by Caris Roane
Jude, what you do to me.
He began to push inside, slowly at first then faster, adding another vibration down low. Hannah felt as though she’d moved into some kind of alternate universe, drifting along, not quite herself, yet experiencing every sensation sharper than before.
She reached deep within and found the frequency connected to her fire-gift. She began slowly within her well and warmed everything up.
Oh, Sweet Goddess, Hannah. You don’t know what that feels like. He thrust deeper in response.
She could feel ecstasy building between them like a vibrating inferno of sensation. She also knew that his mating frequency had come to life as well, something that touched her abdomen, reaching inside for a matching vibration.
Then she felt it, her own mating vibration, one more indication she was becoming realm.
Hannah, do you feel that?
Yes, it’s amazing. Touch me with your mating frequency. Please. I want it.
First, I need to bite you.
She cried out and shifted her head to the side. While he continued to thrust into her well, he swept her hair away from her throat, then licked her in long sweeps until her vein rose.
He made chuffing sounds deep in his throat, a reminder that he was vampire and not human, something she’d grown to love so much.
As he angled his head, she focused all her attention on the bite. When it came, a jolt of pleasure dove straight through her well and she almost climaxed.
But she wanted to hold back. There would be a moment when they could come together and share ecstasy as one, and that’s what she wanted, almost as though it was life to her and nothing less.
When he formed a seal with his lips and began to drink, he slowed his hips which helped her to calm down. She caught the nape of his neck and fondled him. With her free hand she once more, and with tremendous pleasure, slid beneath his hair and explored the rise and fall of his shoulders, his arms, his back, his buttocks.
He groaned now as he drank her down, as he took her life force within. His body grew warmer to the touch as well, and his muscles seemed to expand, both a result of her blood and the expression of her fire-gift.
When he released a stronger vibration through his cock, she began to pant, both holding her release at bay, yet bidding it to come forward at the same time.
His hips began long, deep thrusts and her breathing grew more erratic, shallow and intense.
Finally, he let go of her neck and rose up on his forearms to look at her. “We’re going to come together, Hannah, you and me.”
She nodded.
And at that moment, his mating vibration began to stroke her own, so that her entire body felt engaged in the act. She could almost feel Jude’s pleasure as he drove his cock in and out.
He began to move faster and whispered, “I’m ready.”
She nodded once more, and as he increased his speed and the vibration deep within, ecstasy came as an enormous wave. It caught her up with an intense streak of pleasure that kept pulsing, then soaring up through her abdomen, up and up, so that she was crying out. When it all hit her heart, the orgasm exploded wide open, breaching the veil between the realm world and the heavens so that some part of her consciousness shot through the night skies.
But Jude’s roar of ecstasy brought her back to his gray eyes and just like that she could feel his pleasure, how his seed ignited a thousand sensations and sent him into a profound release.
He roared again and again and before it was all done, she felt her body respond once more, until she was shouting against his roars and pleasure flew over every sensitive nerve. His mating vibration tightened around hers so that ecstasy flowed through every part of her body.
It took at least a full minute before each of the sensations began to pass, before her body would settle down, before Jude’s cries and grunts started to ease back, before he could release his hold on her mating vibration.
All retreated in stages until she lay sweating, hot, and more satisfied than she’d ever felt possible.
“You’re flushed. Are you okay?”
“I’m still floating around Jupiter, I think. You?”
“I have a buzz from that release. Hannah, it’s never been like this.”
“For me, either.”
All talking ceased and eventually her breathing evened out, as well as his.
He lay on top of her for a long time, supporting himself on his forearms, yet still connected. He laid gentle kisses now and then on her throat, her cheeks, even her shoulders. When she started to doze, he lifted her from the bed and carried her into the shower. He held her as he washed her body in cool water since she was still warm from the release of her fire-gift.
“That cold water is heaven.”
“Thought it might be. You’re all pinked up again.”
He soaped her gently between her legs and kissed her.
He must have felt her overall fatigue and weakness, because when her shower was done, he toweled her off then carried her back to bed where he tucked her in.
As she drifted off to sleep, she heard the showerheads crank up once more.
~ ~ ~
Late that afternoon, Jude woke up to an empty bed, but he caught the smell of bacon frying which sort of made up for it. Crisp bacon, one of his absolute favorite aromas. That, and coffee.
He also heard laughter and knew that Nathan was probably telling Hannah stories about him, no doubt revealing a drunken episode or two. He hoped his Executive Castle Coordinator was keeping it clean.
He slipped into a dark blue, silk robe only because he wasn’t sure how Hannah would feel if she came back to the room and had to face all his nakedness first thing at night. Maybe she wouldn’t have minded, but he didn’t want to chance it.
He searched for and found his brush across the room by his dresser, no doubt having become dislodged the night before when he’d gotten rid of the comforter. He sat down on the end of the bed and began stripping his hair of tangles, usually a long process.
A knock on the door and Nathan entered with the Kellcasse Chronicle under one arm and looking worried, but bearing a cup of coffee.
As Jude took the mug, he asked, “What’s going on?”
Nathan handed him the paper. “See for yourself. But I think we might need some big guns tonight to help us out of this one.”
