by Irina Argo
He laughed and let her go, zipped his pants up and moved to the other side of the room. “I love it when an Amiti begs me to take her vein. It’s so sexy.”
Desiree gasped and lost her balance, sliding to the floor. “What the hell are you doing?” She’d meant to scream at him, but her lips could barely move, and her ragged breathing couldn’t push the sound far enough past them.
“I want to see that you want me as much as I want you.”
“Well, I do.” Still sitting on the floor, panting hard, she stared at him. “Now come over here and finish what you started. You know I hate it when you act like this.”
“You know, Desi, I’ve changed my mind. I don’t come to you just for the feeding. I really like having intellectual conversations with you.” Crossing his arms on his chest, Crian sat on the straight-backed wooden chair, propped his legs on the coffee table, and shot her a taunting grin.
“You son of a bitch!” Desiree shouted, rushing at him knocking him and the chair to the floor. Straddling him, she unzipped his pants.
“Wow, Desi, are you going to have your way with me?” Crian was laughing again. “I didn’t think Amiti were capable of that.”
“You haven’t got even the slightest idea what we’re capable of,” hissed Desiree, sliding down his body and taking him into her mouth.
She heard all the air leave Crian’s lungs, felt his body giving itself over, sinking into the pleasure she was giving him. Just as he reached the brink of climax, he deftly swung her up and around so that he was on top. With a sharp move of his hips, he parted her legs and forced himself inside of her, thrusting hard and fast, just the way she loved it.
More, Desiree demanded through their blood-bond. Crian pulled out of her and lifted her up, holding her with one arm and using the other to sweep the dinner for two he’d ordered onto the floor so that he could lay her on the table. Lying back, Desiree gripped her elbows over her head and wrapped her legs around his hips, pushing forward so he could thrust back into her.
Eyes half closed, meeting his thrusts with her own, she connected to her own blood cells in his body, commanding them to intensify his pleasure, to make him feel loved and desired, to show him that he was the one. He roared like a wild animal and grabbed her legs, pulling them apart and holding them open wide, totally exposing her. As she watched him watching their bodies joining, watched the wild, unbridled lust in his eyes, heat surged in Desiree’s body and she cried out. His hands slid up to the juncture of her thighs, spreading her folds apart and circling his thumb on her clit. Every inch of her body was on fire and her cries converged into one long moan when he released her legs and pulled her up to him, enveloping her body in the blazing heat of his own, devouring her mouth.
Her body’s blood production was going into overdrive, preparing to feed him, and the oversupply made her feel feverish, engorged, as though every vein was swollen to twice its usual size. This was Desiree’s favorite part. Even though Amiti could learn to control their blood production, Desiree almost always let her body run wild and do what came naturally, disregarding that it wasn’t just thrilling but also dangerous.
And sure enough, right then her brain began to throb and blood pooled in her vision. It was too much. One more moment and he’d kill her; she’d drown in her own blood. She sent him a single word through their blood-bond—mercy—and waited, trusting him to save her. As her blood-bond, he sensed every nuance of her experience just as she sensed his. He knew that she loved to take it to the very edge: the higher her tension, the stronger her release. And she knew that he’d take care of her every need.
Laying her back on the table, he dropped to his knees and found the vein in her groin, his fangs piercing her skin—and she erupted, her body convulsing and drowning in the waves of exquisite pleasure shooting through her. As he drank she directed the waves back to him, letting him taste her ecstasy along with her blood.
* * *
Duchy of Aquitaine, France
Kingdom of Alba (now Scotland), 1174-1213
Late in the twelfth century, a young and ambitious Richard I led a campaign against his father, the reigning king of England, Henry II. Richard would go on to earn the legendary nickname Richard the Lionheart and then to take his father’s place as king. Crian, himself young and ambitious, joined Richard’s army as a knight—not because he supported Richard’s cause, but because he loved the adrenaline rush of battle. He’d left his mother, the most powerful sorceress in the Kingdom of Alba, and set out on his own to experiment with his wealth of powers.
