Pure Destiny

by Aja James

  He stayed silent.

  “Have it your way,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant, but couldn’t manage to keep the evil glee from her voice.

  She rose up and crawled some more. Supporting her weight on her elbows and knees, she hovered her face an inch above his, her body’s nearness making his shiver with awareness though she made sure that they didn’t touch.

  “You’re so sensitive everywhere, Dalair,” she murmured over his mouth, her own so close they shared one breath.

  She leaned down to worry the pebble of his taut nipple between her teeth, making his pecs jump, all of the muscles in his torso tightening into corrugated steel.

  “You sense everything more strongly than anyone else,” she said low, compassion and sadness making her voice quaver.

  “It must have been torture to keep all that locked up. Buried. Trapped in a mindless shell.”

  He gave an abrupt shake of his head and communicated through thought, the words too raw to say out loud.

  I feel too much. It hurts too much. I…wanted to disappear. I should have fought the turning harder. I didn’t.

  Her eyes softened; even her monster whimpered in empathy for her tortured, broken warrior.

  “You did what you could,” she told him firmly. “You fought valiantly, and despite everything they did, you won. We won. I love that you feel so strongly, my beautiful supernova. It’s what helped me to bring you back, I am certain of it.”

  He paused for a moment, and then echoed with some amusement, “Supernova?”

  She grinned a toothy Cheshire grin.

  “Oh yes. Beneath all that stoicism and reserve, you’re a brilliant star pulsing with life. You just need the right trigger to set you off. I happily volunteer my services,” she hummed.

  “I love it when you explode, implode, just so I can put all your particles back together and make you do it again.”

  His breath hitched when she rubbed her lips softly over his parted mouth.

  “And again. And again. And again…”

  “Are you planning to fulfill these promises this century?” he grunted.

  She darted her tongue out to lick his upper lip before biting down on his lower lip hard enough to draw blood.

  “Little savage,” he rasped.

  “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” she whispered darkly as she sucked on his bruise.

  “I’m going to put all those hyper-senses to work very shortly. Are you ready for me?”

  “You haven’t tested them enough yet?” he asked archly, and she thought she heard his heart stutter a beat.

  “Oh baby,” she nipped his chin playfully, “that was just foreplay.”

  “Fuck me,” he groaned, a rough exhalation that wasn’t meant to be an invitation.

  But that didn’t stop her from interpreting the gritty sound as such.

  “Beg me sweetly and I will,” she taunted in a sing-song voice.

  “Sadist,” he accused.

  Wicked, womanly laughter was his only response.

  Deftly, she reversed her crouch above him until she was facing his groin, her own arched above his face, her thighs on either side of his head.

  Automatically, his hands moved to hold her hips, bring her closer. He wanted her pussy to ride his face. He wanted to penetrate her with his tongue and devour her desire. She knew what he wanted. She wanted it too.

  But later.

  Right now, she focused completely on his pleasure. So, she stalled his hands with her own, pulling them back to the base of his cock and balls.

  “Keep squeezing yourself. I didn’t say you can stop,” she admonished, and pulled his middle finger down below his balls to press against the rim of his own pucker.

  “Put pressure there, hold on tight. But don’t you dare dip inside. That secret treasure trove is mine.”

  He grunted harshly but obeyed, squeezing the base of his shaft with one hand, the other pulling his rock-hard balls as far down as he could while his finger pressed hard against his quivering star.

  “When did you become such a damn tease?” he growled.

  She pinned him with a wanton look over her shoulder.

  “I was a twenty-year-old virgin not so long ago. That’s at least seven years since puberty. I haven’t even kissed a boy before or since I accidentally kissed you that fateful night in your room. My best friend is Aella the sex goddess, who regularly fills my ears—”

  His brows came together in a frown, disapproving of anyone corrupting his innocent little Sophia.

