by I. T. Lucas
She came again, her keening wail muffled by the pillow.
Three orgasms should have been enough, but they weren’t. Ana still wanted more.
Her inner muscles clenching around his manhood, she arched back against him, taking him impossibly deeper.
Leaning over her, he pinched her nipple, and the small sting had her eyes rolling back in her head.
He growled, and his tongue darted to lick her neck where it met her shoulder.
“Oh, God, yes.” She sounded like a porn star. “Bite me.”
She had no idea what had prompted her to utter that insane request, but she knew what they were doing wouldn’t be complete without it.
“No,” he hissed next to her ear.
“Yes.” She bucked back against him.
And then he did, and the burning pain was not at all what she’d expected. But it was over almost as soon as it began, and she climaxed for the fourth time, and the fifth, and the sixth…
Somewhere through the haze, Ana had a semi-coherent thought that she was about to faint from too much sex. But when it happened a moment later, it wasn’t the lights out she’d expected. Instead of blacking out, she was soaring on a cloud of euphoria, passing incredible landscapes and feeling more contented and happier than she’d ever imagined possible.
37
Leon
As the haze of lust cleared, Leon wanted to bang his head against the wall.
He’d bitten Anastasia.
He’d promised himself he wouldn’t, and he’d gone ahead and done it because she’d begged him to bite her.
No, it wasn’t her fault. She’d had no idea what she was asking for. It was all on him, and he was majorly fucked.
How was he going to explain it when she woke up?
Was there a chance she wouldn’t remember it?
The venom was like a drug, its aphrodisiac and euphoric properties muddling the brain. She might think that she’d imagined the bite, but she would wonder why she’d blacked out.
He would have to convince Anastasia that what she’d experienced had been the result of multiple orgasms, and since the twin incisions were already fading, he could claim that it had never happened.
It was grossly unfair to her. The woman already suspected that she was suffering from schizophrenia or some other mental disorder, and what he was about to do was going to reinforce that belief.
He should get whipped for his lack of control and stupidity.
Regrettably, the intense feeling of guilt did nothing to cool his arousal. He was still hard, and his eyes were probably still glowing. Thankfully, his fangs had retracted, so that was one less thing to worry about.
Pulling out gently, he got out of bed and padded to the bathroom. A look in the mirror confirmed that his eyes were still glowing, and he didn’t need to look down to know that he was still hard.
A cold shower should take care of both.
Except, that was a temporary fix. As soon as he saw Anastasia sprawled naked on his bed, with her hands still bound, a blindfold covering her eyes, and her face relaxed in post-coital bliss, he would be in trouble again.
Perhaps he needed to put the damn blindfold on himself.
She’d exceeded his expectations in every way. Not only with the Venus-like body she’d hidden under the unflattering Safe Haven’s approved clothing, but with her insatiable sexual hunger.
He would have never guessed that the gentle and timid young woman had a wildcat inside her.
There had been clues, though.
When Anastasia got angry, her claws came out.
Shaking his head, Leon turned the cold water on in the shower and stepped in. It wasn’t cold, it was freezing, but he forced himself to stand there and take it, until his erection deflated, and his eyes stopped glowing.
With that accomplished, he stepped out, wrapped a towel around his hips, and grabbed two washcloths for Anastasia. Wetting them in warm water, he walked back to the bedroom.
She was out like a light, not moving a muscle as he cleaned her up, untied her hands, and climbed back into bed next to her.
Checking her wrists, he was glad to see that his idea to pad them with his socks had worked, and they weren’t chafed.
Should he remove the blindfold now?
As he’d expected, he’d gotten hard as soon as he laid eyes on her, which meant that his eyes were glowing as well, but perhaps he could use the contact lenses excuse again. As long as his fangs didn’t elongate, he could pull it off.
Or he could just leave the blindfold on her for the entire night. It would be no different than a sleep mask.
Right.
Anastasia had played along for the sex, but as soon as she woke up, she would demand to take the scarf off.
He kept staring at her for what seemed like hours, watching her chest rise and fall with her even breaths, and at some point, he must have dozed off because when he opened his eyes, he found her looking at him.
Her small hand was on his chest, and as he’d expected, she’d taken the blindfold off. “Hi.” Her lush lips curved in a tentative smile.
He cupped her cheek. “How long have you been awake?”
“Only a few minutes.” She chuckled nervously. “I’ve never fainted from sex before.”
“You didn’t faint. You just fell asleep. I’ve exhausted you.”
“No, I fainted.” Her hand moved to her neck. “Right after you bit me.” She rubbed her fingers over the spot. “I thought I would have a bruise, but there is nothing there. Did I dream it?”
Thank the merciful Fates.
“I might have nipped you. But I was too far gone to remember much.”
“Yeah, me too.” She cuddled closer to him. “I never knew it could be like that. It was magic.”
“Yes, it was.” Smoothing his hand over her back, Leon closed his eyes and sent a silent thank you to the Fates.
