My mouth watered at the sight. I had expended too much energy today, spending too much of my power reserves on my lightning and healing my injuries from the explosion. I needed his blood to make me whole again. A hiss left my lips as I struck out and embedded my fangs deep into his veins.
Vincent moaned out my name and pulled my leg higher over his hip to begin a brutal motion with his hips. In and out he moved, his cock hitting all the right spots that had me quickly sealing the punctures and screaming out his name as my climax pulled me under. Stars danced in my vision with the force of my release, I never wanted it to end. I never wanted him to leave me ever again.
Sharp claws dug into my ass as his hips moved for several more strokes before he threw his head back and released deep inside my body. “Fuck,” he exclaimed as his body relaxed. Those red and black eyes glowed in the dim light, shining with every ounce of the depths of his feelings for me. His forehead pressed against mine, our breaths mingling as we drifted back down to earth.
“I love you, Vincent.” I clutched at the blonde strands of his hair, clinging to him desperately as my voice shook with emotion. Please don’t leave me; I wanted to scream. I wanted to wail and cry out at the injustice of our plight. This fucked up situation that we ended up in.
He slowly slid out of my body and fell to his back beside me. A strong arm wrapped around my side and brought me close to snuggle against his chest and I threw a leg over his thigh. My hand fell over his heart, feeling the steady beat beneath my fingers.
His fingers encircled mine and he brought them to his lips to kiss them gently before pulling away and nibbling on the pads. “I love you too,” he whispered and smiled down at me. “You need to make sure you listen to Layla. She is going to be your ultimate guide in there. Not to mention our eyes and ears for everything that is going on.”
He let out a deep breath and turned his gaze to the sky. “We’re going to get you out of there as soon as we possibly can. I’m doing everything in my power to speed up the operations and get these damn plans in place.” The words pained him as he spoke, and when he fell silent, his jaw clenched together so tightly I feared his teeth would crack.
“Vincent,” I laid my hand against his cheek and ran my thumb over his bottom lip. “I know you would tear apart heaven and hell to rescue me. I will do what I can to stay out of trouble.”
“That means not provoking Kristoff,” he growled and bit my thumb in a playful manner.
At my look of dismay, he arched an eyebrow. “I mean it, little mate. You keep your head down and your mouth shut if that is what it takes to keep you safe and out of further danger.”
I rolled my eyes and snuggled closer into his body, savoring the warmth radiating off him. “Yes, master,” I answered sarcastically.
“Hmm,” he rumbled and sucked on my thumb. “I like the sound of that title.”
I laughed as his arms squeezed me tighter before his stiffened. “Nicolae just called me. It seems it’s time for me to go.”
I sucked in a deep breath, my heart contracting painfully in my chest at the thought of his departure. “I—” emotions made me stumble over the words. “Vincent.”
“I know, Theera.” He sat up and I had no choice but to follow him. “Layla will let you know when it is safe for us to visit again. Remember what I said,” he said sternly and kissed my forehead, his lips lingering against my skin.
“Please don’t leave,” I sobbed, fat tears rolling down my face. I cried more tears today than I had in years. Just the thought of him leaving me, sending me back to that prison was more than I could bare right now.
“You’re breaking my heart right now,” he lamented as his voice waivered. “This is the way it has to be right now. Layla will protect you until we are able to get there and rescue you.” His arms constricted around me, almost suffocating me with how tightly they wrapped around me.
But I felt safe. Secure. I didn’t want to leave our field. This place where we had visited in our dreams so many times before.
“It’s time to go, Theera. Heed my warnings. I’ll come for you as soon as I possibly can.” He untwined his arms from around my body and loosely placed his hands on the tops of my shoulders and cupped my neck. “I love you so much, my mate. I’ll be back for you. Soon.”
With one final feather light touch of his lips against mine, he disappeared, and I jolted awake.
Back into my waking nightmare.
