More Than Life (Arcane Crossbreeds)

by Vyne, Amanda

  Katya closed her eyes against the sting of tears and tried to roll her hips into his, to force a deeper penetration, but he shifted his grip to hold her in place. His tongue circled one nipple as his shaft pressed in another scalding inch. Sensation streaked from the turgid peak to her pussy and back again, so subtle. It wasn’t enough. The pleasure danced just on the edge of her awareness, taunting her. Barely a promise.

  With a mewling whimper, she arched to nip at the raised tendon in his neck and licked the salty taste of him from her lips. His tongue circled her other nipple as he sank just a fraction deeper into her, his hands holding her back. Crying out in frustration, she drew the flesh of his neck tautly between her lips, running her tongue over it, grazing it with her teeth.

  God, she could practically taste the pulse beating frantically beneath her lips. It was as tantalizing as the thick, burning intrusion that barely breached her. She turned her head away with a hungry cry.

  His hips pushed against her, and she squirmed in satisfaction as he pressed another inch deeper with the movement. She released his flesh with a small cry as he sucked her nipple into the heat of his mouth, his hips pushing, filling her slowly. Burning her with pressure. The fiery sensation streaked through her even as he withdrew until just of the tip of him was lodged inside her body.

  She contracted around him, her body trying to draw him in.

  “You like that, kitten?”

  A moan escaped, and she pressed her small nails into his shoulder. “Raife.”

  “More?”

  “Please.” She squirmed in his grip; the hollowness spread. It was an ache, a craving that left her writhing on the bed beneath him.

  His hips flexed, and he thrust shallowly in her several times before pressing so deep that he touched the edge of that aching emptiness inside her. He kept that pace, several shallow thrusts followed by one deep thrust. The pressure hovered just out of her grasp, teasing her. Her entire body was throbbing. Her heart even hammered in her lips, in her gums.

  Panting, pleading incoherently, Katya clawed at his back, but he continued that relentless pace. Shallow. Shallow. Shallow. Deep. A desperate sound clawed its way from her throat, and sweat dampened her forehead.

  He drew her legs up around his hips and stroked his hands up her sides to her wrists, pulling them away from his back, pressing them into the bed above her head.

  Anchoring her heels against the slow flex of his ass, she tried to pull him down to her. His chest pressed against her aching breasts.

  “You feel so hot, so tight. Breathe deeply, draw it out.”

  Breathe deep? She couldn’t even breathe at all. The hunger filled her, pulsed heavily in her lips. With a growl, she leaned up and pulled the flesh at the base of his throat into her mouth, sucking hard, scoring it with her teeth in frustration. His body jerked over hers, the deep thrust of his hips a little harder than the last.

  Encouraged, she tugged at her wrists and nipped at his throat again, pulling that sensitive flesh between his neck and shoulder into her mouth. He tasted so good, like sunshine and moonlight combined.

  Pleasure streaked up through her, and she bit harder than she intended. Electricity touched her tongue, spreading over it, and she felt her fangs slide into her mouth with a delicious burn. Her body shuddered through a tiny orgasm as the taste of him coursed through her body.

  She pressed her fangs into him, careful to not break the skin, savoring the anticipation of his taste. His big body trembled, and those golden eyes glowed down at her. A growl rumbled through his body that sounded more animal than human.

  “I don’t think so, kitten. That’s cheating.”

  Withdrawing completely from her body, he flipped her and positioned her on her belly to thrust into her. One hand splayed over her back and anchored her chest to the bed as he continued to slowly plunge inside her. His hips slapped against the fleshy globes of her ass. The glide and rub of his cock in this position created a friction that sent sensation sweeping mercilessly through her.

  Katya cried out and clenched her fists in the comforter, her burning cheek pressed to the bed as he slammed into her. She panted around the throbbing ache of her fangs and writhed as the pressure grew, that relentless pleasure building until she was mindless with it. He slid a hand down her stomach until one calloused fingertip pressed over her clit, circling it.

