Archangel's Blade gh-4

by Nalini Singh

  Now, running his hand over the whip, he flicked the tails over his arm to ensure it would cause her no pain, only the most excruciating pleasure. Her eyes went to the whip when he turned to walk back to her, and he saw her hips twist in a way that told him she was very close to the edge. Allowing his lips to curve just a little, he ran the soft tails over her body from chest to thigh.

  “Where,” he murmured, “would you like to take your licks?” He circled the strands around her breasts. “Here?” Stroking lower, over her thighs. “Here?” Going back up, switching his hold to run the handle through her delicate folds. “Or maybe here?”

  She cried out, and he knew she was on the precipice. Drawing back, he switched his hold again and flicked out with his hand. The velvet tails kissed the flushed skin of her thighs and her whimper turned into a throaty moan.

  “Wider,” he ordered.

  Spreading her thighs, she locked gazes with him.

  His next stroke hit her inner thighs and he saw the storm rising in those eyes akin to midnight forests. Gauging it precisely, he flicked out his hand again . . . so the velvet fell on the damp folds between her thighs.

  She came with a scream, her arms straining as she continued to cling to the iron bars of the headboard, her breasts flushed and her back arched.

  Wanting her to ride it, to squeeze every drop of ecstasy out of it, he flicked the whip again, over her breasts.

  Her pleasure took her over, and she was beautiful. Dropping the whip, he got rid of the remainder of his clothes and settled himself between her thighs, pushing inside her as she came down from the high, her flesh quivering with aftershocks. Tiny inner muscles spasmed around him, almost stealing his control. But he’d had centuries to hone it and he intended to draw out the night’s pleasure.

  Groaning, Honor held him tight as he rocked inside her in slow, shallow thrusts that tempted but never delivered. Sweat slicked their bodies ten long minutes later and the woman who was his lay on her back, clawing at the sheets and attempting to force him deeper with her ankles locked around his back. “Faster.”

  “I won the sparring session,” he reminded her. “I get to do whatever I like.” Leaning down, he licked up a droplet of sweat from along her throat. “Right now, I want to take you slow and easy.”

  Her chest heaving, she tried to thrust a hand between their bodies. Grabbing it, he pinned it above her head, before taking her other one and pinioning them both at the wrists with one hand. “Bad girl.” Holding her gaze, he stroked again, heard her frustration in the low moan at the back of her throat. “Scared?” It was a serious question, because he had her restrained.

  “No.” Arching up, she bit his jaw. “You should be, though.”

  Rolling his hips, he loved her in ways that had her eyes closing and her breasts rising up toward his mouth. He took advantage, sucking and playing with her nipples as he continued to torment her with his cock. When he lifted his head and claimed a kiss, she sucked on his tongue . . . then she did the one thing that had always made him lose control, even before he was Made. Nuzzling her way down to his throat, she clamped her teeth over his pulse and licked out with her tongue.

  Snarling, he released her wrists to fist a hand in her hair, pulling her off his throat—taking care so she felt no hurt—even as he seated his cock balls-deep inside her in the same motion.

  She gasped. “Oh, God.”

  “How,” he whispered, using his other hand to push up one of her knees, spreading her wider for him, “did you know to do that?” It was a very specific caress, one he’d discovered with Ingrede. In the years since, other women—Favashi included—had tried to go for his throat, but he’d never, ever left it unprotected.

  Until Honor.

  “You refused to fall in love with anyone else, Dmitri.” A whisper with the impact of a gunshot. “So I had to come back for you . . . husband.”

  Every muscle in his body locked. “No.”

  Honor’s response to that single harsh word was nothing he could’ve predicted. “It’s okay.” Cupping his face with gentle hands, she smiled crookedly, her eyes luminous with a love so deep, he thought he’d drown in the shimmering midnight green. “You don’t have to believe me, or even think me sane. Just let me love you.”

  Her next words were whispered in an ancient, forgotten language, the dialect one that had been spoken only in a tiny village long since crumbled to the earth—a dialect Dmitri alone remembered. Except the lilting rhythm of it fell from Honor’s lips as if she’d run wild through the same fields, danced under the same brilliant sun. “I’ve always been a little bit crazy when it comes to you.”

  “I can’t—” he began, because what she was offering, it was too much, a gift too painful.

  “Shh.” She ran her fingers through his hair. “It’s okay.”

  “No.” It wasn’t okay, wouldn’t be okay until he had the answers he needed.

  “So stubborn.” Kissing him slow and deep, she held him to her with her legs around his hips when he would’ve pulled out. “I should’ve expected it from the man who once clambered up a mountainside at dawn to bring me wildflowers.”

  His entire body shuddered under the weight of the knowledge in her eyes, in her touch, in her voice. All the tiny things she’d done that had nudged at his memory, the echo of Ingrede’s joy breaking his heart when it was Honor who laughed, the way she knew him, it crashed against the chaos inside him, leaving only a raw need in its wake.

