He reached underneath Sasha’s hip and gripped his cock, feeling the thick heaviness of it.
Sasha dropped his head, groaning. His cock jerked in Dante’s hand.
“Your turn,” Dante breathed, sliding his palm up the length of his cock and pausing to tease the thick ridge. Then back down again, until his little finger felt the heated sacs beneath.
Sasha’s hips shifted in response and his shoulders worked. They were trembling. Good.
Dante slid the nightstand drawer open and pulled out the little tub of lubricant and dipped into it. He kept Sasha bent over and slicked the lubricant between his taut cheeks and up against his ass and felt him push back, welcoming the invasion.
Dante pressed his fingers inside, priming him, all while his own cock throbbed in anticipation. When Sasha was ready, he used the last of the lubricant on his hand to coat his shaft. Then he brushed up against Sasha, not quite pushing inside. He heard Sasha hiss in frustration and grinned. The Russian could dish it out. He just couldn’t take it.
Dante eased inside him, opening him up. The clamp of Sasha’s muscles around his cock was glorious. He inched in until he was fully seated and paused to appreciate the sensation. Sasha was gasping, his whole body trembling. In the moonlight, his flesh was almost iridescent, against Dante’s darker tones.
Finally, Dante couldn’t put it off any more. He had to move. He thrust, keeping the strokes long and smooth, going deep, extracting every dollop of pleasure from every inch.
Sasha slapped the cover with the flat of his hand in a little series of quick, coaxing patters. He was losing it.
Dante might have grinned, except that Sasha’s desperation kicked off his own quickly building climax. He was going to come again, faster than he ever had. He gripped Sasha’s hip and reached beneath him and found his cock once more, as his own hips quivered and thrust with jerky, irregular movements. He was losing control.
They both came with a strained rush of mutual pleasure, as Dante slammed into him over and over, driven to it. Sasha arched hard, growing still as his climax gripped him, except for a tremor of muscles tensed to the extreme.
Wishing he had the capacity for more finesse, Dante found himself falling toward the bed. He pushed Sasha out from under him, before his muscles gave way entirely and they landed next to each other and were still, all except their breath and their hearts.
Chapter Thirteen
The generously sized suite that Kate shared with Garrett and Roman was at the front of the house, so when the wailing started up at the front gate, it woke her. She lay blinking in the dark, listening to the building, undulating cry, orienting herself. She flipped her phone face-up and checked the time. It was just gone three in the morning. The hunting units would still be mopping up, securing their areas before dawn and the Summanus withdrawal.
It was hard to think beneath the screaming, which seemed to be coming closer to the house. She rose and pulled on the first robe she found. From the thickness and warmth and faint scent, she guessed it was Garrett’s, although the moonlight was killing off her color perception. Not that it mattered, anyway.
Quickly, she hurried downstairs. As she went, she could hear the crying travelling along the side of the house. Whoever it was, they were heading for the kitchen door. Was someone injured? They would have to be horrendously wounded to be making that high pitched keening sound, in which case, why hadn’t Winter taken care of them out in the field?
Kate reached the kitchen door as Efraim opened it. She threw on the overhead light as Patrick stepped into the kitchen, the big sword strapped to his back so the handle jutted out above his shoulder. He had black Summanus ichor on his sleeves, but looked fine.
He looked up at the light. “Turn it off. It’ll hurt its eyes. Just the pilot lights.”
Kate wanted to ask who he was talking about, except that Patrick had spoken with urgency. The screaming was louder now, coming through the open door behind him. So she turned off the light and hit the switch that turned on the lights beneath the overhead cabinets. They were LEDs and emitted a soft blue glow instead of the unforgiving white of the neon overhead.
Patrick held open the screen door and Dominic came inside. There was a blanket-wrapped bundle in his arms and it was the source of the screaming. Kate backed up a step as it wriggled in his arms.
