No Rest for the Wicked iad-3

by Kresley Cole

  "Lookit, I didn't want to distract you from your job," Regin said. "This Hie is your Big Thing. And I know when I first found out, I was seriously, fucking, shrieking distracted. I mean, I knew you would never get freaked out—well, at least, you wouldn't used to—but I thought it would be prudent to just hold off a few days. It was my idea, not Myst's."

  "This connection might have been nice to know in certain situations, Regin. For instance, that vampire in Antarctica that you almost killed is now our brother-in-law!"

  "No way! Nikolai Wroth's brother?" A pause. "But does that matter? Can't we still kill him? I wouldn't have told anyone if you wouldn't have. What happens in the South Pole, stays in the—"

  "Regin, if you keep something like this from me again, I will annihilate you. You know I'm stronger than you are."

  "Ah, but I'm wily."

  Kaderin exhaled. "How can Myst be certain he won't turn?"

  "I'm not exactly speaking to her."

  "Then just let me talk to Nïx."

  A second later, Nïx said in a jovial tone, "Kiddy-Kad!"

  "Nïx, why is it that Bowen MacRieve—a Lykae who lost his mate—would know to enter this competition to retrieve her? Let me add that I know Bowen attended Emma's wedding, as did you—a soothsayer."

  "Um, I dunno. Dumb luck?" Nïx said. Kaderin could just see Nïx twirling her silky black hair, trying to appear innocent. Which reminded Kaderin... sometimes tasks repeated.

  "Cut off all your hair," she said, her tone seething. "Then shear it every day thereafter until I tell you to stop."

  "Go from Katie to Sinead? Well, I am sassy enough to pull it off—"

  "Just do it!"

  "Angry, Kaderin? How unlike you."

  "I'm livid, as you well know. Nïx, why would you do this to me? Why tell Bowen about this? You had to know he will fight to the death to bring back that mate."

  "Oh, yes, especially since she died fleeing him! It's been killing him slowly, making him crazed. He hardly eats or sleeps and hasn't glanced at another female since then."

  Kaderin put her forehead between her thumb and forefinger. "He'll be unstoppable. They live for nothing else."

  "More unstoppable than a guilt-ridden two-thousand-year-old Valkyrie who, incidentally, keeps winning these things? I was thinking it'd be a wash."

  She exhaled, striving for calm. "Since you gave him information, now help me. Why am I feeling now?"

  "Because it's time for you to."

  "Oh, since you explained it that way." Kaderin rolled her eyes. "Will I win the Hie?"

  "Lemme check." She hummed, and Kaderin could almost see her peering at the ceiling in concentration—

  The phone dropped.

  A chill crept up Kaderin's spine just before Nïx's screams erupted.

  "Nïx!" Kaderin snapped. "Nïx, what's going on?"

  A minute later, Regin had the phone. "What the hell did you say to her?" In the background, thunder boomed in a deafening succession like cannon blasts. Nïx sobbed hysterically.

  "I just asked her if I'll win the Hie! Why? What's happening?"

  "I don't know—I've never seen her like this! She's white as a ghost and mumbling incoherently." To Nïx, Regin said, "Calm down, sweet. What's upset you?"

  Kaderin heard Nïx's voice, heard her desperate ramblings, but couldn't make out the actual words. "What is she saying?" Kaderin demanded.

  "Oh, Kad," Regin whispered, all her temper gone. "She said... " Regin swallowed audibly. "She said that... in the competition, before the next full moon... you're going to... die."

  Die? Kaderin frowned in confusion, wringing her hands around the phone. How should one respond to that? I can't imagine. Her inane reply: "Oh."

  Regin, fired up once more, said, "Get out of the competition now!"

  "You know that won't help," Kaderin murmured. "When your number's up, it's up."

  "Yeah, but you can still freaking duck."

  "Regin, how can you say something like that?" Kaderin demanded, even knowing she herself had once said much the same. The memory of Furie lashing out at her was as clear as if it happened yesterday. For her own heedless words, Kaderin had had her arm broken and her skull and sternum fractured.