6
Vincent
I jerked back to consciousness, sitting straight up in my bed. A curse fell from my lips and echoed into the darkness. Not enough time. There would never be enough time when she wasn’t right by my side and in my bed. My eyes drifted over to her empty side of the bed, my hand gliding over the cool sheets, and I let out another string of expletives at the loss of our connection.
My hands tunneled through my unkempt hair, jerking at the strands as I struggled to gain control of my emotions once again.
Fuck.
These emotions fucking sucked. The feeling of helplessness overwhelmed me, knowing that my mate was out there in the hands of my greatest enemies—for the second time no less— and there was nothing that I could do about it right now. It was beyond infuriating to me.
I threw off the bed covers and stomped into the bathroom, muttering under my breath as my feet barely registered the chill of the hardwood floors beneath them. My movements were robotic as I turned the taps to start the shower and stepped into the cold spray.
“Hey Boss man, Damius is calling for us in ten. Better be ready to go,” Nicolae shouted from down the hall, my superior hearing picking up his words easily.
“I’ll be out in a minute,” I yelled back at him. I grunted in frustration and curled my lip before I quickly washed and shut the water off with a jerk. Drying myself off with rough movements of the towel, I mumbled curses under my breath.
Dressing in a simple shirt and jeans, I walked out and ignored Nicolae as he sat on my couch in the living room.
“That’s rather rude, not to even acknowledge me or say ‘thank you Nicolae for protecting my ass so I could fuck my mate.’” Nicolae unfolded his large frame and climbed to his feet as I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and unscrewed the cap.
“Thank you, Nicolae,” I said dryly before taking a long pull of the cool liquid. “But I know you had ulterior motives so don’t act like a martyr.”
He shrugged and a grin spread across his face. “We didn’t get carried away like the two of you did,” he teased wiggling his eyebrows up and down.
I gave him an incredulous look. “You did not just give me shit for that.” My arms folded across my chest and I ate up the distance between the two of us. I stabbed my finger into his chest. “Don’t you dare fucking spy on me and my mate you asshole.”
Nicolae threw his head back and laughed. “I have to spy on you when in the dream state so that I can keep your asses safe. Trust me; I really didn’t want to hear everything that was going on there.”
I rolled my eyes as I slammed the bottle of water back down on the counter. “Then why were you listening? You can observe and monitor from a distance for emotions, you don’t need to listen,” I growled, frustration rolling through me.
Nic rolled his eyes right back at me then mimicked my closed off stance. “Are we going to get going to the council chambers or are you going to argue with me because you are itching for a fight? We can fight you know. It just needs to wait until after the meeting.”
My jaw clenched, my teeth grinding together painfully at his sarcastic reply. “I’m going to kick your fucking ass and you know it.”
He shrugged. “Don’t know it for sure, but it may help you out and at least put you in a better mood. If I have a few broken bones or lose a bit of blood, then who cares?” He jerked on his jacket and opened his arms. “Are we going to go now? We can fight at their facilities after Damius says whatever he needs to say.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, but he didn’t flinch under my
intense scrutiny. His aquamarine eyes just stared back at me intently; his face tinged with a bit of impatience. “You really are an asshole. Do you know that?”
“Yes, but I’m your best friend so what does that say about you?” He laughed and arched an eyebrow.
I huffed out a breath and threw my hands up. “Let’s go, asshole.”
A smile parted his lips as we both faded into the shadow realm and reappeared in the antechamber of the council.
Damius’ booming voice was the first thing that greeted us. “What the fuck do you mean, Drya?”
I exchanged a look with Nicolae, who looked just as confused as I was, before we pulled the doors open and walked into the middle of the oddest scene we had ever witnessed in these chambers.
Drya was on her knees before Damius, her eyes downcast as tears streamed down her pale face. Her blonde hair was matted and tangled around her head and her clothing was in tatters on her body. “Please, Damius, forgive me,” she exclaimed on a hoarse whisper.