  “—because I beg her to—with all kinds of kinky carnal details. I’ve probably watched more porn than any other girl my age, thanks to you. I let my over-active teenage imagination do the rest. And voila, I’m a horny little sex fiend in need of an outlet. Which happens to be only one man. You.”

  She lowered her lids in a deceptively slumberous expression.

  “Are you ready to suffer for keeping me waiting this long?”

  He gave her an incredulous look that said—you haven’t already made me suffer?

  Slowly, she licked her lips from corner to corner in a thorough sweep. A taunt and a dare.

  Oh yes, her ravenous gaze said, you don’t know the half of it.

  She got more comfortable around his groin, bracing her arms on the insides of his spread thighs, making them open even wider. She stared down at the swollen head of his cock as he held it upright at the base, as if offering himself like a sacrifice.

  She extended her tongue to lick around the glans with just the tip.

  It jerked and shuddered at just that touch, beads of clear fluid leaking out of the tiny mouth.

  “What does it feel like?” she murmured. “Tell me.”

  He groaned restlessly.

  I have no words. Do not make me.

  She closed her lips around the crown and sucked the sweet pearls from his tender skin. It tasted so different from his seed, like sugary nectar.

  Goddess above! She could live off his body just like this. His blood, his essence, his sweat and cream.

  “Try,” she mumbled, and kissed in wet sucks all along and around his length, above the tight grip of his fist at the base.

  Sophia…

  “Am I the only one who ever saw you this way? Naked and exposed? Desperate to be fucked?”

  He rumbled a thunderous sound through his chest, as if warning her to stop her merciless taunts.

  “Feed my mouth,” she commanded, holding herself still and in position.

  Any friction he wanted to get from her, he’d have to create himself.

  Levering up with his bent knees and clenching buttocks, he began to thrust steadily into her waiting mouth.

  But it wasn’t tight enough. Deep enough. She only let him get a couple inches inside, and she didn’t touch him anywhere else. She was torturing him like this, and the more desperate he got, the less friction she allowed him.

  Tell me what you feel, and maybe I’ll let you have more. Maybe I’ll even take you down my throat and swallow as you come.

  He growled mindlessly like a beast, arching his spine, flexing his hips, rutting his full-to-bursting stone-hard cock into her teasing little mouth.

  Too shallow. Not enough. He couldn’t come like this.

  She kept him dangling on the brink. How long had it been by now? An hour? Two? Was she really going to deny his release all night?

  Sophia smiled around his silken head, licking and sucking whenever he pumped it into her mouth, but never giving him the pressure he needed.

  She loved the power she had over him like this. She loved how desperate and responsive he was. Her reticent, stoic warrior.

  Sophia…please…

  Her core clenched around emptiness above his face, a burst of heat and wetness flooding her womb.

  Ah, his sweet, beseeching words. Only she would ever know them. Only she could ever coax them from him. This man bowed to no one, but he gave her his weaknesses, made himself vulnerable. For her.

  Only her. />
  She moved then, putting both her hands around his pulsing staff above his fist, swallowing the head of him as deeply into her mouth and throat as she could, her fangs piercing the thick dorsal vein.

  The sound he made was barely human, so raw and primitive it shook the ground they lay upon.

  She drew strongly on his sensitive crown, drinking the hottest, sweetest blood from his private flesh as her hands squeezed him rhythmically, milking him for his seed.

  Tell me, she commanded in their linked minds, sucking him deeper, swallowing his blood down convulsively, the motion working her throat around his tortured stalk even more.

  Only his harsh, ragged breathing could be heard in the still night air. Not even the waterfall’s splashing reached Sophia’s ears, she was so in tune with everything Dalair.

  His galloping heartbeat. The vibrations of animalistic need through his vocal cords, trapped by his unbreakable control. The musky, intoxicating, forbidden scent of him, like countless secrets unfurling one by one.

  Both his voice and his mind remained silent for the longest time. He wouldn’t break for her. Wouldn’t give in to her demands.

  Gods! She was breaking herself with the pent-up need. At this point, she wanted his release so badly she could taste it, feel it erupting within her channel, washing over her in milky, hot waves.