Patrick pulled out the chairs from around the table. Dominic laid the bundle on the table. The shirt over Dominic’s chest and the top of the blanket were soaked with dark stains that looked a lot like blood.
“She needs to hurry,” Dominic said.
Patrick pulled his cellphone out of the pouch at his waist and thumbed a speed dial number and listened.
Dominic pulled the blanket open. An Elah child laid in the folds of the blanket, squirming in pain. Its cries were growing weaker and softer. Dominic leaned over it and crooned softly. “Shh… Soon, the pain with stop, little one. Just hold on a moment more.”
Kate found herself moving forward, drawn by the agony of the little thing. If Elah children grew at the same rate as human children, then she judged this one to be no more than five years old.
Elah blood was the same color as human blood, she realized with a sinking sensation in her chest. The child was covered in it, hiding all but the tips of its bony head growth.
“Winter,” Garrett said. “How long?” Then he nodded. “I don’t think it will last too much longer. Hurry.” He put the phone away.
“What happened?” Kate whispered.
Dominic didn’t look away from the child. “Its parents stood in front of it. We didn’t get there in time.”
Then it was an orphan.
Winter burst through the door, almost running. She hurried over to the table, the thick plait of red hair bouncing off her back, pushing the sleeves of her light jacket up her arms. Without hesitation, she picked up the child’s bloody hand and held it. “I don’t know their physiology very well,” she warned.
“Whatever you do will help,” Patrick said calmly.
Winter closed her eyes.
Kate looked down at the child, who was now lying still. Her heart shifted and stirred in pity.
Then she realized what she was doing and backed away, horrified. As the other three stood in vigil around the tiny child, Kate turned and hurried away, as if hell hounds were on her heels.
* * * * *
Dante switched on the bedside lamp when the screaming started and sat up with a startled oath.
Sasha listened to the high pitched voice giving vent to pain and fear and his gut cramped. He reached for his clothes that he had finally shrugged off.
Dante caught his shoulder. “They have Winter. She’ll take care of it. We’ll just be in the way.”
Sasha hesitated. He had temporarily forgotten about Winter’s almost magical abilities to heal by her touch. The screaming had wiped almost everything from his thoughts except the need to go and help.
They sat listening to the sound, both tensed, ready to leap to action if anything changed. Eventually, the volume diminished, then silence returned.
Dante gripped Sasha’s elbow. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Sasha lifted up the handful of his clothing. “Where do you think?”
Dante shook his head. “Come here.” He was pulling on his elbow, giving him no chance to argue. Sasha was beginning to understand Dante’s true strength, which this afternoon’s demonstration had barely outlined. It wasn’t that he was simply strong. He was also indefatigable. He could power on longer than anyone, out-lasting short-haul opponents and wearing them down. Despite the fact that he had to be dropping with weariness, Dante was still alert and strong enough to pull Sasha across the bed.
He had mental strength, that never gave up. Perhaps that was what Sasha had sensed. Perhaps that was why he had indulged himself with what he had thought was a simple whim.
Dante settled down beside Sasha, his hand on his chest. “Relax,” he said. “We’ll find out tomorrow morning what th
at was all about.”
“Unless we’re needed.”
“So they’ll come and find us if they do need us.”
“Except I won’t be where they look for me.”
Dante rolled over on his side and propped his head on his hand. His eyes were very dark and glittering with feelings. “Do you point that out because you would rather they did find you where they expect you to be?”
Sasha considered that. “I think I said it because I’m trying to figure out if you would rather they find me in my room and not yours.”
Dante didn’t answer straight away. He blew out a breath, his gaze shifting away from Sasha, toward the door. “There’s a thing you must know about me,” he began.
“Rory?” Sasha asked.
Dante’s gaze jerked back to him.
Sasha shrugged. “You made yourself very clear this afternoon.”
“I didn’t think I was even speaking straight, let alone making sense,” Dante admitted softly. “Yet if it made sense to you, then why did we…you…”
“I like you,” Sasha said truthfully. “I think, more than I realized. Underneath that show-off jock attitude of yours, you’re a decent man.”
