A. Worley
Eden broke the skin and Viktor’s fingers dug into her ribs. He was probably bruising her. He’d never been bitten before and struggled with his response to it. He remained taut, trying to stop himself from climaxing before he’d even fully entered her body.
The small amount of blood she ingested affected her greatly. His little mate keened and cried, working her hips to get more of him inside her as she licked at his shoulder, which was already healing. He didn’t know how he was able to deny the urge to yank her down hard onto his cock.
“Lift your hand, Eden.”
She disregarded his command, continuing her quest for more of him. She really was perfect. Viktor loved how needy she was, but he required her attention. He would not force their hands to touch. It had to be her choice.
His iron grip stilled her hips.
“Please don’t stop,” Eden pouted.
“Eden. Lift your hand.”
Once his words registered she opened her eyes. Viktor’s left hand was lifted out of the water, his palm facing her. There was no reluctance in her movement, as she reached up to join her cicatrice to his.
The power of their hands finally coming together rocked through both their bodies. Unimaginable bliss filled their souls. It was as pure as it was magnificent.
Unable to hold back any longer, Viktor ported them to the bed and drove his cock inside the rest of the way. Eden shrieked, coming so hard around him she drew out his seed.
Viktor forcefully turned her head and struck hard, suckling on the divine lifeforce of his mate. His chest rumbled with possessiveness as he thrust into her heat, launching her into another orgasm.
He drank until he’d emptied the last drop of himself deep inside her tight channel. He licked the puncture marks, using his saliva’s healing power to close them. Prajna healed quickly, so he’d never had to perform the act on another. He would gladly lick Eden’s wounds daily, and then some.
Viktor put his forehead to hers, listening to her erratic breathing, feeling for the bond. It was like a thread tethering her to him. It wasn’t visible, but he could feel it. Strong and true, it would tie them together for eternity. Only death could sever it.
“How do you feel, moj vestica?” My witch, because now she was truly his.
“I—I don’t know if I have a word for it.”
He smiled against her skin, in total agreement. There was no word for it.
“Are you sore?” he asked, lifting his head enough so he could gage her emotions.
“Surprisingly, no. I feel good. Wonderful, actually. At least, in the physical sense.”
Eden had always presumed sex would be painful, more an obligatory experience to be endured than the fevered whirlwind she’d just experienced.
Viktor kissed her throat and licked the shell of her ear, making her squirm. His cock flexed in response. He wanted to ask her about the bond, to know exactly what she felt, but he was still cocooned inside her slick heat—his new favorite place to be.
“We have things to discuss, but I cannot concentrate in this position,” he admitted, nestling his face into the crook of her neck.
She couldn’t see it, but she could feel her soul touching his. She wondered if they weren’t physically touching, if it would still feel the same. She did not ever want to lose the sense they were connected so completely.
Stranger or not, she was his and he was hers. Their joining had been centuries in the making. If the rest of their lives together was a fraction as wonderful as their coupling, Eden would thank the Goddess every day for such a blessing.
Eden was quite comfortable where she was, delighting in the feel of his weight on top of her. But Viktor was right, they did need to talk. Despite being bonded, they knew hardly anything about one another.
Plus, Eden had questions. About the bond. About her role in Prajna. Would he be willing to do a binding ceremony, as Nora and Kellan had? They were soul-bonded together for eternity, so he may feel a ceremony was unnecessary. The Prajna might not even perform marriage rites.
Despite wanting to stay exactly as they were, she offered a more practical option.
“Do you want to get up? We can go over by the fire again.”
“No, Eden,” he murmured, nipping her shoulder. “I do not want to go over by the fire.”
“Then what do you want?”
Viktor rolled his hips, effectively ending the conversation. He fully intended to keep her in their bed until morning.
Chapter 14
The ocean breeze brushed gently across Eden’s skin, moving stray hairs that tickled her face. Viktor had opened the large doors to cool the room shortly before they fell asleep.
She struggled to open her eyes, fighting fatigue. Viktor made love to her long into the night, insatiable in his lust. She had been just as hungry for him, matching his appetite until she could no longer move.
After sating themselves during their initial frenzy, they lost some of the tumultuous rush they’d experienced prior to completing the soul-bond. Eden had been just as turned on, but she had a handle on her mind. She was able to appreciate every kiss, every touch, every murmur of affection.
Sometimes Viktor was demanding. Other times he was gentle, treating her how she imagined a female would be treated by her beloved. She enjoyed both sides of him and wanted to relive every moment.
Eden snuggled closer into Viktor’s side, inhaling and sighing contentedly. His spicy scent was an aphrodisiac to her. She couldn’t help but slip one leg over his, rubbing it up and down his long limb.
“My sieva awakes in the most wonderful of ways,” he said, his voice grumbly, still edged with sleepiness.
Eden kissed his chest and finally pried open her eyes. His were glowing brightly, watching her fixedly.
“Yes, well, you’ve given me incentive to awake favorably, haven’t you?”
His mouth quirked. “Indeed. Come closer, Sieva.”
Eden laughed. “I’m not sure I can get any closer.”
“I disagree,” he argued, pulling her up his body so he could kiss her mouth.
