1001 Dark Nights: Bundle Twelve

by Alexandra Ivy

  “So good,” he murmured, his deep voice as rough as gravel, his breath rushing hot against her throat. She felt his tongue sweep over the twin punctures, sealing them closed.

  He lifted his head to watch her now. His eyes were glowing as bright as coals, gazing at her with such a ferocity of emotion it stole her breath. She had never seen his fangs look so sharp and unearthly. She licked her lips, hungry to feel them at her throat again.

  Everywhere.

  He was ferocious and otherworldly, the most magnificent man she’d ever seen.

  His wicked mouth curved as he caressed the side of her face and the tender skin where his bite had been. “I can feel you inside me, Bella. I feel your blood in my own veins, in every cell of my body. And I feel your pleasure. I feel how badly you need me to make you come again.”

  As if to punctuate, he thrust long and slow and deep, a rumble of satisfaction vibrating through him as she cried out in helpless ecstasy.

  “My sweet Bella,” he said, lowering his head to kiss her forehead, her cheek, her parted lips as she sighed. “I wish you could feel how much I love you.”

  “Show me,” she whispered, reaching up to trace her fingers along his rigid jaw, her gaze drifting to his fangs. “Let me taste you now, Ettore. Give me your bond.”

  She didn’t have to ask him twice.

  On a snarl, he brought his wrist up to his mouth and bit into it. Blood dripped onto her breasts, hot splashes of crimson that inflamed her dark thirst for him as he guided her mouth to his wounds.

  She sealed her lips over the punctures. The first drop of blood on her tongue felt like a kiss of flame. She moaned, both in shock and in thirst.

  She lapped at his skin, astonished at the intense rush of heat through her body as she drank from him. Ettore’s blood felt alive with a wildness and strength she could barely comprehend. As powerful as an electric charge, each sip blasted into her body, into her cells…into her soul.

  There was no fear left in her. No doubt. Everything peeled away, leaving only their love. This connection that nothing, and no one, could sever.

  And beneath the contentment she felt as she sipped from Ettore’s vein was a deeper blooming of desire.

  It was the most erotic thing, to drink from him as he moved inside her, watching her with those eyes that burned everything away except the bond they now shared.

  She didn’t think her body could withstand another hot race toward climax, but Ettore’s blood had unleashed something animal inside her. Something fierce and demanding. Something violently carnal.

  “Ah, fuck, baby.” He groaned, the tendons in his neck straining as she suckled his wrist and writhed beneath him. “I know. I can’t be gentle now either.”

  Pulling his wrist away from her, he quickly sealed the wounds then flipped her over onto her stomach. One strong arm slid beneath her, hoisting her backside up to meet him as he slammed home from behind her.

  He took her swiftly, aggressively, giving no quarter until they both were fully spent and collapsed on the bed in a sated tangle of limbs.

  She didn’t know how long they lay there, wrapped in each other’s arms, their bodies slick with sweat and blood and the musky scent of their lovemaking. Bella could have stayed there for hours. Days. Forever.

  She groaned when he rolled away, bringing her with him.

  In the adjacent bathroom, the water began to run in the tub at Ettore’s mental command.

  Bella rose off the bed with him, smiling as he caught her in his embrace and pressed a tender kiss to her forehead.

  She drew back, searching the banked embers of his gaze. “That was…amazing.”

  He inclined his head in solemn agreement. “Yes, it was. More than amazing.”

  She traced one of the dermaglyph swirls on his chest. “So…where do we go from here?”

  He grunted, a smile playing at the edges of his sensual mouth. “To the bathtub for starters. I’ve made a mess of you.”

  “No, Ettore.” She slowly shook her head. “You’ve made me whole.”

  His expression intensified, sparking a soberness that she could feel now, in his blood. In her own blood too, as it throbbed heavily in her breast and in the pulse points that all craved his bite.

  “Ah, Bella. God, I love you,” he murmured. “But I don’t know where we go from here. Back to Rome to begin with. From there, we’ll have to figure it out. Right now, I only know that I need you with me.”