“Vincent, deal with your fucking demons before I lose it,” Damius snarled at me, his crimson eyes blazing with liquid fire as he took in the succubus before him.
“What is going on here?” Nicolae asked calmly and rushed over to Drya’s side. His arm encircled her and brought her up to her feet as he gently murmured soft words of encouragement into her ear.
“Please explain why you are in this state Drya?” I fought to keep my voice calm and composed as I tried to piece together what was going on here.
“I—” Drya swallowed thickly and leaned into Nicolae, trying to gather support and comfort from his touch. The two had never been intimate—at least as far as I knew—but they were always good friends and Nicolae had always understood Drya’s need for physical contact to keep her grounded.
“Drya, it’s okay, you don’t have to talk right now,” Nicolae drew her into a tight hug and our eyes met over her shoulder. My blood ran cold at the look reflected on his face. His demon was rebelling against the intimate contact with a female other than his mate. He fought to control himself. His jaw was clenched together and his irises flickered to black. Crimson bled out from his pupils and surrounded his face, a manifestation of his Nightmare form.
Damn it, Nicolae, get control of yourself; I can’t have you going off the rails right now too.
“No, Nic.” She pushed off from his chest and moved away from him. “I tried to find Lorelei. It was my fault that she was taken.” She sniffled, her foot tracing an invisible line along the floor. She was doing everything in her power to keep from meeting my gaze.
The force of her words hit me square in the chest and my breath left my lungs as my heart ached. “What the fuck are you talking about, Drya?”
Damius stepped forward, not letting her speak. “She was poisoned by one of Adrianna’s minions. Tricked into revealing information about the party and that we would be there.” His face was mottled with red, his eyes glowing in the dimly lit room.
Fury radiated off Damius as he looked down at Drya. “Although I will be the first one to admit that it was something beyond her control. Adrianna knows of a powerful substance that is hypnotic and dangerous to those of her kind. We thought we’d eradicated the entire supply and wiped it off the face of the planet, but apparently it is just another thing that I failed at.”
“Valerian root,” I muttered, running my hands through my hair. A common enough plant—one would think—that the humans used regularly, but there was a special mutation of it that was a unique kind of drug to an incubus and succubus. We had taken great steps to destroy it and all strains of the mutation centuries ago after Adrianna had used it to manipulate countless of her kind.
“Vincent, I’m so sorry. You know I’d never do anything to harm you or Lorelei,” Drya trembled before me, tears still streaming down her face and her arms wrapped around her body for warmth.
“You’re having withdrawals right now, aren’t you?” I questioned her and cursed when she nodded. Not only did Valerian root make sexual demons pliable and moldable, it was also highly addictive. One dose and you would crave the substance. Going into severe withdrawals if you didn’t have regular doses from your handler. It was what made it such a brilliant drug for Adrianna to use.
“How long, Drya?” Nicolae asked and wrapped his arm around her small frame again.
Her green eyes went wild. “I don’t even know. Days. Weeks. They could have been slipping it to me for some ungodly period of time. I found a member of my staff that was part of The Syndicate. He was slipping it to me in my tea.” She buried her head in Nicolae’s chest and cried softly.
Nicolae had regained control of his demon, but agony was still etched across his pale face. Yet, he still held and comforted Drya. Their bond was deeper than any that I had experienced before Lorelei. Nic treated Drya like his sister, always protecting and looking out for her. While I remained at a distance. Hardening my heart to everything and everyone around me.
Damn it. I needed to stop this line of thinking and focus on what was right in front of me. Getting to the bottom of what Drya knew and getting my fucking mate back. I stiffened my spine and narrowed my eyes at Drya.
“Tell us what happened two nights ago? Why are you just coming to us now?” I looked her up and down, my eyes lingering on her dress. It was the same dress she had been wearing the night of the party. Why was she wearing it? It was little more than rags dangling from her shaking form.
