Master of the Night

by Angela Knight

  "God, I hope so. Now, turn around and let me have that ass."

  "You romantic, you." Even as he chuckled, she obeyed, straddling his torso as she caught his thick cock and aimed it upward. Her first sampling lick won a purr of approval from him, as well as a wet velvet stroke of his tongue. She whimpered as he spread her cheeks so he could gain access to her sex. His clever tongue laved between her lips and made her gasp around his cock.

  With a soft moan, she went to work, sucking and licking the broad plum head, stroking the thick length of his shaft with one hand as she caressed his furry balls with the other. He tasted of salt and masculinity and felt like hot silk sliding over her tongue.

  It was wildly exciting, taking him like this. He filled her mouth thoroughly, rolling his hips in short little thrusts as if he couldn't quite help himself. Each tight lunge goaded her, made her want to take him even deeper. She doubted she'd ever experienced anything hotter than feeling Reece Champion skid out of control.

  Adding to the pleasure, for every lick she gave him, he retaliated with one just as wet and lingering. Her orgasm gathered like a warm tsunami, deceptively lazy as it built.

  Until he clamped his mouth fiercely over her clit. The climax slammed into her with a force that stole her breath and arched her spine. She groaned helplessly around his cock. He stiffened under her. For a moment, she thought he was going to come.

  Then she was flat on her back so fast she hadn't even seen him move. Reece loomed over her, both her knees in his big hands. He met her gaze with glittering, hungry eyes and spread her wide.

  Erin caught her breath as he aimed himself for her slick little slit. Slowly he pressed his way deep, forcing her clinging flesh to spread around his width. Even after she thought herself full of him, he came on and on in a slow, creamy impalement that made her shudder in animal delight. It was only when she felt his balls brush her ass that she knew she had all of him. "How's that?" he breathed in her ear.

  "Oooh," she groaned. "Good. It's so good."

  "Think I can make it better?" He began to ease out.

  Erin bit her lip. "I'm not sure I'd survive better."

  "Let's find out."

  In. Stretching her wide, pulling deliciously across sensitive nerve endings. Out, in a long, erotic rake of flesh on wet flesh.

  She twisted under him, wrapping her legs tight around his ass, pulling him close with her calves. His muscled butt worked between her thighs. Green eyes stared into hers, fierce with pleasure.

  She licked her lips, staring up at his hungry, handsome face as he possessed her. Lowering his head, he kissed her slowly, sliding his tongue in and out in concert with his cock. He slid one arm under her shoulders and the other beneath her hip and picked up the pace, lengthening his strokes, jarring her clit deliciously.

  The climax poured hot up from her core like a burning spring. She keened, throwing her head back on the pillow, arching into him. "Reeeeece!"

  "Yes! Oh, God, Erin, I love you!" He began to pound her, driving hard. Her climax strengthened into long rolling waves.

  Reece stiffened, roaring in pleasure as he came, driven to the balls.

  Minutes passed before she could move again.

  Dazed, shivering with the aftershocks of the erotic storm, Erin looked up at him. He panted, braced above her on trembling arms. Despite the shattering orgasm they'd just shared, there was hunger in his eyes.

  He lowered his head. Knowing what he wanted, she tilted her chin and arched her throat. His lips felt like hot silk as they touched her skin. His fangs sank deep with that startling, feral pleasure that tore a strangled scream from her throat.

  "Reach for me," the words came clearly through the ghost of the light mental bond they'd formed when she'd changed. Instinctively she obeyed.

  He must have been holding back before. This time he opened himself, gave himself, surrendered to the thrust of her power the same way she'd just surrendered to the bite of his fangs. They flowed together.

  And she could taste her own blood in her mouth, feel the clamp of her sex around… something that had never been there before.

  His cock.

  She could feel his cock wrapped inside the slick fist of her cunt. She could feel how her body felt against his, so small and soft and female.

  And she felt him. His mind. His spirit. The age and strength and vampire nature that was simultaneously so alien and so familiar. Fear rose in her, bringing with it an instinct to break the connection.