  It was all the promise she needed. Him. With her. Together.

  She could hardly believe this was her new reality.

  Tipping her chin up, he kissed her with reverent care. Then startled her when he scooped her into his strong arms and carried her to the bathroom. He stepped into the tub with her, sinking down into the water with her straddled against him.

  Bella sighed into the comfort of his arms and the softly lapping pool around them. “This is heaven,” she murmured, resting her head on the muscled pillow of his shoulder. “I’ve never been so happy. I never thought I would be.”

  Ettore tenderly caressed her, his hands wet and warm and soothing as he bathed her. She started to drift, her mind relaxing as she watched the little ripples dance in the bath water.

  The vision came on so suddenly, she flinched.

  It formed beneath the clear surface—horrific, bloody, violent.

  She saw a Breed male covered in mangled, melted skin. Dark soot and grime smeared all over his shoulders and burned head. He held a screaming human in his jaws. The man’s throat was torn open as the predator siphoned his blood in gulp after greedy gulp.

  “Bella?” Ettore’s voice was flat with dread.

  He had to feel her shock. Her terror.

  His hands shook as he pulled her away from him so he could see her face. Her gaze was still riveted on the water, her mind still caught in the hideous vision.

  “Sweetheart, what is it? Tell me what’s wrong.”

  She could hardly find the words.

  Because at that moment, the Breed male in her mind’s eye lifted his ruined head. His furious, blazing amber eyes seemed to reach out for her through the water.

  “It’s him,” she murmured. “Massioni. He’s alive.”

  Chapter 11

  Bella’s vision weighed on Savage like a ton of bricks parked on his chest, a weight that was only increasing in the hours since she’d described what she’d seen in the water. The very thing he’d dreaded, the mistake he’d made in not making sure he had finished the job, was soon coming home to roost. He had no doubt of that.

  Unfortunately, Bella hadn’t been certain if she’d seen Massioni in the immediate future, or days—even weeks—from now.

  Nor did it matter.

  The son of a bitch had survived the blast that should have killed him.

  Vito Massioni was alive, and that meant Savage had failed in his mission for the Order.

  He could only pray he hadn’t failed Bella in the process.

  And to make certain of that, he was doing the only thing he could think of to ensure their safety.

  “Everyone ready to go, sweetheart?”

  Bella nodded as she strode toward him from the back bedroom. “Chiara will be right behind me. She’s having a bit of trouble with Pietro. The poor thing has been having nightmares most of the day.”

  “Understandable,” Savage said. “The kid has been through quite an ordeal. You all have.” He drew Bella under the shelter of his arm. “We need to be on the road to Rome as soon as the sun sets. It’s only a few hours away, but the sooner I get you and your family there, the better I’ll feel.”

  She peered up at him, stroking his tense jaw. “You’re sure your comrades won’t mind taking us in for a while?”

  “You’re my mate, Bella. Chiara and Pietro are my family now too. The command center may not be a suitable home for a child, but somehow we’ll find a way to make it work.”

  Her gaze was tender on him. “You’re a good man, Ettore.”

  “I want to be,”
he said. “For you. And that means making sure you’re as far out of Massioni’s reach as possible. At least until I can finish him for good.”

  Savage seethed with the urge to fix his fuck-up personally and painfully with the bastard. There was a time when he would have.

  Before Bella reentered his life, he’d thought nothing of charging into the fray of a dangerous situation to take out a target. He’d never had a death wish, but as a warrior pledged in service to the Order, his life had been expendable if it meant the difference between success or failure of one of his missions.

  All that had changed now. Bella and he were bonded. Now, if he were injured—if he were killed—she would feel his anguish as if it were her own.

  She would suffer everything he did, just as he would endure her every pain or fear.

  So, no matter how viciously he wanted to make Vito Massioni pay for every hour of every year he’d held Bella prisoner for his own gain, Savage had to exercise caution. He had to be sure he didn’t fail—with her or with the Order.