  Her body exploded, the muscles of her vagina clamping down hard. Raife lingered as her orgasm began, slowly stroking through the rippling muscles and sending unbearable currents of pleasure through her until the hard tremors eased.

  “That’s it, kitten.” He stroked a leisurely path over her back. Her heart was hammering, and she heard his uneven breaths, felt him throbbing, still hard, inside her. He pressed his chest to her back as those large fingers began to circle her sensitive clit again.

  His mind stroked the edge of hers, always near, feeding her desire with his. Her heart still pounded, and a little spark of passion was growing into a full burn low in her belly again. The need for his blood was building. In the parking garage, she had bled him again. It had felt right, a natural part of the passion she felt in his arms. She shouldn’t need his blood, yet she craved it with an intensity that was frightening.

  There was something wrong.

  “You’re thinking. I must not be working hard enough.”

  Raife lifted her to her knees, pulling her back tighter against his chest without separating them. Her treasonous body fluttered around his cock as a tiny shiver of anticipation tingled over her flesh. He held her hips against him with one large hand as the other stroked down over her breasts and belly. He sought out her lips with his, tongue darting in to touch her fangs. A tiny orgasm racked her body from the stroke over her sensitive canines, and she jerked her head away with a gasp. She could smell blood where it stained his neck from her glancing bite, felt the resulting pulse of her desire in her mouth.

  Pressing her down on his cock, he angled his hips up for a deeper penetration and gripped her chin to gently pull her face to his again. His choppy breath fanned her lips, and she could feel the length of her fangs throb in hunger. She gripped his wrist where his fingers were stroking over her clit, holding him to her, and rotated her hips against his firm touch. The feel of his cock pressing deep inside her made her cry out as little streaks of sensation spiraled up through her. His lips brushed her damp cheek.

  “Damn, Katya. I crave your bite, baby.” He put gentle pressure on her chin to turn her face into the crook of his neck. His hips moved unhurriedly against hers. The feel of his straining cock rubbing against the swollen walls of her vagina sent a rush of pleasure through her.

  God, he smelled so good, and the hunger was growing sharper, insistent. She could feel his throbbing pulse against her lips and she stroked her tongue tauntingly over it. The spike of anticipation that shot through her was nearly painful, and she realized it wasn’t all hers.

  His hips snapped harder, and a growl rumbled against her back. Katya spasmed around him with a cry.

  “Make me burn, kitten.” His demand brushed through her mind. “Now.”

  Her fingers burrowed into his thick hair, holding him to her as she sank her fangs into his warm, salty flesh. His arms wrapped around her tightly, and his cock powered up into her. The edges of her vision flickered to hues of heat as she came again, the sound of his roar ringing in her ears and the electric taste of him bursting over her tongue.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Let’s go over it again.” Raife tossed his empty take-out container on the conference table and rocked back in his chair, tucking his hands behind his head. “There’s something missing.”

  “What in the hell could possibly be missing? Unmated Drachon go missing, most likely ending up at this facility.” Kel motioned to the screen with her chopsticks. She was kicked back in a chair with one booted foot braced against the edge of the table. An image of North America filled the translucent SMART board. The research facility was a large pulsating re
d spot on the West Coast. “We know where it’s at. Tag got a little look into the security system. Kat here’s got a pretty good idea of the layout. Let’s just take the damn place.”

  “As oozing with strategy as that is,” Raife said drily, “I think maybe Forestor might want to know whose toes we’d be stepping on exactly.”

  “And we’ve got so many toes to choose from,” Tag mused around a mouthful of food. “Katya’s a popular lady. So far it looks as if the Rebels are interested in her. The Triumvirate is trying to retrieve her. Not to mention her own House wants her something fierce.”

  They stared at the board for a long moment.