  "No," he said in her mind. "Stay with me. Be part of me. Let me be part of you."

  It took an effort not to throw herself out of the link, but she fought down the instinct and instead wrapped herself around him. At the same time he drew her closer, letting her feel all the love she'd seen in his eyes.

  Trust me, he said in a velvet mental demand. I'd cut off my own arm before I'd ever hurt you.

  And he meant every word. He loved her, just as she loved him. They belonged together.

  With a silent click the Truebond snapped home.

  For a long time after that, they lay still, neither wanting to move as they listened to the double thump of their mutual heartbeat. Their new mental connection glittered psychically between them, a bond neither had any desire to break.

  Finally Erin spoke. "This is amazing."

  And odd. She could hear her own voice with Reece's ears. Because his hearing was so much more sensitive than hers, the sound carried a resonance it never had for her.

  "Damn," he said dreamily, staring at the ceiling. "Look at the sparks. So that's what you see when you stare at nothing."

  Erin knew he was referring to the Mageverse energies she'd slowly ceased to notice. She laughed. "Welcome to my acid trip."

  "Do something."

  He wanted to feel what it was like to work magic. She smiled and concentrated. An ostrich feather appeared in her hand, and she danced it across his ribs. And giggled at the sensation she felt through the link.

  Reece grabbed her wrist. They both stopped dead, feeling her feel his grip. "Oh," Erin said, "this is going to take getting used to."

  "Yeah." Reece's tone turned grim. "Too bad we don't have the time to do it." He'd heard footsteps out in the hall.

  A moment later knuckles hit the closed door in a sharp rap. "Hey, Reece," Lance called. "You finished in there? Morgana and Grace said to tell you the spell's ready."

  "Would it have killed them to give us a little more time?" Erin grumbled. With an impatient gesture she dressed them both in the jeans, T-shirts, and running shoes they'd worn before.

  But when they went to open the door, they found Lance dressed in glowing plate armor that had been heavily engraved with runes of protection. A scabbarded long sword hung at his hip.

  "Damn." She eyed him up and down. "Haven't you people ever heard of Smith & Wesson?"

  Lance's grim expression lightened into a grim smile. "You don't kill something like Geirolf with a gun. And by now he's probably turned his human flunkies into something just as tough."

  "Has somebody had another vision?"

  Lance's smile flashed. "Arthur watched CNN. The top story is that the Death Cult compounds have all mysteriously emptied out. Thousands of people disappeared overnight."

  "Which means—" Reece began grimly.

  "—Geirolf has either killed them all or transformed them into a magical army. Morgana said he's sure as hell shielding something. Either way, it's not good."

  "Should I—" Erin broke off. "Never mind. Human sacrifices don't wear armor, do they?"

  "Judging from Grace's vision," Reece drawled, "we're not even going to get to wear clothes."

  "Have I mentioned this sucks?"

  He laughed and caught her hand. "Actually, I've noticed that myself."

  "That's pretty well the universal conclusion." Lance wiggled two fingers in a come-along gesture. "And we're not making it any better standing around here. Come along, children."

  As they followed his armored back down the hall, Erin ask
ed, "I don't suppose anybody actually had a vision that this is going to work and we're all going to live happily ever after?"

  He looked over his shoulder. " 'Fraid not."

  She sighed. "Didn't think so."

  To save Erin the power expenditure of creating a gate, they walked to the central square she'd seen when they arrived. But now the streets were full of grim-faced people dressed in the same intricate armor Lance wore. Moonlight glinted off gleaming silver and gem-encrusted weapons. It seemed every breath Erin took was choked with magic, and Reece's senses were swamped with the enchanted blood-scent of vampire, Majae, and Sidhe.

  Yet big as the crowd was, it was almost eerily silent, with none of the rumble of conversation one would normally hear in a group of such size.

  As nervous sweat began to snake down her spine, Erin reached out and grabbed Reece's hand. He squeezed her fingers comfortingly as they worked their way through the press of magical humanity. It was easier than it should have been; when people turned and saw them, they nodded respectfully and stepped aside.

  "Damn," Reece said to Lance, "it looks as if all Magekind is here."