Eden shifted, covering his body with her own. Her legs bent to plant her knees on the bed. She could feel his hard length as she pressed her hips into his.
He groaned, pushing his tongue into her mouth and wrapping his arms around her back. She was slick, gliding her wetness along his manhood. His hunger for her hadn’t diminished in the slightest.
While the soul-bonding had taken away some of his mental instabilities, it failed miserably in lessening the need to be inside her. From the feel of her, Eden was just as far gone.
He flipped them so she was on her back, pinned beneath his weight. She wiggled under him.
“Patience, Eden.”
Viktor traced his tongue down the column of her throat and across her chest. He swirled it around her nipple before pulling it into his mouth. Eden arched her back and he bit her without breaking the skin.
His right hand slid up the inside of her thigh, towards her center. Viktor grazed his knuckles over her soft vulnerable flesh. Today he was going to spend time tasting her, as he should have done last night.
The bonding had been too frenzied and he’d not allowed his mouth near her mound as he had when he’d broken through her virginal wall in the chair. He didn’t want to remind either of them of his lapse in judgement when he’d ported away.
Viktor was willing to ease her into his more aggressive preferences, but, having experienced her ability to endure his uncompromising desires, he would now put his mouth wherever he pleased.
He continued his path lower, growing more and more impatient by the second. He could smell her sweet nectar. It demanded his full attention.
Viktor lowered his mouth over her cleft and blew hot air across her skin. Eden whimpered and he did it again. He watched her nipples pinch even tighter as goosebumps broke out along her flesh.
He used his thumbs to open her. The sight had him grinding his hips into the bed as he licked long wet swipes up and down the
length of her.
Over and over, he slowly drove her mad. Eden reached down to his head, pulling on his hair.
“More,” she panted.
Viktor rarely allowed a female to dictate when she came, but he wanted her drenched before he entered her channel. He obliged and sucked on her bud.
“More!” she shouted, her climax just out of reach.
“As you wish,” he said, sinking his fangs into the fleshy part of her mound and rapidly flicking his tongue.
Eden screamed, as waves of rapture radiated out through every cell in her body. Her limbs seized, frozen in ecstasy, a tidal wave of decadent palpitations destroying all sense of reality. All she knew was the exploding white light of pleasure.
She was so deep in her haze, she failed to notice Viktor’s movements as he moved slowly up her body. She opened her eyes when she felt his blunt head nudge her opening.
He plunged deep, then held himself still, waiting for her to adjust.
“Kiss me,” she purred.
Viktor growled and crashed his mouth to hers, taking her with abandon. He’d always prided himself on holding out for hours. With Eden, he had to fight it back, as he had when he was first introduced to sex.
Her nails dug into his back as she tightened around him. Unable to hold back, he exploded deep inside his mate, shouting into the pillow next to her head. He continued his thrusts until he’d come to completion.
They remained entwined, panting from exertion. Once he felt her heart return to a normal cadence, he rolled them to the side.
Viktor could smell her exhaustion when he burrowed his face into the back of her neck.
“Sleep, moj vestica,” he said, releasing a little of his power of hypnosis. He would never be able to alter her mind because she was his mate, but he could nudge it a bit.
Her hand squeezed his and she allowed herself to succumb to her fatigue.
* * *
Viktor lifted the tray of food sitting outside the door. Someone had left it a few minutes ago and he was slow to retrieve it. He hadn’t wanted to leave the comfort of their bed, but Eden would be famished when she awoke.
The need to care for her, to see to her wellbeing, was surprising. Viktor had never been the nurturing type. Inexplicably, he wanted her to rely upon him, to count on him for things.
As quietly as he could, he set the tray on the small dining table to the side of the fireplace. His mate was still in a deep sleep and he wanted her to rest peacefully. Judging from the stirrings within his body just from looking at her, she’d need her strength again later.
He was debating the merits of tying Eden to the bed when the fragrance of lilacs wafted into the room. Viktor straightened, irate the female would dare port to his balcony.
“If you’d like to keep your head attached to your shoulders, I suggest you not step one foot inside.”
He turned to see a very irritated Bianca paused in mid step, just beyond the balcony doors. No one was allowed in his private quarters. She knew better than to even consider entering without an invitation.
The female vampire’s eyes flicked to the bed and he stepped into her line of sight, blocking her view of Eden’s sleeping form.
Bianca clucked her tongue. “My word, Viktor, you’ve been busy while I was away.”
He stalked towards the intruder and she quickly retreated to the railing. Though Bianca stood defiant, he could smell her fear. She should fear him. This was a trespass he would not soon forgive.
Viktor looked once more to his sieva to make sure she was still asleep, then gently closed the balcony doors behind him.
“You are very lucky you are Dmitri’s daughter, Bianca. If you were anyone else you’d be dead.”
She smiled seductively, angling her hip in subtle invitation. “Then I suppose it’s a good thing I am so important to you.”
His jaw clenched. She had always been such a spoiled child. She was now over a century old and not much had changed.
“Dmitri was important to me. You are nothing more than an obligation.”
