More Than Life (Arcane Crossbreeds)

by Vyne, Amanda

  The heat radiated from him, a nearly irresistible need after having felt so cold. Frozen. The sudden onslaught of that sharp, relentless need to touch him, to warm herself, rushed through her, and she gasped. It was a physical pain. Her hands began to shake, and her palms tingled until she curled her fingers tightly into fists to quell the reaction.

  It was more than she’d ever seen of him. He was massive, as were most his kind. His shoulders were broad, arms thick. Thick ropes of muscle slid beneath all that bronzed skin, drawing her gaze down the ripples of his stomach and lower. With a flush of embarrassment that should have been burned out of her by now, Katya gaped at his obvious erection. She itched to touch it, to touch him, to map every angle of his hard body with her fingers. God, how she craved it.

  But she had to be careful. Be cautious. How many times had she been promised relief from the pain in exchange for her obedience, only to be thrown shivering and vomiting on the cold cement floor of her cell? She didn’t trust anything here. Raife was here as another one of their sick experiments. There was a camera watching her. Waiting.

  Analyzing.

  With a curse, she rolled her head back against the hard surface of the floor, and a desperate hiss rasped from her. The scent of him filled her senses, making the fire flare hotter inside her, flashing over her thoughts. It made it difficult to think. To decide what she should do, to try to override the demands her body was making. She wanted relief from the burning beneath her skin. She wanted to trust him to give her that.

  But she couldn’t. She would never trust anyone again.

  “Katya.”

  The soft voice slid smooth and calm into her mind. So familiar. Raife’s voice. She wanted to open to it, take it in, let it curl around her like strong arms. It had reached out to her through the chaos of the night her family was murdered over twenty years ago. A light in a darkness that had never receded. Her lifeline.

  Now it was a torment. A mockery of the past sanctuary it once represented. She couldn’t stand it, the warm caress of it in her mind more than she could bear. She felt like that little girl again, lost and alone. Only this time, he couldn’t be her light, and she hated him for that. Hated him because the comfort his presence once offered was gone, beyond his power to resurrect.

  “I can’t …” Her voice was low and guttural. She was so lost. So consumed by a desire she didn’t dare trust.

  Raife restrained her when she tried to sit up, to escape him. His big hands moved down her arms, his knees tightening on either side of her hips to pin her.

  “I’m sorry, baby. I really am. If it could have happened any other way…” His fingers tightened on her upper arms with a strength that bordered on painful as his words tapered off. He lowered his head, those amber eyes lit with a feral hunger as his gaze raked over her. The sweetness of his breath fanned her lips. “But it’s too late for either of us.”

  She didn’t have to try to read him. The clawing hunger, the heat, the drive to mate poured out of him and over her. It licked over her skin. She felt like those damn curtains, curling and burning beneath his touch.

  And her responding desire was incredible.

  It rocketed through her, filled every cell until she felt radiant. Renewed. The essence of him filled her lungs, and she held it deep inside her, treasured that sensation of being complete. Tears stung her eyes. It felt like life, and God, that drew her, a lure she was just too weak to resist. Her mate. Her soul screamed for him even as her mind cried out in fear. She’d survived so much these last months. Would she be able to survive another betrayal from him?

  Unable to stop herself, she slid her hands up his chest and traced the head of the dragon. Her fingers flexed, her blunt nails leaving little white crescents where they pressed into his skin. The sight of it somehow pleased her. Peering up through her lashes, she met the intensity of his golden eyes. The wide expanse of his shoulders nearly dwarfed her, and that was oddly gratifying. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a small voice acknowledged that Raife would be a strong mate. Capable.

  Yet she was driven to test him, to make him prove it. The urge frightened her even as it compelled her. She speared her fingers into his hair and clenched them tightly around the thick strands, tugging against his scalp, pulling him back when he tried to kiss her. His eyes flashed, and a small smile lifted one corner of his full lips.

  She was challenging him.

  Distantly she recognized it. It was an instinct that swelled up fierce and imposing inside her. She wanted him to prove his worth. She craved it with an intensity that was undeniable and terrifying.