“So it wasn’t just me?” she whispered. “You felt it too?”
“It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.” His hand moved south to cup her bottom. “You’ve been hiding a tigress under that good-girl façade.”
She chuckled softly. “I didn’t know I had one. You brought her out.”
38
Anastasia
“I consider it an honor to have been the one to set her free.” Sam shifted to his back, pulling Ana with him. “Now, try to get some sleep.”
His chest was too hard to be a comfortable pillow, but listening to his strong heartbeat was the best lullaby.
Relaxed and a little loopy, probably from orgasming so many times and then fainting, Ana let out a contented sigh and closed her eyes.
Sleep would come easily now, if she let it.
Returning to the fantastic dream world she’d soared through after fainting would be fun, but staying awake and enjoying the closeness with Sam for a little longer would be even better.
What if this was their last time together?
The thought squeezed her heart more painfully than it should have.
She barely knew the guy, and even though the sex had been amazing, she shouldn’t think about a future with him after only one night.
Evidently, Sam had won the bet, but Ana wasn’t going to admit it even under torture.
Just remember not to get attached. Margaret’s words drifted through her mind.
She should heed her friend’s advice and not let herself revel in the closeness. Perhaps falling asleep and going back to that beautiful dreamland would be better.
Recalling scenes from the fantastic dreams, Ana started to drift off, but instead of floating away into the dream world, a conversation started in her head.
She couldn’t even tell what language it was, but the female half of the couple enunciated each word like a first-grade teacher, making it possible for Ana to parrot her words phonetically.
Tapping Sam’s chest, she repeated what the woman was saying. “Nem tudom elviselni, amikor az emberek hazudnak nekem.”
The guy an
swered, and Ana repeated it as well. “A saját érdekében. Minél kevesebbet tudsz, annál jobb.”
Sam’s hand closed over hers. “It’s Hungarian. The first sentence was—I can’t stand being lied to. The second one was—for your own sake, the less you know, the better.”
“Hazug vagy.”
“You are a liar,” Sam translated.
As excitement burned through the last remnants of the hazy dream-like state, the conversation faded until it winked out, and Ana was left alone with just her own thoughts in her head.
As her eyes popped open, the first thing that jumped at her was the glow emanating from Sam’s eyes. “Your eyes are glowing.” She pushed up to a seated position, pulling the comforter with her to cover her breasts.
“Did they say it in English?”
She chuckled. “I can no longer hear them. I was talking about your eyes.”
“Oh. It’s the contact lenses. They are designed to do that.”
Sam didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would spend money on such a novelty item. But what if the glow was just a side effect of what the lenses could do?
What if they were part of his spy gear?
He’d admitted to serving in special ops and to having been on missions all over the world. At the time, it hadn’t occurred to her that he had most likely been a spy.
What if the lenses were equipped with tiny cameras? She’d heard about some that were as small as a grain of rice, so it was entirely possible that even smaller ones existed that could be embedded in contact lenses.
But as fascinating as that technology might be, and even more so Sam’s reasons for having them in, she had more exciting news to mull over.
Sam had confirmed that what she’d heard was real.
“I’ve never heard anyone speak Hungarian, not in real life and not in movies. That conversation couldn’t have been something that I retrieved from my subconscious. But it’s still possible that I can pick up radio waves.”
“I've thought about it, and that’s not likely. You would have heard much more than the occasional conversation. There would have been music, and commercials, and all the other stuff that gets broadcast.”
“Then the only other option is that what I heard was actually spoken somewhere.”
“This is your proof that you don’t have schizophrenia.” Sam reached for her and pulled her down to him. “Now the big question is why do you tune into one specific conversation at a time out of the millions that are going on in the world. There must be something special about those people.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they are your relatives.”
She smiled. “If that’s true, then I must have a huge family that is spread all over the globe.”
“It could be. Do you know your ancestry?”
“Like most Americans, I’m a mutt. Each of my great-grandparents was of different ethnicity.”
“There you go. You might have distant relatives in many different countries.”
She rested her cheek on his chest. “That can’t be the only explanation.”
“Maybe those were people you’ve met. As you’ve mentioned, Americans are a mix of many nationalities, and some of the people you’ve encountered during your life might have been bilingual. Maybe you can do something similar to what my cousin’s mate does. She attaches a string of her consciousness to people she wants to keep tabs on.”
He’d told her about that woman before, and she hadn’t believed him. But now, it no longer sounded as far-fetched to her as it had the first time. If she could hear distant relatives conversing, then everything was possible.
“I’m not aware of doing anything like that, though, and I don’t know a lot of people. I’m not exactly a social animal.” Ana snorted. “I’m the opposite of that.”
“Instead of attaching a string of your consciousness, you might be attaching a string of your subconscious, and that’s why you don’t know that you are doing it.”
Ana sighed. “That’s just as far-fetched as having relatives all over the world who I can hear talking.”