  “Let me give you what you need, husband. I’ve waited so very long.” Haunting words tangled with an exquisite desire that sang to his blood. “Drink.”

  The final thread of his control snapped.

  Roaring, he drove into her again and again and again, until she was clenching around him with feminine power and he was coming with such satisfaction that he had no memory of sinking his fangs into her neck. Then the tart, wild taste of her blood hit him with the ferocity of a windstorm, and suddenly he was hard once more.

  Honor felt her eyes grow wide as Dmitri began to move again, his fangs sending a wave of sultry pleasure through her system—languid, persuasive, tasting of sin and sex and everything deliciously bad . . . and so unlike what she’d experienced in the basement that a comparison would’ve been laughable.

  Moaning at the opulent swell of it through whimpering muscles and a pleasantly shattered body, she felt herself coating the hard intrusion of his arousal in lush need. “Oh, God, Dmitri.”

  The thick length of him pushed past swollen tissues, arcing ripples of ecstasy throughout her system, as he bent at her neck and fed. Thrusting her hand into his hair, she held him to her, the scorching sexuality of the moment cut with a wild tenderness. He sucked hard, and her body bucked.

  Making a low, deep sound of satisfaction, he pulled out, pushed back in . . . and rode her to an orgasm that never seemed to stop.

  Her muscles were still quivering from the erotic pleasure when, ending the blood kiss, he licked his tongue over the tiny wounds, sucked the skin again, and raised his head. “We’re not done,” he purred in her ear as her legs fell off his back, too exhausted to hold on. Reaching between them, he plucked at her clitoris with fingers that knew her far too well.

  Another orgasm rocked through her, deep, so deep. “I can’t take any more.” It was a moan.

  “Liar.” A rolling move of his hips, and she was rising toward him, her hands caressing his chest, his arms.

  He had endless patience, and he wasn’t about to give her what she wanted this time. Not until half an hour later, when she was sucking on his throat, scratching his back, and threatening to use a blade on him. That was when he pulled out his cock to her frustrated scream, spread her thighs wide, and bent that dark head to suck her clitoris into his mouth.

  The erotic shock was so intense, it seared her nerve endings, had lights exploding behind her eyes. She was fairly certain she lost consciousness for a blinding second. When she lifted her drugged eyelids at last, it was to feel her beautiful, dangerous Dmitr
i sliding into her in a primal thrust that was pure possession.

  38

  Freshly showered, they spoke sitting in bed, Honor lying against Dmitri’s chest, her body soft and warm and his. Absolutely, categorically his.

  “I couldn’t hide this from you,” she said as he ran his fingers through hair he’d dried as she sat slumped against him, lazy and sated, “but I was prepared for utter disbelief, thought it might take me years to prove it to you.”

  Taking her hand, he spread it over his heart. “Some part of me knew from the start.” She was inside him, her soul forcing his own back to life. “I just wasn’t ready to consciously accept it.” Honor was the brave one, the one who had taken that leap of hope.

  Her hand fisted. “I know this will hurt you so much, but I need to have this question answered.” Eyes iridescent with tears, jewels in the rain. “Misha . . . what did they do to Misha?”

  A searing burn on his chest, the scent of burning flesh and muscle and his body’s silent screams. But his mouth he kept shut, though it cost him a piece of his sanity.

  “There now, lover. You will never forget me.” Isis’s red lips pressing over the burned and scarred flesh, her tongue digging into the still painful wound. “Always, you will carry me within.” Her flawless face stayed serene as she took up the branding iron and pressed it to his flesh a second time to make certain of her words.

  Blackness engulfed him and when he woke, his chest was ridged with a scar so heavy and thick, he thought nothing would ever erase it. Looking up, he saw Raphael staring at that brand with a cold intensity that spoke of death. The angel said nothing, but when their eyes met he jerked the chain that held his left hand cuffed to the wall. It took Dmitri’s dazed mind a moment to see, to understand.

  The stone was cracking. A year it had taken him, but Raphael had weakened his bonds enough to snap them—now, Dmitri simply had to survive, become strong again. So he did, though Isis had almost broken him. But he didn’t do it to kill her, though that need was a fever in his blood. He did it so he could hold his son again, the only one of his family who remained.

  “Shh, Misha,” he said, his throat cracked and raw when his son screamed and convulsed, his tiny body attached to the wall by a cuff around his neck. “Papa will be there soon and he’ll make it all right.”

  He’d kept his promise. He’d given his son peace.

  The guilt of what he’d done clawed him bloody. “Isis tried to Make him.”

  A horrified sound. “He was too young.”

  “Yes.” Dmitri couldn’t put this pain into words, but when Honor’s hands came up to cup his cheeks, he bent his head toward her, let her press her lips to his closed eyes, to his lips.

  “I understand.” Her voice was a husky whisper. “It is all right, Dmitri. It was the only thing you could’ve done.”