  “What’s happening to me?”

  “Mating challenge.” The explanation sounded as though it was pulled from deep inside him, a low rumble, barely controlled.

  She watched the muscles in his throat work, and the rapid flicker of his pulse drew her gaze. She arched against him, bucking him off. She wanted him beneath her, her lips on that vein…her teeth in it. She craved the electric taste of him again.

  Raife rolled back over her and slammed the mass of his body into hers, pinning her against the cement floor. His hands gripped her wrists and pulled them over her head.

  “Raife?” Katya panted, pure instinct a deafening roar in her head, obliterating all coherent objections. She writhed beneath the pressure of his weight and tugged at her trapped wrists. She needed to touch him, to feel his chest beneath her fingertips, to dig her nails across his taut flesh. To retrace those marks. She wanted to draw his blood, revel in the warmth of it welling between their bodies. The compulsion spiked in direct proportion to her fear, shaking her.

  Suddenly he was there, in her mind. He was a flare of color that blazed over her, but she was starving for the contact, craved the intensity of that mental connection. “It’s normal. You’re testing my dragon, demanding it prove itself. You can’t hurt me, and it would never hurt you. Just let it go.”

  “I don’t think I can.” A groan ripped from her throat, and she arched, sliding her body against his.

  A flicker of light flashed through his eyes again before he lowered his head to nip at her neck. “You can. You have to, baby.”

  Rational thought slowly burned away as something dangerous roused deep inside and demanded her due. It was both frightening and exhilarating. Freeing.

  EVERY CELL IN Raife’s body ignited into a heightened state of awareness.

  He could smell her. She was there. Ready.

  “Katya?”

  With a grunt of pain, he pushed awkwardly to his knees and looked down at her. With his dragon so close to the surface, his vision receded to heat signatures. He could see the fiery shape of her body beneath him. Reaching out with one hand, he brushed his fingers over her flesh. She was hot to the touch, and a splinter of concern speared through the cacophony of the mating instinct that blanketed his mind. She may be reacting like a Drachon female, but she wasn’t one – not completely. She was too small, fragile. He needed to get himself under control, press the dragon back. For Katya.

  Breath heavy in his lungs, he blinked away the flickering thermal vision that flared with the mix of emotions rampaging through him. Her eyes, that pale blue ringed with a pulsing red, stared wide and terrified up at him.

  Even with his humanity hanging by a frayed thread, he could easily feel her fear and confusion. Her hunger. All Drachon were psychic in some way, but his connection with Katya had always been strong. Now it was overwhelming.

  He tried to push further into her mind. He wanted to merge completely. Craved it. With his attempt to enter her mind, her whole body responded. She arched and kicked her legs, each pant gusted hard through her parted lips. Fighting him. Continuing to test his strength.

  Something base and violent roared inside him, and he pressed down over her, once again pinning her to the concrete with the weight of his body. She stilled, her face turned away. The thick mass of his dark hair hung down around his face, and he knew he had to look like a monster. He’d kept the harsher aspects of his n
ature from her over the past twenty years. Right now he had to be as raw as he was going to get, but he had to get into her, to connect. “Look at me.”

  She tried to buck him off again, but he pressed her down with more force.

  “Look at me.”

  Her throat moved as she swallowed hard, and those thick pale lashes fluttered over her strange eyes.

  “I can’t do this.” Her voice was a bare whisper, and her heart beat heavy against his chest. “I won’t let you break me.”

  Raife felt his precarious discipline crumble as his cock throbbed with renewed hunger. Her heat burned through the material of his jeans, and he knew he was on the barest thread of a leash. He pressed harder against her, seeking a firmer touch. She’d marked him, initiated the fury. She’d started this. His dragon wanted nothing more than to complete it. Complete them.

  Her groan was hungry, reverberating through him as she rocked her hips up against him in response. The hem of the lab coat rode up her thighs to pool at her waist. She was deliciously naked beneath the jacket – her thighs smooth and pale, her mound hairless. Another Drachon trait. The sight of it made blood surge mercilessly into his cock, the pressure behind his zipper nearly unbearable.