  This teasing had gone on long enough. He was stronger than her, after all. Even her monster couldn’t break him.

  And then he said—

  You destroy me, my Darkness and Light. You make every part of me hurt for you. Burn for you. Yearn for you.

  Only you.

  It feels like dying, this desperation. I have died to defend you. I would do it again. I would give my life a thousand times just to be owned this way, to belong this way.

  To you.

  Please Sophia…

  Only you can set me free.

  Holy gods!

  Her entire being burst into flames.

  She pulled her fangs and mouth away, not even bothering to lick his wounds closed. She was too far gone now to care. His thoughts made the demon within her beat its chest and howl with triumph.

  She twisted around and grasped his manhood in a sure grip. Positioning it where she wanted, she took him fully to the hilt in one rough glide as she took his mouth just as brutally with her own.

  Mine. Mine. Mine.

  My Dalair!

  The Destroyer in her unleashed its havoc as she rutted mindlessly upon him, her body not her own. Her hips grinding. Ass clenching. Thighs trembling. Pussy wringing.

  She plundered his mouth with equal savagery, tongue thrusting demandingly into his delicious heat, mating with his.

  She bit. Sucked. Plucked. Growling like an animal in heat. Noises she didn’t recognize as her own gurgling from her throat.

  His hands finally let go of his tortured parts and gripped her hips in a brutal clasp, fingers digging into her flesh, bruising her skin.

  He moved her as she moved upon him, increasing the friction and intensity. At the same time, he thrust up into her from below, his hips a relentless piston that pounded his thick steel into her.

  She could feel the steady trickle of fluids leaking out of her pussy, down her thighs, pooling into his groin and down the root of him, past his balls and taint. His blood and essence. Her liquid desire. Their movements frantic. Uncontrolled.

  Until finally, he broke on a hoarse shout into her mouth, his body shattering piece by beautiful piece within hers, his seed erupting like hot lava against her womb, drenching both of them anew, drowning them with his passion.

  Her monster roared and dug its fangs and claws into Dalair’s white hot soul, even as her body clenched and convulsed around his, pulling him deeper, milking him harder.

  Mine! Mine! Mine!

  She fed upon him endlessly. Insatiable for his life force. The taste, scent, sound and feel of him. All hers to cherish and destroy in equal measure.

  When, finally, their cataclysms subsided into numbing quakes, she lay upon him spent. Her face tucked into the hollow of his throat, his arms around her torso holding her close, their legs tangled like tree roots below, his sex locked covetously within her core.

  The monster in her subsided too, satisfied at last, purring contentedly with buzzing pleasure.

  Sophia’s lips curled in a delirious smile.

  She had Claimed her Destined Mate at last.

  *** *** *** ***

  Jade found Eveline alone in the Shield’s library at four o’clock in the morning. Passed out over the gigantic table, drooling on the glossy wood.

  For a moment, she studied the small, sprite-like, auburn-haired librarian, intrigued and bemused. So this was the female that bespelled the mighty Ramses, the race’s first-ever Dark King. A being that Jade suspected was older than any of them really knew.

  Perhaps Eveline was the only one who did know, perhaps not. Ramses had not been forthcoming about his rather sudden and apparently permanent relationship with the Seer of the Pure Ones. A glorified fortune teller, many of the haughty Dark nobles would say.

  And those were just the nice ones.

  Jade did not know the woman before her very well. She had not been living in the Shield for long, since Mating the Pure Ones’ Consul, Seth Tremaine. And before that, Eveline Marceau never popped on her radar.

  This particular member of the Pure Ones’ inner circle had been all but invisible, reclusive. Though Jade knew from Inanna that Eveline had found a critical clue that led the ex-Angel of Death to the place where her father had been imprisoned.

  Invisible but quite useful, it would seem.

  Most of the time, Jade helped Rain in the healing chambers, reminisced old times with Inanna, and often, Ishtar would join them. Her unofficial official duties were to help Seth with cross-Kind diplomacy.