Crian was among several dozen members in Richard’s army occupying a conquered castle in Aquitaine, in southwest France, when he met Desiree. His comrades had noticed food and small, valuable items going missing over the days they’d spent in the castle and were beginning to cast suspicious eyes on each other, eroding the trust they’d developed over months of fighting side by side. Crian set out to discover the thief, posting himself in a hidden location outside the pantry where most of the food was stored.
Nothing happened on the first night, but on the second, a cloaked figure slipped into the pantry. When the thief emerged carrying a sack of food, Crian was waiting in ambush. It wasn’t until his hands closed on a slender, curvy body that he realized he’d captured a female.
He pushed off the hood of her cloak to reveal a pale-skinned girl with a long mane of bright ginger hair curling around her face and neck in dozens of spirals. She held her head defiantly and her eyes blazed—but her body trembled with fear.
Crian thought he’d never seen anything so beautiful in his life, and maybe never would again.
“What’s your name?” he asked her in French, hoping she understood him; most people in the area spoke a local dialect.
“Desiree,” she whispered.
“Desired.” Crian murmured to himself in English. Yes, she is, he thought. In less than a minute she’d become the only one he’d ever desired. He had to get her out of there: he might forgive her, but his fellow soldiers would see her as a thief and one of the enemy, and they’d show no mercy. “Will you come with me, Desiree? I promise to take care of you and protect you. You’ll be safe with me.”
To Crian’s astonishment and joy, she agreed.
Crian left Richard’s army that very night and took Desiree with him to his mother’s castle. As they traveled together, Desiree gradually revealed that she was Amiti; she’d been kept as bloodstock in the castle Crian had been occupying and was released by one of the castle’s more compassionate residents as they fled from Richard’s army. Crian reciprocated by letting her know that he was a Nightwalker, and within a day they were blood-bonded.
Etain, Crian’s mother, was elated at her son’s return and delighted to find that he had blood-bonded with someone who so clearly adored him. Because of the risks to vampires of blood-bonding with Amiti, mothers were universally worried when their offspring took blood-bonds, and often felt that the risks outweighed the benefits. But for mixed-blood vampires—Nightwalkers—like Crian, blood-bonding with Amiti provided a critical benefit in the form of tolerance to sunlight. It had been Etain’s spells insuring her son’s survival in the daylight so far, but the spell was difficult to sustain, and so her son’s blood-bond with Desiree was an enormous relief for Etain.
Desiree and Crian settled down in Etain’s castle and spent many happy years there. Their joy blossomed even more as Desiree gave birth to three beautiful sons, each two years apart: Dughall, Bryce, and Greig. The lives of Desiree, Crian, and Etain were filled with treasure, graced by three frolicking, devoted, endlessly curious children. Crian taught them horseback riding and handling of swords, knives, and other weaponry; Etain taught them magic; and Desiree, the eternal values of kindness, loyalty, honesty, and compassion.
As the offspring of a vampire and an Amiti, all three brothers were innately immune to the sunlight. But as they grew into adulthood, they began to require blood. Desiree was, of course, able to sustain them on her
blood, but the boys looked forward to the day when they found their own Amiti mates, just as their father had, who would feed them and share their lives with them. The boys adored their mother, and they had been raised believing that a union of a vampire and an Amiti was the accepted norm—and the ideal—of the species.
They would pay the highest price for their naïveté.
When Dughall was twenty-five and Bryce twenty-three, they were both seduced into blood-bonding with an Amiti female who then used the blood-bond as a lethal tool to kill both of the young vampires. Crian was out hunting with the two young men when suddenly Dug and Bryce had fallen off their horses, screaming in agony. Crian held them in his arms, crying and praying to all the gods to save his innocent sons. But they were being burned alive from within, and nothing could be done against the power of the blood-bond.
Crian would never forget the bleak look on Desiree’s face when he returned to the castle, tears streaming down his face, holding the ashes that were all that remained of her two beautiful sons.