He set down his brush and laid the newspaper next to him so that he could see the entire front page. “Shit. Who took the picture?”
The shot was from Chelana and the groom was holding his bride, still unconscious. The photographer had zoomed in to show the two cuts on her neck with wound still seeping and the groom’s white shirt covered in blood.
The headline didn’t help. ‘Near Massacre at Chelana while the Mastyr Plays in Love-nest with Human Bar-Maid.’ Hannah must have hated reading that.
There was a picture of them kissing in the kitchen. Damn long-range photo lenses.
“Holy fuck.”
“Yeah, that was my reaction.”
He met Nathan’s gaze. “Has Hannah seen this?”
“Of course. Her cheeks turned red, but her comment was to the point and ran something like ‘This is so fucking unfair’.”
“She said ‘fucking’?”
“Actually, she did. It was awesome.”
“Okay, thanks. Tell her I’ll be down in about half an hour. If anyone calls, just –”
“Oh, we’ve had calls today, mostly from the press and a couple leaving your basic hate messages. I suggested they call back later and that you were currently in meetings.”
“Well done.” He sipped his coffee, glancing at Nathan again. “You taking care of Hannah?”
“I prepared her a spinach omelet, and she said it was to die for. She didn’t refuse one of Abigail’s cupcakes either. Or the bacon. Not being light-sensitive, she’s now out on the balcony, taking advantage of the last rays of the day.”
He groaned inwardly. No doubt someone was taking pictures of her every move. �
�Stay with her and remind her that there will probably be photographers across the lake snapping away.”
“I already told her, but she said she didn’t care. She’s pretty steamed. I like her.”
When Nathan left, Jude scanned the article and it was what he’d come to expect from the Chronicle. There was a lot of shit about how Jude had let Kellcasse down yet again and how the mysterious mist at the wedding – also photographed – left a thousand unanswered questions. The newspaper had also made use of a really bad double-entendre in one of their photo captions. ‘Was Mastyr Jude still UP to the job?’ And of course, that was the exact phrase below the picture of the kiss. Bastards.
Jude was used to it, though. But right now he hoped Hannah had a thick skin because the fall-out had just begun and would get a lot worse before it got better.
Setting his mug on the dresser, he went back to de-tangling his hair. He pondered the difficulties of managing the mist situation as well as the volatile press that wouldn’t hesitate to arouse public opinion against him so long as the articles sold more newspapers.
Even after he’d finished with his hair, he grabbed his coffee again and moved to sit on the end of the bed, holding his mug for a long time. He finally called the PR team leader, Frida, and had a brief discussion with her about tactics. They could easily head off the negative campaign, but Frida said the problem would be best handled with a show of increased Guard force, and that just adding the Shifter Brigade wouldn’t be enough, especially since they were untried in the field. Could he bring in forces from another realm?
He gave it a lot of thought, and though he really didn’t like the idea of having another mastyr around because of Hannah, he believed Frida was absolutely right. The papers would stir up a lot of hysteria, but troops on the ground would go a long way to easing the minds of most Kellcassians.
He called Malik, Mastyr of Ashleaf Realm, whose terrain, though denser with fewer canals and waterways, most resembled Jude’s woodland and forest landscape.
“Malik, I need your help.”
“Thought that might be why you called. The access point communication centers have already broadcasted the PR disaster in your realm. So what the hell is going on and what’s with this mist, anyway?”
Jude gave him the rundown, adding that the wedding had been in the Chelana town square, a very public place, and photographers had taken pictures of much of the nightmare. When Margetta chose the public location, there had been no way to contain information about the current threat. “Mostly, I need a presence in Kellcasse, for the sake of helping my people to feel safe, and I’m asking if you’ll come and bring part of your Ashleaf Vampire Guard with you.”
“Of course I will. Ashleaf is very quiet at the moment, and it sounds like Margetta has her sights set on your realm.”
“Great. Thank you. Go ahead and move your men into the bunkrooms at my training center. But hell, I’d really like a face-to-face, even for just a few minutes. If you could come to the castle grounds, say the peach orchard, then contact me telepathically, I could meet you there.”
Malik chuckled. “I take it the rumors are true, that Hannah is a blood rose?”
Gossip traveled fast through the Nine Realms. “She is. There’s no question about it.” He put a hand to his stomach, stunned all over again that he had no pain anymore.
He told Malik about her essential fire-gift that Vojalie had said was very rare in the realm-world.
Malik whistled, then asked, “What’s it like? The blood rose thing, I mean?”
The remaining mastyrs no longer asked whether their time would come, but when. Jude heard the anxiety in Malik’s voice. None of the bonded mastyrs he knew had been prepared for the arrival of a blood rose, and each had faced a challenge in bringing a woman into his life.
So much had happened in the last two days that Jude had barely had time to process much of anything, and he really wasn’t sure what to say to Malik. “It’s extraordinary to have the blood-starvation resolved, I will say that. But I’ve never been so confused. I had my goals laid out, and you know my situation, but now everything is as unsettled as hell. But it’s also true that you’ll have a drive toward Hannah because I haven’t bonded with her yet.”