  She rested her head against his chest, where the heavy pound of his heartbeat throbbed. “I’m scared, Ettore.”

  “Don’t be,” he murmured, placing a kiss on the top of her head. “I’m not going to let him get you. I’m not going to let him get Chiara or her son either.”

  “I know you won’t. But I’m scared for you.” She drew in a shallow, ragged breath. “If I ever lose you again—”

  “You won’t.” Guiding her gaze up to his, Savage urged her to see the resolve in his eyes. She had to feel it in her blood now, through the bond that would join them forever. He slid his hand around her nape and brought her to him for an unrushed kiss that ensured she felt all of the love and promise that he held for her in his heart.

  He could have kissed her for hours, and he swore to himself that he would, once he made sure she and her family were safely returned to Rome.

  Sensing they were no longer alone, Savage turned his head and found Scythe standing there. Christ, the male might be immense and formidable, but he moved like a wraith.

  He held out his left hand, a vehicle starter in his palm.

  “What’s this?” Savage asked, pivoting to face the former Hunter. The key fob was for a Range Rover—a new one, by the look of it. Scythe handed it to him.

  “The truck you arrived in might get you where you’re going, but this will be better.”

  “I left that vehicle half a mile away at the church. How the hell did you know what we were driving?”

  Scythe didn’t answer, and Savage figured there was a lot about the reclusive male and his methods that would remain a mystery. Instead of pressing him, Savage slipped the welcome gift into his pocket.

  “Thank you.”

  Scythe gave him a faint nod.

  “We’re ready!” Chiara called from behind them. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting.”

  The petite brunette had her son’s little hand grasped in hers as she approached from the other end of the corridor. As they drew closer, Savage felt a cold shift in the air. He didn’t realize what it was until he looked at Scythe and saw that the male had gone utterly still. His onyx eyes were stark, almost haunted, beneath the harsh slashes of his black brows.

  Chiara must have felt the chill too. She glanced up nervously at Scythe, practically tugging dark-haired Pietro along when the boy’s steps began to slow in front of the big Gen One.

  But the child didn’t seem to have any fear for the sinister-looking male. His feet halted in front of Scythe, his little head tilting up to stare in unabashed awe. “How’d you hurt your hand?”

  Chiara and Bella both sucked in their breath. Hell, even Savage felt a jolt of unease as Scythe’s hard gaze slowly descended to look at the boy. When he spoke, the male’s deep voice was as unreadable as his stoic face.

  “I tried to help someone a long time ago.”

  By the male’s grave tone, Savage assumed his hand wasn’t the only thing Scythe lost.

  “Come on, Pietro.” Chiara gave her son’s hand a small tug. She looked up at the big male, her cheeks flaming with color. “I’m sorry. He’s just starting to learn about manners.”

  Scythe shrugged vaguely, but his bleak eyes lingered on the pretty Breedmate. “It’s all right.”

  Savage cleared his throat. “We should get moving. It’s past sundown now, and we have a lot of time ahead of us on the road.”

  As he spoke, the faint sound of a woman’s scream went up somewhere in the distance outside the sassi. Scythe heard it too. His dark head jerked to instant attention.

  Just as another shriek sounded—this one closer and belonging to a man.

  A man who was screaming for his life.

  Savage’s blood iced over with dread. “What the fuck?”

  Scythe drew a phone out of his leather trench coat and brought something up on the display. His curse was guttural, vibrating with fury.

  “Rogues,” he said grimly.

  He turned the device so Savage could see it. On the screen was live video from several different cameras positioned in Matera’s city center. The surveillance showed humans racing in all directions, while a group of Rogues—he counted half a dozen in just the few seconds he watched—poured into the streets on the attack.

  “Oh, my God,” Bella gasped, her terror-filled eyes rooted to the small display.

  It wasn’t the first time in recent weeks that a city had been overrun by blood-addicted vampires. Thanks to Massioni’s proliferation of Red Dragon, the narcotic that had turned scores of the Breed into Bloodlusting animals, violence like this was becoming almost epidemic again in many parts of the world.