Crian’s heart was ripped in two, and he swore on the ruined bodies of his sons that from that moment forward he would not rest until he had avenged their deaths. As far as he was concerned, the only good Amiti was a dead one, or one who was imprisoned as bloodstock. He’d devote his life to hunting down and killing the bitch who had murdered his sons, and capturing or killing other Amiti so they’d never blood-bond with vampires.
Once he’d made that vow, he found that he couldn’t bear to make eye contact with Desiree, could barely look at her at all. He was beginning to think that he had no choice but to leave his Amiti mate—at least until he avenged his sons’ deaths—and then what happened the next evening sealed the deal.
The family was gathered for a meal no one wanted to eat when a servant came into the room and handed Crian a sealed envelope. Inside was a card embossed with an image of three winged women in Greek tunics with serpents growing out of their heads.
Etain gestured for Crian to pass her the card. When he did so, she put her palm on the picture and went into a trance. Her voice when she spoke was octaves lower than usual. “This image depicts the Erinyes, the Greek goddesses of vengeance, who are said to pursue those guilty of crimes against their own blood. They are the patrons of the Avengers, Amiti assassins linked to the Order of the Eye of Ra.
“The Avengers believe that vampires and Amiti are the children of the same Goddess and share the same bloodline. The vampire practice of keeping Amiti bloodstock therefore constitutes a crime against their own blood. The Avengers have doomed vampires to death and use the most powerful Amiti tool, the blood-bond, to accomplish the decimation of the vampire race.
“The female who trapped our boys in the blood-bond and killed them is one of the Avengers. Her name is Serena.”
“My boys were guilty of nothing! They had never harmed an Amiti; they never had bloodstock—they did no more than love an Amiti girl. Why did it have to be my sons? This is so unfair! I’ll find this Serena and rip her merciless heart out with my bare hands!” Desiree buried her face in her hands, weeping.
“Tell me what you know about the Eye of Ra,” Crian demanded, disregarding Desiree’s pain.
“Nothing more than anyone else,” Desiree replied, still covering her face. “I’ve heard that they exist, but they’re a secret organization. I’ve never met one of them. As for Avengers ... I know they’ll kill anyone, including their own people if they blood-bond with vampires. The Avengers are merciless monsters. Everybody fears them.”
“So it’s up to us to find them and put an end to them. The death of my sons must be avenged. Get ready, Greig.”
Greig, Crian’s youngest son, was only twenty-one at that time. For hours Desiree and Etain begged Crian not to go on this dangerous venture, but both males ignored them. Father and son left early the next morning, leaving the devastated females behind.
Over the next seven years, Crian created a new life for himself. He became so notorious as a hunter of Amiti that the term Hunter was used to refer to him and then to the pride he founded. Under his leadership, the Hunter pride developed a monopoly on the capture and sale of Amiti bloodstock. He lost track of how many Amiti had been imprisoned on the Hunter estate, most going on to live miserable lives in the underground prisons of other Sekhmi prides—but he never found Serena.
Desiree tried repeatedly to contact him through the blood-bond, but he ignored her. Then one day he received a new kind of communication from her: a death threat, an image of him burning alive if he didn’t quit the dirty work of hunting Amiti.
How dare she! Had she forgotten their two sons so quickly? Burning with rage, he went home to Etain’s castle, where he learned that Desiree had returned to France to live with her mother. So he went there.
It was a cold, damp evening when Crian arrived. He slipped into the house and found Desiree in the kitchen, her back to him as she fixed dinner. His heart twisted at seeing her—and then she turned to face him, and he came undone, just as he had on the night they met.
Crian swept her into his arms and smothered her face with kisses. She responded by melting in his embrace as though nothing had changed between them, and they spent an ecstatic night together. Crian couldn’t believe he had learned to live without her love, and couldn’t imagine doing it again.
So the next morning Crian arose before Desiree and packed all her belongings before waking her up. “Get ready, Desi. We’re leaving now.”
“Leaving? Where?” she asked groggily.
“To my pride. You’re my mate; you’ll live with me. Nobody will ever touch you. I am their Alpha.”