  Jade was well networked and still highly respected and formidable among the Dark Ones around the world. She had plenty of human followership as well, which she maintained meticulously. Though she’d been a Pure One for a few hundred years of her life, she’d been too much of a loner to make friends, the only one of any substance being Rain. Now, she reestablished some lost ties, or tried to make new ones.

  But at her core, even though she’d been born human, reborn a Pure One, then resurrected finally as a Dark One, Jade preferred her current state of being by far. For many reasons. Not the least of which was the use of her sexual powers to torment her Mate in the most tantalizing and rewarding ways.

  Once upon a time, in her misguided avoidance of her destiny, she might have considered Ramses for a Consort as she continued to rule over the New England vampire hive. Theirs would have been the most powerful union amongst their Kind, she was sure of it.

  If what her comrades said was true—Ramses was an ancient Earth Elemental. Rarer than even majestic animal spirits. So few of them had survived these untold millennia. Those who did had hidden amongst humans, begetting offspring with diluted blood and powers, until barely any magic remained.

  But not Ramses. He was an original.

  What had such a powerful, dominant, sexual male seen in this small, seemingly humorless erudite whose nose was always stuck in a book?

  Jade shook her head mentally. ’Twas a mystery for the ages.

  “Wh-what?”

  As if hearing her skepticism, Eveline came awake with a start to defend her womanly wiles. Reflexively swiping the drool from the corner of her mouth, as if she did this all the time—come awake in just this way, surrounded by a mountain of loose papers, scrolls and books.

  “You must be in dire need of rest, Seer,” Jade said softly, not wanting to startle her further. “You’ve not left this library since arriving at the Shield, have you? Whatever are you looking for?”

  The woman blinked big, gray-blue eyes up at Jade, who leaned her lithe, perfectly voluptuous form casually against the edge of the table.

  “Oh. It’s you.”

  Now it was Jade’s turn to blink in a conf
used flutter of silky lashes.

  “Me?” she queried curiously.

  “Yes. The most beautiful vampire queen that ever lived,” Eveline sighed, then added, “One of the Great Beauties across time and Kinds.”

  Jade tipped her head slightly to study the Seer.

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  Because she’d said it like it was. Her tone had been…a smidgeon belligerent.

  Eveline shrugged, declining to expound.

  “Why are you up so late yourself?”

  “I’m a Dark One,” Jade murmured, flashing the tips of her gleaming fangs. “I live for the night.”

  “Did you just get back from the Cove?” Eveline asked, unimpressed.

  “Indeed.”

  Eveline frowned.

  “Aella and Inanna returned hours ago. Did you stay behind?”

  Jade merely curled the corners of her lips in a small smile.

  Eveline frowned harder.

  “To visit my…Ramses?”

  Jade’s delight grew, though she tried to keep her smile reserved.

  Now she saw it. Why Ramses was so enamored with this little sprite.

  Flames practically crackled in the Seer’s doe-like eyes as she stared at Jade with growing ire. She fairly singed Jade with the shooting sparks of her displeasure. The placid librarian was a sight to behold when jealousy and possessiveness of her male roused her. Her entire visage, demeanor and aura transformed.

  She was rather frightening, truth be told.

  Jade was smart enough to tread carefully from here on out. Not the least of which reasons were—if a tussle did break out between the two women, she was in no physical condition to win. The stab wound the Paladin inflicted was still unhealed internally even though the skin had knitted together superficially.

  “Yes, Alend asked me to stay behind for a bit more…private discussion.”

  Uh oh. Not so smart, after all. Pity her mischievousness outweighed her sense of self-preservation.

  “Private, you say?”

  Jade had met a few sorceresses in her time. Witches, if one wanted to use a more pedantic term. They were quite powerful in their own right, but their Gift was never predictable. For that reason, and many others, they were dangerous and not to be underestimated. Spells and curses could last forever.