“Thank you, I think,” Dante said, smiling. His smile faded. “She’s the love of my life, Sasha. You have to know that. If she beckoned with the crook of her finger, I would mow down the entire NFL contingent to get to her. I would leave cartoon shapes of myself in doors and walls. If she even hinted that things might be different….” His voice grew unsteady and he looked away.
Sasha considered him. “I thought you didn’t want to be another notch to her?”
“That’s all I would be, for now.” Dante cleared his throat and looked at Sasha directly. “Hope is a powerful thing.”
“Do you really have hope?” Sasha asked. “Or is it something that just lets you sleep at night?”
Dante blew out his breath. “The year after the cheerleader thing, about three months after I had to replace the carpet in her loungeroom after the elephant thing, my contract came up for renewal. There was a lot of fancy negotiations going on and in the middle of it my manager phoned me and gave me shit for including a clause without running it by him first.” Dante shook his head. “I had no idea what he was talking about. Then he read out the new clause that had been inserted. It was a stopper. It prevented the team from trading me to any other team. They couldn’t even talk to another team about trading me, unless they had my express and written permission to do so.”
“Rory put the clause in?”
“I don’t know, not for sure. She was part of the negotiations, though. She’s part of every contract negotiation, for every player, because she’s ruthless enough to not flinch when the pressure is on. She was part of mine.” Dante shook his head. “There was no one—no one—who stood to benefit from that clause beside me and I didn’t put it in there.”
“Except that, if Rory did put in the clause, it says you’re right to hope,” Sasha finished. “She wanted you to stay around.”
Dante nodded. “So I gave up a lot of ground on that contract. I might even have lost money, with everything factored in. I took the losses because it gave me leverage to keep that clause in there.” He sighed and laid back down, his arm resting against his forehead, shading his eyes. “That was six years ago, now. Feels like a lifetime and like two nanoseconds, at once.”
Sasha pushed himself up on his elbow, so he could see Dante’s face. “Why are you telling me this?”
Dante met his gaze. His eyes were steady. “So you know, next time, where we stand.”
Sasha’s heart gave an odd jerk. “There will be a next time?” he said, as evenly as he could.
Dante curled his hand around the back of Sasha’s neck and drew him down to where he lay.
* * * * *
Marcus knew he was alone even before he opened his eyes. The empty feeling made him sit up almost before sleep had fully departed.
Ilaria was standing at the window, where dawn light was filling the room. She was absolutely still, in a way that made Marcus suspect she had been standing there for a long time. Perhaps since he had fallen asleep early last night.
“Ilaria.”
She didn’t move. “Rick would always watch the sun rise. Whenever he could. He said it gave him perspective.”
Marcus steeled himself against the internal hurt that started up. His chest ached. So did his eyes. “I didn’t know that,” he said honestly. “I guess, as the human of the three, I got to snore away the sunrises.”
Ilaria looked at him. “Rick said you snored in key. You can’t hold a note when you sing, while your snoring was pitch perfect.”
The laugh touched him unexpectedly, making him smile and breathe gustily, at the same time sadness grabbed at his chest once more. His eyes stung and he blinked hard. He thought he had shed all the tears he could stand. Was it always going to be like this? Would something always whack him in the sternum and make his heart creak and his eyes hurt?
Ilaria was watching him, as he was torn between laughter and tears. Amazingly, astonishingly, the corner of her mouth moved.
Marcus forgot about anything except the joy of seeing that microscopic smile. He held out his hand. “Come here.”
She hesitated. “I don’t know that I should,” she said slowly.
“Why not?”
“I feel so empty,” she confessed. “Cold. I don’t want to infect you with that.”
Marcus got out of the bed and came over to where she was standing. He put his arms around her from behind. She did feel colder than the normally cool room temperature she maintained. “You don’t understand,” he said softly by her ear. “We do this, so that I can help you feel better. We help each other, okay?”