  "They are," Lance told him, "along with most of the Cachamwri Sidhe. Arthur and Llyr decided we need every sword we can muster."

  Erin licked her dry lips and tightened her sweating grip on Reece's hand. He smiled at her, his green eyes glittering brighter than the gems in Lance's sword. "We'll be fine," he told her through the Truebond.

  Seasoned warrior that he was, he'd fallen into the deep, deadly stillness he always felt before a battle. For Erin's part, she almost vibrated with the same blend of adrenalin and tension she remembered from the days she'd kicked down doors with the FBI. "My stomach's knotted like macramé," she told him.

  "Wait until the fight starts. You'll steady down then."

  They stepped into the central square and instantly became the focus for thousands of eyes. The crowd stood in a great ring around them, leaving the center free.

  Morgana stood there with Grace, Llyr, Arthur, and a blond woman Reece recognized as Guinevere, Arthur's Truebonded wife. Like everyone else, they wore armor. Erin focused on the massive jeweled sword at Arthur's hip, wondering if it was the legendary Excalibur.

  "Yes," Reece murmured in her ear.

  She threw him a glance. "I'm going to have to get used to the mind-reading thing." But come to think of it, it could come in handy in a fight…

  He grinned. "It could, at that."

  "Show off."

  Arthur stepped to the center of the square and lifted his mailed hands. The crowd, already silent, instantly focused its attention on him. Erin could see why. He wasn't a tall man, but something about him, some aura of power and authority, instantly riveted the attention.

  "Tonight the Magekind faces the greatest threat we've seen in millennia," Arthur said, his deep voice rolling over the square, amplified by his wife's magic so that every person could hear him as clearly as if he stood next to them. "In this hour of peril we of the High Council are deeply grateful to King Llyr Aleyn Galatyn and the Cachamwri Sidhe for standing shoulder to shoulder with us."

  Llyr inclined his head in a royal bow, one king to another. The face within his open visor was as stern and handsome as a Renaissance warrior angel.

  "And we also owe our thanks to Reece, our American Champion, and Erin Grayson, newly Truebonded, who have agreed to serve as bait in our trap." The former High King extended a hand toward them. Reece bowed. Erin followed suit, stiff, uncomfortable, and miserably aware of her jeans and T-shirt in the face of this magnificently armored assembly.

  "They will take a great risk for us today," Arthur continued, "putting themselves into the hands of the alien Geirolf with neither armor nor helm to protect them. The threat will be no less real for King Llyr and Grace du Lac, who will lend their strength to this spell, and who risk losing their lives should it fail." He lifted his beautiful voice until it rang. "We must be ready to take advantage of the opening their courage will give us. We must strike hard, without hesitation or mercy, to destroy this threat against us, against the Sidhe, against all Humankind. Or we will all surely fall."

  Arthur paused, letting the seriousness of the situation sink home. Then he smiled. "Yet I have no doubt, my friends, that we will prove ourselves worthy of this challenge, as we have met so many others. For Avalon!" He pumped his mailed fist upward.

  "For Avalon!" the crowd roared back.

  "For Cachamwri!"

  Erin added her bellow to Llyr's as the crowd howled the name.

  "And for Earth!"

  This time the mass shout was echoed by a thousand glittering explosions overhead as the Majae in the crowd detonated magical bursts in the sky.

  When the echoes finally faded, Morgana stepped to the top point of the intricate triangular glyph inscribed in the stones of the square. Llyr and Grace moved to the other points of the triangle as she looked at Reece and Erin. "Come."

  Erin's heart began to pound hard as Reece led her forward. Her fingers gripped his so hard, her knuckles turned white. His hand was cool and steady in hers as they stepped between the three sorcerers into the center of the glyph.

  The silence was so complete it seemed to ring. No one coughed, no one scraped a foot on the pavement.

  Then the three began to chant, Llyr's deep voice twining with the lighter, higher ones of the two Majae. Erin braced her shaking knees and faced Morgana as the witch's eyes went black, magical explosions bursting in their depths.