That woke her up. “You must be crazy! I’ll never live with Hunters.”
“You need to understand, Desi: I’ll never abandon my search for the murderer of my sons. Hunting is the best way to find Serena and the Avengers.”
“No Crian, it’s not right. You make my people suffer. I was bloodstock myself, I know what Amiti have to endure as bloodstock, and it’s horrible. You can’t imagine. Please stop. Come back to me. Please, Crian.”
The fought for a long time. Finally Crian gave up, hurling the bag of Desiree’s clothes against the wall. “Good bye, Desi. You’ll never see me again.”
He slammed the door behind him, hard, and heard all the old china that decorated the shelves in the room crash to the floor. With a mixture of satisfaction and sorrow, he imagined Desiree crawling across the floor, collecting the broken pieces, soaking them with her tears, a symbol of their broken relationship, their broken lives.
But a month later, Crian was back, unable to resist her or deny the power of their bond. Since then, Crian and Desiree had met regularly for feeding and furious, desperate lovemaking. She always shielded her location from him so that the two most important males in her life, her mate and her brother, never crossed paths. Instead, she set meeting places that were always many miles away from Oberon, and she also never showed him her human forms, only her true Amiti.
* * *
Crian came back to the present to find Desiree watching him thoughtfully, her fingers tangled in his hair. “I feel something happened.”
He caught her hand and placed it to his mouth, kissing her palm.
“My brother-in-law captured our princess, Simone. That would be bad enough, but the thing is, she’s also your Keeper of Life. We’re thinking that he’ll either kill her or try to bring her over to the Amiti side. It worries me. My mother consulted an Oracle.”
“What did the Oracle say?”
“The Key will be turned. The Keepers will destroy the vampires.”
Desiree’s eyes filled with terror. “All vampires? Or just Sekhmi?”
“When a tornado descends to earth, it devastates everything in its path. And even though Sekhmi try to reinforce the differences between themselves and Nightwalkers whenever they can—and even though Nightwalkers are forbidden from keeping bloodstock—I don’t think the Keepers will bother to put that fin
e a point on it. To them, a vampire is a vampire.”
Desiree rolled him onto his back and cupped his face with her hands. “Then it will never happen, even if I have to turn against my own brother, against my own people. You and Greig are also my people; you’re my family. I’ll protect you, whatever the cost.”
Chapter 43
Somewhere
Three hundred and fifteen days after Arianna’s capture
Arianna was keeping track of her time in captivity by marking on the wall with her fingernail every time the Sekhmi came in to draw blood, which happened about every seven days, once a week. The marks were her only way of feeling somewhat grounded; they gave her a sense of time. It wasn’t much, but it was better than just existing day after endless day.
The only reprieve she’d experienced had happened very early on, once the first wave of depression had settled into her as though it would never leave. One day she’d woken up to the gentle touch of someone’s hand gliding across her arm. Startled, she’d opened her eyes to find a young woman about her age bending over her, her streaming, golden hair like sunshine even in the harsh fluorescent light. Zlata was another bloodstock, and the two of them had bonded immediately and intensely, talking and cuddling. She’d felt at the time that Zlata’s presence had literally saved her life, and she’d thought she’d die when after a little more than a week she’d woken up alone again. Arianna had known that Sekhmi occasionally brought in temporary companions to cheer up severely depressed bloodstock, and she’d let herself forget it. Or, really, she’d probably allowed herself go into deep denial about it.
After grieving Zlata’s departure for a few days, though, Arianna had risen to her feet and given herself a pep talk. Zlata was still bloodstock, just like her, and just like thousands of Amiti. It was her job to stay alive, stay sane, so that she could fulfill her purpose as Amiti Queen. Her people were depending on her.
From that day on, she’d tried to be consistent about encouraging herself not to give up hope that she’d be free again; she tried to fight despair by repeating her affirmation, there’s no such thing as a dead end ... And when even that wasn’t enough, she reminded herself that she might be the only hope for all the Amiti imprisoned like she was.