  Raife reached down with one hand and unzipped his fly, a groan pushing out as his erection sprang free. Hard, heavy, and beating in tandem with every slam of his heart. At the feel of his naked flesh against hers, she bucked again, her thighs clenching together. His dragon twisted and writhed just beneath his skin. “Easy, baby. We need to finish this.”

  The hunger and shame radiated from her body. It seared him. She was murmuring under her breath, rolling her head back on the concrete, unconsciously baring the pale column of her throat in surrender.

  He watched in fascination at the gleaming, white teeth that lay beyond her flushed lips. They were slightly curved and looked lethally sharp. An image of him running the tip of his tongue over the length of those fangs suddenly lit up his brain, sending sparks of wicked sensation streaking through his body.

  He was both enticed and repulsed at the same time. He’d never seen the trade tools of a bloodsucker this close up before, and he sure as hell had never been turned on by the idea. Yet this was Katya; she was his mate. The consuming wave that suddenly surged through his body was definitely arousal. Brutal, unrelenting arousal.

  Raife leaned in closer to taste the warm gust of her breath. He wanted to touch his tongue to those fangs. Her aura licked over his skin like fire, and he wanted to press himself deeper into it, into her. She snapped her teeth at him, and he pulled back in surprise, a hum of energy surging over his skin as he looked down at her.

  Fire seethed around her elongated pupils as the mating urge took over. Challenge sparked pure and fierce in her gaze, and she touched one fang with the tip of her pink tongue. Taunting him.

  A shudder worked its way up his body, electricity crackling over his flesh, bringing with it the instinct to subdue. Holding her hands above her head, he let her feel the rumble of his possessive growl against her soft breasts and insinuated his knees between her legs, pushing them apart in triumph. Curling his hips into her, he bathed the length of his erection in that wet heat between her legs, rubbing himself over her. Her body quaked as the swollen head of his cock slid against her clit.

  Raife closed his eyes when the pleasure spider-webbed through him like a strike of lightning. Son of a bitch, he was getting ready to lose what was left of his mind as the hunger of his dragon rumbled inside him, waiting for his control to crack. Not yet. He wanted to push her to the edge before he followed her over. Lifting just enough to look down at her, he bit into his bottom lip until the metallic taste of his blood filled his mouth.

  Heavy-lidded, her desire almost luminescent in the shadows of the room, she raised her head to run her tongue over his lip. A low, keening sound escaped her parted lips, and she drew her knees up and planted her feet on the floor to gain leverage, to drag him deeper, her body sucking eagerly at him.

  “Fuck, kitten.” The sharp bite of pleasure raked up his thighs and tightened in his balls. He threw his head back and groaned. “You’re killing me.”

  Her frustrated cry was the only warning he got before she yanked him to her and sank her fangs into his neck. The crash of pain and pleasure was so violent his vision dimmed to darkness as a wave of rapture rolled over him. With a shout, he drove into her, feeling the taut flesh undulating around him as she adjusted to his girth. The pleasure was so sharp it was agonizing, keeping him suspended in the riptide of an unnatural orgasm.

  Panic flooded him as his lungs seized, imprisoning the roar that built inside him, adding more pressure. He was disoriented, the sound of wet, mewling whimpers loud in his ears. He became aware of the feel of her lips drawing on his flesh as her body suckled his shaft with the deep contractions of her pussy, holding him at the peak.

  He reached out and slammed her back to the cement, away from him. He was still hard, his erection pulsing deep inside her, despite the strength of his climax. She squirmed beneath him, her eyes bright and unfocused as her little pink tongue licked his essence from her lips.

  “You wanted to mate,” she accused, lifting her head to nip at his chin.

  Those exotically lethal fangs pressed into the ruby fullness of her bottom lip. Twin crimson drops beaded and drew his gaze, mesmerized him with the promise of her taste. His dragon responded, and he leaned down, sending pleasure rolling from where his dick shifted inside her to where his balls rested against the soft flesh of her ass. She lifted her legs to wrap them around his hips.

  “Taste me, mate.”