  Suddenly three shimmering curtains of energy appeared around Erin and Reece, springing into being between the sorcerers along the lines of the glyph. As she watched, the energy triangle began to shrink inward toward them, glowing brighter, Mageverse forces writhing more violently with every millimeter it contracted.

  Erin caught her breath, feeling the pressure growing against her mind. Despite her battle to remain calm, pure terror rolled through her veins.

  She tightened her grip on Reece's hand as the walls of force grew closer. The instant before they touched her, she shouted into the link, "Reece! I love you!"

  "I love you, Erin!" he roared back.

  With a crackle, the walls of force converged.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  « ^ »

  It felt as if her skull was being crashed in a red-hot vise. Instinctively Erin threw her will against the mystical energy, trying to hold it at bay with the skills Llyr had taught her.

  "You're fighting us, child!" Morgana cried. She heard the witch's voice only dimly through the roar of power. "Let it in!"

  "Let go, Erin," Reece said in her mind. "I've got you."

  Swearing silently she dropped her instinctive resistance. Simultaneously she saw Llyr and Grace fall to the ground, rendered unconscious as their power surged into her.

  A bolt of energy seared into her side, and she screamed, her voice blending with Reece's bellow. Another snapped into her left eye as a third crackled along her skin.

  Then there were too many to count, dancing electrical crackles burning in waves across her body. The pressure grew inside her head, howling like some demonic blizzard.

  "Reece!" she screamed, terrified.

  "I'm here. Baby, I'm here." She felt his warm presence trying to absorb the pain. "You're not alone."

  The crackling discharge ended as the spell vanished completely within her. Erin dropped to her knees like a marionette with cut strings, panting, sweating.

  For a moment she was aware of thousands of faces watching her as the crowd stared in frozen, wide-eyed silence. A strong male hand caught her shoulder. She looked up to see Reece standing over her, his face pale. She tried, tremulously, to smile, opening her mouth to reassure him.

  The fire leaped in her mind, roaring up like an atomic firestorm.

  Erin bent double with a startled shriek of agony. Suddenly it felt as though the magic was ripping her body apart, running amok between her very cells.

  In that first terrified instant she realized if she
didn't get control, it would utterly destroy her. Instinctively she snapped upright, flung both arms at the sky, and let the magic pour. The sky detonated in brilliant colors over her head, not as simple fireworks, but with the deafening rolling booms of howitzer blasts. The ground shook under her knees. Screams rang out around her as the crowd dived for the ground. She wished fleetingly she could soothe their terror, but she had to wrestle the power under control first.

  Blast after blast tore across the sky, comets of energy shooting from horizon to horizon. The explosions were deafening.

  "Jesu!" The thought rang clearly in Morgana's mind, as easy for Erin to read as a newspaper headline. "We've created a monster. She'll destroy us all!"

  And the witch wasn't the only one who was afraid. Erin could feel the same thought taking root in other minds, a wave of fear spreading through the crowd that could too easily turn it into a mob.

  Maddened by the searing pain burning inside her, she snarled. I did this for them, and now they dare turn on me!

  She could wipe them all out with a thought. All she had to do was redirect the energy she was aiming skyward, and…

  "Erin." A voice cut through the searing heat, cool, deep, and soothing.

  "Reece?"

  "It's overwhelming you, love. You can't let it. Fight it. Control it. Let me help."

  He's right, she realized suddenly. I'm losing it. I've got to…

  But even as she fought for calm, she heard Morgana reaching out to Guinevere for the power to kill her, knowing it would take both elder Majae to do the job.

  Bitch, Erin thought, furious.

  "Morgana, no!" Over the babble of mental voices, over the rolling reverberations of magical explosions, Lancelot's voice rose in a desperate bellow. The knight crouched beside his unconscious wife, cradling her in his arms as he glared at the witch. "Killing Erin will kill Grace and Llyr—and we'll have no chance at all against Geirolf!" Erin wasn't surprised he'd sensed Morgana's intentions. He knew her well.

  "If we don't act now," Morgana shouted back over the blasts, "Geirolf will be the least of our worries!"