  “We’ve only been looking at this from one angle – who is responsible. Maybe we should take a closer look at who is being targeted. We were hired to find the unmated Drachon that were disappearing. It’s nearly impossible to track them with exception to the rare few who keep contact with family once they enter their final heats.” Raife cast a covert glance at Brim. He was the liaison from the Drakes, and much of Drachon culture was secretly guarded. He would have to be careful what he said. “We can’t guarantee they were all going to this facility.”

  “That’s where they took you.” Kel pushed away from the table and launched to her feet to pace the room restlessly.

  “Yes, but we already established that the purpose for Raife’s abduction may have not been random at all. Maybe we need to focus on the others who are there.” Gideon turned his gaze on Katya. “What can you tell us of the others, achoti?”

  Raife prickled at the easy affection Gideon had for Katya, especially since she had an affinity for him. Consciously, he knew the man wasn’t a threat to his claim on her, but his reaction was hard to curb all the same. She was working with the mysterious crossbreed on a daily basis to strengthen her Elemental abilities. And Katya was so at ease with Gideon.

  More so than she was with him.

  He was trying real damn hard not to be jealous about that.

  “There were a lot of them. I could hear them through the walls.” She paused, and Raife wrapped her mind in his, not so overwhelming that he interfered with her memories, but enough that she would feel his strength. For a moment, he shared them with her. He could practically taste the scent of fear and pain and despair before a dark shadow settled over her thoughts, obscuring them.

  It happened often when she was thinking of her months at that research facility. He didn’t know if she was protecting herself or him, but she couldn’t hide the fear and panic that would tint her thoughts. It never failed to make him furious and that much more determined to find the person responsible. It would ease his soul and satisfy his dragon only if he felt the man break apart in his own hands.

  When she fixed those pale blue eyes on him, he was there for her, swamping her with warmth and strength. She never let him too deep, but she didn’t completely reject him either. She inhaled and continued, “After a couple months, I started becoming resistant to their sedatives, but I pretended to still be out. Sometimes I overheard conversations. The doctor referred to us in experimental groups. I heard him refer to human and nonhuman groups.”

  “Tracking the missing Arcane will be damned hard.” Tag shook his head. “It’s not like they can go to the local police and file a missing persons report. And most of them choose not to go to the Triumvirate.”

  Katya frowned at Tag. “Why not? If the Triumvirate get their power from Arcane, wouldn’t they want to protect them?”

  “The Triumvirate can be high-handed. And they sometimes use a request for help as a means to get control over a community, Kat. Not only that, but their idea of conflict resolution tends to end up on the let-God-sort-them-out side,” Raife explained as he watched her work to assimilate the information.

  She was settling in. That tight knot of pain she held so close was beginning to loosen, to unravel. She was working with Tag in his room of computer junk most days and seemed to be more relaxed when she was around the rest of the team. He wanted to give her some semblance of a life back. Some freedom. He wanted the pain completely gone.

  Kel snorted. “That’s putting it mildly. The chicks of the Triumvirate are power-mongering bitches, and they don’t give a shit about anything but more power. Believe me, no one wants them to get involved in anything. Besides, Sanguen have enforcers of their own, and they like to keep their business to themselves. I’ll ask Gabe, see what he can find out from the local Houses.”

  “I’ll check the missing persons database and see what information can be had there. Surely the humans were reported missing,” Katya offered, her mind already focusing on the task in front of her.

  He couldn’t stop looking at her, the pale turn of her cheeks, the way strands of her white blonde hair pulled away from the clip and framed her face by the end of the day. How the nearly translucent blue of her eyes deepened when she was processing information.

  He’d been a goner when he held her in his arms at four years old, but the woman she’d grown into was more devastating to him. She entranced him. Hovering lightly on the edge of her mind, he loved to watch it spin and sort the shitload of information she was constantly pulling in. She cast a glance at her empty carton of food with a frown, and he felt the hunger move through her mind.

  She hadn’t drunk from him again, even though she craved it as much as he did. It was a velvety darkness in her mind, shifting behind her eyes when she looked at him. One that she refused to give in to. She was afraid. He could feel it. She didn’t trust him completely. He knew it and was trying like hell to accept it, but it was damn hard.