  "Where are you right now? We'll come get you, guard you in the coven."

  "Nïx could be mistaken," Kaderin offered, surprised to find her eyes had watered in a rush. "Or she read the premonition wrong." But she said that only for Regin's benefit. Kaderin knew Nïx was never wrong. And she'd never seen the death of a Valkyrie before.

  "Nïx is presently rolling on the floor. Something is happening."

  "Oh." How brave Furie had been to go meet her destiny, how stoic.

  Kaderin could aspire to that.

  "Damn it, Kad, tell us where you are!"

  "Regin, only cowards don't meet their fate. If I'm to die in this competition, then that's the hand I was dealt. I'll play it out."

  "You're talking crazy. You shouldn't be alone right now, not with this news."

  She tilted her head, staring out the window. "I... won't be." Because dusk was in a couple of hours. "I'll be fine, Regin. I'll check in later," she added, then hung up, turning off the ringer.

  Kaderin knew that in the days leading up to the full moon, her coven would fight to find her, calling incessantly, trying to track her movements through her phone and credit-card use, as well as through the Accord's network. But Kaderin knew all the tricks, and if she didn't want to be found, then she wouldn't be.

  She shook. The sun continued to set, and she had a vampire coming over.

  24

  "Did you dress for me?" Sebastian visibly swallowed when Kaderin stood at his arrival.

  He'd been doing that tentative-step thing as he entered, but after his gaze raked her from head to toe, he strode forward as though pushed. There was no mistaking his appreciation of her tight black sweater, short skirt, and strappy heels.

  She was glad when his avid gaze strayed again to her breasts, or he might have seen her dropped jaw.

  The vampire was undeniably hot.

  He was so tall that the highest point of the plane's seven-foot ceiling barely cleared his height. He wore dark jeans that highlighted his narrow hips and a dark shirt that molded to his muscles. Everything was tasteful and seriously expensive. His face was completely healed, and his longish black hair was damp at his collar from a recent shower.

  Sexy. He has too much of a biological advantage. What female could be expected to turn him away when he wanted to be inside her?

  When he met her eyes again, he had such a ravenous look that she grew flustered, feeling a blush creeping over her cheekbones. Blushing. Now the vampire has me blushing. "This is how I usually dress." After nervously trying on thirty combinations of clothing. "That is, when I'm not fighting, running, or climbing."

  He reached forward to brush his hand at her nape. "Or diving from cliffs to tackle unwitting sirens," he said with a half grin.

  So, he was going to be charming tonight? Little did he know that she was a-sure-thing. He didn't have to unleash an arsenal of devastating good looks and that quiet, unstudied charm.

  She was his tonight.

  Before he'd arrived, she had been miserable. She'd felt so alone and so, well, doomed. After much soul searching, Kaderin had made a decision.

  In the young, immortal words of Regin: Fuck it. If she was going to die, Kaderin was going to have one night of passion before her dirt nap. And she couldn't think of anyone she wanted to be with more than him—for this one night.

  She'd told him this was how she usually dressed, and that was true, but she didn't want him to suspect that she'd tried on everything in her bag twice. She'd stared in the mirror, considering her appearance for the first time in ages, wondering what he would find attractive about her—or was it merely the blooding that made him fancy her? She'd been so anxious about being intimate with a man after so long, she could scarcely close the tiny fastenings on her heels.

  Sad but true,
she was grateful to him for his company. If he weren't here, she would have done nothing but mull her death, but now he was with her, and there was something in his eyes, something a bit alarming that thrilled her.

  She bit her bottom lip. Call her Betty Fucking Crocker, because the cake was so going to be worth the bake.

  "You look beautiful." Such simple words, but the way he said them, his eyes so compelling, gave her shivers.

  She glanced down at herself and back up. "Not too small?"

  That gorgeous grin again. Gazing at his chiseled, masculine face changing expressions was a decadent pleasure. "I love how you are made. Even as I'd worried about hurting you when I touched you." Listening to the low timbre of his voice was just as blissful. She knew she shouldn't enjoy these things so much, and yet she couldn't help it.