  Ah, fuck. A shiver worked its way over his body. Lowering his head, he ran his tongue over her soft mouth, tasting her. Slightly metallic and totally sweet, like honey. Like Katya.

  He growled, reveling in his measured, unhurried movements, savoring the feel of her slick, swollen tissue dragging against his throbbing shaft. Her skin was silky and moist beneath his roving hands, flushed with her arousal. He wanted to absorb her, draw her deep inside him. Protect her. She convulsed around him, and he needed more. More of her. All of her.

  Taking her bottom lip between his teeth, he pulled and bit down. Her gasp heralded another sweet burst of her essence over his tongue. Their bodies were aligned, belly to belly, chest to chest. One heartbeat indistinguishable from the other.

  She belonged to him.

  The exhilaration of that thought had him rocking gently inside her, relishing her. He slipped his hands beneath her head, feeling the cool silk of her hair between his fingers as he lifted her swollen mouth to his. Not quite touching. He inhaled each wispy sigh, feeling the tenuous threads of a bond connect them.

  He belonged to her.

  One breath.

  KATYA WAS FILLED with him, gasping in short bursts of air as he rocked inside her, the initial pain of his possession fading, leaving only the pressure of him buried so deeply. It was glorious. She felt glorious, yet anticipation sparked inside her. She knew she should put some distance between them before it was too late, but he filled her too completely, both in body and mind. She was too sated, the tight press of their bodies affording her the pleasure of feeling the muscles of his ass contracting rhythmically beneath her heels. She dug her nails into his back, tightening her body around him, rocking with him until she began to climax, her pussy constricting around him. Her moan was involuntary, sliding from her before she could control it.

  His breath fanned her chin, and she drew him closer, clasping her arms and legs around him. She couldn’t let go, feared she would never be able to. Her entire body trembled, and she felt so vulnerable, like one wrong word would shatter her.

  “Hold tight to me, kitten.” He reached up and swept her hair back off her face, the weight of his big body a comfort, grounding her. His eyes glowed bright amber, fathomless, and she couldn’t look away. “I’ve got you.”

  She gave a soft keening cry as he pulled out of her body and then sank back in with aching del
iberateness, nudging against the mouth of her womb. Icy flames burst through her and caressed her clit, yet she still felt…unsatisfied. Needy. The heat was building again, centering around where his cock filled her. It was going to start all over again.

  Katya embedded her nails into the hard planes of his back and crossed her ankles over his spine. She couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t get a deep enough touch. She wanted to crawl inside him, be a part of him. She just needed him deeper – in her body, in her mind. “It’s not enough.”

  “No it’s not enough.” His words brushed her mind, both easing her and driving her hunger higher. “Not fucking nearly enough.”

  Gripping her wrists, he trapped them on either side of her head as his hips began to move and his tongue plundered the depths of her mouth. After the slow pace he’d kept before, she thrilled in this taking of her, this possession. She shouldn’t. It should frighten her being pinned to the floor, unable to move, unable to do anything but whimper into his mouth and accept the lightning streaking through her with every hard thrust.

  Her orgasm shattered her, darkening the edges of her vision as she rippled around him. She fought that sweet darkness, wanting to see him, to sip the low groan from his lips and watch his eyes grow dark as his body tensed over her. He tightened his fingers around her wrists and dropped his forehead to hers. His hot seed bathed her insides, and she welcomed him, drawing him deeper with every drive of his hips against her. It was his mark on her.

  Air pushed past her lips in uneven, shaky gasps, and she could feel her blood pounding hard through every part of her. Even her lips throbbed.

  “So sweet.” His breath warmed her cheek and his tongue rimmed the corner of her mouth. “Again.”

  “No more.” Katya gasped in denial even as her body was quickening again, that aching need building until she cried out. Every orgasm ratcheted her desire higher. His movements became more frantic, rougher. He pushed to his knees in a rush, and he ripped her lab coat back to bare her breasts.

  His shoulder-length hair fell shaggy and wild around the stark angles of his face, his eyes glowing with a startling hunger as he stared down at her. It gave him a savage edge that startled her.