She shivered in his arms. “That doesn’t seem fair, to use you to make myself feel better.”
“It works both ways,” he assured her truthfully. “Just holding you this way makes a difference.”
“It does?” She bit her lip.
“I don’t feel like crying when I’m doing this,” he confessed.
Ilaria sighed and let her head fall back against his shoulder. “I wish I could cry,” she breathed.
He kissed her temple. “It will pass,” he assured her.
“I don’t want it to.”
Neither did he. So Marcus stayed silent and just held her. He watched the sunrise, looking for the perspective Rick saw in it. He failed to find it.
* * * * *
Blythe, Dominic and Patrick all worked to get breakfast on the table each morning, even though Blythe and Dominic were usually at the last stages of weariness and more than ready for bed. Only, sitting down to breakfast with the kids gave them a precious hour of family time that was almost impossible to find at any other time of the day. Blythe kept one eye on the clock on the wall oven as they worked. The twins and Jake would be down, soon.
Kate was sitting at the end of the table, wrapped in an oversized tartan robe, with the sleeves rolled up three times, to keep her hands free. The collar was too large and revealed most of one creamy shoulder. She was sipping a coffee, her eyes bleary with lack of sleep.
Winter was at the other end, also bent over coffee, while Nial leaned against the dining table side of the island, listening to her report, his arms crossed.
Nial had showered and wore the elegant trousers and shirt he preferred, although Blythe had seen the other side of Nathanial Aquila while hunting the Summanus. He was a cold-blooded, ruthless killer, with superb instincts and reactions. Last night, he had got between a dozen Summanus and three human hunters and had driven the Summanus back with the fury and power of his defense, the short sword he favored and the long knife wielded like windmill blades, never still for a moment and always finding their target.
The same perfectly neutral expression he wore while fighting was on his face now as Winter spoke. He was busy calculating, even as she was talking.
“The fact that I could do anything at all is a m
iracle,” Winter told him. “Of course, the Elah have DNA. Every living thing in the universe does. They even have recognizable organs, with functions I could understand. Sex organs that look almost exactly like ours. Pain receptors…that’s what made the difference. I could numb the receptors, which let the poor girl relax while I worked. She took a lot of the toxin in through the scratches they gave her, so while I could heal the scratches, she’s going to have to wait for the toxin to dissipate from her system.”
“Just as humans do,” Nial said, his voice low. “How close is the DNA to ours?”
“Could they interbreed, do you mean?” Winter asked.
Blythe jerked, spilling the pancake mixture in a long trail across the hot pan. She swore.
“I’ll do that,” Patrick said gently, taking the jug of mixture out of her hand. “Why don’t you sit and relax?”
Blythe shook her head. “I’m fine.”
Patrick lifted her chin, forcing her to look at him. “You should listen to Winter. It will help.”
Blythe could feel her shoulders slump. “I can live with Dominic reading my mind but both of you is too much.”
Patrick smiled. “Dom reads minds, then he talks in the shower.”
“Guilty,” Dominic said cheerfully, where he was standing by the toaster.
“You’ve been thinking about nothing else since Simone told you about Kiati yesterday,” Patrick added. “Go and listen. Go on.”
Blythe sighed and moved around the counter, out of the way of the cooking area. She stood next to Nial. She didn’t want to sit down because she wasn’t sure she would be able to get up again.
Winter glanced at her. “I was just telling Nial about Elah DNA. It’s very, very close to human.”
“Isn’t chimpanzee DNA close, too?” Blythe asked. “Yet they’re a completely different species.”
Winter nodded. “Every living thing on the planet has DNA that is ninety-nine percent identical to human DNA. It’s the variations in that remaining one percent that makes all the difference. Elah DNA is even closer than that. One hundredth of one percent variation. It’s so small, it’s negligible.”
Blood Ascendant (Blood Stone Book 5) Page 14