  "Hurting me?" She gave a light laugh. "Losing limbs hurts. Boiling oil hurts. Whatever you can dish out, I can take—if I wish to."

  He closed in, all hot, massive male, towering over her. Gods, he smelled good.

  "And do you wish to, Kaderin?"

  Yes! She wanted him to kiss her, to lick her body. Him, a vampire. When she nodded breathlessly, his hand cupped her face, drawing her in so he could take her lips.

  His kiss was gentle at first—though she could tell he struggled to make it so. Then he groaned, and it turned desperate, that gallows kiss. Tonight she shared the sentiment completely.

  The lights blinked twice, and she finally forced herself to break away. "We're about to take off. It's, uh, customary to sit."

  He dropped into the closest seat, seizing her waist, then dragged her across his lap. When he settled her ass over his rampant erection, he hissed in a breath, and she gasped, reminded of his size.

  In an awkward attempt at conversation, she asked, "H-have you ever been on a plane before?"

  "No." He brushed her hair from her neck to press a sizzling kiss to the bared skin. "And I doubt that I'll remember much of flying this time."

  When he nuzzled her neck, she stiffened and pulled away. "No biting?"

  "No, I promise," he said. "I am sorry it happened that night."

  As her uncontrollable emotions continued to do, unbidden words bubbled up from nowhere. "Sebastian, no matter what happens in the future, I want you to know that I'm... " She glanced down and murmured, "I'm glad you're here now."

  But he curled his finger under her chin and caught her eyes. He looked proud of her. "Thank you for telling me this."

  "I just felt I should."

  "These feelings are confusing, are they not? Mine are, too. But we'll muddle our way through."

  She wouldn't be around long enough to...

  With that thought in her mind, she turned to straddle him. Her hands trembled as she cradled his face. She leaned in to press her lips against the corner of his mouth, his cheek, and lower to his neck, then returned to brush her lips fully against his. As before, the mere contact of his lips with hers made her breathy and abandoned. She tilted her head to deepen the kiss, setting in to him, licking his lips, his tongue.

  She drew back to work her sweater up and off, then reached back and unsnapped her lacy bra. When she faced him again, his gaze was rapt on her bared breasts, his jaw slackened.

  Today in the cave, she'd determined that he hadn't wanted to rush their encounter. Now, she again had the idea that he wanted to take this slowly, and judging from his reaction, he thought she'd just skipped a step.

  "I... Katja... " He swallowed, seeming to memorize the sight. As if he believed he'd never see something like this again?

  The awful truth was that she enjoyed him gaping at her breasts, enjoyed his pained expression when her nipples hardened right in front of his eyes.

  "So lovely," he said, his voice rumbling in that sexy way, shooting heat through her that centered between her legs. Gods, she'd missed this.

  He placed his hands flat on her back and pulled her forward to lightly lick one of her nipples. She moaned at that small contact even before he took it between his lips. Groaning around the peak, tongue flicking, he sucked hard until it throbbed. He released her only to repeat the attentions to her other breast, then he stopped to gaze again. She had the crazy idea that he wanted to see what he'd wrought with his lips.

  But his breaths were heating the wet peaks, making her ache. "Please, Bastian," she murmured. If he was going to touch her, he needed to do it now.

  He moved her until she lay across his lap, her neck against his arm. "Spread your legs," he rasped, pressing them open until her skirt rode up enough to reveal her panties. He grazed the backs of his fingers up her inner thigh.

  With his eyes heavy-lidded, he pulled her panties aside with one hand, reaching his other hand around her waist and down to begin stroking her. He bit out a foreign curse at how wet she was. "For me," he said, his voice hoarse. It wasn't a question, but she got the sense that he wanted her to assure him.

  "For you," she whispered, making him shudder.

  "That pleases me. You should be, since I'm hard for you constantly." He rubbed her wetness around, making her gasp, seeming fascinated with how slick she'd grown. When he slipped his finger into her, he groaned from low in his throat, and she writhed, feeling his shaft pulse beneath her.