For a long moment, his hand drew small circles on her back. “The only other option I can think of is that there is something significant about what you hear, but you said that’s not the case. People making shopping lists or planning what to make for dinner is of no importance to anyone beside them.”
“I guess I'll never find out the answer to that. It’s not like I can track down every person I’ve ever met and ask them if they are bilingual, or find the people whose voices I hear and get them to do a genetic test to determine whether we are related.”
39
Leon
Genes.
Leon’s eyes popped open.
After Anastasia had fallen asleep, he must have drifted off, and his subconscious mind had processed what had happened, arriving at a realization that his waking mind had been too clouded by lust to deduce.
He’d fucked up.
The voices in Anastasia’s head were real, not a product of her imagination or of a diseased mind, which meant that she had a paranormal ability, and that made her a potential Dormant.
It was a wonderful development, except for the fact that he’d had unprotected sex with her and had bitten her.
She might start transitioning while still in Safe Haven, and the consequences of that could be devastating. Anastasia might not make it without proper medical supervision. But even if she survived the process, the clan would have a major clusterfuck on their hands.
If she lost consciousness, as many of the transitioning Dormants had, she would probably get rushed to the nearest hospital, where someone might figure out that what was happening to her was not something they had encountered before or could explain.
The clan would have a major clean-up job getting her out of there, erasing her from everyone’s memory, and destroying all evidence of her ever being there.
Then they would have to do the same for all the residents of Safe Haven, and that was another problem.
If Emmett was a compeller, he was probably immune to thralling the same way Eleanor had been even as a human. How would they make him forget about Anastasia’s hospital stay?
The guy would wonder how come no one in Safe Haven remembered her or had any record of her ever staying there.
All that mess could have been avoided if Leon hadn’t allowed his dick to do the thinking for him.
Kian would chew him up and spit him out, and Leon would bet his ass that his next assignment would be either back in West Virginia or some other godforsaken freezing boondocks.
That would serve him right.
But that was nothing. What worried Leon the most was Anastasia’s transition. She would have a much better chance of coming out alive on the other end if she went through the process in the clan’s clinic, monitored by an experienced doctor.
What a fucking mess he’d made, and he couldn’t even claim ignorance.
Anastasia had been a suspected Dormant from the start, and he should have stayed away from her like he’d intended. But he’d been weak, succumbing to lust and not using his brain.
No Dormant should get induced without giving his or her explicit consent, but Anastasia was an immune, which made everything even more complicated because Leon couldn’t tell her anything until she started transitioning.
He had to talk with Peter and Eleanor, confess his screw-up, and together they needed to come up with a plan to get Anastasia out of Safe Haven as soon as possible and take her somewhere safe.
Her immunity meant that they couldn’t take her to the village, though. The old clinic in the keep would have to do.
Startled by a soft kiss on his chest, Leon jerked. Anastasia was awake, and he hadn’t even noticed. One hell of a Guardian he was.
“Your heart is racing,” she murmured. “Did you have a bad dream?”
Yeah, a waking nightmare of him being an idiot.
“No. I was just thinking.”
&nbs
p; “About what?” She lifted her head and looked at him with a pair of blue, guileless eyes.
“The voices you hear.” It was only a partial lie.
“What about them?”
“I was trying to come up with an explanation that made sense.”
“Did you?”
“Nope.”
She smiled. “There’s no reason to stress about it. Just knowing that I’m not mentally ill is good enough for me. I don’t need to find out why or how.”
“Aren’t you curious?”
“Of course, I am. But I’d rather be doing other things right now than thinking about that.” She pushed up, pressing her soft breasts to his chest, and kissed him.
His damn shaft hardened in an instant. Evidently, it hadn’t gotten the message that it was not going anywhere near Anastasia without a condom on.
If he was lucky, one bite hadn’t been enough to induce her, and he was not going to have unprotected sex with her again.
He didn’t kiss her back, and when she tried to lick into his mouth, he refused her entry even though his fangs hadn’t elongated yet.
Anastasia pulled back and frowned at him. “What’s the matter? Does my breath stink?”
“Not at all.”
Her brows dipped even lower. “Do you want me to put the blindfold back on?”
If they had sex again, he would definitely demand it, but he didn’t have a condom, and he wasn’t going to make love to her without it.
He kissed her lips lightly. “It’s morning, and I need to get ready for class. Save it for tonight.”
“It’s still early.”
Peeling her off him, he got out of bed. “I need to get my exercise routine done before classes begin.” He cast her a tight-lipped smile. “Do you need to use the bathroom, or can I go in first?”
She pulled the comforter up to her chin. “Go ahead. I can wait.”
40
Anastasia
Sam didn’t want her to stay, and the disappointment hurt worse than a punch to the gut. Not that Ana had ever been punched, but that was what she imagined it would have felt like—a deep burning ache that had her double over and clutch her knees to her chest.