She barely contained the flinch. If he thought her capable of it, he would have interpreted the motion as pain. Recovering fast, her lips pursed and her eyes hardened.
Bianca was not as special as she led herself to believe. Viktor never hid the fact that he fed from and bedded others, that she would never be enough to satiate him. She may have been a highly desirable Prajna, but he’d never intended to treat her as he would a sieva.
He hadn’t bothered to hide his intention to keep the Komora fully stocked after he was wed, not even when Dmitri made his request. Until Eden, he’d never considered himself capable of wanting and keeping only one female.
Viktor was always frank with Bianca, but rarely were his words purposefully cruel. Unfortunately, it seemed she needed to hear them.
If he thought she didn’t know what Eden was to him, he wouldn’t be so hard on her. But Bianca was cunning, and even more vindictive. There was only one reason she would dare to port to his balcony, something he had forbidden the entire kingdom from doing.
Shortly after he’d taken the throne, he had made an oath there would be radical penalties should anyone enter his private quarters who was not welcome. He had been in desperate need of distance from others for quite a long time. Eventually, his solitude became habit.
Content to be alone, he’d never made it known who was welcome, aside from Yuri and the maids. Bianca knew she should not be here. In fact, he’d told her more than once the feeding room was the only place he would tend her.
“What, pray tell, did you hope to accomplish by defying my decree and sneaking into my chamber?”
“I haven’t seen you in weeks. I—I missed you.”
“Right,” he scoffed. “You really thought I would welcome you? Now?”
“I didn’t think I’d be quite so unwelcome.”
She was dancing around the wording of his vow. How clever—and asinine, he mused.
Bianca leaned against the stone railing and shrugged. Her crossed arms amplified her bosom, but, for once, he wasn’t tempted.
She’d always been his favorite plaything, always willing to submit and do anything he asked. He’d thoroughly enjoyed her curves whenever it struck his fancy. One of her best qualities was she never said no, even when he wanted more than one female at once.
Countless times he’d fed from her vein while inside her body—or another’s. He’d been enticed by her white hair, a rarity in the Eastland. She was considered a great beauty among his people.
Standing here, he couldn’t remember why he’d ever believed such a thing, not when perfection was lying under the duvet on his bed.
“Last chance, Bianca. I suggest you be nothing less than honest.”
“Fine,” she huffed. “You sent me off on that ridiculous errand to visit those drab villages. I mean, really, Viktor? They were so … sad. Their inability to reproduce is not my problem. What did you expect me to do? Provide comfort to them? Offer hope of some sort?”
He took a menacing step closer, fisting his hands to keep from encircling her neck and squeezing.
“I expected you to do your duty to the crown. You want to be a queen so badly? Act like one.”
“I did!” she hissed. “I can play pretend with the best of them. I did what you asked to the best of my ability.”
Viktor knew that ability was inadequate. He’d meant to teach her a lesson in compassion. Where he came across as hard and unforgiving, he’d wanted a queen who was the opposite. It seemed Bianca learned nothing other than how to pretend like she gave a damn.
“Imagine my surprise when I returned and heard the news you’d locked yourself in your quarters with a female, especially when no one, not even I, had ever been allowed inside.”
“Let’s not dance around this, Bianca. You know what she is to me.”
“Yes, I do. And you know I have no intention of being set aside. I want to know what you intend to do with her.”
“What I do or
don’t do with my sieva is none of your concern.”
Bianca glowered, her eyes brightening with emotion.
“You can’t possibly think the witch will want to stay with you after—”
Her voice cut off as she struggled to remain as still as possible. Surprise and fright drifted out of every pore.
Viktor’s claws were shallowly embedded in her throat. Her blood beaded slowly, the sweet scent, the one he used to find so alluring, was now turning his stomach.
“Listen carefully, Bianca, for I will only say this once. You shall never speak ill of her, in or out of my presence.”
A look of shock froze on her face. The brutality she understood. The regard for another’s reputation, she did not. Viktor was The Heartless King of Prajna. He was negligent with others’ emotions, especially those from whom he fed. How could he possibly care for the witch?
He leaned closer, keeping his voice low.
“You will not seek her out. You will not speak to her directly unless she allows it. If she enters a room, you will vacate it immediately if you are incapable of showing her anything other than respect. You will say absolutely nothing that would upset her in any way. This means you are forbidden from ever speaking of that cursed contract in front of her. Understood?”
She nodded slightly, her movement restricted by his merciless hold. Viktor retracted his claws and took one step backwards. He shook his hands to the sides in disgust, splattering small amounts of blood on the stone.
“Heed my warning, Bianca. If you do not, I swear upon my name I will make you regret it.”
The magic of the oath snapped into place. He was now bound to follow through or face crippling consequences. All vampiric contracts, when sworn as such, were mystically enforced, linked to their hypnotic powers.
If Bianca did not obey him, he would be compelled to act in a way which would make her feel regret. Viktor supposed only the threat of death could elicit remorse from the female.
Bianca’s shoulders hunched and water gathered in her eyes. Viktor couldn’t be sure, but he swore he detected an ounce of sadness under all her fury. She shook with rage. She was smart enough not to act on it.