Drya took a deep fortifying breath and cleared her throat. “I didn’t know anything was wrong. I’d been feeling a little tired but I was looking forward to the party. I was getting to know Naomi and we started to form a bond. That night, I was off. My head was pounding, and Craig, the guy that runs my house, kept hovering…” she trailed off with a haunted look in her eyes.
“He was working with The Syndicate?” I inferred.
“Yes,” she muttered. “He had worked for me for years, Vincent. Years. I would have never thought that he would be the one to betray me.”
My skin crawled and bile rose in my throat at the utter look of despair on Drya’s face. “Drya, there is no way that you could’ve known,” I tried to soothe her.
“I should’ve known, Vincent. His emotions had been off, but he told me that he had broken up with his girlfriend and I believed his sob story. I can’t believe I was that stupid.” She smacked her palm across her forehead. “This is all my fault.”
“Stop it, immediately Alexandrya,” I pinned her with a stern look, and she withered beneath my gaze. Not to mention the use of her full name. If you ever referred to her by Alexandrya, she wouldn’t even respond to you. For centuries, it had been Drya and nothing else. I only broke out the full name when trying to tease her.
Or to get her attention, like I did in this case.
“You listen to me, right now. This was not your fault. The fucking Syndicate would’ve found a way to worm inside our inner circle one way or another.” I stepped forward and took her hand in mine. “Stop blaming yourself. They were poisoning you for fuck’s sake. There is nothing that you could’ve done.”
“Vincent, I—” she looked up at me, her green eyes shimmering with tears. This little succubus was a spitfire, a demon of the highest order, but they had reduced her to a shell of her former self. “—I’m sorry.” She bowed her head, her body going limp with defeat.
“Stop it, hellion,” I chided, breaking out her old nickname I called her when she was a child.
“You haven’t called me that in ages.” A hint of a smile tugged at the corner of her lips.
Damius stepped forward, his rage had calmed, and he appeared to be normal once again. Gone were the glowing eyes and fierce fangs. “Drya, where did you go after the party?” he asked gently.
“I knew I was the one to blame. Craig made me disable all the exterior security sensors so that their soldiers could get in. Then Adrianna herself came to me and demanded information about the council. Things like what our security measures were. Then she a
sked more questions about Lorelei.” Her eyes cut to me. “I’m so thankful that I didn’t know much other than the basics. There wasn’t anything I could do to stop her. I fought it so hard, Vincent, you have to know that.”
“I know, Drya.” I pulled her into a side hug and squeezed her. My demon protested the contact with a female other than our mate, but I quieted him with a thought. Just like Nicolae, I knew that Drya needed the small amount of comfort from me.
She gently pulled away with a quivering smile. “Thank you, Vincent. I know how difficult it is for you to physically touch me when your mate is not present. It means a lot to me.”
I returned her smile with one of my own and gave Nicolae a questioning glance. He was firmly back in control, and even more relaxed now that he wasn’t touching Drya. Even though he wasn’t a Seraphim or Nephilim, his demon felt the same primal connection to his mate that I did. They may not have said the bonding words in person, only in the dream realm, but they had to hold the same emotional power regardless of what realm they were spoken in. That much was apparent by the way he struggled to maintain physical contact with Drya.
Drya didn’t notice my musings and continued with her story. “After they questioned me, they told me that I wouldn’t remember their questioning. And I didn’t. Not when they threw me behind that shield. Not when we found Lorelei and Kaniul gone. I was in an utter haze until I remembered the next morning. I didn’t even change out of my dress; I was so out of it.” She shuddered with revulsion.
“Then what did you do, Drya?” Nicolae asked softly.
“I used my connection to Craig to try and find him.” Her face hardened as her fists clenched together. “I’d fed from him when I was desperate before. Nothing deep or full contact, but enough for me to have his signature. I don’t think he was even aware of it.”
Embrace The Shadows (Shadows Ascending Trilogy Book 3) Page 5