  "I'm going to kiss you here"—he rocked his hand upward, delving deeper, as his thumb slowly stroked her clitoris—"all night."

  She cried out. She'd always found that act intensely erotic, and now the wicked thought of a vampire doing it to her made her squirm.

  Who was this domineering, sinfully sexy man? He'd seemed cautious, even tentative, in the beginning. But not now.

  Never had a takeoff felt so good. "Bastian, I need—"

  "You want me to kiss you, Katja?"

  "Yes!" She rolled her hips to work his finger in and out, and he groaned against her damp nipple.

  He continued this agonizing play until they leveled off and the lights in the cabin dimmed to darkness except for the light over the table opposite them. He lifted her and gently placed her on the table, pressing her back.

  His hands skimmed up under her skirt until he could hook his fingers around her panties. She shimmied to help him as he tugged them off.

  He pushed her skirt to her waist, then sat before her in the plush seat, in the dark while she was lying back in the light. He placed his palms on her legs and gently spread them. When she was bared to him, he rasped, "You're beautiful," making her sex clench. She whimpered as he continued to stare.

  She'd never been looked at like this, never felt so exposed and vulnerable. And yet she trusted him with her body. At last, he pressed his lips to her thigh, kissing higher with wet licks until she was shivering, threading her fingers in his thick hair.

  She sighed, drawing up her knees and letting her legs fall open for him to do as he would.

  25

  Her inner thighs were like silk. Nothing could be so soft.

  Sebastian already felt as though he'd explode, and he hadn't even tasted her.

  He wanted to savor the experience, but he'd waited too long for this fantasy. After the cave, he'd paced in her townhouse with nervousness for hours. He'd known what he was going to do to her tonight—what he'd thought about again and again. But could he please her? Would she be able to tell he'd never done this before?

  Now that he was certain he was about to have it, he was desperate for his first taste of her.

  He gave a last kiss on her thigh, and then, with a growl, he found her wetness. Mouth open, he rubbed his tongue at her center, in a long, slow lick. As she cried out, his body shuddered with pleasure, his cock jerking in his pants. "You're like honey."

  Wet, slick, luscious. For more than three hundred years, he'd waited for this.

  And she was so fucking worth it.

  Encouraged by her cry, he licked more deeply and felt her growing wetter against his tongue. She moaned, and her arms fell overhead. He'd never imagined her sex could be so hot, the flesh so giving. I will never get enough
of this. Never.

  If it took becoming a vampire to have this one night with her, would he suffer the turning again?

  In the space of one of his new heartbeats.

  When he lashed a hard stroke of his tongue against her swollen little clitoris, she sucked in a breath and arched her back sharply. How had he ever thought he could handle his own reaction? It was everything he could do not to yank out his shaft and impale her exactly where his tongue was dipping right at that moment.

  But then, there was no way he would forgo this pleasure now. He had waited for so long and already he was in love with the act. Her sexy heels were digging into his back, urging him on like spurs.

  She leaned up on her elbows to watch him, biting her bottom lip, panting, sending a shock of lust through him. She touched her own breasts, strumming her nipples as if for him. How did she know he was enthralled with her pink nipples and plump, soft breasts? For her to play with them... ?

  "Bastian!" she cried. "I'm so close... "

  No, not yet! Shouldn't have taken her with my fingers. She'd have lasted longer. I could have had my mouth on her longer. But she threw back her head, arching with her nipples tight and pointing, and he couldn't stop himself from licking her madly.

  She moaned as she began coming, and his eyes closed with pleasure, as it went on and on. Her lithe body shuddered against him and her cries filled his ears.

  Once she'd finished, she pushed at his head to close her knees, when all he wanted to do was taste her orgasm. No, damn it, he was going to have more of this. Had to. "I'm not done yet," he growled, not recognizing his own voice.

  Her eyes widened when he scooped her up and carried her to the bed in the back, tossing her down. The room had a panorama of small windows, and all around her, he could see lightning striking in the background. Sebastian was in a plane—actually flying—and he could not give a damn.

  When he moved her bodily so he could lie between her legs, she said, "Bastian, I-I can't... not so soon."