“Hence, a meet-up in the peach orchard.”
“Exactly.”
He’d confided in Malik more than once which was one reason he often called on him for help. He and Seth were his closest mates. Malik had known his wife and had been godfather to his daughter. He’d taken their deaths hard and like Jude had basically chosen to remain unattached while the Invictus and now their creator, Margetta, held sway.
“Just let me know when you’ve arrived and about when can you head over here?”
“Give me an hour. When I’m on my way, I’ll contact Longeness and let him know.”
“Sounds good.”
He made his last call to the leader of the Kellcasse Civic Coalition, asking for a meeting with the twenty district leaders of his realm so that he could fill them in with accurate information. He also thought it would be a good thing to talk about Hannah and what she’d already done for the realm.
When he’d dressed in more formal realm-wear – black slacks and a dark blue silk shirt – he went in search of Hannah. Full-dark wouldn’t arrive for some time in the northern realm. Because the steel shades were still down throughout his house, he contacted Hannah telepathically.
I’ll be right in. Just catching the sunset.
As soon as she opened the balcony door and stepped across the threshold, his heart gave way. So much feeling surfaced that for a moment he couldn’t move and he definitely couldn’t speak.
But his expression must have caught Hannah off guard because as she closed the door, she asked. “What’s wrong?”
He had to show her.
He crossed the room in a few brisk strides, hauled her into his arms and kissed her.
~ ~ ~
Hannah had never been more surprised than by this kiss. Jude had looked really upset for a good long moment when she’d opened the door from the balcony. Now she was in his arms, her heart beating hard in her chest. She’d wondered what it would be like to see him again after such extraordinary lovemaking earlier that morning.
Now she knew.
She slid her arms around his neck and responded in kind, stroking his back beneath his clasped Guardsman hair, nibbling at his lips, savoring when he drove his tongue against hers.
She hadn’t expected to be caught up in an embrace first thing, but she loved it.
Her heart had warmed to Jude over the past two days. She’d longed for him before, and loved him very much as a good friend, but right now, oh, God, she was pretty sure she was falling in love with him, all the way, hard.
When he drew back, he looked as confused as ever as he pushed her hair away from her face. “I hadn’t meant to do that, but the moment I saw you, it seemed like the only thing I could do.”
“I’ve never had a more perfect greeting, and I mean that.”
He kissed her again, and if Nathan hadn’t been roaming the lower rooms, straightening up for the meetings, she felt certain they would have been headed for a quickie.
She almost suggested they retire once more to his bedroom, but Nathan came in and said that the Civic Coalition leaders had just started to arrive. “I’m making lots of coffee. You’d better go in and start laying feathers. You’ve got a couple trolls hop-stepping with steam coming out their ears. The same question keeps getting asked: ‘Why weren’t they told’?”
“Got it.”
Despite Nathan’s presence, Jude kissed her again, though this time, he didn’t linger.
On her own, she returned to the balcony, enjoying the sun as it made its way slowly into the west. In early summer, this far north, it took a while for full dark to arrive. She pulled her phone from her jeans and called the Gold Rush. Amelia shut the door to her office against what sounded like a riotous, happy hour crowd so she could talk.
Han
nah felt the smallest pang that she wasn’t there. She knew so many people in Port Townsend and had as many human regulars as realm. More than one romance had blossomed, which reminded her that the bride who’d been assaulted by Margetta had announced her engagement at the Gold Rush.
“Sounds like the gang is all there.”
“Yes, and that troll is back who gets stinking drunk then dances on the bar.”
“You can’t blame him. They use their feet for expression.”
“It’s a safety hazard,” Amelia growled. Despite her overall free spiritedness, she had her rules and didn’t like anyone overrunning them.
Hannah realized just how much she loved the kinds of problems she had at her bar compared to Jude’s regular nightmare. Her heart felt crushed suddenly with the knowledge about how much her life had changed. She wanted to go back badly, to the way things were before the wraith-pair attacked Jude outside her bar.
Drawing her thoughts back to the Gold Rush, she said, “Well, have Hector keep an eye on him.” Her bouncer could easily hold the troll in the air with one hand if he needed to. He was a Guardsman-sized shifter who’d fallen out with his pack and now lived in Port Townsend year round. Hannah had helped him get a special U.S. visa because he worked for her.
She trusted realm-folk, but like humans, sometimes alcohol could make them behave like idiots. And Hector, bless him, took care of business every night.
“He’s already on it.”
Hannah then explained what had been happening. Amelia whistled a couple of times then said she’d known a few things already because one of the fae had brought in a copy of the Kellcasse Chronicle. “Your ass looks stellar in that photo, by the way, and all your friends are going to be so jealous when they see that you’re wrapped up in Mastyr Jude’s arms.”
A shiver went through her from pure desire that kept exploding in her chest for the vampire. Playing it safe, she said, “He’s a good man and we’re caught in something we’re each trying to figure out. It’s … very realm.” She hadn’t gone into detail about her fire-gift. She couldn’t quite bring the words to her lips.
Amelia was silent for a moment, then said, “Hannah, can I offer you a piece of advice?”