  She needed more time. He knew that too. Hell, he even understood it. But knowing and understanding were hell and gone from accepting, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could give her.

  THE NEXT MORNING, Raife cursed as Katya’s small body hit the mat again.

  “Did you come here for something important, bro, or are you just using me for my view of the training room since you got kicked out?” Tag had a large metal piece of unidentifiable computer equipment he was turning over in his hands, and he glanced up at Raife with a raised brow.

  “Yes and yes.” Raife barely spared Tag a look as he stood in front of the screen mounted on the wall – the one that displayed the training room surveillance cameras where he was currently watching his little mate get tossed on her ass by his partner. “Kat wanted to show me what she found from her digging today. And she and Kel kicked me out of the training room.” He winced again when Kel caught her and flipped her over her shoulder. “This can’t be good for her.”

  Tag didn’t bother to look up this time as he frowned at the flat, mangled piece of metal he was working on. “Dude, you know as well as I do that she’s a fortress right now. Drachon pregnancies strengthen the body, not weaken it. Plus, she’s got all that other mojo in her arsenal.” He flicked a glance to the screen and smiled when Katya sent Kel flying with a little burst of something from her hand.

  Raife grunted his response. Katya wasn’t completely Drachon, though. She was physically strong, that was undeniable, but was her body strong enough to protect the baby currently growing in her womb?

  “Have you told her?”

  He winced as Katya took a high kick to her chest. She shimmered before she hit the mat and rematerialized in a crouch behind Kel to sweep her legs out from beneath her. Then she was gone again. A nicely done move. She was learning, and Kel was a bitch to spar with.

  “No.” She had so much to process, and he didn’t want to add to it. She was training with Kel every day. Gideon was helping her harness some of those Elemental skills she was showing, and she spent a large part of her day in this room with Tag—he glanced around at all the computer shit everywhere—doing whatever it was they did. “I just need more time.”

  “Hell, Merrick, you sound like a damn chick.”

  Raife cast the other man a menacing glare.

  He was hoping the bond between him and Katya would strengthen before he had to drop the bomb on her. He
wanted to believe she would be happy with the news, but this new Katya guarded her freedom viciously and would see this only as another way he was making choices for her. He was afraid he knew exactly how she would respond. She would think he was using her to save himself.

  And damn if she wasn’t right. Without her, his life would be worth nothing.

  Raife cursed and forced himself to turn away from the screen. Hell, he did sound like a chick.

  Tag cast him an “I told you so” look, and Raife growled. “Fuck off, Jennings. And stay the hell out of my head.”

  “You, my friend, were projecting. A two-year-old could pick up on your thoughts.” Tag chuckled when Raife lewdly motioned at him, but his focus returned to whatever the hell he was working on as he rubbed a big hand over his buzzed head in frustration. With a frown and a curse, he tossed it back down on the table and began tapping away at his computer. “Half-assed piece of shit. I don’t get it. The security program was art, but the server blade it was housed on is a piece of crap.”

  Raife wasn’t quite sure what Tag was talking about, but it sounded like words his mate would use. “You have Kat look at it?”

  “No, she’s been familiarizing herself with my security system here at Incog. She’ll be the one monitoring all this bullshit when I kick it in my final heat.” He shrugged, but the emotion Raife picked up was anything but indifferent. Raife didn’t miss the long look with which Tag treated the screens that displayed the surveillance video from Dr. Mahoney’s lab.

  Raife snorted. “Now who’s being a chick?”

  The look Tag flicked over him lacked any humor. “You know, bro, it won’t be long before the doc finally manages to get your mate into her lab. There’s something she is bound to notice.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” And he did. “It’s complicated.” He was running out of time. Katya fought the need to bleed him at every turn, and soon she would be questioning that hunger. Female Sanguen took blood only when they were pregnant or mating. How much longer before she suspected the need to drink from him was more than just their mating?