  Savage cursed viciously.

  So much for leaving any time soon.

  He wasn’t about to risk Bella or anyone else’s life by heading out into the chaos running rampant outside their safe house. And the idea of letting Matera’s innocent population be slaughtered by blood-addicted predators was more than he could stand.

  He met Scythe’s fathomless black stare and saw the same resolve in him.

  “You got extra weapons somewhere in here?”

  The male gave him a curt nod.

  More screams rang out in other parts of the town. More death coming closer by the minute. If the Rogues weren’t stopped, it wouldn’t take long before their attack moved down into the ravine.

  Savage turned to Bella. He pulled one of his pistols from his weapons belt and placed it in her hand. “You ever shoot one of these?”

  “No.” She shook her head vigorously, but the worry he felt spiking through her blood was there for him. “Ettore, what are you—”

  “Take it,” he ground out fiercely, giving her a quick demonstration on how to take off the safety. “You aim this at anyone who comes to the door that isn’t me or Scythe. And take this too.” He unclipped a sheathed dagger from his belt and handed it to her. “That blade is titanium. It’ll ash a Rogue in seconds flat.”

  He hoped to hell she never got close enough to one of them to use either of the weapons, but he wasn’t taking any chances.

  “Stay put, you hear me?” He grabbed her close, imploring her with his eyes and the hard, desperate pound of his heart. “I’ll be back for you as soon as I can.”

  “Promise me.”

  He dragged her against him and kissed her—a brief, but impassioned confirmation that he wasn’t about to lose her when they were so close to finally having a future together.

  It wasn’t easy to release her.

  But as the terrorized screams of Matera’s citizens continued to ring out, he knew he had little choice.

  He turned to Scythe, now his unlikely ally. “Let’s do this.”

  Chapter 12

  The screams carrying down into the sassi from the city above only seemed to worsen in the few minutes after Ettore and Scythe had gone.

  Those terror-filled shrieks—many of them agonized, final cries—left Bella shuddering and heartsick. Frightened to her marrow.

  “We’re
going to be all right,” she told Chiara and her frightened little boy, hoping her uncertainty didn’t show in her eyes. As much as she trusted that Ettore was a capable warrior—Scythe too—they were only two against what was easily three times as many Rogues.

  If anything happened to Ettore…

  “You love him, don’t you?” Chiara’s voice was gentle, sympathetic.

  “I love him more than anything in this world. I’ve loved him since I was a girl, back at the vineyard.” She absently lifted her hand to the side of her neck, where she could still feel the claiming heat of Ettore’s bite. “We’re mated, Chiara. Our blood bond is only hours old.”

  “Oh, Bella.” Chiara hugged her close. “You deserve this kind of happiness. You of all people deserve it.”

  Did she?

  Bella couldn’t help thinking that if not for her gift and Vito Massioni’s want of it, Chiara and Pietro would not have been pawns at his mercy all these years. If not for her, Massioni would be dead—finished by Ettore in his mission for the Order.

  If not for trying to rescue her from Massioni’s villa, Ettore would already be back in Rome with his comrades, not swept into more violence and death.

  High-pitched shrieks sounded again from somewhere outside.

  “Momma!” Pietro whined, clutching at Chiara in wide-eyed alarm.

  She picked him up and shushed him with tender words, rocking him. “It’s okay, piccolo. Momma’s here.”

  Bella reached out to stroke the little Breed male’s head. “Why don’t you both go relax in the back bedroom? It’ll be quieter there.”

  Sheltered deeper into the cave dwelling. Away from the sounds of chaos and slaughter outside.

  “You’re sure?” Chiara gave her a dubious look. “I don’t like the thought of leaving you alone to wait out here.”

  “Go,” Bella gently encouraged. “I’ll be fine. And soon Ettore and Scythe will be back.”

  Another sharp cry rent the night, startling Pietro. He started to cry softly against his mother’s shoulder. Finally, on an apologetic nod, Chiara relented and turned to head back to the other room.