  Dmitri hadn’t cried, not for near to a thousand years. But the remembered agony of cradling his son’s body in his arms, of looking into those trusting eyes fevered and full of suffering and a madness that had already made Misha gnaw at his own flesh, of holding that gaze until the very end, when he ended the life of his brave, beautiful boy . . . it tore through him now, creating cutting rivers of pain.

  He would’ve drowned but for the woman who held him through the storm, whose tears mixed with his own, whose gentle hands gave him forgiveness for a crime for which he’d never forgiven himself. “I was their father,” he said at long last. “Caterina, Misha . . . I couldn’t protect either of them. I couldn’t protect you.”

  Honor shook her head. “You fought for us. You surrendered your pride, your body, your freedom. But most of all, you loved us until none of us knew what it was to live without being adored.” Cupping his face again, she touched her forehead to his. “If I got a second chance, don’t you think our babies must have, too?”

  Her whisper didn’t wipe out his grief over their loss, but it touched it with the glow of hope. And having this woman in his arms, that was a gift no one could ever take away. “Ingrede or Honor?” It mattered not to him, the essence of her indelibly inked on his soul.

  “Ingrede lived another life, was another woman.” A kiss on his jaw, followed by a scowl. “I’m Honor, so don’t suddenly start thinking I’m going to put on skirts and be a stay-at-home wife.”

  “You can do whatever you wish to,” he said. “So long as you don’t go far from me.” He wouldn’t allow that, couldn’t stand it. “Almost a thousand years I’ve waited for you. I can’t give you that distance.”

  “Dmitri.” It was a long time later that they spoke again, his need for her a deep well that would never run dry. “I’ve got no desire to put distance between us,” she said, brushing his hair back, caressing his jaw, constant touches of love. “The position at Guild Academy for a teacher of ancient languages is still open. I’m going to go for it.”

  “Good.” Lifting her hand to his lips, he kissed her knuckles. “We’ll marry at daybreak.” His wife would wear his ring, be his in every way.

  “Old-fashioned.” Laughter, familiar and new, wrapping around him, binding him. “I hope you know you’ll be wearing gold, too.”

  “I’ve waited an eternity to wear it again.” Body and soul, she owned him. “I’m yours. Always.”

  Mists in her eyes. “I love you.”

  “Even if I’m no longer as good a man as you once knew?” Never again would be, his soul too battered, too threaded through with violence and darkness.

  “We’re both of us a little beat up—that’s what makes us interesting.”

  He wanted to laugh, but his chest ached. “Do you wish to be Made, Honor?” If she chose the firefly life span of a mortal, this time he would go with her. It was no choice, but a simple truth.

  Honor went motionless. “I can’t be anyone’s slave, Dmitri. Not ever.”

  “That won’t be a problem.” Then, because this was Honor, who knew him as no other did on this earth, he said, “You’ll only ever serve me.”

  “Arrogant man.” Rising to straddle him, she touched her nose to his, rubbed in that familiar way. “At the start, I thought no, I could never be one of the monsters. But we never had a chance, Dmitri. I want that chance. I want a hundred lifetimes with you.”

  He didn’t give her the opportunity to change her mind, greedy for every instant, every second. “We’ll begin the process after the marriage ceremony.”

  “Do you think the Guild will still accept me?” It was a worried question. “The Academy’s never been prejudiced against vampiric instructors, but . . . my friends.”

  “If they are your friends, they’ll stand with you.”

  Yes. Having faith in the strength of the relationships she’d built, she laid her head against him, this man she’d fought death itself to find. “Tell me what you did, what you saw, after I was gone.”

  A strong hand fisting in her hair, possessive and dark. “I’ve lived many years.”

  “That’s okay,” she said, spreading her fingers over his heart. “We have eternity.”

  Berkley Titles by Nalini Singh

  Psy-Changeling Series

  SLAVE TO SENSATION

  VISIONS OF HEAT

  CARESSED BY ICE

  MINE TO POSSESS

  HOSTAGE TO PLEASURE

  BRANDED BY FIRE

  BLAZE OF MEMORY

  BONDS OF JUSTICE

  PLAY OF PASSION

  KISS OF SNOW

  Guild Hunter Series

  ANGELS’ BLOOD

  ANGELS’ PAWN

  (A Berkley Sensation eSpecial)

  ARCHANGEL’S KISS

  ARCHANGEL’S CONSORT

  ARCHANGEL’S BLADE

  Anthologies

  AN ENCHANTED SEASON (with Maggie Shayne, Erin McCarthy, and Jean Johnson)

  THE MAGICAL CHRISTMAS CAT (with Lora Leigh, Erin McCarthy, and Linda Winstead Jones)

  MUST LOVE HELLHOUNDS (with Charlaine Harris, Ilona Andrews, and Meljean Brook)

  BURNING UP (with Angela Knight, Vir
ginia Kantra, and Meljean Brook)

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  Document version: 1

  Document creation date: 7.9.2011

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